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David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
1. What powers and resources he plans will be devolved from central Government to Macclesfield.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
The Cheshire and Warrington local enterprise partnership, which includes Macclesfield, is developing a proposal for its local growth deal. This deal will enable the area to agree freedoms and flexibilities to support the drive to devolve power and resources, including access to funding from the local growth fund, which is worth at least £12 billion over the next five years.
David Rutley
I welcome the Government’s plans to devolve further powers to LEPs and I welcome the funding, which is vitally important, but what steps are the Government taking to work closely with the Cheshire and Warrington LEP and the taskforce at the AstraZeneca site at Alderley Park to ensure that there is a locally based strategy for the future of life sciences in north-east Cheshire?
Greg Clark
That is precisely what the local growth deal provides the opportunity to do. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), for their assiduity in making sure that AstraZeneca in particular has maintained its commitment to Cheshire and to the north-west, securing 300 jobs just in recent weeks. I expect this to be at the heart of the deal that is proposed by the LEP.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
2. What powers might be devolved to Plymouth as part of his city deals scheme.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
Negotiations to conclude the Plymouth city deal continue to progress well. The proposals seek to bring into use new employment space for Plymouth’s growing marine sector, to deliver tailored business support to small businesses and to get young people into the jobs that will result. Negotiations are at an advanced stage, and I am hopeful that we will be able to agree this important city deal in the near future.
Oliver Colvile
Is my right hon. Friend also aware that in awarding Plymouth city deal status, along with £10 million to decontaminate part of the South Yard in the Devonport dockyard, the Government will not only be helping to create a marine energy park but in turn be helping to deliver 10,000 new jobs?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is right, and he has been a formidable champion for the proposed city deal. All the members of the LEP and the local authorities, including across the Tamar in Cornwall, came to make an impressive pitch on 31 October, and my hon. Friend has been to see me. It is an exciting proposal that builds on the strengths that we know exist in Plymouth and the whole of the south-west peninsula to serve a globally growing sector of marine engineering. I certainly wish it well, and I hope that we will have good news before very long.
Mr Speaker
The terms are a bit too narrow to admit of Birmingham, Edgbaston on this occasion.
Mr Speaker
I am sure, yes. We can always try to catch the hon. Lady later. There is a bit of a distance between Devon and Cornwall and Birmingham, Edgbaston.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
3. What the (a) number and (b) annual cost is of his special advisers.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
Unlike the previous Administration, the Government publish the number of special advisers working in government alongside specific details of their salaries. The Government have gone further to ensure that a wider range of information about special advisers is now available to the public. For example, we are now committed to providing details of gifts and hospitality received by special advisers on a quarterly basis, as well as the details of all meetings held with senior media figures. All of this information was last published on 25 October 2013.
Mr Hollobone
That is all very interesting, but it does not answer the question that I tabled on the Order Paper. I suspect that the answer to that question is “too many” and “too expensive”. In responding to my supplementary, will the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House about plans to be announced this week, apparently, that will allow each Cabinet member to appoint up to 10 personal advisers in a move towards a US “West Wing” type of Government, which will be very unpopular across the country?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said, all the information was published. Let me be explicit: there are 98 special advisers in post—72 Conservative and 26 Liberal Democrat—across the Government. On the other point, this is not a plan to import an endless series of political advisers. It is about recognising something that a number of independent think-tanks and others have recommended to the Government, to allow Ministers access to external policy expertise, which is sometimes lacking in Whitehall in the offices Ministers find themselves in.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), and following this morning’s news that Cabinet Ministers will be allowed to have an additional 10 political appointees, does the Deputy Prime Minister think it is right that the taxpayer will be charged £16 million a year, in addition to the current SpAd bill, so that he and his Cabinet colleagues can be advised by their mates?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The average salary cost of special advisers is 9% lower than it was under the last Labour Administration, so pots and kettles don’t half spring to mind.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
We all know that the reputation of special advisers was tarnished during Labour’s 13 years in government, but on the question of having technical advisers, which we have heard about in the past 24 hours, will the Deputy Prime Minister indicate what criteria would be used to ensure that they are indeed technical advisers, not political spin doctors?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Most usefully perhaps, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the report from the Institute for Public Policy Research—not a think-tank widely known always to support the measures of the coalition Government—which stated that, when compared with other similar systems, it is clear that Ministers often struggle to get the right kind of expertise they need to discharge their duties effectively. That is why, under proper processes of authorisation, we will explore the way Ministers can access that advice and expertise so that they can do their jobs better.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister recall saying in 2009:
“These are political jobs and therefore should be funded by political parties. Special advisers will not be paid for by the taxpayer”?
That broken promise is costing taxpayers a record-breaking £7.2 million a year, £1.3 million of which is for the Lib Dem share. What has changed since 2009?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman speaks for a party that is hoovering up all the available Short money from taxpayers, and his question was probably written for him by Len McCluskey. For heaven’s sake, talk about blurring the boundaries between politics and non-party interests. Was the question written for him by a trade union—yes or no?
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
4. What steps he has taken to prevent a reduction in those registered to vote as a result of the introduction of individual electoral registration.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
6. What steps he has taken to prevent a reduction in those registered to vote as a result of the introduction of individual electoral registration.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
The Government are safeguarding the completeness of the electoral register by using data-matching to confirm the majority of existing electors to ensure that they are all automatically enrolled during the transition to individual electoral registration. We are also phasing in the transition over two years to allow those not individually registered to vote in the 2015 election. We are making registration simpler and more convenient by enabling online registration for the first time. In addition, resources have been provided to maximise voter registration ahead of individual electoral registration.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman should know that the tests that have been done and the safeguards that are in place, including carrying over the existing register to the 2015 election, mean that there is every prospect that the number of people able to vote in that election will increase. That is what has led the chair of the Electoral Commission to say:
“We have independently assessed how ready the plans are for this change to the registration system and have concluded that it can proceed”.
Cathy Jamieson
Does the Minister support Labour’s policy of votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, and, in that context, what preparations are being made to learn from the experience of the referendum in Scotland?
Greg Clark
Obviously, an exception has been made for Scotland, but the Government have no plans to extend it to the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
We warmly welcome anything that increases the integrity of the electoral register, but is my right hon. Friend aware that although it takes only 10 or 15 seconds for someone to put their name on the register, it can take months, if not years, and considerable expense to remove someone who has inadvertently or illegally put their name on it? What is he going to do about it?
Greg Clark
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Part of the transition is to ensure the integrity of the electoral register and to make sure that electoral registration officers target the accuracy, as well as the completeness, of the register. I was struck by some figures from the Metropolitan police, who disclosed that of 29,000 forged identity documents they had seized, 45% had a corresponding forged entry on the electoral register. That underlines the importance of the changes we are making.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Students tend to move very regularly, and previously there have been good systems in, for example, the Cambridge colleges to register them all automatically. Under the proposed changes, they will be particularly at risk of falling off the register. What steps is the Minister taking to try to make sure that that problem is reduced?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He will know that I have allocated funding to electoral registration officers in proportion to the risk of under-registration, and places with a high student population are included in that category. He will find that his electoral registration officer has the funds that are required to target that group of people.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
10. If the Electoral Commission determines in any report it may produce before the 2015 election that the current procedure is not fit for purpose, will the Government scrap it?
Greg Clark
The Electoral Commission has given its view, and it says that there is no reason why it should not proceed. The right hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the difference between the procedure for the 2015 general election and the later transition to full individual electoral registration. In the 2015 election, the existing carried-over register and the individual register will both be available. That will provide a safeguard in relation to the concerns that he might otherwise have had.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
As has already been said, young people and students are those most likely to fall off the register. May I press the Minister on what more the Government can do, particularly working with universities, sixth-form colleges, schools and further education colleges to maximise the number of young people who will register? I understand that the Electoral Commission has the power to recommend a delay if it feels that the situation is not ready in 2015. If it gives him that recommendation, will he heed its advice?
Greg Clark
As I said, the Electoral Commission has made its assessment and, having independently assessed readiness, has concluded that it can proceed. Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to talk about groups that have historically been under-represented and might be so in future. That is why I have announced £24 million of funding for electoral registration officers to make sure that, in addition to their usual work, they target the groups who may otherwise drop off the register and canvass them properly to make sure that they register.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
5. What assessment he has made of the effect of the access to elected office fund to date.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
The access to elected office fund is an initiative from the Government Equalities Office to help candidates to meet disability-related costs when standing for election. The fund has approved 22 applications to date, with another 32 pending. It is a pilot exercise targeted to run until June 2014, when the Government will review its operation.
Roger Williams
I thank the Minister for that reply and for the support that the fund has given to disabled parliamentary candidates in Wales. Will he encourage the Welsh Assembly to consider extending the scheme to include local government candidates as well?
Greg Clark
That is obviously a matter for the Welsh Assembly Government. However, with local elections coming up next year, I encourage all Members to publicise the existence of this fund, which meets the additional costs that anyone with disabilities may incur in standing for election—for example, with difficulties in using public transport. The fund is there to enable them to take up their democratic right to stand for office in a way that does not disadvantage them. I hope that more people will access this fund which is available for that purpose.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
7. What recent discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues on improving social mobility.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
Improving social mobility is the principal long-term goal of this Government’s social policy. I have regular discussions with ministerial colleagues about measures to improve social mobility, such as the offer of early education for two-year-olds from lower-income families, the pupil premium and the youth contract.
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister. Does he agree, though, that the very best way to achieve social mobility is through effective early-years intervention to support the emotional resilience of families?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I strongly agree that the more we can do to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds very early on in their lives, before they even go to primary school, the more dramatic the difference—all the evidence shows this—to their subsequent ability to do well at school and go to college, university or elsewhere and get a good job. That is one of the reasons why we have increased the overall funds for early intervention from £2.3 billion to £2.5 billion, and why we have provided a new entitlement—it has never existed before—of 15 hours’ pre-school support for two-year-olds from the poorest 20% of families in the country. We will double that next year. We will also, of course, provide tax-free child care to all working families as of 2015.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister consider the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and himself to be good examples of social mobility?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do not think that the whole political class is a particularly good example of social mobility. We also need to make sure that doors are opened in many other sectors, whether the media or the law, in order to give opportunities to young people who otherwise would not have them. That is why I am delighted that 150 businesses from a range of sectors have signed up to a new business compact which I have thrashed out with them and which will ensure that young people will be able to have meritocratic access to internships in all those businesses that were not available to them before.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
One of the most effective ways of tackling social mobility is through high-quality teaching in our schools. Will the Deputy Prime Minister discuss with his colleagues in the Department for Education how the best teachers can be encouraged into schools facing the most challenging circumstances?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly agree that great teachers who inspire pupils and are committed to their vocation are crucial in promoting a good education system and, therefore, social mobility. We have a number of programmes. I would single out Teach First as an outstanding programme that has attracted some of the brightest and the best into teaching, which is something the whole Government actively support.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Sir John Major recently said that he finds it “truly shocking” that in every single sphere of influence in Britain
“the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class”.
In 1979, just 3% of MPs had a political background, such as special adviser. At the last election, the figure was 25% of this House. What is the Deputy Prime Minister doing to change that?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think we all need to ask ourselves searching questions about how, in our own political parties and parliamentary offices, we can make sure that we give people greater opportunity. One of the huge changes in recent years—I know the right hon. Lady has been very active on this, and I pay tribute to her for that—is the way in which internships, which were once an informal arrangement and all about who rather than what someone knew, are becoming an increasingly important, almost semi-formal step towards full-time work and are being provided on a more meritocratic basis. We need to do that here in Parliament, just as much as many other workplaces need to do it up and down the country.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
As Deputy Prime Minister, I support the Prime Minister on a full range of Government policy and initiatives. Within Government I take special responsibility for this Government’s programme of political and constitutional reform.
Debbie Abrahams
The Government have been rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority, the Office for Budget Responsibility and others for misleading statements by Ministers on welfare, economic, health and education policy. Given that this, unfortunately, slips between the ministerial and Members’ codes, what does the Deputy Prime Minister believe the punishment should be for Ministers who deliberately mislead the House and, more importantly, the public?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is incumbent on everybody on both sides of the House to make sure that the statistics we use, much as we might challenge them, are based in objective fact. However, on the day that the Labour party is literally making it up about child care costs and has been shown overnight to be using misleading statistics, and on the day when it claims that it will pay for new child care policies with a bank bonus tax that it has already spent 10 times over, I suggest that the hon. Lady’s colleagues think more carefully about the statistics they use.
Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
T2. Now that Labour’s disastrous social housing policy of selling and spending is over, will my right hon. Friend congratulate Stockport Homes on its work on rebuilding Stockport’s social housing stock, and will he have a word with the Chancellor to see whether Stockport can have greater financial flexibility to build more homes, which my constituents desperately need?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly want to congratulate Stockport council on its very innovative scheme. I also want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend who, in government, did a great deal to ensure that the £4 billion-plus that we are investing in affordable homes really translates into more affordable homes being built at a higher rate than was the case under the previous Administration.
My right hon. Friend will know that we, as the Liberal Democrat party within the coalition, think that there is a case for looking at greater flexibility in the headroom in housing revenue accounts, where those accounts are not fully used by councils, and we will continue to discuss that within the Government.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
There is widespread recognition now about the importance of child care, but it needs to be high quality, accessible and affordable for working parents. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that since he became Deputy Prime Minister, the cost of child care has gone up five times faster than wages, and that for every week that he has been Deputy Prime Minister, three Sure Start children’s centres have closed?
The Deputy Prime Minister
On both counts wrong, and I strongly urge the right hon. and learned Lady not—[Interruption.] No, categorically wrong: 45 Sure Start centres have closed since 2010, which is 1.2% of all Sure Start centres. She must stop peddling these misleading statistics about the closure of Sure Start centres. She is also wrong about costs. In fact, the dataset used by Labour shows that child care costs increased by 46% between 2002 and 2010.
Ms Harman
The right hon. Gentleman’s answer is not even consistent with the Government’s own figures on Sure Start children’s centres. More importantly, it is not consistent with the experience of people in their own communities and of hard-working parents who have seen not only children’s centres close, but those remaining having their hours cut, their staff cut and their services cut. Nobody is going to be impressed by his posing as the champion of child care. The truth is that after all the progress on child care when we were in government, working parents are now finding it even harder to get the child care they need.
The Deputy Prime Minister
There are more parents using Sure Start children’s centres than ever before. This Government are providing a new entitlement for two-year-olds from the poorest families, which did not happen under 13 years of Labour. I have to say that so many of these difficult decisions are related to the fact that Opposition Members crashed the economy in the first place, for which they have taken no responsibility. Even the mayor of Toronto is admitting past mistakes.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
T4. The Cambridge area is a global success story. Our high-tech cluster alone has 57,000 direct jobs, generating revenues of £13 billion. The proposed Greater Cambridge city deal would enable us to build much-needed affordable housing and sustainable transport, so that we can continue that success to generate money for the Treasury. What progress is my right hon. Friend making in delivering the city deal?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know that the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has responsibility for constitutional affairs and city deals, met leaders from the council and those sponsoring the city deal just last week. As my hon. Friend will know, we are very enthusiastic about city deals generally. They are a very significant step in the further decentralisation of powers away from Whitehall to our communities. We very much hope to make progress on the Cambridge city deal and, indeed, on others as soon as we can.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T3. The Deputy Prime Minister will know the anger within the voluntary community and faith sector in the city that we both represent, and indeed across the whole country, about his enthusiastic support for the gagging provisions of the lobbying Bill that will do so much to undermine political accountability and transparency. He has been generously provided by 38 Degrees with a platform in the heart of his constituency on Friday to justify his position. Will he take it up on the offer?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am unapologetically enthusiastic about a measure that will do a great deal to safeguard the integrity of the democratic process. All we are saying—one would have thought that the hon. Gentleman might support this—is that we do not want to go the way of the United States, where big money distorts and subverts the political process. Under our current rules, we would see big money spending more in constituencies than political parties can spend. Given that his party is run by the trade unions and big money outside political parties, he thinks that that is okay; millions of British voters do not.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
T12. The Tees valley is already an industrial powerhouse. What progress has my right hon. Friend made in delivering a city deal for the Tees valley?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Again, a meeting was held last week about the Tees valley city deal. As my hon. Friend knows, we are considering having up to 20 city deals if we can cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s. There is a willingness across the coalition Government to ensure that when local areas, local authorities and local enterprise partnerships say to us that they would like to draw down powers that are hoarded in Whitehall, our answer is yes, unless there are clear reasons why it should not happen. That is the thinking that will inform our approach to the Tees valley city deal.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
T5. The social mobility and child poverty commission has stated that“fiscal consolidation has been regressive”.Will the Deputy Prime Minister therefore accept its recommendation that the 2013 Budget funding for child care should be reallocated from higher-rate taxpayers to those on universal credit or, since universal credit seems to be over the horizon, to those on tax credits?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Lady will know that as we introduce universal credit and sweep aside the pernicious old rules, such as the 16-hour rule, that prevented people from accessing help with their child care costs, we are ensuring that there is support for those on universal credit to cover the vast bulk of their child care costs. We have made a number of announcements about that.
Even though we have had to make dramatic savings over the past few years, we should be judged by our actions. We have put more money into the universal provision of 15 hours’ pre-school support for all three and four-year-olds, more money into provision for two-year-olds from the most deprived backgrounds and more money into the education of children from the most deprived backgrounds through the pupil premium. Alan Milburn’s report shows that, particularly through the effective use of the pupil premium, we are finally starting to close the attainment gap that has blighted our society for far too long.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
T13. My right hon. Friend knows well that Cornwall is up for devolution as a rural pilot under the city deals scheme. However, the speed across Departments is variable. Will he meet me and other stakeholders in Cornwall to accelerate the progress towards the ambition that Cornwall clearly has?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is dealing with the city deals, tells me that he will be meeting all Cornish MPs, including my hon. Friend, to discuss the matter. I know that there is frustration about it in Cornwall, as well as great enthusiasm for a greater devolution of powers, which I admire and pay tribute to. As my hon. Friend knows, we provided city deals for the eight largest cities in the country first and are now looking at the next rung of the ladder, which involves a further 20 city deals. We will of course look at whether we can spread the approach to other parts of the country subsequently.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
The UK Youth Parliament voted for it, the Labour party has put it in its general election manifesto and the Liberal Democrats have always supported it. When will the Deputy Prime Minister bring forward proposals to lower the voting age to 16?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have always been very open about this matter. It is something that I believe in and that my party believes in, but it is not agreed on across the coalition. That is the nature of coalition government. My coalition partners are perfectly entitled to have a different view on when people should be entitled to vote. I will continue to argue for my point of view.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
The Silk commission has received ample testimony on a pattern of unfairness from the Welsh Government, including in the treatment of English NHS patients, the use of the ambulance service and the sharing of water and other resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister reassure the House that he will do everything possible to ensure that those anomalies are resolved?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The anomaly, as my hon. Friend politely puts it, is the lamentable record on the NHS of the Labour Administration in Wales. He refers to the Silk commission, which was a bold step towards the further devolution of powers from Whitehall to Cardiff. The Prime Minister and I were in Wales the week before last to announce that process and it has been universally welcomed by all parties in Wales. That comes in the context of the debate about the future of the United Kingdom and Scotland’s place within it. The Silk commission has shown in practice that we do not need to pull the United Kingdom apart to have a greater devolution of powers to its constituent parts.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
T7. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the abundance of riches today. What is the Deputy Prime Minister doing in his co-ordinating role across Government to ensure that there are social value clauses in central and local government procurement? Social value clauses can help with apprenticeships, training and the building of local supply chains. I ask him to take the lead in Cabinet and ensure that social value is one of the most important aims in the procurement of every Department.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady asks a specific question about a social value clause, and if she does not mind I will get back to her on that having consulted the Cabinet Office. More generally, she referred to apprenticeships of which, as she knows, I am as much a fan as she. Apprentices are now being taken on in 200,000 workplaces in the country, and I do not see why we should not be able to double that in a relatively short period of time, to give more young people a greater opportunity to take up apprenticeships and move into meaningful work.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The coalition Government have been extraordinarily successful. Has the Deputy Prime Minister enjoyed his role, and would he like to continue as Deputy Prime Minister after the next election, and continue to enjoy support from MPs such as myself?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Whether he is moustachioed or otherwise, I always enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s questions, although I usually wait for a sting in the tail, which did not quite come this week as it did last time. I am always grateful for his support in whatever qualified form it is provided.
Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
T8. Sure Start is such a great idea that it will not go away, despite the coalition’s efforts. What will the Deputy Prime Minister say to all those children across the country who are denied a place as a result of cutbacks to fund tax cuts for millionaires?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I have said, in the final financial year of this Parliament the amount of money we have provided is actually going up from £2.3 billion to £2.5 billion, and more parents are accessing children’s centres than ever before. There has been a closure of 1.2% of children’s centres across the country, but at the same time we have provided hundreds of millions of pounds of extra support to help small children before they even go to school, providing for the first time ever a universal entitlement of 15 hours of pre-school support to all three and four-year-olds, and 15 hours of pre-school support to two-year-olds from the poorest families in this country. I hoped the hon. Gentleman would have welcomed that.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have articulated their vision for the Humber region, but much will depend on the emerging city deal. Are Ministers satisfied with their progress on that?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am reliably informed that the city deal was the subject of another meeting last week. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the city deals, including that in the Humber area, are reaching a critical phase and we are examining the details on a line-by-line basis. As I said, we are keen to land those city deals—or as many as we can—as rapidly as possibly in the weeks and months to come.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
T9. Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm whether he believes that his party’s support for the dreaded bedroom tax is in the best traditions of liberalism in this country?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I compliment the hon. Gentleman on his exotic commitment to Movember.
On the bedroom tax, as the hon. Gentleman knows, of course there are hard cases that deserve hard cash to ensure that people are dealt with flexibly and compassionately. That is why we have trebled the amount of discretionary housing payments available to £180 million. The principle that someone receives housing benefit in the social rented sector for the number of bedrooms and amount of space they need—just as they would in the private rented sector—was supported by the previous Government, and is supported by this one as well.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
Will my right hon. Friend explain why it is a higher priority to provide a free school meal to a six-year-old from an affluent family than to a 12-year-old living in childhood poverty?
The Deputy Prime Minister
With respect, my right hon. Friend fundamentally misunderstands the progressive nature of extending free school meals to the first three years of children at primary school. The evidence from pilots in Durham, Newham and elsewhere—I strongly urge him to visit some of those pilots—suggests that it helps many thousands of children who are in poverty but do not receive free school meals. Having children share a healthy, hot lunch every day together has a dramatic effect in closing the attainment gap in education between wealthier and not so wealthy children.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
T10. The Deputy Prime Minister has made great play of the Government’s offer for disadvantaged two-year-olds, but one in three councils do not have enough places, and local childminders tell me that the subsidy is not enough to pay the cost. When will he realise that proclamations from the Dispatch Box do not deliver policies for parents on the ground?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will send the hon. Lady the figures, but my memory is that we are already on track to deliver more of the places for that first instalment for the 20% of the poorest families with two-year-old toddlers than we had originally planned. I think we are already on track to provide 92,000 places and to deliver 100% of those, but I will provide her with that information in writing if she wishes.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Carlisle is a considerable distance from London and is close to Scotland, which has extensive devolution. In my view, many local decisions should be made locally and not by central Government. What plans does the Deputy Prime Minister have to devolve power and resources to Carlisle?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend will know, we made an announcement some months ago on the back of the recommendations from Lord Heseltine to establish local growth deals that will be accessible to all parts of the country to do exactly what my hon. Friend describes—to allow local areas, which can often make far better decisions about skills, training, transport and business investment, to take those decisions with greater freedom and greater resources available to them.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
T11. Some of the top universities are lobbying for an increase in the cap on tuition fees to £16,000 a year. Will the Deputy Prime Minister give an assurance —one of his firm pledges—that while the Liberal Democrats are in government he will not allow that to happen?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know that the hon. Lady’s party advocated no upper limit to fees, because it was the Labour Government who commissioned the Lord Brown review—never mind £9,000, it said there should be no upper limit. We have no plans to change the upper limit at the present time.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
May I press the Deputy Prime Minister on the answer I got from the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark)? What precisely are the Government planning to do to make it easier, cheaper and quicker to remove from the electoral register those who put themselves on it either inadvertently or illegally?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The whole design of individual voter registration—which, let us remember, was first mooted and launched by the previous Government—was precisely to stamp out levels of fraud and wrongdoing on the electoral register. Our view is that as we move towards individual voter registration on the timetable that we have set out—doing so carefully and providing a great deal of information to those who might otherwise not be aware that they need to make the change and comparing different datasets to make sure that those who are legitimately on the electoral register and are on other databases are transferred automatically—we will be able to weed out fraudulent entries on the electoral register within two or three years.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Since the Deputy Prime Minister took over his important office, has the cost of the Deputy Prime Minister’s office increased or decreased, and by how much?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at all the detailed figures that we published in October. Unlike any previous Administration, we said exactly how many special advisers there are and what their costs are. Of course a number of special advisers attached to my office support various Departments across Whitehall—something that is necessary in a coalition Government.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
1. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on bringing forward proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
I have frequent discussions with the Justice Secretary about a range of topics. However, the present Government have no current plans to repeal the Human Rights Act. The Justice Secretary has indicated that in the new year the Conservative party will publish a draft Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act. Such a Bill may not be adopted until there is a majority Conservative Government.
Mr Reed
Is the Attorney-General aware that the Human Rights Act is one of the few ways in which the victims of crime can hold police and prosecutors to account for failure to investigate and prosecute? If so, does he agree that the desire of many of his colleagues to repeal it would represent a serious backwards step for the victims of crime?
The Attorney-General
I certainly endorse what the hon. Gentleman says—that the Human Rights Act is a mechanism through which victims of crime may seek redress. He is right about that, but there is no reason to suppose that if it were to be replaced by a Bill of Rights, that right would necessarily be removed.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does the Attorney-General agree that the British people want the European convention on human rights to be interpreted in the way the original draftsmen intended back in 1950, and not according to what some judges would like it to mean today?
The Attorney-General
I am afraid I have to disagree with my hon. Friend. If he were correct, the criminalisation of homosexuality would remain acceptable, because the convention would not have evolved. I realise he touches on a difficult issue. Some have argued that the interpretation of the convention goes further than it should, and that is a legitimate issue of public debate. As for the principle that the convention should simply be static and remain where it was in 1950, I think careful examination would soon reveal a great many problems that would cause anxiety in this House.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Human Rights Act 1998 is also invoked by the victims of human trafficking and slavery to hold to account state agencies that fail to pursue and prosecute their oppressors. Should we not be careful that we do not take a retrograde step, leaving victims of human trafficking and slavery powerless and voiceless as a result of the Attorney-General’s changes?
The Attorney-General
First, I have put no changes to the House today. The hon. Gentleman makes the correct point that the Human Rights Act, as interpreted in our courts, provides a degree of protection. It is possible, however, to replace the Act with a British Bill of Rights that is compliant and compatible with our convention obligations, and which could do exactly the same thing. If I could provide him with some reassurance, the mere replacement of the Human Rights Act by a Bill of Rights would not necessarily lead to the mischief he anticipates.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
One hundred and fifty years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the famous Gettysburg Address. In that short speech, Honest Abe declared a new birth of freedom. In Britain and the rest of the world, no single law does more to protect our freedom than the Human Rights Act. Will my right hon. and learned Friend honour Lincoln’s call by reaffirming our support for the Human Rights Act, which underpins our freedoms today?
The Attorney-General
The key issue for my hon. Friend, and for me, is reaffirming the principles embodied in the convention. The Human Rights Act is a mechanism by which we ensure that convention rights are accessible to those in this country. That has always seemed to be a very good principle on which to operate.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
2. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on making reporting of suspected child abuse mandatory for schools.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
I have not had any discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on making reporting of suspected child abuse mandatory for schools. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) told the House on 11 November that the relevant statutory guidance is clear: if anyone working with children, including in schools, has concern about a child’s welfare, safety or care, they should report that to the appropriate authority.
Lilian Greenwood
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree with the recent recommendation made by the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, that teachers and health workers who fail to report reasonable suspicions of child abuse should face criminal prosecutions? Will he produce guidance for schools on what constitutes reasonable suspicion?
The Attorney-General
The former Director of Public Prosecutions has made an important contribution to this debate. I assure the hon. Lady that this matter is being considered by the Government, including by the Home Office. Unless criminalisation of failure to report comes in, guidance is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education. As I indicated in my earlier answer, there are clear guidelines which ought to ensure, even at present, that if there is suspicion or anxiety that a child is being abused, it will be reported to the proper authorities.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Attorney-General believe it would be easier or more difficult to tackle child abuse if the age of consent were reduced to 15?
The Attorney-General
The question of whether the age of consent might or might not be reduced to 15 is a matter for the House, but speaking personally, I cannot see any advantage from doing so.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
As a professional who worked in this area for 20 years, I was always clear that child abuse suspicions should be reported, but I am concerned that there now appears to be a lot of doubt among the wider public and some professionals. Will the Attorney-General work across Government to ensure that the statutory guidance to which he has referred and the need for all professionals in contact with children to report suspicions are made absolutely clear, as it is far from clear that mandatory reporting in legislation would improve child protection?
The Attorney-General
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes some sensible points. I will ensure that what has been said in the House today will go back to the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
3. What steps the Director of Public Prosecutions is taking to raise awareness among prosecutors of best practice in prosecuting human trafficking offences; and whether current legislation is being used to prosecute such cases effectively.
The Solicitor-General (Oliver Heald)
Guidance is issued to prosecutors by the Crown Prosecution Service and supported by an e-learning programme. Cases are being prosecuted effectively, and the Director of Public Prosecutions is holding a round table on human trafficking on 4 December for police and experts to strengthen investigations and prosecutions.
Fiona Bruce
Does the Solicitor-General agree that prioritising the issue of child sex tourism is critical and that robust action should be taken to apprehend, prosecute and enforce legislation against child sex tourists, as highlighted by the Stop it Together campaign recently launched by the International Justice Mission?
The Solicitor-General
I congratulate my hon. Friend and the all-party group on human trafficking and modern day slavery on their involvement and the campaign. New legislation came into force on 6 April extending the territorial jurisdiction to enable the prosecution of cases of trafficking where victims have been trafficked anywhere in the world. The CPS and I are committed to bringing perpetrators to justice.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Solicitor-General will be aware of the landmark case of L and others, decided by the Court of Appeal in May, which said that victims of trafficking should not be prosecuted, yet if I visit our prisons, I see in jail young Vietnamese trafficked to Britain to be cannabis farmers. What is he doing about that? Will he meet the Secretary of State for Justice to get those innocent victims of trafficking freed?
The Solicitor-General
The Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking was set up for the purpose of liaising across Government and has met very recently. The hon. Lady raises an important point: victims of trafficking should not be prosecuted for offences that arise from that. Of course, there can be cases that do not arise from their trafficking where they may end up before the courts, but the principle that she sets out and which the Court has adumbrated is one that the Government accept.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Given the international nature of human trafficking, has the Solicitor-General looked for examples of best practice from other countries around the world that best prosecute human traffickers and from which we might learn valuable lessons?
The Solicitor-General
My hon. Friend will know that the Government have liaison magistrates and others around the world helping to build capacity in that area. We look at the international experience, and it is important to do so; but having said that, the number of people prosecuted in this country for such human trafficking offences is increasing, and we are determined that that should continue.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Tackling human trafficking requires getting tough on perpetrators and, as we have talked about, providing more support for victims. Given that two thirds of trafficked children rescued then go missing again, why will the Government not now sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking, which would ensure that independent guardians were appointed for child victims of trafficking?
The Solicitor-General
The hon. Lady is right that we should support the victims of trafficking, and a great deal of work is done to achieve that—for example, she will know of the work of the Salvation Army. I was very impressed, visiting the north-west area of the CPS, by the work being done and the substantial support being given to witnesses in order to achieve successful prosecutions. That work needs to continue and be spread.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Has the Solicitor-General had, or does he plan to have, any consultation with the Northern Ireland authorities about the excellent legislation on human trafficking that is currently before the Northern Ireland Assembly? It would effectively increase the number of prosecutions of people who commit this terrible crime.
The Solicitor-General
As the right hon. Gentleman will know, his hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised this issue with me at the last Question Time. Since then, we have corresponded, and we are certainly liaising with the Northern Ireland authorities who, in fact, sit on the inter-ministerial group.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
4. What meetings he has had with the new Director of Public Prosecutions since her appointment.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
I have met Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, on a number of occasions since the announcement of her appointment and on one occasion since her appointment.
Priti Patel
I thank the Attorney-General for his response. He will be aware that victims of crime often feel let down and frustrated by the processes of the Crown Prosecution Service, particularly regarding the absence of information on their cases. Will my right hon. and learned Friend give an assurance that he will oversee the performance of the CPS, so that it can deliver a much better and joined-up service for the victims of crime?
The Attorney-General
The CPS operates under my superintendence and I regularly meet the DPP. The joint police-CPS witness care units keep—or should keep—victims and witnesses updated about their cases as they progress through the criminal justice system. The DPP has indicated that she has three priorities for her work; one of which is care and contact with victims and witnesses. In addition, a pilot is currently being run in South Yorkshire on improving services for victims and witnesses.
Mr Speaker
It looks as though I have to arbitrate the sibling rivalry. On this occasion, it will be little brother. I call Mr Keith Vaz.
Keith Vaz
A very good choice, Mr Speaker.
Last Thursday, two individuals were arrested for carrying out female genital mutilation of a five to six-week-old girl. Since 1985, not a single person has been charged for this terrible crime. Has the Attorney-General had any discussions with the DPP about why that is the case, and if he has not done so, will he do so in future?
The Attorney-General
Yes, I have had discussions with both the previous and the present Director of Public Prosecutions about this issue. It centres on the evidence. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that if there is evidence on which a prosecution can be brought, it will be brought. The CPS takes the issue very seriously, but as he will be aware, the evidence has to be collected first by the police—and the CPS can help with that at times—and it has to cross the threshold on which a prosecution can be mounted. The difficulty in this area, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, is that this is a secret crime, often committed in a way and form that does not bring itself readily to public notice. I can assure him that the CPS takes this issue very seriously.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Has the Attorney-General held discussions with the DPP about the number of cases that are listed for trial but that do not go ahead because the Crown Prosecution Service has not complied with full disclosure? That is not fair to victims and not fair to the administration of justice or the taxpayer. What steps are being taken to resolve the issue, and how many such cases are there at the moment?
The Attorney-General
Yes, I have raised the matter on a number of occasions with both the previous and the present DPP. It would be best for me to write to my hon. Friend in respect of any statistics; they are not very easy to come by, unfortunately. One issue I often raise when I see some of Her Majesty’s judges on my visits to courts is a request for them to feed in to me any such examples rather than just to rely on anecdote. Nobody pretends that the CPS is a 100% efficient organisation, but I would like to take this opportunity to say that the last director left it in a much better condition than the one he inherited, and made substantial progress.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Does the Attorney-General recall that over a year ago, in relation to Hillsborough, I advised him to consider
“discussing with the DPP the value of instructing, at the outset, a senior and independent-minded Queen’s counsel to lead the review of evidence and the decision-making process on any possible prosecutions”?—[Official Report, 16 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 157.]
He now finds himself unable to discuss Hillsborough with the current DPP, as she previously advised no further action be taken on it. Indeed, the official she nominated is also compromised. With hindsight, does the right hon. and learned Gentleman now regret not taking my advice?
The Attorney-General
In circumstances in which a potential conflict of interests might arise, there are perfectly available mechanisms for my liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service to continue. I have every confidence that this matter is being dealt with appropriately. I am also satisfied that, if there is a need for liaison between my office and the CPS, it can be readily secured with the Crown prosecutor who is dealing with the case.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Has the Attorney-General discussed with the new Director of Public Prosecutions how she will respond to the chief inspector’s concerns about the quality of Crown court advocacy, and about the need to give Crown court advocates an opportunity to develop their trial skills?
The Attorney-General
Yes, we have discussed that, and we will continue to discuss it. Advocacy lies at the heart of court presentation, and advocacy that is provided in-house within the CPS must be of a high quality. There are fairly rigorous internal review mechanisms, and I think that they have contributed to a raising of standards, but I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is more to be done.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
5. What recent discussions he has had with the Crown Prosecution Service on prosecution of offences under the Abortion Act 1967.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
The former Director of Public Prosecutions and I have had various discussions relating to the Act. On 7 October 2013, he published detailed reasons explaining why the CPS had decided not to proceed in the recent cases involving two doctors.
Sir Edward Leigh
Will the Attorney-General confirm that it is the settled will of Parliament that sex-selection abortion is morally wrong and illegal, end of story? How does he explain the fact that, although Operation Monto revealed that such abortions were taking place on a considerable scale, a derisory number of prosecutions have taken place—only seven in four years? Indeed, Keir Starmer, the former head of the CPS, decided not to prosecute when there was clear evidence on the basis of which he could have done so. Will the Attorney-General now take action to ensure that the settled will of Parliament is abided by?
The Attorney-General
As I think my hon. Friend will know, the Abortion Act 1967 does not outlaw abortion on the basis of gender. It provides a mechanism whereby lawful abortion may take place, subject to medical diagnosis and scrutiny. No prosecution was brought because, when the case was examined, it was apparent that there was no
“considered medical guidance setting out, in clear terms, an agreed and proper approach to assessing the risks to the patient’s physical or mental health”,
no guidance on where the threshold of risk lay, and no guidance on the proper process for recording that the assessment had been carried out. It is for those reasons that I have raised the issue with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, and I am delighted that he is reviewing it to ensure that it does not arise in future.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Following the outcry that met the decision by the CPS not to prosecute the two doctors for allegedly agreeing to arrange a gender-selective abortion, does the Attorney-General not agree that in future all decisions to prosecute—or not—under the Abortion Act should be signed off personally by the DPP?
The Attorney-General
I certainly take the view that this is a matter of great seriousness, and I would normally expect the DPP to be aware of it. I should point out that the former director of the CPS was aware of the decision not to prosecute in that case, and of course I asked him to review it personally. If he had reached a different conclusion from the prosecutor, he could have done so.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues, but we must now move on. There is considerable pressure on the parliamentary timetable.
Petition
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
A number of my constituents have presented to me, for presentation in turn to the House, a petition dealing with international animal welfare. It refers to the somewhat repugnant and wholly unacceptable practice involving extreme torture and the eating of cats and dogs in Thailand, Vietnam and China, sometimes after it is observed that they have been cooked alive.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill,
Declares that any torture and eating of cats and dogs in Thailand, Vietnam and China is unacceptable; further that the practices in place in Thailand, Vietnam and China cause unnecessary stress and harm to the cats and dogs involved; and further that these practices are a cause of concern for the British and Scottish athletes who will be attending the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.
The Petitioners therefore request that the UK Government urges the governments of Thailand, Vietnam and China to strengthen and enforce their animal protection laws and further requests that the House urges the Government to consider incoming visits from the governments of these countries.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001295]
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to make a statement on the status in the United Kingdom of the EU charter of fundamental rights following the ruling by Mr Justice Mostyn in the High Court on 7 November.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving the House an opportunity to consider the AB case, which we all noted last week, and which gained considerable publicity. I think it would be helpful for me to set out the position.
The claimant in that case raised the EU’s charter of fundamental rights when arguing that UK officials should not have allowed information about him to pass to the authorities of the country to which he was being removed. The case was dismissed on its facts but the judge in passing made some comments on the charter and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. The judge’s view was that the Luxembourg court had, in the case of NS, held that the charter could create new rights that apply in the UK. It is important to be very clear to the House: we do not agree with that analysis of the NS case. We intend to find another case—we cannot do it with this one as the Home Office was successful and we cannot appeal a case we have won—at the earliest opportunity to clarify beyond doubt the legal effects of the charter and to put the record straight.
It is no secret in this House that I would not personally have chosen to sign up to the Lisbon treaty or to the charter of fundamental rights. However, it is also important to say that the charter’s effects are limited to EU law within the UK, and I have not seen any evidence that it goes beyond that. I would be very concerned if there was any suggestion that the charter did in fact create new rights.
This is an important area, which is why this Government have included the extent of the EU’s competence on fundamental rights in our balance of competences review.
Mr Cash
Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge the scale of the problem with which he is now faced, both constitutionally and practically, which would lead to the bypassing of the Government’s proposals for a British Bill of Rights and the repeal of the Human Rights Act, a policy that I established when I was shadow Attorney-General and which lasted until the coalition Government came to office? Does he appreciate that the import of Mr Justice Mostyn’s ruling opens the floodgates to a tidal wave of charter-based legal action, at enormous cost to the British taxpayer and businesses, and raises a fundamental clash between Westminster supremacy and the claims of the EU and the ECJ in respect of sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972 that goes beyond mere renegotiation? Does he on behalf of the Government recognise that the amendments I tabled to the Lisbon Act—the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008—which the then Government voted against and the then official Opposition and the Lib Dems would not support, although 48 Conservative colleagues did vote for them, would have put our exclusion from the charter beyond any doubt? Will he therefore agree to support my proposal for urgent legislation as follows: “Notwithstanding any provision of the European Communities Act 1972, nothing in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union shall be binding in any legal proceedings of the United Kingdom and shall not form part of the law applicable in any part of the United Kingdom and that this Act reaffirms the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament”?
Chris Grayling
May I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done in this House over the years in highlighting the complexities and challenges of EU law? He is a valuable contributor to these debates and we listen to him carefully. I have both listened to what he has said and I have taken extensive legal advice about the case last week. I think it is of fundamental importance that the impact of the charter in the United Kingdom is limited. We were made various promises about even that degree of involvement over the years, but we were not in power at that time. It is absolutely essential that it is limited in scope in the UK. I would treat it as a matter of the utmost seriousness if it were to emerge in law that that was no longer the case and that the charter was more broadly applicable than that.
I have to say that there are those in the European institutions who argue that it should have a broader impact than that, but I can provide some reassurance to my hon. Friend by saying that I was involved in such a discussion recently at a meeting in Brussels where the overwhelming view of member states present was that they did not wish it to have a broader remit than it does at the moment, and I say to him that we would treat any such situation with great seriousness. We do intend to make sure this issue is laid to rest in law at the earliest opportunity and, as always, I will be delighted to talk to him about his suggestions and about his concerns in this area.
Mr Speaker
Order. I think the hon. Gentleman will be talking to the Secretary of State. That will be a very important part of the discussion.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I commend the Justice Secretary for the cool, calm way in which he answered these questions today, in contrast to the way in which he spoke to the media about the case last week. The position is clear: in 2007, Britain specifically opted out of the charter of fundamental rights being enforceable when the Lisbon treaty was signed. There is no ambiguity about that, as even Mr Justice Mostyn agrees. In his judgment, after quoting the relevant protocol, he said:
“To my mind, it is absolutely clear that the contracting parties agreed that the Charter did not create one single further justiciable right in our domestic courts.”
Labour sought and successfully negotiated an opt-out from the charter. I commend the cool, calm way in which the right hon. Gentleman has explained the timeline and the judgment in 2011.
The right hon. Gentleman has explained why he did not appeal the judgment in Luxembourg in 2011, but he has also heard the concern about the confusion that that could cause in the judiciary. Will he publish the relevant legal advice so that all members of the judiciary can be made aware that there is no confusion, and that the charter is not enforceable in the UK courts? Will he also confirm that he understands that the concern relates to a ruling by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which arbitrates on matters relating to the EU, and not by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which deals with the European convention on human rights? For the avoidance of doubt, I am willing to work with the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that the UK’s opt-out from the EU charter of fundamental rights, which we negotiated, remains in place?
Chris Grayling
With apologies to the House, I am not prepared to take any lessons from Labour Members who landed us with a treaty and a charter that did far more than we were promised. I also apologise to the former Europe Minister, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is in his place, for taking his name in vain, but it was he who said in 2000 that Europe’s new charter of fundamental rights
“would have no greater legal standing before EU judges than a copy of the Beano or the Sun.”
He knows that that is simply not what happened, because the previous Government signed us up to something that we would not have chosen to sign. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) talks about an opt-out, but that is not what the Labour Government actually negotiated. They negotiated a protocol that stated that the charter would be applied only to EU law. That is the situation today, and it does not enable us to opt out of the charter. We are still subject to it in EU matters. Again, that is not what Labour said would be the case.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me to publish the legal advice. His party has a long track record of not publishing legal advice. As he knows, Governments have always resisted its publication, and that will continue, because it is an important part of a Minister’s job to be able to take advice in confidence from our Law Officers. He also made a point about the European Court of Human Rights. The truth is that we need change in both areas. We need change in our relationship with the European Union and in our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights. They are separate institutions, and we need change in both of them. A majority Conservative Government would deliver those changes.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s readiness to seek clarification in the courts at an appropriate stage. May I make it clear to the Justice Secretary that, up to now, there has always been a majority in this House in favour of our subscription to the European convention on human rights but no majority in favour of our subscription to the European charter of fundamental rights?
Chris Grayling
May I say how much I agree with my right hon. Friend? He will know that the two documents are contradictory in many respects. They contain comparable rights that are differently worded, leaving the courts uncertain about how, when and where they should be applied. I personally think that the charter of fundamental rights was an unnecessary document. It was signed up to by the previous Government, even though it directly contradicted the convention in many respects and was likely to cause legal confusion in the years ahead.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is notable interest in this subject, which I am keen to accommodate, but I am also keen to move on to the next business shortly after 1 o’clock. There is therefore a premium on brevity, which I know will now be observed by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
It will now, Mr Speaker.
First, will the Secretary of State accept that the wording of article 1 of protocol 30, whereby Britain opted out of the charter, could not be clearer? Nobody was duped; the wording makes it absolutely clear that the charter does not extend the ability of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg or any other court, so far as British rights and duties are concerned. Secondly, as the right hon. Gentleman is now so aerated about this matter, will he explain what action he took once the decision of the European Court of Justice in 2011 first became known to him more than two years ago?
Chris Grayling
On the 2011 case, I was not Secretary of State at the time, so I did not take any action at all. That case—this remains the view of my Department—did not restate the legal position. The right hon. Gentleman is right about the protocol, which says that the charter applies to EU law and not to national law. Unfortunately, as we know, the Lisbon treaty is so vaguely worded in many respects that actually it allows the EU institutions to intrude in areas, such as social security, for example, that were expressly not envisioned in the treaty itself.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the lawyers who are advising him to do nothing now are the same ones who advised the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and his Government to believe in the integrity of this opt-out and that the European Court would not come after it? Is my right hon. Friend really advocating a policy of “do nothing”? That seems to be what he is suggesting. What we could do is legislate to protect United Kingdom law from the application of the charter of fundamental rights, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Chair of the Select Committee.
Chris Grayling
I am absolutely not suggesting that we do nothing, and that is why we need to get this point clarified in law at the earliest opportunity. The recent Supreme Court case on prisoner voting has reassured me on this issue, but I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that I have every intention of testing this in law quickly. If we find that the legal position is not what we believe it to be, we will have to take further steps.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is right to say that I was the Minister for Europe who negotiated the charter of fundamental rights. I am very clear that, as the former Foreign Secretary has said, this is not enforceable in UK domestic law and the protocol is absolutely clear, in article 1. I know why the Secretary of State is reacting as he is today, but I can say to him that if he needs to clarify the matter in the courts, I have no objection, and the House should have no objection, to that. I also have no objection to the legal advice that was given to me and the previous Government being released to this House—I think that would be a very good idea.
Chris Grayling
The truth is that we were reassured again and again by the previous Government that this document had no legal force at all. Of course it now does have legal force in European law. The issue is about whether that legal force extends to UK law. We regard that matter as being exceptionally important. If there were any question of that linkage being made, we would have to take steps on it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that to make things clear we should now insist that any judgment of the European Court of Justice needs to be confirmed by this House before it can be used by a court in this country? The ECJ is a political court; it extends the competence of the European Union under the treaties. It is for Parliament to resist that, so that our courts cannot take any judgment into account without our specific approval.
Chris Grayling
As my hon. Friend knows, I have a lot of sympathy with his concerns in this area. I have directly seen the way in which the ECJ has amended the rules on social security and left us in a position where we are apparently losing control of what should be a national competency under the treaty. These matters are essential ones for consideration as part of our party’s planned renegotiation of our membership of the European Union.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
Although I recognise the good work being done by the present Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee in pursuing his own view of where justice should lie in our relationship with the ECJ, I must ask the Lord Chancellor not to whip up hysteria on a question that has already been settled. In a unanimous report by the European Scrutiny Committee at the time, it was accepted, including by the Conservative Members, that the protocol allowed the UK to opt out of the charter of fundamental rights. It is not correct, when we are dealing with such difficult matters, to use this in a cheap political way, which he is doing.
Chris Grayling
I do not really recognise the comments of the hon. Gentleman. The reality is that we have a protocol that simply restates the legal position that European law and the charter of fundamental rights sit together and the charter does not apply in UK law. However, what we have seen over the past two or three years, in areas such as social security, is what we understood to be the scope of the treaty being extended by court judgments. We have to be immensely wary of that. It has happened in social security, it has happened in a way that causes real concerns across this House and we have to be very careful. I am absolutely clear that the charter should not apply in UK law, and we would take serious action if there were any suggestion that it could do.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I am a bear of little brain, Lord Chancellor, but is not the real problem here that the public, the people whom we represent, are losing faith in our institutions and in the ability of this country to assert its sovereignty?
Chris Grayling
I have never recognised my hon. Friend as a bear of little brain, but I know full well that he is well in touch with the views of his constituents, and these are issues of which we should be immensely mindful. I hope he accepts that both he and my colleagues on the Front Bench are very much united in the view that we need to take these concerns very seriously indeed.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) who has once again done a great service to the House and to the public in raising and highlighting this matter and in giving us an opportunity to discuss it. The Lord Chancellor talks about seeking a case to get the law clarified. Would it not be simpler to take the consensus that is here and legislate quickly to put the matter beyond any doubt? Why wait?
Chris Grayling
Our view is that there is not a legal need to legislate. We will test the point in a forthcoming case. If the point proves that the legal position is different from what we understand it to be, we will of course have to return to this House.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I noticed that my right hon. Friend said that a future majority Conservative Government would want to take steps to reassert this House’s sovereignty over EU legislation. Does that mean that we would not be able to take such steps if the Liberal Democrats were part of any future Government?
Chris Grayling
It is clear that there are many things that have united us politically in the past three years where we have done good work for this country but that there are areas—European issues and issues of human rights—where we take a different view. The mature approach in a coalition is to accept that those differences of views exist, to work collaboratively together when we agree and to be honest when we do not. That is what we will continue to do. I will certainly be on the doorsteps at the next general election arguing very strongly indeed for a Conservative approach that deals with many of these issues.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Is there any significance to the fact that there is no Liberal Democrat Minister on the Front Bench while the Lord Chancellor is making his statement?
Chris Grayling
Not at all. My Liberal Democrat Minister, Lord McNally, is a first-rate member of our team and has done good work for this Government. However, he is in the other place and is not entitled to sit alongside us.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Following the constructive response from the Secretary of State about how the coalition agrees on many of the issues under the justice remit, may we also get agreement that, although there are differences between us over whether the Human Rights Act 1998 was a proper tool for implementation, this country cannot remain in the Council of Europe unless we continue to subscribe to the European convention on human rights, which we have done for many decades? There must also be a consensus across the House that the European Union charter of fundamental rights should not extend to impose itself across our legislative process, and that has been our understanding from the beginning of its implementation.
Chris Grayling
That is very much the legal view of the Government at this moment in time. Were we to discover that that was not to be the case—the law has had a habit of moving around in recent years—I hope that all parties would come together and say that it is not acceptable and put in place measures that would prevent it from happening.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
This development is likely to trump the excellent work that the Lord Chancellor is trying to do in rolling back the tide of human rights legislation. Is it not the case that it does not really matter what he or other Members in this House think? It is what the judges rule that counts. We are used to EU mission-creep extending its reach beyond what was ever envisaged. Is not the only protection from that to withdraw from the European Union altogether?
Chris Grayling
My view is that we should seek to renegotiate our membership and to address some of those issues, but it is a matter that will have to wait for a majority Conservative Government. I share many of my hon. Friend’s concerns and believe that we cannot go on in the way we are.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Is it not true that the Lord Chancellor does know the legal interpretation and is waiting for further instruction from the UK Independence party?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Can the House conclude from the Secretary of State’s previous answer that if on this point we could not renegotiate, he would support withdrawing from the European Union?
Chris Grayling
What I say to my hon. Friend is that we should never enter a renegotiation in the expectation that we will lose.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s robust stance on this matter, but, as someone who is not one of the usual suspects on Europe—to the best of my knowledge I have never made a speech in this House on the subject—may I say that we really are at a Rubicon? If this does go into law, it would suggest that we have moved a very long way in a bad direction.
Chris Grayling
I take a clear view that there is an issue in all these matters around who governs Britain. My view is that Britain should be governed by this House. I can assure my hon. Friend that were we to discover that the charter had a broader legal reach than we understand to be the case at the moment, we would take rapid steps to address it.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
On 21 January 2008, Hansard records the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), who was then the Europe Minister, saying:
“It is clear that the UK does not have an opt-out on the charter of fundamental rights”.—[Official Report, 21 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 1317.]
On 14 November 2009, the current Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, said:
“We will want a complete opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that this latest case demonstrates more than ever that if a complete opt-out is not agreed in any future renegotiation of Britain’s membership of the EU, the British people will be fully justified in voting to leave the European Union?
Chris Grayling
It is inconceivable that this country could accept a situation in which the charter of fundamental rights was applicable in domestic UK law. On that point, my hon. Friend and I are in great agreement. He has also highlighted another point. We went through a decade of the Labour party pulling the wool over our eyes over Europe, signing up to a treaty it promised again and again it would not sign up to, and signing up to a charter it said would be meaningless and have no legal effect and which does have legal effect. It cannot be trusted on Europe.
Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the Government’s response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry.
Let me start by paying tribute to the men and women of courage, without whom this darkest episode in the history of the NHS would never have come to light. I am talking about people such as Julie Bailey and members of Cure the NHS, who stood outside the Department of Health in all weathers because no one would meet them to hear about the inhumane care given to their loved ones; brave whistleblowers such as Mid Staffs nurse Helene Donnelly; and campaigners who suffered tragedies elsewhere such as James Titcombe, who never gave up the fight after losing his son Joshua at Morecambe Bay. They suffered greatly for their selfless determination to ensure that their personal losses were not in vain. All of us in the House are humbled today to stand in the giant shadow of their bravery.
Robert Francis and his team also deserve huge credit. Their diligence and thoughtfulness led to an outstanding reform, which will transform our NHS for the better. Finally, let me pay tribute to all NHS front-line staff for whom reading about these events in the media has been immensely distressing. We owe it to them to make sure that poor care is never again allowed to take root and survive unchallenged in our NHS.
Since our initial response to the inquiry in March, much has happened. Thirteen hospitals have been put into special measures as part of a tough new failure regime. Those hospitals, where poor care had been allowed to persist, are now being turned around, and I thank the Keogh inquiry team for its painstaking work in that area. Independent Ofsted-style ratings of hospitals are under way, led by Professor Sir Mike Richards, the new chief inspector of hospitals. The first 18 trusts are currently being inspected, with quality of care and safety paramount. We have appointed new chief inspectors of adult social care and general practice, whose robust inspections of care homes, domiciliary care and surgeries start next year, and surgical survival rates for 10 major specialties have been published by individual surgeons, making the NHS a world-leader in transparency.
Today the Government are publishing our further response to the inquiry, as well as our response to the Select Committee on Health’s report on the inquiry. Both responses have been laid before Parliament.
The NHS is a moral being or it is nothing. It was set up 65 years ago with the noble ideal that no one should ever be prevented by background or finance from accessing the best care. That is why it remains the most loved British institution, and rightly so. But each and every case of poor care betrays those worthy aims. I do not simply want to prevent another Mid Staffs. I want our NHS to be a beacon across the world for not just its equity but its excellence. I want it to offer the safest, most compassionate and most effective care available anywhere. I believe that it can, but only if there is a profound transformation of the culture in the NHS.
The inquiry shows the devastating effects of overly defensive responses: hurting families, suppressing the truth and preventing lessons from being learned. Failure cannot be addressed when it is covered up, so today I am announcing new measures to promote a culture of openness and transparency. From 2014, every organisation registered with the Care Quality Commission will have a statutory duty of candour. Patients must be told promptly about any avoidable harm, but there will be a statutory requirement to notify any harm that has led to avoidable death or serious injury.
We will consult on whether hospitals that are found not to have been open and transparent with patients or families at the earliest reasonable opportunity should risk having their indemnity from litigation awards reduced or removed by the NHS Litigation Authority. The signal must go out loud and clear from hospital boards and chief executives to all clinicians: if in doubt, report an incident and tell the patient. The professional regulators have agreed to place a new, strengthened professional duty of candour on all doctors and nurses. Failing to inform a patient, not reporting avoidable harm or obstructing someone else seeking to do so will be subject to sanctions, including being struck off.
Inspired by the airline industry, the duty will cover “near misses”—occasions when mistakes were made that could have led to harm and from which we need to learn. Conversely, prompt reporting may be considered as a mitigating factor in a professional conduct hearing. That is not about penalising staff for making mistakes; it is about enabling them to learn from them. The NHS will adopt a culture of learning, as recommended by Don Berwick and his expert committee, and I thank them for their seminal report.
A culture of openness also means learning from complaints. In line with the recommendations of the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and Professor Tricia Hart’s excellent review, all patients will be able to access independent help in making their complaint, with clear signs in every ward explaining how to do so. The chief inspector of hospitals will inspect complaints handling to establish whether trusts are genuinely seeking to understand and learn from them; every quarter, trusts will publish the number of complaints received and lessons learned; and the health service ombudsman will dramatically increase the number of cases she looks at in detail.
[Official Report, 22 November 2013, Vol. 570, c. 12-14MC.]It is impossible to deliver safe care without safe staffing levels. All hospitals will be required to monitor their staffing levels on a ward-by-ward basis, analysing precisely how many shifts meet safe staffing guidelines. By the end of this year, this will be done using models independently approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. No hospital will be able to conceal unsafe staffing from the public because from next June all that data, both at ward and hospital level, will be published alongside other safety data on a new NHS safety website, triggering CQC action if there is cause for concern.
Things are already changing for the better and I am pleased to report that trusts are planning to recruit an additional 3,700 nurses compared with a year ago, but we need to go further to train and motivate staff, particularly the health care assistants and social care support workers who perform so much vital care. Health care assistants and social care support workers will be required to have a new care certificate to ensure that no one is ever asked to perform personal care without adequate training, whether in hospitals or care homes. The title “nursing assistants” will be used widely in hospitals, and paths to nursing careers will be improved. I thank Camilla Cavendish for her excellent work in this area.
We also need to broaden the talent pool going into NHS management positions, in particular by attracting more clinicians and those with good external experience. We have introduced a fast-track leadership programme, sending 50 people a year to a world-leading business school followed by time shadowing top NHS chief executives.
Robert Francis correctly highlighted the failure of regulatory systems to identify quickly what happened at Mid Staffs. Subsequently it has become clear that Ministers put pressure on regulators that may have led them to tone down news about poor care. That is totally unacceptable, so we will strengthen the statutory independence surrounding reports into care quality. The chief inspector will be the nation’s whistleblower-in-chief and nothing must ever be allowed to stand in his way.
The CQC can prosecute when fundamental standards are breached and trusts put into special measures will have a strictly limited time to get their house in order before administration is considered. Foundation trusts in special measures will have their autonomy suspended and action will be taken to ensure that they quickly improve. No trust will be able to progress to foundation status unless it is rated good or outstanding.
Proper accountability must be at the heart of the NHS. I have therefore accepted Professor Berwick’s recommendation of legal sanctions for those found guilty of wilful neglect or ill treatment. There will be a new criminal offence for care providers that supply or publish false or misleading information and a new fit and proper persons test will enable the CQC to bar unfit directors from boards.
Finally, every hospital patient should have the names of a responsible consultant and nurse above their bed. Starting with over-75s from next April, there will be a named accountable clinician for out-of-hospital care for vulnerable older people.
One of the most chilling accounts in the Francis report came from Mid Staffs employees who considered the care they saw to be “normal”. Cruelty became normal in our NHS and no one noticed. The Francis report made 290 recommendations. I accept the principles behind all of them, and wherever possible have adopted the practical solutions suggested by the inquiry. Robert Francis has welcomed today’s announcement as a carefully considered and thorough response to his recommendations, which he says will contribute greatly towards a new culture of caring and making our hospitals safer places for their patients.
Today’s measures are a blueprint for restoring trust in the NHS, reinforcing professional pride in NHS front-line staff and above all giving confidence to patients that after Mid Staffs the NHS has listened, the NHS has learned and the NHS will not rest until it is delivering the safest, most effective and most compassionate care anywhere in the world. I commend this statement to the House.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
What happened at Mid Staffs was a betrayal of the NHS and its values. The previous Government rightly apologised, but now is the time to back our words with action. That is why, although I welcome much of what the Secretary of State has just said, it is my job to press him on where we feel he could have gone further and to question why, of the 290 Francis recommendations, 86 are not being implemented in full.
First, let me, too, pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), Professor Tricia Hart, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, Camilla Cavendish, Professor Don Berwick and, of course, Robert Francis. Between them, they have given us proposals that will help to prevent a repeat but, more importantly, as the Secretary of State said, change the whole of the NHS for the better.
Both Francis reports found three primary and fundamental causes of what went wrong: a failure to listen to patients; a lack of properly trained staff; and a dysfunctional culture. I shall take each of those issues in turn.
First, I am sure the Secretary of State agrees with me that patients and their families must always, as Francis recommends, be the first priority for the NHS. That principle unites this House and it must also unite the NHS. Is not Robert Francis right to recommend that the NHS constitution, and the ethos it sets out, should be required reading for all NHS staff? I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on agreeing to implement the Clywd review in full and change the way the NHS handles complaints.
Secondly, on the issue of staffing numbers and training, the first Francis report found that Mid Staffs made dangerous cuts to front-line staffing over a short period. I welcome the Government’s new focus on this issue, but is it not the case that nurse-patient ratios across the NHS have got significantly worse in the past three years, with 5,890 fewer nurses, more older patients in hospital and bed occupancy running at record levels? It is encouraging that the NHS has plans to recruit more nurses this year, and is introducing more monitoring. The Secretary of State says “things are already changing for the better”, but is he aware that Monitor has warned that trusts are planning major nurse redundancies in the 2014-16 period, far outweighing any increases this year? Will he intervene now to stop that? Further, can he explain why he stopped short of requiring safe staffing levels? Is he further aware that nurse training places have been severely cut in recent years and trusts are being forced to recruit overseas?
Alongside nursing, more action is needed to raise standards across the caring work force. As Robert Francis has said, it is unacceptable that the security guard at the door of the hospital is more regulated, and subject to professional sanctions, than the health care assistant attending to an elderly patient. The development of the care certificate as proposed by Camilla Cavendish is a step forward, but will it not work only alongside a register of those who hold it and an ability to remove it if they fall short? Was not Robert Francis right to recommend a system of regulation for health care assistants and, going forward, will the Government reconsider their decision to rule this out? Overall, although there is progress on staffing today, it does not go far enough and we will continue to challenge the Government on it.
Thirdly, on culture change, Francis’s central proposal is a new duty of candour on organisations and individuals. Extending the duty to organisations is a step forward, but patient groups are disappointed today that it will cover only the most serious incidents. Can the right hon. Gentleman say why it has not been extended to all incidents of harm? Further, it is not clear how an organisational duty alone will help individuals challenge an organisation where there is a dysfunctional culture. Is it not the case that an individual duty as proposed by Francis is essential? This point comes over clearly from the evidence given to Francis from a senior, soon to be retired consultant. He said:
“I took the path of least resistance . . . here were also veiled threats at the time, that I should not rock the boat at my stage in life.”
It is only when an individual is both required to speak out, and protected in doing so, that this House can say it has done enough to safeguard patients.
The duty of openness and transparency should apply equally to all organisations providing NHS services including, as Francis rightly recommends, contractors providing outsourced services. Given that this Government are bringing into the NHS more outside providers, patients will need reassurance that we do not have an uneven playing field where private providers face less scrutiny. So will the Secretary of State extend the duty of candour to all health care organisations, as Francis proposed? His amendments to the Care Bill do not make that clear. And should not he now commit to extending freedom of information law to any provider of NHS services?
On openness, Francis made a direct call on the Government to set an example to the rest of the NHS. He said that
“risk assessments should be made public, and debated publicly, before a proposal for any major structural change to the healthcare system is accepted.”
Given that the Government claim today to be accepting this, should they not show now that they mean what they say by finally publishing the risk register on the current reorganisation of the NHS?
Finally, on openness, the NHS would be more accountable to families with a proper system of death certification. The House will remember that this was a recommendation of the Dame Janet Smith inquiry into the Shipman murders. The report today says that the Francis recommendations on this are not accepted in full. If we fail to act now, might people be justified in thinking that this House has not learned the lessons of tragedies that have gone before? If the Secretary of State brings forward proposals, we will work with him on a cross-party basis to implement them.
In conclusion, I do not believe that cruelty has become normal in the NHS, but there is a much deeper question for us all and that is how, in the century of the ageing society, we do a better job of caring for older people. We should not accept the situation where, as Cavendish says, people are paid less than the national minimum wage. Should we not all set much higher ambitions for the care of older people and, in so doing, learn the most fundamental lesson of all from what happened at Mid Staffs?
Mr Hunt
Let me take the right hon. Gentleman’s points in turn. First, he will know, because this is what happened after the Bristol inquiry and the Shipman inquiry under the previous Government, that Governments do not always accept every single recommendation. What I have said today is that we accept all the principles behind every single one of Robert Francis’s recommendations. We are implementing 204 in full, and in respect of the 86 that we are not implementing exactly as he said, we are doing everything we can to make sure that we implement the spirit behind them, but we need to make sure that everything we do is workable in practice. Francis himself has said that it is a “carefully considered” response that is a “comprehensive collection of measures”.
On staffing numbers, which is an essential part of what we have to consider, if the right hon. Gentleman looks at the nursing hours per bed, he will find that they have gone up since 2010, not down. We recognise the crucial importance of front-line staff, which is why I gently say to him that we made some reforms to the NHS that meant that there are 5,500 more doctors on the front line and 8,000 fewer managers. What we also need is more nurses. That is why it is so encouraging that in response to what Robert Francis has said and the recognition throughout the NHS of the importance of compassionate care, we are getting a reaction from NHS trusts—not as a result of a direct ministerial decision, but because trusts themselves are recognising the importance of compassionate care. We think that is a very encouraging sign.
With respect to whether staffing levels should be mandatory, we agree that there are minimum recommended staffing levels, but they are not the same for every ward in every hospital. The minimum level might be one in six for an acute medical unit, one in four for a general medical unit, and one on one for intensive care. We took extensive advice on whether it would be appropriate to set a national minimum mandatory number. Not only is the chief nurse and leading nurses from across the country against this; the King’s Fund and the British Medical Association are against it. The BMA said something today in a statement which I never thought I would read in my lifetime—it said that the “Government is right” on this issue.
The right hon. Gentleman also opposed mandatory staffing levels back in 2011, although it is fair to say that in the House his position on this has changed. The important thing is that we allow local discretion to make sure that nursing levels are adequate, and that where they are not, that is exposed quickly so that there is no repetition of what happened at Mid Staffs.
On the regulation of health care assistants, every health care assistant will have to have a care certificate. Effectively, there will be a database which allows employers to check whether someone has such a certificate. That is a kind of register. The other reason for people talking about the regulation of health care assistants is that they want to make sure that if someone fails in their duty of care, they are not able to appear somewhere else in the country. That is why we have a vetting and barring scheme to make sure that that does not happen.
On the individual duty of candour, let us be clear: we want total candour about all avoidable harm, at every stage that it happens, anywhere in the NHS. We decided after much discussion that extending the statutory duty of candour to individual front-line clinicians would be likely to create a huge amount of bureaucracy and damage the culture of openness that we are trying to create, because everyone would constantly be worried about whether or not they were breaking the law. We decided that the right way to achieve the objective is through a professional duty of candour, which is much stronger than the current professional duty states. Critically—this is a key change—we decided to make sure that, just as airline pilots have protection if they speak out, if front-line NHS employees speak out, they too will get protection if there is a professional conduct case, and that openness at an early stage will be treated as a mitigating factor. That is really important in terms of changing the culture.
Finally, we absolutely do need to resolve the issue of death certificates. It is important that we have an independent view to certify deaths. It is a question of finding a practical way to make sure that we do that, but we very much accept the spirit of what Robert Francis said.
Today I hope that we will find a way forward on all the problems that Robert Francis addressed in his response and that we have been thinking hard about. I urge the shadow Secretary of State to join Government Members in saying that this is a moment when the NHS can once again reach forward and aim to be the very best in the world, because the kind of measures that we are talking about are not happening anywhere else, and that is something of which we can all be very proud.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his statement and commitment. A culture of compassionate and safe care for all in the NHS must be the legacy of the Francis inquiry. It is the least that those who suffered from dreadful neglect, and their loved ones who campaigned for justice, deserve. Staff throughout Mid Staffordshire trust have made firm strides since then in improving that culture with clear results in patient care, but will my right hon. Friend be the patients champion and ensure that the NHS puts patients first and foremost?
Mr Hunt
That is the central change in culture that we need throughout the NHS. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend in particular, because he has had a more difficult challenge with respect to his local hospital than any hon. Member. He has campaigned for the people who use that hospital and for the staff there with great integrity and courage, which I commend.
I have never believed that there is a conflict or a choice between putting NHS staff first and putting the patient first. I have never met a doctor or nurse who does not want to put the patient first. The trouble is that we have created structures and incentives that make it difficult for front-line staff to do what they joined the NHS to do, which is to care for patients with dignity, compassion and respect. That is what we are trying to do in the changes today.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
I am grateful for the kind words about the report from the Secretary of State and from my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State. If I may plug our report for a moment, “A Review of the NHS Hospitals Complaints System: Putting Patients Back in the Picture” is available. I have not yet gone through the tick-list of all the things that we asked for, but I shall be doing that. The Secretary of State has agreed that we can monitor the progress that Sir Mike Richards makes in putting complaints and the treatment of complaints at the top of his list when he visits hospitals around in the country.
May I press the Secretary of State on one point? He said in his statement that “all patients will be able to access independent help in making their complaint”. How exactly will that be done and how will it be resourced? I am grateful to the many thousands of people who wrote to me during the course of the review who complained about similar experiences to mine on the lack of care and compassion. That applies not just to nurses, but throughout the NHS from top to bottom. I hope that this will address some of the many complaints from Stafford and elsewhere.
Mr Hunt
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on the extremely good report that she produced. I hope she will not find herself in a position of wanting to complain to me about the way in which I have implemented her report on complaints, because we intend to take it extremely seriously. She knows that I basically accept everything she said in it, although we will have to work carefully on the implementation of some things to make sure we get them right. She highlights one of the most fundamental problems. Probably the biggest problem is that some hospitals treat their complaints procedure as a process rather than something that they can learn from. Every NHS patient whom I have met who has had problems only ever says the same thing. They just want to know that the NHS will learn from what has gone wrong. That is all that they are interested in.
The point that the right hon. Lady makes is a very important one. People do sometimes feel that it is them against the system, and taking on a big establishment that might be well funded and is not really interested in hearing what they have to say is a very lonely process. It is vital that everyone who wants it can get independent support. One thing that we will be requiring is a sign, prominently displayed in every ward of every hospital, telling people, first, how they can make a complaint, and secondly, how if they want it they can get independent help and support. That could be a very good role for the new healthwatch organisations, but it may not be them in all cases, so most importantly, we will insist that people everywhere can access that independent help.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Did my right hon. Friend hear my constituent, Debra Hazeldine, this morning on the “Today” programme, with a harrowing description of the way in which her mother was let down and died in Stafford hospital? I agreed with everything she said. Does he acknowledge that, although my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister listened, after correspondence and meetings with him, to my repeated calls and motions for the setting up of an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, which the Prime Minister set up and which has led to a complete shake-up, not only of Mid Staffs but the entire health service, successive Labour Secretaries of State in the last Government disgracefully and repeatedly refused to agree to such an inquiry, and that but for our determined campaign with Cure the NHS, and in particular Julie Bailey, Debra Hazeldine and Ken Lownds and his campaign for zero harm, the 2005 Act inquiry would never have taken place and the Francis report would never have been produced, with all its beneficial consequences, in the Secretary of State’s hands, for the NHS in the national interest? When will the debate take place on this report on the Floor of the House in Government time?
Mr Hunt
I did not hear Deb Hazeldine this morning, but I have met her on a number of occasions, and she is an extraordinary, powerful advocate for the changes that we need to make in the NHS. I have had discussions with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House about the possibility of debating this on the Floor of the House, and I would very much welcome the opportunity to do so. My right hon. Friend deserves great credit for the fact that he was one of the earliest people to push for a full inquiry. I hope that the shadow Secretary of State will now accept that it was wrong not to have a public inquiry—it was blocked so many times by the Labour party—because we have learned so much from what Robert Francis has been able to say, and the NHS will be the better for it. Great credit should go to my predecessor, who is sitting here now, who took the decision to have that public inquiry.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State not agree that the horrors of Mid Staffs were taking place at the same time that wonderful first-class care, from both a clinical and compassionate point of view, was available in many hospitals throughout the country? Is he confident that the measures that he is putting forward now will ensure that the worst performing hospitals will raise their standards to those of the best?
Mr Hunt
We have to wait and see, but we have put in place a radical, tough new Ofsted-style inspection regime. The point of that regime is not just to identify hospitals where care is unsafe, but to identify outstanding hospitals, so that hospitals in difficulty have hospitals from which they can learn, and we create a culture, just as we have in schools, where failing schools learn from outstanding schools and have a pathway to improvement. That will make a big difference. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we now have 13 hospitals in special measures, and I am sure there will be more as the inspection process gets under way. But we will also have the great hospitals that we can learn from, which will mean that this can be a positive process for the NHS.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for the thoughtful and thorough way in which he has conducted the reaction to the publication of the Francis inquiry. Does he agree that the most chilling finding of Francis was that professional people whose focus should have been on the needs of their patients found themselves, in Francis’s words, “doing the system’s business”? Is not the central driver of my right hon. Friend’s recommendations to ensure that never again shall we have closed institutions in a closed system where that is possible, and that the key way forward is to throw sunlight into institutions that have too often been unchallenged?
Mr Hunt
My right hon. Friend, as so often, speaks wisely. This is probably the boldest step towards transparency taken by any health care system anywhere in the world. We will see if he is right, but I think that he is, because sunlight is the best disinfectant. It means that problems are sorted out much more quickly, but it is sometimes an uncomfortable process. It is really important that we as a country understand that exposing poor care in one place does not mean that there is poor care everywhere and that, in fact, exposing it is the quickest way to sort it out.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
We need total candour with regard to avoidable deaths. The only way to determine that is through an independent review of medical case notes by neutral clinicians. That exercise took place at Stafford. Will the Secretary of State remind us of the result?
Mr Hunt
I do not have the results in front of me, but I am happy to supply them. I want to take up the right hon. Gentleman’s point about avoidable deaths, because one of the changes we want to make today is to avoid the temptation, when there is an avoidable death, for people on the front line to say that it was unavoidable. We are trying to create the structures that make it easy for people to speak out if they think that a death was avoidable and to ensure that they are encouraged to do so.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I very much welcome the introduction of a statutory duty of candour, which the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), wrote into our 2010 manifesto. May I ask the Secretary of State about his plans to prosecute if the fundamental standards are breached, which is an important step with regard to corporate criminal accountability? In drafting those standards, will he ensure that advice is sought from the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Health and Safety Executive and others to ensure that the wording is clear and fit for purpose so that when a prosecution takes place there is no hiding behind the language in those fundamental standards?
Mr Hunt
We will absolutely do that. We are in the process of a very big consultation to ensure that we get the definitions of the fundamental standards absolutely right, but we also want to try to create a culture that means we do not get to that point in the first place. One of the problems we had with the current system is that the definition of success for a hospital tended to be about meeting waiting time targets and financial balance, rather than caring for patients properly. We want to re-engineer the system through the new inspection regime so that a hospital cannot be good or outstanding unless it is delivering good or outstanding care.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
What happened at Mid Staffordshire must never be allowed to happen again, but given that safe staffing levels will depend on adequate resources, can the Secretary of State give an assurance that there will be a debate in the House in Government time on the successor arrangements for Mid Staffordshire and for the University Hospital of North Staffordshire?
Mr Hunt
As the hon. Lady knows, we are going through a process at the moment and the trust special administrator is drawing up detailed plans, so it is premature to say what will happen, but we will of course keep the House well informed and there will be plenty of opportunities for her to question me, or anyone else she wants to question, about any decisions that are eventually made.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, which will help health professionals to get on with their jobs and improve openness and transparency across the NHS. I particularly welcome his recognition of the important role played by the 1.3 million health care assistants across health and social care. In implementing the vetting and barring scheme, will he ensure that individuals looking after people at home or in outside institutions can access that list to ensure that they have health care assistants who comply with the fundamental standards?
Mr Hunt
That is a very good point. I will take it away and look at whether that will be possible, because there is a powerful logic behind making that happen. As my hon. Friend has mentioned health care assistants, I would like to highlight the brilliant work they do, along with so many NHS staff. It has been a very challenging year for them to read about these examples of poor care, which are as shocking to them as they are to us. I agree that now is the time to get behind the people on the front line, who really want to change the culture for the better.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the observations made by my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, but my constituents will be concerned about the impact of whatever the trust special administrator decides is right for Mid Staffordshire on the university hospital and the care they will receive there. Whether as a result of pressures from Cannock Chase or other areas, there is the risk that work will go to the university hospital but that it will not be fully recompensed for what is needed and that—this is a terrible thing to talk about in these terms—the profitable work that would otherwise cross-subsidise that might well go to other areas. Will the Secretary of State look carefully at ensuring that the university hospital is not penalised as a result?
Mr Hunt
We want to ensure that no hospitals are penalised and that we end up with a solution for the whole local health economy that is sustainable for the long term. The comfort that I think the hon. Gentleman can draw from today’s announcement is that, as a result of the openness and transparency and the rigorous independent inspections that will be happening at all the hospitals his constituents use, poor care, where it exists, will come to the surface and be dealt with much more quickly.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
The improved transparency and increased accountability will do much to right the wrongs of the past. When will the health care certificates for nursing assistants be introduced, and has my right hon. Friend considered giving hospital managers discretion to appoint individual nurses to the under-75s?
Mr Hunt
We are looking at improving care for people in all age groups, but we started the focus on the over-75s because they are the most vulnerable older people. Implementation of the care certificate is a very big change that will apply to several hundred thousand people, so it will not be an immediate process, but we want to get on with it. I think that it will give them a big boost and more professional confidence. We also want to improve the pathway into nursing, which is why we will be encouraging use of the phrase “nursing assistants”, rather than “health care assistants.”
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The College of Emergency Medicine has consistently called for an increase in emergency doctors, because there has been a 50% shortfall over the past three years. What plans has the Secretary of State to address that concern?
Mr Hunt
I met the College of Emergency Medicine yesterday to discuss those issues, among others. We have 300 more doctors working in our A and E departments than we did three years ago, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right that we need more, because 1 million more people a year are going through A and E than there were in 2010. Part of the challenge is to make A and E a more attractive profession for doctors. They might work long shifts and antisocial hours, which can make it unattractive. We need to find a way of dealing with that.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Frank and Janet Robinson’s son John died in 2006 as a result of failings at Stafford hospital. They are my constituents. The inquest into his death lasted only 90 minutes and called only two witnesses. After much campaigning and lobbying by his parents, a second inquest has been granted. It will call 12 witnesses, many of whom were available to the original coroner, and is scheduled to last four days. Does my right hon. Friend agree that had the original coroner’s report into John’s death been more thorough, many avoidable deaths at Stafford and across the NHS could have been prevented?
Mr Hunt
I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that he will be encouraged by today’s announcement, because if in such a situation, which was an appalling tragedy, a trust is found not to have been open and transparent about something serious that has gone wrong, the fact that it risks becoming financially liable for any award made will be a major disincentive to trying to cover things up. That is a profound change, so I hope that it will comfort John’s parents to know that the kind of culture they had to fight so hard against will not be allowed to continue.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is right to highlight the need for fundamental culture change, but it is still the case that some of the most vulnerable people in our hospitals today—those with dementia—stay longer and are more likely to be readmitted and more of them die. My local hospital, Salford Royal, has recently implemented the Royal College of Nursing’s system called the triangle of care, which fully involves patients, carers and their families in the care of those with dementia. Will the Secretary of State take steps to ensure that that kind of system is implemented across the NHS?
Mr Hunt
I absolutely want to encourage that. I know that the right hon. Lady has campaigned a great deal on the needs of people with dementia, and I share her desire to do much better for them. Salford Royal is one of the best hospitals in the country and we should always learn from what it does, but 25% of people in hospitals now have dementia. The tragedy of what happened at Mid Staffs and of many of the stories of poor care in other hospitals that we read about is that very often they involve people with dementia, because they are the kinds of people who have been deprioritised when hospital managements have decided, for example, that they want to cut nursing inappropriately. We absolutely have to change that culture. There is now a very good system at several hospitals. People with dementia, in particular, must be helped to eat and drink at meal times. Many of us have been shocked by the stories of full trays of food being taken away because someone is unable to eat unaided. That, in particular, we need to stamp right out.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Cavendish review found too many instances of health care assistants being badly treated and managed by nurses. Health care assistants, now to be called nursing assistants, are on the front line of very many patient experiences. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that other measures, in addition to the very welcome new certificate for nursing assistants, will provide the extra support to those staff that is obviously needed?
Mr Hunt
It is really important that we value the work of some of the lowest-paid people in hospitals who are carrying out some of the most important personal care for patients. They need to be managed properly, fairly and decently, given how important that work is. We need to ensure that nurses have the right attitude to the health care assistants who are working for them—as, most of the time, they absolutely do. That is why earlier in the year we proposed changes that we are piloting, so that before getting funding for a nursing degree, people had to spend time, potentially up to a year, on the front line as health care assistants. That will allow them to experience just how important that work is and then perhaps appreciate it a bit more.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has spoken about staffing levels, which will be of the greatest interest to patients and their families. He said that the situation will vary across wards and that there would be local discretion, with failings being exposed. When those failings are exposed, how will corrective treatment occur? Who will be responsible for ensuring that the corrections and changes are actually made?
Mr Hunt
We have set up a new inspection regime with a new chief inspector of hospitals under the Care Quality Commission. The CQC will look at the figures that are published every month on a trust-by-trust basis, alongside other safety data such as MRSA rates, bedsore rates, numbers of complaints, and other information that is crucial to its decisions. It is then its absolute duty and responsibility to swoop quickly if it thinks there is any cause for concern.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
We now know that poor care was allowed to continue at Mid Staffs because staff were simply too afraid to speak out and, if they did, they were ignored or, worse, their careers were threatened. The high death rates at Stafford hospital were not taken seriously enough at the time and were merely explained away rather than used as an alarm signal that should have triggered further investigations. There was clearly a culture of fear among NHS staff, many of whom witnessed the appalling care of my constituents. Will my right hon. Friend make it his legacy to instil a culture of candour and openness in the NHS whereby concerns are acted on and high standardised mortality ratios are no longer brushed under the carpet to protect the NHS’s reputation but are instead properly investigated so that patient safety finally comes first?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These problems of high mortality rates date back very many years, and nothing, or too little, was done to sort them out. We must therefore make sure that we have a system where that cannot happen. Concealing poor care does not protect the reputation of the NHS, because in the end it gets out and destroys public confidence. I hope his constituents will feel that today’s announcements will create a new culture of openness and transparency that gives them confidence, so that if these awful things were ever to happen again—we hope they do not—we would find out quickly and action would be taken.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Having spent nine years as a lay member of the General Medical Council and five years chairing the Health Committee, I have heard little this afternoon that is likely to change the culture inside the national health service. May I refer the Secretary of State to the report on patient safety that the Committee produced in the previous Parliament? We considered the idea of having a statutory ombudsman to whom people could complain and who would have the power to investigate, even anonymously, instead of this situation in which doctors, particularly young doctors working in hospitals, dare not complain about what senior doctors are doing because of the attack on their career structure. We really must get some independence into this. We can have good words, we can talk about candour, and we can wish a lot of things, but changing the culture of the NHS is not done by statements or by legislation in this House; it is done by working inside the NHS. I am afraid that at the moment the system works against changing the culture owing to career structures and everything else. We need some independence in all this so that people can really learn how to change. New Zealand would be a good example to look at.
Mr Hunt
All I can say to the right hon. Gentleman is that Robert Francis himself stated this morning that we have announced a comprehensive collection of measures that
“will contribute greatly towards a new culture”
in the NHS. He is persuaded that this will make a very big difference.
Independence is a vital part of this change, so what are we doing to create it? For the first time, we will have an independent chief inspector of hospitals who goes anywhere he likes in the system to try to root out poor care. That person will be the nation’s whistleblower-in-chief, and their job will be to find out about these things inside hospitals. We are creating a culture in which it is in the interests of hospitals and doctors to be open and transparent, and that is another significant change. I do not want to underestimate the scale of the challenge we face, but I think most people would say that in the past 12 months we have seen one of the most fundamental attempts to change the culture of the NHS in its 65-year history.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
An essential part of being a medical professional is to exhibit a compassionate and caring approach whatever one’s circumstances, as indeed most NHS staff do. What new measures will offer patients assurances that this will be a priority in future?
Mr Hunt
The biggest assurance that patients will have is that the definition of success as regards how the system views a hospital will be the same as patients’ definition of success. They want to go somewhere that treats them promptly and safely and with decent, compassionate care. That has not been how the system has judged the success of a hospital or its chief executive or board. That is why it is such a profound change to have a new chief inspector and Ofsted-style ratings. I think this will make a big difference, but I do not want to underestimate how big a challenge it is and how long a process it will be fully to make the transformation we need.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware of people’s disappointment that there is still no proper system of regulation for health care assistants. Does he understand that many members of the public feel that one of the problems with general standards of care in the health service may have been the push—under a Labour Government—for an all-graduate nursing profession? There is a strongly held view among members of the public that that has led to elevating taking exams and inputting data on a computer over providing basic levels of care, which is what they really value in a nurse.
Mr Hunt
Never has the hon. Lady spoken with so much support from this side of the House—I do not wish to destroy her credibility with her own party! She points to something that the public feel very strongly about and that is an issue in some parts of the nursing profession. We looked carefully at whether we should remove the requirement for graduate qualifications and decided that nurses are now asked to do a great deal more than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago in, for example, giving people medication and the clinical procedures they are asked to be involved in. We need to make sure that there is the right culture in nursing. That is why I proposed—it was very controversial at the time, although I think it has been quite broadly accepted now—that before becoming a nurse people should spend some time, potentially up to a year, on the front line as a health care assistant to make sure that those going into nursing had the right values and recognised that giving this personal care is a fundamental part of what being a nurse should always be about.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the package of reforms and the greater accountability put into effect as a result of the Mid Staffs tragedy have any bearing on other areas such as the all-too-prevalent cases of people being injured or even dying as a result of hospital-acquired infections?
Mr Hunt
Absolutely, because this is a package designed to deal with all avoidable harm, and hospital-acquired infections are an avoidable harm. It is designed not only to have much more transparency on the levels of harm in our hospitals, but to make sure that there is a culture of openness so that when people spot things that are going wrong, it is in their interests and in those of their hospital that they speak out. The changes are likely to result in—my hon. Friend will be the first to notice this—an increase in the amount of reported harm over the next few months. That will not be a bad thing, because it will mean that hospitals will be reporting harm that up until now they have not reported. We should welcome the fact that that will then mean that this harm will be addressed.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Although health is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the culture and its consequences identified by the Francis report can nevertheless occur in the health service anywhere in the United Kingdom. What plans does the Secretary of State have to share the lessons learned and actions taken with the Health Minister in Northern Ireland and, indeed, with all the other devolved Administrations?
Mr Hunt
I am very happy to share any of the lessons we have learned, but I do so from a position of humility, because we still have to address very serious challenges in our NHS in England. It will take us time to sort them out. I am happy to work with any devolved Administrations. Indeed, I would like to work with other countries across the world, because the challenge of how to deliver high-quality, compassionate health care when resources are tight and with an ageing population is one that all countries face.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The Government’s position on the publication at ward level of safe registered nurse staffing levels is a welcome step in the right direction. My right hon. Friend will be aware that I have consistently argued for safe registered nurse-to-patient ratios at ward level, and no manner of enhancements of culture and leadership can ever be used to mask the risk to patients if there are not enough nurses on the ward. Is he aware that some trusts are conflating trained care assistants with registered nurses, and will he reassure me that, in enumerating the number of registered nurses on wards, trusts cannot conflate trained care assistants, welcome though they are, with registered nurses?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, because in an era of transparency we depend on honesty from the people supplying the information being used. It is not always possible independently to audit every single piece of information. What we have said today is that deliberately supplying false or misleading information will be a criminal offence, which is a much tougher sanction than anything else we are saying today. We think that the most important thing is to establish a culture in which people tell the truth and speak out if there is a problem, because then something can be done about it.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
There is a great deal to welcome in the Secretary of State’s statement, not least with regard to transparency and complaints. I welcome in particular the comments on staffing, although, obviously, we used to have more nurses than we have now. Will the Secretary of State look at the vetting and barring service, because my understanding is that use of the service and referrals to it have been declining over the past couple of years?
Mr Hunt
I have concerns about how much that service is used. My particular concern is not so much whether employers are checking before they employ someone, but whether they are informing the service that an employee should be referred to it for delivering inappropriate care. That is something that we will look at.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I remind my right hon. Friend that the Public Administration Committee is conducting an inquiry into complaint-handling across the public service and that Essex recently had an instance of failure at our local hospital, where complaints were not properly handled. How does my right hon. Friend intend to deliver on his statement that “all patients will be able to access independent help in making their complaint”? May I suggest to him that, rather than setting up a new structure or body, perhaps the ombudsman is the right body to help facilitate those complaints, because it would create a one-stop shop for them?
Mr Hunt
We have avoided setting up a new structure or body in our response to the recommendations made by the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley. As for how we will make sure that this happens, I agree with my hon. Friend that the ombudsman is the final port of call if someone is not satisfied with the way in which their complaint has been treated. That is incredibly important, and the ombudsman has herself agreed that she will handle vastly more complaints and go into detail a lot more than she does at present, which is welcome. Prior to that stage, however, lots of people feel that complaining directly to the trust, which has to be the first step, is a very daunting and difficult process and that they want independent help. That is why we have said that it will be an absolute requirement for trusts to show people how they can access that independent help and, indeed, to be prepared to make the finance available so that they get that help. There will also have to be signs on every ward telling people exactly how to do that.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will agree that the ethos and culture of any organisation start at the top. Over the past three decades, the boards have moved towards being composed more of practitioners and businesses than of consumers and patients. Will he consider putting an independent voice, or independent voices, on the boards so that the complaints go to a board that will listen to and debate them? Will he also consider advising trust boards to set up a formal structure up to board level so that complaints can arrive there, be seen and discussed?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is right that reporting back about complaints to board level is a fundamental thing that should happen at every trust. We also need to make sure that all trusts are putting patients first; they will not be able to get a good inspection result from the chief inspector of hospitals unless they do so. The hon. Gentleman will know that the new structure of foundation trusts is designed to make sure that FTs are run for the benefit of their patients by the large number of members who are effectively the governing body of FTs. The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that this is not happening everywhere, and that is why today’s changes will, I hope, make a big difference.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
My A and E department has seen a massive 30% increase in patient throughput in recent years and a concerning 16% in recent months. Furthermore, 100 people who do not need medical care are taking up beds. I have recently organised meetings between local government leaders and the chief executive officers of our hospitals to explore other ways of dealing with these problems. Will the Secretary of State accept that more can be done in this respect, and will he tell us what he can do to further that approach?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on those pressures. We have been thinking about this very hard. Over the summer we announced £250 million to be distributed to the 53 A and E economies where the most difficulty is being experienced in meeting high standards for the public, and we are doing more. We are talking to the College of Emergency Medicine. Anything that my hon. Friend can do at a local level will be greatly appreciated. This is going to be a difficult winter and we need to stand full square behind our front-line staff.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State just said that Salford Royal hospital is one of the best hospitals in the country and we should learn from what it does. What it does is support minimum safe staffing levels for patients and then publish the actual-versus-planned staffing levels on the wards every day. Staffing levels published on websites is a little step forward, but it is not enough. Why do we not learn from what Salford Royal does? I do not think that patients and their families are interested in what the staffing levels were a month ago; they are interested in what they are today.
Mr Hunt
We have based our recommendation today precisely on what Salford Royal does. It uses the kind of model to ensure minimum recommended staffing levels on every ward that we want every hospital to use. We say that we want those data published monthly, but that is a minimum. Salford Royal publishes them every day, which is very impressive. Given that most hospitals are not using tools anything like as sophisticated as that, it will be a big step up for most hospitals to do that. We want to do it. What is significant about our announcement is that we want to assemble those data for every trust in the country so that they can be compared on a monthly basis and so that people can know how many wards and how many shifts are being safely staffed at their local hospital compared with neighbouring hospitals.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know that Medway Maritime hospital in my constituency had the seventh worst mortality rate in 2005 and 2006, yet nothing was done until he put the hospital into special measures. It is now linked with the outstanding Frimley Park hospital, sharing good practice and turning things around, so that my constituents can get good care, while inspections are also on their way. He said that if hospitals do not turn things around in the short term, they will be put into administration, but what does “short term” mean—is it a year or six months?
Mr Hunt
Our intention is that the maximum period when a hospital is put into special measures should never be longer than a year. After that, if it is not making significant progress, there is the possibility of it being put into administration. The reason for that, precisely as my hon. Friend said, is that we cannot let poor standards and poor care persist over a long period. I am pleased about the progress made at Medway Maritime in recent months; Frimley Park, which is my local hospital, delivers truly outstanding care. He is absolutely right to say that it should never have taken so long to get to the heart of the problem.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State said that it is impossible to deliver safe care without a safe staffing level, which of course depends on resources. Under the coalition’s new funding formula, Hull NHS is due to lose £28 million, and it will not get any money for the A and E winter pressures that are bound to happen. How does he think that that will help safe staffing levels in Hull?
Mr Hunt
The funding formula is decided independently, and no final decision has been made. The decision will be made by NHS England, which I know is looking at that at the moment. It has to decide equitably across the whole country, based on need, population, social deprivation and other factors. Like the hon. Lady, I am waiting to see what it decides.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
Some 14% of the entire NHS budget goes on complaints relating to injury compensation. Of that, a third or £4 billion per year goes to lawyers. That diversion of cash away from the front line to lawyers makes it much harder to get the staffing levels that Francis envisaged. Will the Secretary of State address that as part of the wider issue?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is right that it is absolutely shocking that we spend more than £1 billion a year on litigation claims in the NHS. The only long-term way of reducing that bill is to improve the safety record of the NHS, so that we do not have the terrible incidents that lead to high claims. The only way to do that is through openness and transparency, which is why today’s measures will make a big difference.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I welcome the proposal on legal sanctions for those found guilty of wilful neglect. In south Wales, police Operation Jasmine has looked at the alleged abuse of elders in care homes. I understand the difficulties, but will today’s announcement help us to hold to account those responsible for corporate neglect in private sector care homes?
Mr Hunt
Absolutely. The Minister of State, Department of Health, who has responsibility for care services, has been very focused on making sure that there is proper corporate accountability. Today, we have announced the new fit and proper persons test that will apply to all organisations delivering care to make sure that directors of companies responsible for care homes and domiciliary services in which poor care happens are properly held to account. That is vital, because there should be no hiding place for people who send signals to their staff that lead to our reading the horror stories that, sadly, we have read.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
To my mind, the issue is about patients having confidence in their local hospital. What can we do to ensure that patients in my constituency have a better understanding of how Derriford hospital is performing and whether it is improving?
Mr Hunt
This is the heart of the change that we are making this year. My hon. Friend and I know exactly how well all the schools in our constituencies are doing, because there are transparent, independent Ofsted ratings, but we do not know how well our local hospitals are doing. We need an expert to go in and look at hospitals and then tell us, in language that non-clinicians can understand, just how well they are doing, as well as what needs to change when they are not doing well. We will get that with the new chief inspector of hospitals.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I was struck by the Secretary of State saying that cruelty became normal in the NHS. I do not agree with him and I do not think that the public believe that cruelty has become the norm in the NHS. Most people join the NHS as a calling or a public duty: they believe in kindness and the importance of care.
It seems to me that one of the reasons for cruelty—and it does happen—is the stress of under-staffing. I understand that, as a result of the report, the Secretary of State will publish safe staffing levels ward by ward, but that he will not enforce them. The question that the public want answered is why. How can he, as Secretary of State, be happy to know that wards up and down the country are under-staffed and unsafe, and that he is not doing anything about it?
Mr Hunt
We have had a very bipartisan discussion this afternoon, so I am slightly disappointed that the hon. Lady is twisting my words. I did not say that cruelty became the norm everywhere in the NHS; I said that in places such as Mid Staffs cruelty became normal. If she reads the Francis report, she will find that that is the case.
Trying to duck or run away from that fact is what got us into a great deal of trouble, because we did not deal with the issues in Mid Staffs nearly as quickly as we should have done. On staffing levels, we are doing something that did not happen before. When her Government were in power, we did not know where staffing was unsafe, but now we will know and can do something about it.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that never again will Ministers duck their responsibility to be open and transparent in the reporting of failures, as they perhaps were in relation to Mid Staffs and potentially were in relation to Basildon hospital before 2010?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is incredibly important that Ministers never, whether deliberately or inadvertently, give a signal to the system that they do not want poor care to be highlighted as quickly as possible. I am afraid that there is evidence that, whether or not former Ministers intended this, it was interpreted that the emergence of bad news stories would be met with a great deal of ministerial disapproval, and that did enormous damage.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Out of Francis has come Keogh, which is leading to seven-day working and more doctors and nurses on the wards at George Eliot hospital. Increasing staffing numbers is important in our NHS, but does my right hon. Friend agree that having the right ratio of staff to suit the needs of individual patients is equally if not more important?
Mr Hunt
That is absolutely vital. I have been to the A and E department in George Eliot hospital, and reports I have heard say that morale is really turning a corner. I want to back the staff: it is incredibly difficult to work in a hospital that has been put into special measures, knowing that everything is not as it should be. They now have a sense that a corner is being turned and that the problems that they have long worried about are finally being addressed, particularly because of the link with University Hospitals Birmingham, which is one of the best in the country.
I agree with my hon. Friend that safe staffing is one of the measures that matters. George Eliot hospital has some pretty antiquated IT systems that mean staff spend much longer than they should filling out forms, rather than spending time with patients.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give more details about how we can stop bad leaders and bad providers from working in the NHS? Will he confirm that that change will extend to ambulance trusts as well as to hospitals?
Mr Hunt
The change will absolutely extend to ambulance trusts. I know that my hon. Friend has had experience of poor leadership of ambulance trusts in her area. It will apply to all organisations registered with the Care Quality Commission. There will be a fit and proper persons test, because where people are responsible for poor care, we do not want them to pop up somewhere else in the system.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
There has always been a professional duty on medical professionals to advise patients when errors occur; yet we know that that has not always happened. Although all hon. Members welcome the greater candour, transparency and protection in relation to whistleblowers that this Government are proposing through the fit and proper persons test, does the Secretary of State agree that true culture change will not happen unless the views of junior doctors, the staff generally in all hospitals and everyone in the NHS are made as important as the views of those at the very top?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. True culture change is incredibly difficult to achieve unless we get behind the people on the front line and get them to want to change the culture. That is the insight in the report that Professor Berwick delivered in August. That is why today’s response is about backing front-line staff to deliver the care that they want to deliver and to be open when they are worried, and about supporting them in what is a very challenging period for the NHS. If we do not back them to do the right thing, then no matter what happens at the top, we will not see change on the front line.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I am sure that my constituents will welcome what the Secretary of State has said about transparency and openness, especially with respect to Kettering general hospital. When somebody goes into hospital, they want to have confidence that they will be treated efficiently and with a great deal of care. They get that confidence not just from statistics on the number of nurses or clinicians on a ward, but from the experiences that they hear about from friends and relatives who have been treated at the same hospital. They also get confidence from hearing examples of where things have gone wrong—some things will always go wrong—and that the complaints have been handled quickly and efficiently, and have not been dragged out. Does my right hon. Friend agree that hospitals should provide examples of good care that has gone right to give local people the confidence that their local hospital is doing the very best for them and that, when things do go wrong, people will put their hands up, admit it and deal with it quickly and efficiently?
Mr Hunt
Absolutely. It is a sign of great confidence when a hospital is open about things that have gone wrong. When I meet the top chief executives who are running the best hospitals in the country, I am always struck by how willing they are to be open about the problems that they have had. It is often in the less well-performing hospitals that the management feel less confident and willing to talk about the problems. That culture is really important. I hope that today is a step in the right direction.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House and making such a detailed statement. I served under the previous Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), during the inquiry into patient safety. The Secretary of State has a point. The problem at the moment is that people make a complaint after something goes terribly wrong, but the complaints system is deliberately long, drawn-out and delayed. One never actually reaches the ombudsman. If we are to have a change in culture, we have to stop the managements of hospitals delaying the complaints system deliberately.
Mr Hunt
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. That is why I hope that what we have announced today will bring about a transformation in the way in which hospitals manage complaints. Some excellent work has been done to help us do that. The heart of the matter is that hospitals should be really interested in the complaints that they receive, because that will enable them to understand where they are not delivering good care and what they can do to put it right. That does not happen everywhere. Too often, the complaints system is treated as a process, in effect, to fob people off, rather than to get to the heart of what people are talking about. We absolutely need to change that.
Public Interest Disclosure (Amendment)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to provide that disclosures of information about malpractice to a Member of Parliament where the disclosure is in the public interest be included as protected disclosures; and for connected purposes.
In the last decade of the last century, one of the most important Bills that was passed by this House was introduced not by the Government, but by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd), with all-party support. His Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 followed a series of accidents that were fatal and entirely preventable, including the capsized car ferry at Zeebrugge, the explosion of the Piper Alpha oil rig and the Clapham junction rail crash, which between them cost 395 lives.
In the 15 years since the Act was passed, British society has benefited hugely from the bravery of whistleblowers. Those public-spirited men and women have shamed corrupt officials, identified heartless and hopeless hospitals, and exposed the deliberate or reckless misuse of public money. In the past five years alone, whistleblowers have exposed pharmaceutical companies that have overcharged the NHS for drugs; alerted the National Audit Office to the tax authorities agreeing sweetheart deals, which let multinational companies reduce their tax bills by billions; filmed the abuse and neglect of elderly people in care homes; and exposed a litany of failings in our health service—some of which we have just heard about—such as the appalling standards of care at Mid Staffordshire, the failing maternity unit at Morecambe Bay and fiddled waiting time figures at Colchester.
Thanks to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, whistleblowers have some protection. Employment tribunals have made 3,000 judgments in cases brought under that legislation. However, those cases are just the tip of the iceberg. For every whistleblower who goes public with their concerns, many more never come to light. The decision to expose wrongdoing is a life-changing choice. Whistleblowers find themselves shunned by colleagues, bullied by bosses and hauled before tribunals on trumped-up charges. Ugly rumours are started and careers finished. Whistleblowers’ health, wealth, friendships and marriages are tested to destruction—all casualties of their acting in the public interest.
Let me take one example to illustrate the point. The story of Edwin Jesudason is typical. As a paediatric surgeon with more than 20 years’ experience, he raised concerns that children had died unnecessarily at Alder Hey children’s hospital. As a result, colleagues refused to work with him. Trust bosses tried to force him out. When that failed, they tried to gag him by offering him a six-figure sum if he left his job, kept his mouth shut and destroyed incriminating documents. He refused to take the money. Last year, he sought an injunction to stop trust bosses sacking him. Halfway through the hearing, the British Medical Association suddenly withdrew its support. Near bankrupt, he had to drop the case.
That case is shocking, but it is not remotely unique. In April, a poll showed that, of more than 5,000 nurses who had reported substandard care, a quarter were warned against taking the matter further. Half of all whistleblowers face negative treatment of that sort, with a third of those being sacked. Faced with such treatment or the threat of it, many whistleblowers admit defeat. Hundreds have been pressured into signing compromise agreements, complete with gagging clauses that buy their silence. In the last four years, 77 NHS trusts have used gagging orders to silence 133 staff at a cost of almost £4 million.
The culture of secrecy clearly comes at a financial cost, but more objectionable is the unquantifiable impact on our society and public services: the lives needlessly lost or irreversibly damaged; the unsuitable managers and staff allowed to continue in their posts; the missed opportunities to learn from mistakes—that is the real cost of using public money against the public interest. Every time a whistleblower is dismissed, ignored or bullied into submission, a cover-up is allowed to continue.
That is why I welcome the Government’s decision to use the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 to strengthen the legal protection for whistleblowers. However, I believe that we should go even further. In February, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published a 22-page document called “Blowing the whistle to a prescribed person—List of prescribed people and bodies”, which lists the bodies that a whistleblower can contact if they do not feel that they can go to their employer. The list includes Revenue and Customs, the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Care Quality Commission, but not the whistleblower’s Member of Parliament.
That means that whistleblowers who report wrongdoing to their MP will not automatically be protected by law. Those conversations will be protected only if the whistleblower meets a series of conditions set out in section 43G of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which includes notifying a potentially hostile employer, showing that the wrongdoing is exceptionally serious and demonstrating a reasonable belief that their employer will destroy vital evidence. If they cannot meet those conditions, whistleblowers who contact their MP place themselves at the mercy of employers who may want them to be victimised, sidelined or even sacked. I believe that that is wrong. Whistleblowers should not have to consult a solicitor in order to talk freely to their Member of Parliament.
The Bill therefore seeks to do three things. First, it will ensure that a whistleblower’s disclosures to their Member of Parliament will be unconditionally protected for the purposes of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Secondly, it would make it a criminal offence for an employer to try to prevent a worker from blowing the whistle to their MP. There will be some narrowly defined exceptions, particularly over the Official Secrets Act, but even those could be overridden if the disclosure was clearly in the public interest. Third, it would empower Members of Parliament to refer allegations made by a whistleblowing constituent to a prescribed body, and it would enable that Member of Parliament to require from any one of those prescribed bodies a confidential response. In that way, the Bill would extend legal protection to whistleblowers’ disclosures to their MP, but also ensure that any allegations are investigated by a body with relevant knowledge and experience.
Whistleblowers often demonstrate great courage, but they should not have to be heroes. Acting in the public interest should not require such huge personal sacrifice, and employers who jeopardise public safety simply to save their reputations should have to explain that choice in court. By shielding these courageous men and women from legal hurdles and vindictive bosses, this proposal would allow Members of this House to protect everyone from waste, corruption and incompetence in business, health care, and more generally in public life.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr David Davis, Sir Richard Shepherd, Sir Menzies Campbell, Margaret Hodge, Mr Stephen Dorrell, Ann Clwyd, Mr Dominic Raab, Mr Tom Watson, Dr Sarah Wollaston, and Stephen Barclay present the Bill.
Mr David Davis accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 January 2014, and to be printed (Bill 130).
Opposition Day
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Child Care
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:30 - The House divided: - Ayes: 231 / Noes: 291 - Question accordingly negatived.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House recognises that families are facing rising childcare costs; notes the reduction in the availability of early years childcare; and calls on the Government to help work pay by extending from 15 to 25 hours the provision of free childcare for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds funded by an increase in the Bank Levy.
I welcome Ministers to the Front Bench. Today, once again, the Labour party is highlighting the cost of living crisis that is affecting communities up and down the country, because under this Government the historic link between growth and living standards is being split apart as never before. Growth without national prosperity is not economic success, and the first and last test of economic policy is whether living standards for ordinary families are rising. Official figures state that, on average, working people are £1,500 a year worse off than they were at the general election. The Labour party is determined to shine a light on that quiet scandal of collapsing opportunity and stretched family budgets.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
While the hon. Gentleman is explaining that collapse, he might want to say why between 1996 and 2010 there was a collapse in the number of childminders from more than 100,000 to 57,000.
Tristram Hunt
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Conservative Members may think they can get away with their appalling record in office by worrying about the classification system for previous childminders, but that is a dead end to go down. As I will explain, the Labour Government have a hugely proud record on provision for the under-fives.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend aware that since this Government came to power the cost of child care has gone up by 30% while wages have been cut by 5%?
Tristram Hunt
That is exactly the crisis we will be highlighting today because it is affecting so many families in our constituencies. After energy prices, pension costs, the living wage, rail fares and payday loans, today we will put to the vote the child care crunch facing parents. We will also set out Labour’s plans to ease the child care burden, to deliver the kind of universal, affordable and high-quality child care that secures a strong future for some of the most disadvantaged young people in our country, and to build an economy that allows women to return to work if they want to. [Interruption.] I am delighted that we are already seeing Government Members coming to our side and making it clear that we are building a progressive politics of change.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The shadow Secretary of State talks about appalling records, but will he clarify why, when Labour was in government, the cost of child care in the United Kingdom was the second highest among OECD countries, behind Switzerland? If he is talking about appalling records, surely he should refer to his own party’s record in government.
Tristram Hunt
Today we are concerned with highlighting the record of this Government, and, as I have said before, Labour is the party of Sure Start and of increasing fourfold the provision for under-fives. The values of this party are to ensure that young people have the best start in life, and today we are considering the total disconnect between living standards and the cost of child care.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Should we not be frankly appalled that although the Prime Minister pledged at the last election not to close Sure Start centres, since the election an average of three Sure Start centres a week have closed? There are now 35,000 fewer child care places at a time when there are 125,000 more under-fours.
Tristram Hunt
On the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address, my hon. Friend delivers an intervention of such succinct clarity that Lincoln himself would be proud.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend also agree that Labour is the party in government in Wales, where Flying Start shows the changes that can be brought to children’s lives if we invest in joined-up child care provision, and quality that parents can trust?
Tristram Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention because that takes me to the next stage of my speech, which is to lay out the importance of early years provision. Labour is the party of Sure Start, and we increased expenditure on the under-fives nearly fourfold between 1997 and 2009-10. We know the value of early years provision.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I am interested in the to and fro between the two contending sides, but, as the hon. Gentleman said, this is a serious topic that should cut across party politics. When we look at the situation in Wales, as in other regions, we find that 16% of Welsh local authorities cannot provide sufficient holiday child care for working families. That is an indictment on any Government, and we must address it across the whole United Kingdom.
Tristram Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why I will draw on the work of the Government’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. It is clear that high-quality child care can improve child development for the most disadvantaged children, yet nearly half of low-income parents say that cost, rather than quality, was the main factor in choosing child care. As the chair of Ofsted, Baroness Morgan, recently pointed out, getting children school ready by reception year is fundamental to their life chances. We also know that access to universal and affordable child care can lift employment rates. Having both parents in work for long enough is the best guarantee of a life free from poverty.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that only 1% of child care provision is provided by those child care centres?
Tristram Hunt
I am so glad that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) has finally found a customer, having scurried round the green Benches for 10 minutes seeking out a pliant Member. I will come to the point about the 1%.
Employment among women with children is lower in the UK compared with our OECD competitors and is much more likely to be part-time. If we want a successful economy and school-ready children, we need decent and affordable child care.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. The principle behind Sure Start was not just about child care provision. He talks about the importance of social mobility and other factors, and Sure Start was also about opening up training, employment and volunteering opportunities to parents so that they could participate in the workplace. It can be very isolating, especially for single parents, and having a child in nursery can make a big difference to those families’ lives.
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The provisions offered by Sure Start centres were part of a socialisation process, including parenting and getting children school-ready, that was vital to those families’ prospects. We know that children who do well at school also have parents invested in them doing well at school, and the Sure Start provision was part of that.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
We have to be careful because many people in the press misinterpreted Baroness Morgan’s statement as meaning kids sitting in rows learning at two. It is early years stimulation we want, and we get that—it is affordable on the Danish model—if we employ people who are well trained to do it, like the social pedagogues in Denmark.
Tristram Hunt
As ever my hon. Friend makes the point for a broader understanding of education, for play, for creativity and, above all, a high quality of provision. That is about making sure that we have high-quality childminders, those involved in nurturing, education and play for young people.
Sadly, what we have had from the Government is a sustained assault on early years provision. The coalition’s child care crunch means that since the last election the cost of nursery places has risen by 30%. There are 578 fewer Sure Start centres, with three being lost on average every week. The cost of a nursery place is now the highest in history, at more than £100 a week to cover part-time hours, and parents working part time on average wages would need to work from Monday to Thursday before they paid off their weekly childcare costs.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
The shadow Secretary of State makes some dire claims. How does he explain that in the past year more than 1 million families and children used children’s centres and that the numbers are higher than they have ever been?
Tristram Hunt
Part of that is the result of a markedly increased birth rate, so we are seeing greater demand on these centres—[Interruption.] I know that those on the Government Front Bench do not believe in demographics or planning for the future, which is why we have a primary school place crisis. It is because of their inability to understand the consequences of people giving birth for provision and for schools.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I find it extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman accuses those on our Front Bench of creating a primary places crisis when it was the Labour Government who failed to invest in new primary school buildings and places, and who predicated all the capital budget for education towards the secondary sector.
Tristram Hunt
It was called Building Schools for the Future, and what the Labour Government were involved in was building schools for the future. We were investing in future school provision. The hon. Gentleman has to get a grip on this: the Government have been in power for three and a half years, and they have to start taking responsibility for the dire situations that we are seeing.
The position is equally tough for families with kids at school. Under the last Labour Government, 99% of schools provided access to breakfast clubs and after-school clubs, but more than a third of local authorities have reported that this has been scaled back in their area under this Government. That is what we get from the coalition. We get tax cuts for millionaires, but cuts in child care places for millions of families; billions of pounds wasted on botched NHS reorganisations, while parents struggle to pay for nursery places; and a hapless Royal Mail flotation filling the coffers of Lazard, rather than wraparound child care for hard-pressed parents. Those are the wrong priorities for working people—financial incompetence while families struggle.
As ever with this Government, it has been a case of say one thing and then do another. It was a great Conservative, a real Conservative, a true Conservative, Edmund Burke, who once said that
“those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
But how could he know of today’s Tory attempt to obliterate the past? Whereas once they revered the wisdom of their elders, now they try to wipe the truth off the internet. For what did the Prime Minister say on the eve of the last general election? He said:
“Sure Start will stay, and we’ll improve it. We will keep flexible working, and extend it.”
He also accused my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister, of scaremongering, saying:
“Yes, we back Sure Start, It’s a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this.”
Well, with 35,000 fewer child care places under this Government, three Sure Start centres lost a week, and not enough provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds, my right hon. Friend was right to warn the British public of the dangers of voting Conservative or Liberal Democrat.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Is not that litany of horrors the hon. Gentleman has outlined from the Government in Westminster the very reason many in Scotland will take the opportunity to vote for independence on 18 September next year, so we can have child care standards like any good Nordic country? Would he applaud such a step by Scotland?
Tristram Hunt
Part of Labour’s programme for schools includes creativity and innovation, and that was an extraordinarily creative way of moving from child care to separatism. I will not follow the hon. Gentleman down that route because we are looking at the Conservative party’s past on this issue.
What did the Education Secretary say while grubbing around for votes before the last general election? He said:
“I personally believe we need to do more to provide affordable childcare”—
by which, of course, he meant less. On a Mumsnet webchat, he told “Singalong mum and others”,
“gotta go in a second but on surestart we won’t cut funding”.
No wonder the Government wanted to wipe all records off the internet. No wonder the Education Secretary is too frit to come to this Chamber to defend his appalling record.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
When the Education Secretary talked about more child care, did he perhaps just mean more cheaper, lower quality child care, rather than the quality child care that we support?
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. We are not interested in the warehousing of children. We are interested in the growth, the creativity and the education that comes from high-quality child care provision. Unfortunately, with this Government, it is a record of broken promises, misinformation and double speak. Thankfully, the memory of the British people is longer than that of the Tory party’s web server, and they will not forget such a shoddy past.
Mr Spencer
If the hon. Gentleman believes in quality child care, why was it not necessary under the Labour Government for anybody setting up a facility to provide that child care to have a qualification?
Tristram Hunt
We are delighted to work on a cross-party basis to make sure that we have as high-quality of child care provision as possible. All parties understand that those who look after toddlers and young people should have as much experience and training as possible, and we are always delighted to work with Ministers to see how we can go up the value chain.
Mr Sheerman
In the early days of being the Chair of the former Education Committee, I remember visiting settings just after the minimum wage was introduced. Many people were horrified, because up until then they had been paying £1 an hour. That was the desperate situation we were left with in 1997.
Tristram Hunt
What a valuable point, which reminds us that the Conservative party opposed the national minimum wage and proper payment for child care workers.
It is the Labour party that has a response to the cost of living crisis. In government, we will deal with the child care crunch by expanding free child care for three-year-olds and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours per week for working parents. The value of that child care is worth £1,500 per child per year. It would be paid for by increasing the bank levy, charged as a proportion of their liabilities, to raise an extra £800 million. In the past financial year, the banks paid a staggering £2.7 billion less in tax overall than they did in 2010. The Government have given the banks an extraordinary tax break and we would reintroduce some fairness into the system to support our child care plans. [Interruption.]
I hear laughter from the Government Benches about our plans for the financial services industry, so I will quote from this Saturday’s Financial Times:
“Good times return as City gets in Christmas spirit,”
reported the paper.
“After years of yuletide austerity following the financial crisis, party organisers and venue owners are seeing a resurgence in the market for festive frivolity.”
Well, good luck to them. We on the Labour Benches like to see the return of some animal spirits, but all we are saying is that some of that festive frivolity could be spent on securing affordable child care. That is called progressive politics, and the Government parties should try it.
To give parents of primary age children peace of mind, Labour will set down in law a guarantee that they can access child care through their local school if they want it. Parents of primary age children will benefit most from a new guarantee, as this is when families most require child care support. Of course, parents will have to pay for that, just as they do now, but this is an opportunity to deliver sport, music, healthy eating and after-school clubs alongside child care support.
The truth of the matter is this: high-quality child care and early years services are the foundation stone of a successful approach to tackling child poverty and improving social mobility. The Labour party has a costed and effective plan to deliver both. The coalition has broken promises, has poor priorities and has arrogantly refused to deal with the cost of living crisis. I commend this motion to the House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)
I am afraid that after three years in opposition, Labour Members seem to have learned nothing. First, they have learned nothing about how they got the country into a financial mess, as they seem to think that the answer is more spending and more borrowing; and secondly, they seem to have learned nothing about child care and how nurseries work. Despite the highfalutin’ rhetoric by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), he seems to have failed to grasp the numbers behind child care. I will say more on that in a moment. First, let me remind hon. Members how we got here.
The Labour party left the biggest budget deficit among advanced economies and we were borrowing £1 for every £4 we spent. When we came into office, we were spending £110 million just servicing the interest on Labour’s debt. Despite that terrible inheritance, we have successfully cut the deficit by a third, and prioritised families and children. Total spending on child care and early education is increasing from almost £5 billion to more than £6 billion. We have increased the number of hours of free early education for every three-year-old and four-year-old, from 12.5 hours to 15 hours a week. We have extended support to two-year-olds from low-income families, with 92,000 two-year-olds already benefiting. From 2015, tax free child care worth up to £1,200 per child will be available to working parents. We are providing real help for hard-working families in tough times, not empty promises and unfunded spending commitments from Labour. That is what this coalition is delivering.
Meg Hillier
Childminders in my constituency would like to take on more two-year-olds, but the funding provided by the Government does not cover their costs. Does the Minister expect them and other providers to subsidise Government policy?
Elizabeth Truss
We are funding the two-year-old offer at an average of £5.09 an hour, and the average rate paid for that age group is £4.23 an hour. We are therefore funding at considerably above the market rate, and we have been very successful at getting places for two-year-olds. [Interruption] It is an average.
Let me now turn to some of the spurious claims made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. Labour claims that more than 500 children’s centres have closed. That is simply not true. Forty-five centres have closed since 2010—just 1% of the total—and some new centres have opened, including one in Ipswich. Centres are joining networks so that they can be run more efficiently, but the same buildings are open to the same parents to use services. We are seeing a record number of parents and children using children’s centres—more than 1 million. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman does not want to celebrate the success of children’s centres, rather than constantly talking them down week after week. Children’s centres are doing a better job than ever under this Government. Let us not confuse children’s centres and child care providers. Children’s centres provide less than 1% of child care places.
Labour claims that costs have risen by 30%. That is based on figures from the Family and Childcare Trust. Despite the impression given by the Opposition, those figures were published before 2010. If the Opposition used the pre-2010 data, they would have found that the previous Labour Government were a catastrophe. Between 2002 and 2010, the cost of a nursery place rose by 46%. That is £1,200 a year more for a part-time nursery place for a child over the age of two, but we did not see the hon. Gentleman jumping around then, did we? Labour has, not for the first time, been cherry-picking statistics and ignoring the research. On 30 September 2013, Laing and Buisson published an in-depth report on the child care nurseries market in the UK. The report said that 2012-13 was the second successive year in which the price of full-day care in nurseries had been flat in real terms. In 2012-13, average nursery fees rose by 2.6%, which was the same as inflation. In 2011-12, average fees rose by 2.7%, compared with 3% inflation. In June 2013, the National Day Nurseries Association published the UK nursery insight report, which said: “58% were freezing fees”.
There we have it: the figures Labour cite actually show how the previous Government drove up costs with their confused funding and complex regulation, while independent research shows that costs have stabilised under this Government.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Minister referred to the child care survey on increasing costs and pointed out that between 2002 and 2010 there had been an increase of 46% in a period when wages were rising. The same survey shows that the present increase from the baseline is 77%, at a time when wages have fallen. Should she not take some responsibility for taking a bigger bite out of the family budget?
Elizabeth Truss
That 77% starts in 2003, and I believe that the Labour party was in government then.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central claims that we are not supporting school-based child care. On the contrary, the most recent data show a 5% increase in the number of after-school clubs. The difference between our view and his is that we think that school-based child care actually takes place in a school. The Labour party alleges that more than 90% of schools were offering an extended day in 2010, but I do not think that any parents with schoolchildren at that time would recognise that number. A school did not have to provide child care onsite, but could fulfil the requirement by linking to a child care provider on its website. That is what the Labour party meant by “extended day”.
It turns out that the Opposition’s new offer is no different. The shadow child care Minister, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), wrote recently that
“if a school chooses not to stay open longer hours because they do not need to offer this provision on site – they will not be forced to stay open. Schools can…facilitate out of hours childcare elsewhere for pupils”.
The shadow Secretary of State has a vision of children playing sport after school, but this after-school provision would not have to be on the school site and would be paid for by parents. How is that different from the current situation, where people pay a childminder after school? I am not sure how Labour’s so-called primary school guarantee, which need not take place in school, which schools would simply facilitate and which parents would pay for, would be any different from the current situation. It is a child care mirage: the closer one walks to it, the less certain it seems.
Elizabeth Truss
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman).
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me and not to honorable colleagues on the Opposition Benches.
On the expansion of provision, does my hon. Friend welcome the fact that 73% of the children’s centres in the north-east are rated as either good or outstanding? More importantly, what opportunities will they have to expand that provision in the future?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for his point about children’s centres, which have been a massive success under this Government. Record numbers of parents are using them, we have improved them by focusing them on outcomes and they are really achieving.
Elizabeth Truss
I think the hon. Lady is having a laugh about her child care guarantee. It would not mean that schools have to offer extended hours; they would need only link to a child care provider on a website. That is not what parents mean by extended hours.
I note that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central did not repeat his leader’s claim about the number of child care places. Could that be because his leader claimed there were only 1.3 million child care places in the country, when in fact there were more than 2 million, because they missed out the 800,000 places—30% of the market—available in schools? The number of settings is going up. It is strange, given that he has talked about his colleague Baroness Morgan advocating child care for two-year-olds in schools, that he does not know that schools provide child care and that his leader did not include those 800,000 places in his statistics. He also seems completely unaware that Building Schools for the Future was not for primary schools, but for secondary schools. Under his Government, funding for primary school places was cut by one quarter.
Mr Sheerman
Within the limits of this sort of debate, the hon. Lady is not making a bad speech, but many ordinary people and parents outside desperately want even better child care and are hanging on her words. What will the Government do to move to the next stage?
Elizabeth Truss
I will come to that point later, but first I need to correct some factual inaccuracies that the leader—sorry, I mean the shadow Education Secretary; I am promoting him already—made.
The Labour party claims it will fund extra child care places for three and four-year-olds through the bank levy. I think we have heard that somewhere before. To be precise, we have heard it 11 times before, because it is to be spent on: the youth jobs guarantee, which will cost £1.04 billion; reversing the VAT increase, £12.75 billion; more capital spending, £5.8 billion; reversing the child benefit savings, £3.1 billion; more regional growth fund spending, £200 million; reversing tax credit savings, £5.8 billion; cutting the deficit, no amount is specified; turning empty shops into community centres, £5 million; spending on public services, question mark; more housing, £1.2 billion; and now child care, £800 million.
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Gentleman had plenty of opportunity to make his point and I am keen to answer the question from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) about what the Government are doing.
Let us not forget what Labour said about the bank levy when we introduced it. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) said:
“This is an industry though that employs over a million in this country and it is taking a hell of a risk, the Tory approach, in saying well actually they seem to be slightly indifferent to that… I think, frankly, the Tory approach is pretty misguided, it’s not thought out”.
So Labour has gone from being against the bank levy to spending it 11 times. How do those numbers make sense?
Elizabeth Truss
I am sorry, but I want to talk about child care.
As well as complete economic ineptitude, Labour seems to have learnt nothing from its time in office about child care or nurseries. It still thinks the answer is spending more money, rather than reform. Baroness Hughes, children’s Minister under the previous Government, admitted that their approach was “probably wrong.” She said:
“We were so keen to stimulate demand from parents but in retrospect that was such a mammoth task. We ought to have focused on the supply side, supporting providers, then we could have done more and quicker.”
I could not agree more, yet Labour has nothing to say about supply; it talks only about spending more money. Let us remember what happened last time it did that. We ended up with some of the highest child care costs in the OECD, parents were paying out 27% of their income on child care, staff had some of the lowest salaries in Europe, contrary to what the shadow Secretary of State said, and under Labour’s preferred measure, prices increased by 50% during the Labour years.
Andrew Gwynne
Reports suggest that the Government will not meet their own target of supplying child care places to the 40% most deprived two-year-olds in the country, so will the Minister be open and transparent with the House? Will she meet that target—yes or no?
Elizabeth Truss
We have more than 200,000 full-time places available in our system, and we have said that all those eligible children will have places if their parents want to take them up.
Elizabeth Truss
I have just answered the hon. Gentleman’s question.
I was talking about why Labour made such a mess of child care. It piled red tape on schools and nurseries, making it harder for them to expand. Furthermore, even though parents like flexible, affordable, home-based care, the number of childminders halved under Labour, because of the level of regulation, the difficulty of becoming a childminder and the fact that the funding system was skewed towards nurseries and away from childminders.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I often challenged the previous Government on the collapse in the number of childminders, and I would be interested to hear what innovative ideas the Minister has for expanding this important child care provision.
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for her points and I note her consistent support for home-based child care and the important help it can offer.
Meg Hillier
Childminders in my constituency are very pro what they do and also pro the fact that they provide good-quality child care. They tell me that the bad childminders were run out of town so that parents such as me can rely on a childminder to look after their children, as I do for my daughter, and be sure that there are good-quality, properly inspected childminders. That puts my mind at rest as a working mum, as it does those of other working mums in my constituency.
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Lady for her points. I will deal specifically with childminders later and I will respond to her point then.
Labour also had a voucher scheme, but only one fifth of parents could use it—only those whose employers offered it, and only those who were in employment rather than self-employed. There was no limit on income, unlike tax-free child care, so millionaires got it, but the self-employed did not. That was Labour’s legacy on child care—a massive waste of money, added complexity and a huge spreading of confusion.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
It was even more unhelpful than that, as my employer offered the child care voucher scheme, but because it was so tightly regulated, even though I was spending a fortune on child care, I was not able to use it.
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which illustrates the problem with the child care voucher system.
Let me further point out to Labour Members that in the ’80s and ’90s, when we had a working mother in charge of our country, England was ahead in respect of maternal employment, but we fell behind other countries such as France and Germany under Labour’s watch. Maternal employment rates are rapidly rising under this Government. As Edmund Burke pointed out—the shadow Education Secretary is clearly a big fan—“those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”, and if he has not learnt the lessons that people in the previous Labour Government learnt at the time, he will fail, should he ever get the opportunity to be in office. That is why we are reforming the child care system: we are reforming the hopeless legacy that Labour left.
The signs are that what we are doing is working. We are seeing prices stabilising, more places being made available in school nurseries and a revival in childminding. We want parents to have a good choice of options, including nurseries, schools, childminders and children staying at home with parents, or a combination of those. We are introducing much simpler funding and creating a regulatory structure to support modern working parents.
We are determined to reverse the decline in the number of childminders. From this September, good and outstanding childminders will be able automatically to access funding for early education places for two, three and four-year-olds. That means that an additional 28,000 childminders will automatically be funded. I think that addresses the point raised by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) about ensuring high-quality childminding.
Lucy Powell
Perhaps the hon. Lady will explain why there are 2,423 fewer childminders than there were in 2009.
Elizabeth Truss
That is a continuation of the fall in the number of childminders under Labour. We have reversed the policy, starting this September, and the Department for Education is already getting a lot of positive calls from childminders who are keen to offer early education places. There is a great deal of support for that; it helps parents to combine their child care and early education requirements. From this September, we are trialling childminder agencies, which will enable more childminders to join the profession, and they will be fully up and running in September 2014. They will provide training and support, and will be an easy way for parents to access home-based care. We are at the beginning of making significant changes to the way childminders are regarded in our system. What we want to see is an increase in independent childminders and more agency childminders, as well.
We want to expand the level of school-based care, too. As opposed to Labour’s child care mirage, we are allowing real schools to offer real facilities. We are encouraging schools to use their nursery facilities to offer full-time day care rather than just be open for part of the day. We are allowing schools automatically to register two-year-olds, and I saw some brilliant provision for two-year-olds at the Oasis school in Hadley, which opened in January.
We are seeing 8-to-6 schools blossoming. The Norwich free school has a squirrels club, which means it is open from 8 am to 6 pm, 51 weeks a year. I know that the shadow Education Secretary thinks that free schools are a “dangerous ideological experiment”, but I think schools like the Norwich free school are giving hard-working parents the support that they need.
Another example is the Harris chain of academies, which has promised that every new school it opens will operate on an 8-to-6 basis. I am hugely in favour of 8-to-6 provision. It supports working families and helps to increase children’s attainment, but we must do that in a way that is realistic and sustainable for schools. That means making the necessary regulatory changes, aligning the requirements after the school day from within the school day and making it easier for schools to collaborate with outside providers. We do not get anywhere by making false promises that cannot be realised. We are also reforming child care funding so that parents see more of their money, rather than see it wasted. This means that all working parents will get up to £1,200 per child towards child care costs and the provision of 15 hours for three and four-year-olds.
All that is in the context of what the Government are doing to help families with the cost of living: a £705 income tax cut, thanks to our increases in the personal allowance; a £1,000 saving on mortgages because rates have been kept low; £364 saved on petrol for those who top up their cars once a week; and £210 saved thanks to our council tax freeze. This Government have real policies, helping real working parents to manage their lives—not the dodgy numbers, unfunded promises and gimmicks we have seen from the Labour party today.
Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I understand that a very serious incident has occurred in the Mediterranean today, when a Spanish naval vessel entered Gibraltar harbour. Is a Minister from the Foreign Office coming along to make a statement about what amounts to a very serious incident?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I have been given no notification that a statement is to be made, but I am sure that the Foreign Office is listening carefully to what has been said about such a serious incident.
I shall now impose an eight-minute limit in order to get all Members who want to speak into the debate. We will start with Jonathan Ashworth.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to be called so early, not least because I have just returned from two weeks’ paternity leave.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Is the hon. Member declaring an interest in the debate?
Jonathan Ashworth
I will take your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am the father of a two-year-old toddler and now a two-week-old baby girl, as well, so perhaps I should declare an interest. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) asks me their names. My two girls are called Gracie and Annie, but enough about my family; let me move on to the substance of the debate.
Investment in child care is one of the most important sets of investment that any Government can make. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) who made the point a few weeks ago in one of the many articles she writes that we often talk about the importance of infrastructure investment—very topical at the moment, given the controversies over High Speed 2—and that child care should be viewed as an infrastructure investment. I entirely agree. Investment in child care is good not only for our future economic capacity, but for our children. That is what I shall focus on in my speech.
There is a general debate about how to raise the trend rate of growth in this country and how to rebalance the economy. We also debate how, if growth happens, it should be shared fairly and not snaffled away by the privileged few, as seems to be happening under this Government. Investment in child care must be an absolutely central part of building the economy of the future that we all want to see. I consider it to be one of the best social and economic investments that we can make. However, today I want to emphasise the benefits that it has for children.
I am sure all Members will agree that learning begins at birth. The first few years of a child’s life are critical to its development. Children need a stimulating, caring environment: they need opportunities to interact, to be talked to, to play, and to explore in safe surroundings. While I entirely accept that academic researchers differ on what is the right balance for a child between being in child care and being at home and that there are different conclusions to be drawn, it is undeniable that good-quality, affordable child care is central to a child’s development.
Both Front Benchers mentioned Baroness Morgan’s observations on preparing children for school. Academic evidence suggests that children who have experienced child care are much further ahead when it comes to development and readiness for school, but we also know that child care gives society an equality dividend. It helps women, in particular, to move into the labour market, but all too often they are priced out of that market by the cost of child care.
Ministers boast about the state of the economy, and say that we have turned the corner. Some top Tories even claim that they are on the glide path to victory, which I would describe as a brave and, indeed, arrogant prediction. In reality, however, the economic benefits that exist are not being shared. There is a huge squeeze on living standards, and hard-working people are worse off and therefore cannot afford child care. We know from the figures that 2 million children in poverty live in households containing a single earner, and that nine out of 10 of the workless partners are female. Securing good-quality, affordable child care and helping mothers to return to the labour market is one of the best ways in which we can make a significant dent in child poverty numbers. But what is the record of the present Government?
As the Minister knows, I have tremendous respect for her. I listen carefully to her speeches, and read a great deal of what she says. However, the fact remains that the cost of nursery places has risen by 30%, and Ofsted figures show that there are 35,000 fewer child care places. The average bill for a part-time nursery place providing 25 hours a week has risen to £107. Breakfast clubs have been scaled down, and the cost of summer holiday child care places has passed the £100-a-week mark for the first time ever. Although all the academic research tells us of the advantages enjoyed by children and toddlers who have been exposed to books, the Secretary of State—who likes to think of himself as a champion of academic rigour—has halved the Bookstart grant.
The Government have implemented a range of policies that affect mothers. For instance, they have cut the child care element of working tax credit: a total of £7 billion has been cut from working parents’ tax credit. In two months’ time, many of the higher-earning parents whose child benefit is being clawed away will have the taxman knocking on their doors because of the Government’s woeful handling of the situation.
Perhaps the Government’s worst act of vandalism against early-years provision is the fact that there are 578 fewer Sure Start centres. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) quoted what the Prime Minister said before the last election, but as the Tories have taken it off their website, it is worth quoting again. He said that we were scaremongering. He said that the Government would back Sure Start. He said that it was “a disgrace” that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) was “trying to frighten people”. The fact remains, however, that we have 578 fewer Sure Start centres. The Tories can take that quotation off their website, like some Bolshevik politburo apparatchik trying to doctor photographs, but we will continue to remind the British people that the Prime Minister promised to maintain Sure Start centres, and that under his Government we are losing them.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making a very important point about the breaking of the promises made by the Prime Minister at the last general election. Not only did he say that he would keep Sure Start centres open; he also said that the Government would invest in 4,200 extra health care visitors. How does my hon. Friend think that that target is going?
Jonathan Ashworth
It sounds like an example of “same old Tories”—yet more broken Tory promises.
As I said earlier, I have tremendous respect for the Minister. I watched her carefully as she toured the studios yesterday, when she talked about the Conservative proposal for tax relief. That tax relief, however, will not be introduced until 2015, and I understand that it will apply only to couples when both partners are earning. If a couple have a two-year-old at nursery, one partner is working and the other is at home caring for a newborn child, that couple will receive nothing—zilch. There will be no help for them whatsoever from this Government.
Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Gentleman is forgetting the fact that if the couple are married, they will be able to transfer some of their tax allowance from one to the other. [Interruption.]
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who speaks on Treasury matters, shouts “No, she won’t.” I think that that deals with the hon. Lady’s point.
I gather that the child care voucher companies will manage the Minister’s proposed scheme, but I do not know whether they will manage it for free. I should be interested to know what estimates the Department has made. How much will it cost the voucher companies to administer the scheme, and how much of the £1.5 billion that the Minister is putting into the tax-free scheme will be creamed off?
The Minister’s big plan was to downgrade child care ratios. I remember the pamphlet that she wrote about that before she was appointed. At the time, a woman stopped me to complain about it while I was doing my shopping in Morrisons in the centre of Leicester. We know that, all too often, the Government’s answer to the challenges of globalisation is a race to the bottom, but what the Minister proposed would have put downward pressure on quality in the child care sector. I hope that she has now listened to campaigners, and does not plan to return to that proposal.
Tory spin doctors used to brief that the solution to the problem of a lack of affordable high-quality child care was the holy grail of policy, but we do not hear that so much nowadays. Regrettably, they are now briefing against the Minister. I read in Ben Brogan’s daily briefing the other day that they like to watch her “like a hawk”, and I read in Total Politics magazine that they like to keep her “on a tight leash”. Such briefing is nasty and unfair: that is no way to treat a Minister who is trying to develop better child care policies, although I disagree with the direction in which she is heading. However, I am afraid that it will fall to my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central and for Manchester Central to clear up the Minister’s mess, and implement a child care policy that will give hard-working mums and dads in my constituency the support that they so desperately need.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
All parents want the best for their child’s early years. They want a safe, stimulating and secure environment, an environment that provides the best possible foundation for the child’s future success at school and in life. I do not think we should forget that, for many parents, that means early years at home with mother or father; but for many others who, like me, are working full or part time, it means relying on child care. What we all want is the best-quality child care, which will promote the best possible development for our children in those early years. It is not just parents who are committed to that; the Government are absolutely committed to supporting families by providing quality child care, to meeting the costs of that care, and, importantly, to meeting parents’ need for flexible child care choices in an era of increasingly flexible work.
I speak from considerable experience. During my working life, I have probably accessed every possible type of child care: a small private nursery, a pre-school nursery attached to my son’s state school, a childminder, family support, after-school clubs and breakfast clubs—and dad helped. I received wonderful support from friends, neighbours, and families whom I knew from church. However, I knew what it took to make that work for my children: it took an enormous amount of co-ordination. Without the network of support that I was fortunate enough to have, many families struggle. That is why it is so important for us to give as much support as we can to families and parents who want to work.
Fiona Mactaggart
One of the sources of that kind of family support, which a quarter of families depend on, is grannies or grandparents. I am sad that we have not heard in this debate about how we are going to help working grandmothers cope. There was a study by a building society a couple of years ago which pointed out that grandparents save the taxpayer about £4,000 a year through every piece of child care they offer.
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and we should pay tribute to grandparents. I was very fortunate in having four wonderful grandparents without whom I could not have developed the business I did develop in those early years, when I could not have afforded the quality of child care that I could, perhaps, have afforded in later years. It is important that we strengthen family life, and I will come on to talk about some of the initiatives we need to put in place to support family life more widely. Many people cannot access that in their locality, however.
Harriett Baldwin
I am sure my hon. Friend will support this Government’s extension of the right to request to all employees, so that, for example, the grandparents the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) referred to are able to take time off, perhaps for child care responsibilities.
Fiona Bruce
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point because I was going to discuss the extensive provision that this Government are promoting for flexible working. As an employer, I have been able to accommodate some of the flexibility young mothers need, even when they perhaps just want to start work at 9.15 rather than 9. That can make an enormous difference to family life by enabling there to be good care and a good start to the day for very young children.
I was very fortunate that when my two boys were young we had a wonderful childminder, who is still very much a friend of the family. They still refer to her as “Auntie Pam.” Auntie Pam cared for my boys for two days a week. It is a tragedy that between 1996 and 2010 under the previous Government the number of childminders —the number of auntie Pams—dropped from 103,000 to 57,000. This Government are addressing that.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this Government’s policy of introducing childminder agencies will enable better support to be given to childminders, so many of whom say they left the industry because of the burden of regulation and the lack of support for their profession?
Fiona Bruce
That is absolutely right, and I am glad to have this chance to put on record that it is a profession that deserves respect. Many childminders do not want the burdens of having to set up and run their own business. They do not want to have the burdens of complying with regulations and training requirements; they simply want to care for children. Let us release them and set them free to do that by supporting this new initiative of childminder agencies that the Government are setting up.
Fiona Bruce
I am going to make some progress now; I have taken several interventions.
The Government’s childminder agency initiative is an excellent step, not least because it will mean that families will have a local resource that they can access to find a childminder they can have confidence in—a childminder who has been through the appropriate training, and who is from an agency that they know is maintaining proper standards. The agencies will also provide for occasions when the childminder falls ill, which can cause a great deal of stress to parents; there will be additional cover to provide someone else at short notice when they need that.
The Government’s provisions to build up the number of childminders should be supported, therefore, and the agencies will also help to promote take-up of Government funding for two to four-year-olds. At present fewer than 10% of childminders are funded through Government funding. I am sure that a lot of early-year place provision is being missed out as a result of that.
I support the Government’s proposals. They will enable childminders to concentrate on delivering high-quality education and care, which is what they want to do, and not be driven out of their profession simply because they do not want to face the regulations and red tape they have had to deal with until now. They will be able to benchmark themselves against the highest standards. They will be able to access the new framework of training and support and ongoing improvement, and concentrate on giving the best provision to families.
We should remind ourselves of the support that the Government are giving families in meeting the costs of child care. Some 70% of the child care costs of those on tax credits are covered by the Government and an additional £200 million of support for lower-income families will be available within universal credit from April 2016, to take the proportion to 85%. Parents of all three and four-year-olds can access free child care. As we have heard, the Government have increased early education for three and four-year-olds from 12.5 hours a week to 15 hours a week so that what amounted to 475 hours a year of free child care in September 2010 now increases to 570 hours a year. I certainly would have greatly appreciated that when my boys were younger.
The Government are extending the offer of 15 hours a week of early education to two-year-olds from low-income families, which will benefit about 260,000 two-year-olds from September 2014, costing £760 million a year by the end of this Parliament. Just four weeks into this Government’s scheme that offers free child care to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, 92,000 children are already benefiting, which is a huge increase on the 20,000 two-year-olds who accessed early education in 2010. Looking at share of GDP, this Government are spending £5 billion on early-years child care and are spending more than 40% above the OECD average on child care for children under three.
The early-intervention grant replaces a number of centrally directed grants in supporting services for children and young people and families. It has allowed local authorities greater flexibility and freedom at the local level. I want to highlight some of the ways the local authorities in my area have used that funding to support a wide range of services for children, young people and families. There is targeted mental health support for young children through the charity Visyon in my constituency, of which I am a patron, and additional support is being given for fostering and adoption—and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), my constituency neighbour, who has done excellent work in increasing take-up in Cheshire. There is also the funding for such projects as Let’s Stick Together run by Care For The Family.
Andrea Leadsom
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is so much better that the money that was previously ring-fenced for individual projects can now be used on proper early-years intervention?
Fiona Bruce
I do, because the key to all this is flexibility and choice, and that is what this Government are providing. They are providing flexibility in the way that money is used and flexibility and choice for parents in deciding how to care for their children.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow that at times very personal speech from the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), but I want to pick up on one thing she said, which I think caused a little concern on the Opposition Benches. She talked about regulation of childminders in a way that gave us—and people watching on television, I suspect—the impression that all such regulation is a bad thing. Surely she is not suggesting that, for example, CRB checks should not be done. I caution Members on the Government Benches about the language they sometimes use in talking about regulation, as it can give a wholly misleading impression.
Fiona Bruce
Speaking as someone who has started and who runs a small business, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is often extremely difficult to know what the regulations are. The fear of non-compliance can deter many people from starting a business in the first place. The agencies will give childminders reassurance that they are complying with the regulations. That is the big difference.
John Woodcock
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I am sure that everyone on both sides of the House agrees on the need to cut unnecessary regulation, but I stand by the point I made.
It is a pleasure for me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who marked his return to the House with an impassioned speech. The increased relaxation that being in the House of Commons can provide to someone who is the father of two very young children has immediately given him a boost, and he brought that into his speech today.
When the cost of child care rockets, something has to give. For some, it is the opportunity to work, but those mums and dads who choose to stay in work try hard to ensure that they are the ones who bear the brunt of the cuts. They often stop going out, and they hold off from buying things for themselves that, in happier times, they would not think twice about buying. I should like Members to listen to one of the testimonies given to the Furness Poverty Commission, a body that I set up to look into the increasing deprivation in Barrow-in-Furness. A 34-year-old mother from my constituency told the commissioners that she was
“constantly worrying if the bills are all going to be paid, sometimes not having money for food, not ever being able to afford to get away anywhere, not being able to afford to secure your home, broken locks, no insurance…having to sell things to afford Christmas and not to be able to afford heating.”
Stories such as hers are all too common in Furness and right across the country.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The evidence is not only anecdotal; it is very real when we look at the figures. Is he aware that the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that, at the current rate, there will be more than 1 million additional children in poverty by 2020? Does it not appear that the country is going in the wrong direction for our children and our future?
John Woodcock
It does; my hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a striking, damning figure that sits alongside the human stories of difficulty and suffering that we all experience in our constituencies almost daily.
Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Gentleman is making some powerful points about poverty. Does he accept that work is one of the best ways out of poverty? Does he also welcome the fact that, when universal credit is rolled out in his constituency, child care will be supported for the first hour of work for the individual whom he so eloquently described?
John Woodcock
Work is important in many ways, not simply as a means of getting an income. There are some real questions about universal credit, but if the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not go into that now.
Privately, my constituents sometimes share with me their sense of guilt and frustration when the strain is so great that they just cannot shield their children from the cuts they are having to make. Swimming lessons go, trips to the zoo are put off, and when nothing beyond the bare nutritional minimum goes into their child’s lunchbox, they worry that their child is not going to eat enough because they are not giving them what they really like or want. These are working people. They have made the choice to go out and hold down a job, and to juggle work and family life. They do not expect handouts. They know that life will not be easy when they choose to bring up kids, but they just ask for a bit of help with what can seem like the suffocating burden of rising living costs. Child care should be one of the things that lift the strain on families and give them a way out of poverty; it should not add to the burden.
One of key recommendations of the Furness Poverty Commission on dealing with social and economic exclusion in Barrow and Furness was to close the gap that local people had identified in affordable and flexible child care. It is great that the number of children under the age of four in England is increasing, and I am pleased to have been able to do my bit on that front in recent years. So I am delighted by Labour’s plans, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) has set out, to increase the availability of affordable child care. I am especially pleased that the extra entitlement will come in the form of wraparound care from 8 am to 6 pm.
Increasing child care from 15 to 25 hours a week could make a real difference to many families in my constituency. For many parents, it would make the difference between being able to work and not being able to do so. The provision of 12.5 or 15 hours has been a help but it has often not provided a trigger given the way in which the need for child care is spread out if parents rearrange their lives to go back to work. I believe that this wraparound care, aligning child care with the standard working day, will be revolutionary in helping parents to get back to work.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South, I have a great deal of respect for the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). I was therefore disappointed to hear her dismiss the wraparound child care guarantee in the way she did. She did not want to take my intervention earlier, but I have to tell her that one of the main problems is that there is often no provision at all for families—
John Woodcock
The Minister shakes her head and says that that is not true, but I invite her to come to my constituency and see the problems that many people face when trying to arrange that kind of wraparound child care.
Working parents in my constituency—and in those of many of my hon. Friends—know how hard it can be to find affordable child care, or indeed any form of child care, to cover the period before the beginning of the formal school day and the hour or so at the end of it. Effectively, they are trying to find someone to care for their children and walk them to and from school. That might comprise only an hour of care, but an inability to find it can present an impenetrable barrier to getting back to work. This is why our plans could make a real difference. If we are serious about a sustained recovery that is shared by everyone across the country, we need to tackle the child care crisis head on. If this Government will not do that effectively, the next Labour Government will.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock). It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who gave us the great news that his wife had recently given birth to a beautiful daughter.
It was also interesting to listen to the beginning of the debate. I thought that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was able to truss up like a turkey the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), by putting up a good defence of the Government’s record and exposing the issues involved. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I can assure the House that the jokes do not get better than that.
Of course, child care is an issue not only for mothers; both parents should and do play a full role in the care of their children. They, and people without children, such as me, recognise that access to good quality child care is key. We should also celebrate the fact that more women are working than ever before.
Fiona Bruce
Should we not also honour and celebrate those mothers who decide to stay at home throughout their children’s childhoods and commit to caring for them personally?
Dr Coffey
I fully recognise that, too. What matters is that we should be allowing people to choose what they do. It is right to say that we should not condemn people who decide not to work in an external job and to focus their time on caring for their children at home.
The Minister referred to a number of cases where there has been concern about statistics being bandied about. Everyone in this House, however, would agree that one of the worst situations for a parent is when they need emergency child care, as occurs when teachers go on strike and parents are left trying to get time off work. It would be welcome if Labour Members condemned the decision of teaching unions to go on strike at irregular intervals, so that we can make sure that children are in school. The Minister referred to the fact that we are starting to remove red tape, so no longer will schools have to have a separate Ofsted registration when they cater for children under three years of age—that is to be welcomed. We are also dealing with aspects of planning and other requirements that restrict schools and deter them from facilitating child care provision outside the core school hours. It is important that we make it as straightforward as possible for existing school buildings to be used, be it by the school or not. I understand the wraparound guarantee to which the Opposition refer but, as has been pointed out, no extra funding is being provided for that—indeed, Opposition Members suggest that the funding has already been built into the formula grant.
One thing that does matter is having extra flexibility and choice. I also appreciate the commendation made by Ministers to ensure that schools do not just keep contracting their opening hours, as that, too, causes problems for parents trying to juggle work with getting their children to school. Some schools in my constituency have tried to do that and were still not listening after a consultation. Fortunately, however, when I sent them their communications from the Secretary of State, they realised that they should, of course, be considering the wider issues for working families. So I am glad that in the particular school I am thinking about the decision was reversed by the governing body.
Let me deal with other aspects of removing red tape or increasing the number of places. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) eloquently referred to the issue of childminder agencies, which will be introduced. That is a good innovation to allow more people to put themselves forward to offer child care, and that is very welcome. In addition, childminders who are rated “good” and “outstanding” will be able to be funded directly from Government, as opposed to the money being routed through the local council. That is a good step forward and, again, it removes the administration or other extra bureaucracy that stops government funding —we must remember that more than £5 billion is being spent by this Government on early years education and child care.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating North Yorkshire county council on its work? Not only has it managed to preserve the number of Sure Start children’s centres in my constituency, but I had the pleasure of opening one last year; we have actually increased the number of Sure Start centres.
Dr Coffey
I indeed join my hon. Friend in congratulating North Yorkshire county council and I will also give a boost to Suffolk’s council, as one Sure Start centre has opened in my constituency since the general election, and that is to be welcomed.
That takes me neatly on to the issue of Sure Start centres—or children’s centres, as they have become. A lot of figures are being bandied around about how many have closed. I have a regular correspondent on Twitter who assures me that the figure is now more than 700, whereas the Opposition tell us that it is more than 500. We have heard from the Minister today that fewer than 50 have closed. I will not pretend that I have had the time to go through all the different links and go into detail about the different numbers, but I am assured by what she has said at the Dispatch Box. Our Prime Minister said that he wanted to counter scaremongering, and we should not always get hung up about the buildings; it is about what matters for the child.
Dr Coffey
I was about to refer to my hon. Friend and I will do so before I give way to her. Early intervention grants are no longer ring-fenced; it is to be welcomed that we have local solutions to deal what is needed. I wish to commend three Members of Parliament, in particular, in this regard: the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field); my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who has done some extraordinary work—learning, to some extent, from the right hon. Gentleman—on how to help children in his constituency; and my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), whom I was going to praise because of her work with OxPIP—the Oxford Parent Infant Project—and other facilities.
Andrea Leadsom
Surely what really matters is what Sure Start centres are achieving for families. We are not looking enough at the achievements of the centres, the inroads they are making and the improvement in UNICEF’s assessment of the happiness of British children—that is going in the right direction. Instead, all we talk about is whether a centre has closed. That is surely not the right thing to be looking at.
Dr Coffey
I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes the point I was referring to. Whether we are talking about Sure Start centres, children’s centres or many other public sector services, we should not get hung up solely on bricks and mortar; we should be focused on the outcomes for children, as that is what really matters.
I also wish to praise another local scheme in my constituency, Home-Start, which also operates around the country. I am particularly impressed with what it is doing to try to reach people, many of whom are not going to children’s centres to access services. It is taking the service to people in their homes, and giving help without it being seen as being judgmental—instead, it is seen as friendly. These are the kinds of initiatives we should be supporting. We should be allowing local councils to use their discretion and initiative to focus on what works best in their area, rather than solely implementing an idea from Whitehall.
Opposition Members have said that their proposals will be funded through the bank levy—I appreciate that they are not talking about a bankers’ bonus measure, which may have been discussed earlier. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned that less tax is coming in. He might have noticed that some of our largest banks have not been making a profit. The obvious cause is the global recession, but the previous Administration allowed the financial disasters to emerge: they allowed RBS to grow without any particular controls; HBOS was forced together with Lloyds, and similar other things occurred; and we had the disasters at the Co-op which have been revealed in the past few works. The Opposition are trying to suggest that a recovery in financial services is bad and that we need to tax them and, indeed, the people who work in them, further to pay for more and more schemes; the bankers’ bonus tax seems to have been used 11 times to pay for various schemes that Labour Members cite. The reality is that money does not grow on trees—we all got taught that lesson when we were children—and we have to make every penny stretch. I am very proud that this Government have genuine ambitions for world-class child care. We know that at this moment in time the coverage is patchy and it is costing more than it should, but I am very supportive of the moves we are making to ensure that child care becomes a significant contributor to growth and to the growth of the family.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). Although I respect her immensely, I pretty much disagreed with most of what she said. I know from personal experience and from talking to mums and families in Newcastle just how vital good quality, affordable child care can be. Support with child care is particularly crucial to those mums who want to get on, stay in work and help lift their families out of poverty.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) made a powerful speech about the difficulties in which many families find themselves. A recent Asda survey reveals the startling picture that seven out of 10 mums said that they would be worse off if they went back to work because of the costs of child care. Any Government should take such a matter extremely seriously. Many families are caught in the poverty trap. Although they work all the hours they can, only one person can work because of the costs of child care. As a result they are struggling with the ever-rising cost of living, which is the reality for families up and down the country.
Fewer women are in work in this country compared with many of our leading competitor countries, so we need to take the matter seriously. At the same time, women are paying three times more than men to reduce the deficit, yet they earn less and own less than men.
I am not just talking about supporting parents with the costs of child care, it is also important to ensure that child care places exist. Children and families in Newcastle are disproportionately bearing the brunt of the Government’s cuts. The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) raised the issue of the Sure Start centres and how we should measure their outcomes and not just bemoan their closure. None the less, their gradual disappearance is a serious loss and blow to every community.
Andrea Leadsom
This is an incredibly important point about Sure Starts. I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Sure Start, and we have just done a year-long inquiry into best practice in Sure Starts. Our conclusion is that there is absolutely no wholesale closure of the centres. In fact, lots more are opening. The Sure Starts that exist are really focusing on outcomes and on getting in better services for families. I wish that Opposition Members would stop suggesting to families that the support they need in those early years is disappearing; it is just not. There is no evidence for that.
Catherine McKinnell
The Minister provided no clarity on the figures. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal said that she was unable to clarify the figures, but that she had been reassured by the Minister. I am less so. I would be pleased if the Minister provided some clarity now.
Elizabeth Truss
The figure of 500 to which the Opposition have been referring is the number of centres that were independent and that are now part of a network. They are still open to the public and providing services, but management efficiencies have been achieved. There have been 45 outright closures. I hope that I have made myself clear.
Catherine McKinnell
It is clear that the Government are using figures to manipulate the reality that is being reported by constituents up and down the country.
Let me get back to the situation in Newcastle. Last year, my local authority, in the light of unprecedented funding challenges, consulted on a three-year budget for the period 2013-16. When it began the process, it believed that, as a result of funding reductions from the Government and rising cost pressures from inflation, high energy prices and the costs of providing services to an ever-ageing population, it faced a funding shortfall of £90 million over three years. That figure rose during the consultation process to £100 million. Following further cuts announced in the autumn statement and the local government finance settlement, it is now facing cuts of £108 million. It has already announced the closure of Sure Start centres in my constituency—all of them—and because of the additional funding requirement and shortfall, it has now put all 20 Sure Start centres within the Newcastle city council area under review, so we do not know what their future will be.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is staggering that there is such a lack of understanding about the swingeing cuts that have been made to local government over the past few years and the fact that it will have an effect on essential services? It is wrong to pretend otherwise.
Catherine McKinnell
The Department for Education’s children’s centre database on the gov.uk website shows that there are 3,053 centres whereas the DFE website shows that there were 3,632 Sure Start centres in 2010. The number of Sure Start centres, in the form in which communities recognise and value them, is reducing and the Department’s figures show that. It would be an appalling situation if Sure Start was just about providing affordable child care—we know that the Government have a great challenge on their hands to meet their obligations in that regard—but it is not. Sure Start also provides vital support services to young children and families, who are some of the most vulnerable and hardest to reach in our communities, by providing parenting advice, breastfeeding support, affordable child care or just an opportunity for isolated and often vulnerable and frustrated new mothers and fathers to meet up with other people.
Another huge concern is the impact that Sure Start closures would have on the preventive early intervention work that stops children and families entering the child protection system. I know that the children’s Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), cares about this matter, and I would be grateful if, in his winding-up speech, he commented on the consideration the Government have given to that impact on our child protection system. At present, about 50% of the looked-after children in Newcastle are in the local authority’s care as a result of domestic violence in their home.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a very good case for children’s centres, with which I completely agree. Would she not acknowledge, however, that despite the changes that she is saying are so detrimental, more than 1 million people are now accessing the centres, as are two thirds of the most disadvantaged families with children under five—a record number?
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I am talking about the future, too, and putting on the record my concerns about further closures of Sure Start centres. I agree that it is positive that more families use them, but the worry is that they will disappear as the local authority cuts that have not even started yet have an impact. Both Under-Secretaries should be worried about the impact on their own figures and work.
The long-term costs of the closure of Sure Start centres must be considered in the wider context. I have seen first hand the work that my local Sure Start centres, which are already earmarked for closure, do with vulnerable women and men in cases of domestic violence. That work is vital if more children are not to be taken into care in future.
The holistic approach to supporting children and young families across the country developed under Labour is, in my view, under threat from the action taken by a Government who seem incredibly out of touch, who just do not get it and who just do not care. That will only result in higher costs in the long term for society and for public services at every level.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am changing the time limit for the last two speeches in order to start the wind-ups at 10 past 4. The time limit is now six minutes.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
For me, as for many people in the Chamber and up and down the country, child care is not an academic issue but something we grapple with every single day of the year, including today. I believe that child care is an area of public policy that, if we get it right, can transform the lives of millions and build a stronger economy. I think that so far I would have cross-party agreement.
I know that it is fashionable for some members of my party to apologise for things that Labour did in office, but we should make no apology whatsoever for what Labour did on child care. Our record is incredibly strong. Labour introduced the free entitlement to 15 hours a week of child care for every three and four-year-old in the country and Labour introduced Sure Start. When I was out on the doorsteps as a candidate before 2005, Sure Start was a policy that mothers were talking to me about. It is very rare that voters talk to us about policies by name. It was exciting, it was progressive and it has made a difference.
The three and four-year-olds coming through the system at the millennium are today 16 and 17, a generation of young people whose lives were enhanced under a Labour Government but are now blighted by the prospect of unemployment under the coalition Government. The latest evaluation of Sure Start, published by the Department for Education in June last year, showed many positive impacts of Sure Start on young children and their parents. The one I want to highlight is the greater improvement in life satisfaction among lone parents and workless households. We know that being unemployed is tough, and being a lone parent is one of the toughest things in the world. This programme demonstrably improved life satisfaction among those groups in our community. That is why we should be angry that Sure Start centres are closing or being watered down. Our blood should be boiling with indignation; mine certainly is.
We should nail the myth about Sure Start centres. Some may still be open, but what range of services are they providing? Many are no longer providing child care. Others have been subsumed into their sponsoring school.
Meg Hillier
I am sorry, I do not have time to take interventions.
The assault on Sure Start by this Government is surely their greatest act of vandalism—an assault on the future of the poorest and most vulnerable children and parents. We know that—
Meg Hillier
I regret not having the chance to debate, but I have three and a half minutes left—a very short time in what we thought would be a longer debate.
The “pile them high, teach them cheap” policy promoted by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) is another example of the Government’s attitude to child care. I want to focus on three areas—first, that child care is not a peripheral issue, a soft issue or even a women’s issue. Quality child care goes to the heart of our society, our economy and our country’s prosperity. No policy matters more. As we see, with a squeeze on living standards throughout the country, people are looking at costs. We see the challenges.
For example, research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the cost of necessities required to give a child a decent standard of living increased by 4% in the past year alone. A recent OECD report found that the UK has some of the most expensive child care in the world. I will not repeat the arguments that colleagues have made, but we know that a further 1.3 million women want to work more hours. If our employment rate for mothers moved up to the average of the world’s top five nations, 320,000 more women would have jobs, and crucially tax receipts would rise by £1.7 billion.
Secondly, we need to be bold. I urge those on my Front-Bench to be even bolder. We should be proud of our record, but in the past progress was sometimes slower than it should have been. It was sometimes piecemeal. I do not speak for my Front Bench, but I would like to see a child care Bill in the first Queen’s Speech, announcing our aim to move towards universal child care. The Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank has shown that a decent universal system of child care pays for itself in the long run. More parents working, paying taxes and not claiming tax credits and benefits more than pays for the state’s investment in child care. We know from Scandinavia that that increases women’s participation in the work force, so we need to be bold.
The third area that I have a brief moment to flag up, as I know we are running out of time, is the idea of sustainability and ownership. I am a proud co-operator, and there must be a greater role for co-op and mutual models when it comes to child care. Many of the original Sure Start centres were run by boards of parents. I worked among them as my own older children were growing up and saw the empowerment that that gave many of those women. These community assets should not be at the command of Ministers of any party. They remain under threat if Ministers do not care about child care. Parents know best. I would like to see more co-operative ownership, including childminding co-ops, rather than the agencies that the Government are promoting, which would cream off a profit and remove the parent relationship with their own childminder, which would be a great mistake.
In my final minute, I give way to the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom).
Andrea Leadsom
I just want to say that the hon. Lady is making a big mistake by turning child care into such a political issue. She knows as well as I do that Sure Start centres are doing brilliant work in our society. There is so much potential from the Sure Start movement. She should be proud that Labour introduced it and that this Government are building on it. Opposition Members should stop trying to frighten parents into thinking that it is all going pear-shaped.
Meg Hillier
But we know that services are being watered down. The great thing about Sure Start centres is that they were open to all and a range of services were provided. It was a one-stop shop. It will always be a challenge to decide what services should be provided when money is tight, but Sure Start was a great unifier, a great starting point, a great melting pot, a great mix. I am glad to hear from the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire that she is a champion of it on her Benches. It is a shame that the Government are not, and their funding cuts to local authorities are putting Sure Start under threat. I am not being partisan for the sake of it. Our record is strong, and parents and child carers in my constituency worry about their future under this Government.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) by agreeing with her about the cuts to Sure Start and the effect that that has had throughout the country. The Minister confirmed that the figures have fallen from 3,631 in 2010 to 3,053—a reduction of 578 in the number of Sure Start centres. That is the reality.
I take the Minister back to her evidence to the Education Committee in reply to a question from me on this subject. She did not deny that that was the situation. She claimed that, where the centres were still being used, they had moved to a hub and spoke model. We heard in evidence that sadly, far too often, instead of the delivery of the service, a part-time member of staff hands out leaflets, signposting parents to a service that may exist somewhere else. That is not the same thing as delivering the service that was there previously. That is what has happened with these closures. We have seen a drastic reduction in the quality of the service. When I asked about that in the Select Committee, the Minister ignored the point and moved on to something else. I have the transcript here if she wants to check what she said. She failed to give me an answer when I put that point to her. According to Government figures, 7,200 fewer staff work in Sure Start centres throughout the country. That has to mean a lower level and lower quality of service. I am sorry to say this, but that was the evidence given to the inquiry.
I am proud of our record on Sure Start. My son was three when he came to live with us, and we were fortunate in that the Sure Start centre where we used to live opened about a week before then. It was linked to a school, so there was a nursery, and he benefited from the brilliant staff working there. We as a family benefited from the support of Sure Start. Talking to other parents there and to parents who used other Sure Start facilities, it was clear that Sure Start transformed their lives and the lives of the children who benefited from those services. It made an enormous difference to their development and school readiness. That could be seen when looking at older children who had benefited from going through that system and the quality of child care and support for families that resulted from what the last Labour Government did. The Labour party is right to be proud of our record on Sure Start. I have confirmed that with the Sure Start centres in my constituency. Having children who are school ready makes all the difference. In the deprived areas that I serve in Crosby, children whose parents have benefited from Sure Start are school ready while others from the same estates are not. There is a marked difference in school readiness and the outcomes that schools can achieve for those children.
The Select Committee went to Denmark earlier this year and looked at the Danish experience. That is the quality of care to which we should aspire. We do not spend as much as they do in Denmark or in a number of other countries, particularly those in Scandinavia, and that explains the difference. The Minister shakes her head, but her Department has produced a report, which was evidenced in the Select Committee, in which a thorough analysis of the figures showed that spending levels here are not on a par with those in Denmark, and that explains the difference overall.
Meg Hillier
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is real muddle from the Government about exactly what they do spend? They come up with different figures depending which Minister is asked at which time of year or day. Do we not need some clarity on this in order to inform the debate?
Bill Esterson
Absolutely. The Government should look at their own officials’ reports, as I was just saying in relation to the OECD comparisons.
The Government quite rightly want more women in the work force as a long-term driver of growth. In Denmark, 84% of working-age women are in work, whereas in the UK the figure is only 67.1%—we are rated 16th in the OECD in that regard. Denmark has wraparound care from 8 am to 5 pm, and from six months all the way up to age 10, and the maximum contribution an individual can make is 25%. There are highly qualified and well-trained professionals, mostly educated to relevant degree level, working in its child care settings. It is that massive level of support from the public purse that enables so many more women to go to work. They have a choice, of course, but many of them choose to take that opportunity. As a result, the system is supported by parents, politicians and the Danish equivalent of the CBI, so business likes that system.
My hon. Friends on the Front Bench are right to propose moving in that direction in the motion on the Order Paper, with wraparound care from 8 am to 6 pm. We certainly need to increase the number of hours in nurseries, so 25 hours is a great step in the right direction. We certainly need to follow the Danish system, and I hope that Members will support the motion.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the many colleagues across the House, especially so many male colleagues, who have spoken in this important debate. This is my first outing at the Dispatch Box, and I am absolutely delighted to be winding up on an issue of such importance to so many families across the country.
Labour has a proud record on child care. It was the Labour Government who put child care on the political map and oversaw a revolution in child care provision. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) gave a passionate account of our record. Ensuring that we have good, affordable and flexible child care is critical not only for families facing a cost of living crisis, but for the economy as a whole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) rightly said.
Unfortunately, things are going backwards under this Government. They are presiding over a child care crunch and failing to support families in work. Under this Government we have seen a child care triple whammy of rising costs, falling places and cuts in support to help parents. Since 2010 the number of child care places has fallen by over 35,000, including 2,423 fewer childminders on the Minister’s watch, all at a time when a rising birth rate is putting greater demand on the system. The failure to supply enough places is impacting on costs for families. The problem of insufficient child care supply is hurting the economy and making balancing work and family life a nightmare for parents.
Many Members have spoken about cuts to their local Sure Start centre. The Government’s own figures show that there are now 578 fewer centres than there were in 2010. That figure is calculated from the Government’s own publicly available records, and I must say that it resonates much more with what we hear is happening on the ground. Let us take the Prime Minister’s back yard as an example. Of the 44 centres in Oxfordshire, 37 are due to close. He once famously said that he would back Sure Start, but for many in his constituency that is yet another broken promise.
I agree with the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—I have a great deal of respect for her and for the work she has done on early intervention—that the issue is not just about the fabric of the buildings; it is also about capacity. I wonder whether Ministers can tell us what progress is being made in increasing the number of health visitors by 4,200 by 2015, which is critical in delivering the Sure Start model.
The crisis in places is leading to price hikes that are making it increasingly unsustainable for parents to make ends meet, as the very powerful account from my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) made clear.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
Is the hon. Lady aware that Naomi Eisenstadt, who can be regarded as the mother of Sure Start, told the Education Committee that there were too many Sure Start centres and that phase 3 was spreading them far too thinly?
Lucy Powell
I was not aware of her comments, but I completely disagree. As hon. Members have said, this is a very popular service that people raise with us on the doorstep, unlike many other Government policies.
Lucy Powell
I will plough on and give way later.
Under this Government, average weekly part-time nursery costs have increased by 30%. Put another way, child care costs have risen five times faster than wages. In the past year alone, they have risen at more than double the rate of inflation. It is typical of the Government to pretend that things are going well when the reality is that many parents are finding it an incredible struggle to find and afford the child care they need. On top of the crisis in places and hikes in costs, parents have also seen their support fall. Families with two children have experienced a reduction of about £1,500 a year in tax credits, hitting low-income families the hardest. At the time of the 2010 spending review, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned the Government that cuts to child care support would have a negative impact, saying that they would
“affect the hours worked and participation in the labour market”.
Yet the Government have taken no notice and parents face an increasingly difficult child care crunch.
Lucy Powell
I am going to make some progress.
Let me turn to the Government’s response. They may have deleted reference to it from their website, but the Prime Minister once promised that they would be
“the most family-friendly Government…ever”.
Yet they have wasted three years doing very little. The Minister’s flagship agenda on ratios has been abandoned; the nursery offer for disadvantaged two-year-olds is being met with delivery problems; and their tax break scheme is too little, too late and benefits the richest the most. On child care ratios, the Deputy Prime Minister agreed with us that changing ratios could even increase prices. He said that the evidence was “overwhelmingly against” changing the rules on ratios, and went on to say:
“I cannot ask parents to accept such a controversial change with no real guarantee it will save them money—in fact it could cost them more.”
While we welcome extra support for disadvantaged two-year-olds, one in three councils tell us that they do not have enough places to meet this policy.
Childminder agencies are up in the air, with no clarity about how they will work or what they will do. The Minister is running 20 pilots across the country. So far, we know that at least two of those pilots will charge, although we do not know who will bear the cost. Will Ministers give us a guarantee that childminder agencies will not push up prices for parents?
The Government’s tax-free child care policy is too little, too late for parents. The extra investment in child care the Government are promising is dwarfed by the £7 billion a year of cuts they have already made for families with children. The scheme does not start until 2015, and it excludes families with children over the age of five. It benefits families earning up to £300,000 a year, helping the richest the most while leaving low and middle-income families struggling to make work pay, particularly for second earners. This policy will do nothing about costs.
By contrast, Labour has a plan to tackle the child care crunch. Our policies will make a real difference to mums and dads, get our economy moving, and help parents to tackle the logistical nightmare they face. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) rightly pointed out, seven out of 10 mums said they would work were it not for the high costs of child care. Expensive child care is acting as a drag on our economy. If our employment rate for mothers moved up to the average of the world’s top five nations, 320,000 more women would have jobs and tax receipts would rise by £1.7 billion a year. The Government gloat about their record, but most of the jobs they have created for mothers returning to work are part-time, low-paid jobs. Over 1 million of those people want to return to full-time work, but the full-time jobs do not exist.
Labour Members take the child care crunch seriously; we are not as complacent as Government Members. We would expand free child care for three and four-year-olds from 15 to 25 hours per week for working parents. That is worth over £1,500 a year. This is a fully costed Labour commitment. We would pay for this policy by ensuring that the banks pay their fair share, increasing the bank levy to an extra £800 million a year.
For school-aged children, many parents increasingly struggle to find decent before and after-school child care. The Government abandoned our extended schools programme. We will set down in law a guarantee that parents can access wraparound child care through their local school if they want it. This will stimulate innovation and collaboration to meet the logistical nightmare described by Members today.
Child care is at the heart of the cost of living crisis for many families. While parents cry out for action from this Government, all we have seen is in-fighting and prevarication while costs have soared and provision fallen. Our offer of 25 hours free child care for working parents of three and four-year-olds will make a real difference to families struggling to make ends meet. I hope colleagues on both sides of the House will support our motion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
This has been a valuable debate that has brought into sharp focus the importance of the cost and availability of child care to so many parents across the country. I have listened with interest to the contributions made by Members on both sides of the House.
I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) on the recent addition to his family. If he decides to expand it in the future, he will, of course, benefit from the provision for new flexible parental leave in our Children and Families Bill, which will come back before the House before too long. He spoke about the importance of high-quality, affordable child care, which is a baseline on which I think everyone who has taken part in the debate can form a consensus.
My parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), told us how her family had benefited from a range of choice and flexibility with regard to child care, and about the importance of promoting strong family life and the role that childminder agencies could play in increasing both supply and choice.
The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) explained how child care can be a way out of poverty. I completely agree with him. That is why we have extended early-education funding to 260,000 two-year-olds from the lowest-income households. He may be pleased to hear that in Cumbria 805 children have already benefited directly from that policy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) made an excellent contribution. She reminded us that more women are working than ever before in this country and said how improving flexible access to quality child care will help push that figure even higher.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) started by saying that she disagreed with almost everything my hon. Friend said. I listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s speech and I, in turn, disagreed with almost everything she said, save for her very thoughtful consideration of children who are on the edge of, or who have fallen into, care and how child care may help support them. I would be very happy to discuss that with the hon. Lady outside this debate.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) explained the wider benefits to society of good-quality, accessible child care, and the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) told us about the Danish model that was considered recently as part of the inquiry held by his Select Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is a champion for Sure Start children centres, also made a good contribution. I have read the report produced by the all-party group of which she and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) are members. It is an excellent analysis of the current state of affairs and well worth reading, and I recommend it to the Opposition’s Front Benchers.
My hon. Friends the Members for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) also contributed to the debate.
There is not doubt that child care costs have been a real problem for many families for too long. To be frank, that should not surprise us when figures from the Family and Childcare Trust show that between 2002 and 2010, child care costs increased by just under 50%. That is why the Government have been quick to act and taken a number of significant steps to reduce parents’ child care bills and support those who want to work.
In September 2010, we increased the free entitlement for all three and four-year-olds to 15 hours per week—the equivalent of 570 hours per year—and 96% of children are now getting at least part of their free place. From September 2014, that will be extended to about 260,000 two-year-olds, many of them from the working households on low incomes for whom the costs of child care are such a burden.
As universal credit is introduced, parents working less than 16 hours per week will, for the first time, be able to get up to 70% of their child care costs paid. That will rise to 85% when both parents work enough to pay income tax, a point which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. From autumn 2015, we will begin to phase in tax-free child care, which will give 2.5 million working families up to £1,200 per year per child.
Taken together, that means that for three-year-olds in nursery for 40 hours a week, the state will pay for half of the hours for children whose parents claim tax-free child care, and more than 80% of the hours—four days out of five—for children whose parents claim universal credit. It also means that the Government spend on early education and child care will rise by more than £1 billion from less than £5 billion in 2010 to more than £6 billion by 2015-16.
We on the Government Benches know that simply providing ever-more funding will not, on its own, halt the long-term increase in child care costs, or provide the child care places that we need for the future. That can come only through growth in the market and improved competition.
Contrary to the view expressed by Opposition Front Benchers, there is no shortage of child care places. Some Opposition Members read from their brief a claim that the closure of Sure Start children’s centres means that child care places have been lost. However, as the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) made clear several times, the Opposition’s rumours about the demise of children’s centres are very premature.
In fact, those centres are thriving, with a record number of more than 1 million parents and children using their services. Although they continue to provide such valuable services, it is important to remember that they provide only 1% of child care, as opposed to schools, which provide about 30% of it. In fact, the total number of child care settings rose from 87,900 in 2010 to 90,000 in 2011, which is a 2.4% overall increase.
Bill Esterson
Will the Minister tell me whether we imagined or made up the evidence given to the Education Committee inquiry on Sure Start about many centres just being used by part-time staff to hand out leaflets, because that is what the record shows? Is that not what is happening? Is that not the reality in the country?
Mr Timpson
The hon. Gentleman had the benefit of listening to that evidence. It would be strange for me to suggest that he did not listen to evidence that I did not listen to, so he has asked a slightly bizarre question. The bottom line is simply this: are we ensuring that money, support, training and a quality work force are available to parents who require child care? We are providing £2.5 billion for early intervention, which is up from £2.3 billion, and we are making sure that the money we put in equates to 2 million early-years places, including the 800,000 in maintained schools—the Opposition forgot to mention them in their rushed-out press release earlier this week—which is a 5% increase on 2009.
Local authorities report that there are already 180,000 places for two-year-olds across the country, which is more than sufficient for all eligible two-year-olds whose parents want to take up the offer. Just one month into the new entitlement, 92,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds are already receiving their 15 hours a week of early education, which is more than four times the number receiving funded places in 2010. I hope that hon. Members on all sides recognise that that is a significant achievement not for us in this House, but for the children on whose lives there will be a positive impact.
We should, however, be acutely aware that more high-quality places are needed. Demographic changes, the expansion of the two-year-old entitlement, continued economic recovery and welfare reform will all increase demand for child care. That is why we are acting to create the right conditions for that to happen in every part of the market.
The evidence is clear that the quality of settings is determined above all by the quality of the work force. In “More Great Childcare”, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary signalled our intention to create a step change in the quality of recruits coming into early-years education, and many of the report’s proposals are already in place.
The signs are promising both in relation to the cost of provision and maternal employment. One authoritative industry report published in September found that 2012-13 was the second successive year in which the price of full-day care in nurseries had been flat in real terms.
There are positive indications that the package of reforms that this Government have put into place, and which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has done so much to champion, are starting to have the desired impact of encouraging growth in every part of the child care market; placing a better trained and higher quality work force at the heart of child care provision; creating genuine choice for parents; and ensuring that, for hard-pressed parents, work really does pay. I encourage Members to vote against the motion.
Question put.
Women and the Cost of Living
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 229 / Noes: 284 - Question accordingly negatived.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the Government is failing to deliver a recovery for women and is making women pay three times more than men to bring down the deficit, according to research by the House of Commons Library; notes that under this Government, women’s unemployment has reached its highest levels for a generation; further notes that wages are stagnating in jobs where women are predominant; and calls on the Government to support more women into decent work by extending free nursery places for 3 and 4 year olds from 15 to 25 hours a week for parents at work, provide a legal guarantee for 8am-6pm breakfast and afterschool club childcare, and bring in Make Work Pay contracts to provide a 12 months tax rebate for firms which sign up to pay the living wage.
The test of a successful economy is whether it improves the living standards of ordinary people: families and businesses who want to work hard and to get on. Today, official figures say that working people are on average £1,600 per year worse off than they were at the election. On this Government’s watch, we have seen the biggest fall in workers’ incomes in any G7 country. Families across the country are hurting and it is women who are on the front line of this cost of living crisis. More often than not, it is women who are left trying to make the family budget stretch that little bit further: when the weekly shop costs more each month, but the amount in the purse stays the same; when in the past three years the cost of keeping the kids in nursery has risen five times faster than wages; and when heating bills are 10% more expensive than they were last year. Women understand what it means for prices to rise faster than wages for 40 out of the past 41 months.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady welcome the fact that there are more women in work than ever before?
Gloria De Piero
There have never been more women saying that they are working part time and cannot get the hours to work full time. The female employment rate is lower than it was under Labour before the crash.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are more women than ever before on low wages, more women than ever before who cannot get jobs, and more women than ever before who have to deal with the high cost of living?
Gloria De Piero
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will discuss some of the measures that a Labour Government would introduce.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend refers to the challenges that women face when budgeting. Does she share my concern that the comments made by the Education Secretary just a few weeks ago—that people who had to go to a food bank were not managing their finances—were an affront to many women?
Gloria De Piero
Those comments were absolutely offensive. I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting them, and for asking the question that exposed the reality of the Government’s position.
Women feel it when their Sure Start centres are cut and the cost of child care continues to rise. They understand that the Government are not doing enough to help them, and they could teach David Cameron a thing or two about tough decisions. The other week I met a different Chipping Norton set: Lisa, Amanda, Toni and Laetitia. Lisa told me that, as a new mum caring for a young child and a husband with cancer, the children’s centre in the Prime Minister’s constituency saved her from having a breakdown. That Sure Start centre is now threatened with closure. Sheila, in my constituency, is in her 80s. She is a widow living alone in Sutton-in-Ashfield, and is worried about how she is going to keep warm this winter. To do so, she has to spend the day at her son’s house. Half of mums surveyed by Netmums said that to save money they turn off the heating when their children are out. This is their Britain.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The hon. Lady is making a compelling case about how the Government’s misguided austerity programme is leading to social devastation and is economically illiterate. Does she agree that cutting public services hits women with a triple whammy—as the group most dependent on public services, as employees of public service and as the ones who have to fill the gap when public services go?
Gloria De Piero
It is absolutely right that women are hit three times as hard, and I will explain later how that has happened.
Half of mums surveyed by Netmums said that to save money they turned off the heating when their children were out. The Government talk about recovery, but these women know it is definitely not a recovery for women. Under this Government, unemployment among women has reached its highest levels in a generation, long-term female unemployment has increased eight times as fast as for men, the number of older women unemployed has increased by more than a third, and black and minority ethnic women are twice as likely to be unemployed as the national average.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the 242% increase in unemployment among women over 25 in Oldham over the past couple of years is a real indictment of the Government and their policies?
Gloria De Piero
That is absolutely right. That is why it is important to tackle long-term unemployment, and that is exactly what a Labour Government would do.
When women do manage to find work, more often than not it is part time, low-wage or temporary. The number of women working in temporary jobs increased twice as fast as the number of men. Three times more young women are in low-wage jobs than 20 years ago, and the number of women in part-time work is at its highest level ever.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that for women working in jobs not equal to their capabilities and not getting the hours and experience they need and deserve, it will have a longer-term impact on their prospects in the workplace and their income over their lifetime?
Gloria De Piero
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I vividly remember one lady—a mum in her 40s—coming into my office just before a Morrisons opened in my constituency. She was in tears because when Morrisons announced it was recruiting, she kept calling but the number was constantly engaged.
The Fawcett Society has done some important work warning that women are in danger of losing their precarious footing in the work force.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has already mentioned the problems for women over 50. Does she appreciate that for all women, but especially those over 50, unemployment has a huge impact on their capacity to retire and save for retirement? We are not just saying to women, “You’re not going to earn now”; we are blighting their lives with poverty into old age and with the need to apply for benefits in old age. If they were working now, they could save for their old age.
Gloria De Piero
My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point.
What is the Government’s response? It is to hit women harder. Of the £14.4 billion George Osborne has raised through direct taxation and benefit changes, about £11.4 billion—79%—is coming from women. David Cameron is asking women to pay more than three times as much as men to bring down the deficit, despite the fact that women still earn and own less than men. Scratch the surface, and we see that some of the most vulnerable women are being hit.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) progresses, I gently remind her that one does not refer to Members of the House by their names. The Prime Minister is “the Prime Minister” and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is “the Chancellor of the Exchequer”.
Lisa Nandy
Will my hon. Friend also highlight the impact of the cuts on the voluntary sector and therefore on women who use those services? The charity Women’s Aid said yesterday that domestic violence refuges had had to turn away 180 women a day, many of whom were going back to violent relationships. The impact on those women and their children will surely be immense.
Gloria De Piero
That is an extremely powerful point. If as much has been cut from local government finance as this Government have cut, it shows the reality of what we see. If we scratch the surface, we see that some of the most vulnerable women have been the hardest hit. Low-paid new mums lost nearly £3,000-worth of support during pregnancy and in their baby’s first year. Couples with children lost 9.7% of their disposable income and single mothers lost the most—15.6%. The Prime Minister just does not get it. Why would he, when only four out of the 22 in his Cabinet are women? When it comes to women, it is out of sight and out of mind from this out-of-touch Prime Minister.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Is the hon. Lady as delighted as I am that this Government have introduced shared parental leave and time off for dads to support their wives? Does she agree with me that what this Government are doing to support the early years is absolutely commendable and that all parties should get behind it?
Gloria De Piero
We in government extended maternity leave and introduced paternity leave.
The Government are turning back the clock on women’s equality. Progress on the wage gap has stalled, and women’s financial independence is being undermined. Let us look at the Government’s proposal for a married couple’s tax allowance. It is less than £4 and it will not benefit most married couples. For five out of six couples, it will represent a transfer from the purse to the wallet. It is money to the married man on his third wife, while the single mum, left behind to bring up the kids, will not get anything at all. This Government are taking a lot away from the purse to put a little bit back in the wallet.
This matters not simply for women’s lives and women’s equality, given that increasing women’s employment helped the last Labour Government to lift more than a million children out of poverty. All this progress is now at risk, and progress on child poverty has stalled. I look at my own constituency and see that use of food banks has gone through the roof.
Gloria De Piero
I would like to make some progress, if I may.
One food bank, provided by the Eastwood volunteer bureau, is reporting a 400% increase in use, but it is not only former coalmining areas such as mine that are struggling; this is happening up and down the country. Only yesterday, in reading the Witney Gazette, I learned that another food bank was opening in the town of Carterton, just a few miles from where the Prime Minister lives. The Tory mayor of Carterton recognised the problem straight away—utility bills had gone up and the cost of food had continued to rise.
Mrs Moon
I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend’s powerful speech again. On Friday evening, a lady who works in a food bank in my constituency told me that people were turning down rice and pasta on the grounds that they could not afford the amount of fuel needed to cook it. Are we not in a dreadful position when people are turning away food that they cannot even afford to cook?
Gloria De Piero
That provides extraordinary evidence of why freezing energy bills is so important.
Netmums found that one in five mums are regularly missing meals so that their kids can eat. One mum said:
“If it’s a choice between me or the kids eating, I will feed them. I have lost so much weight my clothes don’t fit but I can’t afford to buy any more.”
This is Tory Britain.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, and we should all be concerned about the issues she raises, but will she reflect on the fact that it was the last Labour Government who piled the green levies on our energy bills, which are now hitting women harder than men?
Gloria De Piero
Energy bills have gone up and continue to go up dramatically—not because of green levies, but because of over-charging by the energy companies. That is why we will get tough on those energy companies, introduce a regulator with teeth and freeze energy bills until we sort the market out for good.
The cost of child care has risen by 30% since the election —five times faster than pay. A mum working part time on an average wage has to work from Monday to Thursday before she has paid off the weekly child care bill.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Does not the impact on women come from the cost of having to look after not only young children, but their elderly parents? Is my hon. Friend aware of the Scottish Widows survey showing that, as a result, nearly 40% of women are not making provision for their retirement?
Gloria De Piero
I thank my hon. Friend for drawing attention to that survey. I shall make sure that I look into its findings.
Many families must decide not when mum will go back to work after maternity leave, but whether it makes financial sense for her to do so at all. According to a survey by Asda, 70% of stay-at-home mums said that in the current climate they would be worse off if they worked, because of the cost of child care. The Government’s response has been to take £7 billion away from families with children, and to remove the ring fence from Sure Start, breakfast clubs and after-school clubs.
The day before the election, the Prime Minister looked down the barrel of a camera and told women throughout the country that he backed Sure Start. Let me repeat his words in full.
“Yes, we back Sure Start. It’s a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this. He’s the Prime Minister of this country but he’s been scaring people about something that really matters.”
What about the Deputy Prime Minister? What did he say on the day before the election?
“Sure Start is one of the best things the last government has done and I want all these centres to stay open.”
Gloria De Piero
The hon. Lady has already intervened, and I want to allow others to speak.
Since the election there are 578 fewer Sure Start centres and 35,000 fewer child care places, and the number of breakfast and after-school clubs has been cut in more than a third of local authority areas. As for the women who have found work, it is the sort of work that leaves many families struggling to pay the bills. A record number of women are in part-time, temporary and low-wage jobs. One in four earns less than the living wage, as opposed to one in six men. The Government are wasting women’s talent, and costing the economy too. Where is their commitment to make work pay? On our first day in office, the next Labour Government will offer employers throughout Britain a “make work pay” contract to help them to pay the living wage.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the number of women in the care sector who are on zero-hours contracts? The Government have told me that it is 300,000. Is my hon. Friend concerned about all those women with insecure levels of income?
Gloria De Piero
Absolutely. That is why we have pledged to tackle the abuse of zero-hours contracts. Flouting of the minimum wage is also a particular problem in the care sector.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I congratulate her on it.
A high proportion of children who live in poverty in my constituency have unemployed parents, and a high proportion have only one parent. The cheapest full-time nursery place costs more than £160 a week; it takes the vast majority of a weekly minimum wage to pay for that alone, before paying rent. This is the Britain that the Government have given us.
Gloria De Piero
I have nothing to add to what my hon. Friend has said. She has put it perfectly.
The next Labour Government will offer a simple deal to employers: 32p off tax on every pound that they spend on paying workers the living wage during our first year in office. Tackling the cost-of-living crisis means taking action to increase wages and keep the benefit bill down.
Gloria De Piero
I am nearing the end of my speech, so I will continue.
Something is broken when women are being forced to take two or three jobs in order to afford the basics for their families, and are being forced to take out payday loans just to make ends meet until the end of the month. We know that payday lenders target young women with their advertisements, and that the number of women declared insolvent is expected to overtake the number of men in that position for the first time. We need tough action to end the misery of so many women who are facing insurmountable debt. The next Labour Government will cap the total cost of credit. We will place a levy on the profits of payday lenders to double the public money available for low-cost alternatives for families, such as credit unions, and we will ban them from targeting kids with their advertisements.
All that we get from this Tory-led Government is complacency, and sometimes contempt, as I discovered this morning when I read in the newspapers that 42 Conservative Members of Parliament are members of the Free Enterprise Group, which advocates VAT on children’s clothes and on food. Was this some fringe group, I wondered? No. A Treasury Minister is a member, as is the child care Minister, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This is a group that recommends putting VAT on children’s clothes and shoes, baby food, car seats and prescriptions, raising the weekly shop by over £8.
We need a Government who will take on the vested interests, who will stand up to the big six energy companies, reforming the market and freezing prices until 2017; a Government who are prepared to take on the payday lenders, and who will cut taxes for 24 million working people with a lower 10p starting rate of tax; a Government who will cut business rates for small firms; a Government who will provide 25 hours of free child care for working parents of three and four-year-olds and a legal guarantee for every primary school in the country to provide breakfast clubs and after-school clubs, and introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee to bring down the number of women in long-term unemployment: a one nation Britain that values women’s talents, that supports mums back to work, that tackles the pay gap—a Britain where women play their full part. That is Labour’s Britain.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Nicky Morgan)
It is a privilege to speak in this debate. My favourite quote is from the UK’s first female Prime Minister:
“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”
I am not sure whether today’s debate is a landmark because all the opening and closing speeches will be made by women Ministers and shadow Ministers, but I would hope that we could make it a bit different by having a proper discussion rather than just talking at each other.
The Government recognise that both women and men up and down the country have been through a difficult economic period because our economy has been through, and is now recovering from, the most damaging financial crisis in a generation.
Seema Malhotra
Does the hon. Lady agree, however, that women have been hit three times as much as men by the Government’s deficit reduction steps?
Nicky Morgan
I am afraid that I cannot agree with the hon. Lady. I will come on to talk a little bit more about this, but the difficulty with the Opposition’s figures is that they assume that income is not shared throughout a household but that it is held on to by one parent in a two-parent household. The Labour figures also do not take into account self-employment, the correct inflation figures and any benefits or tax cuts. Therefore, the figure that was stated of £1,600 does not actually stack up at all.
Nicky Morgan
I am going to carry on for now.
As I said, we are now recovering from the most damaging financial crisis in a generation. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) did not mention that financial crisis at all, but it was overseen by the Labour party—although I appreciate that she was not a Member of this House at that time. It was overseen by the last Government, who built a decade of growth on unsustainable debt. When our country is trying to overturn the largest deficit since the second world war at the same time as our largest trading partner, the EU, has been in recession, it is unfortunately highly likely that women and men will feel the pinch.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that in her view of the world the last Labour Government must have had tremendous power as they apparently brought about a financial crash not just in Britain but across the world? The situation would not have been any different whichever party was in government—and we must remember that the current Government do not want to regulate anything any more and said we regulated too much.
Nicky Morgan
That intervention shows the extent of the collective amnesia on the Opposition Benches. First, on the banking crisis the point is that the necessary reserves to deal with the unforeseen consequences were not set aside. Secondly, the last Government systematically over many years spent more than they were raising in taxes, so there were not the reserves to deal with this.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm two facts: first, that SME investment in Britain has fallen by £30 billion since 2011, and, secondly, that the Government are accruing more debt in the five years from 2010 to 2015 than the Labour Government did in 13 years?
Nicky Morgan
I do not agree on either point. The point about the borrowing is that it is called the automatic stabiliser, and it works. When the economy is in the situation it is in, it is helping out the very families the hon. Member for Ashfield was talking about.
George Hollingbery
The shadow Minister was intent on not taking an intervention from me earlier. Would my hon. Friend the Minister acknowledge that the Government have looked at how households work, and at how income comes into them, and recognised that there is a real cliff edge at 16 hours of work? That means that incomes drop away at that point, and that for every pound earned, 95p is taken away in reduced benefits. We are introducing a fundamental change that will alter the position of women and allow them to take on full-time work. That is something that Labour failed to deal with in the entire 13 years it was in government.
Nicky Morgan
I could not believe that the hon. Member for Ashfield did not want to hear from my hon. Friend, but, having heard his excellent intervention, I now understand why she did not do so.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it was unfortunate that the shadow Minister did not mention council tax? It is a major contributor to the cost of living but, due to the actions of this Government, it has fallen by 9.5% since 2010, having doubled during the time her party was in office.
Nicky Morgan
The shadow Minister also failed to mention fuel duty and the cut in income tax but, strangely enough, I am going to talk about those things in my speech.
This Government know full well that the best way for us to raise the living standards of both women and men in this country, and the best way to put money back into the pockets of hard-working people, is to create an environment in which our economy can grow and in which everyone can feel the benefit. That is exactly what we have spent the past three years doing: reducing the deficit, improving our tax system, investing in our skills and infrastructure and ensuring that all schools are good schools.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister brushed aside the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) about the impact of the Government’s changes on women’s pockets and purses, offering instead a presumption that households share their incomes equally. Has she actually read the research into domestic violence and financial control? Does she really think that a simple transfer is made between men and women in every household in this country? Does she think that our concerns about the direct impact of Government policy on women’s purses are not well founded?
Nicky Morgan
I would never want to downplay the effects of domestic violence. Sadly, I see cases in my constituency surgery on a regular basis, as we all do. The point is, however, that that is not happening in every household. Similarly, not every household is made up of two parents or just one parent; there are all sorts of different families. That is what this Government recognise: the situation is not uniform.
Thanks to the changes that we have made, and thanks, most importantly, to the hard work of women and men across the UK, our economy is turning a corner. The UK is now on the path to prosperity. The deficit is down by a third, gross domestic product is rising, and more people—including women—are in work than ever before. The more men and women who are taking home wages at the end of the month—especially when 25 million people’s wages are being boosted by our increase in the tax-free personal allowance—the higher will be the standard of living that we can expect to see in households across the country.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Chartered Management Institute confirmed today that the bonuses paid to men are double the size of those paid to women doing the same job. Would the Minister consider closing the loophole in the law to ensure that ladies get the same pay and bonuses as men when they are doing the same job equally well?
Nicky Morgan
Actually, we have had equal pay for 40 years. I shall talk in a moment about the pay gap having narrowed. Men and women should of course be paid the same amount for doing the same job. The Government have introduced a provision that, if a successful pay claim is brought, an automatic audit is triggered of the pay structure of the employer who has been caught falling foul of the law. That is something that the hon. Gentleman should welcome.
Nicky Morgan
I want to make a little progress, but I will give way to the hon. Lady in a bit.
The Opposition have thrown a barrage of statistics on female employment at us across the Dispatch Box this afternoon. I should like your permission to throw just one back, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I have said, there are now more women in work than ever before. If I am allowed one more, I shall tell the House that there are nearly 450,000 more women in employment since the Government came to power, and nearly 300,000 fewer economically inactive women. We should be celebrating the fact that there are now so many women in the labour market. Not only are there more women in the workplace, but the pay gap is shrinking, having fallen by nearly 1% last year. It now sits at just 9.6%.
Alison McGovern
Will the Minister answer a question that the Prime Minister could not answer last week? She has said that more women are in work now than ever before, but how many of them are on zero-hours contracts?
Nicky Morgan
I recall that the Prime Minister is going to write to the hon. Lady with that information, so I shall have to wait to see the letter. On the point about zero-hours contracts, first, the Government have announced that they are launching a review on the issue, and secondly, she ought to be looking at the number of Labour councils that employ people on those contracts first.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
My hon. Friend will appreciate, as a Treasury Minister, that the fact that more women are in work than ever before will also help the Exchequer’s revenues. In the last full tax year, men paid more than £90 billion in income tax whereas women paid only £36 billion, so she can see how helping more women work up the income scale really helps the revenues.
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend is, of course, right, but we also need to consider the wider argument: it is good for women to have the choice about whether working is the right thing for them to do given their family circumstances and any other responsibilities they may have. We want to make it as easy as possible for women to work, and I will come on to discuss child care.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
I am sure that the Minister will agree that half the population are women and the vast majority of them are successful and contributing, not victims, as the Labour party would have us believe. Does she agree that local businesses employing only a small number of people will benefit from more deregulation, which would enable them to offer jobs to even more women, which they can fit in with having children at school?
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend rightly says that 50% of the population are female—it would be nice if we saw a few more women in the House of Commons to represent that, but all parties are working on it. She is also right about deregulation. I am sure that she welcomes, as I do, the National Insurance Contributions Bill, which the Exchequer Secretary is taking through the Public Bill Committee at the moment. It will give all small businesses a £2,000 employment allowance so that they can recruit more people.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Is it not concerning that more and more women are being sacked while they are pregnant because they are pregnant, yet this Government are making it harder for those women to challenge rogue employers and to take cases to employment tribunals?
Nicky Morgan
I, like all other hon. Members, would be concerned if any constituent came to me to say that they had been sacked as a result of being pregnant. I would support someone in that position. The research that we have is from 2005. The hon. Lady may have more up-to-date figures, and we are launching a new consultation to look into the rate and scale of the things she has mentioned.
Lilian Greenwood
How many women who potentially face maternity discrimination at work will not be able to take their claim to a tribunal because they are being asked to pay £1,200 just to launch a claim for maternity discrimination?
Nicky Morgan
I am sorry that the hon. Lady, whom I regard as a good neighbourly MP in so many ways, is scaremongering. People have to pay the fee only if they actually go to a tribunal, and there are many stages before that in an employment claim.
Let me talk about women and the workplace. As I said, we want to see not only more women in the workplace, but more women rising to the top of their workplaces. I am delighted that the Minister for Women and Equalities is on the Benches today, as she has been doing so much work to promote women in the workplace. I was also delighted to see Fiona Woolf, the second ever female Lord Mayor of London, coming into post earlier this month. I am sure that she will be an excellent role model for women in the City of London. But we need to do what we can to help more women to reach these senior positions and play an even more prominent role in our recovery. As many hon. Members will know, last month we published a Government action plan specifically designed to help women start out, get on and stay on in our workplaces by taking steps on things such as training, skills and flexible working.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
There is no doubt that we have been through a very difficult time, and that will have affected both sexes—men and women alike. Is not growth the best way out of a lot of these problems? Is it not irresponsible of a Government not to tackle the problems they are presented with, leaving them to be tackled by our children and our grandchildren?
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend is, of course, right about that. The best way to address living standards is by dealing with the economic crisis, so that families can find work in a growing economy. He is absolutely right to say that it is not fair to burden future generations with debt, which is why this Government have taken the tough actions they have.
I shall now discuss child care. For any mothers and fathers to succeed in the workplace, we need to have the right policy in place to support them. The Labour party is right to draw attention to the importance of parental leave and child care, but let me remind the Opposition that we were the Government who recognised the current system of leave and pay for parents as being not only old-fashioned and inflexible, but as playing a role in reinforcing the idea that women are the primary carers of children. Our new system will give real choice to families, and, from 2015, will allow working parents to share leave once the mother feels ready to end her maternity leave.
I remind the Opposition that we were the party that made sweeping changes on flexible leave and that they were the party that presided over child-care costs rising to the second highest level in the developed world. We are working hard to address that and to make child care more affordable for parents across the United Kingdom. A recent survey showed that 2012-13 was the second successive year in which the price of full day care and nurseries stayed flat in real terms
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Minister is right to draw attention to concerns about the cost of child care. Will she look carefully at what a group of organisations have recommended, which is that instead of giving a tax break to better off parents to pay for their child care, the proportion of child care costs that is covered by tax credits should be raised from 70% to 80%? That would have a significantly more beneficial effect for low-earning mothers.
Nicky Morgan
I am always happy to receive submissions on this issue from Members from across the House. We have already committed an extra £200 million for people on universal credit so that coverage of their care costs will go up from 70% to 85%.
Let me remind the House that we are increasing free early education places for three and four-year-olds to 15 hours a week. We are enabling low-income families to recover their child care costs and providing all families with support for 20% of their child care costs from autumn 2015.
Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)
It is also worth noting that it is this Government who have taken 2.5 million people out of tax entirely, including many women.
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The increase in the personal tax threshold meant that 57% of those who benefited and who were taken out of tax were women. That is 145,000 women who are no longer paying income tax. That money is staying in their households and they are able to spend it on themselves and their families, which should be welcomed.
Nicky Morgan
I will make some progress. There will be an additional 100,000 families who will eligible for child care support under universal credit. We have also ensured that our changes help the record number of women who have entered self-employment under this Government. That is a critical step. If women started businesses at the same rate as men, we could have an extra 1 million female entrepreneurs and a million more entrepreneurs, which would mean a million more people creating wealth, jobs and growth for our economy.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that things are very positive in my constituency of Stevenage? More than 30% of local start-ups are by women, which is something that we need to encourage further.
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is a critical point. The tax-free child care policy that we have announced will, for the first time, benefit self-employed women, and that is something that the current voucher system does not do.
In conclusion, it is clear that, despite some of the claims put forward by the Opposition, the Government’s plan for recovery is the only plan that will create sustainable long-term growth for our country. It is the only plan that will support employment. It is also the only plan that not only puts faith in the abilities of the women and men of this country to help us work our way back into prosperity, but puts money, through our rise in the personal allowance, back into their pockets. I, like the hon. Member for Ashfield, want to see even more women working, setting up businesses and rising to the top of businesses. The Government want to make that happen, so I ask the House to reject the motion before us.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before I call the next Member to speak, I must tell the House that, as there has been a large amount of interest in this debate and there is only a limited time available, I have had to impose a seven-minute limit on speeches from the Back Benches.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairship, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to say a brief word about three groups of women. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) has already done a sterling job of opening the debate and it is important that we pay attention to those groups of women who are often not spoken up for sufficiently in this Chamber: single mums, care workers and older women.
It is something about being a woman in politics, I suppose, but because we are a slightly rare breed, women in my constituency often approach me relatively quietly and say wonderful things such as, “I have told my daughter about you.” I hope that that is for good reasons. With that comes a duty to speak up for those women whose voice is not always loudest, and it is not always loudest because, to be honest, those women are quite busy. On this point, I must disagree with the Minister. She quoted the first female Prime Minister, who apparently said, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” The women I know in Wirral are quite good at talking. I think that if you want something said, ask a woman; if you want something done, ask a woman.
Single mums, in particular, are incredibly busy and deserve all the support we can muster. Frankly, they do a brilliant job bringing up children and young people. That is why it is incredibly distressing to me that research on the impact of Government policies up to 2015-16 produced in September by the Women’s Budget Group found that women living on their own would lose the most from the combined impact of changes to taxes and cuts to social security benefits and public services. To me, it is horrendous that the Government’s economic policies will hit women living on their own the hardest. I know many such women in my constituency, and they work incredibly hard, do a good job bringing up children or looking after older loved ones, and they deserve our support and backing. They should not bear the brunt of this Government’s economic policy.
I must say a word about the marriage tax allowance.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
What would the hon. Lady have said to the young woman who came to my surgery to say that she had a choice between putting petrol in the car and putting food on the table for her children? That was a single mother in my constituency in 2008.
Alison McGovern
I would have listened hard to what that lady had to say and would have asked her some more questions about her circumstances—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that that was under my Government, but I would point to the success of the previous Labour Government on women’s employment. I remember only too well my mum’s experience of being a childminder and setting up a pre-school in Wirral, in my constituency. I remember the absence of support under the previous Tory Government. I will take no lessons whatsoever from what the hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position.
Mr Newmark
I know that the hon. Lady does not like to hear facts, but the fact is that today this Government have delivered more jobs for women than ever before in history and certainly more than under 13 years of Labour. More women are in work today than ever before.
Alison McGovern
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman intervened to patronise me and say that I do not like to hear facts—[Interruption.] I am glad that he intervened to patronise me in that way, because—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Gentlemen, the hon. Lady must be heard.
Alison McGovern
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) tells me that I do not like to hear facts, and then he confuses the population of women in employment with the unemployment rate. I am sorry—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, it is incredibly frustrating in this House when people shout things like, “More women in work than ever before,” when we all know that the rate of unemployment is what matters. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman acquaints himself with some of the facts. If the population increases, that will increase the population in work. It is the unemployment rate that matters, most importantly the long-term unemployment rate. That is the most damaging thing, as I know from communities such as mine. Long-term unemployment has increased eight times as fast for women as it has for men, so I would instruct the hon. Gentleman to acquaint himself with the facts rather than coming to this House to patronise me.
Seema Malhotra
Does my hon. Friend share my surprise at the fact that under this Government 63% of the jobs that have been created have gone to men and 37% to women?
Alison McGovern
Unfortunately, I am not surprised by that fact. I am only too aware of it. I suggest that the hon. Member for Braintree acquaints himself with the facts before he intervenes again.
I intervened to mention care workers and zero-hours contracts. I see this a great deal in my constituency, so I make no apology for raising the issue in the House again. The Government estimate that 1,750 people are working in the care sector in Wirral. It is my assumption from experience, although we do not know, that many of those are women. It is my guess that many of them are older women. I hope the Ministers on the Treasury Bench might at some point go and talk to women working in the care sector. I am sure they will do so in their constituencies. They will hear about the heartbreaking experience of women who face local government cuts, which creates low wages in the sector and means that there is not always good training.
Local government cuts have had a severe impact on care, which has affected not only those who receive that care and support, but those working in the sector and their ability to make ends meet while they do an incredibly stressful job, sometimes caring for older people at the end of their life, which I know Ministers will agree is a terribly important job. I am sure they will look at that issue with great care and attention.
Finally, I want to say a couple of words about older women. I believe that my generation stands on the shoulders of the generation that was born in the 1950s. That group of women saw none of the benefits of the legal and social change that they fought for, but they fought for it none the less. They are now being punished by this Government because of pension changes that have gone through too quickly. They are also a generation of women who, as I mentioned in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Braintree, have seen much greater unemployment by proportion compared with men. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has pointed out so eloquently, they are a generation of women who always seem in danger of being counted out.
Let us not do that economically. That generation of women fought for the rights that have enabled people like me to see any success in my life. Let us make sure that we back them up, not just in terms of pensions, but in terms of their living costs now, and make sure that they do not face the severe and significant unemployment that hurts their chances now and as they move into later life.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
It is regrettable that Labour likes to portray women as always victims. It is important that this Government see women for what they are—people with all sorts of different ambitions, different needs, different aspirations and so on. It is impossible to define what women want, other than to say that they want to be able to choose and not to be punished for their own choices. Choosing to stay at home and raise children; to work part time and use informal child care; to use nurseries or childminders; to have a stunning career running a FTSE 100 company, or as a pop star or a brain surgeon; to retire early or volunteer for a charity; to care for elderly relatives or disabled children; to be a teacher or, yes, even a politician—what women want is utterly varied, and I am proud of the way that this Government have made efforts to create choice and opportunity for women.
We all know that times have never been tougher economically. Austerity has limited our ability just to keep spending, but it has not stopped the Government’s desire to reform, and to support women in their own choices. There is no escape from the appalling mess that Britain was in in 2010, but the Government have been committed to raising the tax-free allowance for the lowest paid to £10,000 per annum by 2014. In spite of being almost half the work force, women are by far the lowest earners, so keeping more of their income is vital for them. Freezing fuel duty and council tax has helped all families through these tough times. But above all, dealing with the deficit has been and should be the key goal.
Stephen Metcalfe
My hon. Friend talks about the deficit. Does she think it is responsible for a Government not to tackle that and to pass it on to our children and grandchildren so that they have to deal with the problem?
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is quite right, and I was coming on to say that our deficit is not some airy-fairy statistic; it is the debt that is growing from it that is the biggest threat to our children and grandchildren. If we do not sort it out in our lifetime, it will wreck their future. That matters not just to loving mums, but to loving dads and loving grandparents. The Opposition must stop making light of it. It is real; it is there; it has to be dealt with.
Unemployment rose by 29% for women under Labour. Now there are more women in employment than ever before. The unemployment rate for women has fallen to 7%. At all levels we are helping women to build and develop successful businesses. The Women’s Business Council, set up in 2012, is taking many different actions, including providing business grants and mentors to female entrepreneurs. We are promoting business to girls in school and providing student enterprise loans. In the boardroom, under this Government female representation has risen from 12.2% to 17.3% in three years. We have a long way to go, but it is real progress in what women want.
Women and men are working parents. We have just had a debate on child care, and our policies to support the cost of child care through tax breaks, as well as a raft of measures to encourage new childminders to professionalise the nursery work force and to give parents the confidence that they are getting quality child care as well as helping with the cost of it, are vital.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Is the hon. Lady aware that the Education Committee’s recent report found that since 2010 more than 30% of child care centres in this country no longer have children in them?
Andrea Leadsom
I was not in the Education Committee, but I am absolutely passionate about child care for the very young and the support that we provide to them. As chair of the all-party group on Sure Start children centres, I can tell the hon. Lady that in our year-long inquiry into best practice in Sure Start centres, there was no evidence of wholesale closures. In fact, there is a real focus on improving the outcomes for families and children. I assure her of that. I urge her to read our report.
I also urge all parties to get behind the 1001 critical days manifesto, which looks at what more we can do to support the earliest relationships in families. It is through creating those secure early bonds that we go on to help families to build and develop the emotional resilience that they need to be secure and happy adults. That does not affect only women, but with one in 10 women suffering post-natal depression, and with so much family breakdown as a result of poor early relationships, I urge all colleagues to get behind our manifesto, which was launched by me, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). It is a truly cross-party manifesto, and I urge all hon. Members to look at it. We should all call for support in the earliest years. That would really support women.
However, women are not just parents and they are not just in business; they are also carers pretty much all the time. Most of the caring in this country falls to women. Women look after the elderly, the young and the disabled. They are also very often the volunteers. They do the brilliant work in food banks and in all the charities. I chair the charities PIP UK, the Parent Infant Partnerships UK; NorPIP, the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Partnership; and OxPIP, the Oxford Parent Infant Project. They provide help for post-natally depressed women, and in those charities it is largely women who volunteer. So many women come to my surgeries to talk about their caring responsibilities. Our policy to combine health and social care for the elderly is incredibly welcome to many as it means that their elderly relatives will have a greater chance of longer independent living, and our policy to introduce personal independence payments for disabled adults and children is welcome to many families who recognise the independence it gives them in making those choices.
Above all, our education reforms will give children a real chance in life. Between 2000 and 2009, under Labour, England fell from seventh place to 25th in international school performance in reading, from eighth to 28th in maths and from fourth to 16th in science. Those things—the future of our children—matter desperately to women and men, but very much to women. It is a priority for our Government, as are our 250,000 new apprenticeships and our superb new university technical colleges, ensuring that children are supported in their future choices.
Then, of course, there are women as pensioners. Our pensions system is complicated and serves women badly. On average, women get £40 less in state pension than men and are much more likely to live in poverty, so they welcome our new single-tier pension. It will disproportionately benefit women, ensuring that those who took time out to raise a family do not suffer in their retirement as a result.
In conclusion, women have so much to offer and so many needs. I want to highlight a few other things the Government are doing for women, such as our determination to tackle female genital mutilation, to build and support rape crisis centres, to support refuges for victims of domestic violence and to tackle human trafficking. All these, and many more, deeply held aspirations and needs of women are being addressed and sorted by this Government. I am incredibly proud of our focus on being the future for women in our society. I hope that the Opposition will come to recognise that it is this Government who are helping women to achieve their dreams and that, in order to achieve the equality we are all striving for, they have to stop seeing women as victims.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
A few weeks ago I was listening to “The Morning Show” on Radio Nottingham. They were discussing whether people felt better off now that the economy is growing again. A mum rang in. She was working but finding it a real struggle to make ends meet. She admitted that sometimes, in order to get by, she had to ask her son if she could borrow some money from his piggy bank. That is just one story—an anecdote—but I think that it says a lot about life under this Government. Government Members talk about intergenerational fairness. What is fair about a mum having to borrow money from her child to manage until her next payday?
Of course, it is not just one mother who is struggling to get by; millions of women are, and not just in Nottingham, but up and down the country. It is not just women who are struggling, because families up and down the country are facing a cost of living crisis, but it is women who are being hit hardest of all, through cuts in public services, cut in public sector jobs, cuts in the real value of their wages and cuts in the social security benefits they rely on. It is women who are unable to access or afford care for their children or disabled or frail relatives, who are being denied adequate support when they experience domestic abuse, who are losing good jobs in the public services and who are unable to cope with longer waits for the social security benefits they have earned.
Stephen Metcalfe
The hon. Lady talks about responsibility. Does she think that it was responsible for the previous Government to borrow £1 of every £4 they spent? Is that not one reason for the problems we now face?
Lilian Greenwood
I am not going to take any lectures from Government Members who have doubled the amount of debt in this country.
Of the £14 billion the Government are taking from people’s pockets to pay down the deficit through changes in tax, benefits, pay and pensions since the general election, £11 billion is from women, even though they still earn less and own less than men. More than 40 years after Labour’s Equal Pay Act 1970 outlawed paying women less than men for the same work, women still face a lifetime of earning less. For every £1 a man takes home, a women takes home just 85p.
Under this Government, the situation is likely to get worse. The cuts mean that women are losing employment in the public sector, but they are not getting comparable jobs in the private sector. The Women’s Budget Group analysis shows the following: although unemployment across the whole UK has fallen by 0.6% for men, it has increased by 0.8% for women; the number of women who are unemployed has increased by nearly 15% to over 1 million, the highest level for a generation; and long-term unemployment has increased eight times faster for women than for men. For older women aged over 50, the situation is even worse: unemployment is up by 42,000—more than a third—since the general election, while for older men it has fallen. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) said, unemployment rates are particularly high among black and ethnic minority women.
Some jobs have been created in the private sector, but overall 63% of them went to men and only 37% to women. For women who are still working in the public sector, while wages have been frozen, at least progress was being made year on year to close the gender pay gap, with the difference between the hourly pay rates for men and women narrowing from 18.2% to 14.2% in recent years. There has been no comparable reduction in the private sector, where women earn, on average, 25.1% less per hour than men. As the Fawcett Society warns:
“Unless the government takes urgent action, women will lose their precarious footing in the workforce. We face a labour market characterised by persistent and rising levels of women’s unemployment, shrinking pay levels for women and a widening of the gender pay gap.”
Even the recent return to growth will not necessarily help if the Government do not act. Professor Diane Elson of the Women’s Budget Group says:
“Our big concern is that…women are going to be so far behind they will not be able to catch up.”
Is there any reason to hope the Government are listening and will act? Not if recent announcements are anything to go by. The Tories’ Free Enterprise Group wants to extend VAT—a deeply regressive tax that hits the poorest hardest—to essentials such as food, children’s clothes and bus fares. The Lib Dems tell us that the answer is to increase the income tax threshold. The Deputy Prime Minister claims that that will help those on low incomes, but any gain will be far outweighed by the Government’s tax rises and unfair changes to tax credits—and of course the very poorest will not benefit at all.
Mr Newmark
As a member of the Free Enterprise Group, I want to put it on record that I oppose the suggestion that was made by one individual in that group. We should not impose VAT on children’s clothing and food, in particular, as that would be regressive and punitive. It was not said by the Free Enterprise Group but by one individual in that group, and I certainly oppose it.
Lilian Greenwood
I am sure we have all read about the proposed changes and know who to believe.
The Government’s own impact assessment on the tax threshold rise to £10,000 shows that 57% of those gaining from the measure are men and only 43% are women. The Women’s Budget Group notes that three quarters of the gain will go to the better-off half of all households. On average, households in the poorest 10% of the distribution gain just £6 per year; in contrast, the richest 10% of households gain an average of £87 per year. What has the Government’s priority been? It has been a tax cut for those earning over £150,000 a year and a massive giveaway to millionaires, while child benefit—a lifeline for many mums—has been frozen not once but for three years in a row. Tax credits and other benefits that many low-paid women rely on will rise by just 1%, condemning families to falling living standards and increasing the pressure on women, who are most often responsible for making ends meet. It is not a record to be proud of.
These changes threaten women’s economic autonomy. Women who live on their own lose most from the combined impact of changes to taxes and cuts to benefits and services.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?
Lilian Greenwood
No, I am not going to take another intervention.
Single mothers lose out the most, losing 15.6% of their disposable income compared with single fathers, who lose 11.7% and couples with children who lose 9.7.%. Among pensioners, single women lose 12.5% compared with single male pensioners losing 9.5% and pensioner couples losing 8.6%. Even among working-age families with no children, single women find that their spending power is cut the most. No wonder Mumsnet found that women of all ages and all backgrounds are fed up with this Government.
It does not have to be this way. Governments can act, even in tough times, to support women rather than making life harder. They could support more women to get into work or stay at work when they start a family by extending free nursery places for three and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours a week. I remember what a difference it made to me and my friends when our children started at nursery, and that was in better economic times. Now, under this Tory-Lib Dem Government, the cost of nursery places has risen five times faster than pay, with Sure Start centres closing at a rate of three per week and child care places falling by more than 35,000. The Government could support the parents of school-aged children by providing a legal guarantee for breakfast and after-school club care. Instead, they have scrapped Labour’s extended schools programme.
In Nottingham, a rise in pupil numbers has left an increasing number of parents and children without access to the care they need. An e-mail from a mum in my constituency, who wrote to me on behalf of a group of parents at her children’s school, says it all:
“The problem is that we need after school childcare provision for our children and are running out of options—the likelihood is that some of us will have to give up jobs or take career breaks to fit in around available childcare provision”.
This Government could provide real incentives to reward firms that sign up to be living wage employers. Earlier this month, I was proud to join Nottingham Citizens and Nottinghamshire living wage employers to launch the new national living wage for the country. At that launch, Jhudari Scholar, who is 18 and head boy at his school, explained how hard it was for his mum, a cleaner working three jobs on below living wage rates. It is just shocking. KPMG reported recently that the number of people earning less than a living wage has risen by more than 400,000 in the past year to 5.2 million, and it is women who are disproportionately stuck on those wages.
Women in my constituency deserve better. They deserve better than a Government who stand by as their living standards are eroded. They deserve a Government who are on their side. I just wish they did not have to wait another 534 days to get one.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats are doing what they can to build a stronger economy and a fairer society. We recognise that households are under pressure, which is why we have taken action to try to support women with the cost of living.
The Lib Dems want to help women on low and medium incomes by letting them keep more of the salaries they earn. By April 2014, 1.5 million women—60% of the overall figure of 2.7 million people—will have been taken out of paying tax altogether by the rise in the tax threshold to £10,000. We are also giving a tax cut of more than £700 a year to more than 20 million lower and middle earners, the majority of whom are women. The Deputy Prime Minister is planning to put a further £100 back into people’s pockets through the workers’ bonus, which could increase the tax allowance to £10,500 by the next election.
Sheila Gilmore
The problem with the hon. Lady’s presentation of the issue is that it is very one-sided, because in order to pay for that tax cut there have been cuts to tax credits and other benefits, so on balance the lowest earners have lost, not gained.
Tessa Munt
I could not disagree more. The most important thing is that we raise the tax threshold so that those women who are working get the benefit of keeping the money they earn.
Tessa Munt
I am going to continue.
We are creating more jobs for women, which is the best way of helping them with the cost of living. There are 427,000 more women in employment and almost 100,000 more women in self-employment since 2010.
We have helped create more than 1 million apprenticeships, of which more than half have been taken by women. We are taking steps to narrow inequality in the labour market. The proportion of female FTSE 100 directorships has increased by 50% since February 2011, and the gender pay gap has fallen from 20.2% in 2011 to 19.7% in 2012. That is small but undeniable progress.
The Liberal Democrat pensions Minister has helped women by introducing a new single-tier pension. Under the existing system, many women have lost out because the years they spent raising children were not properly counted towards their national insurance contributions. Under our scheme, those years will now count in full. That is so much fairer for women, who currently receive, on average, £40 less than men from their state pension.
We have helped drivers and consumers by freezing Labour’s fuel duty escalator for 41 months. At present, this is saving the average motorist about £7 every time she fills her tank, and it is likely to save her £10 a time by 2015. In my area, where there is little or no public transport, and in most rural areas in general, that, of course, directly affects women who spend a lot of their time needing to use a car, particularly to transport elderly parents or younger children around.
The Lib Dem policy of free child care has started to assist families of about 130,000 two-year-olds to become eligible for an early education place. As well as helping to improve living standards, our scheme will transform children’s life chances. The Deputy Prime Minister has announced that the scheme will double in size from September 2014. We recognise that looking at child care can be key to building a stronger economy.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
Perhaps the Minister will give the hon. Lady a glass a water to help her throat. May I just ask about pensions for young people today, and what will happen to them in the future? Child care today does not mean that those young people will get a pension tomorrow—in fact, quite the reverse.
Tessa Munt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for intervening. At least we are making sure that young people have a better chance to access a better education early on. Everybody knows that the money put into education early on can transform children’s life chances so much more dramatically. Those children will be the ones paying my pension and his, so it is important to concentrate on education.
For parents who wish to return to work and, through the Lib Dems, are given recognition and respect for choosing to do so—just as we respect parents who wish to stay at home and look after their children—the importance of good-quality child care is paramount. We know that child care is very expensive and is a problem for families. It was a problem for many years under Labour, and when I was bringing up my children under the preceding Conservative Government.
We are helping mothers with the cost of child care. We are providing 15 hours of free early education for all three and four-year-olds, which we will extend to 260,000 two-year-olds from next year. We are planning to introduce tax-free child care that, when fully implemented, will save a typical working family with two children under 12 up to £2,400 per year. In total, the coalition Government are investing about £1 billion a year in additional support for child care by 2016-17, including £750 million for the new tax-free child care scheme and £200 million in expanded support through universal credit.
The Lib Dems are wholeheartedly committed to shared parental leave, which creates more flexibility for parents, locks female talent into the labour market and will ultimately achieve a fairer balance for both men and women at home and in the work place. That Lib Dem priority for Government is one that we have delivered. Flexible working and shared parental leave is important in helping to create a fairer society, and the coalition Government have already implemented their commitment to extending flexible working to all parents with children under the age of 18. We now intend to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees.
The Lib Dems welcome the fact that in many modern families, child care is no longer the sole responsibility of the mother. Fathers and male partners play an increasingly vital role in raising children, and it is important that the Government should accommodate that by providing for shared parental leave. The system of maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay that we inherited from the previous Government was inflexible and outdated. The coalition’s reforms will ensure that, for the first time, mothers can go on maternity leave or shared parental leave at the same time—during the first weeks after a birth—as fathers.
We are working hard to help improve living standards, but we cannot get away from the fact that they started to decline under the previous Government. It was a painful symptom of their disastrous economic record, and the fact is that they left us with an annual deficit of £160 billion.
To conclude, the Lib Dems are on record as saying that economic sustainability is important and that we want
“an economic system where the current generation can enjoy the fruits of its endeavours without relying for its living standards on a legacy of debt left to the next generation.”
That means that we have to deal with the huge financial crisis with which we are faced. That is why we are committed to the changes that we are making. The Deputy Prime Minister was campaigning on the effect of the current situation on women more than a year ago, before the Labour party focused on it. He said that
“despite rising since the 1960s, female employment has stalled over the last decade. It is, however, a problem we can no longer afford. Just as working women drove up living standards in the latter half of the 20th century, all the evidence suggests that living standards in the first half of the 21st century will need to be driven by working women once again and this absence of women from our economy is costing us dearly.”
Several motions on this issue have been passed at Liberal Democrat party conferences and we are committed to improving child care and extending free child care. We will face the next election with that commitment in our manifesto.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The Government’s response to all questions about falling living standards and rising costs is to talk about the raising of the income tax threshold. At least one part of the coalition is promising even more of the same and saying that that is how we help the lowest earners, many of whom are women. However, if the main aim is to assist the lowest earners, it is an extremely poorly targeted policy. It is an expensive tax cut. Three quarters of the billions of pounds that have been spent on raising the tax threshold have gone to the top half of earners in our country.
Harriett Baldwin
Is the hon. Lady arguing that the income tax threshold ought to be brought back to £6,475, as it was under her Government?
Sheila Gilmore
I will continue with what I was saying, because it is important to realise the cost of this policy to many women.
This generous gesture, which has advantaged more people on upper earnings, has been balanced by taxes and cuts elsewhere, such as the raising of VAT. Many of the cuts have affected women in particular. The cuts in tax credits have more than cancelled out the rise in the tax threshold for the lower-paid. People who have been affected by that will not be saying, “It was great that the tax threshold was raised.” They would probably rather have stayed in exactly the same position as they were in before.
Mr Donohoe
Surely a consequence of that is that fewer women are able to put their children in day care and get back to work.
Sheila Gilmore
Indeed; the work incentives that were provided by tax thresholds, particularly to single parents, cannot be underestimated.
The hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) brushed aside my intervention in which I said that the gains from raising the tax threshold had been more than cancelled out for the lowest-paid, but they have been. The argument is made that raising the tax threshold allows people to keep more of their earnings, instead of tax being taken away with one hand and paid back with the other. The problem is that the policy has not been even-handed. Some people have ended up worse off as a result of it. Those who used to benefit and have lost out are predominantly women.
Tessa Munt
Is the hon. Lady saying that she would return the tax situation to the way it was before or is she saying that this policy has no effect whatsoever?
Sheila Gilmore
The hon. Lady has told the House that the path onwards involves more raising of tax thresholds, regardless of who will or will not benefit from that. A further rise in tax thresholds, however, will do absolutely nothing for many who already earn below that level, particularly women who are part-time workers. How will that further generosity—which, as I have said, benefits more those whose earnings are in the upper brackets—be paid for? On the basis of the past three and a half years, presumably it will be paid for by yet more cuts to benefits and services that help a lot of women.
Sheila Gilmore
I will not give way again.
In future—assuming, of course, that universal credit ever materialises, which is far from certain at the moment—low-paid people will benefit even less as the tax threshold increases. Universal credit will be calculated on net, rather than gross earnings. Therefore, if a taxpayer who claims universal credit receives a tax cut of £100, they will automatically lose £65 of benefits. The lowest paid taxpayers are going to suffer more, and a solution would be to commit to increase the amount someone can earn before universal credit payments are reduced every time tax thresholds go up. Those who advocate the solution for low-paid workers have told us time and again that the reason for raising tax thresholds is not to benefit everyone but to benefit low-paid workers. However, it will not benefit those workers to anything like that extent—indeed, for many of them probably not at all.
We are constantly being told that we have to make tough choices—the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), who wanted to intervene, has constantly risen to speak about the need to deal with the deficit. Choices are being made in the way the Government are proceeding, including the choice to give those generous tax cuts and wanting to continue to do so, but that does not sound like a terribly tough choice for some people to make.
There are other uses for the money if it is available. We could give a tax break to businesses that agree to pay the living wage, which would benefit women in particular. We could increase help with child care costs now. Child care tax credits were cut from 80% to 70% by the coalition. I know the Government say that they will restore that for recipients of universal credit when—if—it comes in, and the new child care tax relief starts in 2015. Why not now, however, especially with universal credit receding somewhere over the horizon? Further to that, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission suggests that the Government should reallocate the 2013 Budget funding for child care tax relief from higher rate tax payers to those on universal credit. That would be over and above existing plans—this is a recent report from the commission—to help those who want to work and need help with child care.
Gingerbread, which will obviously advocate on behalf of families with one parent, 90% of whom are women, has made proposals for improving universal credit that would make work pay and encourage the progression through employment that is desired by us all. The old 16-hour rule that Government parties tend to dismiss was to ensure that going back to work really improved people’s situation, rather than the mini-jobs that, frankly, leave people poor.
Gingerbread has suggested that we increase the amount a claimant can earn before universal credit starts to be withdrawn, and reduce the rate at which benefits are reduced—the taper rate. Those proposals cost money, but if money is available—clearly it is for those who advocate another increase in the basic tax threshold—I urge the Government to consider measures such as those advocated by Gingerbread genuinely to help the lowest earners improve their position.
One point I completely refute is the suggestion that if we say that life under this Government is hard for many women, we are calling women victims. Far from being victims, women are struggling to bring up their children despite the difficulties that they face. It is completely wrong to suggest that we are therefore painting them as victims—far from it.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), a former colleague on the Work and Pensions Committee, who is one of the most diligent attendees in the Chamber. However, I shall disagree vehemently with her and demolish a number of the arguments that are inherent in today’s motion. I urge all hon. Members to vote against it at 7 o’clock.
I shall start with some of the macroeconomic arguments and make the case that the way to destroy a country’s wealth, and to plunge people into many years of poverty, is to do what the previous Government did to the economy—create the largest recession for 60 years and the most significant banking crisis ever. I shall also outline the course of policy to follow for economic prosperity.
The secret of economic prosperity is not hard to find, but it is hard to achieve. The first ingredient is obviously a strong central bank maintaining sound monetary policy and a prudent Chancellor who maintains sound public finances. That is the framework that provides the environment in which businesses can invest, grow, export and create jobs. It is not politicians who create that wealth and those jobs, but we can damage the cost of living and the growth of businesses with bad monetary policies, high taxes, irresponsible borrowing, excessive regulation and the high interest rates that we saw under the previous Government.
The decision to make the Bank of England independent in 1997 was just about the only decision made by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) with which I agreed. The mandate to keep inflation at 2% has meant some predictability and stability from the inflationary ravages that we all remember from the Labour Governments of the 1970s. It is essential that the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is able to unwind the current additional monetary stimulus that has been needed since the crash of 2008 without allowing any major deviation from that 2% target. Sound money will mean that the pound stays strong. Given the UK’s dependence on imported goods and fuel, a strong pound keeps our cost of living down.
The Government also need to play a part. The Chancellor has taken the tough and necessary steps to bring the public finances back into structural balance.
Stephen Metcalfe
My hon. Friend talks about the Chancellor making tough decisions. Do you think it would be right to abandon the programme that we have adopted and to increase the amount of borrowing? Do you think that would be the right way for the country to move forward?
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not think anything about these matters, although I am sure that the hon. Lady does.
Harriett Baldwin
Some Opposition Members think that the Chancellor has tightened too fast, but others might argue that he could have tightened faster. I say that he has been a Goldilocks Chancellor, and this has been a tightening at the pace at which job creation has been allowed to flourish. I also want to put on record that there has been no recession in this country since 2009. At all points in this fiscal responsibility, the Chancellor has looked for measures that have helped hard-working families keep their cost of living under control. He has helped councils freeze their council tax, he has raised the tax-free threshold for working people and he has avoided the 13p fuel duty increase that Labour had planned—
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Today we have been talking about health care assistants, and there are 1.3 million women—it is an almost entirely female work force—doing that incredibly important job. All of them are likely to benefit from a rise in tax thresholds and very many of them from extra assistance with child care.
Harriett Baldwin
The previous Government, as we heard from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, thought it was appropriate to tax people earning only £6,500 per year, and to give them their own money back in the form of tax credits. I believe it is more important that we do not take that money in the first place.
I want to demolish what the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) said on disposable incomes. Since the start of the economic downturn, the average equivalised household income has fallen by about £1,200 since 2007-08. The Opposition talked about the average fall, but the richest fifth of households have seen largest fall. In contrast, after accounting for inflation and household composition, the average income for the poorest fifth of households has grown in the same period by 6.9%—a statistic from the Office for National Statistics. I refute the argument inherent in the motion that we have had a particularly serious impact on the cost of living for women.
I would also like to demolish the claim in the motion that the Chancellor has made
“women pay three times more than men to bring down the deficit”.
I have taken the trouble to look at the Full Fact website, which I recommend to Opposition Members. It makes a line-by-line demolition of their claims. For example, women such as me, who earn more than £60,000, no longer receive child benefit. That is counted as a negative, but I would argue that that is a sensible way to reallocate scarce resources. The Opposition count it as a negative that the income tax cut does not help women as much as men, whereas I think it is a good thing that women are given a tax break.
The third point I would like to demolish is that it is a problem for more women than ever before to be in work. I welcome it. One reason this has been a successful area of welfare reform is that the number of lone parents out of work—I accept that the number of lone parents out of work declined under the previous Government—has declined sharply since 2010, falling by 26% to just under 500,000. I agree that that is still too high and we have more to do, but we are doing an enormous amount—providing free child care and helping lone parents into work—to help them to lift their own families out of poverty. There are other positive aspects of welfare reform for women in the workplace. Although well intentioned, a terrible consequence of Labour’s approach to welfare is that it trapped many women in 16-hour-a-week jobs. I have met many women in my constituency who have said, “I have been offered more hours, but it does not make economic sense for me to take them.”
Harriett Baldwin
I do not have enough time, I am afraid.
In fact, we were paying a lot of women to maintain 16-hour-a-week jobs. That may be ideal for some people’s family situation, but it sends a poor message, through the welfare system, that we need to tackle. We need to allow women to progress up the income scale in the same way as men so that—I do not often argue for higher taxes—men and women pay the same amount of income tax. At the moment, women pay approximately 60% less income tax and I would like to see progress on that.
The motion is full of holes. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to vote against it.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I agree with the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) that the Chancellor is a Goldilocks Chancellor—he goes around people’s houses nicking all their porridge. He and his colleague the Prime Minister are very much the brothers Grimm of Parliament at the moment.
I want to talk about the unquestionably disproportionate impact many of the Government’s policies are having on women. The north-east region, which includes my constituency, is particularly hard hit. I hope that Ministers take our points onboard and take the necessary steps to rectify the many issues in the region. I will focus on three areas: first, the unemployment rate among women, particularly the rate of long-term unemployment—those claiming for more than 12 months; secondly, pay equality; and lastly, the broader issue of the cost of living crisis currently facing women.
In May 2010, there were 20,657 female unemployed benefit claimants in the north-east. Last month, that figure was 25,973. That is a 25.7% increase. In my constituency, long-term unemployment among women has increased by 144% since the general election in May 2010. That is a shockingly huge amount and one that I am sure my colleagues would agree is completely disgraceful. The picture across neighbouring Teesside seats is no better. In Redcar, the figure is almost 157% worse, but worse still, in Stockton South, the increase has been a mammoth 205%. That is the increase in long-term female unemployment between May 2010 and October 2013.
While the Government might be able to present figures that show a small increase in employment, the jobs have tended to be in the south-east and clearly are not helping those unfortunately in long-term unemployment. More broadly, historically, the north-east economy has been built largely on male-dominated heavy industry, and while the more traditional industries, such as chemicals and steel, have had tough times recently, under the previous Labour Government, the area saw an increase in smaller scale, but highly-skilled industries and a diversification into other industries.
Jim Shannon
Is it not time perhaps that big industry, particularly the STEM industries—science, technology, engineering and maths—offered more job opportunities to ladies rather than men to make it equal?
Tom Blenkinsop
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I will come to that later.
Women, particularly young women, are more likely to find themselves in low-paid work, such as customer services, retail, care work and the leisure industry—sectors offering fewer progression opportunities and lower pay.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but he has already admitted that there are considerable differences in the UK—in my constituency, the situation is very much brighter—which suggests a structural imbalance. Would he agree that the last Government did nothing, in any real terms, to address that structural balance, which is one of the reasons for the situation he is describing?
Tom Blenkinsop
I cannot agree with that at all. The structural imbalance—I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the staple industries in the north-east—has had a long-term effect primarily because of his party’s record in the north-east of decimating heavy industry back in the ’80s and ’90s. The increase in female unemployment is unprecedented. I have never before seen these levels of female unemployment. Previously, we had long-term male unemployment in my region. That was difficult, but families still had a working mother. Now, these families have unemployed mothers and fathers, meaning far more significant long-term consequences for my area. That is what I am frightened about.
There is a big gender split in apprenticeships, because young women take a much narrower range of apprenticeships than young men, yet there remains a skill shortage in these new industries. It seems only logical, then, that all the stops should be pulled out to encourage young women seriously to consider these industries as a career. Increasing the number of women working—or at least taking up apprenticeships—in these male-dominated industries would go a long way to stem the flow from short-term to long-term unemployment. We must challenge the stereotypes in careers advice for young women and encourage more girls to take up higher skilled apprenticeships, but that has been made increasingly difficult by a Government who have undermined careers services. One of the Government’s first decisions was to get rid of Connexions, which was a careers advice service in schools giving children guidance on career paths.
On equal pay, the gender pay gap stands at 15%, unchanged on the year before. We know that the reasons for the persistent gap are varied and complex, ranging from occupational segregation to a lack of well-paid part-time work and, even in this day and age, discrimination in the workplace.
In August, the Chartered Management Institute found that women who have reached management positions can expect to earn only three quarters of the pay of their male colleagues. Even more staggering was the finding that the more highly skilled and highly paid the profession, the greater the gap between men and women’s pay. In modern Britain, undervaluing the talents and skills of women is a loss to the whole economy, so the issue of equal pay is a tough nut that needs to be cracked.
Several actions could be taken to help that situation. For example, the introduction of mandatory pay reporting, including the Equality Act 2010, would highlight the differences between what businesses pay their male and females colleagues. We should improve the law on flexible working and do more to encourage businesses to utilise flexible working practices. However, the revelation that up to 50,000 women a year could be losing their jobs while on maternity leave is a shocking one, yet far from doing anything about it, Ministers are making it worse by charging women £1,200 for challenging discrimination at an employment tribunal.
To address the specific barriers that single mothers face, we Labour Members will support women who have to juggle work and child care by restoring breakfast and after-school clubs in primary schools from 6 am to 8 pm for every child, and provide 25 hours of free child care for three and four-year-olds of working parents. Those are simple actions that the Government should seriously consider.
My final point is on the broader issue of the cost of living crisis that women currently face. As we all know, women are struggling as prices continue to rise faster than wages, and the latest figures show that working people are on average £1,600 a year worse off since May 2010.
The Government’s change to the tax credits rules means thousands of families will have lost out on their working tax credits unless they have been able to increase their working hours significantly. Any woman or any couple earning less than about £17,700 will need to increase the number of hours they work from a minimum of 16 to 24 a week—otherwise, they will lose working tax credits of about £3,500 a year. According to the House of Commons Library, this has hit 212,000 low-income families.
Of course, the situation was supposed to have been compensated for by the March 2012 Budget’s introduction of universal credit that was to come into force last month. To a certain extent, it would have restored families to a parity with what was seen with working tax credits under Labour. Due to the ongoing chaos in the Department for Work and Pensions, that has not happened. Some of my hon. Friends have mentioned the Tory Free Enterprise Group and its proposals to increase the price of food and children’s clothes by 15%.
Tom Blenkinsop
No.
This group of 42 Tory MPs sees it as necessary to raise VAT on gas and electricity to 15%, which would add £120 to the average energy bill. Let me remind the House that when the Prime Minister was an adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer under the previous Conservative Government, he advised that Chancellor to bring in VAT on fuel. He also advised that Chancellor to bring in air passenger duty and the fuel duty escalator. VAT has risen under every Conservative Government since it was introduced—another fact for Government Members to ponder. That is an illustration of the Tory addiction to indirect taxation.
For women, there is an even harsher reality. There is an increasing financial burden on women with many, particularly over 40-year-olds, prioritising supporting their children over building up a pension pot. Many have to find the money for family caring responsibilities or to pay off debts. Disproportionately stuck on pay below the living wage rate, 27% of women are not paid the living wage, compared with 16% of men. This gap is especially distressing now that mothers are either the breadwinners or co-breadwinners for their families in many households.
The future is not too bright either. Research by insurance firm, Scottish Widows found that only 40% of women put enough money aside for an “adequate” retirement—down from 50% two years ago, and the lowest amount since the number started to be tracked under Labour in 2006. On average, women who are saving are putting aside £182 each month, compared with £260 for men—a pensions “gender gap” of £1,000 in contributions each year. The continued squeeze on the cost of living has made it much harder for many women not only to live an adequate and healthy lifestyle now, but to consider saving for their future and retirement. The gender pay gap, the opportunity gap and the oncoming pensions gap have played a significant part in explaining why it is imperative to bridge those gaps sooner rather than later.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop). He and I will have been the only two males who have made formal speeches in a debate on women and the cost of living, and I think Parliament should celebrate that.
Following every election there is an increase in the number of female Members of Parliament, and I think we should be positive about that as well. I am a natural optimist, and I always look for the positive aspects of events. Today I was rather saddened by Opposition Members’ attempts to create a Dickensian view of our present society, because that is not a view that I recognise. I understand that there are challenges to be faced, and I understand that some families are struggling, but I think that we take a step backwards when we try to create an issue between men and women, and between women and men. In my opinion, we should look after every member of society irrespective of gender, and extend the range of the equality laws that have been passed over the past few years.
The issue of women and work has been raised in the debate. This morning I had the pleasure of opening the Hertfordshire Business Expo at Knebworth house in Stevenage. A large number of local businesses were represented, and many of the stands were staffed by females. Moreover, many of the business owners were female. In my constituency, nearly 30% of new businesses are started up by females. That too is a positive development that should be celebrated, and we should see more of it.
I am interested in issues such as the employment of women in engineering, My constituency contains the headquarters of the Institution of Engineering Technology. Thousands of people are employed at Astrium, which builds 25% of the world’s telecommunications satellites, and at MBDA Systems, which builds complex weapons systems. Just under 4,000 are employed at GlaxoSmithKline, which develops pharmaceutical drugs, and whose research and development facility is the largest in Europe. We also have Fujitsu, and a range of other companies. However, 93% of the companies in my constituency have a turnover of less than £1 million, and many of them are led by females.
I am proud of the contribution that women make to my constituency and to society as a whole. I think that a suggestion that women are victims has been allowed to creep into today’s debate, but I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) that they are not victims—although of course domestic violence is an issue: I deplore it, would support 100% anything that could be done in my constituency and throughout the country to reduce it, and believe that it must be stamped out.
It is clear that young women often achieve more than boys at school, and that needs to be encouraged, but why is there a gap later on? Why do those young women not also achieve more in the workplace? Some Members on both sides of the House have tried to suggest that there is a structural issue, and that may well be the case, but I am never very interested in playing politics. What interests me is trying to resolve the issue that is in front of me, and trying to create an holistic society in which people can succeed. What interests me is aspiration. I want every young woman in my constituency who is at school or a college of further education, who is going off to university or who wants to set up a new business, to go out there and think “Yes, I can succeed.”
I accept that I am an optimist. When I was growing up I saw a poster in the 1992 election which read “What does the Conservative Party offer a working class kid from Brixton? They made him Prime Minister.” So I will maintain my approach. [Laughter.] I am not setting my stall out; I am merely saying that we need to aspire, and to encourage aspiration. We need to say “Whether you are male or female, if you think you are good enough and want to give it a go, then give it a go, and let’s see how far you get. If you fall down along the way, so what? We will try to help you get up again so that you can have another go.”
That, I think, is what the Government are doing. They are trying to help by increasing the personal tax allowance, cutting tax for 25 million people and taking 2.7 million out of tax altogether. I do not care which party does this, but I should like income tax thresholds to rise by as much as possible, because I believe that the best way of making it easier for people to deal with challenges involving their personal finances is to put money in their pockets and allow them to choose how to spend it, because they know what is important to them personally. I should like the threshold to rise to such an extent that no single person on the minimum wage need pay income tax. That would be a positive step for British society, and something I would wholeheartedly endorse.
There has been a lot of talk about what we are doing in terms of child care. Some 800,000 three and four-year-olds are benefiting from the 15 hours a week of child care we give them at present. That is fantastic, and from next September we will be expanding that to disadvantaged two-year-olds, which is wonderful. I sound a note of caution, however. I worry about primary schools having extended hours where a five or six-year-old is dropped off at school at 6 am, perhaps, and then collected at 8 pm. That is a very long day, especially for someone aged five, six or seven, and we need to think about the impact of that on the child and their family as they are growing up.
I celebrate the women in my constituency, just as I celebrate the men in my constituency. We need to do everything we can to ensure that everybody does their best. I stand here incredibly proud that when the unemployment figures came out last week they showed that unemployment in Stevenage is now down to 3.7%. I have more women who are employed than men who are employed in my constituency. Anybody who is unemployed is one person too many, and we need to do all we can to support everyone.
I want to celebrate the contribution that women, whether working or stay-at-home mothers, make to society, to my constituency and to the families up and down this country as they go out every single day. The reality is that they are all contributing in their own way and we should be proud of them and do everything we can to support them.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
In Rotherham, unemployment among women is far too high. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, 13.4% of economically active women in Rotherham are unemployed. That is significantly higher than the regional figure of 8.1% and the national figure of 7.3%. While there has been some fluctuation in this figure, it has averaged almost 15% across the lifespan of the current Government.
Unfortunately, these figures are symptomatic of a national trend. Female unemployment is at its highest for a generation. Over 1 million women in the UK are out of work, an increase of 82,000 under this Government. When we look at long-term female unemployment, the situation is much worse as it is rising eight times faster than for men. The number of women out of work for more than 12 months increased by 79,000 between May 2010 and August 2013, while the number of men out of work for more than 12 months increased by 10,000. The number of older women—those aged 50-plus—who are unemployed has increased by 42,000, which is up by more than a third, over the same period, while male unemployment in this age group has fallen by 15,000. Black minority ethnic women also have a disproportionately high level of unemployment than men.
Where women are finding employment, their pay continues to lag behind that for male colleagues. Changes to in-work benefit left many women in Rotherham struggling to earn a living, in sharp contrast to the Government’s oft-repeated aim of making work pay. Furthermore, the increase in the cost of living has left many women facing an extremely insecure existence, and an even bleaker future.
A constituent I met recently shared her experiences, which are no doubt repeated across the country. A single parent, she desperately wants to return to work, but the huge costs of child care and cuts to in-work benefits mean that it is simply untenable.
Sarah Champion
I am sorry, but I do not have the time.
My constituent is thus forced to choose between short-term, part-time and low-paid work or to stay at home. To make her situation worse, local amenities on which she relies are facing closure as a result of Government cuts to local authority budgets and to national programmes such as Sure Start.
I want to mention two other issues related to the increasing unemployment of women. The first is the lack of role models for young women. It is very noticeable that this Government have only four women in a Cabinet of 22. Only 23% of this Parliament’s Members are women, the vast majority of them being Labour MPs. When we look at chief executives and board membership, we see that this situation is, unfortunately, common. That is compounded by a lack of consistent careers advice in schools, and in some schools no careers advice at all, so how are young women meant to make informed career choices?
The other key consideration in respect of why more women are unemployed has to do with their caring responsibilities and lack of Government support for them. For younger women that is likely to be child care, while for older women it is more likely to be care of their parents or their partners. The support for both those groups of women to enable them both to care and to work is being systematically chipped away. Not only is this bad for the women; it is also bad for the country economically. The ultimate irony is that of the £14.4 billion raised in 2014-15 through the additional net direct tax and benefit, pay and pension changes announced since the general election, £11.4 billion—or around 79%—is coming from women and £2.9 billion is coming from men.
House of Commons Library analysis shows that women will be hit four times harder by the new direct tax credit and benefit changes announced in December’s autumn statement, with women shouldering £867 million of the £1.1 billion raised. This situation is immoral and unfair, and it needs to change.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
We have had a high-quality debate today, and it has been superbly led by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero). I also congratulate the Economic Secretary to the Treasury on winning the opportunity to open for the Government. I say that because it must have been a fiercely fought competition if it has resulted in the Minister for Women and Equalities—the one voice for women at the Cabinet table—and her Tory junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), both being sidelined in favour of the Economic Secretary. It is just a shame that, having won that battle, she gave such a complacent speech. Anyone listening to her would think that everything in the garden was rosy for women. However, as we have heard in many excellent speeches, especially from Labour Members, that is far from the case.
I want to pick the Economic Secretary up on one point. She accused my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) of scaremongering when she pointed out that the £1,200 fees were putting women off taking their employers to a tribunal when they had been wrongfully sacked because they were pregnant. I fear that the Minister might have been trying to play down the problem. Maternity Action, whose representative I met just a few hours before the debate began, submitted evidence to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee that showed that only 3% of victims of pregnancy discrimination took their claim to an employment tribunal, and that the fees involved were cited as one of the significant barriers that women faced. I recommend that the Minister meet Maternity Action to learn some facts about the impact of this Government’s policies on women’s lives. I am sure that its representatives would be happy to meet her.
It is clear that the Prime Minister’s cost of living crisis is hurting everyone except the millionaires who are enjoying their huge tax cuts. It is women who are bearing the brunt of the pain and who are seeing their financial support slashed the most. New mums have lost thousands, £7 billion has been taken away from families with children, and nearly 500,000 mums have lost up to £1,500 a year in support for child care. It is women who are seeing the services that they value being hollowed out. Sure Start funding has been slashed by more than half in real terms over this Parliament, and there are now 578 fewer Sure Start centres as a result. Many of those that remain are cutting back their services and opening hours, or charging for sessions that used to be free. It is women who are facing the greatest pressures in trying to make ends meet.
Harriett Baldwin
Does the hon. Lady therefore disagree with the Office for National Statistics when it says that the equivalised, after-tax income for the poorest fifth of households has risen under this Government, and that that income has fallen the most for the richest fifth?
Mrs Hodgson
I just do not recognise those figures. Our figures from the Library—and any other figures that we have seen on this matter—show that women are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government. [Interruption.] It is true, and I will write to the hon. Lady and give her the figures.
Child care bills are rising five times as fast as incomes under this Government. Energy bills are shooting up at similar speeds. The weekly shop is getting even more expensive, and real incomes are down by between £1,500 and £1,600 as prices have outstripped wages in 40 of the 41 months of this Government. Women’s long-term unemployment is up 80,000 since the election, compared with a figure of 10,000 for men. Older women’s unemployment is up by a third, while the figure for men has marginally fallen. More than 1 million women are unemployed, and countless others are stuck in low-paid, insecure jobs.
It is women who are struggling to get by over the long school summer holidays, with extra child care to pay for, school uniforms to buy and extra food to put on the table, yet we hear from the Government that they want to slap 15% VAT on the school uniforms on our children’s backs, on the cereal in their bowls and even on the electricity that lights their homes. How out of touch can the Government get? Despite all that, women hold the key to building a sustainable economic recovery that works for everyone. Millions of women want to get back into work or to increase their hours.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is giving a great speech. Are women who work in social care not one of the most tragic cases of women struggling with the hours? Often they are not even paid the minimum wage any more, because they get an hour here and an hour there and do not get paid for travel. These women may want to work 45 or 50 hours a week but end up working only 20 hours. Is that not something we should be ashamed of: the most important job we have, yet that is how they are paid?
Mrs Hodgson
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend, and I commend her on the excellent work she does and has done in this area for more than eight years.
If we could support carers and the other women we have been talking about in finding extra hours and finding a job we could add more than £1 billion to our tax receipts, yet still it is women who face the biggest barriers to progressing in their careers. The reason for all that is that women are sidelined and ignored by this Government—and why should we be surprised? This Government have more millionaires in the Cabinet than women—in fact, women outnumber Davids at the Cabinet table by only one, and let us not forget the Lib Dems, the party with as many knights as women MPs.
We have another autumn statement coming up soon. The Chancellor could use that opportunity to make amends for the disproportionate impact of his decisions so far, but if it is anything like last year’s we will just see that unfairness entrenched. I am aware that the Economic Secretary was not in the Treasury at that time—in fact, no hon. Ladies were in the Treasury at that time. Perhaps that accounts for the gross imbalance in where the Chancellor’s axe fell. If it does, I hope she will be able to tilt the balance back in women’s favour this year.
The hon. Lady quoted the late Baroness Thatcher, so let me reciprocate. This may be the first time, and will probably be the last, that I quote the former Prime Minister, but this one line sums up perfectly everything that is wrong with this Government. In 1979, she said:
“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”
I may have spent my early life suffering because of the policies she implemented, but I have to say that she had a point. Does it not explain why this Government have such a poor record? They are a Government led by a rich boys club completely out of touch with the problems that so many ordinary women face just to keep the money coming in, a roof over their child’s head, clothes on their child’s back, food on the table and their energy bills paid. They are a Government who cannot tackle the cost of living crisis women face because they have no idea what that crisis means to the people they are supposed to serve.
The Prime Minister knows that he has a problem with women. He even had to hire an extra adviser to tell him why women do not like him—as a women, I call tell him that for free. The Prime Minister has a problem with women because we know when we are being let down and we know when promises have been broken. Even if his party chairman tries to wipe any evidence of their ever making any promises off the internet, women have been let down and seen promises broken time and again by this Prime Minister, as we have heard today. These are promises on affordable child care, decent jobs, energy bills, tax credits, financial support, Sure Start and public services. Time and again women say they need help, and time and again they are ignored.
Government Members should be under no illusion: those same women will be looking at what they do tonight. These women will see the proposals Labour has put forward to help: real help now with finding and affording early years and school-age child care; capital projects that create good quality jobs for women, not just men; and businesses supported to boost the incomes of women on the lowest wages. Those are the kind of policies that will help to tackle the cost of living crisis that women are facing now, today. They are the kind of policies women want and women need. They are the kind of policies that women deserve to expect from any Government. But at the same time they are the kind of policies they know they can get only from Labour. Every vote against this motion from those in the Government parties—every Tory and Lib Dem who would rather please their Whip than stand up for women in their constituency—will be yet another reason for those women to give this out-of-touch Government the boot in 2015.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
I welcome the opportunity to respond to this debate. How we manage to assist people—particularly women as that is our focus today—with the cost of living is undoubtedly an important issue, and it is a positive thing to have debated it. It is always a great pleasure to be in one of the debates in which so many women want to contribute and speak. It reminds us of how it would be a much better Chamber if we had a better balance of men and women on both sides of the House.
We have had some interesting analogies. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) conjured up an image of the Chancellor as Goldilocks. I must say that I found it slightly distressing to imagine the blond pigtails. The analogy was continued by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop). Perhaps the fairy tale theme is relevant to the debate. Unfortunately, many of the contributions from the Opposition Benches had something of the fairy tale about them and a bit of a reality bypass. Underlying the speeches was the suggestion that we can somehow wish away the deficit and avoid the difficult decisions that are necessary to get our economy back on track. I want to take a minute to remember the scale of the situation that we have been facing and trying to deal with for the past three years.
Our economy is recovering from the most damaging financial crisis in generations after a decade of growth built on debt. Of all the major economies, only Japan had a deeper recession. When we came into power, the Government inherited the largest deficit since the second world war. Our largest trading partner, the eurozone, has been in recession. We have had to deal with a significant set of challenges, and we need to look at this matter within that wider overall context. Of course it is important that the Government take action to help with the cost of living, and I will go into more detail on exactly what we are doing about that. The broader context is vital, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire made a powerful contribution in which she demolished some of the myths and set that context out. The best way to help people with the cost of living is to build a stronger economy to create the stability that we need for employers to prosper and to create new jobs. That will help more people into work. Those are exactly the things that the Government’s policies are delivering.
Debbie Abrahams
What does the Minister think about the performance of the UK? Until recently, we were 18th out of the 20 countries in the G20. Is that the sort of economic performance that she wants the Government to take credit for?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Lady will be aware that we have the fastest growing economy in the developed world. I hope that she will not be as churlish as some of those on the Opposition Front Bench—although not those on the Front Bench today—and welcome that news rather than feel glum at the idea that the Government’s economic policies might actually be working.
Employment and work are the best way to drive up living standards. We have 446,000 more women in employment since the general election. We had some interesting exchanges about the numbers of women in employment and employment rates. Different individuals bring forward different figures to support their arguments. I argue that both the numbers and the rate are important. We have more women in work than ever before—fewer women are economically inactive—but the employment rate is also increasing. It has gone up 1.2% for women to 66.8% since May 2010, which is very close to its highest rate ever.
Sheila Gilmore
The Minister stated that work is the best way for people to progress and improve their position, but, as she will see if she reads the work of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, the problem is that the rate of poverty among children in working households is going up and three quarters of people in such households are in full-time work.
Jo Swinson
We absolutely need to help more people into work. When people want to work extra hours, we need to make that easier and we have a raft of measures aimed at assisting people into work. Yes, we also want to ensure that when people are in work their jobs are of a higher quality and that they can have higher pay, but we need to do that in a way that does not threaten to increase unemployment figures.
The pay gap has been mentioned, and rightly so. The Government have given employment tribunals the powers to force equal pay audits on rogue employers who have been breaking the law on equal pay. Our Think, Act, Report initiative now covers nearly 2 million employees across 130 major companies to drive forward standards in gender equality in the workplace. The recommendations of and the Government’s actions in response to the Women’s Business Council report, the extension of the right to request flexible working and the introduction of shared parental leave are all important factors that will also support women in work.
Various Members raised the issue of pregnancy discrimination. I do not know whether I need to declare an interest in order to say that I think that is an appalling and horrendous practice. I have met Maternity Action on these issues and we have commissioned research through the Equality and Human Rights Commission to ensure that we have up-to-date figures on which to take the issue forward.
I want to reply to the point made by some hon. Members about the £1,200 fee for employment tribunals. It is simply misleading to suggest that that is what any woman will have to pay in order to take up a claim. That is not what they have to pay to lodge a claim—that figure is £200. There is a remissions regime for people who cannot afford to pay that amount and only in cases that go to a full hearing—a tiny percentage of the number of cases overall, and only about 300 each year—will the full amount be paid. Even in those cases, if people win it is likely that costs will be awarded and they will not have to pay. Although I accept that the Opposition should make legitimate points, it is important to be clear about the facts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) talked about women in sectors in which they are not usually well represented, such as engineering. We recently had Tomorrow’s Engineers week where that was a major theme. The Government also launched the Perkins review, which outlined how important it is to get more women and girls interested in engineering.
The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) mentioned role models and they are important throughout the STEM industries. Of course, there is the Inspiring the Future initiative, which I encourage hon. Members and those watching the debate to sign up to so that they can go into schools and act as a role model by talking about their careers and what they do. That will inspire the next generation so that they know that there is no glass ceiling and that they can do whatever they want.
We are providing significant support for child care, increasing early education for free for three and four-year-olds to 15 hours a week and extending it to four in 10 two-year-olds from the most hard-pressed households, as well as providing the £1,200 per child per year tax rebate on child care costs. The rising cost of child care is an issue and it was not addressed under the previous Government. We are addressing it by extending the support for new child care businesses and increasing the number of childminders by making childminder agencies possible.
I want to mention Labour’s plans a little. Some sound very good, but one wonders where the costing comes from. Things will be paid for by the bank levy, but Labour’s bank levy has now been spent more than 10 times over. Here are the things that will be paid for by Labour’s bank levy: the youth jobs guarantee, reversing the VAT increase, more capital spending, reversing the child benefit savings, reversing tax credit savings, more regional growth funding, cutting the deficit, turning empty shops into community centres, spending on public services, more housing and child care. The same money cannot be spent twice, let along 10 times. The numbers do not add up.
We have improved the situation for older women, particularly pensioners, who suffered previously. Those who have taken time out of work to look after children faced significant injustice under the previous system. Our triple lock, which is raising the state pension—
Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you might be aware, for the second time in recent weeks there has been an incursion into Gibraltar’s waters. I think that it is time that stopped. Has the Foreign Secretary indicated that he wishes to make a statement on the matter tomorrow?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have certainly received no indication that the Foreign Secretary is planning to come to the House to make a statement on the matter, but the hon. Gentleman’s timing is either well designed or fortuitous, because he is in the presence, as he raises his concern, of both the Government Chief Whip and the Leader of the House, so his words are on the record and will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench. He will have patiently to await events.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is asking whether the point of order did any good or whether patiently awaiting the development of events does any good. He should not be too cynical; he has a service uninterrupted in this House of 30 years, and therefore I know that he believes passionately in Parliament.
Business without Debate
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Animal Protection Laws in Thailand, Vietnam and China
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
A number of my constituents have presented to me, for presentation in turn to the House, a petition dealing with international animal welfare. It refers to the somewhat repugnant and wholly unacceptable practice involving extreme torture and the eating of cats and dogs in Thailand, Vietnam and China, sometimes after it is observed that they have been cooked alive.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill,
Declares that any torture and eating of cats and dogs in Thailand, Vietnam and China is unacceptable; further that the practices in place in Thailand, Vietnam and China cause unnecessary stress and harm to the cats and dogs involved; and further that these practices are a cause of concern for the British and Scottish athletes who will be attending the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.
The Petitioners therefore request that the UK Government urges the governments of Thailand, Vietnam and China to strengthen and enforce their animal protection laws and further requests that the House urges the Government to consider incoming visits from the governments of these countries.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001295]
Energy Transmission Infrastructure (Carmarthenshire)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
It is a pleasure to open this Adjournment debate on energy transmission infrastructure in my county of Carmarthenshire. In doing so, I am fulfilling two promises, one of which I made to the then Minister on 6 March this year when we debated in Westminster Hall the proposed Brechfa west wind farm application, which he later approved. During the debate, I kindly informed him that I would seek a further debate if he approved the Brechfa west generation development without considering the infrastructure required to connect it to the national grid.
My reading of English planning law is that these matters—generation and transmission developments—should be determined together to help inform a comprehensive picture of the impact of individual energy projects. I said in the aforementioned debate that local people were being hoodwinked by the developers and the UK Government in not processing both together. I regret to inform the House that I share their opinions.
I regret that I have to make a political point so early in my speech, but the Tories in my constituency have only one campaign, and that is to oppose wind turbines. I look forward to reminding the electorate of Carmarthen East and Dinefwr in the months ahead that it was a Tory Minister who approved the largest wind farm ever built in Carmarthenshire and who will now be responsible for the 20 metre-high poles that will service the development.
Secondly, I am fulfilling a promise I made to my constituents that I would seek this debate following two public meetings that my constituency colleague, Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM, and I held on this issue over the summer in the villages of Pontargothi and Pencader. In those meetings, there was not enough room in the various halls to accommodate those who wished to have their say. This transmission development has generated huge public interest in the north and west of my constituency. I will endeavour this evening to portray the arguments made to us as elected members so that they are now a matter of record.
It will be of little surprise to you, Mr Speaker, to learn that if I had my way these matters would be devolved. Wales is a net exporter of electricity, yet we pay the highest electricity prices of any constituent part of the United Kingdom and, regrettably, we have among the highest levels of fuel poverty. A key element of my party’s social justice programme for reducing energy poverty, therefore, is to obtain control over our energy resources. That is also a key part of our economic vision of moving our country from the bottom of the wealth table. I am glad to report that my colleagues in the Assembly will hold a debate on a votable motion tomorrow in the Senedd.
The electricity grid in Wales resembles our transport system: it moves east to west, moving resources out of Wales. The need for a Welsh grid is of paramount importance.
There is also the issue of democracy. These matters should be decided not by the Whitehall machine, but rather by the democratic institutions closer to the communities of west Wales. The regulatory framework put in place by Ofgem specifies that the only material planning consideration is cost—in other words, the cheapest option. That completely disregards the impact of the development on other key components of the Carmarthenshire economy, primarily agriculture and tourism.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman clearly shares my love of rural Wales and appreciates those things that make our constituencies special. Does he agree that if we really must have these appalling wind farms and transmission lines desecrating rural Wales and our communities, at the very least every single part of those lines should go underground?
Jonathan Edwards
I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was staggered to read in the submission on behalf of the company responsible for the Brechfa west wind farm, RWE npower renewables, that tourism and agriculture were of low economic value to the Carmarthenshire economy. My constituency has more than 1,000 farms, yet multinational companies describe them as of little economic value.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Any assessment of cost should surely be an honest assessment, but as far as I can see, the difficulties caused to the tourism industry in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and certainly to the open air industry, including the mountains and the sea, in my constituency, are entirely disregarded when the cost is assessed.
Jonathan Edwards
My hon. Friend, like the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), makes a valid point. We need an holistic assessment of the impact of transmission infrastructure projects on other sectors of the economy that should not be ridden over roughshod by multinational companies.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. We share a constituency border on the River Teifi and he will be aware of the significant growth and potential for growth of the tourism industry in particular. We have experience of some of these schemes in the north of Ceredigion, as opposed to the south, as in the case under discussion. Does he agree that they cause damage to, and are to the detriment of, the tourism industry?
Jonathan Edwards
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Indeed, many tourism operators in my constituency believe that developments on this scale are a disincentive for them to invest further in the sector, which has been seen by all levels of government as a key part of our local economy.
Such is the scale of the proposed transmission project that there will be three different consultation processes before a final route is determined. We are currently in the middle of the first two consultation periods. One of the key elements of my submission to the first process was that local people feel that they are being excluded and that the process has not been open and transparent, with only selected organisations and community councils asked to contribute and no full public engagement.
The first consultation period is extremely significant, because following this initial stage the development company, Western Power Distribution, will have chosen a preferred route from four options. All four routes begin in the north of Carmarthenshire near technical advice note area G—which is the Labour Welsh Government’s jargon for the concentrated wind-generating development zone in the Brechfa forest—and terminate at the National Grid substation in Llandyfaelog in the south of the county. That is a connection distance of more than 30 km.
Villages such as Cwmffrwd, Idole and Llandyfaelog more than 20 miles away from Brechfa forest will now find themselves affected by a project many miles away. As I have said, they have been hoodwinked by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the multinational companies building wind farms in the north of the county, because the subsequent transmission project is a fait accompli.
To balance matters out, perhaps I should aim my guns at the Labour Welsh Government as well. They determined the strategic development zones for energy generation. In the case of the Brechfa forest, they did so in the full knowledge that the local electricity grid had insufficient capacity to service the power generated by the new wind farms.
It is no good Labour Welsh Ministers saying, “Nothing to do with us, guvnor”, and pointing the finger at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is a dereliction of duty on their behalf to have selected strategic zones, in the case of Brechfa, so far away from the national grid that this large transmission infrastructure project is now required.
More than 200 people attended the public meetings that I have mentioned. It is fair to say that feelings ran extremely high. The major concern raised with us during those meetings was the visual impact of the poles that will support the overhead cables envisaged by Western Power Distribution. I am saying this not just because I am a native, but because Carmarthenshire is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful parts of the entire British Isles.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman and I share the privilege of representing part of the Brecon Beacons national park. Does he agree that many other parts of his lovely constituency have a landscape equivalent to that of a national park, and that the project will be a huge problem for the quality of such landscapes?
Jonathan Edwards
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In areas of outstanding natural beauty, cables will have to go underground, but the Tywi valley, although extremely beautiful, is not designated as such and is therefore exempt, so that point is vital.
Carmarthenshire is known as the garden of Wales for good reason, with the Tywi valley hosting the National Botanic Garden of Wales and Aberglasney gardens, both of which are Welsh national treasures. During the public meetings I held on the issue, it was clear that only undergrounding the cables would be acceptable to those who attended.
That is the position of Carmarthenshire county council, which unanimously supported a Plaid Cymru motion:
“That Carmarthenshire County Council finds it totally unacceptable that the proposed Brechfa Forest wind farm(s) National Grid connection should be made via an overhead line supported by wooden pylons. As the Council itself has no statutory power in this matter, we ask the UK Energy Secretary to ensure that the connection cable is laid underground for its entire length”.
There is a clear precedent for undergrounding in Carmarthenshire. The Llyn Brianne hydroelectricity scheme in the north-east of my constituency was connected to the national grid via 20 miles of undergrounding in 1996.
In a one-sentence reply, the developers have stated that the cost of undergrounding is prohibitive. In this case, however, that is simply not good enough. In an answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister told me:
“In 2011, National Grid commissioned an independent study to give more clarity on the practicality, whole life costs and impacts of undergrounding and subsea cabling as alternatives to overhead lines. The Electricity Transmission Costing Study, prepared by technical experts and overseen and endorsed by the Institution of Engineering and Technology was published in January 2012… It contains estimated cost ranges for overhead lines and underground technologies.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 66W.]
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if undergrounding can be done in Powys, it can surely be done in Carmarthenshire? It could be done.
Jonathan Edwards
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. In Powys, the energy or transmission companies involved have decided to underground parts of the route. As the project is undertaken, I will certainly be making the case that the Tywi valley is protected in a similar manner to those areas of Powys.
That report tells us that cost ratios are volatile and that no single cost ratio comparing overhead line costs with those of another technology, such as undergrounding, adequately conveys the costs of the different technologies on a given project. The use of financial cost comparisons, rather than cost ratios, is thus recommended when making investment decisions.
However, Western Power Distribution, which has been tasked with connecting the wind farms with the national grid, has published only a simple financial cost comparison for the proposed project. It has not published any information on the lifetime costs of the project taking into consideration the installation, repairs and maintenance of the electricity cables and pylons. In its one-page underground survey summary—the only piece of information on undergrounding that has been published—Western Power Distribution states that the costs of underground cables would be £986,000 per kilometre, compared with £100,000 per kilometre for overground cables. I am sure that the Minister will share my constituents’ disappointment at not being provided with a full report that outlines a full consideration of the lifetime costs of the project for both overhead cables on pylons and undergrounding.
The National Grid, to which the electricity will be fed, launched a report in 2012 on its approach to the design and routeing of new electricity transmission lines, which outlines some of the principles that it will apply to its plans. I will quote from it because it applies directly to the communities that the proposed wooden pylons will affect:
“We also have a duty to ‘consider the desirability of preserving amenity’ when undertaking projects which includes impacts on communities, landscape and visual amenity, cultural heritage and ecological resources. To satisfy this duty, we seek to avoid areas which are nationally or internationally designated for their landscape, wildlife or cultural significance, such as National Parks.
We recognise, however, that not all sites that are valued by, and important for, the wellbeing of local communities are included in designated areas. Our approach therefore ensures that we consider all of the potential economic, environmental and social impacts of proposed projects, not just those relating to designated sites.”
National Grid is seemingly taking an holistic approach, but the regulator, Ofgem, and the regional distribution companies appear to be operating on the basis of the cheapest up-front cost.
I will briefly mention other concerns that have been raised with me. Some have raised concerns over the health of the people who live near the overground poles. Others have expressed concern about the impact on wildlife and protected species. Many have expressed the concern that as the generating capacity is developed within the Brechfa forest, the wooden poles will have to be upgraded to metal pylons like those that service the Mynydd y Betws strategic wind farm in the south of my constituency. Some of my constituents are concerned about what will happen to the poles after the 25-year life expectancy of the generating development in the Brechfa forest. Many landowners were extremely angry that the developers had accessed their land without permission. That has caused grave concern to many elderly constituents of mine. There should be strict access protocols and I hope that the Minister will impress that on Western Power Distribution.
I will conclude by quoting the greatest of Welshmen, D. J. Williams, whose love for his milltir sgwâr, the square mile of north Carmarthenshire, was unrivalled and was the basis of his patriotism:
“Os gellir dweud fod hawl ddwyfol i unrhyw beth ar y ddaear, yna gyda’r Cymry y mae’r hawl i dir Cymru, nid gydag unrhyw berson estron, pwy bynnag ydyw ef.”
That was translated by the great Welsh poet, Waldo Williams, as:
“It may be said that there is a divine right to anything on earth, the right over the land of Wales belongs to the Welsh nation, and not to any alien, whoever he be.”
As the UK Government-sponsored Silk commission considers the second part of its work into further powers for Wales, opinion polling clearly shows that the people of Wales want full control over their natural resources and the exploitation of those resources. I hope that the Minister is mindful of the sentiments that I have expressed this evening when he considers the application in due course. I am more than happy again to extend my invitation to him to visit my constituency. I am sure that he would be awestruck by the beauty of the Tywi valley and I hope that he would gain an appreciation of why preserving that purity is so important to the people of my county.
Diolch yn fawr iawn.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) on securing this debate and on raising this important issue before the House.
The need for and impact of energy network infrastructure is a complex and sensitive matter. I welcome the opportunity to explain why there is a need to upgrade the electricity network, to clarify the approach that is taken in deciding where and how new infrastructure is delivered and to explain how that relates to Carmarthenshire.
The existing electricity network infrastructure is ageing. Much of it dates from the 1950s and 1960s, so considerable investment is needed to replace those assets as well as to expand our networks to accommodate the new generation that we require and to keep the lights on for our constituents and businesses. That is particularly the case where new generation is located far from demand or where the existing infrastructure is insufficient.
Developers of new generation need the reassurance that the network will be delivered in line with their project time scales so that they will be able to generate electricity once their projects are completed. We should recognise that those projects are substantial, long-term investments and that timely network delivery is crucial to their viability.
Before turning to the subject of electricity networks in Carmarthenshire, it might be helpful if I explain the wider approach to deciding on new network infrastructure. Under the current regulatory framework, it is for the network companies to submit proposals for new network infrastructure to the regulator, Ofgem, and relevant planning authorities. The proposals must be based on a well-justified need case such as new generation connections or the maintenance of a safe and secure network.
The network companies also propose routes and types of infrastructure. In doing so they are required to undertake extensive consultation with stakeholders, and make a balanced assessment of the benefits of reducing any adverse environmental and other impacts of new infrastructure against the costs and technical challenges of doing so. Those requirements are set out in their licence obligations under the Electricity Act 1989 to develop economic and efficient networks, and to have regard to the preservation of amenity and the mitigation of effects that their activities could have on the natural beauty of the countryside.
Hywel Williams
Will the Minister assure the House that all alternative means of transmission will invariably be considered—for example, when grounding or “under-seaing” cables, or is it, as I heard candidly from an energy sector specialist that, “They won’t offer undergrounding or under-seaing as a choice because they are just too expensive”?
Michael Fallon
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I must be careful not to comment on the specific application that lies at the heart of that, but I repeat that in fulfilling their licence obligations companies must not only develop efficient and cost-effective networks but have regard to the preservation of amenity and the mitigation of effects that their activities have on the natural beauty of the countryside. That is the balance they have to strike in their applications.
In addition to legal requirements to consider the wider impacts of new network infrastructure, Ofgem published in July this year information for stakeholders on how that should be taken into account. It clarifies that network companies are required to consider wider impacts and alternative solutions to overhead lines. That regulatory approach is reinforced by the Government’s energy national policy statements, which set out the framework for factors to be considered when consenting to an infrastructure project of national significance. It makes clear—this may help Opposition Members—that cost should not be the only factor in determining the type of network technology used, and that proper consideration should be given to other feasible means of connection, including underground and sub-sea cables. I hope that balanced approach provides some reassurance to those areas potentially affected by cables and pylons that the need for infrastructure is carefully assessed, and that alternatives to new overhead lines are considered seriously.
Since costs and technical difficulties vary so much from project to project, it is important that each is assessed case by case to ensure that the right planning decision is taken each time. The Government consider the costs and benefits of undergrounding electricity lines important issues that need to be considered carefully. That is why my Department arranged for an independent study to provide clarity on the practicality, whole life costs, and impacts of undergrounding and sub-sea cabling, as alternatives to overhead lines. That report was published in January 2012, and its findings are generally consistent with the comparative costs that National Grid quoted when evaluating options on current projects. The report should provide a useful point of reference to inform the planning process.
Let me turn now to the need for, and the development of, network infrastructure in Carmarthenshire. Consent for the Brechfa Forest West wind farm in Carmarthenshire was granted by the Secretary of State in March this year. The application for the electricity network infrastructure in Carmarthenshire to connect the wind farm will be decided by the appropriate planning authorities and Ministers. It would not be appropriate for me to give my views on the particulars of this project. However, I can say that I do recognise that many people feel very strongly about pylons and the impact they can have on the landscape.
Effective consultation with local communities and other interested parties is a vital part of the planning and regulatory approval process. When making proposals for new infrastructure, network companies have to demonstrate that alternatives were considered and why the preferred option is justified. That in turn must show that stakeholders have been engaged effectively. Western Power Distribution, the distribution network operator in Carmarthenshire, has started a consultation process that will continue throughout 2014 to seek views on route options for the wind farm connections. It expects to submit an application for consent to the Planning Inspectorate and it will ultimately be determined by the Secretary of State.
I am encouraged by the greater levels of stakeholder engagement and consideration being given by network companies to alternatives to overhead lines since the new planning framework was introduced. That is exactly the behaviour that the new planning and regulatory frameworks require.
I thank the hon. Members who have participated in what is an important debate. Our challenge is to build a low-carbon economy based on a mix of energy sources that meet our environmental targets and our security of supply needs, and do so in a way that delivers value for money for our consumers.
Meeting our future energy needs will require the expansion of our electricity network. Deciding where and how this infrastructure is delivered requires informed and balanced consideration of a number of factors, including costs, environmental impact, and the needs of local communities and the country as a whole. The planning and regulatory approval processes for new electricity network infrastructure require that stakeholders are consulted properly on these important decisions and that their views are demonstrably taken into account. This is now due to happen in Carmarthenshire where Western Power Distribution is consulting stakeholders in developing its proposals, and I strongly encourage all those with an interest now to engage with Western Power Distribution in this process.
Question put and agreed to.
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Free Schools
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Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Good morning, Mr Gray. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
What a shame that the Minister for Schools cannot be with us. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) is here—it is good to see him—but it is a shame that the Minister for Schools could not attend, because this is clearly his area of responsibility.
Why would a relatively new Member of Parliament from a place like Gateshead be interested in the oversight of free schools? We do not have a free school in Gateshead. I have been interested in the concept of free schools since I read an article in The Sunday Times, on 4 October 2009—before I was elected—in which the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who was then shadow Secretary of State, said that Tory
“policies are aimed at the Gateshead mum…a no-nonsense working class woman passionate about her kids. Passionate enough to set up a massive comprehensive with 2,500 feral children on a depressed sink estate?”
Having represented Gateshead since 2010, and having been a member of the council there since 1983—with 30 years of elected public service under my belt in Gateshead—I was interested in those comments and wondered whether that was the Gateshead that Michael Gove really knew or was really thinking about—but back to the main item.
The oversight of free schools, which are a new type of school under this Government, will not have escaped the attention of hon. and right hon. Members in the past few weeks and months. Indeed, free schools were described by Channel 4 only last night as the Government’s “flagship” education policy. Although the quality of education that our young people receive is the most important factor in any discussion about education policy, we cannot disregard the cost implications for the public purse, particularly in the case of an ideologically driven policy.
Before mentioning oversight, it is important to give some context to this debate. In that regard, we should consider resources, including the funding allocations up to the next financial year. The Government have allocated a staggering £1.7 billion of capital funding to free schools, which equates to a third of the total budget for creating new school places in England as a whole over the spending review period. We should bear in mind the fact that, at the beginning of the autumn term, there were 174 free schools, compared with about 24,000 non-free schools. The words “disproportionate” and “partial” do not seem adequate to describe this investment in so few schools. However, I am more concerned that all this money is being ploughed into free schools, which are an as yet unproven, ideologically driven model of education, with serious implications for our young people.
The inspection and oversight of free schools, or rather the lack of it, has exposed the worrying shortfalls of this Government’s free schools policy.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining this debate. Just to clarify, does he believe that local authorities should have oversight or should a separate body be set up to oversee the free schools?
Ian Mearns
That question needs to be decided. At the moment, local authorities do not have oversight and it is clear—I will come on to this—that the other organisations given the duty of oversight do not yet have the resources to do it effectively.
It is particularly worrying that the Government, in the shape of the Education Funding Agency and Ofsted, seem to find out about failures of governance only when whistleblowers inside the schools feel it necessary to act. Free schools have a great deal of freedom in how to constitute and run their own governing bodies, and there is little evidence that either the EFA or Ofsted is able to identify and act on emerging problems.
In spite of Her Majesty’s chief inspector’s criticism of local authorities for not picking up problems in academies, one basic tenet of the free school movement is that they are totally detached from the local authority. Schools such as the Al-Madinah free school in Derby, Kings science school in Bradford, and Barnfield Federation in Luton—we are not entirely sure how many others there might be, and it seems that the Department for Education and Ofsted are not sure either—show that the wheels are well and truly coming off the free-school wagon and that free schools are vulnerable to a catalogue of problems.
Chief among those problems is the lack of good governance. That failure of governance is compounded by weaknesses in inspection and oversight of free schools. The three schools that I mentioned are examples of that. I should like to make it clear that, when we talk about schools, we are talking about children who, as the Secretary of State reminds us, get only one chance at a good education.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has secured this debate. In the past few weeks the tone used in respect of free schools has changed. I welcome the new approach by the Opposition Front Bench. However, I plead with the hon. Gentleman not to accept that all free schools have poor governance and poor arrangements in place. For example, in my constituency, Etz Chaim school has high standards, good governance and good people running it. I ask the hon. Gentleman not to characterise all schools and categorise them as he has done.
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He has given a good example— an anecdote—of a school in his vicinity, but there are 174 such schools and as yet the mechanisms do not exist to ensure that every free school is of the high quality that he mentioned.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that qualified staff, proper standards for school buildings and school meals, and adherence to a national curriculum are ways of guaranteeing that every child in a free school can have a good education? Without those four starter points, there is a danger that we cannot guarantee the standard of education in free schools. That is the problem. The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) mentions a school where he thinks things are going well, but without those guarantees and proper inspection there will be ever more disasters such as those my hon. Friend mentions.
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a telling point. We are talking about educating children at a cost to the public purse. When the public purse is involved, we should expect minimum standard requirements in education. My hon. Friend makes the point well.
We are talking about the standards of education that these children receive. All too often, school policy is discussed as if it is somehow divorced from the fact that the ultimate victims of school failure are the children themselves. Let us not forget that even though these are free schools it is still public money that is paying for them.
The Al-Madinah school was branded “dysfunctional and inadequate” by Ofsted and “a national embarrassment” by Muslim leaders. Its own head teacher, Andrew Cutts-McKay, dismayed at poor governance and lack of foresight, turned whistleblower to expose the worrying slide in standards. Ofsted lamented the “limited knowledge and experience” of the governing body and the fact that teachers lacked proper skills to deliver a quality education. It condemned the school’s governance in no uncertain terms, stating:
“Accounting systems are not in place to ensure public money is properly spent and governors have failed to ensure an acceptable standard of education is provided by the school.”
Kings science school in Bradford has been accused of “serious financial mismanagement” and possibly fraud. Indeed, as with the Al-Madinah school, it was a member of the Kings science school staff—the finance director—who blew the whistle on the management of the school.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern that it took a full year after the whistleblower first raised these concerns for the Department for Education to publish that report into the alleged failings? Is that not just another example of the lack of transparency that has surrounded the free schools project from the beginning?
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.
Although the Department for Education, Ofsted or any other inspectorate should be absolutely sure of its facts before going public, the time delay is worrying. The worrying precedent is that in those cases we have had to rely on whistleblowers—had they not been stripped of powers in relation to free schools, local authority officers would be uncovering failures. The EFA and Ofsted obviously do not have the required infrastructure, and are therefore not currently up to the job.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He makes a crucial point on the role of local authorities. Does he agree that one of the big problems in our school system is that local authorities are responsible for the education of all children but have absolutely no power to intervene in very serious cases such as those that he describes?
Ian Mearns
My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. The Minister could reassure hon. and right hon. Members in the room today, and members of the public outside, that local authorities should be given at least a temporary ability to intervene because of the concerns raised in three of the 174 free schools.
The alleged serious financial mismanagement at Kings science academy also extends to the school’s land lease. The Yorkshire Post revealed that a company owned by a vice-chairman of the Conservative party, Alan Lewis, is to receive some £6 million over 20 years, or £300,000 a year, to lease the land on which the academy was built. Particularly in the absence of local authority oversight of free school finances, it seems that there are what some might call beneficial deals for some at the expense of the public purse.
The plot thickens. According to the BBC, there was “a forensic investigation” earlier this year:
“The school was paid a £182,933 grant when it opened in September 2011. The EFA investigation found that £59,560 of payments were not supported by any evidence of payments being made, and £10,800 of this was supported by fabricated invoices for rent.”
More recently, it was found that an independent panel had fined the school £4,000 for failing to reinstate an excluded pupil. I am sure many colleagues on both sides of the House will agree that that is not how public money should be spent—it is not aiding the education of any child. That £4,000 is money that could, and should, have been spent on front-line education services.
That appalling level of financial mismanagement is even more concerning as it is public money. The coalition Government like to stress the importance of sound public finances, but oddly enough, their flagship education policy seems to have free rein on the use of public money.
An investigation into E-ACT—which, according to its website runs 34 academies and free schools from Dartmouth to Leeds—by the EFA revealed that a total of £393,000 was spent on “procedural irregularities,” including consultancy fees, breaking E-ACT’s own financial rules. The investigation also found that expenses indicated a culture of “prestige” venues, large drinks bills, business lunches and first-class travel, all funded by public money. “Extravagant” use was made of public funds for an annual strategy conference, at a cost of almost £16,000. Monthly lunches took place at the Reform club—I would like to go there some day, as I have never been—a private members’ club in London, with the public purse paying the bill for that excess. Boundaries between E-ACT and its trading subsidiary, E-ACT Enterprises, became “blurred.” A number of activities undertaken by the subsidiary were paid for with public funds. E-ACT, one of the largest chains of academies, was finally issued with a notice to improve by the EFA, so E-ACT lost Sir Bruce Liddington, its chief executive and former schools commissioner for England who, it is believed, was paid some £300,000 in 2010-11.
Barnfield college in Luton, part of the Barnfield Federation, which includes Barnfield Moorlands free school, has come under scrutiny for its educational practices. The concerns include grade massaging, as well as how the school treats its learners. The Barnfield Federation mantra, according to its website, is:
“One purpose. One team. One standard.”
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend rightly mentions the Barnfield Federation. Would he welcome a commitment from the Minister today that, when the Department completes its investigation into that particular scandal, it will undertake to publish the investigation immediately—rather than sitting on it for six months, as it did in the case of Kings science academy in Bradford?
Ian Mearns
The Minister has heard my hon. Friend’s question, and I echo that sentiment.
The Barnfield Federation has taken on some 10 schools in recent years, and I share the concerns that the federation might have overstretched itself by trying to take on too many schools too quickly. Although Barnfield college has stressed that it remains financially viable, its managerial viability is still a major cause of concern.
Advice given to those looking to set up free schools is careful to stress the importance of acquiring
“the right level of expertise to oversee the financial management of your school.”
It seems odd that the Government stress the importance of financial expertise in free schools—we have seen such failures—but have little concern about the expertise, standards or professional qualifications of the teaching staff. As I have previously mentioned, Ofsted raised concerns about both the financial and teaching provision at the Al-Madinah school, but Ofsted has not commented on the Secretary of State’s repeated assertion that free schools, and indeed all academies, do not need to have qualified teachers at all. That is apparently based on his view that what is good enough for Eton is good enough for any school. I appreciate that there is a little local difficulty in the coalition on that, but the Secretary of State and his Liberal Democrat Minister for Schools, at least, seem to be in accord, despite the apparent wider political Cleggmire.
The Government stress that expertise is necessary for the financial management of schools, yet they offer little insistence on such expertise when it comes to the governance and oversight of free schools. Many of the problems that I have outlined at the Al-Madinah school and Kings science academy, Bradford, stem from a lack of credible, organised governance and a lack of experience. The Department for Education may stress the importance of financial expertise, but if the systems of governance are poor, the financial health of a school will suffer as a direct consequence.
As free schools are autonomous, there is no way for local authorities to ensure that free schools in their jurisdiction have adequate, well rounded governance. It is imperative that that issue is addressed, urgently. The Government may write off Al-Madinah school as a one-off or as a contained incident, but the fact remains that that debacle has lifted the curtain on the fallacies and frailties of the programme. The Government simply do not have a clue about how many other free schools are in a similar situation.
The Department for Education’s website states:
“The right school can transform a child’s life and help them achieve things they may never have imagined.”
But what is the make-up of “the right school,” and what will the “wrong” school do for its students, who are ultimately children for whom we all have a duty of care?
Aside from good teachers and good facilities, I believe it is imperative that there is excellent governance, guaranteed by extensive oversight and rigorous inspection. I have called this debate because I have serious concerns about the oversight of free schools. I also have more general concerns about free schools, especially the disproportionate amount of the education budget eaten up by such schools. The unit costs of free schools bear no comparison with the vast majority of schools or schoolchildren.
One of my biggest concerns is the admissions policies adopted by many free schools that appear to be at best opaque, and at worst deliberately exclusive. A study by Race on the Agenda titled “Do free schools help to build a more equal society?” shows that only two out of 78 free schools are fully meeting their legal requirement to publish information pertaining to measurable equality objectives.
The ROTA report further states that only six free schools have published at least one equality objective, which is a poorer level of compliance than any other type of school. The question posed by the report is seemingly answered by those dismal figures. Free schools are doing very little to build a more equal society.
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. What lies behind this is the fact that schools are not islands: what happens in one school has an impact on children in other schools and across the wider community. Does he agree that the free-for-all that free schools have become is bad for children—not just in the failing schools he talked about, but in other schools?
Ian Mearns
It is clear that free schools have an impact on other schools in their areas. Where those other schools hoped to have a comprehensive intake, the free schools will have a skewing effect. Indeed, they might also undermine the financial viability of other schools by taking pupils away from them. This is about not just whether free schools have a positive impact on the children who go to them, but whether they have a significant negative impact and a destabilising effect on other schools nearby.
Nia Griffith
Does my hon. Friend find it odd that some free schools have been set up in areas with surplus places, but not in areas with a need for more places? That is another worrying feature.
Ian Mearns
My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. Some free schools have not been established in areas where additional places are required or where a significant number of schools are failing and need to improve—to get a kick up the backside, as it were—but in areas where neither of those criteria has been met. There is really no educational rationale for the existence of those schools; this is an ideologically driven policy.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend said money is taken from other schools in the locality to set up free schools. Does he agree, however, that the £1 billion overspend on the free schools and academies programme has a much wider impact on the education of children, because it takes away huge resources across the country? That is an extremely worrying consequence of the programme.
Ian Mearns
My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. Every pound spent on one item cannot be spent on another—that is simple economic opportunity cost. If we as a country indulge ourselves in establishing a relatively small number of these schools, the opportunity cost is that the money cannot be spent on the educational opportunities of millions of other children.
If you will indulge me, Mr Gray, I would like to look at other elements of free school admissions policy. Recent research suggests that the majority of the first wave of free schools did not take their fair share of disadvantaged pupils. The vast majority took lower numbers of children on free school meals, compared with local borough and national averages. That not only underlines the idea held by some that free schools are the preserve of a privileged few—set up by the few to serve the few and not the many—but exposes how schools can use the dilution of admissions policy that the Secretary of State has overseen.
I know the importance of good governance and the impact it can have on the direction of schools. There must be robust, independent oversight of schools if they are to flourish and if we are to be sure that the children in them are getting a good-quality education and that public money is being spent in the best way. I can speak from experience, having been a school governor for more than 30 years, as well as the chair at a once underperforming school in my community. I am sure that many of my hon. Friends are, or have been, governors in schools in their communities, and they will be well aware of the role’s importance.
We cannot afford to let the scandals in free schools damage and undermine the reputation of school governors or governance. More importantly, we cannot let poor oversight of free schools distract us from ensuring that all children receive a high-quality education from properly qualified teachers. All parents and pupils need to be able to trust their school, and, as institutions that spend public money, free schools are no exception.
In “Academies and free schools programmes: Framework for assessing value for money”, an eight-page document published on 8 November, the Department says that value for money is based on the consideration of three key elements:
“Economy: minimising the cost of the inputs needed to deliver a service; Efficiency: maximising the service output delivered with those inputs; and Effectiveness: maximising the impact of the service on outcomes for those who use it.”
Referring to outcomes, it talks about assessing
“how educational outcomes are improving and the consequential economic and social outcomes that occur over the longer term.”
I am pleased that educational outcomes are at least mentioned, but the document raises a number of questions, which I would like the Minister to answer, if he can, when he sums up. What has been the total cost so far of free schools—including capital costs, revenue costs and the hundreds of thousands of pounds given to the New School Network? What measures are in place to measure outcomes in value-for-money terms? How many free schools are under scrutiny for financial or educational reasons, and how many have received warning letters? The final question, which has a very clear answer, is: can we afford the financial and educational cost of this ideologically driven policy? I am not sure that the answer is yes.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on a good presentation of a fairly solid case. I want to make a few remarks and then to bring a particularly graphic case to the Minister’s attention.
I am unenthusiastic about school structure changes in general, but I do not have the same hang-ups about free schools as I do about academies. Academies seem to involve alienating an asset without the consent of the community or the parental body. However, it is fair to acknowledge that free schools also have critics—the hon. Gentleman is obviously among them—and Ministers normally have answers to some of the criticisms they raise.
The big issue that the hon. Gentleman raised, which I will dwell on ultimately, is governance, but there are other criticisms. There is the effect on school places—the fact that there can be over-supply when a free school is created in an area with surplus places. However, I think the ministerial team take that into account, or they say they do, when they give schools the go-ahead.
There is the fact that a lot of free schools are denominational, but, hey, a lot of state schools are also denominational, and we have a quid pro quo in connection with that. There is the claim that free schools involve selection via the back door, but it is not over-selection. The hon. Gentleman also put the case that the funding is somehow rigged, but I am fairly confident that the Minister will have a good answer on that score as well.
There is the fundamental point that free schools can sometimes end up not teaching the shared values or the world view of the funder or the Government. That can be an issue—we think of the Al-Madinah school, where the issue was values, or creationist schools, where the issue is the world view. I am more concerned about free schools that do not teach the shared values of our society. I am not so much concerned with the content of what individual schools teach, where that is at variance from the norm, as long as the teaching itself is proper teaching and not simply indoctrination.
I have to be relatively relaxed about non-qualified teacher status, because I did 30 years’ teaching, and I was not trained to teach at any point. I got into a secondary modern school, and I taught for two years. When I had survived for two years, I got a nice letter from the Department of Education and Science telling me that I was a qualified teacher. During my teaching career, I taught five different subjects, and only in the last 10 years was the subject I taught the same as the subject of my degree. I have to say that my teaching career was not dotted with failure throughout.
Dr Offord
The hon. Gentleman illustrates that people do not have to have a teaching degree to make a valuable contribution to education. Indeed, the head teacher of the shadow education spokesman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) did not have any teaching qualifications, and I do not think that did him any harm either.
John Pugh
I must correct the hon. Gentleman; I have a master’s in education and a diploma somewhere, but they have no relevance to my teaching capacities. I never found that they were terribly instructive.
On the positive side, the argument for free schools is that they are set up by parental demand. That partly explains the good results. The biggest factor correlating with educational success is parental support. Enthusiastic parents produce enthusiastic kids, who get good results. We should not be surprised if free schools achieve marginal educational improvements. The key selling point for the Government has always been that free schools are innovative and diverse, in a way that state schools seem not to be expected to be.
I wonder whether, twenty years on, a free school will have settled down to a clear recipe that it understands, and will be producing clear results that it understands. Even if that does not happen, why should not the innovation and flexibility that free schools are given be on the menu for all schools? If they are good things, they should be given to schools regardless of their structure or character—to LEA schools as well as free schools.
The LEA’s role is extraordinarily helpful, and has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). It does not spend most of its time interfering with schools and telling them exactly how and what to teach; we can safely allow the Secretary of State and Ofsted to do that. By and large, its job is to advise, support and co-ordinate, and to step in when difficulties arise. That brings me to my main point.
By serendipity—it is a fine thing—I was contacted a few days ago, not knowing that the hon. Member for Gateshead would suggest this debate in such a timely way, by someone who had a problem with a free school. I shall not name the school, except to say that it is not in my constituency; it is a lot nearer to where we are today than to my constituency. However, the problem that is described tells us something about what is wrong with governance in free schools, and about what may be going wrong with the experiment. It results from some straightforward playground bullying, and parents getting involved, as they often do, in defence of their child—both the bully and the one being bullied. The issue spiralled alarmingly, because after a while parents became aggressive towards one another.
My e-mail came from a mother, who sent her child to a free school because she believed that such a school was a wholly good idea—she had no problem with that—and because she had had difficulty getting her child into other schools in the area:
“It was reported to us that at the Parents Forum Meeting…parents not present when the assault took place were openly discussing the incident”—
between two parents and two children—
“whilst the representatives of the school sat and said nothing. The Parents Forum Meeting then descended into chaos. A small number of aggressive parents hijacked the meeting and began shouting and yelling…Eventually the Chairman asked one of the most aggressive and disruptive parents to leave”
but that parent refused. The e-mail says:
“The Chairman, Head Teacher and Deputy Head, were speechless in their shock”
and did nothing to try to change events. Parents
“apparently left the meeting in distress, whilst others felt for their safety. The meeting was…abandoned. The Chairman has also since told me that the only reason he was chairing the meeting…was because no one else would do it, that he’d had to cancel a dental appointment to be able to attend and that after what happened he really wished he’d gone to the dentist.”
Subsequently, the parent who contacted me spoke to the deputy head.
“He had no words. He was completely speechless and could not give me any guidance or assurance that the school had the matter under control.”
My correspondent tells me
“We feel that this situation should never have been allowed to get to this point and believe it has, simply because some parents have been allowed to feel for far too long, that they are in charge and that the school answers to them. This I feel is partly because Free Schools appear to request parental involvement in the way the school is guided, and the schools appear not to be adequately equipped to deal with situations when they become difficult, and have”—
this is a key point—
“no higher level of management to turn to for support, other than perhaps their own boards of trustees who, in this case, appear not to be professionally experienced in the education sector.”
The e-mail continues:
“I am unsure whether or not the school were aware of their legal footing, but I do know that a number of parents, including myself, sent them links and documents to various websites including the Department of Education guidelines with regards to bullying outside of school, and how to manage anti social parents behaviour. They seemed uninterested in this and told me that they had consulted a lawyer and there was nothing more they could do with regards the aggressive and intimidating behaviour of parents.
What struck me as most concerning was that the management of the school appeared to have no idea as to their legal rights, or what they could or could not do to address the situation. The Head Teacher appeared to need to consult the Chairman of the school trust for guidance and in turn the chairman had to seek independent legal advice on what action he could tell the Head Teacher to take.”
The writer—someone who chose to send her child to a free school—concludes:
“We feel that our children have become part of a wider social experiment; new schools are clearly needed but why largely rely on people with little or no experience of running schools to set them up and manage them? We now believe this is a dangerous experiment...Free schools are a tempting option when so many state schools are either over subscribed or failing to offer a decent level of education. It is apparent that no guidance is being given by the State, nor is anyone monitoring what is going on”.
Nia Griffith
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the whole point of local authority intervention was that it could so often help the inexperienced head teacher or governing body, and pre-empt that type of situation? His correspondent has pinpointed the complete lack of anyone to turn to when things get difficult.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. “Erskine May” makes it plain that hon. Members should not use extensive quotations from documents in speeches, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman would summarise the e-mail rather than reading it out.
John Pugh
Certainly, Mr Gray. The parent contacted the New Schools Network and the Department for Education à propos the children’s circumstances—the lack of play space, and so on. She got no advice that was of any use to her, and what she says complements and adds to the points of the previous correspondent. I apologise, Mr Gray, for reading out that e-mail so fully, but it is important to say that those are not my sentiments, but those of someone who had a child at a free school, but who had to withdraw them.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman gave a litany of complaints, and it sounded like an extreme instance. How extreme does he think it was? Does he think it may have been replicated elsewhere?
John Pugh
I simply do not know, but I agree with the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) that if there are extreme cases it is not obvious how they are to be dealt with. It is obvious that there is not the institutional back-up to assist with difficulties whether they are extreme or not.
There is a solution. It would be possible to set up a local body to advise and support such schools to set standards and possibly provide some democratic accountability: we could call it an LEA.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing an important and timely debate.
I want to respond to some criticisms by the Secretary of State for Education of the schools in my area. I believe that they are an attempt to garner support for a free school in an adjacent area. I am not by nature boastful, but I want to begin by boasting about the achievements of schools in my constituency. We have seen year on year improvements, which have continued in 2013 with the academy at Shotton Hall, the Seaham school of technology and Easington academy achieving record results. Dene community school, which continues to improve year-on-year, also saw record-breaking results, and St Bede’s Catholic comprehensive school achieved its best-ever results, with more students exceeding the Government’s benchmark of making three and four levels of progress in both English and Maths from year 7.
We would all agree that the achievements of east Durham’s schools constitute something of a success story and are testament to the ambition and hard work of the teaching staff and students and to the drive of head teachers in my constituency. The success of east Durham’s schools ought to be cause for celebration and Ministers ought to congratulate them on their efforts. Sadly, that has not been the case. For some unexplained reason, the Secretary of State for Education launched an inexcusable and unfounded attack on east Durham’s schools earlier this year, saying:
“When you go into those schools, you can smell the sense of defeatism.”
He added that the schools had a “lack of ambition”. He was quick to condemn the schools, but he will not visit them, despite having been invited.
The Minister for Schools does not share the Secretary of State’s unduly pessimistic view of the schools in my constituency. Following Easington academy’s latest results, the Minister wrote a letter of congratulation, in which—I will read out the highlights only—he identified that the school stood out in two ways:
“First, you were ranked number one in your table. Second, over 10 per cent more of your pupils achieved five good GCSEs including English and Maths than is typical of a school with your intake. This is a fantastic achievement that you should be very proud of.”
He continued:
“You are also one of the 56 top performing secondary schools in England on this measure.”
That is praise indeed.
I pay tribute to the hard work of the students, teachers, parents and the head teacher of the Seaham school of technology, which has had some fantastic results in the face of real challenges, given the condition of the school building. Those results have come in spite of the fact that the much-needed new building, which had been promised by the previous Labour Government, was withdrawn by this Government to divert, I believe, funds towards the Secretary of State’s pet free schools project.
I want to compare the capital and revenue funding of schools in my area with that of free schools. The Durham free school, which at the last count employed nine members of staff but had only 30 pupils, is one such school. According to the Secretary of State, it represents excellent value for money. According my calculations, however, that is a ratio of nearly three students to every teacher. How does that represent excellent value for money?
Ian Mearns
I understand my hon. Friend’s chagrin at the criticism levelled at schools in and around his constituency, but I wonder whether it may have something to do with the fact that one of the Secretary of State’s special advisers, Dominic Cummings, was connected through a family member to the establishment of the Durham free school.
Grahame M. Morris
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an interesting and serious point. If the Secretary of State seeks to promote a political ideology in the form of a free school with political backing and in so doing is undermining the education opportunities and funding for pupils in my area, quite frankly, it is an outrage.
How much better would the results have been at the Seaham school of technology, which has more than 640 pupils, if it had enjoyed the fantastic ratio of one teacher for every three students or if it had at least received the much-needed new building that it had been promised? The Secretary of State’s free school pet project is motivated neither by achieving better results, nor by the desire to obtain better value for money. Such schools are free only at the expense of the success of existing local authority schools. I therefore do not understand how they can be considered to be cost-effective.
The truth is that the free schools project is ideologically motivated and free schools are being driven to succeed, with teachers and students everywhere else being made to pay for it. Free schools have been unaffected by budget cuts and receive a disproportionate share of capital and revenue funding, as pointed out by several hon. Members, at the expense of local schools, despite the fact that they educate only a tiny proportion of all pupils.
The Secretary of State has turned down several invitations to visit east Durham, but it would be instructive if he came and listened to students and teachers at schools in my constituency. They would ask him for just a little of what he is spending on free schools to improve students’ learning experiences and life chances. Through the Minister, I urge the Secretary of State to wake up to the facts. Free schools mean less oversight, less democracy and poorer value for money. They are failing the taxpayer, teachers, parents and, most importantly, children. If the Secretary of State does want to come down to earth from his ivory tower, there is no better spot for him to land than in east Durham.
Finally, I ask the Minister to pass on one more invitation to the Secretary of State to come and see how things are being done, to witness the state of the building at the Seaham school of technology, to speak to the pupils, teachers and head teachers and to change the habit of a lifetime by listening to those doing the hard work. A person is never too old or too clever to learn—even a Secretary of State for Education.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing this important debate, which has identified the need for a pause for thought on the due diligence processes that apply prior to the opening of free schools. I will talk about the case that I know best, the Kings science academy, which is relevant to today’s debate because The Daily Telegraph hailed it in September 2011 as coming closest to the Prime Minister’s vision of what a free school should be.
Many would agree—I certainly do—with greater freedoms for our publicly funded schools around the curriculum, staffing, opening hours, holidays and so on. Those would be generally acceptable to many people across the political divide; many of us are up for it. However, what else would the Minister deem acceptable in the name of freedom? How far can schools go?
At the Kings science academy, a principal with no experience even as a deputy, let alone a head teacher, was appointed without an interview. Is that acceptable to the Minister? Prior to the new build, £460,000 was invested in temporary accommodation at an old school of which the principal’s father was a trustee. Is that acceptable? Insurance was paid on the school—a temporary provision—to an insurance company set up by a trust of which the principal’s father was a trustee. Is that acceptable? The principal himself was shown to be a director of that insurance company, although he claimed that that was a mistake. Is that acceptable?
A benefactor—more correctly referred to by the hon. Member for Gateshead as a beneficiary—called Alan Lewis, who happens to be a vice-chairman of the Conservative party, provided a site containing warehouses that were largely derelict and empty, but then received £10 million-worth of public money to build the new school. We have now heard that he will receive £6 million over a 20-year period, after which the building reverts back to his sole ownership. That same person, at the time of the negotiations on the lease payments on the new building, was chair of the governing body. Is that acceptable to the Minister?
An accountants’ report in the summer of 2012—the accountants brought in were those of, guess who, Alan Lewis—identified widespread financial irregularities dating back as long ago as the period before the school’s opening, but the Education Funding Agency did not send in the external assurance team until a scheduled visit took place in December 2012. It waited for a scheduled visit! Is that acceptable to the Minister?
Bill Esterson
The hon. Gentleman is describing a disgraceful and worsening litany of what has happened at the school in his constituency. Is there a way of providing oversight that would avoid all those terrible things that he is describing?
Mr Ward
My great concern is that the oversight is not wanted, because were it in place, it would ask the awkward questions that people do not want to answer. We do not see what we do not look for.
An internal audit investigation team at the beginning of 2013 concurred with the accountants’ report—by now six months old—and identified fraudulent claims for Department for Education funding; the appointment, without interview, of the principal’s mother, father and sister as school staff; payments to the principal of pension contributions due to the Teachers’ Pensions agency, claimed from the DFE; and much more. Yet the principal was not suspended. Is that acceptable to the Minister?
Thanks to John Roberts at the Yorkshire Post, we know that the DFE is blaming an administrative error for the failure of the police to investigate, when only a week before the Department had claimed that the police had decided not to investigate. Is that acceptable? When told by the police that they did not have enough information to proceed with an investigation, the DFE failed to send them the full and damning audit report. Is that acceptable? We were told that the police did not get the audit report, because they did not ask for it. The audit report, available in May 2013, was not published until 25 October, just before the broadcasting of a critical “Newsnight” investigation into the school. Is that acceptable?
When the DFE was questioned about what action it intended to take following the publication of the report, the Department replied that—wait for it—the school had launched its own investigation and that any disciplinary action was a matter for the school. Is that acceptable? In answering that particular question, will the Minister bear in mind that the principal’s brother is on the disciplinary committee?
My questions are not rhetorical; they require answers. Are those things acceptable? Is that the level we have fallen to in terms of accountability? Finally, if all those things are acceptable in the name of freedom, will the Minister tell me just how corrupt a free school has to be to be unacceptable?
How many more schools are like the one I have been talking about? Are we talking about the tip of an iceberg? Earlier, the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) talked about a wonderful school with great governance arrangements, but, in truth, how do we know? We know clearly from the Kings science academy that when matters were wrong and wrongdoing was taking place day in, day out, they did not come to public attention. We simply do not know the answer to the question of how many more such schools there are, but it makes you think, doesn’t it?
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
We have had an interesting debate, on which I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who told us about his 30 years as a councillor—he must have been elected to the council at the age of 14 or so. He certainly kicked off the debate extremely well. It was important that he drew to the attention of the House the ROTA report, which itself could be the subject of another debate on free schools and their approach to equality issues. We also had a good contribution from the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who spoke in his usual philosophical fashion. He trotted round the arguments on free schools and highlighted some important incidents of which he has been made aware.
My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) made a powerful plea for fair treatment of and fair comment on the schools in his east Durham area, and he cited the Secretary of State on their smell of defeat. The Secretary of State is an extraordinary man in many ways, but he must have an exceptional sense of smell if, having never visited those schools, he can detect the smell of defeat about them. That says everything.
Finally, we had a contribution from the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward), who should be congratulated on the manner in which he has attempted, in the face of great difficulties, to expose the scandals at Kings science academy in Bradford. I saw him on his local media pointing out that some of the people whom the Secretary of State had approved to run the school and to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were not only not fit to run a school, but not fit to run a bath—to use his inimitable phrase. His contribution this morning made the case absolutely clear, and I will say more about that later.
I welcome the children’s Minister, who is one of the nicest people in the Government, as is his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), but we want to know where the Minister for Schools is. It would have been better had he come along today, to listen not only to my colleagues and me, but to his own Liberal Democrat colleagues on the policy for which he is responsible in the Commons at least.
I have noticed recently that in parliamentary answers—written answers as well—the children’s Minister is deployed as a kind of human shield for the Minister for Schools to answer questions about some subjects, including the free schools policy. I hope that that will not become a trend, but I guess it is understandable, given that he is being asked to defend what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the shadow Education Secretary, has described as a
“dangerous ideological experiment which has been allowed to run completely out of control”.
The hon. Member for Bradford East gave us a fine example of the manner in which this is out of control. He is right of course, because we have lots of schools with—despite what the hon. Member for Southport said—unqualified teachers written into them as a kind of policy, but also with unqualified leaders. Furthermore, schools are being built where there are already surplus places and with a dangerous lack of oversight and transparency, as we have heard this morning, but that is exactly what the Government planned.
It is no accident that we are hearing more examples of head teachers resigning—another one resigned yesterday, at the IES Breckland free school, following the resignation of the 27-year-old unqualified head at the Pimlico primary free school founded by Lord Nash, a Government Minister. We are hearing more examples of disastrous teaching, such as at the Al-Madinah free school, and allegations of financial fraud, at Al-Madinah and, as we have heard, at Kings science academy in Bradford. There is also an ongoing investigation into the Barnfield Federation in Luton, and we want a guarantee from the Minister that there will not be a cover-up this time—the report of the Department’s investigation should be printed immediately on completion, rather than being sat on until “Newsnight” gets a leaked copy, as happened in the case of Kings science academy.
The reason I say that this is what the Government planned is because they told us that they expected the policy to result in this kind of failure. The hand-picked adviser to the Secretary of State is Mr Dominic Cummings, who was brought into Government against the ethical objections of Andy Coulson and whom the Secretary of State has described as one of his “heroes”. Mr Cummings said in a recent 250-page memo that this kind of fraud and failure was an integral part of the free schools policy design. He said that some free schools
“will fail and have predictable disasters from disastrous teaching to financial fraud.”
There we have it: the lack of oversight is not an accident, as the hon. Member for Bradford East pointed out; it is part of the design of this ideological experiment. According to the Government, a bit of failure is fine, if there are unqualified teachers, and some financial fraud is okay: in the long run, presumably, some good schools will emerge from the carnage of the experiment. The fact that pupils’ education is disrupted along the way—as with the Al-Madinah free school, which had to close for a week—is presumably just collateral damage and a price worth paying.
The adviser to the Secretary of State has told us that we should expect failure and fraud. Clearly, he is right. At least he is being honest: all we have had from the rest of the Department is delay and obfuscation when it has been questioned about all this. Much of that is because Ministers are hopelessly conflicted about the policy. How can a Minister be both a promoter of free schools and an adjudicator on them? That is the situation now. How can the Secretary of State be both propagandist for his free schools experimental policy and overseer of that policy at the same time? He is responsible for all of these schools. He is like Dr Frankenstein: he is in love with his own creation and cannot see the dangers even when the evidence is staring him right in the face.
Just last night we heard further revelations about the Al-Madinah free school on “Channel 4 News”. Perhaps today we will finally get some action and Lord Nash might for a day be able to forget that he is a free school promoter and remember that he is a Government Minister with responsibility for the proper use of taxpayers’ money. Ofsted described that school as “dysfunctional” and rated it “inadequate” in every category, with unqualified teachers who lacked proper training. Now there are new allegations of financial irregularities over the letting of contracts. Will the Minister confirm—he may need some in-flight refuelling to answer the question—whether Department for Education Ministers or officials received from Derbyshire police correspondence relating to the funders of the Al-Madinah free school before it was opened? If so, will he commit to publishing that correspondence?
Let me turn to Kings science academy in Bradford, which opened in 2011, as the hon. Member for Bradford East pointed out, and, as he said, the patron or beneficiary of the school is Alan Lewis, who is a vice-chairman of the Conservative party. The school was built on Mr Lewis’s company land, and as we have heard, he stands to make £6 million in rent over the course of a 20-year agreement.
On 25 October, nearly six months—certainly over five months—since its completion, the Department published a redacted report from a financial investigation that it had carried out at Kings science academy only after whistleblowing from within the school. The way in which the Department redacted the report is interesting. Mr Lewis’s name was redacted, despite the fact that the financial arrangements are in the public domain. Even the name of the head teacher of the school was redacted in the version that the Department released. We have to wonder why it was necessary to redact the name of the head teacher—or principal, as he calls himself—and the name of Mr Lewis when that information is in the public domain; perhaps the Minister can explain.
The Department rushed out the report—that might explain the clumsy redaction— hours before “Newsnight”, which had already received a leaked draft copy, was due to go on air with the story. The report found a whole host of financial irregularities, including an admission by someone at the school that it had submitted fabricated invoices to claim money from the DFE as part of its set-up grant, and identified £86,000 of that grant that had not been spent by the school for the purpose for which it was intended. The report recommended that those matters should be passed on to the police for investigation. As has been pointed out, on 25 October, the Department said that the matter had been reported to the police
“who decided no further action was necessary.”
That seems odd to me. After all, invoices had been fabricated: why did that not result in proper criminal action?
The DFE’s initial version of events was that it reported the matter to Action Fraud on 25 April, and followed that up in September when it was told that the police had decided to take no further action. However, once all this became public—only because of the “Newsnight” investigation—West Yorkshire police contacted the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau to ask about the case and were told that there had been an administrative error that meant that the matter had been passed on to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau as being for information rather than as a report of a potential crime. Five days after the DFE report was made public, West Yorkshire police put out this statement:
“The Department for Education reported the matter to Action Fraud…on April 25, 2013. It was recorded as an information only case not as a crime. This was not sent to West Yorkshire Police either as information or for investigation. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau has now assessed the report in line with nationally agreed protocols and have today sent it for investigation by West Yorkshire Police.”
That is where we are now, and we know that people are being interviewed, but the matter was not passed on properly to the police for more than five months.
The Department says that in September it contacted Action Fraud to ask for an update and was told by the police that there was nothing more to be done. Why at that stage did the Department not ask more questions? Why did it not dig and find out that there had been an administrative error? We need to understand why it did not do so.
It has now emerged that the Department for Education did not even submit the report to Action Fraud. It simply made a telephone call to the helpline. I have a copy of the Action Fraud web page for its helpline, which says:
“We provide a central point of contact for information about fraud and financially motivated internet crime. If you’ve been scammed, ripped off or conned, there is something you can do about it.”
Presumably the Secretary of State and his officials believed that they might have been scammed, ripped off or conned by the management of Kings science academy—who are all still in place, by the way—which is why they rang the Action Fraud helpline to report the matter. The website goes on to say:
“Report fraud to us and receive a police crime reference number.”
Will the Minister tell us the police crime reference number that his Department was given by Action Fraud when it dialled 0300 123 2040 to report that it believed it had been scammed, ripped off or conned by Kings science academy?
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has put that on the record, because when I rang the Action Fraud helpline last night to check, it said that calls are recorded. The Minister should be able to obtain from the Home Office a recording of the telephone call from the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers or officials to Action Fraud in April to report the crime and find out when they were given the police crime reference number. We will be interested to hear that.
The public deserve to know exactly what was said when the Department for Education reported the matter to Action Fraud, which led it to regard it as only “information”. What was said when it told the Department that the police were taking no further action, and how was it able to make that statement? How did Action Fraud obtain an update from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau without the administrative error coming to light? In the meantime, the principal is still in post at the school, and the Department says it gave the school a financial notice to improve, but that notice has never been published. Will the Minister publish it?
The Department said that the school is carrying out an internal investigation and that any disciplinary action is a matter for the school. How can the Department defend that position? In what other walk of public life would that be acceptable? It is worth remembering that none of this was in the public domain before the report was leaked. It is a murky business, and it would be better if the Government published the records of all their dealings in relation to this now, otherwise they will face the drip, drip of revelations as the details inevitably leak out.
All these problems and this example are a product of the policy design. Everyone in the Chamber wants innovative schools with appropriate autonomy to provide the best possible education for the children in their constituencies. That is a value that we all share, but it is irresponsible to design a policy with the expectation that failure is inevitable—that is what the Secretary of State and special advisers have done—and with no proper oversight of the spending of public money and the impact of the policy on the young people in the care of those schools. There are more scandals to come. As the Minister knows, his Department is currently investigating other cases. Why does he not come clean, answer the questions and admit that it is time to have proper oversight of these schools?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
It is a pleasure, Mr Gray, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing this welcome debate. He has made a long and distinguished contribution to education, both in the House as a member of the Select Committee on Education—I look forward to seeing him tomorrow when we discuss progress on child protection—and in his constituency as a governor of three schools. He is not a man to boast about his achievements, so it falls to me to note that he is a governor of Thomas Hepburn community academy, one of the most recent academy conversions. In 2007, he received a governor of the year award from my Department, so he is well versed and experienced in these matters.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees, as an academy governor, that poor educational performance is always unacceptable, as is poor management of a school, and that the primary duty of every governing body is to ensure that its school improves. In that spirit, I hope he also agrees that the Government’s reforms have gone further to ensure that schools and their governing bodies are properly held to account and that all state-funded education providers—free schools and other academies—are more tightly regulated than they have ever been.
That tightening of the accountability framework has been achieved while freeing up head teachers, academy principals and governing bodies from unnecessary prescription and bureaucracy, and enabling the innovation that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) rightly championed. That freedom to innovate and to respond to the particular needs of pupils enables them to raise standards. Hon. Members throughout the House share the aim of raising the standard of education for all children so that they have every opportunity to reach their full potential.
Nia Griffith
Will the Minister explain why allowing free schools complete freedom over the curriculum is the best way forward given that a Conservative Government, with cross-party consensus, agreed that there should be a national curriculum to ensure that all children had at least that broad base of education that was agreed across the board for everyone?
Mr Timpson
As the hon. Lady is aware, we have recently streamlined and revised the curriculum to concentrate on core aspects of education, which is right. We also believe that head teachers and teachers in schools are best placed to ensure that children receive the learning they require to bring about the best possible education attainment. That is borne out by the achievements, which I will come to, of free schools and academies in outperforming local authority-maintained schools in being outstanding or good with outstanding features. That is the outcome we want, and it must always be the driver for intervention.
Mr Timpson
I will give way, but I have a lot to get through and the hon. Lady should be aware that I may not get through it as a consequence of giving way.
Nia Griffith
Can the Minister explain how he will ensure that the curriculum provided by head teachers is up to standard and that we will not have the sort of catastrophes that we are seeing on the financial side? How will that be inspected?
Mr Timpson
I have just explained that we can establish the success or otherwise of a school’s educational achievements by its results, as well as the fact that every free school and academy has a full Ofsted inspection within two years. That remains the case. We also believe that when a school is outstanding, accountability is clear and that should be reflected in the level of inspection.
Free schools and academies are free to spend their money as they choose. We do not bind them to purchase services such as payroll or human resources from their local authority; they can broker better-value deals elsewhere, leaving them with more money to spend on pupils. They can use their judgment and budgetary freedom to pay teachers appropriately to attract the best practitioners, even if they do not hold formal teaching qualifications.
Recently, we have had some interesting and lively debates about the importance or otherwise of having qualified teachers in schools. We can all cite the names of unqualified teachers who have made a huge contribution to children and schools. We heard an example this morning from my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) about his contribution over a long period.
The evidence is clear that that approach is working. Ofsted has rated almost three quarters of the 25 free schools inspected so far as good or outstanding, and that is happening under the tougher new inspection framework that Ofsted introduced. That compares well with maintained schools inspected against the same criteria in the same year, of which only 64% were rated good or outstanding.
The majority of open free schools represent entirely new provision and will not post their key stage 2 or GCSE results for some time, but every free school is an academy with the same freedoms. That is important because we already have clear evidence that academies work and out-perform local authority schools at both primary and secondary level.
The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) referred to the success of Easington academy, which is hugely welcome. When outstanding education is provided, wherever it happens to be, it should be commended. I will, of course, pass his invitation to the Secretary of State to visit him and his constituency in the near future. As a former undergraduate of Durham university, I know what a wonderful part of the country it is, and I always recommend that people visit it.
Kevin Brennan
I know that the Minister wants to trumpet achievements, but I am sure he also wants to answer questions. He mentioned HR contracts and that free schools should have the freedom to do what they like about such contracts. Is he aware that Channel 4’s report last night on the Al-Madinah school said that Javid Akhtar was the governor responsible for chairing the school’s HR committee, and was also the managing director of Prestige HR Solutions, which was awarded the contract to run Al-Madinah’s HR services? Does that not illustrate absolutely what is wrong with having no proper oversight of such issues?
Mr Timpson
I will come to the quid pro quo of accountability against the freedom given to academies and free schools.
The hon. Gentleman made a particular point about the Al-Madinah free school. As he said, the Minister, my noble Friend Lord Nash, is currently up there talking to the school governors to decide what the next steps will be, so it would be wrong and inappropriate for me to comment specifically on the details of the case. Nevertheless, it is important that although there is clear evidence of success and achievement in free schools by virtue of the freedom provided to them, it is also right that there is tighter accountability as the balancing side of the equation.
For free schools, the need to demonstrate educational and financial rigour starts from the very moment when they submit an application to open a school. Every application is assessed against rigorous, published criteria. Free school proposers need to show how their school will drive up standards for all pupils as well as demonstrating financial resilience. The criteria also cover governance, an issue raised by a number of hon. Members. We need proposers to show that they have the capacity, skills and experience to set up and run an effective academy, as well as showing demand from parents.
Proposers are rigorously tested at interview against all those criteria, and testing continues once they are approved into pre-opening. As proposers refine their plans and are able to gauge with increasing accuracy the number of pupils that they expect to secure in their first year, we test their financial assumptions, challenging them to ensure viability. When we are not happy with the progress made, we can rightly require groups to bring in more expertise or make other changes. However, we are also not afraid to cancel or defer projects when we do not think that the new school will provide the very best for its pupils or provide good value for money for the taxpayer.
The hon. Member for Easington spoke about value for money. He may be aware that under paragraph 2.5 of the academies financial handbook, there is a requirement to complete a value-for-money statement each year explaining how the trust
“has secured value for money”.
That is both sent to the Education Funding Agency and published on the DFE website. The hon. Gentleman can find that information for himself and do with it what he wishes.
Before every free school opens, it is inspected by Ofsted against the independent school standards. Although it is impossible for Ofsted to make a judgment on the educational delivery of a school that has not yet opened, the inspectorate looks closely at all other aspects of the school’s policies and procedures covered by the standards. The quality of the premises of a free school has been mentioned. Hon. Members may be interested to know that under part 5 of the Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2010, on premises and accommodation, there are set minimum standards for premises for free schools that are identical to those for maintained schools, so there is no differentiation in the standards required.
Ofsted’s pre-registration inspection also considers how well the school is set up to ensure the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of its pupils, as well as to secure their welfare, health and safety. The inspectors will check the school’s safeguarding policies as well as health and safety protocols, and ensure that procedures for checking the suitability of staff are appropriate. Ofsted will also make recommendations to the Secretary of State on conditions that it believes free schools should meet before opening their doors, in order to meet the independent school standards that I referred to.
The Secretary of State will not enter into a funding agreement to open any free school unless satisfied that the school will provide a good standard of education and be financially viable. No free school has opened without satisfying the Secretary of State that the school has addressed, or is on track to address, the issues raised by Ofsted. I challenge any hon. Members present to put forward any maintained school, including even recently established provision, that has been subjected to the same breadth and depth of scrutiny as we now apply to every free school before they even open their doors.
Grahame M. Morris
The Minister is being generous in giving way, and he has responded to the points that have been raised. He quoted the relevant paragraph that relates to scrutiny of whether a free school offers value for money, but does he believe that a school with 31 pupils and six staff offers value for money for the public purse?
Mr Timpson
Every school is free to decide the right ratio of pupils and staff, whether it is a special school or a particular type of school. If the result is that those children are achieving high-quality standards of education, that is a good outcome.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West, with his usual “Morecambe and Wise” approach to such debates, asked some serious and specific questions, particularly about correspondence in the Al-Madinah case. He asked whether there had been any correspondence from the police on Al-Madinah before it opened. I am not aware that there has been any correspondence, but I will make further inquiries and endeavour to write to him in the usual way. He also asked about the Barnfield Federation in Luton and the publication of investigation reports. We have a commitment to publish investigation reports, but we have to publish them at the right time. In the case of Kings science academy, for example, that was when the disciplinary action was complete. It is worth remembering, of course, that Barnfield is not only a free school, but a multi-academy trust. Nevertheless, the commitment remains, and it will be done with due diligence and in a timely fashion.
In terms of where the oversight continues with free schools, we do not back away once a free school opens. First, and most importantly, every free school is inspected by Ofsted under the same section 5 inspection criteria applied to every maintained school and academy. We know that there is no sharper tool available to us in securing proper scrutiny of schools than Ofsted, so it is essential that every free school is inspected.
Inspections typically take place in the school’s second year of opening. Before their Ofsted inspection, free schools will receive at least two visits by the Department’s education advisers, who are individuals with a proven track record of delivering school improvement. Those visits, which take place in the school’s first and fourth terms, allow us to ensure that the schools are delivering a high standard of education.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, free schools and academies succeed and standards rise, but the Department is not short of options should they fail. When there is sustained poor academic performance at an academy, Ministers can issue a warning notice to the relevant trust, demanding urgent action to bring about substantial improvements.
A question was asked about the number of warning notices sent by the Secretary of State. One warning notice has been sent to Kings on finance—it is the only one—and there are no notices to improve on education. Ultimately, failure to improve can lead to termination according to the provision set out in each trust’s funding agreement.
Bill Esterson
Is the Minister aware of a survey of free school parents in London who want local authority involvement in the oversight of free schools? Are those parents right or wrong?
Mr Timpson
It is welcome that parents are involving themselves in the setting up and running of free schools. In terms of oversight of those free schools, there seems to be confusion on the Opposition Benches about what exactly the involvement of the local authority should be. On the one hand, the shadow Secretary of State for Education wants to put rocket boosters under free schools, and on the other, the Leader of the Opposition seems to want to go in the opposite direction. Some clarity on exactly where they stand on the issue would be helpful.
We can all agree that driving up the quality of standards of education for our children has to be a key priority. The Government believe—and have been backed up by parents who have come forward, despite sometimes difficult opposition, to help set up many free schools; many more are in the pipeline—that free schools provide better choice, better value, strong accountability, and ultimately better standards, which has already been borne out by what we have seen in the past three years.
We know that that great reformer of education, Lord Adonis, got it right when he said that free schools are a
“powerful engine of equality and social mobility”.
We hope and trust that many more children will benefit from such opportunities in the years ahead. We would welcome any parents who want to come forward, particularly in Gateshead and the north-east, where, sadly, we still have no free schools to speak of. If they have a strong desire to do that, we will consider their cases very carefully.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. I would be grateful if hon. Members who have taken part in the debate would move swiftly from the Chamber, so that we can progress immediately to the next debate, which is on the important subject of UK relations with Gibraltar and Spain.
UK Relations with Gibraltar and Spain
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Gray. It is a pleasure to have this short debate under your chairmanship. Its timing could not be more crucial. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party group on Gibraltar. I realise that other hon. Members are interested in the debate, and I shall do my best to accommodate as many of them as possible.
The Spanish Government’s treatment of the people of Gibraltar is of very serious concern, particularly since May this year. We all know that the Spanish incursions into Gibraltar waters have been going on for a good number of years, but during 2013 the Spanish Government have deliberately been focusing world attention away from their serious economic problems at home, where there is major unemployment and, more seriously, accusations of corruption at the highest levels of government. In that context, the Government of Spain have sought to create what I would call a diversion. I have a number of examples, which will help to illustrate the experience of the Gibraltar people over the past year.
On 25 June, a Spanish Guardia Civil vessel pursued a jet-ski into British Gibraltar territorial waters, firing what could be described as non-lethal shots. The Gibraltar Chief Minister obviously protested about that incident. Then in July Gibraltar begins to lay concrete blocks in British Gibraltar territorial waters to create an artificial reef similar to the reef in Spanish waters. What followed was an increase in the Guardia Civil’s politically motivated checks on the Spain-Gibraltar border.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this most timely and important debate. What assessment has he made of the EU Commission’s ruling that these politically motivated and illegal checks did not breach EU law, and has he thought about the once again insidious influence of the EU in these matters?
Jim Dobbin
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I aim to address that issue later in my contribution.
The incident that I was talking about led to crossing delays of up to seven hours. The disruption to workers’ livelihoods is evident. There are reports that it also affected Spanish people who travel to work in Gibraltar and then travel home.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is right; more than 4,000 Spanish nationals cross the border every day to go to work in Gibraltar. Does he agree that, given the parlous state of the Spanish economy at the moment, what he describes is a massive own goal on the part of the Spanish Government?
Jim Dobbin
I could not agree more with the hon. Lady’s comments. I think that it is a tragedy that the Spanish Government are imploding on their own people as far as work is concerned.
In July, lorries from Gibraltar carrying construction materials were turned away from the border by the Guardia Civil. At that time, the all-party group met the Minister for Europe to request that he summon the Spanish ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office over the border delays. That duly happened and strong complaints were made to Spain about the closure of the border.
In August, the Spanish Government increased pressure on the UK and Gibraltar with additional border checks, a tax clampdown, action on telephone lines, an increase in naval patrols, a restriction on access to Spanish airspace and rigorous application of legislation on smuggling and the environment.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
I, too, am a member of the all-party Gibraltar group. It is worth highlighting the contrast between the intolerance of the Spanish towards Gibraltar and Gibraltar people, given that Gibraltar is such a wonderful melting pot of many different cultures, religions and ethnic groups, who work and live together and thrive and prosper together so well.
Jim Dobbin
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman’s comments. The all-party group has been to Gibraltar several times, and that is what people actually see in Gibraltar.
Also in August, the border restrictions again increased waiting times to three hours. The Prime Minister intervened and complained to Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy about the delays. The delays, however, continued to occur, for up to three hours. In August, the Spanish media said that Spanish Foreign Secretary Garcia-Margallo was considering a partnership with Argentina to take action through the United Nations against the UK and Gibraltar and possibly at the International Court of Justice. The border delays continued, for up to four hours, and the British Prime Minister suggested that the European Commission monitor the situation at the border—more of that later.
In mid-August, 35 Spanish fishing boats protested in Spanish water and entered British Gibraltar territorial water. That incident was policed by the Royal Gibraltar Police and the Guardia Civil, with, on that occasion, good co-operation between the two, and peace was maintained.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Gibraltar has been part of the United Kingdom—has come under the Crown—for the past 300 years, and will he join me in the campaign to see whether it might be awarded the George cross?
Jim Dobbin
Yes, I am well aware of that campaign, but Spain does not seem to be aware of the treaty of Utrecht. On the point about the George cross, that is a campaign that the hon. Gentleman and the other campaigners will want to pursue. I would suggest that they appreciate the sensitivity of that issue, because the George cross is associated with Malta at present. Therefore, perhaps that campaign should be at arm’s length and respectful of the difficult situation that the Government of Gibraltar are in.
Spanish Foreign Secretary Garcia-Margallo issued the Spanish legal position on Gibraltar in The Wall Street Journal, but without inclusion of the impact on the Gibraltar people or their wishes on self-determination. It was an extremely biased article.
On 27 August, the mayor of a Spanish town posted a mocked-up picture of Spain invading Gibraltar online—another very provocative act.
Caroline Dinenage
I very much appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s patience with my bobbing up and down. Can he settle the question in my mind about whether the Spanish are equally keen on giving back Ceuta to the Moroccans?
Jim Dobbin
I do intend to address that in my speech as well, but the hon. Lady is right. That will be a huge problem for Spain if it continues with its policies against Gibraltar.
Fabian Picardo, the Gibraltar Chief Minister, came to London for talks with the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. At this level, Spain continues to agree with the premise that Spain, Gibraltar and the UK resume a trilateral dialogue. Meanwhile, the border delays continue. Spain was originally suggesting that there should be bilateral discussions here, but that is not on the cards.
On an extremely serious note, since that time a Spanish ship is reported to have rammed a naval police vessel escorting a Navy ship. Reports state that guns were pointed. Thankfully, no shots were fired, but we are getting into quite a dangerous situation following that.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Like him, I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar. Does he agree not only that Spain’s behaviour is incompatible with acting in good faith as a fellow member of the European Union, but that it is difficult to reconcile such behaviour towards Crown forces with acting in good faith as a fellow member of NATO, particularly bearing in mind the work of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment as part of NATO operations, in recognition of which its outgoing commander was awarded the military cross? It is scarcely credible that Spain should adopt so belligerent an attitude towards a fellow NATO member.
Jim Dobbin
I could not have put the point more clearly than the hon. Gentleman has done. The recent events highlight the serious situation that the British Government and the Government of Gibraltar are dealing with. The ongoing dispute ignores the wishes of the people of Gibraltar to remain British, as expressed in their referendum.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Given the catalogue of events that he has clearly outlined, does he agree that the European authorities have demonstrated utter cowardice in failing to recognise that Spain has breached European rules and regulations in the way in which it has approached a fellow member state? Does he look forward to the establishment of more crossing lanes between the Rock and Spain and the introduction of better risk proofing, to allow people to cross that border more quickly?
Jim Dobbin
As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), I intend to address the European decision. As chairman of the all-party Gibraltar group, I want the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Europe and the Leader of the Opposition to know that the people and the Government of Gibraltar appreciate how supportive they have been during this trying time. I also recognise the diplomacy of the present Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, his predecessor, Peter Caruana and his predecessor, Joe Bassano. They have all led the Government of Gibraltar in a very diplomatic way.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we must give the impression that Britain will not give an inch in the debate about the ownership of Gibraltar. Does he share my hope that the Minister, in responding, will kill off any perception that might be growing in Gibraltar or Spain that Britain will ever give ground on the issue?
Jim Dobbin
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and I am sure that the Minister will concur with what he has just said. As long as the people of Gibraltar wish to remain British, they should remain British.
I finish with a few questions. If Spain continues to flout international relations, what more can the British Government do to achieve a peaceful conclusion to the dispute? Is there more scope to include the Spanish embassy in the UK more intensely in any solution? How will we ensure that the direct experience of the people of Gibraltar improves? We also have to deal with the European Commission’s advice. In its statement, it recommended changes in the Spanish administration of checks at the border. How will those changes be monitored and reported on?
The Commission’s statement, in my view, was woolly and inconsistent, and it ignored the real, provocative acts and the long delays at the border crossing. Greater awareness is needed across Europe about the real difficulties that the Spanish Government’s policies are creating for the people of Gibraltar and the serious effect that they are having on its economy. Several members of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar are also members of the Council of Europe. We have a role in the Council of Europe, which is, after all, a human rights platform, to raise the matter and make the 47 countries across Europe more aware of the situation between Spain and Gibraltar.
On Ceuta and Melilla, I think that it would be foolish of the Spanish Government to pursue their current tactics, because they may end up with red faces if Ceuta and Melilla challenge them over breaches. If Spain continues with its provocative policies against Gibraltar, Morocco will probably respond, and Spain would ultimately be the loser. The Gibraltar Government and the British Government must continue to take part in trilateral talks to resolve the current difficulties. The all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar will continue to support the people of Gibraltar in their wish to remain British, and we will stand by them at this particularly difficult time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
I am pleased to serve with your guidance this morning, Mr Gray. I know that you have a particular personal interest in the UK’s relationship with Gibraltar. I congratulate the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) on securing this important debate at such a significant time and on the articulate and passionate way in which he outlined his case. He was particularly generous in the number of times that he gave way to parliamentary colleagues to allow as many people as possible to make important points.
I want to highlight the hon. Gentleman’s excellent work as chair of the all-party Gibraltar group and the significant way in which that group supports Gibraltarians and those in the UK who are interested in the future of Gibraltar. I am aware that the hon. Gentleman was among 20 UK parliamentarians who attended national day in Gibraltar on 10 September; I have done the same in years gone by. I hope therefore that he heard the message given by the Prime Minister to mark that occasion, in which he strongly reiterated the British Government’s commitment to protecting the right of the people of Gibraltar to determine their own political future. I will meet Chief Minister Picardo next week in London at the joint ministerial council, where we will discuss further the importance of the relationship and what we can do to make progress in some of the areas that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
There is clear sadness and anger about what is happening to Gibraltar, and the British Government must do more to express the feelings of Parliament. It is an all-party matter, and we are fed up with what is happening to the people in Gibraltar. The Government have to be stronger; I do not know how, but for goodness’ sake, can we get a stronger response to what is happening to our people in Gibraltar?
Mark Simmonds
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the cross-party agreement in Parliament on the importance of supporting Gibraltarians in their desire to remain linked to the United Kingdom. I will come on to address his point specifically. I want to make it absolutely clear, however, at the beginning of my response to the debate that the United Kingdom will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes. Furthermore, the United Kingdom will not enter into any process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content. We will continue to respect the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. I do not think we could be any clearer about that.
The debate is about the United Kingdom’s relations with Gibraltar and with Spain, however, and we wish to maintain a strong bilateral relationship with Spain that stretches across a whole range of areas and delivers support for the interests of the UK and Gibraltar. We have a strong economic relationship with Spain that is worth £36 billion to the UK. Spain put £57 billion in inward investment into the UK in 2010, and the UK is the largest single investor in Spain. Spain is a member of the G20 and NATO, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has highlighted, and it is an important EU state. We have close ties through consular relationships. Spain is home to 1 million UK citizens, and 14 million of them visit annually. There is significant co-operation on crime, immigration and counter-terrorism. Last year, the National Crime Agency—formerly the Serious Organised Crime Agency —agreed the first UK-Spain joint investigation team in many years. We work with Spain across a range of areas, including our strong operational defence relationship.
Caroline Dinenage
I understand fully what the Minister says about the need to maintain a good working relationship with the Spanish, but the number of incursions into Gibraltar’s territorial water is unacceptable. Only yesterday, the Gibraltar Chronicle highlighted the fact that there was another Guardia Civil boat in Gibraltar’s waters. He will agree that we have to put out a strong message that that level of intrusion is not acceptable.
Mark Simmonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she makes a powerful point. Hopefully, the House recognises that the UK Government have made the strongest protestations to the Spanish Government, both about the issues on the border highlighted by the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton and about the incursions into Gibraltar’s territorial waters, which are completely unacceptable. We have made official complaints. We are maintaining significant pressure on the Spanish Government and, as the hon. Gentleman highlighted, we have called in the Spanish ambassador.
Mark Simmonds
I will give way in a moment; I want to complete my response to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage). We need to find a mechanism to de-escalate, not escalate, the situation. We are working on that, while making it clear in the strongest possible terms that the current situation continuing is not acceptable.
Martin Horwood
I accept what the Minister says about de-escalation. Will he welcome the support given to the people of Gibraltar by their MEP, Sir Graham Watson, and urge the European Commission to step up or repeat its border monitoring exercise to see what is happening on the border, perhaps without giving the Spanish advance notice this time?
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is certainly unsurprising that the Commission has been unable to conclude that EU law has been infringed; the border operated much more smoothly than normal during the Commission’s visit. That is not the same as confirmation that Spain has acted lawfully. We continue to provide information and evidence to the Commission. We do not believe that it backs Spain’s claims that the checks are not politically motivated. Actions for Spain were up front in the Commission’s statement and we hope that the Spanish will make public the letter that they received from the Commission. We fully expect Spain to act on the Commission’s recommendations.
The Commission is clearly concerned about the situation. It is committed to remain engaged and to follow up in six months’ time. It has reserved the right to reconsider its position and has explicitly offered what the hon. Gentleman suggests: a further visit to the border. He makes a good point about Spain not being notified so the Commission can see what is going on. The Commission has made it clear that it is concerned and will revisit if required.
The Chief Minister of Gibraltar has welcomed the recommendations made to Spain on areas that could make a difference at the border and stressed that the Government of Gibraltar will work closely with the Commission to deliver against the recommendations made to Gibraltar. It is true that the Commission has at this stage been unable to conclude that EU law has been infringed, but that is quite different from confirmation that Spain acted lawfully.
Ian Paisley
I welcome the Minister’s interpretation, but may I ask him to go a little further? The European authorities said that Spain must share intelligence with Gibraltar. That would be a recognition of Gibraltar’s self-determination to be a separate place from Spain, because they would share intelligence as equals. Can he ensure that intelligence will be shared between Gibraltar and Spain to prevent some of the troubles that have occurred?
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I will not comment on intelligence in this forum. There is a keen urgency about the necessity for ad hoc talks between Spain, the UK and Gibraltar. Officials are working to ensure that those discussions take place again.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport raised Spanish incursions into Gibraltarian territorial waters. The Government take seriously their responsibility to ensure Gibraltar’s security. We do not rule out any measures that are necessary to defend Gibraltar and ensure its security against a genuine threat. We believe that the unlawful incursions by Guardia Civil vessels and other vessels of the Spanish state are merely a futile attempt to assert Spain’s legal position in respect of the waters. They are not acts of war and they do not weaken or undermine the legal basis for British sovereignty over Gibraltar and British Gibraltar territorial waters. The British Government are committed to upholding British sovereignty. The Royal Navy challenges all unlawful incursions by Spanish state vessels though radio warnings and close monitoring of Spanish state vessels until they leave Gibraltarian waters. We also make formal protests to the Spanish Government about all such incursions on diplomatic channels, ensuring that the Spanish understand that those incursions are unacceptable violations of British sovereignty.
Bob Stewart
If the British Government are determined to defend Gibraltar, why do they not make more use of the defence facilities in Gibraltar? For example, we could send down more often a roulement infantry company, to be based in Gibraltar for perhaps six weeks at a time and exercise there, rather than somewhere like Kenya.
Mark Simmonds
Regiments play a significant role in Kenya. My response to my hon. Friend is the point I made earlier: we must strike a balance between being forceful, strong and determined—to ensure that the Spanish Government understand the UK Government’s position and that the Commission undertakes its role responsibly and consistently to ensure that the issues on the border and in Gibraltarian territorial water cease—and finding mechanisms to de-escalate, rather than escalate the situation. That is why we must get back to discussing solutions as soon as possible, without negotiating the Gibraltarian sovereignty position at all.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
The Government are being very robust about the principles, but will the Minister ensure that when we speak to the ambassador here and Ministers in Madrid, we make it clear that it is in Spain’s interest for the good relationship that exists between Gibraltar and La Linea locally to be expanded to the region? They need jobs, they need investment and they need tourists. They need people coming to Gibraltar airport. Making the region look like a place of huge confrontation and frightening investors away is not in Spain’s interest.
Mark Simmonds
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I assure him that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe have made exactly that point, and the other points I made, over the past couple of months, to try to ensure that Spain takes a constructive and positive stance in its relationship with Gibraltar, rather than a negative one.
Robert Neill
I welcome the tone of the Minister’s remarks and warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s comments at national day in Gibraltar. Many people hoped that he might have been able to deliver them in person. Does the Minister accept that credibility for Spain will be achieved by prompt and full adoption of the recommendations within the six-month period; prompt and full publication of the letter received from the EU; and full recognition that Commissioner Barnier has noted that Gibraltar’s regulation of financial services and anti-money laundering meet the highest European standards, and could frankly teach Spain a lesson?
Mark Simmonds
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. The three points he makes are correct.
I am running out of time so I shall briefly say a couple of things. I reiterate the point that there have been constructive discussions with the Spanish about the proposals to move to ad hoc talks, and those discussions are ongoing. It also needs to be said that the long-term aim of the UK Government and the Government of Gibraltar is to return to the trilateral forum for dialogue, from which the Spanish Government withdrew on taking office in December 2011. In the short term, we need to find a way to manage our differences with Spain through talks, instead of border delays, incursions and other unacceptable and unlawful actions. While we seek diplomatic solutions to those challenges we will continue to take firm action whenever necessary to safeguard Gibraltar, its people and their economy.
UK Relations with China
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this issue.
I will start by recognising China’s rich, deep cultural heritage. It is one of the oldest civilisations in the world, with an impressive history spanning more than 10,000 years. China is well known for its succession of dynasties. The first was the Xia dynasty, which began in the 22nd century BC and lasted until the 16th century BC. It was followed by the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which lasted five and 11 centuries respectively, and then a succession of others until the comparatively modern and more familiar Ming and Qing dynasties from the 14th century onward.
The dynasties made a fundamental contribution to the development of Chinese civilisation. For example, under the Qin dynasty, the great wall of China was constructed to protect the country from northern invaders; under the Han dynasty, a national civil service was established; and under the Tang dynasty, China became a great world power for the first time, which is being repeated today. China’s history and culture cannot be overstated. Whether through literature, philosophy, music, the visual arts, cuisine or religion, China’s influence has reached all parts of the globe.
China is home to more than one in five of the world’s population, with more than 1.35 billion inhabitants, and to 56 recognised ethnic groups and at least 292 languages and dialects. It is one of the world’s great civilisations. China matters. It is big in history, size, culture, population, commerce and ambition. The scale and pace of the change that has taken place in China over the past 30 years has been unprecedented—a second great leap forward. It has been a giant leap. China is now the world’s second largest economy and its largest exporter and importer of goods. As the fastest-growing major economy in the world with an average annual growth rate of 10% over the past 30 years, China has rapidly expanded its global influence. That growth rate is likely to put its economy ahead of the United States within the next two decades. However, countries cannot exist on economic prosperity alone.
People and societies make a country or a civilisation, not volatile stock markets, trade or the buying of goods and services. Yes, those things are the lifeblood of outward prosperity, but it is the prosperity of the human spirit that helps to advance civilisations: the freedom of the individual to determine their own destiny for good or ill, to determine whether to turn left or right and what they believe and to dream, imagine, create and innovate. This is about social growth, not just economic growth. Whether China’s leaders can recognise that will determine China’s future and success. Markets rise and fall, but the human spirit always seeks to soar, wherever it is.
UK relations with China are probably stronger today than ever before. Chinese investment in the UK is welcome; the UK does not have what one senior Chinese official recently called a cold war mentality towards Chinese inward investment. I am glad that that is the Chinese view. However, the security implications for any investment must always be weighed carefully against the economic benefits of such investment. That is prudence, not paranoia.
For example, the recent agreement on China’s part-financing of the UK’s new nuclear reactors is welcome, and I congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on negotiating it. It is very much needed if we are to keep the lights on and keep the UK’s economy moving and growing, but at no point should Chinese companies still owned mostly by the state—a single-party neo-communist state—have any involvement in the design, build or running of the UK’s new nuclear power stations.
Similarly, the UK telecoms industry should always put UK national security implications before the pursuit of market share or profit. Chinese companies should have clear and stated restrictions on access to Government and critical national infrastructure, telecoms and energy grids. If we undermine our national security, we all lose economically, socially and militarily. Our national interests will be harmed and, in extremis, we will lose our freedoms.
I welcome the recent announcement that investors in London are the first to be allowed to apply for licences to make Chinese-currency investments. As the Chancellor has said, the decision will make London a major global centre for Chinese currency trading. That is good news.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Does he agree that it is shocking that the InterContinental Hotels Group, whose headquarters is in London, is building a new hotel in the centre of Tibet? That is not acceptable to the Tibetans who have fought so long for the right to be free in their own country.
Mark Pritchard
The InterContinental Hotels Group is an important British company employing a lot of people around the world. Clearly, it must make commercial decisions with the information available. I would hope that it had some dialogue not only with the Chinese authorities but with Tibetans in exile and the people in Tibet who are being oppressed by the Chinese authorities. I will come to Tibet later in my speech. If InterContinental did not consult, I hope that it will learn lessons from the example of Tibet.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
To return to the point that my hon. Friend made about the sharing of crucial information about critical infrastructure with foreign powers, is he aware of the book written some years ago by Richard Clarke, former Assistant Secretary of State in the US State Department, which makes it clear that the Chinese have an advanced cyber-warfare capability that could be aimed at critical infrastructure, including utilities, across the United States and Europe?
Mark Pritchard
I have not read that book, but I am not surprised, because I am not as well-read as my hon. Friend, as he knows. He reads about three or four books a week, which is even more than my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson). My hon. Friend makes a serious point. It is interesting that the last director-general of the security service, unusually, named China among the countries, notably Russia, that regularly try to infiltrate Government IT systems. Cyber-security is an issue. The Russian and Chinese states must desist from trying to penetrate our systems. I am glad that the coalition Government have invested a record amount in ensuring that we have resilient and robust systems and can counter cyber-attacks. He raises an important point.
The recent announcement by the Chancellor will also allow Chinese banks to submit applications to set up branches here in Britain, giving them full access to their reserves. Both announcements will have wide-ranging benefits for the City of London and will make it much easier for British firms to invest in China, both of which are good news for UK jobs and investment.
There will be a new, simplified and streamlined visa application process, which is also welcome. The UK is already the No. 1 destination for Chinese investment in Europe, attracting £2 billion in 2012 alone, and under the new visa regime, that is likely to increase further.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Visas for tourists from China are particularly important for Northern Ireland, given that many visitors to the Irish Republic have to get another visa to come into Northern Ireland, making that much more difficult and expensive. Like him, I welcome this positive development in tourism for part of the United Kingdom.
Mark Pritchard
The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Tourism is critical for the whole UK economy and particularly for the Northern Ireland economy. I recently visited Belfast and saw the excellent Titanic museum. Of course, Northern Ireland is playing host as one of the cultural capitals of Europe, and I hear that that is going well. He makes a valid point. I am glad that the Government have liberalised the visa regime for Chinese visitors. Nevertheless, this new liberal visa regime should still be thorough, robust and vigilant. I am sure that he agrees.
I pay credit to the lord mayor of the City of London and his officials and support staff. It is good news that the Baltic Exchange has announced the opening of a new Shanghai office and that there is an agreement on London’s Cass business school being sited in Shanghai’s Fudan university, to undertake joint research on the growth and development of both cities, and beyond. I am sure that colleagues will want to join me in welcoming—later this year or possibly in 2014, date to be confirmed—the mayor of Beijing to London.
Despite the UK’s positive relations with China, in many areas China lets itself down, remaining in a cold war mentality, where communism still triumphs over consumerism, irrational fear still triumphs over freedom and ideology usurps individualism.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend, not only on securing the debate, but on getting the tone right? I am sure that those of us who remember the era of Mao Tse-tung can see how gradually but significantly China has modernised and, to an extent, liberalised, but does my hon. Friend agree that the persecution of organisations such as Falun Gong and the repeated allegations of horrors, such as the harvesting of organs from people who have been executed, are still a stain on China’s reputation, which we must do everything, by increasing links, to encourage it to abandon?
Mark Pritchard
My hon. Friend speaks with a great knowledge of history and makes excellent points, both on religious persecution of the Falun Gong and on organ harvesting. Both those things are wrong and do not befit a modern society in any country, in any part of the world. If China is to be taken seriously as a modern society that is listening to the international community and to its own people, it will take action to remedy both those issues. I will touch on religious persecution later on. I am glad that he mentions organ harvesting. Time is limited in this debate, as he knows.
We have good relations with China, but how the Chinese authorities treat the Chinese media—I am focusing on the communist party, not the Chinese people—reveals quite a lot. Article 35 of the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, association and publication, but these rights are subordinated to China’s ruling communist party. With its tight control over print, broadcast and online media and through the use of its central propaganda department, there is no freedom of the press or media in China.
It is an unnecessarily paranoid regime—a paranoia that shows weakness not strength. The Chinese authorities need to stop imprisoning journalists and bloggers and need to either try those journalists in an open, televised court or release them from jail. China’s claims to modernity need to be manifest in the updating of its freedoms and laws, not just in the updating of its roads, bridges, buildings and infrastructure. Without such changes, China’s claims of modernity are false—a mirage.
China needs to unblock access to the BBC Chinese Mandarin website, blocked since 1999, and China’s jamming of the BBC’s English short-wave service, which also affects the reception in other Asian countries, should end.
China needs to do far more to stop the persecution of religious minorities. Again, this is a contravention of its own constitution, international law and UN conventions. Many cases exist today of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and others, including Falun Gong, being imprisoned, beaten and tortured. Churches and other places of worship, outside the heavily controlled state religious institutions, face attack daily. The Christian house church movement is particularly prone to attack, being within the Protestant Christian religion.
From Roman emperors to Arab warlords and now, today, to China’s communist ruling elite, the Christian Church has always been subject to those who want to extinguish its flames of faith, but that will never happen. It is communism that is dying the world over, not the Christian Church. China’s ruling elite needs to get on the right side of history. Tertullian, in the second century, said,
“the blood of Christian martyrs is the seed of the Church”.
I shall highlight some of the many famous cases, although I do not have time to read the list in full, including that of Peter Xu Yongze and Gong Shengliang, head of the South China Church, which are infamous in China’s recent history. Christianity is not a western plot. It is not a western religion or faith. It is a faith born out of Bethlehem in the middle east, not in Bristol, Berlin, or Boston.
There should be an end to the persecution of and discrimination against China’s Muslims, particularly the Uighurs, living in the Xinjiang and Kashgar regions of China. Uighurs are discriminated against daily and weekly, especially in the jobs market. The New York Times reports that in the Kashgar region, where Uighurs make up 90% of the population, they are explicitly excluded from applying for any Government job. They are also frozen out of the region’s booming gas and oil industry.
If China wants to avoid jihadist violent extremism coming to its cities and towns in future, it needs to end discrimination against its increasingly marginalised Muslim population, especially young male Uighurs, some of whom will be returning from Syria and Afghanistan over the coming months and years. In countering violent extremism, the UK and the Chinese authorities can work closely together in their joint national interests. China’s ruling party needs to tackle the root causes of radicalism, not to be a contributing factor in its increase.
Let us be frank: China, the so-called country of the dragon, probably has the worst animal welfare record of any country in the world.
Dr Lewis
Just before my hon. Friend leaves human rights, did he notice that in the recent political assembly that was held in China, there was talk of doing away with the labour camps? I do not know how seriously that is meant. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has yet taken a view, but I hope that the Minister will shed light on that in summing up.
Mark Pritchard
Of course, the other place with labour camps—some large enough to contain 20,000 people—is North Korea, so it is rather odd that the so-called open and now modern society in China would have similar camps. If there is to be any credibility in the statement from the plenary session, which I will mention later, we must have a timetable on when those labour camps will be phased out and when they will close. The sooner, the better, because they are not befitting of a modern society in today’s world.
Mr Dodds
In relation to the recent tragedy of the typhoon in the Philippines, it is striking that, although China is a neighbour of the Philippines and is the second largest economy and all the rest of it, it has donated a relatively paltry amount in aid—up to about £1.5 million. That is in stark contrast to what the UK, the United States and other countries have given. Indeed, some private companies have given more. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in urging the Minister to take that up with the Chinese authorities? Pressure should be put on China to live up to its responsibilities in the region.
Mark Pritchard
In my experience, the Chinese people are generous and open-hearted, but we are talking about the Chinese Government and the ruling elite. Aid cannot be disaggregated from China’s muscular expansionism or its territorial disputes in the region, not only with the Philippines but with Russia, Vietnam and other countries.
As an aside, the international community has to make it crystal clear that it will act in unison to stand fast against any Chinese aggression. The Chinese are unlikely to act against a country that has, for example, a military treaty with the United States, such as the Philippines or Thailand, but some countries do not have such a treaty, including Vietnam. The international community must prepare for such an event to ensure that it is united in its response. If we did not respond—I am referring not to military action but to a timely, swift and overwhelming diplomatic and political response—it would be seen as appeasement, as the weakness of the west, and would give a green light to China to continue its expansionism in the region. We would be giving over other islands in the area and giving up on countries. That would be a dangerous time for the world, and the balance of power might shift overnight if we did not have a resolute response.
Mr Stewart Jackson
Before my hon. Friend moves on to animal welfare, I want to address Tibet. He talks about the international community being minded to take a tough approach, but as we speak there are human rights abuses in Tibet. There is self-immolation, and dissidents are being driven into the Dharamsala mountains. There is collective punishment and an attempt to eradicate the culture and language of Tibet. Is that not something on which the international community should be taking a tough stance, rather than kowtowing and acquiescing in the bullying of China when, for instance, the Dalai Lama visits various international communities?
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. The interventions are getting longer and longer. I hope there might be a bit of discipline. The frequency is fine, but the length is getting a tad like a speech.
Mark Pritchard
If my speech becomes long, I am sure you will tell me, Mrs Main. The quality of the interventions has been so high that I have not noticed their length, but I am grateful for that reminder for later.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) makes an important point. I will address Tibet in detail later. If I do not answer his specific points, I know that he will remind me. I do not appear to have that particular page in my notes, but there is no need to worry because I can talk about Tibet right now.
I have met the Dalai Lama twice, for which I am glad. I am proud to have had the privilege of meeting him, and what the Chinese Government are doing in Tibet is completely unacceptable. There has been suppression of the Buddhist religion and oppression of the Tibetan people. There has been burning—since the late 1940s probably 6,000 monasteries and churches have been destroyed. From memory, there are some 300,000 Chinese troops currently in Tibet, which is unacceptable. There needs to be a peaceful resolution to the Tibet question, and human rights in Tibet must be recognised.
My hon. Friend used the term “kowtowing.” I am a subject of Her Majesty the Queen. I am a UK citizen, and I will meet whomever I want to meet. I will not kowtow to anyone from any other country. The Chinese must stop bullying individuals; they must stop bullying Tibet; and they must stop bullying other Governments, too.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his measured, balanced and important speech. On Tibet, many of us are very supportive of better links with China. London South Bank university in my patch has the Confucius institute, which is very positive. We also represent Buddhists in this country. The Chinese do not yet appear to understand that nobody is seeking to threaten China’s control of Tibet; we are just seeking, with the Buddhists, to argue for their religious freedom and for a certain degree of autonomy for them to live their lives in the old parts of China, as they would choose to do.
Mark Pritchard
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We are hopefully arguing for the upholding of the Chinese constitution itself. The Chinese authorities need not fear freedom of religion. The suppression of religion, not the freedom of religion, is what causes instability in societies.
I have my Tibet notes, so I will hopefully have some added value later, but first I will speak briefly on animal welfare. As I mentioned, China probably has the worst animal welfare record of any country, yet it is known as the country of the dragon. I fear that, if dragons existed, they too would probably be cruelly reared and cut down in their prime for their teeth and claws, or be caged throughout their life without any care or compassion. In a world in which dragons lived, the country of the dragon would be pre-eminent in their slaughter. The country of the dragon would slaughter the dragon to extinction.
China’s demand for ivory is a major factor in the demise of elephant and rhino populations across the world, often for alternative medicines and therapies, some with unproven benefits, and with the false claim that those and other such medicines improve libido—science has proved quite the opposite. The Chinese Government should educate their population on the threat to some of the world’s most endangered and vulnerable species and unblock websites so that people may access that information themselves. Even the Tibetan antelope has been driven to the brink of extinction due to the Chinese authorities destroying its habitat with forced land use changes and unregulated hunting.
The Chinese invasion of Tibet has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans and the imprisonment and torture of thousands more. In 1959, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s political and spiritual leader, fled into exile in India followed by more than 100,000 Tibetans, and established the Tibetan Government in exile.
China must end its economic strangulation of, and mass economic discrimination against, Tibet. That deliberate policy has forced thousands of Tibetans to abandon their traditional rural lives and move into new housing colonies in urban areas where non-agricultural jobs are controlled by the Chinese state. Tibetans are now a minority in such urban centres because of China’s encouragement of mass Chinese migration.
The Buddhist religion continues to suffer. The Chinese have destroyed more than 6,000 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and shrines since 1949. Today, the number of monks allowed to enter monasteries is strictly controlled and limited. Any references to, or images of, the Dalai Lama are banned. As I mentioned, I have had the privilege of meeting the Dalai Lama twice, and I have made it clear whom I will meet and not meet.
Chinese political oppression—and that is what it is: oppression—has responded to uprisings with extreme violence. Some 300,000 Chinese soldiers are now posted in Tibet. China has repeatedly violated UN conventions through the extensive use of torture against Tibetan political prisoners, including monks and nuns. The Chinese regime has also wreaked huge environmental damage throughout Tibet.
The third plenary of the 18th central committee of the Communist party of China met last week. Many of the decisions made at that important gathering are welcome, but those decisions must be implemented, not just announced—the Chinese are very good at press releases, but we need to see action on the ground that changes people’s lives for the better.
Kate Hoey
This question might be more for the Minister to answer, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although the Chinese reaction to the Prime Minister’s meeting with the Dalai Lama was rather upsetting, the Prime Minister should, when he visits China in the near future, specifically raise with the Chinese Government the position of Tibet, including all the political prisoners in Tibet and the way in which Tibetan culture is being ruined?
Mark Pritchard
The hon. Lady has a long and distinguished record in the House of standing up for human rights, and she is standing up for Tibet today. The Prime Minister will set out the case for human rights, which the Foreign Secretary and other Foreign Office Ministers do consistently, but the realpolitik is that we need to engage with China on all sorts of levels. That said, I believe that the Prime Minister will want to avoid any perception that the United Kingdom and its Government, and therefore its people, are kowtowing to the Chinese and I am sure that that perception will not be allowed to form when he visits China.
I welcome the liberalisation of the one-child policy that was announced at the plenary session, but it needs to be the first—not the last—step in reducing forced abortions, fines and imprisonment for those who by design or accident find themselves with larger families. It is a blight on China’s international reputation that it aborts more babies in the womb than any other country on earth.
I also welcome the announcement that fewer crimes will be subject to the death penalty. Such measures should be introduced this year, not next year. I also hope that that will lead to the complete abolition of the death penalty. As someone who is supposed to be a centre-right politician, and as the proud vice-chairman of the all-party group on the abolition of the death penalty—one group among many that shows the value of all-party groups—I am active with others, and Baroness Stern does a great job of chairing that group. China can really take the lead on the abolition of the death penalty.
The announcement that China will do more to open up its economy and to liberalise its trade and commerce with the outside world is also welcome. It is good news and many good things came out of that plenary session.
In conclusion, China’s economic rise has been impressive, but if it is to be sustainable, its economic progress needs to be matched with more freedoms for its people and with foreign policy restraint. The Chinese are great historians, great diplomats and great survivors. The Communist party will know that it cannot hold back the tide of its own people’s rising aspirations, growing expectations and more informed view of their place in China and the rest of the world. The party’s future will not be secured by stirring extreme nationalism or fostering xenophobia. China’s Communist leaders need to allow change or sooner or later they will be changed. They can work with their people or against their people. Let freedom reign in China.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. I agreed with the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) when he said that the hon. Gentleman had got the tone of the debate exactly right. His speech was measured and balanced.
We can talk about many positives when discussing China. According to market research, 86% of the Chinese population are happy with their Government, which is a rating that many of us in democracies around the world would be happy to achieve. In many ways, it is clear that China is a wealthier, more liberal, diverse and, in some respects, freer society than it has ever been before.
There are some examples of extraordinary tolerance of democratic systems. We must remember that it was widely feared that Hong Kong might lose its multi-party system, independent judiciary and freedom of expression when it became part of the People’s Republic, but all have been preserved. The country may not be democratic in quite the way that we would like to describe ourselves and other countries around the world, but those things have nevertheless been respected.
There is, of course, the phenomenal economic achievement, which benefits this country enormously. In the first two years of the coalition Government, British exports of goods to China increased by 40%. The Foreign Office estimates that Chinese investment is worth as much as £8 billion a year to the British economy, which is not to be sniffed at. Companies such as Huawei are making an important contribution to telecommunications and, however controversially, they are also investing in such things as nuclear power stations.
There are, however, many alarm bells. The hon. Member for The Wrekin was right to point out that China does not do itself any favours or earn a good reputation in many areas. I will quickly run through seven alarm bells. Domestic human rights is only one of them and is still a major problem. Reports in the last year from Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Amnesty International, Pen International and Reporters Without Borders have put China in the bottom few countries of the world in terms of respect for human rights and for freedom of expression. Many of them put Tibet in the worst category of all. The most recent Foreign Office human rights report, issued in 2012, still mentioned the
“use of unlawful and arbitrary measures to target human rights defenders… These included enforced disappearance, house arrest, restrictions on freedom of movement, communication and association, extrajudicial detention (including ‘re-education through labour’ (RTL), ‘black jails’ and involuntary psychiatric committal) and harassment of family members. Human rights defenders also continued to be subjected to criminal charges and procedurally flawed trials, often involving the poorly defined category of offences encompassing ‘endangering state security’. Diplomats and media were repeatedly refused access to their trials.”
That kind of active physical oppression is mirrored on the internet, where, as hon. Members have said, access to sites such as Google and the BBC is restricted. It is clear that China is far from being a good example to the rest of the world on human rights.
As China’s economic power grows, so does its influence in many other parts of the world. Its record on its impact on human rights in other countries is also pretty terrible. Regimes such as Sudan and Zimbabwe have benefited from Chinese patronage. Despite supposed international trade sanctions, China provides a large amount of funding to the North Korean state, which has an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 political prisoners detained in concentration camps, where they perform forced labour and risk summary beatings, torture and execution.
Topically, the Chinese Government have been friendly towards the Government of Sri Lanka, openly providing weapons and military equipment, which was used against the northern Tamil population—perhaps legitimately during the civil war, but perhaps not so legitimately since then—in the way that has been much discussed in this place recently. There is also, I am afraid to say, the close relationship between China and Syria, which we have also discussed at length.
It is not only that there is tolerance of dictatorial regimes; China has enormous economic power that it is now beginning to wield in Africa, where Chinese investment has overtaken that of the USA and is proving quite controversial in many respects. Chinese demand for ore, timber and oil is forcing African states to specialise at the bottom of the value chain, meaning that they are not developing their economies in a positive way. There is large-scale Chinese immigration into many African countries, which, in places such as Ghana, has flared into violence with many Chinese being brutally beaten and some 200 being deported. This frankly pretty careless attitude towards its impact on other countries is a matter of grave concern.
The hon. Member for The Wrekin mentioned the environment, specifically animal welfare. Again, it is not only animals in China that are affected; rhino and elephant populations around the world are affected by the demand for ivory and other products and shark-finning affects shark populations. Within China, there are ill-planned hydrological engineering projects, which interrupt the natural flow of rivers. The conversion of wetlands for agriculture and unsuitable construction and infrastructure projects on flood plains have destroyed ecosystems and driven species out of their natural homes. That most iconic of species, the panda, has been left fighting for survival in many places as its habitat has been cleared to make way for agriculture, timber and fuel wood.
It is not that we can always stand in the way of economic development or that it is possible to develop a country economically without some disruption to the environment. However, other countries have learned that they must protect the environment as they grow and develop—India has certainly recognised that—and that if they do not, they lose something enormously precious; indeed, in biodiversity terms, it is precious to the whole planet.
To those concerns, we could add others about intellectual property rights. Businesses that try to do business in China still have to struggle with problems over the respect for patents and intellectual property. There are also problems with cyber-attacks, including the toleration of repeated attacks on commercial and governmental institutions, which seem to originate in China. Finally, we have the worrying picture of militarisation in east Asia, which must be giving some of the democratic countries and some of our traditional allies in the region real pause for thought.
The overall picture is one of an enormous global power awakening and becoming a superpower once again. All its potential partners appear to have a working assumption that it will always exercise its power benignly. We are somewhat like rabbits caught in the economic headlights: we see the enormous value of trade and business, and we are so worried about any risks to it—particularly after the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister met the Dalai Lama, resulting in the freezing of relations with top officials for several years—that we try to brush the complex picture of policy I have described under the carpet in the pursuit of economic relationships.
It was rather sad that the coalition agreement, of which I am, in many respects, very proud, had only one line about China. It said:
“We will…seek closer engagement with China, while standing firm on human rights in all our bilateral relationships.”
In other words, we will pursue trade, and we will perhaps go through the motions of the rather formulaic human rights dialogue we have with the Chinese Government. However, we do not seem to have appreciated the complexity of China’s impact on democracy, the environment, human rights, trade and peace all over the world.
The Government need to have a more comprehensive and holistic China policy, and we need to encourage the European Union to have one, too. We probably need to encourage the Commonwealth to develop a China policy, given China’s deep involvement in Africa and fact that some of its membership comes from Africa. Democracies around the world, including Japan and other countries in eastern Asia, might also need to develop a comprehensive and holistic response to this emerging superpower. Simply pursing trade at the expense of everything else could be quite a dangerous policy in the long run, and we have to be a little cautious about that.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing the debate, which is particularly timely given that the Chancellor and the Mayor of London have recently visited China and that the Prime Minister is due to visit at the beginning of December.
We have heard about China’s economic importance to the UK and about the fact that it is the world’s second largest economy. Some projections indicate that it will overtake the US economy in just three years’ time. To put that growth in context, it was suggested in 2004 that China might become the world’s largest economy in 2035, but it is now expected to be 2016. I visited the country with the all-party group on China two years ago. People have to go there to see for themselves the phenomenal scale of development in cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu and Beijing and really to appreciate the extent to which China has industrialised and modernised in recent years.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) mentioned that China’s overseas investment has expanded dramatically. He raised concerns about the perhaps somewhat cavalier attitude of some countries, particularly in Africa, to the Chinese presence, and he talked about how we can raise those issues through our relations with them. China’s overseas investment rose from $17 billion in 2005 to $130 billion last year, and it is on an upward trajectory.
Given China’s rising global standing, the importance of a strong bilateral relationship cannot be overstated. That is why the Labour Government published a UK-China strategy on a framework for engagement in 2009, covering China’s growth, including boosting our business, educational and scientific links; the need to foster China’s emergence as a responsible global player, including action on climate change; and promoting sustainable development, modernisation and internal reform in China. Human rights was very much part of that third element, and I will come to that later.
The Government are right to seek closer economic ties with China, but there needs to be a broader focus on co-operation across a range of areas. At the moment, it seems that the UK is being held back by a lack of strategic vision and an insular focus on commercial opportunities to the exclusion of other factors. As the shadow Foreign Secretary said recently, we need an Asian step change in the UK’s foreign policy to ensure dialogue is not limited only to commercial matters.
The Foreign Office should seek to engage better with China on a range of issues, including climate change, technology and international issues such as the middle east and Africa. We must recognise that our EU allies are also working to strengthen their ties with China. Germany’s exports to China far exceed the UK’s and so, to a lesser extent, do France’s.
Given that our countries share common goals, I hope the Minister will agree that greater collaboration could increase European engagement with China to the benefit of all our nations. Additionally, by working with our allies across the Atlantic, we can strengthen our position, working together to negotiate with China, including on trade rules, intellectual property and an agreement on binding global emissions reductions.
Although China has ratified the Kyoto protocol, it is not required to limit emissions, as a non-annexe 1 country. We cannot ignore the environmental implications of China’s sheer size and rapid economic development. It currently has the highest carbon dioxide emissions in the world—more than the USA and India combined. Although its cumulative footprint is obviously not as great as that of countries that developed much longer ago, evidence suggests that China’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising by 10% each year. To its credit, China has taken some positive action in recent years, with greater use of environmental regulations and advances in mitigation techniques as a result of the development of its technical expertise. There has been considerable investment, for example, in alternative energy, but despite that, the country is still heavily reliant on coal.
China is particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change, with increasing temperatures and rising sea levels a threat to its long coast line. Glacier melt in Tibet is also a serious concern. Furthermore, the World Bank has estimated that China is home to 16 of the 20 most polluted cities. Interestingly, there have been dramatic increases in environmental protests in China, and surveys indicate considerable support for more robust environmental regulation.
Encouragingly, there are signs that the Chinese Government are responding. Chinese Ministers have confirmed to GLOBE International—I believe they are meeting at the moment—that they will introduce comprehensive legislation on climate change over the next two years. It is imperative that the UK and the wider international community engage with China to secure its involvement in global efforts on this front.
Recently, there have been discussions on energy, with the Energy Secretary announcing the Chinese investment in Hinkley Point following his recent visit to China. As the hon. Members for The Wrekin and for Cheltenham mentioned, the investment is welcome if it enables us to diversify our energy mix, but any agreement will require thorough scrutiny, given the 35-year guarantees offered to the companies involved.
The Chancellor has announced a relaxation of visa requirements for Chinese visitors, which is perhaps an indication that the Government now recognise some of the tensions and contradictions in their immigration policy. The issue was certainly raised when the all-party group visited China a couple of years ago. Businesses there told us that, although the UK was seen in the past as the premier destination for students wishing to study abroad, there was increasing competition from Australia and America. That was partly linked to the visa requirements and being able to stay on and work in the country for a few years afterwards.
Organisations such as the British Council and the university of Cambridge, and companies such as Tesco, which has a presence in China, made the point quite strongly. There is a strong educational link between our two countries. Chinese students are the largest foreign contingent in UK schools and universities, but the Government’s net migration targets are perceived as a threat to that situation. The news on visas is welcome if it will help with that.
Human rights have been covered in surprising detail during the debate, which I expected would be more about the economic side of things. I welcome the raising of human rights issues. As we heard, after the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister met the Dalai Lama last year, the bilateral relationship became rather strained, and it was reported that the Prime Minister’s visit to China was postponed as a result. He was not welcome in the country, and ministerial contact was reportedly cut off.
Following the thawing of relations it seemed that the Chancellor, on his recent visit, was keen to reassure China that the Prime Minister had no further plans to meet the Dalai Lama. Undoubtedly the trip took place in delicate circumstances, and reportedly there were tensions between the Treasury and the Foreign Office about how to reconcile China’s strategic importance, particularly on the economic front, with its human rights record. The answer—I hope that the Minister will agree—is that neither can be ignored, which is why human rights were central to Labour’s strategy for building a closer relationship with China.
Mark Pritchard
These debates are not party political, particularly on human rights matters. However, for the record and the sake of clarity, will the hon. Lady tell me whether the Leader of the Opposition has met the Dalai Lama, and, if so, whether he intends to again?
Kerry McCarthy
I do not want to speak off the cuff. I think that my right hon. Friend has met the Dalai Lama, but I am not aware of his intentions. I simply cannot answer for him as I have not discussed the matter with him.
The Government recently published their action plan on business and human rights, which said that the promotion of business and respect for human rights should go hand in hand. There is concern that the Treasury in particular has not signed up to that script. Following the Chancellor’s visit, I tabled a question asking what discussions he had had with the Foreign Secretary before he went about human rights in China and the Government’s action plan on business and human rights. I also asked what discussions the Chancellor had during his visit about freedom of expression, freedom of association, the rule of law and Tibet.
Somewhat mysteriously, the question seemed to be transferred to the Foreign Office. I received a letter from there, telling me that it had been sent back to the Chancellor for a response. The Chancellor chose not to respond, and passed the question to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who had not even been on the trip, although I believe the Financial Secretary had. The Economic Secretary responded on 4 November at column 11W but would not tell me whether the Chancellor had discussed human rights with the Foreign Secretary or with officials he met in China.
That is not really good enough. When the Chancellor goes on a trade mission, we expect him to be concerned primarily with economic matters, but human rights should be woven through our bilateral relationship with any country, and should be raised as part of the delegation. Reports from the visit suggest that the Mayor of London was also reluctant to raise those issues. He was quoted as saying:
“I don’t just walk into a meeting and say, ‘I say, you chaps, how’s freedom doing?’ ”
I appreciate that he was there to represent not the Government but London, but his flippant remarks demonstrate the need for a clear strategy on how to raise challenging and troubling subjects with a nation whose partnership is highly valued, but which is also designated by the Foreign Office as a country of concern with regard to human rights.
The Foreign Office’s latest human rights report noted that in China
“progress on core civil and political rights was limited in 2012”,
with
“increased online censorship and harassment of human rights defenders”.
Some positive developments were noted, but concerns still included
“the inadequacy of safeguards in China to guarantee the rule of law and access to justice”.
The UK cannot strengthen its relationship with China by being timid; we must acknowledge where China has made progress and be frank where there are shortcomings. More recently, as other hon. Members have noted, there have been some positive developments, such as last week’s reports about the relaxation of the one-child policy and reported moves to abolish “re-education through labour” camps.
Mark Pritchard
Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a tragic irony in the fact that the Communist party was formed in part for workers’ rights, but now oversees much industry where workers have very few rights in what is a modern form of Chinese sweatshop? Any dialogue should include that issue, along with human rights.
Kerry McCarthy
I agree entirely. We should at every opportunity talk to the Chinese about, for example, the International Labour Organisation standard on workers’ rights. There is concern that when people try to raise questions of how workers are treated, the forces of repression prevent their speaking out. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The reports of the abolition of the “re-education through labour” camps are welcome, and I hope that the Foreign Office will keep a close eye on progress on that.
There were also reports earlier this summer that China would soon begin to phase out the use of executed prisoners’ organs for transplants. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the campaign about forced organ harvesting, although it is not in his portfolio. His views on that, and on restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, including the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, would be interesting. The use of the death penalty and secrecy on the number of executions carried out in China are also matters for concern.
Mark Pritchard
The hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. Is she aware of a report by ChinaAid that more than 20 Christian believers from the Nanle county Christian church—a church sanctioned by the Three-Self movement—were detained between yesterday morning and today and that Pastor Zhang Xiaojie was arrested along with others? No charges that stand up to scrutiny have been laid against them. Will the hon. Lady join me in calling for their immediate release?
Kerry McCarthy
I was not aware of that report. I get the impression that the hon. Gentleman has just received notification of it, but I am a member of the all-party group on international religious freedom or belief, which sends out excellent e-mails almost daily, updating members on such incidents around the world. It is worrying that that has happened, and I would be happy to support the call the hon. Gentleman makes. The oppression of people purely for their religion—or, indeed, their lack of faith—should not be tolerated wherever it happens.
The hon. Member for The Wrekin mentioned animal welfare, which I know is dear to his heart, and the hon. Member for Cheltenham talked about it in some detail, too. The one issue that I do not think was mentioned was tiger farms. At the moment there are more tigers in captivity in tiger farms in China than there are in the wild throughout the world. There are about 3,500 in the wild and at least 5,000 in tiger farms, which are often used as tourist attractions. That was raised at the convention on international trade in endangered species meeting in 2012. The UK Government and, I think, the Indian Government urged that the farms should be phased out. I should be interested to know whether progress has been made on that.
As to Tibet, while we respect China’s sovereignty, we cannot ignore the serious human rights issues that arise—the disturbing number of self-immolations and the reports of arrests because a friend or relative has self-immolated. It is important that the UK should continue to raise concerns about the treatment of people in Tibet and promote dialogue. The UK-China human rights dialogue is one cornerstone of our bilateral relationship. The 20th round took place in January 2012, and the Foreign Office’s March human rights update reported that it was waiting for China to respond to the proposed dates for the 21st round. That was not included in the June or September updates, but I hope that progress is being made and that the Minister will agree that it is important to continue that long-standing dialogue and get the 21st round in the diary as soon as possible.
From next year, the UK will be working with China on the Human Rights Council. Given that the Foreign Secretary has said that his priorities for the UK’s term on the council include championing freedom of expression and freedom of religion and belief, it is important for the UK to press its new colleagues on the council on such issues and to emphasise the value of visits by UN special rapporteurs, as well as championing the issues globally.
To conclude, we support constructive long-term engagement, but it needs to be political as well as economic engagement across Government. The long-planned autumn statement has now been rearranged because of the Prime Minister’s visit to China next month. The number of the Prime Minister’s overseas trips has given the impression that he is concentrating on trade to the exclusion of human rights, so I hope that the Foreign Office will ensure that he is fully briefed on the UK’s commitment to the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and on the reasons why the Foreign Office includes China among its countries of concern.
As I have said, climate change must also be on the agenda. In preparation for the visit, I hope that the Prime Minister will not only liaise with UK businesses, but consider the opportunities provided by our place in the EU and by our close ties with the US, looking beyond commercial factors to see the wider contribution that China can make to the global community.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
It is a pleasure, Mrs Main, to serve under your guidance and chairmanship this afternoon.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this important and timely debate and on the extremely knowledgeable and articulate way in which he introduced the topic. As other Members have said, he put his case across in a measured way, but he was also absolutely clear in highlighting the importance of China’s history, culture and historic civilisation and, importantly, in putting on the record the huge economic progress in China over the past 30 years or so, as well as the real progress in making it easier for and enabling United Kingdom businesses to invest in China. I also congratulate all other hon. Members who participated in this high-quality and well-informed debate.
Slightly unusually, I have time—hopefully—to address all the points made in speeches and interventions, so if hon. Members are patient, I will try to do so. At the beginning, however, it is important to say that the time is significant not only for the UK, but for China, in their relationship. The debate is particularly timely because of recent visits to China by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Mayor of London, as well as the visit to China mentioned by other hon. Members—to be made by the Prime Minister at the beginning of December.
November marks a year since the new leadership was anointed. President Xi is beginning to make his impact felt. This month’s third plenum was hailed as a key moment for economic and other reform by senior leaders—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). I will address that in a little more detail later. China’s rise represents a huge opportunity for Britain, but it has clearly prompted bilateral and regional stresses, which it is important for us to understand and to help to manage.
The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) rightly outlined some of the key statistics of China’s economic rise and transformation, as did other hon. Members. The stark one for me was that McKinsey believes that China’s economic transformation is happening at 100 times the scale of the first country to urbanise—the United Kingdom—and at 10 times the speed. That is a really transformational and expeditious economic rise. That remarkable growth is primarily taking place in China’s cities. In less than 10 years, China’s urban middle class will be in excess of 600 million people.
That rapid transformation presents clear opportunities for the United Kingdom. Our economies are set to enter a new, more complementary phase. There will be a demand for products and services not only in the obvious economic sectors but in important sectors where the UK has expertise, such as in health care and education—exactly the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East—as well as in the creative industries. Furthermore, luxury goods will continue to grow as urbanisation continues. Those are areas of British strength. We already excel at producing what the future Chinese economy will demand. In addition, our university sector is first rate. Expertise across the full spectrum of creative disciplines makes us unique in the world, and we are well placed to offer increased scientific collaboration.
China’s growing middle class increasingly sees Britain as a tourist destination and as a place to educate their children. In the second quarter of this year, we issued approximately 150,000 visas to Chinese nationals—40% more than had been issued in any previous quarter. In the five years to 2011-12, the number of Chinese students in the UK rose steadily, reaching more than 90,000, or 21 % of all overseas students in the United Kingdom.
The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who is no longer in his place, raised an important issue in his intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about the announcements made by the Chancellor in his recent visit to China. We are keenly aware of the issues arising from the Schengen visa system for Chinese visitors to Europe. The Chancellor has announced pilot measures to allow joint applications for UK and Schengen visas from certain tour groups taking part in the approved destinations scheme. We clearly maintain our own separate visa system—a point made articulately by my hon. Friend—but those administrative measures will help to address any issues. We estimate and anticipate that the number of visa applications will be more than 1 million a year by 2017. To make the process easier and faster for Chinese nationals who want to visit the UK for business, study or pleasure, the Chancellor followed up any concerns with his announcement in China of new measures, including a 24-hour visa service and streamlining the UK and Schengen visa application processes.
We have much to learn and gain from each other, not only economically but culturally, sharing each other’s rich cultural history and traditions. We can see that collaboration and the growth of societal knowledge in visitor exchanges between our two countries and in the important collaborations between our museums—there is currently an excellent and acclaimed exhibition of Chinese painting at the Victoria and Albert museum.
Before discussing the human rights issues rightly raised by hon. Members, I will turn to some specifics on trade and inward investment, which is an important component of the China-UK relationship, in part because the UK rightly has a reputation as the most open economy in the world, driving unprecedented Chinese investment into the country. We are also creating the right environment for Chinese businesses to operate in, and we are now home to more than 400 mainland Chinese companies
My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin rightly mentioned the investment by Huawei, which is a prime example. Rather than blocking Chinese investment in that particular important economic sector, we have welcomed investment of £1.3 billion into its UK business over the next five years, including a new £125-million research base that will create up to 300 new jobs. As my hon. Friend also said, however, we of course take the security and integrity of all equipment used by the Government and the public seriously. GCHQ continues to work closely with Huawei, as with a number of other telecommunications suppliers, to ensure that the products are safe, secure and resilient in the United Kingdom.
We are particularly keen to encourage investment from China—as from elsewhere in the world—in our infrastructure, which we hope will bring about £200 billion of projects over the next five years. My hon. Friend mentioned the investment in the UK’s new generation of nuclear plants at Hinkley Point C, with two Chinese companies as minority shareholders.
Investment is only part of the story. Our bilateral trade with China is now worth more than $70 billion a year and we are on track to meet the target of $100 billion a year by 2015. UK exports of goods and services to China have increased 10% in the past year alone, and are growing at the fastest rate of any major EU nation—a testament to Government policies. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has put prosperity at the heart of its mission, and as part of our network shift we have 60 new staff working in China, a third of whom are focused on less well-known but increasingly commercially important provinces. Alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Trade & Investment has helped many companies to succeed in China by providing support and advice through a network of offices and in collaboration with the China-Britain Business Council.
In addition to our efforts to support British businesses, we want to help China to improve the environment for foreign business by developing the rule of law and enabling a stable, secure and corruption-free environment to allow foreign business to thrive there. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) were absolutely right about the necessity and importance of encouraging the Chinese not to block flow of information through the BBC or Google. We strongly believe that a modern knowledge economy must be built on the free flow of ideas. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right. We continue to raise concerns about freedom of expression with the Chinese authorities, and outline our position in our annual human rights report that the hon. Member for Cheltenham quoted.
China’s economic growth is only one part of a wider regional story. Asia-Pacific continues to be one of the fastest growing regions economically, and as British business seeks to take advantage of the opportunities offered by that growth it is fundamental that the region enjoys peace and stability. We have a clear interest in managing the security challenges that risk undermining the region’s economic and political development. The tensions between China and Japan are well documented. We do not take sides in the underlying sovereignty issues but urge all parties to seek peaceful solutions. The effective development of a regional security apparatus is important to stability and we are working closely with the US as principal security guarantor in the region.
I turn now to the important issue of human rights, which has been raised by a number of hon. Members. It is right to say that our prosperity, security, values and global interests are clearly interconnected. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said, we must have a foreign policy based on our values, and the Government believe that respect for human rights is good for economic growth. We want China to continue to succeed. We believe that the development of an independent civil society and the application of human rights under the rule of law are essential for China’s long-term prosperity, along with the free flow of ideas that is an essential part of the growth of a knowledge-driven economy. That is why we welcome the reforms announced during the recent third plenum to deepen judicial reform, end re-education through labour camps—a point raised powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East—and increase reproductive rights.
Dr Julian Lewis
The Foreign Office does not always receive praise when praise is due. Looking back to the era of the closing stages of the Soviet Union, the Foreign Office showed great skill in the way in which it interlinked progress on human rights with other issues of contact between the two countries. Will the Minister confirm what seems to be the case, namely that there is a good institutional memory of the techniques employed in that era, which can be applied now in trying to take matters forward with China?
Mark Simmonds
My hon. Friend makes, if I may say so, a typically intelligent and perceptive point. He is absolutely right to make that comparison and to comment on that interlinking, as well as the importance of engagement and external lobbying to ensure a transformation over time in these important areas. I assure him that the expertise that was gained in the Foreign Office from the positive activities and outcomes at the time he referred to is infusing and informing the direction of policy at the moment on engagement with China.
On the specific point my hon. Friend made about the ending of re-education through labour camps, although I acknowledge that we are still waiting for the detail about the time frame under which we hope that will be delivered, we welcome the progress that has been made. The new leadership is serious about both economic and financial reforms, and those other reforms. We hope that the authorities will plan not just to abolish reform through labour camps but to end all forms of arbitrary and extra-judicial detention. That is a priority for our engagement with China and was a key part of the statement we made on 22 October that was referred to by the hon. Member for Bristol East.
Where there are additional concerns about human rights, we raise them. To give confirmation to the shadow Minister, we are seeking to agree dates for the next human rights dialogue with the Chinese Government in 2014. We continue to discuss human rights issues with the Chinese authorities, including Tibet, which many hon. Members raised; I will say a little more on Tibet in a moment. We are concerned about the continuing arrest and disappearance in China of activists, lawyers and journalists and others who attempt to exercise their right to freedom of expression and association.
As my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin powerfully articulated, we remain concerned about the restrictions placed on freedom of religion in China. Freedom of religion and belief is a fundamental right, and we believe that everybody should be free to practise their religion according to their beliefs, in accordance with the international frameworks to which both the United Kingdom and China are party. We made a statement at the United Nations universal periodic review of China on 22 October, focusing on concerns about extra-legal and arbitrary detention, ratification of the international covenant on civil and political rights, freedom of expression and association, the death penalty, Tibet and Xinjiang. We consulted civil society when drawing up our recommendations. We also fund an array of strategic projects focused on areas including the rule of law, the death penalty, women’s rights and civil society.
We have different histories and systems, however, and are at different stages in our development, so there will be areas where we disagree. That is why we are committed to continued dialogue and that is why the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that we want to have a strong and positive relationship with China to our mutual benefit.
I turn now specifically to Tibet, so that colleagues will be under no illusions. The issue was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for The Wrekin and for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), and the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), for Cheltenham, and for Bristol East. We continue to have serious concerns about human rights in Tibet. We believe that meaningful dialogue is the best way to address and resolve the underlying grievances of the Tibetan communities, and we urge all parties to restart talks as soon as possible. However, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have stated clearly that our policy is unchanged, and is consistent with that of the previous Government, in that we recognise Tibet is part of China. The Prime Minister has no plans to meet the Dalai Lama.
I turn now to the particular and specific concern of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about illegal wildlife trade. He will be well aware of the Foreign Secretary’s engagement with the issue. I want to confirm that the Prime Minister has invited China to send a high-level representative to attend the London conference on illegal wildlife trade in February next year. We hope that that conference will agree to action to tackle the three main aspects of the problem: improving enforcement; reducing demand for illegal wildlife products—that aspect is particularly important in relation to China—and supporting sustainable livelihoods for communities affected by illegal wildlife trade. We hope to work with China and other global partners to address the destabilising effects of the trade, particularly on developing countries. I can assure my hon. Friend and others who are interested that in my travels across Africa, where countries are affected by this plight, I raise the issue as a top priority to try to encourage African Governments to engage with us.
Mark Pritchard
The Minister talks about endangered animals and species, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s invitation to the Chinese Government to send a high-level representative. What representations have been made? If none have been made, can they be made, and if they have been made, what was the conclusion vis-à-vis bear farming and bile from bears?
Mark Simmonds
I am not an expert on bile from bears, but I will certainly write to my hon. Friend and put a copy of the letter in the Library with the details he requests.
Kerry McCarthy
I am sure the Minister will be reassured to know that I will ask him about something that is in his portfolio. Concerns have been raised with me recently about a link between wildlife crime and international trade in endangered species, and funding for terrorism in Africa, particularly with al-Shabaab in Somalia. Is that on his radar, and is the Foreign Office planning to address it?
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that important issue and I hope that she will understand if I do not go into details. Yes, we are aware of that, we are looking at it, and we are working with our multilateral partners to address it cohesively and collectively.
The hon. Lady referred in her speech to environment and climate change. It is important that we continue to work with China on such issues, which we do. Clearly, China’s rapid industrialisation has put strains on the environment. Other hon. Members mentioned that, and China’s third plenum also recognised it. It is important to establish ecological civilisation. We continue to work with China at all levels, not just with central Government, but at provincial and local level on a multilateral basis to try to encourage process and improvement in environmental standards, and to encourage the use of renewables and energy efficiency, which are a key component of this important agenda.
Another point that hon. Members raised is the importance of Chinese engagement with Africa. We welcome that engagement in Africa. China plays an increasingly important role in security and prosperity on the continent. Both the UK and China share a fundamental interest in promoting sustainable development and maintaining regional stability. The Chinese are now involved in UN peacekeeping operations in Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in anti-piracy issues off the horn of Africa. We are building a partnership with China in Africa to help to reduce poverty and to achieve the millennium development goals. Chinese and UK businesses are working together to maximise the beneficial impact for those living in Africa. I could not allow this debate to close without emphasising some of the positive things that China is doing in Africa.
We are entering a new phase in our relationship with China. The United Kingdom has significant expertise that complements China’s needs, not just in the private sector but in the Government sector. Our global interests are more closely interlinked than ever. We will continue to approach UK-China relations constructively based on our values and shared interests. We can deliver real prosperity and security benefits for the UK, China and Asia. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin for providing the House with an opportunity to debate this significant, timely and important relationship.
Navitus Bay Wind Farm
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Having been closeted in the Whips Office for a while, I take great pleasure in being back in Westminster Hall and able to stand up and fight for the rights of my constituents.
I start by saying that it is a great pleasure to see so many Dorset colleagues. In no particular order, the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax) are here.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), my constituency neighbour, is also here—we have both been putting in for debates on this subject, so which one of us starts the debate and which one comes second is a matter of pure chance. I also attended the debate on this proposal that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset secured earlier in the year. It says something about people’s concern over the proposal that all of us are here, interested and wanting to put on the record the views and concerns of many of our constituents.
Whatever view we take, we are all very disappointed by the process, which, as one understands it, is that following the Crown Estate identifying a site, in comes a preferred bidder who floats a number of potential scenarios. People are never quite sure what they are dealing with—how many turbines, how big, or what will be generated. The proposal goes through various phases of consultation, and it is only towards the end of the process that we get it firming up and we start to see what the shape of the development will be. That makes it very confusing and difficult for constituents, who mostly do not understand the process—indeed, Members of Parliament sometimes have great difficulty dealing with it.
The reality, therefore, is that later in the process there is a more specific application that eventually goes either to the Planning Inspectorate or to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. A decision is taken without councils being involved, although they will be consulted—Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset will be consulted—and without Members of Parliament being able to have their say, apart from getting up and whingeing in a debate.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) has come in to add to the array of talent in the Chamber.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early. There are a number of issues to cover. He touched on the Crown Estate, which is the genesis of this entire discussion because it gave the footprint and suggested the area that we need to consider for use for wind farms.
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that that very footprint that we now call Navitus Bay was, in fact, incorrect, because it included areas just off Weymouth that are military zones for shooting? They could never have been included in the first place for consideration as a place for wind farms to be erected.
Mr Syms
The Crown Estate identified several sites, including the one we are discussing. I think there are areas around our coast that may be the most appropriate for offshore wind, and I know that in Redcar and Thanet there is some support for such proposals.
As I shall say in a moment, Dorset is an area of tourism, not only because of the beauty of the county and of the view, but because of the hard work put in by many thousands of businesses in South Dorset, Bournemouth, and Poole that promote and invest in the area and want to promote the area for tourism. It is a great disappointment to them that the proposal could well, if it goes ahead, and as Navitus Bay has acknowledged, lead to a reduction in tourism, which is very important for jobs.
Annette Brooke
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—it is nice sometimes to get my own way—and I congratulate him on securing the debate.
What is most important is that the evidence is properly evaluated. There is not great evidence that tourism will necessarily be affected, and at the end of the day a Minister will survey all that has been presented. Lots of myths surround the whole application, and I think that is down to the process, which is very difficult for local people. However, I want to put on the record that I am, in principle, in favour of offshore wind farms. It is very important, however, not only to get the details right for our local populations, but to assess the evidence and the facts at the end of the day.
Mr Syms
I thank the hon. Lady for putting her views on the record. I understand that she has concerns, but that, in principle, she is in favour. Other Members here today probably have more concerns, and I shall start to go through those.
The biggest concern is visual impact. We have heard that there could be up to 218 turbines—they will be very tall and they have to have lights on top. The turbines will be about 12 miles off the coast of Bournemouth and Poole, although there may be points at which they are less than nine miles off the coast of South Dorset, which is a Jurassic coast and a great asset to Dorset.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Not only is it a Jurassic coast, but it is a world heritage site. It has the top designation; the Great Barrier reef is one of the other areas with the same designation. As I have said in the many speeches that I have made on the subject, I hate to think what the Australians would say to us if we suggested that they put 218 turbines as close to the Great Barrier reef as is suggested for our world heritage site. In fact, I know exactly what they would say. Will my hon. Friend comment on the issue of the coast’s being a world heritage site? The point I object to is that the windmills will be too close.
Mr Syms
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. The coast has a UN world heritage site designation, and there are also areas of outstanding natural beauty. As we all know, onshore, there is heathland and a variety of sites of special scientific interest. Those constrain the planning authorities, yet just a few miles out at sea, we will have a proposal that may have a major visual impact.
I have mentioned tourism, which we may argue or disagree about, but I am sure that there is genuine concern about the impact on it. What is not up for debate is that thousands of jobs rely on tourism, whereas not many jobs will be generated by the proposal. Once it is built, some people will have to maintain the wind farm, but on the whole, it will not be a heavy employer.
The concern about potential noise has also been raised. I know of many colleagues in the House with wind farms—certainly onshore wind farms—in their constituencies who say that it is not true that they do not make any noise. There is noise. It may depend on which way the wind is coming, but many of my constituents have raised concerns about that issue.
Sailing and navigation have been mentioned. The Solent and the area around Poole bay are among the busiest areas for sailing and navigation. If 218 turbines are to be put offshore, they are bound to have an impact on shipping and the variety of vessels and ships in the ports of Poole and Southampton. Of course, we have a local but small fishing fleet, which it is very important to nurture.
Not a great deal has been said about birds, but clearly 218 turbines will have a major impact on bird life.
Annette Brooke
I understand that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has not objected to the proposed wind farm. I would be happy to be corrected on that point, but again, we need to look at the evidence.
Mr Syms
I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. Concerns about that and a variety of things have been raised by hundreds of my constituents and by local people, many of whom are members of the RSPB. It is very important that we use this opportunity to put the concerns that have been expressed on the record.
The development is very substantial and will have an impact on the communities that we represent. I have had several hundred e-mails and letters from people objecting, while I have had fewer than 10 in favour. Even if we accept that in this world, more people would object than support a proposal, it is clear that there are very real concerns. The proposers of the scheme have to lay those concerns to rest and I do not think they have been able to do so with this process.
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend touches on an important aspect of the matter, which is the views of the residents. I concur with him on the ratio to which he has just referred. Many residents of Bournemouth perhaps approve of the concept of wind farms, but are very concerned about their proximity to the coast. I think that that is what we are debating: what distance is agreeable?
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are Government guidelines that suggest that the nearest to the coastline that wind farms should be is 12 nautical miles? The company has proved that it can build such wind farms in other parts of the continent. I do not understand why there is such pressure to build so close to the shoreline when that will have such an impact on tourism, as my hon. Friend has already outlined.
Mr Syms
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, of course. If a cable has to be run from the wind turbines to connect into the grid, the longer the cable is, the more expensive the proposal is. If there are maintenance teams, wherever they are based, going out to maintain the turbines and they have to go out an extra 2 or 3 miles, clearly that adds a real cost to the operation of the wind farm.
That issue has to be part of the proposal. I think that if the Navitus Bay proposers had come forward and said, “We’re happy to push the wind farm out so that it is out of sight or as far out of sight as can be,” and if its scale had been smaller, they would have got a better hearing. What shocked people was that when they saw the footprint that the Crown Estate had given us, the wind farm was very close to the shore and very close to the view that many of us who have stayed in Bournemouth hotels know.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend have any information on how much public money will go in subsidies from British taxpayers to the Dutch-owned company that is planning this development?
Mr Syms
I do not have any firm information. I know only that when I saw the recent and very welcome announcement on the Hinkley Point C proposal, there was a great deal of criticism of the rates of subsidy that the Government were giving—I think very sensibly—and that offshore wind has twice the level of subsidy. One would have to say that this is the most expensive way of generating electricity and, given that the wind does not always blow, it may not be the most efficient way of dealing with the situation.
There are things that we can do on renewable energy. There are many things that we can do, if we insulate homes and make changes to electrical equipment and so on, to save money. But I am not sure that this is good value for British taxpayers. Coming back to the specific proposal, I think that what is proposed is too large. I do not think that it has public acceptance and it will change very much the offer that our area has for many people.
Mr Ellwood
I am sorry for testing my hon. Friend’s patience; he has been very generous indeed. The guidelines about the distance from the shoreline to the leading edge of the wind farm are important. My concern is that the 12 nautical mile guideline that has been created was designed when wind turbines were only 100 metres high. We are now hearing that these turbines might be as high as 218 metres. They stick up higher, so I suggest that that leading edge—12 nautical miles—should be increased even further to ensure that they are out of sight.
Mr Syms
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As I said, because of aircraft, there would have to be lights on the top. A number of us had meetings with representatives of Bournemouth airport a few weeks ago, in which they stated that there was a concern about what impact there would be on the navigation facilities at the airport. The navigation facilities have been upgraded, so that is less of a problem than it used to be, but there clearly will be a navigation problem if there is a large wind farm in the sea, just offshore from a major international airport.
There are many concerns. I do not think that my constituents have been reassured by the process. The process needs looking at, certainly, but I have a feeling that whatever the merits of offshore wind, this is the wrong place to put the wind farm. Many of our constituents have invested a lifetime in businesses such as hotels. Bournemouth borough council has certainly been out there investing in tourism, attracting people and putting on lots of events to get people into Bournemouth. I am just concerned that this proposal will offset that offer, which has been built up over generations.
I know that we do not always agree 100%, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, but I wanted to use today’s debate as an important opportunity to put my concerns on the record. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West, who also wants to say a few words.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) on securing the debate to highlight this very important issue. He has been very active on this subject. After I raised it with the previous Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the gentleman who is no longer a Member of the House, my hon. Friend and I went to see him to put on the record our concerns about the process of this development.
Let me pick up a couple of points that colleagues have made. I say to the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) that the critical difference between her constituents and those of other hon. Members present is that her constituents will not have to look at this wind farm. All of ours will, so the impact, by definition, will be greater on the constituencies represented by other hon. Members here.
My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) intervened twice on the point about the distance from shore and the definition that the Government lay down. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to give us some clarity on that point. I put it to the company before the closure of phase 4 of its consultation; I raised the issue that my hon. Friend raised about the 12 nautical mile limit. In the reply to my letter of objection, Mike Unsworth, the project director at Navitus Bay, said:
“Regarding the wind farm’s distance from the shore, I would emphasise that the Government has not issued guidance that stipulates a 12 nautical mile limit. Indeed on 10 October 2013, the Climate Change Minister Greg Barker was clear that DECC ‘has not issued guidance on the distance that offshore wind farms should be placed from the coast’”.
He was quoting from column 342W of Hansard for 10 October 2013. I ask the Minister to give us some clarity on what the Government’s position is on distance.
Richard Drax
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. As I understand it, the EU guidance refers to 23 km, which is not 12 nautical miles, and the Crown Estate had identified eight other sites, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) was talking about, totalling some 22,000 sq km. There is no world heritage site in those sites; there is no coastline in sight. Why cannot the company go there?
Conor Burns
My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Even if the company has to go within the development area that it has been given on this site, it does not have to go within the area of the development site that it has chosen. It could go significantly further out to sea.
All hon. Members, at the beginning of this process, were very open in engaging with the company. We have no in-principle objection to wind farms or wind energy at all. That is the policy of the Government. There is no point in arguing on that, whatever our views. We are arguing on the impact that this proposal will have on our local economy and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) says, on a world heritage site.
Bournemouth attracts more than 6 million visitors annually. The tourism economy is worth in excess of £425 million to the town’s economy. It supports in the region of 16,000 local jobs. Navitus Bay’s own research suggested that one third of summer visitors questioned would not return to Bournemouth during the construction period, which it is estimated will last for five years. That would be a devastating blow to our local economy. I have to question how many of the town’s businesses, which rely on tourism, would even be in business at the end of that five-year period if those figures—
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend has been a passionate advocate in looking at the detail of this proposal. Does he agree that one concern is about the shape of the bay? On the left, in the east, we have the Isle of Wight, and on the right, Studland bay. That offers a frame from which visitors can look out to sea. It is very different from Blackpool and other areas, where there is just an open expanse of water. These are reference marks whereby people can measure the height and, indeed, the intrusion of the wind farm. That is why we have been pressing, as my hon. Friend said, for the wind farm to be pushed back as far as possible.
Conor Burns
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point well. The bay and the beach are the hook on which the local tourism economy hangs, and anything that had a detrimental impact on that visually would be very serious. My hon. Friend will know the figures. Navitus Bay’s own research goes on to say that 14% of visitors surveyed—these are the company’s own figures—said that they would never return to the conurbation if there was a visual impact.
There are other things that we still do not know, because the company is sitting on information. Several reports vital to our assessment of the impact of the scheme are ongoing or have not been released, including the assessment of the noise impact, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poole referred to, the night time visual impact report, the climate and microclimate assessment and outstanding issues in the landscape, seascape and visual impact assessment.
The Minister will be aware that even at this stage, the company will not tell us how many turbines there will be, where they will be or what configuration they will be in. When we do not even know what type of turbine the company has in mind, how are we to believe that it has produced accurate visuals on which the public can reasonably comment? The fact is that it has not done so. That is at the centre of our argument about the flawed nature of the consultation process that Navitus has entered into.
Last year, Navitus told us in terms of great rejoicing that we should all celebrate the proposed reduction in the number and height of the turbines. I question how we were supposed to celebrate that when we had not been told how many turbines there would be, what height they would be or where they would be. It is absolutely vital that we know and understand exactly what the proposal looks like. In his letter, Mike Unsworth says:
“It is vital that the views of the public are taken into account.”
The public overwhelmingly want their views on the views that they enjoy to be taken into account, and that cannot happen without accurate visuals.
There was a news story on the subject in October in the Bournemouth Daily Echo, and one of the comments on the story—it is often wise not to read the comments on the Bournemouth Echo, but I did on this occasion—called those who were opposed to the plan “NIMBYs”. Someone commented below:
“Simple answer. My Back Yard is a World Heritage Site.”
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) on securing today’s debate on the proposed Navitus Bay wind farm—a topic of great interest to his constituents, as well as to those of my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) and for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), and of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke).
I know that my hon. Friends understand that I cannot comment directly on the merits or otherwise of the proposed Navitus Bay wind farm, because any application for development consent for the proposed wind farm and any associated onshore and offshore infrastructure will be examined by the Planning Inspectorate before it makes a recommendation to the Secretary of State on whether consent should be granted or refused. The Secretary of State will then have to consider the recommendations and the report that accompanies them and make the final decision on the application. In those circumstances, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the proposed development, because that might be interpreted as being prejudicial to the eventual decision.
Mr Ellwood
May I underline my thanks, and that of my colleagues, to the Minister for the frequency with which he has been willing to listen to the concerns of our residents, which we have expressed in this place and in the main Chamber? Does he have in mind a date when the Secretary of State will eventually see the proposals? My concern is that that might happen on either side of the general election, and much as I hope that there will be a convincing Conservative win, there is a possibility that the decision might be left to another Secretary of State who was not so sympathetic to the needs and concerns of Dorset residents.
Michael Fallon
I have no information on the likely date of the Secretary of State’s consideration, but it might be helpful to my hon. Friends if I explained the process for the consideration of nationally significant infrastructure projects. Navitus Bay is classified as such a project under the Planning Act 2008 regime.
The process can be broken down into several stages. The first stage is pre-application—the stage that the Navitus Bay proposal has reached—and is when an applicant has notified the Planning Inspectorate of its intention to apply for development consent. During that period, an applicant is expected to carry out extensive consultation on the proposal in question, the results of which will feed into its thinking on the configuration of the project before the application is submitted.
The second stage is acceptance. Once the pre-application process has concluded, an application for development consent is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, which must decide within 28 days whether the application meets the required standards for acceptance.
The third stage is pre-examination, in which an examining authority—an individual or a panel of examiners—will be appointed by the Planning Inspectorate. Members of the public and other interested parties can register with the Planning Inspectorate and provide summaries of their views on the proposals. I encourage all individuals and organisations with an interest in the proposal to engage with any public consultation when it is launched. The inspectorate will convene a preliminary hearing at which the process for consideration of the application will be set out and questions about it considered.
The fourth stage is examination. The Planning Inspectorate has six months to carry out its investigation of the application, which will be undertaken by way of hearings, and to consider any written representations submitted to it. During that process, the examining authority will give consideration to all important and relevant matters that are brought to its attention. The examining authority will also consider any relevant national policy statements that set the policy framework for determining applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects, which were themselves subject to public consultation and scrutiny in the House.
The fifth stage is recommendation. The examining authority must prepare a report and recommendations for the Secretary of State within three months of the close of the examination period.
The final stage is decision, in which the Secretary of State has a further three months to decide whether consent for the proposed development should be granted or refused.
Conor Burns
The company has told us that, as it understands the rules, it can change the terms of the application—the height, distance from shore and configuration of the wind farm—after the Secretary of State has given permission for the development to go ahead. Is that the Minister’s understanding?
Michael Fallon
That is not quite my understanding, but perhaps I could write to my hon. Friend on that point. Applications for development consent can include infrastructure, which, as the name implies, is associated with the main development in some subordinate capacity. Where that is the case, the planning issues that might affect any of those works will be considered alongside the application for the main development.
I was asked about how far offshore wind farms have to be from the coast. I confirm that we have not issued guidance on any minimum distance. The offshore strategic environmental assessment clarified that the environmental sensitivity of coastal areas is not uniform, and in certain cases, offshore wind projects may be acceptable closer to the coast than in others.
In conclusion, I hope hon. Members understand that interested parties’ concerns about the potential impact of such projects will be thoroughly considered during the planning process, which is designed specifically to encourage participation by all interested parties. I repeat that people or organisations with views on projects that are subject to such applications to the Planning Inspectorate should be encouraged by my hon. Friends to register their interests and to take a full part in the process.
Identity Documents (Home Office)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Main. I thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am grateful for the chance to raise issues that are of great concern to me, my constituents and I think, given the number of examples passed to me in the past few days by other hon. Members, many others across the country.
The debate about immigration to this country is complex and multi-faceted. I do not intend to dwell on wider concerns about the system. I am sure that all Members, on both sides of the House, and members of the public with wide-ranging views on the nature and scale of immigration agree that, whatever system we have, it is crucial that it operates efficiently and responsibly and that those who participate are treated with dignity, respect and even-handedness.
I am pleased to see the Minister for Immigration here today. He will concede that we have exchanged a great deal of correspondence on individual cases. I give genuine thanks to the front-line Home Office officials who regularly engage with my office and other hon. Members. The fact that we often see him pursued by a queue of unhappy Members from all parties, including me, wherever he goes in the House is no reflection on the personal courtesy that he and his office have shown other Members and me in listening to our concerns.
Stephen Doughty
Although I appreciate the courtesy that the Minister and his officials have shown, the cases I will discuss today raise serious concerns about the competence of senior Home Office officials, the processes put in place and ultimately, I am sorry to say, ministerial oversight of the immigration system. Importantly, the cases do not merely relate to the soon-to-be-defunct United Kingdom Border Agency, but to the new immigration and visas directorate under Home Office control. I have come across numerous cases where documents, such as passports, birth certificates and travel documents, have been misplaced or permanently lost, which has led to lengthy delays, erroneous decisions, expensive appeals, tribunals and compensation payouts and a great deal of personal anguish for constituents, with results ranging from being unable to attend funerals of family members and being wrongly stigmatised as illegal immigrants, to being denied work, social security and the normal family life to which they are entitled. There is disturbing evidence that documents are not being opened or included in a person’s case, and wrong decisions may be made as a result.
The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration report in November 2012 found that at one point more than 150 boxes of post, including correspondence from applicants, MPs and their legal representatives, lay unopened. The independent chief inspector told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that inspectors had come across the problem of lost files “in every inspection”. Worryingly, he said that 7% of the 400 files sampled were incorrectly filed—in other words, not in the right place. He said that he
“would like to see a much more rigorous approach taken to data management and file management generally.”
He emphasised that part of the cultural problem was that staff at UKBA did not see the human faces behind the mounting files. At a time when numerous concerns are being raised about the integrity of our immigration system, such reports hardly inspire confidence. I hope that the Minister will be able to outline any progress made since the report and say whether he is satisfied with that progress.
I would like to highlight some specific areas of concern with clear examples to which I hope the Minister can respond. I have encountered a number of cases in which the Home Office has wrongly advised constituents that their documents have been lost, only to locate them subsequently on the premises, sometimes years after denying their presence. Constituents have advised me that in addition to spending time and energy pursuing these matters, they have been unable to enrol in university, accept job offers, travel for work or even manage daily affairs as a result of the loss.
One phrase that crops up frequently in such cases is that the documents were “with another team”. That was the experience of one of my constituents who submitted his passport and biometric residence card to support his children’s application for naturalisation. The Home Office website advises EEA nationals that they can expect to receive their documents within 10 working days. In order to ensure a speedy return, my constituent had taken the liberty of enclosing a self-addressed envelope affixed with a paid special delivery stamp and a covering letter requesting that the documents be returned promptly, as he is frequently required to travel overseas for business.
The Royal Mail tracking system confirmed that the parcel was received, but when my constituent contacted the Home Office, he was informed by an official that the package did not contain his passport and biometric card. That information later turned out to be untrue. I am pleased to say that eventually the documents were located and returned to my constituent, but unfortunately he was extremely frustrated by the incompetence that he had experienced and missed a business trip as a result of the misplacing of his passport and documents.
In another case, the Home Office advised me initially that it had returned my constituent’s documents 12 months ago, only to apologise eventually and confirm that it had in fact retained his documents following a failed application. In other cases, documents have been located years later in files archived in error. I have been told by a reputable organisation of a case involving a family granted settlement earlier this year who received their biometric residence permits but whose passports were not returned. They phoned the Home Office and submitted the return of documents form by e-mail. The Home Office advised that it had returned the documents but could not find the recorded delivery reference number. The family contacted their MP to try to find out what had happened. After repeated phone calls from May 2013 onwards, in which the MP’s office was also advised that records stated that the passports had been returned, the Home Office eventually agreed to recall the family’s paper file, which had been sent to storage. Lo and behold, the passports were found and returned to the family, but not until August 2013.
Such cases cause frustration and serious short-term consequences, but in other cases, recovery has not been possible, with much more serious implications. Asylum seekers and refugees are required to send their documentation, often including passports from their home country, birth certificates and education qualifications, to the Home Office as part of their asylum claim. Such documents are almost impossible to replace, particularly given the circumstances in which individuals have fled their original country. There is concern that where such crucial evidence is lost, erroneous decisions in either direction may be made. The Welsh Refugee Council has advised me of several cases in which asylum seekers’ files have been lost prior to the refusal of their application. That then affects their ability to return home voluntarily or even by forced removal, as many countries refuse to accept individuals without documentation who claim to be nationals of that country, leaving them in limbo.
In another case that was brought to my attention, an asylum seeker was advised that his passport would be retained following the refusal of his application in 2001. The individual appealed against the refusal of asylum and, after a series of mishaps and appeals, was finally granted indefinite leave under the legacy programme in 2011. However, although he provided the Home Office with a copy of its own letter confirming that it had retained his passport, it continued to deny any record of holding it. After the intervention of his MP, the Home Office finally admitted that it had lost his passport in 2012. Given the serious circumstances in which such individuals flee their home countries, what confidence does the Minister have in the system, which is supposed to support and protect some of the most vulnerable people in the world?
I am sorry to say that the situation for many other non-asylum applicants is no better. In one particularly serious case with which the Minister is familiar, the former UK Border Agency returned the documents of my constituents Mr Conde and Ms Mane to their former address, rather than to their solicitors as they had requested. It was then impossible for them to retrieve their documents, as they had no access to the address. As a result, Mr Conde was unable to see his sister before she passed away or even to attend her funeral.
In another case, despite the fact that my constituent, Ms Chekera, informed the UKBA of a change of address and received a written acknowledgement, her details were not updated on the system and letters requesting that she enrol her biometric data were therefore delivered to the wrong address. The UKBA subsequently voided her application because she had supposedly not provided the information and returned her supporting documents to her old address. Because she was aware of the delays in processing applications, she did not contact the UKBA to ask for an update on her application until some months after the initial mistake. She was then devastated to discover that unbeknownst to her, she had been living and working in the UK illegally for several months, with potentially serious ramification for both her and her employer.
Employers have a statutory responsibility to ensure that people have the right to work in this country, but to open up the risk of stigmatising people who have the right to be here but are missing crucial documentation through no fault of their own is unfair and unjust. I hope that the Minister will concede that it risks diverting resources and attention from tackling those who are attempting to abuse the system.
In another case brought to my attention by a Member of this House, the Home Office lost an individual’s identity documents, meaning that he was unable to prove his identity for work purposes and thus remained unemployed despite wanting to work and faced a prolonged risk of destitution. The Welsh Refugee Council has raised with me cases in which the loss of documents has prevented settled individuals from demonstrating their right to social security. In one case, the Home Office lost the birth certificate of an applicant’s child, meaning that the applicant’s access to child benefit payments was seriously delayed, resulting in significant financial hardship.
Those are the immediate human consequences of incompetence. I hope that the Minister will issue an apology to all of them on the Government’s behalf. I would also like to challenge him on a number of other points. First, with regard to compensation for individuals when there has been a mistake, claims for redress should be considered in accordance with the “Managing Public Money” standards guidance issued by the Treasury, which emphasises that Departments should attempt to return the individual to the position that they would have been in had there been no maladministration on the Government’s part. More often than not, that is simply not the case. Many are left significantly out of pocket as a direct result of incompetence or mistakes.
Although the documents lost in many of the cases that I encountered are irreplaceable, where it is possible to source a replacement, applicants face the challenge of arranging and financing the replacement of their documents up front and then submitting claims and supporting evidence to request reimbursement. I find it extraordinary that according to a recent parliamentary answer, the Home Office does not readily hold data about the total compensation paid as a result of losing passports and other travel documents. I can assure the Minister that it is an expensive pursuit. As he is aware, the constituents that I mentioned earlier, Mr Conde and Ms Mane, have spent well over £1,500 to date on arranging replacement documents, but they have yet to be reimbursed a single penny. Other constituents are in a similar position. Does the Minister think that it is reasonable to expect people to resort to taking out loans or enduring financial hardship to finance the cost of replacing documents that the Home Office has lost, then to spend months trying to reclaim the money, while never being sure that they will regain the full amount?
The second issue is how documents are sent through Royal Mail. When documents have gone missing in transit and the Home Office is not responsible for the loss, it usually advises the applicant to pursue the matter with Royal Mail directly. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to retrieve the documents, so the applicant is tasked with claiming compensation from Royal Mail.
Royal Mail advises customers that its special delivery service is
“ideal for sending valuable items”
and includes compensation cover for loss and damage up to a maximum of £500. However, it has come to my attention that the Home Office often returns people’s documents to them by recorded delivery rather than special delivery. Recorded delivery includes compensation cover only up to a maximum of £50, meaning that when documents are lost due to an error by Royal Mail—not by the Home Office in these cases, I concede—the maximum amount of compensation that the applicant can receive is £50, regardless of the cost of replacing the documents. That is a drop in the ocean compared with the total expense incurred. Is the Minister aware of any plans, or does he have any plans, to review the policy and consider making the system safer and more secure for the constituents who use it?
A number of examples raise serious questions about whether the Home Office is acting in accordance with data protection legislation. In one particularly serious case, I have had to raise the matter with the Information Commissioner as well as the Minister. I was approached recently by an honest and careful constituent whose documents had been returned, but along with them was the original birth certificate of an unrelated child. My constituent is from Sierra Leone and has no children, whereas the birth certificate belonged to a child born in a different part of the UK to Nigerian parents. It eventually ended up in my office.
The Immigration Law Practitioners Association has advised me of a similar case in which an Algerian national visited her legal representatives clutching correspondence that she had received from the former UKBA, despite the fact that she had requested all correspondence from the agency to be sent directly to her representatives. The correspondence had been sent to an address at which she was no longer resident. Most disturbingly, it contained a passport and other documentation belonging to a Liberian man whom she had never heard of rather than her child’s birth certificate, as the covering letter stated. Understandably, she was concerned that her own original documentation had been sent to some arbitrary and possibly untraceable location. Were it not for her honesty, the passport and documents of the Liberian could have ended up elsewhere.
Another colleague advised me that the Home Office recently wrote to a constituent of his, amalgamating the constituent’s case details with that of another unrelated individual. The Minister is aware that applicants are required to provide highly sensitive information in such applications, ranging from family and financial circumstances to allegations of torture, violence and persecution if, for example, the application is for asylum or humanitarian protection. This information is given on the understanding that it will be treated in confidence and held securely. It is therefore extraordinary that breaches such as this have occurred.
I wrote to the Minister about my constituents’ experiences and the wider problems of data protection on 18 September, but have yet to receive a response. I hope that the Minister will comment on that. I welcome his wider reflections on those serious cases. What discussions has he had with the Information Commissioner and senior officials in his Department?
I could go on—I have a litany of other cases—but I hope that, as I have highlighted a significant number of cases, as have other hon. Members and leading organisations working in the sector, the Minister will concede that what I have described appears to be a systemic issue, in some parts, rather than a few isolated incidents. In that regard, I was hardly reassured by some answers given to other hon. Members and me in a recent roundtable by a Home Office director, Sarah Rapson. I welcome outreach by the Minister and his officials—it is good to see that happening—but I do not feel that the system is improving. I have not seen signs of improvement in those cases. The number of people coming to me with cases suggests that there is a serious issue.
These cases clearly have serious and sometimes devastating implications for the individuals concerned and raise wider concerns about the integrity of the immigration decision process. It is my sincere hope that, as a result of my highlighting these cases, the visas and immigration directorate at the Home Office will undertake an urgent review into the problems I have discussed—not just the specifics, but systemic issues—and institute an effective system to ensure the safe receipt, storage and return of documents in a timely fashion; to address the massive backlog of cases; and to re-establish parliamentary and public confidence in a crucial aspect of our immigration system.
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
I remind the Minister that the debate is now scheduled to finish at 5.7 pm.
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)
I reiterate what the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) said; it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I do not think that I have done so, either, if I remember accurately. That is clearly an oversight by the House scheduling authorities and it is a great pleasure to redress it.
The hon. Gentleman raises a number of cases. It is difficult to comment on the specific cases for which he has not furnished the details, but I will try to comment on the general points. I thank him for what he said about the front-line Home Office staff and the MP account manager team that supports his office. I know from conversations we have had that it does its best to support his office, as it supports other hon. Members. We have been trying to put a great deal of effort particularly into supporting Members of Parliament. That does not mean that there are no issues, but in terms of the ability for MPs to get swift answers on operational matters and to resolve issues, both the director general, Sarah Rapson, whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and myself have made it clear in the organisation that, when an MP account manager is pressing for information or action, they are acting on my behalf and that of the director general to resolve the issue for hon. Members. That message is getting home. MP account managers are therefore empowered to seek answers from the Department. Of course, if hon. Members are not happy with the response from the MP account manager, or if the MP account manager has not delivered it, they have the option of raising the matter directly with me, as the hon. Gentleman is doing today.
Before I move on to the care and custody of documents, let me respond to the hon. Gentleman’s mentioning the time taken to make decisions and how many cases are ongoing. That is a good point, because a number of the hon. Gentleman’s examples stem from the length of time that cases took to decide. Some cases were a result of the backlog of lengthy decision making in asylum cases. Clearly, if somebody’s case file is being held and the arrangements take the best part of a decade, it is not surprising that mistakes and errors happen with paperwork. One solution is to make faster decisions and return the documents in a timely fashion.
The hon. Gentleman knows—I have been frank about it in the main Chamber—that in the 2012-13 financial year what was the UK Border Agency in its in-country operations, which are those within the United Kingdom, where a lot of these issues stem from, did not do a good job at making timely decisions and we had a backlog of cases. I am pleased that in this financial year we have made significant progress, although we are not all the way there, in reducing that backlog to the extent that we have a relatively small number of weeks of cases on hand and we are largely, although not entirely, within our service standards. That important factor will enable us to both make more timely decisions and deal with issues about managing paper and valuable documents.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned valuable documents, including passports and biometric residence permits. We take the custody and care of the documents seriously. For context, I shall set out some data. We deal with about 1 million in-country applications every year for study, work or refugee status. Last year, we received 469 complaints about the loss of valuable documents—down from the year before. In about 42% of those cases, the Home Office was partially or fully responsible. Yes, that is 469 too many, because in an ideal world we would not lose any documents and documents would not go astray, but that is less than 0.02% of cases, which, putting it in context, suggests that we are not doing too bad a job. However, that can cause a great deal of annoyance and inconvenience in each individual case, and in a case that the hon. Gentleman highlighted, which I will come to, there was a certain amount of distress for the constituents concerned.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is pleased that we have recognised that we need to do things differently, particularly in respect of managing valuable documents. He spoke about ensuring that staff are properly trained and that they complete the mandatory training on protecting personal information, not just to be aware of the procedures and policies, but to understand the consequences of the loss of such documents. He was right to say that it is important that staff are aware of the people behind the cases, not just of cases to be processed. That mentality will enable people to take more care.
The second thing that we are doing, which I think will help, is that, having listened to customer feedback on our holding on to valuable documents until we have made a final decision, we are moving to system in which we will only retain copies of the documents once we have validated them. Customers will send in their application with their valuable document—their passport or biometric residence permit, or whatever—and once we have established the bona fides of the document and made a note of them, we will take a copy of that document and return it to the person at that point, as opposed to hanging on to it all the way through the process. That will help, because we will return the documents on a more timely basis, so reducing the opportunity for loss.
The final thing that we are doing—this comes back to some comments that the chief inspector made—is that, rather than maintaining valuable documents at different locations around the country, with what should be standard but in practice turned out to be variable care, we will record and track the receipt of those documents at a central location, where we will manage and store them and where people with expertise will take proper care of them and look after them. When we hold documents, we will hold them in a more secure and better-managed environment.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the postal system and correctly said that we always send documents by recorded delivery. He made a fair point about how Royal Mail compensation for recorded delivery compares with that for special delivery. I will look at our strategy there, at the cost of those two services and whether the point that he raises in practice—it is clearly a theoretical problem—relates to cases where that has been an issue. It would help if he told me about specific cases, if he has not done so previously, because I could use those examples to see whether they raise wider issues. I am happy to do that, because he is right. Clearly, if Royal Mail loses valuable documents and we and his constituent have done everything right, Royal Mail is responsible for the compensation. We must consider whether the compensation that Royal Mail pays for the service that is used is adequate for the task. That is a perfectly reasonable point, and I will take it away. Whether or not I decide that we need to make a change, I will write to him and place a copy of the letter in the Library, so that other Members may know what I have concluded.
The hon. Gentleman also talked about compensation where we are at fault. My understanding is that, in the case that I considered, we will pay compensation and refund the cost of replacing the documents, including associated costs such as travel. I accept his point that that requires the person to deal with the situation and claim back the money, but the flipside—he talked about managing public money—is that we also have a responsibility to ensure that, where we compensate people, the claim is genuine, which it is in most cases, but we have had examples in which people claimed costs that they did not incur. That is why we insist that people reasonably evidence the costs before we pay them. My understanding is that we will pay not only the direct costs but the associated costs, including travel.
Where we find that we have lost a document, we have a departmental security unit that considers the root cause of the problem. Was it human error, or was it just poor management? Is there a systemic process involved in that part of the operation that we need to fix by putting something in place?
The hon. Gentleman raised two specific cases involving his constituents, and I have some information on those cases. He did not name the constituent who was sent the birth certificate of an unconnected child in her application for leave, so I will not name her, either. We are grateful to her for returning the document, and I confirm, as we have confirmed to her, that the document had no bearing on the decision-making process. Such things happen infrequently, but we are continuing to investigate how it happened, and we will take appropriate steps. As the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter, I will ensure that I am briefed on the appropriate steps that are taken in that case.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned a specific constituent, whom he named—Mr Conde. Frankly, it has taken too long for us to reach a compensation agreement with Mr Conde. I confirm that I have investigated the matter. I gave officials instructions to address the situation, and I confirm that today we will be dispatching a letter to Mr Conde with what I think, based on what he is claiming, is a much more reasonable offer of compensation, which I hope he will find acceptable.
After this debate, I will write to the hon. Gentleman with details of the offer. I did not write to him beforehand because I wanted to see whether he would raise any other concerns. The letter will set out what has happened in the case, what we have offered and the thinking behind it. I hope the offer is acceptable and that we will be able to resolve the matter. I have asked officials to consider the matter not only by the book, but in terms of what is reasonable, particularly as his constituent was unable to attend his sister’s funeral, which clearly caused him significant distress. I hope that my response is helpful in that specific case.
Stephen Doughty
I appreciate the Minister’s personal efforts on those cases, and I look forward to seeing the replies.
On compensation in general, it would be helpful for hon. Members and members of the public to see the scale and extent of the problem. Will the Minister furnish us with a detailed figure on the overall compensation paid, so that we may understand the scale of the problem?
Mr Harper
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, and he referred to a parliamentary question. One of the challenges, of course, is that this is always a balance of resources. When answering parliamentary questions, we have to consider how much resource we have to put into extracting the information. He will know, as I know to my cost, that the systems in the Home Office for recording and tracking information are not the best in the world. There is always a balance. The information is available somewhere in the Department, but pulling that information together from multiple systems can be very costly.
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s parliamentary question stated that the information is not held centrally. I cannot remember whether we simply did not have the information centrally or whether pulling together the information would have cost more than the prescribed cost threshold for answering the question. I will go away and see what information is readily available on overall compensation. That information might not be brilliant, but let me see what is available. Again, I will write to him either with what is available or, if the information is not any better than the parliamentary answer, I will tell him so. Again, I will place a copy of that letter in the Library.
I have one-and-a-bit minutes left. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the care of valuable documents is important. I have set out some significant process improvements that are being introduced by the Department and UK Visas and Immigration in our in-country business to safeguard those documents better, to make faster decisions and to ensure that there are fewer issues. He raised a sensible point on how we transfer those documents through Royal Mail, and I will consider whether the compensation is appropriate in that specific example, which I thank him for raising. I hope that we can resolve his constituent’s case satisfactorily. I will write to him after the debate, and he will receive his and his constituent’s letter in the next few days. I am grateful to him for raising those issues today.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Student Support (England)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
In the 2011 White Paper on higher education, “Students at the Heart of the System” (Cmnd 8122), the Government announced their intention to introduce a level playing field for regulating higher education providers of all types. A number of reforms have since been introduced to deliver convergence between the rules governing higher education institutions funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and others, known as alternative providers (APs). The process of applying student number controls to APs was subject to a consultation, which was launched in November 2012 and which closed in January 2013.
The previous Government introduced a system of recovery of payments from HEFCE-funded providers that breached their number controls. This regime was not applied to APs, even though students studying at APs are eligible for maintenance grants, maintenance loans and tuition fee loans. As the higher education sector has diversified, the number of applications for student support at APs has increased. In addition, the tuition fee changes implemented in 2012-13 mean students at APs may borrow up to £6,000 a year to cover the costs of their tuition. The number of English and EU students claiming support at APs has grown from 13,000 in 2011-12 to 30,000 in 2012-13, and the total public expenditure on these students has risen from £60 million to £175 million. This is 4% of the total student support budget. Growth has been particularly concentrated among students studying for higher national certificates (HNCs) and the higher national diplomas (HNDs).
The Government announced in March 2013 that they would introduce number controls for 2014-15 academic year based on institutions’ 2012-13 entry data. Alternative providers were asked to submit data to HEFCE on their recruitment plans. The Department received these data on 5 November and concluded that some of these plans were unaffordable, given the need to control public spending. We have therefore written to the 23 APs that are expanding most rapidly to instruct them to recruit no more students for HNCs and HNDs in the current 2013-14 academic year. Degree-level courses are unaffected by these changes.
Concurrently, we are dealing with a different student support issue. We identified that there had been a significant increase in the number of Bulgarian and Romanian students applying for full student support in England this year. This support is usually only available to EU citizens resident in the UK for a minimum of three years. We have asked each of these students to supply additional information to support their applications for maintenance, before any further public funding is made available to them or to their institutions. We have asked all EU citizens applying for maintenance support in England to supply this additional information.
Annual European Union Finances Statement
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Nicky Morgan)
I am today laying before Parliament the “European Union Finances 2013: statement on the 2013 EU Budget and measures to counter fraud and financial mismanagement” (Cm 8740). It is the 33rd in the series.
The statement gives details of revenue and expenditure in the 2013 European Union (EU) budget, recent developments in EU financial management and measures to counter fraud against the EU budget. It also includes an annex on the use of EU funds in the UK.
The current economic and financial climate means that Governments and families across Europe are taking difficult decisions to make savings. It would be wrong for the EU to not show similar spending restraint. The Government remain determined to ensure transparency, spending control and better value for money in EU budget spending, and to push for improvements in EU financial management.
Matériel Strategy (Upgrade)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
On 10 June 2013, I published a White Paper on the strategy for reform of the acquisition and support of our armed forces’ equipment. The strategy plans to explore the potential for involvement of the private sector under a Government owned and contractor operated (GoCo) model by means of a commercial competition which is under way, and to compare this option with an internal approach which would deliver an improved solution within the public sector (DE&S+). I want to update the House on progress of the commercial competition.
When the invitation to negotiate (ITN) was released on 25 July there were three prospective bidding consortia but this reduced to two shortly thereafter. While we believed that two bidders were sufficient for an effective competition, alongside the internal DE&S+ option, I asked that a review of the process be undertaken jointly between the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence (MOD). This has recently been completed, and a copy of the report has been laid in the Library of the House today.
The review concluded that a viable competition remained, albeit with some risk attached, but that any further reduction in the number of bidders should stimulate a formal reconsideration and decision on whether to proceed further with the GoCo option. Bids were required from the two commercial consortia in three phases and the second of those was due to be received on Friday 15 November. The MOD has received a bid from one of the consortia but the second (Portfield, comprising CH2MHill, Serco and Atkins) has decided to withdraw from the competition. This is regrettable and the reduction in competitive tension will make it more challenging for the Department to conclude an acceptable deal with the remaining bidder, notwithstanding the competition from the DE&S+ bid, which will be received shortly.
The Department, with the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, will now study the detailed proposal received from Matériel Acquisition Partners (led by Bechtel with PA and PwC in support), which is substantial at over 1,200 pages. In parallel, the DE&S+ team will continue to refine and enhance their proposition. This analysis will inform a decision on whether it is in the public interest to proceed with only a single commercial bidder and an internal option, or whether alternative approaches should be considered and a further statement will be made once this process is complete.
Gifting of Equipment (Somaliland)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
As part of the Government’s approach to counter-terrorism (CT), the UK assists key partner nations to improve their CT capabilities. By helping countries to undertake CT activities locally, it targets the problem at source and reduces the risk of a terrorist attack against the UK. The UK is committed to developing counter-terrorism capability in the horn of Africa.
The proposal in this case is to gift security equipment and vehicles to, the Somaliland Ministry of Civil Aviation and Air Transport for use at Berbera and Hargeisa airports; and the Somaliland Department of Immigration for use at land/sea/air border crossings to ensure that persons entering/leaving Somaliland pass through robust security and immigration checks, allowing Somaliland authorities to identify and disrupt threats to aviation and border security.
The equipment and vehicles will be gifted alongside a training and mentoring package (which is not part of the gift but also provided by the UK), costing £457,263. The training aims to ensure airport security staff can operate X-ray, explosive trace detection (ETD) and CCTV equipment; as well as to promote the benefits of a sustainable and compliant civil aviation sector through close mentoring of senior officials and professional development of operational staff.
The total cost of the proposed UK gift is £699,465 and will be met by the Government’s counter-terrorism programme.
Explosive trace detection devices are subject to export controls. FCO and MOD officials have assessed the equipment against the EU consolidated criteria and have no objections to the release of these items. This assistance has been scrutinised and approved by a senior, cross-Whitehall counter-terrorism programme approval board, which has confirmed that it fits with Her Majesty’s Government (HMG’s) objectives.
The gifting minute was laid before the House of Commons yesterday. If, during the period of 14 parliamentary sitting days beginning on the date on which the minute was laid, a Member signifies an objection by giving notice of a parliamentary question or of a motion in relation to the minute, or by otherwise raising the matter in the House, final approval of the gift will be withheld pending an examination of the objection.
Gifting of Equipment (Pakistan)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
The UK is committed to developing counter-terrorism capability in Pakistan to promote the Government’s counter-terrorism objectives under CONTEST (counter-terrorism strategy). As part of this approach, the UK assists key partner nations to develop effective and sustainable counter-terrorism capabilities which operate in line with agreed international human rights standards. By helping countries to undertake counter-terrorism activities locally, it targets the problem at source and reduces the risk of terrorist attacks.
Pakistan has a particularly severe problem with improvised explosive device (IED) attacks from terrorist groups and insurgents. Pakistan has sought assistance from the UK in tackling this threat and developing the capabilities of its security forces. The UK is delivering a counter improvised explosive device (CIED) programme to assist Pakistan in establishing a multi-agency capability for tackling IEDs. The programme aims to build capacity to dismantle IED networks and improve intelligence available to countering emerging IED threats.
The project is now in its second year of a three-year programme. A total of £3.495 million was allocated during year one which focused on training and gifting equipment for the Pakistan Army and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police. A departmental gifting minute was laid before the House on 15 October 2012, setting out details of the gift.
The proposal, in this case, is to gift counter improvised explosive device (CIED) equipment and training to Pakistan, totalling £3.5 million. Of this £3.5 million, an estimated £3.22 million will be gifted as equipment. The £3.5 million comes from the Government’s counter-terrorism programme fund (£2.75 million) and from the Danish Government (£750,000).
The breakdown of equipment being gifted and approximate costs is as follows:
1) Counter improvised explosive device (CIED) equipment (£2.1 million)
2) Search equipment (£700,000)
3) Vehicles (£300,000)
4) Storage and flights (£120,000 set aside)
Alongside this, the cost of training, project delivery, key leader engagement and maintenance costs will be approximately £280,000. The training aims to enhance Pakistani police, civil defence and military capacity to dismantle IED networks and improve intelligence available to countering emerging IED threats.
The package of equipment and training will provide the military and law enforcement agencies with a valuable and sustainable capability to deal with the threat.
The request for UK’s assistance in tackling the CIED issue is an excellent opportunity to work in partnership with Pakistan to develop their indigenous capability and mitigate the terrorist risk to the UK, Pakistan, the UK’s interests in Pakistan and wider south Asia region.
The proposed gift has been assessed and approved against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria. The proposed gift has been scrutinised and approved by the cross-HMG (Her Majesty’s Government) Overseas Contest Group, which has confirmed that it fits with the Government’s strategic and delivery objectives. FCO officials also assessed the project for human rights risks, using the overseas security and justice assistance guidelines established by the Foreign Secretary in 2011.
The gifting minute was laid before the House of Commons yesterday. If, during the period of 14 parliamentary sitting days beginning on the date on which the minute was laid, a Member signifies an objection by giving notice of a parliamentary question or of a motion in relation to the minute, or by otherwise raising the matter in the House, final approval of the gift will be withheld pending an examination of the objection.
Gifting of Equipment (Somaliland Police)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
The UK is committed to developing counter-terrorism capability in the horn of Africa in furtherance of the Government’s counter-terrorism objectives under Contest. As part of this approach, the UK assists key partner nations to develop effective and sustainable counter-terrorism capabilities which operate in line with agreed international human rights standards. By helping countries to undertake counter-terrorism activities locally, it targets the problem at source and reduces the risk of a terrorist attack against that nation or another.
The proposal in this case is to gift a UK-built headquarters and pre-trial detention facility, office furnishings, equipment and non-military vehicles to the Somaliland police force. The total cost of the proposed gift is £643,225, which will be met by the Government’s counter-terrorism programme.
The breakdown of the proposed gift is:
Item | |
|---|---|
Build costs | £387,909 |
Generators | £43,389 |
Office furnishings and equipment | £88,863 |
Vehicles and vehicle maintenance | £85,064 |
Contingency | £38,000 |
Alongside the gift, the UK is providing a package of training and mentoring worth £710,000. The training aims to enhance the Somaliland police force’s ability to investigate terrorist threats, recover and examine evidence from crime scenes and build cases for prosecution. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) will quality assure the custody officers’ training for the pre-trial detention centre.
The proposed gift is not subject to export controls and therefore there is no requirement to consider it against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria. The proposed gift has been scrutinised and approved by a senior, cross-Whitehall counter-terrorism programme approval board, which has confirmed that it fits with HMG’s strategic and delivery objectives. FCO officials also assessed the project for human rights risks, using the overseas security and justice assistance guidelines announced by the Foreign Secretary in 2011.
The gifting minute was laid before the House of Commons yesterday. If, during the period of 14 parliamentary sitting days beginning on the date on which the minute was laid, a Member signifies an objection by giving notice of a parliamentary question or of a motion in relation to the minute, or by otherwise raising the matter in the House, final approval of the gift will be withheld pending an examination of the objection.
Gifting of Non-lethal Equipment (Syria)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
It is now over two years since the Syrian conflict began and the situation remains catastrophic. The UK is committed to doing all it can to alleviate the humanitarian suffering and to promote a political settlement to end the conflict.
In my 11 November statement to the House, Official Report, column 642, I outlined the intensive political and practical support we are providing to the Syrian moderate opposition. Today I am setting out in more detail our plans to gift non-lethal equipment to General Idris’s supreme military council, which is closely aligned to the Syrian National Coalition. This gift will be: commercially available communications equipment, such as laptops with satellite internet connection, mobile telephones and push-to-talk radios; commercially available vehicles, such as pick-up trucks; fuel; portable generators less than 8MW in power; logistics supplies such as clothing, rations and tents; and individual medical kits. The total cost of the proposed gift is £1 million, which will be met by the Government’s conflict pool fund. Use of these funds has been approved by the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, Defence and International Development.
This is the UK’s second gift to the supreme military council; in August 2013 we sent them equipment to protect them from chemical weapons attack. This gift has been scrutinised to ensure that the provision of this equipment is consistent with export controls and complies with our international obligations. Recipients have been carefully selected to prevent equipment being given to those involved in extremist activities or human rights violations.
The gifting minute was laid before the House of Commons yesterday. If, during the period of 14 parliamentary sitting days beginning on the date on which the minute was laid, a Member signifies an objection by giving notice of a parliamentary question or of a motion in relation to the minute, or by otherwise raising the matter in the House, final approval of the gift will be withheld pending an examination of the objection.
British Indian Ocean Territory Feasibility Study
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
On 8 July, Official Report, column 3WS, I announced to the House the Government’s intention to commission a feasibility study on the issue of resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). I wish to update the House on the scope of this feasibility study, which will be funded by the BIOT Administration.
Over the summer, FCO and BIOT officials sought initial views from over 400 people, including members of the Chagossian community in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
These initial consultations show that views within Chagossian communities vary widely on the issue of resettlement. Though a clear majority of Chagossians expressed a preference to return to BIOT, there were significant differences on the detail. A number of concerns and issues were highlighted, by Chagossian groups and others, which will need to be carefully considered during the feasibility study. These include the scale of resettlement, the extent of the provision of modern infrastructure and facilities, access to employment opportunities, and the need to protect the unique environment of BIOT.
The input provided has helped to shape the draft terms of reference (TORs) for the study which will be published immediately on the overseas territories webpage on gov.uk and placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The feasibility study will look at the full range of options for resettlement and will include all of the islands of the territory, including Diego Garcia with its vital military base. Following the study, in assessing the potential options for resettlement the Government will wish to balance a range of factors including whether this could be accommodated in a way that does not inhibit the scale and output of the existing base and whether the base can continue to operate undisturbed alongside any potential resettlement.
In order to ensure that the process remains transparent, credible and inclusive, officials from the BIOT Administration will continue to regularly meet and update Chagossian groups and other interested parties on progress and emerging findings as the study develops. I shall continue to keep Parliament informed.
Daniel Morgan (Independent Panel)
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I announced in a written ministerial statement on 10 May 2013, Official Report, column 17WS, the creation of the Daniel Morgan independent panel, to be chaired by Sir Stanley Burnton.
Sir Stanley Burnton informed me on 13 November of his decision to resign as chairman of the panel for personal reasons.
The work of the panel will continue and announcements about any further appointments will follow in due course.
The Morgan family has been informed of Sir Stanley’s decision and remains fully supportive of the panel process.
Simple Cautions Review
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
The Secretary of State for Justice, together with the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General, on 3 April 2013 launched a review of simple cautions. The review examined the way in which simple cautions are currently used, and considered the need for any changes to policy or practice to ensure that there is transparency, accountability and public confidence in the use of simple cautions as a disposal.
The review included—but was not restricted to—the examination of:
existing guidance and practice relating to the use of simple cautions;
the question of whether there are some offence types for which the use of simple cautions is generally inappropriate—and if so, what procedures should be adopted;
the multiple use of cautions;
the need for increased scrutiny of, and accountability for, the use of a caution in any given case, or the general approach adopted in a police force area to the use of cautions as a disposal; and
the impact on individuals of accepting a caution—taking into account the recent case of T v. Chief Constable of Greater Manchester and others.
The review reported to the Justice Secretary, Home Secretary and the Attorney-General. Following detailed discussion and an examination of the report’s findings, CJS Ministers agreed to accept the recommendations of the review, namely that:
The Government should remove the availability of simple cautions for indictable-only offences unless there are very exceptional circumstances and the caution has been approved by a chief officer, while continuing to allow the use of the conditional caution for these offences. This can be achieved either through toughening the guidance or through legislating. We will also seek to restrict the use of simple cautions for particularly serious either way offences which would ordinarily attract custodial sentences or high-end community orders if the offender is found guilty following a trial.
We should also restrict the use of simple cautions for repeat offenders beyond the position as set out in the guidance.
We believe there is a compelling case for simplification and consolidation of the existing guidance. We also recommend further strengthening the existing guidance regarding cautioning in serious cases.
That there is greater local accountability and scrutiny of decision making. Each force should have a senior officer identified as responsible to provide local leadership and accountability and by making use of local scrutiny panels.
While the imposition of a caution is an operational policing matter we believe there is a compelling case for forces to review strategy and usage of cautions and other out of court disposals on an annual basis. Particular scrutiny should attach to the question of cautions for serious and repeated cases. There is clear potential for police and crime commissioners to play an active role in providing transparency and assurance for the public on this issue.
The presentation of data on cautions, and any accompanying narrative, should continue to draw a clear distinction between youth and adult cautions and simple and conditional cautions, although there is a need for consistent operating principles between these wherever possible. More use can be made of police.uk to ensure that the data is easily accessible to the public.
While this review has limited itself to adult simple cautions, it has concluded that in view of wider concerns which have been voiced during the review, there would be a good case for conducting a wider review of other statutory and informal out of court disposals for both adults and youths to ensure that the framework is rational, understood by all practitioners, and maintains public confidence, and that there are no inadvertent effects from any changes to the simple caution regime in isolation.
The Government have revised the guidance on simple cautions, which is published on the Ministry of Justice website, and have published the report of the review of simple cautions alongside the consultation document on the wider out of court disposals framework which is due to conclude by 9 January 2014. A copy of all of these documents has also been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Grand Committee
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Arrangement of Business
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale) (Con)
Good afternoon, my Lords. In the Grand Committee this afternoon we have three statutory instruments and one Question for Short Debate. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord McNally
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013.
Relevant document: 10th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally) (LD)
My Lords, these regulations are made in exercise of the powers conferred on the Secretary of State for Justice by Section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013. Section 5 creates a new defence against an action for defamation for the operators of websites hosting user-generated content. Where an action in defamation is brought against a website operator in respect of such material the operator will not, however, be able to rely on that defence where the claimant shows: that he or she did not know who had posted the statement on the website; that he or she had complained to the operator about the statement in the proper way; and that the operator had failed to respond to that complaint in the way set out in these regulations.
The approach that we have taken in these regulations aims to support freedom of expression by allowing operators generally to retain the benefit of the defence without the need for material to be taken down where the person who has posted it co-operates with the process and wishes to stand by the material. In such a case the process will help to enable complainants to resolve their concerns with, or take action against, the poster of the allegedly defamatory material. Equally it will ensure that, to rely on the defence, an operator must remove the material complained about where the poster cannot be identified or is unwilling to engage in the process.
Informal views were sought on the contents of the process set out in the regulations from a range of key stakeholders including internet organisations, claimant and defendant representatives, media bodies and non-governmental organisations.
To benefit from the Section 5 defence, operators will be required to carry out prescribed actions within a short fixed time limit. A range of views was expressed by stakeholders on what time limits were appropriate. We consider that the approach we have taken strikes the right balance in ensuring that action is taken as promptly as possible, without placing unreasonable burdens on operators or denying posters a reasonable opportunity to engage with the process.
The time limits are subject to a general discretion, in the event of a defamation action being brought against the operator, for the court to waive any time limit if it considers that it is in the interests of justice to do so. That will ensure that the defence is not lost through, for example, an inadvertent or unavoidable failure by an operator to comply with a time limit if the court thinks that this would be unfair. The process is not compulsory, and operators can still choose either to remove a statement immediately on receipt of a complaint, or allow it to remain posted. An operator which takes either course of action can of course seek to rely on any other defences that may be available against a defamation action.
Noble Lords may find it helpful if I explain the process established by the regulations in detail. To trigger the process, a person complaining about a statement posted on an operator’s website must send the operator a notice of complaint. Regulation 2 and Section 5(6) of the Act set out the information that must be included in a notice of complaint.
These provisions require that the notice must state where on the website the statement was posted, set out what the statement says and explain why it is defamatory of the complainant, and explain what meaning the complainant attributes to the statement and what aspects he or she believes are factually inaccurate or are opinions not supported by fact. The notice must also confirm that the complainant does not have sufficient information about the poster to bring proceedings directly against him or her.
The complainant does not have to provide detailed evidence to support what is said, but the intention is that the poster should have sufficient information to reach an informed decision on how to respond. The complainant must also provide his or her name and an e-mail address at which he or she can be contacted, but can ask the operator not to provide this to the poster of the statement. These provisions were supported by a substantial majority of those who provided views on the content of the regulations.
Where the complainant does not provide all the required information, to retain the defence Regulation 4 provides that the operator must inform the complainant of this in writing within 48 hours of receipt of the notice of complaint, and must tell the complainant what is required for a notice to be valid. In common with other instances under the regulations where an operator is required to take action within 48 hours, this time period excludes non-business days such as weekends. The operator is not required to specify exactly what it considers is wrong with the notice that the complainant has sent. This avoids imposing any obligation on an operator to guide or advise the complainant. However, the guidance accompanying the regulations makes clear that operators can provide this information to the complainant if they wish to do so.
Paragraphs 2 to 4 of the Schedule to the regulations explain what an operator which wishes to rely on the defence must do on receipt of a valid notice of complaint. Paragraph 2 provides that the operator must contact the poster of the statement complained of within 48 hours and paragraph 4 provides that it must also inform the complainant that this has been done. If the operator has no means of contacting the poster by e-mail or another means of private electronic messaging, paragraph 3 of the Schedule to the regulations provides that, in order to retain the defence, the operator must remove the statement within 48 hours and must inform the complainant that this has been done.
Paragraph 2 of the Schedule sets out what information the operator has to provide to the poster to enable the poster to respond to the complaint. This includes a deadline for the poster to respond of midnight at the end of the fifth day after the day on which the operator sends the information to the poster. The operator must specify the calendar date on which the deadline expires and ask the poster within that time to confirm whether or not the poster wishes the statement to be removed from the website and, if not, to provide his or her name and postal address to the operator and confirm whether or not he or she consents to this information being released to the complainant.
Paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 of the Schedule deal respectively with situations where the poster fails to respond within the prescribed time period, where the poster responds but does not provide all the information requested, or where the poster agrees to the removal of the statement. In all these circumstances the operator is then required to remove the statement within 48 hours and to inform the complainant that this has been done. If the poster provides a name and postal address that a reasonable operator would consider to be obviously false, the operator is required to treat the response as not containing all the required information, and hence must remove the statement.
To ensure that the regulations operate effectively where the statement has already been removed before the operator is required to do so, paragraph 1 of the Schedule provides that in those circumstances the operator is taken to have complied with the relevant requirement.
If the poster indicates that he wishes the statement to remain on the website and provides the relevant contact details, paragraph 8 of the Schedule provides that the operator must inform the complainant within 48 hours that the statement has not been removed and, if the poster agrees, pass the poster’s contact details on to the complainant. If the poster does not agree to release his contact details, the operator must inform the complainant of this. Provided it has complied with these requirements, the operator will have a defence under Section 5 unless it can be shown that the operator acted with malice in relation to the posting of the statement concerned.
Where the poster has not consented to release of his or her contact details to the complainant, it will be a matter for the complainant to consider what further action he may wish to take. It will, for example, be open to the complainant to seek a court order, known as a Norwich Pharmacal order, for the operator to release the information that they hold on the poster’s identity and contact details so that legal proceedings can be brought against the poster.
Paragraph 9 of the Schedule provides further protection for complainants in circumstances where material has been removed following a notice of complaint, but the poster persists in reposting the same or substantially the same material on the same website. On the first such occasion, to keep the Section 5 defence the operator must follow the full process and seek the poster’s views. However, on being informed by the complainant that the poster has posted the same or substantially the same statement on two or more previous occasions, the operator is required to remove the statement within 48 hours of receiving the notice of complaint without seeking to contact the poster again.
We consider that this is a fair and proportionate approach which gives the poster an opportunity on a first reposting to engage with the process in circumstances where, for example, they were not aware of the original notice of complaint but which tackles persistent reposting by immediate removal.
I believe that the process established by the regulations strikes a fair balance between freedom of expression and the protection of reputation and between the interests of all those involved, and that it will provide a useful and effective means of helping to resolve disputes over online material. I therefore commend these draft regulations and I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)
My Lords, we should be very grateful to my noble friend for a very full explanation of what he seeks to be approved today. It sounds dry and technical but, in fact, although I do not say that my noble friend Lord McNally is like Moses in the splendid portrait, bringing down the tables of the law to the Israelites, in seeking the approval of the House to the regulations what he is doing is important not only in this country but throughout Europe and in the wider world.
We are trying in the regulations to lay down a fair framework, as my noble friend said, which will provide effective remedies to victims without unduly burdening the freedom of speech. If he will allow me to say so—he has little choice—I remember him at an early stage insisting that the Defamation Bill should cover the difficult subject of defamation via the internet. That was an important decision taken by him, however difficult it was to give effect to it. It was important because we had no proper laws in this country striking a fair balance between free speech and defamation in relation to the internet. The regulations are part of the process which, I understand, will come into force in April. They will be read with interest in the United States, on the most libertarian side, and in China, on the most restrictive.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who was instrumental in securing reform of defamation law and has campaigned long and hard for that. I also join him in thanking the Minister for walking us through this rather tangled undergrowth of regulations. I am bound to say that the Minister reminds me less of Moses bringing down the tablets than perhaps Daniel exercising judgment. I should like to think that I was descended from one or other; I may be remotely connected but I do not think that I am descended from either of them.
After 45 years as a solicitor, I know something about the law of defamation, although I would not claim to be an expert. But when it comes to the world of computers, information technology and social media, I confess to being an utter novice. At the risk of being labelled a Marxist by the right-wing press or Conservative Central Office, I recall some words of Marx—Groucho, I hasten to add, and not Karl. In one of his films, which might have been “A Night at the Opera” but I would not swear to that, he is seen poring over a map and declares that a child of five could understand the map. He continues: “Bring me a child of five”. I am tempted to make the same request when confronted by matters of the kind encompassed by these regulations.
We share the Government’s objective to protect freedom of speech, in which the internet and social media can and do play such an important part. We welcome the thrust of the regulations, although perhaps it would have been better if guidance on Section 5 of the Defamation Act had been available in draft form when the legislation was under consideration on its journey through Parliament. The regulations appear to offer reasonable protection to the operators of websites but there are perhaps questions about the extent to which they adequately protect those who claim to be defamed by material appearing on those sites. Thus, the website operator will have a defence, as we have heard, to an action if it can show that it did not post the material in question unless the claimant can show that he or she did not have sufficient information to bring legal proceedings against the poster of the statement and that the operator failed to comply with a notice requiring it to identify the poster requested by the complainant. Of course, this assumes that the claimant has the means to pursue that legal remedy, a somewhat questionable proposition in the light of the matter of costs. We are not now dealing with conventional media stories with a limited shelf life and relatively limited audience, although perhaps quite a wide reach, but with material with a potentially unlimited shelf life—unless, like the Conservative Party’s once publicly available material, it can be conveniently hidden—and a consequently higher risk of damage to a complainant’s reputation.
Part 4 of the guidance explains that the operator will have a defence when the complainant has sufficient information to bring an action against a poster but, again, that relies on the claimant having the means to do so—and what if the poster is outside the jurisdiction? It is all very well for the guidance to proclaim that disputes should be resolved directly between the complainant and the poster but, in the event that the poster does not wish a statement to be removed and his details to be released to the complainant, the latter will have to obtain a court order to obtain the details, again raising the issue of cost. Would it not have been better to have established for these purposes a less formal and less expensive mechanism, in which a panel, perhaps financed by the industry itself, could determine whether the information as to identity should be released and whether the post should be removed, leaving the question of financial compensation to be determined by the courts?
On a further point, what is the Government’s response to the observation of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to the need for the guidance to define,
“how terms such as ‘receipt’ are interpreted in this legislation”?
The Explanatory Memorandum to the regulations sets out the response to consultation and lays down welcome tighter timetables for action by the operator and poster following a notice of complaint. However, somewhat disappointingly, it requires further notices to be given when the material has been the subject of two or more complaints rather than immediately. Moreover, paragraph 9 of the Schedule to the regulations makes it clear that even the more limited protection afforded by this provision is available only when the same poster is involved. If a different person posts the same material, the whole process must be gone through again by the defamed claimant—and the material can be identical.
My honourable friend Dan Jarvis, speaking for the Opposition yesterday in the debate in the Commons, asked the Government whether they would keep the new process under early review, given the speed at which the world moves. Is the Minister able to confirm that that is the Government’s intention and that such a review would be initiated within a year of the regulations taking effect and be kept under regular review thereafter? Will they look again at suggestions made in Committee during debates on the Defamation Bill that would require the operator to post a notice of complaint, should one be received, alongside the alleged defamatory material so that those who view the material can, at least, be alerted to the fact that the matter is disputed?
Having said that, we support the regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Lester, indicated, things change, and it is necessary to keep these matters under review. Perhaps some of the points that I have raised could be taken on board at the time of the first review and in the light of the experience that will develop over the next few months or so.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions of both noble Lords. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is very much the godfather of this Act, and I have benefited from his wisdom over the whole three years. As he says, the end is nigh, in that the Act will come into force on 1 January 2014, including these regulations. He points to the fact that although the Act itself will, I hope, give the kind of balance between freedom and the rights of the defamed which will stand the test of time, as he and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, have said, legislators will always have the problem of how fast technology moves. I am not one of those who believe that new communications technologies should be beyond governance, but it is going to be a continuing challenge. The noble Lord rightly points to areas such as copyright, privacy and cybercrime, which we will continue to grapple with. But we set an example by being flexible and, as both noble Lords indicated, by underpinning free speech as far as we can and avoiding overregulation.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, always starts with a statement of modesty by saying that he does not understand these things and that they are all so complex. He then deftly skips through the particular regulations posing me difficult questions. I will try to address some of them.
Anyone listening to this debate will know that this is a complex matter, but it is complex because we have to get the balance right between the poster, the internet provider and the complainant. We do not want to overburden the provider with regulations or drag him into court cases. This is an attempt to ensure that the complainant and the poster are brought face to face, as it were, as easily as possible.
We are taking steps to introduce a system of cost protection for defamation and privacy and have recently consulted on that. We are currently considering the views expressed with the intention of introducing that as early as possible next year. I am grateful to the Master of the Rolls for the advice that he has given me on that.
On monitoring, it is always tempting, particularly for the Opposition, to ask for a review within a year. We obviously need an opportunity to see how these matters will settle down. Parliament has put in place formal reviews within a period of three to five years of royal assent. This Act will be subject to the usual arrangements of parliamentary scrutiny. However, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is quite right. We will continue to informally monitor the operation of these regulations and we will certainly not hesitate to draw the attention of Parliament to them if they do not seem to function as we hope they will.
On not releasing details and putting complainants to the cost of a Norwich Pharmacal order, there may be a good reason why the poster is unwilling to release the contact details. On balance, we consider that it is right for a court order to be obtained in these circumstances. However, there may also be cases where, through the operation of the process set out in regulations, a poster agrees to release contact details to the complainant, avoiding the necessity to obtain a court order.
The other question was on the matter of the definition of “received” in the regulations. While ultimately it will be for the court to interpret the regulations, we consider that the word “received” should be given its natural meaning and that therefore the notice of complaint would be “received” at the point when it is delivered. That is when it has arrived at the operator’s machine. We will make that view clearer in the guidance accompanying the regulations.
As both noble Lords indicated, the Act has been broadly welcomed by those who have campaigned for it. We believe that it will defend free speech while giving those who are defamed a reasonable opportunity for redress, and with some protection from the costs of doing so. Section 5 of the Act, and these regulations, represent an important part of the package of measures designed to reform the law of defamation. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is right: given the way the world is moving from the printed page to electronic communications, it would have ducked the issue had we not tried to address the matter in the Act. In so doing, I think we strike a fair balance between freedom of expression and the protection of reputation, as I said in my opening remarks. The regulations strike a fair balance between the various interests involved, and their approval will enable the Act as a whole to be brought into force on a timely basis at the end of this year. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this is a proportionate and sensible measure.
Judicial Appointments (Amendment) Order 2013
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord McNally
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Judicial Appointments (Amendment) Order 2013.
Relevant document: 10th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally) (LD)
My Lords, the order before us, if passed, will make fellows of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives—CILEx—eligible for coroner appointments under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The order essentially has two main aims, which are complementary: to make coroner appointments potentially more diverse; and to increase the range of roles which CILEx fellows can perform, to include that of coroner.
The order will amend the Judicial Appointments Order 2008, made under Section 51 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. In practical terms the order is the final part of the legislative package of reforms that the Government committed to when we implemented the coroner reforms in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 earlier this year. As background, I hope it will be of use to explain how the 2009 and 2007 Acts work together to determine eligibility for coronial appointment.
Under the 2009 Act, a potential candidate must have met what is known as the “judicial appointment eligibility criteria” for at least five years. Under Sections 50 to 52 of the 2007 Act, this means that they have a relevant legal qualification and have gained experience in law for five years or more. In practice, the only people who meet the criteria are solicitors and barristers. Under Section 51 of the 2007 Act, the Lord Chancellor may extend the list of relevant qualifications that make someone eligible for a judicial appointment. The Judicial Appointments Order 2008 exercised that power and provided that CILEx fellows were eligible for various judicial posts, such as deputy district judge and judge of the First-tier Tribunal. These posts are set out in Schedule 1 to the 2008 order.
The 2013 order will amend the 2008 order simply by adding coroners to the list of roles for which CILEx fellows are eligible, so in future CILEx fellows will be considered to have a relevant qualification to be a coroner. The order is a continuation of the Government’s aim to increase the diversity of those who can apply for and hold judicial positions.
Sections 50 to 52 of the 2007 Act and the 2008 order have already removed some of the old barriers to judicial appointment. Coroners are appointed slightly differently from those holding other judicial appointments and in fact the process for appointing them has recently changed. It may be helpful if I take a moment to explain this and put it in the context of increasing diversity of appointments.
Under the Coroners Act 1988, coroners were appointed by their local authority, but then were free to appoint their own deputies and assistants. Now, under the 2009 Act, every coroner appointment is made by the relevant local authority. Every vacancy is advertised and every proposed appointment requires the consent of the Lord Chancellor and chief coroner.
The new system has only just been put in place. However, this new advertising and central scrutiny of all posts will increase the transparency of appointments. It will enable applications from a more diverse pool of people who may never have heard about a vacancy under the old system. Although the actual appointment process for coroners is different from other judicial ones, I think it has to be the case that the same principle of increasing diversity of applicants should apply to all these appointments.
Any changes to the 2008 order are not just the Government’s responsibility. They also require the approval of the Judicial Appointments Commission and the Lord Chief Justice. I can report that both have confirmed that they support our proposal. We have also sought stakeholders’ views on the policy behind this draft order. We did this in the spring as part of our consultation on implementing our proposed reforms to the coroner system under the 2009 Act.
Responses on this issue were split evenly between those who supported the proposal, those who did not, and those who expressed no view. CILEx itself was among those who welcomed the proposal, because of its potential to increase the diversity of coroners and competition for the role. Other respondents, including many coroners, worried that extending eligibility for coronial appointment could lower standards.
We published our response to the consultation in early July. To address concerns about lowering standards, we confirmed that we would be increasing eligibility only for applying for coroner roles. Our aim was to encourage suitable CILEx fellows to apply for coroners’ posts. However, their applications would subsequently be assessed against the same consistent and transparent criteria as those from solicitors and barristers. Appointments would be made purely on merit.
To put it simply, if a CILEx fellow applied and was the best candidate he or she would be appointed as coroner. If the fellow applied and the application was weak, he or she would not be appointed. Having made this clear, the consultation response reconfirmed our commitment to make the proposed change later in 2013.
Finally, this draft order also has the support of the chief coroner, His Honour Judge Peter Thornton QC. We are working closely with the chief coroner on the new coroner appointments system, as well as the implementation of the other recent changes in the system.
I hope that I have demonstrated the merits of the order before us today. It will permit those CILEx fellows who may be more than adequately skilled and experienced to, for the first time, apply for a coroner’s role. They will then be assessed to the same high and consistent standards as other applicants, to ensure that the best person gets the job. It is no more than what bereaved people deserve. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)
My Lords, I have always been in favour of widening the pool, as far as one can, for judicial appointments, provided that there are adequate safeguards. I am satisfied that there are adequate safeguards and I think that it is in the public interest if the pool of people can be widened in the way which my noble friend described.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I served my articles to a solicitor who was a coroner, and subsequently went into partnership with him. I may regale the Minister with a couple of stories from the coroners’ courts after the sitting. There are certainly some interesting side-lights that he might enjoy. I join the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in congratulating the Government on widening the range of possible appointees. There is no earthly reason why a competent and experienced legal executive should not exercise the coronal functions. In passing, I am also glad that we still have a chief coroner, notwithstanding the Government’s early aspirations in that regard. That should also lend confidence to the legal profession generally that the standards will be maintained.
It has to be said that, from time to time, one hears criticisms of coroners, as one does of other members holding judicial appointments in our legal system. Some of the new appointees may likewise incur some questioning and criticism, but that does not vitiate the thrust of the Government’s policy, which is to widen the range of potential applicants and encourage those who take that particular form of legal career to progress their careers and make their contribution to society.
We are glad to see the order and congratulate the Government on introducing it.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords. I suspect that the clue to the unity is the fact that we were using legislation passed by the previous Government, including the reforms to the coroners. The chief coroner is of course very much the child of this House in the way that it advises and revises. It advised us to keep a chief coroner and, being a wise Government, we accepted that advice. I have benefited from it in bringing forward the order.
Lord Beecham
I thought for a moment that the noble Lord was implying that some of us were going to need the services of a coroner before very long.
Lord McNally
Ultimately, we all will.
The noble Lord said that he had some stories about coroners. Along the rocky road that I have travelled, I was political adviser to the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, whose personal physician was Monty Levine. Monty Levine was coroner in Westminster and Southwark for about 20 years. I think he was a doctor who qualified as a coroner. In the order and what is in the legislation, we are bringing consistency, but also an opportunity for diversity, both of which are entirely welcome. I am very grateful for the support from the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Beecham, and I commend the draft order to the House.
Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2013
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord McNally
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2013.
Relevant document: 11th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally) (LD)
My Lords, the amendment provides for the extension of the current SIAC rules to cover new applications resulting from the new jurisdiction inserted into the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act as a result of the Justice and Security Act 2013. This enables the Home Secretary to certify that certain exclusion, naturalisation and citizenship decisions were made in reliance on sensitive information which should not be made public in the interests of national security, in the interests of the relationship between the UK and another country, or otherwise in the public interest.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission, or SIAC, was set up under the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997. It hears immigration and asylum appeals involving national security issues and/or sensitive information which should not be made public—for instance, cases where intelligence is part of the evidence and the material cannot be released to the appellant, or his representatives, for fear of compromising sources or the national security of the UK. It has heard appeals under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 by persons certified as suspected international terrorists, and it currently hears appeals against deprivation of citizenship.
The Justice and Security Act 2013, which commenced in June this year, contained a number of provisions designed to control the disclosure, during litigation, of material which if released could be damaging to our national security. Section 15 of the Act amends the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 to ensure that, where the Home Secretary excludes someone from the United Kingdom or refuses to naturalise them as a British citizen on the basis of sensitive material, the appropriate place for that decision to be challenged should be the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.
Previously, any individual in that situation could apply to the High Court to set aside the decision. This was a far from satisfactory arrangement for two reasons. First, prior to the Justice and Security Act 2013, the High Court had no facility for closed material proceedings, and even now it has only limited provision for them. Secondly, SIAC is the tribunal with the greatest expertise in considering sensitive national security cases, as well as having expertise in immigration matters.
Parliament therefore deemed that challenges to exclusions or citizenship decisions would be best heard by SIAC. In order for SIAC to entertain these new challenges, its procedure rules must first be amended, and that is what we must turn our attention to now.
The rules that sit before us have been produced on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, following a short period of consultation with several of the parties who best know SIAC. The list of consultees includes the Law Society, the Bar Council and indeed the sitting chair of SIAC.
In the main, the amendments that these rules make simply confirm that all the existing rules, covering the kinds of appeal that SIAC has heard since its inception in 1997, now apply to the review of exclusion and naturalisation decisions. These are purely administrative changes which establish the guidelines relating to time limits for seeking a review, submission of forms and so on.
However, the rules have a number of substantial effects. First, although SIAC uses closed material proceedings regularly, the SIAC Act 1997 allows this by providing that rules may make provision for closed material proceedings. Therefore, until these rules are passed, it is difficult for SIAC fully to consider applications for review of exclusion or citizenship decisions.
Secondly, these rules establish the obligations upon the Home Secretary when disclosing material following an application for a review of an exclusion or naturalisation decision. These disclosure obligations are slightly different from those attached to a conventional appeal, and new Rule 10B makes that distinction. The difference derives from the fact that applications for review are to be decided on the principles applicable in an application for judicial review, and therefore the duty of candour represents the correct approach to disclosure. By contrast, appeals to SIAC are merits-based. SIAC is not simply reviewing the Home Secretary’s decision; it is making its own. Therefore, in appeals, a fuller disclosure process is required.
Thirdly, your Lordships may wish to note Rule 29, which amends 2003’s Rule 40 to give the commission the power, where appropriate, to reinstate an appeal or application for review which had previously been struck out. This, I hope the Committee will agree, will benefit the interests of justice by ensuring that an appellant or claimant need not be punished for a failure to comply with SIAC’s rules when the failure is for a reason outside their control. Indeed, this amendment results from a judicial suggestion made by the president of SIAC in a recent judgment in a case known as R1—see paragraph 28 of the judgment in R1 dated 21 May 2013, which can be found on SIAC’s website.
There is a particular need to affirm these rules without delay, as until they take effect the new cases which SIAC will hear cannot be progressed to conclusion. That affects the 60 or so claimants whose pre-existing High Court challenges will be certified and terminated under the Justice and Security Act’s transitional powers but whose applications to SIAC cannot be fully considered without these new rules. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)
My Lords, this course is important and sensitive. I would like to give a little background to how SIAC came to be set up and involved in this way in this procedure. It happened because of a case called Chahal. Mr Chahal was a Sikh and suspected terrorist being sent back to India. Under the old three wise men procedure there was no proper judicial process to decide whether he should be sent back, so he brought a case in Strasbourg. The problem was how you reconcile justice and the needs of national security. In the Chahal case, the various NGOs that intervened mentioned that there was a Canadian process that allowed national security and justice to be reconciled by a procedure rather similar to what the House is now considering.
I then did two cases from the bad old days, one in which the then Secretary of State prevented women in the Royal Ulster Constabulary part-time reserve having their sex discrimination cases determined in Belfast on the basis that it involved national security and that in no circumstances could his certificate be set aside. The second one involved alleged Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland, where another Secretary of State again sought to prevent the applicants having the merits of their cases reviewed.
The SIAC procedure of 1997 was Parliament’s decision at the time to apply something like the Canadian procedure to enable national security and justice to be properly weighed. I have one experience of SIAC from the distant past, when I represented a group of suspected terrorists, who later won their case—not through me—in Luxembourg. My experience then was very unhappy. I and they did not consider that the way it was dealt with by SIAC felt fair. But that was a long time ago and I am sure that lessons were learnt a long time ago. For my part, we are now concerned with not the controversial matters that plagued the House for so long when considering the Justice and Security Bill, but a perfectly sensible grafting on to the existing SIAC procedure of matters that clearly belong within SIAC under those procedures and nowhere else.
I recognise the compromises that are struck in these rules, one of which is where the Home Secretary—the Minister—decides to object to the disclosure of information to the claimant. My understanding is that there can then be a special advocate procedure to deal with that. That is a compromise that I reluctantly accept has to apply in this context. I hope, having said all that, that it provides a little more context to what we are talking about. For my part, I support the Motion before the Committee.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
Once again, there are three of us in this marriage, to quote a much more distinguished person.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for his long contribution to the evolution of the law in this area and the conduct of the debate. Of course, we spent a considerable time debating closed material procedures when we were engaged in a more recent piece of legislation. It is perhaps worth remembering that the procedures under SIAC are rather more stringent in terms of the criteria that a tribunal can apply, since the Justice and Security Act requirement is to protect matters of national security, but SIAC’s remit is wider. It has the potential of ruling out material that is contrary not only to the interests of national security but the international relations of the United Kingdom, the detection and prevention of crime or in any other circumstance where disclosure is likely to harm the public interest. That is a much wider range, but this is a rather separate case. We are not at the moment disputing that.
However, the Minister referred to consultation about the proposals. I make it clear that we are not opposing the proposals. He cited the special advocates, the Law Society, the Bar Council and the chairman of SIAC as having been consulted. He did not mention that the Home Office, the Treasury Solicitor, the security and intelligence agencies and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were also consulted, which is perfectly proper. But can he say if anyone else was consulted? Were organisations concerned with representing people in this situation consulted? Were voluntary organisations such as Liberty or Justice for All consulted? Were any bodies or organisations working with those involved in immigration matters consulted, such as the association of immigration lawyers? It would be interesting to know whether the consultation was confined to those who might be expected to have few, if any, reservations about it as opposed to those who might want to raise other issues.
For my part, having had some communication from the association of immigration lawyers, there is one matter that I would be grateful for some elucidation about. There is a concern that the transitional provisions in the rules could allow a case currently progressing in the High Court as a judicial review to be hijacked and taken to the commission. I have no idea whether there is any substance in that fear. Will the Minister—perhaps not at this moment—clarify whether that is a possibility and, if it is a possibility, how likely it is and how many current cases might be caught? It would be a matter of concern if it is a possibility, although, of course, it may not be and I am perfectly content to await the Minister’s response on that.
Another possibility that has been raised is that perhaps some matters have been held back from being listed for hearing on a judicial review, if indeed it is possible that the problem might have arisen. Again, an assurance that that has not happened would be welcome. Having made all the points that I want to make, I support the order.
Lord McNally
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lester for his little historical background. He also hinted, as did the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that every party which has had responsibility for these matters has agonised over that balance between the proper demands of justice and the need to protect national security. It is right that we agonise. I believe we do because we are of all political persuasions. This country is still a liberal democracy—with a small “l” and a small “d”—and liberal democracies agonise about how to get that balance right.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked for the list of other consultees and I am hopeful that I will be able to tell him that. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, around 60 cases currently are held in the High Court, which the Home Secretary intends to certify. My understanding is that those cases would then go to SIAC. If the full list of consultees has been passed to me, it has gone right past me, which would not be the first time.
Lord McNally
I will write and put in the Library of the House the full list of consultees.
While I have been here today, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has been sitting in his place at the other end. I have to say that passing through my mind was the thought that when Talleyrand died, Metternich apparently said, “Now, what does he mean by this?”. I have been looking at my Order Paper wondering on which item of business the noble Lord would intervene; then I realised that his is the next business. So as regards any unworthy thoughts that he was going to intervene on any of my business, I am much relieved.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, I trust that it did not make the noble Lord too nervous. I thought that his performance was entirely fluent throughout.
Islam
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the basis for the statement by the Prime Minister on 3 June that “There is nothing in Islam that justifies acts of terror” (HC Deb, 3 June, col 1234).
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords:
“But there is a problem within Islam—from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be honest about it.
Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.
At the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists, but the world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit. So by and large we don’t admit it. This has two effects. First, those with that view think we are weak and that gives them strength.
Second, those within Islam—and the good news is there are many—who actually know this problem exists and want to do something about it, lose heart”.
Those are not my words but those of Tony Blair, after the Islamist murder last summer of Drummer Rigby—the same Tony Blair who, as Prime Minister, dismantled our borders to,
“rub the noses of the right in diversity”.
We must be grateful that his subsequent experience as our Middle East envoy has taught him something about the reality of modern Islam, and that he had the courage to say what he did. In these few minutes, I want to talk about some of that reality.
Islam does not enjoy the separation of powers that we take for granted in our liberal, western democracies. Islam’s Sharia law is a legal, political and religious system all in one, which takes its authority solely from the Koran, the Hadith and the Sunnah, as interpreted by its religious clerics, collectively known as the ulema.
Our Muslim friends tell us that the jihadists are a misguided minority who misinterpret the Koran and the holy texts. They point to verses such as Surah 2, verse 256, in which Muhammad commands that there shall be no compulsion in religion, and to other verses of peace. There are millions of Muslims who live their lives guided by those verses, and many thousands who have been murdered by their violent co-religionists.
Here we come up against part of Islam’s problem, which is the widely held Muslim tenet of abrogation. This holds that, when verses in the Koran contradict each other, it is the later verses which cancel out or abrogate the earlier ones. This is unfortunate because, as Muhammad went through life, he became steadily more of a conquering warrior, and the messages that he received and what he said and did became progressively more bellicose and violent. If abrogation is accepted, the later verses of the sword, of which there are many, outweigh the earlier verses of peace, and it is from these later verses that the jihadists take their inspiration and authority. I have time to touch on just two of them. Surah 9, verse 5, commands the faithful to kill the unbelievers wherever they find them, and Surah 9, verse 14, says:
“Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands, and give you victory over them”.
“Them” means non-Muslims. The Hadith and the Sunnah, examples of the sayings and doings of Muhammad, which all Muslims are bound to follow, are even more antagonistic to non-believers, or Kaffirs, as they call us.
I am not pretending that Christianity has done all that well over the centuries. Even if the Crusades were a response to 400 years of Muslim aggression, we still have the Hundred Years War and the facts that Soviet communism emerged from Christian Russia, and the two world wars and the Holocaust from Christian Germany and Europe.
As a Manichaean, I see good and evil as balanced in the eternal dimension, beyond and above all the world’s religions. It seems to me that good and evil are present in each one of us, and that they can work only through the agency of our humanity. Evil is at its most destructive when it passes from the individual to the collective, as we saw with the Holocaust and Soviet communism. It is no respecter of any religion, nor of the humanists—the Soviets were a fine example of humanism gone wrong.
However, we must consider how our world stands now, today, and I fear that the dark side is moving strongly within Islam. I understand the defence that Islamist terror against the West is a reaction to Palestine, Srebrenica, Iraq and Libya. The kaleidoscope of Islamic internal violence is being shaken hard in north Africa with the tragic conflict between Sunni and Shia, and we cannot yet see how it will settle. However, it is not encouraging that the Sandhurst-educated Sultan of Brunei has just introduced strict Sharia law in his country.
If we come home to the United Kingdom, we see large and growing Muslim communities which are set against integration with the rest of us; we see thousands of home-grown potential terrorists; we see Sharia law running de facto in our land; and we see a birth rate several times higher than ours, to which our democracy is already exposed. Noble Lords have just to look at the recent Bradford by-election if they doubt that.
To me, most worryingly of all, we are not allowed to talk about any of it. As soon as we do, we are condemned by our useless political class as racist Islamophobes. The “racist” tag is clearly nonsense—Islam is present in almost every race on earth, including of course our own. A phobia is an unreasonable fear of something, but is it unreasonable to fear a religion which has recently given us 9/11 and 200,000 dead, most of them Muslims, in 18,000 attacks since then; which has given us the London bombings, Mumbai, the Spanish train, Bali, Drummer Rigby, Nairobi and Boko Haram; which, in 15 of its current regimes, employs stoning to death, amputation and death for apostasy?
What baffles me completely is that when we do speak against these things and when we dare to mention that they come from within Islam, we are told that we are the guilty ones—that it is us who are stirring up hate—and our politicians invent “hate crime” to shut us up. However, the hate lies in the heart of the Islamist. We can stir it up only because it is already there, red hot and seething against us. These people hate us with frightening religious fervour, and we are right to fear them.
What can we do? I suggest that we must stop being afraid to talk about it. We must do much more to encourage and support our many brave Muslims and apostates who take on their violent co-religionists publicly and thus risk the death penalty.
As an example of our present weakness, I give you the BBC, which was happy to air “Jerry Springer: The Opera”, with its offensive treatment of our Judaeo-Christian heritage, but which refused to air that brilliant play “Can We Talk About This?”, a factual critique of Islam, which ran last summer to packed audiences at the National Theatre. It was helpful of Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, to confess that the BBC would not air “Can We Talk About This?” because he did not want to look down the barrel of an AK47.
In that respect, and in closing, I congratulate the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, who is to reply to this debate, for the great courage that she showed in her speech at Georgetown University last Friday. I regret her support for UN Resolution 16/18, put forward by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which seeks to criminalise Islamophobia or “defaming Islam” worldwide. She certainly highlighted, however, the current plight of Christians in the present world at the hands of what she calls a new sectarianism. As a Muslim she was particularly brave to say that Muslims should be free to change their faith.
I conclude by asking the Minister only two questions. First, does she agree that nearly all the present violence against Christians is coming from within Islam—from the jihadists? We have the suffering of Muslims themselves in Burma and we have the Hindu massacre of Christians at Orissa, but is not the rest of it almost entirely jihadist?
The second question is one I have asked the Minister before. If it is true that the jihadists are such a small minority in Islam, who misinterpret the Koran and the holy texts, why does not the great majority do more to stand up against them? Why for instance do not the leaders of Islam, the grand muftis and righteous ulema call a massive conference, a sort of combination of the councils of Nicea and Trent, to issue a fatwa against the jihadists and to cast them out of Islam?
Could it be because they dare not? Are things as bad as that? I hope not and I look forward to the noble Baroness’s reply.
I am also grateful to all noble Lords who are to speak. Looking down the list I fear that none of them may agree with what I have said. At least, however, we are talking about it. I trust that it is just a start.
Lord Sheikh (Con)
My Lords, I speak as a Muslim, as a proud British national and a supporter of all faiths and communities. I am privileged to live in a country where people of numerous religious beliefs live alongside each other in relative peace. This is a testament to our nation’s tolerance and unity in equal measure.
I was brought up in Uganda, where there were people of different racial and religious groups, and learnt to respect all communities. I am a patron of several Muslim and non-Muslim organisations that promote harmony between people. I believe that there must be dialogue and respect for others if we are to continue to coexist peacefully. Without these, there is lack of understanding which leads to suspicion and tensions.
I believe this debate today has been called as a result of such misunderstanding. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, questioned the basis for the Prime Minister’s statement that:
“There is nothing in Islam that justifies acts of terror”.
I believe the basis for the Prime Minister’s statement was obvious. There is nothing in any religion, teaching or scripture that condones causing indiscriminate harm to others. It is the interpretation of corrupt minds that seek to justify these actions for themselves and those they manipulate.
The actions of a few fanatical individuals must not be the yardstick by which we judge Islam or any other religion. If we allow this to happen, the culture of fear and division takes hold. When that culture permeates, the terrorists realise their intentions. Later on in the statement, the Prime Minister referred to the murderers’,
“extremist ideology that perverts and warps Islam to create a culture of victimhood and justify violence.” —[Official Report, Commons, 3/6/13; col. 1234.]
It is that ideology that we are facing, not the religion itself. Terrorists’ motives have time and again been revealed as political grievances. Terrorists twist these grievances, through the prism of religion, into an ideology to justify their actions. It must therefore be clear that these actions were not motivated at root by religious teachings. The united condemnation of the Woolwich attack from prominent Muslims illustrated this.
Let us look specifically at Islamic teaching. As a Muslim, I was taught that human life was sacred. It is written in the Holy Koran,
“whoever kills a human being … it is as though he has killed all mankind, and whoever saves a human life, it is as though he has saved all mankind”.
That is why I have consistently spoken about Islam as a religion of peace, and continue to do so. In fact, I even represent that in my coat of arms, which features two doves. I believe that every Muslim should be an ambassador to convey that message and help to promote peace and harmony with other religions. I also believe that both the media and politicians must play their part. Some media circles, in particular, are guilty of vilifying Islam and portraying us with an unfair image.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and in the United Kingdom, there are more than 2.6 million. Such large numbers of people and their faith must not be used as a scapegoat or a political football. It is important that our politicians of all persuasions act responsibly and use moderate language. I find the use of the term “Islamic terrorist” to be improper in the same way that I would the term “Christian terrorist”. That kind of language stokes fear and creates a psychological tie between the religion and the terrorist.
The opposite is in fact true. A report by Demos in 2011 revealed that 83% of British Muslims feel proud to be a British citizen, compared with 79% of people across the whole population. That reasserts that our problem lies with a very small minority. The vast majority of Muslims enjoy practising their religion peacefully in the United Kingdom. I do not believe that anybody looking to cause disharmony should be allowed to come here from a Muslim country or a European country, such as the Netherlands. If we demonise Islam or any other religion, we are doing a disservice to the concept of religion as a whole and the societies that embrace it. I therefore totally endorse the comments made by our Prime Minister.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for enabling us to talk about these very important matters, so in that sense I can agree with him. I also encourage him not to lose heart at sin and evil wherever they are found. There are remedies, and people of religion are often seeking to achieve them.
Of course, if I read my own scriptures, as I do every day, and select various pieces of them, I could easily form myself into some kind of sect which would be disapproved of, I hope, by most of civil society. None the less, our activities which are theological, seeking peace, are often turned into historical disappointments and much less than the ideal that we want to promote. That is true of all religions and, indeed, of all humanity.
Rather than seek division or selective use of scriptures and theology, I emphasise today that the healing of divisions and the communication between those of different religions and societies is the primary responsibility, such as we find in the very diverse community of Birmingham, with 187 nationalities and all the great religions of the world represented in great numbers.
Your Lordships will know of the work of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in reviewing the Prevent strategy, which came to us in 2011. There we can find that those who support terrorism obviously reject a cohesive, integrated society. They often reject parliamentary democracy. Because polarisation and fragmentation are key conditions for the emergence of radical views, every effort should be made to understand, to have dialogue with and to befriend those who are different from ourselves, those who have different religions, different cultures or even different political solutions to intractable problems both at home and overseas.
In the communities of the Church of England, we have a process of presence and engagement where we want to be present in local communities, however diverse they are, and to engage with theologies and differences of views from our own strongly held beliefs. Noble Lords will know that the Near Neighbours programme, which is supported by the Department for Culture and Local Government, engages in four communities across England. They are asked to make friends, stay friends and change society based on cross-cultural and cross-religious engagements. In smaller ways, charities such as the Feast bring Christian and Muslim young people together in activities both civically and in practical ways. We can see that in the face of unacceptable terrorism, wherever it is found, the response is to resist evil but at the same time to build new ways of understanding and community.
Perhaps one other thing to mention is the process of scriptural reasoning where the great Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Islam and Christianity are, at the highest level and local level, examining the scriptures and testing the realities of things that are captured perhaps by groups who want to be terrorists. They are put into their proper perspective and understood, so that the wider community can be taught properly. I also welcome the work of the Ministry of Justice and the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Ahmed, in seeking to understand what religious freedom is really like in this country.
Of course, those national and international efforts—the practical resistance of evil wherever it is found—are necessary. But it is at the local level in local dialogue and local communication that I believe these terrible things that we experience can begin to be resolved. We should sit with one another and listen to the understanding of our theologies and our scriptures but also debate vigorously the differences that we find when we do not understand why someone might feel differently or behave in a different way.
I hope that today we will understand that there are difficulties but that we are building a new community in a completely unrecognised way in places such as Birmingham. People who hitherto have not understood each other and not got on with each other are now able to say that they are proud to live in this country and proud to enjoy their diversity. They also are proud—as one Muslim waiter in an Indian restaurant in Birmingham seeks to do with his Bishop—to stand against those within their own community whom they feel, sadly, have become atheist; we have a joint campaign to enable them to be enlightened. In the scriptures we have the strong and imperative demand to seek peace and pursue it.
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the statement made by the Prime Minister on 3 June 2013 is correct and has been echoed by the leaders of the Labour Party and the Lib Dems. Terrorism and extremism has existed in people from all faiths and religions. The important thing to understand is that such terrorists form a very small part of the faith groups. If one looks at the Muslim communities in Britain, there is a huge silent majority who abhor violence in the name of their religion. They are peace-loving British citizens who practise their faith and contribute to the welfare of their own communities, the wider communities and the United Kingdom. They oppose the attacks on innocent civilians. No religion advocates violence. Those who commit violence should be dealt with by the police and other law-enforcing agencies.
One has to look at the root causes of terrorism in the United Kingdom. Is it lack of education? Is it lack of understanding of their own faiths? Is it because the young get influenced by radical preachers? Our schools should be teaching the messages of peace and law abiding, and ensuring that only through sound education one becomes successful. It is perhaps rightly argued that people who are trapped in the vicious circle of poverty due to lack of jobs and opportunity become victims of radicalism. The past five years have not been easy for such people without jobs. The Government need to create more opportunities for the young who are without work.
Turning to Islam as a faith community, I wish to say that Islam, although it is the fastest-growing faith in the world, is little understood or not understood at all in the West. There is a deficit of understanding of Islam. Islam is a peaceful faith and occasionally, like all other faiths, it is hijacked by a handful of radicalised people for their own perverted personal or political reasons and ambitions. Islam reveres all the prophets—Christ, Moses, Abraham and others. Muslims are shocked when the prophets are ridiculed or abused on the altar of freedom of speech and expression.
Freedom of expression is a democratic right, but it carries responsibility. Our democracy is based on the rule of law, and those who break the law should be dealt with in the courts. Our courts are independent and magistrates and judges ensure that justice is not only delivered but seen to be done.
Turning to the Muslim community in Britain, I ask the Minister whether more could be done to support newly arrived spouses and partners from different parts of the world who come to join their families. In order to integrate them into the wider communities, they need to learn English. There are thousands of Muslim women who need to learn English to be able to communicate with the wider community and participate in civic society. They also need to be able to communicate with their own children who go to school. I believe that English and the ability to use a computer with internet connectivity are the two tools that will bring such isolated groups of women from the margins to the mainstream.
English and computers will enable the mothers to understand what their children are doing with their computers when they return home from school. Are they doing their homework, or are they playing computer games or chatting with undesirable people? The Minister should consider talking to some of the charities who work with these isolated groups of women to explore how additional funding could be given to those charities to help these isolated groups of women.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
Assalamualikum wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barkathu. Peace be upon you all. This is the fundamental doctrine and teaching of Islam, so how is it that, again and again, we are forced to defend the beauty of our faith? Find me a community that does not have its burden—countless acts of senseless violence and death all over the world, including between different faiths. We all have our crosses to bear. Hidden under the protection of faith, hundreds of thousands have suffered predatory abuse in silence, yet it has never occurred to me or to many others in the Muslim community to make the slightest aspersion on the religion of those who committed those crimes.
I do not think about the religion of those who carry out drone attacks, ruthlessly, on thousands of innocent bystanders, just as I do not consider those who tried to kill Malala Yousafzai, Kainat Riaz, Shazia Ramzan and many other girls and women—Muslims. We must call acts of brutal violence and criminality by their name and not allow them to be trivialised with our prejudices and blindness by attributing it to Islam, Christianity or Catholicism.
A task force to tackle radicalisation was set up by the Prime Minister following the murder of our soldier Lee Rigby in a bid to deal with extremism head-on. Michael Gove and Schools Minister David Laws will look at confronting racism and extremism in schools and charities, while Business Secretary Vince Cable will monitor universities, the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling will look into prisons and the Faith and Communities Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, will examine work in the communities.
That is rightly impressive attention, yet I also heard emotional pleas made publicly on television channels by the family of Mohammed Saleem, a father, grandfather, husband and brother mercilessly stabbed repeatedly by a self-confessed racist. The family and its supporters asked repeatedly why there was no political outcry about the terror that the family and the community endured. Why was no COBRA meeting called? Why was there no decision to hold an inquiry into the activities of the far right fascist groups and their atrocious impact on the streets of our major cities, schools and universities and, most importantly, why was no mention made of the attacker’s race or faith? Further, why was his community not asked to account for his criminal action?
This is the home of 3 million Muslims, who are impeccably loyal and love our country. We also know that there is inherent, deep-seated Islamophobia and racism in the way that we deal conveniently with one community and not the other, demonising one until it has no recourse except to tolerate more deaths and violence. I commend the Prime Minister’s commitment and his words, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, whose record speaks for itself.
I end with a quotation from the Deputy Prime Minister in his more liberal days. In 2008, he said:
“The sad truth is you play into the hands of the men you seek to discredit, driving further the alienation of the majority of Muslims who see themselves mischaracterised everywhere they turn as would-be terrorists ... The space for debate is currently filled with few voices, a fact that extremists capitalise on. If we are to truly achieve a society in which all peaceful members are free and equal, that space must be filled with reasoned and principled debate … We must challenge publicly the ideas of those who propagate terrorism and instead promote the cause of peace and freedom in Britain for all citizens”.
I very much look forward to the Deputy Prime Minister, in the very near future, countering some of the impact of what Tony Blair has said.
I believe in free speech, so today I have borne the seething hatred of Islam from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. It is time that we reclaimed our pride as a multifaith, multiracial society where we now take collective responsibility against the subjugation of all our faiths.
Lord Hameed (CB)
My Lords, the holy book of the Muslims begins with the concept of God as not hurting or harming or as cruel but as beneficent and merciful. It also talks of Islam as a religion of peace and not war, for every time a Muslim takes the name of the Prophet Mohammed, he adds the words, “Peace be upon him”. The Koran also instructs the believer to be tolerant and compassionate and to extend a helping hand to the sick and infirm. It also commands the pursuit of knowledge with respect for scholars, women and minorities in any land. It also instructs Muslims to respect other faiths and to live with them as good neighbours in peaceful coexistence. Therefore, strapping oneself with explosives to kill others in an act of suicide in search of martyrdom is totally un-Islamic and against the instructions of the Koran, the holy book that all Muslims must obey.
As was explained earlier, the word “phobia” is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as an extreme and irrational fear or dislike of a specified thing. Thus, noble Lords may have heard of the term “Islamophobia” being bandied about against Islam, leading to prejudice and generalised hatred or fear of Islam and its followers. The media around the world have their share of blame to bear in drip-feeding into the minds of the readers of newspapers and journals, and the viewers of television, regular doses of anti-Muslim material, not as factual reporting but to create public excitement with sensationalism to enhance the number of their readers and their viewing public. The widespread damage this does to society at large is incalculable. The resultant pressure from this on Muslim families is anger, confusion and frustration, with the resultant acts of violence.
God’s vision of a just and compassionate human society remains unfulfilled. This, in turn, leads to impressionable young men, low in self-esteem, frustrated with unemployment and ostracised by society through the media, who then become the best recruiting ground for the sergeant-majors of terrorism.
In truth, no divine religion has ever been based on conflict, whether it be the religions represented by Moses and Jesus or Mohammed, Ram or Guru Nanak, Zarathustra or Buddha himself. On the contrary, all religions strictly forbid conflict, oppression and the killing of innocent people.
The question we face as Muslims in the West is whether Islamic society is ipso facto fundamentalist. No, we say, because the holy book of the Muslims, the Koran, repeatedly commends coexistence. It says:
“lakum deen-e kum wal ya deen”—
your religion for you and my religion for me. It also says,
“la iqra fi al deen”—
let there be no compulsion in religion.
Let me give your Lordships a glaring example of how selective our principal source of information, the media, can be. I am pointing out a question of opportunities. One of the most venerated and respected figures of the Islamic world is the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, where the most holy sites for Islam are based. Recently, he delivered the Hajj sermon for the annual pilgrimage, where nearly 2 million Muslims were gathered. There, with many in the Muslim world also listening to his fatwa, or sermon, he underscored the true teachings of Islam through peace and harmony and declared that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism or extremism and urged Muslims to unite against the incidence of suicide bombings. These, he said, were recipes for being transported to hell rather than a place in paradise. I wish that our wonderful media worldwide had given more prominence to such a message, rather than the drip-drip that we see in newspapers every day which leads only to the poisoning of our minds against each other.
Finally, let us proclaim loudly our intent to defeat those who are bent on destroying our civilised way of life and resolve our differences through interfaith dialogue. My friends, it is time to stand up and be counted. This, indeed, is our duty, and we must fulfil it.
Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Prime Minister’s statement that there is nothing in Islam which justifies acts of terror was a call for unity at a time when many of us felt frightened. The Prime Minister was right: we must respond to senseless violence with all the strength of a united society. When community leaders of all faiths work together to guide young people away from extremism, they strengthen our society. That is the kind of constructive action we need. The spreading of religious prejudice is far from constructive. Islamophobia and any other kind of religious hatred will only divide Britain. Religious hatred and the fear-mongering that goes on with it has no place in a civilised country.
First, I want to deal with the myth that terrorism is an Islamic phenomenon. In July 2011, 77 people were murdered and 150 injured in Norway. Acting on the belief that immigrants were undermining the Christian values of his country, Anders Breivik identified himself as a Christian crusader. I do not think that Breivik was a Christian. I do not think that his actions reflect Christianity or that Christianity has something fundamentally wrong with it because he claims to be acting in its name.
The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, mentioned Pavlo Lapshyn, who stabbed an 82-year-old man, Mohammed Saleem, in Birmingham. Pavlo Lapshyn also planted three bombs outside mosques. Lapshyn cited his desire to stir up racial tension as the motivation for his crimes. Surely this makes it our duty to quash any racial tension that this kind of violence stirs up.
The noble Lord mentioned the Buddhist monks who have been attacking the Rohingya communities in Burma, killing thousands of Muslims, and Hindu nationalists have also bombed in India. They do not represent the majority of Hindus or Buddhists. From the reign of Bloody Mary and her burning of hundreds of Protestants to the troubles of Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics, our history illustrates that it is ignorance, prejudice and the desire for power—not religion—that fuels violence.
Even so, some will draw comfort from blaming the Muslim community. In an interview in 2009, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, stated:
“Muslims are breeding ten times faster than us”.
To me, this dehumanising language echoes the anti-Semitic comments made about Jews in the 1920s. When the noble Lord says “ten times faster than us”, what does he mean by “us”? Would he separate British Muslims from the rest of British society? Millions of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs served in the British Armed Forces across two world wars. British Muslims have also served and died in Afghanistan.
Quotations from the Holy Koran have been used by Geert Wilders and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, including verse 14 and other verses in Surah 9, and Surah 47, verse 4. I tell noble Lords that those quotations are out of context. They are not even interpreted. I challenge him to recite three words in Arabic and see whether he can do the translation.
The truth is that the right reverend Prelate was right. I could quote 18 examples from the Holy Bible that could be misinterpreted, but I do not want to go down this route. As a politician, I want to remind noble Lords of a quotation:
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. …You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might … You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs … victory, however long and hard the road may be”.
That is not Lord Ahmed calling for jihad in the House of Lords or threatening the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, as he claimed in Washington DC on 28 October 2009. This is our great war-time leader, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in the House of Commons on 13 May 1940. It can be read at col. 1502 in Hansard. I do not need to remind your Lordships of the two world wars. There were 16 million deaths in the First World War and 60 million in the Second World War. I need not mention the colonial wars. Everywhere you dig into European colonialism in Afro-Asia there are bodies—lots of bodies—as well as between 1916 and 1930 in Tsarist and Soviet Russia. Lives were also lost during the fight for Algerian independence. I could go on. None of them were Muslims.
I know that my time is up. All I want to say is that the Koran teaches me: do not argue with the people of earlier scripture. Even if they do, tell them that you believe in the same God as they do.
Lord Triesman (Lab)
My Lords, I start by doing something that I have not done often, which is simply to endorse the Prime Minister’s words. It is notable to me that no noble Lord today has started with the convention that we have of congratulating somebody on getting a debate on the Order Paper. That is probably because most of us, certainly me, have looked forward to this with some apprehension. I was apprehensive because I know from the time in November 2009 that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, in running for the leadership of his party, UKIP, said that the political class was complacent about Islamism. He claimed that our people—again, I do not quite know who the “our” and “we” are—were strangers in our own land. He went on to commend the right-wing Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, and invited him to screen his controversial film about Islam here.
A number of speakers in this debate have treated it, understandably, as though it were a discussion of a religious or theological issue. I do not believe that it is—I think that it is straightforwardly political. It is about the potency that is sometimes achieved, at times of economic crisis, of characterising some people in ways that are dismissive of them and stereotypes them, speaking about them with a generality that cannot be justified. I shall have to go back through Hansard to make sure that I am quoting accurately, but in introducing this debate the noble Lord talked about the “dark side” and birth rates of people who are, obviously, not quite as good as us, people stirring up hate and “red hot” people striving against us, people who we will finally see looking down the barrel of a gun at us, the plight of Christians, and so on. These are all characterisations which, candidly, should have no place in the debates in this country and our Parliament.
Lord Triesman
Sadly, and I want to say this as briefly as I can—and I make the point about it being political—this is not simply about the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. I have been going through quotations from a large number of other people from UKIP, and there is obviously an attempt to adopt positions on the extreme right in our country. Cavan Vines, the candidate in south Yorkshire, talked of people who hide behind women and kill our children. Chris Pain, the opposition leader in Lincolnshire, gave a foul-mouthed diatribe about Islam. Peter Entwistle, the deputy chair of Bury UKIP, speaking of President Obama said:
“If I ever see him on a Greyhound bus wearing a rucksack, I’m getting off!!”.
Misty Thackeray, the deputy chair of UKIP in Scotland, praised the right-wing Dutch politician, Geert Wilders as a self-confessed hater of Islam. I could go on. I have also noted that the support for those UKIP positions from the EDL has been as conspicuous as those quotations are. This is a sequence of attacks that have no place among us.
Whatever the justification that some people may feel for political objectives that they cannot achieve by normal, democratic means, those objectives never justify the use of violence to achieve them. That is true for any people in any community; it is never justified, and nobody in here would try to justify it. Nobody would say that the people of the United Kingdom can be bombed, shot at or violently compelled to make political changes that they do not wish to see. They never have been compelled that way and I do not believe that they ever will be compelled that way; this is a country that repudiates violence from any quarter and insists that those who conduct violence from any quarter are brought to justice. That is a straightforward convention among all of us, for reasons that are very profound.
It is not a matter, in my view, of whether people choose to live differently in their style or at a distance from others in their own communities. Personally, I have no taste for seeing communities constructed in that way—let me be quite clear about it. I prefer to live in an integrated society in which people share each other’s cultures and enjoy them. But it is also a truth that if people live that way within the law and including all laws that protect equal status of all citizens, there is no reason why those people should be subject to state intervention or trenchant language, as we have heard in the House this afternoon. People do have different lifestyles, and if they wish to live lawfully in their own communities we should at least have some modicum of respect for those facts.
I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, said about abrogation, with the later verses superseding the earlier ones, but I am not a sufficient student of that tradition to understand what is or is not within context. However, I am, in my modest way, a Talmudic scholar—at least, I have studied it to some extent—
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Perhaps the noble Lord could conclude his remarks.
Lord Triesman
I am nearing my final words. I notice that one of the most prominent quotations often relied upon is about smiting one’s opponents hip and thigh. That appears in Judges, chapter 15, verse 8. I tell noble Lords that I have never set about doing that, I have never thought of doing it, and I have never thought that it was a compunction upon Jewish people or anybody else.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to put on record this Government’s view on extremism and terrorism. I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for his bold words of support, and I add my wholehearted endorsement to everything that he has said.
I begin with the Prime Minister’s words in the wake of the horrific murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in May —the words to which the noble Lord refers in calling this debate:
“What happened on the streets of Woolwich shocked and sickened us all. It was a despicable attack on a British soldier who stood for our country and our way of life, and it was a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country. There is nothing in Islam that justifies acts of terror, and I welcome the spontaneous condemnation of the attack from mosques and Muslim community organisations across our country. We will not be cowed by terror, and terrorists who seek to divide us will only make us stronger and more united in our resolve to defeat them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/6/13; col. 1234.]
Those are his words, and I thank my noble friend Lord Sheikh, the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, and others for their kind words of support for the Prime Minister’s stance—support which was received from across the world and from across the British Muslim community. Indeed, if Islam justified terror, we would not have seen the out-and-out condemnation of this brutal murder by the British Muslim community.
After that attack, we saw the Ramadhan Foundation, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Christian Muslim Forum, MINAB, the Al-Khoei Foundation, the British Muslim Forum, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, the Karima Institute, the Islamic Forum of Europe and many, many others come out and say, “Not in our name”. They were united with the country in grief and horror at what happened on a London street. I wholeheartedly support this clear and unequivocal condemnation. As the noble Lord, Lord Hameed, said, let us stand and be counted. The British Muslim community did just that.
I am grateful for the very considered contribution from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham. Islam, like all the major religions, is not inherently violent. Passages from sacred texts must be taken in context. It would be possible to distort quotes from any religious text.
The noble Lord referred extensively to the sword verses in the Koran. These are often cited by critics to demonstrate that Islam is violent in its very nature. These same verses are also selectively used, or abused, by religious extremists to develop a theology of hate and intolerance and to legitimise unconditional warfare against Muslims and non-Muslims.
It is not surprising that the Koran, like the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament, has verses that address fighting and the conduct of war. However, like all scriptures, Islamic sacred texts must be read within the social and political context in which they were revealed.
As a political anorak, I shall step away from theology and talk TV political drama. In the hit American show “The West Wing”, a conversation between the Catholic President, Bartlet, and a bigoted TV presenter went something like this. President Bartlet:
“I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination”.
The TV presenter:
“I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does”.
President Bartlet:
“Yes it does. Leviticus 18:22. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?”. While thinking about that, can I ask you another question? My Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?”.
I could not make this point more clearly. These texts from the Old Testament could so easily be manipulated to cause mischief and indeed have been manipulated in the past. But being religious means making choices and understanding the central values of your faith. It also means considering the context in which that faith was formed. To be an adherent, one must also be a historian. This is a point that the late Benazir Bhutto, the first female Prime Minister of a Muslim country, once put particularly well when speaking of teachings in the Koran. She said:
“In an age when no country, no system, no community gave women any rights, in a society where the birth of a baby girl was regarded as a curse, where women were considered chattel, Islam treated women as individuals”.
Noble Lords will be aware that most religions have suffered at one time or another from extremism. Islam is no exception. The essential lesson taught by Islamic history is that extremist groups are ejected from the mainstream of Islam. They are marginalised and seen as heretical aberrations to the Islamic message. That is why religious leaders such as countless Muslim scholars have stood tall, not only condemning acts of violence committed in the name of their faith but issuing clear Islamic rulings, a fatwa on why terrorism is a rejection of what Islam stands for.
The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has a clear interest in Islamic theology. He makes a distinction between the Prophet’s life in Mecca and Medina. He refers to the “sword verses” in the Koran. He joins critics to demonstrate that Islam is violent in nature. Ironically, these same verses are also selectively abused by religious extremists to support their theology of hate and intolerance. It is not surprising that the Koran, like the Hebrew Scriptures and the Old Testament, has verses on fighting and the conduct of war but they must be put into context.
As many noble Lords have said in this debate Islam, like all world religions, neither supports, nor advocates, nor condones terrorism. I am saying that the values of al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists are not only contrary to what we as a country stand for, they are a distortion of the Islamic tradition itself. Al-Qaeda’s ideology is fundamentally at odds with both classical and contemporary Islamic jurisprudence. That is why the majority of Muslims across the globe reject their ideology.
I believe it is a great shame that the noble Lord has asked this question. It points, at best, to ignorance about Islam, or, at worst, a deliberate attempt to perpetuate a distorted image of the faith. It is particularly sad to see this being done during interfaith week, when we celebrate the important role that faith plays in British society, particularly when different faiths come together. This Government support the role of faith in society. They support people in their right to manifest their faith, to worship freely and to act in the name of their faith for the good of society. They support people to share their faith with others, to change their faith, or, indeed, to have no faith at all. As well as that, they are committed to protecting people from intolerance, discrimination or even persecution on the basis of their faith. We have done more than any other Government to tackle that unacceptable scourge of anti-Muslim hatred. For that, I am proud.
Deep, entrenched anti-Muslim bigotry goes against everything this great nation stands for—the idea that Islam is a particularly violent creed and therefore an irrational reaction to it is somehow appropriate. I am concerned that the deeper Islamophobia seeps into our culture, the easier becomes the task of extremists recruiting. I invite the noble Lord to reflect on this.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, she has not answered the two questions that I put to her. I believe that I am in order to repeat them.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn) (Con)
The noble Lord may make a brief point for clarity.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Will the noble Baroness answer the two questions I put to her?
Baroness Warsi
I am coming to that now. I will be answering the noble Lord’s direct questions now. The fact is, British Muslims play a crucial role in British society. Everyone in this house knows Muslims in British life—doctors, engineers, scientists, journalists, MPs, teachers, business people, local councillors and so on. They are all making strong contributions to our country. The citizenship survey of 2010-11 asked whether it is possible to fully belong to Britain and maintain a separate cultural or religious identity. Some 89% of Muslims agreed with that, as opposed to 72% of the general population.
Let me draw the noble Lord’s attention to recent research conducted by ICM, which showed that Muslims are Britain’s top charity givers, topping a poll of religious groups. Muslims who donated to charity last year gave an average of almost £371 each. That is nothing new. The first recorded Englishman to become Muslim was John Nelson, in the 16th century. At the time of the union with Scotland in 1707, Muslims were already in Britain. There are records of Sylhetis working in London restaurants as early as 1873. Noble Lords may also be aware of the recent campaign that the Government launched to highlight the contribution of the nations from the Commonwealth during the First World War. Hundreds of thousands of the 1.2 million who served in the British Indian Army were Muslims. They fought and died for the values and freedoms that we enjoy today.
I turn to the two specific questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. He asked about the persecution of Christians and by which particular group it was being conducted. I say this simply: one life taken, one life destroyed, is one life too much. For me, the religion of those communities is absolutely irrelevant.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
With respect, that does not answer the question. The question I put to the noble Baroness was about the persecution of Christians, to which she so bravely referred in Georgetown last Friday. Is it or is it not mostly the work of the jihadists? That was the question I put to her.
Baroness Warsi
It was mostly the work of extremists who do not follow any faith, as far as I am concerned. Collective punishment for co-religionists is wrong. That is what I said in Georgetown. Collective requirement of a community to be a constant apologist for its co-religionists is also wrong. As the UK’s first ever Minister for Faith and Communities, it is my job to ensure that freedom of religion and belief remains at the top of the Government’s agenda both at home and internationally.
The US Congress hearing in 2011 about “Islamist terrorism” was described as reality TV and a witchhunt. The White House said that we do not practise guilt by association. The Prime Minister, this Government and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Values such as religious tolerance are not just British. They are universal values that cut across different countries and different faiths. Although, of course, all faiths contribute to the public good, Islam is my religion and I am proud of my beliefs.
I believe that our work in building a society characterised by respect and tolerance is not best served by scare stories stirred up by Parliament or parliamentarians. Those of us who have the privilege to serve in Parliament should use this platform to help to build better relations, to speak not just for those communities and faiths to which we belong but wherever injustice occurs, as I did just a few days ago in Georgetown, when I spoke about the persecution of Christians. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, for his warm words about the speech, and I hope that it inspires him to take a similar approach. Once more, I thank noble Lords for their contributions.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, that fascinating debate completes the business before the Grand Committee this afternoon. The Committee stands adjourned.
House of Lords
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Energy: Shale Gas
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Renton of Mount Harry
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they expect shale gas to be widely used in the United Kingdom; and whether there are circumstances under which they consider fracking for gas is likely to be dangerous.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)
My Lords, wherever shale gas operations are conducted they must be done in a safe and environmentally sound way. There are regulations in place to ensure on-site safety, prevent water contamination and mitigate against seismic activity and air pollution. As part of this rigorous process, my department, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive must all approve an application. Local communities will be consulted before any operations and the industry has committed to provide a package of benefits from shale gas production.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for that opening, but I want very quickly to say a few words about the position of shale gas in the UK. On one side, shale gas is considered as having no real future importance and as not being worthwhile; but on the other side, the position is quite different. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury recently wrote that shale gas has the potential to support thousands of jobs, generate substantial tax revenue and keep energy bills low for millions of people. If that is true then our shale gas is very important. Which way would the Minister vote on this?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend is aware, of course, that the Treasury and the Government are very keen to explore all sources of energy. Shale gas will provide the UK with greater energy security, economic growth and jobs, and the Government are encouraging exploration to determine this potential.
Lord Barnett (Lab)
My Lords, I suppose that we have all been nimbys at one time or another but it is important now that the public interest should be the main issue. Unfortunately, it looks as if the companies that are investing in fracking are being stopped or delayed, and that is clearly not in the public interest. As I am sure the Minister knows, all the evidence shows that there is only a low public health risk, and even that could be reduced considerably by proper regulation. In those circumstances we need the full support of both sides of the House. I hope that my own party will strongly support the Government on this, although there may be some critical points. What can the Minister tell us about what they are doing strongly to support the companies that are bringing in the private investment which is desperately needed in this vital matter?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right that this is an important source for us, and as with all things, we are making sure that the environmental protections are in place. We have a very strong regulatory process in this country, as he said. We are doing whatever we can to ensure that the process is followed through smoothly and as quickly as possible so that this industry which is investing in our country is not hindered by unnecessary regulations and red tape.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, do the Government consider that there are risks from shale gas exploration for such national assets as, for example, the hot mineral water at Bath and the water flowing through the caves at Cheddar? Are there methods for assessing such risks, and are there ways of preventing harm?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I hope that I am making it clear that we take seriously any environmental risk whether it is water contamination or anything else. It is therefore right that the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and my department work very closely together to ensure that the proper processes are followed through and that all the regulations which need to be in place are in place in order for companies to do their work carefully, safely and properly, and for the country to benefit from the potential.
Lord Borwick (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that just 25 acres of shale gas well pads in Pennsylvania produce as much energy each year as the entire British wind industry, and that they produce energy rather more reliably, too?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am extremely grateful for my noble friend’s intervention because it allows me to agree with him that shale gas is a very important component of the mix that we want for our country.
Viscount Brookeborough (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is a big difference between this country and America in that people there own the mineral rights under their farms whereas in this country it is very important to get public opinion behind it? The businesses involved may provide community benefit but that will not replace such a thing as financial benefit. I am not sure that they will get the public behind shale gas without that.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Viscount raises an interesting point. Companies have pledged through their own charter that they will at exploration stage give £100,000 in community benefits, but also that 1% of the revenues generated from each well will go to local communities.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, in the United States the shale gas industry is fragmented and there are good and not-so-good operators in terms of environmental risks. What specific lessons have been learnt from the United States? It is estimated that some 10% of the total UK water supply could be demanded by shale gas if, as many of us hope, it were to be successful. What discussions are the Government having with the water industry to make sure that that area will be catered for if shale gas development takes place?
Baroness Verma
My noble friend again raises an important point. Water UK, which represents water companies, is working closely with the United Kingdom Onshore Operators Group—the representative body for onshore oil and gas—to make sure that any potential extra demand for water will be managed sensibly. However, water companies are already obligated to produce and update every five years a proper water plan. Water companies will therefore assess well in advance the amount of water that will be available to the operator before it is used.
Baroness Worthington (Lab)
My Lords, I wanted to let the Minister know that I have just returned from Poland, and fracking was a topic of great conversation there. What if anything has she done to reach out to Poland to discuss how it will pursue fracking? It could make a huge difference to Europe’s carbon emissions.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I know that the noble Baroness was in Poland and was aware that she returned today. As she will be aware, the UK is always in close conversation with all its member-state partners, and of course these conversations are ongoing.
House of Lords: Size
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have received about the increase in the size of the House of Lords.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Foulkes, and with his consent, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have received few representations about the size of the House. Of the ones that I have received, I would say that the majority are from those seeking to increase the size of the House by suggesting eminent candidates for membership, sometimes including themselves.
Lord Dubs
That is very good. My Lords, I do not need to remind the Leader of the House that, with the exception of the National People’s Congress of China, we are now the largest legislative Chamber in the world. Does he agree that there is virtually no support on the Benches behind him—or anywhere else in the House—for further increases in the size of this House? Is he not aware that people see this attempt to pack the House as a bit on the cynical side? However, it is not working, because the Government are still losing Divisions. What is the point?
Lord Hill of Oareford
There are a number of points. First, we need to keep refreshing the House with new and young membership. I cannot remember which noble Lord it was who the other day pointed out that sadly all of us are growing older. That is why we need to have new Members coming in.
On the point about “packing the House”—that was the phrase the noble Lord used—I repudiate the charge. In his next point, he himself gave the lie to that by citing the fact that, for some extraordinary reason, the Government continue to suffer the occasional defeat on their legislation. In terms of the numbers, it is worth reminding the House that if one draws a comparison with the numbers for each of the four main groups in 2007 when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, there are 25 more noble Lords now than there were then. We sometimes forget that, sadly, around 100 Members have died or taken leave of absence since the most recent general election.
Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)
Is my noble friend aware that in the other House, Mr Dan Byles has taken up the Bill that we passed some months ago, which would provide the authority for the House to produce both retirement and expulsion? Would he keep a benevolent eye on the progress of that Bill in the other place, because it would provide an alternative exit strategy to that provided by the Grim Reaper?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am keen that we should have alternatives to the Grim Reaper. I shall certainly keep an eye on progress. The whole House will share my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Steel for his persistence in taking forward these issues. Therefore I am pleased, as I know he will be, that, following representations from a number of people, not least himself, the Government’s position has moved to one of support for the Private Member’s Bill sponsored by Dan Byles. The whole House will welcome that. It will deliver the benefits to which my noble friend referred.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, has the noble Lord read the study by UCL that shows that if the Government go ahead with their intention to rebalance the Lords according to the votes cast at the most recent general election, the size of this House would reach 1,200 or more? That would be a nonsense. Will the noble Lord reassure the House that no more political appointments will be made to your Lordships’ House until the next general election?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will say two things. First, shortly after I came in, I was assured by everyone that there were going to be 100 Peers packed into the House within a couple of weeks. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will remember that, on the back of an amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Steel, he put forward a helpful amendment urging the need for restraint so far as appointments and patronage were concerned. I argue—as I argued then—that that restraint has been shown. The August list of 30 or 31 names was the first political list for three years.
In terms of the future, I cannot give any different undertaking from that which I am sure all my predecessors would have given: namely, that patronage rests in the hands of the Prime Minister. However I shall certainly ensure, as I continually do, that the views of your Lordships’ House are brought before all those who are concerned with these decisions.
Finally, following which I must allow others to speak—I know that this is an issue about which many people in this House care a lot and that there are concerns—it is very important when talking of the work of the House to the outside world that we do not in some way give the impression that this House is unable to do its job. We do it outstandingly well.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, will the Leader of the House take the opportunity to emphasise the last point that he made, not only in this House but elsewhere? Whatever the issues may be, it is important to recognise that this House holds the Government to account to a very high standard, scrutinises legislation to a great degree and promotes debates that are of great concern to our fellow citizens. The House actually functions well.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the Convenor of the Cross Benches very strongly. In taking legislation through your Lordships’ House, I saw the difference in the intensity of scrutiny in this House compared with that at the other end of the building. I think that we are right to be proud in the way that the noble Lord reminds us.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, on a lighter note after that very important question, one hears the complaint that there are too many noble Lords and that we cannot get a seat. I draw the House’s attention to the fact that, in the Commons, there are 650 Members and 350 seats. With an average number of 450 Peers, or around that figure, attending daily, it seems that we are rather well served in the ratio of seat to Peer. Does my noble friend agree?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I think my noble friend said “seat to Peer” rather than “seat to rear”. It is good of her to remind noble Lords of that, and I know she is not suggesting that we should therefore set about a process of reduction of space. I know that here are problems at certain times of the day—Oral Questions is a good example. However, we all know that there are other times of the day when the Chamber is not as full as perhaps we might sometimes wish. As the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, in terms of the job that we do, we do not have guillotines, we are all able to put amendments down and we take part in scrutiny. I have been able to increase the number of opportunities for QSDs, which I think has been widely welcomed, and we are getting through them much faster. We have had more post-legislative scrutiny and more ad hoc committees. I am hoping, in that way, to address the issue of attendance, which is a greater challenge for us than the question of the absolute size of the House.
Syria
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Boothroyd
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have received relating to the creation of a humanitarian aid corridor in Syria.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, humanitarian corridors are temporarily demilitarised zones intended to allow the safe passage of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of vulnerable civilians. DfID supports many humanitarian agencies operating inside Syria. To date, DfID has received no requests or representations for a humanitarian corridor from these partners or other humanitarian agencies. We welcome any option that complies with international law that might save lives in Syria.
Baroness Boothroyd (CB)
I have it on the authority of Dr David Nott, the distinguished London surgeon who recently returned from delivering front-line medicine in rebel-held Syria, that aid is not getting where it is most needed. Dr Nott made representations to HMG, to which he has not received even an acknowledgement as yet. Will the Government work with the international community to insist that a humanitarian corridor be opened to deliver life-saving medical aid and bring the severely wounded to safety? Safe passages have been achieved in other conflict zones. If chemical weapons inspectors can be given protection, surely protection is possible for humanitarian aid.
Baroness Northover
I have a great deal of sympathy for what the noble Baroness has said and for what the surgeon David Nott has said. I heard the appeal that he made and obviously pressed very hard within DfID to elucidate this, because it is obviously extremely appealing. The problem is of course, as the noble Baroness will know, that the situation in Syria is immensely complex. One needs only to look at the map of where various groups are, and how that changes from day to day, to see how complex this is and the number of humanitarian corridors that would be required. In order for those to be created, all groups in the relevant area would need to buy in. Alternatively, it would need to be enforced in a military fashion, which would require a UN Security Council resolution. I think the noble Baroness can see some of the challenges in my answer.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, some 18 months ago, Turkey was considering intervening in Syria to create a humanitarian buffer. At the same time, US State Department officials were mooting a similar no-kill zone. The massacre at Srebrenica tells us, with a very good example, why a humanitarian corridor would require a protective military presence. Who would provide it in Syria, and with whose collective agreement?
Baroness Northover
My noble friend is absolutely right, and that bears out the answer I just gave to the noble Baroness. We would require the buy-in of all the parties or that kind of military enforcement. That is why the major organisations working in the area—for example, the United Nations, MSF and the ICRC—have reservations about the proposal for a humanitarian corridor for the very reason that my noble friend referred to. Sometimes, these result in civilians being less safe. He pointed to the Bosnian example, but more recently, of course, there has been the Sri Lankan example. There are examples where not only civilians, who are supposed to be protected, are in greater danger, but the humanitarian workers who may appear to be shielded by particular military groups are also under greater threat.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister clarify whether discussions are taking place in response to the view expressed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, that Syria should be referred to the ICC? Would an ICC referral not send an unequivocal message that such is the seriousness of the crimes—including denying the right to humanitarian aid—that strong measures to tackle impunity are essential and that criminal indictments of senior leaders, as was the case in the Balkans, can strengthen peace efforts?
Baroness Northover
It is clear that referring leaders in these situations to the ICC has, we hope, a chilling effect for other leaders thereafter. One can see that building in terms of leaders’ responses, and one has to hope that in the situation in Syria some of the rebel groups as well as the government groups will recognise the challenge there. However, at the moment, the most important thing is to try to bring about a political resolution to this problem so that the killing on all sides can stop.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I think that everybody recognises the complexity of the situation, but just over a month ago, the UN Security Council itself called unanimously for humanitarian pauses. What contribution have Her Majesty’s Government been able to make diplomatically pursuing the possibility of more humanitarian pauses to bring relief to some of the civilians caught up in the fight?
Baroness Northover
Again, that is a case in point. The right reverend Prelate makes a good point in referring to those humanitarian pauses which were politically agreed but not delivered. That is the challenge. This is a very complex situation with many groups fighting each other, and enormous efforts are being put in—not least by UN special envoy Brahimi at the moment—to try to push forward some kind of agreement, but it is immensely difficult.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that as welcome as the statement recently produced on humanitarian access was, the perception on the ground is that access to Syria is not being permitted as it needs to be? Will the Minister seek to encourage her colleagues that, no matter how frustrating it may be to deal with the authorities in Syria, in order to move further forward with greater humanitarian access, one needs to persevere in communicating with the senior Syrian leadership?
Baroness Northover
The noble Earl is right. The presidential statement called for unhindered humanitarian access, including the granting of visas and permits, which is something that the Syrian Government can do, and pressure is being put on them to do that.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, in response to the noble Earl’s question, is it not made rather difficult because we do not recognise the legitimacy, or even the existence, of the Syrian Government?
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Mitchell
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of financing available to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Lord Popat (Con)
My Lords, under this Government credit conditions continue to improve. Survey evidence indicates that more small and medium-sized enterprises are using external finance. Recent data from the Bank of England show that gross lending is continuing to rise year on year and in September reached the highest level since 2009. More broadly, confidence is beginning to return to businesses, which are now more ready to borrow and invest than since before the financial crisis.
Lord Mitchell (Lab)
My Lords, yet again I am asking the Government why much needed financial support is not getting through to SMEs. According to the Bank of England, net lending to SMEs was down £600 million in the second quarter of 2013. The answer to the Question is obvious: financing that should be going to small businesses is in fact being used by banks to build up their profitable mortgage portfolios. Does the Minister accept that banks should be backing small businesses rather than helping to create another property bubble?
Lord Popat
My Lords, it is important to set the picture in context. According to the British Bankers’ Association, the current stock of lending to SMEs by the top seven banks is more than £99 billion. By this measure, around £2 billion is lent by the banks to SMEs every month. SMEs are actually twice as likely to be successful when applying for finance than has been predicted.
The World Bank’s ease of doing business index puts the UK as the top place in the world for accessing finance. I think this overstates how things are. In any case, we know that there is scope for improvement. Clearly, it is a tough environment for small businesses. Although net lending might have dropped last year, I am pleased to report to the noble Lord that gross lending has gone up, as did net lending in September.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, the August SME Finance Monitor showed a welcome increase in SMEs seeking finance, from 39% to 44%, but this increase is from less conventional sources of funding; for example, lease and income financing, which focus on cash flow rather than growth. The report went on to say that 25% of SMEs expect their loans to be turned down, whereas in fact 50% are successful. What can the Government do to encourage more SMEs to apply for finance for growth?
Lord Popat
The noble Baroness makes a very important point. SMEs are more likely now to have an alternative source of finance, including asset or leasing and quite often inward discounting. They are not approaching their own banks as much as they used to, but I am pleased to report that banks are now proactively lending money to SMEs.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
Will the Minister respond to my noble friend’s question about real estate? The Bank of England report states:
“The outlook for corporate lending also depends on developments in the commercial real estate (CRE) sector, which makes up around a third of lending to non-financial businesses”.
The point is that the property bubble is taking money away from the SME sector. Will the Minister respond to that?
Lord Popat
My Lords, under our Funding for Lending scheme, £80 billion has been allocated by the Bank of England, of which some £17.6 billion has been taken up by SMEs. I agree that a large proportion of that is in the property sector. We have relaxed some of the conditions for lending money to SMEs, which are now able to finance their debt or their stock. Hence we will be lending more money to SMEs and this figure is gradually going up. Real lending to businesses is now taking place.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, finance is important for small and medium-sized enterprises right across the board. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to help with cutting red tape? This is one of the most important things for a small business. Finance is important but cutting red tape, which gets in the way of start-ups and small businesses, is also very important for small businesses’ future.
Lord Popat
My Lords, it is a pleasure to answer the first question from my noble friend, who brings a wealth of experience from both the private and public sectors. As your Lordships know, the Government have introduced a moratorium on all new domestic regulations for three years for new start-ups and businesses with fewer than 10 employees. In addition, in January we introduced a “one in, two out” rule on all domestic regulations affecting businesses and voluntary organisations. The Government are absolutely committed to creating a culture in which all businesses, including SMEs, can thrive.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, in September 2012, having failed to persuade the Treasury to break up RBS, the Secretary of State announced the formation of the British Business Bank. However, it was not until 17 October 2013 that the first chair was appointed and then we were told that the bank was in a “substantial expansion phase” and that it was on target to unlock £10 billion for expanding companies. Last week we learnt that the bank finally made its first investments, when it gave £45 million to two financial institutions, Praesidian Capital Europe and BMS Finance. When will we see funding actually flowing to the small and medium-sized businesses that need it and when do the Government expect the bank to reach its £10 billion target?
Lord Popat
My Lords, on 1 November RBS committed to a new direction that will lead it to being a boost to the UK economy, rather than a burden. It will be dealing decisively with the problems from the past by separating out the good and the bad and putting the bad loans in an internal bad bank. RBS will now focus on its core British business, supporting British families and companies. It will sell off more of its overseas operations and go on shrinking its investment bank so it has more capital to support lending to the British economy. RBS is committed to becoming the number one bank for small and medium-sized enterprises, as judged by customers, measured by the newly created survey to be run by the Federation of Small Businesses. On growing SME lending, RBS continues to be the number one bank for SMEs.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, one of the key problems at the moment in the British economy is not about lending but quite the opposite—businesses are sitting on cash mountains, particularly large corporations and even medium-sized and some small businesses. We need now to liberate that cash so it is invested and drives this economy forward. Is not the good news economically at the moment the exact trigger for those businesses to do just that?
Lord Popat
I agree with my noble friend. In fact, we are returning to consumer and business confidence. The figures this morning from the OECD show that our growth forecast has gone up from 0.6% to 1.4% for 2013 and 2.4% for 2014. My noble friend is quite correct that a large number of SMEs are holding cash in their banks. A lot of them are also risk averse, or were until recently, and hence are not borrowing that much money from the banks.
Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Statutory Instruments
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Chairman of Committees
That Baroness Humphreys be appointed a member of the Joint Committee in place of Lord Avebury, resigned.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, in the spirit of restoration and renewal, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Motor Vehicles (International Circulation) (Amendment) Order 2013
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Kramer
That the draft order laid before the House on 17 October be approved.
Relevant document: 12th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 12 November.
National Health Service (Approval of Licensing Criteria) Order 2013
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Inheritance and Trustees’ Powers [HL]
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
That it be an instruction to the Special Public Bill Committee to which the Inheritance and Trustees’ Powers Bill [HL] has been committed that it considers the Bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 6, Schedule 2, Clause 7, Schedule 3, Clauses 8 to 11, Schedule 4, Clause 12.
NHS: Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat a Statement made earlier today in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health on the Government’s response to Robert Francis’s report on Mid Staffordshire Hospital. The Statement is as follows.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about the Government’s response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry.
Let me start by paying tribute to the men and women of courage without whom this darkest episode in the history of the NHS would never have come to light: people like Julie Bailey and members of Cure the NHS, who stood outside the Department of Health in all weathers because no one would meet them to hear about the inhumane care given to their loved ones; brave whistleblowers like Mid Staffs nurse Helene Donnelly; and campaigners who suffered tragedies elsewhere, like James Titcombe, who never gave up the fight after losing his son, Joshua, at Morecambe Bay. They suffered greatly for their selfless determination to make sure that their personal losses were not in vain. All of us in this House today are humbled to stand in the shadow of their bravery.
Robert Francis and his team also deserve huge credit. Their diligence and thoughtfulness led to an outstanding report which will transform our NHS for the better. Finally, let me pay tribute to all NHS front-line staff, for whom reading about these events in the media has been immensely distressing. We owe it to them to make sure that poor care is never again allowed to take root and survive unchallenged in our NHS.
Since our initial response to the inquiry in March, much has happened. Thirteen hospitals have been put into special measures as part of a tough new failure regime. Those hospitals, where poor care had been allowed to persist, are now being turned around, and I thank the Keogh inquiry team for its painstaking work in this area.
Independent, Ofsted-style ratings of hospitals are under way, led by Professor Sir Mike Richards, the new Chief Inspector of Hospitals. The first 18 trusts are currently being inspected, with quality of care and safety paramount. We have appointed new Chief Inspectors of Adult Social Care and General Practice, whose robust inspections of care homes, domiciliary care and surgeries start next year. Surgical survival rates for 10 major specialties have been published by individual surgeons, making the NHS a world leader in transparency.
Today, the Government are publishing their further response to the inquiry as well as our response to the Health Select Committee’s report on the inquiry. Both these responses have been laid before Parliament.
The NHS is a moral being or it is nothing. It was set up 65 years ago with the noble ideal that no one should ever be prevented by background or finances from accessing the best care. That is why it remains the most loved British institution, and rightly so. But each and every case of poor care betrays those worthy aims. I do not want simply to prevent another Mid Staffs; I want our NHS to be a beacon across the world not just for its equity but its excellence. I want it to offer the safest, most compassionate and most effective care available anywhere, and I believe it can.
But that is only if there is a profound transformation of the culture in the NHS. The inquiry shows the devastating effects of overly defensive responses: hurting families, suppressing the truth and preventing lessons being learnt. Failure cannot be addressed when it is covered up, so today I am announcing new measures to promote a culture of openness and transparency.
From 2014, every organisation registered with the CQC will have a statutory duty of candour. Patients must be told promptly about any avoidable harm, but there will be a statutory requirement to notify any harm that has led to avoidable death or serious injury.
We will consult on whether hospitals that are found not to have been open and transparent with patients or families at the earliest reasonable opportunity should risk having their indemnity from litigation awards reduced or removed by the NHS Litigation Authority. The signal must go out loud and clear to all clinicians: if in doubt, report an incident and tell the patient.
The professional regulators have agreed to place a new, strengthened professional duty of candour on all doctors and nurses. Failing to inform a patient, not reporting avoidable harm, or obstructing someone else seeking to do so will be subject to sanctions, including being struck off.
Inspired by the airline industry, this duty will cover “near misses”—occasions when mistakes were made that could have led to harm and from which we need to learn. Conversely, prompt reporting may be considered as a mitigating factor in a professional conduct hearing. This is not about penalising staff for making mistakes; it is about enabling them to learn from them. The NHS will adopt a culture of learning, as recommended by Don Berwick and his expert committee. I thank them for their seminal report.
A culture of openness also means learning from complaints. In line with the recommendations of the right honourable Member for Cynon Valley and Professor Tricia Hart’s excellent review, all patients will be able to access independent help in making their complaint, with clear signs in every ward explaining how to do so; the Chief Inspector of Hospitals will inspect complaints handling to establish whether trusts are genuinely seeking to understand and learn from them; every quarter, trusts will publish the number of complaints received and the lessons learnt; and the Health Service Ombudsman will dramatically increase the number of cases that she looks at.
It is impossible to deliver safe care without safe staffing levels. All hospitals will be required to monitor their staffing levels on a ward-by-ward basis, analysing precisely how many shifts meet safe staffing guidelines. By the end of next year, this will be done using models independently approved by NICE. No hospital will be able to conceal unsafe staffing from the public because from next June all these data, both at ward and hospital level, will be published alongside other safety data on a new NHS safety website, triggering CQC action if there is cause for concern.
Things are already changing for the better and I am pleased to report that trusts are planning to recruit an additional 3,700 nurses compared to a year ago. However, we need to go further to train and motivate staff, particularly healthcare assistants and social care support workers who perform so much vital care. Healthcare assistants and social care support workers will be required to have a new care certificate to ensure that no one is ever asked to perform personal care without adequate training, whether in hospitals or care homes. The title “nursing assistant” will be used widely in hospitals and paths to nursing careers will be improved. I thank Camilla Cavendish for her excellent work in this area. We also need to broaden the talent pool going into NHS management positions, in particular attracting more clinicians and those with good external experience. We have introduced a fast-track leadership programme, sending 50 people a year to a world-leading business school, followed by time shadowing top NHS chief executives.
Robert Francis correctly highlighted the failure of regulatory systems to identify quickly what happened at Mid Staffs. Subsequently it has become clear that Ministers put pressure on regulators which may have led them to tone down news about poor care. This is totally unacceptable, so we will strengthen the statutory independence surrounding reports into care quality. The chief inspector will be the nation’s whistleblower-in-chief and nothing must ever be allowed to stand in his way. The CQC can prosecute when fundamental standards are breached. Trusts put into special measures will have a strictly limited time to get their house in order before administration is considered. Foundation trusts in special measures will have their autonomy suspended and action will be taken to ensure that they quickly improve. No trust will be able to progress to foundation status unless they are rated good or outstanding.
Proper accountability must be at the heart of the NHS. I have therefore accepted Professor Don Berwick’s recommendation of legal sanctions for those found guilty of wilful neglect or ill treatment. There will be a new criminal offence for care providers that supply or publish false or misleading information. A new “fit and proper persons” test will enable the CQC to bar unfit directors from boards. Every hospital patient should have the names of a responsible consultant and nurse above their bed. Starting with over-75s from next April, there will be a named accountable clinician for out-of-hospital care for all vulnerable older people.
One of the most chilling accounts in the Francis report came from Mid Staffs employees who considered such care to be “normal”. Cruelty became normal in our NHS and no one noticed. The Francis report made 290 recommendations. I accept the principles behind all of them and, wherever possible, have adopted the practical solutions suggested by the inquiry.
Robert Francis himself has welcomed today’s announcement as a carefully considered and thorough response to his recommendations, which he says will contribute greatly towards a new culture of caring and making our hospitals safer places for their patients.
Today’s measures are a blueprint for restoring trust in the NHS, reinforcing professional pride in NHS front-line staff and, above all, giving confidence to patients that after Mid Staffs the NHS has listened and learnt and will not rest until it is delivering the safest, most effective and most compassionate care anywhere in the world. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as chairman of an NHS foundation trust, president of GS1 and a consultant and trainer with Cumberlege Connections. I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. What happened at Mid Staffs was a betrayal of the NHS and its values. The previous Government rightly apologised, but now is the time to back our words with action. That is why, in welcoming much of what has been said, I would like to press the Minister on where we feel we would have gone further and question why, of the 290 recommendations from Francis, 86 are not being implemented in full.
First, I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Ann Clwyd, Professor Patricia Hart, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, Camilla Cavendish, Professor Don Berwick and of course Sir Robert Francis. Between them they have given us proposals that will help to prevent a repeat and, more importantly, change the whole of the NHS for the better. Both Francis reports found three primary and fundamental causes of what went wrong: a failure to listen to patients; a lack of properly trained staff; and a dysfunctional culture. I shall turn to each of those.
First, I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that patients and their families must always, as Francis recommended, be the first priority for the NHS. Was Francis not right to recommend that the NHS constitution and the ethos that it sets out should be required reading for all NHS staff? I congratulate the Minister on agreeing to implement the Clwyd review in full and change the way that the NHS handles complaints.
Secondly, there is the issue of staffing numbers and training. The first Francis report found that Mid Staffs made dangerous cuts to staffing over a short period. I welcome the Government’s new focus on this issue, but is it not the case that nurse to patient ratios across the NHS have got significantly worse in the past three years, with nearly 6,000 fewer nurses, more older patients in hospital and bed occupancy running at record levels?
It is encouraging that the NHS plans to recruit more nurses and is introducing more monitoring and transparency. The Secretary of State says that things are already changing for the better, but is the Minister aware that Monitor, the economic regulator of the NHS, has warned that trusts are planning major nurse redundancies in the 2014-16 period, far outweighing any increase planned this year? Will the Government intervene to stop that? Further, why have the Government stopped short of requiring safe staffing levels? Is the Minister aware that nurse training places have been severely cut in recent years and that many NHS trusts and foundation trusts are now being forced to recruit from overseas?
Alongside nursing, more action is needed to raise standards across the caring workforce. As Robert Francis has said, it is unacceptable that the security guard at the door of the hospital is more regulated and subject to professional sanctions than the healthcare assistant attending to an elderly patient. The development of the care certificate, as proposed by Camilla Cavendish, is a step forward, but will it not work only alongside a register of those who hold it and with an ability to remove it if they fall short? What happens if a member of staff employed as a care assistant in an NHS hospital has indeed obtained a care certificate but is then found to be wholly unsatisfactory to carry out a care assistant’s work? What happens to the certificate? Surely we need to go back to the Robert Francis recommendation of a system of regulation for healthcare assistants. Will the Government reconsider this decision and at least commit to keeping it under review?
On culture change, Robert Francis’s central proposal is a new duty of candour on organisations and individuals. It is not entirely clear how an organisational duty alone will help individuals challenge an organisation where there is a dysfunctional culture. Is it not the case that an individual duty, as proposed by Francis, is needed? The point comes over very clearly from the evidence given to Francis from a senior, soon to be retired consultant. He said:
“I took the path of least resistance … There were also veiled threats at the time that I shouldn’t rock the boat at my stage in life”.
It is only when an individual is both required to speak out and protected in doing so that the House can say that it has done enough to safeguard patients.
The duty of openness and transparency should apply equally to all organisations providing NHS services, including, as Francis rightly recommended, contractors providing outsourced services. The Government are clearly bringing in more outside providers. Surely patients need reassurance that we do not have an uneven playing field where private providers face less scrutiny. Will the Government extend the duty of candour to all healthcare organisations as Francis proposes? The amendments to the Care Bill do not seem to make that clear. Should not the Minister commit to extending freedom of information law to any provider of NHS services and not allowing them to hide behind commercial confidentiality?
On openness, Francis made a direct call on the Government to set an example to the rest of the NHS. He said:
“risk assessments should be made public, and debated publically, before a proposal for any major structural change to the healthcare system is accepted”.
Given the Government’s claim to have accepted this recommendation, should they not show what they mean by finally publishing the risk register on the current reorganisation of the NHS?
Finally on openness, the NHS will be more accountable to families with a proper system of death certification. The House will recall that this was a core recommendation of Dame Janet Smith’s inquiry into the Shipman murders. The Francis recommendations on this are not all accepted in full. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me some reassurance on that.
I would also like to ask the Minister about the regulatory structure. I have raised with him before the question raised by Don Berwick in his very interesting report on patient safety, which the Government themselves commissioned. In that report he said:
“The current NHS regulatory system is bewildering in its complexity and prone to both overlaps of remit and gaps between different agencies. It should be simplified”.
He went on to say:
“The regulatory complexity that Robert Francis identified as contributing to the problems at Mid Staffordshire is severe and endures, and the Government should end that complexity”.
Has the Minister picked up on the comment made by the chair of the CQC to the Health Select Committee in October, where he said that responsibility for patient safety in the health service should be transferred back from NHS England to the Care Quality Commission? Will the Minister agree that that is the right thing to do?
Can I also ask about the impact of competition on patient safety? The Minister may well have seen reports at the weekend that there are proposals to centralise cancer services in first-class treatment centres in order to enhance the efficiency, safety and effectiveness of the treatments being offered. Is he as shocked as I am that there has been a challenge to those proposals on the basis that they may run against the competition rules set out in the regulations that the Minister brought to this House in relation to Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012? Will the Minister look into those circumstances?
Finally, can I ask about the National Patient Safety Agency? In his Statement, the Minister referred to the fact that there will be a duty on staff to report near misses. He will be aware that the previous Government established the National Patient Safety Agency to allow staff to report those near misses. Is he as concerned as I am that the abolition of the NPSA and the transfer of the listening and reporting function to NHS England may, in itself, act as an inhibitor to staff feeling confident in reporting those safety incidents?
Finally, does the Minister believe—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this does not eat into Back-Bench time. I think I am quite at liberty to ask as many questions as I like. Perhaps the party opposite would do me the courtesy of actually listening to the questions. Let me say finally—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am very happy to carry on. We have 20 minutes for Front-Bench questions and answers, and I have not yet taken half that time. I am quite happy to go on but, of course, I want to give the Minister time to respond as well. Perhaps some noble Lords will read the Companion to see what the rules are.
Finally, is primary legislation needed to implement any of these recommendations? I say to the Minister that if that is so, we on this side will certainly co-operate on a cross-party basis to enable those recommendations to be implemented in full.
Earl Howe
My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Lord’s very positive comments about the various reviews that have been commissioned in recent months. I am glad that he agrees that, in broad terms, the Government are on the right lines in accepting the recommendations that have come forward.
The noble Lord asked a number of questions, the first of which was about why we have not implemented all the recommendations of Robert Francis in full. Most of the recommendations have been accepted in principle, in part or—in the main—in their entirety. In some cases, we are taking an alternative approach to that suggested in the inquiry if we believe it is likely to be more effective in reaching the intended outcome. In total, we have rejected just nine of the 290 recommendations and where recommendations have been rejected, a full response outlining the reasons for doing so and the alternative action that organisations are taking is provided in our system-wide response.
The noble Lord asked about the regulation of healthcare assistants, a matter to which we return at regular intervals in this House. I assure him that the Government keep this issue under regular review but, for the time being, our view is to tackle the key issue at its root, focusing on making sure that healthcare support workers have the right training, values, support and leadership to provide the high-quality care that we all want patients to receive. We are committed to ensuring that this part of the workforce receives high-quality and consistent training. We have commissioned Skills for Care and Skills for Health, as the noble Lord knows, to develop a code of conduct and minimum training standards. We have also announced the development of a care certificate, which I am sure will be particularly welcome to a number of my noble friends.
The noble Lord asked me about a situation in which employers might find that a healthcare assistant or social care support worker no longer met the standards required by the care certificate. In that event, Health Education England and the sector skills council will set out in guidance the requirements for ensuring that appropriate retraining is given or other disciplinary action is taken. The guidance will be that the worker in question should not work unsupervised until the problem has been resolved and the employer is confident that their care certificate remains valid. Of course, if a healthcare assistant is found to have harmed patients or have been a serious risk to patients, the Disclosure and Barring Service needs to be considered as the ultimate remedy to make sure that that person does not put patients at risk in future. However, that is an extreme situation, which I believe will not be the norm.
The noble Lord referred to the nurse numbers. In the last spending review, the NHS budget was protected in real terms, with cash funding rising by £12.7 billion by 2014-15. Alongside that, Health Education England has been working with NHS trusts to develop the overall workforce plan for England for next year, reflecting the strategic commissioning intentions. That work indicates that a number of trusts have already increased their nurse staffing levels during the current year and others are planning to do so, as I mentioned in the Statement. Initial plans indicate that trusts intend to employ an increase of more than 3,700 nurses this year.
Moving to staff ratios, nursing leaders have been clear—indeed, there is a letter in today’s Times about this—that hospitals should publish staffing details and the evidence to show that staff numbers are right. However, we do not think that prescribing a rigid set of rules from the centre is the right way forward. The National Quality Board and the Chief Nursing Officer are publishing a guidance document that sets out current evidence on safe staffing. By next summer, NICE will produce independent, authoritative, evidence-based guidance on safe staffing and review and endorse associated tools for setting safe staffing levels in acute settings. From next April, by June at the latest, NHS trusts will publish ward-level information on whether they are meeting their staffing requirements. A review every six months will allow for those staffing levels to be quality assured.
On the issue of candour, we have had a number of debates on this subject, both during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act and, more recently, in the Care Bill, and I believe that we have reached a place for which this House can take some credit because the Government have moved a considerable distance from their original position. We agree with Don Berwick’s intention that professional regulators are in the best position to strengthen the duty of candour for individual professionals working in a hospital. Of course, the duty of candour applies to the corporate entity but the GMC and the NMC will be working with the other regulators to agree consistent approaches to candour and the reporting of errors, including a common responsibility to be candid with patients when mistakes occur, whether serious or not, and clear guidance that professionals who seek to obstruct others in raising concerns or in being candid would be in breach of their professional responsibilities. The professional regulators will issue new guidance to make it clear that it is the responsibility of professionals to report near misses for errors that could have led to death or serious injury as well as actual harm, and they must do so at the earliest opportunity. We will seek advice from experts on how to improve the reporting of patient safety incidents, including whether the threshold for the statutory duty of candour should include moderate harm.
The noble Lord referred to the NPSA. He is right that the NPSA’s function of reporting safety incidents has transferred to NHS England, into which the National Reporting and Learning System has been absorbed. I do not see that transfer as, in any way, inhibiting staff confidence in reporting safety incidents. The essence of the system remains as it always has been.
The noble Lord asked about the responsibility for patient safety being transferred back to the CQC. I am sure that, on reflection, he will agree that patient safety is everybody’s business. In part, it is the business of the CQC but, above all, it is the business of those who work in the NHS. It is the business of trust boards and of commissioners. It is also very much the business of those whose job it is to look at the performance of the NHS on behalf of patients—chiefly Healthwatch, but also patient organisations. Therefore one cannot single out an individual organisation as taking sole responsibility for this.
I will write to the noble Lord about the Freedom of Information Act. However, he should not forget that the standard contract that the NHS operates binds anyone who provides services to the NHS into certain contractual terms, and the disclosure of relevant information is a part of that.
On death certification, the noble Lord asked me about medical examiners. We agree that they must be independent of the deceased person and their medical practitioner. That is because medical examiners need to carry out independent scrutiny of the medical circumstances and cause of apparently natural deaths to make sure that the right deaths are notified or referred to a coroner. However, we need to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of medical examiners to carry out this work, particularly in rural areas, so appointees are likely to have some sort of professional relationship with local care providers. Therefore the draft death certification regulations for medical examiners do not require that medical examiners are independent of the organisation whose patients’ deaths are being scrutinised. However, we are mindful of the need for a greater level of independence within the spirit of this recommendation and the Government will review how they can include further safeguards on this front.
The noble Lord suggested that the NHS constitution was not the right means of changing the culture of the NHS, and I agree with him. However, declaratory statements in the constitution are an important part of signalling to the NHS its vision and values in the broadest terms, and the duties that people should feel they are under. The values, rights and pledges set out in the NHS constitution form the basis of everything the NHS does. NHS England, Health Education England, the department and CCGs are developing a joint strategy to embed the constitution further, as we promised they would during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act.
On the system that we have put in place and the complexity that the noble Lord sees in that system, I say, simply, that the system we now have is more transparent than the one we had before. Accountabilities are clear, responsibility is clearly placed where it should be and it is backed by robust lines of accountability, including to Ministers and Parliament.
I hope that that answers most of the noble Lord’s questions, but I will of course write to him if I have omitted anything.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches welcome both the Francis report and the Government’s Statement. In particular, we welcome the importance of openness, transparency and access to information to ensure that there is a change in culture. Can the Minister confirm that the new care certificate will be an NVQ qualification so that the public can be confident that staff have the right skills and training? We would also welcome registration and regulation for those staff in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to earlier. Can the Minister also confirm that when complaints and other items have to be published, it will not be as a few lines in an annual report but on the web, and that it will easily accessible by patients and the public?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I very much agree with the spirit of my noble friend’s questions. Certainly as regards complaints, the public should have a clear view of the nature of the complaints that have been registered with a particular organisation. They should be able to have a sense of what those complaints relate to and what action the organisation has taken to address the matter in question.
On my noble friend’s first point, we are currently working through the question of the care certificate and will seek advice. It is important to arrive at an agreed formula that gives the maximum assurance, both to care assistants and to those they look after, that basic standards of training have been learnt and are being adhered to. It is important to define as closely as we can what we mean by that, and as soon as we have further details we will announce them.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, and I welcome the Government’s comments on the Francis report. I apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lady Emerton, the matron, who is not here today as she is unwell, and also my noble friend—he is a friend, although he sits on the wrong Benches—Lord Willis. He cannot be here because he has been asked to undertake the duties of my noble friend Lady Emerton. They asked me to represent their views—which I will not do, because I would get them wrong, but perhaps I may make my own comments. I realise I am not allowed the same time as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, had. That is a pity, because I have much to say about the Statement.
I welcome the statutory requirement to give notification of any harm or serious misses that have happened. During my time as chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency I tried to get that into statute and failed; it was not under the current Government, but that does not matter. I am therefore delighted that this will be a statutory requirement. The important thing is that, as Don Berwick said, this is about learning; reporting by itself is not enough. The Minister referred to the airline industry, which learns from what has happened by doing root-cause analysis. We need that system established in the NHS if we are to learn from avoidable harm and near misses. Whose responsibility will it be to do that, and how will that expertise be gained?
On staffing ratios, the Minister knows that if my noble friend Lady Emerton had been here she would have asked about ratios of trained to untrained staff. Now that there will be a new care certificate to ensure training for all care assistants and nursing assistants, which I welcome, she would have asked for regulation. However, we have passed that stage, and I welcome the fact that there will be a new care certificate following the training. Why, however, is all this to be only for hospitals? What about care homes? Why were care homes excluded from reporting on staffing ratios?
Lord Patel
The Statement refers particularly to hospitals. They will have to report on staffing ratios, but it did not say that care homes will have to do that.
Earl Howe
I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am in complete agreement with him on his first point. The best thing might be for me to read out a very short passage from Professor Don Berwick, who said:
“The best keys to health care safety do not lie in blame, or regulation, or punishment, but rather in learning, support, and encouragement to the health care staff, the vast majority of whom are dedicated to excellence in care.
Leaders who aim for safe and effective care have a duty to supply the workforce with the tools, knowledge and encouragement to do the work that adds meaning to their lives”.
We have attempted, as far as we can, to make that philosophy the guiding principle of our response on patient safety. We do not want to create a blame culture; we want to create a culture that encourages everybody to feel ownership of the work that they do, and to feel well led. That is the other side of the coin to the culture that we have spoken about in other debates about innovation—about making innovation everybody’s business in an organisation. It comes down, in the end, to good leadership.
We are not insisting that every organisation should carry out root-cause analysis. On the other hand, we are saying that it is the business of trust boards to make complaints, mistakes, and lapses in patient safety central to their work and to the scrutiny that they undertake of their organisations, and for those matters to be discussed openly and resolved openly.
As regards care homes, as I said, we have commissioned NICE to work through the guidance that will underpin safe staffing. It is not yet apparent whether that will cover care homes and it is difficult to see how it could do so because care homes are clearly very different organisations from acute trusts. On the other hand, we expect the CQC to have some way of judging whether a care home can call itself safe. We will certainly look at the noble Lord’s points as we carry that work stream forward.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure it will be welcome to patients and their families that the name of a responsible consultant will now be above the patient’s bed, but will the noble Earl say a bit more about the new attention to 75 year-olds that has been promised? In the extensive leaks of the Government’s response over the weekend, GPs were definitely named as the people who would be responsible for the over-75s. The Statement refers to “a named accountable clinician”. Is there a difference between the two?
Earl Howe
Yes. There were no leaks. The report that the noble Baroness saw was a report on the new GP contract that we announced at the end of last week. That was legitimate reporting by the press of an element of the new contract for next year, when we want all NHS patients over the age of 75 to have a named, accountable GP. However, we are saying in this response that every patient in a hospital setting should know who their consultant is, and therefore that there should be a named responsible consultant for every hospital patient. The two issues are, therefore, related but different.
Lord Mawhinney (Con)
My Lords, the Statement said that the NHS has to be a moral organisation or it is nothing. I am sure that my noble friend carried the whole House with him when he said that. Therefore, the raft of changes and the new legal accountability that will come in next year are very welcome in their own right as they will bolster that concept. However, how is it that no individual or individuals have been held accountable for the tragedy and disaster at Mid Staffordshire? I know that my noble friend keeps saying, on behalf of the Government, that they do not want to encourage a blame culture, but will he explain to your Lordships’ House how we can have an accountability structure without any blame attached?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the trust board at Mid Staffs was ultimately responsible, and individuals on it have been replaced. That was the first step in holding the system to account. We are introducing strengthened accountability for the future, including a fit and proper persons test for directors, as well as a single-failure regime triggered by failures in care. We have also appointed a Chief Inspector of Hospitals with power to ensure that the system acts quickly to tackle unacceptable care. In a range of ways I hope that we have addressed the central point in my noble friend’s question, which is very well placed.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, I am pleased to hear about the transparency and the duty of candour, but will the noble Earl give the House an assurance that patients will be listened to? I am thinking about the young man who implored staff for a drink, and even telephoned the police on his mobile, but was ignored by staff. This was not Mid Staffordshire but a London teaching hospital. Further, will staff be protected when they blow the whistle? Will the noble Earl give an assurance that they will not lose their jobs?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I completely agree with the noble Baroness that the voice of the patient is an essential part of maintaining a culture of safety in the NHS. Improving the way in which the NHS manages and responds to complaints will be critical in shaping a culture that listens to patients and learns from them and ending a culture of defensiveness or, at worst, a culture of denial about poor care. That is why we welcome and accept the spirit of the review of the NHS hospital complaints system by Ann Clwyd MP and Professor Tricia Hart and the principles behind their recommendations.
On whistleblowers, the amendments to the NHS constitution have enhanced the protection for whistleblowers, but we are not complacent and we are already considering whether there is a need for more developments both to protect whistleblowers and to ensure that action is taken, where necessary, in response to concerns. We are looking, with the national regulators, at how whistleblowing concerns are dealt with at the moment and, where appropriate, we will introduce improvements to systems in the future.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree (Con)
My Lords, much of what my noble friend has said has given us satisfaction, but it is perfectly true, as we have already been reminded, that troubles were going on not only in the Mid Staffordshire area but all over the place. It is also true that it is not just the whistleblowers who warned time and time again about what was going on and who should have been listened to. I spent four or five years raising cases of people who had written to me. On one occasion I presented the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, with a dossier of some 25 cases, all of which had been checked very carefully. All the details were correct, all the patients, or their relatives, had given permission for these cases to be raised and they were raised in this House. I am not blaming the noble Lord for failing to take these cases forward, or failing to listen to the arguments put out clearly in this House, because I think that he passed them on, but they were never properly investigated.
It is upsetting that for such a long period warnings were being given and were allowed somehow to filter into the ground and away, or into the past. I particularly warned about the practice, which was fairly unknown at that time, of failing to feed patients because food was put too far away from them and other examples. I worry about the people who suffered for those long years when something could have been done if those responsible at the grass roots had taken care of what was being said in this House. I beg the Minister not to leave aside the really serious point that cases raised with great sincerity and truth in this House should be regarded and not just pushed aside in the future.
Earl Howe
My Lords, my noble friend should be listened to with great care. Of course, I remember those cases. I was not the Minister in charge at the time she submitted those cases to the Department of Health, but she shared them with me, and I share her concerns, which are, of course, directly relevant to the matters we are discussing today. We have the new duty of candour and in April the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act strengthened the main whistleblowing legislation introduced by the Public Interest Disclosure Act so that an individual who suffers harm from a co-worker as a result of blowing the whistle now has the right to expect their employer to take reasonable steps to stop this. The idea is to ensure that people do not feel intimidated from speaking up. The Care Quality Commission is using staff surveys and the whistleblowing concerns it receives as part of the data in its new intelligent monitoring system. That data will guide the CQC about which hospitals to inspect. Since September, the commission’s new inspection system includes discussions with hospitals about how they deal with whistleblowers and handle them.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the General Medical Council. In no way do I speak on its behalf today, but it is obvious from the remarks that the Minister has made that the GMC has been working with the Government and other regulators and is committed to underlining professional responsibilities, particularly in relation to the duty of candour. That work will, of course, continue. On a personal level, I welcome the return to naming the consultant and the nurse responsible for an individual patient. It is emblematic of that personal sense of responsibility and accountability for patient welfare.
In respect of the new complaints procedure, as the Minister said, the care of patients and their safety are the responsibility of not only the named consultant and nurse but everybody in that institution. Does he agree that there is also a particular responsibility on the trust’s non-executive directors in that respect and that the new system should ensure that they are taking their responsibilities seriously? I know from decades ago, when I chaired the complaints panel at a London teaching hospital, that that resource, in terms not only of the ability to protect patients but of improving efficiency and the quality of care by understanding complaints, was a treasure trove that should not be abandoned.
Earl Howe
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, who of course has immense experience in these fields. I agree with her in particular about the role of the non-executive director. If an organisation has what may look like quite a high number of complaints, it should be regarded as a sign of openness, transparency and the right kind of culture in that organisation. It is only where suspiciously low numbers of complaints have been recorded that alarm bells should start ringing. I agree that boards of directors, led and encouraged in this area by the non-executives, should make it a central part of their business to analyse complaints and make sure that they have been followed through, not just that the matters have individually been remedied but that any systemic issue has been properly addressed.
Energy Bill
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Energy Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Clause 3: Further duties of the Secretary of State
Amendment 1
Baroness Worthington
“(9) Where carbon intensity of electricity generation is reported to have increased year on year for not longer than three consecutive years, starting from the date of Royal Assent, the Secretary of State shall report to both Houses of Parliament, setting out both the reasons for the increase and the additional actions that will be taken to reverse this increase in carbon intensity.”
Baroness Worthington (Lab)
My Lords, during our scrutiny we have come to know this Bill as the “decarbonisation Bill” as it has passed through this House. It has been referred to in that way by a number of noble Lords and it is a reasonable description. The Bill represents a significant intervention in the electricity market that is justified on the basis that it will help to decarbonise our electricity system. Noble Lords will be aware that we have had lengthy discussions about the setting of a decarbonisation target in the Bill in order to give that clarity of purpose and to create a responsibility on the Government to deliver through the powers that they are taking. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in bringing forward the setting of a date for the setting of such a target. However, on Report the Minister was kind enough to give a partial concession in relation to the Government’s commitment to monitoring carbon intensity and to acting if carbon intensity remained high. The concession was that, should carbon intensity rise year on year for three consecutive years, the Government would report to Parliament, setting out why this was the case and the additional actions that would be taken to counteract that increase.
The concession is welcome. It is not a replacement for a carbon intensity target by any means, partly because carbon intensity is currently at an astonishingly high level. This is because the merit order currently favours inefficient old coal plant over more efficient, cleaner gas stations. Therefore, currently carbon intensity is higher than would otherwise be the case. Intensity seems unlikely to increase. If it did, something would be seriously awry with government policy. The concession, while welcome, does not go far enough but I should hate to lose it. The purpose of this amendment is to place that commitment in the Bill to introduce into it a measurement of progress and a mechanism through which the Government will report back to the House on that progress and take corrective action.
It is fair to say that the interventions in this Bill and the powers that are given to the Secretary of State are so extensive that they ought to be matched with responsibility and a system of holding the Government to account to see that they are delivering. The measure of progress should be carbon intensity, the issue the Bill seeks to address. Therefore, I hope the Minister will accept this amendment in the spirit of enhancing that important part of the Bill that justifies why it has been introduced and the powers that have been taken. I beg to move.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, this is a worthy amendment. However, Parliament is grown-up enough for those of us who are interested in these issues and see them as really important to notice what happens and seek answers from the Secretary of State and the Government about carbon intensity. The issue is important but the amendment adds little to the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for tabling the amendment. The Government fully support the aim of clear and transparent reporting. However, like my noble friend Lord Teverson, I do not think it necessary to introduce an additional statutory reporting requirement to the Bill as the noble Baroness proposes. I shall set out quickly the reasons.
First, as the noble Baroness recognises, at Report I made a commitment to Parliament that the Government would undertake reporting measures once any decarbonisation target range had been set. This would supplement those reporting measures that are already included within Part 1 of the Bill. I repeat what I said on Report, which was that,
“where carbon intensity is reported to have increased year on year for three consecutive years, the Government will explain the reasons why, and, where appropriate, report additional actions to address it within the annual statement of grid carbon intensity”.—[Official Report, 28/10/13; col. 1366.]
Secondly, it is important to recognise that, under the Climate Change Act 2008, there are already high levels of scrutiny of the progress made to meet our economy-wide carbon targets. This includes coverage of the power sector within the context of our wider economy. For example: the Government currently report annually on emissions in the power sector through the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory; the Committee on Climate Change publishes an independent and impartial report each year on our progress towards meeting our carbon budgets and the 2050 target; the Government provide annual responses to the committee’s recommendations, which include a dedicated chapter on the power sector; and the Government publish updated energy and emissions projections each year, setting out the future trajectory we anticipate the economy taking.
Lastly, the amendment proposes that these reporting measures start from the date of Royal Assent. The Government’s view is that it is logical for any additional reporting measures to be triggered by the setting of a decarbonisation target range rather than by the enactment of the Bill. That would ensure alignment with the existing reporting framework that is already included in Clause 3, and we should not forget that we already report on grid carbon intensity ahead of any decarbonisation target range being set. Section 5 of the Energy Act 2010 requires a three-yearly report to Parliament on progress in decarbonising electricity generation. That report sets out the policy framework and explains trends in grid carbon intensity over the reporting period.
In conclusion, the Government are already proposing a clear and robust target framework that includes regular reporting on progress in meeting any target range. That is in addition to the high levels of scrutiny that are already in place to meet our economy-wide carbon targets. For those reasons, it would be unnecessary to introduce another statutory reporting requirement. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree with me that the existing commitments are sufficient and will, on that basis, withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Worthington
I am grateful to the Minister for her response and for the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I agree that we are all mature in looking at these things and that people who scrutinise and follow this in detail will raise issues as they occur. However, something is clearly not working, otherwise why is it that carbon intensity has been allowed to rise to such high levels recently with the Government apparently incapable of acting to bring it down? Obviously, many factors play into that, but the whole purpose of the Bill is to bring some of those factors under greater control and to allow the Government to intervene in the market to create contracts for difference that bring forward investment in the low-carbon economy that would not otherwise be supported by the market.
There is a problem, given that carbon intensity remains stubbornly high; the measure of the success of the Bill will be that starting to fall. It is regrettable that the Government are not prepared to start monitoring that or reporting on it, in terms of actively managing it, until 2016, which is a number of years away. I understand that the Bill has existing requirements on reporting carbon intensity, and that it is routinely reported now, so I am happy to withdraw, but this is something we need to keep a close eye on. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and others will join me in ensuring that we do just that.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
My Lords, Part 2, which is really the heart of the Energy Bill, contains all the proposals for the reform of the electricity market. Chapter 3 of Part 2, in respect of which I am moving this amendment, deals with a very important part of the reform, the introduction of the capacity market. As the noble Baroness has just mentioned, that is of course designed to try to attract investment which the market might otherwise find it difficult to support. It is one of the measures that the Government are introducing, if I may put it crudely, to keep the lights on—to make sure we have enough generating capacity to keep the power flowing. At this stage of the Bill, I do not think it is necessary for me to start spelling out all the details of this, which have been very substantially debated at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report.
However, I think it right once again to draw the attention of the House to the fact that most of the detail of this is to be in regulations. We are hoping that the Bill will be Law before the end of the year—indeed, I hope well before the end of the year—and that the regulations will follow next year, and we are waiting for those. I have to say to my noble friend that the Government have been extremely good at producing drafts of what all the really important regulations would contain. It is a substantial document and I do not propose to read it out, but there is an enormous amount of detail in it and it is helpful for those who have to operate the new system to have that detail now.
Baroness Worthington
My Lords, we support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. Possibly it is merely an oversight that those who wish to become capacity providers are currently excluded from the list of consultees. As the noble Lord has explained, this part of the Bill is very important and should be open to new and independent players to attract them into the market. If all the capacity mechanism does is provide security to the existing incumbents, it will have failed in its aim to deliver capacity at least cost, with a good degree of competition enabling prices to be kept to the minimum. Given the context, it is an eminently sensible amendment and I really hope that the Minister will be able to support it.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Jenkin for his amendment. Both the electricity capacity regulations and the capacity market rules form the legal framework that will enable the introduction of the capacity market. The capacity market rules will be subsidiary to the regulations, for which the Secretary of State will continue to have responsibility.
Much of the content of the capacity market rules will comprise provisions of a technical and administrative nature, designed to supplement the regulations and ensure the efficient running of the capacity market; for example, the rules will set out how the delivery body is to conduct capacity auctions and the pre-qualification process, as well as its duties to maintain a capacity market register and carry out monitoring and testing.
Given the technical and administrative nature of the rules, we therefore expect changes usually to be of a minor and technical nature, with the primary purpose of ensuring the efficient operation of the capacity market. It is important to make the duty to consult on those changes proportionate, and to get the balance right between consulting widely and implementing the change within an appropriate timeframe.
Potential capacity providers may not necessarily be affected by a proposed rule change in the same way as existing capacity providers; for example, existing providers will have rights or obligations under the capacity market that might be affected by a change in the rules. I am therefore of the view that potential capacity providers should not be added as parties that the authority must consult on every proposed change.
Nevertheless, it is important that if the authority were to propose a significant change to the rules that affected a wider range of parties, consultation on that change should go beyond existing suppliers and capacity providers. I therefore reassure my noble friend that we expect the authority to consult more widely, as appropriate, for any significant changes to the rules that might affect a wider range of parties, such as prospective capacity providers. This is reflected in the draft electricity capacity regulations 2014, published for consultation in October, which would oblige the authority also to consult the Secretary of State, the delivery body and,
“such other persons as the Authority considers it appropriate to consult”.
The authority will be producing guidelines on the process it intends to follow for making changes to the capacity market rules, including its processes for consultation and for considering rule changes proposed by a third party. The authority intends to publish these draft guidelines next spring before finalising them, allowing all potential capacity providers the opportunity to comment on them.
I hope that my noble friend has been reassured that the consultation provision in the Bill is not exhaustive and that the authority can, and will, consult more widely where appropriate. I hope, therefore, that he will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the support from the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and it is very nice to know that if I had decided to divide on this I would have had her party with us. However, my noble friend has indeed been reassuring. I entirely accept that all these people should not be consulted on every minor change, but she has given us a clear assurance that, on anything of any significance, both the department and the regulator will consult all those who might reasonably expect to be affected. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Verma
Baroness Verma
My Lords, government Amendment 3 responds to a recommendation from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee regarding delegated powers in the capacity market. I am grateful to the committee for its recommendation and to my noble friend Lord Roper for raising it on Report. Amendment 3 will limit the powers of the authority to make capacity market rules and to confer additional functions on itself when exercising powers under Clause 34(3). It will do this by requiring the authority to obtain the Secretary of State’s consent on each occasion that it seeks to confer a function on itself when making capacity market rules. This will ensure that there is a sufficient level of oversight when the authority makes changes to the capacity market rules. I hope that my noble friend finds the explanation of my amendment helpful and I beg to move.
Lord Roper (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for having put forward this amendment which, as she says, follows the discussion that we had on Report and the report of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It is a most satisfactory amendment and, again, I thank the Minister for it.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
My Lords, after much debate in Committee and on Report we also welcome this further government amendment in response to the 11th report of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which was published at the end of October. It is indeed important that no blanket powers or consents should be given for making particular categories of rules.
Baroness Worthington
Baroness Worthington
My Lords, this amendment follows on from our discussion about the decarbonisation aspects of the Bill. Noble Lords will be aware that an important amendment was successfully added to the Bill at Report. It would close a current drafting loophole in the Bill that would allow old, inefficient, polluting coal stations to upgrade and seek extensive life extensions without the need to comply with any kind of emissions performance standard. This will now, of course, be debated in the Commons, and we look forward to seeing the results of that.
However, in succeeding in having this part of the Bill accepted, an interesting definitional issue has arisen. Bear with me as I try to explain it. The industrial emissions directive, which requires tightened quality standards to apply to coal stations from 2016, applies at a station level. A station is defined as “a common stack”, meaning a chimney that can be used by multiple units. This has interesting implications because the EPS limits can therefore be met by one unit upgrading to fit filters while another unit remains unabated but still operating unencumbered and at full capacity. Our intention in closing a loophole that could potentially extend coal’s life span to late into the next decade was that the EPS should apply at the same level at which the IED applies, meaning that if a station with four units decided to retrofit two of the four in order to comply with the IED, the station as a whole would then be caught by the EPS.
Lord Oxburgh (CB)
My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, is too modest. She has made it abundantly clear that clarity is needed in the legislation because, as the wording stands, simply part of an operating unit may be upgraded. I therefore hope that the Government can accept the amendment.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I welcome the amendment because clarification is needed—and, indeed, I thought that the explanation given by the noble Baroness was very good. I would be very interested to hear the Government’s view on how this issue should be resolved, as it is clearly important for the way in which the industry moves forward.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and I hope that I can add a little clarity on the matter she has raised. Under the existing provisions, and save for the circumstances provided for under Schedule 4, the EPS will apply to the entire generating capacity of any new fossil fuel power station consented after the EPS comes into force. For example, where planning consent is given for a new fossil fuel power station, the generating units that comprise the consented power station are, for the purposes of the EPS, the “generating station”.
A generating station will report its carbon emissions under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the intention is that those reports will be used to reconcile total carbon emissions in a year against the EPS limit for the generating station, which is calculated using the formula in the Bill—I hope that noble Lords are following me thus far.
In respect of the circumstances provided for under Schedule 4, paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 4 gives the Secretary of State a power to make regulations to apply the EPS to a generating station consented before the EPS came into effect where it replaces or installs an additional main boiler—so where it effectively adds to or renews its generating capacity.
Paragraph 1(1)(b)(iii) of Schedule 4, on which the Government were defeated on Report, would extend the scope of Schedule 4 to enable the Secretary of State to apply the EPS also to an existing generating station that fitted substantial pollution abatement equipment. The exercise of the power to make regulations under Schedule 4 is at the discretion of the Secretary of State, and it would be premature to comment on whether or how that power may be used.
Sub-paragraphs (1) and (2) of paragraph 1 of Schedule 4 together allow the EPS to be applied with or without modifications and to different parts of a generating station. For example, it could be applied to only those units that are new or have replacement boilers or to only those units that have fitted substantial pollution abatement equipment.
While I recognise that the proposed amendment may be one way of determining how the EPS will apply to fossil fuel plant, it does not cater for a wider range of circumstances in the way intended by Schedule 4. The regulation-making power in Schedule 4 provides for alternative approaches and, due to the potential complexities and impacts on existing assets were we minded in the future to exercise these powers, we would want to consult fully on possible options before making regulations. I believe that this would provide a more properly informed debate and I therefore ask the noble Baroness to take my reassurances at this stage and withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Worthington
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. Discretion gives flexibility but equally it gives a lack of certainty for industry. I am not quite sure why this proposal is premature as we need to give clarity to those affected by this Bill as soon as possible. It seems to me that in maintaining this discretion, we are prolonging lack of certainty for the industry. I think that it is very important that we do this consultation quickly and that we give clarity as soon as possible, whether that is through the regulations that follow or in a separate process. I am sure that there are many people sitting in boardrooms around the country looking at their assets, who need to know this information and need to know how the department is interpreting its powers.
If the department is minded to have an EPS apply only to the units which fit the filters that make the upgrade, that will have the very perverse affect of allowing unabated plant—the other corresponding units—to operate indefinitely at very high load factors. That is precisely what we are trying to avoid with this amendment. There is a very strong reason why we do not believe that discretion is necessary and why the definition should be at a plant level. However, I understand that the Government may wish to consult and to seek a little extra time before making this issue fully clear. I hope that that is completed in the shortest time possible, as prolonging uncertainty will make life harder for the industry and investors in deciding what their next move should be following the passage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) how the Authority shall incorporate social and environmental factors in carrying out its functions.”
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this amendment I remind the House that I am involved in a voluntary capacity in a number of NGOs concerned with the environment.
On Report, the Minister said that energy production and consumption should be sustainable. I remind the House of an important point made by my noble friend Lady Worthington, that we face a “quadlemma” in which we must tackle climate change, keep bills affordable and keep the lights on without sacrificing social and environmental standards in the process. It is very much in the spirit of this observation that I am pursuing this amendment.
On Report, the Minister helpfully reminded us that Ofgem has social and environmental duties and can consider sustainability when carrying out impact assessments for particular schemes. She also informed us that in future Ofgem’s forward planning must show how it will implement the new strategy and policy statement and that it must report annually on how it is contributing to the delivery of the Government’s policy outcomes. The Minister further explained that the Bill seeks to remove social and environmental guidance provision because it has,
“not achieved coherence between the Government’s energy strategy and the regulatory regime”.—[Official Report, 6/11/13; col. 263.]
She explained that it would be replaced by a strategy and policy statement setting out the Government’s strategic priorities. She emphasised that Ofgem must have regard to strategic priorities and carry out its functions in the way that it considers best calculated to deliver the policy outcomes, and argued that this would be a stronger obligation on Ofgem than existed in current guidance.
The Minister undertook to write a letter to me and place a copy in the Library of the House setting out precisely how the Government will satisfy themselves that Ofgem will pay due regard to the effect on the environment of activity connected with the conveyance of gas through pipes or the generation, transmission and distribution of supply of electricity, including what measures, benchmarks and associated matters will be taken into account and used in establishing those benchmarks. The Minister has indeed written to me and the letter is in the Library, and I am grateful for the detailed advice about Ofgem’s various duties and responsibilities. However, I am afraid that her letter failed to establish how social and environmental safeguards would be implemented, not weakened, by the Bill.
We seem to be in a circular argument. As I explained in some detail on Report, the strategic priorities set out in the Ofgem policy statement are functions to which the principal objective and general duty is applied. This duty is to be found in Section 4AA of the Gas Act 1986, with equivalent provisions in the Electricity Act 1989. These provisions make it clear that the principal objective is to protect the interests of existing and future customers of electricity and, wherever appropriate, to promote competition. They are not about social and environmental considerations.
Furthermore, the Bill has been set out in such a way that, should the Secretary of State decide to issue social and environmental guidance in future, it would be subordinate to Ofgem’s commercial responsibilities. I have taken into account counsel’s advice that the reality will be that if the Bill is enacted as the Government propose, the explicit responsibility to issue social and environmental guidance will disappear. There is nothing in the Minister’s letter that indicates how it will be replaced. To be crystal clear about this, it is not a requirement that the strategy and policy statement should cover social and environmental issues, which it should if the present level of protection is not to be significantly weakened. My own views remain unchanged: Ofgem’s social and environmental responsibilities will be weakened by this legislation. If that is not the Government’s intention, there should be a clear statement in the Bill that the Secretary of State will indeed provide social and environmental guidance to the regulator in the strategy and policy statement. This small amendment would achieve that.
Even at this stage, I ask the Government to think very carefully about this and ask themselves: where is the vision? What does the word “sustainability” really mean? What sort of environment do we want to be living in, in future? What of the incalculable psychological and emotional value of landscape and its contribution to national well-being? If the Government recognise the quadlemma to which my noble friend referred and wish to address it, what are they actually doing to avoid the gradual destruction of the natural environment in their pursuit of energy goals? If current policy is anything to go by—it all seems to be about streamlining development—the answer seems to be not a lot. In short, it seems to be the Government’s express intent to remove environmental safeguards in the quest for growth. I beg to move.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in his amendment. I declare my interests as listed in the register.
I have only one minor correction to make. It is very important to draw attention to the fourth leg of the quadlemma, but we should really be calling it a tetralemma if we are going to be consistent in Greek. It is important that the concerns that the noble Lord has raised, which are vital to communities all over the country, about the desecration of landscapes that is being visited on them should be taken seriously. I look forward very much to what I hope will be a reassuring reply from the Minister.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
One thing which seemed to be missing from the letter to which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred was the role of the Environment Agency. I have raised this before. There are two separate agencies. There is Ofgem, as the regulator, and then there is the Environment Agency, which has some very specific responsibilities in this direction. When my noble friend replies to the debate, I hope she will put this in context.
I totally understand the point that has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I will not use the Latin, but the trouble is that what you put into one list automatically excludes anything else. That is a canon of legal construction. My noble friend has made it very clear that when there was a list of people who would be looked after socially—the disabled and chronically sick, those of pensionable age, those on low incomes and those residing in rural areas—that should not be taken as implying that regard might not be had to the interests of other types of consumer. That statement was made by the Minister, obviously on advice, so that I think the social thing is all right, but I accept the point that my noble friend Lord Ridley has made. We need to make sure that the environment is properly protected, but I had always understood that that was primarily the responsibility of the Environment Agency and other similar organisations. I hope that my noble friend can put this into context.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, would like to record briefly my support for my noble friend’s amendment. The Minister’s letter is helpful, although I received it in a very roundabout way, but I do not think it goes far enough. There is a lot at stake here. Our environment is precious and is also vulnerable. Unless these safeguards are explicit in the way that my noble friend has drafted I am sure that they will come second to other considerations.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, one of the things that I certainly enjoy when I get up when I am at home is seeing a living countryside rather than the one bathed in aspic, as some of my colleagues sometimes talk about. It is great to see a countryside that is there alive helping to generate the power that we need for this country and for its economy to move forward. It is a great delight to me and to many of my colleagues.
Baroness Worthington
I support my noble friend’s amendment. Getting the regulator to incorporate social and environmental factors was a hard-fought battle. It would be a great shame if the passing of this Bill should see us going backwards on that front. I am grateful to the noble Viscount for the correction, although I prefer quadlemma, because we can then talk about the effect that Cuadrilla will have on the quadlemma. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for his amendment and for raising the matter of Ofgem’s social and environmental duties. I recognise the importance that the noble Lord and others attach to this. It is recognised in primary legislation, which sets out Ofgem’s duties, including those concerned with environmental sustainability and social issues. The noble Lord will be aware that Ofgem has other duties, including its principal objective to protect consumer interests, including their interest in a reduction of greenhouse gases and security of supply, as well as duties to promote efficiency and economy and the need to ensure that energy businesses are able to finance their activities.
The Government recognise that Ofgem’s role to a large extent is concerned with identifying what is an appropriate balance between all of those different objectives. This is a case of an independent economic regulator. The Government’s principles of economic regulation state that,
“regulatory decisions are taken by the body that has the legitimacy, expertise and capability to arbitrate between the required trade-offs”.
In the case of energy, that body is, of course, Ofgem.
We are introducing the strategy and policy statement as a result of the Ofgem review, which concluded that this was necessary to provide more coherence between the Government’s strategic energy priorities and the way Ofgem regulates the energy sector. It is crucial, however, that the statement should not undermine independent regulation. The review also concluded that Ofgem should remain responsible for the consideration of trade-offs between economic goals and broader goals, including social and environmental matters. That is why Ofgem will now have additional duties to take into account the contents of the statement when carrying out its own regulatory functions, which will stand alongside its existing duties. As before, Ofgem will be expected to continue to achieve the appropriate balances between its objectives.
The strategy and policy statement will set out the Government’s strategic policy and identify policy outcomes which are relevant to what Ofgem should achieve, but it will not specify how Ofgem should act to achieve these outcomes or specify outcomes in a way that would compromise Ofgem’s independence. It is not necessary to restate Ofgem’s objectives within the strategy and policy statement and it would not be appropriate to include text which could be seen as directing Ofgem on how it should interpret its duties.
I repeat my previous reassurances that we will take social and environmental matters into account when we draft the strategy and policy statement and that there will be opportunities for interested parties to comment on its contents when we consult next year. Both Houses will be able to consider the contents of the statement before it is designated.
My noble friend Lord Jenkin raised the role of the Environment Agency. Ofgem is a regulator of the energy sector and the strategy and policy statement is aimed at achieving coherence between government energy policy and regulatory actions. It is not aimed at doing the work of the Environment Agency which, as my noble friend rightly said, is a duty on that agency.
However, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and others have raised important points about visual amenity and other environmental concerns. Existing planning and environmental habitat legislation are operating in tandem with national policy guidance on planning matters. This provides the framework to ensure that this is done, and done properly. Environmental impacts are considered at all stages of the planning process, from the development of proposals by applicants, including, for example, through preparation of environmental statements, to consideration by the Planning Inspectorate and final determination and assessment by the Secretary of State. Environmental considerations are also taken into account when government are taking policy-making processes. Key guidance on considering planning for nationally significant infrastructure projects is contained in the national policy statements.
There is a lot already out there for Governments to utilise so, given all those reassurances, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, feels better reassured and will therefore withdraw his amendment.
Lord Judd
My Lords, as I have said before, I have no doubts whatever about the Minister’s good will. What I am concerned about is the muscle that will ensure the objectives for which I have been arguing. I listened carefully to the words of the Minister. I am of course an optimist by nature and I hope that what she said will lead to the right conclusions. I would, however, be misleading the House if I did not say that I have a profound sense of foreboding of another grim slide downwards in the character and quality of our countryside. This really is a profoundly serious issue. We shall see what happens but I hope I am allowed to say that I am absolutely confident that if this Government fail to reverse the trend, it will be reversed by the future Labour Government who, after all, will be the heirs to all that fine and imaginative legislation between 1945 and 1951 which enshrined the importance of the countryside in our national profile. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
“Secretary of State able to amend Authority’s powers after review
(1) If a formal review of the regulation of competition in the energy industry discloses that the Authority lacks the powers necessary to implement any changes recommended in that review, the Secretary of State may make regulations to amend the Authority’s powers so as to enable it to give effect to those changes.
(2) Regulations are to be made by statutory instrument.
(3) An instrument containing regulations which make provision falling within this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, this amendment is also in the names of my noble friend Lord Roper and the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Cameron of Dillington. I am very glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, back in his place; he sent me the first e-mail from Ethiopia that I have ever received, only a day or two ago. I cannot promise to be quite as brief with this amendment as I was with the previous one that I moved.
The House will remember that on 31 October my noble friend Lady Verma repeated a long Statement about the Government’s energy policy, made in the other place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey. Towards the end of that Statement, following an announcement made earlier in another place by the Prime Minister, Mr Davey gave further details of a proposal to set up,
“annual reviews of the state of competition in the energy markets”.
He referred to them as “competition assessments”, to be undertaken,
“by Ofgem, working closely with the Office of Fair Trading and the”,
newly established,
“Competition and Markets Authority, when it comes into being”.—[Official Report, 31/10/13; col. 1771.]
As noble Lords will be aware, there is now serious public mistrust of the way in which the regulatory system has been working. The recent spate of announcements of, in some cases, swingeing price increases for energy have simply inflamed that mistrust, so there has been a cautious welcome to the announcement. I say “cautious” because I think most people remain to be convinced that these reviews will make any difference in practice. They see that, in place of the more than 20 generating companies which we had before 1997, there are now only six major firms which control 92% of the generating market. They also see what they rightly perceive as the failure of the regulator to get tough with the industry, even to the extent of failing to use its existing powers; there can be no doubt about that—I am glad to see my noble friend on the Front Bench nodding her assent.
Last week the Secretary of State delivered what he called “a tough message” when he spoke to the industry’s main trade association, Energy UK. It is a long speech but I will quote just one or two bits of it because it very much reinforces the case for this amendment. Near the beginning of his speech he says:
“Trust between those who supply energy and those who use it is breaking down. You’ve admitted as much to me. For it is so difficult for people to work out what exactly they are paying for, that they fear the big energy companies are taking them for a ride when bills go up. Fair or not, they look at the big suppliers and they see a reflection of the greed that consumed the banks. So this is a ‘Fred the Shred’ moment for the industry to avoid the reputational fate of the banks”.
That was indeed a very tough message. He went on to make the claim:
“The Government and Ofgem have been acting to open up the market, to increase competition, and put consumers in control of where they get their energy, and how they use it”.
I suspect that few people are able to see that that claim has been actually happening.
This is not the time or place to quote more of what I believe was, by any standards, a forceful and effective speech, but I will allow myself one more quote. After making the point that tough and rigorous competition bears down on costs and prices, he referred to the annual competition reviews. He said:
“Competition works. We’ve seen small suppliers gain substantial business on the back of this year’s high price rises. And today’s announcement by”—
he mentioned one of the companies—is, he said, another welcome thing. However, he said, this,
“will only work … when there is a relationship of trust between suppliers and consumers”.
He went on to talk about the reviews which had been announced.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I support this important amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has fully and clearly outlined the reasons behind it. Many of the concerns probably stem from misunderstandings, intentional or not, as to what Ministers, in particular, mean by the word “competition”. We hear that word a lot, usually in connection with the price consumers pay for their power, rather than the competition between the generators, or the unfair competition that results from the vertical integration between retail and the generators, which we discussed fully on Report.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is right to say that trust has broken down. There is a complete lack of transparency, and I do not think that the present structure is fit for purpose. Conflicts of interest seem to abound. I am still surprised that, apparently, Ofgem either does not have the powers or chooses not to use them. It should have done so long ago. Even if there is to be a competition assessment, why do we have to wait for it? Why has it not been done before? However, we are where we are, and as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, the amendment would be an important addition, as it would avoid several years’ delay if primary legislation were required before any action could be taken.
I would go one step further. If the Minister does not accept the amendment I shall suspect that the Government are completely in the pocket of the big six, and do not want it because it would cause trouble. They are more frightened of the lights going out—that is what the big six have said would happen—than they are willing to establish a structure for the industry that will take us forward into the future. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply to the amendment.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I must speak against the amendment. My noble friend Lord Jenkin made some very good points about trust and getting more competition. That is absolutely true. However, competition narrowed considerably under the previous Labour Government. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, have waxed lyrical during our discussions but we ought to recall that the previous Secretary of State for Energy under the Labour Government—Mr Edward Miliband—did absolutely nothing to correct the situation and refused to refer any of the energy companies to the Competition Commission.
My concern is that this amendment is the wrong way to solve the problem highlighted by my noble friend Lord Jenkin because it would take away parliamentary democracy. The amendment refers to,
“a formal review of the regulation of competition”.
That formal review could be held at any time. Let us imagine that we have a Government whom none of us in this Chamber likes. If the amendment is passed, they will turn to this new clause and announce that they will carry out a formal review. The formal review will have whatever outcome they want and they can implement its findings without primary legislation. That would take away a hugely important role not just of this House but of the other place.
Lots of little things could be done by secondary legislation. Having been a Minister, I am sure that officials and civil servants have already worked out as many areas as possible that can be dealt with by secondary legislation. However, very significant changes may arise which need to be properly debated in both Houses of Parliament, but which could escape that close scrutiny if this amendment is passed. If a future Government of whatever persuasion were to use this new clause, I can imagine the row that would erupt in this House and the complaints that would ring around this Chamber that there had been a lack of opportunity for debate, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. We should not put ourselves in that position.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)
My Lords, hotfoot from Ethiopia, I rise to support this amendment. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I believe that this is a fallback amendment which cannot in any way harm either the general thrust or the detail of the Government’s policy, as spelled out in the Bill. As I said on Report, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has made amply clear this afternoon, the Secretary of State continually talks the talk about the importance of competition to all parts of the energy industry, yet the Government seem strangely reluctant to walk the walk when it comes to the Bill. I remain rather mystified by that.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, will respond to the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. However, the amendment refers to drafts of instruments being approved by each House of Parliament, so I do not see that the Secretary of State would be denied democratic freedom under the revolutionary scenario that the noble Earl made out. I hope that the unassuming, safety-net nature of the amendment will prove an exception to the Government’s reluctance to walk the walk in respect of competition.
Lord Roper
My Lords, this proposed new clause follows up debates we had in Committee and on Report and is, I believe, a matter of considerable importance. I shall therefore listen with great care to what the Minister has to say in reply.
Baroness Worthington
My Lords, here we are at Third Reading debating an issue of such fundamental importance that it merely serves to illustrate the point that, although this Bill is considerable in size and breadth, it fundamentally fails to do what it says it is going to do: that is, reform the market.
Although I am sympathetic to the defence of this amendment that has been put forward, it simply is not enough. It hinges on whether one believes that a review undertaken by Ofgem will deliver anything. On this side of the House, we are absolutely certain that it will not. We have had numerous reviews from Ofgem, and Ofgem has clearly demonstrated that it is not fit for purpose. That is why the Labour Party and the leader of the Opposition have been absolutely crystal clear that under a Labour Government we would have a complete restart of that regulatory body to refocus it on putting the consumer first and bringing genuine competition across the market, not just in supply, tariffs and the consumer-facing parts of the industry, but all the way through the chain. That includes the generation market and the wholesale market, but also, importantly, the regulated aspects of this industry.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin for his amendment and for raising again the important issue of competition. I reassure my noble friend that we are deadly serious about greater competition. Competition is at the heart of the Government’s drive to make sure that energy bills are as low as they can possibly be, to ensure that all consumers are getting a fair deal and, as importantly, to build the trust that my noble friend referred to.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, we are walking the walk. That is why we have seen a great number of new entrants since 2010. The Government announced in the annual energy statement that Ofgem and the competition authorities—the Office of Fair Trading and the newly created Competition and Markets Authority—will conduct an annual competition assessment of the energy market. The first assessment will be completed by spring 2014. Together, these independent regulators already have extensive powers to investigate the market and to implement the full range of structural and behavioural remedies to strengthen competition. The statutory framework includes important safeguards to give market participants confidence in a fair and predictable regime. The Government have established the Competition and Markets Authority, which will have strengthened responsibilities and powers and will take on the work of the Competition Commission and a number of responsibilities of the Office of Fair Trading. This will lead to more robust and faster decision-making.
We are strengthening Ofgem’s hand through the Bill. The Government are taking powers to enable Ofgem to step in to improve wholesale market liquidity should its reforms be frustrated or delayed, and we are giving statutory backing to Ofgem’s retail market reforms. We are also giving Ofgem a new power to compel energy businesses to provide redress to consumers. These measures will further strengthen Ofgem’s ability to take effective and timely action to strengthen competition.
I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, about the weakness of Ofgem and what her party would do, but Ofgem’s inception was under her Government, and they had 17 reviews. They had ample time to reform Ofgem, if they had wanted to. While I keep hearing from the noble Baroness that her party would abolish Ofgem, they have never given us a sound, credible alternative. When she says that the leader of the Opposition has put consumers at the heart of prices, I remind her that the Prime Minister highlighted the need to simplify the many thousands of tariffs that cropped up under the previous Government.
I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that we are not frightened of the big six. That is why Ministers in my department have been having tough, robust conversations with all energy providers to ensure that they understand quite clearly that this Government are determined to ensure the best outcomes for the consumer.
Finally, the strategy and policy statement will give Ofgem clear guidance on the policy outcomes that are to be achieved to implement the Government’s strategic energy priorities. The Government stand ready to act in support of the regulators where necessary, as I have already said to my noble friend. We had a constructive conversation yesterday in which I wanted to reassure him that those powers are already there. It is for us to ensure that they are being utilised properly. My noble friend mentioned the Which? report on ring-fencing. Ofgem, the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition and Markets Authority will consider all measures that may be necessary in the competition assessment. Together they have far-reaching powers and are able to put in place the full range of remedies, which may include some forms of ring-fencing. It is for the competition authorities to decide what needs to be done, based on evidence. I hope that my noble friend is reassured that the Government are indeed taking this matter very seriously. The regulators have extensive powers to act, which are being strengthened by the creation of the Competition and Markets Authority. I hope that on that basis he is content to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, my noble friend has gone quite a long way to reassure me, but I have one or two other questions. However, before I come to them I shall respond to my noble friend Lord Caithness. This amendment simply creates a new power to make regulations that confer powers on the regulator; it does not attempt to say what should be in those regulations. Of course they would be subject to consent by both Houses of Parliament, and I have no doubt that if a significant new power were required, that, too, would have to be subject to an affirmative resolution, or possibly a super-affirmative resolution, in both Houses. I do not see this as being undemocratic and without parliamentary review. The parliamentary review would happen inevitably at each stage. I cannot accept my noble friend’s suggestion that this is the wrong answer.
I recognise and am grateful for the support that the amendment has received, even the somewhat doubtful support from the Opposition Front Bench. I can only echo my noble friend on the Front Bench. The Opposition have yet to explain of what this new marvellous—what should we call it?—“restart” of the whole system is to consist of. I believe in building on what we have got and improving it, rather than taking a leap in the dark and making some entirely new start. These reviews that have been announced—I caught wind of them some time before the Prime Minister made his statement in the other place—are a major new effort to get at why competition has not been working largely because of the reduction in the huge number of generators under the previous Government.
I am grateful to those who supported the amendment. I agree that the main purpose of stronger competition is to protect consumers. A recent National Audit Office report looked at the impact of infrastructure investment on consumer bills. Its view was that,
“Government has made no assessment of the overall impact of infrastructure on future bills or whether those bills will be affordable. Therefore government and regulators are taking decisions on behalf of consumers in the absence of full information about the situation for consumers”.
This is a worrying report. It points to a considerable shortcoming of not just this Government, but all Governments. It is interesting that its first two recommendations are aimed at the Treasury. The Treasury has to set up the structures whereby consumer interests can be considered during the whole question of the infrastructure investment. I do not think I am being unduly alarmist by pointing out that if there has been neglect of the consumer interest in the consideration of the Government’s infrastructure investments, it is not altogether unreasonable to assume that it has also been neglected elsewhere in government, and that this is a wider problem. I do not want to pursue that now except to say that I shall be looking forward to the Government’s response to the National Audit Office report.
My noble friend has gone a long way. She referred to the new powers in the Bill. She also referred to the extra powers that may be available to the Office of Fair Trading and the new Competition and Markets Authority. I shall take her at her word that these are the kind of things that could deal with the proposal that has been made by Which? about separating out the vertically integrated forms. She indicated that that could well be part of the process. On that basis, it would be wrong to divide the House. One point on which I do agree with the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench is that this is a very late stage to raise an important issue. It arose out of the Statement that was made on 31 October. That was the first time that we got the details of these reviews. I hope I have not been wasting the time of the House in bringing this forward, but in this circumstance it would not be right to take the opinion of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Verma
“(f) provision for requiring a licence holder to provide information to domestic customers about the licence holder’s costs, or profit, attributable to its domestic supply contracts, which may, in particular, include information about—(i) particular kinds of those costs, and(ii) the extent to which domestic customers’ costs are attributable to any of those kinds of costs, or to profit;”
Baroness Verma
My Lords, this group of amendments has the effect of giving the Secretary of State the power to require energy suppliers to provide a breakdown of costs to consumers. This includes both information about their costs in supplying domestic customers and costs passed on to domestic consumers through the Government’s environmental and social programmes. It also enables the Secretary of State to set out the categories of costs to be included and to determine the frequency with which this information must be provided. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who sadly is not in his place today, and to other noble Lords who raised this matter on Report. I listened very carefully to the views expressed and the Government have brought forward this amendment in response.
The Government are in complete agreement on the importance of providing clear information on the costs that contribute to consumers’ energy bills, including the costs of government policies. Indeed, that is why the Government publish each year a detailed assessment of the impact of our policies in the Estimated Impacts of Energy and Climate Change Policies on Energy Prices and Bills. However, I recognise the strength of feeling on this issue and that is why we will now go one step further and ensure that this information is provided directly to consumers. We will be working with consumer groups, including Which? and Consumer Futures, to take this forward. Four of the largest suppliers already provide a breakdown of their costs on consumer bills. As a first step, I will be seeking a voluntary agreement with other suppliers to ensure that they also provide a breakdown of their costs to consumers.
It is right that we should first pursue a voluntary agreement, as this is the quickest and most cost-effective route to getting this information out to consumers. In the event that the Government are unable to reach agreement to a voluntary approach, the Secretary of State will exercise this power. We need to strike a balance between providing sufficient detail on the costs associated with supplying gas and electricity, and significantly increasing suppliers’ costs, which would inevitably end up being passed on to consumers.
I will explain the types of costs about which suppliers might be required to provide information. I expect to see costs broken down into the following types of categories: wholesale energy costs, network and distribution costs, costs of complying with government environmental programmes, VAT, operating costs and profit. How suppliers display these costs should be left for them to decide, provided they include these categories. I believe the approach we are taking strikes the right balance by providing transparency to consumers on the costs incurred by suppliers without imposing significant additional burdens. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, I welcome this amendment, which began its life, I think, in an interchange between the noble Baroness and me in Grand Committee. She has pretty much supplied everything that I asked for then, and I am very pleased. The only point that I will make now is that the Government rightly want to make it easy for consumers to switch suppliers. That is a good thing and it is very helpful that this information will be made available one way or another on bills. However, it needs to be made available consistently, in the same form, by different suppliers, so that if you are comparing a bill from one supplier with a bill from another, the information is supplied in the same form on each bill. The noble Baroness did not quite make that point in what she said. I hope that she can assure us that these costs will be disclosed—either voluntarily or by the exercise of the power that she is taking—not only transparently but consistently and comparably by different suppliers.
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I have one question for my noble friend. She talked about making environmental costs clear to customers on their bills. In the past few weeks, we have had lots of discussions about eco and green taxes, and it has become quite clear that the big six, in particular, have sometimes not pointed out to their customers, or admitted in their discussions, that some of those costs are social costs. Everything is in a bit of a state of flux at the moment but, depending on how things work out, it is also important that we are quite accurate on the bills about what is a social cost and what is a so-called green tax. I will also just say that I am very sorry that I was not here for the previous stage of the Bill when the noble Baroness accepted my amendment about the clarity of bills. I hope that the point that was raised by the right reverend Prelate will be covered in the amendment that was passed on Report concerning the clarity of Bills.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I very much welcome this government amendment. However, I have a concern which is similar to the concern expressed by my noble friend Lady Maddock about how these numbers are produced. When the price increases came through from the energy companies, a bill that I saw, to family members, bullet-pointed the green energy costs as being at the top of the list, giving the impression that this was the most important thing. We all know that numbers are subjective. Numbers in company accounts are as objective as they can be but they are subject to how things are interpreted to some degree; as we know, for example, in terms of the lack of tax that is paid by some multinational companies. Do the Government have any view about how these numbers should be somehow independently audited or at least be auditable, if we feel that they fall below standard?
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I will just add one point before my noble friend replies. I was very glad to hear her say that she would rather this was done voluntarily, but a back-up power is important to encourage the right response from the industry. I apologise to the right reverend Prelate. I was moving amendments on this subject during proceedings on the last energy Bill but one. Those amendments suggested that we needed to see more detail in the Bill. As other noble Lords have said, one needs to have a very clear view as to what these figures actually mean, which is not always apparent. I get bills with pie charts and other things from British Gas. I have one in front of me, to which I have referred before, from Southern Electric. Many of them try to do their best, but such is the lack of trust now between the public and the industry that the public need to be reassured that the figures actually mean what they say. I look forward to seeing what comes from this but, along with other noble Lords, I very much welcome these amendments.
Viscount Ridley
My Lords, as someone who spoke in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on Report, I, too, welcome this amendment and think that it goes in exactly the right direction. I particularly welcome the emphasis on voluntary reporting, which will result in a much more flexible and effective way of finding out exactly what these costs are, and where they are, than if we tried to micromanage it by specifying the details ourselves as hopeless legislators rather than people who know how these things are done.
Lord Grantchester
From these Benches, I am happy to endorse the spirit of the amendments in the interests of consumers and providing them with more information on their bills. These amendments seem more neutral than those proposed on Report in that they do not seek in the Bill to mandate energy suppliers to highlight certain designated costs. The amendments thereby avoid the claim that they are targeting so-called green levies on behalf of one strident viewpoint. I listened carefully to the Minister’s words in proposing these amendments and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, I am not sure that I picked up entirely how the Minister expected costs to be broken down to include the social costs. Can she clarify that in her reply? The impact of different costs, especially the so-called green or environmental costs, should be balanced and it is important how that is portrayed to consumers.
We welcome the consultation that this will enable so that all views can be expressed prior to the introduction of regulations—if any are introduced. However, we are concerned that the transparency of the whole market needs to be enhanced, not simply transparency with respect to the costs of energy supply companies. I refer here to generating costs and transfer pricing within each of the big six power companies, which can make big margins on their generation that would not then show up as the Government may intend.
We remain concerned that these clauses do not go anywhere near far enough. From these Benches, we contend that without proper reform of the market, the data available at any later date are likely to be of severely limited use. At this stage, we are content with the amendments but regard them as highly immaterial to the overall transparency of the market.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords for, by and large, their support for my amendments. I will quickly respond to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and to my noble friend Lady Maddock about transparency. The Government and Ofgem both agree that it is important that suppliers are transparent about their costs, including the costs of complying with government environmental and social programmes. One part of the list to which I referred earlier was about complying with greater transparency on those costs. The suppliers would be expected to be able to comply on the cost of delivering government environmental and social programmes. Just to reassure noble Lords, the power enables the Secretary of State to specify the particular kinds of costs that suppliers must refer to, so if we need to get further detail, there is scope to enable that to happen.
I have tried to provide a balance between not overcomplicating the Bill and enabling consumers to be able to look at a bill, see how much their energy is costing them and see whether they are able to get a cheaper deal elsewhere. Providing that information in a way that is clear and easy to understand is what my amendment proposes to do.
Baroness Verma
“(4A) Provision that may be included in a licence by virtue of subsection (2)(d) or (f) may in particular—”
“( ) make provision about the times at which information is to be provided;”
Lord Whitty
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall also speak to Amendment 12. I had better declare an interest on this: I am the chair of a small fuel poverty strategy. I do so because the Minister was, I am glad to say, present at the opening of our conference today, which I am very grateful for.
We come now to fuel poverty. I am not quite sure how many “lemmas” we now have in energy policy, whether it is a tetralemma or a quadlemma, but clearly one of the objectives of energy policy must be to rectify the detrimental effects that arise from fuel poverty on some of the poorest in our land. The House will be well aware of how important it is to regard tackling fuel poverty as one of the priority aims of energy policy. There will still be millions of households in severe distress this winter because they cannot heat their homes properly. As a result, there will be millions of pounds of expenditure by the NHS in treatment of cold-related diseases, and sadly there will be some thousands of premature deaths.
Because of this background and because of the inexorable rise in consumer energy prices since about 2004-05—whatever programmes existed then were struggling against a rising trend of prices—the original intentions to eliminate fuel poverty, set down as far back as 2000, were no longer achievable. It was therefore of some concern to many of us that when the first version of this Bill appeared in another place, there was no mention whatever of fuel poverty.
In Committee, the Minister herself produced the provision that attempts to rectify that situation. It was commendable of her to persuade her colleagues that this was necessary, and the Government’s commitment in Clause 145 to producing a new strategy for fuel poverty in a maximum of six months’ time was broadly welcome—and I still welcome it. However, many of us also considered that more detail was required to make clear the nature of this strategy. As colleagues will remember, a number of more detailed proposals for inclusion in this part of the Bill were considered both in Committee and on Report. The Government rejected all of those, unfortunately, but at least the strategy is there.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for his amendment. Rightly, he has again highlighted the seriousness of fuel poverty, as he has throughout the debates on this Bill, and I know that on all sides of the House there is a real determination to ensure that the interests of the fuel poor are represented properly. Indeed, earlier today I attended an event with fuel poverty experts to gain a better understanding of how to tackle the problem, at the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for which I am extremely grateful.
The Government are determined to act to ensure that consumers get a good deal and affordable energy bills. Indeed, our analysis suggests that as a result of the electricity market reform measures in this Bill, household electricity bills will be, on average, around 9% lower per year over the period 2016 to 2030 relative to what they would be if decarbonisation were achieved through existing policy instruments. As such, the impact of EMR will be to reduce fuel poverty compared to what it would have been without these policies in place.
The noble Lord’s amendments would set an objective to reduce the number of persons living in fuel poverty and improve the energy efficiency of their dwellings. The Government are intent on tackling fuel poverty at its heart, with improving energy efficiency for fuel-poor households a real priority. We agree that improving the energy efficiency of fuel-poor homes can make a sustained improvement to the situation of households struggling to keep warm and it is therefore the right type of target to aim for. However, the right balance must be struck between what is set out in primary legislation and what is subsequently laid out in regulations, in order to maintain an appropriate use of parliamentary time and the level of government accountability.
Therefore, we have proposed setting out the detail of this objective through secondary legislation because we believe that this strikes the right balance between the certainty of a legislative target and the need for flexibility in the future. We know from Professor Hills’s independent review that the way in which we understand the problem can change over time, as well as the best ways of tackling it. Primary legislation is not the appropriate vehicle to set out the detail of the target, given the importance of a nuanced, flexible approach to tackling fuel poverty.
The issue with the current legislation is that there is a very specific target which does not make sense in the context of how we have come to understand the problem of fuel poverty. That is why we have framed the new provisions in the way that we have, to ensure that there is an objective to address fuel poverty but with the detail of that objective set out in secondary legislation. Our proposals ensure that the setting of the target, and any changes to it, will be subject to full parliamentary debate, and the importance of that debate is why we have suggested from the outset that these provisions will be subject to affirmative resolution by both Houses.
Furthermore, from a practical perspective, it would not be sensible to make specific reference to improving the energy efficiency of dwellings, as this could mean that every time the methodology for measuring energy efficiency is updated, the primary legislation would need amending. As this could occur every couple of years, it would not represent a proportionate use of parliamentary time for what would be very technical amendments.
To reflect on what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said about the measures we are currently using under ECO, thus far 311,250 energy-efficiency measures have been installed in around 273,000 properties through ECO and the Green Deal, to the end of September. The vast majority have been installed through ECO so we believe that ECO is working. It is reaching out to the very families that I know the noble Lord and I both believe need the greatest assistance.
In summary, I agree with the spirit of the noble Lord’s amendments but do not believe that it would be sensible to put this detail in the primary legislation However, since we are agreed on the intention, I hope that my response has reassured the noble Lord and he will withdraw his amendment.
This is the last group to which I will speak, so before I sit down I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone who has played a role in the passage of the Energy Bill through this House. I start by thanking the Lord Speaker and all Deputy Speakers and Deputy Chairmen who have facilitated our proceedings. I also thank all those who have worked behind the scenes: the clerks, Hansard, the doorkeepers and the officials from the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who have supported the Government. I add my particular thanks to my officials from DECC, who have worked tirelessly—even to the point of giving up annual leave during the Summer Recess—to be able to provide the information that your Lordships required, which was made possible by the way they performed so heroically during the passage of this Bill.
I also thank all noble Lords who have taken part in our debates for their constructive contributions to the Bill. We have scrutinised it in full and I have no doubt it is leaving us in a better state than it arrived in, thanks to the expertise of this House. We have added new provisions on fuel poverty, access to markets and enabling the level of the small-scale feed-in tariffs threshold to be raised. Thanks to my noble friend Lord Roper and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, we have also improved the level of scrutiny afforded to the delegated powers in the Bill.
I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Gardiner, who has so ably assisted me at the Dispatch Box, as well as my noble friends Lord Courtown and Lord Teverson, who have assisted from the government Benches.
I am also extremely grateful to all members of the House of Lords informal scrutiny group on the Energy Bill, which first convened for pre-legislative scrutiny and has continued its most helpful and appropriately challenging scrutiny in parallel to the Bill’s passage. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who I do not see in his place, for his long-standing chairmanship of this group.
We have not agreed on everything but I am grateful for the broad support there has been for the intentions of this Bill. As I am sure noble Lords will agree, it is now important that the Bill proceeds to Royal Assent as swiftly as possible in order to secure the investment that is vital for growth, jobs and the decarbonisation of our economy.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I echo the noble Baroness’s sentiments in relation to the passage of this Bill. Although, apart from the Minister herself, we are now discouraged from making lengthy speeches at Third Reading, I would like to underline her thanks to her staff, because they have been extraordinarily helpful to other Members of this House. The meetings we have had under the auspices of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, and the noble Baroness have been extremely helpful.
As the noble Baroness says, we have not always agreed. We do not entirely agree on this clause. Some of what she addressed in her reply related to earlier discussions we had on Report. I am not trying to specify targets in any detail; I am saying simply that the fuel poverty strategy should be about reducing the number of fuel poor, including by improving the energy efficiency of their homes. I would have thought that was pretty incontestable and really should have been reflected in this Bill.
I will not pursue this tonight but I will just say to the noble Baroness that because of when this was introduced, the other place has not actually considered the fuel poverty dimensions of this Bill. I rather suspect that her colleagues in the House of Commons will have some lengthy discussions on this and, in the light of that prospect, I will withdraw my amendment tonight. I reiterate my thanks to the Minister and her staff for the conduct of the whole passage of this Bill.
“Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision imposing duties on a relevant landlord of residential premises in England for the purposes of ensuring that, during any period when the premises are occupied under a tenancy—
(a) the premises are equipped with a required alarm (or required alarms), and(b) checks are made by or on behalf of the landlord in accordance with the regulations to ensure that any such alarm remains in proper working order.(2) “Required alarm” means—
(a) a smoke alarm, or(b) a carbon monoxide alarm,that meets the appropriate standard.(3) Regulations may include provision about—
(a) the interpretation of terms used in subsections (1) and (2);(b) the enforcement of any duty imposed by regulations.(4) Provision made by virtue of subsection (3)(b) may in particular—
(a) confer functions on local housing authorities in England;(b) require a landlord who contravenes any such duty to pay a financial penalty.(5) Provision about penalties made by virtue of subsection (4)(b) includes provision—
(a) about the procedure to be followed in imposing penalties;(b) about the amount of penalties;(c) conferring rights of appeal against penalties;(d) for the enforcement of penalties;(e) about the application of sums paid by way of penalties (and such provision may permit or require the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund).(6) Regulations may—
(a) include incidental, supplementary and consequential provision;(b) make transitory or transitional provision or savings;(c) make different provision for different cases or circumstances or for different purposes;(d) make provision subject to exceptions. (7) Consequential provision made by virtue of subsection (6)(a) may amend, repeal or revoke any provision made by or under an Act.
(8) Regulations are to be made by statutory instrument.
(9) An instrument containing regulations may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.
(10) Subject to provision contained in regulations, in this section—
“the appropriate standard”, in relation to a smoke alarm or a carbon monoxide alarm, means the standard (if any) that is specified in, or determined under, regulations;
“local housing authority” has the meaning given in section 261(2) of the Housing Act 2004;
“premises” includes land, buildings, moveable structures, vehicles and vessels;
“regulations” means regulations under this section;
“relevant landlord” means a landlord in respect of a tenancy of residential premises in England who is of a description specified in regulations;
“residential premises” means premises all or part of which comprise a dwelling;
“tenancy” includes any lease, licence, sub-lease or sub-tenancy (and “landlord” is to be read accordingly).”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 13 I will speak also to Amendments 14 and 15. Before I get to that, though, I will start by paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and indeed your Lordships’ House, for raising and debating the important matter of carbon monoxide poisoning during the passage of this Bill.
As noble Lords will recall, in Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, explained the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning and highlighted, as indeed did other noble Lords, some of the recent tragic cases. The noble Baroness tabled an amendment that would have introduced regulations for carbon monoxide detectors in the Bill. We could not accept that amendment but it provoked a debate within government which led me to announce on Report a couple of weeks ago that we would extend our review of private rented accommodation to examine whether landlords should be required to install carbon monoxide detectors.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to add my name to this amendment. This is Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week so the amendment is extremely timely and I am glad the Government have been prudent, and prudent enough to extend it to smoke alarms as well. I am most grateful to the Minister for the time that she has spent with me on this issue and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in her role as Minister taking this Bill forward. I hope that the Public Health England warning that went out yesterday over fossil fuel and wood-burning stoves for Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week will become a thing of the past. It is important that the cost of a working smoke alarm at European Standard EN 50291, guaranteed for seven years, is put in context. One year’s protection costs less than a large cup of coffee at a motorway service area. Some 40 people a year on average lose their lives through carbon monoxide poisoning and about 4,000 people end up in A&E. This is a really important step. I wish that we did not have to take it but I am sure that we will end up needing to have regulations made. I will continue to question the Government as it goes through and I will be watching the review very carefully. In the mean time, I am most grateful and I am sure that the victims’ families are also grateful that the Government have listened carefully and acted at a point where they could.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I, too, added my name to this amendment and I am very grateful to both Ministers for bringing this forward. Like most people who have campaigned on this issue over the years, it began with a personal experience. My first experience was in a private home where a room had been made in a roof and there were fumes as the builder had not properly sealed the chimney. I hope that at some point we can look also at homes other than rented ones.
My experience was 20 years ago and over those 20 years a number of groups and individuals have campaigned on this. During the passage of this Bill, we got the old familiar answer that, “It is not our department”. I am very grateful to the Minister because she did not stop it there and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and I had a very productive meeting with her and her officials—she took on board that we really ought to sort this out. It must be somebody’s responsibility somewhere. I had hoped that there might be some regulations somewhere that we could add this on to but that is not exactly what has happened. I also raised it with my right honourable friend Ed Davey, the Secretary of State at DECC, and he took this seriously as well, so I know that a lot of work has gone on to bring this forward.
I, too, thank the Minister for the amazing access we have had and the information that we have all been party to through the passage of the Bill through this House. As other noble Lords have said, we always make legislation better when it comes here. We have certainly done that and I thank the Minister for bringing forward the fuel poverty strategy. We know that it is not perfect but we are really grateful as it was not there before. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, on behalf of all those who have campaigned about the unnecessary deaths from this silent killer, carbon monoxide, we thank everybody who has brought forward these amendments today. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, I shall be watching what happens in future because the dreaded word “may” is in the Bill; it is not “must”.
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, we, too, thank the Minister for joining with the energy department to bring forward this sensible amendment which, if implemented, will undoubtedly save lives. We also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Harrison who cannot be in his place today, who have campaigned strongly on the issue. Deaths from carbon monoxide and from fire are avoidable. These alarms are cheap to buy and fix and must be among the most efficient life-saving devices ever on the market. It must also be stressed that there can be no substitute for regular maintenance. I am glad to see that element also included in the amendment.
While welcoming the consultation to capture views on how the measure may be taken forward as part of a wider review, our only concern is that the Government may not bring forward the necessary regulations despite the undoubted value of these devices, which could save hundreds of lives a year. Will the Minister tell the House when the review announced on 16 October will report? We see no reason to hold up this welcome measure unnecessarily while the review looks at a number of other, quite unrelated issues. We therefore urge the Government to move with some haste on this measure, so saving tenants across the country from the risk of death either from fire or from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken and for their support for these government amendments. I share the views expressed by my noble friend Lady Maddock and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on the work that my noble friend Lady Verma has done in this area. It was she who responded to the debates in Committee and ensured that there was the greater collaboration across government departments that led to the announcement that I made on Report. We have worked together on this, but the amendment was triggered by her response to the debates that took place in Committee.
I do not think that there is a great deal more for me to add to the points that I made when moving the amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for his support for the amendment. As I said in my opening remarks, the review that the measure forms part of will conclude next June. We will be as swift as possible in making public our conclusions in response to that review. As I have said and as I have demonstrated today, if the outcome of that review is a decision that we should regulate, we now have in place the order-making powers that would make that possible. The noble Lord urged us to go further, but as I said when we discussed this matter at the previous stage, his own Government conducted a comprehensive review of this area only in 2009 and concluded that they should limit regulations to just the installation of solid-fuel appliances. I accept his challenge and the pressure he puts on me to make sure that we go further, but we are doing this by way of review because we think that it is the right thing to do. I am quite confident that, by conducting a comprehensive review, we will be able clearly to demonstrate that our conclusions are evidence-based and well informed.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, I open this Second Reading by reminding this House why so many of your Lordships across the political divide have given their support to a high-speed rail network. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has said:
“There you have the essential case for building High Speed 2 —not as a separate line, physically and operationally away from the current railway, but as a crucial part of a reshaped and improved national network”.—[Official Report, 24/10/13; col. 1226.]
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, who is not in his place but was involved in the previous debate, said:
“It will herald a new era for railways in Britain, and it will form a vital part of bringing together the different parts of England and closing the regional divide”.—[Official Report, 24/10/13; col. 1221.]
The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who sends his apologies because he is committed to a speech tonight, said:
“HS2 is about our country’s competitiveness for half a century or more. It is about so many more people sharing growth that has, for too long, been concentrated on London and the south-east. It’s all about drawing together our economy as a whole as well as improving our access to the enlarged, and enlarging, home market of Europe”.
Of course, there are opponents of high-speed rail and specifically of HS2. I respect them; they raise real challenges; and I shall address those challenges today.
The Bill before your Lordships is a paving Bill. Mercifully, it is simple and clear. It grants the Secretary of State authority to incur expenditure, which must be also approved by the Treasury. It describes the route as publicly committed, but allows for future extensions as well as connections to the wider network. It requires an annual report to be made to Parliament for all expenditure incurred, including any variation from budget. It requires reporting on those receiving vocational qualifications as a consequence of the project, and, of course, it is a money Bill. Each phase of HS2 and any future extensions will require a separate hybrid Bill without which construction cannot begin. That will be the opportunity to debate and scrutinise the route in detail and the manner in which the project will be delivered.
There are three key arguments for HS2 and the high-speed rail network that this Bill presages: capacity, connectivity and growth. In Britain, we are running out of capacity on our most important north-south routes. Demand for intercity rail travel has doubled in the past 15 years. By the mid-2020s, the west coast main line, our main rail line connecting London, the Midlands and the north, will be full. That is calculated on very modest figures for passenger growth: 2.2% a year. I should note that for the past decade demand has grown at 4.4% a year or more. Already in 2011, during the morning peak, 4,000 people were standing on arrival into Euston and 5,000 people were standing on arrival into Birmingham. It is close to impossible to get train paths for new services on the west coast main line.
We need a high-capacity answer, and that is HS2. It gives us 18 trains an hour in each direction when complete, each carrying up to 1,100 passengers. By taking long-distance travellers off the existing lines, it releases space on the west coast, east coast and midland main lines to be used for much needed regional and commuter services. Network Rail estimates that more than 100 cities and towns could benefit from the released capacity. It also releases essential capacity for freight: demand for rail freight is forecast to double by 2043, and there is not the capacity to carry it.
I am, of course, aware that many have proposed alternatives: upgrades to our existing lines to provide that capacity. Many of the ideas are interesting—in fact, some will probably be implemented—but they leave us with two problems. The first is scale. Including every reasonable alternative, we can achieve a 24% increase in capacity. HS2 gives us a 105% increase. It is a complete step change.
The second problem is disruption. As upgrades mean working on active lines in daily use, we have to resort to closure for much of the work. This House will have seen the Atkins report showing 14 years of weekend closures, and that is with an aggressive work programme of two simultaneous schemes on each route at any one time. It would frankly be a nightmare.
HS2 also transform connections across Britain. It will link eight of our 10 largest cities. It links up great cities of the north and the Midlands. Just as important as cutting times from London to Birmingham and Manchester, HS2 takes more than an hour off the journeys between Birmingham and Newcastle, York and Leeds. It will be integrated with the nation’s main airports, with stations directly serving Manchester and Birmingham and short connections to Heathrow via Crossrail and to East Midlands Airport from Toton station. It is this new connectivity that provides a spur to growth, and it is the reason why the great northern cities are so supportive of HS2.
My noble friend Lord Deighton and the HS2 taskforce are looking at ways to maximise the growth benefits of the line. The great cities are doing exactly that without prompting. They can see the opportunity to rebalance the economy of the Midlands and the north. The economic analysis shows them gaining double the benefits of the south.
The national gain is £15 billion a year by 2037. Construction and its supply chain alone will provide 19,000 jobs. The Core Cities group predicts that HS2 will underpin the delivery of 400,000 jobs, and 70% of the jobs created by HS2 are expected to be outside London. HS2 will be an opportunity to build a British supply chain, as discussed previously in this House, with skilled jobs for our young people—a supply chain and skill set that will support not just this project but British industry at home and abroad in future infrastructure markets. Of course not every part of the UK benefits from HS2. It benefits more the areas that it physically reaches. However, so does every transport infrastructure project past, present and future; that is a characteristic of infrastructure.
That brings me to the cost. The budget for HS2 is £42.6 billion. That is an upper limit with a contingency of £14.4 billion. Rolling stock will be another £7.5 billion. This means a benefit-cost ratio of 2.3, which is frankly remarkable for a large project, especially given the limitations of a formula that caps passenger demand three years after phase 2 is finished. Sir David Higgins, the new chairman of HS2, has been instructed to bear down on those costs, and he has said that he can and will do so. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, recently reminded us that part of those costs can be picked by up the private sector rather than the taxpayer. That is the intention of the Government and will be part of plans going forward.
I remind your Lordships that while the sums for HS2 are large, they are only part of the transport spending budget. In the next Parliament we will spend £73 billion on transport, only £17 billion of which is for HS2. We are tripling the national roads budget and adding 400 extra lane miles of motorway. We are tackling 195 local pinch points to break up jams. We are delivering the biggest rail modernisation programme for generations, with more than £9 billion of government funding for major rail projects, including a new £500 million rail link from the West Country to Heathrow, an 850-mile national programme of rail electrification, Crossrail and Thameslink in London and more than £900 million in flexible funding for smaller schemes.
However, infrastructure on this scale always has some negative impact, and I understand the anguish of those who cherish the countryside along the proposed route. That is why 70% of surface lines between London and the West Midlands will be insulated by cuttings, landscaping and fencing. We are at present consulting at present on property compensation, another issue that is often raised in this House. An exceptional hardship scheme is already in place. The Government have said that they intend to be fair but generous, going beyond the requirements of the law. I urge noble Lords with an interest in this area to respond to that consultation before it closes on 4 December. The detailed environmental statement for phase 1 will be laid alongside the hybrid Bill. It will be the largest environmental impact assessment ever undertaken in the UK.
We have the opportunity today to support a Bill that takes Britain into the future. We cannot opt again for make do and mend, relying on an exhausted Victorian system for our vital rail transport. Doubters have always decried new infrastructure projects, from the M25 to the Jubilee line to HS1 to Crossrail, but we will build HS2 responsibly and within budget. I ask your Lordships across all parties to join in this commitment to a modern rail network that can support our ambitions for growth and our economy. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, this is my first opportunity in the House to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her appointment as Transport Minister. I do so very warmly.
The previous Government started work on what became HS2 five years ago. In March 2010 we published the Command Paper that set out the case for HS2, together with the detailed route plan from London to Birmingham and the outline plan to extend the line from Birmingham to Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds, linking to the existing main lines to Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. HS2 transforms connections between London and the major cities of the Midlands and the north in the spirit of the great Victorian pioneers who built the main lines from the 1830s—starting with Robert Stephenson’s London & Birmingham Railway—upon which we still depend today.
It was always clear to me that without cross-party agreement and a fixity of national purpose to rise above short-term party politics, HS2 would never happen. HS2 through to Manchester and Leeds is a 20-year project. The golden rule of high-speed rail is that while everyone wants the stations, no one wants the line. From the outset of planning HS2, I therefore consulted with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, and the Cabinet agreed to publish the Command Paper in 2010 only on the basis of their support. I am glad to say that the coalition Government have maintained this cross-party approach and very largely stuck to the 2010 plan for HS2. We may disagree on other areas of transport policy—for example, I am proud that East Coast is doing such a good job for the public as a state company and believe that it ought to be allowed to continue as such—but on HS2 I acknowledge the constructive role played by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and other Ministers in keeping this a national project, not a party project. This approach is fully reciprocated by my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition.
I also applaud the decision to appoint Sir David Higgins as chair of HS2. The biggest infrastructure project in Europe needs the best infrastructure manager available. Sir David Higgins, fresh from delivering the 2012 Olympics on time and on budget, is the very best. As with all major infrastructure projects, HS2 has experienced some teething problems. Sir David must get a firm grip on management and costs at HS2, including the recent increase in the total projected cost from £32 billion to £42 billion—an increase largely due to a sudden, and in my view hard to justify, decision by the Treasury to impose an extra £6 billion of contingency reserve on the project, taking the contingency reserve alone to £14 billion. HS2 cannot be “at any price” and this represents a 50% contingency on the costed design of £28 billion. We look to Sir David to review these costs and to stress-test the figures with some urgency. I was glad to hear what the noble Baroness said about that. I know that Sir David will also take to heart the good advice on project costs and management from the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, in his excellent lecture on HS2 to the Royal Town Planning Institute last week.
I will say a few things about the history of HS2. There have been claims that the 2010 Command Paper was not a thorough analysis, that I and others were kidnapped by rail fanatics who bamboozled us into mortgaging the Exchequer simply to cut half an hour off the journey time from London to Birmingham, and that the whole project has had to be relaunched on the basis of capacity rather than speed. None of this is correct. Capacity is and always has been the central argument for HS2. The 2010 Command Paper could not have been clearer. It set out the previous Government’s intention to proceed with HS2 in these words:
“The Government’s assessment is that over the next 20 to 30 years the UK will require a step-change in transport capacity between its largest and most productive conurbations, both facilitating and responding to long-term economic growth … alongside such additional capacity”—
I stress those words—
“there are real benefits for the economy and for passengers from improving journey times and hence the connectivity of the UK”.
So, capacity first, with speed and connectivity significant additional benefits. That was the argument for HS2 in 2010, it is the argument in 2013 and, if we see this through, it will be the argument on its completion in 2033—and no doubt on HS2’s centenary in 2133—because capacity is the fundamental problem, solved for a generation and more by HS2. It is a problem that, if not solved, will mean that in just 10 years’ time we will have to start closing the north-south intercity railway to new business, which would be a betrayal of the future prosperity of this country, given that HS2 connects the five principal cities and conurbations of the UK.
The facts on capacity are compelling. Long-distance rail demand has doubled in the past 16 years alone; the trend growth rate is 5% a year, consistently ahead of economic growth, as other modes of intercity transport such as motorways and domestic aviation become saturated or simply unavailable, and as railway services steadily improve.
Furthermore, HS2 does not just meet rising demand for intercity travel; by freeing up substantial capacity on the existing lines, it also provides a huge capacity boost for freight trains and for commuter and regional passenger services. Rail freight volumes have increased by more than 50% in the past 20 years and continue to grow fast. Moving freight from road to rail is a national imperative, placing a special pressure on the west coast main line, which gets most of the relief from the additional capacity of HS2 since 43% of all rail freight movements in the country use it to get from the ports to the nation’s major goods distribution centres in the Midlands.
As for commuter rail, demand has also increased sharply over the past 20 years, particularly into the biggest cities served by HS2—London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds—because the big cities are the national dynamos of population and employment growth, and they will continue to be so as the UK’s population increases by a projected 11 million people in the next two decades. Here, again, HS2 is an essential congestion-buster, to the benefit of dozens of towns and cities in and around the major corporations. Coventry, Wakefield, Bradford, Stockport, Leicester, Peterborough, Stevenage, Bedford, St Albans, Cambridge, Milton Keynes—the list of beneficiaries goes on.
The question before Parliament and the country is this: if not HS2, what? Given that we are not going to be building new intercity motorways or encouraging more domestic aviation—nor should we—the only alternative to HS2 for dealing with the capacity crunch is massive further upgrades of the existing Victorian main lines. This would be very expensive and destructive and yield only a fraction of the capacity and other benefits of HS2. You do not need a crystal ball to appreciate this reality. It is only five years since the most recent upgrade of the west coast main line was completed; it cost £9 billion and entailed a decade of constant chronic disruption, at weekends and often on weekdays too, without services or with severe delays and diversions. Upgrading a busy main-line railway is like conducting open-heart surgery on a moving patient—horrendous for all concerned.
The 2010 Command Paper estimated that to achieve two-thirds of the capacity of HS2 by conventional line upgrades, just for London to Birmingham, would cost more in cash terms than HS2. In practice, though, many of those proposed upgrades, like four-tracking the Chiltern line, are simply unattainable. If I was in any doubt about that, I have been seriously disabused by the large number of your Lordships who live in the Chilterns and rightly treasure it, and who have given me freely the benefit of their advice on these matters.
The present Government have since identified a more credible upgrade alternative from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, which is set out in chapter 6 of the strategic case document that was published last month. The key points about the upgrade alternative are these. First, the upgrade is projected to cost £19 billion. That is nearly half the cost of HS2 but the capacity increase would be less than one-quarter—so half the cost for one-quarter of the capacity.
Secondly, that increase in capacity would be insufficient by the late 2020s even to keep pace with the lower of the growth projections for intercity traffic set out in the Government’s strategic assessments. So in all likelihood we would complete the upgrades of the existing lines, spending £19 billion, only to be faced with the prospect of either carrying out yet more expensive upgrades to the existing main lines or, at that stage in the 2020s, of embarking on HS2. That would be an even more expensive repeat of the situation that we now face in taking forward HS2, having already spent £9 billion on the most recent upgrade of the west coast main line when we might have done better to have started HS2 15 years ago.
Thirdly, the £19 billion price tag for the upgrade alternative does not take into account the chronic disruption of the upgrades in question—the open-heart surgery on the moving patient that I just described. Look at the description of these upgrades and you will see that to undertake them would require, as the Minister said, the equivalent of 14 years of continuous line closures every weekend. Furthermore, the list of projects involved in the £19 billion upgrade alternative, with its 14 years of disruption, is colossal, to say the least: a new 30-mile stretch of tunnel and surface line to get the east coast main line out of King’s Cross, avoiding a series of acute existing bottlenecks including the Welwyn viaduct; the rebuilding of most of the major stations on all three of the main lines going north from Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross, including those three termini, to accommodate more platforms and longer trains; and four-tracking a lot of two-track sections of line, including in urban areas. The idea that this would be an easy alternative to HS2, let alone a cheap one, is wishful thinking, to put it mildly.
It is true that putting the £19 billion upgrade option through the Treasury’s benefit/cost ratio methodology produces a somewhat, but not much, higher ratio figure than comes out for HS2, but from my experience of major transport projects I would always be cautious about the value of benefit/cost ratios because they involve so many artificial assumptions. The M25, the Victoria line and the Jubilee line extension all had low benefit/cost ratios and faced a deeply hostile Treasury, but which of those do we now think it would be a good idea to close? All three of them have recently been upgraded to deal with congestion.
Much has been made by the critics of HS2 of the value given in the benefit/cost ratio to the benefit of time saved by business travellers, as if they were not able to work on trains. Equally artificial, though, and far more significant in its impact on the BCR for HS2, is the fact that the benefit/cost methodology caps traffic growth projections in 2036, only three years after the opening of HS2, on the grounds that further growth thereafter is too speculative. Do any of your Lordships seriously think that traffic will stop growing in 2036? Brunel did not build the Great Western Railway on the assumption that there would be no traffic growth after 1870—thank goodness, otherwise the GWR would have been built single-track. He might even have been told by a Treasury economist that upgrading the canals offered better value for money. Nor did we build the M25 thinking that traffic would stop growing in 1995, which would have been an equivalent assumption. What is needed here is a dose of common sense plus a grasp of history, which shows that in Britain, with our historic aversion to major infrastructure investment, we have consistently under- estimated the value of better transport links serving our major population and economic centres.
I have a few other points to make. Faster journey times, although not a principal reason for HS2, are a considerable benefit that cannot but be advantageous to the unity of Britain and the strength of its economy. As HS2 proceeds further north, the time savings become steadily greater: an hour off every journey between London and Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. Journeys will be further shortened by the proposed interchange between HS2 and the new Crossrail line at Old Oak Common, just west of Paddington. This will give an 11-minute connection direct to Heathrow and fast underground trains direct to the West End, the City and Docklands without going via Euston and its congested Victoria and Northern lines. This could be a rare British example of joining up two major traffic infrastructure projects at the point of conception.
The second point is that the notion peddled even by some reputable commentators that bringing northern and Midland cities closer to London will suck the lifeblood out of them is utterly farcical. If it were true that modern transport connections between great economic centres were a negative factor, we should close existing motorways and intercity rail lines because Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds would be better off without them, prospering in splendid isolation.
The third point is that HS2 not only dramatically improves connections between these cities and London but between the cities themselves, as the noble Baroness said. This is a crucial part of the connectivity improvement brought about by HS2. The Victorian railway companies built mostly separate main lines from provincial cities to London, which is why rail links between most of our provincial cities remain terrible. Birmingham and Manchester are only 67 miles apart, yet the rail journey takes one and a half hours. It is 40 minutes by HS2.
Fourthly, while I do not think that just because most other developed countries do things we should follow suit, I believe that when a technology has proved successful elsewhere we should take note. Almost every developed country with an economic geography similar to ours has over the past generation built high-speed rail to link their major cities. Japan started in 1964 with Tokyo to Osaka, about the distance from London to Glasgow. Since then, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Korea and Taiwan have all followed suit. China is constructing more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined, and the United States is building its first line from LA to San Francisco—two major cities also about the same distance apart as London and Glasgow.
In conclusion, I am not aware of a single country that has introduced high-speed rail between its major cities and now thinks it was a mistake. They know that high-speed rail is integral to building a modern economy and a modern society. I believe it will be the same here in Britain, so we should get on with HS2.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, I warmly endorse the words of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I do so having managed all four lines out of London towards Edinburgh and Birmingham, including via Marylebone. They are now full. When I managed them there was about half the amount of traffic that there is now and very little capacity has been added since then. The noble Lord mentioned the upgrade on the London to Birmingham line but, in fact, it has not produced much in the way of new track; it simply patched up what was there before.
I am quite convinced of the need for a new line north of London. The problem is that, whichever way you go, it is going to upset somebody. There is not a way you can build a line without building it through areas that will be badly affected. It is therefore extremely important that the compensation arrangements, to which my noble friend Lady Kramer referred, are fair and the environmental impact is measured carefully. This is going to be the case because, while I agree that during construction there will be damage to the environment—there is bound to be as there is on any construction site—once the work is done, the countryside can get back almost to where it was. The wildlife and flowers will return—whatever you value will return—as a railway does not interfere with the area around it in the same way that a road does.
As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, there is a strong management team in place, probably the best person possible is now in the lead on this. He will not need any lessons from us on the questions of delivery, keeping costs under control, and generally driving the scheme forward. The idea has been put about by some of the opponents that once you have the high-speed line, other places which formerly had a train service to London will lose theirs, so somehow Coventry and Rugby, to name two places, will suddenly lapse back into having poor quality services. That is most unlikely to be the case, because the case will exist to provide good services on those lines and there is no reason why the providers should not seek to meet that demand, under any structure you might imagine.
People have also said that there will be cuts elsewhere and I have heard some very depressing stories about the draining of so much away from Cambridge and Bristol. That is nothing to do with the argument and there is no reason to suppose that it will draw the lifeblood out of anywhere, but particularly places such as Cambridge, which is one of the strongest economic growth areas in the country.
I do not think any town or city will be worse off. I do not think we are suddenly going to stop spending money on the railway as there are very good plans to do so. I accept that there is objection from people in the Chilterns that deserves mitigating as far as possible. Of course, they will have the opportunity, as the hybrid Bill goes through both Houses, to make their case twice if they want. At the same time, it will be up to us to ensure that the matter is handled as sensitively as it can be handled, through what we all know are very sensitive landscapes. I am pleased to speak in support of the Bill.
Lord Freeman (Con)
My Lords, I am a strong supporter of the project for HS2. I am sure that those on the government Benches will welcome the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is the Minister is charge. She will bring her reasonableness, calmness and courtesy to the progress of the Bill through your Lordships’ House, which gives me a great deal of comfort.
I find myself in some difficulty regarding the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as I agreed with everything he said, which will make my contribution understandably brief. I speak with modest experience as the Transport Minister responsible for the day to day planning and then construction of HS1. There are very few lessons to be learnt about the strategic need for HS1, because it was about speed through the Channel Tunnel. At two hours and 15 minutes between Paris and London, it beats the alternative of flying from Heathrow if you are coming from central London. It has been an unqualified success, in my judgment, and we can learn some lessons for HS2, to which I shall briefly refer at the conclusion to my remarks.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to the fact that we are nearing capacity on certain sections of existing railways. I am going to refer briefly to the west coast main line. Without proceeding with this Bill, in 25 or 30 years’ time, we will have a shambles of a national railway system. We have to upgrade the capacity. My noble friend Lord Heseltine, whom I served, is absolutely right to focus on capacity as one of the key arguments for this line. It is estimated that up to £20 billion is required to upgrade the west coast main line. I hope that figure is right; it is certainly that order of magnitude. Upgrading that line, as opposed to HS2, would create absolute mayhem for many weekends over many years and deliver only about half the benefits.
I will make one or two points about the alternative of trying to upgrade the west coast main line. Your Lordships might be interested to know that, at present, in the final peak hour for passengers coming into and out of Euston on the west coast main line, on average there are 120 passengers on board each train for every 100 seats. There is already a capacity problem. If we look forward to the 2020s without an HS2, the mind boggles.
I know that my noble friend Lord Bradshaw is particularly concerned about freight, as I am, too. HS2 will do a great deal for freight, particularly by taking it off the M1 and the M6. Creating more capacity at the southern end of the existing west coast main line by moving that passenger traffic onto the high-speed line will, I am told, deliver 20 extra daily freight paths on to the line. I see my noble friend Lord Bradshaw nodding, so I must be right. There will be relief for freight traffic on the M1 and the M6. Without HS2, that freight traffic can only increase. I am told that the order of magnitude is of half a million lorry journeys coming off the motorways per annum. That is what will occur if we not only proceed with this legislation but build HS2.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to three other advantages of HS2 which relate directly to capacity: the link to HS1, so that one could travel from Birmingham to Paris directly through Old Oak Common; the link with Crossrail, which will certainly help with congestion in central London; and ultimately, if Heathrow is to remain as our key airport, the link to Heathrow.
I strongly support this Bill and when we come to the hybrid Bill—I look forward to that being introduced as quickly as possible—I am sure that the Government and the Minister will pay great attention to the legitimate concerns of those affected. The one lesson I learnt from HS1 is that it will be better to be reasonable, which will often mean some money as compensation, to get HS2 built. I hope that we can be reasonable, constructive and sympathetic.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a resident of Little Missenden, a small village in the centre of the Chilterns. I live in the village and have done for nearly 20 years. The proposed route currently goes close, but not that close, to the village, and it is tunnelled in the immediate environment of Little Missenden, but that does not stop me having concerns about the way in which the programme has been developed. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for her eloquent introduction of this paving Bill and I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for his concern about the Chilterns, which I listened to with great interest. That is in fact what I will talk about in my brief address.
Much time has been spent in your Lordships’ House recently on the National Planning Policy Framework. In its section on conserving and enhancing the natural environment, it says:
“The planning system should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment”;
and it gives some examples, the first of which is by,
“protecting and enhancing valued landscapes”.
Later it says:
“In preparing plans to meet development needs, the aim should be to minimise pollution and other adverse effects on the local and natural environment. Plans should allocate land with the least environmental or amenity value, where consistent with other policies in this Framework”.
It continues:
“Great weight should be given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty in National Parks, the Broads and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which have the highest status of protection in relation to landscape and scenic beauty ... Planning permission should be refused for major developments in these designated areas except in exceptional circumstances and where it can be demonstrated they are in the public interest ... planning permission should be refused for development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats, including ancient woodland and the loss of aged or veteran trees found outside ancient woodland, unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location clearly outweigh the loss … Planning permission should … identify and protect areas of tranquillity which have remained relatively undisturbed by noise and are prized for their recreational and amenity value for this reason”.
There is clearly a tension here between conservation and what may be claimed by those who support the proposed route for HS2 to be in the public interest. For example, the Woodland Trust has demonstrated that the Government’s preferred routes for both phases of the HS2 scheme will cause loss or damage to at least 67 irreplaceable ancient woods. When the Secretary of State—who was in his place a few minutes ago—announced the preferred route for phase 2 of HS2, he said:
“The scheme would avoid any national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty”.
So, the Chilterns AONB is now the only AONB along the entire HS2 phase 1 or phase 2 routes that is adversely impacted by the proposed project. Actually, it will be destroyed as the present tunnel erupts into an ancient monument and an ancient wood bang in the middle of the AONB.
The draft environmental statement consultation published on 16 May accepts that a tunnel through the Chilterns AONB would perform better on environmental grounds when compared with the current HS2 Chilterns tunnel option. It accepted that it would also reduce operational noise impacts and, for certain locations, would result in reduced construction impact. In other words, it seems to meet many of the concerns expressed in the national planning framework. It is feasible in engineering terms and would fully protect the only unique area of outstanding natural beauty on the HS2 route; meet local concerns without damaging the overall objectives of the HS2 project; avoid major surface construction at 10 sites in the AONB and the loss of ancient woodland and the Grim’s Ditch ancient monument; and is supported by all the local councils and action groups within the AONB.
The designation of the protected landscape of the Chilterns AONB rests on the unique characteristics of its landscape. The design of the Government’s proposed scheme takes no account of the designated landscape of the Chilterns AONB or the protective provisions of Part IV of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. Conserve the Chilterns and Countryside has commissioned a study into the practicalities of extending the tunnel from the proposed current termination point to the boundary in Wendover. This study was published in October 2012 and HS2 Ltd was asked to comment on it. The conclusion it reached was that such a tunnel extension was a practical engineering solution, but it declined to pursue it because it is of the opinion that it will cost more than the published scheme.
However, there are other factors to be taken into account here—factors that have so far been ignored but which need to be debated. The analysis undertaken to date has shown that the published scheme affects 60 square kilometres of the Chilterns AONB; the tunnel extension through the Chilterns would affect six square kilometres. The published scheme would result in the loss of 13 historic sites; the tunnel extension would affect one. The published scheme removes 9.2 hectares of ancient woodland; the tunnel extension affects none. With the published scheme, approximately 250 hectares of agricultural land would be lost but under the tunnel extension only 20 hectares would be lost. From the figures that I have given, your Lordships can see that there are other factors to be taken into account. Analysis of these further indicates that the proposed scheme will incur environmental and other costs of the order of £500 million to £750 million, which is about twice the additional cost of building the tunnel extension.
Given the duty of the Government under Section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to,
“have regard to the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the area of outstanding natural beauty”,
the scale of any cost differential between the published scheme and the proposed tunnel extension has to be balanced against the incalculable loss of an AONB—the only one on the line, and the one nearest to London.
In his speech last Tuesday, which has already been referred to, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, recalled his long interest in regeneration. He gave the example of Canary Wharf, where he recalled that he had appealed over the heads of his senior Cabinet colleagues—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, was one of those—the Permanent Secretary of his department and all the leaders of the London boroughs to the Prime Minister who, he said, “backed me”. Perhaps he should have added “on this occasion”. He also recalled that another Prime Minister backed him against the Department of Transport when he,
“argued for HS1 and the regeneration of Stratford against British Rail’s preference for the Channel Tunnel to hit the buffers at Waterloo and exclude the rest of the UK”.
The noble Lord’s example of the late change of route imposed on HS1 is instructive. In truth, there ought to have been a lot to learn from that episode. HS2 appears to have ignored many of the principles established by HS1. The lower design speed of 300 kilometres per hour allows the line to be twinned with the M2 and M20 motorways through Kent. It used existing major transport corridors. HS1 crosses the Kent AONB at its narrowest point. The published route for HS2 crosses the Chilterns at its widest point. As the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, pointed out, bringing the main terminus out of London to Stratford brought much needed regeneration to the East End and paved the way for the Olympics. What would be the analogy for HS2, and why is the noble Lord not suggesting that at this time?
While I do not agree with everything that the noble Lord says in his speech, he does echo the recent Armitt report's call for us to do our infrastructure planning differently in future, although appealing over the heads of one's colleagues is probably not what Armitt had in mind. The reality is that the Government will not get their hybrid Bill for phase 1 of HS2 through in this Parliament. Given that the public interest would be better served if the proposals could be evaluated in the context of a fully developed infrastructure plan and a national planning framework of the type outlined in the recent report by Sir John Armitt, why not pause—which seems to be the vogue—the process now? There would then be time to engage in a proper cross-party debate and take a fresh look at HS2 to help the Government build in greater connectivity, sustainability and flexibility, and also help meet local concerns without damaging the overall national objectives of the HS2 project.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank (LD)
My Lords, the Secretary of State for Transport says that what he calls the “north-south railway”,
“is one of the most potentially beneficial, but also challenging infrastructure projects on the planet”.
Again, and all too often, “on the planet” is an example of pointless hyperbole. However, he also says:
“The case for the new line rests on the capacity and connectivity it will provide”.
Capacity is a lot more down to earth than the glamour of speed or the need to show France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and China that we can do better. I would have been well disposed towards the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, but I regret that there has been no provision for an ad hoc Select Committee of the House to examine HS2. If this is such a challenging project, the procedures of the House should have allowed time ahead of today’s Second Reading.
Last month, there were at least two new HS2 Engine for Growth documents. The origin of The Economic Case for HS2 is not clear. The second document is called The Strategic Case for HS2. It has a ministerial foreword, which I mentioned earlier. However, it has no command paper reference. Is it a White Paper, like the other reports on HS2 that we had in January 2012 and January 2013? I would be grateful to know its status in order to keep track of the burgeoning HS2 literature.
Chapter 7 of The Strategic Case for HS2 is fascinating about governance. Paragraph 7.2.19 refers to,
“processes for project cost control of Phase One”.
It goes on to state:
“This oversight regime includes a dedicated High Speed Rail Board which has representation from HMT and IUK which oversees the overall HS2 programme and reports progress to DfT’s Senior Board and to Ministers”.
Then, in paragraph 7.2.27 it states:
“It is unlikely that a project as complex as HS2 could be delivered simply by one organisation being given sole responsibility for implementing it … Therefore an important consideration is how best to align roles of different bodies”.
Finally, it says:
“The structure of how HS2 will be delivered requires careful analysis and consideration, and consequently a joint group led by DfT and including HMT, IUK and HS2 Ltd is undertaking options analysis to consider what is the most appropriate structure for the delivery of HS2”.
I find all this breathtakingly obscure.
The Secretary of State has appointed Sir David Higgins as chair of HS2 Ltd, with eight other members of the board, but it can hardly be claimed that this is an independent board. A clearer, simpler governance and managing structure should have been established well ahead of today’s Second Reading. When I was Secretary of State for Transport many years ago, I had responsibility for four nationalised industries, including British Rail. I took the view that I should have an arm’s-length relationship with the excellent chairman, Sir Peter Parker. It worked well, with only a little constructive tension. It is crucial to have a clear, agreed responsibility for HS2 Ltd and a transparent relationship between the Secretary of State and the chairman of HS2 Ltd. I hope that my noble friend will reassure me on these matters. I would be grateful if my noble friend would remind us whether MPs and Members of this House will have direct access to the chairman of HS2 Ltd or access only through Ministers.
I make a further point related to funding and financing set out in paragraphs 9.7 to 9.11 in Command Paper 8508 of January this year. Paragraph 9.7 states that,
“the Government is engaging with third parties to secure funding contributions towards HS2”.
Paragraph 9.8 states that it will,
“examine the potential for private financing to reduce the up-front capital demand on the taxpayer and offer value for money”.
My noble friend Lady Kramer made an important contribution to discussions on the disastrous outcome of the maintenance and upgrading of the London Underground a dozen years ago. Referring to the stability of public-private partnership, she said that any joint venture involved high risk. As Minister, my noble friend has only just inherited HS2 and cannot be held responsible for any shortcomings hitherto. However, I hope that she can confirm today that no planning arrangements will involve joint ventures in the spirit of public-private partnerships such as Metronet.
I have spoken about the governance of HS2 because it is crucial to the project’s success or failure and to avoid any major delay or significant additional cost. In turn, it is related to the concerns expressed earlier today by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and, on 24 October, by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who referred to the loss of more than 2,000 properties in the London Borough of Camden. As speed rather than capacity is no longer the principal case for HS2, it must follow that HS2 Ltd is now free to take rather longer to reach its destination. On the face of it there should be scope for more flexibility and choice, thus easing the problems in the countryside and at the London end of the line—if, for instance, taking 20 minutes longer than the White Paper’s route is more acceptable. I hope that my noble friend will reflect on that option.
There is a separate specific question, the answer to which I cannot find in the HS2 papers, although that may be my fault. What proportion of all travellers—or customers—on High Speed 2 will be business travellers? Whatever the answer, what has been put into the calculations of the increased use of video conferences, Skype and other emerging internet facilities? Busy business people do not want to travel, even on faster trains, if they are able to work in the office or at home by using the latest technology.
It is said that High Speed 2 will bring the north and the south together, leading to living standards rising disproportionately in deprived areas, or where the population is declining, or in areas of high and persistent unemployment. For many years I have spoken in both Houses and elsewhere about economic geography and the two nations. I was born and brought up in the north-west, in Liverpool, and for 20 years I was a Member of Parliament in the north-east, for Stockton-on-Tees. In the light of the outstanding contributions from noble Lords today, in particular the opening speeches, I wish I could believe that High Speed 2 would contribute to major regional benefits. However, I remain deeply sceptical.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to support this High Speed 2 Bill. I congratulate the noble Baroness on the way she introduced it and, of course, my noble friend Lord Adonis on his very full and fascinating description and arguments in favour of it. It is great that we now have all-party support for this project. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group.
As several noble Lords have very kindly said about rail freight, it is forecast to double over 20 years. We have discussed that, and passenger increase, in previous debates. Therefore I see High Speed 2, certainly in phase 1 and continuing into phase 2, as in effect adding two more tracks to the west coast main line in a way that will not obstruct or close it while it is being built. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, said that he expected that if we did not have this, there would be a shambles in 20 to 30 years. I believe that it will be closer to 10 years.
As part of the preparations, the freight industry is discussing the capacity with HS2. Noble Lords will understand that when phase 1 gets to somewhere around Lichfield, where it joins the west coast main line, you have lots of different train services going on to the west coast main line, which happens to go into a short section of two tracks that go through Shugborough Tunnel. We have had very useful discussions with Network Rail and HS2 about where all these trains will go when seven extra High Speed 2 trains in phase 1 join the residual services on the west coast main line—although “residual” is not the right word, because they are very important services. As noble Lords have said, there is no intention to reduce those services provided to people who are not on High Speed 2. If you add to that the increase in freight, you have a problem. Network Rail is working with the industry on what to do about that problem, but it will still be there in 10 years’ time. Whether it involves diversions, more night working or whatever, that challenge will happen now.
As I have said here previously, if it does not go by rail, it will go by road, and do we want another three-lane motorway somewhere? I think that the answer, as my noble friend said earlier, is that we do not. Therefore we have to find solutions to the capacity problem. It is a problem mainly on the west coast main line and, funnily enough, it is not just near Lichfield and thereabouts, but will happen north of Crewe as well, because there are sections of two-track there when you go over Shap towards Carlisle. The network needs looking at in a 20-year horizon so that the demands of freight and passenger—not just up the line but across it and parallel to it—are met. It is good that it has begun, and we shall probably have to have quite a few debates about the detail of this when one gets to the hybrid Bill and the Select Committees to see what answers and commitments can be made. However, in many ways that is a good challenge to have.
I was struck by comments from my noble friend Lord Adonis and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and others about the appraisals. It is absolutely crazy to say that that the growth will stop three years after phase 2 opens. That is rather like the announcement last week by either the Treasury or maybe the Department for Transport that the forecasts are that the growth of cycling in London will suddenly stop in 2015 and will thereafter decrease. Leaving aside the terrible run of accidents in the past week or two, what evidence is there that the growth in cycling in London over the past 10 years, which has been pretty surprising and gratifying for me, will suddenly tail off? It is probably something to do with the fact that they do not want to spend any more money on it. We need a review of the whole appraisal methodology. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, is the person to lead that. The whole structure is not fit for purpose. Having arguments about what the cost-benefit ratio on a project the size of HS2 is is a pretty good waste of time, but still, we have to do it.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, spoke about environmental issues, particularly in the Chilterns, and about AONBs and woodlands; I do not think that he mentioned bats, but they will come in. I was involved in a way with the construction of HS1 and had many dealings with the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, when he was Minister. He certainly tried very hard and very successfully to deal with the objections of some of the people who lived along that route. One person said, “You are destroying the garden of England”. In three years’ time, after the line was opened and the trees had grown up a bit, he told me that it had not made any difference to his life at all. The construction will be hard, but we have to be careful about overreacting to what will, I hope, be a temporary and well managed construction phrase. When it is built, it will not be particularly serious. This makes me worry about how one balances the concerns of people against environmental concerns. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, 2,700 properties in Camden are affected against 100 in the Chilterns. How do we balance those? Are the Chiltern people more important, or is the environment more important? That is a very difficult judgment to make, although I am sure somebody will make it. However, we have to be careful that we do not overreact. I say this as someone who was brought up in Great Missenden; I know it very well.
I have had lots of letters from people about objections. Some say that this is about capacity, others that it is about speed, while others argue about the economy. However, let us just look at what has happened to Lille and Lyon in France, which were two of the first provincial cities in France to be connected to the high-speed network. The city of Lille paid a lot of extra money to get the station in the middle of Lille rather than having the line go round the outside, as originally planned. The two cities are completely transformed. To say that such a line pulls economic benefit away from such cities to the centre is all wrong. It will help. Even outside cities such as Lille—up to 20, 30 and 40 kilometres away—there are benefits. We should look and see what has happened there.
We should also reflect on the fact that the first high-speed line in France, to Lyon, was built as a means of providing more capacity; it was nothing to do with speed. It is a virtually straight line from Paris to Lyon, which goes through very sparsely populated countryside, and it has done so well in the 20 or 30 years that it has been open that they have had to replace all the track already and have signalled it so that, I believe, it can now take a train every two minutes, because the demand is increasing. That will probably go on.
The track is very steep and undulating. I remember taking some Members of Parliament there when I worked for Eurotunnel, and they drove a train; we were allowed to drive the trains in those days. It was great fun, although people normally got a bit seasick in the front. It was also very exciting, and it still is exciting—and it just shows what the demand really could be.
To conclude, I shall say a word or two about connectivity. A lot of people have said that the HS2 line is not connected, but I think the Government are right not to specify what services will be operated in 10 or 20 years’ time. The links are there. They are linking into the west coast main line. They are going to link to Manchester, to the west coast north, to Leeds and everything. In the south, Old Oak Common, as some noble Lords have said, is a wonderful interchange.
I have concerns about some of the connections in London. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I are coming up with an alternative idea that, we hope, will reduce the demolition around Euston and provide better connectivity. I also have concerns about the station in Birmingham and the lack of connectivity on to Wolverhampton, because people will not save much time if they have to walk for 15 minutes between the new station and Birmingham Snow Hill to go on to Wolverhampton.
However, these are small details. The key issue is how to get the connectivity between these new services and the existing ones and city centres. We have problems in many station termini in London: Victoria, Paddington and Euston all get very congested in the rush hour, particularly on the Underground. Connecting some of the west coast main line suburban trains into Old Oak Common and directly into Crossrail will save an enormous number of passengers from going into the Underground at peak times.
Those are the kinds of issues that need to be discussed because HS2 is part of a network, and I hope that HS2 trains will go to many different parts of the north and west on electrified lines. That will provide enormous benefits in capacity. The speed will help in some places, but the important thing is capacity, because if we do not have the capacity we will be really lost. We have to get on with this as quickly as we can. I do not believe that doubling or quadrupling the great central or the midland main line will be enough. Just imagine the hassle in High Wycombe and Princes Risborough if we had to demolish half the houses there and build four tracks. The midland main line will probably have to be reconstructed as four tracks, as it used to be, in addition to HS2, within 10 or 20 years anyway. This is the kind of growth we are looking at. We have to get on with this project. It has been well thought out. I am sure that there are still some improvements that can be made, but I end by asking the Minister this question, to answer when she winds up: when will the hybrid Bill be published?
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
My Lords, this country’s debt is increasing at a rate in excess of £100 billion a year. I find it hard—almost impossible—to believe that in these circumstances Her Majesty's Government propose to enter into a financial commitment the case for which—I say this in spite of the eloquence that I have heard today—looked at in the very best, kindest and most positive way, is weak. Looked at in any normal way, HS2 is, frankly, insane. No sane businessman, dealing with his own money, would dream of making an investment based on the criteria being used to justify HS2.
Granted, the economy is improving, so that by the time bills have to be paid the financial position might be better, but the country will still have a burden of £1 trillion of public debt to deal with. There is no certainty about what the project will cost. I do not think anyone knows. In 2008 the cost was estimated to be £17 billion, in 2010 the estimate had increased to £30 billion, in 2012 it was up to £33 billion, and this year the figure has increased to £42.6 billion. And that is without counting the cost of the odd £10 billion for rolling stock. For what it is worth, the Financial Times has estimated the true cost to be £73 billion. Who knows what the final cost will be? Major Government spending plans have a habit of going over budget distressingly frequently.
Until quite recently the main argument to support this project has been the financial benefit to be gained from faster train journeys, because they would give more time for travellers to get on with their affairs—indeed, 79% of all benefits in the business case for HS2 are attributed to these savings. However, the vast majority of passengers on trains do get on with their business: reading, writing, using laptops and so on. They do not just sit there doing nothing. If the proponents of this Bill had ever sat on an intercity train they would have seen this. As a businessman who has never had a head office, but has had interests all over the country, I have spent many hours travelling; half an hour more or less on a train has never mattered. In practice, travelling time on trains is useful, as it enables one to get on with things, such as writing and reading, without interruption. The other point your Lordships might care to note is that the time-saving calculations assume trains travelling at 140 mph—a speed not yet achieved.
More important is the time spent journeying to and from stations, when it is considerably more difficult to use the time to good effect. In five of the seven main provincial cities to be served by HS2 trains, the line will not even go into main railway stations. In Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby the HS2 station will be 10 miles from the city centre. With the extra time required to get from the station to the final destination, one has to question whether there will be an overall time saving at all: will the journey door to door take just as long with HS2 as it did before?
With increasing recognition of the weakness of the time argument, the justification now being emphasised is the need for the extra capacity that HS2 will provide. How this will happen with, for example, the number of platforms at Euston presently used for existing services being reduced from 18 to 13 is difficult to understand. Figures that became available in December 2012 as a result of a judicial review show that intercity trains on the west coast main line were only 52% full in the evening peak period, and there was still scope to increase the size of trains if necessary. In spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, I believe that if there is a need for spare capacity there are other and considerably cheaper solutions.
The existing line could be upgraded. Claims that this would take 14 years and cost £19 billion have been comprehensively rubbished by a number of different commentators—so much so that the objectivity of the arguments in favour of HS2 must be seriously suspect. In any event, it would take 17 years before both phases of HS2 were complete.
There is also the possibility of opening up the Chiltern Line, another cheaper alternative. We are a trading nation and depend on the trade we do with other countries, be it in services or manufactured goods. To be effective we need the best possible communications with the outside world. It beggars belief that Her Majesty’s Government are proposing to spend quantities of billions of pounds on a project for which the business case does not even stand the most cursory examination, instead of getting on with increasingly desperately needed airport capacity—something the Minister hardly even mentioned in her long list of money to be spent on transport. Even today there is an article by Sir Martin Sorrell in the newspapers begging for better airport capacity. I urge the Minister to have a look at this side of life as well as the trains.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, in all the points he made. Needless to say, I disagree with every single one of them. On the question of cost—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
On the question of cost, to which he referred, if he reads the speech by his noble friend Lord Heseltine to the Royal Town Planning Institute, he will find that a number of those issues are addressed and answered very fully. I draw his attention to the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, refers to the Government selling a 30-year concession in 2011 for High Speed 1 to a Canadian pension fund for £2.1 billion. I understand that something in the order of £10 billion could be realised for a similar concession on HS2, and there is a great deal more of the same.
I start by thanking the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—for convening the meeting for Peers with her officials last Tuesday. I certainly found it helpful and informative and left the Committee Room hopeful that this Bill and, indeed, the whole High Speed 2 project are in good hands. As we had such an excellent debate on High Speed 2 in your Lordships’ House on 24 October, there is no need for me to go over the ground that I covered then. However, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for quoting a sentence from what I said that evening.
The important thing that came out of the debate was a demonstration of the overwhelming need to add capacity to our railways as a consequence of the phenomenal growth in demand for rail transport over the past 20 years. Passenger demand has doubled since 1995. As the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is still in his place, I will go back to 1976 and recall a conversation that Sir Peter Parker had with Tony Crosland, who was then Secretary of State for the Environment, which Sir Peter wrote about in his autobiography. He said that he was depressed by Tony Crosland saying to him:
“Peter, I see a future for BR as a smaller, sensible little railway”.
Spare capacity was ruthlessly removed throughout the 1970s and 1980s as BR desperately tried to cut costs to meet the financial objectives imposed on it by the Treasury, about which my noble friend Lord Adonis spoke so eloquently earlier. Therefore, it is no wonder that more capacity is needed for the railways now.
Given the gloomy forecasts for passenger and freight demand produced at that time, which were all proved hopelessly wrong within 10 years, I am reminded of the words of the great economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who said:
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.
The lesson we should have learnt, post Beeching, is that you must keep your options open, retain the flexibility for future growth and never sell the track bed as it is a resource that must be protected.
At the Minister’s meeting on Tuesday I pointed out that the task of building a high-speed railway to the Midlands and the north would have been much easier if previous Labour and Conservative Governments had not closed the Great Central Railway—the last main line to be built in Britain until High Speed 1, and the only main line, until High Speed 1, built to the continental gauge. One of its routes to Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield went straight through the Chilterns, including the towns of Amersham, Great Missenden and Wendover. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Stevenson is not here to—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Oh, he is here. He has moved down to the Front Bench. I expect that a number of your Lordships have been on the receiving end of lobbying from residents of these places. As my noble friend is in his place—I am delighted to see him—I say to him that this lobbying from people in the villages and towns of the Chilterns has to be balanced against the voice of the representatives, from all political parties, of the eight core cities of England outside London: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. In their letter to the Daily Telegraph, published on 29 May this year, they wrote:
“Research has shown that an over-reliance on the capital city is bad for national economies. England needs these eight core cities to succeed. If these cities performed at the national average, another £1.3 billion would be put into the economy every year. Unlocking growth relies on rebalancing the economy of Britain, which HS2 will help to do, bringing regeneration benefits outside the South East … High-speed rail is not just about fast trains. Increasing capacity on the rail network is critical to our economic future. There is an important relationship between growth, jobs and HS2. High-speed rail is the best way to achieve a more sustainable economic future for the nation as a whole”.
Of course, the residents of the Chilterns are entitled to express their views, although I have to say to them that the effectiveness of their lobbying would be enhanced if they wrote individually to us. For last month’s debate, the first seven paragraphs of all the e-mails I received were exactly the same, and the same happened with the e-mails sent to me about this debate—all of which, incidentally, got the date of this debate wrong. If you do a little research, you discover that they were all generated through an American company which, according to its website,
“has developed a cloud based service that solves the challenge of email delivery by delivering emails on behalf of companies”.
This is not exactly evidence of spontaneous local initiatives on the part of the residents.
However, I would certainly support generous compensation for those affected. As the Minister reminded us last Tuesday, and again this evening, the levels being offered are far greater than those which have been paid—and, as far as I know, continue to be paid—to those affected by highway schemes.
While we are on the subject of the Chilterns and its area of outstanding natural beauty—I know about this, having been brought up, like the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in that part of England—is it possible to imagine a more destructive transport project than the construction of the M40 in the 1970s right through the heart of the Chiltern escarpment above the Vale of Aylesbury, known as the Stokenchurch Gap? That was driven through the middle of the Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve, and all pleas to the inspector to put the motorway in a tunnel or follow a different route were ignored. Still active today is the M40 Chiltern Environmental Group, which says on its website that it represents 25,000 people who live along the M40 corridor from junction 3 to junction 8, and say:
“Day and night we all suffer from intolerable noise pollution”.
By comparison, the residents of Amersham and Great Missenden are being offered a pretty good deal in terms of compensation and environmental protection. This will be confirmed by the residents of Kent, where HS1, so controversial when proposed 20 years ago, is simply no longer an issue. Indeed, it is hard to hear the trains in Kent because of the noise from the M20.
Make no mistake; if we do not build High Speed 2, we will have few options to meet the demand for transport. One would be to return to the days of the 1970s and 1980s and resume a massive programme of motorway construction. However, we should remember that the width of land required for a dual three-lane motorway is 36 metres, compared with just 22 metres which will be needed for High Speed 2. Over the entire 330-mile route, HS2’s land take will be 11.7 square kilometres, compared with 19.1 square kilometres for the equivalent length of motorway.
The other option would be to patch up Victorian railways, even though we know, as we have heard from other speakers tonight, that that will come nowhere near meeting the demand for rail travel after 2020. It is worth remembering that “make do and mend” would inflict on all of us 2,770 weekend closures, endless bus substitutions and increased journey times over 14 years —all for a capacity increase between London and Birmingham of just 53%, compared with High Speed 2’s 143%, with no increase in current line speed.
At some point I hope that the whole nation will again take pride in its railways, in the same way as other countries with modern high-speed lines do, such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, China and Taiwan. Some of our finest architecture and engineering structures are to be found on our railways. Just consider such icons as Brunel’s bridges across the Thames and the Tamar, Robert Stephenson’s Royal Border Bridge at Berwick, the fantastic Forth Rail Bridge, wonderful Victorian stations, as fine as our medieval cathedrals, such as Bristol Temple Meads, York, Newcastle, Glasgow Central, and modern treasures such as Manchester Piccadilly, St Pancras and now, again, King’s Cross. There is no reason why High Speed 2 should not be in the same league as Brunel’s Great Western Railway or Stephenson’s London & Birmingham Railway, adding to, not detracting from, the landscape, with soaring viaducts, fine stations and supremely engineered track and alignments. Above all, it is a project that will meet the nation’s transport needs in the 21st century.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I ask myself, “Has everything already been said about HS2?”, but I think the answer to that is no. I shall just repeat two points that I made on 24 October. The first is that it needs better leadership. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, in reading out that paragraph, identified that. I still do not know who is in charge, although I realise that Sir David Higgins will obviously be in charge. The second point is that it is not about a few minutes off journey times.
The Secretary of State made an excellent speech on 11 September at the Institution of Civil Engineers, but the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, made a much better speech at the Royal Town Planning Institute on 12 November. We could do a lot worse than get the podcast in here tonight, switch it on and go home. The Library provided me with the podcast; it is no good reading it, listen to it. It is electrifying to hear the noble Lord set out the case for HS2.
At this point I need to mention a couple of interests. I do so in particular because the Register of Lords’ Interests is frequently attacked over a lack of transparency. I can say that I have never discussed HS2 with either the company or other rail operators; I have had no discussion with the roads lobby, the landowners lobby or the airlines lobby; and I have had no discussions with local government, although I have requested written briefings. However, earlier this year, HMG was seeking someone to chair the HS2 planning forum, which is the meetings between HS2 Ltd, the Department of Transport and the local authorities along the proposed route. It was for just a handful of days per year. I offered. I did not get past the first cut and I have never spoken to anybody. I have nothing to register but I am being open and transparent, because the offer is there in the files, so that trouble makers in the future cannot make any mileage out of my position.
Following the sad death of my noble friend Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, I was asked by residents to take on the chair of the partnership board at Castle Vale, which is a very large-scale regeneration project on an estate of 10,000 citizens in my late noble friend’s constituency of Birmingham, Erdington. Colleagues will have driven past it. There were 34 tower blocks there at one time; there are now two. The link from the north-south route of HS2 into the centre of Birmingham will traverse the outer perimeter of Castle Vale. It has not been on the agenda of the board to date, although various local representatives have attended consultation meetings. I have not been involved to date, but the Castle Vale partnership board is in the register anyway.
I support the HS2 project. I am not locked into one route or to the starting stations. There will probably be some changes as the thing makes further progress. It has to be straight and cannot stop too often as it has to be fast. Those are a given and I do not see a problem with that. A new north-south link, which in my view should reach both Glasgow and Edinburgh, using modern technology, will bring benefit to generations and regions in the UK. Not many of us here today, as the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said, will see the benefit, but the crazy way in which the figures are presented is designed to put people off, designed to put supporters off, even. If it is going to benefit generations, why are most of the headline figures less than half a lifetime? It does not make sense. Talk about selling the project short.
My noble friend Lord Adonis in his excellent speech mentioned some of the alternatives. What are they? We could raise the fares; stop people using the railways. Reduce demand—it can be done, but it will not be much good for connectivity, economic productivity and growth. There could be a major expansion of domestic air flights, with extra check-in times, more pollution and a few more local runways. Enough said. We could build more motorways. The road lobby would welcome that. In fact, I wonder how much it is spending on anti-HS2, but I am not making any point about that. Of course, we need to improve the motorway network, junctions and feeder roads, especially on the M40 and the M20, but a major network of new motorways cannot be what the country needs. I have to assume that nobody from the Chilterns ever goes on the M6 north of Birmingham. That road has been 60 feet from the bedrooms of some of my ex-constituents, from 24 May 1972 until today: an elevated section at rooftop level 60 feet from their houses. Think about that for the way people move around the country. It works, but we do not want any more. We do not want a new motorway system. The idea that nobody travels on the existing infrastructure, which does disturb people, is, of course, palpable nonsense.
We could patch and mend the railway. I have not seen the attack on the 2,500 weekends. Basically, it is 14 years of weekend working, as the Minister said, on two out of the three north-south lines at any one time. That is the reality and what is more, it would cost £19 billion to £20 billion and we would not get a great deal from it. None of these alternatives will create the ingredients for regional economic growth and bring the private sector investment on the back of public expenditure which has occurred elsewhere. A new classic rail, the figures say, will cost 9% less than high speed, but high speed rail delivers journey time benefits by a factor of more than 5:1. It is not about journey times but the factor has to be taken into account that HS2, compared to the classic rail, is 5:1.
Not everything has to done at once, which is the impression given by the loose talk of some about the costs. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, mentioned that the annual £2 billion on London Crossrail ends as the HS2 annual expenditure of £2 billion starts. The two things merge together, and this benefits the whole country, not just the capital city. That has to be taken into account. Buried deep in the publications on HS2 is the point that we are talking about generations benefiting. Therefore, why cannot we use assumptions beyond the 20 years set out in the main body of the documents? The cost-benefit ratio goes from 1 to 2.3 to 1 to 4.5 if we go to 2040. It is preposterous to say that it will benefit generations and then cut off all the calculations showing how beneficial it will be at half a lifetime. It does not make sense. It may be the way that it has been done in the past by the Department of Transport and the Treasury, but it does not make sense in making the case.
I would like to hear from the Minister about one aspect of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as I thought that it was the most important point he made. He said that the Government should propose development corporations at points of development on the route in order for the public to recoup some of the planning gains in exactly the same way we did in Docklands. Let us face it, in Docklands four local authorities did nothing for 30 years. That is why Docklands had to be seized into a development corporation to get the planning gain back for the public investment. That is exactly what the noble Lord said we can do along the HS2 route. I would genuinely like to know about that because it has not been referred to elsewhere. We cannot be certain—nothing is fixed about this—but the evidence in Docklands, the Thames Gateway and other areas of public investment, such as in the new city of Milton Keynes, which is doubling in size, is that along with public investment comes private investment to create the jobs and an economic future. We cannot, however, factor that into the calculations, although it is clearly self-evident. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made that point. The public sector must lead on this project. It is no good saying that the private sector should build HS2; the public sector has to lead but it does not have to do it all. By using our brains we can recoup as much of the extra land values as possible, as we have done in the past.
I hope that with this Bill we can hear the whistle blown for HS2 to leave the station of Whitehall to spread economic and social regeneration throughout the UK. So far, the only whistle I have heard regarding HS2 is the dog whistle blown by some colleagues in Labour’s high command, aimed at those living in the Home Counties. Dog-whistle politics are not honest politics in any case. In this case, it happened that the dog whistle was heard in the town hall corridors of the northern cities of this country, and the message came back loud and clear. I hope that we hear no more of the dog whistle.
This is a visionary project on a scale that transcends the Channel Tunnel—although that is unique by definition—and the post-war new towns. It cannot be right, therefore, for any political leader to claim the project for themselves, and the Prime Minister is not doing that. As my noble friend Lord Adonis said, it is to the credit of this Government that they have taken this project forward. This has to be all-party or it will not happen; it is as simple as that. Furthermore, the final decision cannot be left to the financial bean counters because we know that the finance figures are fiddled. The 20-year cut-off helps to destroy the case, so I do not accept it. I reject the scrimping “Britain can’t do it” approach. Leaders need to lead and show vision. They should connect public good investment, much of which can be recouped, with the substantial private gains in jobs and economic and social prosperity. A petty, party, tribal approach is to be condemned and condemned hard and fast to nip it in the bud, otherwise this 20-year project will not get off the ground. I am happy to support the preparation Bill.
Lord Cormack (Con)
That is the sort of rumbustious and splendid speech that we are used to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I am sorry that I cannot entirely follow him or agree with all he said, but he would not expect that. I begin on a congratulatory note—first to my noble friend the Minister, who in 10 minutes presented an argument forcefully, cogently and persuasively. She brings to her task many gifts and qualities from which we will all benefit. I was also delighted to see the Secretary of State sitting on the steps of the Throne during her speech and that of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It is far too rare that Cabinet Ministers come and listen to debates in your Lordships’ House, and the Secretary of State set a very good example tonight. He is a man for whom I have very considerable respect and affection.
However, even for the Secretary of State I am unwilling easily and willingly to endorse a blank cheque—and that is what the Bill is. There is no limit on the expenditure that the Secretary of State can sanction in preparation for this project. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who also made a forceful and powerful speech, would clearly not object to that, but it is a matter for which we should have a care, even though in this House—quite rightly—we do not have the power to send back or amend money Bills. I would not wish to have that power. The unambiguous democratic mandate in this country is at the other end of the Corridor, and long may it remain so. That is why I have always been such a staunch defender of the secondary role of your Lordships’ House in these matters.
However, there are things that we have to consider. My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising made some very good points—and, after all, he is a man who has considerable business knowledge and is not alone in voicing his concerns at the prodigal expenditure on this scheme. We have heard many comments from the Institute of Directors and other business men and women who know what they are talking about and do not see this project as the panacea that many in the debate would claim.
Only this morning I had breakfast with one of the most successful British businessmen. It would be wrong to mention his name because I did not tell him that I would do so, but when I said that I was going to speak in this debate and that I would be voicing a degree of opposition to HS2, he warmly encouraged me to do so. He felt that the project was a distortion of priorities and said he did not feel that it would bring the benefits that so many in the debate have claimed. He is clearly not alone. Many in your Lordships’ House agree and we heard spirited speeches in the previous debate—in which, sadly, I was unable to take part—from the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, and others who put a different point of view. After all, we are having a debate and it is important that different points of view should be put.
There is one thing that we do not consider as carefully as we might. This is a finite country. People have been talking this evening about France and Germany, which are enormous European countries on our continent, and have thrown in references to China, which is not exactly a miniscule country. Noble Lords sought to suggest that because those countries depend so much on high-speed rail, given the enormous distances that have to be covered, we should follow suit. I do not think that to have an efficient transport system in this country we need necessarily to follow the suit of other countries that are enormous in extent.
We also have to bear in mind that other priorities should be considered. When I drive from my home in Lincoln to London, I come down the A1. It is a scandal that the main arterial route to the north is not of motorway standard. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I know spaghetti junction almost as well as he does; for 40 years I represented a seat in Staffordshire, and from the opening of the M6 onwards I used that road weekly—year in, year out. I agree with him that we do not want a lot more motorways, but parts of our road system are wholly inadequate for the needs of our people, and the A1 is one of those roads. A number of things could and should be done, if there is £50 billion going begging, to improve the infrastructure of our country.
We should also have regard to the size of our country when we have a concern for its environment. I have spent a long time in this place and the other seeking to speak up for heritage causes. As long ago as 1976 I wrote a book called Heritage in Danger, in which I talked about the threats to our landscape from unthinking development. I well understand why people living near the Chiltern Gap feel as they do about the M40, skilfully as it has been landscaped. Our country is precious. Our countryside, once destroyed, can never be brought back. We must have very real concern about the environmental effects of HS2, particularly in the Chilterns. I was in that area for a couple of days last week when we had our brief break. It is one of the loveliest parts of England. It is not selfish of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, or anyone else, to point that out.
Why is the National Trust, our largest environmental charity—four million of our fellow citizens are members—so opposed? Not because its members are nimbys or introspective, but because they are seeking to be protective. This has to be taken into account. We have to look at proportion, and we have to look at balance. If I may say so without sounding insulting, I think that some people who are going over the top for HS2—and I would gently reprimand the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in that regard—do not pay sufficient attention to the environmental side of things. I have great respect for the noble Lord. He was one of the most successful Ministers in the previous Government, deservedly gaining a fine reputation, and I am glad to see him back in front-line politics. However, I urge him to consider a little. Perhaps I could quote the famous remark of Cromwell that you should,
“think it possible that you may be mistaken”.
We can all have that quoted at us, and he would with good cause perhaps want to quote it back at me. However, I say to him as one of those passionately concerned about the beauty of our countryside, which is not only ours but which brings enormous economic gains from the tourists who come here, that it is infinitely precious and should not be easily sacrificed.
This is a complex issue. I well understand why people feel that to upgrade our transport we have to build something brand new, but I am not convinced of the argument. We do not pay sufficient regard to those who say that HS2 will possibly suck the life-blood out of some of our other cities and make us more of a London-centric country than we are already—and we are far too London-centric as it is.
These are all points worthy of consideration, and although they are causing infinite amusement to my dear friend, the noble Lord, Lord Snape—Lord Snape of the railways—who is sitting on the Back Bench and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat, nevertheless they are worthy of our regard and our consideration. I hope we can develop some of them as we debate HS2 again, as we certainly shall when the hybrid Bill comes before us.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I doubt very much that he will reflect that he might be mistaken on the basis of the arguments that I will put forward. On two things, he ought to reflect on whether he might have got them wrong. I shall begin with his phrase “a small island”. Actually, that is the argument for railways, compared to larger countries. It is undoubtedly the case that as the economy grows, there is a propensity for the coefficient describing how fast passenger miles grow to increase. People have more discretionary expenditure which, as family dispersion proceeds, produces more family passenger miles as well as more business passenger miles, so these extra passenger miles will be generated. There is a positive coefficient in relation to economic growth. No one now flies between Heathrow and Manchester as they used to some time ago, and so the alternatives are much greater congestion on the roads or more capacity on the railways.
Higher speed attracts and is part of the equation. So is the fact that the size of the country is shrinking, if we think of economic geography in terms of how long it takes to get somewhere. We see as a cluster the whole city region of Manchester—where I was born—West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, East Midlands and West Midlands. It is less than an hour all the way round. I ask the Minister whether the department ought to produce a study of a regional cluster compared with some European and other ideas, because this is a way in which we can learn from each other. I think that the answer will be that we are talking about an economic transformation.
I remember when Alastair Morton, the visionary chief executive of Eurotunnel, described economic geography as the basis of economic development. I am an economist myself. That is what I did for my first few years, and I think that the Channel Tunnel has produced a very interesting answer; namely, that it is very easy now to jump on a train in Paris and be in London or Brussels in two hours, and this is transforming so many things in terms of an economic growth model. So is the regeneration of Kings Cross. Even the Shard is on London Bridge station. Whether we have stations on the edge of cities or not, there will be different patterns of demand which fit.
Heathrow is not in the centre of London, but on the Surrey-Hampshire border where I live, we are part of the Heathrow economy. The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, has got things 180 degrees wrong. There is no contradiction in talking about the need to deal very quickly with 98% of Heathrow’s capacity already being full—national scandal that that is—and getting on with HS2. The scandal of not doing HS2 would be very similar to the scandal of not building the two extra runways, which should probably be to the west of the two runways at Heathrow.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that we can learn from the experience of Kent in another way. My noble friend Lord Adonis, who is not in his place at the moment, knows that I convened a meeting about four years ago because I happened to know some of the people in Kent who had been in consultations there. I got the National Association of Local Councils to bring together all the local councils in the Chilterns at a meeting here in the House of Lords to find out about all the stages of the consultation that had been gone through in Kent. The people from Kent confirmed what I think the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and others have said, that they had been very satisfied with the experience of the consultation. Although they never became what one might call protagonists, they all agreed that the noise envelope from HS1 is nothing like the noise envelope from the M2 and the M20. Those are the alternatives that we have to look at.
The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, tried to ridicule the idea that £50 billion should be spent on a project of this kind. I do not know what goes on in his mind when he talks about £50 billion being spent on this, as if it is spent on social welfare in some sense, but it is value added in the supply chain in the west Midlands and other parts of Britain. It may well be that we have to look to our laurels to make sure that the tunnel boring machines are not all from ThyssenKrupp or whatever in Germany, but that is a slightly different question, about our industrial capacity. I put a second question to the Minister: has the Business Department joined up in Whitehall, as on Crossrail, to make sure that British industry gets the great share—the lion’s share if I may call it that—of the £50 billion that we are looking at? That is the wages, salaries, profits and engineering progress that are entailed.
I can only echo what the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, of whom I have always been a fan on these matters, said:
“It is 120 years since we built a new railway north of London”.
It is a bit of a shock when you say it like that. Why should we not have built another railway north of London for 120 years? It is not as if railways, à la Beeching, are now a thing of the past. Ending—in due course—where I began, the argument is precisely that we are a small island. We should not be frightened of this because we are a small island.
We seem to have the idea that the Victorian era was some sort of golden age. I think Wordsworth wrote a poem about the Ribblehead viaduct or something—these exact arguments took place during Victorian times, even though we now all talk about the Victorian railways. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, whom I greatly admire, is exactly the sort of person who probably has a society for the admiration and better understanding of the Ribblehead viaduct. I would not be at all surprised, and the noble Lord is nodding his head. He probably is the president because he is the president of everything like that. But it was not exactly top of the pops at that particular time.
I am also reminded of when, exactly 20 years ago, in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, President Mitterrand said, with a straight face: “Having travelled at 300 kilometres per hour across the plains of northern France, we came through the Channel Tunnel and reduced our speed to 100 kilometres per hour, to better admire the beauty of the Kent countryside”. I did not know that the French were up to that sense of humour, but President Mitterrand somehow put his finger on a fallacy of our national psyche at that time.
In conclusion, I believe that we could be running the risk of another procrastination by having endless procedures which, in other circumstances, I could only call red tape. The Government are very committed to a bonfire of red tape—apart from when it comes to tying up the trade unions in red tape, although that is not the question we are discussing this evening. I suggest that, side by side with a statement about when we are going to see the next stages of legislation, we have a clear timetable, like the Olympic timetable, so that the thing does not slip and so that the people who are looking at the new patterns of economic geography can have some confidence. Many of the stations will not be in the middle of cities—I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing but more work can be done in the city clusters study that I recommend to look at the consequences of some of the stations not being in the centre of the cities and the connectivity there. That may have the upside of what I call the Heathrow Airport type of economic geography, as well as what you might call the downside, given that we all want to arrive at Kings Cross. There is a lot of very exciting work to be done and I have very little doubt that the Government and the Opposition are, on this issue, speaking for the nation’s future and, also, for the environment on the small island on which we live.
Lord Smith of Leigh (Lab)
My Lords, I should declare some interests, in view of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I am a member of the National Trust, but it does not speak in my name. I am also the leader of Wigan Council, as most Members know, and chairman of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. I confirm to the Minister that all the local authorities in Greater Manchester, whatever their political control, are supportive of High Speed 2 coming to Manchester. Indeed, it has the support of the business community in Greater Manchester. We have great support and are getting very positive comments from the consultation for Greater Manchester as a whole and, I am sure, for each and every one of the local authorities.
We support the strategic case that the Minister and other noble Lords have made. It is about capacity. Let us get this clear: it is about capacity on the railways in order for people to continue to travel. The growth that noble Lords have talked about, in both numbers of passengers and freight, means that we cannot cope with the existing infrastructure and we have to invest in new.
One of the alternatives, which noble Lords have talked about, is to try to improve capacity. That has been well established, but I can remember the misery of being a passenger on the west coast main line during its refurbishment. It was not much fun; I even missed an appointment with the Garter King of Arms to come into this place because the train was late, as was every train on the west coast main line at that time. Therefore, that is not really an option.
I am a former director of Manchester airport so one might think that the idea of increasing air transport would appeal to me. But we cannot possibly have the capacity at our airports to handle intercity transport within Britain; we want that capacity to be used for international connections and not for too many internal connections. We could not do it; it is not a possibility. Of course, in order to get to airports, infrastructure needs to be designed. Although I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, is normally correct, we actually built a new railway into Manchester airport to enable better connectivity.
Another option is to do something with the motorways. They are already congested and if we do not do anything to the rail system or to the motorways, we will just end up in gridlock. The impact of an increased capacity on the motorways, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, is going to be far greater than anything that High Speed 2 would create. Therefore, High Speed 2 is really our only alternative.
We support the economic case even more strongly because of the benefits that we believe High Speed 2 will bring to cities such as Manchester. I am willing to take the gamble that it will not suck business out of Manchester; rather, it will create more activity in our city region. We think that the benefits of HS2 alone will be about £1.3 billion but, of course, the additional facility in Greater Manchester of the airport station will probably add to that by a further half a billion pounds. Therefore, HS2 could result in an increase in activity in Greater Manchester of almost £2 billion.
Piccadilly station is bang in the heart of Manchester and will help to regenerate more of the city centre. There will be additional benefits resulting from that and the regeneration will be important for Manchester. As the project is being constructed, as noble Lords have said, jobs will be created. We are already working locally to see what skills will need to be developed so that we can maximise the benefits of construction in Greater Manchester.
In Manchester we benefit from this national connectivity. As noble Lords have said, it is not just connections from Manchester to London—although that is clearly important—but Manchester to Birmingham, Leeds and other cities that will be greatly improved. We also recognise that we need to improve local connectivity and through the Greater Manchester Community Transport Forum, we are already investing considerable amounts of money into improving the tram system and the bus network so that people will be able to get access from across the conurbation into the new station at Piccadilly. The airport will provide us with international connectivity that will mean more jobs.
If we are serious about rebalancing the economy in this country, then High Speed 2 is really important. Otherwise, the south-east will tend to dominate, as it has done in the past. I particularly welcome the creation of the growth taskforce, which will concentrate minds on how we can best engineer that growth, and I am sure that the Minister is aware that we have two members of that taskforce from Greater Manchester who are, I am sure, making a contribution.
Noble Lords have hinted that in the early part of the 19th century, this country had a phenomenal period of building railways. In a period of 20 years we built about 6,000 miles of railways in this country, providing the basis of the network that we have today. We did it because we had the confidence and engineering skills, and we did it without the cost-benefit analysis; no Victorian asked “What will be the benefit?”. They just had the confidence that this thing would work—it did, and it produced the benefits for the Victorian economy that we can see.
On the whole, during that period, Parliament was supportive of railway developments. The only hiccup was when the first Manchester to Liverpool railway was mooted and turned down, and they had to reroute it so that it did not go across too much of the Marquis of Stafford’s land. George Stephenson’s ingenuity meant that he managed to get it to go across an impossible area of Chat Moss and to float the railway as he did, meaning that that railway could be built. Other than that, Parliament supported the building of railways during the Victorian period and I hope that we can do the same in this particular Bill.
I want to briefly mention, as noble Lords have done, this odd contradiction between what Britain thinks about high-speed rail and what other countries, particularly in Europe, think about it. Spain has already got 3,000 kilometres of high-speed line, carrying 29 million passengers. The Germans are planning a network of about 2,500 kilometres and they have about 78 million passengers. We are planning to get about 317 kilometres and we currently have 9 million passengers—somewhat behind Belgium. Then, as noble Lords have mentioned, there is France. France was the leader in high-speed rail, planning for nearly 5,000 kilometres. It has with well over 100 million passengers currently on the TGV system.
On holiday in France last summer, I was delayed by some construction work near Tours for a new TGV line. When I came home, I checked what was going on, and it was a new extension of the TGV from Tours to Bordeaux, eventually on to Toulouse and the Spanish frontier. They announced this on roughly the same day that my noble friend Lord Adonis was planning to talk about HS2. It will open in 2017. We are now at the stage of a paving Bill and the lines in the north will not be completed until 2033. The French seem to be able to do these things somewhat faster than we can.
My only criticism of the Bill and the Government’s plans—not just this Government but both Governments —is not that we are building it but that we are building it too slowly. Actually, we ought to be building the two phases together. I accept that the congestion on the southern bit of the west coast main line is causing the greatest pinch points and needs to be tackled, but the economic benefits are greatly needed in the north and should be considered. If the Minister wants to examine the relative spending on rail by region, she will find that in the south-east they are spending roughly £2,700 per head of population; in the north-west it is £178, so there is quite some way to go.
There are two visions of Britain in the future. One is a vision where we try to make do and mend with the current system; we accept that Britain will be a second-class country with a second-class economy and a clapped-out transport system. The other is a vision for the future, a vision for our children, a vision of a Britain that can compete in the modern world, and for that we need high-speed rail.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, it was a great delight to hear the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in full flight again. I remember very well when he was a Defra Minister the great thing about him was that occasionally he used to throw away the script and agree amendments that the Government did not agree with. Those days are long gone, most regrettably.
A role that I had in this House until May was chairing one of your Lordships’ Select Committees, EU Sub-Committee C on external affairs—the nearest thing we have to a foreign affairs committee in this House. Last week I had one remaining engagement that came out of that: the University of Kent asked me to give a lecture to its politics and international relations department about the External Action Service, which we had just done a report on. The university said that it would book the fares for me, so I got the tickets and went to the station, which of course was St Pancras, and was swept over the Thames and along the north Kent coast in a Javelin train.
The train was at about 4 pm and it was pretty full, not of businesspeople but normal people. We sped down, and I was met at Canterbury, where I did my lecture, and we had dinner afterwards, courtesy of the University of Kent. My hosts remarked on how Canterbury had changed substantially for the better, not just in terms of the restaurants—I am sure that is not important to everybody but it was quite good for that evening—but the whole place had been significantly regenerated, effectively with private money, over the past few years since that service had started.
I was quite interested in HS1’s domestic transport function as opposed to its international one so I looked it up on the web. I came across an article on the BBC website from about 2010 which was all about how they were moaning in Ashford about the fact that nothing much had happened since the Javelins were announced, the train fares were going to be too much and really it was a waste of time, but then, moving down the results on Google, which I sometimes use—I am sure other noble Lords never do—I came across some rather more contemporary articles about this high-speed Southeastern service into Kent.
This time it was the citizens and the chambers of commerce of Deal and Margate really concerned that their service should continue feeding into High Speed 1. There had been help from Kent County Council, which I think was going to go into the main franchise, and there was real concern that there was going to be a hiatus for a couple of years until that franchise was sorted out. There was news about Canterbury and how property prices had increased quite substantially. While this was not good news for everyone, it showed the economic reaction there had been to this minor extension of the domestic use of HS1. This part of Kent surprised me. I come from Essex and now live in Cornwall, so I do not know it. I thought east Kent was an area where you got on a train and half an hour later you got off at Charing Cross. It was nothing at all like that. A two-hour journey has come down to one hour, and the regeneration of Canterbury and the seaside has happened because, as noble Lords have said, private money has followed the public money.
I am delighted to say that I have never had to use the west coast main line a great deal. I was interested that my noble friend Lord Cormack said that maybe £21 billion was difficult to imagine. The west coast main line upgrade was completed in 2008, after a decade of upgrading. It cost £9 billion. It was a pretty feeble and incredibly awkward upgrade that was inconvenient, I am sure, to local citizens, let alone travellers, for a whole 10 years. I could never understand why, at a time when France was rolling out its TGV programme—it had been doing it for a decade and was about to connect Strasbourg to Paris at that time—we ever thought of upgrading the west coast main line. We should have built a new one with technology that was already tested in Europe and elsewhere. The upgrade was the wrong option then; to increase capacity you need a new line. Clearly one would never build a new line to old, slow standards. You would build it to fast standards. That is quite obvious. I cannot see that you could argue that any other way.
Noble Lords have already mentioned rail services worldwide. China is not the best example because it is a very large country. In fact, high-speed rail is probably not the best solution for countries like that, but it has been done in other parts of Asia, not old sclerotic Europe—we have talked about that. Forging-ahead eastern Asia is also doing high-speed rail. I have been on the trains in Taiwan. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned Japan. I think the bullet trains started in 1964 for the Olympics. I do not think it a complete coincidence that this coincided with Japan’s fantastic economic growth through the 1960s and 1970s and into the 1980s, where it paused for a while.
Those are the reasons why it is quite clear that we should invest in this project. We should move ahead with it because there is no viable alternative. Like many noble Lords, I have a business background. How can you have an economy where you do not plan your capital expenditure well enough ahead so your organisation starts operating inefficiently with congestion and overcrowding and your business goes the wrong way?
The United Kingdom is the right size for high-speed rail. It can substitute, as it has done in France, for air passenger routes, and it stops the degree of airport development that perhaps there might be otherwise. There is rising demand for train services, so clearly it is necessary. If we decarbonise the electricity energy sector, we can have a much more environmentally friendly and less carbon-intensive form of transport as well. We have one of the highest population densities in Europe. It means that public transport naturally works in this country, whereas in more sparsely populated areas it does not.
From my point of view, this is not a complex question, as other noble Lords have said; it is absolutely straightforward. This is something where UK plc has to decide whether or not it is going to invest in the way that it is going to work and have its infrastructure into the future. I think that there is only one answer to that and only one way to do that. What I have been terribly disappointed about during the past couple of years is the lack of political leadership on this matter within the Government of whom I am a great supporter. They have said yes, they have pushed it forward and this Bill is here, but somehow we have managed to muffle the message. That is why I am also delighted that my noble friend Lady Kramer is here on the Front Bench and is going to be leading on this. It is also great to see the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, sending from the Opposition Front Bench that really strong message again that we can bring all parties together for this essential investment in the UK. It needs that political leadership. From this evening, I hope that that will continue.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, whom I have not heard speak on these matters before—although that probably reflects neglect on my part rather than on his. I agreed strongly with much of what he had to say. I am not seeking to make any particular political point here, but he was not quite right when he said that £9 billion was the total cost of the west coast main line upgrade. It is not finished yet; it was stopped at £9 billion in order to stay within that amount. He said that he does not use the west coast main line very much. If he makes the mistake of doing so next year, he will find that the re-signalling of Watford, which was not done in the original upgrade, will cause quite a bit of delay and dislocation to that line.
This debate follows one that we held a matter of only a few weeks ago, so I shall try to avoid repeating anything that I said then. I do, however, think that it is incumbent on those who oppose the scheme to tell us what the alternatives are, which few of them ever do. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, whom I have listened to with appreciation—I hope that he will understand that—for nearly four decades in both Houses, accused me of grinning like the Cheshire Cat during his contribution. It would have been appropriate if I did, because I was born in Stockport, which was in Cheshire before Ted Heath and his colleagues destroyed local government in the 1970s. Why I was smiling, rather than grinning, during the noble Lord’s contribution was because he did not see any contradiction between his impassioned plea for the environment to be defended and his demand for the A1 motorway to be widened so that he could drive from Lincoln to London in a bit more comfort than he does at present. That is a slight contradiction in terms. The noble Lord shakes his head—not like the Cheshire Cat—but the fact is that it is a contradiction.
We heard my noble friend Lord Rooker, whose constituency was adjacent to mine when we were in the other place, mention road building—and motorway building in particular. In his case, the motorway was 60 feet from the bedroom windows of his constituents. If the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, thinks that that is not an environmental disaster, I would be surprised. The fact is that most people who are interested in transport policy in this country acknowledge that the days of motorway building—to a certain extent, widening is permitted—lie in the past. It is much more damaging to the environment to build new roads, which is something that my noble friend Lord Stevenson, too, might reflect on. Today is the second or third time that I have heard him make his impassioned plea on behalf of the citizens of the area in which he lives, which he is perfectly entitled to do—but he should answer the particular question of whether the M40 has destroyed more sites of special scientific interest and done more damage to the environment than the proposed high-speed railway through the Chilterns will do.
We come back to the question: if not HS2, what? The fact is that we do not have enough capacity on the west coast main line. I listened with interest to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Howard. He would be flattered, I am sure, if I said that it was the biggest load of reactionary nonsense that I had heard for years—I am sure that he would take that in the spirit in which it was intended. If he believes that expanding the world of aviation will mop up the extra journeys that are being made on our railway system, that should perhaps be the subject for another debate. Some 128 million people a year now use intercity trains. That that would require a hell of a lot of aeroplanes, I must say.
He said that no businessman would touch the financial case for HS2. As the financial case was devised by the Treasury, indeed no businessman would. If and when the Treasury makes any contribution to these matters, it will be to say that we cannot afford it and that it does not meet the cost-benefit analysis. If it were left to the Treasury, we would not have built the M25, the Jubilee line, the Docklands Light Railway and various other schemes that most people would agree are essential. I will go further: if everything had been left to the Treasury, when I made my way back to Birmingham this week, I would do so on the 10 o’clock stagecoach from Tyburn. There would be no other way of going from London to Birmingham as no schemes, including the London & Birmingham Railway, would ever have passed the preposterous cost-benefit analysis so beloved of Her Majesty’s Treasury.
I propose to the noble Lord, Lord Howard, that he and I should go to Watford one day. If he thinks that the existing railway can cope with the 5.2% increase in passenger carryings that we are seeing on the west coast main line, we should stand together on the fast-line platform in Watford. He will probably not come because I understand that one cannot get a decent lunch in Watford, but if we were to go there and gaze towards London, we would see in the average hour, outside the rush hour, the following trains: three Pendolino trains from Birmingham and three from Manchester, a Super Voyager from North Wales, a London Midland train at 110 miles per hour from Crewe serving the Trent Valley, an hourly Scottish train and various other trains. That is the basic timetable for the up fast line between Watford Junction and London Euston at the present time. Indeed, this up fast line is so busy that Virgin Trains was refused permission to run an extra service to and from Shrewsbury because there was no room for it. An open-access operator wanted to use the west coast main line as far as Stockport—the home of the Cheshire Cat, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, might say—and on into Yorkshire, but was refused permission for the same reason.
I put it to the noble Lord, and the other critics of this scheme: if not HS2, what? The existing railway can barely cope with what it has at the present time. I do not want to bore your Lordships with stories of my time on the railway or the connections that I still make—it is a temptation, but I refuse. However, I can assure your Lordships that the intention is to close the up fast line that is being hammered in the average hour by all the trains that I mentioned, for between five and 10 years, from Saturday night to Monday morning, in order to do long-awaited and essential work. If we are getting into that state with the traffic that we have at the present time, I cannot believe that we could take any additional traffic, given the increase in intercity carryings that I referred to.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, who was, as he reminded your Lordships, Secretary of State for Transport during my time in the Whips’ Office—he tried to get me the sack once, but we will not go into that—seems to believe that the increase in passenger numbers that I referred to will perhaps tail off over the years. It is the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who”; perhaps I should say to my 11 year-old grandson that instead of building HS2, perhaps in 2033 we will all climb into a police box and be transported from A to B. He is only 11, but I do not think that he would believe that. I suspect that, in his heart, the noble Lord knows full well that we must build new rail capacity in this country. If we do not, the country will grind to a halt.
The alternative is that we all go by road. Perhaps we could pursue the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on the newly widened A1 to and from Lincoln. However, as everyone knows, widening roads generates more traffic. That is probably why we have stopped doing it in recent years. As fast as we widen roads, we generate even more traffic and the widened roads fill up once more.
There is no alternative to HS2, for the reasons that I have outlined. I have only one great criticism of it, and it is one that has been mentioned before: at the turn of the 20th century, Brunel managed to convert the Great Western Railway, as it then was, from broad-gauge to standard in a long weekend. Will it really take until 2033, when my grandson will be middle-aged? Although noble Lords on both sides look in extremely good health, few of us are likely to be around to travel on the new high-speed rail service, the principle of which I hope we will embrace under the terms of the Bill. We ought to do it—and a damned sight quicker than we are proposing to at the moment.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Snape. We were in the Commons together, and every time I take a train to Manchester and we go through Stockport and Edgeley sidings, I think of his younger days when he was doing very important work there. I am grateful to the Minister for the meeting that she arranged for us with officials last week. It was very helpful and certainly clarified a number of issues. I missed the previous debate on this so I do not have to apologise for repeating myself.
I do not believe that the argument in favour of HS2, which I fully support, is one of sentiment but I must confess that I have some affection for railways. I wonder if I might just mention a little story. I ask your Lordships to imagine New Year’s Eve December 1947: I was quite young, my mother was taking me back from London, where we had been over Christmas, and we were changing trains at Preston to go on to Blackburn. It was a cold, snowy and damp evening, the waiting room had no heating and there was nowhere to get any refreshments. The railways were to be nationalised on 1 January, the following morning. We were sitting there waiting for this non-existent train to Blackburn, and someone in the cold waiting room said, “Well, from tomorrow morning we can blame the Government for all this”.
That was a story from way back. I have one other bit of sentiment—actually, it is not really sentiment, it is harder than that. When Beeching’s report led to the closure of a lot of our railways, he did this country an enormous disservice. We closed lines that we wish we had now, not because they would replace HS2 or anything like that but simply because we lost something important. They were wonderful triumphs of Victorian engineering. I remember the line behind Tintern Abbey, the Chepstow-Monmouth line, which was a wonderful bit of engineering but is now derelict. I wish that they would reinstate the line from Penrith to Keswick, which could be reinstated—there is enough of the infrastructure there—although then going on from Keswick to Cockermouth and the coast would be impossible because it has been built over by the A66. Even then, though, reinstating some of these railways would have helped.
I suppose that those are bits of sentiment. What I am concerned with are the harder arguments in favour of HS2. I have reflected that if the financial estimates for the cost of the Channel Tunnel had been accurate, they would of course have been much higher than they were and we would not have built it because it would have been too costly. We have had enormous benefit from the fact that they were wrong. My point is that if we had deployed the arguments that some people are deploying against HS2 against the Channel Tunnel, it would never have been built and the country would have been much worse off because of it. I am not arguing that we should throw all financial estimates to the winds—not at all. I am arguing that we need to be careful before we reject some imaginative infrastructure schemes.
I am bound to say that as a country we are not very good at thinking about infrastructure and developing it—we tend to find too many arguments for not doing it. Sometimes those arguments win the day and sometimes they delay things enormously, but at other times we overcome them and then we get the benefit, and the Channel Tunnel is an example of that.
I fully accept that there are sensitivities in building new railway lines, although there are more sensitivities in building or widening motorways. I understand those sensitivities, though, and I hope that some of the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Stevenson will be reflected in the details of the Government’s scheme as it goes through the Chilterns. Having said that, I still believe that we have something important afoot with HS2.
I was reading Middlemarch not long ago. I could not find a particular reference—it is quite a long book—but there was a lot of discussion of local opposition to building the railways. I thought that some of the arguments could have been applied to today’s debate. George Eliot used slightly more elegant language than many of us use, but nevertheless the arguments were there at the time.
When I am not living in the Lake District, we have a house in London. For a long time, we had a house in Paddington that overlooked the main line out of Paddington station, the underground and the motorway that becomes the M40. It was pretty noisy. The reason we could just about afford it was because people did not like the noise. We put all the bedrooms at the back overlooking the little gardens, and that was fine. The trains got quieter, the shunting in the middle of the night stopped and it became much more bearable. Then the foxes got in and the noise of the foxes kept me awake more than the noise of the railways. Although I was opposed to fox hunting, I wanted to make an exception for some of the back gardens in Paddington. Some of my friends did not like that argument.
My point is that the noise of building is very hard to live with. Crossrail is causing a lot of anxiety where I used to live in Paddington because of the excavation and so on. However, once these infrastructure works are completed, the noise of the railways is perhaps not as bad as all that. It is not wonderful; I would not want to live a few yards from a railway, as I did, but at least it is more acceptable.
I use the west coast main line a great deal these days. I am conscious of the enormous disruption that there was for years—referred to by some of my noble friends—when the work was going on. Frankly, it was so awful that we could not travel on a Sunday. We said to friends of ours, “Don’t ever come up at the weekend because it is absolutely hopeless”. By the time you have changed buses and changed at Preston, the journey time is unpredictable. I shudder at the thought that we might do the same thing with our existing west coast and east coast lines; it would be absolutely intolerable. That is one of the many reasons why I would much prefer HS2.
One only had to travel for years, as I did, on the west coast main line—it is much better now but it is getting very full—to know that we do not want years of infrastructure work and disruption. Nevertheless, the trains are pretty full. On at least one occasion when I failed to book a reserved seat, because I could not predict my time, I had to stand all the way to Preston. Quite often, there was no space and that is north of Birmingham, not just from the Midlands southwards. These trains may not be full on a Saturday night, but they are full most of the time when most people want to travel. So I very much welcome the commitment to extra capacity which would be the result of building HS2. I hope that some of the freight on the motorways will move on to the railways, although I suspect that they will have to absorb additional freight rather than transfer freight from the roads as they do now. Unlike some noble Lords, I would like to see people travelling not by car, but using the railways. I was lobbied by somebody who said, “Don’t worry about HS2, flying will always be cheaper”—not a very environmental argument. I believe that HS2 and the building of it will also have strong environmental benefits when it is completed.
I have two regrets. First, I wish we could get on with it, instead of taking so long. Secondly, I wish the plans would include going further north than Birmingham. Let us get on and link the north of England and get on to Glasgow and Edinburgh. If we do not do this, the next generation will never forgive us.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I found this debate a fascinating one and in many ways a more enjoyable one than the debate that we had only a few short weeks ago on exactly this topic. On that occasion, there was an indication in the press, at least, and in some circles of some uncertainty about my party’s position with regard to HS2. That had been generated because the shadow Chancellor, my very good friend Ed Balls, had indicated that he was very concerned at the rapidly escalating costs that were being reflected in parts of the media. Of course he was anxious about them. It is his job to look at the way in which a future Labour Government intend to spend their money.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord who spent a great deal of his time commenting on the weakness of the business case for HS2. There should be a business case. I very much appreciated the fact that the majority of my noble friends indicated their support for HS2—all of them, I think, with the possible exception of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who had other fish to fry as far as the line is concerned. They were a little in danger of glorifying past triumphs with regard to the railway and indicating that we could take similar, easy risks today. I hate to say it but in the absence of cost-benefit analysis, a high percentage of Victorian railway lines went bankrupt. Railway mania was one of the shocking problems of the 19th century so although we glory in the architecture that was left us to us, in terms of both our great railway stations and the significant lines that we still use extensively today, particularly the north-south lines, we ought not to deride the fact that we need to be clear about costs.
When the Minister replies to the debate, I want her to address herself to this question of potential costs because we are asking the nation to commit itself to a very substantial investment in future years against the background of a very significant decline in ordinary living standards at present, with no immediate indication that there is early relief in sight. Our people—our fellow citizens—are therefore going to be concerned about costs. That is why it is important that in substantiating the issue with regard to HS2, we have a clear perspective on those costs and how they are to be controlled.
I think we all take considerable pleasure in the fact that David Higgins has become chair of HS2. We know of his achievements. After all, one achievement in the past couple of years which we all recognise and glory in is that the Olympic Games were delivered on time and on budget, without excessive use of the contingency element built into that budget, and they were a huge success for the nation. Everybody derived value from them so we can make these projects work and we should derive satisfaction from recent successes, while keeping a very close and beady eye on costs because they are so significant in terms of the commitment of the nation’s resources against a background where we all know that those resources are fairly limited.
I do not have to make the case on HS2 today, partly because so many voices around the House indicated their support for it, including a former Transport Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, on the government Benches. My Benches were very strong in their arguments. Of course, the case was made as soon as the debate opened. The magnificent opening speech of my noble friend Lord Adonis set the terms of this debate and in a very real sense put to bed any suggestion of any possible backsliding by a future Labour Government on seeing this project through. However, we want to be absolutely certain about the degree of scrutiny over costs and effectiveness.
We are also concerned about the delays built in to the present progress. Already we have seen the timetable slipping, and nothing will prevent it from slipping further in the very near future. Again, I want the noble Baroness to give us some reassurance about the urgency with which the Government are acting. I will make the obvious point. This is a paving Bill and it will get through in the very near future. However, we have not started on the hybrid Bill and the hybrid Bill procedure on Crossrail took several years. I know that my noble friend Lord Snape once served on a hybrid Bill and we lost contact with him for about 18 months when he disappeared into those wonderful committees in which one is sworn to total commitment to the Bill.
Lord Snape
My Lords, I apologise to the House for interrupting, but in the interests of accuracy I must point out that I served on three hybrid Bills and disappeared for much longer than that.
Lord Davies of Oldham
I am sorry if I elided them all into one, but the loss was so great in the other place at that time that it was remarked on in many quarters. We know without any doubt that my noble friend will volunteer for a hybrid Bill should any arise. I am concerned, however, about this issue. As we know, hybrid Bills are ones over which Parliament and the Government have negligible control, yet we are starting on this Bill. It was intended and hoped that we would have all the processes of Parliament covered, all legislative processes in place and all procedures completed by the time of the general election. There is no hope of that now. There is no question of the Government being able to deliver against that timetable. Of course, slippage is costly in terms of the ambitions that we all have for the successful implementation of the project on time, but delay is also costly in financial terms. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Howard, is already calculating just how much the additional length of time will impact on cost.
All the real issues have emerged in this debate. I listened very carefully to another former Secretary of State for Transport, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, when he indicated that he still preserved a degree of scepticism about the ability of rail to impact on the economic geography of the country. There is evidence from other countries that its impact is indeed beneficial. It is certainly the case that, as so many noble Lords have emphasised in this debate, if we do not do anything, we will actually reach paralysis. Such is the increase in numbers of those seeking to use rail travel that if we do nothing, we will face a seizure.
During the time when there was a slight degree of misunderstanding about my own party’s position, when proper anxieties were expressed about rising costs, it was very noticeable that the northern cities acted. Representations came in with very considerable force from Manchester and Leeds that indicated how much importance they placed on the improvement of services to those cities, which HS2 alone can provide.
Another question hangs in the air and cannot be answered—certainly not from this debate, because no one has attempted to answer it. What is the alternative? We have a situation in which the rise in demand for rail travel shows itself in very marked ways so that we can all foresee that if nothing is done the constant problems which we see in all commuting areas will get worse. I know that when one talks about commuting people’s first thought is that one is talking about the south-east and London. However, the pressure on Birmingham and the West Midlands, on Manchester, Leeds, Yorkshire and Bradford, is just as acute for people there who want to get to work, to the shops and to other facilities in their cities. Of course, what hangs in the air is that if we do not solve this by improving rail travel we will guarantee misery for our fellow citizens, and it will represent a failure to improve society and the economy.
I hope that the noble Baroness will also comment on one other dimension. I refer to the recent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, to which my noble friend Lord Rooker referred. One of the things we all know about significant public investment is that it can lead to very significant private gains. Just look at any situation where a Tube station in the London area has been opened in recent years and what it does to house prices. There is a straight correlation between transport and private gain. Of course we want to see private gain, because we are providing these services for private people—for our fellow citizens. However, we ought also to look at the public good. These resources are invested on behalf of the nation. I hope that the noble Baroness will take away the noble Lord’s thought about the use of urban development corporations to canalise some of the gains from the investment that will derive from the construction of HS2 so that it comes to the public purse as well. That will perhaps help to reassure those like the noble Lord, Lord Howard, that costs can be kept under control.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, what a tremendous debate. Every time this issue comes before the House I learn more, which adds very much to the pleasure. I, too, was appreciative that the Secretary of State came to listen to the early speeches; he then had to leave to vote, but I know that he will read the rest of this debate. I know that that information flow to him is very much appreciated on his part.
Obviously, the overwhelming majority of noble Lords who spoke today spoke so strongly and positively in favour of HS2 and the high-speed rail network that once again I feel almost that the comments that I can make are somewhat redundant; they have been almost better covered by other noble Lords who have spoken. I will begin by trying to pick up on the questions from noble Lords who were perhaps more sceptical, and in particular that issue of cost that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, mentioned, which was also mentioned by other noble Lords—by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, in particular, and in a slightly different way by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.
The cost of the project—the budget—has been set at £42.6 billion. The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, mentioned the figure of £73 billion, which was floated in the Financial Times and some other parts of the press. That is a mischievous number, because of the way in which it is constructed; I was quite sad to see it in a respectable newspaper. It included things like VAT, which obviously comes back to the Treasury and is therefore not a cost to the taxpayer. It also included inflation, although we look at infrastructure projects using current numbers rather than inflated numbers because we do not look at the benefits in inflated numbers. A mischief-making number has, unfortunately, been introduced into this conversation.
I shall say more about cost, because it is important—and what I have to say about it will also address some of the other issues that have been raised. The work that has been done in preparation for High Speed 2, to the point where it is now ready for phase 1 to appear in a hybrid Bill, is far more intense than that for any previous hybrid Bill. I think that that degree of preparation is a good thing, and I am cleared to say that the hybrid Bill will be introduced in the Commons on Monday. That degree of detailed examination and preparation gives us far greater confidence in the actual numbers, particularly for phase 1.
As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, will know—he has read the strategic case—High Speed 2 now estimates that, without any contingency, it could bring in phase 1 at £15.6 billion. The Secretary of State has said that we need to have a little contingency, but he wants to see this come in at £17.16 billion or less. That is the pressure being put on Sir David Higgins, and he feels that it is pressure that he can accept. That is a much crisper number than the more overarching number, including contingency, that we have generally been using. I ask that, as people look at the strategic case, they understand that we are talking about the overarching budget, but that underneath that there is huge pressure to ensure that the cost is pushed down, and we can do that with more and more confidence because of the level of detail that we now have. I hope that that also explains to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, why there is a generous contingency in all this. The contingency does not reflect the fact that there is very detailed work going on to push the cost down.
That consideration also speaks somewhat to the governance point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank. Sir David Higgins, when he comes in, will make governance and driving down cost two of his highest priorities. The governance programme, which sounds incredibly complex as it is read out in a paragraph, actually reflects a number of bodies that have come together to increase the downward pressure on costs. That is part of the reason why there have been so many parties so absolutely focused on ensuring that the costs of the project have been reduced to the greatest extent possible.
In the same context, Sir David Higgins has said that he will look at delivering HS2 faster. There is an underlying question here, which I picked up from a number of people today—for example, from the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh—along the lines of, “Why don’t we start both phases pretty much at the same time?” The answer is that we have the detailed work to be able to go ahead with the hybrid Bill for phase 1, and to hold that up in order to bring phase 2 to the same degree of preparation would hold back the whole project. We are in a position to move much faster on phase 1. I have heard many people in the House today talking about the importance of going as fast as possible; they compared us unfavourably with France, and I can understand why. We are doing this in phases so that we can get into the ground at the earliest possible date.
Benefits will flow from phase 1 alone. It is true that the maximum benefits will come when phase 2 is completed, but from phase 1 alone there is already an advantage, both in capacity going from London through to Birmingham—on the most congested set of routes that we could possibly have—and also in terms of starting the time reduction, which, as others have said, adds to the connectivity and the potential for development in the north and the Midlands.
The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to the Bill as a blank cheque and asked why it does not have a monetary figure in it. The Bill gives permission for preparatory expenditure and contains a very vigorous reporting process under which the Government must report back annually and record any deviation from budget, and the consequences of that. The wording of the Bill has been strengthened somewhat in the other place, which has put in place a very intense scrutiny process around the budget.
One of the reasons why there is no monetary figure is because this is not just the paving Bill for HS2 but allows us to look at extensions. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, talked about the importance of going beyond HS2 and looking at Scotland. I was up in Glasgow and Edinburgh just over a week ago, announcing formally the initiation of a study which will look at bringing the benefits of high speed to Scotland. Automatic benefits come from bringing High Speed 2 as far as Leeds and Manchester. In fact, Scotland benefits even from the run to Birmingham. However, taking it beyond that, the study will look at how to maximise high speed on existing rail lines and at potentially building what some people have dubbed “High Speed 3”. This paving Bill creates the context for what in the end will be a high-speed rail network. The word “network” matters in the context of some of the questions about economic growth. Dedicated high-speed trains can run only on high-speed lines. However, in addition, these lines can be used by the classic trains which currently operate on our long-distance services. They can travel part of their journey on a high-speed line and then deviate off on to the west coast main line and various other lines, creating a much more interconnected network.
The noble Lords, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Cormack, and, to some extent, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, raised concerns about the Chilterns and its highly valued landscape. We all value that landscape; I do not think there is any question about that. However, I think that we have also always understood that there are circumstances in which we have to weigh the significance of infrastructure projects against that value. We must mitigate any effects to the extent that we can. I listed earlier many of the mitigations. Looking much more narrowly at the Chilterns, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that, between Chalfont St Peter and Hyde Heath, which is a distance of 8.3 miles, of which 5.8 miles lies in the area of outstanding natural beauty, the route will be in a tunnel. To minimise the visual impact in the AONB, the following mitigation measures will also be taken: 3.5 miles in cuttings; 1.5 miles in “green tunnel”; 0.6 miles on viaducts; and 1.4 miles with embankments. This means that fewer than two miles of the 13 miles of the route through the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty will be at surface level or above. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has asked why we cannot extend the tunnel. Unfortunately, that would require the construction of ventilation shafts and an emergency access station at Little Missenden. Weighing that damaging environmental impact against the current mitigations has led us to the conclusion that we have used tunnelling to the best effect.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I am very sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, and it is a very trivial point, but it would have helped if we had been able to have the meeting that I requested over a month ago. It has not yet happened and if it had, we could have explained this. This canard about having to open up an opening near Little Missenden is not what is proposed. The alternative, which I sketched out for her and which I am happy to present to her in more detail, provides for an opening, required under European law, to be within the 22 miles covered by the AONB. It is near Wendover—in fact, at Wendover Dean—it is agreed by residents, agreed by all the authorities around and does not affect the central part of the Chilterns. This point was raised by her predecessor in a debate more than a year ago, and I tried to correct it then. I am clearly not effective at doing that, so can we please meet?
Baroness Kramer
As we agreed earlier, I am looking forward to that meeting and I apologise. Because I am new to the department, it has basically been triage. I regret that we did not have the chance to have that meeting before this debate, but we will have it. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, recognises, the course of the hybrid Bill will address many of these issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was very concerned that HS2 is a London-centric project rather than one which will spread economic opportunity out across the country. I could make the case in the other direction— I thought that I had in my opening speech, as had the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and others, in the course of their speeches. I pray in aid the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, who from his position in Greater Manchester has been able to represent to this House today the great potential that Manchester and the other great cities of the north and the Midlands have seen in this project.
They are using this opportunity in a very positive way, which perhaps is relatively new as a British approach to infrastructure. So often, we have built an infrastructure project in a silo and left it to see if anything good generates around it. In this case, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and others are working within the various local authorities and within the various key cities. My noble friend Lord Deighton, too, is working with his task force in order to try to reinforce and support the process. This is a very different approach that will ensure that we garner the economic benefits.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, reiterated the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, of development corporations. It is certainly true that the Mayor of London would be able to initiate them—that is already within his competencies. However, the Government are waiting to see how local communities in the areas that will be impacted by HS2 will wish to take these issues forward. It is within the concept of devolution that Whitehall should not always know best how each individual area should approach these questions, but I suspect that in many of the schemes and developments that develop, we will look to capture development gain in various ways. Indeed, the Government have already said that they expect all the stations to be built, essentially, with private money, which in and of itself is a development-gain process. So I fully appreciate those comments and I know that they will be studied closely as we go forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, raised an issue that has been in some of the literature that has been coming through people’s doors and which I would like to take on. He argues that we are not at capacity, citing an example quoted by one of the campaigning organisations, that trains are only 52% full in the evening peak. I think he is referring to a Virgin long-distance train. Certainly, regional and commuter trains are incredibly heavily used. To remove that Virgin train from the train paths in order to allow expansion of regional and commuter traffic would be a drastic option, widely opposed by passengers. There is sometimes no easy trade-off between the issue of train paths and usage at particular times. I also point out that the evening peak is a very well spread peak. During the morning peak we are pretty close to anyone’s definition of being out of capacity as it is, never mind in the circumstances that we will face as we get to the 2020s.
Perhaps I may move on to thank those who spoke so effectively and with much knowledge in favour of this high-speed rail network project. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, called on the spirit of the Victorian pioneers and the spirit of cross-party working. Both have to inform the way in which we move forward. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, talked from his experience of actually running the four lines that go out of London. That is always an invaluable and incredibly practical touchstone as we move forward in these debates.
My noble friend Lord Freeman brought to us the experience of being the Transport Minister for HS1. That project gave us the confidence to move ahead with HS2, and the lessons that he is able to bring to this debate are therefore crucial. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, again reminded us of the freight conundrum that we face. In passing, he also reminded us that it is not just the Chilterns that have an issue but the area around Camden, Euston station and the HS1-HS2 link. We must appreciate and do everything we can to achieve the necessary mitigations. In this case, there is close working now between Camden Council and Network Rail, although many issues have yet to be resolved and answered.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, provided a constant reminder of the lack of alternatives to HS2. The point was put more clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, when he said: if not HS2, what? One alternative is likely to be an exceedingly intrusive motorway. I am afraid that there would be not just one six-lane motorway if we do not build HS2 but probably two. The impact of that on the environment, communities and areas of natural beauty would be something that this House would, frankly, not relish.
I cannot remember whether it was my noble friend Lord Cormack or my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising who talked about aviation as an alternative. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, hit the nail on the head; the discussion around aviation capacity is primarily around international capacity rather than around attempts to build up a domestic aviation network of much greater intensity, but I will obviously bow to the Davies commission as it considers capacity issues in the south-east.
I should say thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, because on this occasion and previously he made a point that was picked up by others about the cluster potential. That was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, from the perspective that he and Manchester are looking at development. My noble friend Lord Teverson shared with us reports from Kent of the change from a negative to a positive attitude because of the experience of the benefits of regeneration as a result of HS1.
I am sure that in this whole process there are questions that I have failed to answer. I am reminded that I am coming to my boundary of 20 minutes. I feel that I have had the opportunity to listen to an exciting debate, and if I have not responded to questions we will do so afterwards. Perhaps I may conclude by saying this: let us protect the Victorian spirit that built our railroads, but let us look for an infrastructure that is not Victorian but modern and 21st-century so that we can build the economy of the future. I thank this House and I formally ask that the Bill be now read a second time.