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Oral Answers to Questions
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
1. What contribution his Department is making to preparations for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth games.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
The FCO is playing a strong role supporting the 2014 organising committee. Our high commissions across the Commonwealth are also drawing on our contribution to London 2012 to ensure Britain makes the maximum impact from what I am confident will be another spectacular performance from Team GB.
Richard Drax
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the preparation of these games by the city of Glasgow and both the Scottish and UK Governments is a prime example of how well we all work together and how important it is that we remain a United Kingdom to ensure that 300 years of history, union and co-operation continue in the years ahead?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is another example of how Scotland has the best of both worlds. Scotland is the proud host nation of the Commonwealth games, but the UK is the host Commonwealth member state. We are working together on this very successfully. We are confident that the games will be a success and, of course, together in Team GB we have become a sporting superpower in the world. It is very important that we keep working together on sport.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
Perhaps I should just remind my right hon. Friend that the constituent parts of the United Kingdom compete in their own right: there will be a Scottish team, a Welsh team, an English team and a Northern Irish team.
My right hon. Friend will be well aware that it is intended that there should be a service immediately after the Commonwealth games to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the first world war. Can we be satisfied that my right hon. Friend and his Department will do everything to ensure that as many Heads of State from the Commonwealth not only visit the games but make themselves available for that service?
Mr Hague
My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very important point. There will be many commemorations of the centenary of the first world war, including in Glasgow the week after the beginning of the games. There is every indication that that will be attended internationally and the FCO will encourage foreign visitors to come along.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
2. What steps he is taking to support peace and security in Nigeria; and if he will make a statement.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
5. What support his Department is providing to the Nigerian government to tackle Boko Haram.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
The British Government fully support the efforts to combat terrorism in Nigeria. On 12 June, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary chaired a meeting with regional Foreign Ministers and representatives from the US, France and others to strengthen the international response. A package of measures was announced to support building peace and security in Nigeria.
Mark Lazarowicz
It is obviously essential, as the Minister knows, that bilateral and international efforts concentrate on finding a long-term response to the problems caused by Boko Haram. Following that meeting, will the Minister indicate how the UK will work with our international partners to support the international effort that needs to be focused on this issue?
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Gentleman raises an excellent point and I can confirm that the announcements we made after the meeting chaired by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary last Thursday specified offering direct tactical training and advice to the Nigerian and regional forces and strengthening the Nigerian Government’s capacity to deliver a co-ordinated and effective response, including support for an intelligence fusion cell. Importantly, we also increased our support for girls’ education, drawing, we hope, 1 million more children into education in northern Nigeria. In addition, we will increase assistance to Nigeria to ensure that services and infrastructure are provided in the medium to long term to withdraw the very root causes of the problem.
Richard Benyon
The issue of the schoolgirls has resonated in our constituencies, particularly among schoolchildren—it is of great importance to a great many people. What are countries and organisations in the region doing to co-ordinate action against Boko Haram?
Mark Simmonds
My hon. Friend raises an important part of resolving the challenges that northern Nigeria faces. That is why, the week after I went to Abuja to discuss with President Jonathan how the UK could be of assistance, I went to Cameroon to meet the Cameroon Government and assist them in continuing to strengthen our security co-operation. At the London meeting, we maintained the regional momentum by committing to implement a regional intelligence fusion unit and multinational taskforce patrols, as well as considering further focus on development, particularly empowering women and girls.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
As other hon. Members have said, this is an important subject. May I press the Minister on regional co-ordination? Is he planning to speak further to other countries in the region? How can the UK make sure that all the partners are focused on the very significant challenges?
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to refocus on the importance of regional co-operation. At the meeting in the fringes of the end sexual violence in conflict conference last week, the Nigerian Foreign Minister as well as regional Foreign Ministers, including the Chadians and Nigerians, as well as representatives from multilateral institutions such as the African Union and the United Nations were all present to make sure that the thinking, the progress and the focus was all joined up—particularly on important regional issues such as shoring up the borders.
Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)
Nigeria is, in effect, two countries with an affluent south and a poor north that is part of a new front line of violent extremism in the western Sahel. Does the Minister agree that we need a robust security response? When the Foreign Affairs Committee looked at regional co-operation in our recent inquiry, we found a lack of clarity about where the responsibilities for the response lay. Could the Minister look at that?
Mark Simmonds
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the enormous diversity within Nigeria—now the largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, with parts of the country such as Lagos state growing at an extremely rapid rate. There is now, I think, a real focus both from the international community through the multilateral organisations and from the regional countries on ensuring not only that we do everything we possibly can to buttress and support the Nigerian Government in removing the security challenges of the northern part of Nigeria, but that we put in place long-term plans to remove the root causes of terrorism and build developmental and economic progress.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Will the Minister clarify the nature of the work carried out by the UK security advisory team? Is he satisfied that it is receiving the full support of the Nigerian Government?
Mark Simmonds
The original offer from the UK Prime Minister to President Jonathan, which I went to discuss with the President in Abuja, sets out four specific areas, including the use of the Sentinel aircraft, building capacity in the Nigerian military as well as for intelligence co-operation, interpretation and, indeed, putting resources into education into the northern parts of Nigeria under the UN safe schools initiative. We are working extremely closely with the Nigerian Government to make sure that the United Kingdom, France and the United States as well as the regional countries and the international multilateral institutions are doing everything possible to resolve the terrorist activities in the northern part of the country and to remove the root causes by making long-term economic and developmental progress.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
3. What discussions he has had with the Israeli Government on the new Palestinian Government.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
My right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for the middle east and north Africa last discussed the matter with Israel’s chief negotiator on the middle east peace process, Tzipi Livni, on 12 June. We have been clear that reuniting Gaza and the west bank under a Government committed to peace is a necessary condition for resolving the conflict.
Andrew Selous
The Foreign Secretary has said that the United Kingdom’s continued support for the new Palestinian Government depends on their commitment to the principle of non-violence and acceptance of Israel’s legitimate right to exist. Does the UK’s continuing support for Israel also rest on the commitment to non-violence and the Palestinians’ right to a home of their own?
Mr Hague
Long-standing recognition of Israel and support for its right to exist is evident in this country, but we want to see all sides in the middle east come together to agree a two-state solution that brings lasting security and peace to Israel and a sovereign, viable state for Palestinians. We will continue to press both sides to resume the negotiations, which are going through a pause at the moment, because time is running out to bring about that solution.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Foreign Secretary believe that Hamas can currently be peace negotiators when only a month ago its Prime Minister called for the bombing of Tel Aviv?
Mr Hague
Of course, our policy on Hamas is what it has been for a long time. We look to Hamas to renounce violence, to recognise Israel and to accept previously signed agreements. We call on all those in the region with influence over Hamas to encourage it to take these steps. It has not done so; it should do so. The new Government of the Palestinian Authority do not contain Hamas members. They have signed up to the Quartet principles, which we welcome.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
The all-party group on Egypt was in Cairo over the weekend. We heard from the Foreign Minister the reassurance of Egypt maintaining its support for the long-standing peace agreement with Israel. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an essential pillar for going forward? Does he also agree with the view that, with all that is going on in the region, both the Israelis and the Palestinians would be unwise to miss the opportunity they have now? Unless they seek a proper negotiation and solution, the outlook for both is bleak if we cannot rekindle the middle east peace process.
Mr Hague
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said a moment ago, time is running out. Secretary Kerry, through his tireless work in the past year and a half, has created an opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians to succeed in negotiations on final status issues and on arriving at a two-state solution. Unless that opportunity, which is still open, is seized by both sides, the outlook will be very, very bleak within the next few years.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Will the Foreign Secretary elaborate on discussions he has had with the Israeli Government on the kidnapping of Israeli civilians?
Mr Hague
We deplore the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers. I discussed this on Sunday with the Israeli security Minister, Mr Steinitz. I will be talking to the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Lieberman, later today. We again appeal for the safe return of the three teenagers.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I welcome the EU Foreign Minister’s statement, which condemned all extremism and all violence against civilians but welcomed Palestinian reconciliation. Is there any way in which the considerable economic ties between the EU and both Palestine and Israel can be used to encourage both parties back to the negotiating table?
Mr Hague
For Israelis and Palestinians, the outlook for economic ties with the whole of the European Union would be very bright indeed if a two-state solution could be agreed. We have been clear that an unprecedented offer of close economic ties is available for Israelis and Palestinians. That is part of the great prize of settling these issues and a further incentive to do so.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
4. What reports he has received on human rights abuses in Honduras; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)
We receive regular reports from human rights organisations on the treatment of vulnerable groups and the risks faced by human rights defenders in Honduras. Since December, Her Majesty’s ambassador has made three official statements highlighting our specific concerns, and has raised individual cases of reported abuses with the Honduran human rights ombudsman and the Attorney-General.
Andy Sawford
I thank the Minister for his response, but in a recent meeting arranged through Amnesty International a Honduran journalist told me that attacks on human rights defenders and journalists such as her are actually increasing. What further urgent steps will the Government take to press the Honduran Government to implement a proper national plan to protect human rights defenders and journalists, and to safeguard their human rights?
Mr Swire
I am aware of the call by Amnesty International for a human rights action plan. Tomorrow, I shall travel to Geneva and meet the deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. I will call on the UN to do more in Honduras, much along the lines recommended by Amnesty International.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
6. What plans he has to visit the Central African Republic.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
I look forward to visiting the Central African Republic as soon as practicable. In the meantime, we remain acutely concerned by the serious situation across the CAR. We will continue to work closely with the UN and international partners to strengthen the international response to the crisis in the CAR.
Mr Robertson
The recent UN report suggests that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by both sides. Do the Government support the call from the Central African Republic’s President for a full investigation by the International Criminal Court?
Mark Simmonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. I have met the interim President of the Central African Republic twice to discuss how the international community can best support efforts to restore peace and stability. The referral to the ICC, building on the work of the African Union, is a very significant step by the interim President. It demonstrates that the ICC is there to support African countries and African Governments when things go wrong. I also have to tell my hon. Friend that, very positively, at the end sexual violence in conflict summit last week, the African Union announced the launch of a pilot project in the CAR to respond specifically to the urgent needs of victims of sexual violence.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Minister will know, in conflicts such as those in central Africa, child soldiers are open to all kinds of physical, sexual and mental abuse. What are the Government doing to put pressure on those countries to stop the use of child soldiers in conflicts of that nature?
Mark Simmonds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important issue, which is of great interest to me personally. Last week, on the fringes of the ESVC summit, I held a very large and well-attended meeting with child soldiers—who described their personal experiences—along with excellent, hard-working non-governmental organisations such as War Child. The aim was to find a way in which the international community could work together to remove this scourge, and, in particular, to use the experience of countries that have achieved post-conflict successes, such as Sierra Leone—and the more recent progress that has been made in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—to benefit those who are still suffering.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
In the light of the Minister’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), may I ask whether he agrees that it is the International Criminal Court, and possibly regional ICC sittings in Africa and, indeed, other parts of the world, that can deliver justice—and there can be no peace without justice—rather than the African Union regional court?
Mark Simmonds
The International Criminal Court deserves our full and unconditional support. My hon. Friend has made the important point that the people who are responsible for crimes such as those that have been reported in the CAR and elsewhere must be brought to justice. I think that the move by the interim president is significant and welcome, especially as the CAR is not able to prosecute domestically, and further demonstrates the value that African countries ascribe to the ICC.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
7. What progress his Department has made on the GREAT campaign overseas.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
8. What progress his Department has made on the GREAT campaign overseas.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)
The GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland campaign is now deployed in 144 countries in support of jobs and growth for the United Kingdom. We expect activity conducted in 2013-14 to deliver between £600 million and £800 million to the British economy, and the target for this financial year is £1 billion.
George Hollingbery
It is also interesting to note that the value of the top 50 brands in the UK has increased to £37 billion over the past year, and that some of that is attributable to the GREAT campaign. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the campaign has the support of all three main parties, and that the Government intend it to continue?
Mr Swire
Having subjected the campaign to an independent assessment, we intend to commit ourselves to continuing it, and to increasing our support by 50% over the next two years. It is worth pointing out that trade activities related to the campaign have supported the export plans of more than 1,150 United Kingdom companies. By any measure, it is hugely successful: one might even go so far as to say that it is a great initiative.
Michael Ellis
All national campaigns need to be memorable, and emphasising the “Great” in Great Britain strikes the right note for this country and for my constituents. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating one company—Crockett & Jones, a shoemaker in my constituency—on exporting very high-quality products to markets all over the world, including the United States and Japan, thereby increasing the number of jobs in my constituency and improving trade for this country?
Mr Swire
Having promoted, through the GREAT campaign, tuk-tuks in Phnom Penh, Lush cosmetics in Mexico City, British brands through The Beatles, and Bloomingdale’s in New York, I am more than happy to promote Crockett & Jones, and to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the tireless work that he does on behalf of Northamptonshire shoemakers. There is, of course, no “one size fits all”, but I am sure that we can fit Crockett & Jones into our global campaign.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
As the Minister sits in his tuk-tuk, he will know that one of the essential parts of this campaign is talking about British values. How would he define British values, and how is he going to face the Home Secretary, to tell her the campaign has been so successful and that so many people want to come to Britain that she cannot meet her immigration target?
Mr Swire
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, one reason why so many people from around the world wish to come to the United Kingdom is the excellent shape of the British economy, which is a direct result of the early action taken by this Government. He, like others, will no doubt be supporting our long-term economic plans.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
9. What his priorities are for the UK’s relationship with India.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
The Chancellor and I will visit India shortly to meet the new Government. Our priorities will be to expand trade and investment, enhance our education links, strengthen co-operation on defence and security, increase collaboration on science and innovation, and build our people-to-people links through the UK’s 1.5 million Indian diaspora.
Karl Turner
Will the Foreign Secretary prioritise speaking with the Indian authorities about the case of the ex-soldier Ray Tindall from Hull who, while working on a US pirate patrol vessel, was arrested for straying into Indian waters? As I understand it, the court case has been constantly adjourned. His family are desperate to find out when he will be returned to the UK.
Mr Hague
We are constantly raising this issue. I have done so myself and the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), does so regularly. If it is not concluded, it will, of course, be a topic of conversation during my visit to India shortly. We hope that the court proceedings—the latest of which was, I think, scheduled for today—will be resolved soon. We must not prejudge what will happen in a court, but we will absolutely keep on top of this case.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Despite the concerns of some about Prime Minister Modi’s nationalist past, his record of delivering economic growth in Gujarat is undeniable—and is, indeed, in no small part the reason why he was elected in the hope that he could replicate that across India—but such rapid development must be sustainable. The Foreign Secretary did not mention climate change in his list of things he intended to discuss with the Indian Government. What can the UK do to encourage India to play a full and constructive role in forthcoming international climate talks?
Mr Hague
The hon. Lady is right about the prospect of great economic progress. We do give great importance to trade and investment with India, and we are making good progress towards doubling bilateral trade by 2015, but she is also right that climate change is a very important issue. Our relationship with India is such that we need to discuss all global issues together, and that absolutely will include climate change. India will have a big role to play over the next 18 months in crucial climate change negotiations, so that will be on the agenda for our visit as well.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
10. What discussions his office has had with the US Government on renewal of the lease of the air base on Diego Garcia in British Indian Ocean Territory.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
The current agreement with the US runs until December 2016. I expect my officials to begin substantive discussions with US colleagues about post-2016 arrangements later this year. The independent feasibility study on resettlement should be complete by early 2015.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. May I seek assurances that when the lease on Diego Garcia is negotiated with the United States, that will not prejudice a possible future return of Chagos islanders to that archipelago?
Mark Simmonds
My hon. Friend is assiduous in his commitment to the Chagossians in his constituency, but we need to be careful that we do not prejudice the outcome of the independent study, which has the full involvement of the Chagossians. I can assure my hon. Friend that the US is being kept informed, but the challenges to resettling these low-lying islands, which lack basic facilities and infrastructure, are very clear, as I saw myself in March. We will look at the report, however, and we will consider the range of factors—value for the UK taxpayer, long-term contingent liabilities and the defence requirements of DG to the UK and our allies.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
11. What his policy is on trade with illegal settlements in the west bank.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I deplore the recent decisions taken by the Israeli authorities to expand the number of illegal settlements. The UK’s position on this is long standing: settlements are illegal—we neither support nor encourage trade, we make clear the risks to business, and we ensure all consumers can make their own choice through the labelling of goods.
Mr Bradshaw
In February, the Foreign Secretary said that the recent talks were the last chance for a two-state solution. Given the Netanyahu Government’s relentless expansion of the illegal settlements, which scuppered those talks, and the warning from Senator Kerry that Israel risks becoming an apartheid state, is now not the time for a recalibration of our policy towards Israel, beginning with the illegal settlements?
Mr Hague
As the right hon. Gentleman knows and as I have just said, we are very clear about where we stand on settlements. But is the time right now for such a recalibration? I think the honest answer to that is no, because our efforts are geared towards a resumption of negotiations if it is at all possible. Secretary Kerry has said that there is a pause in the negotiations; we would like to see them revived. I think everything we do has to be consistent with supporting that, but we have made our views about recent settlements announcements abundantly clear.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
What is my right hon. Friend’s assessment of how we can change the situation whereby Palestinian Arabs living in the west bank continue to be tried under martial law in the Ofer military court, whereas Israelis living there are subject to civil law?
Mr Hague
Of course, this is a further continuing difficulty and it reinforces the case for these issues to be fully resolved, and for a final status settlement of these issues that brings about a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. Otherwise, there will constantly be the great variety of extremely troubling issues that are raised in this House.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Is not Britain’s role to get Israelis and Palestinians who believe in peace and a two-state solution working together and trading with each other, instead of campaigning for boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions, which just drive people further apart? The Palestinians working at SodaStream are paid three times more than the average Palestinian, so boycotting such companies would actually hurt the very people they claim to be trying to help.
Mr Hague
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we do not encourage boycotts in any way. The British Government do not support boycotts or a de-legitimisation of Israel, but we do support, as did the last Government, labelling of products from illegal settlements in the west bank, and I think that is the right thing to do. But the hon. Gentleman is quite right that our emphasis is on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together, and this is a more important time than ever to try to do that.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
It is certainly urgent. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that the public can have confidence in the labelling of goods from illegal settlements, or can the supply chain be sufficiently complex to ensure that the public do not have the information they may seek?
Mr Hague
The evidence I have seen is that the guidelines on this are well observed, and work is going on on EU-wide guidelines. But of course, where there are serious problems with them, if my hon. Friend or others would like to bring that to our attention, I will investigate.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
25. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that, to achieve a democratic solution, residents of East Jerusalem must be permitted to vote in the Palestinian elections—and that includes releasing Palestinian MPs who are held in administrative detention, and the free passage of movement?
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
12. What assessment he has made of recent political developments in the middle east.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
Advances by terrorists are threatening the sovereignty of Iraq. Assad’s refusal to negotiate a political transition has led to the largest humanitarian tragedy this century and is exacerbating the terrorist threat. We are working closely with the United States and European and regional nations to try to bring stability, tackle terrorism and relieve humanitarian suffering.
Robert Halfon
Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the only two genuine democratic nations in the middle east—both Israel and Kurdistan in northern Iraq—face increased threat from terrorism: Israel through the recent kidnappings by Hamas, and Kurdistan through the activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on its border? What measures are the Government taking to assist these two democratic nations, and does my right hon. Friend not agree that softening our approach to Iran will exacerbate the problems of these nations, rather than help them?
Mr Hague
Of course we work with other nations across the globe to counter terrorism, and the United Kingdom is absolutely relentless in its efforts to defeat terrorism all over the world. I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no softening of any of our policies in relation to Iran. We look to Iran to cease support for sectarian groups elsewhere in the middle east and to reach a successful conclusion to nuclear negotiations, but I believe that it is important to discuss such issues with Iran, and we need the ability to do so.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Having just returned from five days in Iran, I very much welcome the written ministerial statement on UK-Iran relationships. However, the events in Iraq have, for the first time ever, created a situation in which Saudi interests and Iranian interests have something in common, which is to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Is the Foreign Secretary doing anything to facilitate such a dialogue, and to bring those joint interests closer together?
Mr Hague
The hon. Lady makes an important point. One thing that would be of enormous assistance in defusing many tensions in the middle east is an improvement in relations between Iran and many of its neighbours, including the Gulf states in general. I hope that that will become part of Iranian foreign policy, and will be responded to by others. We certainly encourage any movement in that direction.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
21. What is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of the new Egyptian Government? Does he agree that they will offer stability rather than instability, unlike the former Government, in their relationship with Israel, and particularly on the border with Israel?
Mr Hague
We certainly hope that Egypt will enjoy a period of stability, but I must point out that stability is most likely to come from economic growth and from a steady opening up of political space, with human rights properly respected, so that Egypt can enjoy a democratic future as well as a stable one.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
I recently visited Egypt and heard about its plans for parliamentary elections. In the Foreign Secretary’s contacts with Egypt, the President and other advisers, will he emphasise the importance of a strong Parliament that can hold the Executive to account to ensure that precisely the issues he has just mentioned move forward and that the people feel there is adequate representation in Parliament?
Mr Hague
Basically, yes. It is of course for Egyptians to determine their own constitution, but the thrust of our advice to Egyptian leaders is very much in line with what the hon. Lady says. Long-term stability will come from accountability—from Governments being responsive to the people. That is true of any country in the world, particularly one that has been through a sequence of revolutions. So I do agree with what she says.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
17. It was good to hear the Foreign Secretary condemn the abduction of three Israelis. Unfortunately though, Hamas, which is now part of the unity Government, declared the abduction to be a success. Will he further condemn the Hamas Prime Minister who, in April 2014, said:“Abducting Israeli soldiers is a top priority on the agenda of Hamas and Palestinian resistance.”We will not get peace with a unity Government who include people with such views.
Mr Hague
Let me say again that the new Government of the Palestinian Authority contain no Hamas members and have signed up to the Quartet principles, but I absolutely condemn any encouragement to foment further tensions, including the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers. That is exactly the sort of thing that obstructs a successful peace process and is presumably designed to do so. It is important that Hamas or anyone else desists from it.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
Let me press the Foreign Secretary a little further on the subject of Iran. I welcome his announcement that the British embassy in Tehran will be reopened. Iran surely has a choice to make between being a stabilising and a destabilising force in an already volatile region, and Britain has a responsibility to try to ensure that Iran makes the right choice. Effective diplomatic links can surely assist in that endeavour. Will the Foreign Secretary set out his thinking on how engagement with Iran on tackling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq could be used to help encourage a change of approach from Iran in relation to the conflict in Syria more broadly, which we all agree is intimately linked to the violence engulfing Iraq today?
Mr Hague
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I referred to this yesterday during my statement and in response to questions earlier: we would welcome, and we will press for, a wider change in the foreign policy of Iran. Nuclear negotiations are taking place now, and it is important that those issues are resolved between Iran and the rest of the international community. Iran has the capability to play a more positive role across the region. It has played, for many years, a divisive and sectarian role through supporting divisive and often terrorist groups in other parts of the region. We look to it to desist from that, and we will use the expansion of our bilateral relations to press for that as well as to encourage links between the peoples of our countries and to have a good understanding of each other’s positions.
Mr Alexander
Let me ask the Foreign Secretary specifically about the nuclear negotiations that are under way. As he well knows, the deadline of 20 July for agreeing a comprehensive nuclear deal is now fast approaching. Does he accept that it is vital, notwithstanding the renewed diplomatic engagement with Iran, that the United Kingdom continues to exert pressure on Iran in the coming weeks to make the necessary concessions to reach a final deal on that agreed international timetable?
Mr Hague
Absolutely. Those negotiations are entering a particularly intensive phase as we come towards 20 July, which is six months after the commencement of the interim deal on the nuclear issue. We made provision in the interim deal for that deadline to be rolled over for another six months, but no plan has been made to do so at the moment. It is important that the negotiations make major progress before 20 July, and that will require a more realistic approach by Iran in the negotiations than anything we have seen in recent months.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
13. What assessment he has made of the political and security situation in Ukraine.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
With the election of President Poroshenko the Ukrainian people have sent a decisive signal of their support for reform and reconciliation, but illegally armed gangs continue to deny the citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk the opportunity to build a new future for their country. I urge Russia to cease support for those groups and to engage constructively with the Ukrainian Government.
Nigel Mills
I am grateful for that answer. What assessment has the Foreign Secretary made of the impact of yesterday’s decision to freeze gas supplies to Ukraine on the prospect of improving relations between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the rest of the EU?
Mr Hague
We obviously regret Gazprom’s decision to do that. Such decisions damage the credibility of Russia in supplying energy elsewhere across Europe. It is another argument for the diversification of European energy supplies over the coming years to give greater energy security, not only to Ukraine but to many nations of the European Union. We support fully the role of the European Commission in trying to facilitate an agreement, and it will continue to work on this.
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the fact that the Russians have recently switched off the gas to Ukraine, what does the Foreign Secretary make of the discussions that took place during the D-day commemorations between newly elected President Poroshenko and President Putin? Were they a waste of time?
Mr Hague
It is never a waste of time for the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine to talk together. It was important that they did so, and I believe that they have since had a further conversation on the telephone. We encourage Russia to continue to talk bilaterally to Ukraine, but of course those talks have been damaged by the bringing down of a Ukrainian aircraft and the death of 49 people only a few days ago. That underlines the need for Russia to cease its support for illegally armed groups that are very seriously damaging the prospect of Russia and Ukraine working together.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
18. Given that President Putin has acknowledged the outcome of the Ukrainian presidential elections, will the Foreign Secretary take up with his counterpart the fact that there are still weapons systems—tanks, rocket launchers and so forth—entering Ukraine that are coming from Russia?
Mr Hague
Yes, absolutely. The arrival in Ukraine of three Russian tanks further underlines how Russia is allowing arms supplies to go to illegally armed groups in the south and east of Ukraine. Desisting from that will be fundamental to any understanding between the two countries, which it is in the interests of Russia to achieve.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
Given the Gazprom decision of recent days of which the Foreign Secretary spoke a moment ago, will he set out what steps are being taken by the British Government along with our allies to continue to pressure Russia to engage more constructively with the Ukrainian Government in the light of what many will see as an aggressive and reprehensible act?
Mr Hague
From across the European Union and from the United States pressure is being exerted on Russia to desist from supplying illegally armed groups, as I have said, and to ensure that they continue to talk to and work with President Poroshenko of Ukraine. That is a very strong message from across the western world and that work will continue, of course, over the coming weeks. We will discuss this among EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg on Monday and I believe that a strong and united message will come from that meeting.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
19. I was a member of the OSCE who was fortunate enough to monitor that election in Ukraine. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it was a fair election in which the vast majority of those who wished to vote were able to do so and that this is an important building block to increase and enhance the stability of Ukraine so that it can move forward, so long as we can overcome the problems Russia is posing?
Mr Hague
I thank my right hon. Friend and many other hon. Members on both sides of the House who took part in the election observation. The United Kingdom supplied a huge number of observers—10% of the total number—and these were well-conducted elections. The vast majority of Ukrainians were able to vote and they gave a clear and decisive result that should add to the stability of the country and the region.
Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
14. What recent progress has been made on securing a transatlantic trade and investment treaty.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
A successful transatlantic trade deal would be worth up to £10 billion a year for this country alone. Negotiations last month went well and we are now working with European and United States counterparts towards the next round in July with a view to securing an ambitious agreement in 2015.
Mr McKenzie
What steps are the Government taking to promote this deal, especially in our manufacturing industry in the UK?
Mr Lidington
In the conversations that Ministers from all Departments have with representatives of manufacturing, industry and other sectors from all parts of the United Kingdom, we emphasise the opportunities that would be available to them from a successful deal in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. We are getting a strong, supportive response from all sectors of UK industry.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
15. What steps he has taken to monitor the human rights record of those countries that attended the DSEI—defence and security equipment international—arms fair in London in September 2013.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
Our arms export control criteria are rigorous and place human rights at the centre of decision making. We do not export equipment where there is a clear risk that it might be used for internal repression.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank the Minister for that reply. My understanding is that last year the Government invited delegations to the DSEI arms fair from countries with poor human rights records such as Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and others. Will he assure the House that such countries will not be invited in future?
Mr Lidington
All countries have under the United Nations charter an inherent right to self-defence, but we judge any application for the export of defence materials from this country in the light of the consolidated criteria. When there is a risk that such exports would be used for internal repression or when such exports would be in breach of United Nations, international or EU embargoes, obviously we do not permit such exports.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I have announced to the House by written statement this morning that following discussions with the Iranian Foreign Minister we will be reopening our embassy in Tehran. Initially, that will be with a small diplomatic team, but it is an important step forward in our bilateral relations with Iran. In addition to discussing our common interests, we will continue to press Iran to reach a deal with us and the other nations of the E3 plus 3 on its nuclear programme and to promote stability in the region by ending its support for sectarian groups.
James Morris
I welcome the visit of the Chinese premier to the UK this week. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is important that we continue to build a long-term relationship with China on the basis of our shared global interests as well as on the basis of trade? Trade is particularly important to businesses in my constituency and across the west midlands, where companies such as Jaguar Land Rover have been leading a surge in exports to China over the past two years.
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That economic partnership is flourishing, as the Prime Minister’s visit to China in December showed. There are record levels of bilateral trade and investment, and UK exports to China were up 15% last year. China also invested more than £8 billion in the UK last year. Jaguar Land Rover is particularly to be congratulated on its fantastic export performance.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker, as you know, the next British European Commissioner will have to face scrutiny from the European Parliament before the nomination can be confirmed. Would it not be more appropriate for the British people to scrutinise that appointment first, through this House?
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I am sure that whenever the Prime Minister puts forward the name of the man or woman whom the Government wish to fill that role, there will be ample opportunity for Members of this House to express their various views.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
T2. Last year, the Palestinian Authority paid more than £60 million to Palestinians convicted of terror offences. What is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of that policy of financially rewarding terrorism? Is he aware of recent reports that the Palestine Liberation Organisation has been mandated by the Palestinian Authority to continue that awful practice on its behalf?
Mr Hague
The Palestinian Authority is working very hard, as we want it to do, in its new incarnation and with its new members. It is committed to the Quartet principle of bringing about a lasting and peaceful two-state solution with Israel, and we look to it to do that. We expect all its actions to be consistent with doing that. We give considerable financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, and I know that the Department for International Development takes great care over the allocation and use of that aid.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
T6. It took two years to bring the murderers of my constituent, Khuram Shaikh, to trial, owing to the close links between one of the suspects and the Sri Lankan President. The trial is now well advanced, but we have just learned that it might have to start again because the President is contemplating promoting the judge. For the sake of Khuram’s family, will the Minister work with his counterparts in Sri Lanka and press for the trial to run its course?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)
We continue to impress upon the Sri Lankan authorities the importance that we and the family of the murdered British national, Khuram Shaikh, attach to bringing those responsible to justice. They are in no doubt as to the seriousness with which we view these terrible events, and have assured us that they view them in the same way. We hope that, nearly two and a half years after this heinous crime took place, the accused will now face a fair trial that is free from political interference. The trial is now under way, and we continue to provide consular assistance to Khuram Shaikh’s family.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
T3. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that the upcoming Palestinian elections in places such as East Jerusalem will be free and democratic?
Mr Hague
As I mentioned earlier, it will be of paramount importance that those elections, which are scheduled to take place within six months of the formation of the new Government, are free and democratic and that Palestinians throughout the occupied territories are able to take part in them. We will of course make representations to the Israelis and to the Palestinians about that.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
T9. Given the far-too-regular incursions of Spanish ships into British territorial waters and the continuing long delays at Spanish border crossings, what further actions are Ministers taking to resolve the issue over Gibraltar? Will they give me a guarantee that a Minister will visit Gibraltar real soon?
Mr Lidington
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s last question, I am hoping to visit Gibraltar again in the near future, and I remain in regular contact with the Chief Minister and the Gibraltar Government. We make protests to Spain in respect of every illegal incursion into British Gibraltar waters and, now that the deadline has passed, we are pressing the European Commission to take action to ensure that Spain respects her European responsibilities to allow the decent movement of people across the border, subject only to proportionate and fully justified checks.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
T4. On a visit to Djibouti at the end of last year I saw the enormous investment that is going in there and the opportunities for trade and business links. What have the Government been able to do to reinforce the trade links between the UK and Djibouti, perhaps through UK Trade & Investment?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
I know that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in progress in Djibouti and the important UK-Djibouti links. He will be aware that we held a highly successful and well-attended Djibouti-UK trade and investment conference in London last year and there has been follow-up from that. We hope that will continue by taking UK companies to Djibouti, particularly in key economic sectors that are aligned with the priorities of the Djibouti Government.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Those of us who voted against the incursion into Iraq did so honourably on two main bases—first, there was no imminent threat to the United Kingdom, and secondly, the humanitarian problems that would be created and future discontent. How, therefore, can the Foreign Secretary now defend the actions of Tony Blair, who took us to war on a tissue of untruths?
Mr Hague
All hon. Members on all sides of the House debated and voted honourably on that issue and we should respect the arguments made then and now on both sides. As I said to the House yesterday in the course the statement, we must await the outcome of the Chilcot inquiry before we try to pass judgment on those events, and we must concentrate for the moment on what we do now. I made it clear that we are not planning in these circumstances a British military intervention in Iraq.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
T5. I welcome the announcement that our embassy in Iran is to reopen. In supporting improved relations between our two countries, we must not forget why the embassy had to close in the first place. It was because local security forces stood back and allowed a mob to storm the embassy and take it over. Has my right hon. Friend received any guarantees that this will not be repeated?
Mr Hague
Yes; this is a very important point. As I set out in the written statement that I have issued today, our primary concerns when considering whether to reopen the embassy were that we had an assurance that our staff would be safe and secure, and that we had the confidence that they would be able to carry out their functions. The Foreign Ministry of Iran has given assurances. We will continue to discuss those issues in the run-up to the reopening of the embassy and they remain our paramount concerns.
Mr Speaker
Order. I would like to get several more questions in, so extreme brevity is required.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
In view of the rapidly changing circumstances in Iraq, and in view of the fact that the President of the United States has changed his policy a little, may we have continuing reports on the developing situation instead of relying on Question Time or a statement from the Foreign Secretary? I have had several e-mails in the past few days from women MPs in Iraq who are very concerned about their circumstances. What assurances can we give them?
Mr Hague
I always try to keep the House thoroughly informed about a wide range of crises and I will do so on Iraq. If the right hon. Lady needs any specific information, she can contact my office in the Foreign Office. If she does that, we will supply all the information we can.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
T7. Given the situation in Ukraine and the Russian military manoeuvres taking place, what support are we giving to NATO nations such as the Baltic states and Poland?
Mr Hague
We are giving a great deal of support. My hon. Friend may be aware that we sent four Typhoon jets to take part in Baltic air policing patrols. Some of our soldiers have taken part in other exercises recently in the Baltic states. When we meet as NATO Foreign Ministers next week in Brussels we will discuss this and the further action that we can take to strengthen the credibility and the visibility of NATO’s commitment to collective defence.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
On the same subject, in a statement on 28 April the Foreign Secretary advised that a request from Ukraine for non-lethal military support was being considered sympathetically. What was the outcome?
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
T8. The Secretary of State referred to the pause in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but there has been no pause in the expansion of what he himself has described as illegal settlements. What is the point of something being illegal under international law if the international community is not willing to deal with the criminal breaking the law? Is not this softly, softly approach towards Israel failing to bring about peace and justice for the Palestinians?
Mr Hague
No one has succeeded in bringing about lasting peace so far, but we have to continue to try to do so. The only way in which Palestinians will be able to enjoy what I think we all believe in here—a viable and sovereign state of their own—is through successful negotiations arriving at a two-state solution. All our actions are therefore consistent with promoting that.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
May I turn the Foreign Secretary’s attention to the situation facing the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its neighbouring countries? There have undeniably been huge changes and improvements in the DRC and I commend him for his work on violence against women and rape as a weapon of war, but is he not concerned that last week there was an exchange of fire between Rwandan forces and the DRC, and that Rwanda still appears to have some military ambitions in that region? Will he put pressure on it to desist?
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I can give him an assurance that we are heavily engaged from a diplomatic perspective in trying to support the international community in finding a resolution to the challenges that the eastern DRC has faced for far too long. To that end I met both the Rwandan Foreign Minister and Senator Feingold, the US special representative for the region, to encourage everybody to work together, both to find a lasting solution to remove the militia groups that operate in the eastern DRC, including the ADF and the FDLR, but also to find long-term solutions to the big problem.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)
We should welcome the resumption of diplomatic relations with Tehran and their normalisation, but is it not necessary to reassure our closest allies in the middle east that there are severe limits for the foreseeable future as to the kind of relationship that we can have with Iran? Will it not in fact be the kind of relationship that the west had with the Soviet Union during the cold war—diplomatic relations, trade and practical co-operation in specific areas?
Mr Hague
There are limits, and it will start off with a small diplomatic team and we will seek to build that up in stages as relations develop, so it will be a small embassy to begin with. Of course, many difficult areas of relations will remain, including on the nuclear issue, on regional stability and on human rights in Iran, and we will not shrink from pursuing those issues just as strongly as we always have.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Further to Question 9, the Foreign Secretary will be aware of Prime Minister Modi’s belligerent comments about India’s relationship with Pakistan in the past. Will there be discussions on that relationship during his upcoming trip to India?
Mr Hague
Of course, we will always discuss regional security issues, but we should welcome the invitation that Prime Minister Modi extended to other south Asian regional leaders to his inauguration, and the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan responded so positively to that and attended the inauguration. That was the right way to start out, and we hope that policy will continue in the same vein.
Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)
On matters European, is there truth in the latest word coming out of Berlin that Chancellor Merkel is firming up in her support behind her preferred European presidency candidate? Where British Government influence upon her is concerned, was that decision assisted, in direct contradiction to the view of the Prime Minister, by the British Conservative MEPs voting to admit to membership of their group the ultra right-wing German Conservatives, who are the thorn in the flesh of the self-same Chancellor Merkel?
Mr Lidington
As the Prime Minister made clear, he regards the CDU/CSU as a sister party with whom we continue to enjoy close and positive relations. In respect of the proposals for the new President of the European Commission, we are of the view that it is important that the Commission is led by a man or woman who has energy, drive and a determination to take through an agenda of economic and political reform to face the serious challenges that Europe confronts, not least getting back to work the millions of jobless youngsters in Europe.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Has the Secretary of State emphasised to the Israeli Government that travel restrictions or other constraints that would prevent Ministers in the technocratic Government from meeting will mean only that they are unable to meet their responsibilities not just to all Palestinians but to the peace process?
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint remaining colleagues but, as I have often said, this is a box office occasion on which demand greatly exceeds supply, and we should now move on.
Public Inquiry into Hormone Pregnancy Test Drugs
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I present a petition on behalf of my constituent, Ms Nicola Williams, from the members of the Association of Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests who have collected several hundred signatures to call for a public inquiry into the use of oral hormone pregnancy test drugs that were used in the 1960s and ’70s.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that the Petitioners believe that children were born with serious deformities due to hormone pregnancy test drugs taken by expectant mothers between 1953 and 1975; further that the Petitioners are concerned that as the surviving victims enter their forties and fifties many of them may face a host of new problems as their bodies continue to suffer; further that no official warnings were issued about these drugs until eight years after the first reports indicated possible dangers; further that the Petitioners believe that some doctors continued to prescribe the hormone pregnancy test drugs to pregnant women after official warnings from the Committee on Safety of Medicines; and further that the Department of Health in the past has rejected requests for an inquiry into these matters.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to set up an Independent Public Inquiry.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001359]
Palestinian Water Rights
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I wish to present a petition on behalf of my friends and constituents in Kendal Amnesty International who, on and after world water day earlier this year, sought to put the petition together, calling on the UK Government to urge the Government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people to adequate and safe water supply.
The petition states:
The Petition of a resident of the UK,
Declares that the Petitioner believes that the Government of Israel is not respecting the human rights of the Palestinian people by failing to ensure that they have an adequate water supply.
The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage the Government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people to adequate water supply.
And the Petitioner remains, etc.
[P001360]
Point of Order
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to raise a point of which I have given notice to the planning Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Rushden Lakes is a retail and leisure development close to the towns of Irthlingborough and Raunds, which I represent. After a planning inspection concluded a year ago, we waited a long time for a decision by the Secretary of State when he called it in. Immediately as this Session of Parliament began, I tabled a written question to ask for the reasons for the delay and when the Secretary of State planned to announce the decision. On 11 June, I received a response from the planning Minister, dated 10 June, stating:
“The Department has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.”
I communicated this news, which indicated further delay, to my constituents.
The following morning, while I was in Parliament, I heard that the Secretary of State was on his way to east Northamptonshire. This clearly indicated a favourable decision and pre-empted the Department’s proper announcement. I further learned that journalists, local councillors from my constituency and others, including the Conservative parliamentary candidate for my constituency, had been invited to the event. Some had known about it for days, others perhaps for longer. The written answer dated 10 June then disappeared from the Parliament website and has been removed from TheyWorkForYou and other sources.
I am delighted that Rushden Lakes is going ahead, but I am disappointed by the way that I was misled and the discourtesy to my constituents, and concerned about the attempt to expunge this from the record. I would be grateful, Mr Speaker, for any advice you can give me on this matter.
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. There are two issues: the answer to his written parliamentary question and the ministerial visit. On the first, I am not responsible for the content of answers, as a rule, but I remind the House, and particularly Government Front Benchers, of the words of the resolution of the House of 1997:
“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to disclose information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest”.
On the second point, I think it is generally reasonable for any hon. Member to expect that a Minister would inform him or her whenever a matter affecting that Member’s constituency is likely to be the subject of an official announcement, especially if an hon. Member has shown a specific and recent interest in the matter. That must, of course, be a matter for the Minister’s judgment, but I would hope that Ministers would incline towards inclusiveness whenever possible. I am sure that if the Minister feels, on reflection, that the hon. Gentleman is owed an apology on any count, it will be forthcoming. I know that the Minister is both an honourable and a courteous man. Perhaps we can leave it there for now.
Criminal Justice and Courts Bill
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
14:39 - The House divided: - Ayes: 226 / Noes: 290 - Question accordingly negatived.
14:53 - The House divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:52 - The House divided: - Ayes: 404 / Noes: 53 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 13—Periods of time for certain legal challenges.
New clause 53—Application of provisions to environmental claims—
‘(1) Sections 55 to 60 of this Act shall not apply to judicial review proceedings which have as their subject an issue relating wholly or partly to—
(a) the state of elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements;
(b) factors, such as substances, energy, noise and radiation, and activities or measures, including administrative measures, environmental agreements, policies, legislation, plans and programmes, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment within the scope of sub-paragraph (a) above, and cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used in environmental decision-making;
(c) the state of human health and safety, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures, inasmuch as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment or, through these elements, by the factors, activities or measures referred to in sub-paragraph (b) above.”
This amendment limits the application of the provisions of this Act on judicial review proceedings which relate to the environment, in line with the definition of environmental information in the Aarhus Convention.
Government new schedule 3—Procedure for certain planning challenges.
Government amendment 1.
Amendment 23, page 55, line 12, leave out clause 55.
Amendment 24, in clause 55, page 55, line 16, leave out “must” and insert “may”.
Amendment 25, page 55, line 18, leave out “not” and insert “decide not to”.
Amendment 26, page 55, line 20, leave out “highly likely” and insert “inevitable”.
Amendment 27, page 55, line 31, leave out “highly likely” and insert “inevitable”.
Amendment 28, page 55, line 32, leave out “must” and insert “may”.
Amendment 29, page 55, line 35, leave out
“conduct (or alleged conduct) of the defendant”
and insert “procedural defect”.
Amendment 30, page 56, line 15, leave out
“conduct (or alleged conduct) of the respondent”
and insert “procedural defect”.
Amendment 31, page 56, line 19, leave out “highly likely” and insert “inevitable”.
Amendment 32, page 56, line 21, leave out “must” and insert “may”.
Amendment 33, page 56, line 28, leave out clause 56.
Amendment 34, page 57, line 25, leave out clause 57.
Amendment 35, page 58, line 2, leave out clause 58.
Amendment 36, in clause 58, page 58, line 11, leave out subsections (4) and (5).
Amendment 51, page 58, line 11, leave out subsections (4), (5) and (6) and insert—
‘(4) On an application to the High Court or the Court of Appeal by a relevant party to the proceedings, the court may order the intervener to pay such costs as the court considers just.
(5) An order under subsection (4) will not be considered just unless exceptional circumstances apply.
(6) For the purposes of subsection (5), exceptional circumstances include where an intervener has in substance acted as if it were the principal applicant, appellant or respondent in the case.’
Amendment 37, page 58, line 18, leave out “or (5)”.
Amendment 38, page 58, line 34, leave out clause 59.
Amendment 42, in clause 59, page 58, line 41, leave out
“only if leave to apply for judicial review has been granted”
and insert
“at any stage of the proceedings.”
Amendment 39, page 59, line 32, leave out subsections (9) to (11).
Amendment 40, page 60, line 11, leave out clause 60.
Amendment 44, in clause 60, page 60, line 29, leave out “must” and insert “should normally”.
Amendment 41, page 60, line 31, leave out subsections (3) to (5).
Mr Vara
May I say at the outset that I propose to speak first to the Government amendments and then to let hon. Members speak to their amendments, to which I will reply at the end of this debate?
Clause 62 creates a permission stage for statutory challenges under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in relation to English matters. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) tabled a number of technical amendments that sought to tidy up and harmonise procedures across the planning regime. I responded that we needed more time to properly consider the amendments.
Following further consideration and discussions with my hon. Friend and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who has responsibility for planning, the Government now seek to advance proposals to extend the permission stage to other planning-related statutory challenges; to simplify procedures to enable challenges to costs awards connected to some planning and listed building decisions to be challenged as part of the same application; and to standardise the start time for various planning-related statutory challenges.
Amendment 1, new clause 52 and new schedule 3 omit clause 62 and replace it with a new clause and schedule that set out where leave of the court is required to bring planning-related statutory challenges. The amendments to section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act that were originally set out in clause 62 affected only challenges to decisions concerning English matters. The amendments in this new schedule are broader, ensuring that the leave requirement applies in all section 288 cases.
The new schedule also requires leave of the court before challenges can be brought to a range of planning-related decisions, orders, actions and documents. It will affect section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which relates to challenges to decisions concerning simplified planning zones, highways and rights of way orders, and relief of statutory undertakers from obligations. It will also affect section 63 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which concerns challenges to listed building consent procedures; section 22 of the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990, which relates to challenges to hazardous substance consent decisions; and, finally, section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which relates to challenges to development plans.
It makes sense to have consistency across these different types of challenges and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for bringing the issue to my attention. I agree with him that requiring leave in some types of cases but not in others could create difficulties for the new planning court, at a time when we are trying to make things simpler and speed up planning cases. The efficiency of the court system is a matter for Government to consider across both England and Wales, and these amendments apply to the whole jurisdiction.
New clause 52 and new schedule 3 also permit challenges to awards of costs relating to planning and listed building decisions to be brought as part of the substantive challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act or section 63 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act.
At the moment, when an award of costs is made, it can be challenged only through an application for judicial review. That is separate to the application for statutory review of the substantive decision. Allowing costs to be challenged as part of the section 288 or section 63 challenge would remove the need for an aggrieved party to make two separate applications to the High Court and pay two separate filing fees.
New clause 13 standardises the date from which various challenges may be brought to the day after the relevant decision has been made. Planning challenges have to be brought within six weeks. Moving the start time to the day after the decision date is consistent with the approach taken in the civil procedure rules for judicial review claims. This is a harmonisation measure designed to assist in the smooth working of the new planning court and to reduce the scope for error by claimants.
I urge the House to accept amendment 1, new clauses 13 and 52, and new schedule 3.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I will address all the Government and Opposition new clauses and amendments, but I will spend more time on the provisions dealing with judicial review than the new clauses on planning, partly because the latter are relatively uncontroversial.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister held a party for the 799th birthday of Magna Carta. He said that it was the foundation of all “our laws and liberties”, and made us citizens not subjects, with “rights, protections and security”. He is right about that. Later this afternoon, we will debate new clauses on sentencing for a second offence of possessing a knife. The Deputy Prime Minister objects to that proposal, partly because it includes minimum sentencing, which carries
“a serious risk it could undermine the role of the judges”.
He is wrong about that in relation to the new clauses, and he and his party have supported minimum sentencing when it has suited them to do so. Right or wrong, however, one has to applaud the sentiment that the rule of law and the importance of a strong and independent judiciary are the most important protections against the arbitrary or incorrect use of Executive power, especially in a country with no written constitution.
Sadly, such sentiments and lip service are all we can expect from a coalition Government who, in no less a person than the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, have done more to undermine the rule of law and the operation of the legal system than any Government in modern times. They have presided over the dismantling of civil legal aid and now of criminal legal aid, the privatisation of the probation service, chaos in those courtrooms that are still open, an overcrowding crisis in our prisons, the expansion of secret courts, attacks on human rights, and restrictions on access to justice for victims and those of limited means. Yesterday, to mark Magna Carta day, protests took place outside courts across the country.
In part 4 of the Bill comes the coup de grace—a frontal assault on the key legal remedy of judicial review. Alongside new fees, cuts in legal aid and shorter time limits, the cumulative effect of the proposals in the Bill is to hobble the principal method by which the administrative court can prevent unlawful conduct by the state in the way in which it, in all its manifestations, makes decisions.
One of the 17 experts who gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee memorably described the Government’s proposals for judicial review as a “constitutional provocation”; 16 of the 17 opposed them outright. The seventeenth, the head of planning for Taylor Wimpey UK, did support them, but slightly undermined his case by confessing:
“I have only had sight of the Bill…and I am attending at late notice”.––[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Courts Public Bill Committee, 13 March 2014; c. 151, Q341.]
It is not surprising that the Secretary of State could find no one qualified to support his position, which, as usual, is based on his gut instinct that judicial review is used to defeat Government policy for political reasons and that, as he confided to the Daily Mail, it is
“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners.”
The truth is that it is inconvenient for the Government when, for example, the High Court and the Appeal Court rule that they acted unlawfully in trying to close Lewisham hospital A and E. No doubt some doughty left-wing campaigners supported that judicial review—not least my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock)—but they won because the Secretary of State for Health acted outside the law.
Clauses 55 to 60 will give protection to such unlawful acts in the future. That is why Labour wholly opposes the proposals for judicial review, and wishes judicial review to be preserved as an essential check on Executive power, as does every serious judicial and professional body that has spoken on the matter. Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, has said that
“there is no principle more basic to our system of law than the maintenance of the rule of law itself and the constitutional protection afforded by judicial review”.
The former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf has said:
“In our system, without its written constitution embedded in our law so it can’t be changed, judicial review is critical.”
He added that the Ministry of Justice is showing a
“remarkable lack of concern for the precision of the facts”.
Lord Pannick has said:
“It is ironic that judicial review now needs protection from a politician whose reforms would neuter its force by the use of political slogans that have no factual basis and are ignorant of legal and constitutional principle.”
Most recently, the Joint Committee on Human Rights—I am pleased that its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), is in the Chamber to take part in the debate—found no merit in any of the Government’s arguments. Its report stated:
“We…do not consider the Government to have demonstrated by clear evidence that…judicial review has ‘expanded massively’ in recent years as the Lord Chancellor claims, that there are real abuses of the process taking place, or that the current powers of the courts to deal with such abuse are inadequate.”
The truth is that any problems in the administrative court that were caused by the growth in the number of judicial reviews in the area of immigration were resolved by transferring such cases to the immigration tribunal. The process of rationalising the tribunals system, which we started in government, is continuing with the setting up of the planning court.
The first group of new clauses and amendments complement that approach by bringing planning challenges in line with the processes for judicial review in respect of leave and time limits. First, certain decisions may be challenged only by a statutory review, but leave is not required to bring a challenge. The leave of the High Court will now be required in such cases. Secondly, challenges to costs awards will be dealt with as part of the statutory review of a decision. Thirdly, the six-week challenge period will be calculated from the day after the decision is taken. Those practices are more restrictive than the current ones, but we do not oppose them, on the basis that they are tidying proposals that are consistent with other processes that are in place.
I will move on to the amendments that appear in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). We do not support any of the Government’s proposed restrictions in clauses 55 to 60, which we seek to leave out of the Bill. As there will not be time to vote on every amendment, however, we will seek to divide the House on removing the two most immediately damaging proposals. Amendment 23 would delete clause 55, which is known as the highly likely test, and amendment 35 would delete clause 58, which imposes costs on interveners. It seems to us that that is the clearest and most thorough way to improve the Bill, but, for completeness, we also support the other amendments in the group that have been tabled by the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others to amend the existing clauses to similar effect.
Clause 55 requires that, where a respondent asks, the court should consider whether, had the relevant authority acted lawfully, it would be
“highly likely that the outcome for the applicant would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred.”
Our belief, which is shared by the Joint Committee, is that that reveals a significant lack of understanding about the purpose of administrative law and the function of judicial review. It confuses unlawfulness with remedy and will encourage bad decision making by the Executive. We want the status quo to prevail. That is, the test should be whether the same outcome would be inevitable. Amendment 23 would leave out clause 55 entirely. The alternative amendments, amendments 24 to 32, would restore the status quo. All those amendments have the support of the Joint Committee in its report.
Amendments 33 and 34 would leave out clauses 56 and 57. Those clauses require the court to consider whether to make an order for costs against any organisation or individual beyond the applicant. Justice, the civil liberties group, gave troubling examples of how those proposals may have a chilling effect. If a charity obtains a donation for the purposes of pursuing litigation, will the court be capable of enforcing a costs order against the donor for any sum? What will happen if a solicitor or law centre acts pro bono when a claimant is unable to secure legal aid? Will family members who support litigation brought by a vulnerable or disabled relative who is seeking to challenge the withdrawal of services be affected? Those questions have not been satisfactorily answered and the changes that are proposed in clauses 56 and 57 should be better defined before Parliament approves them.
Clause 58 states that third parties such as non-governmental organisations, charities and human rights organisations—all those who regularly intervene in judicial reviews—will face orders for costs against them on an application by any party, except in exceptional circumstances. That the Government would target interveners in that way is both chilling and counter-productive. The role of interveners is most often to assist the court, and the most frequent interveners are organisations such as Liberty and Justice, whose expertise has proven invaluable in many cases. Often, in an adversarial system, it is only the intervener who identifies the core issue for the court to decide.
Opposition amendment 35 would leave out clause 58. Amendments 36 and 37 would have much the same effect by restoring judicial discretion as to costs. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and others have tabled amendments on this subject. I hope that they will see the force of the argument for voting out clause 58, which would have much the same effect as their amendments. I do not think that we need to split hairs over this matter.
Clauses 59 and 60 place the making of protective costs orders on a statutory footing. Opposition amendments 38 to 40 and 42 agree with the views of the JCHR, which concluded that restricting PCOs to cases where permission for judicial review had already been approved was
“too great a restriction and will undermine effective access to justice.”
It also rejected the
“need for the Lord Chancellor also to have the power to change the matters to which the court must have regard when deciding whether proceedings are public interest proceedings.”
Clause 61 purports to give protection in costs in environmental cases, as required by the Aarhus convention. Although we do not oppose that, we believe that the proposal is flawed because it is not comprehensive and because the precise effect of this important issue is left to the Secretary of State by way of regulations. Opposition new clause 53 would remedy those defects.
Taken as a whole, these changes are designed to hobble judicial review to such an extent that its true purpose—to hold the state to account—may be severely weakened, if not lost. That is an extraordinary position for a Lord Chancellor to take. We know that he is the first non-lawyer to hold the post of Lord Chancellor in more than 300 years, but he must brush up on his British constitutional history. Now that the Secretary of State for Education has stopped the circulation of the Prime Minister’s copies of Magna Carta to schools, there must be a lot of copies lying around in Downing street. The next time the Lord Chancellor is there—unless it is for the reshuffle—perhaps he should read a copy. He will find the memorable words:
“We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.”
Upholding the rule of law and allowing the citizen to challenge the state and other powerful interests are at the heart of our constitution. Judicial review became, in the 20th century, an effective tool for effecting those rights. It is that which the Government now seek to fetter.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I will speak in particular about clause 58 on interveners, about which the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) has just spoken, and about amendment 51, which I tabled. I spoke about this issue in some detail in Committee and my view has not changed. In the interests of other Members, I will not go through every single argument that was made in Committee.
There is no doubt that interveners are a positive thing. We should welcome them in our legal system. Baroness Hale of the Supreme Court said:
“interventions are enormously helpful... They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”
We should be grateful for that work and for the benefits that we receive.
The status quo does not allow just anybody to intervene. No organisation has a free right to intervene whenever it wants. It is up to a judge who intervenes. The judge can say, “Yes, I would like to hear from you. I don’t want to hear from you about this point. I would like to hear about that issue.” The judge has complete control. They can take lots of interventions or a small number. They can say how much information people are allowed to provide. The judge also has the right to invite somebody to intervene who has not even applied. A court can say, “We would very much like to hear from this person.” Judges therefore have huge discretion. Where there are abusive cases, judges already have the ability to say that they do not wish to hear from somebody.
We made some progress in Committee. We clarified that when a judge invites somebody to intervene, clause 58 will not apply to them. That is very important and it was not clear previously. It certainly was not clear to me and I do not think that it was clear to others. It would obviously be unreasonable to say, “The court has asked you to do something and now you must pay not only your costs, but everyone else’s costs for the privilege.”
I am yet to meet an organisation that intervenes that particularly wants its costs to be covered. That is not the way it usually works. Such organisations accept that they should pay their own costs. What they are concerned about—quite rightly—is the idea that they should have to pay the unenumerated costs of other people. They will have no idea at the beginning of a case how much those costs are likely to be. There could be a very high bill and that will have a chilling effect.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman letting me make an intervention and therefore be an intervener. He says there may be rare cases of frivolous or exploitative interventions, yet none of the witnesses before the Committee could give examples of when they were aware of that.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Lady is right and I will not charge her for my costs in responding to her intervention—I am sure the Minister will not want to either. She is right, but my challenge was to the Minister to identify such cases. If there are any cases—I imagine that there are, because not being a lawyer I know that lawyers are creative at finding ways around the rules—we should try to fix that. However, I think such cases are the minority.
I withdrew my amendment in Committee because I wanted to see what the Minister could do, and he agreed to consider whether there was a way to improve the clause before Report. I had high hopes that the Minister—who comes from the wonderful county of Cambridgeshire—would have been able, with all the resources of the Ministry of Justice, to come up with something that would capture what we do. We should make it clear that we are clamping down on abusive cases, and say, “Whether or not they are happening, they can no longer happen”, and leave everything else alone. I hoped that in just under three months since the Committee proceedings the Minister might have achieved that, but it has not happened. I am disappointed, because it does not seem to be too hard.
I have done my best to provide suggestions, and I have met the Minister and sent in a number of possible ways forward. Today I wish to debate one of those possibilities, to see whether I can get a formal response from the Minister and whether he will look at it as a way forward and ensure we address the issue, even if that has to be in the other place. I turned to the Supreme Court rules as a possible approach. The Government seem happy with those rules on interveners and are not proposing to change them in any way. The rules would certainly be accepted by many legal professionals, given that they seem to work for the Supreme Court—I have heard no concerns. Article 46(3) of the Supreme Court rules state:
“Orders for costs will not normally be made either in favour of or against interveners but such orders may be made if the Court considers it just to do (in particular if an intervener has in substance acted as the sole or principal…appellant or respondent).”
That seems to capture what the Minister says he was trying to achieve, and I think we would all be relatively happy with that. There would not normally be such measures, but where somebody has acted as though they should be the person taking the case, it would be covered.
That led me to table amendment 51, which tries to capture that concept—it may not have caught it absolutely and I would be happy to hear the details, but it strikes me as a way forward. It provides a way to deal with the problems the Minister is concerned about, without stifling the interventions that I think all in this House—from the Joint Committee to many Members from all parties who I have spoken to—would want to protect.
The clause is not acceptable as it stands, and I do not think it will or could become law as currently drafted because of the problems it would cause. I hope the Minister will fix this issue promptly at an early stage in the other place, and that he will consider amendment 51 as a possible way forward.
Sarah Champion
I wish to speak broadly to amendments 23 to 32 to clause 55 in part 4 of the Bill, and to the “highly likely” test on judicial review. I also wish to share my thoughts on the specific proposals for judicial review, based on the recent experiences of the Liverpool City and South Yorkshire regions, which directly affects my constituents. As a precursor, I should say that I accept that the number of judicial review cases has risen in recent years, but I am not certain that the proposed revision of judicial review would give a fair outcome to those parties seeking review, or tackle the reasons why instances of judicial review have increased.
In particular, I wish to address the idea that the likely outcome would be assessed as part of the process leading to the granting of a judicial review, rather than the legality of the process leading to the said outcome. On 7 February the South Yorkshire and Liverpool regions won a joint High Court action that ruled that cuts in European funding were unlawful. Lawyers bringing that action argued that the significant reduction in funding of 65% was disproportionate compared with other areas.
Evidence presented to the Court at the time showed that Ministers allocated €150 million less to Liverpool City region, and almost €90 million less to South Yorkshire, than they had estimated their share to be. Obviously, that could not be fair. It meant that over the next seven years, funding to Liverpool City region worked out at €147 per head, compared with €380 in the previous funding round from 2007 to 2013. A judicial review case was filed in September 2013, and the process, rather than the outcome, was deemed out of order. The judge requested the High Court to order the Government to adjust their allocation of funding from Europe because of the flawed calculation method used to distribute €10 billion from the European regional development and European social funds. Had that decision not been challenged, the funding that would have been allocated to Liverpool City region and South Yorkshire would have been spread across other regions.
Under the judicial review process as it stands, South Yorkshire and Liverpool were right to file for judicial review, as they believed that the process by which the decision was made was flawed. Logic would suggest that if the process behind the decision was flawed, the likelihood is that the decision itself would be flawed. Unsurprisingly, the judge ordered the Government to reconsider the funding arrangement.
The difficulty is that we will never know what would have happened if the Government’s proposals on judicial review had been in place at the time of that specific case. I suspect that the Government, already having a series of funding arrangements in mind, would have granted the same levels of funding to South Yorkshire and Liverpool, regardless of the process under which the funding allocation was decided. If, at the application stage, it was deemed that South Yorkshire and Liverpool would have been likely to receive the same amount of funding, their application would have been taken no further. To be clear: in South Yorkshire and Liverpool, I suspect that the likely outcome would have been assessed as the same in this case, regardless of the flawed process. Therefore, at the beginning of this process, the case may have been unable to proceed—a case in which 3.6 million people living in those regions would have not been able to access €10 billion-worth of funding.
Such considerations—those predictions of likely outcomes—will now become law under the Government’s plans. I have no doubt that in some areas judicial reviews may be seen as wasteful, but at the same time I strongly believe that the case I have referred to would not have made it to court under the new proposals.
Was the process flawed? Yes. Is the outcome likely to be similar? Perhaps, yes. Does that mean that the people of the Liverpool City and South Yorkshire regions should not have been afforded the opportunity to challenge? No. On the slim chance that the outcome would change for them, taking the case to the courts would have seen the two regions immeasurably better off. It is only right that the people of those regions be allowed to challenge that decision.
A faulty process often leads to a flawed decision, and even if the outcome might be the same, we need to consider those rare cases in which the outcome is predicted to stay the same so judicial review is not granted, but the outcome is then prevented from being different. In their current form, these plans would prevent case law from forming based on the one in 100 cases in which the outcome might have been predicted to stay the same but in fact did not stay the same. We are taking the power of the formation of case law away from judges, and we are instead putting the power of decision making into the hands of people less experienced in making such decisions.
I implore the Minister to look at the case of the Liverpool City and South Yorkshire regions as an example of why judicial review should be granted not on the basis of the likely outcome, but on the basis of the process of decision-making. We must allow flawed processes to be challenged, so that for the cases in which an outcome is different, the people involved are granted that outcome, rather than having it snatched away from them before it goes to court.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I thank the Minister for the constructive way in which he has engaged with me and others on the planning amendments. I welcome the stance that the Government have taken on these matters and I know that welcome is shared by the legal profession and planning professionals. The Minister is right to say that these are not necessarily the most headline catching of measures in the Bill, but they are important and valuable because they are consistent with the approach that the Government have adopted—in this instance, also supported by the Opposition, I am glad to say—towards the rationalisation of the planning process and the speeding up of the process of development.
These measures are significant, because a successful and smooth planning process, including the judicial element of potential challenges, is critical, not only to the legal process but to environmental protection and the economy. One of the problems that has been encountered in the past is that some of the duplications and delays in the system were a disincentive to bringing forward the sort of development that we all want to see. This is an opportunity to rationalise the process, and I am glad that the Government have taken it.
I also thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) for his approach in Committee, as well as the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). I also thank officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Communities and Local Government—some of whom are in earshot—who took my Lazarus-like reappearance on the scene of planning law in good grace and engaged most constructively with me. I also want to thank Richard Harwood QC and other members of the planning and environment Bar who did a lot of work in the drafting of the detail of the amendments.
My hon. Friend the Minister has given me the bulk of the cherry that I asked for in Committee, but the Government have not been able to make progress on a couple of issues. I invite him to be mindful of the need to keep a careful eye on the operation of the planning court, because some matters may be picked up through the civil procedure rules and may provide a constructive means of taking forward further reforms.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend’s fascinating speech terminates too soon, I wonder how much difference he thinks the proposals will make to smoothing planning processes and getting sensible development under way.
Robert Neill
My right hon. Friend takes a particular interest in these matters, and we are ad idem—as lawyers would say—on the subject. I think we can achieve a significant saving in time. For example, it will no longer be necessary to bring parallel applications for judicial review and costs, and that will save time and costs, because it is clearly a disincentive to have to bring two separate sets of legal proceedings. Even if they are later consolidated for the purpose of the hearing, costs are involved.
My right hon. Friend makes the important point that there will be a saving in terms of costs to the litigants—the potential proponent of a scheme and those who might have cause to object—and a hidden opportunity-cost saving to the Courts and Tribunals Service. Even if the hearings are ultimately consolidated, there is an administrative burden on the courts in processing the parallel matters. Significant sums—reckoned to be in the millions of pounds—can be saved. That may not seem like a massive amount in the overall scheme of things, but it will be valuable.
I also hope that the proposals will help to change the culture. That is an important point that my right hon. Friend and I have talked about in the past. Litigants in planning matters will be encouraged to resolve matters at the earliest possible opportunity and bring forward cases that have been sensibly brought together.
The setting up of the planning court has been warmly welcomed by the profession, but it has one concern that my hon. Friend the Minister might take back to the Lord Chancellor—and, through him, to the Lord Chief Justice—about the supply of judicial material, if I may put it that way, for the courts. There are a limited number of experienced judges and deputy judges in planning work. Now that we have this new, improved and streamlined structure, it is important that we have sufficient judicial personnel to man the court to carry out the process adequately. It is a rarefied and specialist sphere, although I regret to say that it is not one that I practised at the Bar—probably to my disbenefit, and certainly to the disbenefit of my bank manager. The pupillage in criminal chambers came through before the pupillage in planning chambers that I had also applied for, so I ended up in the same boat as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright)—as a criminal practitioner.
One further point on planning may be a deliberate or passing omission. I wish to check with the Minister whether he intends to look, in due course, at the time frame for proceedings under section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. It would seem logical to try to deal with those matters at the same time, and I hope that it will be possible. That does not appear in the new clause and schedule, which encompass most of the other matters, but perhaps it can be considered in the other place. It relates generally to development plan challenges, which we have not discussed, and I accept that it would raise broader issues, but it may be appropriate to return to the subject at a future point.
The unanimity across the House on planning matters may end when we come to the issue of judicial review. I am afraid that I cannot accept the overblown and overstated arguments made by the Opposition spokesman on that issue. Of course judicial review is important, but it is worth putting it into context. Before I unwisely took the criminal pupillage instead of the planning pupillage, I was a young law student at the London School of Economics in the days of the great John Griffith, who was professor of public law. Judicial review was a virtually unheard-of concept. Although the prerogative orders of mandamus and certiorari go back to the common law, judicial review was scarcely ever used.
It is interesting, and ironic given the stance taken by the Labour party, that the growth of judicial review in its modern form is sometimes dated to the judicial activism of the late Lord Denning at the tail end of the Wilson Government in the ’70s. It was a Labour Attorney-General, the late Sam Silkin, to whom Lord Denning addressed the famous words:
“Be you never so high, the law is above you.”
There were legitimate grounds for extending the jurisdiction. It is ironic, therefore, that the Labour party now seeks to pose itself as the proponent and supporter of unrestricted judicial review. That was certainly not the view of the Labour Government in the 1970s.
None the less, things have moved on. Judicial review is essentially an issue of proportion. I very much doubt that Lord Denning envisaged the concept of judicial review developing from the way he had in mind in that very famous case. There is a real concern—I have seen it as a lawyer, in my time as local government Minister and, before that, as a local councillor—that the growth of judicial review has become an inhibitor to good decision making, rather than, as suggested by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, being a tool to ensure good decision making. I suggest that the reverse has been the case. A number of examples of that can be given.
Let me start at the decision-making level within Government and local authorities. The growth of judicial review has encouraged a culture of risk-aversion in decision taking. All too often, good and honest civil servants and local government officers are restricted in taking what can sometimes be bold courses of action. Ministers can sometimes be counselled against taking bold and radical action because of the risk of judicial review. That harms the governmental process, rather than improving it.
Mr Slaughter
I am enjoying all the autobiographical stuff, but I would love to hear why the hon. Gentleman thinks that a remedy that promotes good decision making and careful consideration by civil servants is a bad thing. Should we be having civil servants taking risky and outlandish decisions because they know that they can no longer be challenged? That seems to be what the Bill proposes.
Robert Neill
I am sorry to say—perhaps not for the first time—gently, and with the affection of one legal professional to another, that the hon. Gentleman rather misses the point. We all want good decision making and nobody is saying that there is not a role for judicial review. When I listen to some of the rhetoric from the Labour Benches, I am tempted to think that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is proposing to abolish judicial review. No such thing is proposed and it is nonsense to say so. But there has been a significant degree of mission creep, to use a popular term, in judicial review. It is reasonable to say that that now needs to be rolled back. That is what the Bill seeks to do.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the real risk here is that those people who are least able to access justice—people with the least means to pay for advice—are the most likely to be squeezed? I hope later to give examples of where judicial review has really helped the little people. The problem with these clauses is that we risk giving ordinary people less access to justice.
Robert Neill
I cannot say that that has been my experience. If we were removing the process of judicial review and challenge, that would be a legitimate criticism. But we are not. To change a threshold around, for example, the “highly likely” test does not exclude a deserving case from seeking remedy. To deal with the issue of interveners does not remove a deserving case from the prospect of remedy through judicial review. If it imposes a degree of discipline in the thinking behind the bringing of such challenges, that is a good thing and we should not apologise for it.
Julie Hilling
But the issue is who will pay for the interveners for those people who have least access to finance and justice. Interveners will be allowed but who will foot the bill for people who do not have the means to pay?
Robert Neill
With respect to the hon. Lady, it is seldom persons in that category who are the interveners; they are much more likely to be the bringers of the review. I will come to the role of interveners in a moment, but let me finish the point about the way in which there has been mission creep in judicial review and the sometimes damaging effect that that has on the decision-making process.
The situation is a little like what we found with local government finance at one time, when officials tended to play tick the box so that someone qualified for the right number of grants. There is an element of that sometimes in the decision-making process, where decisions are always taken with an eye over the shoulder at the risk of judicial review rather than getting to the merits of the matter. If these clauses help, as I think they will, to move away from that culture, that is a good thing, as it will then encourage imaginative and radical, but always fact-based, decision making. It will always have to be fact-based because, after all, the Wednesbury reasonableness test is unchanged; it remains in any event. There will always be scope for challenge of irrational decisions, or of decisions that are genuinely not based on evidence. But removing the threat of judicial review to the extent that it now hangs over decision makers is sensible and proportionate.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a good point about the impact of the threat of judicial review on local authority decision making. It has almost become the expectation before a decision is taken that it is liable to be judicially reviewed, adding a layer of bureaucracy and a length of time to decisions that sometimes need to be taken in a more timely fashion.
Robert Neill
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who leads me neatly on to the next point I wanted to make. It is suggested somehow that this is the state seeking to prevent challenge. Very often, those on the receiving end of unmerited judicial reviews are local authorities—democratically elected bodies who find their decision challenged by some vested interests. Very often, that vested interest is propped up by an intervener. That is why the proposed changes are legitimate and proportionate. My hon. Friend is quite right. That is an impediment not only in areas such as development and planning matters, but in relation to other forms of decision making such as housing and other types of policy.
Sarah Champion
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that good and honourable local authority people sometimes get it wrong and that having relatively straightforward access to judicial review is a good thing?
Robert Neill
I am not sure whether you would agree, Mr Speaker. I take the hon. Lady’s point, but I do not think that she follows it through logically. It comes back to this: the basic tests of Wednesbury reasonableness remain. The opportunity for judicial review remains and putting some balance or check in the process to say, “Before you intervene, you have to consider the costs” is not unreasonable.
Any decision maker can, of course, get things wrong, which is why we have judicial review. That remains. But equally, it is not unreasonable to say that when a challenge is brought, those who litigate ought to bear in mind the costs of their doing so. I understand the hon. Lady’s points, which she made eloquently in Committee. I have some sympathy with her, but the Bill does not do what she believes it does. I do not believe it undermines the scope for meritorious judicial review. It is not in the interests of anyone that the courts be clogged up with unmeritorious judicial review cases. There is no doubt that there have been a number of those.
On local government, let me suggest two instances of such cases. It is suggested that those who bring judicial review are often the aggrieved small people. That is not always so. When I was a Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I suffered at the hands of CALA Homes in a very famous judicial review decision when we were attempting to carry out the will of the House and, clearly, of the electorate and remove the regional spatial strategies, which were discredited. A judicial review was brought against the Secretary of State and against the democratically elected planning authority, Winchester city council, which had gone through the process of standing up for its residents who did not wish to have a particular piece of land developed. What happened was that judicial review was used by, in effect, a predatory developer. There are many cases around the country where it is the big battalions who will use judicial review against elected local authorities. Redressing the balance is fair in that instance, too.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s giving way on this point. In Northern Ireland, we have the ludicrous situation whereby one Minister, namely the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, will take on other Departments to prevent them from implementing decisions that have been taken democratically. Does he agree that we are now in a terrible situation, whereby before a Department takes a decision, it seems to need to have lined up behind it the right person to fight the judicial review, which will inevitably come in any case once the decision is taken?
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As an ex-Minister, I break no confidence in saying that when decisions are being taken, part of the advice will regularly be about the judicial review risks. Anyone who serves in an English local authority will know that part of the significant conversation nowadays is, “Okay, we think this is the right thing to do. How do we defend it against judicial review? We know, even though we have done the right thing, consistent with our democratic mandates, that a judicial review will be coming.” That cannot be in the public interest.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is always a delight to enjoy the free-flowing eloquence of the hon. Gentleman as he develops his tutorial, but may I gently ask him to bear in mind that a number of others wish to speak, notably his right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), and time is not limitless? Although we are savouring the hon. Gentleman’s delights, all good things must eventually come to an end.
Robert Neill
I rather suspect, Mr Speaker, that you have anticipated how my ministerial career came to an end as well, delightful though it was at the time. I am happy to draw my remarks to a close, because I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) has a great deal of expertise on this matter. I will also welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), not least because his predecessor was a member of my chambers who led me on a number of cases, including some judicial review matters with which he dealt expertly. [Interruption.] I am sorry to have driven you from the Chair, Mr Speaker.
Let me conclude with these thoughts. The judicial process is important for its checks and balances. That position is not being changed by the Government’s proposals; what they are providing is a reality check on the process of judicial review. On the issue of interveners, if someone chooses to intervene in litigation, they should not do so without being aware of the costs that their intervention can bring. That is what we are seeking to do. It is often the intervener, rather than the initial parties, who takes up the bulk of the time in the case. It is logical for someone who seeks to intervene in a case—no one is obliged to do so, after all—to face the discipline of the potential costs.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. When constituents write to me about planning inquiries and the like, they want to know the true cost, because ultimately, one way or the other, the taxpayer is paying for all this. The facts must be clearly put out there. I thank my hon. Friend for the argument he is proposing.
Robert Neill
I am grateful, and that provides a suitable point for me to conclude. The costs apply not just to individual litigants and therefore to companies and local authorities, because the cost to a local authority is ultimately a cost to the taxpayer, and then there is the opportunity cost to the planning system and the court system that comes from bringing needless judicial reviews. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent a meritorious claim from coming forward and being heard, but it provides some checks and balances in the matter—a reminder that the common law does not exist independently of the House. Ultimately, accountability lies here through Parliament. The judiciary has an important role to play in interpreting the will of Parliament.
Occasionally, I look at judgments in judicial review cases and gain the impression that one or two of the senior judiciary have rather concluded that the common law somehow exists in isolation. The development of case law is important, as suggested, but it should happen within the framework set by this democratically accountable House. We need to redress the balance to ensure that while the House is accountable, a democratically elected local authority is the right primary accountable body in its sphere of competence. I thus commend both the planning and the judicial review provisions.
Dr Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), not so much for the content of his contribution as for its tone and humour. I am afraid that I will not be able to match his humour. He beat me to the punch by telling us about his friendship and legal partnership with my distinguished predecessor, Lord Morris of Aberavon. I suspect from the tone of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution that he must have learned it at the feet of my predecessor. The general tone of this debate has been very constructive, so I hope the Minister will respond positively to the constructive contributions.
I particularly commend the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert)—I was about to call him my hon. Friend—who contributed progressively and constructively to the work of my Joint Committee on Human Rights earlier in this Parliament.
I shall propose my own amendments 42 and 44 and speak in support of amendments 24 to 32 and 36, tabled in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair. Let me remind everyone that the Joint Committee is made up of members of all parties and that the majority of its members are from the coalition parties. When a report from our Committee is unanimous, it means that it was supported by Government Members.
My Committee has done a lot of work on the implications for access to justice of the Government’s proposals to reform both legal aid and judicial review, and we continue to take evidence on these important matters. Earlier this year, we concluded a detailed inquiry into the Government’s judicial review reforms. Our report, which came out in April, pointed out—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith in this debate—the crucial importance of judicial review to upholding the rule of law in this country. It is, I believe, one of the fundamentals that seems to be in everyone’s list of “British values”—much discussed of late.
Amendments 42 and 44 were recommended in my Joint Committee’s report. They are necessary to ensure that the Bill does not go too far in curtailing one of the most important developments in recent years, which has increased effective access to judicial review to hold the Government to account. The courts have carefully developed costs capping orders, which are also known as protective costs orders, to ensure that meritorious challenges to the legality of Government action are not prevented by the fear of a crippling bill for costs. In appropriate cases, they remove the disincentive to litigation of the ordinary “winner takes all” costs rules.
Corner House Research, a non-governmental organisation with expertise in countering bribery and corruption, brought judicial review proceedings against the Department of Trade and Industry for not doing enough to counter bribery and corruption through its export credits guarantee scheme. The courts believed that the legal challenge raised important issues of public interest that needed to be decided. The case was, however, brought only because of a costs capping order limiting the costs exposure of this important NGO.
The Government are concerned that the test for providing such costs protection has become increasingly flexible, as a result of which costs capping orders are being granted too frequently. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice said that they seem to have
“become the norm rather than the exception”.
According to his way of thinking, a lot of well-off campaign groups are bringing cases safe in the knowledge that their costs exposure will be kept down by a costs capping order. My Committee looked into this issue in detail and found the Lord Chancellor’s concern to be exaggerated. The senior judiciary, in its response to the consultation, also doubted the Lord Chancellor’s claim. Other than in environmental cases, where a special cost regime applies because of the UK’s EU obligations, the judges’ experience is that the use of costs capping orders is not widespread.
We welcome much of what is in the Bill on costs capping, including the Government’s decision to put costs capping orders on a statutory footing and to enshrine the common law principles into a statutory code. This seemed to my Committee to be a welcome recognition in principle of the importance of costs capping orders as a way to ensure practical and effective access to justice. We also found that the new statutory code in clauses 59 and 60 is a broadly accurate reflection of the principles developed by the courts, and for the most part merely reflects the restrictions on the availability of costs capping orders that are already applied by the courts.
In one very important aspect, however, the Bill includes a restriction that has the potential to limit very severely the practical effectiveness of costs capping orders. Clause 59(3) provides that a costs capping order may be made by the courts
“only if leave to apply for judicial review has been granted.”
The Government’s justification for this restriction is that only cases with merit should benefit from cost capping orders, and the test of whether a case has merit is whether it is granted permission to proceed by the court. In practice, however, this provision seriously undermines the utility of costs capping orders and may lead to meritorious judicial reviews not being brought because the cost risk is too great.
Heather Wheeler
Can the hon. Gentleman provide any examples of where that might have occurred? I am finding it very difficult, and I think the taxpayers of South Derbyshire will find it very difficult, to think that people’s rights to open justice are being curtailed in any way when we are not seeing meritorious cases that ought to come to court. Judicial reviews have got out of hand, my friend.
Dr Francis
That is not the view of my Committee. I commend our report to the hon. Lady, if she has not read it, because it deals with this point very thoroughly.
Pre-permission costs in judicial review proceedings are often substantial: the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law told our inquiry that they may comfortably exceed £30,000, and that restricting the availability of costs capping orders until permission is granted will in practice undermine their usefulness in ensuring effective access to justice. It is worth repeating the words, which we quote in our report, of the Bingham Centre on judicial review proceedings:
“The risk of unknown and potentially substantial pre-permission costs is a risk that those who would otherwise qualify for costs protection cannot possibly take. If a PCO cannot be obtained to protect against such a costs risk, very many claims with substantial wider public interest will not be brought. A PCO that cannot be obtained until it is too late to prevent the chilling effect”—
the chilling effect—
“of uncertain and unlimited costs exposure is a pointless PCO: it does not achieve the aim of enabling access to justice for those who cannot expose themselves to substantial costs risk.”
The whole point of costs capping orders is that they provide assurance to litigants in advance, before the defendants to judicial review proceedings start running up costs that, without a costs capping order, the claimant may have to pay. To ensure that costs are not a barrier to upholding the rule of law, that protection should be available in relation to costs incurred at the very outset of the proceedings, before permission is granted. That is what amendment 42 is designed to achieve.
Mr Redwood
I support the Government’s aim to tame, but not to undermine, judicial review. As I understand the Minister’s wish, it is that judicial review should remain as a necessary way of challenging bad decisions, but that there needs to be some control over the large number of inappropriate or frivolous applications that can now be made thanks to cost control and to the way our lobbying system seems to work.
I start from the proposition that the main way people should still get redress for bad government is through their Members of Parliament, as their representatives, and through this House of Commons putting pressure on Ministers; or through their elected local councillors doing the same thing to change or get redress for mistakes and errors by local councils. Resort to the courts is not open to many people; they have to be either very rich or very poor to gain access to the courts. It is difficult for people on modest means to do so. Largely, it is lobby groups and institutions that have the access that many of our individual constituents do not have, because of the fear of the costs of the legal process, and we need to bear that in mind.
I am quite happy with part 4, which is the subject of this group of amendments, because I think it seeks to make that balance. If anything, it is really quite cautious. The main thing it does, just to remind the House, is to say that, when considering whether to grant leave to make an application for judicial review, the High Court has to look into it. If it appears to be highly likely that the outcome for the applicant of that judicial review would not be substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred, it should not proceed. That is a very cautious amendment to our right of judicial review. It makes the common sense point that there are certain cases where even if the process or the way the decision was taken was not strictly correct, if none the less it had been done properly and the outcome would have been the same, there is no real point in proceeding with the judicial review. It is just a lot of cost for lawyers. Were the court to find eventually that the judicial review was correct, the decision would remain the same, so the litigant would not succeed.
Mr Slaughter
There are two major differences. First, bad decision making is bad decision making, whatever the outcome, and we would like to see better decision making. Secondly, this will invoke a trial process on the issue—not on the decision making, but on the issue—probably at the permission stage. It will front-load judicial review and change the whole nature of it. This is the most obnoxious clause of all. Far from being mild, it would be extremely radical in its effect.
Mr Redwood
I beg to disagree. I entirely understand what the Government are trying to do. They are trying to warn certain potential users of judicial review that it is a fatuous process if it turns out that the original decision was perfectly reasonable, although there may have been some difficulties with the process. If too many decisions are subject to too much court examination continuously, it is often possible for a clever and well-paid lawyer to find something slightly inappropriate or questionable in the way in which a council or Government Department made a decision, although the decision itself was correct. It might be better if the money were not spent, and if the courts’ time were not taken up with applications when the position cannot be improved for a litigant who remains in dispute with the council or the Government, and who will not secure a reversal of the original agreement.
The bulk of the work to which the new clauses and amendment relate lies in the intricate and sometimes opaque drafting of new schedule 3, with which we non-lawyers are perhaps struggling a little. It is a complex piece of work, because it amends various pieces of underlying legislation. I have one or two queries with which the Minister may be able to help me, knowing as he does that I approve of what he is trying to do, and am merely trying to clarify some of the ways in which it would operate. For instance, I do not quite understand the logic of paragraph 4(7) of new schedule 3, which provides for new subsection (6) of section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to state:
“The High Court may not suspend a tree preservation order under subsection (4C) or (5)(a).”
That is not entirely similar to some of the other proceedings.
I am also interested in the timings. The period during which due consideration must take place seems generally to be specified as six weeks, but I wonder what the overall period will be when the High Court finds that the judicial review process should proceed. In the case of planning issues in particular, delay can impose complexity, blight and difficulty in the area involved, and if the end result is that the development goes ahead anyway, it becomes a real issue. I am sure that questions of timing and delay lie behind some of the work that the Government have been doing.
Heather Wheeler
I think that my right hon. Friend has hit on a very interesting point. It seems to me iniquitous to build in delay in cases in which the result could not have been changed in the first place. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why he considers this to be such an important tidying-up mechanism.
Mr Redwood
I do wonder whether a period of six weeks is required. Presumably the proposal relates to a typical case in which those who are likely to object have followed the earlier processes of the application in great detail. After the original decision there may have been a planning appeal, and they will surely have all their arguments prepared and be ready to move before six weeks have passed. That period seems fairly generous in the circumstances. I wonder how much longer the process is likely to take, and how much High Court capacity there is for dealing with such cases expeditiously.
While I am keen to defend the green fields in my patch from inappropriate development, and am very accustomed to the techniques that we sometimes need to use for the purpose, I am also aware that we need land for building, and that people sometimes object to developments in certain locations that independent-minded people would deem perfectly reasonable. I suspect that in the case of applications of that kind, we might get into difficulties. I am pleased to see that you know exactly what I mean, Mr Deputy Speaker. When we seek to represent our constituencies, we all try to balance such considerations. I am strongly in favour of new growth and new development, but I am equally strongly against its taking place in certain localities where I would find it objectionable, as would many of my constituents.
Let me make two more brief points. I note that new schedule 3 proposes an amendment to the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990. It states, of course, that leave cannot be granted without the High Court’s approval, but I think that the main issue is whether it poses problems of a different kind, which, given that hazardous substances need to be controlled carefully, might make a more timely result even more crucial.
The new schedule also refers to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether any different considerations apply when someone’s property is the subject of compulsory purchase. I would expect a higher standard of proof, and more rights for people to object, to apply when the estate or the council envisages a better use for land that they own than when a piece of land which is near to where they live, but which belongs to someone else, has been subject to various planning processes and the owner wishes to develop it. I think that those are slightly different cases, and that litigants should be given more protection when they are subject, under the Act, to a compulsory purchase to which they object or which they do not welcome.
I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify some of those points.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Government tell us that they want to make changes to the judicial review process because too much money is being spent in court and people are making frivolous, vexatious or irrelevant claims, but the statistics do not bear that out. It is true that there has recently been an increase in the number of judicial review cases, most of which have involved immigration. However, under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, immigration cases now go to the upper tribunal to be resolved. In reality, the number of cases dealt with by judicial review is no greater than it was some years ago. I must therefore tell the Government, with all due respect, that the cost-based argument is complete hogwash. Something else is motivating the Government and, in particular, the Secretary of State, who has made the telling comment that judicial review is generally
“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners.”
In his speech, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) listed a number of organisations that were not of the “loony leftie” variety. The Government’s motivation has become clear, and I think that it is very sad for our judicial system that they are curtailing the basic right of judicial review for the sake of their own political agenda.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) seemed to suggest that virtually all judicial review cases were frivolous and a waste of time, and that we did not need the process. He even made what I would describe as the rather irrelevant political point that in the 1970s the Labour Government had not been particularly pro-judicial review. Governments of all complexions make wrong decisions, but that does not mean that 40 years later a political party cannot change its mind about a matter such as judicial review. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a lawyer, although I do not know whether he still practises.
Robert Neill
Does the hon. Lady not understand the point that I was making? It is erroneous to suggest, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) did, that placing a restriction or limitation on judicial review undermines fundamental freedoms, Magna Carta and so forth. In fact, it is a fairly recent innovation in our public and administrative law.
Yasmin Qureshi
I happen to believe otherwise, and I do not think that I am alone. For instance, Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, has said that
“there is no principle more basic to our system of law than the maintenance of the rule of law itself and the constitutional protection afforded by judicial review.”
I agree with him. Although the concept is only 30 or 40 years old, it has resulted in one of the most revolutionary developments in our legal system.
It is very easy to say about some of the more political cases, “These are loony leftie agendas”, but the hon. Gentleman may remember from his study of the courts—I remember studying them when I was doing my law degree—the number of cases where judicial review came in and was the only mechanism open to people who had suffered incredibly because of decisions made by a local authority, a public authority or the Government. To say that judicial review only came into being about 40 or 50 years ago and that it is a new concept is irrelevant. It may be newish, but it has had an important effect on our judicial system, and there are a lot of rights and benefits that people now take for granted—whether they are in a care home or one of the many different types of institution in our country, or in respect of public authorities that pass legislation or take actions that affect a whole range of ordinary people. For such people who are not able to get justice, it is judicial review and our courts being proactive that allow them to have their rights asserted. The hon. Gentleman talked about Lord Denning. It is absolutely right that he was one of the most brilliant judges we have had, and he truly helped ordinary people.
Mr Redwood
Does the hon. Lady not accept that judicial review can be used by people on the right as well as the left—and, indeed, it is so used—and that the Government probably would not welcome a judicial review from UKIP any more than they would from the Greens? Are certain things not so political that they ought to be hammered out here in Parliament and in general elections, not in court?
Yasmin Qureshi
Walter Bagehot talked about the fact that in our system we needed the three separate bodies—the Executive, the judiciary and obviously Parliament—and that all three must be strong to be able to act as a check on each other.
The fact that we in Parliament are elected does not mean that we do not make mistakes. In the history of Parliament, some appalling pieces of legislation have been passed which have turned out to be wrong. It is only because we have a strong judiciary and a proper judicial review system that those pieces of legislation have been found to be wrong. It is because of that that ordinary people have been able to get justice—the people of this country, the people we are supposed to be representing.
Robert Neill
Does the hon. Lady not accept that in a democracy the remedy for bad legislation is at an election, through removing the legislators? That is democracy.
Robert Neill
To have the courts second-guessing the legislature undermines democracy.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Both hon. Members cannot be on their feet at the same time. If the hon. Lady gives way to the hon. Gentleman, she must let him make his point before jumping back up. Bob Neill, have you finished?
Yasmin Qureshi
Although we talk about democracy, bad laws have been created, and we cannot wait five years until the next election for such laws to be changed. I say with respect to the hon. Gentleman that that would be completely wrong. If an election takes place tomorrow and a bad law gets passed, are you really saying our people should have to wait five years and change the Government?
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
I think I am getting a little confused, and it may be entirely my fault. I was under the impression that judicial review was about challenging in court the method by which the decisions of public authorities and the Executive had been arrived at. The judicial review court does not say that a decision was right or wrong; it criticises the process. So there is no question of a court repealing legislation, as the hon. Lady seems to be implying.
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree with that. Those of us who have been practitioners of law—a few such Members are present—will know that since coming into existence judicial review has been revolutionary for our country. We do not have a written constitution, and Lord Woolf has said:
“In our system, without its written constitution embedded in our law so it can’t be changed, judicial review is critical”
and the Ministry of Justice is showing a
“remarkable lack of concern for the precision of the facts”.
You might say, “Well, maybe Lord Woolf has an agenda here because he’s a lawyer and perhaps he wants money to be available,” but I am sure that highly respected individuals such as Lord Dyson and Lord Woolf, who understand the issue about the public purse as well legal matters, would not be saying these things if they did not believe that these parts of the Bill are fundamentally wrong.
In the 21st century, when we have now got a society that is fairer and kinder to its people, it is sad to have a go at people who are challenging the might of the state. Local authorities, institutions and Departments are still more powerful than the individual litigant or even pressure groups. You may not agree with a pressure group’s policy, but they are not as strong as the might of the state, and we should always have equality of arms. That is one of the fundamental principles of our law. You cannot have one side—local authorities and Departments—with all the money at its disposal and the best legal brains available against the ordinary person on the other side who has none of those benefits, or even pressure groups, who often do not have enough money to be able to spend hundreds and thousands of pounds on top barristers. They therefore cannot afford to lose.
We have to have parity of arms, instead of the state effectively using this opportunity to strangulate and stop the individual—the little person—or even the pressure group, many of which represent a group of our people who are interested in an issue. Pressure groups do not exist just for themselves: they are there because a whole lot of people in the country object to something or feel that there is a problem with an issue. They do not have the resources and they are being strangulated, yet the hand of the state is being strengthened.
I am surprised that a Conservative Government are trying to do this, as they have always taken pride in protecting liberties. What you are doing through all the various provisions and the changes being made to the judicial review, however, is effectively preventing the ordinary person from challenging the decision.
We say that judicial review will somehow make civil servants or public officials think, and wonder whether they might be challenged. Well, I think that is right. In a proper democratic system, local authority or state civil servants should be thinking about the effects of their actions. They should not be above the rule of law. They should be thinking about whether everything is right or not.
As a lawyer who has done some judicial review cases in my life and as somebody who worked in the Crown Prosecution Service as an in-house lawyer, I think it is right that a decision made by a prosecutor should be subject to challenge. When I am making my decision on whether a case should or should not proceed, it is right that that should be able to be challenged, because that would make sure I did my job properly as well as holding me to account. That is very important in our system. Civil servants and local authority officials absolutely should have to look over their shoulder to see whether they are making the right decision, because at the end of the day they are paid by the state and they are supposed to represent and govern our country in a proper way. If they are acting properly, professionally and honestly, they have nothing to worry about from judicial review. Only people who are not acting properly should be worried about judicial review.
Robert Neill
What would the hon. Lady say to the residents of Wickford near the Dale farm estate whose local council was found by the courts to have acted entirely properly, but removal of a Gypsy Traveller site was delayed for years by the abuse of the judicial review process? What defence does she have for those people?
Yasmin Qureshi
I am not going to talk about individual constituents in particular constituencies, and I cannot comment on their issues, but your using that example as a reason to constrain judicial review is not very credible. In doing so, you are detracting from the seriousness and importance of judicial review. By introducing this provision, you are effectively reducing the number of cases in which judicial review can take place. It is very easy to say, “The local authority got involved but the Traveller sites could not be removed and there were delays”, but that is just one small aspect of judicial review. You and I know—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I have let “you” go a few times, but in fairness, I am not guilty of any of this and I certainly did not want to intervene in the Dale farm situation.
Yasmin Qureshi
I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker; I got a bit carried away.
In a civilised society and a democratic country, access to law is very important, and that includes judicial review and those who have been charged with criminal offences. It is fundamental to a civilised society. The Government’s proposed restriction of judicial review is wrong and will cause problems. I ask them to reconsider, especially as immigration cases have now been taken out of the judicial review process. The number of judicial review cases is therefore similar to past levels, so the argument that there are too many such cases and money is being wasted is not credible.
It has been said that people can simply go for judicial review without any challenge: that they can walk into the High Court and say, “I want a judicial review” and get one. Everybody knows that the first thing someone has to do is to seek leave to obtain judicial review. High Court judges are some of the best and most experienced legal brains in the country; they do not grant judicial review applications willy-nilly and then set a hearing date. Many people apply for leave—that is the important part—to seek judicial review, but those applications are sifted and a lot are rejected. Weak, frivolous and vexatious cases get thrown out, and only a very few go on to the next stage, at which leave is granted for judicial review to be considered and a date is set. The sifting stage takes out all the rubbish anyway, and only the good cases of substance and merit go forward. Then, a full hearing takes place and in some cases, people are successful and in others not.
So the suggestion that I can somehow walk in off the street and ask for a judicial review and the court will grant it and set a time for it is a load of rubbish. I am surprised that Members who should know better—who know that that is not the situation—are trying to suggest that that is happening in our courts. It is not. Very few cases reach judicial review, which is still only sparingly used, but it is very important and fundamental to our legal system.
I remind Members that although we now accept that we can challenge the decisions taken by the various local authority and Government Departments and institutions such as quangos, there was a time when we could not. It is only because people are able to challenge the decision-making process that, today, we have a much fairer, much more equal society in which ordinary people feel that they get justice. That was not the case 40 or 50 years ago, and if we compare the situation then with now, we see it has improved tremendously, and active judicial review has been the biggest source of that improvement.
James Morris
I want to reflect on the impact of the growth of judicial review on local authority decision making, which was a point well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). Its growth has undoubtedly had an impact on the way local authorities go about making key—
Mr Slaughter
There has been no growth in judicial review. If one exempts immigration cases, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), the number of judicial reviews against local authorities and others has remained stable for the last 10 years.
James Morris
Whatever the statistics, the essence of the point is that the threat of and culture created by judicial review has had a distinct impact. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, in my previous life as chief executive of Localis, the local government think-tank, I spoke to many local authority leaders and chief executives about the way the judicial review culture that now surrounds local authorities was impacting on their decision making. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out, it has created to some degree a culture of risk-aversion in local authorities. A bureaucratic layer has been added to the taking of often very important decisions that have big impacts on local communities, resulting in long delays. One example is the politically controversial decisions taken on the potential closure of care homes in many different local authorities. The impact of the threat of judicial review is now being perceived as part of the decision-making process, and that has had a detrimental impact on the quality of some community services.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
As someone who served on a local authority for six years, I have to say that I do not recognise the picture the hon. Gentleman is painting. Does he not agree that the risk of judicial review can lead to thorough, considered, well thought-out decision making and does not necessarily result in a slowing down of and delay to the process?
James Morris
Nobody is arguing that there is not an important balance to be struck, taking into account, as others have pointed out, the importance of democratic accountability for decisions taken. Nobody is arguing that judicial review has no role to play in this context, but there is a strong argument to be made about where the culture that has developed is leading. I speak regularly to local authority chief executives, and it is having a very detrimental impact on local authorities’ ability to make long-term decisions.
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is making a very important point. Does he agree that the concern about the growth of judicial review, rather than the concept, is shared by all parties in local government—I have spoken to local authority leaders, of all parties—and by many experienced chief executives and senior officers?
James Morris
I agree with my hon. Friend. We need to take measures such as those in the Bill, which I support, to get the balance right in respect of the culture that has developed over the past few years.
As has been mentioned, there is the question of the public perception of what judicial review actually is. As a result of the culture that has built up, there is a public perception that if a judicial review goes ahead, the decision will somehow be overturned. It is felt that the review is to do with the decision rather than with a discussion about the process. For example, a group of residents in my constituency approached me about a judicial review of a fire authority’s decision, which I did not think had been great, to close a local fire station. They raised funds to take the matter to the first stage, but even if they had successfully demonstrated that the authority had not followed due process—I am not a lawyer, but on the face of it there were some grounds for saying so—the likely outcome of their spending something north of £100,000 on a judicial review would have been the authority simply re-presenting the same proposal. That example shows that we must be careful about raising public expectations about what a judicial review can achieve.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but it is not borne out by the facts. From a local government perspective, judicial review has been one of the most effective methods by which local councils have held Government to account and ensured that they follow due process. I rarely do this, but I praise the London borough of Hillingdon, my own local authority, for effectively using judicial review over issues such as the third runway at Heathrow to ensure that the Government abide by their own legislation.
James Morris
There is a balance to be struck, and direct accountability is an issue. We want a culture in which local authorities and Government can be held to account democratically. That is how decisions should be taken. We should not be developing and enhancing a culture—
James Morris
I will not give way again. I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.
We should not create an environment in which people have the expectation that going for a judicial review will somehow impact on a decision. I welcome the changes in the Bill. We need to improve the balance between judicial review and local democratic accountability to enable public bodies to make long-term decisions on behalf of communities and constituents.
Julie Hilling
I rise to speak with some trepidation as I face a Chamber full of lawyers and barristers; I am neither, and never have been. I want to put it on the record that I am a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
All those who gave evidence to the Bill Committee spoke as one against the clauses under discussion. They said that the Government should not be making such moves. This is one of the nastiest bits of the Bill: it is very much a David and Goliath situation. From my perspective, and that of my constituents, the Government have already curtailed legal aid, and are now further curtailing access to justice. I understand why the Government want these changes. As a parent, an employer or a Minister, we never want our decisions to be challenged. I am sure that when Labour is in power, I will not want our decisions to be challenged. However, politicians are not always right. I know that that might come as a dreadful shock, but it is the truth.
Interestingly, Government Members on the Bill Committee were very concerned that interventions were coming from some of the most dreadful left-wing groups; in fact, the challenges came from everywhere. People were saying, “Actually you have got things wrong and we want them to be looked at again.” This is about people having access to justice and being able to go to judicial review; it is about David being able to stand up to Goliath. Those organisations that are prepared to support people are helping to hold the powerful to account. They are organisations that Members on both sides of the Chamber support, through subscriptions and fund raising, to help those who are least able to find the financial means to take their cases to court.
Much of this Bill is about secrecy and limiting access to justice, but David does need help to fight Goliath. By placing financial barriers in the Bill, we are saying that those organisations should not be part of our judicial system, but they are the part of civil society that ensures that society stays civilised. They are not a barrier to ensuring that the law is imparted properly, but part of ensuring that everyone in this country, whatever their means, has access to justice.
The Howard League, in its evidence, said that when experts receive permission to address the court through the provision of argument or evidence, they do so neutrally with the aim of assisting the court, and I very much believe in that. It has always been an established principle that the loser pays the winner’s costs, yet neutral interveners are unable to win or lose as another party may, and are almost always unable to recoup their costs. The proposals reinforce the position, and even make it worse, as they put additional costs against the interveners.
The proposals create perverse incentives. The better the case put forward, the more chance of higher costs being charged against the interveners. Let us think about those situations in which third parties have intervened. Last year, the Howard League intervened in a successful case brought by Just for Kids, which established the right of 17-year-olds to see an appropriate adult on being taken into police custody. Members might remember the tragic deaths of two 17-year-olds who were denied that right. In that case, the court recognised that many important arguments emerged from the intervener’s submissions. The Howard League said:
“It would have been perverse for the charity to be saddled with the costs of the government in responding to our legitimate and expert legal argument that was designed to aid the court in its decision making.”
The changes to the cost rules on interventions go directly against the advice of senior judiciary in their response to the Government consultation on the reform of judicial review in September 2013. Indeed, the courts can already impose cost orders against third parties, but the fact that such orders are rarely made shows that courts benefit from hearing from third parties.
Given that the Government took the advice of the judiciary not to bar third sector organisations from bringing claims by changing the rules on standing, the decision to introduce onerous cost consequences for those seeking merely to assist the court defies logic.
Mr Redwood
Does the hon. Lady agree that the main way in which our constituents should get redress from bad decisions, or influence bad decisions in a better direction, is through the representation of their MP or councillor?
Julie Hilling
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he puts forward a false position. In this House, I can speak on behalf of my constituents and attempt to get Ministers to act on their behalf, but I cannot overthrow the rule of the court. We can of course attempt to change the law in future cases, but it is judicial review that enables our constituents to have recourse to justice, ensuring that justice works on their behalf, not just on behalf of the state.
I wanted to give a number of other examples of where judicial review has been used, but I will instead finish by saying that the Government should be ashamed that they are taking these steps to limit even further access to justice. They are further limiting the ability of the ordinary person to challenge the state and to say, “Actually, you’ve got it wrong on this occasion.” We will have better law and better justice if we do not curtail access for those who need it the most. I am most concerned about the little people at the bottom who will, thanks to these measures, not be able to access justice. I hope that the Government will see reason and accept our amendments. If they want to ensure that we continue to have a civilised society, they must support access to justice, and they must support David against Goliath.
Mr Vara
I thank all those who have contributed to the debate, and I hope that I can put on the record at least some of the points that I wish to make before the clock runs out at 2.39 pm. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and, through him, the legal fraternity for all their help in ensuring that we have tidied up some matters relating to planning.
Mr Slaughter
I hope that the Minister will not read a prepared speech but address a subject that was raised in the debate, which the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) rather gave away, namely that the clauses remove the existing balance in the system and weight it in favour of the stronger party. Rather than talking to the chief executive of the local authority, why does the Minister not talk to the care home resident, the small business that is being pulled down because of planning regulations or the homeless person who is not being taken in? Those are the people who are disadvantaged. They are not meritless cases, but people who do not have the necessary resources.
Mr Vara
I am addressing the issues concerned. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not like them, but that does not mean that I will not address them. As for making proper speeches, given the personal attacks that he made when he spoke, perhaps he should have better regard for the etiquette of the House. I will not take any lectures from him.
Amendments 29 and 30 probe the scope of clause 55. In practice, the clause will bite on minor procedural defects, because more significant defects will not be highly unlikely to have made a difference to the outcome for the applicant. There is no accepted definition of “procedural defects”, and it would be virtually impossible to arrive at a definition that would stand the test of time because judicial review evolves with each new decision.
Clauses 56 to 61 will rebalance the financial aspects of judicial review. Those involved in bringing judicial reviews should not be able to hide behind a claimant of limited means or an off-the-shelf company to avoid appropriate liability at the taxpayer’s expense. I do not accept that clauses 56 and 57 will prevent meritorious judicial reviews from being brought. As now, non-party funders will be liable only where they also seek to drive or control the litigation in some way.
Clause 58 establishes two presumptions concerning persons who voluntarily intervene in a judicial review: first, that the court must order an intervener in judicial review proceedings to pay their own costs; and, secondly, that the court must order the intervener to pay the reasonable costs that their intervention has caused a party to incur. Where there are exceptional circumstances, the court need not make an order. Amendment 35 would remove the clause in its entirety, and amendments 36 and 37 would remove the second presumption. Amendment 51, which draws from the Supreme Court rules, would allow the court to award costs against an intervener only in exceptional circumstances.
The first presumption—that an intervener will pay their own costs—represents the current position. Interveners already almost invariably cover their own costs. On the second presumption—that an intervener will pay costs they cause a party to incur—it is right that all interventions should be carried out appropriately and reasonably. The Government share the view that interveners add value to proceedings, and clause 58 is not intended to prevent interventions. However, those who intervene should properly consider the cost implications of doing so.
I know that the clause has caused some disquiet and I agreed in Committee to consider further the second presumption, having listened carefully to the points made, particularly those by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). I wish to record my gratitude to him for his assistance, and I believe his proposed amendment reflects, in part, what we want to achieve. Although we are not in a position to accept the amendments, we are looking seriously at how to ensure that interveners consider carefully the cost implications of intervening, without deterring those who intervene in appropriate cases and add value. I am happy to commit to continuing discussions to consider further whether the clause needs to be redrafted to target the specific behaviours that we want to address.
Clauses 59 to 61 establish a codified costs capping regime in judicial review proceedings, building on the regime that has been developed by the courts through case law. The usual costs position should be circumvented only in exceptional, meritorious cases involving serious issues of the highest public interest that otherwise would not be taken forward. We are concerned that costs capping orders can currently be made at any stage of a case. If an order is made at an early stage and a judge later decides that the case has no merit and does not grant permission for it to go any further, the claimant will be protected from having to pay the defendant’s costs of defending that unmeritorious claim.
A number of points have been raised by colleagues. I simply say that with judicial review, we are trying to ensure that meritorious claims go ahead. It is unmeritorious claims that we are trying to deal with, such as those where people hide behind a shelf company, or where people front an application for other individuals who are actually behind it and driving it. We want to maintain judicial reviews for meritorious cases, but we want to ensure that unmeritorious claims are dealt with appropriately. We also want to ensure proportionality by making those who wish to intervene take account of the costs, particularly when some of those costs are to be borne by others.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 52 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 13
Periods of time for certain legal challenges
‘(1) In section 61N of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (legal challenges relating to neighbourhood development orders)—
(a) in subsections (1)(b) and (2)(b), after “beginning with” insert “the day after”;
(b) in subsection (3)(b)—
(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;
(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.
(2) In section 106C of that Act (legal challenges relating to development consent obligations)—
(a) in subsection (1)(b)—
(i) for “during” substitute” “before the end of”;
(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”;
(b) in subsection (1A), after “begins with” insert “the day after”;
(c) in subsections (2)(b) and (3)(b)—
(i) for “during” substitute” “before the end of”;
(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.
(3) In section 13 of the Planning Act 2008 (legal challenges relating to national policy statements), in subsections (1)(b), (2)(b), (3)(b), (4)(b), (5)(b) and (6)(b)—
(a) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;
(b) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.
(4) In section 118 of that Act (legal challenges relating to applications for orders granting development consent)—
(a) in subsections (1)(b), (2)(b) and (3)(b)—
(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;
(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”;
(b) in subsections (4)(b), (5)(b) and (6)(b)—
(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;
(ii) after “day”, wherever occurring, insert “after the day”;
(c) in subsection (7)(b)—
(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;
(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.” —(Mr Vara.)
The provisions amended by the clause allow for legal challenges to certain planning-related decisions and other actions. They stipulate that a challenge may be made during a period of six weeks beginning with the day on which the decision or action challenged occurs. The amendments secure that the six-week period does not start to run until the following day
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 7—
“Possessing an offensive weapon or bladed article in public or on school premises: sentencing for second offences for those aged 18 or over—
‘(1) The Prevention of Crime Act 1953 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 1 (Prohibition of the carrying of offensive weapons without lawful authority or reasonable excuse) after subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) Subsection (2B) applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) committed after this subsection is commenced;
(b) at the time when the offence was committed, he was 18 or over and had one other conviction under—
(i) subsection (1)
(ii) section (1A);
(iii) section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988;
(iv) section 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988; or
(v) section 139AA of the Criminal Justice Act 1988;
(c) the offence was committed after he had been convicted of the other.
(2B) Where a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) the court must impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term of at least 6 months unless the court is of the opinion that there are particular circumstances which—
(a) relate to the offence or to the offender, and
(b) would make it unjust to do so in all the circumstances.
(2C) Where an offence is found to have been committed over a period of two or more days, or at some time during a period of two days or more, it shall be taken for the purposes of this section to have been committed on the last of those days.
(2D) In relation to times before the coming into force of paragraph 180 of Schedule 7 to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, the reference in subsection (2B) to a sentence of imprisonment in relation to an offender aged under 21 at the time of conviction, is to be read as a reference to a sentence of detention in a young offender institution.”
(3) The Criminal Justice Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(4) In section 139 (Offence of having article with blade or point in public place) after subsection (6) insert—
“(6A) Subsection (6b) applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) committed after this subsection is commenced;
(b) at the time when the offence was committed, he was 18 or over and had one other conviction under—
(i) subsection (1);
(ii) section 139A;
(iii) section 139AA; or
(iv) sections (1) or (1A) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953;
(c) the offence was committed after he had been convicted of the other.
(6B) Where a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) the court must impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term of at least 6 months unless the court is of the opinion that there are particular circumstances which—
(a) relate to the offence or to the offender, and
(b) would make it unjust to do so in all the circumstances.
(6C) Where an offence is found to have been committed over a period of two or more days, or at some time during a period of two or more days, it shall be taken for the purposes of this section to have been committed on the last of those days.
(6D) In relation to times before the coming into force of paragraph 180 of Schedule 7 to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, the reference in subsection (6B) to a sentence of imprisonment, in relation to an offender aged under 21 at the time of conviction, is to be read as a reference to a sentence of detention in a young offender institution.”
(5) In section 139A (Offence of having article with blade or point (or offensive weapon)) on school premises after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) Section (5B) applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) committed after this subsection is commenced;
(b) at the time when the offence was committed, he was 18 or over and had one other conviction under—
(i) subsection (1);
(ii) section 139;
(iii) section 139AA; or
(iv) sections (1) or (1A) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953;
(c) the offence was committed after he had been convicted of the other.
(5B) Where a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) the court must impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term of at least 6 months unless the court is of the opinion that there are particular circumstances which—
(a) relate to the offence or to the offender, and
(b) would make it unjust to do so in all the circumstances.
(5C) Where an offence is found to have been committed over a period of two or more days, or at some time during a period of two or more days, it shall be taken for the purposes of this section to have been committed on the last of those days.
(5D) In relation to times before the coming into force of paragraph 180 of Schedule 7 to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, the reference in subsection (5B) to a sentence of imprisonment, in relation to an offender aged under 21 at the time of conviction, is to be read as a reference to a sentence of detention in a young offender institution.”.”
Government new clauses 44 to 50.
New clause 34—Criminalising commercial squatting and squatting on land—
‘(1) Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 is amended as follows.
(2) In the heading, after “in”, leave out “a residential building” and insert “buildings and on land”.
(3) In subsection (1)(a) after “a”, leave out “residential”, and after “building”, insert “or on land”.
(4) In subsection (1)(c) after “building”, insert “or on the land”.
(5) In subsection (2) after “building”, add “or land”.
(6) Leave out subsection (3)(b) and insert “Land has the meaning defined in section 205(1)(ix) of the Law of Property Act 1925.
(7) After “building”, insert “or land”.
(8) (a) after “squatting in” leave out “a residential building” and insert “buildings and on land”.”
New clause 35— New form of joint enterprise offence.
‘(1) The Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(2) In the italic cross-heading before section 5, leave out all the words after “a” and insert “person”.
(3) In subsection 1(a) leave out “child or vulnerable adult” and insert “person”.
(4) In subsection (1)(a) after “unlawful act of”, leave out to end of the subsection and insert “someone” (“P”), where D was with P at the time of the unlawful act”.
(5) Leave out subsection (1)(b).
(6) Leave out subsection (3).
(7) Leave out subsection (4).
(8) In subsection 6 leave out the definitions of “child” and “vulnerable adult”.”
New clause 36—
“Intentional harassment, alarm or distress—
‘(1) Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)(a) leave out “, abusive or insulting” and insert “or abusive”.
(3) In subsection (1)(b) leave out “, abusive or insulting” and insert “or abusive”.”
Government new schedule 2—Ill-treatment or wilful neglect: excluded health care.
Government amendments 2, 45, 47, 48, 46 and 49
Nick de Bois
I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to new clauses 6 and 7, which set out that adults would face a minimum six-month jail sentence on their second conviction for carrying a knife and that 16 to 18-year-olds would face a mandatory minimum four-month detention and training order if convicted of the same offence.
The new clauses seek to build on the precedent and experience of other mandatory sentencing, including my own amendment introduced into the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill in 2012, where we introduced a mandatory sentence for the new offence of using a knife in a threatening and endangering fashion. Other examples include mandatory sentencing in cases of possession of a firearm.
I pay tribute to my friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who brought tremendous skill and support, not least from his knowledge and understanding of criminal legal matters, to the discussions and in particular to the co-authoring of the new clause. I am grateful to him for his support.
Let us look at the background to knife crime in this country. For the first time, knife crime is down—by 4%. In London, including my constituency of Enfield North, fatal stabbings have halved since 2008. In respect of knife crime across the country, real but slow progress is being made. Such is the scale of the challenge, however, that it is important to note some other figures to help paint the picture. Last year there were more than 16,000 instances of someone being caught in possession of a knife and action being taken. Of those, one in four resulted in immediate custody, despite sentencing guidelines. The other three out of four were let off with what many offenders regard as softer options—and I agree—including 3,200 people simply being given a caution or a fine, and 4,500 receiving a community sentence for carrying a knife.
The House should require courts to send a clear and unequivocal message about carrying a knife. If we need more convincing that the message that people should not carry knives is currently weak, we need look no further than the thousands of children who do not regard it as a serious offence. More than 2,500 of those caught in possession of knives last year were aged 10 to 17. Nationally, 13% of offenders under 18 received a custodial sentence, but in London only 7% did, although 43% of all offences throughout England and Wales are committed here in London.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I have spent some time among gangs in Birmingham trying to understand gang culture and I support new clause 6. Does my hon. Friend agree that the most worrying thing is that, already in the playgrounds of primary schools, gangs are starting to form as children try to emulate their teenage and older colleagues? A knife is a badge of honour that they see the older kids using, so they think it is acceptable to have a knife too. Such children are getting younger and younger, and that is why the new clause is so important.
Nick de Bois
My hon. Friend touches on the important point that people should not see the carrying of a knife as a badge of honour. We should be looking to create more positive role models. I will touch on the wider issues that will help us to tackle such perceptions, which, in fairness, are not all about sentencing, although sentencing is a crucial element.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the Home Affairs Committee report on knife crime, published in 2008-09, which addressed all the points that he has so far raised?
Nick de Bois
I read many Select Committee reports and I am aware of that one, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that I seek a change in sentencing not in the basis of the offence. Since that report was written, we have not seen any significant improvement in dealing with the knife culture in this country.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Clacton has seen a spate of knife crime in recent months; the new clause will cut knife crime by handing out mandatory prison sentences to those caught carrying knives unlawfully a second time. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not simply a question of sending a message? This is no mere declaratory legislation. As a result of the new clause, anyone who carries a knife unlawfully will go to prison.
Nick de Bois
My hon. Friend’s message is exactly the one I want to send. However, as I will go on to explain, in the context of some of the Government’s reforms, going to prison for a second offence—let us not forget that it is for a second offence—is not only a punishment but an opportunity to reform and rehabilitate.
Sir Edward Garnier
My hon. Friend has obviously done a lot of research. He mentioned at the outset that a large number of defendants convicted of this type of crime had not received a custodial sentence. Has he done any analysis into the facts on which those people were convicted?
Nick de Bois
It is difficult to establish from 16,000 cases exactly what went on, but I was intrigued by the remarks of the Mayor of London, who was most concerned at the high number of people in London committing multiple offences who were still receiving cautions or community service orders, as shown by the report from his office for policing and crime. To answer my hon. and learned Friend’s question, that was far enough for me to go to challenge the imposition of the guidelines, which do require sentencing.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case, and it is difficult to see what grounds there could possibly be for opposing the new clause. Has he received any representations against what he seeks to do?
Nick de Bois
In fairness, the strongest representations have come from our coalition partners, as my right hon. Friend may be aware. However, I have also met representatives of many organisations and groups who have quite simply emerged from the street; they have either lived near, been involved in or had their lives touched by knife crime. My right hon. Friend might be interested in what I have to say about that later.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
On the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), I should say that I did do some analysis of court sentences in city centres and more provincial courts. For offences such as this, sentences are likely to be much tougher in provincial courts than in city centre courts. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is probably because the offences are much less likely to come up in provincial courts and are therefore more shocking, and because judges in city centres become immune to the importance of the offences because they happen so often?
Nick de Bois
I agree. Sadly, that is particularly true for younger offenders, for whom sentencing in London is half the rate of elsewhere.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. He carefully avoided the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) about whether he had had a look at the Home Affairs Committee report on knife crime. I urge him to do so. It is clearly against mandatory sentencing, but it also highlights that evidence suggests that the prospect of a custodial sentence may not deter young people from carrying knives. Does he accept that evidence from many people? Has he seen any evidence to the contrary?
Nick de Bois
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. In my follow-up paragraph, I deal directly with some people’s interpretation that the measure will not act as a deterrent. I urge some caution; it is a little peculiar that the hon. Gentleman’s party voted with such enthusiasm for mandatory sentencing two years ago, but somehow now does not see that as appropriate for existing offences.
I was talking about the shocking number of 2,500 young offenders carrying knives between the ages of 10 and 17, which is why the new clause starts by dealing with mandatory detention and training orders for 16 to 18-year-olds. Make no mistake: I am well aware that people are carrying knives far younger than that, but we have modelled the amendment on the previous amendment that is now part of the Legal Aid and Sentencing of Offenders Act 2012, and allowed us to deal comfortably with the 16 to 18-year-olds. As hon. Members may know, the Lord Chief Justice himself has called for an inquiry into the sentencing of younger offenders, given their prevalence in the courts and the courts’ concern at the number of young offenders under the age of 16. I welcome the commitment to explore that at a future date, and the issue may come back to the House.
Some have argued that sending a signal may not be enough and that potential offenders do not think of the consequences of pocketing a knife—a point made a moment ago. That is entirely possible, but let us not miss the wider point of this sentencing change. For those embarking on a journey that embraces the knife culture, the eventual destination may be serious injury to someone else, or even to the carrier of the knife. It may lead to a person’s death. They may take a life. That journey to destruction, which simply ruins lives, included picking up and carrying a knife for the first time. Quite simply, in the vast majority of cases, to kill someone with a knife, one first has to carry a knife. Our courts are dispensing sentences for possession of a knife in thousands of cases, which offenders treat as little more than an occupational hazard. With nearly 8,000 fines and cautions last year, I suggest that that fuels knife crime and does nothing to halt it.
Others may argue that custodial sentences are more likely to turn an offender into a serial offender. Under the new clause, mandatory sentencing would kick in for a second offence. The new clause targets the second offender, giving them a chance to turn their life around the first time. Being convicted a second time suggests that he or she is well on the road to being a serial offender. We have tabled the new clause in the knowledge that the Government are focusing their efforts on rehabilitation and reform in order to reduce reoffending and to help, not hinder, offenders in turning their lives around. For the first time, therefore, short-term prison terms are being accompanied by probation for those serving under a year, with “through the gates” mentoring and payment by results for reducing reoffending. I hope that that works. If prison can reduce reoffending, all the more power to this new clause so that we have yet another opportunity to turn someone’s life around before they potentially go on to commit a far more serious and grave offence.
I have never pretended to be an expert in this subject, and many in this House will probably be happy to support such a contention. However, I have regularly met people here in the Commons and in my constituency, courtesy of widespread engagement over the social media, in some cases, regarding the merits or otherwise of my new clauses. I have had extensive discussions with representatives of voluntary groups that have usually emerged as a result of knife crime in their area or through knowing friends or relatives who have been touched by knife crime or gangs. While not all those representatives necessarily agreed with the new clause—I am pleased to say that the majority did—we were united on one thing: that early intervention, education, mentoring, and focusing on reform and rehabilitation are crucial components in tackling the insidious knife crime culture. I put on record my thanks to those who offered so much of their time.
While I am in absolutely no doubt that we are right to focus on sentencing, that will be only part of the solution, not all of it. However, the idea put to me by some that these two approaches are mutually exclusive does not stack up. Indeed, I argue the exact opposite—that they must go hand in hand as part of a wider solution to the problem. I was particularly impressed by the force of the arguments put by the groups I met that reflect their passion and their background. They are self-starter organisations determined to try to move youngsters away from a life of knife crime. I worry that these groups of volunteers are not being used enough by the official channels, often through local government programmes supported by central Government, to help to turn lives around. These groups often operate on the basis of small private donations, or no money at all, and are not sufficiently resourced to bid for projects to help them further expand their work. I think they should be listened to. I realise that this does not speak to the new clause, but it is worth putting on record that they can be a vital part of the wider solution to the knife culture.
Tim Loughton
I am following what my hon. Friend is saying very closely. I entirely agree that there has to be a two-pronged approach. I think of organisations such as Lives Not Knives, run by Liza Rebeiro in Croydon, or Young Disciples, with whom I have worked in Birmingham. Does my hon. Friend agree that the message to bring these kids in from the cold is best put across by kids who have been affected—who have themselves been a part of gangs and have seen their friends or family members killed by knives? Kids sit up and listen to them far more, and they can achieve far more than any Government programme or professional.
Nick de Bois
My hon. Friend is as insightful as ever. I would put it more crudely. I do not believe that people like me—a suit—will ever reach these sorts of people as effectively as those from communities that have been touched by knife crime. My concern is that despite this Government’s gang strategy, we are not getting some of the resources needed right down at the bottom end to help to support some of these groups. He names two groups. I have worked with a number of anti-knife crime groups who will never forgive me for forgetting them as I stand here in the pressure of this Chamber. They are exactly the sort of people with whom we should be engaging more positively, and I hope we will do so.
We have listened very carefully to the victims and the victims’ relatives—those left behind after the death of a loved one. I pay particular tribute to my constituent, Yvonne Lawson, who is my inspiration for unapologetically pursuing the knife culture, including through previous amendments in this House and today’s new clauses. The loss of her son, Godwin, through a senseless and unprovoked attack has seen her witness a cruel journey that few, if any, of us in the Chamber will have experienced. She has devoted a remarkable amount of her time to turning around youngsters’ lives. Through her charity, the Godwin Lawson Foundation, named after her son, she raises awareness of the positive role that sport and education can have in challenging gang culture and the use of weapons as a status symbol. Her message on sentencing is clear and unequivocal: the courts need to play their part in making carrying a knife unacceptable. She and others fully support our attempts to put this into legislation.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I concur with and support everything that my hon. Friend has said. On listening to victims and victims’ families, my constituent, David Young, was stabbed once in the thigh and lost his life, and the offender was given seven years at Maidstone Crown court for manslaughter, which is completely unacceptable, in my view. His parents have been campaigning vigorously to ensure that those who were responsible should be given tougher sentences. Does my hon. Friend agree that because those who carry knives sometimes do not intend to carry out an offence, it must be made clear to them that carrying a knife in itself will lead to further consequences and tougher sentences?
Nick de Bois
Indeed. My hon. Friend’s constituent’s relatives have my deepest sympathy for what they have experienced.
Sending a message is very important. With the will of this Parliament, the courts should understand that we will not tolerate someone knowingly pocketing a knife when they go out, having once been convicted. They need to be clear in the knowledge that they will go to jail if this House supports the new clause.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Let me draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to new section (5B), which says:
“Where a person aged 16 or over is convicted of an offence under this section, the court must impose an appropriate custodial sentence…unless the court is of the opinion that there are particular circumstances which…relate to the offence or to the offender, and…would make it unjust to do so in all circumstances.”
I think he owes the House an explanation of what kinds of cases are covered by that.
Nick de Bois
I am sure that as we have constantly been advocating that the courts should have control of all matters, they will have exactly that. We are trying to change the presumption.
Nick de Bois
It would be extremely helpful if the hon. Gentleman would let me answer his first intervention. We are trying to change substantively the balance of weight of sentencing. He need look no further than the evidence that my constituent Yvonne Lawson looked to, which showed not only that the introduction of mandatory sentences for possession of guns sent a strong signal that we will not tolerate people carrying guns but that recorded gun crime has fallen significantly since mandatory sentences were introduced.
John Pugh
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer, but what we are looking for is an illustration of a real-time case that would fall under new section (5B) and that would not receive a mandatory sentence. Surely he must have had something in mind when he drafted this section.
Nick de Bois
I am very happy to answer that question. The clauses the hon. Gentleman voted for in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill had exactly the same wording. If he would like to review those cases, he will get a very good picture. I am surprised he did not show the same concern then as he seems to be showing now, or should I have expected that?
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
On messaging and deterrence, one of the critical issues is the certainty of being caught and the severity of the sanction, which we are trying to toughen up. Does my hon. Friend know the view of the Metropolitan police? Based on what he has said, it seems that a lot of people are being caught but the sanction is not tough enough. Do the police support the new clause?
Nick de Bois
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner wrote to the Government several months ago urging them to introduce the measure. The police fully support it and they do not like the fact—and they are right not to like it—that an increasing number of multiple offenders are not getting custodial sentences. They want a better response so that cases are worth prosecuting.
Nick de Bois
Let me make a little more progress; I think I have been pretty generous so far.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) has just illustrated with his comment on statistics, knife possession is not being treated with the gravity required to ensure public safety and justice for victims. It is reasonable to draw that conclusion when 8,000 people are still getting cautions and fines. Today, we can change that by turning the existing guidelines, which have a presumption in favour of prison, into a reality through mandatory sentencing, which would be another vital tool in the challenge of dealing with knife crime and knife culture.
Nick de Bois
In fairness, we ought to remember that other Members wish to speak.
Let me summarise something very important. Even the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister, has not quite got this right. The new clause is not an attempt to change the basis of prosecution; we simply wish to toughen up the sentencing. Our new clause would not change the basis for prosecution of someone carrying a knife, so a tradesman carrying his tools or—the Deputy Prime Minister seemed overtly worried about this—someone carrying a small penknife is excluded from the proposal by existing legislation.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, because the Deputy Prime Minister’s lack of knowledge is frankly shocking. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that a police officer would still have the discretion to decide not to charge little Johnny for carrying a penknife and that, even if he was arrested and taken to a police station, the custody officer and others would still be able to make the appropriate decision? It is completely wrong to say that the police’s hands will be tied if they stop a young person carrying an offensive weapon or a knife.
Nick de Bois
The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valid and pertinent point. I will put it much cruder: the scaremongering on penknives is absolute nonsense and defies common sense. I confirm exactly what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He and other Members may be interested to know that a scout leader—I seem to recall that scout leaders use penknives quite a lot—fully supported the proposals. He had no fear, so I hope the Deputy Prime Minister is reassured.
Let us accept that when an offender comes before a court for carrying a knife, current sentencing guidelines point to the expectation of prison. However, only one in four end up in prison. Our new clauses will make it clear to the court, the criminals, the public and the victims that the minimum expectation is a six-month sentence for over-18s.
Nick de Bois
I was just about to wind up, but I give way to my fellow member of the Justice Committee.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and apologise for missing the first part of this speech: I was in a meeting. He and I are members of the Justice Committee and we have interviewed at length people who have served either prison sentences or community service orders. Some have said that community service orders and restorative justice are much tougher and much more effective than going to prison, because they had to make decisions themselves and follow a programme. Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that we should think about this a bit more?
Nick de Bois
I remember those evidence sessions and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of them, but I have to look at the evidence on the day and the total numbers involved. We have not had mandatory sentencing under the existing system. I do not dispute the argument that some other measures are tough and are seen as such—I accept that—but the reality is that we do not have mandatory sentencing and I am afraid the record shows that current sentencing is not doing an acceptable job given the statistics I gave at the beginning of my speech.
Nick de Bois
I am sorry, but I will not give way any more.
Our new clauses make clear to criminals, the public and victims our minimum expectation with regard to someone who goes out knowingly carrying a knife as a second offence. I believe that everyone should get a chance, but the patience of the public, this House and victims is being sorely tested by what is happening in our judicial system. Today, we can make a difference by supporting new clause 6.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
I was not going to speak in this debate, but we have heard some powerful arguments. I support the new clause because we have made a distinction in law between crimes that involve guns and crimes that involve knives. I know that there are certain arguments for that—some will say that we were right to draw that distinction—but at the end of the day it makes precious little difference to families whether their teenage child is maimed by a gun or a knife. It is important that we reflect on the seriousness of crimes involving knives.
There is a specific liberal school of thought on the issue. I believe that many arguments could be made with greater force if new clause 6 related to a first offence with a knife, but that is not what it is about. A very important message is being sent.
From my personal experience as a councillor in Peckham, I know how seriously knife crime was viewed there. It concerns me that parts of the country that are many miles removed—culturally, economically and socially—from our inner cities now face crimes that 20 years ago would have been viewed as inner-city crimes. That is why it is important to send this message.
Those are some brief observations, but this is an important crime. This is not about not tokenism; it is about getting it right. If this country’s prison system is worth anything, we must also address rehabilitation so that the people who commit these crimes are put back on the right path. Let us not kid ourselves by arguing about abstract things. Knife crime is a cause of concern and I agree with the new clause.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
This group covers several issues, but let me start with the Government new clauses and amendments. New clause 44 creates a new offence of police corruption. Police officers ensure our safety in the Palace of Westminster, and they put their lives on the line every time they go out on patrol. Many police officers regularly serve the public bravely up and down the country, but as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on 6 March, the findings of Mark Ellison’s review of the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence are “profoundly shocking” and
“will be of grave concern to everyone in the House and beyond”.—[Official Report, 6 March 2014; Vol. 576, c. 1063.]
The public expect the police to act with honesty and integrity at all times, which is why the Government are introducing a range of measures to improve both the integrity and the transparency of the police. In the small number of cases where police officers fall short of the high standards we expect, it is right that the full force of the criminal law is available to punish and deter acts of corruption or other improper exercise of power.
Police corruption is currently dealt with in the criminal law as part of the common law offence of misconduct in public office. Although the number of prosecutions for misconduct in public office has increased in recent years, they have spanned a range of occupations, not just police officers. This Government believe that the British public expect on-duty police officers, as the guardians of the law and the Queen’s peace, to conduct themselves to a higher standard than other public servants. If police officers fail to conduct themselves to those high standards, it is right that we should seek to uphold that higher standard by means of the criminal law.
We believe that the best way to do that is to create a new offence of police corruption that applies solely to police officers, alongside the existing broader common law offence. The new offence will be triable only in the Crown court, and it will carry a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment. It will send a clear message that police corruption is serious, and that Parliament has expressly set a high maximum sentence for those convicted.
We have deliberately cast the behaviour covered by the new offence more broadly than the existing common law offence to ensure that it catches all acts of corrupt or other improper exercise of police powers and privileges. For example, were an officer deliberately to focus lines of inquiry away from a suspect with whom he had a corrupt relationship, such as by arresting a person they knew to be innocent, they would commit the offence. The offence applies whether or not the benefit or detriment came about, and regardless of whether the officer was on duty at the time of the corrupt behaviour. It covers cases where an officer fails to act for a purpose that is improper, such as if the officer knows that a suspect did not commit a crime, but conceals that knowledge because of an improper relationship with the person who committed it. It also applies where an officer threatens to act or not to act, and that threat is made for an improper purpose.
Amendments 45 and 46 are minor consequential amendments to the Bill’s extent and long title that arise from new clause 44.
New clauses 45 to 50 and new schedule 2 introduce new criminal offences of ill-treatment or wilful neglect by an individual care worker, and ill-treatment or wilful neglect of someone following a gross breach of a relevant duty of care by a care provider. The House will well remember the appalling events that occurred at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Much work has been put in train since February last year, when Sir Robert Francis published the final report of the public inquiry into those events, including the establishment of several reviews into specific issues.
The inquiry on patient safety, led by Professor Don Berwick, identified a small but significant gap in the existing legislation. It recommended the creation of a new offence of ill-treatment or wilful neglect to fill that gap. Of course, no sort of ill-treatment or wilful neglect of patients or those receiving social care is ever acceptable. Yet at the moment, no matter how egregious the conduct, prosecutions are difficult to pursue unless the victim either lacks capacity, is subject to the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983, or is a child to whom section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 applies. That means that a significant group of patients and service users are denied the protection of an offence directed explicitly at ill-treatment or wilful neglect by those entrusted with their care, both individuals and organisations. There is a range of existing legislative and regulatory safeguards that may apply in some cases, but we share the view that they are not sufficient to cover all the situations that might arise from ill-treatment or wilful neglect.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Will the Minister take account of the one new element in the situation, the development of social media, which makes it possible for a large crowd to be assembled for an illegal rave in a property that has been taken over for that purpose? That causes great problems for the neighbours.
Jeremy Wright
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He makes a very good point. That is one of the things that we need to look at carefully in considering whether to pursue the ideas that my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Bury North are putting forward in new clause 34. We will continue to do that work and to keep the legal framework under careful review. However, I hope that my hon. Friends will understand that, for the reasons I have given, I cannot accept the new clause today.
New clause 35 seeks to extend the offence in section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004—causing or allowing a child or vulnerable adult to die or suffer serious physical harm—so that it applies to causing or allowing any person to die or suffer serious physical harm. I understand that the intention of my hon. Friends is to create a new form of joint enterprise offence. As they will readily recognise, the law on joint enterprise is complex. It forms part of the common law on secondary liability and requires a common purpose between two or more people, resulting in each of them being liable for any offences which might be committed in pursuit of, or as a consequence of, that common purpose.
The offence under section 5 of the 2004 Act, by contrast, is not an offence of joint enterprise. Under the section 5 offence, the person who allows the death or serious physical harm is liable on the basis that he or she failed to take such steps as he or she could reasonably be expected to take to protect the victim from a foreseeable risk of serious physical harm, and not necessarily because he or she shared some common purpose with the person who caused the death or serious physical harm.
The important point about the section 5 offence is that it applies only to members of a victim’s household who had frequent contact with the victim, and could therefore reasonably be expected to have been aware of a risk of serious physical harm to the victim, and to have protected the victim from such harm. The offence therefore covers domestic situations in which members of the household may feel under pressure to remain silent to protect themselves and other members of the household.
I am not persuaded that it would be right to extend section 5 in the way that is suggested, not least because it is not an offence of joint enterprise. Moreover, the Government in 2004 deliberately limited the section 5 offence to the special circumstances that pertain when a person, whether a child or a vulnerable adult, who particularly needs the protection of the law is within the sanctuary of their own home. It has been used successfully in a number of cases, most notably that of baby Peter Connelly. We believe that such circumstances deserve special and extraordinary measures that are separate from the norm.
In addition, the section 5 offence does not require the person who allowed the death or serious physical harm to have been present at the time of the unlawful act, but simply to have been a member of the same household who had frequent contact with the victim, and could therefore reasonably be expected to have been aware of a risk of serious physical harm to the victim. If the allower had to be present at the time of the unlawful act, as the new clause requires, it would raise more difficult evidential requirements for the prosecution in a baby P-type case. My hon. Friends’ new clause would therefore detract from the usefulness of the offence in the specific circumstance at which it is aimed, and it would not necessarily be workable in a wider context. For that reason, I am afraid I cannot accept it.
New clause 36 would change the scope of the offence under section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress to others by using
“threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour,”
meaning that “insulting” words or behaviour are no longer captured. My hon. Friends’ intention may be to bring that section of the 1986 Act in line with a similar amendment to section 5 of that Act, which came into effect earlier this year. There are, however, significant differences between the section 5 offence and the more serious and deliberate offence made out under section 4A. The latter requires proof of intent to cause harm to another person, and proof that such harassment, alarm and distress were actually caused to another person. Those differentiating features make it much more serious and significantly raise the threshold of what must be proved. In the light of that higher threshold, the Government do not agree that excluding “insulting” words or behaviour is justified.
Furthermore, during the long-running campaign that culminated in the change to section 5, one key argument put forward by those seeking to remove “insulting” was that removal would not have a negative impact on minority groups because the police had more appropriate powers available to deal with such unacceptable behaviour under section 4A of the 1986 Act. Having accepted that argument as part of the reasoning behind the removal of “insulting” from section 5, it does not seem sensible to remove the protections provided by retaining “insulting” in relation to words and behaviour in section 4A.
For new clauses 6 and 7 I pay tribute not just to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes)—to whom generous tribute was paid by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois)—but, preventing his modesty from excluding the facts, to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North. He has done a huge amount to raise awareness of knife crime concerns, and few people in this place have done more to enhance the safety of the communities they represent, and indeed other communities, by a single-minded focus on this issue.
As my hon. Friend knows, the Government have done their bit on this subject. We have a comprehensive plan in place under the ending gang and youth violence programme, and—in no small measure down to his efforts—we extended new offences of threatening with a knife or offensive weapon in a public place or a school to young people as well as adults, and introduced a minimum sentence for those offences. We have stopped simple cautions being used for possession of a knife in the absence of exceptional circumstances, and as he knows, we are legislating further on cautioning in the Bill. We have taken this issue seriously throughout, and will continue to do so.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
When some of those measures were passed, full consideration was given to their consequences. What would be the consequences for the prison population of accepting new clauses 6 and 7?
Jeremy Wright
As my hon. Friend and distinguished predecessor will understand better than most, these are not Government new clauses and therefore they do not come with the same assessments. He will appreciate that the two different new clauses would have different effects, but if the House of Commons decides that those changes should play a part in the Bill, we will make all the necessary assessments. He will also understand that the Government’s clear policy is to ensure that the right people are in prison and that the courts have the opportunity to send the right people to prison whenever they deem that appropriate. The way to deal with and reduce the prison population is, very straightforwardly, to ensure that reoffending is reduced and that people do not continue to return to custody. My hon. Friend began the good work in that regard.
Sir Bob Russell
The Minister, quite rightly, is using his words carefully. Following the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), would the sentence be mandatory, or would judges still have an element of discretion?
Jeremy Wright
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North made the position very clear. It is a mandatory sentence in the absence of exceptional circumstances. The courts would have the opportunity to say that in those exceptional circumstances the penalty should not apply, but that is standard practice for mandatory sentencing across the criminal law, and entirely appropriate.
Crispin Blunt
I do not understand how my hon. Friend can vigorously oppose new clause 34, despite its evident merits—and on which I unusually agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—because it has not been fully considered, and not come out with a similar line about the cost of the measures before us, which ought to be part of our full consideration before we make our decision.
Jeremy Wright
My hon. Friend is right that if he is in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), he does have me worried. He will appreciate that the arguments on new clause 34 are rather broader than its cost implications. As I have set out already, we cannot accept it at this stage for several reasons, and that is different from a specifically cost-related calculation.
I note that new clauses 6 and 7 contain some minor, technical flaws that would need to be addressed if either were to receive the approval of the House today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North knows, his objectives have considerable support among Conservative Members. However, as he also knows, although both coalition parties are fully committed to protecting the public, policy agreement has not been reached on these new clauses, so it will be for the whole House to decide on the conclusion to this debate. So that that debate may continue, I shall finally say that I hope that the House will support—
Dr Huppert
The Minister coyly described flaws in the new clauses. Would he care to list them so that the House may know exactly what they are?
Jeremy Wright
I am not sure that this is the appropriate time. There are some minor and technical flaws, but my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North has made his case and the House will have to consider what he has said and decide what it wishes to do. Regardless of the fate of my hon. Friend’s new clauses, I hope that the Government’s new clauses, new schedule and amendments will find favour with the House.
Mr Slaughter
I will take a different approach from the Minister’s and address the majority of my remarks to new clauses 6 and 7; I shall discuss the Government’s clauses at the end of my speech. I welcome this debate and the chance to discuss a subject important to all hon. Members—perhaps particularly to those with constituencies in London, where almost half of knife-related offences take place. Knife crime is one of the most serious and intractable criminal justice issues, and one that often leaves irrevocable damage in its wake.
In my own borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, we have seen more than 800 knife crime incidents since 2010, with tragic consequences for the victims and their families. In London as a whole, that figure is closer to 40,000. In 2013-14, more than 50% of all murders in London were committed with a knife. Knife crime is not just an issue for London and other major cities: it is a national menace. Nearly a third of adult offenders currently receive an immediate custodial sentence. New clauses 6 and 7 would impose what has been referred to as a mandatory minimum custodial sentence on those convicted of a second knife possession offence. For those aged 18 and over, it would be six months; for those aged 16 to 18, it would be a four-month detention and training order.
Contrary to press reports, and statements made by the Deputy Prime Minister, the new clauses would permit judicial discretion, and that is key to our support. Subsection (2B) of new clause 6 states that
“the court must impose an appropriate custodial sentence…unless…there are particular circumstances”—
those are the words, rather than “exceptional circumstances”—
“which…relate to the offence or to the offender and…would make it unjust…in all the circumstances.”
It would also be a defence to the new offences if possession were with lawful authority or reasonable excuse. This measure should not be seen as a catch-all solution.
In light of the current overcrowding crisis in the prison system, The Guardian reported today that the Lord Chancellor will be unable to implement his legislation, if passed, for at least a year; his reverse King Midas touch extends, it seems, to all areas of the criminal justice system.
Sir Bob Russell
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the policies of the last Government to deal with knife crime failed?
Mr Slaughter
That is a peculiar conclusion to reach from the comments I have just made. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I am just coming to the previous legislation on knife crime. In the meantime—this point may be of interest to Liberal Democrats—I should say that the issue is not just about increasing sentencing powers. In the next year, for example, the Home Affairs Committee will have concluded its inquiry into gangs and youth crime, with a remit including the effectiveness of current law enforcement and legislation, including gang injunctions and knife and gun crime legislation.
There are many other ways in which young people in particular can be discouraged from carrying knives. Prevention is better than cure. Education, tackling gang culture and deterrence all have a part to play, but it is important that the message should go out from this House that carrying a knife without good reason is unacceptable.
Sir Alan Beith
Over my many years in the House, I have heard the expression “A message must go out from this House” so many times. If there is one group of the population that seems unable ever to hear these messages, it is those who commit crimes. Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that many of those who do either foolish or evil things tend not to think that they will get caught and not to think that, if they are caught, they will get whatever sentence the House has decided on?
Mr Slaughter
The right hon. Gentleman has been here for a very long time and perhaps cynicism has entered his soul about the ability of the legislature to have any influence on the population at large. As a newer Member, I retain some hope that somebody out there might be listening to us at some point.
This is a serious debate, and I commend the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) on the measured way in which he moved the new clause. However, I regret that both sides of the coalition have used an issue of such seriousness for what I can only call a bit of crude political brand management. The new clauses prescribe mandatory sentencing only if a second offence is committed, if there is no lawful authority or reasonable excuse and if the court does not find particular circumstances of the offender or the offence that make that unjust.
We will not hear either the movers of the clauses or the Liberal Democrats highlighting any of those factors—the movers, because they want to show how tough the Tory party can be, and the Deputy Prime Minister, to buff his tarnished liberal credentials. The leaking of the original letter highlighting the coalition dispute over this incredibly sensitive issue was cynically timed just before the local elections—elections that nevertheless saw both parties significantly stumble. Where was this new, improved brave and defiant version of the Deputy Prime Minister when the Tories came to carve up the NHS, slash legal aid or treble tuition fees? He was in the Lobby with them, ensuring their policies went through. I am glad he is taking a keen interest in justice policy, but his timing is noted for what it clearly is—a cheap political stunt to throw a bone to his increasingly malnourished base.
The hon. Member for Enfield North has already alluded to this point, but I led for the Opposition in the very lengthy Committee stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the last attempt to honour the Tory manifesto promise that
“anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence.”
A new offence was created in that Act, of threatening with an offensive weapon in public. It was a serious offence, triable either way with a maximum term of four years on conviction on indictment. It imposed mandatory minimum sentences, as in the clauses under discussion. What was the Liberal Democrats’ response? It is there in Hansard, in the words of the then Justice Minister—he was here until a few moments ago—the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt). He was asked what the view of the coalition was, and he said:
“Of course, we enjoy the full support of our Liberal Democrat colleagues on this.”––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 13 October 2011; c. 808.]
The new clause, with exactly the same provisions in respect of mandatory minimum sentences with judicial discretion—I have set out other caveats—was agreed without a Division. I ask Liberal Democrat Members in their places today: “What has changed since?” We will support the new clauses in the knowledge that they are not enough in themselves to tackle the problem and that they are a proportionate, not a draconian, response.
I shall speak briefly to the other provisions. We have at least had some time to consider new clauses 6 and 7, but the rest of the new clauses and amendments in the group were tabled by the Government so late as to make our scrutiny farcical. The fact that the intention behind them is laudable does not mitigate the appalling management of business, and they hardly have the excuse of being overloaded with legislation. It remains important to ensure that legislation, however consensual, does the job it purports to do.
We support new clause 44, as well as amendments 45 and 46. It creates the offence of police corruption. Alone, that is not the answer. We have called for a bolder and more radical way of tackling police corruption so that the good work of the vast majority of officers is not blighted by the actions of a few.
We have already called for the abolition of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and for its replacement with a stronger and more robust police standards authority. Notwithstanding the Minister’s comments about special responsibilities and a higher standard of police officers, I observe that if the Government are introducing this new offence because they believe that the offence of misconduct in a public office is in some way obsolete or arcane, they might at some stage need to address the other public professions covered by the same provisions. As I say, we do not oppose the Government’s proposals here.
Similarly, we support the new clauses and amendments dealing with wilful neglect in care homes by care providers. As they relate to care homes, almost identical amendments to these were proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) during the passage of the Care Bill. I am pleased to see in her place my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), who led the opposition to that Bill. She will no doubt confirm the similarity; we tabled amendments in Committee to make directors of care providers face jail if their management of services led to abuse or neglect. The Government voted that down on Report. I see no reason for that other than that they wanted to bring it up in their own time. There it is, however—better late than never. I often think that it is better for them to follow up and make their own way in the world.
I am afraid that a number of new clauses will not get proper scrutiny this afternoon if they do not cover the main issues for which most Members have attended the debate. It is to be hoped that the other place will give proper attention to the detail; a restricted debate on Report cannot do so here. The situation is to be regretted even more if we do not manage to reach the final group of amendments, which propose brand-new provisions that have never been scrutinised here. The Government should desist from this policy, which is simply disrespectful to this House and all its Members.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, not least because I have been ill over the last couple of weeks. It is good to be back on my feet today, particularly to support new clauses 6 and 7, along with the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). Full tribute has already been made to him, and I would like to repeat that he is indeed the best of advocates and a champion for his constituents, particularly when it comes to knife crime.
It has been good for me to be able to co-author the new clauses with my hon. Friend, although there is an element of sadness and no great pleasure because these provisions arise from the concern in Enfield about the prevalence of knife crime, which is shared across London and, indeed, the country. Welcome progress has been made under this Government on tackling knife crime in all its forms—its prevention and what happens when cases are taken to the courts. Knife crime as a serious form of youth violence is down by more than 19% in Enfield, but one knife attack is one too many, and it is hardly surprising that we are here again, wanting to ensure that sentencing on knife crime is as tough as it should be.
This issue is shared by many Members across the House—it is not exclusive to Enfield. The Opposition’s support is welcome. The Justice Secretary and the Home Secretary have been vocal and public in their support for the new clause, as have a number of politicians across the field. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been particularly vocal, and has campaigned with us on this issue for a long time.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend refers to being a defence barrister. I am sure he was very distinguished. Reference was made earlier to prison being seen as the soft option, and that community sentences are much tougher. When he was a defence barrister or solicitor representing his clients, how many times did he ask for his clients to be sent to prison because it was considered to be the softer option and he wanted to avoid a community sentence at all costs?
Mr Burrowes
I can actually think of occasions when I looked at a magistrate and knew my client was inevitably going to get a custodial sentence, and I had to try to convince him of an alternative. One client would not come out of his cell and spent his time doing headstands. He could take any sentence doing it on his head. There were the odd occasions when one had to be counter-intuitive, particularly with magistrates, but my hon. Friend makes an important point.
The reality that I saw as a defence solicitor—not as a barrister, I have to say—was that all too often there were occasions when prison was avoided. A good plea of mitigation from an advocate—that the young person had the knife for his own protection, or was led up the wrong path by other people and so on—has led to individuals avoiding custodial sentences. Some may say that that should come within the exceptional circumstances category and that there is full discretion for magistrates. The new clause will make it resoundingly clear that there is a minimum mandatory sentence, and that it should only be in exceptional circumstances—coercion and other serious cases that do arise, but which are an exception—that magistrates can quite properly use their discretion. The new clause would ensure that it was very clear to victims, the public and offenders themselves that those who carry knives will go to prison. That has applied for some years to repeat drug offenders, repeat domestic burglars and repeat firearm carriers, and I understand that it is having an effect in relation to firearms offences in particular.
Sir Alan Beith
Ought not the court to consider what sentence would make it most likely that the person concerned would never commit any more crimes?
Mr Burrowes
Obviously the court will always be concerned with the issue of reoffending. However, it must balance a great many factors, not least the severity of offences, the need for deterrence, and the need for offenders to be in prison so that they cannot commit further offences, but also the fact that it is important for others, not least the victims, to know that the offence is very serious. As has already been pointed out, people who carry knives are putting not just others but themselves in danger. We need to ensure that minimum mandatory sentences are par for the course, as they are in the case of other serious offending.
It surprises me that the Liberal Democrats oppose the new clause. In 2011, they agreed—unanimously, I believe—with a measure proposing a minimum mandatory sentence for knife crime which involved the same issue of discretion in exceptional circumstances. When it comes to mandatory minimum sentencing, what is the quantitative, indeed qualitative, difference, in terms of principle, between someone carrying a knife in a threatening manner and someone carrying a knife for the second time? The Liberal Democrats like to say that they are standing on a key issue of principle.
Dr Huppert
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman cannot work out the answer to his own question. There is a substantial difference between carrying a knife and threatening someone with a knife. In the first instance, the knife could be intended for protection; in the second, the person with the knife risks causing harm to someone else. There is a very clear difference, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman cannot see it.
Mr Burrowes
It is clear that they are different offences, but my point is that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that we should have nothing to do with a mandatory minimum sentence, as a matter of principle. I do not understand the difference between the examples given by the hon. Gentleman when it comes to the principle of mandatory sentencing. He said that people might carry knives for their own protection, but the issue is the same whether a person threatens someone else or whether that person is carrying a knife for the second time. In both cases, a mandatory sentence is applied. It would be necessary to go a considerable way to show exceptional circumstances to avoid a prison sentence.
Mr Slaughter
I am puzzling over this as well. The Deputy Prime Minister said this in his article in The Guardian, which is in front of me:
“While minimum sentencing might sound attractive in media headlines there is a serious risk it could undermine the role of the judges, who are best placed to decide on sentencing.”
I cannot see how that differentiates between different offences, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman can.
Mr Burrowes
The hon. Gentleman may have put his finger on it. Perhaps the issue is the media, and the difference between the headlines of 2011 and those of 2014. Perhaps a differentiation strategy is now more important than an anti-crime strategy. Perhaps a political party is now more concerned about their own interests than about the interests of victims and the public.
Others wish to speak, so I shall not continue for too long, but the fact is that this is not something that has been cooked up on the back of a media issue to make a point. It follows a long campaign, on which I have fought hard with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North for a number of years. Last year, Joshua Folkes was killed in an awful knife attack in Bowes road in my constituency. The circumstances are still not clear, despite a judicial determination. We do not know what happened, but we do know that knives were present, and that they caused a young person to die. That was unacceptable then, and we must be intolerant of such cases now.
Last year I asked the Prime Minister whether we could please be intolerant towards knife crime, and we have the answer to that today. Yes, we will be intolerant, following a long campaign that has been fought by many. The Mayor joined us in that campaign: in February he organised a meeting bringing together representatives of the Metropolitan police and others, and on 23 April he wrote to the Home Secretary calling for a measure such as this. We certainly have not come to this recently, therefore; we have been there for many years and, on behalf of the victims—the tragic cases of those, like Godwin, who have lost their lives—we must do more. We cannot rest when more people are losing their lives—being cut down in their prime—unnecessarily.
We must do it also because we, certainly on the Conservative Benches, want to stick to our promises. We made a manifesto commitment to ensure there is an expectation that people go to prison for carrying a knife, and we want to continue to honour that, which is what we are doing today. That is why I call on all Members of the House to support new clauses 6 and 7.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I welcome new clauses 45 and 46 that would hold care home providers to account. Police Operation Jasmine was an £11.6 million seven-year investigation into care homes in the south Wales region. It uncovered shocking instances of neglect. Care home residents were not receiving the care and protection they deserved. One director’s inability to stand trial due to ill health saw a case with more than 10,000 pieces of evidence, and more than 100 families calling for justice, collapse. That remains a travesty to this day.
These new clauses will make wilful neglect an offence. They will make prosecutions more likely in the future. Older people in care homes and their families place their trust in care home staff and providers alike. Both should be held equally responsible when that trust is abused. With the support of Age UK, I tabled amendments to the recent Care Bill for one simple reason: so that victims and their families can get the justice they deserve.
Operation Jasmine went on far too long and cost too much money, but still failed to achieve justice. This change in the law will help right that wrong. I tabled an amendment to the Care Bill which would have made corporate neglect an offence. At that point, the Minister acknowledged the importance of this issue, but the Government did not support my amendment when it was put to a vote on Report. Even so, I am pleased that Ministers are now moving this much-needed change in the law to address a problem that refuses to go away.
The Welsh Government, backed by the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, have now begun their independent review into Operation Jasmine. I am thankful that the 100 families involved have a real chance at last to understand what went wrong.
I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) for her support throughout this campaign. It has taken longer than it should, but we got there in the end.
Dr Huppert
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I want to begin by paying tribute to the quality of the speech by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). I do not agree with every point he made, but although we disagree on some things, I do not doubt his sincerity or the efforts he is making. I suspect we share a common goal; what we disagree about is how best to get there. However, I think he carefully avoided commenting on the mandatory/non-mandatory issue. It was noteworthy that when he addressed comments made by his colleagues he talked about it being mandatory, but when he addressed Members on the other side of the House he was careful to say that it was not. That is one of the key challenges.
We do not dispute that knife crime is a problem: too many people are attacked and injured with knives. Knife possession is, and should be, a criminal offence, although I was struck by a factual inaccuracy about laws relating to penknives and so on—nobody mentioned that the definition is a limit of up to 3 inches; it is not to do with anything else, and it is not to do with police discretion.
I am pleased that there has been a substantial decline in knife possession offences over the last three years. Fewer people are carrying knives—there are reductions of 30% for children and 23% for adults—which suggests that things are getting better, although they are clearly not perfect.
The argument today is not whether anybody thinks it is all right for people to carry knives. Clearly, it is not all right, and that is why the Government introduced the legislation on threatening people with a knife in a public place, including at school. The key issue there is the difference between threatening and carrying.
The question that the House must consider is whether we should do the thing that sounds the toughest or the things that actually work. A strong sanction is available: judges can, if they think it is appropriate, sentence people to up to four years in jail for first-time possession of a knife. Some of us believe in judicial discretion—that it is up to judges to consider all the details of a case to gain the best understanding.
Nick de Bois
I want to return to the point that I am really struggling with. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks and the spirit they were made in, but the question is not the type of offence—on which I believe the Liberal Democrats should be challenged—but the principle of the mandatory sentence. More important than the type of offence—be it waving a knife around or carrying it in a pocket—is the principle of judicial discretion and the mandatory sentence. Two years ago, the hon. Gentleman supported that and now he does not. I have not heard an answer to that question.
Dr Huppert
If the hon. Gentleman wants to personalise this, in fact, I did not support it. He can check the record on that one, although I accept that, like all of us, he has not memorised every single Division in this House.
To my mind, there is a huge conceptual difference between possession and the act of threatening someone, because one of them is so much closer to—[Interruption.] Nobody is expecting that a caution should be given for an offence such as murder. Murder is clearly much more serious; there is that scale and there is a clear difference.
I will come on to mandatory sentencing in other areas in a moment, but I want to consider the fascinating evidence on knife crime that was given before the Home Affairs Committee. A range of people gave evidence, including the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), as she now is—she is not in her place, which is a shame—who at the time was speaking for the Scout Association. I recommend her evidence in particular. John Bache, chairman of the Magistrates Association youth courts committee, said that, while he agreed that removing knives from the streets was of paramount importance, the Magistrates Association was against mandatory sentences. That is something we should listen carefully to. We also heard from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock, who led at the time for the Association of Chief Police Officers on this issue; he is now chief constable of the Ministry of Defence. He was very clear that he opposed mandatory sentencing, and what he said comes exactly to the point:
“I feel there is a difference, for example, between the mandatory sentence for gun crime, where someone has to be within certain criminal networks and has to procure the weapon…and knife crime where you are talking about a weapon that is easily accessible...and the circumstances in which a young person might come to have a knife in their possession can be quite varied. For example, you might have a 16 year old who is a recidivist offender, who is going out and committing robberies, who is going out and threatening other people, who is within a gang environment.”
He then compares them to a young person who
“has been having a bit of a hard time school, a bit of bullying and then stupidly puts the knife in their bag on one occasion and gets caught. If you have got a mandatory sentence then that person who is the recidivist, unpleasant, nasty offender is going to get the same sentence as the young person who has done something really stupid and should have a more appropriate sanction.”
Dr Huppert
I will happily give way, but I should highlight the fact that Commissioner Hitchcock was talking about a first offence, and I accept—if this is the point the hon. Gentleman is about to make—that he did not comment on a second offence. I will still give way if the hon. Gentleman likes, but I suspect he was going to make the point I was about to make myself.
Dr Huppert
I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman. It is always a pleasure to hear him try to stand up for liberalism, given the legislation that he and his party supported.
Mr Slaughter
Whatever.
Yes, there is the question of the second offence, but more importantly, all the examples the Liberal Democrats give—be it the one the hon. Gentleman has just given, or the Deputy Prime Minister’s example of a vulnerable young girl hanging around with a gang—are exactly what judicial discretion, which remains in these clauses, is there to support: particular circumstances relating to the offender.
Dr Huppert
I find the hon. Gentleman’s efforts to bridge everything fascinating: he is in favour of mandatory sentencing as long as there is discretion for the police and the judges—and everybody else. He is thoroughly confused. The judge already has the power to sentence somebody for up to four years. Under this proposal, they will also have that power, so I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman’s point is. There are many such cases.
The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said that the cases in which there are exceptional circumstances are incredibly rare, but a huge range of cases will arise. They cannot be both incredibly rare and very common.
The main argument for the new clause seems to be that it sends out a message. It is not about changing what the judge can actually do; it is about sending out a message. As was said earlier, sending a message through legislation always seems like a pretty poor argument. I would be interested to hear whether there is evidence to suggest that people will listen to what such a message contains. We must understand why people carry knives: the Home Office has done a substantial amount of work on that over the years, and the main reason it found was that people feel they need protection. A Home Office study found that 85% of young people who reported carrying a knife did so for protection and only a tiny fraction did so to threaten or injure somebody.
People should not carry a knife for protection. It is not a sensible thing to do, but we should consider why they do it. We know that knife possession is particularly high among people who have been victims of crime, especially young males. Once they have been victims of crime, they are far more likely to carry a knife afterwards. That tells us something about the motivation, why they are carrying knives and how we can best persuade them not to do so. If somebody is literally terrified that they may be attacked—this is all too common—and they already know that they could get up to four years in jail for carrying a knife, will the new clause send a strong enough message? Are there better things that we could do to address the issue?
Mr Burrowes
The hon. Gentleman will agree that it is important to look at existing legislation rather than to over-legislate. It is important to use the right examples: if someone is in terror that they are about to be attacked, the existing common law covers duress and coercion, which could then be a defence. A defence is one thing, but mitigation is another. It does not in any way go against the need to ensure that legislation is tough and includes a mandatory sentence.
Dr Huppert
I confess that I am not a lawyer, but I think that it would be hard to make a defence—those who are lawyers may correct me—of generally being scared of being attacked over a long time period, given that people are not carrying a knife because they expect to be attacked on a particular occasion and in a particular place. That is the problem. These people are scared. They are carrying a knife because of the risk that somebody will attack them, not because they ever intend to use it or hope to use it. I recognise that the defence would apply if someone grabbed a knife to defend themselves from an attack, but it would not apply in this case.
The Home Affairs Committee carried out a detailed report into this subject. Incidentally, its findings were unanimous. Earlier, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said from a sedentary position that the Committee had a left-wing majority. It was a unanimous report, and I am not sure whether we are seeing a clear majority on the left at the moment. The Committee concluded that
“evidence suggests that the prospect of a custodial sentence may not deter young people from carrying knives. Many young people do not think about the consequences of their actions, and for a small minority who feel at risk of violence, the prospect of jail seems preferable to the dangers of being caught without a weapon for protection.”
It is that issue that we need to think further about. None of us is happy that that is the way things are, and that people are concerned to that extent, but that is the situation that we face.
The Select Committee took lots of evidence from young people who have been involved in knife crime. They said:
“It does not go through your mind at all about prison or whatever; it does not exist.”
There is lots of evidence to show that sentencing does not have that much effect. The 2001 Halliday report on sentencing found no evidence to suggest that there was a link between differences in sentence severity and deterrence effects. It concluded that
“it is the prospect of getting caught that has deterrence value”
rather than the nature of the sentence itself.
The Centre for Social Justice said:
“An increase in the number of people imprisoned for knife possession does not warrant celebration, particularly when we know that the majority of young people carry knives out of fear and…custody exposes young people to more hardened criminals.”
That is another problem that was briefly touched on earlier. When young people have been led astray, and find themselves involved in gangs and knife crime, there are a number of paths that they can take. If they manage to avoid death or injury—unfortunately that is not the case for all of them—they might clean up their act, or they might settle into a life of repeated criminality. We all hope that they will sort themselves out, but we know that prison sentences push people into repeat offending. Prison has its place, and there are strenuous efforts now to try to improve rehabilitation, but we still see high reoffending levels. We should be wary of increasing the damaging effect that prison has on people’s futures.
We should also be looking for unintended consequences on people’s behaviour—if they are listening to the message being sent out. People in gangs who have been charged once with possessing a knife will simply react—if they pay any attention at all, and that will depend on the quality of policing—by making another more junior, more vulnerable gang member carry a knife for them. That will seem like a sensible and rational response, if they are listening to the message that is being sent out. Under-16s will be put under intense pressure to do that for the obvious reason that they would not be caught by the new clause. That would put under-16s at greater risk by leading them further into gang behaviour. If the new clause is added to the Bill, I expect one of the unintended consequences to be an increase in those aged 15 and under carrying knives.
Nick de Bois
Does the hon. Gentleman not see a contradiction in what he is saying? He says that no one will pay attention to the law because it will not be a deterrent, but he also says that they will plan to give knives to younger people.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman normally listens carefully. What I said, very clearly, was that if anybody listened, that would be the effect. I am sceptical about how many people will listen to the message being sent out, but even if they do, the new clause would simply drive that strong and unintended consequence. I am sure that some people listen to the messages that come out of this place, and I am sure that some of them read the Hansard transcripts of our debates, but I am sure that not everybody does.
I believe that there is a risk of serious, unplanned harm resulting from this well-intentioned new clause. If it works in the way in which some hon. Members would like, by putting more people in jail, there will be another problem: there is not room in our prisons, which are already overcrowded. Perhaps I should not be surprised that the Labour party could yesterday complain about how full the prisons are and how awful it is that there is no space, but today try to fit more people into them. I am sure that there is a logic in there somewhere.
Mr Slaughter
Turning that around, the hon. Gentleman is part of a coalition that says that there is plenty of space in the prison system and more coming on stream. He might want to ask the Government he supports why they have closed 18 prisons.
Dr Huppert
We may be going down a sidetrack, but I am delighted that under this Government there are fewer women and children in prison than the previous Labour Government ever managed. I am satisfied with that achievement. However, I realise that the Labour party is still in a space of wanting to lock up as many people as possible to show how tough on crime it can be.
John McDonnell
I do wish that the hon. Gentleman would not rile the Front Benchers, because we end up going off on tangents. If someone is listening—with regard to the offenders; I did not mean listening to the Front Benchers—who might carry a knife, my concern is this. I have seen some evidence in my constituency that people have tried to avoid the existing legislation by looking for other weapons. In a recent murder in my constituency, an axe was used, and we have also seen the spraying of acid. If people listen to the message that they will be committing an offence by carrying a knife on two occasions, my fear is that they will diversify into other weapons to avoid that, if they are sufficiently calculating.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point that I had not thought to add. He is absolutely right, and I hope that he will support us on the matter.
Mr Burrowes
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that although the focus of new clauses 6 and 7 is on knives and bladed articles, they cover offensive weapons. Any weapon, whatever it might be, that is determined to be offensive—whether per se, because it is carried with intent or because of its use—would be covered by new clauses 6 and 7.
Dr Huppert
I have not checked the exact wording, but I suspect that some things would not fall into that category because they have other uses. That may be one of the flaws that the Minister indicated.
John McDonnell
I cannot see how that is covered in the new clauses, and it might be worth getting some clarity from the Minister.
Dr Huppert
Perhaps that is one of the flaws. I will move on, because I am not in a position to arbitrate between the two sides while I am speaking.
I see that the Justice Secretary has said that even if such amendments were passed in some form he would have to delay their implementation because there is no space in the prisons. That strikes me as something that we should consider in deciding whether to go ahead. Incidentally, it is also a strong argument for more rational sentencing decisions to ensure that we are locking up the right people and not the wrong people. We ought also to be more rational about how many years people get for different offences.
Nick de Bois
May I ask the hon. Gentleman to factor in one other matter, as I think that his attention to the detail of the expenditure misses one valuable point? I would pay that money if my new clauses saved lives, as I believe they will.
Dr Huppert
I am fascinated that the hon. Gentleman is prepared to pay £20 million. My point is not for or against saving lives, but about which approach will save lives more effectively. Will we save more lives by agreeing the new clauses, at a cost of £20 million? Or will we save more lives by spending that money on reducing the gang crime that blights our cities and other areas? Which will reduce knife crime by more? I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman’s proposals would not have any effect at all, but I would challenge whether they are the best way of proceeding and of saving the most lives.
If we had that extra money, we could do many more of the things that we should be doing. We could do more to teach 11 to 16-year-olds of the consequences of knife crime and the harm that can come to them, and to encourage them to report knife carrying so that it happens less in our schools and on our streets. We could make more young people aware of the downsides of gang culture and run much more effective anti-gang programs. We could extend the highly successful “This is abuse” campaign to girls who are associated with gang members and who are at particular risk of sexual exploitation. Those are all things that the Government could do that would stop people picking up a knife in the first place. We could use money for that instead of just locking people up.
The Secretary of State used to understand that. When he gave evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, he said that what
“I would seek to bring to Government, if we win the election, is all around the principle of early intervention...I think that the way in which we make the biggest difference to knife crime and indeed to other violent crimes, particularly amongst the young, is through more effective early intervention.”
He was right when he said that; the money should be spent on early intervention, as I think, and the Justice Secretary used to think, that that is more effective. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock, as he was then, also explained why we are going to get this wrong, as I highlighted earlier.
We should make it very clear that carrying a knife for whatever reason, whether it is driven by fear or to threaten others, is not tolerated, but banging up people who have been misguided and making the situation worse is not the way to do that. This is about finding alternatives, and there are some fantastically effective alternatives. Since 2006, the organisation Redthread has been embedding workers in the trauma centre at King’s College hospital. Its staff work closely with accident and emergency staff to try to disrupt the cycle of violence that brings hundreds of young people to the hospital each year. Every week, their clinical colleagues see mostly young men who for a range of reasons find themselves victims or perpetrators of gun and knife crime. Redthread staff take the opportunity to try to turn around people who have been involved, injured and seen the worst that can happen as a result of such crime—at a time when they are shocked and their lives can be changed. Supporting anti-gang work at the scene in A and E, with better education and more awareness-raising in schools, seems to me to be the way to reduce knife crime further.
There is another thing we should do and which I am surprised the Justice Secretary has not done: insist that the Sentencing Council re-examine the current guidelines for knife crime. They were last looked at in 2008. There is a strong case to look at them again, and to look at them in the round to make sure that we have the right sentences. I do not know why the Justice Secretary has not done that ahead of time. He could have done so easily, as he did recently for one-punch killing.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree with my proposal that in order to ensure that sentences are looked at in the round, that they reflect the views of the public who elect us and that they are effective, the Sentencing Council should be a committee of this Parliament?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has been very generous in giving way, but he has been speaking for some considerable time and there are at least six other Members who wish to speak before this debate terminates at 6 o’clock. May I gently suggest that he be less generous and make progress quickly?
Dr Huppert
I am starting the last page of my speech and I shall try to avoid taking more interventions.
If the Justice Secretary did as I suggest, we could look in the round at everything from simple possession through to murder with a knife. We could have coherent guidelines for these offences and more proportionate sentencing. I want to see that. It would also help us with an evidence-based approach. We could look at the facts and at what makes a difference, and make sure we take the right steps to get knives off our streets and out of the hands of children.
I entirely understand the arguments of the supporters of the new clauses. I understand what they are trying to achieve and I have sympathy with it. I do not fault their intentions at all, but we should look at the consequences, the downsides and the alternatives. We should remain tough on those who use knives to harm other people and we should be tough on the causes of knife crime. We should not do just what looks tough.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I remind hon. Members that this debate ends at 6 o’clock and we have to go back to the mover of the new clause, which means that we will entirely lose the last group of amendments. It is not possible in the time available for every Member to speak for 25 minutes. Therefore I ask Members to speak for 10 minutes or less and to be courteous to their colleagues in order to try to make time for them.
Jeremy Corbyn
I will restrict my remarks to new clauses 6 and 7 moved by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who has left the Chamber. Much as I respect his work and his commitment to dealing with knife crime, I cannot agree with or support his amendments. I agree very much with the points just made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on mandatory sentencing. There is a principle at stake here. There is a Sentencing Council and legislation on what is and is not a crime, but surely it must be for the courts to determine what is appropriate for the prisoner in front of them, rather than to have that laid down by statute. Surely that is the right way forward, and we should respect it.
I do not underestimate the issue of knife crime. Less than two weeks ago a young man was killed in my constituency by yet another knife crime. As I have done with the other families concerned, I went to see the family afterwards. The shock, the horror, the loss and the waste, and then seeing the flowers placed alongside the spot where the young man died, and young people congregating around it—that is a pretty significant message to an awful lot of young people that that person died because of a knife crime. It is an important message to them about the loss involved in it.
I have been to funerals where the families have turned up grieving, and hundreds of young people have turned up. We have held memorial events at which an incredibly strong message has been given to young people that carrying knives is not a protection; it is in fact an increased danger to themselves and they are more likely to be injured by the knife they are carrying than they are to be able to defend themselves with it, and it is simply not the right way forward. Surely that is a strong message to get across. The sense of shock that affects young people is considerable. I was astonished when visiting a primary school last week to be asked questions about knife crime, because the pupils had all seen the stories of the murder in the community.
We must ask ourselves a number of questions. Is a mandatory sentence for someone who is carrying a knife for the second time the right thing to introduce? Will it reduce reoffending? Will it make the person who is convicted of carrying a knife for the second time more or less likely to reoffend, or is it more likely to brutalise them—because that is what our prison and youth justice system does—making them more likely to reoffend than someone who has not been given a custodial sentence?
The hon. Member for Enfield North kindly allowed me to intervene and I drew attention to the evidence taken in the Justice Committee when we were examining issues of youth justice. We visited a number of young offenders institutions and took evidence from former inmates and victims of crime. We took evidence from large numbers of people, and the piece of evidence that most strongly sticks in my mind is being told in no uncertain terms by a repeat offender—though not for knife crime—that their toughest sentence was a community service order in which they had to attend a place, carry out a task and do something to try to turn their lives around, because somebody was on their case, in a way that never happens when someone is in prison, and happens only to some extent in young offenders institutions.
Mandatory sentencing looks tough, sounds tough and will please some of the less thoughtful media in our society, but its implications are not helpful. I draw attention to the advisory note given to us for this debate by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, which has looked at the issue and knows a thing or two about it. Its estimate is that 200 more young people—children actually, in law— will be put in prison as a result of the new clauses that we are discussing today, should they be agreed to and should the House of Lords want to put them into law.
I also draw attention to another, perhaps more difficult question. Those who are found in possession of a knife and convicted of that have not necessarily committed a crime. They have been found carrying a knife with a blade more than 3 inches in length. Often they have been found by stop and search or by intelligence gathering by the police. The House should not misunderstand me: I do not approve of anyone carrying a knife, but when one then looks at who is stopped and searched, one rapidly finds a wholly disproportionate picture of modern Britain and modern youth. A disproportionate number of black youngsters will have been stopped and searched, therefore a disproportionate number will be in possession of knives, and there will then be a disproportionate number in the prison system and a disproportionate number will reoffend. Surely the courts should have discretion on this matter, and instead we should redouble our efforts to provide young people with the opportunities, inspiration and ambition that takes them beyond gang culture and the idea that possession of a knife will protect them and provide them with some degree of security in the future.
The Prison Reform Trust has also looked at the issue in some detail and the latest Ministry of Justice figures show the rates of child and adult convictions for knife possession. In the first quarter of 2014, 652 offences involving knife possession were committed by children aged 10 to 17, resulting in a caution or a sentence. The adult figure was 3,262. The number of knife possession offences committed by children under 18 in the last quarter reduced by 34%, and I pay tribute to all those who have ensured that it has reduced. The number of knife possession offences committed in the last quarter by adults over 18 fell by 23% over the same period. It is also evidential that custodial sentences have the worst outcome of the sentencing options available, with nearly 70% of children and 58% of young people aged 18 to 20 being reconvicted within a year of release. The Prison Reform Trust says:
“Mandatory prison sentences for knife possession could drive up the numbers of children and young people in custody following a welcome period of decline both in youth imprisonment and youth crime.”
The Standing Committee for Youth Justice and the Prison Reform Trust have highlighted the disproportionate effect on black youngsters that will result if the new clause goes through.
Sir Edward Garnier
I broadly agree with what the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, but equally I have agreed with much of what other people have said. The short response to the problem that we have set ourselves is that we simply do not know the answer, and we are struggling to find it by passing legislation of one sort or another. Despite the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), I am not at all convinced that the new clause provides us with the answer in discouraging youngsters from carrying knives; he concentrated mostly—in fact, entirely—on knives.
I am not persuaded either that the default position, as possibly indicated by the hon. Member for Islington North, is that a community sentence is the right answer. There will be cases where it is imperative that the offender should be sent to prison, and for a very long time, but by and large that will be when the knife has been carried in order to commit a crime that is then carried out. The Stephen Lawrence case ended up with murder. Other cases have ended up with crimes such as those under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Serious offences are committed by knife carriers, but they tend to be convicted and sentenced for the greater crime that they go on to commit with the knife.
As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North argued his case with huge enthusiasm. I suppose it is possible to be enthusiastically right. I also suppose that it is equally possible to be enthusiastically mistaken, and it may be possible to be enthusiastically wrong. Perhaps we need to be a little more understanding of the absence of certainty in what we are advocating or proposing.
My hon. Friend said that one in four offenders had not received a custodial sentence for possessing a knife. Of course, we do not know—he did not know—what had led those people to be brought to justice and convicted. He was not able to tell me what the facts of the case were, what the profile of the defendant was, what the mitigations were, or the surrounding circumstances that led the court to give a long custodial sentence. Until we know those things, we really cannot make an intelligent assessment of whether it is appropriate to give somebody a minimum sentence of six months if he is over 18 or four months’ detention and training if he is between 16 and 18.
I am also concerned that new clauses 6 and 7 concentrate not only on knives or “bladed articles”, but on “offensive weapons”, so a whole new swathe or category of offenders would be caught and possibly subjected to minimum sentences, removing the discretion of the judge to deal with the case based on the facts. A judge in a given case may well think it appropriate to give someone carrying an offensive weapon for the second time a custodial sentence, possibly for much longer than six months. There is a let-out, however, in the mandatory sentencing arrangements passed over the past decade or so; under new clause 6, new section (2B) would allow the mandatory sentence not to be passed if there are circumstances that
“relate to the offence or to the offender, and…would make it unjust to do so in all the circumstances.”
We simply do not know how that is going to bite on this particular set of offences.
I understand that the Government Front Benchers will abstain on the new clause. If it is accepted, I urge the Government to be cautious and take into account my view that most of the difficulties involving the possession of knives are caused not by those over the age of 18, or even by those between the ages of 16 and 18—although some are—but by much younger teenagers, who are not caught by the new clause. Had my hon. Friends addressed that point, I might have had a little more sympathy with what they are no doubt genuinely trying to achieve. However, what we have here is neither fish nor fowl.
I urge the Government not to be swept up by the enthusiasm of some of my well motivated hon. Friends. If we are to pass legislation and amend the criminal justice provisions that deal with the possession of an offensive weapon or a bladed article, a lot more thought needs to go into it before it hits the statute book.
Heidi Alexander
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). I share some of his concerns, but not all of them, and I have arrived at a slightly different conclusion. He is right to say that there is a degree of uncertainty, but one of the things we need to consider when deciding how to vote on the new clause is the message it sends not just to those who may be caught up in knife crime, but to the victims of knife crime and their families.
Like the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), I represent a London constituency and I know how our communities are scarred by the use of knives. Many of my constituents live with loss as a result of knife crime. The House needs to demonstrate how seriously we take the issue with regard to not just sentencing, but, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) said, all Government action to address the problem. That means preventive work as well as work at the other end of the process.
I have been a Member of Parliament for the past four years, and I have been struck when the Prime Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box on a Wednesday to talk about the fallen soldiers who have given their lives in conflicts. During those four years, I have met the families of a number of young men who have lost their lives thanks to knife crime. I do not necessarily make a comparison between the circumstances involved, but I think it is important for me to read out the names of the young men in my constituency who have been killed as a result of knives. In March 2012, Kwame Ofosu-Asare was stabbed to death in Brixton. In August 2012, Nathaniel Brown was stabbed to death in Downham. In September 2012, Kevin Ssali was stabbed as he got off a bus in my constituency. Those are the names just of my constituents; sadly, many other young people in London have lost their lives as a result of knives.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I want to support and amplify what the hon. Lady is saying. The families of people who have lost sons serving in uniform abroad at least have the great satisfaction of knowing that their boy—or their girl—has died in the service of their country, but the families of someone knifed on the streets of Lewisham or any other London borough have no such satisfaction or support for their grief. I totally support her intention in making such an analogy.
Heidi Alexander
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. People sometimes assume that those killed as a result of knife crime are themselves involved in gang culture, but that is not always the case. It is very important to put on the record that innocent lives can be taken away by the use of knives.
It is important for the House to be clear that carrying knives and committing offences with them is completely and utterly unacceptable. New clauses 6 and 7 may help us do that. Although they do not in any way represent a complete solution, we owe it to those who have lost their lives and their families to treat the issue with the seriousness that it deserves.
The hon. Member for Cambridge suggested that there is somehow a choice between being tough in sentencing and spending money to prevent people from getting caught up in gang culture and the use of knives. That is a false choice—we need to do both.
I recognise that the issue is very difficult. I have met young people in my constituency who tell me that they carry a knife to make them feel safe, while some have heard stories of young people being asked to carry a knife for somebody else. There is some logic to the argument that some people who end up committing crimes with knives are victims in some ways, as well as perpetrators. Young people in my constituency are concerned about their safety. I may feel safe when I walk the streets in Lewisham, but when I have gone to meet children in our schools—they do excellent work with some of the community groups set up to tackle this problem—it has been brought home to me that there is a real issue, and that we need to find a way to take knives off our streets.
Some young people carry knives because they think that it is glamorous, but the vast majority of young people in Lewisham do not carry knives. If young people know that the second time they are caught carrying a knife they will face a mandatory custodial sentence, that will be an important lesson. I recognise, however, that some discretion still exists for judges to consider exceptional circumstances.
I am interested in what happens to an individual when they receive a mandatory custodial sentence and go to prison for committing their second knife-related offence. I am reminded of the comments of my constituent, Barry Mizen, the father of a young man murdered on the streets of Lewisham—not as the result of a knife, but through a wholly different set of circumstances. When he talks about how we should tackle violence on our streets, the question of rehabilitation and what happens to people when they go to prison, he says something very powerful: “I’m less interested in how long someone goes to prison for than in what comes out at the end.”
Jeremy Wright
As the hon. Lady will understand, I will not have a chance to sum up this debate, so I will respond now, if she will forgive me. I hope that she will look carefully at our “Transforming Rehabilitation” proposals. Part and parcel of those proposals is that young and older people should have support that starts before they leave custody and sees them through the prison gate and out into the community. Many people who receive sentences for the knife crime offences that she is describing have custodial sentences of less than 12 months. As she will appreciate, no licence or rehabilitation automatically applies to such sentences at the moment. We have already changed that and the “Transforming Rehabilitation” proposals will support that.
Heidi Alexander
I am grateful to the Minister for those remarks. However, most people would still agree that the level of reoffending in our society is too high. I am pleased that the Government are taking those positive steps, but I know that he will agree that there is still much more to do.
To conclude, this is a difficult issue but, on balance, I believe that the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Enfield North should be supported in the Division Lobby this evening. I will certainly support them.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I confess that I had intended to make only a short intervention today. However, having listened to the debate, I feel that it is better to make a longer contribution—although it will still be short, if that makes sense.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) for the work that he has done. I fully back the new clauses that he has tabled.
During the general election campaign, I was contacted by a constituent, a lady called Lorraine Fraser, with whom I have worked over the past four years. Her story is really quite harrowing. She had a 16-year-old son called Tyrone. One day, she was alerted to a problem outside the house. Sadly, she discovered that her son was being attacked by a gang of 30 youths. One of them was carrying a knife and stabbed him fatally. At the age of 16, he lost his life. In Lorraine’s own words, Tyrone was not always the best of boys, but he was always a considerate young man. It is really sad that he lost his life on that tragic day.
What has struck me is that, in the face of such a horrific experience, Tyrone’s mother has gone on to campaign tirelessly to do something about knife crime so that there is not another case like Tyrone’s somewhere else in the country. One thing that she has always asked of me and of Parliament is that we get a bit tougher in our rhetoric and our work on knife crime. I believe that new clause 6 is badly needed. I have seen some of Lorraine’s campaigning work, and I have been with her in schools when she talks to young people, telling them about the dangers of carrying a knife. Sometimes the answers she gets back from those young people are shocking.
I stand here today not in support of a newspaper or as a knee-jerk reaction, but because some of those young people will say that they want to carry a knife to defend themselves, and they know there will be no consequence of that because too often people get away with it. Lorraine is constantly battling the system, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister who has worked tirelessly with her. She is extremely grateful for the support he has given.
It was recently 10 years since Tyrone was killed, and Lorraine held a service in a church in the centre of Leeds. People from across the city—certain areas in particular—came along to remember members of their families who have lost their lives. To sit in that church and listen to people talk about their fathers, sons, brothers and nephews was a difficult experience. One young boy spoke about his father. He did not really know him because he had been murdered thanks to gang crime. The boy pleaded with the Government to do something. He said that people in their community were doing their bit to try to get across the message about the dangers of carrying a knife, working with young people and engaging with them in the schools, but he wanted the Government to do something about knife crime. I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North is providing us with an opportunity to do that.
Even today on the news I saw a former gang member saying that for too long the Government have been too soft on this issue, and we need to come up with some serious consequences to stop the temptation to carry knives. I do not believe that people do not listen to the messages that come from this place; I think they get the message that the consequences are too soft, and we must send a much clearer message. Carrying a knife can totally destroy not only the life of the person who carries it, but the life of a young person such as Tyrone, and the lives of family members, as I have seen with Lorraine. For her sake, and for the sake of others around the country, I will be supporting the new clause.
Philip Davies
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and commend him on his new clause, which I will be supporting enthusiastically.
I will concentrate my remarks on the three new clauses that I have tabled in this group, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) for adding his name to them. I was disappointed that the shadow Minister, who usually has plenty to say about lots of things, had nothing to say about any of my new clauses. The Labour party having nothing to say on the economy appears to have transferred to justice, as they have nothing to say on these matters either.
Philip Davies
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he now has something to say.
Mr Slaughter
It was not that I forgot; it is simply that I did not think the new clauses were worth commenting on.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. We have commented on whether people take notice of what Members say, but when I come to discuss the three new clauses, I think he may regret that he thought they were not worthy of any debate. Lots of people up and down the country, such as victims’ groups and owners of commercial properties, will be very interested to know that.
Philip Davies
It is no good the hon. Gentleman coming back; he does not care about any of these issues, and lots of people will be grateful to him for letting that cat out of the bag.
Before I come to the three new clauses, in fairness I should also refer to the Minister. On new clause 34 he trotted out the normal sort of Sir Humphrey guff about how it is an important area and we will keep it under review and all that kind of jazz, but I am not entirely sure—I shall have to look through the Sir Humphrey handbook later to find a translation. It may be that the Minister agrees with what I am saying but cannot be seen to be agreeing with that troublemaker Davies on the Back Benches, or perhaps he does not agree, but knows it is popular and does not want to be seen to disagree. Whichever way it is, we deserve a bit more clarity. He says that he will start to look at the issue: he is the Minister, for goodness’ sake. What has he been doing? He should be looking at these things. I know that he must spend a lot of time arranging for murderers and other dangerous criminals to walk out of our prisons, but in the time that he is not doing that perhaps he might want to look at some of the issues that I am talking about.
I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), on these matters. If the current Minister wants to go even more left wing than his predecessor, we are in big trouble on this side of the House on criminal justice matters.
New clause 34, to which the Minister gave his Sir Humphrey blurb, is actually about squatting. This activity was criminalised in residential buildings in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—it was one of the rare triumphs of that Act—and my new clause would extend the criminalisation from residential buildings to non-residential buildings and land. I was delighted to support the criminalisation of squatting, but because it applies only to residential properties, the problem has simply moved on to commercial property, by which I mean any property that is non-residential, including pubs, shops, restaurants and even schools—although the shadow Minister thinks that that is not important.
The now established principle that it is a criminal act to break into someone’s property and take it over without permission should apply whatever the property. It should make no difference whether it is a flat or a community centre. No one should have the right to enter someone else’s property without permission and stay there until evicted. At the time of the criminalisation of squatting in residential property, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate said:
“For too long squatters have had the justice system on the run and have caused homeowners untold misery in eviction, repair and clean-up costs. Not any more. Hard working homeowners need and deserve a justice system where their rights come first— this new offence will ensure the police and other agencies can take quick and decisive action to deal with the misery of squatting.”
I believe that should apply to everyone, not just home owners.
Squatters are using the fact that the law does not apply to commercial premises to take over pubs, for example. The door may have been slammed shut for squatters in residential properties, but it is wide open for non-residential premises and land. One example was the Duchy Arms in Kennington. Squatters realised that it had not been trading for a while and swooped in. They took over last summer and that small, friendly local pub was turned into the London Queer Social Centre overnight. It was overrun by those who cared nothing for what they damaged or how much upset and inconvenience they caused to others. They locked all the doors and put a sign on the front, delighting in the fact that the new law did not apply to them or the pub. It also said that if anyone entered the pub without their permission, they would be the ones guilty of a criminal offence. You really could not make it up. As they had not committed the offence of squatting in a residential building, they were not arrested by the police immediately and the pub was occupied for some time by people who had no regard for anyone or anything around them. When they were eventually evicted, the police had to go in and the premises were guarded for months by dogs to ensure there was no invasion by squatters. The clean-up costs for the owners will have been considerable and could have been avoided had the police been able to arrest the squatters on day one.
Another example that has come to my attention involves an office building owned by Kewal Investments Ltd. Having forced their way into the property, the squatters initially invited the director to agree to them staying there, saying that they would provide free security. The squatters were there from before Christmas until their eventual eviction, with bailiffs and police in attendance, months later. During their occupation, the squatters sought to try to gain entry to adjacent buildings owned by the same firm and the business had to spend money to protect its other properties as well as to seek an order of eviction through the courts.
When the business owners eventually gained entry, the property was in a state with waste everywhere. The squatters had used the back window as a rubbish chute and toilet, left graffiti all over the walls, put paint in a fire extinguisher and blocked the toilet. Those entering could barely get into the basement because of the smell. The director, who often used to give money to the homeless, has now been totally put off the idea. He feels let down by the system and has incurred substantial costs to gain access to his own building. On top of the considerable legal costs, he faces the cost and waste of time of simply restoring the building to its original state and ensuring that the squatters do not take it over again. I would have hoped that the Government—a party that should believe in people who own property—would want to do something about this instead of the Sir Humphrey words of the Minister. I suppose that that is better than the shadow Minister saying that he does not even care about the issue at all.
Jeremy Wright
I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman’s objectives. He may well have a very good point on the deficiencies in joint enterprise law. But the point I was trying to make to him earlier—perhaps in too Sir Humphrey-ish a way—was that what he would actually achieve with new clause 35 is almost the direct opposite of what he wants. The problem he will face, if this were to become the law, is that people who can be prosecuted now under the Act will not be able to be prosecuted because he is replacing a requirement that someone knew what was going on but did not need to be there with a requirement that they were there at the time. That is the problem.
Philip Davies
If the Minister had listened when I explained the case of Donald Banfield, he would know that it was pretty obvious that the mother and daughter were there. Everybody accepts that, yet those women are still walking free, and it seems that the Minister is not prepared to do anything about it.
Finally, new clause 36 would decriminalise insulting words and behaviour. Courtesy of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 was amended to remove the word “insulting”. As of 1 February this year, it has not been an offence to use insulting words or behaviour contained within a section 5 charge. The law change did not, however, affect sections 4 and 4A of the same Act. I was delighted that the word “insulting” was removed from section 5 of the 1986 Act, but I think it must follow that it should be removed from all sections of it. If we are to be consistent, why not? Section 4A is very similar to section 5, and I would like to see all references to “insulting” removed from the legislation. I have focused on this particular issue for the purpose of today’s debate on the amendments. The word “offensive” would remain; only the word “insulting” would be removed. As the Minister said, section 4 needs to be coupled with the threat of violence, whereas someone can be found guilty of an offence by intentionally insulting someone under section 4A and could be sent to prison for six months.
I am not alone in wanting this change. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said in its report of October 2011:
“We also support the amendment of the Public Order Act to remove all reference to offences based on insulting words and behaviour. This would enhance human rights and remove the possible incompatibility with the right to freedom of expression.”
Peter Tatchell—an unlikely ally of mine, Madam Deputy Speaker—said:
“Section 4A of the Public Order Act is sufficient to convey all the exceptional circumstances requiring prosecution (although its criminalisation of mere insults should also be repealed for the afore-mentioned reasons).”
I believe that it is totally unacceptable in a supposedly free country with alleged free speech that we should have any reference to the term “insulting” in the laws of our land. I think most people are fed up with political correctness, so abolishing any further criminalisation of insults would be a great step to restoring faith in this place, showing that Britain is a country where free speech is cherished. A ComRes poll showed that 62% of people did not believe that the state should ever criminalise insults—a viewpoint supported by Liberty and the National Secular Society.
I think these are important matters, but I do not intend to press the new clauses to a vote. I am appalled and depressed, however, that the shadow Minister thinks all of these issues that affect people’s lives are not even worthy of consideration. He should be ashamed of himself; I look forward to his apology at some future point.
James Morris
I rise to support new clauses 6 and 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). I would like to pay tribute to the great work that he, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), has done on this issue—one that is not entirely confined to London.
An incident took place in my constituency when Christina Edkins was killed on her way to school on the number 9 bus travelling from Birmingham to Halesowen. Her death was a devastating blow to the community in Halesowen. I had the privilege of meeting her parents and her uncle to console them and to try to understand the devastating consequences of this incident on their lives. That led me to ask the Prime Minister in Prime Minister’s Question Time whether the Government would consider mandatory sentences for knife possession. Having discussed these matters with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and others, I am pleased that appropriate measures to introduce this mandatory sentence, which I think is absolutely necessary to tackle this issue, have been tabled for today’s debate. I owe it to the family and friends of Christina Edkins to support them.
I believe that the new clause also sends a signal that is important for deterrence. It is not a straightforward issue, but I think the community listens to the signals sent from this place. Shortly after this incident in my constituency, I took part in a knife crime debate in Birmingham. I was on a panel with the police and others concerned about the spread of knife crime in and around the Birmingham area. I spoke to various members of the West Midlands police and they were absolutely convinced of the need for a mandatory sentence. From their work with the community in trying to identify individuals and communities at risk from knives, they were clear about the need for legislation to send the very important signal that carrying a knife has consequences and that that those consequences mean that people should not be carrying knives. The police were very clear on that. It is very important to send a clear signal that we do not tolerate the spread of knives under any circumstances.
On the argument that someone carries a knife for self-protection, I would ask whether the same argument would apply to carrying a gun. The distinction between carrying a gun and the intention to use it does not stand up, and we should take the same attitude towards carrying knives. I agree that this is not the only way to continue the effort to clamp down on knife crime. There is a lot of work to do to educate young people that carrying weapons is simply not acceptable and will have consequences, and that there are other things to do with one’s life instead of ending up getting involved in street violence as if it is some kind of status symbol. I hope the House will vote for the mandatory sentence, but I do not think it is a panacea. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North that they are both sides of the same coin. We must tackle the issue on both levels.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s correct analysis of the situation. Of the many young people I represented and dealt with in my time in the criminal courts as a barrister, I heard the same reason for carrying a knife over and over again: “It is for my own protection.” It is that sort of culture that we have to move away from if we are to deal with the scourge of knife crime that can affect children as young as 10—or even younger in some cases.
James Morris
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point with which I totally agree.
We have a responsibility in this place to support the amendment. It is the right approach. It sends a tough signal that we do not tolerate the possession of knives. There should not be a distinction between knives and guns. We need to address this scourge, so we can redouble our efforts to ensure we do not have the type of tragedies that occurred on the number 9 bus as it was coming from Birmingham towards my constituency. I support the amendment.
James Morris
It is the principle, really. We can go into fine distinctions, but the principle is that a mandatory sentence sends a powerful signal about our attitude towards knives.
Sir Bob Russell
At Prime Minister’s questions, I asked:
“Why is he ignoring knife crime?”
In reply, the Prime Minister said:
“As well as tackling gun crime, we are introducing tougher sentences for the possession of knives as illegal weapons.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 924.]
That is what Tony Blair told me on 28 February 2007. I mention that because I want to put it on the record that this subject has interested me deeply for more than seven years.
Like other hon. Members, I have a constituent who lost a son to a knife crime. I am not proud of the fact that in Colchester, which is a relatively peaceful town with a relatively low crime rate, we have witnessed three knife murders over a period of eight or nine years. In two cases, the perpetrators were convicted and are in jail. In the third, which is still very much live and which the Essex constabulary are investigating, the victim suffered more than 100 knife wounds. A few weeks ago, someone else was attacked by two people with knives. Such things can happen even in a relatively peaceful town with a low crime rate. The perception of crime in Colchester is the same as it is everywhere else: the perception is that a lot of crime is taking place. That is not the case in reality, but when something so horrendous happens, something clearly needs to be done.
Nick de Bois
I am grateful to the whole House. Much of the debate has focused on the new clauses that I have tabled, for which we have heard considerable support on both sides of the House, although, clearly, there is some disagreement from our coalition partners. It is fair to say, therefore, that given the potential voting outcome, we will see a unique—but welcome—situation.
Sadly, I came to the issue of knife crime before the last general election. I made a promise to my constituents that I would not let the matter drop. If the House chooses to support the new clauses, we will see the fulfilment of a Conservative party manifesto commitment. However, today is not the end of something; it is very much about continuing the work of doing our best to eradicate the insidious scourge of knife culture as well as knife crime. I am sure the whole House will support that.
For far too long this problem has blighted the lives of many of our citizens and our constituents. Today we not only fulfil a manifesto commitment, but I hope that, with support from across the House, we also fulfil the wishes of so many people and so many victims who have been touched one way or another by the distressing knife culture in this country.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Let me start by thanking all the right hon. and hon. Members who served in Committee, spoke on Report and took part in the debates on the Bill. It has benefited from the interesting and lively debate that we have had—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Lord Chancellor but will Members who are leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and swiftly and show due deference to him?
Chris Grayling
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I am grateful to the Under-Secretaries of State for Justice, my hon. Friends the Members for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) and for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright). Their excellent work in Committee and on Report has guided the Bill to this stage. I also thank members of the Bill team and the Clerks for their advice and support.
This is an important Bill that toughens up sentences for serious and repeat offenders and strengthens the justice system. I have always been clear that those who break the rules should face the consequences and that protecting the public is our top priority. As a result of the action that the Government are taking, we are reducing crime, toughening up the justice system and giving victims the support they both need and deserve. We are making sure that hard-working families feel safe and secure in their local communities. This Bill is yet another step in delivering our promises and guaranteeing that security.
We are not a Government who legislate without taking into account the views of Parliament. We have listened carefully to the valuable discussion and debate in this House and the Bill has been improved as a result. Many colleagues in this House have rightly expressed concern that sentencing for those who cause death or serious injury by driving while disqualified has been inadequate. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who have campaigned tirelessly on the issue. That is why we have added measures to the Bill to ensure that the courts have the power properly to penalise those who step back behind the wheel after being disqualified from driving and cause death or serious injury. It is right that they should face a longer sentence for doing so. It is clear from the discussion on Report and in previous debates that concerns remain about the penalties available for other serious driving offences. That is why we have committed to carrying out a wider review over the next few months, which we hope will address many of the points that have been raised.
We also had a very interesting debate in Committee and on Report on child grooming. In an age of constantly changing modes of communication, it is vital that our laws provide the utmost protection for children. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) suggested changes to the law on malicious communications. We agreed that that offence should be triable either way and subject to a higher penalty. In doing so we have also provided the police with more time to investigate those offences. That is a step forward in keeping children safe in the modern world and I commend my hon. Friend for her contribution to this Bill.
To be bipartisan, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) also suggested changes to the law on child grooming following her excellent work with Barnardo’s on child sexual exploitation. The Government have committed to considering whether changes to the law on meeting a child following child grooming are required and we are open to the arguments she has been making.
Let me turn to the provisions on secure colleges. I can only say that I am disappointed by the position taken by Opposition Members on the proposals. Youth reoffending rates are far too high and the system as it stands is not working well enough. Secure colleges represent an opportunity to change the way we detain and rehabilitate young offenders and prevent them from embarking on a life of crime. My vision is for young people to have access to high-quality education and training that will allow them to fulfil their potential. My vision is of detaining young people in an environment that is less like a prison and more like an educational institution with a fence around it, where we can ensure not only that they lose their liberty as per the orders of the court but that we maximise the time we have them with us to ensure that we equip them in the best possible way so that they do not reoffend afterwards. That is all the more important if a young person has set out on the wrong path in life. It is beyond me how the Opposition can criticise these once-in-a-generation reforms, which put education at the heart of youth custody, which seek to equip young people with the skills they need to turn their backs on crime and which give those who have broken the law the opportunity to make a fresh start in life.
There has been much debate about the detail of the secure college regime and the pathfinder college. Let me be clear that no final decisions have been made on who will be accommodated in the pathfinder. Those decisions will be taken as plans for the pathfinder are developed and in light of careful analysis of the needs of the youth custodial population and the impacts on different groups. Our plans for the rules that underpin the secure college provisions will be subject to public consultation. They will be published during the passage of the Bill to benefit from the wealth of expertise within the youth justice sector.
I hope that hon. Members from all sides recognise the genuine opportunity that such a new regime offers us to tackle youth reoffending and to help make a positive impact on the future for young offenders. Of course we are still developing some of the details, but the Bill lays down the foundations for a transformative approach to youth custody. I urge the Opposition to think again before they play politics with the future of young people who will genuinely benefit from both the education and the regime that the Bill is designed to provide, and to turn away from the siren voices that say that this is a new brutal regime. It is about a positive experience for young people in the hope that we can turn their lives around. Who can disagree with that?
Finally, I turn to judicial review. I fully recognise that judicial review is an important issue, which has been reflected by the debate and the interest that the House has shown. I remain firmly of the view that the Government are right to take action. Too often unmeritorious cases clog up the system, wasting time and taxpayers’ money. Judicial review is important. It should always remain available for well-founded challenges that raise issues of genuine significance. It also enables individuals to sort out a situation where they have faced, for example, maladministration from a public body, but I do not accept that the system should allow pressure groups to use judicial review as a PR stunt, or as a means of delaying properly made decisions—often decisions made in this House—while the taxpayer foots the bill.
The recent case concerning the remains of King Richard III illustrates exactly why we need reform. My decision to grant a licence to exhume Richard III’s human remains was challenged by the Plantagenet Alliance. It was a spurious and nonsensical claim brought as a stunt, and those bringing the claim hid behind a shell company to avoid facing the costs of doing so. They all claimed that they were members of the family of the Plantagenets. Well, I suspect that most of us in the Chamber are to some extent descendants of the family of the Plantagenets. It was not an issue in which there was any obvious family involvement. It was, as I say, a stunt. Because the company did not have any assets, an absolute protective costs order was sought and granted.
In the end the High Court upheld my decision as lawful, rational and fair, but we and our constituents were still left to pick up the tab for defending the challenge. At a time when difficult decisions are being taken across the public sector and when people are losing their jobs because of the need to rationalise to tackle our deficit, can Members honestly say that that was a good use of the judicial review process and of hard-working taxpayers’ money?
Applications for judicial review for cases that stand little prospect of success put undue pressure on the courts and on other essential public services and can unduly frustrate decisions that were properly made. The reforms in the Bill were developed following a full public consultation. They are aimed at improving, not scrapping, the judicial review process so that it is not open to abuse, and so that genuinely arguable cases can proceed quickly to final resolution.
In summary, the Bill is an important piece of legislation that has benefited from the scrutiny of this House and the additions that have been made as a result. In this legislation, the Government are ending automatic early release for dangerous criminals, child rapists and terrorists, we are restricting the use of cautions for serious offences, and we are toughening up sentences for prisoners who go on the run. We are taking the action that the public expect to help keep them safe and secure.
The Bill will also help us to modernise court processes and to work to break the cycle of youth reoffending. It is about rehabilitation as much as it is about tough action in our justice system. That is the mix we need in our justice system. People need to be properly punished when they offend, on behalf of the victims as well as on behalf of justice, but we also need to do everything we can to turn their lives around once they have offended so that they do not come back and commit crimes all over again. That is the philosophy of this Government. That is what underlies the Bill, and I commend it to the House.
Sadiq Khan
I also begin by thanking Members from both sides of the House who have worked extremely hard during the passage of the Bill. The respective Front-Bench spokesmen have given a lot of time to the Bill and the various officials, Clerks and Members’ advisers have also worked hard.
There is no point beating about the bush—this is a poor Bill. We know that the Justice Secretary was sucking up to the Prime Minister when he begged his Cabinet colleagues earlier this year for Bills—any Bills—to fill the gaping hole in the parliamentary schedule. What he brought forward was a mish-mash of leftovers. Ministers have thrown into the Bill their scrag ends and afterthoughts, making for an incoherent mess. It is a Christmas tree Bill on which many baubles have been hung.
The Bill includes proposals for toughening up sentences. No one disagrees with the need to keep the public safe, but part 1 is about repairing the damage done by the Lord Chancellor’s predecessor, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who abolished indeterminate sentences for public protection—IPPs—in 2012. The Justice Secretary is clearly embarrassed now by the actions of his predecessor, but he was not embarrassed when he marched through the Aye Lobby in support of the abolition of IPPs in 2012. Were it not for the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, there would be little need for part 1 at all. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know, from your long experience, that a Government are in a mess when they reverse legislation that they themselves passed only two years ago.
The Justice Secretary’s secure college plans in part 2 are supported by no one. He calls them borstals when speaking to his Back Benchers, but uses softer language when he is talking to others. He is fooling no one. There is no evidence base to support the model. He has no justification for spending £85 million on a 400-place youth prison when the numbers of young people behind bars are down 65%. Nothing has been said on whether girls and the very youngest offenders will be thrown into the same prison, putting them in danger. The plans are so rushed and half-baked that the use of restraint being proposed is illegal. Yet Ministers have pushed ahead, with contracts being agreed on the construction before Parliament has even approved the measure—a discourtesy to colleagues in the Commons and the other place. This teenage Titan prison is a monument to the Justice Secretary’s ideologically fuelled hobby horses. The money would deliver so much more if spent on education, training and skills in existing establishments rather than on an unsafe vanity project.
On judicial review in part 4, the Lord Chancellor continues with his assault on our citizens’ rights. Not content with trying to dismantle legal aid and railing against human rights, he is now trying to limit judicial review as a means by which communities and citizens challenge the illegality of actions taken by public authorities, citing one or two bad cases to justify changes that affect many other potential good ones. I will not rehearse the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and I have already expressed on these judicial review changes during the Bill’s passage, but it is ironic that on the eve of the Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary, when the Prime Minister is claiming to want to teach our children of its significance, the Government are depriving citizens and communities of their rights to challenge power.
We should not forget the 18 new clauses and schedules that the Justice Secretary tabled on Report—14 for today’s debate alone, some of which we have not even discussed. Those have received no decent scrutiny form the House. That indicates the disdain that the Justice Secretary shows towards this place.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I was unfortunate enough to practise at the Bar when the previous Government had 13 years and dozens of criminal justice Acts, most of which were highly inefficient and a great bar to proper justice. In relation to judicial review, what was the situation compared with Magna Carta 800 years ago and prior to 1971? We still have a judicial review system, however imperfect the right hon. Gentleman may think it is, and to criticise it as something that Magna Carta would lose by is laughable.
Sadiq Khan
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has read the Prime Minister’s article that was published on Sunday in which he talked about the importance of citizens’ rights and of empowering citizens, reminding us of a 13th-century king who gave citizens power to challenge power. The Justice Secretary clearly does not understand that it is ironic that, at a time when Ministers are reminding citizens of Magna Carta, they are taking away and diluting some of those citizens’ rights to challenge power. If he thinks that is acceptable, that is for him to explain. In the context of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, the changes to legal aid, and the attacks on human rights, the hon. Gentleman will accept when he is outside the Chamber—
Sadiq Khan
I appreciate that a reshuffle is due and the hon. Gentleman needs to impress the Whips, but he will recognise during a quieter moment—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) knows that in all professional practice one stands when one is speaking; otherwise one does not speak.
Sadiq Khan
I was reminding the House of the 18 new clauses that the Justice Secretary brought before the House today, 14 of which we have seen for the first time and many of which have not been debated. His lack of respect for due process has led to him crow-barring many new proposals into the Bill. Some of them have merit, but we should at least have been able to debate them in detail. We have been deprived of that opportunity.
The clauses on wilful neglect by social care workers are a welcome move, as is the new offence regarding police corruption. However, without further scrutiny we do not know whether they, or the changes to planning decisions and personal injury claims, will do as the Government claim or whether there will be any unintended negative consequences. What is more, there are no impact assessments, so there is no sense of how much they will cost and who will benefit.
Efforts to tackle repeat knife crime are to be welcomed, even though the Government could not come to an agreed position. I am disappointed that during the course of his speech the Secretary of State made no mention of knife crime—that is one of the downsides of other people writing your speech for you. Ministers should give up any pretence that this Government are any longer a coalition. They are not; they are disintegrating by the day.
Unlike this Government, we have focused on the issue at hand, as it is only right that the seriousness of a second knife offence is recognised. It is crucial to send a strong signal that carrying a knife is unacceptable, even more so for those who repeatedly do so. The new clauses still give judges the power to apply important discretion as there may be circumstances when a prison sentence might not be appropriate. More importantly, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service will still have complete discretion to decide whether somebody should be charged with the relevant offence, despite what some would have us believe.
However, Labour Members know that it is a huge disservice to victims of knife crime to pretend that this change in the law is a panacea; it is not. The hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who is now in his place, recognises, as he said, that we need to do much more to educate people that carrying a knife is unnecessary and unacceptable, working in schools, colleges and youth clubs, and with families, to tackle the problem. Those approaches are not mutually exclusive. Only then will we divert people away from a destructive lifestyle.
Given the long list of unanswered concerns and late additions to the Bill that have passed without scrutiny, Labour Members cannot give it our support. Once more, we will be looking to the other place to refine and improve on these proposals and rescue the Government’s Bill from mediocrity.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
I support this Bill. It contains important measures, including tougher sentences for terrorist offences, an end to automatic early release for paedophiles and terrorists, a reduction in the use of cautions, and streamlining of certain court procedures. I fully support the clampdown on the handing out of cautions for serious and repeat offenders. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) on his excellent and successful new clause on knife crime. We need to send out the clear message that repeat knife crime will not be tolerated.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Hertfordshire is a very safe place to live—one of the safest in the country. However, just over a week ago in my constituency, an argument got out of control and resulted in two people stabbing one another, so knife crime is a problem. If we do not stop the scourge of people carrying knives, we will not be able to stop people using them.
Angie Bray
I agree that the issue is about sending a message that carrying knives is not acceptable, so education will be a part of it and the deterrent effect will be a part of that.
I want to speak briefly to clause 19 in part 1, largely because it started life as a new clause that I tabled in Committee. To my delight, it was accepted by Ministers at that stage, with welcome support from both sides of the Committee. The clause proposes a small but potentially highly significant change to the Malicious Communications Act 1988, making offences under it either-way rather than summary-only offences. In short, it will allow magistrates to refer certain malicious communication offences—the most egregious, at least—up to the Crown court for tougher sentencing.
The other crucial aspect of the change is that the six-month time limit on bringing a case to court will be dropped, leaving more time to investigate where necessary. I hope and believe that one of the key effects will be to provide for much tougher penalties for the worst cases of cyber-bullying and, consequently, that there will be much more of a deterrent.
My interest in pursuing this matter was first aroused by a visit to my Ealing surgery by constituents whose daughter had been the victim of appalling sex texting by a neighbour. The girl was 14 at the time and he was in his 40s. They were desperately disappointed, because even though the man admitted to the texts, the Crown Prosecution Service was unable to identify an offence that the courts could accept. He eventually walked free from the Crown court and any chance of prosecution under the Malicious Communications Act had gone because of the six-month time limit.
That appalling situation was unacceptable—there must be many more like it—and it needed a legal remedy. After taking advice from numerous colleagues with a legal background, including the Attorney-General, whom I thank for his time, the local police and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, I saw this small but important change shaped and accepted by my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary and his ministerial team. I thank Ministers for their ready support for the measure and I am delighted that it was incorporated into the Bill with the support of all those who served on the Committee. The family who came to see me are so pleased, and I hope much good can come from it.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
I welcome the additional support for victims and their families in the Bill, but I think it would have been improved if my new clauses 8 and 9 had been accepted.
I congratulate the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children on last week’s launch of its “Order in Court” campaign to give more support to vulnerable young witnesses in the criminal justice system. I read in Saturday’s edition of The Times that there is to be a rethink about how cross-examination of witnesses in sex abuse cases is conducted in court, to try to deal with the aggressive, hostile and prolonged questioning of witnesses, which can be very traumatic.
I recently spoke to a witness in one of the Rochdale child sexual exploitation trials, as part of the report on CSE that I am preparing for Tony Lloyd, the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester. She told me that one of the worst experiences of her life was the treatment she underwent in court. She said:
“There is not a word to describe how bad it was. I have never ever experienced anything like that in my life and I never want to experience anything like it again. It was like one attack after another. One of the barristers was not even asking me questions. He was just shouting at me and the judge kept having to tell him to stop shouting and move on, and he kept asking questions that he was not supposed to ask. When I could not remember things they made me feel really bad.”
I welcome the fact that in the past year, 600 judges have been on a special training programme on dealing with vulnerable witnesses so that they can enforce appropriate behaviour by advocates. I think that means they can stop them from bullying witnesses.
Sarah Champion
I, too, am sad that my hon. Friend did not get an opportunity to debate her new clauses, because they were very powerful. She has cited an example of one girl. I have spoken to girls and boys across the country, and the expression that keeps coming up is that they find going to court another form of abuse. A number of them withdraw; the case closes because they cannot stand the trauma.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the hon. Lady responds to the intervention, I must remind her that at this point in proceedings we are discussing what is in the Bill, not what is not in it. I am sure she will bring her remarks around to what is in the Bill.
Ann Coffey
I welcome the additional support for victims and their families, but the Bill would have been improved slightly if my new clauses 8 and 9 had been inserted. I was trying to explain what is happening because I wanted to make the point that although I welcome many of the things in the Bill, there are limitations to how it deals with vulnerable witnesses going through the courts.
We legislate, and sometimes we think that legislating is enough, but of course it is not. The Bill will not have the impact it should have on vulnerable young witnesses in court if some of the underlying issues are not dealt with. For example, the number of requests for registered intermediaries for young vulnerable witnesses in court has increased, but the number of registered intermediaries has decreased. The Government need to look at that issue if they want to support the measures in the Bill and to improve the situation for victims and their families.
The same applies to the pilots currently being undertaken in three courts under section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. I hope that they will show that pre-recording cross-examination of witnesses, as well as of their statements, will improve the quality of such cross-examinations and improve witnesses’ experience of giving evidence. At the moment, they sometimes have to wait for years—up to two years—before they come to court, which puts their life on hold and prevents them from being able to recover from their very traumatic experiences.
I fully accept that the Bill is designed to improve the support given to witnesses in court, but I hope that the Government will look at the effectiveness of, and learn from, the measures already in place. They must understand that legislation by itself is not enough unless there are the means to implement it, with both the resources of registered intermediaries and the sympathetic environment in which section 28 pre-recorded cross-examination of witnesses can take place.
As the Bill goes through the Lords, I hope that the Government will look at the use of remote sites, such as the sexual assault referral centre in Manchester, which is one of the best SARCs in the United Kingdom—it would provide a very good environment for rolling out pre-recorded cross-examination—and at how to extend the use of pre-recorded cross-examination, which would benefit many young witnesses.
Finally, what goes on in our courts is not very transparent. It is very difficult and expensive to get transcripts of court proceedings. I know that there has been some talk of filming court cases, but a first step might be to make transcripts available online. It cannot be right that what goes on in our courts is only visible—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady might be making a very interesting—and possibly worthy—point, but it does not relate to the Third Reading of the Bill, so I am sure that she will conclude her remarks with that matter.
Ann Coffey
I entirely accept what you say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you will appreciate that it is sometimes very difficult in the House to say what you want to say at the point when you can say it.
Dr Huppert
I hope I will not detain the House for too long. I have had the opportunity to speak about many of the issues in Committee. It is good that so many members of the Public Bill Committee are in the Chamber. I have just two specific issues to flag up before we pass the Bill from this House to the other place; I suspect that neither of them will be a surprise to Ministers.
The first issue is the entire aspect of part 4 of the Bill on judicial review, particularly the provisions on interveners. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), for his earlier comments about how he sees the Supreme Court approach as a way forward. I look forward to working with him to come up with something that will enable judicial review to continue and interveners to act sensibly, in a way that is helpful to the court and to British justice. There is a lot of work still to be done on that issue in the other place. I suspect that their lordships will be interested in other aspects of part 4. I dare say that they will be able to improve much of it.
It is a shame that amendments that could be made in this place are so often made in the other place, whether that applies to this example or not. There are a number of instances when it is this House that should act. Members of this House should not be asked to vote for things if the Government intend to change their mind later on.
I touched on the other issue that I want to raise in my comments on the Queen’s Speech. It is the issue of revenge porn. I notice that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) has secured an Adjournment debate on that issue. I hope that provisions can be slid in between clauses 19 and 20 because the issue relates to both those clauses. I hope that the Secretary of State will look carefully at the matter and listen carefully to the right hon. Lady. The issue could be addressed in the Bill. Had I thought of that early enough, I would have proposed an amendment to part 1, but we dealt with it before I was ready. However, I am happy to send in my ideas. I hope that we can make those changes and make the Bill substantially better.
Guy Opperman
I was not able to be here earlier in the consideration of the Bill, so I will speak briefly on Third Reading—to the delight of colleagues, I am sure.
I welcome the Bill. I sat on the Public Bill Committee. As ever, the Opposition are full of criticism but short on solutions. The shadow Secretary of State spoke fondly of a reshuffle. Of the two of us, it is more likely that he will be reshuffled than I. The idea that Magna Carta will be so affected by the Bill is as laughable as some of his earlier suggestions. Magna Carta survived very well for several hundred years before the reform of judicial review and the like, and it will continue to survive very happily on the back of the Bill.
I should declare that I have practised in the fields of judicial review and criminal law. The previous Government, in their 13 years and with their dozens of criminal justice Bills, were, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst Government there has ever been in respect of criminal justice. I assure the House that that view is shared universally by one and all at the criminal Bar.
My last client in a judicial review was the shadow Chancellor. I represented him when he was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. In that judicial review, the feeling was shared by one and all that far too much judicial review was going on and that it needed to be reformed. I welcome the fact that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has tackled something that has been patently obvious to High Court judges, practitioners and everyone who has been involved in the payment of taxpayers’ money for judicial review.
I welcome the proposals that we dealt with in Committee on drug testing in prisons. The idea that we are proposing a mini-Titan prison—I think I caught those words correctly—is a dramatic misunderstanding of what constitutes a Titan prison and what constitutes a reasonably sized prison for young offenders. I also welcome the changes to electronic monitoring.
Finally, on knife crime, I welcome and support the changes that have been brought about by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who has done a great service to the House.
Sarah Champion
I want to put on record my abhorrence at the idea of the giant children’s prison. Not one of the witnesses we heard from spoke favourably about it. I know that it is being packaged as an educational establishment, but there is nothing in the Bill to tell us that there will be qualified teachers and social workers or anything about the level of education that the children will be offered.
Particularly worrisome for me is that, given that only 4% of the young people and children in the prison population are between the ages of 12 and 15, the vast majority of the young people will be much older than that, and only 4% will be girls—out of 320 young people, about 12 will be girls. Those girls might have committed crimes, but there is an awful lot of evidence that when girls commit crimes, it is normally because they are coerced into it, or they are acting up because of some gross abuse that has already happened to them and it tends to be a cry for help. I find it deeply abhorrent to put them in a very testosterone-led environment, and worry for their psychological futures.
I also find the fact that there was no commitment for there to be qualified teachers extremely worrying, and it confirms to me that the college is just a holding borstal, rather than an educational establishment as it is described. I also found it troublesome that there is a lot of mention of restraint in the Bill, and some of the techniques being used are not legal according to the UN—that should not be happening, particularly to children. Again, I make a plea to the Secretary of State to please consider that matter.
Chris Grayling
Can the hon. Lady draw my attention to where in the Bill the word “restraint” appears?
Sarah Champion
Standing here now, no I cannot, but I will be happy to provide that evidence. If the Secretary of States gives me a couple of minutes I could probably dig it out of the Bill.
Yasmin Qureshi
I was on the Committee when this matter was debated, and the Bill contains a number of provisions that concern me and my hon. Friends. One of those relates to the secure colleges that the Government seem to think are a panacea or solution for young people who get involved in the criminal justice system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, we heard from countless experts and not a single one said that secure colleges as envisaged by the Government were right or would work. There were questions about whether the college would be segregated and how large the units should be. From the Government proposals it seems that the secure colleges will be large institutions, and it is not guaranteed that segregation will occur and that girls will be in one environment and boys in another. There was not even any information about what will actually happen.
The experts accept that there is no harm in having an educational establishment, but it must be a small unit in which children are looked after. It should be almost like a home, but obviously with an element of rehabilitation and education thrown in. At the moment, the way the secure colleges are envisaged makes it seem as if the old-fashioned borstals are being brought back. We all know that they were completely useless and a waste of time, and they did not rehabilitate or help young people. The new secure colleges are going down the same line.
The Government have not said whether they are willing to put in the resources needed to run a proper establishment for young people, and teach them to mend their ways and stop committing criminal offences. There are issues such as restraint and what methods will be used, and how we deal with young people who misbehave a bit but do not commit offences and how we tackle violent or disorderly behaviour in the secure colleges.
A whole lot of things are missing. That is one reason why many people on the Committee—certainly Labour Members—were concerned about the secure colleges because there is not enough information about them. With all the debates that have taken place, I hope the Ministry of Justice and the Lord Chancellor—I know he is here—will listen and that when the secure colleges are introduced, they will be properly checked and resourced, and that they will deal with issues relating to young people. It is well known that a lot of young people who end up in the criminal justice system often come from broken homes or abusive families, and they often have physical and mental health issues. They need to be looked after, so that they can become good citizens and not continue to be a problem for the state.
Punishment is of course an element of dealing with someone who commits a crime, but another should be rehabilitation. When someone commits a crime, everyone says, “Throw the book at them. Give them the longest possible sentence.” The idea is that that will stop them committing crimes. They may not be able to do anything while they are in prison, but we know that many people who come out of prison end up back there. From my experience of representing young people, and indeed defendants generally, the last thing in their mind when they commit a crime is that they will get five, seven or even 20 years for it. They do not think about the possible sentence: they just see the opportunity that has arisen or they commit offences because of their background.
We have been obsessed in the past few years with the idea that longer and longer sentences of imprisonment will stop the problem of crime, but they will not. We spend thousands of pounds incarcerating an individual, but if we spent our resources at an earlier stage in people’s lives to help and support their families, we would get better balanced citizens. The punitive approach of the criminal justice system should in fact be more about rehabilitation. Until a couple of centuries ago, someone who stole a sheep would be hanged, but that did not stop people committing that offence or other minor offences with the same punishment.
Dr Huppert
I agree with what the hon. Lady is saying about prevention. How did she vote a few moments ago, when we discussed exactly that issue in relation to knife crime—whether we should lock people up or try to prevent it?
Yasmin Qureshi
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I have never said that people should not be imprisoned. When people commit serious offences, or repeat an offence, they should be given prison sentences. My point is that we incarcerate too many people for far too long. No one here will disagree with that point—[Interruption.] Well, some seem to think that people should be in prison for ever. But we know that if we bang people up for a long time, it just costs hundreds of thousands of pounds, whereas if they are on the outside and we help them by rehabilitating them and perhaps finding them accommodation and a job, their lives can turn around. That is where the money should go, but that does not take away from the fact that some people should be imprisoned for a long time, depending on the seriousness of their offences.
Julie Hilling
Does my hon. Friend agree that some people, both young and older, need to be removed from society, but where we put them while we attempt to rehabilitate them is an important factor? Putting a lot of young people together in a secure college does not work. The most effective form of “treatment” for young offenders is small units where they can get individual attention and help to divert them from the path of offending.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the hon. Lady replies to that intervention, I know that she will be careful to stick to discussing secure colleges which is a matter in the Bill, rather than straying back to the subject of sheep stealing, which is one of the few things not in the Bill.
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She and I were on the Bill Committee and I know that the Government members on it could not have helped but be struck by what was said by the experts—different people such as probation officers—who were dealing young people. They were all saying that secure colleges were a bad idea.
Ann Coffey
Does my hon. Friend agree that we do not have a category of “victims” and a category of “offenders”? Often when one looks into the offenders’ histories, one finds that they themselves have been very early victims. Putting offenders into secure accommodation because they are offenders does not take account of the fact that they themselves are victims and they can become victimised within that environment.
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree and can give an example to the House of a case I had when I was a prosecutor. A young man, aged about 14, was in a care home. He set light to a curtain but realised quickly what he had done and tried to put out the flames. He did, and nobody was injured. People might think that he should have been put into prison and have the key thrown away. But let me tell the House the circumstances of that young man’s life. On the day in question, the young boy had been in court to give evidence against his mother’s boyfriend, who had sexually abused his younger sister. When he arrived at court to give evidence against his mother’s boyfriend, immediately upon seeing him she punched him in the stomach. He burst out crying and ran away from the court to the care home where he did this, before realising what he had done. That is the sort of thing we do not see in the headlines. The headlines would say, “14-year-old boy let off by the courts” if he received a conditional discharge or was not dealt with severely. Young people’s circumstances cannot be mentioned in public so people do not realise that a lot more can be happening in their lives than they think.
We know that most young people who have committed crimes have been abused themselves, either sexually or physically, or have been neglected or had cruel treatment. They are often psychologically damaged and the last thing they need is to go to a borstal-type school. What they need is structure in their lives and someone to care for them who will make life better for them.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend is making good points, particularly about the secure colleges and why young people need to be in a supportive environment. I want to apologise to the Secretary of State. I used the word “restraint” but he was right; “reasonable force” is the correct terminology. However, I still do not think that “reasonable force” is appropriate in a place that is meant to be nurturing young people.
Yasmin Qureshi
You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I shall now move to other aspects of the Bill, as I have made my point about secure colleges.
I want to refer to judicial review and I stand by the comments that I made earlier. The argument given against judicial review is that it is costly and that too many people are vexatiously seeking judicial review. As I said, one cannot just go to the court and say, “Can I have judicial review?” One has to seek leave to apply for judicial review and that application is assessed by a judge of the High Court, who are meant to be the ablest legal minds in the country. I know that they will not say to an applicant, “Yes, you can have it and we will use the court’s time.” They will not. They will review the case and look at the papers. Then, if they think there is merit in the application, they will take it one step further, look at the case and set it aside for a hearing. The Government seem to think that there are many so-called frivolous or vexatious judicial review applications, but many of them would be sloughed away by the internal judicial process in any event. Very few cases actually get to judicial review and—
Business without Debate
European Union Documents
petitions
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I present a petition on behalf of my constituent, Ms Nicola Williams, from the members of the Association of Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests who have collected several hundred signatures to call for a public inquiry into the use of oral hormone pregnancy test drugs that were used in the 1960s and ’70s.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that the Petitioners believe that children were born with serious deformities due to hormone pregnancy test drugs taken by expectant mothers between 1953 and 1975; further that the Petitioners are concerned that as the surviving victims enter their forties and fifties many of them may face a host of new problems as their bodies continue to suffer; further that no official warnings were issued about these drugs until eight years after the first reports indicated possible dangers; further that the Petitioners believe that some doctors continued to prescribe the hormone pregnancy test drugs to pregnant women after official warnings from the Committee on Safety of Medicines; and further that the Department of Health in the past has rejected requests for an inquiry into these matters.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to set up an Independent Public Inquiry.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001359]
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I wish to present a petition on behalf of my friends and constituents in Kendal Amnesty International who, on and after world water day earlier this year, sought to put the petition together, calling on the UK Government to urge the Government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people to adequate and safe water supply.
The petition states:
The Petition of a resident of the UK,
Declares that the Petitioner believes that the Government of Israel is not respecting the human rights of the Palestinian people by failing to ensure that they have an adequate water supply.
The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage the Government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people to adequate water supply.
And the Petitioner remains, etc.
[P001360]
Water Safety
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Just under a year ago at the start of the six-week summer holiday on 23 July 2013, 15-year-old Tonibeth Purvis from Barmston in Washington in my constituency, and her friend Chloe Fowler who was 14—she was from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson)—tragically died after drowning in the River Wear at Fatfield in Washington. It was a lovely hot sunny day, much like we saw last week and will hopefully see again this summer. To cool off, Chloe jumped into the river. Unfortunately, that particular stretch of the River Wear has a fast current and is up to six metres deep in the middle. It is full of hidden hazards, as many rivers are. It was not long, therefore, before Chloe sadly got into difficulty. Seeing her friend in trouble, Tonibeth immediately jumped in to help her, along with a number of other friends they were with. They quickly found themselves in trouble as well, Tonibeth to the point where she was also overcome. The emergency services were called immediately, shortly before 3 pm. Unfortunately, by then it was already too late. Tonibeth was not located until 8.49 pm, and it took a huge team of emergency service workers—who by all accounts were fantastic—another hour to find Chloe.
The only saving grace of this terrible tragedy is that more young people did not die that afternoon. As her friends said in paying tribute to her in the days following the tragedy, Tonibeth died a hero, trying her best to rescue her friend. She was quite rightly recognised for that heroism as the winner of the editor’s choice award at the Sunderland Echo’s Pride of Wearside awards in November last year. As a mother myself, I do not know if that brings much comfort to her family. I sincerely hope it does.
The parents of Tonibeth and Chloe are not the only ones currently living through the nightmare of losing a child to drowning. Drowning is the third most common cause of accidental death among children in the UK. According to the response I received from the Office for National Statistics to a parliamentary question I tabled in September last year, between July 2008 and December 2012 coroners recorded 48 accidental deaths of children and young people aged under 20 in natural water. That is 48 individual tragedies, 48 families devastated and 48 schools, colleges and wider communities affected—and one persistent problem. Those figures may not tell the whole story, as coroners figures only record the primary cause of death.
The figures for deaths in water—the water incident database, or WAID, statistics compiled by the National Water Safety Forum—were put at 47 for under-20s in 2011 alone and another 42 in 2012. Those figures show that this is primarily an issue for boys, who account for 78 of the 89 deaths in those two years. None of these figures, of course, include Tonibeth and Chloe or any other young people who lost their lives last summer or since. I understand that in the six-week hot spell we had last summer there were 36 deaths. Of course, many other children and young people have come close to losing their lives. Some have suffered serious injuries or been left traumatised by getting into trouble in the water. When we take all age groups into account, there are some 400 deaths a year, which is the equivalent of one every 20 hours.
The fact is that the vast majority of these individual tragedies can be avoided if people possess a basic understanding of how to look after themselves and know what to do in an emergency, whether it happens to them or others.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this subject to the House for consideration. In my constituency, unfortunately, we have had similar experiences, usually during warm spells of weather. Does she think that advertisements and warnings should be sent out through local press and local government to ensure that people are aware of the dangers in quarries, rivers and the sea? Those are the danger spots whenever the weather is warm.
Mrs Hodgson
I will come on to prevention shortly.
The Royal Life Saving Society was, opportunely, in Parliament today, hosted by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who had hoped to attend the debate. It held a briefing session for MPs and peers on this very subject ahead of drowning prevention week, which begins on Monday 23 June and runs until 29 June. It conducted research last year that found that 68% of people said they would not know what to do if they saw someone drowning, or how to treat them even if they were able to recover them safely from the water. However, in spite of that self-awareness of lack of capability, 63% of those people said they would still jump in to try to save a family member who was drowning, and 37% said they would even do so to try to save a stranger.
Most victims of drowning are alone, but it is little wonder that the kind of selflessness and heroism that was displayed by Tonibeth can so often lead to an even deeper tragedy. In the hope of preventing such tragedies, the RLSS has made a number of demands in its “manifesto for water safety”, which I think require close consideration by the Minister and, indeed, other members of the Government.
The RLSS argues that schools should ensure that every child is taught the basic principles of water safety, and personal survival skills. That means that children should understand the risks involved in various water environments such as currents, loose banks and vegetation, and should know how best to enter and exit water, which includes what it is best for them to do if they fall in. It means that they should be able to orientate and contort their bodies in the water, especially if they are caught in a current and need to turn to face the direction in which it is taking them so that they avoid hurting themselves and do not miss opportunities to grab something. It means being familiar with the typical survival skills that would generally occur to us, such as treading water, making ourselves buoyant, and swimming in clothing. Swimming itself is, of course, a very important skill, but it is also important to be taught the techniques that make it possible to rescue other people safely, which include keeping their heads back and above water.
The current school curriculum mentions safety, but the target of being able to swim 25 metres by the end of primary school is the real priority for most schools. Being able to swim 25 metres would certainly help, but doing so in a warm, clear swimming pool with lifeguards at hand is completely different from having to swim 25 metres, or even 5 metres, in a cold lake or a river with a strong current and hidden hazards.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend was right to list all the water safety skills that children should be taught, but does she agree that every school leaver should be a life saver? Should not all young people be taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation, how to place people in the recovery position, and other ways of saving people’s lives once they have been rescued?
Mrs Hodgson
Yes. Those are all valuable life skills. If I had to choose an overriding priority, I would choose water safety education and survival skills.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for what she said earlier about the work of the Royal Life Saving Society UK and its visit to the House. Does she agree that, ahead of the summer months, Members in all parts of the House have a unique opportunity to promote the drowning prevention message to young people in particular? Is that not something that we can all do together now, in the short term?
Mrs Hodgson
Yes, I do agree. I should like to think that, following the debate, an all-party parliamentary group could be set up. Perhaps it could be led by the hon. Gentleman, who showed such great leadership in organising today’s event in which the RLSS highlighted the importance of life-saving. I can think of no better gentleman to chair such a group. I should be more than happy to be a qualifying member, as, I am sure, would other Members who are present this evening.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the RLSS argues that water safety education should be extended, in an age-appropriate way, to key stages 3 and 4. It believes that such education should be directed at the age group that is most likely to take risks around water and get into difficulty as a result, and that parents should be notified about their children’s progress. In the context of the tightening of budgets, it also recommends that schools should consider focusing on pupils who cannot swim. I am sure that many young people would be disappointed if they were told that they could not take part because they had already got their badges, but there is some sense in doing that, as long as the competent swimmers receive good-quality provision in some other sporting activity at the same time. The RLSS also calls for Ministers to give schools a clear understanding of what is expected from them in this regard, and then to ensure that progress is inspected and reported on so that schools are accountable to parents for that progress.
The Minister may be aware of a survey by the Amateur Swimming Association which found that nearly 20% of schools, and 25% of academies, do not know their swimming attainment rates, or do not offer swimming at all. It also found that 51% of primary school children are unable to swim the minimum of 25 metres by the time they leave primary school. This concern about the decreasing priority given to swimming is echoed by Councillor Fiona Miller, who represents the Washington East ward in my constituency, where this tragedy occurred, and who is also a swimming teacher. She also reminded me that many schools used to get resources on water safety and many other things from the Youth Sport Trust, but increasing numbers of those schools are reviewing their membership of this body in light of fragmented and squeezed budgets. These figures and concerns are extremely worrying, so I hope the Minister is able to provide some figures of his own, particularly on the provision of swimming in primary academies, which are not bound by the curriculum at all.
The RLSS also calls on the Government to provide support for an annual public awareness campaign highlighting drowning risk, which would be useful for adults and children alike, as well as to ensure that there are sufficient safe places that children and young people can go—and can afford to go—to swim during the summer holidays, or indeed at evenings and weekends. I hesitate to make this point because I do not suggest for a moment that there is any causal link between the Government’s actions and any drownings, but Labour’s free swimming initiative provided such a valuable opportunity for so many young people to swim safely and to learn to swim at any time, but especially over the school holidays, and it is a great shame that it was scrapped.
There has certainly also been an increasing threat to public swimming baths as councils struggle to balance their budgets in extremely challenging times. In my constituency, campaigners found out just this week that they had been successful in lobbying to save Castle View enterprise academy’s pool, which is widely used by the whole community, including local primary schools, from having to close its doors. As savings become ever harder to make for local authorities, the future of other pools across the country will increasingly come into question, and many of them will not get the reprieve that this particular one has had, and some may have to put up prices.
I know that there was a degree of indecision at official level as to which Department was to answer this debate. The prevention of drowning accidents, and therefore of the loss of lives and serious injury, is a cross-cutting issue, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport all have a stake in this, as do their local and national partners and agencies, but, as we know, there is always a risk with cross-cutting issues that they will fall between the cracks in both Whitehall and at a local level, rather than the overlap helping to bridge those gaps. Just as in so many other areas, one of the best preventive tools that Government have at their disposal is our education system, and therefore although I admire—and, indeed, like—the Minister who is here tonight, I am disappointed that an Education Minister is not here to respond. Just as with healthy eating and lifestyles and sex and relationships education, this is an area in which we can, through education, give children and young people the skills and knowledge they will need at the very point in their lives when they will need it, as well as for when they grow up, and not just in order to pass exams or help them get into Oxbridge, but to help them lead safe and healthy and, therefore, long and happy lives.
I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on what his Department and others across Government are doing to this end, and I ask whether they will look at the very modest and sensible recommendations from the RLSS, and what further ideas and policies the Government may be convinced to explore in the near future to help to prevent another tragedy like the one that shook Sunderland last year, and which has left such a devastating gap in the lives of Tonibeth’s and Chloe’s family and friends.
As I mentioned earlier in my speech, drowning prevention week is next week. It is a great initiative usually aimed at primary schools, but this year it is being expanded to secondary schools as well. As far as that campaign will reach, however, it will not reach all schools and it will not reach all children. It would be a major, and very timely, boost for this campaign if the Minister was able to say tonight that the Government will take some of the RLSS calls for action on board, or perhaps come forward with some other proposals, so I look forward to hearing his response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this debate. Let me say at the outset that I am aware of the tragedy that happened last July in her constituency, and the Government very much sympathise with the families of the two girls involved. The hon. Lady is right to say that the incident highlights why we must do all we can to raise awareness of the dangers of water, and the measures we can and are putting in place to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.
I am responding on behalf of the Government as the Minister with responsibility for maritime issues, but as the hon. Lady pointed out, water safety and drowning prevention are not topics that fit neatly within the remit of any single Department. Having heard her speech, I, like her, rather wished that an Education Minister was responding. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, for example, actively promotes participation in water-related sports and activities. The Department for Education promotes water safety awareness and swimming through the national curriculum. The Department for Communities and Local Government has a role to play through local authorities, which have responsibility for beach safety and act as navigation authorities for some of our inland waters. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a role in the management of many of our inland waters through bodies such as the Environment Agency and the Canal & River Trust. The Health and Safety Executive, within the Department for Work and Pensions, also has a clear interest where the worlds of water and work come together.
Alongside all those Departments and agencies is a whole host of non-governmental groupings, sport governing bodies and charities that make up a matrix of interested parties with a role to play in supporting water safety and the prevention of drowning. My own Department’s primary interest is through the excellent work of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which includes Her Majesty’s Coastguard. That agency’s regulatory role focuses on the safety of commercial shipping and fishing operations, but most of the search and rescue incidents with which Her Majesty’s Coastguard deals are firmly rooted in recreational activities such as boating, sailing, enjoying our beaches, swimming off coasts and walking our fantastic coastline. It follows that encouraging people not to get into difficulty in the first place—prevention of the wider sort that the hon. Lady mentioned—is by far the best approach, which we encourage across the whole of Government.
More than 200 Members of this House represent coastal constituencies and will doubtless join me in encouraging the general public to get out and about and have fun near the water. According to Visit England, in 2012 there were 147 million day visits to seaside and coastal locations across the whole of Great Britain, and inland we have lakes, canals and other stretches of accessible water that the public can enjoy. However, that enjoyment is enhanced if people take personal responsibility for their own safety, understand the difficulties and dangers, treat water with the respect it deserves, and understand what they can do to have fun and stay safe.
My Department and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency have supported the work of the National Water Safety Forum, an umbrella body that brings together all those promoting water safety messages, including expert organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the RNLI, the Royal Life Saving Society, the Canal & River Trust, the British Sub-Aqua Club, British Swimming, the Chief Fire Officers Association and many more. For many years, my Department has made a financial grant to that forum through the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, which provides administration and governance support. That funding has facilitated the development of the forum and allowed it to mature into a body that shares understanding of statistical information and data, and uses that to help local authorities, sport governing bodies and lifesaving organisations plan their own safety communications. As the forum matures and shows its worth, so its membership are increasingly making a financial contribution to the forum, because they recognise that it is a body in which they can all share best practice.
The National Water Safety Forum recognised that there were different databases capturing different levels of information about water-related incidents. The hon. Lady referred to a number in her speech. The information that is recorded by the MCA on national search and rescue records, for instance, is different to that recorded by the RNLI and other rescue services. What was needed and has now been put in place is a single database that commands the confidence of all the bodies that contribute to it and use it. That has been achieved through the water incident database, which, as the hon. Lady knows, is known as WAID. It provides a single version of the truth and has captured information about fatalities and all water-related incidents since 2007.
The hon. Lady mentioned a number of inland fatalities. In 2010, the number of water-related fatalities was 420. Thanks to WAID’s initiative and the communication plans of its umbrella bodies, the message started to take hold. The number of fatalities has dropped quite dramatically and continues to fall, and it is now 50 fewer than it was two years ago. We need to do more, but the trend is going in the right direction.
Analysis shows that most of the water-related fatalities occur in rivers, followed by at the coast and then in the sea, and that is exemplified by the sad incident that the hon. Lady has described. The most common activities that people are engaged in when tragedy strikes are walking, running, swimming and, in some cases, angling. A major campaign, which has been run and targeted at people who are close to rivers or water, involves the promotion of the wearing of lifejackets. The seas around the UK coast are cold. Professor Mike Tipton, a leading academic in this field, has shown that the first and most immediate danger to people in the water is not the drowning, but the sheer cold water shock, which then leads to drowning. Wearing lifejackets on rivers and at sea buys time and keeps people alive until they can be rescued.
Mrs Hodgson
I do not want to pre-empt anything the Minister might say with regard to education, and I am aware that he is not an Education Minister, but is he able to comment on the Royal Life Saving Society’s campaign and its calls for Government action, or will he commit to meeting the Education Minister to take the matter forward?
Stephen Hammond
I will touch briefly on education. We certainly welcome what the Royal Life Saving Society has said, and we recognise that next week is national drowning prevention week. I will commit to asking my colleagues in the Education Department to reply to the hon. Lady more fully if my remarks do not provide her with the answers that she wants.
Many agencies have a strategy for safety. The MCA, for instance, focuses on very simple safety messages, urging those going on the water to get trained, check the weather, wear a lifejacket, avoid alcohol and make sure that someone else knows what they are going to do. Volunteer coastguards are based in their local communities, and they spend a lot of their time putting those messages across to schools and community groups, and the MCA uses its presence on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to do the same.
In January this year at the London boat show, I was pleased to support the Royal Yachting Association’s launch of its safety advice notices, encouraging safety in boating, yachting and sailing communities. It used the style of language that was right for its target audience. The RNLI has a proud record of heroism at sea and it holds a special place in British maritime tradition. It has run an excellent campaign called “Respect the Water,” the thrust of which is to encourage people to take care when they are near rivers or near the shore and to make sure that they are properly trained.
Six years of evidence shows, unfortunately, that one of the major causal factors in fatalities, particularly in young men, is alcohol. A number of organisations are sending out the message that people should not take alcohol and play around by the water, because that can have serious consequences. We welcome similar efforts by the RLSS, which include drowning prevention week next week. The prevention of drowning is a shared responsibility in every sense. As I undertook a moment ago, I will ensure that one of my colleagues in the Department for Education responds more fully to some of the points that the hon. Lady made about education.
We all want people to enjoy our beaches, our coast, the seas and the inland waters. However, we want them to understand the dangers, take responsibility for their safety and heed the advice of the many experts in the area. The RNLI’s mantra, “respect the water”, is spot on. The Government will continue to support and encourage safety awareness and swimming in the national curriculum. We support the efforts of the National Water Safety Forum to ensure that people understand the greatest risks and to promote the campaign for safety, so that tragic incidents such as the hon. Lady described at the start of her speech will become an increasing rarity.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
New Businesses: Loans
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Toby Perkins
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many Start Up Loans applications have been supported by each approved provider of Start Up Loans mentoring services in each region in which the new company was based or planned to be based.
[Official Report, 16 June 2014, Vol. 582, c. 425W.]
Letter of correction from Matthew Hancock:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) on 16 June 2014.
The full answer given was as follows:
Michael Fallon
All loan recipients in all regions receiving a start-up loan are offered mentoring, although take up of support services is not a mandatory condition of making the facility available. The number of loans made in each region will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
The correct answer should have been:
Matthew Hancock
All loan recipients in all regions receiving a start-up loan are offered mentoring, although take up of support services is not a mandatory condition of making the facility available. The number of loans made in each region will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
Petition
Health Services in East Cleveland and Park End, Middlesbrough
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Organ Donation Register
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I look forward to your advice throughout this important debate, and I am also grateful to hon. Members for joining me for it today.
I think it was Daniel Defoe who in 1726 said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. That is true. These are issues that none of us really wants to talk about, but unfortunately, death touches us all. All of us in the Chamber and anyone watching will no doubt have been touched by the loss of a loved one. Many of us will have lost parents. Some will have lost a partner or a child, a son or a daughter. Those are terrible things to cope with—the sense of loss, and the pain and anguish that come with that terrible event.
The idea that, at such a sad and low time, when people’s world collapses, they should have the forethought, integrity and generosity to make the decision to give the organs of their loved one to support the lives of others is a very difficult thing for us all to contemplate, and we would all struggle with that question when asked. However, I have also spoken to people who have done exactly that: they have given the organs of their loved one for the use of others, to give life to others, and they tell me of the incredible meaning that it gives to the traumatic loss of a loved one. It puts that loss into context. In the words of one parent who spoke to me, their son will always live on. That is a tremendous thing for anybody to contemplate.
However, the reality is that in Britain today, some 7,000 people are currently on the waiting list for an organ transplant—right now, they are at home, ill, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the hospital to call, waiting for the chance of a new life. It is hard to put ourselves in their situation, but their lives depend on that phone call and on that organ being made available. The figures show that 1,300 of the people on the list will die. They will become too sick to receive a transplant. That is unacceptable, and it is what I hope we can address in today’s debate.
Last year, 1,323 people became organ donors, compared with 1,164 the previous year. That is good news; it is an increase of 13.7%. Transplants from those donors have risen by a third to more than 3,000. Currently, just under a third of the population of the UK are on the organ donation register. On 12 June this year, it was more than 20 million people—20 million people who have sat down and made the choice that after their death they would like to give life to others. I commend them for that choice and I hope that, by raising the issue today, we can encourage more to do the same.
I congratulate both this Government and the previous Government on the successes that have been achieved over recent years. There is a good news story to tell on organ donation. We saw a 50% rise in donor numbers by 2013 on the previous five years. Thanks to the implementation of the recommendations published by the organ donation taskforce in 2008 under the previous Government, transplants from those donors have jumped by a third. However, there is much that we can do, and much more that we must do if we are to give as many of those 7,000 people as we can the opportunity of life.
The numbers on the registers are still too low—pitifully low. As I mentioned earlier, just under a third of the people in the UK are now registered. In the UK, we have 13 donors per 1 million people, which is still one of the lowest rates in Europe. Compare us, for instance, with Spain, which has an opt-in system, rather than an opt-out system. There, the figure is 35 per 1 million people, which is almost three times as high.
So why are people in the UK not signing up? All the evidence shows—the surveys show—that 96% of the population support the principle of organ donation, yet only 30% of the population register, so what has happened to the remaining 66% or so? The rate of sign-up to the register varies dramatically across the UK. The highest sign-up rate to the register is, of course, in Scotland, where 41% of the population is a registered organ donor. I commend them north of the border, but why is it that in England and Wales, those signed up are only 30% and 31% respectively? Why is the figure so much higher north of the border?
I have been told that some of that is attributable to a simple, but hard-hitting television advertising campaign, encouraging people to sign up as a donor, and more importantly, to discuss their decision with their loved ones. The advert is very simple. A man in front of a camera suggests that people watching tell those they are with about their wishes for organ donation—“Right there, right now, look at everybody in the room and tell them. Make sure that your wishes are clear.” It is a hard-hitting advert, which is clear and effective.
I believe that we should have a simple, hard-hitting campaign just like that in England and Wales, and I push the Minister on it. I have previously written to the Secretary of State for Health encouraging him to do exactly that, and I urge the Minister to look again. Perhaps she could tell us whether she has any thoughts on an advertising campaign, because we all recognise that education, and talking about those things and raising awareness are key.
Education is a key way of encouraging people to sign up, and our schools also have a part to play. The “Give and Let Live” resource pack has been used in schools since 2007. It helps teachers to introduce 14 to 16-year-olds to the concept of organ donation, but it is not compulsory on the national curriculum. I am not suggesting that it should be; I recognise that we have to give head teachers the autonomy to make those decisions and to decide what is taught in personal, social, health and economic education lessons. However, raising awareness about the campaign and encouraging teachers to use the resource will encourage young people not only to sign up and get on the organ donor register, but to talk to their parents about it. That is also important. If we can get this conversation going on around the breakfast table between children and their parents, we will have much more chance of not only getting more people to sign up, but getting people to accept the wishes of their loved ones when that difficult question and difficult moment arises.
The use of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has also been incredibly successful in encouraging people to become organ donors. People are asked when they apply for a driving licence whether they also wish to join the organ donation register. It has been fantastic; over half a million people sign up every year as a result of that simple question, which takes seconds to answer.
I pay tribute to the Cabinet Office’s behavioural insights team—or “the nudge team”, as the press like to call it. They have done a study of this issue. It is a very interesting piece of work about the most effective way to frame the question to encourage people to sign up. Through a pilot that they ran, they found that just a slight change in the wording could lead to an additional 96,000 sign-ups every year. It is incredible how the human mind works and how it is affected by the questions that are asked. It is important that the Government think logically in that way to encourage people to do the right thing.
Of course, there is another important element to this. It is important not just to get people on the register. Also important is what happens once they are on the register and, sadly, in a position to become an organ donor. It is important that we convert people on the register into donors. We must increase the consent rates among the families. UK donation consent rates remain among the lowest in Europe. Four out of 10 families said no to a deceased relative’s organs being donated even when they were on the register. There has been no overall improvement in the consent rate since the organ donation register was introduced in 1994. How to deal with that is, for me, an important question.
It is interesting that as a person—I hope that the Minister would agree—of sound mind and body, I can decide to donate my organs after my death, yet my family can take that decision away from me and I have no choice about that. We do not do that in any other walk of life. We do not say that I can sign my will, saying that I am going to donate all my money to the Conservative party to secure Conservative elections in years to come, and that my family can then override that will, unless they can prove that for some reason I was not of sound mind and body. We must empower people to make the decision for themselves. Yes, it is important that they discuss it with their family, with their loved ones, but we must recognise that, as a free individual, I have the right to choose to donate my organs and no one should be allowed to take that right away from me. I would be interested to know whether the Minister has any thoughts on that.
The aim of the NHS Blood and Transplant strategy, “Taking Organ Transplantation to 2020”, published last year, is to increase the UK’s consent rate for donations from 58.6% to 80%. That is a very big jump. It is an ambitious target, and I hope that we can meet it. In contrast, Spain has the highest consent rate in Europe, at 84%. Last year, the consent rate in the UK increased by only 2%, from 56.5% the year before.
There is a startling difference between what happens when donation has been openly discussed with family members beforehand and what happens when the decision comes as a shock or surprise. In 2013, 94% of families in the UK agreed to an organ donation when their loved one was registered and had discussed their wishes with them. That fell away to 80% when they were on the register but had not discussed that with their family, but most worryingly it fell to 43.5% when the person’s wishes were not known at all. That clearly demonstrates the need not only to get people on the register, but to ensure that people talk about that when they are. We must ensure, under the system as it stands at the moment, that it is not a solitary decision. If we do not encourage people to let their families know about their decision, unfortunately their wishes, their intentions, the good that they wish to do will be denied.
Of the 20 million people in the UK who have put themselves on the organ donation register, only 60% have told their families that they have done so. We can do the maths: the wishes of 40% of the people who have the potential to give new life to another human being are being denied simply because they did not tell their wife, their husband or their partner what they wanted to happen after their death.
In 2012-13, 115 families overruled their relative’s consent for their organs to be used. I understand why they did that. I understand the pressure, the grief, the pain that those people are going through, but we cannot allow a situation in which those 115 deaths were for nothing. Those 115 deaths, with the conversion rate for organ donation, could have given more than 300 people a fresh lease of life. That is what we must focus on.
The UK will never achieve its potential for donation and transplantation when more than 40% of families refuse to allow donation, sometimes against the wishes of the patient. Obviously, when anyone has lost a loved one, it is a difficult and emotional time, but if the deceased had expressed a clear wish to donate their organs, it seems odd that the family can overrule that. That is why I urge the Minister to think about changing the law so that we can make a choice for ourselves to do the right thing and donate our organs.
The Welsh Government, as the Minister will know, are seeking to deal with the issue. From December 2015, they are introducing an opt-out system of presumed consent unless a deceased person had expressed a wish not to donate their organs. A similar system has produced incredible results in Spain. I recognise that this is a hugely controversial issue. It has been characterised as a case of “Who owns your organs?” I recognise that there are deep and heartfelt reasons why people would oppose such a system. I am also aware that previously the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), said that the Government had no plans to introduce it elsewhere in the UK, because of those cultural, ethical and legal issues.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene; I hope that later I will catch your eye, Mr Hollobone, and can make a contribution. This is the first point on which I completely disagree with my hon. Friend. Does he accept that there is no evidence whatever that changing to an opt-out system, even in Spain, which I will deal with in my speech, has delivered more organs? To consider it an ethical issue—the Opposition and many of us base our view on the efficacy of such a change, rather than on the ethical position—is, I think, a mistake.
Andrew Griffiths
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Perhaps he is just a little presumptuous. I was not intending to argue for the opt-out system. All I was going to urge the Minister to do was to look at these issues on the evidence. What I suggest is not that we should come forward with a similar proposal for England and Wales, but that we should follow the evidence. We should look closely at how the system is implemented in Wales and at its impact. My hon. Friend has said that he will talk about the situation in Spain. In Spain, there was a delay before there was an increase in the number of donor organs available, but all the evidence seems to suggest that the system has led to a big increase.
Not only is the debate important, but it raises awareness of organ donation. It gets people talking; it stimulates discussion, which is important. My hon. Friend will know that the principle of the opt-out system is supported by a number of organisations, including the British Medical Association, the British Heart Foundation and Kidney Research UK. As I said, I hope that the Government will look closely at the evidence—at the results of changing the law in Wales—and look to reconsider their position as the evidence develops. My hon. Friend may well be right that there will be no marked increase in the number of organs available for donation, but we do have to follow the evidence, look at the results and decide what we do in the rest of the UK as a consequence.
There was a call by those involved in organ donation committees in our hospitals to look at the issue of the lack of family consent overriding the wishes of the deceased.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining this debate on what can be a very controversial issue. Does he agree that we should exhaust every possible avenue, whether it be schools or the driving licence organisation or whatever, before we even look at going down the road of an opt-out system, because it is a very controversial issue? In Northern Ireland, 527,000 people—32%—are on the register. The figure is increasing every month. A consultation is ongoing. I understand that in October a consultation will also be carried out on an opt-out system. I think that we need to exhaust every other avenue and then have further debate on that issue.
Andrew Griffiths
I agree with the hon. Gentleman; he talks a great deal of sense. The issue is very sensitive and we do not want a backlash in the form of people deliberately coming off the organ register because of ethical and moral concerns. I agree that there is more that we can do. I congratulate the Government on what they have achieved so far, but we can do a great deal more. The issue is important not only because lives are at stake, but because it has a massive impact on NHS costs, which I hope to touch on towards the end of my speech. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman.
I want to address organ donation in the black and minority ethnic community. I am the Member of Parliament for Burton, which has a large Muslim population—mainly Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora—who contribute massively to the community. However, there is no doubt that there is a problem with organ donation among BME communities. There is particular concern about the lack of donors coming forward from BME backgrounds. The startling truth is that people from BME backgrounds are up to three times more likely to need an organ but are less likely to donate; they need it more, but they donate less. Only 3.6% of people on the organ donation register are from ethnic minority backgrounds, despite their making up 10.8% of the population and a staggering 27% of the waiting list. Those figures show how skewed the numbers are and how desperate it is that we do something about the issue.
More than 30% of people listed for a kidney transplant are BME, compared with just 5.6% of deceased kidney donors in 2013. Why is that important? NHS blood and transplant statistics show that, on average, people from black and Asian backgrounds have to wait a year longer for a kidney transplant: between 2006 and 2010, the median waiting time for a kidney transplant in the UK for a white person was two years and 363 days, yet for a black or Asian person the wait was three years and 320 days. That is a whole year longer, just because of someone’s ethnicity. Family refusal rates among ethnic minority backgrounds also play a big part. The Minister will know that those rates are much higher than for the population as a whole, with 30% of BME families giving their consent to organ donation, compared with 68.5% of the white population—more than twice as many. That is why it is so important that we tackle the issue of organ donation among the BME community.
Ethnicity is hugely important in organ donation because a person is much more likely to find a match with someone from a similar ethnicity. It is vital that we do more to encourage people from BME backgrounds to sign up to the organ donation register. That is not the only answer; it is also vital that we break down the cultural barriers that prevent BME families from consenting. I commend the Government on the NHS blood and transplant team’s faith and organ donation summit in May last year. It was a good event, and it was agreed that sustained engagement on organ donation by and in ethnic minority communities is needed.
Those are all good words, but I am not seeing them reflected in my community. I am not seeing organ donation being discussed in churches, mosques and community centres. I am not seeing our imams and priests talking to their communities and encouraging them to come forward and donate—to do the right thing by signing up to the organ donation register. None of the major religions object in principle to organ donations, but of course opinions in communities differ. Organ donation is often not discussed, or is called, for example, un-Islamic. We must address such things if we are to break down prejudice and save lives in BME communities as a result. Leaflets have been distributed among different faith communities to that effect, but I hope the Minister will agree that much more can be done.
One way to increase donation that has been advocated is through the use of specialist nurses in organ donation—there is a wonderful acronym: SN-ODs—who were introduced following the 2008 recommendations. We now have 250 SN-ODs, who are there to support people going through the organ donation process and to raise awareness of donating. The National Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Transplant Alliance is calling for more SN-ODs to come from ethnic minority backgrounds, and I agree with it on that. I am not sure whether the Minister is aware that of those 250 SN-ODs throughout the country, just one is from a BME background. Is it any wonder that we are failing to break down cultural barriers at that terrible moment of loss, when we have only one person from a BME background to engage with people who are suffering such loss, and to encourage them to give life to others?
The proposed action plan arising from the summit in May last year featured a number of criteria on increasing engagement with ethnic minority communities. The aim was to fulfil them before September this year, and other criteria by a year hence. I would be grateful if the Minister would give us a little more information about what she and the Department are doing regarding those important criteria.
I know that other Members wish to speak, so I will soon draw my remarks to a close, but I want first to touch on a few points. First, I called for this debate at the request of William Saunders, the chairman of the organ transplant committee at Queen’s hospital in my constituency. It is fantastic to see William and his team, like others throughout the country, engaging as members of the community to try to encourage others to do the right thing and sign up to the organ transplant register. I hope that the Minister agrees that such people are doing a fantastic job in our community and that more must be done.
I also called for this debate because of a constituent, Katherine Sinfield, who sadly was diagnosed with leukaemia. My local newspaper, the Burton Mail, has done a huge amount to highlight Katherine’s case and to encourage people to come forward and undergo stem cell testing in order to find her a match. I am delighted to say that she has now found a match and had her treatment. We all wish her well, and she is doing incredibly well.
Through the Burton Mail’s campaign, I have seen the difference that raising awareness can make. The work of the Burton Mail and the Anthony Nolan trust has resulted in a large increase in the number of Burton residents who have come forward to be tested and who want to do their bit. It has also raised a huge amount of money for the Anthony Nolan trust. If we can encourage similar activity across the country—if Members will raise the issue in their constituencies—we can all play our part in raising awareness.
In conclusion, with such a high level of support for organ donation among the general public—96%—it is surprising that there is such difficulty in finding enough donors to meet the demand for transplants. It is clear that more work must be done. Despite these times of constrained public spending—we all recognise the difficulties in which the Government find themselves—I believe we can do more to solve this problem. Indeed, the “Taking Organ Transplantation to 2020” strategy says clearly that
“no additional funding is likely to be needed to move forward: much of what needs to be done is about working differently rather than increasing resources.”
I am sure that that is music to the Treasury’s ear, but I know that the Minister will put her shoulder to the wheel and help.
Without meaning to put it in crude terms, transplants save the NHS money in the long term. The entire transplant programme saves the NHS £316 million a year, which is money that would otherwise be spent on treatment. A successful kidney transplant operation, for example, costs £17,000, with a future cost of some £5,000 a year. A year’s dialysis for a patient with kidney failure, on the other hand, costs £30,800. The NHS blood and transplant service predicts that, for every year a kidney transplant remains functional, it saves the NHS £24,100 per patient while saving the patient’s life. If ever there was a win-win, that is it. From a financial perspective, it makes perfect sense to want to increase the number of organ donations if they can deliver such savings for the NHS, but more importantly, from a personal perspective, if any of us or one of our loved ones needed a transplant, we would do everything possible to ensure that we found a donor. We would move heaven and earth to give our loved one that chance.
I join the call of the organ donation committee at Queen’s hospital in my constituency and others across the country in saying that more needs to be done to increase the number of people on the organ donation register. Sign up; it saves lives.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) on securing this debate. Without doubt, this is an important issue. In his brief speech, he outlined the importance of organ donation to us all.
Some of us come to this debate with personal knowledge, and other Members with a very personal understanding will speak shortly, too. I will speak not only about cold facts but as a first-hand witness who was emotionally involved with a family member in need of an organ donation. Twenty-three years ago, my nephew, Peter, was born with one kidney that was not working and another that was the size of a peanut—I think that is how the doctor described it. That clearly inhibited my nephew’s quality of life. For many years, until he received an organ donation, he was unable to have the quality of life that everyone in this Chamber today is privileged to have.
My second son and my nephew were born at about the same time, so I was always able to compare their quality of life—my son, who was perfectly healthy, and my nephew, who unfortunately was not healthy as he awaited a kidney transplant. My nephew was restricted in height and in energy, and he was always a yellowy colour. That is hard for a family, but it is much more bearable when they know that kidneys are available in the organ bank ready to be transplanted. Peter was able to get that transplant, and it literally saved his life. That underlines the importance of organ donation to every member of my family and my family circle.
I do not want any parent or family member to be dealt the blow of knowing that a relative is in need of a transplant but there are currently no organs available. I do not want anyone to experience that, but that is what is happening in the UK today. That is why I feel so passionately about this debate. It will come as no surprise that I, as a Member of Parliament and as an individual, am a registered organ donor. Registering as an organ donor is much easier in Northern Ireland because whenever we apply for or renew our driving licence, we tick a box on the form to show whether we want to be an organ donor. Those who say yes will automatically become an organ donor should their time in this world come to a tragic end.
In Newtownards in my constituency of Strangford, a garden has been constructed for people who are having dialysis and renal treatment at the Ulster hospital in Dundonald. It was felt that we needed a garden in which people could have tranquillity and peace, and to thank people who had donated their organs over the years. The council and local representatives were both involved. Rather poetically, perhaps, just two miles from that garden, a young man—I knew his father well—died some years ago. After being injured in an accident, his organs were donated to save other lives, which shows that there is an opportunity to save lives. As the hon. Gentleman said in his introduction, we can give an opportunity to those who have not had the quality of life that we have but could have it with an organ donation.
Despite all of our medical advances, some 1,000 people die each year in the United Kingdom waiting for an organ transplant, which is shocking. We desperately and urgently need to increase sign-ups to the organ donation register. With that harrowing statistic before us, what can we do, and what do the Government intend to do, to increase sign-ups? I am pleased that the Minister is in her place. I have asked her questions on this previously, and some of the answers are in the Library debate pack. There have been positive responses from the Government, and I have no doubt that we will get such a response at the end of this debate, too. We seek to add further contributions and evidence to the debate, and perhaps the Minister will be able to respond.
It is pleasing to read that, in the past five years, the number of people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland who donate organs after death has increased by 50%. That is good news and it matches a target set by the Department of Health’s organ donation taskforce in 2008. I suppose we are asking how we can do more. How can we make organ donation more appealing or more real to people?
David Simpson
We heard earlier that some 7,000 or 8,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we could dramatically increase the number of organ donors, a knock-on effect might be that it would end organ farming and the sale of organs on the black market?
Jim Shannon
That is a pertinent issue. I understand that organ farming is not the Minister’s responsibility, but we are aware of parts of the world where people are given a great deal of money to donate an organ for use elsewhere in the world. That is a travesty and an injustice for poor people who find themselves in financial difficulties and see this as a way out. My hon. Friend is right that that needs to be seriously addressed.
NHS figures show that there were almost 4,700 organ transplants in 2013-14, which is an amazing figure compared with 3,717 organ transplants in 2009. That is an increase of almost 1,000, which is a clear indication that Government policy is starting to take effect, with the general public’s co-operation. That is good news. It is about how we go over fences to get a wee bit extra and do more.
We must not praise ourselves too much, however, and settle for the progress that we have made. There is still a long way to go. NHS statistics show that on 31 March 2014, as my hon. Friend said, 7,026 people were on the transplant waiting list. Although that number has been decreasing for the past five years, it is still much too high. The Government must do more to cut those waiting lists dramatically. What new targets have been set by the organ donation taskforce, and how does it intend to raise the public’s awareness of the great importance of this issue?
During May and June 2013, Optimisa Research conducted market research on behalf of the NHS blood and transplant service to measure public awareness, attitudes and behaviour towards organ donation. The findings of that research highlight how much work the Government have to do to increase sign-ups. We must all energetically encourage those around us to sign up, but the Government need to lead, too. Some 54% of those questioned had not seen any recent publicity about organ donation. What is being done to highlight organ donation? The hon. Member for Burton referred to that, too. It is clear that, as a result of poor publicity, organ donation is not currently in the public consciousness as it should be. What steps have the Government taken to improve that and change the perception that organ donation is the exception rather than the norm?
Of those people questioned, 31% would consider donating some or all of their organs, but are yet to be fully convinced. Again, that indicates that there is a swathe of people who are susceptible to persuasion, which could lead us to the next stage for organ donation. Why are the Government not engaging with those people as they should? The research also found that the key personal barriers to donating include mistrust of medical professionals and discomfort in thinking about death. Death is a subject that we sometimes do not want to think about, but it is one that we must all consider. There is no better way of setting the scene than Mark Twain’s comment that the only two things in life we are sure of are death and taxes. Death is an issue for us all, and we must consider it.
It shows that the public are not sufficiently well informed. If the Government better presented information on organ donation, it stands to reason that the barriers preventing people from signing up would ultimately be removed, the number of people on transplant waiting lists would fall dramatically, the number of transplants would increase and, most importantly, the number of people in the UK who die while waiting for a transplant would fall significantly. We must consider that issue as well. We see so many stories in the press and on TV about those who are desperately waiting for a transplant and have a very short time between life and death. Every effort must be made to ensure that we can save the British lives of those whom we represent. Why is more not being done?
It is clear from the research that public awareness must be raised, and it therefore follows that the Government should focus on that, but there are also other means of increasing sign-ups. Although opinions are mixed on the issue of express or presumed consent, I would like to present my personal view. I encourage the Government to consider legislating for a soft system of presumed consent. Although some might disagree, I believe that such a system is right because it gives life. Perhaps the best time to ask a relative to consider organ donation is not when somebody is lying on their deathbed. Emotions take over. I am not saying that they should not; I am just saying that it is a reality of life, and we must address it. Personally, I believe in a soft system of presumed consent that allows relatives of the deceased to object to donation if the deceased died without expressly electing whether to donate their organs. Such a system is in place in Belgium, where the family’s prerogative is a legally defined right. I suggest to the Minister that we should at least consider it, debate the issue and put it at the centre of the organ donation debate.
Introducing a system of presumed consent would greatly boost the number of organs available for transplant. A 2006 study by Abadie and Gay found that countries with a presumed consent system had 25% to 30% higher donation rates than those with an opt-in system, which is a significant difference. If taken on board in the United Kingdom, such a system would cut the number of those waiting for a transplant and save lives.
I have asked the Minister what she is doing to encourage more older people to become kidney donors. She responded that there is no barrier preventing elderly people from being organ donors if their organs are healthy. It is not out of the question for those with a few more years on the clock to consider organ donation as well.
In my home province of Northern Ireland, only 32% of the population are registered organ donors, the lowest percentage of any area in the United Kingdom. That is unacceptable. Our devolved Assembly is currently processing a private Member’s Bill to increase awareness of organ donation, which proposes to provide people with an opportunity to sign up for organ donation when applying for a driver’s licence. The question will allow people to answer yes or no—they can make up their own minds—but it will be compulsory to answer; the question cannot be ignored. I am fully behind the Bill, as I feel that it will greatly boost the number of people who sign up for the organ donor register. How do the Government intend to work alongside Mr Poots, the Minister with responsibility for devolved health matters, to increase much-needed awareness in Northern Ireland? It is clear that a UK-wide strategy is the most effective way of dealing with the matter. The Minister will know that I often say here in Westminster Hall and in debates in the Chamber that it is important that the United Kingdom regions learn together and bring together all our knowledge so that we can present it.
Time has passed by, but my final point is to highlight the fact that research has found that if organ transplantation rates could be increased by 50% across the UK, the NHS would save money. The hon. Member for Burton mentioned a saving of more than £300 million. The figures depend on who is on the list, but the saving to the NHS would be significant. That cannot be ignored or denied. If we had that in place, it would help the Minister and this Government to manage their health budget better. In essence, if the Government save more lives through organ donation, they will have more money to spend on saving the lives of others. The Government and we as Members must not rest on our laurels and be happy with the progress made. The Government must take steps to ensure that the public are fully aware of the issue, and to save more lives.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for calling me to speak in this important debate on an issue that has featured strongly in my life. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) on securing the debate, and on the reasoned and comprehensive way in which he presented his case. I apologise to him and to you, Mr Hollobone; I did not notice that this debate was taking place until about five minutes before it started, so I have not prepared. I apologise if my comments are in any way disjointed.
Donating an organ is just about the greatest gift that anybody can make. It is great to do so on death, but it is perhaps even greater in life, such as when people donate kidneys altruistically. I know several people who have done so, and it is one of the greatest things that one can do. This is a particularly good day to discuss organ donation; the night before last, we watched Erik Compton, who has had two heart transplants, come second in the US Open golf championship. It demonstrates how a transplant can not only give life but allow the recipient to live a life that is completely full and to do the most amazing things. Coming second in the US Open is a pretty amazing thing to have done.
My own interest started with a woman I knew, Trudy, who was a constituent, although I was not the MP then. She had one of the first heart and lung transplants at Papworth. She was a most amazing person. Together, we worked to deliver kidney dialysis in Montgomeryshire, where there was none. A unit has now been approved and built, and is delivering a terrific service. Trudy died a couple of years ago, but the dialysis unit stands as a monument to the fantastic woman that she was.
I am a trustee of the Kidney Wales Foundation. One of my disappointments is that I disagree with the foundation—I am the only trustee who takes this view. I disagree completely with what the Welsh Government have done in changing the law to introduce presumed consent. I have always been a bit disappointed by that. The aim of every trustee—me and all the others, although we disagree—is to increase the number of organ donations and the number of organs available. I have always been driven by the evidence. I have never been influenced by the ethical debates; I am influenced only by where the evidence takes me in terms of how to deliver the most organs. I firmly believe that what the Welsh Government have done will absolutely not deliver more organs, despite what they say.
The only time I ever feel resentful in this sensitive debate is when, as has so often happened on the numerous times when I have been invited to speak about this issue in the media, somebody in desperate need of a new organ is interviewed and I am then asked why I want to prevent them from having an organ. I am utterly appalled by the media’s lack of objectivity and the lack of reference to evidence when dealing with the issue.
We need to move forward as best we can and I want to focus on policy for the future. I will make some specific points. We must look at what happened in Spain. Spain has been referred to in this debate on several occasions and it is a huge success story. However, it is often incorrectly referred to as a country that introduced an opt-out system. That claim is absolutely false, even if the Welsh Government used it as part of the basis for their argument. Despite people writing to them—I have written to them—to tell them that that claim is false, it is still what they base their consultation on. It was a disgrace to conduct a consultation on those terms.
What happened in Spain was that opt-out legislation was introduced in 1979. Twelve months later, it was pretty well abandoned. It remains on the books, but like a lot of laws it has never been implemented. Ten years later the Spanish Government realised that the legislation was not working and they introduced a series of other changes. I believe that it is those changes that we should concentrate on if we are to make a difference.
We should also learn from the organ donation taskforce, which my hon. Friend referred to several times. It did a terrific job under its great chair, Elizabeth Buggins, who is one of the most expert people on this issue. The taskforce considered the issue for two or three years. Everyone assumed that the taskforce would recommend a change to presumed consent. However, when it produced a report, all its members had changed their minds because they had looked at the evidence. The person who has taken over from me in Montgomeryshire believed that changing to presumed consent was a way forward. I said, “Look at the evidence.” As soon as she studied that evidence, she changed her mind.
There are things we should do and that we should learn.
Andrew Griffiths
I thank my hon. Friend not only for attending the debate, but for making such an important and heartfelt contribution; I think that we all value that. I understand what he is saying about the opt-in system versus the opt-out system and the need to follow the evidence. However, does he agree that ultimately organ donation should be my choice? It should be the individual’s choice as to whether their organs are used for donation after they die, and nobody else’s choice.
Glyn Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because that is a perfectly reasonable position to take. I do not know what the figures are—I do not know how often this situation happens—but I want to know them. I am interested in them because the situation seems wrong.
I accept the point that has been made, but the one counterpoint is that sometimes people can change their minds even though they are carrying an organ donor card. However, if people have joined a campaign, we should assume that that is their view. I would be surprised if there are many instances where a family would overrule an individual’s decision; it would be interesting if the Minister could give us the figures to show how often that happens. If it is a major issue, we should address it; I agree with that point.
The first issue that we must deal with is the specialist nurses for organ donation. That is what made a huge difference in Spain, and it is the area where we really need to concentrate. That is what has made the big difference here. Since the organ donation taskforce reported, the number of donations has increased by 50%, which was the target. That is good news, but it is the specialist nurses who have made the difference.
I spent some time talking to the specialist nurse in Shropshire and indeed he has agreed to visit local schools and to organise discussions and debates. We can use specialist nurses to help people to understand this debate, because it is such a sensitive time to talk to people. Talking to people when the person who perhaps they love most looks as if they are alive, because their bodies are still breathing, even though they are brain-dead, and saying that that person’s support system should be switched off and their organs taken is a hugely traumatic experience. We need trained nurses who have the skills to communicate with people in those difficult circumstances. It is the specialist nurses for organ donation who can do that.
Andrew Griffiths
Four out of 10 families refuse consent when they are asked to give it.
Glyn Davies
I think that that is a repetition of the previous intervention. However, the point is interesting and I would like the Minister to give us the figures to show to what extent that situation actually happens, and whether a specialist nurse in organ donation was involved in individual cases.
The second thing that is crucial, particularly in Wales, is the number of intensive care beds. A lot of people assume that an organ can be donated when there is a road accident or when somebody is suddenly killed in another way, but there can only be a donation when the person is in an intensive care bed and there is the facility to take a donation. We have a shortage of intensive care beds. The number of such beds in Spain is huge. It is much higher than the number in the UK, and in Wales the number is particularly low. That is the sector where the investment needs to go to ensure that there are intensive care beds. I know that in the last year there have been cases in Wales of organs that were available for donation but they were simply not used because there was not an intensive care bed to allow the donation to happen.
The final point I want to make is, I think, the reason why my hon. Friend the Member for Burton secured this debate today. It is about the issue of awareness. We should put every effort we can into campaigns to have everybody tell their next of kin their view on donation. That is what I say to people in schools when I talk to them; I say to people, “Tell your family what your view is, so that they know clearly.” Carrying an organ donation card is helpful in that respect, because it very much gives an indication of someone’s view. That is why I was interested in the point that my hon. Friend has made in his interventions on me.
What we really need, and the Government can afford it, is a big advertising campaign based on the message, “Tell the family. Make sure your next of kin know your wishes.” If we had such a campaign, we would raise the number of consenting next of kin. If we can increase the number of people in Britain who consent to organ donation to the level it is in Spain, we will not have the thousands of people dying that we have now.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to join in this debate under your chairmanship. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) for introducing the debate in a sensitive but passionate way.
I recognise that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and I may come at this issue from slightly different perspectives, and may put slightly different emphases on the issues of presumed consent, opt-outs and soft opt-outs, but there is absolutely no difference between us—or between any of us who are present—as regards our fundamental motivation, which is to secure the optimum number of organ donations, and the optimum benefits for the lives of so many of our constituents.
Like other hon. Members, I have personal experience of this issue. I had a friend who, many years ago, benefited from a kidney transplant provided under the fairly primitive arrangements then in place in the grounds of the then Belfast City hospital. It did not seem to be the most propitious setting in which such a significant life-improving operation could take place, but it was life-improving, thanks to the skill and commitment of those involved. Of course, services have developed in so many ways since then.
I have seen a number of people in a family suffer from cystic fibrosis; that family lost children who died while waiting for transplants. Like others, I have made commitments and promises to do everything that I could in any opportunity that fell to me in public life to improve the prospect of more transplants being available for people in such circumstances.
I have also seen people take some consolation in their bereavement and grief from the organ donations of their loved ones, which has meant that someone else has had the gift of life, or improved life. Obviously, I have also seen people who have benefited from organ transplants, although perhaps not for as long as they would have wished. Again, those benefits will be achieved and extended if we can develop and improve the services of those very special skilled people who are involved in delivering the benefits of transplants to people.
I also speak as someone who witnessed, as we all did in Northern Ireland, an act of altruism by a fairly public figure, Joe Brolly, a brilliantly skilled sportsperson and all-Ireland championship winner who played for Derry back in the early 1990s. He donated a kidney to help a friend, Shane Finnegan, whom he had met as a volunteer coach in his local Gaelic Athletic Association club in Belfast, because he knew the difference that it could make. Unfortunately, the transplant has not worked out for Shane, but the cause goes on. Both Shane and Joe are absolutely united in encouraging politicians and legislators in Northern Ireland and elsewhere to achieve more progress on organ donation. They are categorically in favour of moving towards a soft opt-out system.
All of us are sensitive to some of the concerns that are feeding back to us in that regard, however. I was in this Parliament back in 2008, and was supportive of the initial indications coming from the organ donation taskforce, but we were all sensitive to the issues and considerations that came back to us. We want to move forward on this issue, and to achieve progress that is sustainable and durable, with no unforeseen consequences or counter-productive effects. I believe that presumed consent leads to higher donation rates, but the way that it is framed is important.
I note the important point, made by the hon. Member for Burton, that the current opt-in system is essentially a soft opt-in, in that families are able to override it. It might be more productive to discuss and take forward some of the issues connected to the soft opt-out, rather than to go for a hard opt-in; the latter might be more difficult and could create other issues or difficulties, particularly given the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the apprehensions or misgivings that are shown in survey research to underlie some of the concerns and reservations that kick in whenever people are asked to think beyond whether they simply support organ donation in principle. When they think about it in practice, reservations or concerns seem to come into play, and all of us who might have a different perspective on how to legislate on this issue need to be sensitive to those concerns. We should not conduct the debate in such a way as to create mixed signals, or leave people thinking that there might be something untoward going on in relation to how organ donations are secured.
It is important to respect the fact that there will be legislation at different levels, not just within the UK but within these islands. The Welsh legislation has been cited, and the Irish Government are committed, under their programme for government, to legislate for a form of soft opt-out. In arguing about the different legislative choices, we need to be careful that we do not send out messages that create any doubts or difficulties.
Steps taken here since 2008 have achieved a much higher rate of organ donation. If the legislation in Wales achieves a higher rate of donations, and if legislation in the Republic does the same—there is also a consultation going on in Northern Ireland—we need to remember that those organs may not necessarily all be used within the jurisdiction in which the relevant legislation has arisen. That is another consideration. If we are to optimise not just the number of organ donations but the number of people benefiting from donations and transplants, we need to look at the networks, systems and infrastructure, to make sure that we fully utilise as many organs as are donated. Some organs are available on a so-called national basis, and others on a regional basis. That creates a disparity in terms of benefits and effects.
One concern I have heard about whether organ donation was worth while came from a constituent, who told me that they had watched a TV drama—I am not sure whether it was “Holby City”, “Casualty” or something else—in which being able to get the relevant organ for donation came down to whether a doctor in one hospital knew somebody in another hospital. My constituent was concerned about the idea that whether the organ donation system actually worked could come down to something so coincidental; they were left thinking that the system was not that sophisticated, and was hit and miss. I do not know whether that anecdote is accurate. If it is, it proves that there is a need to improve networks; if it is not, it proves that broadcasters and others need to be careful about the kinds of indications and suggestions they give about topics such as this, and should not use dramatic licence in a way that gives people cause to doubt the efficacy of the transplant system.
The British-Irish Council takes in all eight Administrations around these islands who legislate and provide services in different ways. It seems to me that it would be a good forum in which to not just discuss the balance, comparability and compatibility of legislative arrangements throughout those jurisdictions—the more consistent they are, the better—but make sure that we optimise the networks, so that organs that become available in any one part of these islands can benefit anybody in any other part. It should not be left to a random mix of different networks, as that sub-optimises the use of organs. They are given for the best of motives, so we need to make sure that we have the best arrangements to extend the benefits of these important gifts.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
We have 23 minutes left, so if the Front Benchers will split the time between them in a fair and equitable way, it will be much appreciated.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) for calling a debate on such an important issue, and for his passionate reflections on organ donation and on the fact that the chance of life for one person can often come at a time of trauma for another family. There were also emotional and personal contributions from the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan).
Organ donation is surely one of the great success stories of the latter half of the 20th century, not just for science, but for humanity. It is a precious thing: there can be few greater achievements than to have given life to those who were on the verge of death. Fewer than 5,000 people each year die in circumstances in which they are able to become a donor. Despite the sadness of the moment, the act of organ donation can become a major comfort to bereaved families as time passes.
There have been major improvements to the infrastructure and organisation of organ donation over the past few years. Those improvements have been reflected in donation rates, which have increased significantly. I am extremely proud of the fact that in 2001 the previous Labour Government said that we would double the number of donors from 8 million to 16 million by 2010, and achieved that target a year early, by 2009. That was thanks to an enormous effort from large numbers of people.
The recommendations from the organ donation taskforce in 2008 set in train many of the reforms that NHS Blood and Transplant has made. It laid the path for many of the improvements we have seen, such as, for example, the creation of a network of specialist organ donation nurses—already referred to in our debate—who support families in considering organ donation at a difficult time.
As we have heard, over 20 million of us are on the NHS organ donor register. Again, that is testament to the changes that have been made at every level in hospitals, to the commitment of critical care and emergency department staff to donation, and most of all to the generosity of the donors and their families.
We cannot be complacent, however. As we have heard in the debate, we have lower registration rates than some of our European neighbours, and too many people still die while waiting for a donation—three people every day, which is three too many.
We need to raise awareness, and hon. Members have been right to emphasise the need to raise more awareness of the importance of joining the register and supporting our families and friends when they do so. This year marks 20 years since the NHS organ donor register was launched, and there are now many ways in which people can sign up. There is an online form and a 24-hour donor line. People can register through a text message, at their GP’s surgery, or when they apply for their driving licence. I signed up through my Boots advantage card. Yet we still have more to do. Are there any more ways in which we can ask people to sign up? Boots advantage cards are disproportionately owned by women. There are ways in which we can target men; many supermarkets have cards. Should we be thinking about that? I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on the different ways in which we can encourage people to sign up.
We know from market research carried out by NHS Blood and Transplant that 51% of the population definitely want to donate their organs, and 31% would consider it. Only 31%, however, have actually signed the organ donor register. The question of how to bridge that gap is vital. As MPs, we will all have received e-mails telling us that national transplant week runs from 7 to 13 July, and that is a great opportunity for us all to raise the profile of the issue. Will the Minister share with us the Department’s plans to mark national transplant week and encourage more people to sign up to the register?
As the hon. Member for Burton mentioned, we need to get more people on the register from specific communities. The challenge is not only getting more sign-ups to the register, but targeting specific communities and areas that we know are losing out from the stark inequalities in the system. My constituency is in Liverpool, in the north-west, where patients are waiting the longest for a transplant. We also have the highest death rates among those waiting. In the north-west, 62.2% of patients waited more than six months for a transplant, whereas the average for England is 47.3%; and 23.2% of patients waited more than 18 months for a lung transplant, whereas the average for England is 15.8%. Those long waits are themselves concerning, but where some people are waiting longer than others for a life-saving operation purely because of where they live, it is something we need to address urgently.
It is not just where someone lives that can affect their chance of getting a transplant operation. As we have heard, people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are up to three times more likely to need a transplant than others, yet because organ matching is likely to be closer when the ethnicity of the donor and recipient are the same, they have to wait much longer. On average, a person from a BAME community will wait a year longer for a kidney transplant than a white patient. Many die while waiting for an organ to become available, and the Government must urgently tackle that situation.
The debate this morning has centred on organ donation, although Members have referred to bone marrow donation, which is an important area for us to reflect on, and an area where we should look at lessons that we can learn. More than 90% of white patients in need of a bone marrow transplant find a match, but for the BAME population the matching rates can be as low as 40%, which is a difference of 50 percentage points. We need to look at that. I am of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and I joined the bone marrow register because I know how hard it is for people from my community to find a donor.
A number of campaigns have led to a massive increase in the number of people joining that register. The Berger family—no relation to me—led the campaign #Spit4Mum. A woman called Sharon Berger had a very rare blood disease. She was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, but she needed to find a match in a hurry. Her children, Jonni and Caroline, started the #Spit4Mum campaign, which has raised awareness among all BAME communities and had a high press profile. There was a 1,700% increase in Jewish people joining the bone marrow register in the year that they ran that campaign. We need to see that happening in all communities right across the country, and it needs to extend to organs as well.
We cannot accept that some of our citizens will be far more likely to die than others because of where they live or their ethnic background. Will the Minister address that point specifically and outline what concerted action the Government are taking to tackle it? In particular, what will the Government do to improve the diversity of the organ donation specialist nurses? Another Member raised that issue.
We need to ensure that the wishes of those on the register are granted, and we must do more to support families in that. In 2011-12, 125 families overruled the individual’s intention, as recorded on the NHS organ donor register, to become an organ donor. Of course, that is understandable. The decision to allow their loved one’s organs to be used is incredibly tough for a family to make when they are in the throes of grief. We know, however, that many family members were unaware that it was what their loved one wanted and found it difficult to come to terms with such a decision at such an awful time of loss. That is why it is vital that we encourage and support families in having conversations about organ donation. Family consent rates have been static at around 55% to 60% over recent years, but that shoots up to 95% when those family discussions take place. NHS Blood and Transplant is taking steps to address that, so I would welcome an update from the Minister on its progress.
Finally, I want to touch on the opt-out or presumed consent system. We have heard some Members’ positions on that, but if more Members had been in the debate, we might have heard a wider variety of views. Some professional groups, including the British Medical Association, consider the system to be the most effective solution in addressing the shortage of organ donors. The system has advantages. To return to an earlier point, there is a gap between the 51% of the population who definitely want to donate their organs and the 31% who have actually signed the register. We would, however, have to consider carefully the safeguards the system would need and continue to review the evidence from countries that already have it in place. Wales will be introducing the system later this year. Any change in legislation would need to have the backing of the public. Whether we agree with assumed consent or not, I hope we can all agree that it is time we started a major public debate about how we can best tackle the shortage of organ donors in this country. What steps is the Minister taking to start that national conversation?
In conclusion, this issue transcends party politics and is important to all Members. We are making progress, but we need to maintain our momentum. I welcome the Government’s strategy for organ donation, which was laid out last year. Its first goal is as follows:
“action by society and individuals will mean that the UK’s organ donation record is among the best in the world and people donate when and if they can.”
I would be very happy to work with the Minister to continue to build awareness of the importance of joining the organ donor register, and to work towards achieving that critical goal.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
I will do my best to respond to all the points raised, although I suspect I have the least time of any speaker in the debate. I may prove challenged in that regard, but as colleagues know, I will always follow up afterwards if there is some point which I am unable to get to.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) on securing this debate. Just having this debate is part of the answer to the question he posed. The issue can affect us all, and I am grateful for the opportunity to raise its profile and to have the debate ahead of the special week coming up in July. The debate is particularly useful in giving us a chance to reflect on how we can best use that time in Parliament.
I put on record my tribute to those who work in the NHS with such dedication, determination and commitment. They provide such fantastic care, particularly, in the light of what we are talking about, at difficult times in families’ lives. To try to address some of the specific points raised, I will take as read many of the facts and figures put on the record by my hon. Friend and others. We acknowledge those figures. The one thing I want to do is thank everyone who donates and everyone who takes part in the programme. I also pay tribute to local leaders, such as William Saunders, whom my hon. Friend mentioned.
[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]
We can take it as read that we do not have enough donors, but we have made significant progress. The Government are continuing the work of previous Governments by investing in the donation programme to optimise transplantation. The donation programme was strengthened between 2008 and 2014, increasing donation rates by 63% and transplant rates by 47%. The trend is positive, but today’s debate has explored how we can accelerate progress and address some of the more stubborn problems.
As hon. Members have already suggested, too many people are waiting too long for a suitable organ to be donated, even though organ donation has increased by over 3 million since 2010 to over 20 million. One organ donor can save or transform as many as nine people’s lives. The exchange is not one-for-one; it is an extraordinary opportunity to change many different lives. It is also worth recognising, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), touched on, that although half a million people die in the UK each year, fewer than 5,000 die in circumstances in which they can become donors: the pool of people is not as big as we often think and is actually relatively small. If I have time, I will discuss how we are considering how the pool might be expanded.
Much of the debate rightly focused on the UK’s consent rate, which is one of the lowest in Europe. Last year, four in 10 families said no to allowing their loved ones’ organs to be donated. In 2012-13, 105 families and in 2013-14 119 families said no even though they knew that their family member was on the organ donation register and wanted to be a donor. That equates to many transplants and many people’s lives that could have been saved or enormously enhanced. Family agreement is a crucial part of the donation process, but because people do not always want to discuss their wishes, relatives tend to say no when in doubt.
I want to explore some of the operational aspects of donation. We all agree that we want more organ donation and more people on the register, but we should consider some of the challenges, in particular the one put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton about why people’s wishes can be overridden. To be clear, we do not need to change the law, which currently protects the right of the individual to be an organ donor. The challenge comes from the complexity and sensitivity of operational issues and not legal issues. Clinicians have a duty of care towards the family. For example—I have every reason to believe that this is based on reality—if it is three in the morning and a clinician is faced with a family who do not want their relative’s organs to be donated and they are crying and clinging to the body, the clinician is likely to go with the family’s wishes.
Jane Ellison
If my hon. Friend does not mind, may I try to get through this point?
That example highlights a difficult situation for a clinician. Furthermore, if the family’s wishes are overridden and they make a big campaign out of it and express their grief and dissatisfaction publicly, even though they know the wishes of the deceased, the programme as a whole could be put in jeopardy. If the Burton Mail ran the headline, “They took my son’s heart against my wishes”, the impact on those on the donation register and on families who want to have that conversation could be significant. The issues are sensitive, but it is not for lack of will that people do not ensure that an individual’s wishes are respected. It is important to understand the pressure that clinicians are under in those difficult circumstances. I want to put it on the record that, once retrieved from a body, a heart needs to be used within six hours, livers and lungs within 12 hours and kidneys within approximately 24 hours. The decisions have to be made quickly. It is not like the reading of a will, which can take place weeks, months or years later once calm has been restored and people are more reflective. Such decisions must be made on the spot.
I hope that that provides a little context as to why clinicians face challenges. Most organ donors are not on the register, so the key thing is to change the culture around how we talk about the end of life and to make donation a natural thing for everyone to allow. For some people and communities, however, that is not easy.
I pay tribute to the specialist nurses for organ donation—the lovely SN-ODs—for their wonderful work. There is no doubt that having trained people who can have conversations at sensitive times is absolutely critical. I note the challenge about the number of specialist nurses drawn from minority and ethnic communities, who we know make a difference, and I will discuss it with NHS England and NHS Blood and Transplant.
Our strategy is evolutionary, but that does not mean that we cannot make big leaps forward in some areas. The nudge work to get more people to sign up has been extraordinary in some cases. In one of the largest public sector studies of its kind, over 1 million people took part to test eight different ways of asking people to join the register. That has resulted in some significant gains, as was mentioned by the shadow Minister. There is a range of other measures, including using social media and other points of contact. There is a schools project, “Give and Let Live”. Getting teenagers to discuss the subject with their families and become thought leaders is important. As a result of the work going on in schools, young people are often good at leading conversations within the family.
National transplant week is coming up. I do not have time to go into the details, but many things are happening around the theme of “Spell it out”. It is all about the conversation and about getting family members to talk to each other. Given the interest—I am sure that Members of Parliament can help—I will attempt to write to all colleagues with more details about the week and how we can play our part and do our bit in our constituencies to lead the conversation. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton visited a local mosque to see whether he could help to lead the conversation there, something which in many cases is far more effective than top-down campaigns. I do, however, note the challenges around some of the big, high-profile, in-your-face campaigns that have been run in places such as Scotland.
I want to assure the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others that work is going on to consider widening the pool of donors. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is doing some research on babies—a sensitive subject—to see what can be done about the challenge of child donation. The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs is reviewing the evidence on the outcomes of UK transplants of organs from donors who had cancer or a history of cancer. We are beginning to learn more about the possibility of successful donation even when someone has suffered from cancer, and SaBTO is drawing up a series of recommendations to help transplant surgeons.
It is also worth saying that, even in Wales and in Northern Ireland were the private Member’s Bill to succeed, it is still the case that a family can override a decision in the circumstances that I have described. We must be sensitive to the circumstances in which decisions are being taken. In Wales, relatives will still be asked to support the donation and can object if they know that the deceased would not have consented.
In the remaining minute or so, I want to say that it is absolutely right for Members to place concerns on the record about donation from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, where the refusal rate to donation is nearly 80% compared with around 40% nationally, which is significant. My Department supports the National Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Transplant Alliance, which does great work in this area, including, for example, on consent rates. Subject to parliamentary business, I intend to visit Birmingham next week to launch a new project to train peer educators from the Pakistani Muslim community in Birmingham. We are training community champions there to go out and do some of that work. I am happy to talk to colleagues to see whether we can replicate that elsewhere. There are some significant cultural, rather than doctrinal, reasons why—
Jane Ellison
I do not think that I will be able to give way to my hon. Friend. I hope that he will forgive me. We can perhaps speak immediately after the debate.
In conclusion, we can do many things to encourage more people to register. We are absolutely open to ideas from hon. Members on both sides of the House and all parts of the country and the world. We review and are led by the evidence, as my hon. Friend said. Debates such as this provide an excellent opportunity to raise the issue’s profile and we can hopefully do more in Parliament as national transplant week approaches. I will end by paying tribute to the great work of the excellent NHS Blood and Transplant.
Junction 10A: A14
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I thank Mr Speaker for granting me the debate, which is unusual in that you as Chair, Mr Bone, and the Minister who is responding, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), are in danger of being overqualified for it, because you are both familiar with the stretch of the A14 near Kettering about which I intend to speak. Indeed, I thank the Minister very much for visiting Kettering on 23 May and standing on the footbridge over the A14 at Cranford, which is the proposed location of the new junction 10A, should it ever be built. I am most grateful for the personal attention that the Minister has given to the issue.
Junction 10A does not exist. At the moment, it is a blob on a Department for Transport map, but it is a junction that the people of Kettering very much need if the town of is not to grind to a halt because of all the new house building taking place in the borough. As you know, Mr Bone, because your constituency Wellingborough is similar in this respect, Kettering is one of the fastest growing towns or boroughs in the whole country. The census figures for 2001 to 2011 place Kettering at No. 6 on the list of local authorities demonstrating the fastest increase in the number of households. Over that 10-year period, the number of households in Kettering increased by 16.8%. That is the fastest rate of growth in Northamptonshire and sixth in the whole country, after one location in the south-west, two in the east midlands and two London authorities. That rate of growth is set to continue.
The plans for 5,500 new houses to the east of Kettering, between the town of Kettering itself and the village of Cranford, were in effect imposed on Kettering borough council in the dying days of the previous Labour Government. There is a great deal of local concern about the rate of house building in our area. It is not possible, however, to undo the planning consent—those houses have permission and we have to make the best of it. We have to ensure that those houses form a vital, liveable community and not simply one big, soulless housing estate. In order to make that happen, we must ensure not only that the infrastructure is in place to serve those new houses but that the existing residents in the other parts of Kettering do not have the quality of their lives destroyed. For local people, it is the equivalent of bolting on to the town of Kettering another town the size of Desborough, which is located a few miles away. The rate of change for the local community will be absolutely huge.
The experts in the Department for Transport say that in order to cope with the 5,500 extra houses, a new junction on the A14 is needed—called junction 10A. It would be located by the footbridge between Burton Latimer and Cranford, upon which the Minister and I walked only a few weeks ago. The cost of the junction is estimated to be £39 million, and it is the Department for Transport that has said that the junction is necessary. Indeed, a planning condition is in place: that no more than 1,750 houses may be built unless a scheme is in place for junction 10A.
I am asking the Minister to consider giving a commitment to fund the junction. I am not asking him to get his cheque book out now and hand me a cheque for £39 million, although that would be very nice. Local people do need, however, a commitment from Her Majesty’s Government to fund the junction in the period 2017 to 2020. Such a commitment would give developers the necessary assurance that the funding would be forthcoming at a future date, which would trigger private sector investment now to ensure that the development takes place. Any delay by Her Majesty’s Government in giving that commitment will delay the development of Kettering East, which increases the chance of it not taking place properly. The chance increases of a soulless housing estate being created, rather than a vital, liveable community.
We are talking not only about houses but about jobs, industry and green energy. Located just across the A14 from Kettering East is the Burton Wold wind farm. In many ways, surprisingly, that is a popular local wind farm. A lot of money goes from the wind farm owners into Burton Latimer for community projects, and the number of wind turbines is going to increase from 10 to 17. The new turbines will be some of the most efficient in the world, with 40% efficiency, rather than 20% efficiency. General Electric and First Renewable Developments want to develop the Burton Wold wind farm into an energy park with solar generation, biomass plants and the recycling of heat. If the energy park were to take off, it would generate 60 MW of electricity, which is more than enough to power Kettering. That would make Kettering an entirely green town, in the sense that all its energy needs would come from its own energy park. GE has chosen Kettering because, apparently, it is the most typical town in England.
Kettering is a lovely place to live; I always try to describe it as middle England at its best, and GE has realised that. Kettering, because it is average on most indicators and is the most typical town in England, has been chosen by GE for that template energy park development. If such a development works in Kettering, the idea is to roll it out to other typical towns, not only in England but in other countries. Kettering has an exciting chance to become a template, a pioneer, for that sort of development. Alongside the energy park would be an employment park, between Kettering, Barton Seagrave and Burton Latimer, to provide thousands of jobs for all the people who are going to live in the thousands of houses being built. None of that can take place, however, unless there is a junction 10A on the A14.
In response to my question on the Floor of the House on 8 May, the Minister rightly said that those who stood to benefit from the new junction should contribute towards it. The biggest beneficiaries of the new junction, however, will in fact be Her Majesty’s Treasury, because of all the extra business rates and tax receipts generated, such as from VAT and income from employment. Indeed, the £39 million cost of junction 10A —there is an associated cost for another road, the Weekley-Warkton bypass, so the total would be £60 million to £65 million—would generate £1.2 billion of economic benefit, most of which would go to the Treasury.
Spending £60 million on these two road projects, including £39 million on junction 10A, would therefore trigger £160 million of private sector investment from General Electric in the energy park. Without the development of junction 10A, local economic activity would increase by £342 million; with it, total economic activity would be £1.2 billion. Spending £39 million on junction 10A would therefore produce a net economic benefit of £862 million, the vast majority of which would go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That spending would enable us to complete 5,500 homes in a coherent and sensible way and to have 60 MW of low-carbon energy production, as well as thousands of new jobs for local people. If we are to make Kettering East work, that seems a sensible way to go about it.
However, the absolutely pivotal decision—the key to this—is the Minister’s. If he can find his way not to fund, but to give a commitment to fund, this new junction from 2017 onwards, that will unlock extra private sector investment now in the local economies of Kettering and Northamptonshire. Indeed, the local enterprise partnerships for Northamptonshire and the south-east midlands have both included the junction in their strategic economic plans. On the Floor of the House just a few weeks ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said he was impressed by the fact that they had come together to identify this key junction as a strategic priority.
I agree with the Minister that the developers of the houses, the business park and the energy park should contribute to local infrastructure improvements. Indeed, there is a substantial section 106 agreement for more than £70 million to go into infrastructure provision in Kettering. There will be badly needed improvements to the local road network in the town of Kettering, but there will also be private sector investment in the improvements that will take place to junctions 9 and 10 of the A14. Private developers are therefore contributing up front to the extra infrastructure costs. However, what they are seeking, what I am seeking and what local people need is a commitment from Her Majesty’s Government to new junction 10A.
The £39 million cost pales into insignificance when compared with the £50 billion for High Speed 2. There are not many economic projects across the country that could trigger £1.2 billion of total economic activity for £39 million. Indeed, I suspect that the Minister would agree that such a rate of return would be extremely attractive if it were applied to High Speed 2.
The Minister has a golden opportunity to make one of the best decisions he will have the chance to make in his tenure in the Department. I hope it is a long tenure, because he is assiduous. He is an excellent Minister, who weighs up all the pros and cons. He goes out of his way to visit sites to see for himself what local Members are talking about. When he puts all the things I have mentioned into the mix, I very much hope he will come to the conclusion that the right decision—not only to achieve extra economic growth for our country, but to make sure Kettering becomes a pioneer in joined-up, sensible development that is sustainable into the future, with a large element of green energy thrown into the mix—would be to give a commitment to fund junction 10A. In that way, Kettering will become an exemplar that can be rolled out across not only this country but other countries in the world.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate on junction 10A of the A14. I also congratulate him on his tenacity in continuing to raise the issue. With his concluding remarks, I think he gets the gold medal for buttering up Ministers.
I know the subject is of great importance to my hon. Friend, who has long campaigned for improvements to the strategic roads in his constituency. I very much recognise the important role the A14 plays play in facilitating movements in and around Kettering, as well as the need for transport infrastructure to support the area’s growth and development aspirations.
As my hon. Friend will know, I recently visited the proposed site of the new junction 10A, and I am grateful for the hospitality shown to me during my visit—I had a very pleasant breakfast at the Little Chef nearby. I also had the opportunity to see first hand the location of the Kettering East development and the proposals for it. Kettering borough council presented me with an umbrella and suggested that it would be a good deal if I could pass the scheme in return. It would have been a very good deal indeed. I recently put the umbrella to very good use in Newark.
My hon. Friend also showed me the Burton Wold energy park and demonstrated the sustainability of the development, which includes wind generation, biofuels and other forms of sustainable energy. In addition, we had a chance to look at the Weetabix factory, which is a big employer in the area. Later in the day, I joined the cavalcade opening the Kettering to Corby link road—a major project that demonstrates the Government’s commitment to investment in our road infrastructure.
On the Government’s commitment to infrastructure investment, we have already announced increased Government funding to deliver improvements all around the strategic road network that are targeted at supporting economic growth. Our commitment to delivering a step change in future transport infrastructure investment was made clear by the Chancellor in his statement of 26 June last year, which announced the conclusions of the Government’s 2013 spending review. The Treasury’s Command Paper “Investing in Britain’s Future” said that the Government will invest more than £28 billion in enhancements to, and maintenance of, national and local roads. That includes £10.7 billion for major national road projects and £4.9 billion for local major projects. More than £12 billion has been allocated for maintenance, with nearly £6 billion for repairs to local roads and £6 billion for maintenance of strategic roads, including resurfacing 80% of the strategic road network.
The Government’s national infrastructure plan sets out the details of the commitments made on specific investment projects. In it there are a number of examples of where the Government have committed to the delivery of schemes that facilitate the delivery of not only further housing, but development-related investment.
My hon. Friend said he was not asking me to write the cheque today, but he did, in effect, ask me to write a postdated cheque. Unfortunately, I cannot go that far today, but I do hope I can make some encouraging noises in that direction. As I said, the Government are committed to investing in our national road infrastructure to improve capacity, reduce congestion and support economic growth across the country.
We have been clear about the importance of the Kettering East development and the need to overcome some of the barriers to its delivery. The scheme has been stalled for a number of years because of the challenges involved in co-ordinating housing, economic and transport issues at such a scale and the major costs associated with the infrastructure needed to get the scheme under way. As part of the Government’s commitment to unlock proposals for future housing development, the then Housing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), committed a number of colleagues from related Departments to work closely with the local authority, the LEPs and the private sector developers to make progress in delivering the scheme. A strategic partners group comprising several Departments, the Homes and Communities Agency, the Highways Agency, the LEPs, the developers and the local authority has been working to establish a common understanding and an agreement between the Government, local partners and developers on opportunities to move the scheme forward.
Mr Hollobone
I sense that the Minister will not be in danger of over-running his time; I am enjoying his speech immensely.
The strategic partners group is, I think, regarded across Government as an exemplar of how to do the things in question. Indeed, the Department for Communities and Local Government has funded Kettering borough council and Northamptonshire county council to look at design options for junction 10A and the Weekley Warkton bypass. The Energy Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), has visited the Burton Wold wind farm site, and I have several times been to the Cabinet Office, with the local authorities and the local enterprise partnerships, to press the case. Will the Minister therefore recognise that the strategic economic partners group is working well, but that the key decision will be his?
Mr Goodwill
Yes, my hon. Friend is right, although I suspect that the Treasury’s views will also be taken into account. Often announcements of this kind are made in close co-operation with the Treasury. The work of such groups and the fact that we are listening particularly to business interests underlines the importance that we give to such development, which can unlock, in particular, the housing development so much needed in parts of the country. Department for Transport and Highways Agency officials are also currently providing advice and assistance to the developers and Kettering borough council, to get a clear understanding of the opportunities that this important development proposal creates.
It may be worth providing a little background to the work that has been completed to date. Outline planning permission for the development was granted in April 2010, with a number of conditions including agreement over the access arrangements to the local highway network and the adjacent A14 trunk road. The first phases of the development will be served from the local highways network and by improvements to existing junctions 9 and 10 of the A14. Those improvements have been approved with the Highways Agency and they satisfy not only Kettering East but also the related development proposals for a major business park being developed to the south of junction 10. Later phases of the Kettering East development require the provision of the new junction 10A to the west on the A14. The planning conditions for that have been met and a basic design has been agreed with the Highways Agency. Ministerial approval for a new junction 10A was required and it was given by Transport Ministers in 2012. The proposal would mean a new grade-separated junction to the east of junction 10, involving the closure of the east-facing slip roads on the current junction 10, to comply with standards.
The Government have provided support and funding to assist in the work necessary to plan and deliver the proposals at Kettering East. As part of our local infrastructure fund proposals, we have also provided £1.2 million of LIF capacity funding to the local authority to enable it to establish a dedicated project team to drive the project forward and carry out the technical highways feasibility work to examine the need for and the cost and timing of the junction on the A14. In addition, the Government have agreed to the provision of £14 million of LIF capital funding to the private sector developer to enable key infrastructure to be put in place to get phase 1 of the development—up to 1,750 homes—under way. In short, it is possible for the development to commence without junction 10A but, of course, we understand the importance of the junction to the completion of the whole development.
My hon. Friend made the case for the Government to commit to the funding of the improvements necessary at junction 10A of the A14 and it may be useful if I say a little more on the Department’s investment planning process for future investment proposals for the national road network. My hon. Friend will be aware, with respect to other future investment planning processes, that the Highways Agency is currently conducting its route strategy process. That involves local stakeholders in the consideration of future priorities. Route strategies will provide a smarter approach to investment planning across the network and will mean greater collaboration with local stakeholders to determine the need for and nature and timing of future investment that might be required on the network.
The Highways Agency completed a series of local engagement events last autumn to help to identify performance issues and future challenges, and I welcome the enthusiasm with which stakeholders, including those in my hon. Friend’s constituency, have participated in the progress so far. A finalised evidence report was published on the agency’s website on 23 April, and the agency and the Department will now use that evidence to prioritise and take forward a programme of work to identify indicative solutions covering operations, maintenance and, if appropriate, potential road improvement schemes. We will produce a uniform set of strategies for the entire network, including the A14 as part of the Felixstowe to Midlands route strategy.
The Government have also announced plans to create a local growth fund from 2015-16 onwards, which will be devolved to local enterprise partnerships and will incorporate all funding for local major transport schemes. There is more than £6 billion of transport funding in the fund up to 2020-21. I am aware that the addition of a junction 10A on the A14, and the proposals for the local authority road improvements, have also been subject to bids through the local growth fund process and Government will take decisions on the local growth fund allocations in July. Subject to the decisions taken as part of the local growth fund process, my Department and other Departments will continue to work with the local authorities and partners to understand the details of the case for transport investment in Kettering East. To consider the case for future investment proposals, my Department and the Highways Agency will need to consider the transport business case for the junction 10A proposals, including the transport value for money assessment, delivery time scales and details of any potential third-party contributions to the capital costs of the project. I believe that those negotiations on third-party contributions will be important in how we are able to deliver the junction. I understand that the detailed transport business case is to be completed in due course. Once it has been presented, with robust evidence to underpin the cost and timing of, and need for, the new junction, the Government will be able to consider the case for an investment decision to be taken.
I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering on securing the debate. I have made it clear that the Government are committed to, and have set out plans for, large-scale investments to improve our national strategic road network and help to facilitate economic growth. Indeed, there is nothing that I like better than the laying of tarmac, the pouring of concrete and the commencement of excavation work, to show that the Government are investing in our national infrastructure. We are committed to working closely with partners to ensure that we fully understand the impacts of what is an important development on the surrounding transport infrastructure. Ultimately, however, any proposals for future investment will need to demonstrate a strong business case, and to have secured third-party contributions, for Government to take an investment decision.
This has been a good debate on a subject that you, Mr Bone, might well have wanted to take part in yourself, had you not been in the Chair.
Bus Services
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, for what I think is the second time. I am pleased to have secured a debate on the availability of bus services, an issue that affects Members of all parties, across the whole country.
Bus services are vital lifelines that connect together the places in our constituencies. They take people to work, children to school and shoppers to the high street, but as we all recognise from the experience in our localities, the frequency, quality and affordability of local bus services is, on the whole, decreasing.
In Corby in east Northamptonshire, the local county council has cut its subsidy by 55% since 2010—the largest such cut anywhere in the country. At the same time, Northamptonshire county council has imposed on my constituents a programme of switching off street lights, which has resulted in half of all the lights going out. With no buses and no street lights, it is no wonder that many of my constituents have told me that they feel like a prisoner in their own home. If we take into account the poor state of repair of our roads and the giant potholes we see all over Corby and east Northamptonshire, it is clear that road conditions and the local transport infrastructure are in a much worse condition today than when the Government came to power.
Before I turn to specific issues in my constituency, I want to speak briefly about the national context. Across England fares have been rising, services have been cut and passenger numbers are falling. The shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), made a series of freedom of information requests to upper-tier councils earlier this year. He found that local authority bus subsidies across shire counties and unitary authorities have been cut by 23% in real terms since 2010-11, and has said:
“It couldn’t be clearer to local residents that vital front-line services are disappearing dramatically as cuts to councils intensify.”
He also warned, as I do, that elderly and disabled residents were being left stranded at home. The Local Government Association has said that
“elderly and disabled people will be left…with a free bus pass in one hand but no local buses to travel on in the other.”
The Campaign for Better Transport said in December last year that cuts to bus services were reaching what it called “critical levels”, and warned that soon whole networks would begin to disappear.
The Government cannot claim that they were not warned about the effects of cuts to bus subsidies. A report published by the Select Committee on Transport in 2011 warned that cuts to council budgets by central Government, combined with changes to other support mechanisms such as the bus service operators grant and concessionary fares, had led to some authorities withdrawing subsidised bus services with “inadequate or no consultation”—those were the Committee’s words—affecting some of the most vulnerable people in society.
The Minister will no doubt try to tell us that responsibility for such decisions lies with local authorities, but as the Local Government Association points out, councils know how important buses are for their communities and local economies and are trying to protect them. However, councils have had a 40% core funding reduction over this Parliament—the biggest funding reduction in the public sector. People should be in no doubt that cuts to bus services across the country are a result of the policies of this Government. There have been massive cuts to council budgets, which are compounded by their hugely unfair distribution; some of the wealthiest areas of the country have seen their resources increase. This is from a Government who are putting a tax cut for the richest ahead of the services that many people rely on.
The Minister will no doubt tell us that it is all okay. That is simply another indication to my constituents of just out of touch the Government are. Out in the real world, people know there are fewer services. I was door-knocking in my constituency recently and met a gentleman who pointed to the bus stop outside his house and told me that it had been replaced. Now, we might have thought that he would be happy, but he said that no buses had run down his street for years, so to him it was an insult that the bus stop had been replaced. To me, that is a symbol of the Government policy on buses: a new bus stop, but no buses. All of this is happening despite projections of 40% more traffic on the road by 2035—those are the Government’s own projections—at a time when rising fuel costs make it much more expensive for people to fill up the tank in their car, and under a Government who promised to be the greenest ever, yet are allowing bus services to be cut when those services can help reduce carbon by keeping cars off the road.
Bus services are vital for many people across my constituency, which is very large and contains five towns—one large industrial town, Corby, and four smaller market towns—and many villages over a large area of Northamptonshire. Many constituents have written or spoken to me about the lack of services and the problems they experience with those services that remain. I have travelled around by bus to talk to passengers and have conducted an online survey of people’s views and experiences. Over 80% of my constituents told me that they have noticed a decrease in services over recent years. Less than a quarter told me that they were happy with the quality and affordability of bus services in their area. Many people told me that they would use services more if they were more frequent.
My concern is that if things continue as they are, those who say that they use services sometimes will become “never” users, as we go further on a downward spiral, with cuts to subsidies meaning ever poorer provision of services, which in turn drives away passengers. The cuts may look okay on a spreadsheet, but a self-fulfilling prophecy comes about: if people are less able to access or rely on bus services, usage goes down and down until no services are left. Some constituents have told me that they can make a journey one way, and so might be able to get from their village to, for example, Peterborough; but what is the use of that if they have no confidence that they will be able to get home again? They therefore stop using the buses and either do not travel at all or find some alternative means.
There is another way: we could make those people who tell me that they sometimes travel on buses become regular passengers. Some 90% of the constituents who filled out my survey said that they would use buses more if services were better. We see examples of that all around the country, not least here in London, where Members of Parliament can see how beneficial regular and reliable bus services are to people.
My constituents raised a number of areas where they would like to see improvements. A key issue was having more suitable bus shelters, including ones that have seats for people to use while they wait and give better shelter from wind and rain in the winter. There are issues for wheelchair users and those who are blind and deaf. I know that many Members from across the House will have taken part in a talking buses awareness event organised by the Guide Dogs charity. I am pleased that my party has promised that we will seek to expand the UK fleet of buses fitted with audio-visual systems.
Many constituents raised concerns about the lack of bus services after 7 pm or 8 pm and on Sundays. They told me about many specific services. In east Northamptonshire, those include the Nene Valley Traveller service, or No. 23, from Peterborough to Oundle via Wansford, Kings Cliffe and Nassington, which was one of the first casualties of the county council’s cuts. That cut has left the entire northern part of my constituency with no public transport except for services subsidised by local supermarkets on a weekly basis.
Constituents have told me that they would like the No. 49 and No. 50 Stagecoach services to run much later in the evening. The last bus from Kettering to Irthlingborough, for example, runs at 10 minutes to 8 each weekday, so people cannot travel and access services later in the evening.
People want a direct route to Peterborough from Raunds and Thrapston at weekends, which would be hugely beneficial. There is demand for Sunday services to Irchester and Raunds and a better service to Finedon on Sundays. The X4 service between Oundle and Peterborough stops too early in the evening, and constituents have told me that that means having to spend upwards of £30 on a taxi from the train station to Oundle when the buses stop running. My constituent Amanda Swain of Thrapston told me that her son had to obtain special dispensation from his school to arrive after assembly because he could not catch a bus from Thrapston to Kettering early enough to get him there.
My constituents in Corby would like a direct bus service from the Kingswood estate to Asda. At the moment, they have to take two buses, sometimes with a 30-minute delay in-between. They also want a bus service from Kingswood to the Earlstrees estate, because many people work in the town. Throughout Corby, the issue of late buses comes up time and again.
Richard Mills, a constituent, told me that the £2.10 all-day ticket—I purchased one the other day and travelled around Corby—is real value, but we need a better bus service after 6 pm because people have to go to and from shifts at work. Whether they are at work or having a day out, if they return to the train station in Corby after 6 pm, there is no bus to take them home.
I have been told that the X1 is also bad and never runs on time. It takes people to hospital in Kettering, so it is particularly important. My constituents are disappointed that there is only one bus shelter at Oakley Vale for the 19 service to Corby town.
Andy Sawford
My constituents have been telling me about a range of issues locally, and I want to finish by putting a few more of those on the record. Of course, I will then be raising them with Stagecoach, Centrebus and others. If there is any way in which the Minister can assist us, too, that will of course be welcome, but it seems to me that many of them are about looking locally at the services and whether we can improve particular services.
The X4 route in Corby no longer uses Colyers avenue, which is disappointing for those residents. There is a lack of service to the Patrick road area of Corby—an issue that many people have raised with me. Sionah Rielly has told me that Stephenson way does not have a very good service and has suggested that it would be a particular improvement to have a service that goes to Asda in the town. The CallConnect service is very useful, I am told. Many people find it useful, but it does not provide access to the railway station at Corby. That means that many of my constituents who use that service have to rely on taxis, which are expensive.
My constituent, Ann-Marie Leonard, summarised all the issues when she told me:
“It’s a real problem that the local buses all finish running by 7pm. Unless you use a car or a taxi you can’t go to the theatre, adult education, swimming, tennis club, bingo, Asda late night shopping, visit friends, support elderly relatives…well, anything! Kids can’t get the bus home from youth clubs or Adrenaline Alley or sports clubs. And now there are medical centres that open until 8pm”—
we are pleased that we have the Corby urgent care centre—
“but you can’t have a late appointment if there isn’t a bus running that late. It’s like living under curfew”.
Corby’s local economy is such that many people work shifts, often finishing after the buses stop running or before they start running in the mornings. That means that lots of my constituents walk home or travel by bicycle. That is okay on a long summer day, such as today, for some of my constituents, but in the winter, when it is cold and dark and the street lights are out, my constituents are rightly concerned about their travel to and from work.
Then there are those travelling further afield. Paula Boulton told me that Corby is in effect
“marooned from the rest of the county”.
Anyone who can brave the X4 via Wellingborough to get to the county town of Northampton, she says, is a hardy soul.
There are two main operators in my constituency. Centrebus runs through Thrapston and Raunds and has, more than any other bus service, been causing my constituents particularly high levels of grief. Lateness and breakdowns of buses have been experienced frequently, as has the failure of buses even to turn up. I have provided details to Centrebus of specific occasions when buses have not turned up, but I have not had a very good response. It has shrugged off those experiences as isolated incidents and denied the existence of any real problems, yet every time I have a surgery in Thrapston, for example, constituents will come to tell me about continuing problems with Centrebus. That is partly about the ageing vehicles that operate on the route. That is why I have written to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency to raise my constituents’ concerns about the vehicles themselves: it has a role in regulating or inspecting the quality of buses used for public transport purposes. I will follow that up, but I would be grateful if the Minister could provide me with any help or advice that I can share with my constituents about the quality of the buses themselves, because that is important to the reliability of the services.
I can contrast that with Stagecoach. I was delighted to help it to launch a new fleet of double-decker buses. It was very proud of the handmade Italian leather seats. They did look very smart. They are mostly modern buses. Those buses were in east Northamptonshire. The bus that I rode on yesterday in Corby was also a very good modern bus.
I have received some complaints about services from Stagecoach, and of course it would expect me to acknowledge that its services are not always up to scratch, but I have to say that I have been incredibly impressed with it—with its staff, its bus drivers and its managing director. I heard on Radio Northampton the other day, in response to my questioning the level of cuts in the county, the county council cabinet member for transport, Councillor Michael Clarke, saying that the level of cuts to services has not been equivalent to the level of cuts to funding. He is right, but my view is that the county council takes little credit for that. It is actually because of the way in which Stagecoach has worked to keep a lot of the routes going and to keep the network going as far as possible.
I have been very impressed by the fact that Stagecoach has been very open to discussing with me the concerns that constituents have raised. For example, there was a campaign in Corby a year ago, when significant changes were proposed, and the managing director, Steve Burd, came to my office, talked to me about those concerns and addressed many of them as far as he could. But clearly Stagecoach is a commercial company. It is trying to optimise what is delivered in the public interest while of course having its own targets to maintain as a profit-making entity. I think that it does that as well as we could expect it to. I wanted to put that on the record.
Sometimes overlooked in debates about the availability of bus services is how important they are to young people. Before I close, I would like to raise some issues that affect young people in my constituency, many of whom use buses to get to school, whether they are going to schools in Corby or across east Northamptonshire. For example, young constituents in places such as Kings Cliffe and Thrapston travel to Prince William school and constituents in Irthlingborough and Raunds travel to Kettering, Wellingborough or even to Corby to access services.
There is one particular issue that I shall ask both Front Benchers to think about. It may have been raised with them previously. I am talking about what seems to parents and young people I meet to be an inconsistency in relation to the fact that young people are now required to stay on at school until they are 18. I believe that giving our young people that extra opportunity in terms of education and training is the right thing to do in order to have the skilled work force that this country needs, but they do have to pay the costs of transport, which can be very high for them or for their parents, from the age of 16 to 18, and that is of course if the services are available. I would be grateful for any response on that and any encouragement to my constituents that there may be some way of dealing with those concerns.
Looking forward, I am very keen to try to make services better. At local level, I will work closely and constructively with Stagecoach, and, as I said, it is open to finding new ways to improve services. Indeed, when I have talked to people from Stagecoach about businesses that might want to make contributions, they have been very open to looking at that and whether it could be viable.
Corby borough council plays an important role. In the past, it has negotiated section 106 agreements that have helped to fund bus services, including, for example, services up to Priors Hall. I will be asking that council and East Northants district council what further plans they have to help to maintain local services. In east Northants, the new Rushden Lakes development could be a source of both funding and demand, possibly acting as a form of local hub for services. I am keen that we look at and investigate that and see whether it would help us to improve bus services and, in particular, the connections in that part of the county.
Community and voluntary transport schemes have a role to play. In my view, they should be in addition to, rather than a replacement for, core public bus services, but they do have a role to play. I recently opened the new CANDO day centre for older people in Raunds. It has volunteer drivers who provide transport so that people can get there. I pay tribute to the people involved in that—the volunteers. In Corby, there is interest in developing a new community transport scheme. Again, I would appreciate any advice from the Front Benchers on how we can turn that into a reality and particularly on whether there are any grants that could help or any good practical examples that we could look at to help us to find a way forward.
In the longer term, the key is to take a much more strategic approach to how we provide bus services. Quality partnerships can be important to that, and there are quality partnerships across the country, but I want to see quality contracts being adopted. Those were a welcome idea on the part of the previous Government, but experience shows that it has been difficult in practice to get them agreed locally, although I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) is going to tell us that there will be a beacon in the north-east that we can all look to in order to see how to get them agreed. I am encouraged by the fact that Labour Front Benchers are looking at how a future Labour Government could make the adoption of quality contracts possible across the country, making them much more widespread.
I hope today’s debate will keep bus services high on the agenda. I hope local operators and other local partners will respond to many of the issues I have put on the record, which constituents have raised with me. I would like to think that Northamptonshire county council will take some notice and consider the effect of its decision to cut bus services more than any other county. I will not hold my breath, but I hope the county council will listen, because we are talking about not just my constituents, but the council’s residents. I hope that local operators—particularly Stagecoach, which is generally good—and other key local partners, including district councils, businesses and the voluntary sector, will work with me. Together, we can improve the bus services in our local area, despite the difficult financial context we face.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on bringing this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration.
Let me, at the outset, set the scene in Northern Ireland: transport is a devolved matter, so decisions lie very much with the Minister in Northern Ireland who is responsible for it. We face many issues, including making transport work for those with disabilities. The issues that the hon. Gentleman raised are the same as those we face in Northern Ireland. Although transport is a devolved matter, the issues in Northern Ireland are very similar, and I will outline them.
The debate gives me an opportunity to highlight an issue close to my heart: the lack of rural public transport in my constituency. Strangford is made up of a mixture of urban and rural, isolated areas, and I suppose most Members here would say the same. That clearly illustrates the issue for those who do not have their own transport and who do not, unfortunately, have access to public transport in the way they should.
I am well aware of the beauty of living in the country, but I am also aware of the drawbacks, and one of the main issues is rural isolation. Even small errands can prove difficult for some of my constituents, never mind travelling to and from work or school. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the issues that are paramount for young people, and I want to touch on those.
From those with a passion for being green, I can already hear the cry, “Get on your bike!”, but we cannot do the same as Boris Johnson here in London. It is not possible to cycle, because people have to take long rural roads to get to their work or school, and there are also the safety issues that come from that. Cycling is not an option for my constituents, and I do not believe it is an option for the hon. Gentleman in his constituency.
Many of our country roads are not suitable for bikes, and although the Government have done a lot to encourage cyclists on to the roads, through the use of cycle lanes, cycle lanes do not stretch into the most rural parts of Strangford, so cycling is often simply too dangerous to be a serious option when it comes to getting to and from work.
The only other form of public transport is the bus, but the timetables and routes are not particularly convenient. The hon. Gentleman outlined the issue with timetables, and I am sure that those who speak after me will do the same. If we can get everyone to use the buses, they will be profitable. The problem is that buses are not always available at the time people need them. The result is that services are full, and that is apparent in my constituency.
For example, a constituent from Kircubbin cannot get a bus straight to Belfast and has to change in Newtownards. Furthermore, if that constituent works in Newtownards until 9 pm, they have to wait until 10.35 pm—almost 11 pm—to get a bus to Portaferry, arriving in Kircubbin only at 11.5 pm. That illustrates the need for public transport to be available at times when people need it.
Such situations are simply ridiculous, particularly for many 16 and 17-year-olds who work part time in the town and rely on the bus to get to and from work. I am pleased that the economic outlook for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is much better than it was and that unemployment is dropping, and we all acknowledge that. However, I am talking about people with part-time jobs—they have a foot on the ladder and they can go on to other employment when it comes along—who cannot, unfortunately, use buses because they do not always run when those people are doing their shifts.
The Government are trying to encourage public transport in an effort to become greener, but how can we encourage it when the timetables for rural constituents are so poor or young people are forced not to work because they are afraid of travelling home late at night? I must underline that, because there is a safety issue particularly for young girls and young ladies when they are travelling late at night through a town. Again, if the buses were earlier, that would suit them best.
We are bringing in park-and-ride schemes in Northern Ireland—they are probably in many other parts of the United Kingdom—but they are not yet available everywhere. Those who come from the peninsula can park their cars in Newtonards and get the bus to Belfast, therefore reducing the gridlock in the city of Belfast. Again, that is a positive way of getting more people to use public transport, which will then be profitable. We must look at that.
Unsurprisingly, people are left reliant on cars, but they are not the answer. Not only are they not environmentally friendly but the high cost of fuel puts pressure on families and can lead to rural isolation. That is yet another aspect of the lack of flexible transport links.
Taking children in my constituency to the Boys’ Brigade, the Girls’ Brigade, after-school clubs or sports activities is a costly venture. Sports clubs often require children to attend two afternoons’ training and a Saturday match—six trips over three days. That is in addition to taking the kids to social events. Those of us here who are parents will know very well that parents are really a taxi service for their children—I am not, but my wife is—and that is also one of the negatives of living in the countryside. For many families, these journeys simply cost too much, and parents and children really feel the impact of rural isolation. It is even more difficult for the elderly or vulnerable, who do not necessarily have access to cars.
The lack of flexible bus times between Newtownards, Belfast and the Ards peninsula is completely unacceptable and unworkable for those who depend on buses to get to their jobs. Newtownards is a central business district, and the buy-out of Hughes Insurance, which employs more than 310 staff, by the very successful American firm Liberty Mutual should attest to that. Newtownards is a vital feeder for Belfast, with huge numbers of workers and schoolchildren travelling back and forth each day.
We must consider how best to use money to enable people to get back on public transport. One way would be to ring-fence funding for rural transport schemes and improvements in bus timetables and routes. In Northern Ireland, including in my constituency, we also have the Rural Community Network—a very good group of people who interact with charities, voluntary organisations and rural community organisations. There is some subsidy to enable the network to reach out to rural areas. In his response, perhaps the Minister can tell us whether there is a similar scheme on the UK mainland. If so, how does it work? The scheme in Northern Ireland at least addresses some of the issues, if not all of them.
In another part of Strangford, the story is the same. Carrowdore is a small village just outside Newtownards that does not have a pharmacy—services are not always available in parts of my constituency. The closest surgery is not within walking distance, so many elderly or vulnerable constituents who require frequent prescriptions have no option but to wait for half a day for a bus so that they can get to their nearest pharmacy.
I once went on a bus journey with a constituent who lived in Portaferry, and I mention it just to illustrate what the problems are and how acute they can be. My constituent had to go to a hospital appointment in Lisburn. It took seven hours there and back, and it cost £39.40. It takes me half that time to drive to the airport, wait for boarding, fly to London and get from Heathrow to Parliament. To illustrate that point, I went with my constituent—we wanted to highlight transport costs and the difficulty of going for hospital treatment.
That state of affairs is unacceptable for someone who is ill, and it needs to be addressed. The groups who are affected are those that society and elected representatives must protect. We should make life easier for them in any way we can. How can we make a difference to the lives of those who live in our rural communities—the children who cannot afford to go to after-school activities and clubs, the stay-at-home mums who have no car and no opportunity to meet other mums for some adult company and social interaction, the people who are ill or disabled and cannot drive and who no longer have an affordable taxi service, and the elderly who often end up all but imprisoned in their own homes? What difference can we make? A reduction in fuel duty—I know that is not the Minister’s prerogative—would be a step in the right direction for those of us in Northern Ireland who have an issue with the cost of running a car, but more needs to be done. Specific ring-fencing of funding for my rural constituents is needed so that bus services in rural communities can be made more frequent.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Corby on obtaining a debate on the matter, and apologise, Ms Dorries, because as I said to you previously I have somewhere else to be; but, as Arnold Schwarzenegger said in the film, “I’ll be back.”
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing this important debate. Our constituencies are in many ways different, being at opposite ends of the country, but we seem to share many of the same problems with local bus services.
My constituency is composed of both urban and semi-rural areas—towns, villages and estates spread out across the city of Sunderland—but what we have in common throughout the constituency is the fact that we do not enjoy the benefits of a rail or light rail connection. We entirely depend on local bus services, which is why I have campaigned on the issue since I was elected to Parliament.
For metropolitan areas such as Tyne and Wear, there is a solution: the introduction of a quality contract scheme—a mechanism that would allow the local transport authority to reregulate local bus services if certain criteria were met. That new system would have routes set by the transport authority, with bus operators bidding in an open competition to run services. I am proud that, despite fierce opposition from bus operators, and threats of legal action, the combined authority in Tyne and Wear continues to lead the way. I shall briefly outline why I believe such a scheme has the potential to benefit constituents in other areas, too.
I should perhaps at this point mention that, although my hon. Friend the Member for Corby and I share many problems with bus services, our views diverge when it comes to Stagecoach. I am pleased about its helpful, consensual approach in east Northamptonshire, and I hope it may take the same approach in Tyne and Wear as we press ahead with options for the future of local bus services. I am pleased at my hon. Friend’s experience and I hope that in the fullness of time I shall share that positive experience of co-operation from bus companies in trying to deliver the best to our constituents.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for quality contracts, and I agree with her. The Souter family who own Stagecoach have become billionaires since buses were deregulated. Does my hon. Friend agree that that shows that privatising and deregulating bus services has not helped the travelling public, but has allowed people such as the Souter family to game the system and make bus services worse?
Bridget Phillipson
It is my view that deregulation has failed in my area. I am not opposed to bus operators making a profit, although I think the profits made by operators in my region, particularly Stagecoach, are excessive. I want some of that profit to be reinvested into the region and into subsidising services that my constituents depend on to get to hospital, school and other places. I have been disappointed by the approach taken by Stagecoach, but I appreciate that there is much at stake. As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby mentioned, many people are paying careful attention to see what Tyne and Wear will decide, and no doubt Stagecoach has been motivated in its approach by that clear factor. I hope that we will find a way forward.
An investigation in 2011 by the Competition Commission was highly critical of deregulated bus services. It found that there was limited competition between operators, which tended to result in higher prices and lower quality for passengers. The report also found that head-to-head competition for services was unlikely between dominant operators. There was heavy criticism because some bus companies were accused of colluding to avoid direct competition altogether, which resulted in geographic market segregation, including in my area. Just as in the energy market, a small number of companies dominate the bus market; we all know them. A quality contract scheme would create a level playing field, allowing new entrants to break into the market; it would open up competition and deliver better value for the taxpayer and passengers.
Such a scheme would also provide long-term security to bus operators, their staff and bus passengers. Too often, bus companies change or even scrap routes, which frustrates passengers and leaves people isolated and cut off from vital services. It also puts jobs at risk. A clear example of that can be found at the Doxford international business park in my constituency, which houses thousands of staff, many of whom are employed in contact centres. Businesses and staff have told me of their concerns that buses run infrequently after the main evening rush hour and that services do not fit with shift patterns. That leaves staff who work shifts with little choice but to travel by car or risk waiting for an infrequent bus service.
On Friday I visited EE, one of the major businesses that employs staff at Doxford, and heard at first hand what the situation means for staff: those who finish shifts at 8 pm run—literally—out of the door and catch the bus at five past 8. If they miss it, they face a lengthy wait for the next bus. Often staff must come to work far earlier than their shift start time, because unless they catch the hourly bus service they risk the consequences of being late for work. No doubt that affects staff retention as well as business growth and our ability to support the growth of jobs in the region. As we know, the north-east still faces big economic challenges and is the region of the country with the highest unemployment rate. We need to support business growth and job creation, but a public transport system that can support that is essential.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Corby about the challenges for disabled passengers, and particularly those who are blind or partially sighted. I recently took part in a guided walk, which was facilitated by Guide Dogs, to get an understanding of how difficult and disorienting it can be for blind and partially-sighted passengers when they try to access bus services. I travelled on a Go-Ahead bus that was fitted with audiovisual information. I recognise the importance of extending that facility, which is quite unusual in my area. The bus was one of the express bus services that offers it, and although it was far from perfect it is a step in the right direction. Bus operators must do far more to recognise many passengers’ additional needs and make sure that public transport is accessible to everyone.
We have a long way to go on fares and ticketing. A benefit of a quality contract system would be the possibility of introducing a London-style Oyster scheme. Passengers would then have the best fare worked out for them automatically. At the moment there is a huge array of options, with a confusing price structure and different operators offering different fares and tickets that do not work across buses. That discourages people from using buses. Far more must be done to encourage people to use buses, but if that is to happen fares must be affordable and simple. Integrated ticketing is also vital.
Understandably, there is a national focus on our current rail infrastructure, and I agree with that. However, very little attention has been paid to what happens when commuters reach their final rail stop and are confronted with the reality of local bus services or, indeed, to what happens when there is no rail link, only buses, as in my area.
I believe deregulation has failed. Bus companies have a social responsibility to local communities, but, sadly, too many fail to deliver. They vehemently oppose solutions in my area that would give local people a greater say. Their negative campaigning, scaremongering and threats of legal action have gone far beyond rational opposition and are irresponsible. We need action now to help communities and to grow the economy. It is clear to me that that can best be achieved through a quality contract scheme and I hope that later this year Tyne and Wear will be the first area to proceed with one.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing the debate. He described in some detail the circumstances in his region, Northamptonshire, demonstrating the trueness of the phrase “All politics is local”. The information that he drew on came from the excellent freedom of information request made by the shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who discovered that Northamptonshire was the hardest hit of all boroughs, with 55% of its funding for local bus services cut since the coalition came to power in 2010.
My hon. Friend the Member for Corby also made the point that the issue truly is a national one. He discussed the challenge faced by the most vulnerable—the elderly and the disabled—as well as issues relating to quality of life, and spoke eloquently of a constituent who saw a new bus stop outside his house when no bus had gone past for years.
I also pay tribute to the other two Members who spoke. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) underlined the fact that bus services are truly a United Kingdom issue and eloquently described the effect on those in rural and sparsely populated areas in his constituency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) championed the idea of the Tyne and Wear combined authority taking forward a quality contract system. She rightly made the point that constituencies that are urban and semi-rural and that have no light rail connections are particularly vulnerable to the problems in the current context. As she said, we want companies to get a reasonable return on their money, but what is actually delivered is often not reasonable. Excessive profits must be reinvested into the community. Her reference to the Competition Commission report reminded us of some of the issues at stake.
Graham Stringer
Does my hon. Friend accept that it is an indication of the exploitation of the travelling public that goes on outside the regulated system in London that the profits made by private bus companies in places such as Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are between 25% and 50% greater than for the same companies operating in London? That is indicative of a failed system that is exploiting the travelling public in the English regions.
Mr Marsden
My hon. Friend serves with great distinction on the Transport Committee. He highlights a key issue for us all to ponder. If things can be done in London, they should certainly be examined elsewhere, particularly in areas such as Greater Manchester—I speak as a native Mancunian—where the tradition of good, strong, integrated public transport is sometimes hobbled by practices he mentioned.
All regions have seen support for local services stretched as never before in recent memory, losing an average of 25% of bus funding since 2010. Yet buses remain the most frequently used mode of public transport. Their use is widespread and important outside of as well as in London and our major cities, where media coverage of transport issues is sometimes focused. They are vital in both urban and rural areas, and are a lifeline for groups such as the elderly and disabled people. They also offer opportunities for all passengers to expand their horizons and engage socially in local areas and further afield.
The previous Labour Government showed an unprecedented commitment to strengthening bus services throughout the country. In 1997, the overall level of Government subsidy for bus services—including public transport, the bus service operators grant and concessionary fares—stood at less than £1 million; by the current decade it had risen to more than £2.3 billion. The present Government did not inherit a situation in which buses were a second-class service with a disintegrating network and fleet of vehicles, but, sadly, their cuts to the local government grant and lack of forethought about their effect on local transport demonstrate that they have reverted to an isolated and siloed vision of what public transport can do, rather than seeing it as the environmentally friendly, efficient and inclusive driver of economic growth that it should be.
Campaigning groups such as the Campaign for Better Transport have done some excellent work, particularly in highlighting the value of supported bus services. Such routes are not believed by operators to be independently viable, but often serve the hardest to reach and most isolated communities. The CBT’s research, published earlier this year in the report “Buses in Crisis”, highlighted that in 2013-14 almost 50% of local authorities cut supported bus services, at a total loss of £17 million. Since 2010, more than £56 million has been cut from supported bus services, with many routes and services being cut completely. No wonder that in his foreword to the report the chief executive of the CBT, Stephen Joseph, highlighted the impact of those cuts on two particular groups:
“young people unable to access their place of education or training”
and
“older people who are left in isolation after their lifeline to the outside world has been cut.”
Supported services are particularly important for the elderly. The difficulty of accessing health services can mean that conditions go untreated and undiagnosed, or that the taxpayer ends up paying more for ambulance trips and unnecessary overnight hospital stays because of a lack of transport options. The difficulty of maintaining social links where public transport is poor reduces quality of life and can anger families, especially those in rural areas who cannot easily see their elderly relatives.
The local economy also suffers as shopping centres and services are made inaccessible. Age UK’s report, “Missed opportunities: the impact on older people of cuts to rural bus services”, brings into stark relief the many facets of isolation that the elderly can experience when services are cut; in some places a taxi to the theatre could cost 10% of their weekly pension. People with disabilities also rely on bus services and are hardest hit when support routes are closed, for many of the same reasons. I will come later to other approaches that can improve the services used by disabled people, but the fundamental point is that the service must be operating in the first place.
As we have heard, young people also suffer when services are cut: jobs and training in hard-to-reach areas can no longer be pursued. Young people are among the biggest users of bus services, as the National Union of Students has pointed out. More than 2 million young people come from low-income households, and 64% of jobseekers either have no access to a vehicle or cannot drive. The role that the bus can play is clear: a joined-up network allows aspirations to thrive and prevents young people from being unable to take up job opportunities. It also boosts their productivity, and it is estimated that £1 of public investment in buses can provide between £3 and £5-worth of wider benefits.
We all know from our experience in our constituencies that bus travel is key for young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby referred to his experience, and recently I have had a number of meetings with young people in which they have all said that the issue is not simply not being able to get about socially; bus services are a lifeline to their college, as well as to get to job interviews and eventually to take up work. It really is a key issue. My hon. Friend was right to highlight the inconsistency of requiring young people to stay in education until they are 18 when they do not have the wherewithal to do so.
The provision of transport in rural areas, which has already been touched on, can also become a matter of inequality. Recent research by the Centre for Social Justice showed that people who live in rural areas can spend between 20% and 30% more on transport than those in urban households. Such areas therefore have more to lose than most when support for local bus services is reduced. As a former shadow further education Minister, I know how crucial that can be for young people in rural areas who want to access college courses. Campuses in rural areas often require a five to 10 mile journey, as opposed to a one to two mile journey in urban areas.
We also have a right to expect quality provision from bus operators because public subsidy accounts for 45% of bus operators’ revenues. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South on the situation in Tyne and Wear are pertinent. Virtually all the major bus companies have pointed out that cuts at that level have inhibited their ability to provide services. The example of her county council is not isolated. There has been a 50% subsidy cut in Suffolk, a 40% subsidy cut in Hertfordshire and a 30% subsidy cut in Somerset. They are all Conservative-controlled authorities in which issues of social cohesion for the elderly and economic opportunity for the young have not been sufficient to retain the subsidies. Those authorities’ own Government have made their ability to do so even harder.
I commend colleagues who have stood up for their local services, and I commend my hon. Friends who have spoken today. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs Riordan) has been fighting for bus services in her constituency, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) has been vocal about services in his area.
What other pressures do local authorities face, and what powers do they have to respond? The LGA has raised concerns that funding has been cut by £261 million and that often it cannot do much about it. Concessionary fares and supported services must work in tandem, rather than competing for an ever-reduced pool of money. People continue to receive the benefits of the bus pass, but we must ensure that its funding reflects the effects of social and independent living. We want actively to explore what more we can do to incentivise and extend bus support for young people so that we make a further impact to bridge the gap to jobs and skills and, incidentally, to make a real impact on economic growth.
Current contract arrangements give little power or incentive for local authorities to have mechanisms to maintain protected services, and the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby on quality control are highly relevant. We would increase the amount of money devolved to regional bodies, which would be a major driver of new initiatives and transport projects to improve the quality of services and the transport network for people across those regions.
We must also consider what we have to do to make access a reality for people with disabilities. In the House, we have raised the issues of bus driver training and audiovisual systems. They will not go away, particularly when loud voices from consumer and public organisations are saying that it is time that Ministers heard the clarion call to take a lead on access.
Government at all levels must never lose sight of the fact that bus services not simply are the preserve of bus operators but exist for their passengers. Public transport must never be relegated to the status of a second-class service. A well funded and prioritised bus service can be a key driver of economic growth. The Government need to be fully committed to those ideals to make them a reality, rather than sidelining millions of people to what my hon. Friend’s constituent eloquently characterised as curfew living.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. Thanks to the Members who made the excellent contributions that we have heard, we will finish by the time at which we hoped to finish.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing this debate on the availability of bus services. I will touch on many elements of his speech, and I will answer a couple of his questions directly. I now feel so much more knowledgeable about Corby bus services. He undoubtedly has weeks of press releases and leaflets planned, and I congratulate him on his speech. I also recognise the contribution of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who rightly pointed out that a number of issues affect not only the mainland but his constituency. He made a long speech, and he accepts that some of the issues are not necessarily under this House’s jurisdiction.
The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and I obviously differ on quality contracts; she will not be surprised about that. My view is that they are a race to the bottom—to poorer services and higher costs. She spoke about services being withdrawn, but any operator has to give 56 days’ notice before a service can be withdrawn. The overall thrust of the Competition Commission’s view, as she will want to recognise, is that the bus market is working well.
I recognise that buses play a vital role in our economy, as any look will show. In England, more than 2.2 billion journeys were made on local buses outside London last year. That number is broadly flat; it is down about 1% on the year before, which is absolutely in keeping with the trends that we have seen since 1997.
Bridget Phillipson
Notwithstanding what the Minister has just said about our difference of opinion on quality contracts, does he respect that local decision-making bodies should be able to introduce schemes that they think best serve the needs of local areas? Will the Government continue to offer support on that?
Stephen Hammond
I accept the proposition that locals know what is best for their area, if they wish to go down that line. The hon. Lady will not be surprised to hear that Ministers would probably express the view that that would be ill-advised. I will continue to express that view, but it is for local areas to make that decision.
If we look at ridership numbers since 1997, and indeed at the broad sweep since the second world war, we see declining ridership on buses, but more than 60% of all trips on public transport are still made on local buses. Some 49% of bus trips outside London are made by people who do not have access to a car. Buses are, of course, essential for many people to get to work, education, doctors and hospitals. The bus is a lifeline for many people, particularly in rural areas. Without the bus, those people would be unable to access essential services, go shopping or socialise.
Yet if one listens to the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), one hears an attempt to portray a network that has fallen apart. Inconveniently, as I have just pointed out, some of the facts do not bear that out. As he will have wanted to acknowledge, the falls in ridership numbers were severe under a regulated regime. Between 1997 and today, the annual fall in ridership, as a percentage, has been almost the same every year. The idea that there has been a complete collapse in bus ridership since 2010 is simply false.
Combined with that is the fact that customer satisfaction with bus journeys is high. In all national surveys, 88% of passengers say that they are satisfied with the service. It is important to recognise, in looking at that number, that under-21s make up about a third of bus passengers, and use among the older generation has increased over the past few years, as the hon. Gentleman would want to acknowledge.
Mr Marsden
I accept that bus satisfaction is high, but that prompts the question of whether people are satisfied because they are able to get a bus in the first place. The point that my hon. Friends and I have made is on the disproportionate effect of the coalition’s cuts on key vulnerable groups. The Minister will not find statistics that gainsay that point.
Stephen Hammond
The Minister certainly will. I am happy to read out the ridership numbers, but there is nothing in those numbers that suggests there has been an increasing rate of decline in bus use since 2010. That is simply true. I am happy to check my facts in the Library. I have the numbers before me, and I can read them out if the hon. Gentleman wants them. The fact of the matter is that the numbers do not support his argument.
It is true, of course, that bus usage and access to buses are important for a healthy, growing economy. The recent survey by the university of Leeds reinforces that point. Bus commuters generate some £64 billion in economic output, and one in five journeys is a journey to work. Shopping and leisure trips generate annual value of some £27 billion.
The Government, far from what is suggested in some portrayals, remain committed to improving bus services, and expenditure on buses reflects that: 42% of all bus operator income comes from public funds. This year, the Government will spend more than £1 billion on concessionary travel entitlement and more than £340 million in direct subsidy to bus operators in England. More than £300 million has been allocated to funding major bus projects in the last year; that is on top of the provision through the better bus areas fund to deliver improvements in 24 local authorities, which cost more than £70 million, and the £20 million to support community transport. Many bus improvement schemes have also been funded as part of the £600 million local sustainable transport fund.
A total of £95 million has also been provided for four rounds of the green bus fund to improve environmental performance. We are also jointly funding a three-year project with Norfolk county council to determine a delivery model for smart ticketing across England, recognising that smarter ticketing will continue to drive easier access. In the 2013 spending review, we protected bus spending until the end of 2015-16, despite the current economic circumstances. All that demonstrates a commitment that was not recognised in some of the contributions.
The Government recognise that improvements can and must be made. In 2012, our document “Green Light for Better Buses” set out our plans for buses. The proposals included reforming bus subsidy, improving competition and incentivising partnership working. The hon. Member for Corby gave a clear example of what partnership working can deliver in his support for Stagecoach, some of the services that it is delivering, and the way that it has improved a number of them. Improving partnership working is increasingly important.
There is no doubt that these are challenging economic times. Government and local authorities have had to make difficult decisions about some spending priorities, but we want to ensure that the bus market is still attractive to all operators—large and small, urban and rural—by ensuring that funding is allocated in the fairest way, giving the best value for taxpayers and ensuring the best service.
Andy Sawford
For the record, the services that I mentioned have not improved; they have been reduced significantly. My praise for Stagecoach relates to it having worked with me to keep as many buses on the road as possible. If the Minister’s argument rests on saying that rider numbers are not declining any more steeply than in previous years, it is a pretty disappointing argument. The Minister for Transport ought to set out a vision of how to improve public transport. People still need to get to work, of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) illustrated; they now just have to wait for an hour, or two hours, and struggle to access bus services that should be much more reliable and available.
Stephen Hammond
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have noticed, I remarked a moment ago that we have set out a vision for how to improve bus services throughout this country and a view on how we can ensure better services in various areas. I will make some remarks about rural buses in a moment. However, neither he nor I can ignore the trend of declining ridership, whereas for the deregulated rail service, ridership has doubled since privatisation. The idea that we can simply ignore the numbers is not true.
The bus service operators grant has been paid directly to bus operators. To be fair, it has been paid for many years in a blunt and relatively untargeted way based on fuel consumption. Local authorities have told us that they can make the bus subsidy deliver better value for money by working in partnership with bus operators to grow the bus market. As several hon. Members have pointed out, the characteristics of local bus markets differ, so different solutions will undoubtedly be appropriate in different local areas. The Government therefore believe that it is for local authorities to decide which route to pursue. This year, £43 million in BSOG funding will be paid directly to local authorities rather than bus operators; that will relate to the services that councils fund. That will give communities more control over how the money is spent. The funding is now ring-fenced until the end of 2016-17 to provide a period of stability.
The hon. Member for Corby asked several questions, one of which involved concerns about the quality of Centrebus. He will know that all vehicles must meet the relevant standards for roadworthiness enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. If he has any concerns about that, I will be delighted to help him ensure that the DVSA undertakes that operation. He also discussed the poor reliability of service. Again, that is entirely a matter for the traffic commissioner; I encourage him and his constituents to raise any concerns with the traffic commissioner, who has powers to take regulatory action against operators that are failing to deliver the service that they are contracted to deliver.
The Government are also committed to protecting the national bus travel concession, which is of huge benefit to about 11 million people, allowing free off-peak local travel anywhere in England. The concession provides older and disabled people with greater freedom, independence and a lifeline to their community. It enables access to facilities in local areas, helps them keep in touch with family and friends and brings benefits to the wider economy. The issue of young people’s travel and fare levels is complex. There is no statutory obligation to provide discounted-price travel to young people. Many commercial and publicly funded reductions are available.
Bus services in rural areas do not depend only on public funding. Commercial operators will provide services in areas where there are enough passengers, and overall commercial mileage in very rural areas of Britain has increased rather than decreased over the past year. However, the Government accept that where commercial services are not feasible, local authorities must and do play a vital role in supporting rural bus services. Almost 30% of bus mileage is in predominately rural authorities, and it is therefore for local authorities to decide what is the best support to put in place in response to local views.
It is vital that local authorities have the opportunity to maximise the funding that they provide. To help with that, last year my Department met its commitment to publish revised guidance to local authorities on best practice when procuring local bus services and other types of road passenger transport. Although I recognise that a lot of innovative and hard work is done by councils all over the country, there is certainly scope to do more. The best practice document sets out some really good practice and highlights some of what local authorities can achieve.
Providing bus transport solutions in rural areas can be challenging. Undoubtedly, the traditional fixed-route service operating to a timetable cannot be and has not always been appropriate. The combination of lower passenger numbers and longer journeys can also put pressure on funding. That is why many local authorities, learning from best practice, are considering other solutions, whether they involve supporting community buses provided by voluntary services, dial-a-ride or other types of demand-responsive transport such as taxis and minicabs. My Department is undertaking further work to examine the barriers to procurement of better types of service, and we are committed to ensuring that that knowledge is spread through the industry.
In conclusion, this Government believe in buses. Since 2012, we have set out a clear vision for a better bus service with more of what passengers want: punctual, interconnected services, greener and more fully wheelchair-accessible buses, and widely available smart ticketing. That will encourage more passengers to use the network, cut carbon and encourage economic growth.
DEFRA Communications: Hill Farmers
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Thank you very much indeed, Ms Dorries, for calling me to speak. It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon.
I am raising the issue of the communications by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with hill farmers. I requested this debate following a meeting I had with Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services—UTASS—a charity that works with hill farmers in my constituency, and I have also had discussions with some of the farmers themselves. I should just say that the hill farming in my constituency is very long-standing and it is rather unusual in that most of the farmers involved are tenant farmers farming on common land. There has been hill farming in this way for about 500 years in my area.
The problem is that DEFRA requires farmers to communicate online, and the Government have failed in their project to roll out broadband across the country. Across the entire country, 5 million people do not have access to broadband and the problem is particularly severe in the rural areas. The counties with the biggest problem are Cumbria, Devon, Dorset, the East Riding, Herefordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northumberland, Rutland, Shropshire and Somerset. I think that we can all agree that there are large farming communities in all those counties.
In my constituency, only 46% of the farmers who go to UTASS have broadband. Obviously, therefore, a Government policy of delivering public services that is digital by default is doomed to fail, and DEFRA should be the Department that is the very last to introduce digital by default in its communication system and not the first, which it seems to be at the moment.
On 6 May, UTASS found that 19 farmers were booked in to the charity to complete their application forms for the online single payment scheme, but the system was down, just as it had been on the previous Friday and on several days in the previous weeks. This meant that farmers were driving several miles to access the IT point, but then the Government’s IT system was down and they were unable to transact the business. This process is time-consuming and stressful; it is the very opposite of what we expect from DEFRA.
I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), here in Westminster Hall today, but I am disappointed that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), is not present, because he replied on 3 June to my initial letter about this issue. His response to me was wholly inadequate. He wrote:
“Although I accept that these intermittent problems will have been frustrating for RPA customers”—
customers of the Rural Payments Agency—
“the system has been performing well for the majority of the application period.”
What level of failure does DEFRA believe is acceptable or unacceptable? The problem is that if the farmers’ applications were not in on time, they could lose money, but it was difficult—indeed, for some farmers it was impossible—to get their applications in on time due to the failures in DEFRA’s own system.
In his letter, the Under-Secretary of State continued:
“The Agency has had record numbers of on-line submissions with almost 70 per cent of the nearly 102,000 submissions received to date (16 May) being made online.”
However, he does not know or does not take into account in that statement how much time, energy and work was involved in submitting them on time; nor does he seem concerned about the 30% of farmers who, by 16 May, had not completed their submissions. So he says:
“Given that overall picture, I cannot give a blanket assurance that penalties will not be applied.”
That seems to be wholly unreasonable.
The animal reporting and movement service also has a history of crashing online, and it is simply not practical for farmers to take several hours out of their day to travel to ICT facilities.
The next problem is the number of personal identification numbers that farmers are required to have in order to interface with DEFRA, which is a staggering 27. There are so many different systems run by DEFRA and on each one farmers are required to have a different PIN. I do not know about you, Ms Dorries, but I find it difficult to remember my code to enter the House of Commons and my bank number. The thought of having to have 27 different identifiers, or maybe even 28 for some farmers, is absurd.
Let me inform the House what those numbers are for. For the RPA, there is a single business identifier; a personal identifier for each partner in the business, because obviously many farms are family-run; a vendor number; an integrated administration and control scheme number; a PIN to access the single payment scheme online; a holding number, which is called a county parish holding number, with an additional one required for each block of land that is more than five miles from the boundary of the main holding; a herd number; and a flock number. For Natural England, an “AG number” is required for “ELS/UELS/HLS agreements”, which relate to the high-level scheme and the systems of support for the rolling out of the common agricultural policy in this country; and a Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 access number is also needed. The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency has its own system of identifying numbers; for the Environment Agency, a groundwater authorisation number, a waste carrier number and a waste exemption registration are required; and for DEFRA itself, a holding transport registration number and a City and Guilds number for the transport of animals and PAl to PA6 and so on are needed.
Of course, farmers are running businesses, so they need to interface with other parts of the Government, which involves a national insurance number, a health service number and a passport number. In addition, of course, many farmers have shotgun and firearm licence numbers; they have VAT numbers; they have Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs numbers, both individual numbers and business numbers; the Government Gateway has a number and password; the British Wool Marketing Board number is obviously important for sheep farmers; and the breed societies have numbers. Also, there are separate numbers for every bovine animal and sheep over the age of 12 months on the premises, and separate transaction numbers for every movement or passport issue. That is a proliferation of numbers that we would think incredible if we read it in a novel by Kafka. However, it is not incredible in modern DEFRA.
There is also an extremely important set of further numbers, which are individual field numbers. These feature highly in the operation of the SPS applications. Most of the SPS forms are now pre-populated by the RPA, but all information needs to be cross-checked by the farmer, as the onus is placed on the farmer to correct errors made by the RPA. Each field number needs to be checked by the farmer against four further items: the correct size is stated for that particular field; the net land area is eligible, as detailed on the rural land register for that particular field; the claimed area details are correctly detailed for that particular field; and the land use code is correct for that particular field. If the farmer does not spot an error made by the RPA, the farmer is liable and financially penalised.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Helen Goodman
Before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, I will just point out that in my constituency the farmers have 20 fields, so 80 administrative cross-checks are required in this process.
Simon Hart
I had not come to Westminster Hall with the intention of making a political point, because I sympathise hugely with a lot of what the hon. Lady has said. Therefore I hesitate to say this, but almost every one of the regulations that she has mentioned were introduced under the Government of her own party. Therefore, is she here today to support the coalition’s efforts to reduce red tape in farming?
Helen Goodman
I will come on to this Government’s attempts to cut red tape in the red tape initiative, which—as I have read out the 27 numbers, plus the field numbers and I have not finished yet—has been a miserable failure, frankly. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in this House in the last Parliament, but I was and I criticised the system under the previous Government, because I am very concerned at the way the hill farmers are treated by DEFRA, the RPA and Natural England. And if I might say so, I thought that a coalition of Tories and Liberal Democrats with more rural seats than the previous Labour Government would do better, but that is not the case. It has not done better. If anything, the situation is getting worse and this causes a huge number of problems.
Let me move on to the costs to farmers of running the various schemes. Every sheep needs an electronic identification tag. These used to cost 10p each, but now they cost 85p each and each sheep needs two. There are 100,000 sheep in Teesdale, so immediately we see that Teesdale farmers are landed with a bill for £170,000. Every farmer needs a tag reader, and those cost £700 each. DEFRA is putting massive costs on to farmers.
The cattle need passports: their movements have to be recorded, as do their births and deaths and medicines they have been given. The system for medicines must be even tighter than that required for humans in the NHS. One farmer told me that he has to
“report movements, births, deaths—
but, fortunately—
“not marriages in our Holding Register for sheep and Herd Register for cattle. All veterinary medicine treatments have to be recorded with the identity number of the animal, batch number of the medicine, dosage and expiry date”.
He said that the impact of the red tape initiative has been
“so small as to be imperceptible.”
As well as changing the rules of the CAP, DEFRA is trying at the same time to move the system online, and that is getting worse at the moment. That is being done by this Government and their failure in that regard is totally their responsibility.
There are also changes to the timing of higher level stewardship payments. One big problem is that, whereas farmers received regular in-year payments, now, because of the changeover, most will have to wait for 18 months for a payment, rather than six months. However, some farmers will have to wait as long as nine years for payments. Therefore their incomes are severely pushed down and they are not paid any interest while they wait for money for long periods.
In case Government Members are under any illusion about the farmers in my constituency—I have already mentioned that they are tenant farmers—Newcastle university estimates that the average income of a hill farmer in my area is £11,000 a year. These are not people who can cope with severe fluctuations up and down in their cash flow or cuts to their income.
The RPA online system is, as I have said, deeply problematic. The farmers feel that DEFRA has not done an adequate job in negotiating with Europe.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. I think that Members of Parliament of all parties from rural constituencies will have a huge amount of sympathy with what she is saying. I was a livestock farmer before being distracted by politics. Although I would not phrase it in the same aggressive, political way that seems to be part of this debate, this is a serious point that the Government should take on board. We should try to persuade the unions to help, wherever possible, as they are doing in Wales.
Helen Goodman
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
Let me just tell hon. Members what the farmers are saying about the Rural Payments Agency online system. They want clarity about the definition of “active farmer”, about whether the scheme refers to net or gross income and whether it should include the single payment scheme. Since more than 200 farmers in my constituency rely on the SPS, they need to understand what the rules and mechanisms are. I asked for clarification on those points more than a month ago, but we have not received it. I am disappointed that the Minister has not responded to my second letter.
Let me now return to the fact that the tenant farmers are grazing their livestock on common land, which is unusual in the European context, because there are not many parts of Europe with commons on the English pattern, but the European legislation does not really take that into account. I urge the Minister to sort out the issue of definitions of “naturally kept land” and commons grazing.
The farmers are worried that, if the system does not get sorted out, DEFRA does not have a plan B, although it really needs one. It cannot continue to put the farmers under such pressure.
This is the worst kind of government. Far from being a supportive, helpful public service, the farmers experience it as oppressive, bureaucratic, arrogant and insensitive. Furthermore, as is obvious from the amount of time and energy that has to be spent on this problem, it is quite clear that the systems are ineffective and counterproductive.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this important debate. There has been agreement throughout the House, among all parties, that those of us who represent rural areas, and those who love those areas, want those farming in some of the toughest environments in our country to get the support that we would aspire to provide. I will come back to some of the specific points that she made, but I should like to frame the debate a little bit and talk about the common agricultural policy reform and current progress on the new programme.
Last week, we submitted to the European Commission the programme document for our 2014-2020 rural development programme for England. That sets out our proposals for providing £3.5 billion of funding over the next six years to farming, wildlife, rural businesses and the wider economy in England. Overall, across the whole CAP programme, we are looking to provide more than £15 billion of support in these areas.
Developing the programme over the last couple of years has been a massive undertaking. At each step, we have consulted our stakeholders and taken account of their views. I have seen farmers taking part in local consultations in my part of the world. I look forward to their continued support as we move to implementation and delivery from 2015. There is still a lot of work to be done. We are now liaising with the European Commission on the programme document to secure Commission approval by the end of October.
A significant change in the CAP for upland farmers is our decision to uplift payments under pillar one. That means that we will almost double the direct payment rate in the moorland from 2015—I hope that the hon. Lady welcomes that; I am sure that her upland farmers will—and equalise the direct payment rates in the severely disadvantaged area and the lowland. Taken together, these changes will distribute direct payments more equitably across English farms. They will also ensure that upland farmers on large areas of moorland are not put at a disadvantage in comparison with other upland farmers. The changes should give all upland farmers greater security.
I hope that the hon. Lady found that bit of background about reform helpful. I also hope that she will welcome the significant funding that we will provide under the CAP, particularly when viewed against the severe budgetary constraints that are in place. However, I agree with her that access to 21st century communication is one of the most important challenges of our time. I know that she takes a wider interest in this issue, in urban and rural contexts across the country. That is an absolute top priority for the Government and supports our long-term economic plan. I cannot accept her criticism that this Government will fail in that regard. We will move on a lot more rapidly than the previous Government did and we will do a great deal to broaden access to that vital telecommunications infrastructure. Telecommunications is a key part of that long-term economic plan and, because of that, rolling out broadband to rural communities is a top priority for the Government. That has the potential to be transformative. There are already areas where that has happened.
Clearly, such provision is important for hill farmers, as the hon. Lady mentioned, due to their remoteness and the associated difficulties they face in accessing services. That is why the Government are investing heavily in the roll-out of broadband across the country. We are making good progress under the £530 million roll-out programme.
More than 20,000 homes and businesses a week are currently gaining access, and that will rise to 40,000 a week over the summer. Projections suggest that we will reach 90% superfast coverage in early 2016. By the end of the current programme, virtually all homes and businesses will have access to standard broadband at a minimum of 2 megabits per second. An additional £250 million will extend superfast broadband coverage to 95% of the UK by 2017. We are exploring how to reach the final hard-to-reach areas with superfast broadband—the areas that she is talking about and the areas that I represent, some of the upland and more remote parts of Cornwall. Pilot projects testing how that might be achieved are due to be announced shortly.
Having 21st century telecommunications networks also means having high-quality and fast mobile connectivity, including in more remote rural areas. Improving mobile phone connectivity is therefore another top priority for the Government. We are investing up to £150 million through Broadband Delivery UK’s mobile infrastructure project to build new masts for areas where there is no coverage for voice calls or text messages. Those will be used by the key mobile network operators, who are working together as never before to find ways to extend coverage to remote areas. Once built, most of the new sites will also have the capability to provide 3G and 4G coverage.
For example, I have seen the introduction of a project in Cumbria, where a rural area that does not have superfast broadband now gets 4G coverage from one of the networks. That is making a huge difference to businesses and people who live in that area. That is being done on a commercial basis by the company, which I very much welcome. The first new mobile infrastructure project site went live in Weaverthorpe in north Yorkshire in September 2013. That site is now providing coverage to 200 homes and businesses that did not have the mobile signal before.
Helen Goodman
I have heard all that a thousand times from his colleague in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I probably know that better than the Minister does and the record is not that great. What I am interested in is DEFRA’s performance on this matter, given that the roll-out is in progress.
Dan Rogerson
I wanted to come on to the concept of digital by default, which the hon. Lady raised, and how DEFRA uses technology to interact with all the people who rely on the support we give. The common agricultural policy information service is one of 25 Government Digital Service exemplar projects that are leading the Government’s digital transformation agenda, which aims to deliver efficiencies within the public sector and savings for taxpayers. That is crucial to us, but no matter how fast we are able to move to deliver broadband and mobile access across the country, there may be problems for some farmers, as she pointed out, who have either no or slow broadband. We recognise that that could have implications for submitting applications and forms online from 2015 under a single, digital, easy-to-use application and payment system as part of the CAP reform. That is why, in the early days of the new service, we will look to provide support to those customers who need more time to adapt. We will also ensure that our digital uptake campaign makes it clear to customers how to find paper-based guidance. Online guidance will be available in printable formats and will of course be the most up-to-date version.
The hon. Lady mentioned some of the problems being experienced by hill farmers in her part of the country. I believe that she has been looking at the current online system and the problems that happened with that. Those have been addressed. We are now looking at how to take forward digital by default under the new system. Offline assistance will always be there for those who need it. It could be in various forms, including through intermediaries, by telephone or face-to-face help through digital support centres across the country. If she can give me, subsequent to this debate, more information on how many days the service that the charity was dealing with was failing, that is something I can report back on. A huge amount of effort has been put into getting this right and improving the service for customers.
The hon. Lady and I were both elected in 2005. She will remember the chaos around the implementation of the single farm payment at the time. We have moved on hugely since then. Even she, who is seeking to find as many ways as she can to criticise the Government, would recognise that the system under the Rural Payments Agency is much, much better than it was at the time of the transfer under her Government. Some of that improvement happened under her Government, but considerably more has happened under ours. I very much welcome how colleagues in the RPA are delivering a much improved service.
A large number of organisations provide digital skills training across the country, and I know that the hon. Lady is interested in that. Local libraries and advice centres will be able to help users to find details. We are also working closely with the charity Go ON UK to map providers that can help users to access a computer and get online in their area. That is being rolled out regionally. She mentioned the number of numbers involved in day-to-day farming. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) pointed out, that is the history of the system that we work within. The Government are making huge efforts to minimise the number. We will operate within the boundaries of the directives that we have, and some will add layers of complexity. The important thing is that we are moving to one PIN being needed for the new common agricultural policy system—the identity assurance. That will be a big step forward, and I can send her further information on that.
Helen Goodman
DEFRA provides no digital support. It does not give a grant to Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services. The Government’s total spend on digital inclusion, via the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is £3 million. The Minister needs to be realistic. Moreover, Durham county council has had 60% cuts. When he says one PIN, does he mean per farmer, one for each animal, or one for each field? What does he mean?
Dan Rogerson
There is a difference between PINs, which one must enter to get into the system, and reference numbers, which can be written down and are less of an issue for security. Those reference numbers will in different circumstances be needed for different aspects. We all have these numbers in our daily lives. In terms of accessing the system, we are moving to one PIN. I am happy to talk or write to the hon. Lady about that.
The hon. Lady raised the important issue of consultation. She painted a picture of farmers in upland areas who are very busy, dealing with tough weather conditions and farming on low incomes at the very margins of what is possible. She said that we are moving ahead without talking to them. That is very much not what we have done. We have made the changes on payments that I set out earlier to split the money more equitably across the country, to support upland farmers and to recognise the great job that they do, and all the landscape and other benefits that they offer society in providing access and in producing food of which we can all be proud.
The rural and farming network was created in January 2011 and consists of 17 self-determined local groups representing rural communities, business and farming interests across England. Its purpose is to enable two-way communication between DEFRA Ministers and rural businesses and communities. The RFN helps to underpin Ministers’ roles as rural champions within Government, ensuring that the dialogue between national and local decision takers is more joined up. Ministers agreed to meet with all RFN chairs twice a year. The last RFN chairs meeting took place in January, and three DEFRA Ministers attended: Lord de Mauley, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) and me.
There is also the upland stakeholder forum, which is chaired at senior level in DEFRA and has senior members drawn from a range of upland interests, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Moorland Association and the Foundation for Common Land. The hon. Lady rightly pointed out that the way in which farming happened in this country might be different from the way it happened in some other parts of the European Union. The forum considers many strategic and cross-cutting issues that impact on hill farmers.
Equally important is that we keep customers up to date and well informed on changes and how they are likely to be affected. Indeed, DEFRA, working with the RPA, Natural England, the Forestry Commission and the rural development network, is determined to implement the CAP in a way that is as simple, affordable and effective as possible and to not repeat the problems we had in 2005. We want to ensure that the countdown to the new CAP is as smooth as possible for our customers and we have published a “Countdown to CAP” timeline. At each stage, information will be made available to help people to understand how the new CAP will affect them, what they need to do and by when. The new CAP reform countdown symbol on the cover of the information is being used to flag up important information about CAP reform. Farmers, including those on the hills, and land managers will see that symbol on web pages and other documents in coming months. The gov.uk website provides a single point of access to information on the CAP and we are looking to further develop those pages in the light of feedback from users.
In April, we published, “An introduction to the new Common Agricultural Policy schemes in England”, which provides an overview of what the new schemes will mean for customers. Information has also been provided about the greening rules, including an overview of permanent grassland, crop diversification, ecological focus areas, definitions, exemptions and crop lists, so that farmers can start to get seed in the ground. That is the sort of detail to which the hon. Lady referred. Although that is of less relevance in some respects to hill farmers, because they are not generally farming arable land, it is an important step forward that has been welcomed by the National Farmers Union.
In conclusion, we will be providing more than £15 billion of funding to farming, wildlife, rural businesses and the wider economy in England. We are moving forward rapidly on broadband and mobile access, and we are taking steps to ensure that we offer alternative support for those who cannot immediately benefit from our single and more efficient IT service.
Business Loans Appeals System
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, although it is probably a pleasure that neither of us would have expected in an earlier existence. It is good to be here, and it is good that the Minister is also here. I hope that he gets his breath back and will be ready to listen.
This subject has come up at an appropriate time, because Professor Russel Griggs’s third annual report on the performance of the banks’ appeals system for businesses refused finance by them was published yesterday. It is also only three weeks since the British Chambers of Commerce commissioned its Business Banking Insight website, which provides bank customer feedback and gives a clear picture of the performance of some 74 banks, as set out and decided by some 5,000 businesses across the country. Plenty is going on, and I will certainly acknowledge the Government’s good work. However, I am driven to bring the matter back to the House, having first done so some 15 months ago, by the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises in Hazel Grove. The Government have done a lot, but there is more to do. I will set out why that is and some things that should be done.
The most obvious problem is the huge gap between what the banks tell the Government and Members of Parliament about what they are doing and about their performance on the one hand, and what they tell small and medium-sized enterprises when they knock on the door and say, “Please can we have some help” on the other. Every Member of Parliament—it is certainly true for me—is approached by small and medium-sized enterprises in their constituency who say that they have been treated badly by the banks and do not believe that they are in a friendly environment.
The figures for the number of small enterprises are astonishing. There are 4.8 million companies with fewer than 50 employees, employing 11 million people, so they form a significant part of the industrial and commercial ecology of this country. There are another 30,000 SMEs with between 50 and 250 employees that employ 3 million staff, so there are many enterprises out there.
I received a letter in January from HSBC, one of the principal banks, that stated:
“SME demand for finance is low…. In Q3 2013, 78% of SMEs were ‘happy non-seekers of finance’. These businesses have neither sought loan or overdraft facilities in the 12 months prior to interview, nor felt that anything had stopped them from applying for credit.”
That quote was in the context of HSBC saying that everything was fine, as banks often do. I took a ruler to that: 78% were happy, which means that 12% were not happy, and 12% of the total number of SMEs is 585,000 companies. According to the survey quoted by HSBC, therefore, 585,000 companies were discontented. If that was evenly distributed, it would be 900 enterprises per constituency across the whole country. I want to put that in the context of the briefing sent to me by the British Chambers of Commerce when it heard that I was speaking today. On accessing finance, the BCC said:
“In 2013, 60% of first-time applicants ended the process with no facility in 2013, compared to 51% of applicants in 2012”.
In other words, the number of first-time SME applicants getting banking facilities had dropped, with the refusal rate increasing from 51% in 2012 to 60% in 2013.
As a consequence of all this and of my previous discussions, I wrote to the big five banks at the beginning of this year, asking them, “How much has your bank loaned out to SMEs in the last three years? How much was repaid by SMEs to your bank? What proportion of all loan applications for SMEs that you received was approved, and what proportion was refused? Of those who were refused applications, how many appealed? How many of those appeals were successful?” I did that because I was less and less happy that the bank review process overseen by Professor Griggs was really giving us the kind of information that would be useful in deciding whether the system was working.
I should perhaps say that the system is internal to each bank, but it is closely supervised and monitored by Professor Griggs and his team. Each year, he produces a report, the third of which was produced yesterday, and I am happy to have had a conversation with Professor Griggs yesterday, in which we discussed some of the report’s findings. He has published how many appeals were made to banks and how many were successful. The figures are used quite widely, including by the Government, to illustrate that the system works. Just over 11 months ago, I received a letter from the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), in which he said:
“Results out recently showed that for the second year running, 40% of decisions to refuse lending were overturned on appeal. This shows that the process works.”
If 40% of appeals were overturned in another system, it would seem that something was wrong with the first round of decision making. I discussed that with Professor Griggs and his report comments on it quite extensively. It is worth noting that that figure has been reduced to 31.7% in the latest report, so the overturn rate is lower and the number of appellants is higher, which has to be good news. However, that does not provide a good indication of anything at all when one thinks about it.
The responses that I received from the banks were somewhat disappointing. I will deal only with the response from what I will call bank A. Bank A told me that in 2013 it received 265,000 loan applications, of which it granted 80%, resulting in loans of £2.7 billion. That sounds pretty impressive, but the 20% equates to 50,000 refused loan applications. Of the 50,000 refused, 2% decided to appeal, which is just over 1,000. Bank A gave me a precise figure of 1,063. It tells me that 11% of the appeals were overturned, meaning that 117 appellants had success.
In his report, Professor Griggs says that last year he paid particular attention to the people who did not appeal, but who were refused, to see whether any of them could or should have appealed, and if they had, whether they would have been successful. I must say that he did that in a thorough way. He sampled the different banks, and he reports that between 2% and 5% of the refusals where there was no appeal could have had a case for being reconsidered. He does not say that they would have been successful, but that they could have had an opportunity, had they appealed.
I do not know whether bank A has a 2% rate or a 5% rate, but a 2% rate would mean that 10,000 SMEs were refused, but did not appeal, and yet had a chance, Professor Russel Griggs believes, of having their decision overturned if they had appealed. If the rate was 5% in that particular bank’s case—we do not know which bank has which figure attached to it—then 25,000 applicants were potentially in that position. Quite a large number of companies are not being drawn into the appeals system, but should at least have considered an appeal, according to Professor Griggs’s study of their cases. The appeals system is therefore delivering fairly well, but as the figures from bank A show, appeals are not yet running at a level that can give us real confidence that that system is doing its job fully.
The British Chambers of Commerce refers to many businesses being discouraged from applying in the first place. I certainly have a case in point in my constituency—a company that came to me in the most recent quarter to say that it needed some short-term bridging finance from its bank. The company applied and was refused, but decided not to appeal simply because the appeal would have taken so long that the short-term bridging finance would have been irrelevant to its circumstances. The company made do with other arrangements. The BCC also made the point about there being no effective transparency or open competition between the banks on business by SMEs. The five banks that I wrote to cover 90% of all business accounts and lending in this country. There is a widespread call for the Government’s new business bank to be more active and, in particular, to be in direct contact with businesses, rather than using the banks as its proxy.
The Minister might say that all that can be explained away if the banks were in fact lending more to businesses, weeding out the bad guys—the defaulters and the no-hopers—and giving money to everyone who might possibly deserve it. In fact, however, lending by banks to small business has gone down in each year; in the two years since the Government’s funding for lending scheme was introduced—in which time the Government have provided £41.9 billion to the banks to lend to businesses—the amount of outstanding loans to businesses has gone down, not up, by £25.9 billion. In other words, the banks have fattened themselves up to the tune of £67.7 billion. SMEs around the country are not accessing the appeals system as much as they could—and, in Professor Griggs’s view, should, because it would benefit them.
Please will the Minister promote greater transparency of data? I should not have to say “bank A”, “bank B” or “bank C” to the House; we should know the performance of each bank. If there is to be open competition that is meaningful for small businesses seeking finance, we certainly need such transparency. I had the information provided by bank A, and I got some information from bank B, but the other three banks simply said, “We conform with the process established by Professor Griggs.” In other words, they were not prepared to tell me whether they were 40%, 11% or 20%. They had no information that they were prepared to disclose about how good their systems, including their appeals system, were.
I want the Minister to say that he wants to work with the British Bankers Association and with the banks—I had in mind the word “push”, rather than “work with”—to get more of those who are refused applications into the appeals system. Some money is being spent, and there is a campaign, but it still strikes me as odd that a refusal letter is not automatically required to have information about the appeals system set out at the bottom of it. Some banks do that, but not all.
I also want the Minister to respond to what the British Chambers of Commerce is saying about the British business bank. The BCC has welcomed the £1 billion that the Government have put into the bank, as I do, but the BCC is also saying that it needs to be bigger—the bank needs to be sufficiently big to lever in external finance. It also needs to be organised in such a way that businesses can approach it directly, rather than having to go cap in hand to the banks, with their miserable performance. The banks are of course taking all the credit for the loans that they give and, on the whole, are not saying, “We’re giving you this money because of the Government’s finance for lending programme”, yet they are sheltering behind that programme to fatten themselves up to the tune of £67 billion and counting.
I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that. I hope that he and I can work together to loosen the grip of the banks on the Government’s money, in order to ensure that small businesses in my constituency become the beneficiaries.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, I think for the first time. I am grateful for the opportunity to reply to the debate of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) and to answer his questions about bank finance.
The context is of course that the economy is recovering from the biggest financial crisis in generations and, while bank finance is important—most of my response will be on bank finance and the specific points made—sometimes too much focus in the UK is put on it, as opposed to other sources of finance. As we recover from the financial crash, the use of new technology to allow peer-to-peer lending, the growth of crowdsourced finance, the increased private placements market and the development of challenger banks increasingly offer a positive and long-term solution to some of the problems that my right hon. Friend outlined. Alongside the strategy for deficit reduction, of course, turning around the banks is a mission-critical part of the economic recovery, to ensure that small businesses can obtain the finance necessary for investment and growth.
The business lending appeals process is an important part of the answer. In 2011, the banks agreed to give businesses with a turnover of less than £25 million the right to appeal if turned down for credit. As my right hon. Friend said, appeals are to the same bank, but they have to be handled fairly, promptly and transparently—I will come on to that point in more detail later—and the whole process is subject to external audit by Russel Griggs. I want to pay tribute to his work over three annual reports, with the latest one published recently. It is important that that process takes place internally to the banks, because an external appeals process would leave an external decision-maker de facto in charge of a bank’s decision-making. People may ask questions about whether that is a good thing when bank loans are good, but when loans are bad, the question of who takes the hit would be a real one.
The report from Russel Griggs shows an improving picture. Over the past year, there have been more than 3,500 appeals and in 32% of cases the original decision has been overturned. It shows that the process is robust, but, as my right hon. Friend says, that means that since 2011 more than 9,000 small businesses have appealed a bank’s decision and, of those cases, 36% on average have been overturned, so nearly £42 million in additional lending to small businesses has occurred that would not have occurred otherwise.
Equally important has been the increased attention that the appeals process has given to lending processes and improving dialogue between banks and their business customers. The decline in the overturn rate is an indicator that things are moving in the right direction.
As my right hon. Friend said, there is a concern that some businesses do not or might not appeal when they could have secured finance if they had decided to do so. The fact that only between 2% and 5% of declined borrowers would have succeeded in obtaining finance if they had chosen to use the appeals process suggests that that is not a significant problem. It affects some borrowers, but those figures are relatively low.
Sir Andrew Stunell
I appreciate that 2% does not sound very large, but in the case of bank A, which I quoted, it would double the number of people who came into the appeals system and more than double the number of people who would have succeeded.
Matthew Hancock
If 2% of the total proportion of those applying for finance are in a position where they could have succeeded had they chosen to appeal, that will be relatively small in terms of the process’s macro impact. Of course the situation has an impact on the companies affected, but out of the 100% applying for finance only between 2% and 5% chose not to appeal but would have been able to obtain finance had they done so. There may be other reasons for their choosing not to appeal that we do not know of.
Awareness of the appeals process among the small business population at large is still too low. The latest SME Finance Monitor figures, for the first quarter of this year, show that awareness is at only 12%, a decline of 2% on the previous quarter’s results. There has been discussion about whether the right population to measure is the small business population that is actively seeking finance or a broader set of businesses that may not be seeking finance because they suspect that they will be turned down. Clearly we need to make inroads into the broader small business community. The banks have started to take steps to raise awareness of the appeals process, and launched an industry-wide campaign in January. But those efforts need to be sustained and picked up by individual banks.
Introducing a lending appeals process and raising awareness of it is just one part of our broader efforts to improve access to finance for small businesses. Recently we published research showing that 37% of businesses appear to give up their search for finance and cancel their spending plans after their first rejection, without looking elsewhere—a problem that my right hon. Friend mentioned. That figure of 37% is far too high for us to be comfortable with it, so we have recently launched a consultation on whether to mandate banks to refer businesses that are declined finance to alternative providers. That would be good for the businesses concerned, which would be able to explore a wider range of alternative financing options, and good for the development of a more diverse sector with challenger banks and a competitive market for business finance, as well as augmenting the current appeals process. The consultation closed at the end of April and the Government will respond shortly. Although I cannot possibly prejudge that consultation, my right hon. Friend may have noticed my enthusiastic tone.
The Government are also committed to legislating through the small business, enterprise and employment Bill that was announced in the Queen’s Speech to require banks to share credit data on their small and medium sized business customers with other lenders through credit reference agencies, a measure that I think will have a big impact. Again, it is designed to help challenger banks and alternative providers by helping them to conduct accurate risk assessments on borrowers, so making the market for access to finance more competitive.
Another measure to improve the situation, announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 28 May, is the decision to commission a survey of banks to measure how more than 5,000 businesses rate their banks against factors such as value, appetite for lending and how well they keep their customers informed. The survey is being taken forward by the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce. The first results were published in May, and the survey will be repeated every six months. The idea is to develop a tool that over time will help businesses choose the best lender for them, based on the opinions of their peers. It is similar to a ratings system that small business borrowers can use to rate their bank.
A further area allied to the problem of access to finance is late payment, which continues to have a serious effect on the cash flow of some small businesses. Professor Griggs’s report yesterday pointed to 48% of declined loans over £25,000 being declined on grounds of affordability. Late payment squeezes cash flow and has a direct effect on the ability to repay loans. Through measures in the small business Bill, we will require large businesses to report on their payment practices and performance. We consulted broadly on the options for those measures, which will give small businesses the opportunity to judge better which companies they should trade with and to plan for external finance.
We will also introduce legislation that will override contractual bans on the assignment of receivables. That sounds rather technical, but it will allow companies to make effective use of their trade debt as an asset in access to external finance. If a company is engaged in international trade, that will give it more assets that it can use to access finance.
Finally, the British business bank has been established to make finance markets work better for smaller businesses. One of its key objectives is to help create a more diverse market for small business finance, with greater choice. That is reflected in its combined investment programme, which has a current portfolio of 10 commitments to nine finance providers totalling £172 million. It will support lending capacity of over £800 million through leveraging in other finance. That will support a whole range of alternative finance providers. Those include direct lending funds, peer-to-peer lenders, to make sure they can get up to scale, and supply chain finance providers.
To date, over £280 million of lending to smaller businesses has been supported as a result. We hope that the bank will also help to accelerate the development of competitors and alternative providers in this space. There is clearly further to go on that, and the British business bank is working hard to seek options to continue to expand competition in this market.
In conclusion, overall credit conditions are starting to ease. Gross lending to small businesses is ticking up, but repayments by small businesses are also increasing. There was £12 billion of new lending in the last quarter, up 18% on the same period a year before. New financial technologies such as crowdsourcing, the support of the business bank and Government policy changes mean that the position is more encouraging than it has been for some time, but I have no doubt that vigilance is required. We stand ready to take action as necessary to make sure that small businesses get appropriate access to finance. That is necessary to ensure that we can continue to finance the recovery, so that small businesses can create prosperity and jobs and ultimately work to strengthen the financial security of families around the country, which of course is central to the successful pursuit of our long-term economic plan.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Hillsborough Wikipedia Edits
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
As the House is aware, the LiverpoolEcho reported on 25 April 2014 that extremely unpleasant amendments to the Hillsborough and Anfield Wikipedia pages, in 2009 and 2012 respectively, had been made from Government computers. Further unacceptable edits to various other Wikipedia pages were subsequently discovered.
The Government have treated this matter with the utmost seriousness. Our position from the very start has been that the amendments made to Wikipedia are sickening. The behaviour is in complete contravention of the civil service code, and every canon of civilised conduct. It is entirely unacceptable.
On 25 April we launched immediate enquiries. Our first priority was to establish the facts and to examine the issues raised. This investigation was led by the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, Richard Heaton, who is responsible for the Government computer network. He worked closely with the director-general for propriety and ethics and her team, as well as other senior officials. He was also advised by Mr Denis Edgar-Neville, Chair of the British Computer Society Cybercrime Forensics Specialist Group and head of the Centre for Cybercrime Forensics at Canterbury Christ Church university. From the outset we consulted and involved the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham).
Mr Oliver Duggan, the journalist who wrote the story of 25 April for the LiverpoolEcho, passed the Cabinet Office information which he believed could identify who was responsible for some of the edits in question. That information has proved extremely helpful, and provided a significant investigative lead. I would like to thank him for this and for co-operating with my Department over the past weeks.
Extensive further inquiries were taken forward as a civil service disciplinary matter, involving potential breaches of the civil service code and of individual Departments’ policies on acceptable behaviour. An individual was then subject to a formal disciplinary investigation and dismissed for gross misconduct, on the grounds of responsibility for the 2012 edits. The individual in question was a young, junior administrative officer. It is a long-standing established practice that in such cases an individual’s name will not be made public.
There are substantial technical obstacles to investigating the other edits. The deletion of internet data logs in the ordinary course of business means that tracing historic edits to a particular Department, building or individual has proved extremely difficult. In the absence of other specific leads, and despite a great deal of forensic and other work, it has not been possible to identify the originators of the 2009 edit or any of the others in question.
Subject to further information or leads coming to light, the investigation into the edits is therefore concluded.
These incidents have given rise to questions about the Government secure intranet, about the way in which the internet is accessed from Government and its use recorded, and about social media policies in Departments. We will continue to encourage and enable civil servants to use the internet and social media, as essential tools enabling them to work openly and to be connected to the society they serve. But the misuse of social media is unacceptable and carries consequences. We will be reminding all civil servants of their responsibilities and updating social media guidance.
Throughout this work, Richard Heaton has been in contact with the right hon. Member for Leigh, the right Rev James Jones (the former Bishop of Liverpool), and with lawyers for the bereaved families. Richard Heaton and I have also met the members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Hillsborough disaster. I am extremely grateful to all of those people for their advice.
I would like to thank the families themselves for their patience during the weeks it has taken to bring this matter to a conclusion. I was deeply distressed that, at a time when the hearings of the Hillsborough inquests were unfolding, the civil service was brought into disrepute by these edits. No one should be in any doubt of the Government’s position regarding the Hillsborough disaster and their support for the families of the 96 victims and all those affected by the tragedy.
Prudential Regulation Authority (Annual Report)
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
The annual report and accounts 2013-14 of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has today been laid before Parliament.
The report forms an important part of the accountability mechanisms for the Prudential Regulation Authority under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and assesses the performance of the Prudential Regulation Authority over the past 12 months against its statutory objectives.
Telecommunications Council
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
The Telecommunications Council took place in Luxembourg on 6 June 2014; I represented the UK.
The first item was a progress report from the presidency on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning measures to ensure a high level of network and information security across the Union. (First Reading—EM6342/13). The Greek presidency opened this item by introducing its report on this dossier. They noted general support for a compromise agreement on this dossier and that Council agreed regarding an “improved” role for ENISA. A debate followed that centred on the issue of “operational co-operation”.
Poland began the debate by making a call for legislation that mandates the exchange of information between member states. Poland’s suggestion received support from Lithuania, Denmark, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Luxembourg.
UK rejected this approach—stressing that the position adopted by the presidency was at the absolute limit of what they could accept—and was supported in this by France, Germany, Spain, Romania, Finland, Cyprus, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, with many stressing that trust could not be built by legislation.
Italy—as the incoming presidency—promised to build on the progress made by the outgoing presidency.
The Greek presidency then noted that its report already represented a compromise of the various member state positions and concluded that this position was the way forward for future work on this dossier.
The second item was a progress report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down measures concerning the European single market for electronic communications and to achieve a connected continent. (First Reading—EM13562/13 and 13555/13 + ADDs 1-2). This item began with the Greek presidency noting a series of concerns expressed by member states, but there had been some progress regarding discussions. The presidency noted the conclusion of its report, in that a potential way forward was for member states to reach agreement on those parts of the package where agreement had begun to coalesce. Commissioner Kroes’ intervention indicated a view that Council should adopt a common position in July. She also stated that most member states wished to see an end to mobile roaming charges and supported intervention on net neutrality. She also recognised Council’s concerns regarding the Commission’s spectrum proposals and again asserted that they did not represent a transfer of competency. There was no formal debate and a single intervention from Estonia supporting the progress report’s conclusions. I did not intervene.
These items were be followed by a presentation by the Commission on the latest iteration of the digital agenda scoreboard. There were no major interventions on this item.
This was followed by three items under AOB, all updates from the presidency on: the proposal for a regulation from the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market. (First Reading—EM10977/12); a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures to reduce the costs of deploying high-speed electronic communication networks. (First Reading—EM7999/13); and a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the accessibility to public sector bodies’ websites (First Reading—EM16006/11). There were no major interventions on any of these items.
Finally, the Italian delegation informed the Council of its priorities for its forthcoming presidency before Council adjourned until the next meeting in November 2014.
UK/Iran Relations
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
In February, I updated the House on progress in our bilateral relationship with Iran, following the appointment of non-resident chargé d’affaires in November 2013, Official Report, 24 February 2014, column 26. I said then that our decision to end formal protecting power arrangements was a sign of our increasing confidence in conducting bilateral business directly rather than through our Swedish and Omani intermediaries.
Over the past four months, we have continued to expand our bilateral engagement. British and Iranian officials have paid regular visits to one another’s capitals. This has enabled us to make a range of practical improvements to the functioning of our respective embassies. And it has allowed us to discuss a broad range of issues, including areas where we and Iran have sharply differing views.
Our two primary concerns when considering whether to reopen our embassy in Tehran have been assurance that our staff would be safe and secure, and confidence that they would be able to carry out their functions without hindrance. There has never been any doubt in my mind that we should have an embassy in Tehran if the circumstances allowed. Iran is an important country in a volatile region, and maintaining embassies around the world, even under difficult conditions, is a central pillar of the UK’s global diplomatic approach. On Saturday evening I telephoned Foreign Minister Zarif to discuss the progress we have made to date and our common interest in continuing to move forward in the UK-Iran bilateral relationship.
I have therefore now decided the circumstances are right to reopen our embassy in Tehran. There are a range of practical issues that we will need to resolve first. However it is our intention to reopen the embassy in Tehran with a small initial presence as soon as these practical arrangements have been made. I expect the Iranian Government will similarly choose to take steps to reopen their embassy in London.
Inevitably, the initial embassy presence will only able to offer a limited range of services at first. For the time being, Iranians will still need to apply in Abu Dhabi or Istanbul for visas for travel to the UK. But encouraging people to people contact is an important priority and something that I hope we will be able to make progress on as the embassy grows in size and capability over the following months.
Employment, Health and Consumer Affairs Council
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council will meet on 20 June in Luxembourg. The Health and Consumer Affairs part of the Council will be in the morning of 20 June.
The main agenda items will be the following:
Medical devices directive—The presidency plans a ministerial discussion on medical devices.
Council conclusions—The Council will adopt the two sets of Council conclusions on nutrition and physical activity, and on the economic crisis and health care. Departmental officials have been involved in negotiations on these texts, which are in line with UK priorities.
The Commission will present their work to improve the medical devices regulatory system before the new EU legislation is in place, and the joint vaccine procurement agreement.
The Italian delegation will also give information on the priorities for their forthcoming presidency, which will run from July until December 2014.