Port Agents: Medical Duty of Care

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. For transparency, I make the House aware that I have declared a relevant interest with the Table Office.

On 13 February this year, Gordon Hoyland Spencer passed away at the Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds. He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and also my much cherished father-in-law. This did not need to happen.

Gordon Spencer was a hard-working entrepreneur who, with his wife Jackie and family, built a large and successful enterprise. Gordon and his wife Jackie started life in the back streets of Leeds, working on the shop floor in the industrial and textile mills. However, both of them had an indomitable entrepreneurial spirit and, coupled with a hard-working ethic, this led to them building two large and successful businesses in facilities management and property. Their facilities management company started out as a window-cleaning round that Gordon bought to earn some extra income in order to buy a carpet for their cottage some 60 years ago. Their son, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandson all work in the business, making the companies a truly family enterprise. Combined, these companies today now employ over 11,000 people in the UK and it is one of the largest privately-owned facilities management companies in the country—a true facilitator of the northern powerhouse.

Gordon was also instrumental, as part of a group of Leeds-based landlords, in contributing to the Housing Act 1988, which brought in protection for both landlords and tenants through the shorthold tenancy agreement. He wanted to ensure not only that landlords would be able to receive the rent that they were owed but that tenants had protection from unscrupulous landlords.

Gordon and Jackie were married for 62 years—something quite unheard of these days. They have three children and two very adored grandchildren. Gordon was very much a family-oriented man and loved nothing more than spending time with his family. He was a devoted dad, husband and grandfather. In their retirement, Gordon and Jackie enjoyed travelling and had undertaken several world cruises, but two destinations had always eluded them: the cherry blossoms in Japan for Jackie and the Taj Mahal in India for Gordon. On 5 January this year, Gordon and Jackie set sail on a four-month world cruise with Cruise & Maritime Voyages that would take them to these last two bucket-list destinations.

Shortly after the cruise started, Gordon became unwell with a chest infection and cough. Jackie took Gordon to see the ship’s doctor, who diagnosed double pneumonia and high blood pressure and started treatment with antibiotics. Through an ECG, it was diagnosed that Gordon had a left bundle branch block, which causes an irregularity in the heartbeat but is not considered pre-emptive to a heart attack. The doctor also performed troponin tests and categorically confirmed that Gordon had not had a heart attack. Troponin is an enzyme that the heart emits. A higher level of troponin is the indication of myocardial infarction, or a heart attack. Despite the high blood pressure and the left bundle branch block, because Gordon’s troponin tests were negative, there was not sufficient evidence to suggest that Gordon had had a heart attack or was at risk of having a heart attack. This is a very significant point, in relation to the actions that happened next when Gordon and Jackie were disembarked in Barbados and where they consequently were sent for medical treatment.

Bridgetown is the capital of Barbados and is home to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is the island’s primary acute medical care facility and provides extensive care in a wide array of medical specialties. A report in 2013 entitled “Caring for Non-residents in Barbados” by the Medical Tourism Research Group outlined the medical arrangements in Barbados. It states:

“Within the Caribbean, Barbados is regarded as a favoured destination for regional patients, particularly for those from smaller islands lacking advanced diagnostic and treatment facilities and the capacity to offer to treat high-risk patients…BFC, the Sparman Clinic, Island Dialysis, and Bayview Hospital all attract private regional patients; however, according to our interviewees, the public Queen Elizabeth Hospital is the primary health care destination for regional patients.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital serves as the main referral hospital for the entire Eastern Caribbean…Consultants at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital…have the ability to admit private patients such as ill vacationers not covered by the island’s public system”.

On Friday 18 January, with a major hospital available just two miles from the port for an 86-year-old man with double pneumonia—who, according to the ship’s doctor, was improving at the point of medical disembarkation—the port agent in Bridgetown decided to send Gordon to the privately run Sparman clinic, some three miles from the port. The clinic is owned and operated by Dr Alfred Sparman, and is advertised as a heart specialist clinic. The ship’s doctor’s notes and lab results, which clearly stated that Gordon had not had a heart attack, were given to the Sparman clinic on Gordon’s arrival. However, the medical notes made by Dr Sparman afterwards state that Gordon was admitted to the clinic with double pneumonia and having had a heart attack, which was not the case.

On arrival at the clinic, Jackie was asked to pay US$10,000 before the clinic would admit or treat Gordon. Jackie maxed out her credit cards to pay the up-front costs, which left her without funds to find accommodation while in Barbados. On Monday 21 January—I emphasise that I am speaking about this year—Gordon’s children arrived in Barbados to assist their parents. At that point, Gordon was on a nasal cannula and an antibiotic drip, but had received no further treatment during the three days since being admitted to the clinic. He appeared to be weak and short of breath, but was able to sit up in bed, was eating, and was fully coherent.

Jackie had been sleeping on the couch in the observation room, because she did not have the funds to procure other accommodation. The Sparman clinic is actually a doctor’s surgery with a waiting area, one small operating theatre where most cardiovascular surgeries are performed, and an observation room which doubles as a patient bedroom and intensive care unit and contains mostly wooden and soft furniture.

Dr Sparman met the family to discuss Gordon’s prognosis in the clinic’s conference room, which contained a cracked board table held together with gaffer tape and several broken and cracked leather chairs. In addition, client records were strewn across the floor and piled high in boxes. I mention the dilapidated state of the entire clinic because, given that a state-of-the-art hospital was less than half a mile away in Bridgetown, it is difficult to understand how this clinic was deemed appropriate to offer any level of suitable healthcare to a critically ill patient with double pneumonia.

During the meeting, Dr Sparman advised the family that Gordon was very ill and had suffered a heart attack as a result of the strain that the pneumonia had put on his heart. He suspected that Gordon also had a blockage in one of his arteries, and therefore needed an angioplasty and an angiogram. He ended the meeting by stating that once the surgery was completed, Gordon would feel much better—better than he had felt for years —and that the family would be able to fly him home via a commercial airline by the end of the week. However, the medical report received from the clinic after Gordon was released clearly shows that at the time of the meeting with Dr Sparman, Gordon’s troponin levels, while now showing positive for the enzyme, were still well outside the parameters that would indicate that a heart attack had occurred or was likely to occur.

In the days leading up to the operation, Gordon’s condition began to deteriorate. He was in a highly agitated state. He lacked the strength to move his position in the bed, and was offered little assistance from the nurses, which led to great discomfort for him. Moreover, the air conditioning in the observation room, where Gordon was staying, was not working, which resulted in uncomfortable temperatures in a Caribbean hospital—so much so that Gordon had struggled to sleep since his arrival at the clinic, and was now exhausted. Despite several requests from the family for the unit to be mended, the clinic never repaired it. Gordon was clearly weakening. By the day of the operation he had been refusing food for more than 24 hours, had developed spasms that wracked his entire body, and had begun vomiting.

The operation finally took place six days after Gordon had arrived at the clinic. This was a man who had been able to walk, talk and eat just a few days earlier, but who was now visibly declining in front of everyone. This was due to a combination of lack of sleep because of the broken air-conditioning unit, lack of nutrition because Gordon was not placed on a protein drip until several days after he had stopped eating, considerable discomfort from his lack of strength to move position, and no aid offered and an overall general lack of proper nursing care.

Yet there were still more delays, not least when the family were then presented with a bill for $45,000 and advised that Dr Sparman would not perform the surgery without the money first. The family came up with the money and, despite Gordon’s severely weakened state, Dr Sparman proceeded with the surgery.

If Gordon had been admitted to the general hospital in the first place it is highly likely that he would have received pre-emptive treatment much earlier and would not have had to wait six days for a corrective procedure had he needed it. He most likely would have been making a full recovery, but at the Sparman Clinic there were continuous delays and a general lack of care.

According to the lab results, half an hour before the operation a troponin test was conducted. At this point, Gordon’s troponin levels had elevated to a point that showed that a heart attack was imminent. The family was not aware of this, but Dr Sparman would have been. Within half an hour of the operation commencing Dr Sparman returned to the family and said he had been unable to perform the procedure as Gordon had started going into cardiac arrest, so the operation was aborted.

After the operation Gordon began to deteriorate rapidly and within 24 hours he was under sedation and had been placed on tracheal intubation. A ventilator did the breathing for him, which was strapped to Gordon’s face using string. His blood pressure was now dangerously low, his body was still racked with spasms and he now also had kidney failure.

Gordon was initially sedated using Valium, but after he came round twice and tried to pull the tube from his mouth Dr Sparman changed the sedation to diazepam and tied Gordon’s hands to the bedframe. The diazepam worked in terms of ensuring that Gordon did not come round again and it also stopped the spasms; however, Gordon never fully regained consciousness after the drug was administered. For the remaining three days that Gordon spent at the clinic under sedation and intubated his body position was never moved once by the nursing staff and his family were not permitted to move him.

At this point, a member of staff at the clinic—who would prefer to remain anonymous—advised that Gordon should be airlifted out of the clinic as soon as possible. It was implied that he was not going to get better at the Sparman Clinic. The family immediately started to arrange a medical airlift back to the UK. At this very stressful time, the family were presented with another bill, for $11,000.

I hope I have managed to describe to the House the utter lack of care that Gordon received, and that the primary motivation appeared to be to delay the correct and proper treatment that Gordon needed in order to extract more money from the family.

The family were now working fastidiously with a medical flight team to repatriate Gordon to the UK. However, after speaking with consultants in the UK it was deemed that Gordon was too ill to endure the flight and needed to have an angioplasty and angiogram prior to repatriation, but it was also advised that in Gordon’s present condition this operation was high risk. Gordon was critically ill, and the risk factors associated with either the operation or the flight carried great life-threatening consequences.

Dr Sparman made it clear that the decision to have the surgery was entirely up to the family. I must reiterate this point: Dr Sparman placed life-threatening medical decisions in the hands of Gordon’s family, who had no medical training whatever. At a loss to know what choice to make, the family consulted the head cardiologist at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, who advised them to remove Gordon from the Sparman Clinic immediately and bring him to the hospital as soon as possible, and not to go ahead with the surgery. The family began making plans to move Gordon, but Dr Sparman advised them that he was too ill and would not make the journey and now began pressuring them to go ahead with the surgery.

In desperation, the family sought further advice from a relative in England who is a doctor. Based on the information that Sparman provided to the relative, it was advised that the surgery should go ahead. So the family had no choice but to put their faith in Dr Sparman.

At this point, the family were presented with another bill, for a total of $70,000, of which the family had already paid $56,000. The family were advised that the surgery would not go ahead without the balance being paid, so they had no choice but to once again come up with the money. It would appear that, in response to the threat to move Gordon out of the clinic, Dr Sparman was determined to now go ahead with the surgery, putting immense emotional pressure on my family and presenting more bills, in case he lost “the business.”

Gordon came out of surgery with only a 10% chance of survival according to Dr Sparman and two days later he was deemed stable enough for the medical evacuation. Dr Sparman arranged the medication to be administered during the medical flight, and this was given to the flight team—in a fast food bag. The sedative he provided for Gordon for the flight was once again diazepam. The air medical team queried the use of the drug as a sedative, saying that such a high quantity as had been prescribed to Gordon was not administered in the USA because it took far too long to disperse through the system in patients with that level of critical illness and especially patients with kidney failure. The absolute failure to care for Gordon’s wellbeing, coupled with a wholly inappropriate drug for his age and state of illness and in a quantity that was beyond irresponsible, placed a constant strain on his heart.

I must emphasise that we would never have been in this position had Gordon been sent to the main hospital and properly treated for the pneumonia the moment he arrived.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I interrupt my good friend to ask something I have been waiting to hear. Who made the decision to send Gordon to Sparman rather than the hospital? Was the decision taken on board the ship? Was there some kind of cosy arrangement or deal? Does he know?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend. I will come to that in my speech, but it was not the decision of the cruise liner; it was the decision of the port agent.

In the 11 days Gordon spent at the Sparman clinic, he received limited nutritional care and substandard nursing that gave rise to horrific first-degree bed sores that visibly shocked the medical staff at the Leeds General Infirmary and was placed in a poorly air-conditioned room, which led to his exhaustion. This all led Gordon to have much higher levels of anxiety, fear, pain and rapid health deterioration, which put increased pressure on his heart, at a time when he should have been able to rest, be properly hydrated and nutritiously fed, and so continue the recovery from his pneumonia that the ship’s doctor said he was comfortably making without any heart issues at that time.

Gordon was repatriated to the UK and admitted to the Leeds General Infirmary early on Tuesday 28 January. On inspecting the report from Dr Sparman, the consultants could not understand why Gordon was still so critically ill. The medical reports implied that he was and should be in recovery. They were also very concerned at the gravity of Gordon’s bed sores, which were first degree and had resulted from his position not being changed whilst he was in the Sparman clinic. I re-emphasise that not only did the nursing staff refuse to move Gordon, but Dr Sparman had tied his hands to the bed and prevented the family from moving him. These are basic nursing practices. Anybody in the medical profession knows that patients left in the same position will develop bed sores. I emphasise again that the staff at the Leeds General Infirmary audibly gasped when they saw the state of my father-in-law. They also questioned the prolonged use and high dosage of the drug diazepam that was administered.

Sadly, after the consultants at the LGI had performed their tests on Gordon, it was determined that his heart had greatly deteriorated and was in a much worse condition than had been reflected in Dr Sparman’s notes. In fact, the prognosis was not good. In addition to chronic heart failure, Gordon had kidney failure and brain damage from lack of oxygen. Despite his being taken off the diazepam sedation on arrival at the LGI, Gordon’s kidneys were not able to dispel the drug, and that, coupled with his now having multiple organ failure and brain damage, meant that Gordon never properly regained consciousness. Thirteen days after being admitted to the LGI, the family, with very heavy hearts, had to admit defeat and Gordon’s life support was stopped. He died on 13 February, leaving behind a devastated and traumatised family.

Owing to the circumstances around Gordon’s death the post mortem is still ongoing as the Coroner’s Office considers it to be a very complex case, which means we have been unable to get the final pathology report and still await his final death certificate.

My family paid approximately $200,000 in total for the barbaric treatment my father-in-law received in Barbados and the subsequent medical repatriation to the UK, and they have nothing to show for that money other than traumatic memories of the tragic and painful death of Gordon. After the horrific treatment and trauma my father-in-law had been through, we did not think we could be hit with anything else, but we were. It was only after returning to the UK that the family started doing simple Google searches on Dr Alfred Sparman, and they highlighted a horrifying picture.

In 1986, Sparman was convicted of the offence of disorderly conduct, to which he pleaded guilty. In 1991, he was convicted of the crimes of sexual abuse in the first degree and unlawful imprisonment in New York and sentenced to five years’ probation. In January 1996, Sparman was registered as a sex offender in Florida, but in June he applied for licensure to practise medicine in Florida. The state of Florida revoked his medical licence in 1997. In 1999, Sparman received a licence to practise medicine in Tennessee, but this was revoked in February 2001 owing to

“unprofessional conduct; a previous felony conviction for sexual abuse in New York, and false statement on medical application.”

In June 2001, he was again registered as a sex offender in the state of Florida.

It was in 2001 that Sparman went to Barbados and opened his clinic. In 2004, he had his board certification in internal medicine suspended by the American Board of Internal Medicine, but he continues to this day to advertise himself as an “American Board-Certified Physician”. In 2005, he was reregistered as a sexual predator and offender in the state of Florida. In 2010, he was reregistered as a sex offender in the state of Tennessee, and the register also contains a list of Sparman’s aliases: John W. Freeman and Alfred W. Eversley.

On top of the crimes for which he has been convicted, Sparman has advertised himself as a “Board-Certified Cardiologist” but never passed the board certification cardiology exams in the USA. He has also advertised himself as a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology but the FACC has no record of his being a fellow. He was reprimanded by the Medical Council of Barbados and asked to remove “FACC” from his letterhead. He advertises himself as an interventional cardiologist but has no specialist training in interventional cardiology. He has had a number of complaints made against him to the Medical Council of Barbados. He has also tried to poach paying cardiology patients—that is, tourists—from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. All this information can be found in a simple online due diligence check. In addition, there are countless stories online of other people who have suffered at the hands of Dr Sparman.

So why was Gordon sent to the clinic of a supposed doctor who was stripped of his licence to practise medicine in the US, who is a registered sex offender, who has numerous speculations surrounding him regarding his conduct and who has blatantly lied about his accreditations? Why was Gordon sent to a heart clinic in the first place when he was diagnosed with double pneumonia, rather than being sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital? We will never know the answers to those questions.

A representative of Cruise & Maritime Voyages has confirmed that it was the port agent who determined where my father-in-law was taken for his medical care once he was disembarked. The port agent is governed by maritime law. A port agent is the designated person or agency held responsible for handling shipments and cargo and the general interest of its customers at ports and harbours worldwide, on behalf of ship owners, managers and charterers. Quite frankly, the decision that the port agent made to send Gordon to the Sparman clinic, instead of to the main hospital, killed him. And to add a final insult to all the injury, instead of Gordon visiting his “bucket list” destination, the Taj Mahal, with his beloved wife, Jackie instead laid his ashes there.

I ask the Minister and her Department today to seek a change to international maritime law, by lobbying the International Maritime Organisation, regarding the duty of care and due diligence, through a fit and proper persons test, that a port agent must carry out when identifying and commissioning onshore medical facilities and practitioners for those who are disembarked for medical emergencies. The international conventions for the safety of life at sea of 1974 and 1988 have been used to bring in the highest standards of health and safety for those at sea, whether they be crew or passengers. These provisions were amended in 2004 through the international ship and port facility security code after the security concerns raised after 9/11, and I would argue that this shows that the wellbeing of seafarers carries on within the port, not just on the vessel.

Gordon was always proud of the work he did in bringing about changes to landlord law to achieve the protection and standards required, especially for tenants, and although this will never bring him back, it would be a final fitting tribute to his life to know that, even in death, he was able to try to make the world a better place, to ensure that this never happens to anybody else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Ghani]

That would be absolutely fit and proper. I accept it, and we will do what we can as soon as we can.

We have heard this afternoon of the tragic and preventable death of Gordon Hoyland Spencer. I share my hon. Friend’s commitment that, although nothing can be done to reverse what happened, Gordon’s death should act as a call for action to the maritime industry. Passengers should be cared for to the highest possible standard, particularly when they are most in need, and the Government will play their part in helping to ensure that no one has to repeat the painful experiences of Gordon and his family.

[Bob Stewart]

I believe the Minister is shortly to finish, but I wonder what the heck is going to happen to this so-called Dr Sparman. How can we allow this man to continue his work in Barbados? What can the British Government do to stop it? Are we going to report the man to the Barbadian Government? And are we going to complain about how the port agent dealt with this case? I believe that practical step might prevent another family from going through the hell that the Shelbrooke family have been through.

[Ms Ghani]

Absolutely. The fact this has been raised on the Floor of the House will be reflected by all Government agencies, and I do not doubt for a moment that this message will reach Barbados, especially once the meeting takes place with the IMO.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell for bringing this debate to the House, Once again, I express my profound sympathies to him, to Gordon’s widow Jackie and to the entire family. I look forward, if I can use that word, to working with my hon. Friend to campaign on this incredibly important issue and to ensuring that we do all we can to prevent another incident like this one.

Question put and agreed to.

Mortgage Prisoners

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I start by paying tribute to all those involved in the D-day landings 75 years ago today, especially remembering those who gave their lives. We and our allies will forever owe them a debt of gratitude. My constituent Alfred Barlow sadly passed away a few weeks ago, but he had hoped to be in Normandy with other veterans. I mention him particularly following the excellent speech from the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), who was a family friend of his.

Let me now turn from a debt of deep gratitude to a kind of debt that is causing harm to families across the country who are locked into uncompetitive and expensive mortgages and unable to move to other more affordable products. That may be because they are trapped by large and expensive exit fees, or—as we have heard this afternoon—because they have been told, quite perversely, that they cannot afford to move to a cheaper deal, owing to an over-rigorous application of credit-scoring or affordability checks. Many are customers with excellent track records of keeping up repayments, but they are trapped by the rigidity of the new lending criteria. Being locked into those expensive products means that they pay more than they ought to pay. That, in turn, can force them into financial hardship, and in extreme cases can lead to the loss of their homes and other assets, especially when the loan is transferred to vulture funds which seek aggressively to recover the debts.

Colleagues may have hoped that on a Back-Bench Thursday we might avoid even a mention of the European Union, but the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) beat me to it. I mention the EU not with any reference to the current overarching debate, but to refer to a matter of fact. The EU mortgage credit directive is a code of conduct for mortgage firms, which we implemented in the UK in 2016. In an attempt to learn lessons from the 2008 mortgage credit crunch, rules on lenders were tightened to prevent consumers from taking out loans that they might later not be able to afford by stress-testing their ability to make repayments, even in the hypothetical event of large hikes in interest rates. In contrast to the relatively laissez-faire attitude to mortgage lending that had gone before, this was supposed to protect consumers from placing themselves in potentially precarious financial situations. However, its implementation has shown that the rules have been over-tightened, which has resulted in the creation of tens of thousands of mortgage prisoners.

As with everything, there is a general lack of agreement on whether the current rules stem inherently from the EU directive or from the UK’s implementation of it. There is also a question mark over whether the situation of mortgage prisoners is merely an unfortunate and unintended consequence which the industry is keen to rectify, or whether lenders indeed benefit from the position of customers who find themselves trapped, and may therefore have a limited appetite for reform. We have seen in other areas of financial service regulation that when debtors face distress there is always someone around to profit, and that is exactly where vulture funds come in, to pick at the remains. It is a trend that we have seen in the business banking sector too, when lenders have abused small and medium-sized enterprises to extract the maximum profit.

Like many other Members, I was contacted by several constituents before the debate, and was asked to give examples from their cases. I hope that by doing so I will highlight the human side of the story, which is often lost when we talk about market reviews and regulatory consultations. Important as those processes are to reforming the system, we must remember that behind each broken product or recalled asset is a home, and an individual or a family.

I want to mention two cases but this issue affects many more in my constituency. One gentleman from Offerton contacted me. He has a mortgage with Landmark Mortgages following the collapse of Northern Rock and was paying a fixed rate of 6% for two years, which was subsequently reduced to a variable rate of 4.7%. That is clearly quite high in the current market and he was paying a lot in mortgage repayments. I wrote to Landmark Mortgages on his behalf to ask if it would consider offering him a lower interest rate now his fixed product had ended. It declined.

Another constituent, from Hazel Grove, took out a 15-year fixed 1.25% above base rate loan secured against a portfolio of properties with the Yorkshire Bank. He placed his trust in the security of a 15-year loan. However despite his excellent credit ratings and payments being made on time and never in default he soon found himself subject to aggressive sales of further loans on higher interest rates which he felt bullied into accepting. This meant he was paying considerably more interest each month for many years until he started to struggle with the repayments. He therefore made arrangements on a number of occasions to try to refinance, but each time it was denied.

Then the bank appointed Cerberus Capital Management, a US-based private equity firm specialising in “distressed investing” to take over the loan and act in receivership. I know that some Members make more classical allusions in this Chamber than I do, but I will on this occasion indulge the House with such a reference, because Cerberus is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld to prevent the dead from leaving; what an apt description of that company. As my constituent found to his cost, it is not in the agent’s interest to help customers, as it will lose fees, so it undermined any attempts made to resolve matters. Now my constituent has all rents from his property portfolio paid directly to the administrators and lives in constant fear that his family home—or even that of his 84-year-old mother—may be repossessed at any moment.

This is all rather similar to another issue: the treatment of small businesses by banks and the aggressive recall of loans and assets. This is an issue with which many of us are well-acquainted through the excellent work of the all-party group on fair business banking and finance, which has spent many years looking at this issue, most notably at Lloyds and the Global Restructuring Group, but it was a practice endemic across the industry.

I want to highlight a few of the similarities that are critical to this debate. The first is the apparent toothlessness of the FCA and its seeming inability or unwillingness to respond to poor practices in the market. As we saw with the business banking scandal, the FCA is slow to instigate reform, and it is not until consumer victims start piling up at its door that it takes note. It is for the Government to ensure that the FCA shows more appetite and greater urgency to protect the consumer. I welcome the current consultation on responsible lending rules and guidance, but if past experience is anything to go by I am not holding my breath that it will provide the kind of solution that customers need and deserve.

Moreover, the FCA often suggests that consumers seek redress from the ombudsmen or the courts, but that is rarely a viable option. The Financial Ombudsman Service is limited in the size of redress it can offer. For larger claims, litigation is an extremely fraught option due to the inequalities in access to justice between an individual customer and huge, often multinational, financial institutions with their armies of lawyers.

As my constituent from Hazel Grove told me:

“The bank squeezes every penny from you so you’re unable to support your family or fight for justice. The court costs of litigation are too high, therefore you’re unable to make a claim or file to protect your rights. I am unable to get legal aid as it’s a civil matter. If you try to bring a claim the banks just say to the court that they will want a cost order, and proof that you can pay the bank’s costs if you lose, which of course I can’t.”

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The FCA seems to be an organisation that either ignores people, puts us in a pending tray forever, tells us to go away or suggests we go to an ombudsman, but very rarely does it actually do its job. It is time it was sorted out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

As an old soldier, I am conscious, as is the House, that at this time 75 years ago, our troops had gained a foothold on Gold and Sword beaches, the Canadians were on Juno and troops were on Utah, but on bloody Omaha, where 2,500 men’s lives were taken on this day 75 years ago, people were still trying to get on to the beach. The sea was red with blood, troops were drowning as they got off the landing craft, and when they did get a foothold on the sand under the water, they had to push bodies away before they were massacred on the beach. In the first waves, 90% of those incredibly brave American soldiers were casualties. We are talking today about something that matters very much to our constituents, but we should also—I have a right to say this, I think—bear in mind the absolute fear and worry of our troops at this moment 75 years ago.

My speech will be short, because Mr Deputy Speaker has told me that it has to be—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that he can take up to 10 minutes. How is that? I will be as generous as that.

[Bob Stewart]

Mr Deputy Speaker is such a great man. I thought I was being told off earlier.

My comments will be short because I have spoken about this matter and the associated problems many times in the nine years for which I have been a Member of Parliament. Colleagues on both sides of the House are nodding. Why the heck has this matter not been sorted out? We are meant to sort these matters out—we are meant to be the people who legislate to get such injustices sorted and done. We have failed collectively to do that.

In particular, I want to raise the matter of the injustice done to my constituents—to the D’Eye family. Dean, my friend, is somewhere around, but I am not allowed to point him out. An injustice was done to him and his family by these banks. I am referring to Dunbar Bank, part of the Zurich group, and also the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Global Restructuring Group. I just cannot understand it. Decent people run these associations and they are actually—dare I use the word—screwing people utterly and completely, and it is immoral.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart]

I am glad to say that my colleagues agree with me.

It seems to me that it is also far too easy for banks to get rid of their problem by selling on their loan accounts to unscrupulous debt recovery firms—vulture firms—that entangle decent, hard-working people, such as the D’Eye family, in a web. That is utterly wrong. These people cannot get out of it because they just do not have the money, and that is utterly wrong. Originators of loans should not be able to get rid of their responsibilities in this way. It is wrong, colleagues! It is wrong!

I want to end my remarks by talking about the Financial Conduct Authority, which does not seem to have the will or the authority to sort out this matter—to force the banks to investigate and deal with these legacy issues. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is a good friend of mine, is looking at me with a scowl, but in a nice way. He is a great friend and an utterly decent man who would really like to sort out this matter—he has to now after I have said such nice things about him. I am now expecting that to happen.

I truly believe that, somehow or other, we people in this House must get this matter resolved. It is wrong that we have not sorted it for the people whom we represent. I have been here for nine years and feel ashamed that we have not resolved the matter. I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—oh, it is Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that Mr Deputy Speaker had got far more attractive while I was speaking. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will now shut up.

Animals

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

I thank the Minister for that sedentary comment.

Seriously, it is a problem. People can legally bring them in. If someone has a signed certificate from a vet in a particular country, they can bring them in. This could be another bonus from Brexit, dare I say it?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Speaking as someone who moves our two dogs backwards and forwards all the time on a pet passport, I presume that all five puppies would have pet passports, which are expensive—in our case, about €50 each time we visit the vet.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. It is quite expensive, but I am not convinced that where many of these puppies come from the expense is so great. We must also remember that people are probably making £1,200, £1,500 or even £2,000 per puppy with some breeds. They are not smuggling in mongrels or cross-breeds; they are bringing in pure-bred dogs, although they are probably not as pure as they think they are and probably have the potential for disease, which is another issue to deal with—we could be bringing in dangerous diseases at the same time.

I have gone on a bit—you have allowed me to digress, Madam Deputy Speaker—but all these things are closely linked, as I am sure the Minister is aware. I welcome the regulations. There is another issue in respect of banning third-party sales. Let us imagine an establishment that is perhaps not the best breeder in the world. There is a problem there. If someone has to go to the premises to buy the puppies, they will, I hope, see the mother and what is happening in that breeding establishment, so to some degree it will be self-policing. If people go there and think there is something wrong, they are likely to report it and action will likely be taken—either the puppy establishment will be closed down or its operation will be tightened up and things will get better, since sometimes people breed badly out of inadequacy, rather than meaning to do it. So there is a combination of things. One only has to talk to the RSPCA to understand the problem.

Those are the key issues. The other issue, of course, which is more difficult for any Government to deal with, is that of backstreet breeding where people breed dangerous dogs. That is where microchipping comes in and all those other things that can hopefully go with it. By linking microchipping with the ban on third-party puppy sales, we should be able to tighten up on the backstreet breeding as well, however difficult it might be. The Metropolitan police and others are very good at the process because they have the specialists, although that is not the case all over the country.

I will not go any wider than that, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you have been very lenient on me. Suffice it to say that I am delighted to support the regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

First, I say once again that it is fantastic to be able to participate in such a positive debate and to make such positive progress. I am grateful for all the contributions made today; they have all been constructive and the questions raised are legitimate. We do need to answer them and I will do my level best to do so.

It is important to correct the record, however. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said we are “a nation of lovers”; I think in the context of this debate he meant animal lovers. We will leave the other subject for a different day, but we are talking about animal welfare here today. I just want to make sure that is absolutely clear.

It is important that we do not forget the cats. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) was very clear about that, as she was in her praise of the tireless campaigners, which the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) did a fantastic job of doing, too.

[Bob Stewart]

Cats, as Winston Churchill said, look down on us, dogs look up at us, but pigs look us in the eye as equals. I just wanted to make that point, as a dog lover more than a cat lover.

Loan Charge

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. All the correspondence I have had has been phrased in very reasonable terms. People want to do the right thing, but they feel under a huge amount of pressure.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am sure that, every year, my hon. Friend’s constituent sent in a tax return, which HMRC ticked, approved and sent back. Only recently has HMRC suddenly seen the way things are going and said, “Right, this is some kind of tax avoidance. Let’s get it all back, and in one year.”

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I do not know what the rules are on my hon. Friend reading the next line of my speech over my shoulder, because it says here that my constituent continued with these arrangements and, each and every year, dutifully declared on his tax return the amount he had received in loans and the amounts he had returned thereof. It came as a surprise that, years later, HMRC intends to use its newly granted powers—in what my constituent describes as “winding back the clock”—to retrospectively claim that the arrangements my constituent and others had used were not legal, had never worked and that the tax on the loans was always due.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and the Loan Charge Action Group for all that they have done, and indeed to the Minister, who for a long time has been given a hard time on the subject.

I am speaking today on behalf of about 100 constituents whose lives have been blighted by this and who have lived with awful uncertainty for about three years. After last week’s debate, I met a number of them at the City Praise Centre in my constituency. I have to say that when I first met constituents about this, my heart did not exactly bleed for them; it is not fair for one particular group of people to pay income tax at a lower rate than the rest of the workforce, and lots of my constituents are in real need, living in substandard accommodation and waiting months for hospital appointments, so I cannot condone the systematic loss of revenue to the Treasury.

[Bob Stewart]

The people who are coming to my hon. Friend are normal people, such as nurses—some of them actually work for HMRC.

[Adam Holloway]

I thank my hon. Friend and absolutely agree.

My view has since shifted, however, as I have come to understand more about their circumstances. These people are not pocket Al Capones out to defraud the system; they are self-employed professionals who are contracting to different entities, paying their own pensions, without the protection of regular employment, and trying to avoid the complexities of IR35. I guess any of us would wish to minimise the tax we pay, and HMRC knew about those arrangements for decades and was slow in taking legal action, and inept in shutting it down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I have huge sympathy with my constituents caught by loan charge repayments, because they are normal honest people who thought they were doing the right thing. They had no intention of diddling the taxation system.

Most people who owe loan charge repayments accept that they are now liable to pay that tax back. What I find unacceptable is the amount of interest that is heaped on that tax requirement. My plea to the Minister—as he knows, because I have spoken to him separately about this—is to reconsider the interest charges. In my view, they are far too high and, as a decent gesture—because these people did act decently—the interest charges should be dropped entirely. Such a move would go a long way to lessen concerns among my constituents, and it would be a fair way to proceed, bearing in mind HMRC’s lack of warning to participants in loan schemes.

Business Rates

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will have heard the plea from those of us who represent rural areas, where the one or two ATMs in our market towns play a very significant part.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend have any idea of the logic behind an ATM on the outside wall of a bank having to pay business rates when those that are inside do not? It beats me! Perhaps there is a reason, but I do not understand what it would be.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I understand that there are two reasons. The first is that the Valuation Office Agency can get away with saying that an ATM on the outside of the building is, in the jargon, a different hereditament from the main building on which it sits. The second argument that is given in the official explanation is that ATMs are often not run by the same company as the building on which they sit, and that as it is a different company, it can be rated as such. Those are the official explanations, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister, who is far more expert in these matters than I am, will be able to give us a better one.

Returning to the £51,000 and the question of discretionary relief as opposed to allowances, the Minister knows that this is the core of my speech. It was the core of my speech last October, and it is the core of my speech today. This £51,000 is still a discretionary relief. While the majority of local councils have now pledged to provide the resources for their local businesses to benefit from this change, there are some that, regrettably, have not been forthcoming with their support of this measure, either by delaying their decision to implement it or by putting systems in place that require businesses to apply for the relief, firmly putting the onus on businesses to take time out from their day job to claim back money that is rightfully theirs. That means that businesses in those areas are being disadvantaged.

Of course this still does not resolve the complexity, and I believe that simplicity is always the key. We all know that small businesses are under increasing and unfair pressure from out-of-town retail parks and online retailers, and I am sure that Members here tonight will have lots of examples of that. For example, for every £1 in business rates that our small high street operators are taxed, the big online and out-of-town retailers pay significantly less, averaging around 16p. We can immediately see the competitive disadvantage for high street retailers, compared with the large out-of-town retailers and big online organisations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend, along with most of my hon. Friends, if not every single Member who is in the Chamber, is passionate about defending small businesses. I can see that she is shortly going to make a speech to support her small businesses—perhaps very shortly; I cannot possibly foretell.

[Bob Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Yes, because my hon. Friend has been very patient.

[Bob Stewart]

As a small factual correction, when my hon. Friend said “5.7 small and medium-sized businesses” he meant 5.7 million. That is a small point, and I know it was a slip of the lip.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Indeed it was a slip of a lip. The figure of 5.7 million small and medium-sized businesses is terrific, and shows the entrepreneurialism in this country, which is why our economy is doing so well and why we have such full employment at present.

Beer Taxation and Pubs

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth]

There is a huge opportunity for us to debate the benefits of off-licence versus on-licence, the support that people get when they enter a pub and the responsibilities of the landlord. That is especially the case when we talk about loneliness.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I was stirred to action by the hon. Lady, my good friend, using the words “older gentlemen”—I qualify, but I am not lonely. The way to keep the pubs in our communities alive is for people to visit them. If we get more people going to the pubs, they will live longer. That is very important—and, by the way, that includes me.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I thank my friend for his intervention. I think a pint of Steerage from the Titanic brewery will definitely help him live longer.

Pubs bring everyone together in the community. Whether it is fundraising for local charities, increasing awareness of illnesses or just everyone coming together on a Sunday evening, pubs are at the heart of our communities when other institutions are falling away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Evans]

Yes. At times, there must be immense pressure for pubs that have closed to be turned into a block of flats, because there is a lot of money in housing, but there is an opportunity for them to be turned into a community pub, if the community come together to raise money and keep it going. There are countless examples of those throughout the country, and it means that the community still have a focal point where they can come together. I hope that more publicity will be given to those opportunities.

I have three breweries of different sizes in my patch: InBev, which makes Stella Artois, Thwaites brewery, which was moved from Blackburn into the Ribble Valley, is much smaller but is the famous brewery with the shire horses—there is a lot of corporate responsibility within that company—and Holmes Mill, which brews the great Bowland beers in the heart of the Ribble Valley.

[Bob Stewart]

My hon. Friend speaks with forked tongue. I have been to the pub beside his house with him twice or three times, and it is a wonderful pub, but when we go next door he always leaves behind the lady who lives in his house. She is called Alexa. He has never taken her.

[Mr Evans]

All I can say in reply to that interesting intervention is that my hon. Friend has been to my pub three times and not once has he bought me a drink. That is the sort of friends I have.

[Bob Stewart]

What about Alexa?

[Mr Evans]

I am not mentioning Alexa.

It is a great pub—it was actually the CAMRA pub of the year in 2013—but I have other pubs such as the Freemasons at Wiswell and the Parkers Arms in Newton. A lot of pubs rely on offering food as well. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) mentioned that she does not drink, but people do not have to drink alcohol to go to these places because there is so much more on offer.

Mention has been made of taxation on beer, which is huge. At £13 billion, it is massive. Almost 1 million jobs are provided by the industry. We need to look at ways of lowering that taxation. There is something wrong when taxation goes up, people drink less and less money actually goes to the Inland Revenue. There should be a common-sense approach to lower taxation, increase sales and ensure that HMRC gets more money out of that.

Taxation is high if the alcohol by volume rate is high; it drops only at below 2.8%. We need to look at ways of increasing the rate to 3.5%. It would encourage more people to drink lower strength alcohol and have a great time; it would incentivise them to do that. It is worrying when a lot people drink high ABVs—5%-plus. Drinking a pint of beer is good for one’s health, but drinking too much beer with a higher ABV is not.

Tomorrow night, I was due to be in a pub celebrating a big event, but that big event is not happening; it is being deferred. All I can say is that, on 22 May, I hope to be saying, “Cheers, Brexit!”

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) for bringing this debate before us. As other Members have said, this is light relief compared with the dark place we have been in for far too long—let me put it that way.

Many of the points I would have made have already been made, so I will crave your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, and tell a little anecdote from the past. As some Members know, prior to appearing rather unexpectedly in this place, I was much involved in amateur dramatics and the local pantomime group—I have, indeed, been the dame in my time. On a Thursday night—to go back to the halcyon days of pubs—we would repair to a particularly famous old pub in my home town. At 11 o’clock, the barman, Sandy, would say, “Well, well, boys and girls, I think we will need to lock the door.” He would shut the massive, great door, turn the key and then carry on pulling the pints. One Thursday, I turned to a new member of the cast beside me at the bar and said, “Goodness me, do you think the bobbies might come knocking on the door tonight?” He laughed and said, “Ha, I’m an off-duty police sergeant,” which caused a slight reaction around the bar. Then, a voice further down the bar said, “That’s nothing. I’m an honorary sheriff’s substitute.” They were lax days, but I just wanted to tell Members that anecdote.

There are two points I want to pick up on in my brief contribution. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) made the point that publicans and their staff are trained, and they know the danger signs when somebody is drinking too much. As often as not, they will refuse to serve them, or they will get them into a taxi and get them out of the place. How much better is that, as she said, than having some lonely bloke drinking himself into a stupor at home on cheap White Lightning or cheap wine? We all know that far too many household fires are caused by somebody being blootered in their seat and dropping a fag down the back of the settee or whatever. There is therefore a safety aspect to this.

If someone goes on holiday to Spain, Italy, or wherever, if they are like me, fairly quickly they think, “I’ll pop down the village”. It is a hot day, there is a place with nice wee tables outside, and they have a pint of lager. Let us switch that the other way round. Visitors come to the highlands of Scotland and find no pubs—are you kidding? Tourism is crucial to the highlands, and the one industry that is fundamentally sustainable in the long term. If there are no pubs, the visitor experience will be much impoverished, to say the least, and the bad news is that the next year, people will think, “Perhaps I’ll not go there again”. Pubs have a far wider role than has yet been touched on in this debate, and I echo all that has been said about pubs being part of the social fabric of our communities.

[Bob Stewart]

The Jolly Woodman in Chancery Lane in my constituency is the nearest pub to my house, and it provides quality real ale. People come from miles around to visit that pub, and that is the sort of reaction we want to pubs in our areas.

[Jamie Stone]

I could not agree more, and I hope that one day the hon. Gentleman will take me to that splendid place and introduce me to the delights of that nectar.

I have said enough. As soon as I have the opportunity, I shall invite the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling)—he is not in his place at the moment—to my constituency, and introduce him to its local delights, of which there are many. I hope there will carry on being many, because if we lost them it would be a tragedy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

It certainly is, and I will talk shortly about the relief the hon. Gentleman mentions, which has played a significant part in that flowering and which I believe we can make better and fit for purpose for the future.

The value of beer exports has risen now to £500 million a year, and we heard earlier about the tremendous results also with respect to Scotch whisky and other spirits.

Small brewer’s relief gives the smallest brewers across the country a 50% reduction in duty and, as we have heard, it has helped fuel the explosion in the number of local breweries; we now have over 2,000 breweries across the country. At the autumn Budget we announced a review of this relief to give brewers the opportunity to share their thoughts on a relief that is now 17 years old and which has not been reviewed systematically over the course of that period. We have opened the review and had over 500 responses which we will carefully consider and report back on in due course.

Our motives at the Treasury have not been to extract more revenue from the sector, and certainly not to end the relief. However, for some of the reasons that the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) and others mentioned, there is some evidence that although the relief has been hugely positive in some respects, it has limited the growth of some businesses that would like to expand and employ more people and that are concerned about the cliff edge that the relief creates. I hope that we will be able to work with breweries and organisations such as the Society of Independent Brewers to work through that and to do something positive for the industry.

With respect to beer duty, we have taken a number of steps over the past nine years to improve the situation in a country that has been widely acknowledged to have high levels of alcohol taxation. We removed the beer escalator, and we have either cut or frozen beer duty in six of the last seven fiscal events, so that the duty on a pint is lower now than it was in 2012. In real terms, this long-term and significant action by the Government has kept prices low for everyone, in contrast to the period from 1997 to 2010, during which beer duty increased by 60%. This was underlined at the most recent Budget with another freeze on beer duty, meaning that the price of a typical pint of beer is now 2p lower than if prices had risen with inflation. I appreciate that there is always more that we could do this respect.

We are also focusing on other alcohol, such as cider and spirits. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) talked about the importance of spirits to his constituency and to many others across Scotland. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) talked about their importance to the wider Scottish economy. She also asked me a question about post-duty point dilution. We have given this matter considerable thought for some time, and we announced at the Budget that we will be bringing this practice to an end from April 2020. She also asked, as did the hon. Member for Oxford East, about a wider review of alcohol duty more generally. This is a complex area, and there are clearly no easy answers. There are certainly few answers that are fiscally neutral and that would create no losers, which would be important to many who work or own businesses in the sector. It is perhaps premature to conduct a review at this moment, because the greatest flexibility will be available to us after we leave the European Union. A future Chancellor might then have the choice to take action.

We heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) about responsible drinking, and they asked whether we could lower the duty on low-alcohol beers. We are somewhat constrained in that respect by EU law. The EU alcohol structures directive sets the maximum threshold for reduced duty on low-alcohol beer at 2.8%. Her Majesty’s Government charge a reduced duty of 6p a pint on beers with a strength between 1.2% and 2.8%. Until we leave the EU, we cannot raise the threshold for low-alcohol beer above 2.8%, but this is something that we will work on with our partners across Europe, and we could have further flexibility in the years ahead. The Government have taken action in some specific circumstances—with respect to white cider, for example—and our approach is that we will continue to take action as necessary where there is clear evidence that certain alcohol duty rates are causing difficulties for society.

We have heard a great deal about pubs, which are, as we heard from numerous colleagues, the bedrock of many rural and urban communities. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) rightly highlighted, they boost the economy, create jobs and, crucially, act as hubs for our communities. We have heard about their importance in tackling loneliness, and about the issues for older people, whether older gentlemen or others. They are great places for people to work and start their careers in. The pub industry currently employs about 450,000 people, many of whom are younger people, as has been said.

[Bob Stewart]

I rise, again, as an older gentleman. We have been talking about what pubs do. Let us imagine people who live in pretty awful accommodation—a bedsit or something like that. The local pub can provide a really nice, friendly, warm environment. That is the sort of place that those people can go to, and in my view that is the real advantage of local pubs.

[Robert Jenrick]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend just said.

I will talk briefly about business rates in the short amount of time available to me because they have been an important element of this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) brought some of her publicans to see me at the Treasury to discuss the matter. We have taken several actions to support pubs by lowering their tax burden. The most important of them—this comes into effect on 1 April—is the Chancellor’s Budget announcement that the business rates bills of small and medium-sized retailers, including pubs, will be cut by a third. The policy has been set for maximum impact among retailers and pubs with a rateable value of £51,000 or below. I appreciate that that will have less impact in communities such as my hon. Friend’s, where rateable values are high, but 90% of retailers and between 70% and 85% of pubs across the United Kingdom will benefit, with pubs seeing a tax saving of up to £8,000. We also previously had the £1,000 discount for small and medium-sized pubs, and many pubs will also benefit from up to 100% small business rates relief or the 100% rural rate relief. Of course, all ratepayers are benefiting from the switch from RPI to CPI.

The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) mentioned the request of many, including the industry, to create a rate of beer duty that differentiates between people drinking in a pub and people purchasing beer in a supermarket or convenience store. I can see the strong argument for that, but it is unfortunately not possible under EU law. Duty is levied on production, not on the place of consumption. However, we might be able to turn to that should we have sufficient flexibility.

I conclude by thanking the Backbench Business Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, both of whom gave superb speeches. This debate unified the House and demonstrated the important role that pubs can play in our communities. I will certainly relay the strong feelings from across the House to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor with respect to the next Budget and the future of beer duty. The House’s voice is clear that it wants, like people the length and breadth of the country, further and continued support for beer, breweries and our important pubs.

Horse Tethering

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

It is a genuine pleasure be intervened on by the hon. Gentleman in an Adjournment debate, and he is absolutely right. I will come on to some examples of how long-term tethering has been detrimental and caused death to animals in a number of cases. The nature of tethering means that it does not require large amounts of land, so horses can end up tethered in inner-city locations. A pony in south Bristol spent years tied to a tree on a grass verge and was harassed by local children and frequently escaped on to roads. The reality is that that was not a one-off.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Do the majority of such incidents involve horses or ponies owned by Travellers who are just moving through?

[Luke Hall]

That can often be the case. If we are looking to change the legislation, we must ensure that we stamp out tethering and animal welfare abuses regardless of who owns the animal, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight that point.

As I said, such incidents are a regular occurrence. In 2016, a pony was found tethered among fly-tipped rubbish. It was so badly tangled up in a discarded bicycle that it could not even stand. This pony, which had a life-threatening injury, was lost to the authorities after the owner simply moved it and tethered it in another location before they could arrive. Sadly, just before Christmas last year, a member of the public came across a pony that had been tethered in a wooded area. The tether had become tangled around the surrounding trees and, in a desperate effort to break free, the one-year-old pony had strangled himself and lay dead in the mud at the end of his tether. It is therefore clear that the practice desperately requires stricter regulation.

HorseWorld, the charity that started the campaign, was spurred into action by the alarming case of a mare that gave birth to her foal while she was tethered. Unable to protect her foal from the other horses who roamed free in the same field, the mare became seriously distressed. Of course, protection of the young is one of our most basic instincts. Research into tethered horses in Wales, where tethering is rife, showed that 10% of tethered horses had young foals. Those are just a few examples of the horrors associated with long-term tethering, but because tethering is not restricted by law, people can tether horses unchecked beyond the reach of the law, resulting in tethered horses reaching despicable stages of neglect before they can be rescued.

I want to touch on the current regulations and legislation surrounding equine welfare and explain why they are not protecting tethered horses in practice. The Minister may refer to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs code of practice, which acts as a guide to safely tethering horses, but the code is not being adhered to in reality, as demonstrated by an investigation conducted in south Wales in 2014 by the excellent University of Bristol’s veterinary school, which gave five main conclusions.

First, the code of practice states that water should be made available on a regular basis in a spill-proof container, but the research concluded that up to 90% of animals were not given water regularly. Secondly, the code states that animals should, as a minimum, have shelter from the sun and wind and that the area should be well drained in the event of heavy rain, but the research tells us that no shelter was provided in over 80% of cases. Thirdly, animals should be given the freedom to exercise off the tether for a reasonable period at least once a day. In reality, however, less than 3% of horses spent more than five minutes a day off the tether, and no one would argue that five minutes is a reasonable amount of time. Fourthly, according to the code of practice, the tethering site should not contain anything that might injure the animal, but the reality is that sites contained potential hazards in 50% of cases. Fifthly, the code states that tethered horses require a high level of supervision, with inspections

“no less frequently than every 6 hours”.

However, it was found that only a third of horses were visited that regularly. While we have a code of practice, it is clearly not being adhered to, and the fact that an individual can move an animal before they ever reach the stage of being prosecuted renders the code of practice redundant.

[Bob Stewart]

If a horse is tethered and left, the area around the tether will soon have no grass and will become muddy if it is wet, hugely damaging the horse. That is one of the other problems of tethering.

[Luke Hall]

My hon. Friend is right about damage to the environment, and I urge colleagues to look at some of the photos of horses that have been treated so badly. I mentioned the pony in south Bristol that was tied to a tree, and the surrounding area was a small stretch of grass between a pavement and the road. Yes, there was huge damage to the local environment, but there was damage to the pony, too.

The code of practice informs us that tethering is not a suitable long-term method of managing horses, as does the RSPCA, the British Horse Society, World Horse Welfare and Redwings, but absolutely nothing can be done legally to prevent someone from tethering a horse for its whole life.

Further, long-term tethering directly infringes the five freedoms set out by the Animal Welfare Act 2006: the need for a suitable environment; the need for a suitable diet; the need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns; the need to be housed with, or apart from, other animals; and the need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

A tethered horse is not free to express natural behaviours. A horse that is free to roam will, on average, walk or run 10.6 miles a day, and the reality is that a tethered horse can come nowhere near that. As my many colleagues who keep horses can attest to, horses are flight animals. A horse’s most basic instinct is to flee from danger, which tethering does not allow. Tethering restricts a horse’s most natural behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) on securing this debate, and I pay tribute to his campaigning activity in this House, on this issue and on many others, and to the hard work he does in the House.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the issues relating to horse tethering. I know it is an issue of concern to many, not only because of the important welfare issues involved, but because of the visibility of tethered horses in our countryside and by our roads and the many challenges that can arise if tethering is not undertaken properly and in line with established guidance and good practice.

As the Minister with responsibility for animal welfare, I am clear that we have to uphold, and continue to drive up, our already high standards of welfare in this country, including in relation to the tethering of animals, and I applaud my hon. Friend for securing this debate and highlighting the issues that can arise. As he has so clearly set out, some people are not tethering their horses appropriately and are causing these poor animals distress and suffering. I was horrified to hear of the cases he set out of the suffering that poor tethering practice can cause our much loved horses and other equines. The practices in the examples he gave must be stamped out so that these noble animals can live without the threat of cruelty or a life of misery. I applaud the work that HorseWorld is doing to look after these horses, and I welcome the aims of its effective Break the Chain campaign which focuses on ending all inappropriate and long-term tethering of horses, and in particular on seeing a ban on the tethering of equines for longer than 24 hours.

As my hon. Friend clearly pointed out, it is an offence under section 9 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to fail to provide for an animal’s welfare. As he mentioned, that means that a person who cares for an animal—whether it is a pet, a working animal or a farm animal—must provide for its five welfare needs, as set out in the Act. Those needs are a suitable environment to live in; a healthy diet, including fresh, clean water; the ability to exhibit normal behaviours; appropriate company —for example, some animals need to live in social groups; and protection from pain, suffering, injury and disease. Section 4 of the Act goes even further and makes it an offence to cause a protected animal any unnecessary suffering—commonly known as animal cruelty.

[Bob Stewart]

The Minister mentioned the requirement for horses to live among their own kind. We can vividly understand how difficult it must be for a lone horse. Were a man or woman put in a herd of horses on our own for 24 hours, we would understand how lonely that can be. It is lonely for a horse, too.

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The aim of the Government’s work in this policy area is to highlight that tethering should be for the short term. We want these animals to be as socialised as possible.

The 2006 Act is backed up by a number of statutory codes of practice, including the code for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids. The code provides owners and keepers with information on how to meet their animals’ welfare needs and includes a specific section on how to tether horses and other animals covered by the code. Although it is not a specific offence to breach a provision of the code, if proceedings are brought against someone, the court will look at whether they complied with the statutory code in deciding whether they have committed an offence. That makes the code a key document in relation to prosecutions for animal welfare offences. We are very grateful for the input and assistance from the British Horse Council and the Horse Trust in particular and for their advice last year on the changes we made to the code, which was updated in April 2018.

I should clarify that tethering is not a banned activity, as there are circumstances in which tethering may avoid a greater risk of harm arising—for example, if a horse strayed into a place of danger. That point was made by World Horse Welfare in the statement issued this week, which said:

“We are concerned that banning tethering could lead to more horses kept indoors where their welfare cannot be monitored, or left to wander freely, endangering both themselves and the general public.”

Tethering is defined under the code as

“securing an animal by an appropriately attached chain, to a centre point or anchorage, causing it to be confined to a desired area.”

Furthermore, the code states that tethering

“is not a suitable method of long-term management of an animal,”

but

“may be useful as an exceptional short-term method of animal management”.

I think that goes a long way towards addressing the first and third changes that my hon. Friend proposed.

Although tethering is not prevented or illegal under the code, the code does include detailed specific advice on tethering and how it should be done properly. It details which animals are not suitable for tethering and provides advice on a suitable and appropriate site—for example, a site should not allow the horse access to a public highway or public footpaths. That helps to address the second change proposed by my hon. Friend. To tether a horse in such a way that it can physically be on a pavement or road is clearly contrary to the code and therefore open to enforcement action.

In addition to the statutory welfare code, other organisations provide advice on tethering. For example, World Horse Welfare has drawn attention to the code of practice produced by the National Equine Welfare Council specifically on tethering. In addition, the British Horse Society has produced a helpful leaflet that is available online and provides advice to anyone with concerns. The Redwings equine welfare charity also has useful advice on tethering, as does the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has also produced guidance on tethering. Our concern today, though, is not with necessary tethering that is undertaken in the short term, in the right way and in exceptional circumstances, to avoid a greater risk of harm arising; it is with avoidable and unacceptable tethering.

Under the 2006 Act, local authorities have powers to investigate concerns about the welfare of animals and if necessary to seize them—if they are suffering, for example. They can also prosecute if someone is neglecting an animal in their care. In addition, the way the Act is drafted means that anyone can bring forward a prosecution under the Act, and it is on this basis that the RSPCA prosecutes many hundreds of people each year for animal cruelty or neglect. It is important that we all recognise the important work the RSPCA does in this area.

Those convicted of such crimes under the Act can be subject to an unlimited fine or imprisonment for up to six months. I am pleased to say that the Government have announced that they are increasing the maximum custodial penalty for animal cruelty from six months to five years of imprisonment. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will be very aware that the five-year penalty is already in place in Northern Ireland and we look forward to having it in England, too.

If anyone is concerned about how a horse or other animal has been tethered, they should report the matter either to the relevant local authority or to the RSPCA, which can investigate and if necessary take the matter further. If a horse or other animal is found not to be tethered appropriately, that could lead to a prosecution under the 2006 Act.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate mentioned the important role of local authorities in this area and the need for them to appoint animal welfare officers. Local authorities have strong powers to enforce welfare controls and often work in partnership with the RSPCA or other welfare charities, or indeed with other local authorities that have expertise in horse management.

Enforcement can be targeted according to local priorities and needs. In some areas, for example, horse abandonment or poor tethering practice might be an issue. In others, it may be non-existent. We encourage all interested parties to work together at local level to use the available powers to address the problem of abandoned or incorrectly tethered horses. Local authorities have powers under the 2006 Act to appoint welfare inspectors, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and I encourage them to do so to meet the needs of residents and equines in their area.

[Bob Stewart]

The Minister refers to reporting to local authorities. A weekend is a long time, and local authorities close down. I should have thought that reporting it to the police might result in more action.

[David Rutley]

Local authorities often have emergency contact numbers, and the RSPCA can give a 24/7—or at least seven day a week—response. I think my hon. Friend’s concerns are addressed.

I am conscious that, in the short time I have left to speak, it is also important to highlight that the Control of Horses Act 2015 is also relevant. It was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) with support from the Government and introduced more flexible options for the management of unlawfully placed or abandoned horses—often known as fly-grazing horses—some of which might be tethered. It has been welcomed by landowners, local authorities, countryside bodies and animal welfare charities.

In summary, the appropriate tethering of horses is an important issue that the Government are taking action to address. We have put a number of protections in the 2006 Act, the code for the welfare of horses and the 2015 Act. The strong arguments made today and the concerns that have been raised mean that I shall call for a meeting with key stakeholders in the months ahead to see what more can be done in sharing and documenting best practice on horse tethering and ensuring that messages on best practice are more actively disseminated to horse owners. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate on these matters in the months ahead and I am sure that that will help us to deliver animal welfare at a continued high standard now and in the years ahead.

Question put and agreed to.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Absolutely. That is exactly the point, because we know that the best way to address poverty is to make sure that more people can earn their way out of poverty. That does not work for everyone, but for those who can do so, this makes a significant difference, and that is exactly why poverty is now at record lows.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

According to Department for Work and Pensions figures, there are 1 million fewer people in absolute poverty since 2010, with 300,000 fewer children in the same situation.

[Vicky Ford]

Absolutely. That is exactly the point: absolute poverty is now at record lows. That also has an impact on children—my hon. Friend made that point— because the number of children living in workless homes has fallen to the lowest level since records started.

Christmas Adjournment

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I too was expecting to come later in the order of speeches—Christmas has come early for me. Happy Christmas to everyone, and thank you to all the staff who run this place. I have said that now, so I will not repeat it.

I want to raise the subject of the danger caused by a drug called isotretinoin, which I have already spoken about—perhaps four times—in the House since becoming an MP. To date, I have to say, the collective view of the House has had little impact on actually sorting it out. Isotretinoin, also known as Accutane or Roaccutane, is a drug used to treat severe acne primarily in teenagers—mainly boys. It has dramatic effects: it clears acne up pretty quickly, but its side-effects can be enormous. It can cause severe depression and impotence in those who use it.

My concerns stem from contact with constituents, particularly one lady. She is the mother of a young man who has suffered enormously from isotretinoin. At the age of 16, he was given the drug for eight months. As a result, he suffered—forgive my language—complete erectile dysfunction, which has had a life-changing effect on him and, indeed, on his mental state. He is now in his early 20s, and it has of course had a dramatic effect on him. He has been through university, too.

Unsurprisingly, his mother is distraught, in particular because her son is now almost unwilling even to discuss the matter. I believe that we can all understand that. It must be very difficult for a young man to discuss such a matter with his mother. I, personally—I know I am from another generation—could not even have dreamt of talking about such a matter with my mother. I am really pleased that things have moved on, but I can still see the real difficulty for young men who have to discuss or bring up such matters.

I gather that there is an impact on young women, too: they can suffer a lack of libido. It is certainly considered a pretty dangerous prescription for a young pregnant woman, and doctors are careful about prescribing it if there is any chance that a young woman is pregnant. Pregnancy, however, can come as a pretty big surprise—it certainly has in my life and in my family. There is no fail-safe. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but we have all been there, have we not?

Isotretinoin can work very well, but for a small percentage of people, when it strikes, it has devastating effects. There is now well-documented evidence that it leads to suicide. I have brought those cases up when I have spoken about the matter before, but I do not intend to repeat them. Suffice to say, I am pretty sure that there is a direct link between the use of isotretinoin and some suicides.

If someone is depressed and feels that their life is over and that they are finished, they give up the will to live, which I have seen in some soldiers. I have seen a soldier who, when told of his injuries, said—forgive my language—“Oh, shit,” and he died, right there and then. I am quite sure that that could be the case for young men and women—particularly young men—in this situation.

I know that isotretinoin is a miracle drug for some—my daughter tells me that a lot of her friends use it—but for that small percentage of people who are deeply affected by it, causing problems such as depression and erectile dysfunction, it is devastating. Medical professionals warn people about the drug, and are careful about prescribing it, but I wonder whether, in view of the risks that we do not know about, we should be prescribing it at all.

I checked to see whether I personally could get hold of isotretinoin pills, and do so with relative ease and without a prescription. Of course, I used the internet. I did that yesterday. In this country, obviously, a prescription is required, but not so for companies based abroad. For example, a Canadian company called Online Pharmacy came up almost immediately. It offers Accutane—the same thing—and 10 pills cost £49.24. Delivery by air costs about £11.24, although I do not understand why that is quite so expensive from Canada to the UK, and apparently takes two to four weeks—I did not realise stuff would take that long to get across the Atlantic by air. The parcel, when it arrives, has discreet packaging so that no one knows what it contains—I am thinking of teenagers here, hiding it from the parents. It worries me, obviously that our teenagers—I still have two—can simply order this stuff and receive it, while parents have no idea. Incidentally, Online Pharmacy also promised to provide two free Viagra tablets, which is somewhat darkly ironic considering the problems I am talking about.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency—our regulator, on this side of the Atlantic—issues warnings to healthcare professionals on the risks, such as in October 2017, but nothing more instructive than that. The agency has declared that the matter is being closely monitored but, considering the anecdotal evidence and what are to me the clear problems caused for a small percentage of people who use it, that is not good enough. As I mentioned, there have now been four debates in Parliament in which Members on both sides of the House have expressed concern, and so I suppose I am representing them all today. I bring it up again because we had this debate in Westminster Hall about six months or so ago, and I want it to be kept to the forefront. I represent all parts of the House when I speak today.

Surely it is time for the Department of Health to establish a major investigation into this drug and, perhaps as a precaution, to order that prescribing it should be halted until we are absolutely certain that we can at least identify those people at risk, or mitigate those risks much more than we can now. I am sorry to raise such a difficult problem, but I do so only because, on behalf of all Members of the House, I think that we should continue to press for this matter to have a proper investigation by the Department. I wish everyone to think carefully before use of isotretinoin—in particular those people who might be listening and thinking of using it, which includes my kids’ friends—because I really think that it can have tragic outcomes.

God bless, everyone, and happy Christmas. I also thank those staff who come in and out all the time—I never quite know what they do, but they seem to be here for 10 minutes and then flit out. They flit in and flit out, and those of us who sit here hour after hour wonder whether we could take a break. I am sure they go out for a quick drink or a cigarette. I thank those staff who sit here listening to the likes of me warbling on for far too long. My warbling ends now—happy Christmas, everyone.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

For the information of the hon. Gentleman, his warblings are being written down line by line by those staff, who are from Hansard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan). His remarks about his connection with rugby league remind me that my late father set up all the BBC camera positions for every rugby league ground in the country when he formulated its coverage of the sport. Indeed, he was an extremely good friend of the late Eddie Waring, who of course was originally the rigger for the cables at rugby league grounds and became a commentator only in an emergency, when the commentator failed to turn up.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I want to report on a few things—some on which progress is being made, which is good news, and some on which work still needs to be done. Of course, some of us are still celebrating last night, when Tottenham overcame Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates. More importantly, though, disgracefully, a bottle was thrown by a thug in the crowd at the man of the match and goal scorer, Dele Alli. That raises serious problems for all football grounds. If people get into the habit of doing that, players and linesmen might be seriously injured. We need to reflect that people can be competitive at football and support their team, but they do not need to behave in a thuggish manner.

Let me refer to the Select Committees on which I have the honour of serving, which do excellent work. I do not expect Members’ sympathy, but those of us who suffer on the Procedure Committee wrestled for some weeks with the question, “What does ‘meaningful’ actually mean?” I am not sure we came up with the answer, and I look forward to the Government’s finally coming up with one in the new year.

I press my hon. Friend the Minister to encourage the Leader of the House to provide the Backbench Business Committee with more time in the main Chamber. We did not have business in the main Chamber for nine weeks, which, in my view, made us almost redundant as a Committee. That is extremely regrettable, because the debates we put on are well subscribed and very positive.

[Bob Stewart]

I have never been on the Backbench Business Committee to make a selection, but what my hon. Friend says is a shock to me. I thought the Committee’s business was built into the timetable; I did not realise it could be shifted. I thought it was part of the set programme. As a normal Member, I am really quite surprised that it is not. Others are nodding in agreement. I think that is wrong—we should have that time, because it gives us power.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The reality is that a certain number of days are given over to the Backbench Business Committee in a year. However, this is a two-year Session, and the Government have refused to increase pro rata the number of days in the main Chamber provided to the Backbench Business Committee.

I am also a member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. We have inquiries ongoing into the future of the high street, which is very topical, and leasehold reform. What house builders are doing to sell out freeholds to finance companies from under the feet of people who bought leases on properties is a scandal. We also have ongoing inquiries into fracking; the tragedy of Grenfell, which continues; building regulations and fire safety in general, on which there is much to do to ensure that people’s homes and business are safe; and social housing law across the country. Our Committee’s work is very topical and relevant.

During the year, I have been engaged in setting up three new all-party parliamentary groups. The first is the APPG for Council of Sri Lankan Muslim Organisations UK—COSMOS—which seeks to combat the prejudice and quite disgraceful antics of the Sri Lankan Government against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

The second concerns the holocaust memorial, which will go alongside Parliament. It will be a long-standing memorial to the horrors of the holocaust, and the education centre will educate people of all ages about what happened during the holocaust and why we must never allow it to happen again. The former Chief Rabbi said that Jewish people in this country fear that what is going on now is similar to what happened in Germany in the 1930s. For Jewish people in this country to feel that way is a tragedy—a tragedy for them and for all of us. In 2019, we must redouble our efforts to combat all forms of antisemitism and send a signal to all people that, whatever their religion, they have the right to celebrate that religion in this country. We must do that on a long-standing basis.

The final all-party group I set up was the APPG on building communities, which aims to encourage the building not just of new housing but of communities. That is something that has to be developed.

As many colleagues know, we had London elections during the year. I pay tribute to my colleague Manji Kara, a long-standing councillor in Harrow East. He chose to leave his safe ward and fight a much more difficult one, and as a result stepped down from the council after 14 years’ exemplary service. Even more importantly, I pay tribute to Christine Bednell, who stepped down as a councillor after 47 years, only because of her ill health.

I will spare Members my prepared notes about all the contributions I have made to debates since September. Apparently there have been 32 of them, so I am sure everyone is grateful that I will not refer to them. However, I will mention some important faith-based activities. First, we have a long-running campaign for Jains to be able to record their religion in the 2021 census. I support other groups, such as the Sikhs, who want to ensure that they have the right to record their religion, but Jains at the moment have to tick, “Other”—there is no measure in the census of whether they celebrate their religion. That needs to be changed.

We had the good news this morning that legislation will be brought forward next year to remove caste as a protected characteristic from the Equality Act 2010. We expect that long-standing provision to be repealed by the summer. That is positive news, which will be warmly welcomed by the Hindu community across the country. The Government’s proposals in that respect are very positive.

My constituency is the most multi-religious and multicultural in the country, bar none, so I have enjoyed the opportunity to participate in many activities with faith groups in the past year. I visited 10 temples on Hindu new year’s day, and over the Christmas period I shall celebrate with the Jewish community at one of our local synagogues. I will be visiting the Muslim community shortly after the new year and celebrating with the Hindu community on new year’s day itself, as well as visiting churches. It does not end at Christmas—the Greek Orthodox Church in my constituency starts the new year two weeks later, with its Christmas celebrations, so I shall join in with those, too.

The casework I am dealing with at the moment stems predominantly from Harrow Council’s failure to provide the service it should. I criticise it perennially for a number of things, but one of the key problems is its failure to communicate with local residents when they have complaints. According to our statistics, we are dealing with more than 30 cases a week where the council has simply failed to respond to reasonable requests from the local authority about the service that it should be providing.

In the new year we have some good news coming up, which I have raised on many occasions. The new building at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, in my constituency, opened a couple of weeks ago and the patients and staff—medical and non-medical—moved in, which is positive. I have been pushing for this for 12 years and I am delighted that it has come to fruition. I congratulate the board and everyone who has made it possible. There will be a royal opening in March, which the local community will celebrate.

In my constituency, we recently opened the first state-sponsored Hindu secondary school. The Secretary of State came to open it, which was positive, and it demonstrates what can happen when local people come together and demand the right for a faith-based school, if that is what they choose.

There are two new developments coming on stream: the Elysian retirement community is being built alongside Stanmore station and Jewish Care is setting up a care facility for newly retired people, which will lead on to live-in care in Stanmore. These are two positive measures that are going to be warmly welcomed in the local community.

This year homelessness and the problems of people sleeping rough have been particularly important. My Homelessness Reduction Act became law on 1 April and the duty of public authorities to refer became law on 1 October. Those things are already having a dramatic effect on combatting homelessness. Some 58,660 households were assisted in the first three months that the Act was operational. I take the view that just one person sleeping rough is an absolute national disgrace, but without this change in the law it would have been much worse. We must prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place; under the legislation that has been extremely successful. I am glad that we have the Housing First pilot initiatives. They will enable rough sleepers to be housed and to be given the level of support they need to put them back on the straight and narrow.

I urge my hon. Friends in Government to make sure that we are building the homes that people need, at prices they can afford, both around cities and beyond. It is no good building homes that people cannot afford and for them to feel envious of the people that have them. At this time of year, when many people are generous towards the homeless, we must remember that homelessness happens not just at Christmas, but every single day. There are 320,000 people across the country who are homeless, sleeping on sofas or rough sleeping. It is our duty as politicians to make sure that those people have a home of their own that they can rely on.

Mr Hanson, I wish you, all the staff, all colleagues and especially the staff in my office a very merry Christmas and a happy, peaceful, prosperous and, above all, healthy new year.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, in these unusual surroundings. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that the debate took place today. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I would like to associate myself with his comments regarding our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities across the United Kingdom, both for the remaining part of this year and in the future.

I hope to talk about a number of matters, including one which was brought to my attention this morning and which raises great concern. I heard today that the RZSS WildGenes laboratory at Edinburgh Zoo has said that in all probability the Scottish wildcat is now extinct as a gene pool. The gene pool of one of the most endangered wild mammals in the world, which resides in Scotland in very small numbers, is now so affected by the domestic cat that it cannot be identified separately. The only gene pool we have is in approximately 100 Scottish wildcats that are in captivity. With the enormous challenges that face this country and the world, it is interesting to look at one small aspect, in this case an animal that lives in the United Kingdom, was far more widespread in past decades and is now literally extinct in the wild. If the follow-up tests that are currently being done confirm this, it would be truly tragic news.

As we approach Christmas, it is a salutary lesson to think that in the United Kingdom we were asked to take care of a mammalian group and we have managed to do that so badly that it has fallen into extinction. We look at the giant panda, the tiger and the elephant—all of which rightly require care—and yet we may have let one of the most important and unique groups of animals slip into extinction on our own doorstep. I find that very saddening, but I compliment Edinburgh Zoo on the work that it does.

[Bob Stewart]

One of the great things about these debates is that we always learn something—I had no idea about the information that the hon. Gentleman has given us about the iconic Scottish bobcat. I am still a bit unclear; is he saying that the Scottish bobcat is still there in the wild, but has mated with domestic cats and become a sort of mixture of the two? In other words, does it remain in the wild, not as a bobcat but as something mutated?

[Martin Whitfield]

A more succinct description I could not give. The gene pool is now so diluted that individual Scottish wildcats that have been caught and tested in the wild are almost impossible to distinguish from domestic cats. That is the nature of cats generally, but it is disappointing that we have reached that stage. The only gene pool with a guarantee of wildcat status exists in the 100 or so that are kept in zoos and wildlife parks around the world.

I thank the teachers and teaching staff of East Lothian and those who work for East Lothian Council, as well as the pupils who have done so much this year, such as those at North Berwick High School who held a UN model assembly at which schools from around Scotland gathered to debate important matters. It was a great privilege to go into what were effectively committee sittings and listen to highly intelligent and articulate young people discussing such important matters—indeed, some of their ideas and proposals merit consideration in this House. I feel very hopeful for the future and for politicians to come. At primary schools I have visited, children have asked questions that I just could not answer; I had to do the honest thing and tell them that I did not know, but would go and find out.

I want to mention people who have invisible disabilities, and the work of Grace, a campaigner from Prestonpans in East Lothian who created Grace’s Sign. I also want to mention Judith Dunn, whom I invited to Parliament on #AskHerToStand day. It was such a wonderful day: so many women came from all around the country, and it speaks so positively of what we can achieve.

The Civil Nuclear Constabulary is a strange and almost unknown group of police officers who protect our nuclear establishments, but who are separate from the police force and are a civilian group. They are the armed backup to our police forces. They have been in a pension dispute for a long while now; I was able to ask a question about it this morning in business questions. This Government have kicked down the road the question of their pension settlement and when they can retire. I had hoped that for this Christmas they would have had a present of knowing what was going to happen to them; I sincerely hope that by next Christmas they have an understanding.

I wanted to talk about universal credit, which has been in my constituency since 2016. We are not a constituency where it is being rolled out; we were one of the test beds. East Lothian reflects the statistical make-up of the United Kingdom and particularly Scotland very accurately, so it was a test bed for universal credit, and it has not gone well. We have problems with universal credit that go beyond that roll-out. It was a great pleasure to hear hon. Members making points earlier about the significant difficulties where there are two payments in one month and then nothing follows in the next month, and the pressure that that brings to bear on families and individuals. Other people are persuaded—I use that word carefully—by advice from the Department for Work and Pensions to set up their own business and then, 11 or 12 months down the line, are let down by the very system that persuaded them to set up their own business because their earnings are such that they suddenly lose their benefits.

I want to talk about the WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. Many women in my constituency, who are well through their administrative complaints procedure, have received a letter that their case is now being stopped because of the High Court case to allow the judicial review. My understanding is that that letter is incorrect and actually all that has happened is that their case has been postponed until the outcome of the hearing. However, again, it is an indication of how communication from the Government to our constituents is so far from being clear and understandable that it brings more challenges.

With only 99 days to go, however, I want to spend two minutes mentioning the real threat of a no deal. It has come up before and I fear it will come up again, but it needs to come up for a reason. I asked the Prime Minister who she would blame if there was no deal, and she indicated that it would be Parliament’s responsibility. It may well, in one view of it, be Parliament’s responsibility, but the Government are the Executive, with the power to ensure that that does not happen.

I can talk about the announcement today that the word “unlikely” has been dropped from the preparation notes that have been issued. I can talk about the 3,500 troops who have been placed on standby, the cut to any holiday requests from 1 April, the reversion to World Trade Organisation rules, the fact that we do not have an immigration policy that can come in in just over six weeks’ time, the fact that the problem at the Irish border will not be resolved by then and the bottom-line forecast that no deal will be an economic disaster into the future.

Some people have suggested that it is a ruse—that it will never happen. Some people have said, “It could well happen. We don’t know.” Some people have said, “Oh, don’t worry about it,” and some people have said, “Everything will be fine.” People see many versions of the future, but I know it rests with the Prime Minister and within the power of the Government to say, “No deal won’t happen.” I disagree vehemently with leaving the European Union, as do my constituents, but putting that political decision to one side, I find the executive decision about whether to put the country in a position where it will leave with no deal saddening, upsetting, annoying and frustrating. I also find it—I choose this word carefully—irresponsible, and I would expect far, far more of any Government of the United Kingdom.

At Christmas, I urge that the risk of no deal be removed so that we can move on in whatever way suits the United Kingdom. That will remove the fear. As the children said to me at a high school when I asked them about Europe, “But it’s our future.” It is their future. I am not asking to stay in Europe or for a people’s vote, both of which would be brilliant; I am saying, “Please remove this option, which has no agreement across the House.” For whatever reason it is still on the table, but it is the one thing that should be removed.

I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a very peaceful and prosperous new year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. We are not going back to British Rail. We are moving forward to a new model of public ownership that has been tried and tested across the industry, and we are ready to put it in place as soon as we get the first Queen’s Speech, which I am sure will not be too long now.

I want to talk about the disposal of public assets and the associated issues that are prevalent in my constituency. I will talk about the Post Office, the consultation and what is currently happening. I will talk about Bootham Park Hospital and a decision that is currently on the Minister’s desk. Also, time permitting, I will touch on Bootham Crescent, the football ground that I am sure many are familiar with. I will start with the Post Office.

As we speak, a consultation is going on about the future of the Crown post office, which has been at 22 Lendal since 1884. We have lost many post offices from the city, but that one is in a prime location because of the flows of tourists and residents into the city from the rail station and by bus, and because of its accessibility for vehicles, particularly for disabled people, who can be dropped there. People are attracted to that part of the city, which is thriving—good news in this day and age—not least because it is opposite Appleton’s pie shop, which is Britain’s greatest pie shop. That is a good place from which people can orient themselves around York, and it is a successful part of the city.

It has been decided that the Crown post office will close its doors. It will be moved into WH Smith, not far from Lendal—but far enough, in Coney Street. That will be seriously detrimental to the people of the city. We have learned that the consultation will not be on whether the move should happen, because we are told that that has already been determined, so I have questioned what it is about. York post office is one of the few profitable post offices, and I think it is fair to say that those concerned are almost going through the motions of a consultation on the move. I find it deeply distressing that now is the time chosen for a consultation, because we all know that staff throughout the country work incredibly hard at this season of the year, to ensure that parcels and cards are delivered on time. At the same time, the future of their jobs, and where they will be located, is in question. The consultation on 28 December is at the busiest time of the year.

I find it disturbing that the Post Office has not done its homework. I have had several meetings now and glaring gaps have appeared, particularly with respect to access issues. I mentioned how accessible the Lendal post office is. WH Smith, into which it might move, is a struggling business in York. I have been in there and seen how empty it is. My grandfather spent his working life there, and it is an important business to my family, so I am sorry to see it in that state. In that area there are many boarded up shops and the economy is struggling, for a number of reasons, one of which is business rates.

Business rates are incredibly high in York, because of the valuations on businesses, not least because of offshore landlords trying to keep their investment levels up. That is why we need a transition away from a business rate system. Surely, it is a perverse economic choice to move the post office from a thriving area of the city to an area that is, frankly, dying. Not only that, but the new area will be less accessible. It is accessible to pedestrians walking along Coney Street, but not to cars. However, the city is putting in counter-terrorism measures that will restrict access completely. The Post Office was completely unaware of that when I raised it, but it means that disabled people will not be able to get to the post office. Bicycles can be parked outside the Lendal post office, but that will not be possible in Coney Street. The move is detrimental.

The post office is, of course, moving to a back corner of WH Smith, out of sight and out of the way. It is a cramped space, and that is a poor model, particularly given the traffic that comes through at this time of year.

[Bob Stewart]

Welcome to the Chair, Mr Robertson. All the post offices in my constituency have been moved into WH Smith. That is something that I fought hard, as I am sure other hon. Members have done. One reason, which the Post Office explained to me and which is quite battle-winning, in a way, is that in my constituency—although obviously not in York, which has a profitable post office—£1.30 was being paid out for every pound taken. It was not economically viable. People do not use the post office any more, and the services of the old post office, such as vehicle taxation, are now done online. I do not know how we will solve that problem.

[Rachael Maskell]

We have many franchised post offices in York that are successful; but in the instance I am discussing, it is a poor decision.

As to access for Royal Mail, and for moving cash in and out of the post office, it has been suggested that a back alley can be used. There have been health and safety assessments of that process and it has been deemed unsafe, so that is a concern. Many York businesses bank at the post office and many business people say they are not willing to walk through a shop and join a queue to bank there. Therefore the move will pull business away from the post office.

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[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and also to follow the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). I will come on later to the issue of NHS land, but I will first concentrate on a serious situation that is still ongoing—the closure of Gatwick airport due to drones.

I led a debate in this Chamber on 18 July 2017 on drones and their conflict with aircraft. I mentioned that, on 2 July 2017, the runway at Gatwick was closed twice—once for nine minutes and once for five minutes—due to drone activity. Five flights were diverted and nine were held in a holding pattern. The runway has now been closed for more than 18 hours and will not reopen until 7 pm at the earliest. This is an incredibly serious situation involving the criminal activity of someone flying industrial-type drones in and over the airspace of an airfield.

When this situation is over, the Government and the aviation industry must look at this incredibly seriously. This kind of disruption to hundreds of thousands of people going about their ordinary business—seeing their loved ones at Christmas, going on honeymoons, going on holidays—is completely unacceptable. Technical measures, whether geofencing or guns that can fire nets to ensnare drones, must be put in place. If not, we will see this happen again. We warned about it when it happened on a small scale a year and a half ago. It has now happened on a large and costly scale.

[Bob Stewart]

I do not understand why the runway has been closed for so long. Surely, if a drone is flying, people identify it, find out where it has come from and bring it down. The runway has been closed for a heck of a long time. Are there a series of these damn things going up?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

As I understand it, the drones had gone but came back again, and the police are trying to find out who is controlling them. They have no means of stopping them flying other than by shooting them down, which they are loth to do because of stray bullets. We have to look immediately at serious measures to deal with this threat. If this happens again at Heathrow or other major airports, we will see considerable disruption to people’s lives and losses to the economy.

Nearly six years ago, the Francis report came out as a result of the terrible things that happened in Stafford Hospital over several years. Since then, a huge amount has been done to put that right and to make the County Hospital, as it is now called, one of the best-performing hospitals in the country for A&E services. For many weeks now, the A&E there has either admitted or discharged more than 95% of patients, and sometimes as much as 98%, within four hours. I pay tribute to the staff who have been through that difficult time since the 2000s and stuck at it right through to now, making the hospital a credit to the NHS.

The hospital still faces a lot of challenges. There is not enough activity there; we need to see more day case and elective work. I have been talking with the clinical commissioning groups and the University Hospitals of North Midlands trust to see that that happens, because it is vital that the hospital is maintained and grows. I also pay tribute to Paula Clark, the trust’s retiring chief executive. She took over at a difficult time from Mark Hackett, who himself had steered the hospital and the trust through difficult times. Paula has done a great job in the last three years, and I wish her well in retirement.

On the matter mentioned by the hon. Member for York Central, there is additional NHS land in the hospital’s grounds that is currently not being used. It is my firm belief that that land should be retained for health purposes—NHS purposes or allied health purposes, such as care. This kind of land, in or near to a town centre, is precious. There is other land. We are already building housing at two and a half times the national average. We do not need more housing in that area. We need to preserve that land for other related activities.

I will turn to several issues that I have dealt with over recent years and will, I hope, continue to deal with next year. The first is the work of unpaid carers, which goes unsung. They work year in, year out to look after their loved ones, without reward; they sometimes receive a carer’s allowance, but that has not gone up in recent years. They do it for love, because they are devoted to the people whom they care for. In Staffordshire we have had certain funds available for breaks for carers, but those funds have been reduced and may eventually not be there at all. It is vital that carers, particularly unpaid carers, and other support services have the opportunity to take those short breaks, which they would not otherwise be able to do.

I intend in the coming year to concentrate on this area and to try to encourage both local government and national Government to look at it. Of course, it is not just down to local and national Government. Local charities and other organisations are vital in the support for unpaid carers, and at Christmas, I want particularly to pay tribute to them.

The businesses in the Stafford constituency are an outstanding bunch. There are all types, from the smallest to the largest. A couple of weeks ago, I had the honour of taking the ambassador of China to businesses in my constituency—both to General Electric, where he saw the plans for a bid for a major offshore wind farm, off the east coast of Scotland, which is potentially coming to fruition, and to Perkins, a subsidiary of Caterpillar, that makes wonderful large diesel engines; they are getting more efficient all the time. It also manufactures: it has a manufacturing plant in China.

I took the ambassador to Shugborough Hall. Shugborough is the former home of Admiral Anson and of Patrick Lichfield. Shugborough has been retaken by the National Trust in the last couple of years. It was an honour to show the ambassador the dinner service presented to Admiral Anson in, I think, 1744, when his ship, which was on a round-the-world voyage, limped into Canton at the time that it was going up in flames. His men helped to put out the fire of Canton and, as a result, he was given that magnificent dinner service by the grateful inhabitants.

I had the honour, on another occasion, of visiting a local business set up by Barry Baggott and now owned by German investors, who have put a great deal of money into it. That shows how small-scale manufacturing can and does thrive in the United Kingdom. The business makes high-speed washing machines for glasses and cups that are used in Costa Coffee and other such places around the country. It is a local, British business. It gets an order one day; it makes the machine and delivers it the next day. That is the kind of just-in-time manufacturing that can and does take place on a small scale, not just on the large scale of motor plants.

As I mentioned, Stafford is building housing at two and a half times the national average, in accordance with the plan that we have, and that is right, but I want to see the infrastructure. I am not prepared to see, in our next plan, large-scale housing being proposed without the relevant infrastructure being put in at the same time or in advance. I would also like to see more green belt. It is fine that we are allocating greenfield as well as brownfield land for new housing. I have no problem with that: we have to meet housing needs. But I think that if we also brought back or introduced some more green belt—that would protect, for instance, Stafford from merging into Stone, which I see as a risk at the moment—people would be prepared to accept more housing, because they would see that more green belt was being put in place. At the moment, people do not know where the expansion of Stafford northwards and Stone southwards will end, because they just see more and more proposals for housing on greenfield land.

I come now to the issue of Stafford town centre. A major part of it is thriving. We have just seen the newest Odeon cinema in the country open. We have now two cinemas, having a few months ago had none, because the old one was closed: it has now reopened, I am very glad to say. That part of the town centre is thriving, but the north part of the town centre and the market square need a great deal of support and help. We need to repurpose some of the buildings. We need more people living in the town centre. However, we also need to see more local independent businesses thriving, and that relates to something else that the hon. Member for York Central mentioned—absentee landlords for properties, who keep rent prices high. Even if the properties come within the rates support, whereby rates do not have to be paid, the rent is too high and the overheads are too high, and local businesses cannot afford to be there. We need to work on that and to encourage the parts of town centres that are currently neglected to come back into use and thrive. That is also right at the top of my agenda.

It was a great honour to welcome a few weeks ago the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), for a visit to Staffordshire Women’s Aid’s new refuge in Stafford. Building it up over the last few years has been a magnificent achievement by that organisation and the local community. We also had the opportunity to take the Minister to Eagle House to see the work of the Housing First project, which Stafford Borough Council has introduced and which has had a great effect. At this point, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for all the work that he has done on homelessness. I am sure that the Housing First project is partly due to his sterling work.

One issue that has come up and which has been raised by colleagues is the new psychoactive substances, which are causing great distress. In Staffordshire and particularly in Stoke and Stafford, we have a terrible thing called monkey dust. I do not know whether others have seen this problem across the country. Monkey dust seems to be in our area particularly and it has a terrible effect on the people who take it. It makes them more aggressive and has led to quite some problems with antisocial behaviour. The police are on to it, but we have to be vigilant all the time to ensure that new psychoactive substances are dealt with and the production, wherever it is, is closed down as soon as possible.

I would like to turn to one or two international matters, Mr Robertson. Given your strong interest in Ethiopia—where I am a trade envoy for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—you are well aware of the importance of creating jobs and livelihoods for the hundreds of millions of young people across the developing world and particularly across Africa. The population of Africa is expected to double from 1.2 billion to 2.4 billion and it will have the highest number of young people on the globe, on this planet, by 2060. Therefore it is critical that the United Kingdom supports Governments such as that of Ethiopia, whose population is now more than 100 million, and others as they try to develop opportunities for young people.

The alternative to that is what we have seen over the last few years, which is migration and, often, migration under the compulsion of human traffickers. I saw some Ethiopians in Calais at the beginning of this year. They had reached Calais through that kind of pressure and were seeking to come over to the United Kingdom to work. Unless we provide and see created the kind of opportunities that I have described for young people across Africa and in developing countries elsewhere, the kind of crisis with refugees that we saw in 2015 will be as nothing compared with what we see in the future.

It is critical that we work together. That is why, as chair of the international Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, I have tried to set up a global coalition for youth employment. But the issue is not just Africa. In September, I was in Kosovo, talking with its Government and Parliament, at the invitation of its Parliament, about its problem. It has 60% youth unemployment, and that is a country in the heart of Europe.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, it has been a great honour to see the work done by so many British institutions around the world to tackle malaria and the 18 or so neglected tropical diseases. Those institutions include the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the University of York, Keele University and, in Scotland, the University of Stirling. The problem is that progress, which had been superb since 2000 under Labour, coalition and Conservative Governments, has stalled because of the resistance of the malaria parasite to the drugs and the resistance of mosquitoes to the insecticides on bed nets, which had been so successful in helping to reduce deaths and incidences by more than half over that period. Therefore it is vital that we keep going with the work and research that is being done, across our universities, for new insecticides and drugs.

I will close with the issue of human rights and, in particular, religious freedom. I am sad to say that I see the space for human rights closing in many parts of the world, rather than opening up, and the same goes for religious freedom. It is vital that this country remains a beacon for human rights and religious freedom and that we do not succumb to the kinds of pressures that we see in other countries, where people are forced to keep quiet about their sincere beliefs. When we see our international partners going in the wrong direction, and we know which countries those are, it is vital that we encourage them—often this is better done privately—to recognise that allowing people to practise their faith, or lack of faith, is vital to the human soul. With that, I wish everybody here a happy Christmas and new year.

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[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I intend to do a quick run round the room and touch on what other hon. Members have spoken about, but I will make it short.

We owe the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, a debt of gratitude for his work throughout the year. He talked passionately about Gateshead. He even dragged me there—sorry; he arranged a visit to Gateshead for the Education Committee and I had a lovely time. I especially liked the wonderful Gateshead College.

The hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) had a long list of organisations in his constituency, and I will emulate him in a minute. He hopes to still be an MP at 100, by which time Southend may have reached city status.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) talked about issues that affect all hon. Members present, such as housing, the effect of really expensive rents and the effect of universal credit, which has puts lots of people in our constituencies into debt.

The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) spoke about iso—

[Bob Stewart]

Isotretinoin.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. He spoke about the dangers that some young people, in particular, are going through as a result of using it. He really wants the drug to be reviewed and perhaps its use halted, to save people from the horrendous symptoms that they can experience.

The hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) spoke about rugby league. Yes, I remember it when I was growing up; I remember Eddie Waring and Keighley in their heyday. I know that he spoke about other things, too, but I really have to move on.

The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) gave us a very sobering reflection on religious freedom and how important it is in this country. He talked about Jainism, about Sikhs and about the problem of getting religious information on censuses.

I was quite horrified to hear about the wildcats on “Good Morning Scotland” this morning. As the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) said, they have been interbreeding with feral cats, which is an animal welfare issue. He also talked about Brexit and universal credit.

The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) gave a great summary of the previous speakers; he was probably much better at that than I am. I am grateful to him, in that respect, because I have been able to rush through some of the others. He also spoke very knowledgably about the work of his two local authorities, as well as speaking about Humber ports and direct rail connections.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke about post offices. As Members will know, I have a personal interest in them, having lost my own post office. The post office in Wishaw was closed for three weeks, because it was not possible to get another person to take over the sub-postmastership, which caused my constituents great suffering. She also spoke about NHS land and what happens to it, which is another real issue, as did the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who also talked about drones. I cannot get an earlier flight from London City airport because what has happened at London Gatwick has had an impact right across the United Kingdom; it is really serious. He also talked about work overseas, especially in Africa, and I am grateful to him for some of the knowledge he gave me that I did not have beforehand.

I seriously hope that I have not missed anyone out. I will move on to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), who has had a very interesting time since he became an MP. He cut right through a number of things. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the Glasgow School of Art, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). His own constituency has the famous St Rollox rail works, which I know. My husband took me to Springburn on our honeymoon, to show me where he had been born and lived. However, when we turned the corner, we found that the building he had been born in had been demolished. I make light of it, but there is Springburn Museum for the hon. Gentleman’s delectation and delight, in which there is a picture of my husband on coronation day in 1953, watching his sisters in a race to celebrate the Queen’s coronation. I will not mention where I was then.

With your indulgence, Mr Robertson, I will mention my own constituency of Motherwell and Wishaw, of which I am extremely proud. It is a haven for refugees and has been since 1919. The first group that I can remember are the Lithuanian refugees who came over after the first world war. There have also been Polish refugees and, more recently, Congolese refugees, who were taken to Motherwell, and the Syrian refugees, who have also been placed and welcomed in my constituency. Indeed, when there was a move by some right-wing organisations to demonstrate against refugees being settled in Wishaw, I am very proud to say that many citizens of Wishaw stood at the bottom cross in Wishaw and campaigned for the refugees’ successful integration, which I believe is really happening. In Motherwell and Wishaw, when children of refugees go to school and meet local children, it becomes a real exercise in getting along together.

I will also talk a bit about what I did as an MP when I was first elected in 2015. We saw a need and we set up the Poverty Action Network, because we knew there were lots of local organisations fighting poverty and we wanted to bring them together and facilitate the exchange of ideas. We have the Basics food bank; St Vincent de Paul; Lanarkshire Links; Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire; Scottish Action for Mental Health; Neighbourhood Networks; Made4U in ML2; Citizens Advice; Motherwell Baptist Church; Safeguarding Communities—Reducing Offending, or Sacro; Women’s Aid; Routes to Work; Big Lottery Fund; Christians Against Poverty; The Haven; Lanarkshire Community Food and Health Partnership; North Lanarkshire Disability Forum; Alzheimer Scotland; Getting Better Together; NL Leisure; Motherwell Football Club Community Trust, because Motherwell is now a community-owned football club; Families Against Murder and Suicide; Chris’s House, which helps families who have suffered the suicide of a family member; Lanarkshire Cancer Care Trust, to which I am especially grateful as it transported my late husband to a hospice on a weekly basis; Community Care Scotland; North Lanarkshire Carers Together; Wishaw, Murdostoun and Fortissat Community Forum; South Wishaw Parish Church; Miracle Foundation, which provides parties and support for young children who have lost parents or other close relatives; Lanarkshire Baby Bank; One Parent Families Scotland; the Welfare Rights Team in North Lanarkshire Council; North Lanarkshire Partnership; Scottish Welfare Fund; NHS Lanarkshire; and Police Scotland, especially the police based in Motherwell.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to speak today, Dame Eleanor? I am delighted to say that the Members who tabled and put their names to the amendments and new clause will not press them to a vote because—in case anybody has not heard—the Government finally saw sense and backed down on the implementation date for the reduction of stakes on fixed odds betting terminals. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you.

I stand instead to make a point: the power of the Back Benchers cannot be ignored. This House is fortunate to have so many Members, on all Benches, who are prepared to put principle before both profits and politics. I pay tribute to the many colleagues in this place and the other, and I pay special tribute to the hon. Members for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and to the wonderful hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), whose principles led to her resignation. I thank them all for their support, dedication and downright determination to force the Government’s hand.

The result has been a long time coming, but this issue has demonstrated the very best of this House, where politicians of all persuasions came together, united in seeking to make sure that the Government were held to account for their reluctance to put people’s lives ahead of company profits. The Government had so many opportunities to do the right thing, but they seemed determined to pander to the whim of an industry set to make nearly £1 billion of profit in the six-month period between April and October 2019. It is regrettable that it took strong-arm tactics by Members to convince them to make the change and that they did not come to a principled decision on the morality of the problem—the devastation that these machines have caused to individuals, communities and families.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady and everyone who has played a part in this campaign. Is it not tragic that it has taken this House 17 years to sort out the matter? We are congratulating ourselves on having achieved something, but, in those 17 years, we are fully aware of the lives that have been wrecked by our inactivity. Thank goodness that we have got it right now.

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman.

May I just say that I cannot thank the Government? As much as I respect and like the Minister, I can say only one thing: learn lessons from this and never underestimate the power of principle.

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[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. One thinks, for example, of the sugar levy to improve public health and to make sure that our young people, in particular, move towards a healthier diet. Tax can certainly have an effect in that respect. As my hon. Friend said, there is also the duty on cigarettes, tobacco, hand-rolling tobacco, and alcohol to make sure that as well as just raising revenues, we change behaviour in a way that is conducive to the public good.

[Bob Stewart]

My right hon. Friend has not mentioned fairness in taxation. That is another principle that we must use for taxation. Fairness implies that the people who have the least pay the least and that those who can afford it pay more. I am quite sure that the Government are fully aware of that point when raising taxation.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. He is absolutely right: fairness has to be the heart and soul of any progressive taxation system, along with competitiveness—we want to keep rates down—and the importance of tax being paid, as I have been elaborating on. On his specific point, we were of course able to announce in the recent Budget—this forms part of the Bill—the increase in the personal allowance, which is now up to £12,500. Bear in mind that in 2010 the personal allowance was about £6,500. The personal allowance is, of course, the amount that an individual can receive by way of earnings without those earnings falling due to income tax. Any increase in the personal allowance does indeed have a disproportionately beneficial impact on the lowest-paid in our country. Since 2010, in fact, we have now removed some 4 million people in total from tax altogether.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

It is one of the key drivers in tackling tax avoidance and the tax gap—the tax gap occurs not just with individuals but with large corporations and small businesses. I do not have the precise number, but I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with that information. What I can tell him is that, at any one time, about 50% of the largest 200 businesses in the country are under investigation, not necessarily because they have done anything wrong but because, logically, HMRC should be looking particularly carefully at the businesses that are making the largest profits and generating the most.

This investment is paying off. In 2017-18 alone, HMRC secured and protected more than £30 billion in additional tax revenues which otherwise would have gone unpaid. That was a year-on-year increase of £1.4 billion.

We know that some large multinationals have been able to avoid tax by exploiting gaps and mismatches in the international tax system. International leadership was required to address the situation, and that is exactly what the Government have provided. We were at the forefront of the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting project, which agreed major reforms to the international tax system, and we have taken the lead in implementing these recommendations in domestic legislation. We have also been a strong supporter of the EU anti-tax avoidance directive, and we have helped to shape the common approach that it provides for tackling avoidance in the European Union.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way to me again. For the sake of fairness, we must of course ensure that multinational companies making profits in our country contribute properly to the economy of the country. I hope very much that we can somehow link the profits made in the United Kingdom very closely to the amount of tax that is paid. At the moment some international companies are behaving appallingly in the way in which they handle their tax affairs, and we must sort that out.