House of Commons

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

Thursday 27 March 2014

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What steps he is taking to reduce the effect of rises in water bills on the cost of living.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

7. What steps he is taking to reduce the effect of rises in water bills on the cost of living.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Secretary of State. Welcome back.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

Thank you very much for your welcome, Mr Speaker. May I quickly thank all hon. Members from across the House who have kindly sent me good wishes?

In November, I wrote to water companies stressing the tough times that households are facing and the vital role the industry can play to help reduce costs. Companies have responded positively. Most are holding bills down in 2014-15, with flat or declining bills proposed from 2015. The Government encourage water companies to introduce social tariffs for vulnerable consumers. Three companies now have them in place, with at least nine more expected by 2015.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but two weeks ago his officials told the Public Accounts Committee that his Department did not actually have a target or a measure of what “affordable” means, so when he says that water companies are acting to bring bills down, does he even know what target they are aiming for?

[Mr Paterson]

We believe this is an issue that should be decided locally by local companies consulting local consumers, and I am very pleased at the progress being made by companies in the current review.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

The WaterSure scheme helps vulnerable households to pay their water bills, so will the Minister explain why he did not support Labour’s amendments to the Water Bill, which would have made information about WaterSure prominent on customers’ bills?

[Mr Paterson]

We are absolutely clear that this issue should be decided locally by local companies. There is already a huge amount of information on bills, and there is a limit to the amount that can be given on one particular document.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Of course, the cost of water is relative to that of other utilities. Unlike the energy industry, the water industry has social tariffs, and the Government have stepped in to help 70,000 households. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those schemes help people to pay something towards the cost of the water they use, which is better than defaulting?

[Mr Paterson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There should be a contribution, but in some cases it should be reduced. There is no free lunch. Every time there is a reduced rate for some, it has to be covered by all other hard-working consumers paying their bills.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

In Devon and Cornwall, water bills have traditionally been high, but they have been reduced this year by 7%, thanks in no small measure to the Government’s support for hard-pressed households. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate South West Water, which has listened to local people and has just submitted a five-year plan showing that water bills may well fall by 13% in real terms over the next five years, even though it is increasing capital investment by 19%? Is that not an example of what progressive water companies can do if they listen to their local people?

[Mr Paterson]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating South West Water on what it has done. A reduction in bills is in marked contrast to what happened under the previous Government, when bills went up by 20%.

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

We welcome the Secretary of State back to his place after his recent appointments.

On Tuesday, Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers blocked Labour’s proposals to help households that are facing growing water bills at a time when their incomes are being squeezed more and more. As we have already heard, one in 10 households are now paying more than 5% of their income to the water companies, yet as the Secretary of State has admitted, the Government are refusing to lift a finger to help them. Will he tell us the specific reasons why this Government have opposed Labour’s proposals for a national affordability scheme?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments.

We are continuing the policy left by the previous Government that this should be voluntary—that is how they legislated as recently as 2010. We are clear that this is an issue that should be decided locally, because if there is a reduction for some customers, it has to be paid for by the remaining customers in that area. We are very pleased that we are seeing progress. We now have a robust Ofwat, unlike under the previous Government, and we are going to see significant changes in prices. We must also remember that we have to keep investment coming in from domestic and foreign sources, because every 1% increase in interest adds £20 to a water bill—there is a balance here.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

One of my rural constituents in Kettering has just received a £7,000 water bill, owing to Travellers and Gypsies illegally tapping into the water supply. Anglian Water says that it can do nothing; the police are um-ing and ah-ing; and there have been threats of intimidation against the constituent concerned. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister with responsibility for water kindly agree to meet me and my constituent so that we can resolve this dreadful situation?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that local issue. He should immediately get in touch with the water Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson). We will take it up and see how we can help.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

2. What changes he plans to make to policy on bovine TB; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

We published our draft strategy for achieving officially bovine tuberculosis-free status for England in July 2013 for consultation. The final version, which we will publish shortly, will outline our comprehensive plan for tackling the scourge of bovine TB in England.

[Angela Smith]

I am sure the Secretary of State agrees with me that if the report confirms that a significant number of badgers—well above the recommended 5% limit—took more than five minutes to die, that would be a very serious matter because it would prove that the cull was inhumane. In that circumstance, would he not think it vital to reconsider the policy and to abandon absolutely any plans for rolling out culling later in the year?

[Mr Paterson]

I received the panel’s report only recently. I am considering it, and I will come back to the House in due course, when it has been fully considered.

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

16. Does my right hon. Friend agree that although the badger cull may have played a part in tackling bovine TB in other countries, in the UK it has proved more difficult to achieve our desired result? Will he therefore agree to look at all other options, and accept that if one course of action fails, it is time to look for another?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend mentions other badger culls. The most obvious nearby country that has had one is the Republic of Ireland, where the number of cases went down from 44,903 in 1999 to only 15,612 last year. There are clear lessons to be learned from other countries—my hon. Friend is absolutely right—but the circumstances here are not entirely the same. That is why our strategy encompasses a whole range of other activities involving the vaccination of badgers, the vaccination of cattle and a strict cattle movement regime, which has been a key to success in other countries.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The scourge of bovine TB, as the Secretary of State rightly calls it, is unfortunately increasing in Northern Ireland. With that in mind, and given that we have only a catch, test and release scheme and would love to have a scheme that actually dealt with the badger, will he consider calling his counterpart in Northern Ireland and setting up a national conference, which he could chair, to address the removal of this plague from our land?

[Mr Paterson]

I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, so the hon. Gentleman knows that I respect the protocols of devolution. We have regular discussions at ministerial and official level on matters agricultural. He is absolutely right, however, to raise the contrast between what has happened in Northern Ireland, where diseased badgers have not been removed, and the dramatic reduction in southern Ireland.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the development of vaccines for badgers and, indeed, cattle?

[Mr Paterson]

I raised the issue with Commissioner Borg on my first day back, a week last Monday. We are pressing on with the development of a cattle vaccine but, sadly, it will take some years: we have to develop a vaccine that is valid and works; we have to develop a DIVA test to differentiate between vaccinated cattle and diseased cattle; and we then have to get a legal process. I am afraid that that is going to take at least 10 years.

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

I genuinely welcome the Secretary of State back after his operation. It is good to see him back.

When the Government’s approach to TB was resoundingly rejected by Parliament two weeks ago, the Secretary of State was on a chocolate factory visit. He had previously stormed out of a debate before another Government defeat on badger culls, muttering, “I’ve had enough of this.” If he has really had enough of this, as more and more Government Members have, will he at least have the courage of his convictions and give Parliament a vote in Government time before proceeding with any more of these failed badger culls?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments.

I do not recollect storming out of anywhere. We have been punctilious in keeping Parliament informed through regular statements, and the issue comes up regularly at questions. The last vote, with a majority of 61, very clearly endorsed our strategy, which is very wide and encompasses other actions. [Interruption.] The last vote on a substantive motion showed considerable support, with a majority of 61, for our strategy. The hon. Gentleman has got to get beyond the issue of culls. Our strategy encompasses vaccination of both species, significant changes to our cattle movement regime and tighter biosecurity. He should concentrate on the whole strategy, which was endorsed in Parliament by 61 votes.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State’s using all means at his disposal to control the disease. One of those is the polymerase chain reaction test, which will be able to identify infected live badgers and the setts in which they live. Will he ensure that all the available resources go into promoting that test, which could have a role in controlling bovine TB?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that it would be a huge change if we could use PCR to analyse diseased badgers on the spot. That would change the whole debate and would be an enormous help in disease reduction. We have been working closely with the university of Warwick and are bringing in other agencies to see whether we can accelerate that work. Sadly, PCR is not yet reliable enough. If we can get a greater than 50% chance of identification, it will cause a sea change on this issue.

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

3. What steps he is taking to prevent redundancies among staff working on flood protection at the Environment Agency.

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

The chief executive of the Environment Agency has been clear that the planned reduction in posts, which is necessary to ensure that the agency has an affordable business structure, will not affect its ability to respond to flooding. The Environment Agency will prioritise the resilience that is needed to manage flood incidents and recovery. The additional £130 million of funding that was announced in February and the £140 million that was announced in the Budget for the repair and maintenance of vital flood and coastal defences will mean that there is no reduction in the Environment Agency’s flood and coastal risk management job numbers.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

The Prime Minister promised that the reported plans for 550 redundancies among flood protection staff at the Environment Agency would not be put in place. Will the Minister confirm how many flood protection staff the EA plans to make redundant over the next two years?

[Dan Rogerson]

As I set out in my original reply to the hon. Gentleman, the agency prioritises flood and coastal defence work. The extra money that we have put in place to support that work means that it can look again at how it is managing jobs across the agency. Of course, like all other Government Departments and agencies, the Environment Agency has to respond to the need to tackle the deficit. However, we are putting money in place to ensure that our flood and coastal defences are run and maintained properly.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that making more use of internal drainage boards and local farmers is a cost-effective way of making the flood protection repairs that are needed?

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We have excellent internal drainage boards that are doing work across the country. There are proposals to set up new internal drainage boards in a number of areas to build on those successes and to make use of local knowledge. We will support that approach where it is appropriate and where a model can be found to bring it in.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

11. I hear what the Minister says about the country’s resilience and about flood defences. We were flooded badly in Chesterfield in 2007, so my heart goes out to everyone who has suffered so badly this winter. Does he not think that the many people in the Environment Agency who have worked so tirelessly will be feeling pretty disgruntled that after all the work they have done and at a time when all of us are worried about flooding, they are seeing huge numbers of job cuts?

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point to the devastating impact that floods have had in the past. Some of his constituents will still be feeling the effects of what they went through at that time. Environment Agency staff work very hard—those who are directly involved in flood and coastal risk management and those from other areas in the agency who came in to support them during the recent extreme weather events. I have visited many of them in areas of the country that have been affected. As the chief executive takes forward the proposals to ensure that the agency meets the challenges of the future, I know that he will take account of all the skills and the expertise that it has and preserve them to ensure that we build on the work that has been done and keep everybody safe.

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

4. What recent discussions he has had with the Environment Agency on waste fires.

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

I have had three meetings with the Environment Agency on waste fires in the last six months, including a discussion on Tuesday this week with the noble Lord Smith of Finsbury, when we spoke about the fire at the waste site in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. The two previous occasions were a meeting on 30 October 2013, which included my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and the chief executive of the Environment Agency, Dr Paul Leinster, and a meeting on 27 November 2013 with the noble Lord Smith and Dr Leinster.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Bearing in mind that the Environment Agency failed to deal effectively with persistent and massive breaches of licensing conditions by Blackwater (North East) Ltd, leading to the Thrunton fire, surely the agency owes it to my constituents to remove the potentially polluting waste and charge the cost to Blackwater or its insurers, rather than the burden falling on the landowner who has done so much to help?

[Dan Rogerson]

My right hon. Friend has been assiduous in raising all the matters connected with that awful fire and the mismanagement of the site by the company. His constituents have been very lucky to have had him acting on their behalf. In my discussions with the agency, I have made it clear that we will do all we can to support all those who have been on the right side of this, but we need to consider carefully the correct method of making sure that the polluter pays in this instance.

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

Does the Minister not realise that the Environment Agency has been haemorrhaging good staff? It is very important that we curb the cowboys and poor operators in the waste sector who do so much damage to our environment, but we just have not got the people or the resources in the Environment Agency to do that properly now.

[Dan Rogerson]

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman and in the past we have both been members of the all-party group on this issue. The fact is that we have excellent staff in the Environment Agency working very hard on these issues, and in the recent Budget we secured an extra £5 million to tackle waste crime. It is a priority for the Government, and we should ensure that the businesses that operate effectively, fairly and safely are protected from those that act unscrupulously. That is why we are investing extra money in tackling this issue.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to encourage water companies to introduce social tariffs; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The Government published social tariff guidance for water companies in June 2012, enabling the introduction of social tariffs from April 2013. Three water companies now have social tariffs in place, with a further three set to introduce them this year. Another six companies have plans to introduce social tariffs from 2015, while others are consulting with their customers.

[Nick Smith]

Ofwat says that profit margins are exceptionally high in this industry. What will the Government do to bring prices down, given the cost of living crisis in this country?

[Mr Paterson]

Unlike the last Government, we will have a robust Ofwat. Under the last Government, bills went up by 20%. We are seeing a robust Ofwat now working on the new price programme, and that will see a reduction or held prices and increased investment. A balance must be struck because we have to keep the confidence of domestic and foreign investors. A 1% increase in interest means £20 on a water bill.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

6. What progress has been made on the implementation of the recommendations of the Elliott review of assurance of food supply networks.

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

They were interim recommendations; Professor Elliott’s final report is expected later this spring. We are discussing the interim report with interested parties, and we will carefully consider the supporting analysis in his final report before making a formal response.

[Julie Hilling]

People need to be confident that what is on the packet is what is in the packet. The Prime Minister’s machinery of government changes in 2010 created confusion of responsibility between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Food Standards Agency and the Department of Health. Will the Minister acknowledge that the Prime Minister’s short-sighted changes weakened consumer protection and were misguided?

[George Eustice]

No, I do not agree with that. It was right to separate policy making from enforcement. The issue we had with horsemeat was not a failure of policy: it was a failure of enforcement. Since then, we have increased funding to £2.2 million to help to support local authorities to deliver the national co-ordinated food sampling programme. The Food Standards Agency is also developing a new intelligence hub to improve its capability in identifying and preventing threats, and to co-ordinate action across Government.

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

Professor Elliott confirmed the findings of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that we have a severe shortage of public analysts and laboratories. He further found a gap in checks on cold-slab meats in cold storage and transportation. Can the Government act now, before the final Elliott report, to make good the testing by public analysts and public laboratories, and to address the other issues that Professor Elliott identified?

[George Eustice]

We will look carefully at the recommendation in Elliott’s final report, but the Food Standards Agency is working with industry and the European Commission to identify further targeted sampling programmes that could be carried out. As I said, we have increased the budget from £1.6 million to £2.2 million to help support local authorities. We have also introduced unannounced inspections of meat-cutting plants, and there have been more than 1,450 of those since 2013.

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

Some recommendations of the Elliott report refer to devolved matters and others to matters that are reserved across the UK. It is important that the UK Government, the Scottish Government, and other Administrations work closely together. When did the Minister last meet Scottish Ministers to discuss how we can ensure a co-operative approach across the UK on this important issue?

[George Eustice]

I meet Ministers from the devolved Assembly regularly. Most recently, I met last Monday the Scottish Minister responsible for farming and fisheries. We did not discuss this particular issue, but when the final report is published we will discuss its findings. We have had some discussions about the interim findings, and further discussions are taking place at official level.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the potential threat to our domestic food supply presented by changes to the common agricultural policy, particularly with regard to food produced in the uplands? If so, what plans do he and our Government have to protect, or ensure that there is a decent successor to, the upland entry level scheme?

[George Eustice]

We are in the process of concluding our implementation of the common agricultural policy, and we have made it clear that we will align the upland rate of the single farm payment with the lowland rate. We will shortly make an announcement on the moorland rate, which I know will interest the hon. Gentleman.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Answers to recent questions that I tabled show a massive drop in food testing under this Government: tests on food composition are down by 48%, and those on food labelling and presentation by 53%. Does the Minister share Professor Chris Elliott’s concern that cuts to food testing and inspection could compromise the safety of the food that people eat to such an extent that “people start to die”?

[George Eustice]

I am not sure I share that analysis. Since this crisis erupted more than 45,000 tests of beef products have been reported, and there have been no new positives since the reported incident of horsemeat last year. As I pointed out, we have also introduced unannounced inspections of meat-cutting plants, and there have been almost 1,500 of those since last year.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

8. Whether he has considered the recommendation of the Environmental Audit Committee in its eleventh report, Plastic Bags, HC 861, that the Government should remove the exemption of biodegradable bags from their proposed levy on single-use carrier bags; and if he will make a statement.

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

The Government response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on plastic bags is due by 7 April, and we are currently considering the Committee’s recommendations.

[Katy Clark]

Is the Minister aware of the likely damage to the UK plastics recycling industry if this exemption goes ahead, and will he meet representatives of the sector to discuss their concerns?

[Dan Rogerson]

I understand the sector’s concerns based on products that have been described as biodegradable in the past, but we are talking about the opportunity for new products to come forward. That is why we have offered money to those who can come up with techniques for separating different forms of bag. We are directing this initiative at the 7.1 billion single-use carrier bags—the figure comes from 2012. We want to tackle that and it is a popular policy that people support. We also want to provide opportunities for new more appropriate products to come forward.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will know that there is a 5p tariff on plastic bags in Wales, and I would not say that it is so popular there. However, there is a big difference between bio-undegradable and biodegradable bags. Will the Minister speak to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and make it very clear that it would be unwelcome in England to have a 5p tariff on plastic bags if they are biodegradable?

[Dan Rogerson]

Building on my reply to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), we are considering the issues raised by the Environmental Audit Committee, as well as the representations we have received as we take the policy forward. Evidence from retailers and members of the public shows that they want us to do something to tackle single-use carrier bags.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

In his deliberations will the Minister take account of similar legislation that is going through the Northern Ireland Assembly?

[Dan Rogerson]

As the Secretary of State said in answer to an earlier question, we are interested in what has already happened in Wales, and what is being considered in Scotland and in Northern Ireland.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Would the Minister or Secretary of State care to visit a factory in my constituency that deals with plastic recycling to see at first hand what damage to that industry could be done if biodegradable material accidentally gets into the waste stream?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am clear that we want to build on the good work in plastic recycling. If the hon. Gentleman gives me more details, I am sure we can discuss whether we can go on that visit to match his request.

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

9. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department’s domestic funding and policies on climate change adaptation; and if he will make a statement.

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

The Government set out a wide range of actions and policies to address urgent climate risks in the national adaptation programme report, published in July last year. Spending on core climate adaptation work is consistent with the fluctuations in activity required by the five-year cycle set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. Spending also reflects the embedding of adaptation in wider Government work.

[Mrs Glindon]

In the light of the current Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change report on the impact of climate change, will the Secretary of State advise us on whether he has finally had a briefing from the chief scientist on climate change?

[Dan Rogerson]

All Ministers in the Department regularly discuss climate change. I am delighted that the hon. Lady has raised those issues, which are crucial. That is why we are embedding policies to deal with mitigation and adaptation across the Government.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to encourage water companies to introduce social tariffs; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The Government published social tariff guidance for water companies in June 2012, enabling the introduction of social tariffs from April 2013. Three water companies now have social tariffs in place, with a further three set to introduce them this year. Another six companies have plans to introduce social tariffs from 2015, while others are consulting their customers.

[Andy McDonald]

With fewer than 25,000 people eligible for social tariffs, which are provided by just three water companies, does the Secretary of State believe that the voluntary approach is sufficient to help people who are struggling with water bills?

[Mr Paterson]

As I have said in answer to previous questions, we believe that that should be left to local companies. We are pleased that there has been progress—a number of companies have signed up—as will be clear in the next price round. As under the previous Government, who passed legislation in 2010, the regime is voluntary. We believe it is right for local companies to work with local consumers, because other consumers pay for those cheaper tariffs.

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

13. What steps he is taking to protect bees.

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

Bees and other pollinators are vital for the environment and our food production. We want to ensure they survive and thrive. The national pollinator strategy was drafted with the help of many interested organisations and is out to consultation. It refreshes our commitment to safeguarding bees and building on our long-established policies to support pollinators, including habitat and species conservation.

[Andrew Selous]

In Leighton Buzzard and Linslade, Leighton-Linslade town council, Central Bedfordshire council and South Bedfordshire Friends of the Earth have done excellent work in encouraging bees by planting wild flowers and leaving areas of grass uncut. That has made a huge difference—a lot of volunteers are onside. Will the Minister agree to come to see that work to see whether it can be replicated elsewhere? Perhaps at least one of his officials could come.

[George Eustice]

Yes, the initiative in Leighton Buzzard my hon. Friend describes is an excellent example of good practice in action. I will be delighted to visit his constituency in Leighton Buzzard—[Laughter]—and see the project myself.

[Mr Speaker]

A wonderful outbreak of good humour in the Chamber is always appreciated.

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

15. What support the Government are making available to fishermen affected by the recent bad weather.

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

We have made financial support available under the European fisheries fund to reimburse up to 60% of the cost of replacing lost or damaged gear. The Government will continue to pay lighthouse dues for another year, saving the industry up to £140,000. Various other support is available for businesses, including the option to apply to their local authority to get business rate relief for three months.

[Tim Loughton]

I congratulate the Minister on the recent announcement on helping very hard-pressed fishermen, who have been the unsung victims of recent floods. I am awaiting a reply from him to my letter—[Hon. Members: “Oh.”] It was written only recently and a holding reply has been received, so I am not complaining. While the help for the replacement of lobster pots and other gear is welcome in Shoreham, many of my fishermen have heavily mortgaged boats and cannot afford to pay their mooring fees and other such overheads. Can some assistance be given as a stop-gap to ensure they do not lose their moorings?

[George Eustice]

I will follow up with a response to my hon. Friend’s letter. The Department for Transport is looking at what support may be made available to help with ports. We are considering whether fishermen will be able to receive additional help from the business support fund, which, as I said, is being administered by local authorities, but I am happy to look into the individual cases he raises.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Welcome as the package is, I seek further reassurance from the Minister. Fishermen are having difficulty engaging with the scheme. If they have purchased the replacement pots already, they cannot receive any recompense, and the pots also have to have been lost on land.

[George Eustice]

On the latter point, I do not think that that is the case, but the Marine Management Organisation might want to see some evidence that the pots have been damaged or lost. In many cases, the MMO accepts a straightforward statement signed by a fisherman. There is an issue with retrospective payment, as the European Fisheries Fund does not allow for retrospectivity and we have had some discussions with the Commission. We are trying to get a better handle on how many fishermen are affected—we think it may be somewhere between 15 and 20 fishermen—so we are looking into this issue, and I had a meeting with officials on it just yesterday.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Fishermen in my constituency have been affected by the storms and by the dumping of dredged oil in Whitsand bay. Will my hon. Friend inform me of the cost of carrying out a survey on a recently identified alternative more suitable site, and join me in discussions with the dredging company?

[George Eustice]

I am aware that this is a very important issue to my hon. Friend. I visited her constituency and met some of her constituents who had concerns about the dredging. As she will know, the MMO makes licensing decisions of this sort in isolation from Ministers—it is separate. However, I can tell her that I have asked for an assessment of the cost of the environmental impact assessments necessary to designate a new site. I am advised that it would be approximately £130,000. I am, of course, happy to meet her and the chief executive of the dredging company to see whether we can identify a way forward.

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

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

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The priorities of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are growing the rural economy, improving the environment, and safeguarding animal and plant health. With flood prevention and management central to both the rural economy and the environment, last week’s Budget included a further £140 million for the repair and maintenance of flood defences, defences that in recent months protected more than 1.4 million properties and 2,500 sq km of farmland. This money is on top of the extra £130 million announced in February. Somerset was one of the areas hit hardest by the winter flooding. I spoke to the leader of Somerset council yesterday. He told me that, as part of the Somerset levels action plan, the intention is to start the initial dredge on Monday.

If I could make a brief comment on my return, Mr Speaker, I would like to send our congratulations to our colleagues in the US Congress, who on Tuesday erected a statue in the Capitol on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Norman Borlaug. His new advanced farming techniques, known as the “green revolution”, have, according to some estimates, saved 1 billion lives.

[Andrew Bridgen]

In North West Leicestershire, the new national forest continues to go from strength to strength, having a transformative effect not only on the environment but the quality of lives of local residents. Will the Minister outline what steps the Government are taking to promote tree planting across the country in the next 12 months?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the excellent work of the National Forest Company in his constituency and across the 200 square miles of the national forest. Across the country, 2,000 hectares of new woodland will be created through the planting of 4 million trees, as part of £30 million of Government investment in the next financial year.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State back to the Dispatch Box after his eye operation.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with his Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), who said in a letter to a constituent that

“the Hunting Act is not under threat by the coalition government,”

and that it

“is not the Coalition Government’s policy…to amend the ban”?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind comments on my return. As she knows, we received an interesting report from a number of Welsh farmers, which presented a reasonable view that there is an increased problem of fox predation on lands since the Hunting Act 2004 came into force, but as the Prime Minister made very clear yesterday, sadly there is no agreement between the coalition parties, which is needed for an amendment to be brought before the House.

[Maria Eagle]

Following that answer and the Prime Minister’s admission yesterday, The Daily Telegraph is reporting today that Downing street has confirmed that there will be no vote on the full repeal of the hunting ban in this Parliament, contrary to the coalition agreement. Can the Secretary of State be clear with the House: will there be a vote in this House to repeal the hunting ban in this Parliament or not?

[Mr Paterson]

I think we have made it very clear. The commitment in the coalition agreement still stands and I have made it clear that a vote will come forward at an appropriate time.

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

T2. Partnership funding for projects such as the Pickering pilot “Slowing the flow” scheme is being attracted from public sector bodies and, to a lesser extent, internal drainage boards. Will the Minister tell us what private sector partnership funding there has been and why the major review of partnership funding, which was expected to be published in October, has been delayed?

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

The Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is absolutely right to point out the important contribution that partnership funding is making. We anticipate £148 million coming forward across this spending review period, which will enable schemes that otherwise could not have gone forward. The question of private sector funding is important and it has come forward in a number of schemes around the country, but if local authorities or other public sector bodies want to make a contribution too, that is an equally valid way of bringing forward schemes that are important to keeping local people safe. However, I am happy to write to her and discuss how the review of partnership funding is progressing.

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

T3. The Minister was kindly in his place yesterday when I moved the ten-minute rule motion to introduce a Bill on dog smuggling. Does he think this is an issue or does he think that those who are concerned about it are being over-alarmist? Would he be kind enough to meet me, along with one or two of the Bill’s co-sponsors and the dog charities involved, to discuss whatever his view and that of his officials happens to be?

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

I very much enjoyed attending the hon. Gentleman’s ten-minute rule Bill debate yesterday, as well as following his many questions on the issue since the new year. I have met officials on a number of occasions to review our approach and check that we have the right safeguards in place to prevent rabies coming in. There were some changes to the pet travel scheme, but we still think it is very stringent, in that all dogs coming in must be vaccinated and go through a period of three weeks before they can be moved. Nevertheless, I am more than happy to meet him to discuss the issue. I can also say that the European Commission is giving some consideration to rescue dogs coming from Romania. There was a little bit of concern last week about an incident where a dog with suspected rabies came from Romania to the Netherlands, even though that was subsequently ruled out.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

T4. I know that the Secretary of State likes visiting chocolate factories, so may I urge him to come and visit the Thorntons factory in my constituency and join me in praising it for the 10% increase in exports it enjoyed last year? That increase was part of the overall growth in exports by the food and drink manufacturing industry, which is a great way of taking this country’s economy forward.

[George Eustice]

I would be more than happy to come and visit a Thorntons factory. Thorntons is a fabulous chocolate manufacturer and a great success story in the UK. My hon. Friend is right: the food and drink industry is our biggest manufacturing industry in the UK. There is great potential for export opportunities, which is why the Government have an export plan and why we have prioritised exports and done a huge amount of work to open new markets.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Following on from the earlier question from the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), 18 months ago there was a fire at a JL Sorting site in my constituency that took weeks to put out, but since then nothing has been done to remove the many tonnes of debris on the site and that is causing great concern as it is an eyesore and might lead to health problems. Will the Minister look again at how he can bring about change through the Environment Agency to ensure quicker enforcement to get rid of such debris more quickly?

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Things have not always been done as we should have liked in the past, and we are therefore investing an extra £5 million in tackling waste crime. I have asked the chief executive of the Environment Agency and Lord Smith to come back to me—as they are doing—with proposals for improving the position by toughening up regulation. The hon. Gentleman may wish to write to me about specific issues relating to the case that he has raised.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

T5. The Minister will be aware of the importance of recreational sea angling around the coast of west Wales. Have the Government conducted any economic study of its importance to jobs, and what they can do to protect them?

[George Eustice]

Last November I attended the launch of Sea Angling 2012, which did just that. It found that, in 2012, English anglers had spent £831 million on the sport. When indirect and induced effects are accounted for, that could support a total of more than £2 billion of spending. The report is available on the Marine Management Organisation’s website.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Will the Government please have another look at the exclusion of 70,000 leaseholders from their new flood insurance scheme? Most of those people are on modest or low incomes, and a number of them live in my constituency. As a result of their exclusion from the scheme, they either face massively increased premiums or cannot obtain insurance at all.

[Dan Rogerson]

We are examining the various leasehold options with the aim of ensuring that Flood Re deals with the problems of the least commercial leaseholders. Some large commercial landlords have leasehold properties, and we want to make certain that flood relief is focused on domestic policies. Of course, it will be possible for the contents insurance policies of leaseholders of all types to be ceded to Flood Re should that be necessary.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

T6. Does my hon. Friend agree that the practice of puppy farming is a disgrace, and will he do all that he possibly can to discourage pet shops from selling kittens and puppies?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is a long-standing champion of this cause. I agree with him that irresponsible breeding and selling of dogs is unacceptable, and we think that the relevant authorities should clamp down on it. Anyone in the business of breeding and selling dogs must have a valid licence from the local authority, and must also abide by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Many pet shops have already stopped selling kittens and puppies, but we are more concerned about internet sales of puppies, to which animal welfare charities have drawn our attention.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of 14-year-old Jade Lomas-Anderson after being attacked by four dogs in my constituency. The new legislation is welcome, but it does not solve the problem of dangerous dogs. What further plans does the Minister have to protect our communities, educate children and dog owners, tackle puppy farming, and prevent dogs from becoming dangerous in the first place?

[George Eustice]

Unless dogs are bred properly and socialised properly, they may become violent in adulthood. That is a big challenge for us, but we have increased sentences for those responsible for attacks on people by dogs, and we have changed the law so that prosecutions can be brought even when an attack takes place on private property.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

T7. Given the Secretary of State’s popular and correct decision to cancel the private finance initiative credit given to the Kingsland incinerator, and given that incineration is near the bottom of the waste hierarchy, does the Minister agree that the green investment bank should be investing in green technologies higher up the hierarchy, and that that does not include flawed incineration projects?

[Dan Rogerson]

Although energy from waste has its place, the Department fulfils its duty to ensure that any money that is invested through support from the Treasury goes to where capacity is needed. The hon. Gentleman has made a good point about the importance of driving resources up the hierarchy, but I think we should welcome the fact that the green investment bank is supporting innovators and new entrants to the sector.

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

1. What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the recent data-matching exercise in the movement towards individual voter registration.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The dry-run exercise to prepare for the introduction of individual elector registration involved matching all entries on the electoral registers against the database of the Department for Work and Pensions. The Commission’s report on progress stated that, although there was still a great deal of work to be done, sufficient progress had been made for us to press ahead with the historic change to IER, which will take place in June 2014. It will enhance individual voter responsibility and the security of, and confidence in, the electoral registration system, and—this is extremely important—it means that for the first time those who are eligible to join the electoral register will be able to do so online.

[Mr Burrowes]

What my constituents want is reassurance that the introduction of IER will bring about that greater security when a person enters the register, and that it will bring down electoral fraud and bring up confidence in the electoral system.

[Mr Streeter]

I think I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. IER will certainly increase the robustness of our democratic system, because a national insurance number and date of birth must be given before anyone can enter the register. For many people it will be easier to get on to our register because it can be done online. Particularly for younger people, who are a hard-to-reach group, the ability to enter the register online, with the necessary information, is a very good thing.

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

I have recently visited the Huddersfield electoral registration office in Kirklees, where the staff are doing a very good job during this transformative stage. They are worried that some of the technology is showing real glitches, however. Is the hon. Gentleman really sure that the scheme will be ready on time, and are we going to get more people voting at the next election?

[Mr Streeter]

The assurances I have received from the Electoral Commission are that the technology will work and that this scheme is ready to run on time. The hon. Gentleman has been a trailblazer, because it is very important that all of us visit our electoral registration offices to discuss with them the plan they have to get people on to the register. He has done that. We should all follow his example.

[Mr Speaker]

Trailblazer Sheerman; well, there’s a thought for the day.

The hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

2. What the current estimated cost is of necessary repairs to cathedrals in England; and what steps are being taken to ensure that cathedrals remain open to the public.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

The current estimated shortfall in the cost of repairs to cathedrals is £87 million over the next five years, over and above what the cathedrals are currently spending on repairs annually.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he recognise the importance of keeping our cathedrals open, as they are a magnet for tourism and bring benefits to the wider community and the tourist trade in particular? Will he ensure that the Church maintains a close working relationship with other parts of the tourist industry?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Cathedrals are incredibly important in terms of heritage. Lincoln cathedral, which is in my hon. Friend’s constituency in the diocese of Lincoln, needed repairs to its stonework, and I am very grateful, as I am sure is the whole House, for the announcement in the Chancellor’s Budget of £20 million to help cathedrals. I hope that some of that money will be able to find its way to Lincoln cathedral.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

9. My right hon. Friend will know that Lichfield cathedral urgently requires rewiring, but it will be unable to access funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Will it be able to access money from the generous grant made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer so that we can repair the wiring, if not the roof, while the sun is shining?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

There is clearly an urgent need to rewire Lichfield cathedral; indeed, if it is not done, there is a real risk that the cathedral might close. It was exactly for that sort of purpose—repairing guttering, rewiring—that the Chancellor very generously included provision for £20 million in his Budget. I look forward to visiting Lichfield at some point when the rewiring is done.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

3. What the Church of England’s policy is on priests entering a same-sex marriage; and what guidance has been given on what would happen to a priest who did so.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Clergy and ordinands remain free to enter into civil partnerships. The House of Bishops in its pastoral guidance distributed on 15 February said that it was not willing for those in same-sex marriages to be ordained to any of the three orders of ministry—deacon, clergy or bishops—and that

“it would not be appropriate conduct for someone in holy orders to enter into a same-sex marriage, given the need for clergy to model the Church’s teaching in their lives”.

As with any alleged instance of misconduct, each case would have to be considered individually by the local diocesan bishop.

[Mr Bradshaw]

In light of the recent Pilling report, does the right hon. Gentleman believe it would be sensible if a hard-working, popular priest got married with the full support of his or her parish and congregation and was then disciplined, sacked or defrocked?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The situation is clear. The Church of England’s understanding of marriage remains unchanged: marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, and under the canons of the Church of England marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman. The canons of the Church of England retain their legal status as part of the law of England and I would hope that no priest who has taken an oath of canonical obedience would wish to challenge canon law and the law of England.

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

4. What the anticipated return is on the Church Commissioners’ investments for the current financial year.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The Church Commissioners are finalising their asset valuations and anticipate the total return for 2013 to be about 15% to 16%. The continued steady return will enable the Church Commissioners to continue the level of support that they give the ministry of the Church of England.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. In the light of it, can he say what support the Church Commissioners might be able to make available to fund local community projects to encourage growth in the Church at parish level?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I hope that during the course of this coming year the Church Commissioners will be able to make about £90 million available to support local community projects—projects in the diocese of Manchester and throughout the country—and to help serve the whole community of the country, making it clear that the Church of England is a national Church.

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

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that Church Commissioners’ investments might be being added to by the increasing trend for high charges for access to cathedrals and important Church establishments, led by Westminster abbey, which people need to take out a mortgage to access these days? Does he agree that the practice of other countries’ giving a discounted rate to local people or seasonal rates for access so that local people can access their churches would be appropriate?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend will find that in other countries the system is different. For example, in Germany the state supports all the cathedrals and churches, whereas the Church of England has to fund all our cathedrals and all our churches itself. We have the stewardship of more grade I listed buildings than any other entity. If my hon. Friend wants to go to worship in the cathedral, he can always do that for free, but I do not think anyone would object to tourists who want to see the heritage of a cathedral having to pay a modest amount to see that and support it.

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

5. How much money the Church Commissioners anticipate they will be able to distribute to dioceses across England to support their mission in 2014.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The Church Commissioners support the mission of each diocese depending on its need. Each diocese generally receives between £1 million and over £3 million, but that covers only a small proportion of the cost of running the Church. We must never underestimate the importance of the generous giving of church congregations, which accounts for most of the rest.

[Miss McIntosh]

The village church is at the heart of rural life, and I am delighted to say that the Bishop of Knaresborough is joining us for a celebration of the countryside on Saturday. What is the split between rural and urban pay from the diocesan contribution? I ask because the costs of running rural parishes are extremely high.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the parish church is invariably at the heart of English village life. It is difficult distinguishing between urban and rural dioceses, as many dioceses are very mixed. Her diocese of York receives between £2.5 million and £3 million each year. The dioceses with the greatest deprivation, Durham and Manchester, receive more than £3 million. We are trying to ensure that adequate financial support is provided by the Church Commissioners and the Church as a whole both to parishes in inner-city areas and to rural parishes serving important villages in her constituency, because the Church of England is a national Church which must reach every part of England.

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

6. What steps are being taken to help dioceses and parishes engage and take action with reference to the Church growth research programme.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The findings from the Church growth research programme have been disseminated widely within the Church, and are informing diocesan strategies and practices at parish level. Further practical online resources are being developed and events are being planned to help dioceses and parishes to engage with the research and take action.

[Andrew Selous]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that many examples of good practice are available, where church congregations have increased significantly, often through using the Alpha course or courses such as Christianity Explored? Does he also agree that church planting could be looked at, too?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend will know that the most significant growth in the Church of England has been identified in fresh expressions of church, church planting and midweek attendance at cathedrals. I am sure he will be pleased to know that only this week the Archbishop of Canterbury chaired the first meeting of an evangelism task group, because growing the Church of England is, obviously, an extremely important challenge for the Church of England.

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

7. When the Electoral Commission will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland of 6 March 2014 regarding donations from Scythian Ltd.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The Electoral Commission responded to the hon. Lady on 14 March.

[Helen Goodman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that reply. I have now seen the reply from the Electoral Commission. I raised the matter because Scythian is owned by a person who worked for Dmitry Firtash who has just been arrested in Vienna, and that raised questions about the money. The Electoral Commission seems to be relying on the recipient of the money to do the checks. Does he agree that that is an incredibly weak situation for the Electoral Commission to put itself into?

[Mr Streeter]

It is the system set up by this Parliament, and the matter has been thoroughly investigated, under the existing rules, by the Electoral Commission, which found that the participants had complied fully with all the rules.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

8. If the Electoral Commission will take steps with relevant Government Departments and other public bodies to ensure that whenever a citizen comes into contact with a public agency for an administrative reason a check is made to see if they are registered on their local electoral roll.

[Mr Streeter]

The Electoral Commission will carefully consider, with the Cabinet Office, any such proposals for improving the efficiency of electoral registration processes, as it is to monitor the implementation of individual electoral registration during 2014 and 2015. If such a process appears to be viable, the commission will recommend that the Government bring forward any necessary measures to allow it to take place.

[Mr Hollobone]

When a constituent gets in touch with me, I always check to see whether they are on the electoral register. If they are not, I give them advice on how to get registered. Will my hon. Friend, who I am sure does exactly the same thing, urge the Electoral Commission to drive the Cabinet Office to introduce that sensible proposal?

[Mr Streeter]

This is a good idea and it is something that the Electoral Commission will certainly consider over the next 12 months. As my hon. Friend suggests in his question, it will ultimately be a matter for the Cabinet Office and for this House to change the rules, but I personally strongly support the initiative that he is taking.

Crossing at Gipsy Lane, Leicester

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

It is a pleasure—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

Order. Will hon. Members leaving the Chamber do so quickly please ?

Keith Vaz

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I wish to present a petition on behalf of Mrs S Kaur, Patricia Pitter, Kade aged five, Dillon aged eight, Mohammed Khan, Mr Mistry, and Councillors Bhatti, Clair, Osman and Newcombe. The petition has gathered 158 signatures from local residents. They are very concerned about a crossing in my constituency that crosses Gipsy Lane, Leicester. At the moment, there is a crossing but cars are not stopping at this pedestrian crossing. They would like to see a pelican crossing installed, which would mean that cars would have to stop. I went there last Saturday. The cars did stop when I arrived with a delegation of residents, but it is very clear that cars are not obeying the law. We hope that with this petition they will be able to do so.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Leicester East,

Declares that the zebra crossing on Gipsy Lane, Leicester is unsafe as the drivers do not stop long enough, they drive through when pedestrians are half way across the road and further declares that the Petitioners are concerned that there is an accident waiting to happen on this road.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Communities and Local Government and Leicester City Council to investigate installing a pelican crossing at this site.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

[P001337]

Business of the House

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

10:31

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 31 March—Second Reading of the Wales Bill.

Tuesday 1 April—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Wednesday 2 April—Opposition day [unallotted half day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 3 April—Statement on the publication of the fourth report from the Work and Pensions Committee on support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, followed by a debate to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee, followed by a general debate on civil service reform. The Select Committee statement and subjects for debate were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 4 April—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 7 April will include:

Monday 7 April—General debate on justice and home affairs.

Tuesday 8 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.

Wednesday 9 April—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.

Thursday 10 April—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 11 April—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 3 April will be:

Thursday 3 April—Debate on incapacity benefit migration.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I also take this opportunity to mark the funeral of Tony Benn, which will begin at St Margaret’s church shortly. As we heard in the fulsome tributes last week, Tony Benn was one of the great parliamentarians of our age, and we will miss him.

Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the competition authority for listening to the Leader of the Opposition and announcing an inquiry into the big six energy firms? After SSE showed yesterday that it backs the Leader of the Opposition’s plan by freezing its prices, perhaps the Leader of the House will tell us why his party still do not. Will he give us an assurance that, while the investigation is ongoing, consumers will be protected from any more unfair price rises?

We have the Second Reading of the Wales Bill on Monday, which gives further powers to the Welsh Assembly. Given that it wants these new powers as soon as possible, will the Leader of the House confirm when he expects the Bill to reach Committee stage?

My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) has today published his Bill to abolish the bedroom tax, after the House supported its introduction by 226 votes to one. As there is no time left for private Member’s Bills to have a realistic chance of getting a hearing, will the Leader of the House arrange for us to debate this Bill in Government time? After all, the House has expressed a strong view and it is not as if the Government are overly busy with their own legislation.

It seems that this Government are becoming more and more Orwellian. Last week we had beer and gambling for the proles, and this week the Justice Secretary has been forced to defend his ban on prisoners being sent books. The author Philip Pullman has called the change “disgusting” and “vindictive” and one unnamed senior Tory Minister briefed the press that the Justice Secretary

“wins the prize for the Government’s least enlightened Minister”.

Will the Leader of the House tell us whether he agrees with the Justice Secretary and his ban on books in prisons?

This week, we have been debating the Chancellor’s missed opportunity Budget. Across the country, people are £1,600 a year worse off, long-term youth unemployment has doubled and according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, energy prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation. The Chancellor called it a Budget for savers, but the OBR revealed that the savings ratio will have halved by 2018. The Chancellor said that it was a Budget for makers, but productivity remains weak and the trade gap has widened. The Chancellor said that it was a Budget for doers, but real wages have fallen by 2.2%. This was a Budget of spin. The Red Book revealed the depth of the Chancellor’s failure and buried in the small print was yet another stealth tax cut for Britain’s biggest banks. Next Tuesday, we will discuss the Finance Bill. On every crucial measure—living standards, growth and debt—the Chancellor has failed.

The Government are fast acquiring a reputation for staggering incompetence. They said they had an economic five-year plan, but it is already running four years late. They said that universal credit would save money, but it is now costing an unbelievable £160,000 per person, and their trebling of tuition fees is drowning students in debt yet bringing in no extra money. What a Government for the Liberal Democrats to prop up. Faust sold his soul to the devil for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures; the Lib Dems have sold their souls for a mess of pottage

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

No, we haven’t.

[Ms Eagle]

You have—sold your soul for a mess of pottage. [Laughter.]

In the hotly fought race to be the UK’s next EU Commissioner, I am sure that the Leader of the House will be delighted to hear that his odds have dramatically shortened and he is now the clear front-runner. As we get closer to a reshuffle that might ship him off to Europe, I wonder whether the Leader of the House would like to agree with his local Conservative councillor, Mark Howell, who has said that South Cambridgeshire would “love” to have Boris Johnson as its next MP? I for one would miss our exchanges if he did decide to go.

There are still 406 days until the general election, but recently Lord Tebbit said that

“the coalition has…gone past its sell-by date”

and that it is

“beginning to smell a bit“.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have just announced their separation, so I would like to suggest that the Leader of the House gets them in as advisers. Their strategy of “conscious uncoupling” sounds exactly like what this Government are trying to do.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her questions. Today is an opportunity for many Members to say farewell to Tony Benn at St Margaret’s and I was very glad that we were able to do so formally in the House last week. Indeed, many Members were able to do so individually in the Chapel during the course of yesterday evening.

The hon. Lady asked about the big six. The Secretary of State will make a statement to the House immediately after questions, but it is clear that the Government are taking action. In its announcement about the price freeze, SSE said that the Government’s decision to cut the taxes that add to energy bills was the

“principal factor in SSE being able to make this price commitment”.

There is a world of difference between an effort on the part of the Opposition to try to buck the market, as they always want to do, and an effort on the part of this Government to get a competitive market that delivers the greatest possible benefits to consumers. In that context, I was staggered that by voting against the Budget the Opposition voted against measures that would cut energy costs for energy-intensive industries, including in some of the areas that Labour Members represent where jobs depend on the competitiveness of manufacturing. Those same measures will help in the long term to reduce energy bills for consumers in this country.

The Wales Bill will have its Second Reading next week, and I will announce when its Committee stage will be. As it is a constitutional Bill, however, I hope that we will find time, before too long, for it to be considered on the Floor of the House. We are anxious to bring forward the Wales Bill—that is why we have introduced it in this Session—and the debate next week will allow us to hear from the shadow Secretary of State for Wales whether he is in fact, as he appeared to be in the Welsh Grand Committee, against the devolution of powers relating to tax to Wales. This is an astonishing position: the Government are in favour of further devolution to Wales, and the Opposition are against it. They will have to explain themselves.

I agree with the Lord Chancellor in relation to prisons. There is not a ban on books. There is, on the part of the prison authorities and the Ministry of Justice, a determination to act to make sure that security in prisons is maintained. There are libraries in prisons and there is access to books. We have to make sure that the security is appropriate.

I would say that the hon. Lady was attacking the Budget, but her approach was a bit limp to be described as an attack. The Budget is clearly a success. The fact that Labour Members voted against the Budget will, I am afraid, return to haunt them. What happened in the last couple of days has been very curious. When challenged yesterday on whether Labour Members had in fact voted for higher taxes on business, the shadow Chancellor was busy denying it, having the day before voted for exactly that to happen. Then yesterday, they voted for—at least most of them did—the cap on welfare, while at the same time in private the shadow Chief Secretary was busy trying to tell everybody,

“It will be much better if we can say all the changes that the Government has introduced we can reverse”.

So Labour Members are voting against the Budget and denying it, and voting for the cap on welfare and denying that. I do not know where they are coming from or going to; what I do know is that they will have to explain themselves. In particular, they cannot vote against a cap on housing benefit, against the overall cap on the benefits a household can claim and against plans to limit the annual increases in benefits, and at the same time vote overall for the cap.

I hope that we will raise a glass to those who are entering into marriage this weekend—for the first time, those who are entering into same-sex marriages, as well as the no doubt thousands of others who are entering into marriage. I was pleased to note that in 2011, there was an increase in the number of people getting married in this country. I hope that the measures that we have taken on same-sex marriage will help to promote, as my support was intended to do, the lifelong commitment that marriage represents.

On the justice and home affairs debate on Monday week, which I announced in provisional business, I hope the House will welcome the fact that we committed to returning to the House for a further vote. We will do so later this year, before formally applying to rejoin the measures we are seeking to rejoin, following the House’s support for the opt-out. We are grateful to the European Scrutiny Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee for their reports on the matter. The planned debate on 7 April will provide Parliament with an opportunity to debate those issues and the Select Committees’ reports, in order to seek the views of the House, as we have always made clear that we will, prior to any specific measures being rejoined later in the year.

Finally, in the course of the debate yesterday evening between the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the UK Independence party, I was slightly staggered by what Nigel Farage said about Ukraine and Russia. Actually, in the House of Lords yesterday, in response to the statement that was repeated from this House, Lord Pearson of Rannoch also made a remark to the effect that the cause of the crisis was the EU’s relationship with Ukraine, and not Russia’s. I think it is outrageous that UKIP should be behaving as apologists for President Putin. I hope that they will withdraw the comments.

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

Will my right hon. Friend tell us what the point is of the Osmotherly rules? They require the Government to respond formally to Select Committee reports within two months of their publication, or six months at the very latest. It is with great regret that I must tell him that the Public Administration Select Committee has today published a report criticising the Government for failing to respond to our report on the business appointment rules, which are very controversial and not very satisfactory, for 20 months. We published the report in July 2012 but are still waiting for a response. We feel that we have been extraordinarily patient. Does he agree that his Department ought to have a system for chasing Government Departments on behalf of the House to ensure that they respond to Select Committee reports on time?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question. I see it as part of my role to represent the House in the Government as well as to represent the Government in the House, so I will of course ask my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office to respond to the report that the Committee published this morning. The purpose of the Osmotherly rules is to give civil servants guidance on how they should make themselves accountable to the House.

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

In the week when we heard the fantastic news about Siemens bringing 1,000 green jobs to Hull, which comes on the back of the announcement that Hull will be the city of culture in 2017, I was dismayed to learn that Channel 5 is proposing to make a further documentary, based in Hull, about people in the north living on benefits. May we have a debate on responsible documentary making that does not build on stereotypes about the north and that shows the positives, because the north is a thriving place, with people in work and doing very well?

[Mr Lansley]

I certainly agree with the need to accentuate the positive. We need continuously to highlight the fact that, in contrast to the loss of 1 million manufacturing jobs under the previous Government, we are now creating jobs in manufacturing, establishing our competitiveness and seeing inward investment of the type the hon. Lady describes, which is extremely welcome. I hope that the way the local business community, and indeed Hull itself, have got behind local enterprise is something that can be accentuated, rather than the negative stereotypes.

[Mr Heath]

May we have a debate on the vital role of public transport in rural areas? I know that the Government understand that, but I do not think that some local authorities, and certainly some bus companies, do. For instance, First Bus recently decided no longer to route its 267 bus via the village of Rode, which will effectively cut off those who does not have access to a private car from the city of Bath. It is a scandalous state of affairs, and I want something done about it.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a point that I know concerns many Members. Where there is a lack of demand for particular services, it is obviously for local authorities to decide how best to use their grants to support bus services in some of the most rural areas. He rightly raises that point, and I will refer it to my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Transport and seek more details for him.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Today a report on the police’s handling of domestic violence cases has shown appalling failures and some horrifying treatment of victims, yet when we have raised in the House the fact that reports of domestic violence are rising and fewer cases are being passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, those concerns have been dismissed. Now that the Home Secretary has announced to the press that she is taking charge of the police response, will the Leader of the House arrange for her to make a statement to the House on what she will do to address the appalling failures that have taken place on her watch?

[Mr Lansley]

Many Members will have been very concerned by the report Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary published this morning. I certainly was, as one of the four police forces identified as failing to meet the standard required was Cambridgeshire constabulary, which serves my constituency. I will talk with the Home Secretary, but I would not characterise her response in the way the hon. Lady did. I think that the Home Secretary has been foremost in her handling of the matter, for example in the way she has brought forward or strengthened action plans for dealing with violence against women and girls. I will ask her to find an opportunity to update the House by means of a statement of some description before too long.

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

Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer among under-40s, and tomorrow is Wear A Hat day in aid of brain tumour research. We are very fortunate in Harrogate and Knaresborough to have a dynamic local charity called the PPR Foundation founded by a local lady, Pamela Roberts, who does great work raising funds for brain tumour research. Please may we have a debate about how we can raise awareness of the symptoms of brain tumours among the under-40s?

[Mr Lansley]

It is important that my hon. Friend raises the work that PPR and Pamela Roberts are doing, and I am grateful to him for doing so. When I was Secretary of State, I was very aware of the continuing risk of brain tumours, particularly among younger people, and the lack of diagnosis and treatment options. That is one of the reasons we took the decision to invest £150 million in the establishment of proton beam therapy centres. It is a continuing issue. I will of course raise it with my hon. Friends at the Department of Health, but if he is in his place next Tuesday when they respond to questions, he might find a further opportunity to do so.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The police in Northern Ireland have stated that if the National Crime Agency is unable to operate fully in Northern Ireland, that will have a detrimental impact on their ability to keep people safe and combat serious and organised crime. Will the Leader of the House find time to debate this important subject on the Floor of the House?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am sure he will know from past answers at business questions and statements by my right hon. Friends that we regret that a legislative consent motion was not made available on the legislation in order to allow the National Crime Agency to operate in Northern Ireland. I hope we can continue to make progress in this direction. I cannot offer time on the Floor of the House for a debate, but I hope there will be further opportunities for us to make progress.

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

The new boss of High Speed 2, Sir David Higgins, astonishingly announced to the Transport Committee that the Second Reading of the HS2 hybrid Bill would be on 29 April. I do not tend to believe that until I hear it from the Leader of the House. It is evident, however, that we are getting closer to the petitioning process, so when will the House provide to those affected by this project details of the physical arrangements for that process? Will he consider waiving the £20 fee, particularly for those who are disabled and OAPs? Will he give some thought as to whether the hybrid Bill Committee ought to visit each of the constituencies affected by the project to take petitions and evidence from constituents who are disabled, elderly, or frightened by the processes of this House?

[Mr Lansley]

My right hon. Friend is quite right to say that the timing for the Second Reading of the Bill is a matter for the business managers, and I will announce it to the House in due course. Members of the House would always be advised to wait for such an announcement at business questions. She raises an important point. The petitioning period will take place after Second Reading, and I hope that the House and those outside the House will have as much notice as possible about its start date and duration. I am not in a position to provide that information at the moment, but I will speak to the Department for Transport and ensure that the relevant action is taken. The hybrid Bill Committee will be able to make visits outside Westminster, and I am sure that its members will want to acquaint themselves personally with the line of route and areas affected. In addition, the petitioning process will ensure that they obtain a comprehensive view of the issues for those directly and specially affected by the route.

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

Does the Leader of the House agree that universities are absolutely a jewel in the crown of our society and essential to the wealth creation and civilisation of our nation? Does he know that Huddersfield university is this year’s university of the year? I know he has got quite a good university in his part of the world. Does he agree that we can only go on for so long paying university staff very poor wages and salaries that have not had an increase that would attract top talent? When can we have a debate about this, because the future of our universities depends on the quality of staff we attract and retain?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman is right: I am proud to represent Cambridge university in this House, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). As we all know, universities are central not only to the long-term prospects of students, but to our economic prospects and competitiveness. They are also principal engines for growth in many of the areas in which they are located. They are tremendously important. I am delighted that the coalition Government’s reforms have led to increases in the number of students; to more disadvantaged students and students from black and minority ethnic communities going to university; and to more opportunities as we open up and get rid of the limits on access for students. That is all positive.

Universities are, however, self-governing institutions and the pay they offer staff and their relationships with them are matters that they govern themselves. Although the House will rightly debate university matters from time to time, I hope Members will understand that this is a matter for universities rather than for Government.

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

It is rather a pity that Ofgem has reported the big six to wherever they will go. Smart metering is the way in which we as a nation can address how we use our energy, yet we have not standardised the technology, what we will do with the data or how much it costs. May we have time in the House to discuss the way in which we save energy in this country, and energy security? Smart metering has an enormous role to play: it is very simple to do, it is tax neutral and it will actually help everybody in this country.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I cannot promise a debate, but he might want to seek an Adjournment debate or find another opportunity with colleagues. I hope that more of these important technologies are being put in new homes as they are built. It is also, rightly, a matter for the regulator to ensure that we achieve energy efficiency as part of securing greater progress in carbon reduction and energy security.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the east Lancashire train line? It has no trains on it, which is a bit of a joke. I was promised a statement by the rail Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), in January, but it has not occurred. Wages in Manchester are considerably higher than those in my constituency and the rail line will give employment opportunities to my constituents and put them in a far better position to gain employment in this tough area in difficult times.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I am wrong, but my recollection is that there has been a Westminster Hall debate on such issues.

[Graham Jones]

Not on the east Lancashire train line.

[Mr Lansley]

Perhaps it was not on that issue specifically, in which case I apologise. I will, of course, raise the issue with my colleagues at the Department for Transport, who I know will be anxious to provide the hon. Gentleman and, perhaps, the House with information.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I have learned today of another reason to dislike the European Union: the idea that it will deprive the Leader of the House of the opportunity to be here is absolutely outrageous. Did he listen to the LBC debate on the EU yesterday and hear the leader of the fourth party in British politics say that only 7% of our laws are made by the European Union? The Deputy Prime Minister quoted the House of Commons Library, but I have spoken to Library staff, who have confirmed that he was referring only to primary legislation. If we take into account the thousands and thousands of statutory instruments, we will see that the actual figure is much higher. Could the Leader of the House arrange a statement by the Deputy Prime Minister next week to clarify that?

[Mr Lansley]

I think we all recognise that primary legislation is critical. Although there is an enormous amount of legislation, the question of who makes our primary laws is an issue on which we should focus. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his solicitous remarks. I cannot comment on such issues, because they are matters for the Prime Minister, not for me, happily—it is up to him.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Oh, come on! Should we place a bet?

[Mr Lansley]

No, because I do not particularly approve of gambling. I listened to the debate yesterday and thought that, on the facts, the Deputy Prime Minister had the better of the argument. All the way through, however, I thought to myself that a debate about Europe is all very well, but what the British people want is an in/out referendum. The leader of the UK Independence party cannot deliver it and the Labour party and our Liberal Democrat friends will not deliver it—only the Conservative party will deliver a referendum.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

There is a long-term trend of falling voter turnout among young people. It is good that we will get online voter registration in June, but may we have a statement on the possible introduction of online voting to help to address this big problem?

[Mr Lansley]

We are of course making progress on individual electoral registration, which I hope will allow people in England and Wales to register online for the first time from June. We are putting the maximisation of registration at the heart of our work to improve the electoral system, but we want to make sure that individual electoral registration is working well before we consider any further changes. I have to say that there are concerns about whether e-voting can be made secure from attack and fraud, so although it may be something to consider, it is not a priority for us at present.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

May we have a statement on the delayed Presumption of Death Act 2013? This month marks the fifth anniversary of Claudia Lawrence’s disappearance, and it is encouraging that further information has emerged following the “Crimewatch” appeal last week. The legislation is of the utmost importance to the families whose loved ones have gone missing, and the delay only serves to compound their anguish.

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that Members from across the House are aware of the cases that have caused considerable distress and rightly led to the House approving the Presumption of Death Bill. If I may, I will talk to my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Ministry of Justice about what steps are being taken to bring the Act into force.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

This weekend, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish its fifth assessment report on the impacts of climate change. Given that the final draft of the report covers disruption to the economy, disruption to water availability, changes to the food supply and adverse health impacts, I am not quite sure which Secretary of State it would be best to get the Leader of the House to ask to make a statement: it could equally be the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, for Health, for Energy and Climate Change, for International Development or for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. If there could be a conscious uncoupling between the Deputy Prime Minister and Mr Farage next week, the Deputy Prime Minister might come to the House to give a statement on the impact report.

[Mr Lansley]

These important issues are taken very seriously across Government. We must take far-reaching steps to mitigate the impacts of climate change. As it happens, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change will respond to questions next Thursday, and he is the appropriate lead Minister to whom the hon. Gentleman should direct his questions.

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

With two of the largest brick manufacturing companies in the country based in my constituency, I very much welcome announcements in the Budget to aid energy-intensive industries and the doubling of the annual investment allowance to £500,000. May we have a debate on the measures taken by this Government since they came to office to help private sector businesses expand in line with our long-term economic plan to rebalance our economy?

[Mr Lansley]

I know that businesses, such as the brick manufacturers to which my hon. Friend refers, have benefited considerably from the recovery promoted by this coalition Government. The Budget’s support for their future competitiveness—not only in doubling the annual investment allowance, but in taking steps to ensure that energy-intensive industries can access competitive energy prices—is very important for such key manufacturing businesses.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Will the Leader of the House provide time for a debate on a thorny issue that I have raised in the House on numerous occasions? Tens of thousands of people in Northern Ireland who were born in the Irish Republic during the past 40 or 50 years are denied the right to get a British passport, although many people in Northern Ireland can avail themselves of an Irish passport on the same basis.

[Mr Lansley]

If I may, I will talk to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Home Secretary about that matter. I cannot promise a debate at this stage, but I will endeavour to secure further replies for the hon. Gentleman.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 1206?

[That this House pays tribute to the good work of school crossing patrollers in Harlow; notes that they provide a vital service for Harlow’s school children, are important figures of reassurance for the community, help keep roads safe and speeding to a minimum; is concerned that Essex County Council (ECC) is considering the future of school crossing patrols around Essex; further notes that school crossing patrollers have offered alternative ways to save money; and urges ECC to do everything it can to support school crossing patrols and secure a strong future for them.]

Essex county council is having a conversation about reducing school crossing patrols. May we have a debate on the importance of such patrols? Will the Government consider whether any other budgets could be used, such as the education budget, so that we can support hard-working Harlow lollipop men and women? Will my right hon. Friend raise this matter with other Departments?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that my hon. Friend’s constituents will be grateful, once again, for his vocal support for interests in his constituency. I shall raise the issue with the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government to see what position they take. He and the House will understand that, important as school crossing patrols are, where they should be provided and the funding for them are matters for the county council. I do not encourage him to think that Ministers will intervene directly, but I am sure that they will give him advice on the effectiveness of school crossing patrols in promoting the safety of children.

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

May we have a statement on the Floor of the House about the Government’s carbon floor price policy? They brought in that tax, and its effect on industry is four times worse than the taxes of our EU competitors. No company has yet received the compensation. The original compensation is not as much as was promised and has been delayed by another two years. May we have a statement to update the House on why the Government are making things so hard for industry, particularly in the north-east?

[Mr Lansley]

I encourage the hon. Gentleman to talk to energy-intensive industries and ask them what they think of the Budget. The answer he will get is that the Budget did absolutely the right things. Time and again, we are hearing the representatives of manufacturers and businesses in this country welcome the Budget. It is a disgrace that the Labour party does not put the interests of business first and that it voted against the Budget.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

Small businesses have been crucial to the economic growth and employment growth in my constituency, and they are grateful for the many measures that the Government have implemented to support that employment growth. Is it possible to have a debate in the House on the changes to statutory sick pay, which might have an inadvertent effect on those small businesses?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will know that the abolition of statutory sick pay was recommended in Carol Black and David Frost’s independent review of sickness absence. The Government agreed with them that the system was outdated and that it reduced the incentive to manage sickness absence in the work force. The Government are reinvesting the money that is saved into the new Health and Work Service. That will help small businesses, which often do not have occupational health provision, to manage sickness absence in a more proactive way and to get their employees back to work sooner than under the old system. Frankly, as we all know, that is also in the best interests of the employees. Employees will be able to take advantage of a new tax exemption on medical treatments that are recommended by the service or an employer-arranged occupational health service.

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

Yesterday my hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) visited the Scottish Parliament to set out why people in the north-east are keen that the UK stays together. They proved to be just as popular up there as they are down here. Given that the vast majority of people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland want the UK to stay together, may we have a debate in Government time about why we are better together?

[Mr Lansley]

I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman that we are, as a Union, better together. It is in the interests of Scotland and it is in the interests of the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Happily, we had an opportunity recently to debate Scotland’s place in the Union through the good offices of the Backbench Business Committee. I know that many Members across the House feel that it has become increasingly obvious, not least since the publication of the White Paper by the Scottish Government, that their numbers do not add up and that their arguments do not stack up. The arguments for the Union to stay together are increasingly compelling and will, I hope, be given increased exposure through this House to the people of Scotland.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

Does the Leader of the House have any knowledge of what the process will be for the fundamental review of our flood defences, following the lessons of the last six months? Whatever the process is, will there be a debate on the Floor of the House so that hon. Members can make a contribution to the review?

[Mr Lansley]

I know my hon. Friend agrees that there is much for which we can commend the professional and volunteer services, individuals and communities for their response to the exceptional weather conditions. We know that some aspects of the response and recovery require improvement, and we are committed to reviewing the lessons learned from recent events. Some of those reviews are under way, including reviews of the loss of electricity, the transport disruption at Gatwick and to rail services, and the response of service providers and local authorities. The Department for Communities and Local Government is pursuing a review of the Bellwin scheme. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is conducting an internal operational review of its handling of flood incidents to improve future operations. As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Prime Minister has set up a new Cabinet Committee, which he is chairing personally, to oversee the recovery effort and ensure that lessons are learned and action taken across that broad range of issues.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Shooting sports are worth £1.6 billion to the economy. They create 70,000 full-time jobs, they take place over two thirds of the countryside, and they account for £250 million and 2.7 million work days being spent on conservation, all from followers of shooting sports. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate or a statement on this matter, which brings so much good to our countryside?

[Mr Lansley]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I know from members of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation what tremendous work they do to promote conservation of the countryside, as well as pursuing a legitimate sport. I cannot promise a debate, but I know that many Members may be interested in the points he raises and he may find support for an Adjournment debate, which would give an opportunity to highlight those benefits.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May we have a parliamentary debate on successful local initiatives to get hard-to-place young people into the world of work? During such a debate, I would be able to highlight and congratulate Tresham college and its deputy principal, Rachel Kay, who organised Experience Kettering, a work experience-matching event last Friday, which more than 60 local young people attended, most of whom have secured work placements with local employers. Is this not just the sort of successful local initiative that we need to encourage around the country?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that. It is tremendously important. I pay tribute to the work that he and so many people across Kettering are clearly putting in to give young people opportunities for work experience and to enter the world of work. Happily, that is something we as a Government are doing as well, including through the 1.6 million apprenticeships already begun under this Government. The fact that youth unemployment is now lower than at the election is tremendously important. The youth claimant count is down by 118,000, long-term youth unemployment is down by 37,000 since last year, and through the youth contract we are giving lots of young people additional opportunities for work experience, which, with the traineeships and apprenticeships, is giving them much more diverse and appropriate routes into the world of work.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Despite the answer that the Leader of the House gave my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), the reality is that energy-intensive industries are detrimentally affected by the coalition’s carbon floor tax. Not a penny of promised compensation has been given to them yet, and the Budget said that something would come over the hill in 2016. May we have a debate now on the impact of this Government’s unilateral carbon floor tax on energy-intensive industries?

[Mr Lansley]

I reiterate what I said to the House. It is clear that the steps we are taking recognise that while we are meeting our objectives to deliver on decarbonisation, we must make sure not to do so in a way that discriminates against and disadvantages energy-intensive manufacturers in this country. That is what we are doing and what the Budget does.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

We all appreciate that the timetabling of business in the House is an art more than a science. It is also the case that too much scrutiny of legislation happens in another place, which is a poor reflection on this House. Given the relatively light business expected in the next Session—rather like the present Session in terms of legislation—will my right hon. Friend give some thought to ensuring that more Committee stages are taken on the Floor of the House, not just for constitutional Bills but for the more controversial clauses, which would allow all Members to have their say in properly scrutinising Government legislation?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry, but I have to disagree with my hon. Friend. First, the amount of time spent in scrutiny of legislation in the two Houses is broadly comparable. Secondly, the time spent in scrutinising Bills—not least by allocating two days to Report in this House—is substantially higher in this Parliament than it has been in previous Parliaments, and is providing exactly the opportunity for scrutiny that he seeks. Thirdly, it is a matter of participation by Members. For example, on the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, I was staggered that only three Opposition Back Benchers were willing to debate that important Bill—and one of them was a Whip sent to the Back Benches to make up the numbers.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

For the last decade or so, there has been a significant gap in transport and infrastructure spend between London and the English regions—perhaps as much as 15 to 20 times per head. Much of that has been caused by Crossrail 1, which has been very successful but has been responsible for part of that gap. Before we commit money to Crossrail 2, may we have a debate on its relative priority to similar projects in the English regions?

[Mr Lansley]

During the Budget debate, and later this year when the announcement is made on the national infrastructure plan, I hope that my hon. Friend and the House will see our continuing commitment to developing infrastructure across the regions of England, as well as across the United Kingdom as a whole. He will have noted that, as the Prime Minister made clear the other day, we have spent £8 billion on supporting rail and transport infrastructure in the north of England, and we will have an opportunity, ere long, for the House to support the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill, which potentially will be the most important project this century for providing access to, and improving, rail infrastructure in the north of England.

Energy Markets Competition Assessment

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

11:16

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

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on competition in the energy markets. Today Ofgem, the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition and Markets Authority have published the first annual assessment of competition in the energy markets, and I have made copies available to the House.

Efficient, open markets made up of diverse businesses competing for trade are the best way to ensure that consumers get the best deal on price and service. Strong and independent regulation of competition helps consumers too, because constant political interference for short-term gain can add to long-term risk and costs.

When the coalition Government took power, we inherited energy markets that were not working in the best interests of the people of Britain. The supplier base had shrunk from 15 majors in 2000 to just six in 2010—Labour’s big six. Many people found it difficult to switch. The profusion of more than 350 complex tariffs and complicated bills, for example, made it difficult for people to work out how to get on the right tariff for their circumstances. The wholesale market was also dominated by the big six as they either supplied themselves or opted for over-the-counter deals with no transparency.

The coalition Government, working with the regulator Ofgem, have set about the long task of improving the energy markets to make them work for consumers. We have opened up the markets to new suppliers and generators. Labour’s big six now face 18 new retail competitors whose market share has more than doubled since 2010. The best-buy energy tables are now dominated by the independent suppliers. Tariffs are simpler, bill formats clearer, and the process for switching suppliers is being speeded up. According to the latest statistics, compiled by ElectraLink and Energy UK, almost 3.5 million people switched electricity suppliers last year, and independent suppliers gained more than 700,000 new customers—about 20% of switchers. In January and February this year, almost 500,000 people switched suppliers, with independents gaining more than 200,000 new customers—more than 40% of switchers.

The wholesale markets are also being opened up, with liquidity in the day-ahead market transformed. The forward markets are set to follow suit under Ofgem’s market maker reforms to be introduced from next week, so the energy markets have improved since 2010. Despite all these reforms, however, the Government are determined to do more.

That is why in October last year we announced that Ofgem, working closely with the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition and Markets Authority, would undertake annual reviews of the state of competition in the energy markets. That first annual assessment, and its recommendations, back our decision to turn to the independent competition authorities.

This expert review has found five areas in Britain’s energy markets of real concern that need further investigation. First, a low level of trust and lack of engagement in the energy market by consumers, which is not compatible with healthy competition. Secondly, evidence that the markets retain the geographical pattern that existed before privatisation, and can mean higher prices for customers who do not switch from their home supplier. Thirdly, evidence of possible tacit co-ordination between energy companies, which includes a strong alignment of pricing announcements in timing and extent. Fourthly, barriers to entry and expansion for new companies that make it difficult for them to challenge the big six. Finally, evidence that the big six have seen increasing profits that do not appear to reflect increasing efficiency, which is indicative of a possible lack of competition.

Although the assessment notes that there has been real progress in improving competition in recent years—especially in the growth of the number of independent suppliers—the big six are still dominant with a 95% share of the domestic energy supply market. In the electricity markets, the big six operate a model of vertical integration that is not transparent, and forward markets that are not currently liquid, as I have argued from this Dispatch Box. Although Ofgem’s new market maker reforms may assist that, the assessment rightly wants to dig deeper. However, as the assessment today shows, it may be that vertical integration is in the consumer’s best interests and can ultimately save people money. The assessment cautions against rushing to judgment or to solutions, as some have sought to do.

It is not just the electricity markets that we need to address. On average, people spend £150 more per year on their gas bills than on their electricity. The gas market does not have a vertically integrated structure. Britain’s gas wholesale market is one of the most liquid in Europe, with large volumes of gas bought and sold openly between suppliers and producers. The assessment shares my concern that parts of the gas market, particularly the domestic gas supply market, may not be delivering for consumers. Latest analysis suggests that profit margins for gas supply are around three times higher than that of electricity, with some companies making five times the profit supplying gas, compared with the profit margin on electricity.

In the light of that assessment, Ofgem is now proposing a tough but sensible course of action: a full market investigation reference. That would be undertaken by the new Competition and Markets Authority, which has the robust powers required to investigate the market and take the action needed to strengthen competition. As the Minister responsible for the decision to create that powerful new competition body, I am particularly pleased that Ofgem is proposing to make energy markets its first major task. A market investigation reference is a course of action that should not be lightly undertaken, particularly when the energy market is going through radical changes to introduce new low-carbon generation while ensuring security of supply. Tackling those issues through independent competition authorities provides companies and investors with the confidence that the process will be evidence-based, fair and just, and free from political interference.

Today Ofgem has published the legally required consultation on its proposed market investigation reference, which will run until 23 May, and it will make a final decision on referral by the summer. If a reference is made, the Competition and Markets Authority must complete its work within 18 months, which means we can expect its report and recommendations before the end of 2015. While the competition authorities take forward that work, the Government will continue to support families, individuals and businesses, and will bring forward policy packages throughout the year to put consumers in control of their energy bills, help the fuel poor, and further support competition. That will include: halving switching times; customers off dead tariffs; the first fuel poverty strategy in more than a decade; smart meters installed; help for those on prepayment meters; boosting the green deal; criminalising market manipulation; and boosting independent suppliers. That is a course of action that consumer and business groups such as the Federation of Small Businesses, Which?, Consumer Futures, and Citizen’s Advice have called for. Energy companies such as npower, E.ON and EDF have also argued that a market investigation reference would be the best way to restore consumer trust and decide what changes are needed on the basis of the evidence.

On the basis of the evidence provided by the regulators published today, this is the right course of action to take. It is not a quick fix, but it is the right way to restore people’s trust that the energy markets are working for their benefit. It is the right way to create long-term certainty for investment. The Government strongly support the process. I urge the whole House to join us in that.

11:25

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement. The Opposition welcome the decision to refer the energy market to a competition inquiry. The launch of a full-blown market investigation is confirmation that the energy market is broken, but while it is happening, consumers should be protected from any more unfair price rises, and energy bills should be frozen until 2017.

Does the Secretary of State accept that Ofgem’s decision to refer the energy market for a full competition investigation is a clear admission that there are serious problems with the way in which the energy market works? Does he believe that the Government were mistaken to reject the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for a competition inquiry in 2011?

In the light of today’s report, what assessment has the Secretary of State made of the effectiveness of Ofgem? As he will know, in the past six years, Ofgem has undertaken three major investigations into the energy market. In none of those did Ofgem feel the need to make a reference to competition authorities, or indeed to acknowledge that there are fundamental structural problems with the energy market. Just last December, the Secretary of State told the House:

“Ofgem is fit for purpose.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 634.]

However, is not today’s decision a clear admission that Ofgem has failed to protect consumers? Will he therefore ensure that the market investigations look not just at the players in the market, but at the regulator, too?

In the Secretary of State’s statement, he made the bizarre claim that the energy markets have improved since 2010, but the chief executive of Ofgem today told the BBC that it referred the energy market for investigation for the very reason that conditions in the market have got worse. Is the Secretary of State saying that he disagrees with that assessment?

Today’s assessment also clearly identifies vertical integration as one of the main issues for a full market investigation. The Secretary of State seems conveniently to have forgotten that the last Conservative Government privatised the energy industry and removed the restrictions on vertical integration. Therefore, if he wants to blame anyone for that, he should take it up with his colleague, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), who was a Minister at the time.

The Secretary of State has previously claimed that a ring fence between the generation and retail arms of energy companies had real problems and could push up prices. Therefore, in the light of today’s report, will he admit that he was wrong to rule out Labour’s proposals for a ring fence?

I want to ask the Secretary of State a few specific questions on the details of how the investigation will work. First, will the market investigation cover small businesses as well as domestic consumers? Small businesses face many of the same problems as households but enjoy fewer protections. Does he agree that it would be a mistake to exclude them from the remit of the market investigation? Secondly, on the timetable, when does he expect Ofgem formally to refer the energy market for investigation, and when will the investigation begin? Thirdly, when does he expect the CMA to appoint a market reference group to undertake the investigation?

The only reason for the statement today is the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) at the Labour party conference last year. The Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the energy companies all said that a price freeze was unworkable and impossible to deliver. Yesterday’s decision by SSE showed that a price freeze is possible, and today’s confirmation that the energy market is broken shows that it is needed by all customers. The public want radical action to reform the energy market, as Labour has proposed, but while the review takes place, they rightly want to know what help they can expect now. If I were standing where the Secretary of State is standing, I would take action to impose a price freeze for all consumers. Instead of defending the big six and asking for their co-operation, why does he not just enforce a price freeze now?

[Mr Davey]

First, I welcome the right hon. Lady’s welcome for today’s announcement. That is very important for people outside this House to see: not just consumers and small businesses who will be the beneficiaries of this action, but investors and the industry. Cross-party agreement on the way forward to promote competition in energy markets is very important for investment, so I strongly welcome her welcome. Political agreement is a good step forward for energy markets.

I disagree, I am afraid, with some of the right hon. Lady’s other comments. Of course I agree that there are serious problems. One of the reasons why the Government have been reforming energy markets from day one is that we thought there were problems. One of the reasons we asked Ofgem and the competition authorities to do this work is because we were impatient that not more was happening in the markets. What is interesting about the referral is that the Leader of the Opposition could have done it when he was doing my job, but he refused to take this measure. He refused to do so when he had the power, so I have to say to her that Labour does not really have a leg to stand on. Labour created the big six; we are taking action to create competition.

I am surprised that the right hon. Lady continues to bash Ofgem, the independent regulator. It has taken action in the past few years, particularly under this Government, to improve competition. I thought Labour supported the retail market review and the wholesale market reforms of the market maker obligation. I know she was not on top of reforms in the wholesale market, but Ofgem has taken that action and is now proposing the referral. In the spirit of welcoming the statement, she should also welcome the action Ofgem has taken. Labour set up Ofgem and when the Leader of the Opposition was doing my job he reformed it to make it more effective, so it is ironic for the right hon. Lady and the Opposition to criticise their creation that they reformed.

The right hon. Lady asked one or two specific questions. She asked me whether small business would be covered in the reference. Yes, it will. That is, of course, the independent competition authority’s business, but we believe that it will be and that it should be. On the timetable, as I set out in my statement, we expect the consultation to finish by 23 May. Ofgem will then make its final decision. We expect all of that to happen and the assessment to get going before summer.

The right hon. Lady asked about the price freeze. The problem with Labour’s blanket price freeze is that it is a pro-big six policy. Labour created the big six and it is supporting the big six. Of course SSE is able to have an energy price freeze—it is a big company. Big companies have the balance sheets that enable them to buy 18 months ahead. We have never said that the big six could not have a price freeze. It is the smaller competitors who oppose the price freeze. When the Leader of the Opposition made his announcement to the Labour conference, it was the small companies that were complaining, saying that it would put them out of business. That is the true Labour party: putting the smaller competitors out of business.

The right hon. Lady needs to reflect on all her policies. I am delighted that she has, at long last, changed her mind and agreed to the market investigation reference. That is good to hear, but the Government have been acting to help people with their bills through the warm home discount for the 2 million lowest income households, through the average £50 we took off bills before December, and through our work on energy efficiency and switching. We have been extremely active and will continue to be active during the review, as will Ofgem. The Government are in favour of better prices through more competition to deliver secure green energy.

[Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and, in particular, the recognition by Ofgem—belated, admittedly—of both the market failure and the dangers of vertical integration in the energy industry. Will he confirm that although it is absolutely right for the Government to do everything they can to promote competition in the energy industry, it would be dishonest for any Government, either current or future, to pretend to consumers, anxious as they are, that energy bills may never rise in future? By far the biggest component in the energy bill is the wholesale price of gas, which is completely beyond the Government’s control.

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is one of the problems that many have with the official Opposition’s policy. Governments do not control wholesale prices. We have seen large increases in wholesale gas prices over a long period, primarily driven by the increase in energy demand from countries that are growing such as China and India. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we cannot control that, but we can do everything in our power to help people, whether by promoting competition or helping people to save energy through energy efficiency.

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

Bearing in mind that the “State of the Market” competition report contains a number of different headings of concern about the market, has the Secretary of State done any work, or will he do any, on the relative urgency of those headings? If he is considering referring the headings in Ofgem’s report to the CMA inquiry, does he think the two-year time scale will give his Department sufficient urgency to deal with them all?

[Mr Davey]

First, for the avoidance of doubt, it will be Ofgem that makes the referral to the Competition and Markets Authority, not me. However, I want to make it clear to the House that we have been acting on competition issues in energy markets from day one in 2010 and will continue to do so. Where evidence is brought to our attention or Ofgem’s that more can be done, we will do it. As I said in my statement, consumers can look forward to our work with the industry to drive forward faster switching times, for example. We want to halve switching times, so that competition works for people and they can get the best deals in the market. We are not going to do nothing during the review; we are going to be very active. However, the review is critical to doing a deep dive and getting a deep analysis of what is going on.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is quite right to suggest that the vast array of tariffs, which the last Government allowed to proliferate, is one reason why many people are deterred from switching supplier, but so, as he says, is the speed at which one can switch. Will he say a little more about how we will drive down and halve switching times, so that people can enjoy lower energy prices, rather than the frozen prices that the Opposition want, but which, rather oddly, in the same breath they say are too high?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are rather more ambitious than the official Opposition: we want to see low energy prices through competition, not just to freeze them. He is right that reducing the number of tariffs is important—the Labour party refused to do that in government—and the retail market review by Ofgem, which the Labour party wants to abolish, has led to a reduced number of tariffs. As for switching times, which he has focused the House’s attention on, we have already been working with the industry through Energy UK, which has a body working with all other parts of a chain of companies involved in switching customers. We will report later this year on the progress we believe can be made and how it can be made. It is complicated, but we are determined to deliver it.

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

On 12 February, the Secretary of State criticised Labour’s critique of the wholesale energy market as deeply flawed, so does he think he is as stupid as he looks right now?

[Mr Davey]

It is always nice to have charm in the House. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that Labour’s proposals include introducing a pool. The problem is that the day-ahead market, which is like the pool, has grown dramatically under this Government. That is one of the reasons why I said that Labour’s policies are absolutely flawed: because the Opposition have not looked at what is actually happening. Indeed, I asked the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) in that debate whether she had read the report and it was clear that she had not. That is one of the reasons why we think Labour’s policy proposals are flawed.

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

As a Liberal Democrat, I very much welcome today’s statement and the vigorous way in which the Secretary of State set about it. Does he share my view that it is amazing that Labour, having set up both the big six energy companies and Ofgem to regulate them, should now be so grudging about his taking the action necessary to ensure that consumers get a fair deal?

[Mr Davey]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Labour party created the big six, and now it seems to be worried about the fact that we are trying to take action. Its policy would entrench the big six, and would undermine the competition that we have delivered. The Labour party set up Ofgem, and now it wants to abolish it. People listening to the Labour party and looking at its record must be astonished that it has the gall even to pretend that it has a sensible energy policy.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

In its report on energy prices and fuel poverty, the Select Committee said that Ofgem was failing consumers because it had not been properly using the powers at its disposal. Can the Secretary of State tell us what action he took as a result of that report, why prices have not fallen, and why consumers have repeatedly found themselves in financial difficulties because the Government did not act earlier?

[Mr Davey]

I think that recommendations made by the Select Committee to Ofgem are matters for Ofgem. In the Energy Act 2013, we set out a new approach for my Department, working with Ofgem, and provided for the introduction of a strategy and policy statement. We have made the reforms that we believe are needed to ensure that Ofgem works well with the Government in promoting competition. I am delighted to note that, although the Labour party still seems to want to abolish Ofgem, it supports its proposal for a market investigation reference.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am sure that residents of Kettering will welcome the inquiry into the electricity and gas markets.

I was interested to hear what the Secretary of State said about vertical integration. Surely the problem is the small number of energy suppliers that are vertically integrated. If 20 energy suppliers were vertically integrated, there might be the requisite level of competition. If a small number of energy suppliers were not vertically integrated, that might work. Surely the lethal combination for consumers is a small number of suppliers that are vertically integrated. I shall be extremely surprised if the inquiry does not conclude that that vertical integration needs to end.

[Mr Davey]

I am pleased that the competition assessment is focusing on vertical integration, because I think that it needs to be looked at. Ofgem proposed the introduction of a market making obligation because it wanted to tackle some of its concerns about vertical integration. However, the consultation document states:

“We recognise that there are benefits to vertical integration in terms of cost efficiency…and in terms of supporting investment to maintain security of supply. However there are also costs in terms of barriers to entry.”

The report is balanced, and, unlike the Labour party, has not rushed into making a judgment. Everything cannot be the fault of vertical integration. The gas market is not vertically integrated, but I believe that there are serious problems related to competition in the domestic gas supply market.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Any review of the energy market is welcome, but yesterday, referring to nuclear power, Scottish and Southern Energy said

“the deal which the UK government has reached with EDF”

—the French energy giant—

“over the construction of two reactors at Hinkley Point…will add considerable costs to consumer energy bills for 35 years.”

Will the “full market investigation” cover the cost of nuclear power and its effect on comprehensive spending review bills, and if not, why not?

[Mr Davey]

The investigation will not deal with that, because it involves policy on the generation mix. A mixed, diverse source of low-carbon energy is the best way in which to protect the consumer. There are Members of Parliament and, no doubt, many people outside who know the future—who have a crystal ball and know what the various technology costs will be in the 2020s. Perhaps SSE has a crystal ball; perhaps the hon. Gentleman has a crystal ball, but I do not. I have created a framework in which there is competition between technologies, and I believe that that is the right way in which to proceed.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am amazed that the Labour party wants to freeze energy prices when they are high, when wholesale prices are falling, and when the Government are reducing—as the Prime Minister delicately put it—Labour’s green crap. Would the Minister care to congratulate the Prime Minister on reducing subsidies for green energy, thereby driving prices down for the consumer?

[Mr Davey]

It is always nice to be able to agree with my hon. Friend on the odd occasion—[Interruption.] Not necessarily on everything he said—the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) is very worried about that—but on his point about the Labour party and competition, I do agree.

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

One of the headline findings of the market assessment in the Ofgem press release is that switching has fallen in recent years:

“There was a brief spike in late 2013 but no indication of a permanent increase.”

Indeed, there has been a substantial reduction since January this year. Given that switching has so far not really had the effect in driving down prices that the Secretary of State suggested it might, why should we expect consumers to wait for two years for the outcome of this assessment to see some action being taken to drive down prices?

[Mr Davey]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised that point. Switching rates have fallen in this country primarily because of the end of doorstep selling. That method of trying to persuade people to switch was one of the reasons why switching numbers increased in the early days after privatisation. However, all Members in their constituencies will have experienced cases of doorstep mis-selling, and it was the many problems that that caused that led many people in this House and the regulator to say that it was not an acceptable way of driving competition. Doorstep selling has gone out of the picture and that has been the main cause of the reduction in switching. We have therefore had to address that and look at new, innovative ways to try to get the rate of switching going back in the right direction. That is why we are looking at simpler bills, fewer tariffs, collective switching and faster switching times. We are relentless in trying to get those switching rates back up again, and the recent evidence suggests we are on the right track.

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

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does he agree that the whole House today should be backing Ofgem and the investigation, which I believe is in the long-term interest of consumers—and the key is “long term”?

[Mr Davey]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend and I am genuinely pleased at the way in which the discussion has gone among the parties in the House. It is important that we allow the independent competition authorities the time to get to the bottom of the matter. Let the professional experts deal with it, and let the political parties listen to them and follow their advice.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The report highlights that, because of local monopolies, barriers to entry and colluding between the big six, they have been able to hold on to 95% of the market share and increase their profits. Is that not an indication that now is the time for quick action rather than further reviews, and would one quick action be to reduce the subsidies to the renewables industry, which the Secretary of State’s own Department admits currently add 10% to energy bills?

[Mr Davey]

I certainly do not recognise that figure, and the hon. Gentleman needs to look at what has been driving up bills: it has been the price of wholesale gas. Whether it is that trend in the past decade or the events in Ukraine and Crimea, people should worry about relying on just importing gas from abroad. We need to diversify, so we need to invest in renewables, nuclear, carbon capture and storage, and energy efficiency. We need a diverse approach. That is the best way to ensure that we get prices down and keep the market competitive.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

In December, the Secretary of State said that Ofgem was not fit for purpose. He has also said that we cannot rely on guesswork to fix the energy markets. Why will he not admit that today’s decision to refer the energy market for a full market investigation is a clear admission that the market is broken and Ofgem is not fit for purpose? May I also offer him some polite advice? He does not need to rely on guesswork; he needs to listen to the Labour party.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question, but I have been accused by the Opposition of saying—in the same debate, I believe—that Ofgem is fit for purpose and that Ofgem is not fit for purpose. I believe she was quoting her Front-Bench colleague, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). I will let the hon. Lady try again next time.

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

In November 2011 the Government ruled out a full energy market investigation. Is the Secretary of State willing now to admit that the Government got it wrong and made a mistake, and can he explain to the House the difference between tacit co-ordination and collusion?

[Mr Davey]

On that last point, one is illegal and one is not, but I think we can all agree that they both need to be investigated by the independent competition authorities. It is interesting that Labour is complaining—at least, some Labour Members are complaining—that we did not make this referral before, given that Labour’s leader, when Secretary of State, refused to make the market investigation reference. Let us remember that in the previous Parliament electricity bills and gas bills increased faster on average each year than they have done under this Government. He had all the reason to make that reference to try to improve competition, but he flunked it when he had the chance.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

May I extend my sympathy to the Secretary of State, as it must be galling for him to have to make this statement to the House, particularly with his minder, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), present? The Secretary of State has known for many years that what the Labour party has been saying, and what the Select Committee has been saying, has been correct, but he has been prevented from doing anything by the Treasury. Now he has had to come to the House to accept that all the things we were asking for—the Competition Commission referral, a proper examination of this situation and addressing vertical integration—are going to come to pass on his watch. Having said that, can he explain why, when the profits made by the companies in Europe are between 2% and 3%, whereas in this country they are between 5% and 7%, he will not do anything now?

[Mr Davey]

If the hon. Gentleman reads the assessment, he will see that the competition authorities have focused on that last point. On the market investigation reference, I have to remind him, again, that it was the leader of his party who flunked that opportunity. I also have to tell the hon. Gentleman that he should read the record, because Labour’s spokesperson in this area, the right hon. Member for Don Valley, was saying just a few weeks ago that a market investigation reference was not a good idea, that to make such a reference would be to kick things into the long grass and that it should not happen. I am glad that Labour has changed its position.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

In his statement, the Secretary of State says, and has just acknowledged, that there is “evidence that the big six have seen increasing profits that do not appear to reflect increasing efficiency”—too right! So why does he not acknowledge that he has been too slow to act today?

[Mr Davey]

I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman; this coalition Government have been acting from day one. We inherited Labour’s big six. We have deregulated, and we now have 18 independent new suppliers taking on the big six. The best buy tables show that people can save hundreds of pounds by switching from Labour’s big six to the new competition that has come about under this Government. We have been making lots of efforts, but because we are impatient and frustrated and we want to do more, we set up this annual competition assessment and we welcome its proposals today.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I always remember him as a fair-minded, independent Liberal Democrat, and I get on very well with him, but it does stick in my craw when I hear him repeating this Conservative mantra about the big six and Labour. I have been in this House long enough to remember the botched privatisation of the energy sector, which is at the heart of the rotten energy sector we have inherited today. That is the truth, and he is better than what he said today.

[Mr Davey]

I like the hon. Gentleman, despite his question. It is not a Conservative mantra—it is a Liberal Democrat mantra, a coalition mantra and a consumer mantra. Let us remember that the people who have been calling for this reference include Which?, Citizens Advice, Consumer Futures and the Federation of Small Businesses, and we are delivering on that today.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

No matter what politicians say in this Chamber today, many of our constituents believe that they are being ripped off on energy costs. How can we assure them that the cost of electricity and gas is a genuine cost and has not been set by a cartel of the big six?

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman can do that by backing this reference by the competition authorities, which will ask all those questions. I say to him and his constituents that if they are worried now, they should look at the best buy tables and use the competition that is there now. I hope that, as a result of this reference, we will supercharge that competition. There is choice now, because this Government have brought it in.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last but certainly not least, the voice of Hyndburn, Graham Jones.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I was most interested in the answer that the Secretary of State gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith)—that he had had four years of impatience or that he had been impatient over the period. Looking back, does he not regret that the Energy Act 2013, which took more than a year to go through Parliament, does not contain a single concrete measure to improve competition in either the wholesale or the retail energy market?

[Mr Davey]

Even though the Act may have taken a year to get through this House, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman did not manage to read it. We had measures supporting Ofgem from both its retail market review and its wholesale market review. There was also the overall reform of the electricity market to ensure that we had competitive markets for the future. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong.

Quality Workplace Pensions

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

11:56

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement setting out the actions that this Government are taking to ensure that the pension schemes into which workers are enrolled are of high quality and provide value for money. The steps I shall outline today are the latest in a sequence of groundbreaking changes that are revolutionising the pensions landscape.

As we move towards our goal of enrolling 10 million workers into pension saving, we need to ensure that those savings are invested in value-for-money schemes that are well-governed. So today, I can announce that this Government will introduce a package of measures to protect people against high and unfair charges; ensure schemes are well-run; and turn our pensions market into a world leader for disclosure and transparency. Through the new measures, this Government will be the first to get an iron grip on the issue of pension charges. We are going to put charges in a vice; and we will tighten the pressure year after year.

In our pre-Christmas consultation, we consulted on three options for capping pension scheme charges: an across-the-board cap of 0.75%; a comply-or-explain cap, allowing schemes to go up to 1%; or a simple 1% cap. You may be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there were those who, to use a technical term, suggested that we might wimp out on these choices—that we might give in to the vested interests of the pensions industry. I hope that the announcements of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor last week show that the Government are without fear or favour when it comes to the financial services industry. I can tell the House today that of the three options, we have decided to go with the toughest of the three.

At the heart of our plan is a charge cap of 0.75% for the default funds of all qualifying schemes, with equivalent caps for schemes with combination charge structures. The cap will apply from April 2015, and it will apply to all schemes used for automatic enrolment. That means that we will deliver on the timetable in our consultation document to have a full cap in place by April 2015.

I can also confirm that we are today publishing a full impact assessment of these changes, which has received a green fit-for-purpose rating from the Regulatory Policy Committee. Over the next 10 years, the new charge cap will transfer around £200 million from the profits of the pensions industry to the pockets of savers. After the charge cap is implemented, we will make further changes, year after year, to tighten further our grip on unfair charges.

As well as meeting the 0.75% cap, from April 2016 schemes will be prohibited from taking money from people's pension schemes to pay for sales commission. Schemes will have to end the practice of increasing the charges of people who are no longer employed by the sponsoring employer of the scheme—so-called active member discounts or more accurately deferred member charges. That is in line with the recommendations both of the Work and Pensions Committee and the Office of Fair Trading. It is not right that people should pay more in charges simply because they have moved employer and consequently stop contributing to a scheme. These charges are particularly unfair in the context of an increasingly flexible labour market, where people change jobs more regularly and are therefore more likely to become deferred members.

On transparency, the Office of Fair Trading uncovered 18 different names for and configurations of charges. The charges are often hidden and complex. Today, I can confirm that in a further measure to shine some light into the dark recesses of the pensions industry, we will introduce full standardised disclosure of all costs and charges that will make scheme comparisons a reality for the first time. The transaction costs hidden in complex and opaque investment chains will be exposed, giving new clarity about where members’ money is really going.

From April 2015, trustees and those who represent members’ interests in pension schemes will have a duty to obtain information on all scheme charges. We will start work straight away with the Financial Conduct Authority to develop standardised measures of transaction costs. We will use that information to consider whether another turn of the vice is needed in 2017 to take our reforms even further, potentially by including transaction costs within the default fund charge. In addition, in 2017 we will consider whether the base charge cap of 0.75% is to be reduced further.

As well as focusing on charges, we are strengthening the way in which schemes are governed. Our governance reforms will ensure that there are people running schemes in members’ interests and that they scrutinise the costs and charges that affect their members’ pots.

We want members of so-called legacy schemes as well as those people enrolled into schemes being sold today to receive good value for money. The OFT identified that charges are currently a quarter to a third higher in schemes that were sold before 2001. Those schemes have gone unscrutinised for too long. We therefore welcome the independent audit of legacy and other high-cost schemes put in place following the OFT’s recommendation, in which my Department is involved. The audit is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year and we will take any further action necessary in the light of those findings to address the poor value that has been allowed to persist in some of the older pension schemes.

The pension system we inherited was broken. The coverage of workplace pensions was declining. The value of the state pension was declining. The only growth area in pensions was the mass means-testing introduced by the previous Government as a last-ditch attempt to prop up a failing system. Through our bold and innovative changes, we will reverse that spiral of decline. We are following up our radical reforms to the state pension, the successful implementation of automatic enrolment and last week’s bold Budget announcements with another measure that will help to put pension provision back on its feet.

This is a full-frontal assault on poor value for money from a Government on the side of people who save. These changes are a major step in our wider programme of pensions reform, safeguarding the hard-earned savings of those who work hard and do the right thing. This truly is another landmark day for pensions policy and I commend our plans to the House.

12:02

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

I thank the Minister for notice of the statement.

Rare is the day when the Government appear to adopt an Opposition policy lock, stock and barrel. Rarer still is the day when the Government appear to adopt two of the Opposition’s policies lock, stock and barrel. Today, the two broken markets identified by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)—energy and pensions—have been accepted by the Government, who have made concessions in that regard. They are two big wins for the Opposition.

We welcome those concessions. We welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement on Wednesday that an energy freeze from SSE is a good thing. Perhaps we will finally see the Government reversing their tax cut for millionaires, although that might damage the Minister’s new-found interest in the market in Lamborghinis. The Government have belatedly accepted that the market in pensions, as in energy, is not working for consumers. We welcome this historic change of Conservative and Liberal heart. It is a retreat from free-market dogma.

This is the second time—the Minister alluded to this—that I have welcomed a Government proposal to cap pension charges. The Minister refers in his statement to delivering on his timetable, but what he does not say is that it is a new timetable. In October, the Minister rushed into a four-week consultation with a view to capping pension charges from April 2014, five days from now, but his impact assessment was condemned as not fit for purpose by the Regulatory Policy Committee. Today, the Minister has confirmed that no charge cap will be in place until 2015, a year from now. That matters because in the Government’s own figures, someone who has worked hard to save £100,000 in their pension pot for retirement and is charged 1.5% for the next 12 months will pay a hefty £1,500 in charges, so why the delay, given the difference that will be made by a cap set at the level the Labour party suggested and given what the Minister has recommended today? Why the delay in not introducing it today? That £1,500 might not be enough to purchase a Lamborghini, but it could well amount to a deposit on the two-door Corsa that the whole world now knows the Minister drives.

This is so important because pensions market failure has significant consequences for millions of savers. The Minister knows that, by 2017, 11 million people will be auto-enrolled—3 million now and 4.5 million by the election. That is why it is so urgent. The Minister promised a full-frontal assault on pension charges in October. Whoever has heard of a full-frontal assault that comes with a 12-month notice period?

The Minister and I both know that governance is the key to better pensions, so when will the independent governance committees that the Labour party has called for be implemented? Will he give us clarity on that? In his review for the Business Secretary, another Liberal Democrat, Professor Kay concluded that excessive churning by fund managers was reducing the value of pension assets. Will the Minister pledge to the House today that all fund management costs, as set down in Labour’s amendment to the Pensions Bill, will be disclosed as part of the policy? Furthermore, to whom will the fund manager costs be disclosed? The statement mentions trustees and others, but who are these others?

Let me finish on a note of consensus: an Opposition are always delighted when a Government adopt their policy. To have two significant Opposition policies adopted in one day is truly a success for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and for the Labour party. We welcome the Government’s endorsement of our policy. It matters so much because of the difference it makes to pension savings, but we will continue to scrutinise the detail of the proposals as it emerges, because in pensions the devil is always in the detail, and this Government certainly have form on that point. We welcome this endorsement of Labour policy and we will look further at the detail.

[Steve Webb]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about energy and income tax rather than pensions: he has nothing to say on the pensions announcement.

The hon. Gentleman said that we have adopted Labour’s policy. I thought he might say that, so I thought I would have a little look at what Labour’s policy was. The first evidence we have is their record in office, when they had 13 years to cap charges and did precisely nothing. But we do have more recent evidence—he mentioned the leader of the Labour party and his views on the subject, so I have a done a bit of research. Clearly, The Guardian was briefed by Labour, and the leader of the Labour party called it an “all-out attack” on rip-off pension charges, so that is good. Patrick Wintour said in September 2012:

“Ed Miliband will promise to end rip-offs in the pensions industry”—

that is good, is it not?

—by putting a 1% cap on pension charges”.

I wonder whether he has moved a bit because he saw what we were doing. I get a slight sense that might be the case.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the timetable. Our consultation document made it clear that every scheme would have a cap in place by April 2015. We are today delivering on that timetable. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) says, “What about April 2014?” If they are seriously suggesting that we should apply a charge cap with a few days’ notice, it shows how little they understand about how employers work and how the pensions industry works. Unless they are calling for us to announce a cap at a few days’ notice, which would be pretty irresponsible, we are delivering on the timetable that we set out.

The hon. Gentleman asked me some specific questions. The independent governance committees will have to be in place by April 2015, but the Association of British Insurers and the Office of Fair Trading have agreed that they will put them in place before that date. The legal requirement is April 2015, but we expect to see them in place before that.

The hon. Gentleman asked who the costs have to be revealed to. The trustees or the independent governance committees, who will act on behalf of the members and will have the technical expertise to understand all the detail, get the information, but they will form a judgment about the format in which they pass it on to scheme members. Scheme members need to understand about charges, but probably not in the full gory detail that trustees and governance committees would. The point is that for the first time there will be people in every pension scheme acting on behalf of the scheme member, and that is a radical step forward.

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

I welcome the statement, which is good news for the savers of Suffolk Coastal. Will my hon. Friend say a little more about how he is tackling the unfair active member discounts in workplace pension schemes?

[Steve Webb]

I certain will, and it was very much the savers of Suffolk Coastal we had in mind. Active member discounts have been going on far too long. They are one of the hidden charges, and people are ignorant enough already of the charges in their pension schemes, through no fault of their own, even when they are active members, but when they move on to a new firm and a new scheme they probably have no clue what the charges are in the scheme they have left. Therefore, from April 2015 even schemes that retain active member discounts will be unable to go above 0.75%, which will stop many of them, and by April 2016 they will have to have been worked out of the system altogether.

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

The shadow Minister failed to persuade the Minister that the Opposition might have been responsible for some of these changes, but I wonder whether he will acknowledge that many of the measures he has announced today were recommended by the Work and Pensions Committee. In particular, we hope that we have played some part in ensuring that costs and charges are capped and transparent. He said that transaction costs will not be part of the cap but that there is some action on them. How likely is it that transaction charges will be part of the cap at some time in the future?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and hope that I acknowledged in my statement the contribution her Committee has made to some of the measures. On transaction costs, from this time next year trustees and governance committees will have a legal duty to obtain information about all costs and charges; we will be working with the Financial Conduct Authority, staring immediately, to try to define them all. The shadow Minister came up with a list the other day, but there will be things missing from it. As soon as a phrase appears in an Act of Parliament, the industry will change the name of it. We must therefore ensure that we are as comprehensive as possible. We are certainly open to the possibility that that should go in a charge cap. We would not want to do that in a way that discourages transactions that are in the interests of members, but clearly we want to avoid gratuitous transactions intended only to generate charge income, rather than to further the interests of members. It is certainly something we will return to, particularly in the light of the transparent information that will become available for the first time because of these measures.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the charge cap, which shows how far we have come from the days of stakeholder pensions and the level of charging that was allowed. Will the Minister update the House on some of the other ideas for reform that are out there, such as defined ambition schemes and large aggregator schemes, which might also give savers a better deal?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Stakeholder pensions were the previous Government’s one attempt to limit charges. He will recall that they initially introduced a 1% cap—again, we have seen the colour of their money—before going back on that and allowing 1.5% for 10 years. I have always wanted to say that we will take no lectures from the Labour party, and he has now given me the chance. On defined ambition schemes, we will be taking that agenda forward, and I hope to have more to say about that when we publish our response to the consultation document. With regard to large-scale pension schemes, the command paper we are publishing today included a section on scale that I think he will find interesting. We think that the pot-follow-member model is the best way of ensuring that people build significant pension pots with the person they are currently saving with.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Why is the Minister waiting a year to introduce the full cap and a further year to ban people taking money from pension schemes to pay for sales commission? Why is he not acting much sooner?

[Steve Webb]

There is a perfectly straightforward answer to the hon. Lady’s question. When we asked firms to enrol their staff automatically, we asked them to plan 12 months ahead, because it takes a long time to set up a pension scheme, to choose a pension scheme and to communicate with scheme members. A firm sitting down today to plan for April 2015 knows the rules of the game today so that it can choose its scheme in an informed way. She asked why we have allowed a further year for commission and active member discounts. Clearly, if either of those takes a scheme above 0.75%, which many do, they will have to comply immediately in April 2015, but many of those are based on complicated contractual arrangements in pension schemes. We have to strike a balance between unpicking all those and focusing the pensions industry on delivering automatic enrolment, which is a key priority for the next 12 months.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Whether the Select Committee or the shadow Pensions Minister wish to claim credit is of secondary importance to my constituents, who today can feel a little more confident that they are not being ripped off. I thank the Minister for actually doing something about this, rather than just claiming credit. One of the most important things is that people can easily see what charges will be imposed in future. How will his proposals help to make that clearer for people?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. The challenge with this market is that the people buying the pensions are essentially the employers of the firm, not the staff. We need to ensure that when firms are shopping around for pensions for their workers they get clear and straightforward information about what the charges will be and that they will be capped. Scheme members clearly need to be able to access information about charges in a straightforward and transparent way. It is a slightly odd market, because people are buying on their behalf and, because of automatic enrolment, scheme members cannot negotiate a different price; they just have to take the price they are given. Our focus is therefore very much on ensuring that the people who make the choices on pensions—in this context, the employers—have clear advice and the cap to ensure that they and their members cannot be ripped off.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Minister has indicated that further work will be done to try to tackle the whole ecosystem of charges and combinations of charges. What does he believe will actually trigger a decision in 2017 to capture some of those charges in the cap?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Our central interest in all this is the well-being and welfare of scheme members. We would not put transaction costs, for example, into a cap if we thought that might result in certain transactions that would benefit scheme members not taking place. On the other hand, if we thought that there was overtrading or that people’s money was being invested in a way that generated income that did not benefit them, we would need to take account of those issues. One of the challenges we face in making policy in this area is that so little is known about what is going on. Step one is therefore to get transparency so that we know the scale of what is going on and what sorts of charges there are out there, and then we can make an informed decision.

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

I warmly welcome the statement. Strong, quality workplace pensions are critical to dignity and security in old age. Who does the Minister think will be the big beneficiary of these changes?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As I have said, we estimate that around £200 million over the next 10 years will go from the pensions industry to savers, which we think will cover around 2 million pension savers, many of whom will work for smaller firms, because we know that the biggest firms have been able to negotiate good deals with providers. That is good news for people who work for Britain’s small firms, in particular, who might not otherwise have got good value for money in their pensions.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the House to make a statement, unlike some of his colleagues who have slipped out an important announcement in a written ministerial statement today rather than coming to the House. Will he give us a little more detail on the changes he proposes to make to governance and say when we can expect to see them introduced, because they will be very important in allowing people to be confident that some other form of charging is not emerging to replace it?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The principal change, although not the only one, is the introduction of the requirement for independent governance committees. With trust-based governance there are member-nominated trustees and a fiduciary duty on trustees, but with contract-based pension schemes provided by insurance companies there is a question, as has often been argued, of who is acting on the members’ behalf. The IGCs will have to be in place by April 2015 and they will have various duties. The way in which they are set up is described more fully in the document—I know she will not yet have had a chance to read it. I think that she will welcome the changes, which mean that whatever sort of pension scheme someone is in, there is somebody there looking out for them.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Residents of Kettering will welcome these measures to improve the quality of workplace pensions. The reason for automatic enrolment in the first place is that a lot of people are either frightened by pensions or do not understand them, or they might be young people who think that pensions are irrelevant. Under the quality scheme that the Minister has announced, may we have a stamp of quality on the documentation to reassure workplace employees? May we also have a common-sense, plain-English helpline that people can phone without any difficulty so that they can have the complexities of their pension arrangements explained? Can we also ensure maximum transparency of portability of pensions between workplaces?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend raises a number of important points. On kitemarks and the like, we are placing a legal duty on firms to use for auto-enrolment only schemes of a requisite quality, so it will not be a matter of individual employees wondering whether their scheme is good enough—they will know it is good enough because their employer will not be allowed to enrol them into a scheme that is not so. All schemes will be of the requisite standard. He is right that people need places to go for advice in amongst the complexity. Our Department sponsors a body called the Pensions Advisory Service. I encourage all Members of the House to refer their constituents to TPAS, which is a free, expert and very good service. I must confess that I occasionally ring it myself.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I welcome this move. The Minister said, in effect, “We are going to put charges in a vice and we will tighten the pressure.” That sounds as though it might bring tears to the eyes of some of the pension providers, which may be no bad thing. He also talked about shining “sunlight into the dark recesses”. Those are good clichés and this is a good, progressive move forward. However, what is he going to do to ensure that instead of the eyes of people who are enrolling, and will enrol in future, glazing over whenever they think about pensions, they know there is transparency and know what is the likely outcome whenever they come to retire?

[Steve Webb]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that so far the response to automatic enrolment has been excellent. Despite predictions to the contrary, nine out of 10 of those who have been enrolled have stayed enrolled, which is a tremendous vote of confidence. In general, people have more trust in their employer than in financial services providers or even—dare I say it?—politicians, so we are using the employer route such that employers will ensure that the schemes they are using for their workers are of requisite quality. I also assure him that the language I used in the statement, though designed to be colourful, is also backed up by some hard reality.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Many will welcome the overdue cap and the possibility of lowering it further. On the pre-2001 schemes, may I press the Minister to act as soon as possible, because far too many people have lost too much money already to countenance much further delay?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is right. One of the problems, as with transparency, is that we do not know enough about the nature of these schemes and what the charges are. In some cases, they are high-charging but come with guarantees, so people are getting something for their money. An audit is going on at the moment. The pensions industry is having to produce a lot of information about all these schemes. That is often very difficult because pension companies have been bought, sold and merged; just getting the data is the first challenge. As soon as we know exactly what is going on and what further measures we can take to improve the welfare of consumers, I assure him we will do so.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

We have heard today that the independent audit on legacy and older pension schemes is still in hand. When will the further reforms that the Minister is talking about be brought forward, because there are some very high costs in these schemes?

[Steve Webb]

I agree. I have already met the chair of the new audit committee, and one of my senior officials serves on it. This work is now under way. Providers are being asked for data. That represents a significant cost to them, but we need those data. The deadline for that work is the end of this year. I have talked about some measures being taken years down the track, but this work will be completed this year. We will not just sit and wait until a letter arrives on my desk on Christmas day, or whatever. We are keeping close to the review, and as we learn from it and decide what action we can take, we will do so as soon as possible.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Minister spoke of the “bold” pension proposals in last week’s Budget. Now that the Chancellor has allowed people to cash in their pension pot instead of purchasing an annuity, can the Minister confirm that, under his Department’s rules on care costs, local authorities will now be able to insist that they do cash them in, thereby pushing them over the threshold where they have to contribute to their own care costs?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, which is that these changes have a number of knock-on effects within our Department and the Department of Health. Of course, we will make sure that the spirit of the Chancellor’s announcement is carefully reflected in the way Departments carry on. These flexibilities do not come in for another year, so we still have time to work through detail of the sort that he properly raises.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last, but certainly not least, the voice of Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland—Tom Blenkinsop.

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I find the Minister’s statement fascinating given that he said only recently that putting a cap on pensions was like trying to put

“a price cap on a tin of baked beans”.

I wonder whether he read this in yesterday’s Financial Times:

“Labour led the way with criticism of the annuities market and high opaque fees on pensions, long before the coalition took action.”

Would he care to comment on that very good article?

[Steve Webb]

I would. It is no coincidence that that newspaper is printed on pink paper. It has run stories about our plans for a price cap which, now that we have made our announcement, will be shown to have been wholly inaccurate. Those who have subscriptions to that newspaper might wonder whether they can always believe what they read in it.

Point of Order

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

12:24

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Have you received any notification from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions or any of his Ministers that they propose to make an oral statement to this House on the early exit of Atos from the contract for work capability assessments? That is a matter of concern to many Members of this House, and I thought that perhaps we could hear whether there has been such an application.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

We can rest assured that I have not been give any such notice. I am sure that people will already be listening, and the matter is certainly on the record.

Backbench Business

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

High Court Judgment (John Downey)

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

12:25

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the background to and implications of the High Court judgment on John Downey.

Let me put on record our thanks and gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for tabling this important subject for debate in the House this afternoon. I also want to put on record the fact that the debate has been requested by all the parties from Northern Ireland represented in this House, including the Social Democratic and Labour party and the Alliance party, as well as the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). Representations were made to the Backbench Business Committee by those parties and the hon. Lady, and also by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, so the debate has cross-party support. Following the Attorney-General’s statement in this House on 26 February, it is important that we have this opportunity to debate at more length and in more detail the background to and implications of the High Court judgment in the John Downey case.

It would be right and proper for me to begin by putting right at the forefront of this debate the names of the four soldiers who died in the Hyde park bombing on 20 July 1982. I pay tribute to the memories of Lieutenant Anthony Daly, Trooper Simon Tipper, Lance Corporal Jeffrey Young and Squadron Quartermaster Corporal Roy Bright, who died in the horrific IRA bombing on that day. It was one of the most notorious incidents of the entire IRA campaign. It touched very, very many people and is to this day remembered by so many for the deaths of those soldiers, but also for the deaths of the horses that occurred, and the terrible images that were shown on our TV screens and in our newspapers.

We will obviously come on to debate in detail all the issues surrounding the administrative scheme for on-the-runs, the implications of the Downey judgment, the political fallout, and all that, but it is important to remember that at the heart of this case are families who have had visited upon them not only this terrible tragedy but the terrible iniquity of justice having been denied to them. That has been very eloquently, movingly and emotionally put by the families’ representatives. We all feel for those families today. Indeed, their hurt and anguish is also felt by very many other victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland and elsewhere across the United Kingdom. When they look at this judgment and see the revelations regarding the administrative scheme, the hurt they feel from the loss of their loved one is brought home to them all the more as they realise that there are not only people out there who negotiated what turned out to be a “get out of jail free” card scheme, but people in Government who were prepared to implement such a scheme behind the backs of the public and Parliament—a scheme that those victims knew nothing about.

The judgment in the John Downey case was revealed on 25 February. The court had actually ruled the previous Friday, but the judgment was not made public until, as I understand it, consideration had been given to a possibility of an appeal by the Attorney-General. He decided not to appeal the case, so it would be useful if the Secretary of State could give an indication, when she responds, of the reasons why no appeal was made against the judgment.

The news that Downey would not be prosecuted and that the prosecution would be stayed was bad enough in terms of the individual case, but what came as a real bombshell to the public and everybody concerned was the revelation of the administrative scheme for on-the-runs. As I have said, the fact of the matter is that the scheme was not the subject of any kind of parliamentary debate, discussion or scrutiny at any time over many years. It had no statutory or legal basis and there was no public awareness of it. I will come on in more detail to some of the allegations that have been flying about that people should have known about the scheme and that there was enough information in the public domain—as if it was good enough, in relation to a matter of such importance, to say that we should have all been able to put together the pieces of the jigsaw, instead of having a normal process, with a statement and a debate, through which we could properly consider all the matters.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for placing the people who are most important in this debate—the victims of this crime—at the centre of what he is saying. Specific allegations were made against the right hon. Gentleman and his current party leader in Jonathan Powell’s book, which claimed that they were fully aware of the OTR scheme and happy for it to go ahead, provided that the blame was laid at the door of David Trimble. Would the right hon. Gentleman like to comment on the record about that specific allegation, which has been repeated throughout?

[Mr Dodds]

I am very happy to take that on board and I will deal with it in detail when I come to that part of my speech. I have listened to a lot of the commentary and the only allegation out there about the Democratic Unionist party is one reference in one tiny section of one book. Interestingly enough, it was never mentioned in the memoirs of the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). I will come on to it later, but what it refers to is not the on-the-runs administrative scheme, but the issue of whether the Government were going to introduce legislation. It came after the talks at Leeds castle. The Government intended to introduce legislation and we made it very clear that that was a matter for them, but that we would not sign up or subscribe to it and that we would oppose it in the House of Commons, as we did, and table amendments to it. It did not relate to the administrative on-the-runs scheme, which was done as a dirty deal behind the backs of everybody concerned. I will come on to the issue in more detail in due course.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for taking another intervention so quickly. Will he take this opportunity to confirm that the Downey judgment makes it perfectly clear that Mr Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, requested an invisible process to deal with on-the-runs, and that is precisely what he got—a deal in secret?

[Mr Dodds]

I can confirm that. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that it is revealed in the court papers that Gerry Adams said that

“it would be better if there was an invisible process for dealing with OTRs”.

Indeed, the day after that revelation was made, Gerry Kelly, who became, as it turns out, the postman—

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

A man of letters!

[Mr Dodds]

He is described as many things in Northern Ireland—most famously, of course, as the Old Bailey bomber. This is the man who was given the letters by Government officials and others—we are yet to hear the precise details—and who then communicated their contents to the people concerned. The night after that was revealed, he said on “The Nolan Show” on television that Unionists were kept in the dark because if they had known there would have been a crisis, so Sinn Fein itself admits that Unionists were kept in the dark and that there was an invisible process. The attempts by some people to now say, “Well, everybody knew about it,” simply do not wash. Indeed, a colleague of the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long)—he is her party leader—who just happens to be the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland, with responsibility for the administration of justice and policing, has made it very clear that he knew nothing about it either. I will come on to that later. The claims that people knew about the scheme do not wash.

There was considerable shock at the revelations, at the fact that justice had been denied, at what people saw as the rule of law being undermined and at the behind-the-scenes nature of the scheme. There is still considerable anger in the Province about the way in which things have come out. Sinn Fein has alleged that it is some kind of synthetic anger, that this is an issue about which people should not be too concerned and that it is not really an issue at all because everybody knew about it. That simply does not wash either. The anger in the community—not just on the Unionist side, but across the board—is real and palpable. People feel that justice has been denied and that the scheme has been characterised by years of deceit and is, in effect, devoid of any kind of morality.

We have made it clear throughout that we opposed and continue to oppose any kind of amnesty. Indeed, I think there is consensus across the House that there should be no amnesty for past crimes and terrorism in Northern Ireland. When we raise the issue of amnesty, we do not do so in a narrow legal sense; we are clear that there should be a proper pursuit and interrogation of suspects, and questioning leading to prosecution where evidence is available. In other words, not only should there not be any kind of amnesty in law passed by this House; there should not be any kind of effective or de facto amnesty by the back door either. Although it is said that this is not an amnesty—I understand what has been said—the reality is that in the case of Downey, for him in his circumstances, it amounted to an amnesty. That is the reality.

We know from the police and others that some 228 people were considered under the scheme. When the Secretary of State speaks, I would be grateful if she could update the House on the precise number of people involved. Our understanding is that the scheme began in 2000-01 and that 174 letters had been issued by 2002. The scheme came to a stop for a while and a Bill to grant amnesty to OTRs was introduced in 2005, but ended up collapsing—it did not go anywhere because of strong opposition from so many people. Members of Sinn Fein were in favour of the Bill, but when they came under attack because it also applied to members of the security forces and others they decided that they wanted an approach based on an amnesty for terrorists and their people, but not for soldiers, police officers and others. It was a one-sided approach and on that basis the legislative approach collapsed.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm to the House exactly when the Bill was withdrawn—I believe it was in January 2006—and perhaps look at the sequence of events? Three days after his Christmas lunch, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, wrote a confidential letter to the president of Sinn Fein to say that he would ensure that the administrative scheme was expedited so that any remaining OTR cases were dealt with before he left office—presumably, within six months.

[Mr Dodds]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, because I do not now need to go through the next part of my speech. She has outlined the sequence of events immediately after the legislation was withdrawn, and she is absolutely correct. The administrative scheme was ramped up, and the police set up a special unit to deal with it and look at all the cases. When the coalition Government came into office in 2010, the scheme was continued. As we now know, 38 cases have been considered in the period since 2010.

As I have said, there were 228 cases in total, and I understand that 192 letters were issued. There are other statistics for the numbers that were returned, for the people who were arrested and for the people who were investigated. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State updated us on the precise details.

[Naomi Long]

Was the right hon. Gentleman as surprised as I was to find out from the Secretary of State’s written ministerial statement earlier this week that in order to know how many letters had been issued and cases processed, Sinn Fein’s own records are now one of the sources of information? The Government now have to consult Sinn Fein to find out how many letters were issued by Government.

[Mr Dodds]

I was interested to read that statement, but nothing surprises me any more about this scheme, quite frankly. One advantage of the current array of investigations and inquiries is that, between them all, we will get to the bottom of all the facts, uncover exactly what has gone on and, I hope, get to a better place as we move forward.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

In practical terms, if someone on the run is given an amnesty, the police would presumably take their name and photograph off wanted lists. I am slightly surprised that people did not realise that amnesties had been granted for nearly 200 people, because their names and photographs had presumably been taken off wanted lists. Does he have a view on that?

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of amnesty. As was borne out in the Downey judgment, in reality, someone in possession of a letter of comfort issued by whoever it was—again, the inquiries will no doubt probe who gave authority for or signed off the letters, as well as to whom they were transmitted, and so on and so forth—could use it in court as a shield against prosecution even if evidence existed, provided that the information that they were being pursued or that evidence existed had not been communicated to them. That is my understanding of the situation in relation to Downey. Effectively, because a mistake was made on the facts in the Downey case, he could use the letter as a shield against any further prosecution, and the prosecution was stayed. For him, it was an amnesty, and given the double jeopardy rule, he cannot now be prosecuted for the particular crimes relating to the Hyde park bombings. Of course, prosecution remains open for other crimes, and I hope that the prosecution authorities and the police are looking into that matter.



My party and others opposed any relief or amnesty, or any scheme that would allow on-the-runs to evade justice. That has been our consistent position for many years. We opposed the legislation when it came before this House in 2005. The recent suggestion by the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin, that there should be an amnesty as part of the Haass process has been rejected by us and others. As a party, we opposed the provisions of the Belfast agreement in relation to the early release of prisoners, whereby people who had been convicted by due process—some of them, on both sides of the community, had been convicted of the most heinous and horrible crimes of terrorism—were allowed to walk free from prison if they had served more than two years. We opposed that part of the Belfast agreement, while other parties, which opposed this scheme, supported it.

The point has of course been made—it is a fair one—that at least the early release scheme was known about and was in the public domain. It has even been described as a terrible betrayal of victims by the right hon. Member for Neath, who has said that he understands the hurt that it caused. It was at least open and out there, and people knew about it when they voted in the referendum in 1998.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the galling thing about the Downey case is that had the scheme not come to light—he has outlined it, and our and many people’s rejection of it—it would still be continuing to this very day?

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is absolutely right that had it not been for the revelations in the Downey case, we would still be in the dark about all this. The two-year release scheme was obnoxious, and it remains obnoxious because anyone convicted of a terrorism-related crime that took place before 1998 can still avail themselves of its provisions. If someone is now found who has evidence against them of an offence that occurred before 1998 and was related to terrorism in Northern Ireland, they can go to prison for at most two years. That continues to cause great offence in Northern Ireland, but at least that scheme was out in the public domain. It was debated in this House and debated publicly, and decisions were taken as a result. However, there was never such transparency in this scheme. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, we would still be in the dark if we had not had the Downey case.

We need to find out how this all happened—who knew and when they knew—and to examine the scheme’s legality. We also need to ensure that another Downey case never happens, and that such letters have no effect when it comes to being able to stay prosecutions.

When the details emerged, the Attorney-General made a statement in this House on 26 February, but it appeared to many people that that would be it. There was no indication in any statements made at the time that there would be any further consideration of the matter. Indeed, Ministers were on the radio at lunch time that day saying that, as far as they were concerned, that was the end of the matter and nothing more could be done.

As the House knows, the First Minister of Northern Ireland—my party leader, Peter Robinson—made it very clear that had he known about or been made aware of the scheme when the restoration of devolution was negotiated, we would not have been able to proceed with devolution on that basis. He said that the matter was of considerable concern, given that policing and justice has become a devolved matter, that it is now the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive, and that the Justice Minister is responsible for those matters. He said that given that the First Minister, the Justice Minister and the parties in Northern Ireland, apart from Sinn Fein, were not aware of the scheme, it needed to be addressed urgently. He made it very clear that there had to be a judge-led inquiry.

I welcome the fact that that inquiry was announced by the Prime Minister on 27 February. I welcome the fact that on that day, the Secretary of State also issued a statement, which said:

“We will take whatever steps are necessary to make clear…in a manner that will satisfy the courts…that any letters issued cannot be relied upon to avoid questioning or prosecution for offences where information or evidence becomes available now or later.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2014; Vol. 576, c. 39WS.]

I welcome the fact that Lady Justice Hallett has been appointed. Her terms of reference are in the public domain. The intention is that she should report by the end of May.

Some people in Northern Ireland were critical of the appointment of the judge-led inquiry. Some of those people had nothing to offer other than base political point scoring and have not contributed anything towards getting to the bottom of these matters. We were very keen that the inquiry should not be dragged out over a long period, as we have seen with so many inquiries that relate to Northern Ireland matters, and that it should not lead to a panoply of lawyers trooping in and out, extending the process so that we did not get an outcome for months, if not years. I therefore welcome the fact that it will be a short, sharp, judge-led inquiry that will be able to examine the papers and deal with many of the issues.

I welcome the fact that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, has taken steps to set up an inquiry. The Justice Committee in Northern Ireland, under the chairmanship of my friend Paul Givan, the Assembly Member for Lagan Valley, has also initiated an inquiry. It had its first session on 25 March, at which the permanent secretary at the Department of Justice appeared. Interestingly, the permanent secretary, who is a former official in the Northern Ireland Office, admitted to having knowledge of the secret OTR scheme while in that role, but apparently he did not feel that it was necessary to inform the Justice Minister of it when he became permanent secretary at the Department. That raises questions as well, but it is for the Justice Committee in Northern Ireland to pursue them.

[Naomi Long]

As a former Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will know that a civil servant is not at liberty to give information about the role that they played as a civil servant for one Minister to a new Government taking office. Although it may seem bizarre and frustrating that that knowledge was available in the Department of Justice, it would have been thoroughly inappropriate and, in fact, illegal under the civil service code for the permanent secretary to have shared it with anyone.

[Mr Dodds]

I understand that completely. We are all aware of the rules about disclosure in relation to previous Ministers and all the rest of it. That is one reason why the judge-led inquiry is so significant and important. The judge will be able to inquire into the papers and have before her the various documents, even if they relate to previous Administrations. That matter is also important for the other inquiries, because we must get to the bottom of all the facts and of who knew what and when.

[Mark Durkan]

The point made by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) reinforces the fact that this arrangement was, in effect, a secret. Civil servants are quite free to comment on issues that past Governments have dealt with and that they were engaged in when they are matters of public policy and when it is sensible for the understanding of the current Minister to have the benefit of that background information. The very fact that the civil servant felt so precious about this matter underscores the fact that it was a secret arrangement.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman has put it very well. Documentation and papers relating to the civil servant’s time in the Northern Ireland Office would not be made available to the current Minister of Justice, but it beggars belief that no reference to the scheme could be made anywhere at all by any official. As the hon. Gentleman put it so well, it was because there was a preciousness about ensuring that the secrecy of the deal was maintained.

I am glad that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is also reviewing the process that led to the issuing of the letters. A team of 16 detectives has been assigned to the review. It will investigate the circumstances of each of those who received a letter. It will also re-examine the original checks that were carried out by the specialist PSNI team to which I referred earlier, which led to the Public Prosecution Service being told that none of the individuals was wanted. The police have made it clear that investigations into killings and other incidents may be reopened if mistakes or new evidence are uncovered.

It is important to note that all the inquiries and investigations that are under way are complementary. They will work together. Some of them will concentrate on the more political aspects and ramifications of this dirty deal; some of them will consider the legal side of it and look at the documentation and papers; and some of them, no doubt including the Justice Committee, will want to probe what the status of the scheme was post-devolution, when policing and justice were devolved. The police will look at the matter in the terms that I have just indicated. All the inquiries and investigations are complementary, all of them are important and all of them must get to the truth. They must find a way forward that implements what the Secretary of State indicated in her statement in February after this was announced, which is that there can be no bar on the questioning, prosecution and investigation of cases, and that they must be brought to court.

I want to talk briefly about how this whole issue has been handled in respect of informing Members of Parliament and the public. I raised a point of order on 5 March, in which I said that

“examination of the parliamentary record going back over a number of years indicates that there were occasions on which the House may have been misled by ministerial statements, whether oral or written.”—[Official Report, 5 March 2014; Vol. 576, c. 905.]

I know that it is not the responsibility of current Ministers to speak for previous Ministers, but it is important that we hear in this House, on the record, from those previous Ministers whether they stand over the statements that they made in this House. When one reads those statements now, it is very clear that there was certainly an economy in the truthfulness of what was said.

I refer, for instance, to the question that was asked on 11 October 2006 by Peter Robinson to the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Neath:

“Although we welcome the earlier answer from the Minister of State that no legislation is to be brought before the House, will the Secretary of State reassure the House…that no other procedure will be used to allow on-the-run terrorists to return?”

The then Secretary of State answered:

“There is no other procedure.”—[Official Report, 11 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 290.]

The hon. Member for North Down subsequently asked, on 1 March 2007,

“what measures the Government are considering to deal with ‘on the runs’ other than further legislation or an amnesty.”—[Official Report, 1 March 2007; Vol. 457, c. 1462W.]

The right hon. Member for Neath replied, “None.”

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene on that point. He has quoted a reply that was given to me by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). It is important to note the date of that reply, which was at the beginning of March 2007. We know from the Downey judgment that the first meeting of Operation Rapid within the PSNI was chaired by Norman Baxter on 7 February 2007. It is of considerable regret that the right hon. Member for Neath is not here today. However, may I say in his defence that, quite properly, he attended the funeral of his colleague and dear friend Tony Benn, and that he has a family commitment today?

[Mr Dodds]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman resumes, may I gently point out to him that he has been speaking for 35 minutes and there are 14 Members who wish to speak in this debate? I do not think they would appreciate a time limit, which may be necessary if he goes on for much longer.

[Mr Dodds]

I shall be brief. Given the gravity of the situation and the need to ensure that these matters are properly aired, I do want to give time to other hon. Members to contribute.

The hon. Member for North Down has rightly pointed to the reasons for the absence of the right hon. Member for Neath. We understand also that the Minister of State has another commitment. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that he is now present, although he was not here for the start of the debate.

All sorts of allegations are floating about and it is said that everybody should have known about the scheme. We have dealt with the Sinn Fein comments. We know about their claims that there needed to be invisibility and that the scheme needed to be hidden in case there was a crisis. We have had references to the Eames-Bradley report, but examination of it does not bear out the allegation that the scheme was known. We have seen allegations about the Policing Board. When one examines the record—I will not go into the detail—again, that is disproven.

On the Powell book, I have dealt with that matter clearly. This was not about the administrative scheme. It was about the legislation that was being brought forward, and it is completely wrong to allege that the DUP was somehow part of any kind of information sharing in relation to the scheme. I make no allegation that other politicians in Northern Ireland knew about the scheme either.

[Naomi Long]

Would it be right to say that this scheme was already in train at the point when those allegations were made? The scheme was already operating behind everyone’s back, and that was almost being redressed by saying that people had knowledge that they did not have.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Lady is right. The consensus that exists in relation to the approach by all the parties in Northern Ireland generally and many other commentators bears out the fact that this matter was withheld not just from the public, but from the political classes in Northern Ireland and those who were dealing with negotiations at that time.

I close by saying that there are issues about the authority for the continuation of the scheme after 2010 when these matters were devolved, and that will have to be looked at by the judicial inquiry. There are also grave implications for the continuation of the Haass process, although I do not think it should be called the Haass process any more as Mr Haass has gone, not to return. On the talks about the past and about parades and flags, there is no doubt that talks and discussions were continuing, negotiations were taking place, and one party at the table was aware of the scheme that provided an effective amnesty for certain individuals. Not to have it revealed, for others not to know anything about it, was a grave betrayal of trust.

There are those who would say that the answer to all this is to throw everything up in the air at Stormont, get rid of devolution and get back to direct rule. Well, this scheme illustrates what happens when politicians in Northern Ireland do not have their hand on the tiller.

I speak to some of our Unionist friends back home, who urge people to tear down what has been built up, who say that as a result of this we should all get out of Stormont and bring the whole thing down. But when we look at the issue of the iniquitous, immoral and deceitful on-the-runs scheme, when we look at the issues of the Parades Commission and the flying of the Union flag, what do we find they all have in common? They are the product of direct rule. They are the product of a situation where Unionists—I say this as a party political point—did not have influence or power in relation to that decision making. It would be a travesty to suggest that the way to correct the ills of this scheme is to tear down devolution at Stormont.

It is important that the inquiries all take their course. We eagerly await their outcome. Let us put it on record that as far as this party is concerned, if these matters are not adequately and properly dealt with in the way the Secretary of State outlined in her statement on 27 February, we will have to return to the issue again. This is not going to go away.

13:00

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I apologise to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) for missing the first few minutes of his speech. Thankfully, he spoke for half an hour so I was able to hear most of it.

I was part of the team that approached the Backbench Business Committee to ask for this debate. Up to that point we had had only an hour of discussion in the House of Commons when I tabled the urgent question on 26 February. This debate is useful because an urgent question does not allow the House full discussion.

Since 2010 the Select Committee has tended to concentrate on economic issues. We have looked at corporation tax, air passenger duty, fuel laundering and smuggling and the amounts of money being lost. We have touched on the armed forces covenant, and we are coming to the end of an inquiry into the structure of banking in Northern Ireland. In other words, we have tried to help to regenerate the economy in Northern Ireland, believing that to be very important for the prosperity of the people who live there, and with a view to attempting to cement the peace that has been achieved over the past 16 years or so. I am sure Committee members would have been happy to take that policy forward towards the next general election. However, that changed on 25 February.

Speaking for myself, I was not aware of any such scheme. I was obviously aware that the John Downey case was being considered as I got a telephone call that day explaining the judgment and letting me know the background to it. It came as a complete surprise to me that there was any such thing as an administrative scheme. It was a big surprise because in 2005 through to January 2006 I led for the Conservative party on the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, which attempted to grant an amnesty across the board. It was the realisation that that amnesty went across the board that caused Sinn Fein to stop supporting the Bill, and the Bill was subsequently withdrawn. I received a telephone from the then Minister of State, who asked to see me. He informed me that the Government were, in his words, pulling the Bill. There was no support for it and it was not going to happen.

I was not aware at that point or earlier or up to 25 February that there was any other way of dealing with the so-called on-the-runs. The Select Committee found itself in a changed position after 25 February. I have never known the members of that Committee to be so exercised over any issue as they have been over this, which has persuaded us to launch an inquiry into the background to this scheme and everything connected with it, despite the fact that there is a judge-led inquiry appointed by the Government, which we welcome, and an inquiry is being held by the Justice Committee in the Assembly, the leader of which I met just the other day. Both inquiries are welcome, and we will probably concentrate on different areas.

We start with the case itself and a stay being put on the case. We have taken legal advice on the matter. I am advised that the Government cannot appeal a stay. That was the advice that I received just yesterday. I would be glad to hear the Secretary of State’s response to that because it seems an extraordinary judgment that possession of a letter can take on greater importance than a murder charge. I make no suggestion as to whether Mr Downey is guilty or innocent. That is not the role of a politician and I do not have the facts to hand. But a murder charge was made—in fact, a charge of multiple murder and injury—yet possession of a letter appeared to assume greater importance than that charge. I find that very surprising indeed.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a possibility that the letters in the Downey case may not have been sufficient in themselves without political influence?

[Mr Robertson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is a valuable member of the Select Committee and I am grateful to him for his support on this and many other issues. The point he makes is correct. Not being a lawyer myself, I cannot make a judgment on whether that is normal. My suggestion is that perhaps it is not normal. I understood courts always to look at the facts before them, but in this case the court seems to have relied on this letter, which concentrated on the fact that the PSNI did not want to question Mr Downey. It said only that in the PSNI’s belief no other police force in the United Kingdom wanted to question him—it was not a categorical assurance. That letter, weak and flimsy though it may sound, seems to have taken on a greater importance because of the political process. I would be the first to say that it is very important that we do not unravel the peace process or undo the enormous achievements in Northern Ireland, but the rule of law applies here, as well as the separation of powers between the Executive, Parliament and the courts, which has to be observed. I suggest that all the inquiries have that as the central motivation behind their opening.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

I may be able to help my hon. Friend. The judgment in the Downey case speaks for itself, and one needs to read it. It is very straightforward in its language about the terms of what had happened and the impact that the judge felt it had on the fairness of any prosecutorial process. Beyond that, to pick up a point that was raised earlier, that judgment was considered with great care by the Crown Prosecution Service, using independent lawyers’ advice, and the CPS was clear that it was not possible to appeal against it. CPS staff came and explained that to me and, having listened carefully to what they had to say, I shared their view.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the Attorney-General for that clarification of the possibility of appealing in that case. That certainly was the advice that I received yesterday from an eminent QC—

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I am a little confused. I thought that the reason for the lack of an appeal was that there was no realistic prospect of success, not that there was no process by which an appeal could be made. Is the position that there was no possibility of an appeal for technical reasons, or is it that the appeal had no chance of being successful?

[Mr Robertson]

My understanding from our discussions yesterday was that a stay cannot be appealed.

[The Attorney-General]

The decision of the judge was capable of being appealed. I hope I made that clear when I made my statement in February. It was possible to appeal against the decision but, for the reasons I have just given, the view was taken that it had no reasonable prospect of success.

[Mr Robertson]

I am again grateful to the Attorney-General for that clarification, although it is in some contradiction to the advice I received from Queen’s counsel yesterday. Perhaps this matter could be taken up further, but at this stage it is probably better to move on from the case.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Given that this is not just about the judicial process but about the political confidence that people can have in assurances that were given in this House, and whether there was an attempt not only by the last Administration but by the current one to help terrorists guilty of crimes escape the consequences, does the hon. Gentleman agree that—regardless of how slim the chances were of a successful appeal in judicial terms—politically the right thing to do would have been to appeal?

[Mr Robertson]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and that is why the conflicting advice we have received has to be explored further. If a stay cannot be appealed, it cannot be appealed, but if—as the Attorney-General suggests—the issue is that there is no prospect of overturning the judgment, my view as a non-lawyer is that we should consider an appeal. It is extraordinary that a letter, which appears to be ambiguously worded, can take on greater importance than a charge of multiple murder. I do not know whether it is unique, but it is extremely unusual.

[The Attorney-General]

I rise again only to say that the decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service cannot be taken on a political basis. Indeed, insofar as I exercise functions in relation to the administration of justice, I have to ensure that those are not taken on a party-political or other political basis. It might often be convenient politically to do something, but if it is not justified on an objective consideration, it would be quite improper to do it.

[Mr Robertson]

I do not think that anyone would disagree with what the Attorney-General has just said. The problem is that the judgment in the Downey case appears to have taken the political situation into account, and that is what concerns everyone. Royal pardons appear to have been given, but I do not know what they were given for or which crimes were being overlooked. If that was not done on a political basis, I do not know what constitutes a political basis. The point that we are trying to make is that such decisions should be made on a legal basis, not a political basis.

The one good aspect is that the judgment has blown open the whole issue and drawn attention to what has been going on. The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill was introduced in 2005, presumably because it was felt necessary to put the scheme on to a statutory basis, to give it a public airing or some respectability. It now seems that the scheme had been running since 1999, but it was six years before the Bill was introduced. The Bill was dropped, but the scheme continued. Was the scheme legitimate for all that time? If it was, why the need for the Bill?

As the right hon. Member for Belfast North said, the 1998 legislation—some of which I also voted against, for all sorts of reasons—addressed very unpalatable issues, but at least we could debate and vote on them publicly.

[Nigel Mills]

There was a referendum on it.

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend, who is a valuable member of the Select Committee, points out that a referendum was held on that legislation. That was completely in the open, so why was this scheme not made public? We will need to look at that issue.

It is claimed that the letters were just assurances that no one was being looked at by the PSNI; it was just an administrative scheme and simply a matter of informing people that they were not wanted. But we are also told that the scheme was crucial to the peace process and if it had not been done, the whole peace process would have somehow unravelled. Both those statements cannot be correct. If it was just a matter of clearing the police computer and moving things on, it cannot have been crucial to the peace process.

[Bob Stewart]

Something that puzzles me relates to whether the crime was committed in Northern Ireland or in London. We know the answer: it was committed in Hyde park, which is the responsibility of the Metropolitan police. I do not understand how the PSNI can issue an immunity letter in that case, because it suggests that the Metropolitan police do not have any responsibility.

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not want to go back to the Downey case in too much detail, because I am trying to make progress, but it was an extraordinary judgment.

I also question who received these letters: who are the on-the-runs? If a completely innocent person received a letter saying that they were not wanted by the police, that would be extraordinary. It does not happen; there has to be a reason why people were on the run. What exactly does “on the run” mean? What were they suspected of doing? What did they fear the police thought they might have done to put their names forward? Why did they need confirmation that they were not wanted? That is central to the whole debate.

I am also concerned about the number of letters that appear to have been sent out. I am not quite sure of the exact figures, but those I have suggest that 221 letters were sent out, with 10 being provided by the Prison Service, which I find a little confusing, and four by the Government of the Republic of Ireland, which I find a bit worrying. That is according to the statement made by the Secretary of State a couple of days ago. We are told that that does not amount to an amnesty, but what about the royal pardons? Again, the advice I have received is that those are normally issued following a miscarriage of justice, not to prevent a case from being brought against a person in the first place, and that prompts the question of what the pardons were issued for.

The timing of this issue is unfortunate, as I said during the urgent question. As we speak, the PSNI is advertising for people to come forward as witnesses to the Bloody Sunday killings of 1972.

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

Will the Committee’s inquiry also examine what seems to be a contradiction in that the final sentence of a written statement of 25 March states:

“If the Government had been presented with such a scheme on coming to office, we would have stopped it.”—[Official Report, 25 March 2014; Vol. 578, c. 16WS.]

That prompts the question of why the letters continued to be issued.

[Mr Robertson]

We will certainly ask about that, and I do not know why it was not devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly when a Justice Minister was in place—a Justice Minister who confirmed to me and other members of the Committee that he did not know anything about the scheme. I do not know why the matter was not devolved, but it is something we will consider.

As I was saying, the PSNI is looking for people to come forward as witnesses to the Bloody Sunday killings. Let me say straightaway that I do not believe in any amnesties. If republicans have committed crimes they should be charged, if loyalists have committed crimes they should be charged, and if members of the security forces have committed crimes they should be charged. This seems to be a one-sided scheme. In 2005 the Government tried to open it up to everybody, but it was rejected by all parties and withdrawn because we do not believe in amnesties. It seems, however, that there is a scheme for certain members of the community but not for others, which cannot be right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) is quite right and the Committee will certainly consider why this issue was not devolved following the devolution of policing and justice in April 2010. We also published the terms of reference on 11 March. They are quite comprehensive and we want to carry out a full and deep inquiry. We do not want it to run on for ever, but we will certainly do it properly and interview a range of people including past and present Secretaries of State, Ministers, police officers, relevant civil servants, and others. The first session will be held next week with former senior police officers. Yesterday we appointed two eminent barristers—I cannot name them at the moment—including a Queen’s counsel, to become special advisers to the Committee during this inquiry.

It is important to recognise the progress made in Northern Ireland over the past 16 years, but there are no amnesties and no excuse for violence. The rule of law must be upheld by all concerned, so although I regret the need to delve into the past once again, it is sometimes necessary to do so in order to secure the future.

13:24

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate, and I apologise to the House and to other hon. Members, particularly the Secretary of State, for the fact that I will not be able to remain in the Chamber for the whole debate owing to circumstances beyond my control. I am also grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time to consider this issue today. It is a sensitive and serious matter, not just from a Northern Ireland perspective, but for the UK as a whole, given the way in which this scheme appears to have circumvented the will of Parliament and allowed others to circumvent due process under the law.

Let me put my remarks into context by setting out a number of points. Like the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), I agree that the centrality of victims in issues of justice and dealing with the past must be reflected, recognised and given respect. It is one thing to be honest with victims in Northern Ireland and tell them that they may never receive justice because of the passage of time or a lack of evidence, but it is another thing if, where people have the opportunity to pursue justice, it is denied to them, either by a process that is concocted as this one was, or by any other mechanism that seeks to prevent people from pursuing justice. Like others who have already spoken, I would oppose—as would my party—any form of amnesty.

When discussing this issue it is important that we do not seek to diminish in any way the progress that has been possible as a result of the wider peace process in Northern Ireland. All Members of the House, I think, value the progress that has been made over the past 15 years, and all want to see it furthered rather than regressed. However, it ought not to be peace at any price, and there must be some sense of moral foundation on which we move forward as a society. I believe that this process has failed to engender a sense of confidence among the Northern Ireland public that a moral compass was operating in the Northern Ireland Office at the time these issues were dealt with.

I recognise that all peace processes contain issues of transitional justice, where normal justice arrangements are in some way changed or altered to address specific circumstances. We accepted that in Northern Ireland—to varying degrees, I must say—and that it was done on a particular basis. However painful the early release schemes, they were endorsed by the public directly in the Good Friday agreement referendum. There were other cases of transitional justice where elected representatives endorsed a process. For example, there was limited immunity in the case of decommissioning, and because of the wider benefit of recovering those weapons it was accepted that they would not then be used for forensic testing in order to incriminate those who handed them over willingly. There was an acceptance by public representatives, on behalf of their constituents, that that was a fair, right and just thing to do. Equally, for the recovery of the remains of the disappeared, limited immunity was provided for those who gave information so that they would not incriminate themselves in doing so. The greater good being served was that those families who had suffered the horrendous torture of not knowing the final location of the remains of their families would perhaps be able to get some truth.

Those cases are distinct from this one, however, because they were either considered here openly in Parliament, with the acquiescence or at least the full knowledge of the political representatives who sat here, or endorsed in the Good Friday agreement by a public referendum. The issue we are discussing did not flow from the Good Friday agreement, and no amount of repetition will change that.

I remember voting for the Good Friday agreement, and how difficult it was to do so in the light of the early release scheme. It was one of the hardest things for me to swallow, as somebody who believes in the rule of law. I voted for that agreement, however, because I believed that it was in the greater good, as did the majority of people in Northern Ireland. No reference to the on-the-runs or any other issue of this nature was put to the people of Northern Ireland, and neither were they given the option to vote on that issue. For others to suggest that this scheme was a natural flow from the Good Friday agreement is absolutely false. It was not endorsed by the public or the representatives. More than that, when the tidy up was brought in to try to put this issue on some kind of statutory footing, Parliament rejected the attempt to extend the amnesty, which we now know has been given to those who received these letters, to other categories of person who may have been seeking similar comfort. Parliament rejected that, yet it went ahead.

The allegation is that, without the letters, the peace process would not have survived. No one denies that the issue of on-the-runs did not exist. The question was how it could be addressed in a manner that would keep the principles and foundations of justice intact. At that time, the Alliance party proposed a tribunal process, in which people would have their cases reinvestigated and tried in open court, but they would have to present themselves in person to face justice and their alleged victims to do so. My party has been consistent that no widespread amnesty, such as that floated by the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, is an acceptable way forward. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. I go further and say that two wrongs will not make a right. The answer in this case is not to say, “Let us universally wipe the slate clean”, but to resolve it so that justice can be done fairly and squarely for everyone in Northern Ireland.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the hon. Lady take this opportunity to put on record her candid assessment of the damage done to public confidence in the prosecution service and—I say this with great sadness—in the Police Service of Northern Ireland by the ramifications and revelations of the Downey case?

[Naomi Long]

I am more than happy to do so.

The timing is significant. Over recent years, there has been a perception in the loyalist community in particular that justice acts in a differential way, and not to their benefit. I have not shared that perception, but I am hugely aggrieved that, as a result of the case, it has been compounded, because no loyalists and no members of the security service had access to the scheme. Only members of Sinn Fein or people who came through Sinn Fein had access to the scheme. In fact, there are complaints from other republicans who fell out of favour with the Sinn Fein leadership that even they were not able to access the scheme.

Therefore, justice in Northern Ireland was acting in a partial way during that process, which has undermined public confidence and further damaged people’s respect for the PSNI by implication—the PSNI was asked to do that job by the Government of the day, and did as it was asked to do, as is its duty, but its role in the process has tainted the public view of it. It has been incredibly damaging, and a huge amount of work will need to be done as a result to recover people’s confidence in their politicians, in the justice system and in the wider peace process.

That is why, from the beginning of the negotiations, the Alliance party was clear that side dealing and secret dealing would end up being the undoing of the peace process, not its underpinning, because the truth will out, and when it does, the ramifications, having been kept secret in the first place, are as significant as the deal originally done. It is better to face the truth and deal with the consequences of failure there and then than it is to continue a charade and a false perception of progress, which is shaken to its core when such things later emerge. I feel very strongly that the case has undermined people’s confidence in the process, and that a lot of work needs to be done to restore it.

On the inquiries, other hon. Members have outlined the variety of inquiries taking place in the Assembly, the Policing Board and the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, but I want briefly to consider the inquiry being undertaken by Lady Justice Hallett. That inquiry was always to be narrowly focused and swift, which is to be welcomed. However, I am slightly concerned by the increasingly narrow focus of the inquiry. We would be well advised to keep that under a watching brief. In letters issued to Lord Thomas by Julian King, director general of the Northern Ireland Office, Mr King appears to very narrowly circumscribe the role of Lady Justice Hallett and how far her investigations can go. For example, Mr King has advised that she will not need to look at every individual case as part of her inquiry. For me, that raises questions about who will do the sampling of cases she will look at and on what basis the sampling will take place. How will we ensure that she has the opportunity to look at the different wording in the letters that were issued over the period? The wording did change. Some people received letters saying that unless new evidence was discovered, they would not be requested for trial, but others were told that they would not be requested unless new cases were discovered, which is entirely different in terms of importance. How will we know that every variety of letter and text will be thoroughly investigated unless each case is looked at in detail? Indeed, without reviewing each case, how can we know whether there are errors in other individual letters? Only by looking at each case and the evidence on which those assertions were made can we know whether any of the others were erroneous.

The Downey ruling and the stay based on it make clear that they are not based on the fact that the letter was issued in error. In fact, the reading of the judgment suggests that the ruling was not even based on the content of the letter. The content of the letter coupled with the testimonies of the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), Jonathan Powell and Gerry Kelly, who set out their view of the intent behind the letter, were important in the ruling. That is hugely important, because—clearly—the intent was that those people would not face prosecution. That was taken into account in the judgment.

It is understandable that people want to know who knew what and when, and what the process was, not least my colleague the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, particularly given that the scheme continued to operate under devolution, interfering—that is the only word I can suggest—with the devolved responsibilities of the Justice Department and other devolved structures of government. It is important to know that, but it is more important to know the import of the remaining letters. The Secretary of State’s view remains—she has made it clear—that those letters ought not to be treated as an amnesty, but it remains to be seen how a court would view them in the light of the judgment, which was not appealed, and in the light of the evidence given in the judgment of the intent of the letters at the time. Will saying that they no longer count retrospectively count for anything in a court of law? We wait to find out whether they count for anything or not.

Having said that, it is crucial that we decide where we want to go from here. Victims who for reasons beyond our control may never receive any justice are still out there. Some might receive justice, but many will not. We have said for a long time to successive Secretaries of State that we require a comprehensive process to deal with those issues in a manner that ensures that openness, integrity, truth and justice are placed at the core of our peace. The cases should not be treated as commodities to be traded in our political process, corroding respect for the rule of law both within the process and within the communities we represent.

We have in the past cautioned against side deals and their toxic effect. We now need to focus on getting to the truth and on learning the lessons of flawed process and side dealing. We need to refocus our community and find that comprehensive way forward on dealing with the past, for which we have called for some time. I agree with the right hon. Member for Belfast North, who said that the Haass process—for want of a better terminology —needs to move forward with new vigour, because we need to provide answers on the footing of openness, transparency, honesty and justice, for those families who still await the outcome. We need to bear in mind the hurt and aggravation of the families of four soldiers who will never know the outcome because of the application of double jeopardy in the Downey ruling.

13:38

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, which I do with a level of concern. I am not a victim of the so-called troubles or a resident of Northern Ireland. I am especially cautious about interfering in the legacy of a past that is not entirely mine.

I join the various sympathies that have been expressed to the victims of the Hyde park bomb and their families and friends. This is a terrible way to end any attempt at a justice process for them. It does great damage to the reputation of justice in the UK, both on the mainland and in Northern Ireland, that we have evidence to prosecute someone, but for a rather unfortunate reason cannot have a fair trial in a public court to see whether they are guilty. The families deserved that in the Downey case.

As many Members have said, there is an issue with the whole process. Somehow, our system of justice, of which we should be proud, has gone horribly wrong. We need to ensure that we know the extent to which it has gone wrong and that no further injustices are done. The point was made earlier that the idea of the royal prerogative of mercy was to correct miscarriages of justice, not create them. I fear that this process has created some miscarriages of justice. That is the last thing we should have done.

We are all entitled to expect a fair and transparent legal and judicial process, with a trial in an open court by one’s peers where everyone knows what happened, everyone can hear the evidence and everyone can understand the verdict to which the jury comes. In a closed, invisible process, not only do we not get a trial in a public court, we do not even know who has had these letters or why, and we do not even know who has had the royal pardons. That cannot be right. We need to get to a stage where the process is transparent, and where the people of Northern Ireland and the mainland know who has had these letters and what they say. Transparent justice is the only fair situation.

On the background to the case, what strikes me as important, both in the case and in the verdict, is the intent behind the administrative process. What was the idea of issuing the letters? As was mentioned earlier, we appear to have two extreme views on that. One says that the letters were essential to making the peace process work; that Sinn Fein desperately needed them to play a full part in the process. The other extreme is that the letters were merely a factual statement of the state of inquiries that did not confer new rights on anybody, and that if there was a change of heart or new evidence was found—perhaps if a more competent file review was done and evidence was pieced together—there could still be a prosecution. With my layman’s non-lawyer logic, I would assume that the letters were largely worthless—yesterday we were not looking for a certain individual, but perhaps tomorrow we will be—and that nothing in them could be relied on. That does not appear to be the status of the letters in the very comprehensive Downey judgment.

[David Simpson]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the royal pardons and royal prerogatives. Does he agree that, apart from all the letters that were issued, the greatest insult to the victims and to the people of Northern Ireland is that royal pardons were given to people who were potentially murderers or bombers?

[Nigel Mills]

It clearly is an insult. I will leave it to the hon. Gentleman to decide whether it is the greatest insult. I am not a victim, I was not involved and I do not live in Northern Ireland.

I can fully understand that to achieve peace people on all sides had to hold their noses and swallow some things they really did not want to swallow. Perhaps this is something that people ought to have had to swallow. Perhaps we should have been transparent and said, “Look, there can’t be any peace without some solution on on-the-runs.” Perhaps that should have been in the Belfast agreement, and perhaps it should have been in the referendum. It was not, however, and that means that it should not have happened. It should either be there, with everyone knowing about it and accepting it, or it should not be done. The secrecy is perhaps one of the greatest insults: justice has been circumvented in secret.

What I cannot get over is why this process was entered into. Why did the process exist? Why would Sinn Fein want the process and apply for letters unless everybody involved believed that it conferred some right or new situation whereby one would no longer be prosecuted for something one would otherwise be prosecuted for? I have no reason to go on the run and I am not aware that I have done anything that would require me to go on the run—

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

The Whips may have something to say about that.

[Nigel Mills]

The Whips may have those ideas.

If I was genuinely fearful that I might be prosecuted, I might not wish to remind the authorities that I existed unless I thought that a valuable assurance would result from the process. Reminding them to have a look at my file, which may have been buried in some long forgotten cabinet, gathering dust, would be a strange thing to do if I was below the radar in Northern Ireland or elsewhere. I can only assume that the process was meant to confer a valuable right or assurance that the individual was free to come back to the United Kingdom, or to be more visible in the United Kingdom, and would not be subject to prosecution.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Just to reassure my hon. Friend, the letters did not confer an amnesty. They are not “get out of jail free” cards. It was always the case that there were statements of facts about a person’s status in relation to the police and prosecuting authorities at a particular time. The reason for the judgment in the John Downey case is that he was sent a letter that was factually incorrect. The letter said that he was not wanted by the police when he was. It was the fact of that mistake—the fact that the letter was incorrect and that Mr Downey acted on that letter—that was the basis of the judgment in the Downey case. It was not the fact of the letter itself.

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification. That still leaves me in a situation where it is hard to understand the purpose of the letter, if it was not meant to be something one could rely on. This gentleman was carrying this letter around with him every time he entered the UK. Why would he do that if it could be superseded at some point?

[Mark Durkan]

If we are to place any burden on what the Secretary of State has just said, does that not create a very serious danger that the case law arising from this case in future will be that anybody can claim an abuse of process based on any mistake in communication they received from a Government official at any level?

[Nigel Mills]

Yes, there is a real question about what the legal status of the letters is now. We can argue about whether they were intended to be amnesties. The question has now become: has this judgment somehow elevated their status to something that was not intended?

The end of paragraph 45 of the Downey judgment refers to a letter sent by the then Prime Minister, which said:

“The Government is committed to dealing with the difficulty as soon as possible, so that those who, if they were convicted would be eligible under the early release scheme are no longer pursued”.

That is basically saying that somebody who could have been prosecuted and would have got a two-year sentence would now no longer be pursued. I am not sure how I can construe that as just being a factual statement. It appears that the intention of the Prime Minister at the time was to give some assurance that people who had gone on the run would not be prosecuted in that situation. That strikes me as being an amnesty under any other name. As the old saying goes: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. This looks very much like it was intended to be an amnesty.

[Naomi Long]

It is constantly raised that the letter was issued in error. However, in the judgment the real influence came from the content of the letter combined with the testimony given as to what the effect of the letter ought to be. Personally, having read the judgment, I think that the issue of the erroneous nature of the letter was in many ways a red herring. If another letter, accurately written, had been presented with the same testimony from the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) and the others who gave testimony, the effect would have been exactly the same.

[Nigel Mills]

Yes, I think the hon. Lady must be right on that. The judge seemed to think that the process was meant to confer some kind of assurance on people and that the letter had to be read in line with that, but I am no expert.

We ought to look also at the concerns expressed at the start of this process by the then Attorney-General, who is quoted in paragraph 36 of the judgment. He said that he was

“seriously concerned that the exercise that is being undertaken has the capacity of severely undermining confidence in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland at this most sensitive of times. Individual prosecution decisions have to be justifiable within the framework in which all prosecution decisions are reached and I am not persuaded that some unquantifiable benefit to the peace process can be a proper basis for a decision based on the public interest”.

Those concerns have not arisen retrospectively; there were concerns at the time about what the process would really mean and what it would be seen to mean to various people in Northern Ireland. That is why I welcome the inquiries into this situation.

[Bob Stewart]

My hon. Friend is niggling not in a bad way, but in a great way, on this process. If, as the Northern Ireland Secretary has just said, these letters are not “get out of jail” cards or amnesties, can we have all those who have received them put before a court of law?

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One thing that needs to come out of the various inquiries is what the current legal status of the letters is in the light of the judgment and, if we are not happy with that legal status, how we can get to a legal position that we are happy with. It might be possible—I am not a lawyer; I do not know—for the Northern Ireland Office, the Secretary of State, the Attorney-General or the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland to write to every recipient of such a letter and say, “Just to be clear, you can’t rely on these things to avoid prosecution if there’s evidence that justifies a prosecution.”

This all prompts the question: what was the point of the Historical Enquiries Team—now part of the Police Service of Northern Ireland—going back and re-investigating all those old cases if, I assume not to its knowledge, 200 or so people whom it might have been investigating as part of that process had a letter saying that past evidence would not be used to bring a prosecution? What was the point of that process?

[Lady Hermon]

Will the hon. Gentleman also comment on the odd timing of Mr Downey’s letter? We know from the judgment that it was signed off on 20 July 2007. I would briefly remind the House that in 2007 we had a successful First Minister, Ian Paisley senior, sitting with the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness. Indeed, so good was their working relationship at the time—they took up office at the beginning of May 2007—that they were unfortunately nicknamed the “Chuckle Brothers”. However, the peace process in Northern Ireland was very secure in the early spring of 2007. Sinn Fein had come on to the policing board, and the IRA had decommissioned in 2005. What was there to save in the peace process by signing off Mr Downey’s letter in July 2007?

[Nigel Mills]

I suspect the hon. Lady knows the position far better than I, so there is not much need for me to add anything to what she has said.

To return to the status of the letters, if we do not like it, we need to discover the process for, if anything, restoring the position to what we think it should be—that they do not confer any kind of amnesty. If that requires a Bill to come before this House, perhaps we should do that. Given the devolution of justice, it might require something to go through the Assembly. I suspect that that might be a political challenge under the circumstances, but it is important that one of the outcomes of the inquiries is getting the legal position to where it should be, in the interests of fair and transparent justice for all the victims, on all sides.

I do not see how we can have a process that applies to only one community and not the security services. I think that was a grave mistake in entering into this process. Clearly it would have been better to have a full debate on the amnesty. We could all have had a vote on an amnesty—if it had not gone through, everyone should have been prosecuted where there was evidence; if it had gone through, it would be put behind people. That is clearly a debate that can be had now—it was had nearly a decade ago—but we have to take the assurances of all the Northern Ireland Members who are here for this debate that that is not something that would be welcomed in Northern Ireland. There is no desire for that amnesty.

I have no great knowledge of Northern Ireland law. However, having sat through some inquiries on the Select Committee on Northern Ireland that looked at the equalities position in Northern Ireland and the power of the law to prevent one community from being favoured over another, I cannot see any way under Northern Irish law that there could be a process with any legal effect that so obviously favoured one community over the other. If I was a loyalist who feared prosecution or who perhaps was being prosecuted, I might be arguing and saying, “Wait a minute, there’s been this process for one side that ought to have applied equally. I should have had the right to apply for that letter. If I had been given that letter, I could have my prosecution stayed.” Indeed, I believe that might be the subject of a case. If I was a member of the security services who might face prosecution, I would be making that exact point as well: “Wait a minute. Why wasn’t I given the chance to write in 2000 and ask if I was being investigated and whether there was any evidence against me? If I had received my letter, I could have had my prosecution stayed.”

We have created a mess, and not just for the recipients of these letters. We might not like the position they are in now, and in every prosecution of someone from the security services or the loyalist side, I am sure the first thing their lawyer will do is try to get their prosecution stayed on the grounds that the process did not apply equally to all members of the community. We have created a mess, and the actions of the then Prime Minister and Secretary of State—which, as is clear from the judgment, deliberately created a process that was designed to achieve that—are thoroughly shameful to British justice.

This is perhaps one of the bleakest episodes that we will ever see, because it has tarnished a peace process that did not need tarnishing—a process that is working and needs to work. It was heartening that the leader of the Democratic Unionist party was clear earlier that he did not want the institutions torn down—he did not see that as a solution or something that would give a political advantage—and that the institutions need to be made to work. Whatever the outcome of the inquiries, I hope that all the parties stick by that. The best way forward is for the process to advance and the institutions to get stronger, not to try to unravel them, no matter how shameful this case was.

13:49

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The Downey case unfortunately brings into sharp focus some of the problems that we have as a society in dealing with the past. As I said in an intervention, we are in the unfortunate position of knowing that if the Downey case had not materialised, we would still be oblivious to the pernicious influence of the administrative scheme in Northern Ireland.

Since the Downey case, those of us who were not in possession of knowledge of the scheme have been criticised by those in Sinn Fein, who say that had we been informed in the run-up to any agreement on the scheme, we would have opposed it, and that was part of the reason for our being kept in the dark. After that was seen to be somewhat obtuse and ludicrous, the same people in Sinn Fein said that we knew about the scheme all the time. They tried to quote various judgments that might have made some passing reference to a scheme that required to be carried out. However, there never was any reference in the public domain, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) said, anything that was put in the public domain, either in the House or outside, precluded a scheme of this nature. In fact, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), the former Secretary of State, made it absolutely clear that there was no scheme. Full stop. Period.

[Lady Hermon]

May I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the characteristic features that were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain)? I am sorry that he is not here this afternoon, and I have explained why I understand he cannot be here. The Downey judgment, which is now in the public domain, contains written testimony submitted by the right hon. Gentleman, who said:

“The procedure was in a number of ways wholly unprecedented.”

Another characteristic was that

“the scheme progressed in a non public manner. Confidentiality was maintained for the individuals who submitted their names to the scheme; neither the names of the applicants nor the outcome of the applications were subjected to publicity.”

That is in the public domain, so for Sinn Fein to claim that we all knew about this and that we all have amnesia about it now is absolutely untrue and very insulting.

[Mr Campbell]

I thank the hon. Lady for that very enlightening quotation, which simply proves the point that what unites people right across Northern Ireland—with the exception of those who used to advocate violence and excuse or defend it—is that we are all rightly appalled at the secret nature of the scheme.

It has also been said—others have alluded to this—that members of the Policing Board were in some way briefed, but when we examine the record, we see that no one was ever briefed on such an administrative scheme. Of course, everyone knew that there was an outstanding issue with on-the-runs. There were those who said, “This matter must be resolved,” and those of us who were determined to say, “If it comes before Parliament and there is any possibility of us having some input into a resolution that means giving people immunity for what they have done in the past, we will resolutely oppose it.” That much is absolutely clear.

Others have mentioned the Eames-Bradley report, and the fact that one of its authors, Mr Bradley, said that people knew about the scheme. However, when we look into the matter, it is absolutely clear to us that, whoever may have been informed privately, no one was informed publicly. There was no public reference whatsoever to a scheme of this nature.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

It might be interesting to find out when Mr Bradley himself knew, and who told him.

[Mr Campbell]

Yes, indeed. I understand that Mr Bradley, who is the former vice-chairman of the Policing Board, said that the issue had been brought before the board. In fact, he had left the board at that stage.

Let me now turn to the question of intent, which is the very kernel of the issue. What was the intent of the administration that initiated the scheme, and what was the intent of the administration that continued it? What was the intent of those who were sending the letters, and what were the perception and understanding of the recipients? That is the key to the entire matter.

It is abundantly clear to everyone that the intent of the letters was to reassure people who might have believed—for a reason that we all understand—that there were circumstances in which, if they either came back to Northern Ireland or were approached by an officer of the law in another jurisdiction in which they happened to be, they could at some point in the future be made accountable for crimes in which they were suspected of having been involved. It is clear that they believed that the letters made them immune from that, and believed that they would be protected or sheltered in some way from the investigation of actions with which they had been associated in the past. For that very reason, Sinn Fein was quite happy to be the messenger of the tidings that would have been brought to the recipients of those letters.

It has been said—this was mentioned by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), who has had to leave the Chamber—that when news of the Downey case broke, disillusionment in some sections of the Unionist community became more apparent. I have a very different view. All that the Downey case did was crystallise some of the disillusionment that had been apparent for a number of years in sections of the Unionist community, and bring it into public focus. Unfortunately, we now have to try to repair the damage that the Downey judgment has done, along with a series of other issues.

The underlying principle is that those who supported terror in the past have used the potential of a return to violence as a bargaining chip, and not for the first time. Many of us believe that during the negotiations leading to and following the Belfast agreement, and, undoubtedly, during the negotiations relating to the administrative scheme, there was always the spectre—the prospect—that if this was not agreed to, violence could, unfortunately, return. Our view is very clear, and it is that we cannot be held to ransom by people who make threats or insinuations that bad times could return.

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. May I reinforce it by asking whether he recalls, as I do, that at the time of the negotiations on the devolution of police and justice powers to Northern Ireland, when certain issues still needed to be cleared up and properly debated, some people—including Members of this House who, at that time, held ministerial office—told us that if we did not devolve those powers, there would be violence on the streets and the strength of the dissidents would increase? Even after the devolution of the powers, we have problems with dissident terrorists, so that is a bogus argument.

[Mr Campbell]

That is another instance of the use of a threat that will continue to be used. In fact, just this week we heard a prominent member of Sinn Fein say that there could be a crisis in the making. Well, we have had seven years of uninterrupted devolved government, and notwithstanding all the difficulties that have arisen during those seven years, there has not been a crisis. There may be a physical revolving door at the entrance to Stormont, but there has not been a revolving door in terms of devolution. We have survived many of these mini-crises and problems, some of them invented and some real.

Let us focus on what will happen in the near future. I have no difficulty whatsoever in saying that the current devolution process in Northern Ireland is sufficiently robust to withstand any prosecution of any member of Sinn Fein, however senior, if it can be demonstrated that that person has been guilty of involvement in terrorist acts in the past. I am currently trying to establish whether that is the case, as it may well be—and if it is the case, it would be an act of cowardice, of political expediency, if anyone were to say “We cannot proceed with that prosecution because doing so might jeopardise the political process in Northern Ireland.”

As I have said, we have had seven years of uninterrupted devolution, and hopefully it will continue. I have been part of the process for those seven years, and I believe that we must work to improve it, but we must not allow it to be held to ransom by those who want to make progress in terms of further concessions to the throwback period during which many of them were involved in violence. They want to expunge their previous involvement from the record, and that must not and cannot be allowed to happen.

Today, thankfully, we have had an opportunity that has been denied to us in the past. The light of truth is now being brought to bear on the administrative scheme, but it is unfortunate that it is being brought to bear so belatedly. Had it been brought to bear at the time of the scheme’s initiation, the reality and the outcome might have been very different.

14:08

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate, and congratulate all who were responsible on arranging it. This issue is important and incredibly sensitive, and we should all approach it with care and consideration. The tenor of the debate has been very much in that spirit so far, and I warmly welcome it.

Let me associate myself particularly with the remarks addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) to the families of those who were murdered in cold blood in Hyde park on that terrible day. That was one of a number of outrageous attacks on Britain’s armed forces, who did their level best for 38 years— under Operation Banner, the longest military operation in British history—to bring peace to Northern Ireland. I pay tribute to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan) —who was here a moment ago—and to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who was also present earlier. During the troubles, 3,500 people were killed, and about 1,000 of them were members of Her Majesty’s armed forces.

I will touch only briefly on the current case, as I want to concentrate on its implications. Having reflected since this case hit the headlines, I think that there probably had to be a scheme of some sort to try to deal with the on-the-runs, and there was inevitably going to be a messy outcome. I have listened carefully to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and others, but I note that in a written answer on 1 July 2002 Mr Quentin Davies—then a Conservative Member, but now, of course, on the other side having taken the Labour Whip and thereby getting a passport to the other place—asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

“if he will make a statement on his plans to inform persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities that their cases will not be pursued.”

Dr John Reid, now Lord Reid, answered:

“We are still considering how best to implement the proposals which we and the Irish Government made in relation to this following the Weston Park talks.”—[Official Report, 1 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 136W.]

He answered another question as follows:

“As a result of inquiries received and referred to the prosecuting authorities and the police, 32 individuals have been informed over the past two years that they are not wanted for arrest in relation to terrorist offences. —[Official Report, 1 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 137W.]

That is by no means an open statement explaining a specific scheme, but clearly it did indicate that something was afoot. I do not think one can argue that Parliament was not informed; it was, through the medium of the written answer to a parliamentary question. We are busy people, however, and we face a torrent of e-mails and information from all sides, and I think it is unfortunate that it was not possible to make a more explicit statement to the House of Commons and Parliament more generally about what the Government were planning to do.

It is clearly the case that, as the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) said, a lot of people have had to swallow hard and hold their noses about some of the decisions that were made, and she mentioned how hard she found it to accept the early release scheme, but she also made another point: that this scheme, which was not fully explained to Parliament but clearly was in evidence, arose out of discussions between the British Government and the Irish Government. She also made the point that there appears to have been no such arrangement in respect of anyone other than those suspected of republican terrorism. That raises fundamental questions that I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will want to address. I am encouraged, however, by what she said at the Dispatch Box earlier in our debate, and she has put in her written ministerial statements that these letters were not intended to be an indemnity; they were not intended to be “get out of jail free” cards. I hope that message will be clearly got through to all those involved in this.

As I am sure the House recognises, as the Member of Parliament for the home of the British Army, Aldershot, which also formerly was for 50 years the home of the Parachute Regiment, I have a special interest in these matters, and it is on behalf of those of my constituents who were in Londonderry on that tragic day of 30 January 1972 that I seek to speak. At this point I would like to pay tribute to the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward), who is present today. I took a delegation of former soldiers to see him when he was Secretary of State and they and I could not have been more courteously and properly received by him. That is not to say he took their side, but it is to say that I thought he was extremely professional and extremely fair, and I thank him very much for that. I think this is the first opportunity I have had to say that publicly, although I did have the opportunity of saying it to him over a cup of coffee this morning.

We are considering today the implications of the John Downey case, however, as much as who knew what and when, and what the letters mean and so forth. For me the implications are that that raises again the issue of the treatment of the soldiers who were in Londonderry on 30 January 1972. I understand that that has been exacerbated by a decision taken by the Police Service of Northern Ireland to erect posters in Londonderry—I have not been there, but I am told this is the case—appealing for witnesses to come forward to provide evidence about that tragedy. We are talking about an event that took place 42 years ago, and it is astonishing for the PSNI to be appealing for witnesses now, not just 42 years later, but, indeed, four years after the Prime Minister made that memorable statement early in his premiership to the House in June 2010.

I have constituents who are now in their 70s and 80s who were there. They had to go through 12 years of the Saville inquiry, costing £200 million, and they had hoped that the Saville inquiry would draw a line under this, but now they find that not only is the matter not concluded, but the police deem it their business to put up these posters inviting people to give evidence. What on earth have they been doing over the past four years—leave aside the previous 38 years—to obtain that evidence?

The Prime Minister made it clear that the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland are entirely independent of any political process. Therefore, this is entirely a matter for the PSNI. It is astonishing that it feels the need to do this now, and I say that to make this point, too: it is the PSNI who are responsible for the whole disaster of the John Downey case in the first place. It was they who, in the vernacular, screwed up and failed to provide the Northern Ireland Office with information about what the Metropolitan police were looking for. My constituents are now invited to have confidence in an inquiry carried out by people who completely screwed up in the John Downey case.

[Sammy Wilson]

When the hon. Gentleman makes these allegations, perhaps he should bear in mind who issued these letters, who initiated the process, and which Government continued the process. Indeed, his own Secretary of State has issued 43 of these letters since the current Government came to office. If there has been a screw-up, surely it was a screw-up on behalf of the politicians, who continued to operate what they knew was a secret and dirty deal.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, and, indeed, I understand the passion with which he makes it, and I spoke on BBC Radio Foyle saying I thought there was a covert deal. I merely refer to the written answers in 2002 to illustrate that there was evidence. I did not know about it even though I was a shadow Defence Minister at the time, but there was evidence that these matters were being discussed. Whether or not they should have been discussed is another matter. What is clear—this is where I agree with the hon. Gentleman—is that this arrangement appears to have been, and continues to be, entirely partial. In other words, it applies only to those believed to be responsible for republican terrorism, and a legitimate matter to which the Secretary of State needs to turn her attention is whether this arrangement, to which this Government have also clearly been party, is fit for purpose, in so far as it is partial.

I wish to continue my point, because I am conscious that lots of hon. Members wish to speak and I wish to discuss a particular aspect: the case of my constituents who were serving the Crown. Whatever the verdict of the Saville inquiry, these men were doing their level best to try to hold the ring to keep the peace, and on that day there was a distinction between them and the rest of the community—they were in the uniform of Her Majesty’s armed forces. They were clearly visible and they were identifiable. They faced a crowd and were confronted by armed men lurking in the shadows, indistinguishable from the civilian crowd. It is hugely important to differentiate between the cold-blooded, premeditated murder of the kind we saw so many times conducted by republican terrorists and loyalist terrorists, and the heat-of-the-battle mistakes made by members of Her Majesty’s armed forces. To the extent that we sent them there, we cannot absolve ourselves entirely of responsibility in these matters.

So I do make a distinction and I do pose the question to this House: are we to accept that these men who were doing their best—I accept the verdict of the Saville inquiry, difficult though I find it, having spoken to many of these guys—and their behaviour should be equated with that of Ivor Bell, who was accused a few days ago of aiding and abetting in the cold-blooded murder of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 and one of the disappeared? I submit that there is a substantial distinction between these crimes, and between these men and whoever was responsible for placing the bomb in Hyde park or the bombs in Guildford, Birmingham and elsewhere.

I lost a very close friend, murdered on his doorstep in north London—Ross McWhirter, of the “Guinness Book of Records”. He was shot down on his doorstep and lay dying in the arms of his wife. We on this side have lost a number of our colleagues, murdered by the IRA—in cold blood, by people indistinguishable from the rest of the community. So we are not untouched by these matters, but I do agree with everyone that we need to move forward.

Before concluding, I wish to contrast what I have just said about the cold-blooded, premeditated murders to which the terrorists were party and what the Prime Minister said in his statement:

“Those looking for premeditation, those looking for a plan, those even looking for a conspiracy involving senior politicians or senior members of the armed forces, will not find it in this report.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 740.]

So whatever the mistakes—the failures—identified by Saville in his report on the activities of the Paras in Londonderry on 30 January 1972, there was no premeditation; this happened in the heat of battle. It is important that we recognise that we have a duty to the soldiers we sent there, and I think there is a case that natural justice needs to be brought to play in this matter. Surely it is not fair, 42 years on, nearly half a century later, that these men, who were doing their best, along with the 250,000 others who served in Northern Ireland, should still have this question mark hovering over them in the evening of their lives—

[Bob Stewart]

In their old age.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

In their old age, as my hon. and gallant Friend says.

I remind the House that we suffered in Aldershot, for on 22 February 1972 an IRA attack killed six civilians and one Roman Catholic padre, Padre Weston. It is true that one man was convicted—he served four years in prison and died in prison—but others were involved in that and they have never been brought to justice. I have not called for a public inquiry into what happened in Aldershot then and the bombing of the mess of the 16th Parachute Brigade, but if what is happening continues, there will be pressure on me to say, “Okay we had that inquiry into the events of 30 January 1972 in Londonderry, so what about having a public inquiry into what happened in Aldershot?” I do not think that would serve a purpose. So I do believe that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and the right hon. Member for Belfast North said, things in Northern Ireland have improved—its economy is growing and there is peace—and it is important that we look to the future.

Let me close by saying that I agree with the Prime Minister that we need to

“come together to close this painful chapter on Northern Ireland's troubled past.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 742.]

Let us do that and, in order to do that, I would like the House to consider the point that those who served as servants of the Crown in Northern Ireland do deserve to live out their days without having the threat of prosecution lingering over them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I say to hon. Members that the length of the speeches thus far means that if everybody makes the same length of speech, some Members will be disappointed in this debate? Rather than set a time limit I am going to ask hon. Members to speak for about 10 minutes. This will not be on the clock; I am asking Members to look at the clock when they start speaking and speak for about 10 minutes—if they take 11 minutes, there is no great panic. In that way, everybody will be able to get in. If people take longer, I will, regrettably, need to have a time limit. I think we can all co-operate and make sure that everybody gets the time they need to make their contribution to this afternoon’s debate. That gives us not a huge amount of time for the wind-ups, but sufficient, I hope, to deal with the points that are being made.

14:28

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I join others in thanking the Backbench Business Committee for acceding to the request that I tabled for this debate. It was of course tabled by the complement of sitting MPs for Northern Ireland and supported by the Chair of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs.

The parties that sought this debate interpret some of the issues in the background differently, and perhaps will have some differences of emphasis and interpretation in terms of the implications. What absolutely unites all of us was our frustration at how we all appeared to be both insulted and implicated by the terms in which some people responded to this judgment and the fact of it. I understand why he cannot be here today, but I include in that the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). The rest of us were not all in on this in the way he and, sometimes, Sinn Fein has implied. We have seen the adoption of contradictory positions. On the one hand, Sinn Fein has said that everyone knew all about this, and that this is an entirely confected concern now and, on the other hand, it has said that it was out of sensitivity to other people that it was secret and had to be done in that way.

When one reads the whole judgment, it is absolutely clear how long and persistent Sinn Fein was in pursuit of the case for a scheme. It is also clear that a scheme was running from pretty early on. It went through various different mutations, but it was never enough. There was always the need for something more and for something else. What comes through is that in all the negotiations between Sinn Fein and the British and Irish Governments, Sinn Fein was usually negotiating for itself and its people. It was never about the broad interests of the people or the agreement and its implementation. It was never about the Irish democratic interest or about the interests of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland; it was about Sinn Fein and its people. That is what comes through consistently in the evidence.

Contrary to the way in which the media have tended to treat this issue since the court case, it is also clear that the court rested most of its judgment not so much on the content of the letter but on the import of the letter based on the evidence provided in the affidavits from, among others, the right hon. Member for Neath and Jonathan Powell. The two key people who gave evidence to the court that helped to bring about the judgment then condemned and criticised the rest of us, in the media and in other outpourings, for our reaction to it, for questioning its implications and for raising issues in relation to the background.

Let us be clear: the right hon. Gentleman has rested a lot on the fact that it was publicly known that there was a Bill in 2005. Yes, there was a Bill in 2005. The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill—misnamed the “on-the-runs” Bill—went far beyond the issue of on-the-runs. It was not just that it provided for a scheme that we now know about, except that it included loyalists and members of the security forces. It went far further and deeper than that. It was a deeply offensive and insulting scheme that used terms such as “special prosecution” to dress up the fact that people were basically going through a process for immunity—they did not even have to go to court to get that immunity; and they did not even have to apply for the certificate themselves. Of course, victims did not have to know about it. However, if something arose in relation to any case and someone wanted to compel a witness to appear, the witness had to appear. The person who was benefiting from the certificate would not have to appear. They would not have to spend a day in court or look a victim in the eye, but a victim who fundamentally disapproved of this whole bizarre, obscure and sick process for which the previous Government were ready to legislate in 2005 would have been compelled to appear on penalty of contempt. That is how strange it was.

We also must remember that the big scheme of 2005—the general scheme of amnesty—with its architecture of special tribunals, appeals commissioners and special prosecutors was never cited at the time by the Democratic Unionist party as a deal breaker on the way to what everyone knew was going to be an agreement that would see a restoration of devolution with Sinn Fein and the DUP in partnership in the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister. We all knew in 2005 that we were on the way to that. There had been the abortive comprehensive agreement in December 2004. We all knew that the talks were ongoing and that they involved the British and Irish Governments and Sinn Fein and the DUP. When this Bill appeared, people were rightly aghast, but the DUP did not make it a deal breaker. Other issues were deal breakers, such as how the First Minister and Deputy First Minister were to be appointed and about what was going to happen with north-south reviews. This scheme, the worst one that the British Government were prepared to legislate for, was not in itself a deal breaker. That is the point that Jonathan Powell might have been referring to in his book. Whether it is accurate to say that a letter had been sent to Ian Paisley, I do not know. I know that there are many other things in Jonathan Powell’s book that are not accurate. But I do know from when I was strongly opposing the Bill in Committee that the then DUP MP for East Belfast told me that he did not understand why I was investing so much political capital in trying to stop a Bill that was a done deal.

The DUP’s concern was to ensure that everyone knew that the deal was done under David Trimble, so that they could hang it around his neck. The constant misleading reference to Weston Park, which was made at the time of that Bill and in the very court case that led to the Downey judgment, has continued because the Government of the day contrived to say that everybody was in on it and that it was agreed by all parties at Weston Park. It was not agreed by all parties at Weston Park. First, all parties were not around the one table. Secondly, there was no agreement at Weston Park. The different parties were being talked to by the two Governments about different things. It was no way to run a process, and we loudly complained about it at the time. We said that there would be more side deals, sub deals and shabby and secret deals, which would end up corrupting the process. Those chickens have now come home to roost. It is not the case that this was agreed at Weston Park by us. When the two Governments published a paper after Weston Park that included reference to the on-the-runs issue, we made it clear that it was not part of the agreement and that we understood that people were making a case around an anomaly. We did not see it as part of the agreement as such.

Let us look at some of the arguments that have been made since this has become public. On the one hand, we hear from Government and others that these letters are not an amnesty; the right hon. Member for Neath has told us that the letters are not an amnesty. Yet he goes on to say that because these letters are now known about, there should be a general amnesty, including for the soldiers, loyalists and others who might possibly face charges in relation to Bloody Sunday. It is strange to say that the scheme is not an amnesty, but if it becomes publicly known then there should be an amnesty for everyone else.

If people did receive indications from the police and prosecuting authorities that there were no grounds for pursuing them and that there was no live interest in any possible case against them, I see that as entirely fair. If, however, as with the soldiers on Bloody Sunday, there is an inquiry on the basis of evidence, that has to take its course, just as it must for anybody else. I share people’s disgust at the way in which this scheme has been conducted—where it has been worked through as a Shinners list. One party goes to the police with a list of names and the list seems to grow all the time. When we first heard about the on-the-run scheme, we were told that it involved only a few dozen people. Now we know that it is many, many more. We said that there would be many more, but were told by Tony Blair and others that that was wrong. Sinn Fein, which says that it believes in an Ireland of equals, has complained about political policing. It has criticised some investigations into offences since 1998 and has said that those investigations amounted to political policing, even though they were driven by evidence from victims.

If anything is political policing it is when the police end up providing a scheme on a parti pris basis, with one political party for a certain political motive, just because that has been brokered or directed by the Government of the day, and that is what has happened in this instance. I do not go along with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), who I know takes a deep interest in our affairs, in saying that we now need to know the names of everybody who received letters. The fact is that the people who got letters were those whose names were not known to the police; they were not actually being sought in any way. Some people took themselves on the run for different reasons. They could have been supergrasses who thought that they would be at more risk. Some might have felt that they were at risk of being under duress to turn supergrass themselves on the very limited information that they might have had. Many people might have had their own reason for taking themselves outside the jurisdiction.

We never had an objection to a scheme that was about notifying people who were outside the jurisdiction that they could return without being in peril of arrest. When we said that and when we opposed the 2005 Bill, we were told by the then Government that that could not be done and it would not be enough, and Sinn Fein was saying the same.

[Lady Hermon]

May I press the hon. Gentleman a little further to clarify his position and that of his party? Victims’ families feel extremely aggrieved by the Downey judgment and the fact that they now know that suspected murderers, perhaps of their loved ones, have been given an administrative letter. If members of those families come forward and ask the Secretary of State to confirm whether someone who is alleged to have been involved in the murder of their loved ones has received one of the administrative letters, surely to goodness the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would support the release of that information to those families.

[Mark Durkan]

I want all families to get as much information as they possibly can. The Government do not seem to be sure how many letters they sent and are now having to refer to Sinn Fein to find out who might have got letters, so I am not sure how reliable that would be.

The answer to this added grievance for those who suffered grief during the troubles might lie in ensuring that the scandal surrounding the scheme does not damage the Haass process and its prospects for dealing with some of the outstanding issues about the past and making good the difficulties with the mechanisms for dealing with individual cases, including the police ombudsman’s powers on past cases and the difficulties with the Historical Enquiries Team.

That work should be supplemented with and complemented by the hugely important thematics arm provided for in the Haass proposals. It is our view, which we raised during the Haass talks, that we need to address not only what happened during the troubles but how the past has been treated since the troubles. At times, there has been dereliction and a collective failure in the process, because we have not addressed promises made to victims and pledges made about the past in the Good Friday agreement.

Some of us tried in talks after talks to say that we should deal with the promises made to victims and the past, but, for instance, in Hillsborough 2003, when the Social Democratic and Labour party and Alliance party were arguing for a victims’ forum, partly with an eye towards considering what could be done about the past, that was vetoed because the Ulster Unionist party and Sinn Fein did not want it. Of course, at Hillsborough 2003 the two Governments produced yet another statement on the on-the-runs, saying that they would deal with the situation through a scheme that would apply to all scheduled offences. That was why it was pretty dishonest of Sinn Fein to then say that it was shocked to discover that the 2005 Bill included everybody and anybody. That was clear from day one of the Bill, but it took it until December—weeks into the process—to withdraw its support. The opposition that some of us voiced to the Hain-Adams Bill helped to mobilise victims’ groups to put pressure on Sinn Fein to withdraw its support. The Government nevertheless persisted in coming up with a bespoke scheme for Sinn Fein and this administrative scheme, which they kept relatively private.

I know that you gave us some advice on time limits, Madam Deputy Speaker, but as I led the bid for this debate I want to make some points in anticipation of some of the things that I might find myself asked by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs.

In some of the talks subsequent to the withdrawal of the Bill, such as those at St Andrews and, latterly, those that led to the devolution of justice and policing, we asked, by the by, what was happening about the on-the-runs as that had clearly been a big issue in all the previous declarations and we did not seem to be hearing about it at those talks. We were quietly told that it was not an issue and that we should forget about it.

I am particularly sorry that we do not have the benefit of the presence of Paul Goggins today, a Minister who served with absolute distinction and aplomb in the course of all this. He would have had insights to reflect on from that period. I know from conversations I had with him at St Andrews and in other places that there seemed to be a concern that the SDLP would create problems for Sinn Fein because our objections to what was being done in relation to MI5 were too vocal—because we got too outside of ourselves—and that if we asked too much about the on-the-runs, there was a danger we would spook things for the Democratic Unionist party and create difficulties. It is not our business to create difficulties for anybody; we want the process to move forward—but it must move forward on the basis of ethics and morality.

The right hon. Member for Neath has sought to say a lot about a lot of us in this regard. He says that we must move on and that there needs to be a wider process of amnesty. He will know full well that in South Africa a key piece of language used in the law that established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was the phrase

“to enable South Africans to come to terms with their past on a morally accepted basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation.”

That is what we have to do. The Bill that the previous Government tried to introduce in 2005 was not a morally accepted basis for dealing with the past, nor is this scheme. The Haass proposals offer us a morally acceptable basis for dealing with the past, and one thing that should be clear is that, whatever else there is disagreement over in the text of the proposals, one point on which there is no disagreement is the part that repudiates amnesty as a basis for dealing with the past. The right hon. Gentleman has also commended Eames-Bradley to us, saying we should calm down and get back to it and to Haass. They both say that amnesty is no basis for our dealing with the past.

We are told that the letters are not an amnesty. We are also told that everybody knew about them, yet one of the people who tells us that, Jonathan Powell, has also said that of course the letters were private as they were nobody’s business but that of the police and those who received them. Nobody’s business. The victims and the wider democratic public have no business in them whatsoever. The idea is that a private scheme can produce letters that will then be someone’s private property—but they can then be produced in a court and have the effect that the letter appeared to have in this case. That effect was down not to any legal strength or standing—we are told that the letter was a mistake—but to the import it was given by other evidence. The suggestion was not so much that the peace process might fall apart if the prosecution proceeded, as they were perhaps too subtle for that, but that the state could never be trusted again by anybody in any negotiation or any process if the mistaken word of an official under such a shaky scheme was not seen to be upheld.

The imperative was that the word of the Government through this mistaken letter from an official had to be seen to be upheld at all costs. Many words have been given out in this process that have not been upheld. The promises made to victims in the Good Friday agreement have not been upheld. The commitment of the British Government to legislate for a Bill of Rights has not been upheld. The solemn commitment at Saint Andrews about an Irish language Act and so on have not been upheld. Clear commitments were made that if Judge Cory recommended public inquiries, including in the case of Patrick Finucane, there would be a public inquiry, but they were completely absconded from—mind you, that has no implications for anybody as it is just about the broad democratic process. Those were merely commitments made in Parliament.

In relation to the points made by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), we should remember that this House was told on the day of the Saville report that any evidence that was there to be pursued by the police and considered by the prosecution authorities would have to be so pursued and so considered and that the process would have to take its course from there. That was a solemn commitment and a solemn pledge from which, unfortunately, the right hon. Member for Neath and the hon. Member for Aldershot seem to want the Government to abscond. There are all sorts of double standards here; it is not just Sinn Fein who are guilty of double standards in this whole sordid process.

14:39

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Today, we are talking about events in London on Tuesday 20 July 1982. In particular, we are debating the consequences of an explosion—about 20 to 25 lbs of high explosive was packed with nails to cause maximum casualties, and hidden inside a Morris Marina car—in South Carriage drive near Hyde park. It was placed there by the so-called “England department” of the Irish Republican Army, and the bomb killed four members of the Blues and Royals as they rode to change the guard on Horse Guards.

Apparently, John Downey, who was arrested at Gatwick in May last year, was a leading operative of the so-called “England department” of the IRA. Yet he felt he was immune from prosecution, because he had in his possession a letter saying that he was not wanted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which appears to have been issued as part of the bargaining between the authorities and terrorists during the Northern Ireland peace process. When the letter was issued to Downey, the authorities either missed the fact that Downey was wanted on a 20-year arrest warrant for his alleged part in the July 1982 Hyde park bomb, or they decided to ignore the fact.

I totally understand why so many people are utterly dismayed by the fact that a suspect for the murders of four soldiers by IRA terrorists has apparently been granted immunity from prosecution. To my mind, it was an extraordinary mistake by both politicians and police in Northern Ireland. All of us here today in Parliament should send a clear signal that murder is murder and those responsible for it should face the full rigour of the law.

I remember 20 July 1982 extremely well. At the time, I was a company commander serving in Northern Ireland; unknowingly, I was also only six months away from being directly involved in a similar atrocity at Ballykelly, where I personally lost six soldiers killed by terrorists on 6 December 1982. It has had a tremendous impact on me.

In the Hyde park bombing, there were not just four deaths, but 31 other people were wounded. Seven horses were killed and several others hurt. Some older Members may remember the heroic Blues and Royals horse called Sefton, who became something of a national hero for making such a great recovery after the incident.

To their immortal memory, like my friend the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), I remind the House of the names of our men who were killed in this atrocious barbarism.

Lieutenant Anthony Daly was aged 23 and had been married only 27 days before he was murdered. I gather his mother was waiting at Horse Guards to proudly watch her son carry out his duty as escort commander. Corporal Roy Bright, aged 36, was carrying the standard. A senior soldier, Roy did not die at the scene but in hospital three days later. Trooper Simon Tipper, aged 19, died on the street. He had been married less than a month and must have been looking forward to a great life with his new bride. Finally, I must name Lance Corporal Jeffrey Young, who was just a week before his 20th birthday. With his wife Judith, he already had two children, who will never remember their heroic father. He died in hospital a day after the attack.

Neither must we forget—and we have not raised this matter—that the same IRA team, which must have consisted of several people, was also responsible for a second explosion that day. It killed seven Royal Green Jackets bandsmen in Regent’s park a few hours later. It would be remiss of me not to at least name them, too. Their names, without rank, because it does not matter any more, were Graham Barker, Robert Livingstone, John McKnight, John Heritage, George Mesure, Keith Powell and Laurence Smith. May their souls also rest in peace.

I gather that Mr Downey has at some stage raised horses, which I find somewhat ironic, and I would dearly like to see him brought to trial in whatever way we can. However, I accept that may seem unlikely, but in the meantime, as I have mentioned, there were others in his team. One other person has also been identified and taken to court, but there must have been others in the team that carried out this attack.

Everyone in this Chamber without exception will agree with this: let all who have committed criminal acts in Northern Ireland sleep unsoundly. I very much hope that one day the authorities will knock on their door, wherever they are, and bring them to book.

14:55

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I agree with everything he has said, and it was said with great passion.

The day that the Downey case fell in the courts in the Old Bailey was a very sad day indeed for British justice. Not only was a terrorist released on to the streets again, but the families who had lost loved ones were left with no recourse, because the Government have said there is no course of appeal, and the old wounds were all opened up again.

The exposure of the on-the-runs—or OTRs—administrative scheme and royal prerogatives was a stab in the heart of our British values of justice. The entire scheme was based upon a lie. Its creators claim that the early release scheme in the 1998 Good Friday agreement created an anomaly for those who were on the run. It did no such thing.

There were many fundamental problems with the Belfast agreement, and that is why the Democratic Unionist party rejected it and negotiated the new St Andrews agreement. However, it did have a clear mechanism for dealing with pre-1998 offences. A person could be brought before the court, receive a fair trial and if convicted, serve time in jail. The sentence would have been a mere two years, thanks to the likes of the Ulster Unionist party and the Progressive Unionist party, who signed the 1998 pact, but victims would at least have had their day in court and an opportunity for justice to be done.

This conspiracy drew in a range of our institutions by acts of commission and omission. Parliament was bypassed and misled. The legislation for OTRs at that stage was withdrawn because it was unwanted, both by Parliament and by the public. It was rejected because it was repugnant, but at least it offered some level of oversight and licensing to prevent reoffending. The scheme that the Government and the Northern Ireland Office came up with did none of that. Their contempt for Parliament included deliberately misleading it, and all the political parties except Sinn Fein, on how they were dealing with the OTRs.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to confirm that although all the parties objected to the obnoxious Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, the Government in power at the time would have pushed it through this House had it not been for Sinn Fein belatedly registering its opposition to it? It was dropped because of Sinn Fein’s opposition, not the overwhelming opposition of the general public, RUC widows and others.

[David Simpson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right.

No unionist would be surprised by the role the Northern Ireland Office at the time had in the design and implementation of the scheme. At the time, its pandering to republicanism and its contempt for Unionism and its representatives were a permanent feature of direct rule. However, it drew the Police Service of Northern Ireland into its dirty deals as well. In a question to the assistant chief constable—I believe it was Assistant Chief Constable Harris—my colleague on the Policing Board, Mr Thomas Buchanan, asked about the OTRs. The PSNI’s response was this:

“At this moment in time, there are no on the runs we are aware of residing in Northern Ireland, and if there was information to suggest there were individuals who are wanted for crime living within this jurisdiction, then we would be very anxious to learn of that.”

That was in 2010. That gave the impression that there was a desire to catch criminals, but the scheme was doing exactly the opposite.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

My hon. Friend knows that the former deputy chair of the Policing Board, Mr Bradley, has publicly stated that the board was briefed about the on-the-runs and knew all about it. Will my hon. Friend go further today and dismiss that as a fantasy?

[David Simpson]

Yes, I certainly will. It was an absolute fantasy, as the evidence that has come from Policing Board representatives over the past few weeks confirms.

At the same time the OTR scheme was running, the PSNI established the Historical Enquiries Team. It was supposed to be a systematic approach to give every victim the opportunity for justice. The OTR scheme now draws a long shadow over all the HET’s work. Some will conclude that as one section of the PSNI tried to put people before a court, another was helping them to avoid it.

I will not speak for long, because I know that many other Members wish to speak.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?

[David Simpson]

I apologise to the hon. Lady, but I want to move on and so will not give way, because many Members wish to speak.

The constituency I represent, as those who know Northern Ireland will understand, has a big contingent of security force personnel, both past and present. I know from my discussions with those individuals and organisations that they are totally disgusted by this scheme. Their attitude is that it took courage to put on the uniform of the Crown forces to defend the people and Northern Ireland, and if someone in their organisations stepped out of line, the full rigour of the law was brought upon them, and rightly so, they emphasised. But there are people who have been on the run and who went away on their holidays, and they were on the run because they were conscious of what they had done, and they got letters to give them reprieve. There is one law for one organisation and one law for another. It is despicable. It has opened a can of worms.

My last point is about the royal prerogatives. It would be interesting to discover who has received the royal prerogatives. Has Mr McGuinness? Has Mr Adams? Has Mr Kelly? I will go further. As the House knows, and as I have mentioned before, a number of members of my family were assassinated by the IRA. Have some of the people who carried out those murders received the royal prerogatives? It is disgusting. It is wrong. The victims out there are suffering. We promised them justice, but a lot of them will never see it. I am glad that both inquiries have now opened. We look forward to the Select Committee inquiry, which will go into every nook and cranny. We will, at some stage, discover who initiated this and when. We will discover who allowed this to happen.

15:04

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The revelation that has emerged about the so-called on-the-runs administrative scheme demonstrates that the previous Government committed a monstrous betrayal of the rights of many of their own citizens. They actively conspired with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA, to deny hundreds of UK citizens the prospect of ever seeing justice for their relatives who had been murdered or injured as part of the terrorist campaign waged by the IRA in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain.

If it achieved nothing else, the collapse of the trial of Mr John Downey at least brought into the open the nefarious plot that our own Government had a hand in. It is now time to establish the full and complete truth about this scheme—who started it, who knew about it, and what other agencies were implicated in it. There are now no fewer than four separate inquiries of different natures taking place into this scheme. I welcome each and every one and believe that they can complement each other.

Before we progress to some of the details about this issue, it is worth looking at first principles. When they were elected to office in 1997, the Labour Government headed by Tony Blair vowed to be the most open and transparent Government that the country had ever had. To that end, they introduced, among other things, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which was designed to ensure that, within the limits of data protection and national security, people would be able to scrutinise the work of those who governed them. It is contrary to that commitment to openness and transparency that no Government Minister ever saw fit to come to this House to inform Members of a dirty deal that was going on with Sinn Fein-IRA. It is at variance with the other actions of previous Governments in opening up Government to public accountability that they would keep such an important matter hidden from the scrutiny not only of this House but of Her Majesty’s Opposition and all the Northern Ireland parties—except, of course, Sinn Fein.

This raises an important political point. In Northern Ireland, progress is dependent on the mutual consent of both the major traditions that exist within our community. Despite the fact that there has been a consistent and vast majority in support of the Union throughout the duration of the troubles in Northern Ireland, Unionists recognise the necessity of finding accommodation with those who hold to the minority viewpoint with regard to Ulster’s constitutional position. In that context, the fact that the Government connived behind the backs of the Unionist community to deliver the scheme was bad enough, but their action also represented a betrayal of the constitutional nationalist tradition in Northern Ireland.

The Government acted in a secretive and one-sided fashion because they knew that had the details of this scheme been made public, they would not have been able to carry with them this House or the greater number of people from the Unionist and the nationalist backgrounds in Northern Ireland. They knew that they were doing wrong, and that is why they tried to hide their actions from everyone, except themselves as a Government and Sinn Fein. The Bible says:

“The wicked flee when no man pursueth”,

and that seems apt today. The Government fled from scrutiny but no one pursued because they tried to hide what they were doing—yet this sordid deal could not remain hidden for ever.

The secret scheme whereby one political party submitted names of individuals who were on the run to receive so-called comfort letters was not merely immoral but represented a subversion of justice and made a mockery of the rule of law. When clear and direct questions were asked previously, including of senior Ministers, we were not told about the scheme. For example, in October 2006, when we asked in the House whether such a procedure existed, we were told:

“There is no other procedure.”—[Official Report, 11 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 290.]

On 1 March 2007, the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) asked

“what measures the Government are considering to deal with ‘on the runs’ other than further legislation or an amnesty.”—[Official Report, 1 March 2007; Vol. 457, c. 1462W.]

The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) replied: “None.” That one-word answer raises a serious question about the veracity of the then Government’s position. It is therefore right to establish whether the House of Commons has been deceived. We need to have the truth.

As I have said, different inquiries are looking into this matter and each complements the other. It is vital that together they exhaustively examine all the relevant information and question all the relevant people. It is now apparent that there were no lengths to which the Blair Administration would not go in the interests of political expediency. Those who carried out some of the most heinous crimes must never be allowed to escape responsibility for the suffering they caused. The victims of those crimes cannot escape their pain and they should have the right to bring the perpetrators to justice. The outcome of the Downey case was morally wrong. No one should be beyond the law.

[Lady Hermon]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. Although tributes have rightly been paid by Members on both sides of the House to the victims of the Hyde Park bombing in 1982—I add my condolences to those families and friends who lost loved ones—it is right to put it on the record that Mr Downey, who walked out of the Old Bailey, was suspected of involvement in not only the Hyde park bombing but the Enniskillen bombing, in which many people lost their lives and many others were injured, and the murder of two members of the Ulster Defence Regiment who served gallantly in Northern Ireland.

[Dr McCrea]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I agree wholeheartedly with everything she said. The shadow over this debate is that of not only the Hyde park bombing but every other atrocity that was carried out during the campaign throughout the United Kingdom. There was no justification for the campaign of terror and no justification for the slaughter of the innocent. This House ought to once again unreservedly condemn the actions of the IRA and those who brought sorrow and grief to the United Kingdom for so many years. One thing about the Downey case is that, thankfully, it has exposed all those others who received what they believed to be letters of comfort, and I would suggest that he is probably not their favourite cousin.

I realise that I have to draw my remarks to a close. If someone is on the run, I want them to fear the police, the courts and the rule of law. I want them to fear the fact that one day justice may catch up with them. I can assure them today that if it does not catch up with them here on this earth, they will stand before God, whether they believe in Him or not, and face His judgment and wrath.

In the aftermath of the Downey case judgment, the Secretary of State said:

“We will take whatever steps are necessary to make clear to all recipients of letters arising from the administrative scheme, in a manner that will satisfy the courts and the public, that any letters issued cannot be relied upon to avoid questioning or prosecution for offences where information or evidence becomes available now or later.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2014; Vol. 576, c. 39WS.]

The Democratic Unionist party will insist that the Government follow up those words with concrete action.

Finally, the royal prerogative of mercy has been mentioned. I have lived for the past nearly 50 years in a community that went through the nightmare of terrorism. South Londonderry used to be the killing fields of IRA murders in our Province. I gathered with many widows and many children down those years, as I did with my own family, grieving and sorrowing over the passing of our loved ones. When I hear that the likes of Liam Averill—a murderer in my community—is supposed to have received the royal prerogative of mercy, that is absolutely disgusting. It is laughable in a certain way that the big provo hero crawls to Her Majesty to get a royal prerogative of mercy, but it is also disgusting and sickening. I would like to know who advanced his name and who advised Her Majesty to execute the royal prerogative of mercy for the likes of the murdering thug Liam Averill. I would also like to know the names of the others who received the royal prerogative of mercy, because I can assure the House that there was no mercy from the provos for my family and the other families in Northern Ireland who suffered grief and who to this day continue to suffer heartbreak at the loss of their loved ones.

15:14

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

It is very kind of you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to call me in this very important Back-Bench debate. I am happy to put on the record my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating such an extensive period for it. I am very grateful to right hon. and hon. Members who have taken interventions throughout the debate. I will try to contain my comments to less than 10 minutes, so that those who have been so generous to me have an opportunity to speak at length.

[Ian Paisley]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lady Hermon]

Of course. I will put into practice what I have just said.

[Ian Paisley]

Given that the hon. Lady is an esteemed and very skilled legal expert, will she refer to the possible opportunities that now pertain to try to get someone such as Mr Downey with his experience—an alleged mass murderer—back into our courts, whether by warrant, extradition or whatever?

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening so early. That is a really interesting question. My honest and frank answer, as he would expect from the hon. Member for North Down, is that Mr Downey of course resides in Donegal. That is his place of residence and his domicile. Frankly, after the Downey case and its revelations, I have absolutely no confidence that this British Government would request the extradition of Mr Downey. I would love the Secretary of State to intervene now to say that I am completely wrong.

[Mrs Villiers]

rose—

[Lady Hermon]

Oh, the Secretary of State is intervening.

[Mrs Villiers]

I emphasise that such decisions are for the prosecuting authorities, not for politicians.

[Lady Hermon]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for making that very interesting point, which brings me to a matter that I hope she can resolve later this afternoon. Like many hon. Members, I am really curious about the legal status of all the comfort letters or administrative letters issued to more than 200 cronies, pals or comrades of Gerry Adams. That is what they had to be: they were exclusively republican activists—terrorists—but they were buddies of Mr Adams.

I wrote a letter to the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), and I have asked him to clarify some of his replies in early 2007. As I have said, I am very sorry that he is not in the Chamber, but he has explained why he cannot be here. I do not want to criticise him, because when we have disagreed, we have always managed to have a very good working relationship. I will not therefore, in his absence, pick up the questions raised by other hon. Members about his replies in early 2007. Perhaps the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who will wind up for the Opposition, will at some stage try to reconcile the irreconcilable. Before he speaks, perhaps he would take the opportunity to check the replies of the right hon. Member for Neath, which have been quoted by several Members, and try to reconcile them for us, which would be very helpful.

To return to the Secretary of State’s intervention, I tabled a written question to the Attorney-General asking him to rule on the legal status post the Downey case. I had a very courteous reply, as one would expect from the Attorney-General—of course drafted by very efficient civil servants—and it was a perfect parliamentary answer in that it was extremely brief. His reply, dated Monday 24 March, states:

“I have made no assessment. The status of the letters is a matter that may be considered by the right hon. Dame Heather Hallett in her review.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2014; Vol. 578, c. 43W.]

There was discretion for Lady Justice Hallett to look at the status of the letters that had been issued. However, the following day, I learned from an online report by the BBC’s Northern Ireland correspondent, Vincent Kearney, that Lady Justice Hallett

“is not expected to reach a conclusion on the specific legal effect of individual letters, or any action taken or not taken as a result of the letter being sent”.

That quotation is from the letters that were exchanged between the director general of the Northern Ireland Office, Julian King, and the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.

In the Secretary of State’s intervention, she was clear that there would be an independent decision on whether to issue a request for the extradition of Mr Downey from Donegal. Will she intervene on me and explain who exactly has the remit to tell the people in Northern Ireland, the people in this House and, indeed, the recipients of the more than 100 administrative letters what exactly is the legal status of those letters post-Downey? Have they been rescinded or have they not been rescinded? Do the recipients sleep easy in bed or do they not?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to reiterate what I have said on a number of occasions over recent weeks. The letters were merely a statement of fact about whether an individual was wanted by the police at that time on the basis of the evidence that was available. They do not confer an amnesty. Nobody who has one should think that it immunises them from prosecution. If the evidence is present now or in the future to justify a prosecution, it will be taken forward.

[Lady Hermon]

I am very grateful indeed to the Secretary of State for what I think was a clarification. She said that it is not an amnesty. What exactly is the legal status? Will she also confirm, when she is winding-up—unless she wants to intervene again, of course—that the files remain open? We need an assurance that the files are open and that further evidence is being sought by police services throughout the United Kingdom, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

I would hate to think that the recipients of these comfort letters had had the assurance when they received their letter that their file was closed and nobody was looking for further evidence. I say that with a really heavy heart, because in reading the Downey judgment, it is clear that the Historical Enquiries Team, to which other hon. Members have referred, made inquiries about Mr Downey in relation to offences that had allegedly been committed in Northern Ireland and apparently received a negative response. That is really worrying and troublesome.

Apart from assuring the House that this is not an amnesty, we really need a commitment from the Secretary of State that she will leave this House—at the end of the debate, not now—and ask the Attorney-General about the legal status. Given that Lady Justice Hallett is not going to look at the legal status of individual letters or, indeed, of all the letters, as we know courtesy of the exchange of letters with the director general of the Northern Ireland Office, it is obviously the responsibility of the British Attorney-General to give a clear legal ruling on their status. That is absolutely imperative.

I am sorry that I keep staring at the Secretary of State and encouraging her to intervene as and when she can, but I am doing so quite deliberately. She will know that, after the Downey case, the shock that permeated through this House, across Northern Ireland and across other constituencies in the UK where there have been terrorist bombs was enormous. The vast majority of us had believed before the Downey case that there was the rule of law. This country is held in high esteem around the world because we uphold the rule of law. We now know, post-Downey, that the rule of law did not apply to the comrades of Mr Adams. He asked the then Prime Minister Tony Blair for an invisible process, and that is exactly what he received.

I tabled several questions to the Secretary of State, and I am sorry to say that she gave the same holding reply—the same stock answer. Such stonewalling was most regrettable. Interestingly though, the Secretary of State assured me on several occasions that

“the Prime Minister announced that a judge would be appointed to undertake an independent review to provide a full public account of the operation and extent of the administrative scheme for dealing with so called “on-the-runs”, which will include a factual check of all letters issued.”—[Official Report, 12 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 207W.]

I emphasise the phrase “all letters issued”. That sentence was repeated in several written answers I received, and I understand that it is repeated on the Downing street website, because it was of course the Prime Minister’s idea to have this independent inquiry. We discovered on Tuesday, courtesy of the Belfast Telegraph, that the exchange of correspondence between the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the director general of the Northern Ireland Office, Julian King, reveals that Lady Justice Hallett will not look at all the letters, but at a sample. It must be obvious to the Secretary of State that the written answers I received, with the undertaking that “all letters” would be considered, and the clarification by Julian King about a sample, are inconsistent. That inconsistency must be resolved this afternoon.

I tabled a painful question in which I asked the Secretary of State about the two most senior RUC officers who were murdered during the troubles, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan. Their families and John McBurney, the solicitor for one of the families, believe that some of the recipients of these comfort letters are alleged to have been involved in those murders. I ask the Secretary of State to give a firm assurance this afternoon that if the Breen family or the Buchanan family—or any other family of the victims of bombings and other hideous crimes—seek clarification about whether the murderers of their loved ones received one of these tawdry, dreadful, secret, scheming little letters, she will ensure that they get a clear reply, yes or no. That would be enormously helpful.

15:28

[Mr Shaun Woodward (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

I wish to associate myself with the remarks made by all hon. Members about those who lost their lives in the Hyde park and Regent park bombings. They were terrible crimes on the day they were committed, and some decades later they remain terrible crimes. It is always difficult to follow Members from Northern Ireland because they speak from such extraordinary personal experience and from personal loss. Sometimes it is really hard for other hon. Members, whatever their convictions, to speak after those who speak from the heart because they experienced the tragedy at home.

Listening to hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am of the view that the need for Justice Hallett’s review is critical, and the Secretary of State is right to expedite it. There are disadvantages in it not being a full, independent judicial review, but we know from Lord Saville that the time it would take to assemble such a review would be extremely damaging, not only to the ongoing political process in Northern Ireland but to the peace process. Indeed, the arguments around that so-called euphemism, “on-the-runs”, are testimony to why I think this review needs to come up with its findings quickly.

I was Secretary of State by a few weeks when the letter was issued to Mr Downey. As such, I take responsibility for my officials in the Northern Ireland Office, and I am happy to do so. They always acted with the most extraordinary integrity, and, as the Attorney-General set out when he spoke to the House a few weeks ago, there is no reason in any shape or form to doubt in any way the wisdom and actions of those officials or civil servants.

It is helpful to put on the record—again, I will co-operate with Justice Hallett however that is desired—that this was an administrative process. I absolutely understand the remarks of right hon. and hon. Members, and their questions about whether it was more than that, but I entirely endorse the view, expressed by the Secretary of State and by my predecessors, that the letters were designed to be statements of fact. They were part of an administrative scheme that, as the Attorney-General said, operated independently of the Government. It was intended to identify those individuals who, although they might believe they were unable to return to the jurisdiction without fear or arrest, would in fact face no prosecution or arrest if they were to return.

It is for Justice Hallett to ascertain whether that was the case, as I believe, but I put it on record that at no point during my tenure—which, I think, was the longest of any Secretary of State in Northern Ireland under the previous Administration—did I have reason to believe that it was ever more than an administrative process. That said, the judgment in the Downey case throws up some important questions that, as Secretary of State for those years, worry me greatly, and I am grateful to Justice Hallett for coming forward on this matter. In particular, paragraph 133 of the judgment makes it clear that:

“The PSNI did not alert the DPP (NI), or anyone else, to the fact that the defendant had been wanted by the Metropolitan Police in relation to the Hyde Park Bombing at the time of the critical correspondence in June/July 2007, or—”

and this should worry all of us—

“to the fact that the defendant was still wanted by the Metropolitan Police in…2008.”

Paragraph 137 states:

“Again, nothing was done to alert the DPP (NI), or anyone else, in relation to the defendant being wanted by the Metropolitan Police in connection with the Hyde Park Bombing.”

Those are very serious issues, and it is right that a judge consider them urgently. What they throw up is not that this was not an administrative process, but that there were clearly serious errors within that process. That throws up the question of when those errors were discovered, what happened to that information, and what course of action followed.

[Lady Hermon]

May I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to make it absolutely clear that during his long, and I think successful and happy time in Northern Ireland, the words “Operation Rapid” were not words that he heard, and he did not know about them until he read the Downey judgment? Is that what he is saying to the House?

[Mr Woodward]

Dare I say that there is a fashion when former Secretaries of State, as it were, and sometimes even serving Ministers, can sometimes hide behind forms of words? I am not suggesting that to the hon. Lady for a moment. I am not aware that we discussed the words “Operation Rapid”, but it is more than possible that pieces of paper will be found on which that phrase will appear. I say simply to the hon. Lady that it would be disingenuous for me remotely to suggest that I did not know we had an administrative process in order to establish facts. What was absolutely clear to me, by whatever name it was known, is that this was a factual operation, and in no way was the Northern Ireland Office, in any shape or form, at any point in the time I was there, or known to me before or after, interfering in that process. It was a matter of delivering those points of information.

Let me be clear to the hon. Members for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) and for Upper Bann (David Simpson) that, if the letters, in any shape or form, were reprieves or amnesties, I would share the feelings they have set out this afternoon, but at no point was I led to believe, at no point did I believe, and at no point did anybody ever tell me, that the letters could or would be used as reprieves or amnesties. They were statements of fact. I entirely understand hon. Members’ feelings if they believe the letters were anything other than that. They were not designed to be a reprieve or an amnesty. They were designed only as statements of fact to tell those people whether they were or were not wanted.

[Lady Hermon]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity. Norman Baxter, who is not a Member of the House, was the PSNI officer in charge of the scheme and is named in the Downey judgment. He gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on 11 November 2009. He said:

“One of my responsibilities before I retired was to conduct a review of on-the-runs, that is persons who are outside the jurisdiction. I can assure the Committee that there was an extremely unhealthy interest by officials in the Northern Ireland Office about prioritising individuals who were on the run and about ensuring that they were cleared to return to the North.”

That is not a term I would use, but it is what he said. In fairness to Norman Baxter, who was named and criticised in the Downey judgment, he has put it on the record that pressure was put on him by officials.

[Mr Woodward]

It is always dangerous to extrapolate from one person’s words and somebody else’s conclusion. One talks about “an interest”, but the hon. Lady’s refers to it as a “pressure”. All I can say to her is that, if there were questions from the Northern Ireland Office, as far as I am concerned, they could only ever be questions about facts. They could not in any way be about trying to interfere or change the outcome of any inquiry. The Secretary of State should know that, given the now legal status of the letters, the hon. Lady is entirely right to pose that question. It would be grossly misfortunate if the Justice were not to address that question. I remind the House that the situation is about an abuse of process, not just a letter. The entire process, of which the letter is a part, has been thrown up by the judgment.

That throws up the question of whether or not a status is conferred on the letters now—the letters were issued, as we thought, as statements of fact—that takes them beyond statements of fact. That is an issue of confidence. As the Secretary of State considers the debate—I expect her not to reply this afternoon, but to take away many of the considered comments made by right hon. and hon. Members—she should consider that the Downey judgment genuinely throws up the question whether or not letters issued in good faith by Ministers and the Northern Ireland Office as statements of fact are now more than statements of fact. If that is the case, the House deserves to know. It will be very difficult to rebuild confidence, which has been damaged across the process, without answering that question.

I am conscious of the time and do not wish to prevent other hon. Members from speaking. At the end of Justice Hallett’s review, we will have answers to some questions but not all. What will remain are questions of how we deal with some remaining dimensions of the past. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) rightly puts back on the table the issue of the soldiers who were named and effectively indicted through the Saville inquiry. For them, in their old age, terrible worries ensue. Nobody should be above justice and I would never argue that whoever may be involved should be above justice. However, the case throws the issue on to the table once again and the Secretary of State may wish to reconsider it. That does not mean dragging out the discredited 2005 Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, but perhaps we are approaching a point at which it would be sensible to consider a process that allows us to deal quickly and effectively, but only if it is fair, with those individual cases that arise out of dealing with the past of the troubles in Northern Ireland. It is an intolerable situation for those paratroopers to face, as the hon. Member for Aldershot set out so eloquently. It is equally intolerable for those who were victims of the troubles. I am not remotely suggesting that we revive the discredited 2005 Bill, but we know that Northern Ireland needs to move out of the past—not in the sense of forgetting its past, but it needs to move out of the grip of the past where that part of the past is a millstone around its neck.

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to the eloquence of the hon. Member for Aldershot. I would hope that in doing so he is not endorsing the hon. Member for Aldershot’s description of the events of Bloody Sunday as mistakes in the heat of the battle.

[Mr Woodward]

Not for one moment. The hon. Member for Aldershot was kind and generous enough to say that when I was Secretary of State I always tried to deal with all these issues with impartiality. That does not mean to say that I do not think it is quite proper for right hon. and hon. Members eloquently to make cases on behalf of those they wish to represent. Whatever view Members may have, the House would have to recognise the distinction with which the hon. Gentleman has represented the case of those who were, of course, serving British interests by being soldiers in Northern Ireland at the time. That is not in any way to be a judgment by me on whether they acted in one area or another, appropriately, rightly or wrongly, but it is none the less to recognise the role they played.

I very much hope that the House will find time to debate Justice Hallett’s review when it happens. Perhaps the Secretary of State will confirm that the Government will give Government time for a full day’s debate on that review, because I think it is essential to rebuild the confidence that has been damaged by the errors that were made by the PSNI. It is crucial that the Government are able to re-establish confidence, and that this administrative process to deal with people finding out whether they were wanted or not wanted is restored to its credibility as an administrative scheme, and not some back-handed way of dealing with them in a special high-handed way.

15:42

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I, like others, welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. I thank those responsible for making it happen. I wish to extend my sympathy again, and that of my party, to the relatives and friends of those killed in the Hyde park bombs, and beyond that to all victims and survivors generally. I do not wish to retread all the ground well covered by others, in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan).

My main concern is that we must deal with the real issues raised by the Downey case in a mature and responsible way that does not do any further damage to the potential for political progress in Northern Ireland that is necessary at this time. It is now very clear that serious errors were made in the management of Operation Rapid, and that those errors compromised victims’ rights to justice. The way this process was administered came at the expense of establishing an honest and robust system that could have dealt adequately with any anomalies that were out there in relation to on-the-runs or others. That could have been done in an accountable and transparent manner.

It is in the interests of the public and the victims to provide honesty and clarity on all aspects of the establishment of this so-called administrative scheme. People I have talked to want to know what went on. They want to know how those involved were selected to qualify for a letter and how some others in similar circumstances did not qualify. Indeed, they want to know—Members have referred to this already—why some people needed a royal pardon. Were they wanted for questioning, but did not quite qualify for the letters? There are many unanswered questions, and people out there want answers, because confidence in politics has been damaged and we need to restore it.

We in the SDLP have repeatedly made clear our concerns about the letters and the whole shady process that followed the collapse of the so-called on-the-run Bill in 2006. Many aspects of the process that led to the collapse of the Downey trial remain extremely unclear. Answers must be given about how it all happened, why it happened and who made it happen. I cannot accept—I do not think any of us can—any disingenuous suggestion or bogus claim that somehow, by a system of osmosis, we were all aware of everything that happened after the collapse of that Bill or that we should have been, even though we are told that it had to be secret. They cannot have it both ways. Claims have been cast around and about in some quarters that information was available to those who wanted or needed it. I want to refute that and state clearly and unambiguously that it is totally inaccurate. None of us who was near, around or about politics at the time was aware of the size and shape of the problem. We certainly knew there was an issue with on-the-runs—a concern, a problem, an anomaly—but nobody knew what was going on in the undergrowth.

This whole process has defied the public’s most basic political expectations of openness, transparency and good governance. It comes as little surprise to me, and should come as little surprise to anybody else, that so much stress has been caused since this shady process began to unravel. I hope that the review led by Justice Hallett will begin to shed some light on how the process was so appallingly badly handled. As a member of the Northern Ireland Committee, I will be doing all I can to pursue the truth—the whole truth—through the inquiries that have been set up. We have a responsibility to investigate, but, I believe—and I would urge others to do so—in a responsible manner. As far as I am concerned, there is no room for political manoeuvring or grandstanding. We need to use the opportunities afforded to us to address concerns properly and answer the questions of victims, survivors and their families, who are vulnerable and at the receiving end of this whole affair.

In Northern Ireland, victims issues are deeply sensitive. There must always be empathy, respect and sensitivity given to victims, most of whom have suffered in silence for many years. Neither empathy, respect nor sensitivity has been evident in the Downey case or the manner in which it has been handled. It is my view that victims and survivors are our first priority and should never be made to feel that they are being treated as an irritation or a problem that can be wished away in the interest of political expediency. We in the SDLP will try to treat victims with respect at all times. Any process that we support to deal with the past will have victims at the centre and be keenly sensitive to their concerns. For many victims, the Downey case has confirmed their worst fears and further undermined their lack of confidence in the whole process of truth, justice and reconciliation.

Let me turn for a couple of moments to the Haass process and the future, which is as important as the past. Like others, I am concerned to ensure that we do not allow ourselves to be prisoners of the past, yet at the same time we have to deal with the hangover and the problems of the past. Some have already tried to use the Downey case as an excuse to walk away from the party leaders’ negotiations that followed the Haass discussions. We cannot let this episode become an excuse to do any further damage or walk away from the negotiating table that Richard Haass helped to create. The aftermath of the Haass process is still in effect today and continues as leaders of the main parties in Northern Ireland are meeting. We are dealing with the very real challenges of the past, parading and flags. Those challenges are still with us. They have been there a long time and will remain for as long as we fail to face up to them.

Individual politicians and political parties have little right to keep complaining about issues if they refuse to take responsibility or commit to finding solutions to major problems.

Through the Haass process, we arrived at a number of positive options and concrete solutions to many of the difficult challenges that face us, especially when it comes to dealing with our past. Lord Eames said last week that issues relating to the past, parading and flags were all intertwined, and that if we solved one of them, we would begin to solve the others as well. It is essential for all of us in Northern Ireland to do all that we can to reach honourable compromises on all these issues. We cannot let the Downey case be used as an excuse for not dealing with the past; indeed, it seems to me to demonstrate the very reason why we must actively, honestly and honourably deal with the past and get to grips with it. It provides us with the impetus that will enable us to get our feet firmly back under the negotiating table and make the hard yards on the hardest of problems. It is unfortunate that the Ulster Unionist party has signalled its intention to detach itself from those negotiations.

We need honest engagement and honourable compromise, now and in the future, more than ever before. The problems that we have out there will not go away until we face them in a mature and honest way. The Downey issue is a perfect illustration of the fact that, while covert side deals and shabby quick fixes can be used for short-term purposes, they are very damaging in the long term. What we badly need are honest, open and transparent discussions with honourable conclusions.

During our efforts in the peace process over the last 20 years, we have benefited from an enormous amount of good will throughout the world. We must not squander that by failing to take on the hard issues that will allow us to finish the job and define a better future for Northern Ireland. I recently spent a week in Washington and New York, and was heartened to hear President Obama and Vice-President Biden echo the words spoken by ex-President Clinton during his recent visit to Derry. They said “Finish the job, finish the job”, and I appeal to all to help us to do that.

15:51

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I, too, welcome the fact that we are debating this important issue. Although the debate has been dominated by Northern Ireland Members, I believe that the issue should concern not just politicians from Northern Ireland, but every Member of the House. At the beginning of his speech—it was a very forensic speech, which should be welcomed—the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) almost apologised for being involved in the debate, but I believe that he as much as anyone else should be concerned about the issues arising from the Downey case.

The whole matter has been brought to the fore by the hurt caused not to people in Northern Ireland, but to people in this very city who were blown apart by an IRA bomb, and, of course, to many others. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) mentioned many constituents who had served in the Army, and also the IRA bombs that had hurt people in his constituency. This is an issue that affects Members throughout the House, because people in their constituencies, including people in this part of the United Kingdom, have been affected by the activities of those who received the amnesty letters—for that is what they are, however the Secretary of State wishes to describe them.

A second reason why all Members should be concerned is the fact that the House of Commons has been brought into disrepute. I believe that not just the last Government but the current Government have been sullied by the scheme whose outcome we saw in the recent court case. It calls into question whether the public can trust the words of those who want and ask for the responsibility of governing the country. Numerous assurances were given in the House: Members were told that the issue had to be addressed, and that when it was addressed, people would know about it. The hon. Member for Aldershot, who is no longer in the Chamber, was the only Member to suggest today that perhaps we should have known—that the information might have been there, but we had missed it. He said “We are busy people, we get e-mails and so forth”. He also quoted what had been said by the then Secretary of State, Dr Reid, in answer to a question. Dr Reid also said at that time that

“we have committed ourselves to resolving this issue but have not decided how it will be resolved”,

and added:

“When we have reached a conclusion, we will of course come back to the House.”—[Official Report, 20 March 2002; Vol. 382, c. 253.]

That did not happen.

One conclusion that was reached, of course, was to introduce the on-the-runs legislation. On at least two occasions after that was withdrawn, the then Secretary of State indicated, as has been pointed out by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), that he had no alternative proposal, despite the fact that the scheme was put in place not long afterwards.

I want to make something clear. I have listened carefully to what the right hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) said. He stated, “This was purely an administrative scheme.” I have also served in a Government Department in Northern Ireland, and the one thing I can assure the House of is that no official, off their own bat, would start an administrative scheme as sensitive as this one, with all its political ramifications, without clear political direction and political origin. It may have eventually taken on an administrative life, but it started off with a conscious decision by politicians. They were politicians who had promised that when they came to address the issue, the facts would be known to the House and—as Dr Reid said, because he realised how sensitive the issue was—to the victims. Promises were, therefore, broken.

One reason why this debate is important is that it is about confidence in this House and in the word of politicians. The Labour party was then in government, and I have listened closely to what the shadow Secretary of State has said. When he was interviewed about the matter, he talked about it having caused hurt but said—I am quoting him almost exactly—that he did not believe the Labour party had anything to apologise for. I believe it does have something to apologise for. It must apologise first to those families who now know they will never get justice because of the double jeopardy rule. It owes an apology as well to those members of the public who have been misled by promises made by successive Secretaries of State in this House, and it also owes an apology to Members of this House.

The current Government cannot escape their responsibility either. When the new Administration took over, seamlessly, there was no indication that they had inherited an administrative scheme which had trundled on. Indeed, the Secretary of State still insists that the letters are virtually meaningless. If they are virtually meaningless, why are they so important to the peace process? If they are virtually meaningless, why did Sinn Fein send scores of names to the Northern Ireland Office to get meaningless bits of paper, and why do those who received those meaningless bits of paper now feel quite happy not to be on the run any more, but to enter the United Kingdom? It just does not add up.

The Secretary of State argues that the letters are meaningless because of what may happen if new evidence comes to light. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) has pointed out, we are not clear whether that is evidence on existing cases or evidence only on new cases, but this applies only if new evidence comes to light. Given the information that the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) has provided to the House today, we know that already there are not just connections or contacts between the Northern Ireland Office and those who would be investigating, but, as Norman Baxter said, there is extremely grave interference in the process.

We have to ask: what instructions are being given to the police? What instructions are being given to the Historical Enquiries Team? It could be, “That person has received a letter, so do not be following any new lines of inquiry, do not be opening any new cases and do not be looking any further at any allegations made about them.” I do not know whether the inquiry’s remit will cover finding out whether any of those who have received such letters have subsequently had any investigation into their cases by the HET. It would be interesting to know that, but I suspect that the answer is no. The Secretary of State may say, “If new evidence comes to light, these letters will not mean anything”, but of course if it can be ensured that no new evidence comes to light, the letters do amount to an amnesty.

If we want an indication that that might be the case, let us examine the case presented by my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea)—that of Liam Averill. Why could Liam Averill not benefit from the scheme? It was because the evidence was already there—he had been serving a prison sentence. He had escaped from prison and a letter was no use to him, so he had to have the royal prerogative of mercy. If any indication were needed that the letters amount to an amnesty—to a certainty that someone will not go to jail—we need only look at the case of Liam Averill, the way in which the assurances have been given by the Secretary of State and the evidence given by the police of the interference by the Northern Ireland Office in these cases.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman’s flow. He and I both served for many years on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and I remember the evidence of Norman Baxter well. May I gently suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he may have slightly heard something in the evidence that the rest of us did not hear, for the words he quoted this afternoon were rather stronger, more specific and, dare I say it, more accusatory than the words I heard? May I simply ask that he look at the transcript of that evidence again?

[Sammy Wilson]

The transcript states three words, “extremely unhealthy interest”, which I do not think anyone, unless they really wanted to, could interpret differently. Such an interest in these cases would indicate that there was interference by the NIO. An “extremely unhealthy interest” cannot mean anything else. If the interest was “unhealthy”, it surely means that the NIO was seeking to direct the inquiry in a way that a policeman felt was not right. If it was “extremely unhealthy,” it was overbearing—that is how I reach my conclusion and I do not think I am reading anything into it. I am coming to a conclusion that is borne out by the facts, one which people must come to if they are to believe that the letters mean anything.

The one thing I do know is that Sinn Fein would not have been happy with the letters if they did not mean something. I can recall around the time of the on-the-runs sitting in studios with Sinn Fein spokesmen who, without the least bit of irony, bleated on and lamented about all these poor people who were separated from their families and could not come home to see their grannies, mummies, sons and daughters because they were on the run. There was no sense of irony arising from the fact that they were on the run because they had permanently separated many people from their families by killing them. If anyone suggests that they would have been happy with a letter that did not remedy that situation, I would say that their argument is extremely weak.

This is an important issue because, by implicating the police, it has undermined the rule of law. I know that the hon. Member for Aldershot tried to put the blame totally on the police in Northern Ireland by saying that they screwed up, and that had they not screwed up this would not have happened, but I believe that it would have happened anyhow. As has been shown in the court judgment, the letter was as important as the information that was contained in it.

The police have been implicated, because they have had to produce the information. I do not know how much direction the police were given, but I would have expected them, knowing the implications of this, to have felt obliged to tell the Policing Board. Yet, anyone hearing the police when they gave evidence to the Policing Board—this was not some constable, sergeant or inspector who might not have been passed all the issues, but an assistant chief constable—could not have concluded anything other than that the police were pursuing these cases. With regard to the on-the-runs, he said.

“There is then an investigation which follows into the individual and the crimes that they may have been involved in, and then this is subsequently reported to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) where test for prosecution is met. We have been working through this process over the last number of years and it continues still to be available. So in effect, as we become aware of a name in a particular incident, we carry out a cold case review and an investigation and report that to the PPS to see then if the test for prosecution is met or any other work that may be done. The powers of arrest will exist for the original offences and there can also be Bench Warrants applied to through the courts if needs be, or if it is in relation to offences in respect of breaking out of a prison, the Prison Act also applies in respect of returning people to prison.”

That was the substance of the evidence that the police gave. There was no indication that there were some individuals for whom letters were being signed so that they could walk free—so that they could come into the jurisdiction and be sure that there would be no prosecution against them.

The rule of law and the integrity of the police—shame on those in the senior ranks who allowed themselves to be associated with this—is at stake. Many individuals in Northern Ireland are saying, “Look, I break the law, I am rightly pursued. Every avenue is used against me.” Yet here we have people who, in some cases, are guilty of mass murder walking free. For all those reasons, I believe that this has been an important debate and that the inquiry is an important inquiry. I hope that we will get to the truth of the matter about who has got these letters, whether or not investigations are still going on, whether the Northern Ireland Office is interfering in any way and stopping investigations or new leads being followed and what the implications are for the judicial process.

Let me make one last point, and then I will finish. If the Government are as appalled by this situation as they suggest—the Secretary of State has said that the letters mean nothing and it will be made clear—why did they not, once they became aware of the scheme, make the situation quite clear to the Justice Minister at least? When policing and justice were being handed over in Northern Ireland, it was kept quiet from him. Why, when there are opportunities to appeal this decision, have they not appealed? I believe that the current Government are as much a part of the political cover-up and are giving as much political cover to Sinn Fein-IRA as the previous Government did. That is why the incident is a shameful one and it merits this debate today.

16:09

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I take the Floor greatly honoured to take part in the debate. I am always proud to represent my constituency in what is often called the greatest seat of democracy in the world, but today I have no pride in what has happened. I stand ashamed to learn what has been done by the previous Government and continued by the present Government.

I stood in this House in 2012 and raised the issue of why there had been no prosecution of Gerry McMonagle who, despite the overwhelming evidence, has never been tried for his crimes despite coming into Northern Ireland many times over the past number of years. As a result of what has happened in the past few months, I believe I know the reason.

In the Adjournment debate in this House at that time on the subject of Lexie Cummings, attended by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and the shadow Secretary of State, I said:

“The family visit the grave of a true gentleman, Lexie Cummings, with questions in their minds and grief in their hearts. Who can answer their questions and give them closure? Questions must be answered, because the family cannot forget that Lexie Cummings was a good man and worthy of justice. They know that for a reason unknown to them, someone has seen fit to give an unrepentant republican murderer the opportunity to parade around, with no fear of justice, in his mayoral robes. That is cruelty in the extreme, and I am here today to ask for parity in the help provided to that family and others so that they can have closure“.

They deserve closure. I also said:

“It was an open-and-shut case, and yet questions must be answered. Why did William Gerard McMonagle not stand trial for the murder of Lexie Cummings? How was it that William Gerard McMonagle was allowed to travel across the border to safety and freedom, and to begin a new life, which has led to him being the mayor of Letterkenny today? Why was he never extradited, when it was known where he was? Why was there no co-operation between the Garda Siochana and the RUC to bring McMonagle to justice?”—[Official Report, 7 March 2012; Vol. 541, c. 980-81.]

Let me outline the case. In 1982, McMonagle was summoned to court to answer to the murder of Lexie Cummings. There was a mistake in the summons, and in the time that it took the RUC to get it corrected and bring it back, he walked out of court, walked across the border and never came back. I drew attention to the matter during my Adjournment debate in 2012 and also had an opportunity to speak to my colleague, Jonathan Craig, a Member of the Legislative Assembly who is also a member of the Policing Board. I asked him to make inquiries on my behalf. I believe that there is an evidential case to be answered by this gentleman for what he did and for the murder of Lexie Cummings.

I want to know why that happened, and what steps have been taken. It would be great to get an answer from the Secretary of State, because the former Minister of State answered in a non-committal way on that night, as some Members will remember. I believe that it was all down to a dirty backroom deal that began under Blair but was perpetuated by this Government. It gives me no satisfaction whatsoever to say that, but that is the way I see it. It was a deal in which unrepentant terrorist murderers were offered amnesty and even a royal pardon from the very royal family that they despised and wanted to kill—and, indeed, did kill in the case of Lord Mountbatten.

That is a bitter pill to swallow when I think of how proud people in Northern Ireland are to see their Queen and of the Jubilee visits during which Protestants and Catholics lined up for hours to catch a glimpse and show their respect. These men had vowed to destroy the monarchy and yet were more than pleased to get their hands on a royal prerogative pardon as facilitated by the Northern Ireland Office and the Secretary of State to wash away the repercussions of their disgusting crimes.

[Dr McCrea]

It is interesting that the said Liam Averill, who got the royal pardon, was back in court in Londonderry just a month ago, not for any of his crimes under the Terrorism Acts, but for charges related to drinking and driving a vehicle under the influence. The judge on the bench fined him £200, but of course he said he did not have £200. The judge said, “How much have you in your pocket?” He said, “I have £30.” “Right, I will change the £200 to £30.” Is that justice?

[Jim Shannon]

It most definitely is not, and everyone in this House would endorse that. It is an example of more salt being put in people’s wounds

There can be no earthly action that can ever wash away this guilt. I am also heartened that in the next world these people will answer for their crimes, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) mentioned earlier.

Sympathies given by a Minister of State about the deaths mean less than nothing to the families of my cousin Kenneth Smyth, murdered by the IRA on 10 September 1970, and Lexie Cummings. They are an insult to their memories and the memories of all the men and women who had their lives snatched away from them by murderers who were then hidden and protected by this Government and the previous Government. Is this democracy? No. Is this moral? No. Is this simply abhorrent and downright wrong? Yes it is. There can be no whataboutery and no justifications or explanations that can satisfy. Apologies have been heard, but they do not make black to be white, wrong to be right, or broken hearts to be mended. Do they rebuild trust? No, they do not do that, either.

In a question to the then Secretary of State in 2011 about the Historical Enquiries Team, I asked:

“The concern is that the investigations might not have been thorough, so does the Secretary of State accept that confidence needs to be instilled in the Unionist community”?—[Official Report, 30 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 919.]

It is little wonder that the then Secretary of State would not agree, because they knew what had happened and what continued to happen on their watch, and they knew that it would not inspire confidence.

You can understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, why we on this side of the House and in this party—and I specifically—have concerns about how the Government have handled the matter. I look forward to the Secretary of State’s response; I hope she can take our points of view on board. I am deeply interested to hear how she will answer them and we look forward to that.

I want to mention a couple of other incidents, because I cannot let this occasion pass without mentioning them. There was the atrocity at La Mon hotel when many people were burnt alive—it is in my constituency. It has been intimated that some of those involved in that have risen to high positions, either in Northern Ireland’s jurisdiction or perhaps in jurisdictions elsewhere, in the Republic of Ireland. Do they have a paper of absolution that lets them get away with what they have done in the past? On behalf of the people in La Mon, I would certainly like to get more details about who has had absolution and how that has worked.

I also think of Ballydugan, where four Ulster Defence Regiment men were murdered. I knew three of those young UDR men personally. Eight people were arrested; they were questioned and then let out. Again, perhaps the Secretary of State can give us some indication of whether any of those eight people had papers of absolution or the “get out of jail free” card. If they had, I will certainly be asking for a re-investigation to be done in relation to them.

[Bob Stewart]

As a result of this extremely good debate this afternoon, I hope that those people with letters will get the message: they have not got a “get out of jail free” card. They have not got an amnesty, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland will now be turning its attention to investigating them and finding them.

[Jim Shannon]

That is exactly what I want to hear from the Secretary of State. I look forward to hearing that that is going to be the case.

The fact is now that not only have the Unionist people no confidence in the dealings of the Government, but the right-thinking moral nationalists are also disgusted by the revelations about the on-the-runs. Let me be rightly understood here: this is not simply an affront to one community but an affront to democracy and justice, and it will take some time for the people of Northern Ireland—whether man or woman, old or young, rich or poor, Protestant or Catholic—to ever again look without much suspicion on the actions of a Government who will take on terrorists on foreign shores, while protecting unrepentant terrorists on their own soil.

I hope that since 2010 Members will have recognised that I have tried in this House always to be very balanced. I have striven to look on the bright side in everything I do, as I do with my constituents as well, and I always attempt not to be too harsh in my comments. There is no bright side in this issue—just shady deals in back rooms. I cannot leave the debate with my usual hope and optimism that something can be done to make things better. Although the Secretary of State has tried to assure us that the letters cannot now be used as a “get out of jail free” card, will that restore confidence? There is a judicial review, but will that restore trust?

I have no plan or quick fix. Only openness and transparency will rebuild what has been destroyed because of what has taken place in the last few months. Many of my constituents have said to me, “I fear what else has been agreed behind our back.” If there is more bad news to come, Secretary of State, we need to know what that is going to be and whether there are any other shady deals that the previous Government have done and that this Secretary of State and the Government are carrying on.

I ask for the truth. The truth has to be heard here today. What I will always think of through this episode is the dirty dealing that rocked a nation and robbed trust in the very principles of democracy and freedom. That is how we feel about it.

The time has come to hold all the terrorists and murderers to account for their actions over the past 40 years, which they might think they have got away with. I believe that, as the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said, it is up to the Secretary of State and this Government to make them accountable for their crimes, to do away with their bits of white paper and to put them in jail and let them rot there for the rest of their lives.

16:19

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

This is a sombre and sobering occasion. There are few occasions in this House when words are insufficient to describe the depth and strength of emotion that runs through a debate—today’s was more a threnody than a debate—and this was one such occasion. May I, like all Members who have spoken, place on the record my deepest sympathies, and those of my party, for the victims of the Hyde park and Regent’s park bombings in 1982? Their names have been read out twice today. Their names will live for ever more. We will remember them.

May I also, as has been the convention this afternoon, praise the Backbench Business Committee and the Northern Ireland Members who made it their business to lobby for this debate on the Floor of the House? If anyone doubts for a moment how raw the emotions still are or how relevant these issues remain, they will be disabused of such notions when they hear what we have heard this afternoon. I apologise for the fact that my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State was unable to stay for the whole debate; there is a funeral today that he and other Members wished to attend.

In many ways we heard two debates this afternoon. On the one hand, we heard a legalistic argument about the legal consequence of this administrative process. I should put on the record the fact that, as the shadow Secretary of State stated in his letter to the Belfast Telegraph earlier this month, our party does not recant the introduction of the on-the-run administration. We say that despite the fact that “understandable anger”, and indeed fury, has been expressed at the subsequent error in the Downey case. I think that it is important to place on the record my hon. Friend’s words when he offered an unequivocal apology for the catastrophic error made in the issuing of the letter to John Downey:

“This has once again accentuated the pain for the families which never goes away and reduces the likelihood of them ever getting truth or justice.”

I cannot add to those points.

[Lady Hermon]

Are we to understand that the Labour party is blaming the PSNI for that catastrophic error and, in fact, commending the political decision made by Mr Blair and carried through by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), and subsequently by the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), that it is a good and defensible position that the on-the-runs, the pals of Mr Gerry Adams who are accused of the most appalling crimes committed in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom, have walked free? Is that the Opposition’s position?

[Stephen Pound]

The hon. Lady appears to be conflating two separate issues. To say that the Labour party, which was in government at the time, does not recant its position with regard to the administrative system in no way implies that people are walking free. People are not walking free. There has been no amnesty. It is crucial that we analyse and use the word “amnesty” with care. The hon. Lady, who is one of the most distinguished educators in Northern Ireland, is exact and precise about the etymology of the words she uses, but the word “amnesty” comes from the Greek word “amnestis”, which simply means forgetfulness—it has the same root as “amnesia”. In the context in which we are using it this afternoon—to mean a potential overlooking—it was so used only in the 16th century.

One of the things that we need to discover—I am sure that the Secretary of State will respond to this when she replies—is whether in the abuse of process there was a creative precedent or any sort of legality that arose from that. It is important, in view of the context and the great significance of this subject, that we are very precise in our language. The Secretary of State has said that there is no amnesty. We need to be precise about that and must certainly return to it.

In response to the hon. Lady’s suggestion, no, I am not seeking to blame the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and nor would I. I hope that she and they will accept my assertion of that fact.

[Dr McCrea]

If this was an honourable scheme or system, why was it devised behind the backs of the people of Northern Ireland, the politicians of Northern Ireland, and Members of this House; and why did only the friends of Gerry Adams get these letters, why was no loyalist included, and why did no soldier receive any letter of comfort?

[Stephen Pound]

Let me say, not for the first time, that I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s personal pain, which is felt by everyone in this House. He deserves considerable respect for the courage he has shown in continuing to raise these issues despite such pain.

The answer to the hon. Gentleman is similar to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) when she asked me about reconciling the irreconcilable in connection with the previously quoted comments by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain). In other words, on the Floor of the House this afternoon I cannot answer the question on the basis of the information that I have been given and of which we are aware. That is partly why the three inquiries are under way, and I hope that they will achieve results. I was not privy to the discussions at the time. My right hon. Friend was, and he has already made a statement. I have made a note in response to the hon. Lady’s extremely potent expression about reconciling the irreconcilable, and I will ask him for the answer, but I regret that I cannot give it on the Floor of the House this afternoon.

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Stephen Pound]

However, I can give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jim Shannon]

The shadow Minister will have heard me outline a case in which there is clear evidence that should be taken on board in convicting and taking to court a gentleman now residing in the Republic who carried out a murder in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman feel, as I do, and as many of us in this House do, that where there is evidence there should be an investigation, that there should be no amnesty for anybody as long as the evidence is there, and if the case has not been tried before the courts, it is time that it was?

[Stephen Pound]

Let me say this unequivocally: absolutely, that is the law. Where there is evidence of criminality, the law must run its course. If the person is living in a foreign jurisdiction, that is an issue we have to consider. I regret the use of the expression “get out of jail free” card. No one is walking around with that in their pocket; that is not the case. I hope that these matters will come out when the House gets to consider the various reports, certainly the review led by Lady Justice Hallett.

While there are the issues of legality and fine points of law, the one thing that most people reading Hansard or listening to the debate would be struck by is the immense courage and bravery of many of the speakers who have, from their personal experience, expressed their views. I particularly praise the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) for refusing to allow himself or his party to go down the nihilistic road of destruction and tear down the structures because of this issue. That is a courageous statement that would not be massively popular with every single element in his constituency, and he deserves praise and credit, as does his party, for making it.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) said—I think that this resonates with many of us, and I will never forget it—that the matter we are discussing today has undermined the peace process, not underpinned it. It is that serious. We have to realise that this is not a minor administrative issue; it is a major point that has to be considered in depth, and I very much hope that the three inquiries will do so.

I want to leave time for the Secretary of State to respond to those points. As the Prime Minister said, this is not the time to unpick the peace process. It is not the time to say, simply and in the name of expediency, that everything that has gone before should be forgotten. It cannot. We have heard from many speakers today how painful, raw and fresh the wounds still are. We cannot forget. We have to analyse and discover what went wrong, and we have to be open and honest about it. The fact that the current First Minister and Justice Minister were not privy to all the decisions is profoundly regrettable. I say no more than that, but I am sure the House will appreciate how much of an understatement that truly is.

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) for his contribution, which was extremely frank, open and helpful, and I very much hope that he will be involved in the various inquiries.

We have spent this afternoon talking above all about a time of great darkness when things happened that we regret. Every single one of us must bend every bone and strain every sinew to ensure that if we achieve nothing else in this House, it will be a move forward from that darkness into the light, where we can be open, honest and transparent, and where there is a better future for the people of that very brave part of the United Kingdom, because, frankly, they deserve no less than that.

With that in mind, I support the inquiries. I am very grateful for today’s contributions and apologise for not being able to respond in detail to some of the points that have been made. However, I will ensure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath will respond—I can assure the House of that—and profoundly hope that when this matter is again ventilated on the Floor of the House we will have more information.

[Mark Durkan]

My hon. Friend says that, in the interests of truth, he will ask the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) to address the answers he gave saying that there was no scheme. At the time the right hon. Gentleman announced the withdrawal of the Bill, he said he would have to come back to the issue. That did not necessarily mean that he would come back to it in the House, but he did say that it would have to be addressed through other means. That is one of the reasons why some of us asked at subsequent talks, “What is happening about the on-the-runs?”, but we were basically told, “Shut up about it, because nobody else is worrying.”

[Stephen Pound]

If I have learned one thing in my life, it is that such language should not be used when speaking to people such as my hon. Friend or to any Member of this House, least of all Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies. I will certainly carry that message back. I think that the point my hon. Friend made earlier about precedent is one to which we will return, because it is of profound concern. If this document had no legal standing, did it create a precedent?

This has been a sombre and sober occasion. It is appropriate that we have been discussing matters of great moment this afternoon. I profoundly hope that the occasions on which we have to have such debates become fewer and fewer. May I thank all 15 hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this debate? Nothing that has been said on the Floor of the House this afternoon has been less than greatly impressive. It demands attention and will be acted upon.

16:33

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) for moving the motion with such a powerful and eloquent speech in opening a debate of outstanding quality. I pay tribute to all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part. Their contributions were authoritative, fluent and heartfelt.

I welcome a theme that has run through many of the speeches today—that despite the solemnity of this occasion and grave concern about the OTR scheme, we should still recognise the tremendous progress that has been made in Northern Ireland in the past 20 years, much of which is attributable to the Members who have taken part in this debate. That theme of optimism despite the setback of the OTR scheme was reflected in the words of the right hon. Gentleman, and those of the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and many others.

Before I respond to the points made in the debate, I want to join in the tributes to the victims of the Hyde park atrocity. We have heard their names, and I want to read them out again—Lieutenant Anthony Daly, Trooper Simon Tipper, Lance Corporal Jeffrey Young and Squadron Quartermaster Corporal Roy Bright. They all lost their lives in one of the most brutal atrocities of the long years of the troubles.

Today, I want to acknowledge once again the deep sense of anger felt by so many people, not least in this House, about the judgment in the trial of John Downey and about the OTR scheme. I am sure that that anger and distress are felt most directly by the families of those who lost their lives in the Hyde park atrocity in 1982, and I want to reiterate my condolences to them. One can only imagine the depth of the pain caused by seeing the man accused of the crime walk free from court. But I know that this sense of anger has been felt more widely by other victims of terrorism who have never seen those who murdered their loved ones brought to justice, and many of whom I have met directly. I therefore want to reiterate today what I said in Belfast two weeks ago, which is that the Government are profoundly sorry for what happened in the Downey case, for reviving painful memories and for putting so many victims through the agonies of loss once again.

Turning to the questions asked by hon. Members, the scheme of which John Downey’s letter formed a part was established by the previous Government in 2000, as we have heard. It was accelerated following the rejection of the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill in early 2006. That was the vehicle by which the previous Government had sought to give effect to commitments they had made at Weston Park in 2001.

The scheme mainly operated in this way. Sinn Fein submitted a list of individuals who believed that if they returned to the UK, they might be arrested by the police in connection with terrorist offences committed before the 1998 Belfast agreement. The names were then checked by the police, and in some cases by the Public Prosecution Service. If that checking process concluded that the lack of evidence available at the time meant that there was no realistic prospect of a successful prosecution, the individuals concerned were in most cases informed that they were no longer wanted by police in a letter signed by a Northern Ireland Office official.

Since the Downey case, the NIO has been engaged in an intensive exercise to reconcile the different information held by the NIO, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Sinn Fein to establish the actual numbers dealt with under the scheme. That work has revealed the following provisional information: NIO records indicate that 207 names were provided by Sinn Fein or by solicitors acting on their behalf, while a further 10 names were identified by the Prison Service of Northern Ireland and four by the Irish Government, bringing the total to 221 names.

[Lady Hermon]

I intervene to make two points. First, will the Secretary of State explain how on earth the Prison Service of Northern Ireland was in possession of information indicating that certain people were on the run and was therefore in a position to pass on that information to the scheme? Secondly, I am sure that she would like to take this opportunity to extend her condolences in relation to those who lost their lives in Enniskillen and in relation to the two UDR men who were allegedly killed by Mr Downey, who left the Old Bailey free at the end of February.

[Mrs Villiers]

I of course extend my condolences to the relatives of those who lost their lives in the Enniskillen attack and, indeed, to all others who have suffered at the hands of terrorists, both in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

The role of the Prison Service, along with other matters, is for the Hallett inquiry to consider. My understanding is that the connection with the Prison Service is that the individuals had absconded from prison and the Prison Service wished to know whether they were still wanted.

The PSNI’s records show that it received a further seven names that do not appear to have been passed to the NIO for consideration. As far as the NIO can establish at this point, the total number of cases in which the eventual outcome was an indication that the individual concerned was not wanted by the police appears to be at least 187, but the complexity in the way the process operated means that the full confirmed facts can be established only once the Hallett report has been published.

The process of reconciling the numbers has indicated that, within the totals that I have set out, 45 individuals had their cases considered under the current Government and that three of those names were passed by the PSNI to NIO officials during this Parliament. In 12 of the cases considered by the current Government, individuals were sent letters by the NIO stating that, on the basis of current evidence, they were not wanted by the police. No letters have been issued by the NIO since December 2012 and, as far as the Government are concerned, the scheme is over.

The outcome of the Downey case has led many to believe that the letters that were sent under the scheme amount to an amnesty from prosecution. That point was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), for Tewkesbury and for Amber Valley, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others.

[Jim Shannon]

Would the Secretary of State like to confirm on the record, in today’s Hansard, whether William Gerard McMonagle is one of the people who has a white paper that gives him absolution and that he will not be made accountable for his crime of killing Lexie Cummings? If the evidence is there but he has never been before a court, does she agree that he should be brought before one?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am not able to comment on individual cases today, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that if there is evidence to prosecute individuals, it is vital that the PSNI pursues that evidence and that prosecution takes place in the normal way.

[Mark Durkan]

On the status of the letters, when the Attorney-General spoke in the House on 26 February, in column 265 of Hansard, he said:

“Neither I nor the CPS were prepared to accept that the letter and the circumstances in which it had been given were such as to automatically prevent Mr Downey’s prosecution.”—[Official Report, 26 February 2014; Vol. 576, c. 265.]

Was the Secretary of State or the NIO asked to make that representation to the Attorney-General, because somebody seems to have made that case to him?

[Mrs Villiers]

The prosecuting authorities make their decisions independently of Government.

I want to reiterate to the House unequivocally that the letters do not confer an amnesty. Nobody who holds one of these letters should be in any doubt: they will not protect you from arrest or prosecution if the police can gather sufficient evidence against you; they are not an exemption, immunity or amnesty, which is something that could only ever be granted by Parliament; they are not “get out of jail free” cards.

[Lady Hermon]

It is very generous of the Secretary of State to give way and I do appreciate it. Will she please explain to the House, if one of these letters is not an amnesty and it does not represent immunity from prosecution, why on earth the coalition Government continued with this ghastly, immoral scheme in 2010 when they took over No. 10? Why did they not just let the normal criminal process run its course if it did not provide immunity and it was not a pardon for those who were on the run?

[Mrs Villiers]

I can only reiterate to the hon. Lady that the letters did not confer an amnesty or immunity. If they had, the current Government would have stopped the scheme immediately on coming to office. All the letters amounted to was a statement of fact regarding an individual’s status at the time in connection with the police and the prosecuting authorities. If the facts change and the evidential test is met, the individual concerned will be subject to due process just like anybody else. When the Government took office and were made aware of the arrangements, we allowed the checking process to continue on that basis. By that stage, it was coming towards its end. In the case of John Downey, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, has made clear, it was not the fact of John Downey having a letter that led the judge to stay the prosecution. It was the fact that the letter contained factually incorrect and misleading information, on which Mr Downey relied, that led the judge to rule that an abuse of process had taken place. Mr Downey should never have been sent a letter saying that he was not wanted because at all relevant times he was wanted by the Metropolitan police in connection with the Hyde park bombing.

Several hon. Members have raised concerns about the fact that the CPS decided not to appeal in the Downey case. As the House heard from the Attorney-General, careful consideration was given to whether an appeal should take place, but the CPS concluded that such an appeal would have no realistic prospect of success, and that is why it decided not to go ahead with one.

Recognising the severe concerns expressed in the Chamber and further afield—including by the First Minister, the Justice Minister and many victims’ groups—about the OTR scheme, the Prime Minister responded swiftly by establishing a judge-led inquiry into the scheme. As we have heard today, that inquiry will be chaired by an eminent judge from the Court of Appeal, Lady Justice Hallett. The terms of reference require the provision of a full public account of the operation and extent of the scheme, to establish whether other mistakes were made and to make recommendations. I assure the House that it will be a meaningful, exacting and rigorous process to get to the truth of what happened and to provide the answers for which the public are calling.

[Dr McCrea]

When the Prime Minister spoke about the inquiry, he said that the eminent judge would review all the letters. It now seems to be some of the letters. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Prime Minister’s statement takes precedence and that all the letters will be reviewed by the eminent judge?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. It was of course also raised by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). Let me be clear: Justice Hallett is free to look at all the documents that the Government have and at all the cases. The exchange of correspondence to which the hon. Lady referred was designed to provide an assurance that, because of the limited time available, the judge was not required to conduct a detailed examination of every single case and that it was acceptable to focus on cases in which initial checks indicated there was a problem, as well as a sample of others. Inevitably, when we seek answers in a limited time frame, so that we get the answers we need, there are practical limitations on what the judge may be able to do. But I am very clear that she will be allowed to do exactly what she wants to do in relation to any one of those cases. I am sure that she will also look generally at the cases across the board.

Dame Heather indicated in a statement today that she will seek to establish the facts and, where necessary, accountability in relation to what happened, to find out who was and is responsible for what happened with the OTR scheme. I expect the judge’s report to be provided to me by the end of May, or by the end of June if the May deadline proves to be impractical. As hon. Members have pointed out—not least the right hon. Member for Belfast North in his opening speech—several inquiries are under way to get to the truth of what happened, including by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Justice Committee and the police ombudsman.

I agree with a number of the comments made this afternoon, including by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), that in many ways these inquiries can be complementary and can combine to reveal the full truth of what has happened.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Will my right hon. Friend indicate to the House whether, in her mind, there is any prospect of the Downey case being reviewed, or is it now—unlike the rest of the cases—effectively a closed case?

[Mrs Villiers]

My understanding of the legal position is that it is most unlikely that the courts would allow the case of the Hyde park bombing to be reopened, but the position may be different for other offences for which Mr Downey might be pursued.

Returning to the Hallett report, until Dame Heather is able to report, there are limits to what I can say to avoid pre-empting her conclusions, but I wish to make clear this Government’s position on amnesties: we do not support, and have never supported, amnesties from prosecution. That is why both coalition parties opposed the legislation introduced by Labour in 2005, which was withdrawn in the face of widespread opposition, as emphasised today by the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell).

Had the Government been presented when we came to office with any scheme that amounted to immunity, exemption or amnesty from prosecution, we would have stopped it immediately. This Government believe in the rule of law and due process, and that applies across the board to everyone. Those who are still wanted for crimes must expect the law to take its course, and those who received letters under the OTR scheme cannot rely on them to avoid questioning or prosecution for offences where information or evidence becomes available now or in the future. In conclusion—

[Lady Hermon]

I am sorry to interrupt the Secretary of State just as she is coming to the end of her comments, but she seems to have overlooked—by accident, I am sure—one vital point that concerns the legal status of the letters. The former, very distinguished, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland emphasised the importance of a clear ruling on the legal status of those letters, and in my contribution I specifically asked the Secretary of State whether, at the end of the debate, she would give an assurance that she will speak to the Attorney-General, and that someone, either Lady Justice Hallett or the Attorney-General, would tell us once and for all—including the people of Northern Ireland, the victims and their families, and those who hold these letters—what is their legal status.

[Mrs Villiers]

I felt I answered the hon. Lady’s question by stating that the letters were simply statements of facts at the time, which means they do not have any formal legal status. They were not an amnesty; they were merely statements of fact. I appreciate that another key theme running through today’s debate, and a source of the grave anger and concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Belfast North, and the hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for North Down, is that the facts of the scheme were not shared with the Northern Ireland Executive or fully shared with Parliament.

[Mr Woodward]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Villiers]

Not for the moment.

On behalf of the Government I have expressed regret that we did not discuss the scheme with Ministers in the Executive, especially after we concluded in August 2012 that any new cases should be directed to the devolved authorities. That was clearly a point at which we should have discussed the matter with the Justice Minister, but we did not. Today I repeat that apology for not sharing the information about the scheme with the First Minister or the Justice Minister, and I welcome the apology made by the shadow Secretary of State for Labour’s role and the way in which the scheme was administered under the previous Government.

The scheme and the era of side deals that undermined confidence in the political process must come to an end, and we now need to look forward. Whatever the conclusion of the inquiries now under way into the OTR controversy, the imperative to deal with issues such as flags, parading and the past, and to push for real reconciliation, is as strong as ever. Indeed, the events of recent weeks provide a further convincing reason why Northern Ireland needs an agreed way forward on the past, with structures that can operate in a balanced, accountable and above all transparent way and command public confidence. I hope that the whole House can agree on that as we express once again our strong and unified support for Northern Ireland and its continuing journey towards a genuinely shared and reconciled future.

16:59

[Mr Dodds]

In the two minutes I have, I shall sum up. I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) rightly said, this issue affects not just people in Northern Ireland. It should affect Members from all parts of the United Kingdom. There are fundamental issues at stake.

[Mr Woodward]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Dodds]

Very briefly.

[Mr Woodward]

I am very grateful because the right hon. Gentleman gives me the chance to get on the record the fact that I deeply regret that the Secretary of State did not deal with the issue appropriately raised by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). It is absolutely essential to continue the process in a bipartisan way. I think the right hon. Gentleman would also wish to raise this concern. We need to establish whether the letters are simply statements of fact, as I believe, or whether or not, as a consequence of the Downey judgment, they have taken on a different perspective. That is absolutely crucial. I deeply regret that the Secretary of State did not take my intervention and am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for doing so.

[Mr Dodds]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. No doubt aspects of the debate have raised more questions than answers. However, I do not accept the validation of the scheme given by the shadow Minister. The legal status will come out when the judge makes her report, but, given the implementation of this secret deal, the way it was done and the reason it was kept secret, for anyone to think it was simply about statements of fact stretches credulity. We will come back to those issues.

I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. The themes we have touched on include putting victims at the heart of the matter—one theme was our concern for victims and justice. Another theme was the operation of the scheme and its effect. It is very clear in all quarters that there is no support whatever for any kind of amnesty. That is why there is anger about the way in which the scheme operated in effect in the Downey case.

We have explored the theme of what people knew and when. It is clear from contributions made by Members on both sides of the House that there is a consensus that politicians in Northern Ireland were kept in the dark, that Parliament was effectively kept in the dark, and that people knew about the scheme only if they were members of Sinn Fein. I acknowledge what the Secretary of State said about the fact that she kept the Northern Ireland Executive in the dark, even after the scheme was stopped. It would be useful to have an explanation of why that decision was taken.

Another theme is that the process was one-sided. The one-sidedness of the administration of justice in Northern Ireland is currently a massive issue. This issue plays into that.

I welcome the inquiries. Lady Justice Hallett has said today that she will fully and rigorously examine the scheme from its inception to date.

I am grateful for the opportunity to put on record some truths about the issue, but there will be an opportunity to return to it, and I look forward to doing so. All hon. Members can be assured that, as far as the Democratic Unionist party is concerned, unless it is very clear that the full truth emerges, that Downey or a case like it can never happen again, that the on-the-run scheme is put to bed completely—the Secretary of State has said that it is over—that the legal status of the letters is made clear, and that they do not protect anyone from now on and are effectively rescinded, we will have to return to this issue and deal with it again.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the background to and implications of the High Court judgment on John Downey.

PETITION

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

17:00

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Will hon. Members leaving the Chamber do so quickly please ?

[Keith Vaz]

I wish to present a petition on behalf of Mrs S Kaur, Patricia Pitter, Kade aged five, Dillon aged eight, Mohammed Khan, Mr Mistry, and Councillors Bhatti, Clair, Osman and Newcombe. The petition has gathered 158 signatures from local residents. They are very concerned about a crossing in my constituency that crosses Gipsy Lane, Leicester. At the moment, there is a crossing but cars are not stopping at this pedestrian crossing. They would like to see a pelican crossing installed, which would mean that cars would have to stop. I went there last Saturday. The cars did stop when I arrived with a delegation of residents, but it is very clear that cars are not obeying the law. We hope that with this petition they will be able to do so.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Leicester East,

Declares that the zebra crossing on Gipsy Lane, Leicester is unsafe as the drivers do not stop long enough, they drive through when pedestrians are half way across the road and further declares that the Petitioners are concerned that there is an accident waiting to happen on this road.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Communities and Local Government and Leicester City Council to investigate installing a pelican crossing at this site.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

[P001337]

Mental Health Care (Older People in Lincolnshire)

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Harriett Baldwin.)

17:01

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

World Health Organisation figures show that mental illness is responsible for the largest proportion of the disease burden, at just over 22%, in the UK. That is greater than that of cardiovascular disease or cancer, each of which stand at about 16%. In our society, mental health simply does not receive the same attention as physical health. People with mental health problems frequently experience stigma and discrimination, not only in the wider community but from services they need to access. This is exemplified in part by lower treatment rates for mental health conditions and an historical underfunding of mental health care relative to the scale and impact of mental health problems.

However this problem may have arisen, it is persistent and the consequences are plain. People with severe mental illness have a reduced life expectancy of 15 to 20 years, even though the majority of the reasons for this are entirely avoidable. I cannot be the only one to think that this can no longer be tolerated in the 21st century. I am glad that the Government have made real progress in promoting the principle of parity of esteem with their commitment to put mental health on a par with physical health in the NHS. Central to this approach is the fact that there is a strong relationship between mental health and physical health, and that the influence works in both directions: poor mental health is associated with a greater risk of physical health problems, and poor physical health is associated with a greater risk of mental health problems.

I sought this debate to raise the particular issue of mental health care for older people in my county, an issue that can only continue to grow in importance as our population ages. The UK is experiencing a significant population shift, with both the size of the older population and projected life expectancies rising considerably faster than previously expected. Significant growth is expected amongst those over 65 in the next few decades, with the oldest age group of those aged 85 and above growing proportionally the fastest. As the population aged over 65 increases, the number of older people with mental health problems will also, inexorably, increase. The largest increase in numbers of any mental health problem will be seen in the rise of the numbers of people with depression, but there will also, undoubtedly, be significant increases in the number of people with dementia.

Surprisingly, perhaps, this will be compounded by co-morbidity with substance misuse in this age group. Although usually regarded as a problem affecting younger adults, abuse is overlooked in the elderly. In the next few decades, there are likely to be increasing numbers of older people exhibiting co-morbid symptoms, as alcohol and drug users from the baby boomer generation reach and pass retirement.

One of my constituents, a community nursing assistant at the Manthorpe centre in Grantham, has spoken to me about his concerns for the future. Although the centre is not in my constituency but in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), it provides mental health services for older people from all over Lincolnshire. As such, concerns have been raised with me about the reorganisation of services at the centre and elsewhere in the county. The job of a community nursing assistant, as my hon. Friend the Minister will know, is to provide the emotional and practical support needed by elderly patients. Assistants thus deal with a large number of lonely, isolated and vulnerable people. It is not only the mental health diagnoses of those in this group that cause problems, but the simple loneliness. Often, their health care workers are the only people they see or talk to on a regular basis. Indeed, my constituent has told me that he and his colleagues can be the “nearest relative” at funerals, which gives some sense of the acuity of the problem.

It used to be the case that families and communities looked after their older members and supported them, but sadly, as we all know, that is all too often not the case. The disestablishment of those community posts in Lincolnshire is thus causing real concern. Those who fill them save the NHS money by helping those in need directly, without their needing to be admitted to hospital, which is far more costly than being supported while living at home. Yet when I contacted the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to ask about these posts, I was told they were intended to provide social intervention rather than health care per se—a function that the trust feels should be carried out by local authorities through their social care staff. So it is that a lack of funding from one part of the system that does not regard itself as responsible for the establishment of these posts runs the risk of costing itself and other parts of the NHS more money in the long term.

I understand from more recent discussions that the trust is now working closely with our local authorities to ensure that patients remain supported, but I understand and share the concerns of many that elderly folk in need may fall through the cracks despite good intentions. Indeed, that is too often the case where NHS care and social care interact—an issue that I know has been raised on numerous occasions in the House by colleagues on both sides. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister told the House what steps his Department is taking to work with trusts that are reducing provision to ensure that robust support networks are maintained and improved for patients with mental health needs.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The people in Lincolnshire will be grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for raising these issues. Does he agree that they are exacerbated by the rural nature of our county? Frankly, people in a deeply rural county such as Lincolnshire sadly get a worse service than people living in urban areas.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. All too often, and not just in this area of public service, as he knows, but in so many others, we get a much worse service in rural communities—particularly, it seems, in Lincolnshire —than many other places. That is in part made up for by the fact that we have extremely strong communities, with strong ties between neighbours and families, but as I know he knows, far too often we seem to draw the short straw in this and other areas.

That is in part why I also want to raise with the Minister the apparent disconnect between services for those aged over 65 and those under that age, given our ageing population in the county. In that regard, I have been told that the care provided by the community mental health team in my part of Lincolnshire for those under 65 has been fairly extensive, including a lot of support for those settling back at home after a hospital admission, but that such services are not so readily available for those aged over 65. Why the disconnect and what can the Minister do about it?

I am aware, of course, that the Equality Act 2010 has been vital in shifting mental health services towards age inclusiveness. The Minister will know, and has no doubt acted on the fact, that there is now a duty on health and social care services not to discriminate on age grounds. That ought to mean that older people with mental health problems should have the same access to mental health services that had previously been available only to people under the age of 65. Is this working? No doubt the Minister can tell the House, for there is a great deal of concern, at least in Lincolnshire, that it is not. I understand that the Department of Health has acknowledged the under-representation of over-65s in the IAPT—improving access to psychological therapies—initiative and has made a commitment to undertake various corrective actions to address that in line with the provisions of the 2010 Act. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House what his assessment is of the current state of mental health services for those aged over 65 and what steps he is taking to ensure improvements in provision and access in Lincolnshire and elsewhere.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that to integrate older adults’ mental health services into “ageless” services makes no sense. Older people have very different physical, social and psychological issues, which require specialist old-age psychiatrists working in specialist services for older adults. Older people tend to have multiple physical co-morbidities or frailties, which often complicate their mental health treatment. Many older people also have specific cognitive problems, social issues or end-of-life concerns, which may precipitate or sustain mental illness.

It would seem that the key element is flexibility of access. We need to ensure that people do not automatically become ineligible to continue to be treated by a service once they pass the age of 65, so that someone under that age with, for example, early-onset dementia can gain access to the expertise of comprehensive older-adult mental health services. I should be grateful for the Minister’s comments on those points.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has also identified a “mental health treatment gap”, exemplified by lower treatment rates for mental health conditions, premature mortality among people with mental health problems, and the underfunding of mental health care relative to the scale and impact of mental health problems—the problems that I described at the beginning of my speech. Annual statistics published by the Department of Health on investment in mental health have shown that in 2011-12 there was a 1% decrease in overall investment and a 3% decrease in investment in older people’s mental health services. I know that addressing the funding gap will be challenging—particularly as such underinvestment tends to be exacerbated during times of austerity, when mental health services risk being cut in preference to physical health services—but I venture to suggest to the Minister that things should not go on as they have been.

Given the current challenge to address the high levels of both identified and unmet need, an increasing ageing population will have significant resource consequences for mental health and social care services for older people, which are already struggling to provide care at present. Unless there are major breakthroughs in new cost-effective treatments, or prevention and promotion initiatives succeed in reducing the incidence and prevalence of mental health problems among older people, services will need significant extra resources to meet that demand. In practice, however, mental health spending has in the past followed an erratic pattern nationally, with cuts in some areas and investment in others.

What, ultimately, I want to hear from the Minister tonight is an assurance that he is focusing on this issue, and that enough is being done to ensure that mental health services receive proper funding, in Lincolnshire and throughout the country.

17:12

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing the debate, and on his speech. I do not think that I disagreed with anything he said. He was absolutely right to highlight the fact that when finances are tight in the NHS it always seems to be mental health that loses out. That happened in the middle of the last decade, and it has happened again now. There is what I describe as an institutional bias against mental health in the NHS, and it must be combated. That is why, as my hon. and learned Friend said, we have legislated for parity of esteem.

The levers—the financial incentives—in the NHS are unbalanced, and that disadvantages mental health. On the physical health side of the divide is the politically powerful guide relating to the 18-week period between referral and treatment, but there is no equivalent on the mental health side. Moreover, payment by results operates in the case of physical health. The combination of those two things sucks money into acute hospitals—it increases investment at the acute end of the spectrum—but takes money away from mental health, which depends on block grants negotiated locally. We must change that, and next year we shall introduce access standards to mental health services so that we can start to address the imbalance in the system.

As my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, the fact that we are all living longer makes the increasing prevalence of these problems inevitable, and, although we have legislated to make age discrimination unlawful, it cannot be eradicated overnight. Because of the way the system works, older people still lose out, such as in access to IAPT—improving access to psychological therapies—cognitive behaviour therapies.

Dementia and Specialist Older Adult Mental Health Services, which is part of the foundation trust in Lincolnshire, provides a range of specialist community and in-patient services and contributes to all key care pathways for older adults with dementia and mental health-related needs. As Members will be aware, these services are designed and commissioned locally so that they can be closely matched with the needs of the population they serve. That does not always happen, but it is the principle.

Crucially, local GPs are ideally placed to know local health needs and they now play a key role in commissioning health services. Lincolnshire Partnership is therefore working with four GP clinical commissioning groups in Lincolnshire and with other providers to improve the services it offers. Aims include reducing unnecessary hospital admissions, facilitating hospital discharge, and delivering more home and community-based services. There is a range of initiatives within this programme, such as having mental health nurse-led clinics in GP practices and care pathways. That is a very important advance. Bringing mental health back into primary care is a necessary reform because very often people get stuck in long waiting lists, waiting for referral to treatment and support. Other initiatives include CCG-aligned community teams with functional mental health and dementia-specific clinical pathways and skills, nursing home support, and developing behavioural psychological support services in the community for people with complex behavioural needs.

In October 2012 we announced a £50 million capital investment fund to support the NHS and social care in improving dementia care. The funding is aimed at expanding the range of health and care services, offering supportive environments to help the growing number of people with dementia get the best possible care. My hon. and learned Friend will be aware of the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge, which was issued in 2012 and which focuses on improving health and care services, making our communities more dementia-friendly and increasing research into dementia, both trying to find a cure and gaining a better understanding of how we care for people with dementia.

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was awarded £250,000 from that programme to transform the care environment at the Manthorpe centre, to improve care for people with dementia in Lincolnshire. The Manthorpe centre is a 20-bed assessment and treatment unit located on the district general hospital site at Grantham that offers specialist care to older people suffering from dementia or functional conditions. This is a high-level service provided in hospital to allow for a needs assessment by a range of professionals who provide an appropriate bespoke treatment plan.

Local services always need to be alive to the need to change and improve so that they can meet the needs of the people they serve. Of course this can sometimes be unsettling for staff, and organisations need fully to engage with them in achieving improvement. It is good that the health worker at the Manthorpe centre went to speak to my hon. and learned Friend to raise his concerns directly so that they could be debated here in Parliament. This is all the more important when, as I will discuss in a moment, we are focusing on mental health and older people as never before.

I would encourage my hon. and learned Friend to continue to raise these points with the chief executives of local authorities and NHS organisations in his area. As I mentioned earlier, the success of the managed care network in his area has recently been independently recognised, which is good.

My hon. and learned Friend asked what the Government were specifically trying to do on national policy. We now know much more about the causes of some of the most common mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety. We also know what can, in many cases, prevent them, and we are focusing on raising awareness of the interventions that we know work—for example, reducing isolation in older people. Loneliness and isolation affect people with mental health problems. We know that loneliness has a very negative impact on physical and mental health. The mental health of people who are on their own and not seeing anyone deteriorates, and they may also start to drink too much—that is a common feature of loneliness and it exacerbates the problem. Loneliness is associated with conditions such as cardiovascular disease, dementia, poor sleep and depression. Loneliness and social isolation are problems that government alone cannot solve.

Many of the solutions to combating loneliness lie within local communities themselves, but government has a part to play. One thing that I always stress is that if we are to combat loneliness and focus on well-being, which is the principle at the heart of the Care Bill we have been taking through Parliament, there has to be a richer collaboration between statutory services and the wider community. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the strong communities in Lincolnshire. One potential solution to the challenges he highlighted is the fact that there are growing numbers of people in retirement. Although some have care needs, many of them are fit and healthy and often they want to give something back but do not know how to do so. The question of how we can unleash the power of our communities and those people who do have time on their hands and want to contribute suggests to us part of the solution to the challenge we face.

By bringing people together, giving them the right tools and increasing the evidence base on loneliness, we can encourage local commissioners to tackle this important problem. I agree with the points made by my hon. and learned Friend on both parity of esteem and the links between physical and mental health—as he made very clear, one so often causes the other. We have taken action to try to address these problems. We have enshrined in law the equal status of mental and physical health in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. We know that people living with significant and persistent mental health problems have significantly reduced health and quality of life, and that they live on average 16 to 25 years less than the general population—that is extraordinary and, as he indicated, it is avoidable. The reasons people with mental health problems die earlier could be addressed and we could reduce this outrageous gap in life expectancy.

That is why reducing premature death in people with serious mental illness is identified as a priority area in both the public health and NHS outcomes frameworks, and it is why the NHS operating framework specifically focuses on the physical health of people affected by mental illness for the coming year. Let me explain the purpose of the outcome frameworks. That is horrible jargon, but the point of such frameworks is to try to focus on what the results are for people and to measure the performance of organisations across the country in what they achieve for people and whether their performance is improving over time. That starts to enable us to hold the system to account.

We are investing more than £400 million to give hundreds of thousands of people, in all areas of the country, access to psychological therapies. We are supporting local organisations in taking effective action to improve mental health. Our mental health strategy and the implementation framework that goes with it, and our suicide prevention strategy, focus on specific actions that local organisations can take to improve mental health across the life course in their areas. In June last year, we announced the better care fund, and from April 2015 councils and the NHS will get £3.8 billion to work with each other and the voluntary sector. Plans are now being assured—they have been submitted in draft form—and challenged at local and national level. In 2015-16 the fund will receive an additional £2 billion from clinical commissioning group budgets and £800 million from existing health and social care funding streams. This fund is about a new way of working, with joint decisions made locally to deliver joined-up care, pooling the resource that is available, for people who need it most.

My hon. and learned Friend gave an example of one organisation saying, “It’s not our responsibility; it’s somebody else’s.” That sort of silo working has to end. We know that if we harness the public resource that is available, join up more effectively the efforts of different public sector organisations and work collaboratively with the wider community, we can make much better use of our available resources. It really should be a thing of the past that we hear organisations saying, “It’s not our responsibility; it’s somebody else’s.” They must resolve their problems collaboratively. I was encouraged to hear that that now appears to be starting to happen.

Last year, we announced 14 integrated care pioneers to work on ambitious and innovative approaches to delivering person-centred co-ordinated care and support. The pioneers are supported by national partners. They draw on international expertise and work with senior sponsors within the sector, allowing them to innovate, break down the barriers that exist to joining up care and lead the way on integrated health.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned the rural nature of Lincolnshire. Well, Cornwall is rather similar, as indeed is my own county of Norfolk. In Cornwall, the integrated care pioneer has a fantastic collaboration between volunteers and GPs. The volunteers give companionship to people who are living on their own, and work collaboratively with GPs. GPs recognise that the volunteers help them in their work and reduce the isolation that so many people feel, and they have seen significant reductions in hospital admissions. So, if we improve lives, we save money, and that must be what we are all after.

Each pioneer is focusing work on its own priorities, which is bringing specific progress on issues. Many of the pioneers, in both rural and urban areas, face the same issues. Partners are coming together and overcoming difficulties for everyone. We want to disseminate, as quickly as possible, the learning from those areas so that everyone can gain the benefit of this exciting pioneering work. We aim to make integrated care and support the norm and to improve the experiences of patients, service users and carers.

“Closing the Gap”, which we launched in January, indicates the importance of equity between mental and physical health for this Government. It outlines 25 priority areas where people can expect to see, and experience, the fastest changes. One priority area is tackling inequalities in access to mental health services.

Older people typically use mental health services much less often than their working-age counterparts. According to IAPT data, only 6% of people who use psychological therapies are over 65. In response, we supported the advertising campaign delivered through Age UK and Carers UK to raise awareness of psychological therapy services among older people.

NHS England is promoting psychological therapy services for adults who have depression or anxiety disorders through the national IAPT programme and, as part of this work, is paying particular attention to access for people over 65 years of age. It funded the advertising campaign to promote IAPT services. The promotional campaign challenges views that depression is natural in older people—that is an old assumption that people make—and encourages GPs to refer older people to IAPT services and older people to self-refer.

Another strand of IAPT development is a project that aims to ensure that psychological therapies are routinely available to people with long-term physical health conditions and medically unexplained symptoms. Given that many older people have such physical health conditions, this project will lead to greater use of IAPT services where necessary. We have also developed a new curriculum for psychological therapists that trains them to work more effectively with older people.

The hon. and learned Gentleman raises a point about substance misuse in the elderly population. We should not be surprised that people who have used illegal substances or alcohol earlier in life do not suddenly stop when they reach 65; better training for all professionals will ensure that help is based on actual need, and not on outdated images of older people.

“Closing the Gap” supports all the objectives set out in the Government's mental health strategy, which is a cross-Government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages. It was launched in February 2011 and sets out a clear vision for improving mental health and well-being in England for people of all ages, including older people.

The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham spoke of the apparent disconnect between services for the under and over-65s and quoted the Royal College of Psychiatrists. We are committed to making sure that adults of all ages are treated fairly, with access to services based on their needs, not on any assumptions about what they might need. When we are developing local services, commissioners and providers have the opportunity to consider how mental health services can be user-led rather than service-led, while recognising the specialist service requirements of some older people with mental illness.

The number of older people in the UK is projected to rise substantially over the coming decades as a result of a combination of rising life expectancy and the large number of births in the period following the second world war—the baby boomer generation. Despite the demographic and additional economic pressures, the Government’s ambition is to make this country a great place in which to grow old. There is an awful lot of work still to do and we have not combated the lack of parity yet, but we are totally committed to doing so. A lot of the things we are doing will help us achieve that.

Question put and agreed to.

17:31

House adjourned.