Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

Treasury Ministers, and indeed Ministers right across government, are speaking to individual businesses and sectors all the time to understand their concerns about issues of this sort. Obviously, we are seeking the best possible deal for the UK, and all the work being done reflects that, including in respect of understanding how we can respond to those concerns and get a great deal.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

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

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

My priority is to ensure that the economy remains stable and resilient as we conduct our negotiations with the European Union. That means building upon this Government’s achievements in reducing the deficit by two thirds and getting unemployment down to the lowest rate since the 1970s, while tackling the long-term challenges of productivity enhancement and making steady progress towards our goal of a balanced budget. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that in the past few minutes the International Monetary Fund has upgraded its UK growth forecast for 2017 by 0.5%, to 2%.

[Dr Poulter]

Farms and other agricultural businesses are often deterred from making investments in new buildings and infrastructure because of a complex system of capital allowances, including agricultural buildings relief. Will my right hon. Friend examine this issue, particularly in respect of giving the agricultural sector a boost in the wake of Brexit?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)]

Agricultural land and buildings are, of course, exempt from business rates, although I know my hon. Friend was talking in particular about some of the capital allowances. We are committed to a capital gains tax system that supports investment and growth right across the economy, which is why at Budget 2016 we reduced CGT rates from 28% to 20%, and from 18% to 10% for gains on most assets. Owners of agricultural businesses benefit from the same CGT rates and reliefs as other business owners.

Scottish Devolution and Article 50

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the implications for the Scottish devolution settlement of triggering Article 50.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. I have to say that this debate has taken on a bit of a different taste in the past few days. On Monday morning, I was quite clear about what we would have to discuss, but by lunchtime my party leader, as well as the Prime Minister, had rather knocked me off my stride. She does that sometimes—she is pretty good. I find myself coming back to the basics of the debate and considering what it is we really need to know: what is in store for Scotland?

If Members will allow me, I will keep things a bit sober and restrained so that we can have a sensible discussion of the issues, which I consider to be extremely important. Over the past few months we have asked questions about the Government’s approach to, hopes for and starting position in the negotiations over the UK’s leaving the EU. I am afraid we have received no substantive answers, which has led some people less charitable than me to suggest that the Government do not know the answers to those questions. I would never suggest such a thing—not yet, anyway.

The point of fracture for me came at the Scottish Tory conference in Perth, where the Prime Minister did two things in her speech. The first was to claim that Scotland has the most powerful devolved legislature in the world and the second was to suggest that competencies repatriated—if that is the correct word—from the EU will be exercised in Whitehall rather than in Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast.

Let me first address the idea that Scotland has the most powerful devolved legislature in the world. I have seen no evidence to support that claim, although it has been made repeatedly over a number of years. I have seen no comparison made that supports such a suggestion, nor any indication of the definition of a devolved legislature being used. I cannot but think that there are more powerful examples of sub-state bodies, such as the German Länder and the Australian states and territories, which would better fit that description. Anyway, it strikes me that we should not care whether Scotland is the most powerful devolved legislature in the world; we should be asking whether the arrangements—current and proposed—are what best suit Scotland’s needs.

I will argue that Scotland should be independent, because I believe we have a different outlook on public life from that of the fine people south of the border. Our public discourse is different and our values and societies are different. I understand that people on the other side of the debate will see it in a different light: they look at the issue from a UK point of view and decide that Scotland is better where it is. They are entitled to do that. In my view they are entirely wrong, but they are entitled to be wrong and to support the continuation of the UK rather than the re-emergence of its constituent nations.

The idea of the most powerful devolved legislature in the world brings us to the point about where power should rest. In the early days of devolution, some believed that they had squared the circle and that the separation of policy areas that should be reserved and those left devolved was finalised. We discovered fairly quickly, however, that that was not the case and that the issue had to be revisited. The prediction of Ron Davies, the one-time Welsh Secretary, came to pass. Devolution is a process, not an event.

The extension of devolution, by the way, was described by the previous leader of the Scottish Conservatives as the most important debate in the Scottish Parliament. Interestingly, she said that at a time when a Labour Scottish Secretary, Des Browne, was busy trying to strip powers from Holyrood—presumably because the Scottish National party had won the Scottish election in 2007. The upshot was an extension rather than a constriction of the competencies of the Scottish Parliament, and the debate continued. In policy area after policy area, power and competency has been ceded to Holyrood as it becomes clear—even to those opposed to any further devolution—that those powers and competencies are best exercised in Scotland. It is a process, not an event.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has secured an important debate. When the UK devolution settlements were designed in 1998, there was no thought of Brexit and, at that time, the single market was the European single market. After Brexit, the single market will be the UK single market—at the moment, because Scotland is not independent. How does she believe that will work in agriculture, fisheries and other policy areas?

[Deidre Brock]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I will address that later in my speech.

Now we find ourselves about to leave the European Union, the Prime Minister is making the threat of removing competencies from Holyrood as they come back from Brussels; other than that, we do not really have any idea of what she is planning. Leaving the European Union means that the Scotland Act 1998 must be revisited, because it compels Scotland to comply with EU law. The clawing back of powers and competencies from Holyrood to Whitehall, as suggested by the Prime Minister, would also require amendments to that Act.

If Members want to understand exactly how much disentanglement there will be, they should ask the Commons Library, as I did. They will be told that there is a huge number of directives and regulations to look through and that to come up with a definitive figure, list or even idea of what is reserved and what remains devolved is, to all intents and purposes, a fool’s errand.

To give an example, there are 527 regulations under the environment, consumer and health sections alone, and there are a whole host of environmental regulations under other headings such as “energy”. I do not know whether the Scotland Office has been working to draw up a list—or the Wales Office or the Northern Ireland Office for that matter. It would be good to be told, but it is clear that there is an enormous amount of work to be done and an enormous amount of legislation to comb through. Sifting that, considering it, deciding where to lay it and working it out will need a new Scotland Act.

It is true that the Government could use section 30 of the 1998 Act further to reserve powers over those areas currently under EU control, but that would seem frankly perverse if the Act has to be amended in any case. That seems simple, but when I asked the Prime Minister last week whether she would consult the people of Scotland properly and seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament before making changes to the legislation that frames devolution, she seemed perplexed. Her answer to me was that she undertakes

“full discussions with the Scottish Government on…reserved matters and…where we are negotiating on behalf of the whole of the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 808.]

However, we discovered on Monday that that is simply not true. Scotland’s First Minister was clear that none of the devolved Administrations had heard a peep from the UK Government before the announcement that we are all being dragged out of the single market, in spite of that being the major part of the Scottish Government’s compromise proposal on Brexit.

There is a sweetheart deal for Nissan, but no discussion of Scotland’s needs—far less any movement to accommodate those needs. Membership of the single market is vital for Scotland’s exports, and essential to the exercise of the economic competencies of the Scottish Parliament and to the future of many Scottish businesses. An immigration system that offers EU citizens the right to come to Scotland to live, work, study and settle down is essential to our continuing to grow a population that is economically active and demographically sustainable, as was discussed in the recent Scottish Affairs Committee debate. Academic research and the excellent record of Scotland’s universities is under threat, because Brexit will cut them off from an enormous research funder and from the universities they co-operate with on the continent, not to mention the academics who come to Scotland from elsewhere in the EU.

The implications for Scotland of triggering article 50 are enormous and deep-seated and, whichever way things go, they will have a long half-life. We have heard the glib “Brexit means Brexit”, that it will be red, white and blue and that there will be no running commentary, but I am beginning to suspect that there is no running anything behind Whitehall’s firmly closed doors. It is time that the Government started to lay out what Brexit actually means in terms of implications for the people who live on these islands, rather than continuing use of tautology.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Planning is of absolute importance, and I have to say, I probably have more confidence in the Scottish Government’s ability to plan ahead, irrespective of what the UK Government is doing. The First Minister has demonstrated at every turn, before, during and since the EU referendum, that the Scottish Government are actually thinking ahead about the consequences of various decisions might be. We have seen that demonstrated again this week.

My hon. Friend leads me on to the important practicalities of how the implications of triggering article 50 will be felt in Scotland and their implications for devolution. The first—I hope we will have an opportunity to find out a little bit more about this—will be when we finally get to see and hear more about the Government’s thinking on the great repeal Bill, or, as it is increasingly known in some circles, the great power grab. It is a serious concern for Members from all parties, not least the hardcore Brexiteers who wanted to restore sovereignty to the House of Commons, that what will in fact happen is a power transfer—a power grab—by the Executive in the United Kingdom.

We read in The Times the other day that it will perhaps not just be a great repeal Bill, but that up to seven or more pieces of individual legislation will be needed just to deal with the complexities of taking us out of the European Union. The Government have to start answering questions, precisely as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said, so that we can make plans.

The consequences for devolution are profound. Which will come first, the chicken or the egg? Are we going to see an amendment to the Scotland Act to reserve powers as a result of Brexit, or will individual pieces of legislation come forward that reserve different powers? What exactly is going to happen?

[Dr Poulter]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Patrick Grady]

I am happy to, if the hon. Gentleman has an answer for me.

[Dr Poulter]

I speak as someone who was not a hardcore Brexiteer but voted to remain. Agriculture is an area that affects my constituency in Suffolk, as it does many of the constituencies in Scotland. Given that many agricultural tariffs are currently set at a European level, if Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom and we have a UK single market, it would be appropriate for the UK Government to be involved in dealing with those agricultural tariffs, on a point of principle. Does he agree?

[Patrick Grady]

The principle that is very clear is that if something is not reserved to the UK Government, it is therefore devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I have not read the words “reservation of agriculture” in schedule 5 to the Scotland Act. Some of my hon. Friends might want to clarify or expand on the practicalities of that.

Let us take fisheries as an example, which was one of the potential Bills listed in The Times the other day. There are potential consequences for that. If the Government bring forward a fisheries Bill and have not clarified whether that is devolved or reserved, it seems to me that, under the English votes for English laws Standing Orders, it will fall to the Speaker of the House of Commons to decide whether or not that hugely profound, massive area of policy needs to be certified under the EVEL procedures. That could therefore deny a say to Members from Scotland on something that the Scottish Parliament equally has no power over, because we have been left in a legislative limbo. The Government have to start making clear exactly what their thoughts are on these issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

It must be in the post; I hope it is, because it would be thoroughly deserved. I apologise to you for elevating you to a knighthood, Mr Gray, and also to the House for being slightly late. A major constituency issue delayed me, so I only heard the end of the speech by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock).

This issue will be a key element of the discussions over the next few years in this House. I am not sure how many thousands or tens of thousands of statutory instruments and pieces of legislation we will see when the great repeal Bill is announced, but I hope we will have some kind of process that takes into account three things. First, English votes for English laws should be suspended with the great repeal Bill, given its severity. Secondly, there must be a streamlined process, so that we do not all end up having to sit and consider 10,000 statutory instruments. I am sure that the House, and certainly the Clerks of the House, would very much welcome that.

Thirdly, I hope that the Minister and the Government—I say this with all respect and in the interests of trying to find a way through—take into account the political difficulties and sensitivities of the Scottish Parliament’s responsibilities and schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998. Schedule 5 is incredibly simple to read now because it has got so small, given the number of powers that have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but the key one in there is the relationship with the European Union and foreign affairs. That should not be an excuse for the Government to say that the devolved Administrations should not be heavily involved in this process.

None of us wanted to be here—I certainly did not—in terms of Brexit, but we are, and this process has to be followed through. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for securing this debate. It will probably be one of many we have on Brexit and Scotland over the next few years.

I said this to the Prime Minister yesterday in the House and will emphasise it again now. The general principle should be that where a power is not in schedule 5 to the 1998 Act and where a power has been devolved—whether to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales or the metro mayors we are about to elect in May—the power should be devolved. The reason I put it as a principle, rather than saying everything should be devolved in a blanket way, is that some things will take some thought when it comes to the framework. While things such as fisheries, agriculture, the environment, regional development and policy from the European Union are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it is under the EU framework. That EU framework gives the minimum standards and framework in which member states have to operate.

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech. This is a difficult area, as he has outlined. Agriculture, for example, is devolved to different parts of the United Kingdom, and there is disagreement on areas such as genetically modified crops. However, when the Secretary of State for International Trade needs to make a trade deal, that is surely something that the UK Government across the UK single market are best placed to do.

[Ian Murray]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that point, although my response will not necessarily be on the complicated nature of what he determined in his intervention; rather, it will be on how crucial it is for both Governments to work together. Unless both Governments work together, all the negotiations that are happening on trade deals or otherwise will be incredibly difficult to resolve. Given that Scotland and other regions and nations of the UK have some significant products that are of a singular nature to those particular geographical areas, we will have to work together.

Agriculture is one of three or four big areas where we need some kind of working together to ensure that this works properly. Take, for example, cattle movement across borders, which is a hugely complicated and difficult thing. It is about not only the cattle themselves and their welfare but the spread of disease and other issues. We will need some kind of working together and a framework to allow that to happen. While repatriation and devolution should be the principle, we should do this in a systematic way, not only for the benefit of the country and ensuring that this works properly, but for the benefit of the practitioners in all those areas—whether it be the environment, agriculture or fisheries—that will be repatriated and devolved.

Finally, it is not only about devolution; a cheque has to go with it. It cannot just be devolution of power without the devolution of the money. If we take agriculture as an example, again, Scotland gets 16% or 17% of UK agricultural spending in the round. That would have to travel with the devolved powers, which is why I think we need to be quite careful that the frameworks in place for each of those big items are dealt with properly.

Low-Cost housing

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is making very good points, and I agree with him about the Government’s welcome White Paper yesterday on improving the housing supply. Does he agree that one of the challenges can sometimes be the fairly entrenched, long-held concerns that people raise locally about higher properties? Incentives are needed in the system to encourage local authorities to give planning consents if we are going to overcome some of the problems.

[John Penrose]

I agree with my hon. Friend for two reasons. When taller buildings excite the kind of Manhattan-ish concerns that we just heard about from the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), there clearly has to be careful consideration and community buy-in, because they have such a profound, wide-scale impact on local views and local infrastructure. Smaller and more modest proposals—I will talk about those in more detail in a minute—are much more absorbable and go much more with the grain of local things, so they may well not need a huge number of extra permissions and incentives, beyond the fact that they provide an opportunity for individual landowners to make a contribution and perhaps to increase the value of their particular site. I will expand on that, and perhaps if my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) is not completely convinced, he will intervene later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. Nevertheless, with any consideration of extending permitted development rights, there are always unintended consequences. That is why the Planning Officers Society, Historic England and other organisations did not see the merit of, and therefore did not make the case for, extending them. In fact, it was not only permitted development rights that were considered, but other methods.

As I say, the British Property Federation welcomed the proposal for an extension to permitted development rights, but even the BPF said that

“it is unlikely to deliver a significant amount of new homes”,

which, as the hon. Gentleman said in his speech, is one of his key aims.

What are the reasons to retain the status quo, which is what I am suggesting? Proposals to develop upwards can go through the planning application process. What is wrong with that? A planning application provides notification, consultation, transparency and accountability, whereas extending permitted development rights does not. If any proposal to build higher makes sense in a town or village centre; if it works with neighbouring buildings; if the space standards and design provide good quality housing in which people will thrive, it should be granted planning permission. However, to deny a community or a parish council the ability to comment, to deny planning officers the ability to negotiate improvements to a proposal, and to deny locally elected councillors the opportunity to determine the application would just open the gates to unpopular, unwanted and possibly bad developments.

If a local council makes a bad planning decision—possibly in the face of fierce local opposition to an application—there is always the opportunity to appeal to the impartial Planning Inspectorate. Nobody denies that enabling more homes to be built in a town or village centre is a good thing for the life and vibrancy of that place.

[Dr Poulter]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment. However, is it not very difficult for the types of people my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) has spoken about today—people who want to carry out small extensions or build small buildings—to bring the sorts of planning appeals that she just talked about? Sometimes bad decisions are made because around the time of elections, planning issues can become very contentious in local authorities.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Having been a councillor myself for many, many years, I am well aware of that pressure, which is why we have the appeals system—it is why we have that check and balance. Let us remember that one can only get away with refusing a planning application if the refusal is made on good planning grounds. Officers are there to advise councillors, and if councillors ignore officers, the application will go to appeal, and, if it is a good application that was refused for the wrong reasons, the Planning Inspectorate will overturn the refusal and the application will be granted.

The planning system is there for a reason. It is there to protect communities and ensure good development. It ensures that there are appropriate facilities, amenities, space standards, parking provision and so on. When permitted development rights are extended, a lot of that is lost. I am sure that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare does not want to see a load of high-rise buildings going up that do not meet basic standards and do not provide a basic quality of life for the people living in those dwellings and in surrounding dwellings.

House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

There is a public demand for value for money and to reduce the cost of politics. In all areas of public life, savings have been made so that we live within our means. It is right that this House should find savings, too. By reducing the number of MPs, we will save up to £66 million over the course of a Parliament.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The Minister is right to talk about the importance of democratic legitimacy. Does he accept that it is democratically illegitimate to have hereditary peers sitting and having any say in our democratic process? It gets in the way of the legitimacy of some of his other arguments when that very simple change could be put forward to help him carry through some of the arguments he is making about constituency equalisation.

[Michael Ellis]

As I have already said, the Government recognise the need to reduce the size of the House of Lords, but comprehensive reform is not considered a priority in this Parliament. I would have thought that the Scottish nationalists recognised the priority being given to other pressing constitutional matters, particularly the further devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales.

As I was saying, by reducing the number of MPs, we will save £66 million over the course of a Parliament. It is therefore right that we move forward with these proposals. The boundary proposals need not be tied with reforms of the House of Lords, not least as we do not believe that now is the right time to embark on comprehensive Lords reform. There are many different views on what form the House of Lords should take, and without any consensus there is no practical possibility, frankly, of taking such reform forward. There needs to be some practical realisation that, without consensus, it will not be possible.

Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

Dan Poulter Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

Perhaps that is something that we can look at in more detail in Committee.

These are important simplifications. Throughout the consultation, we received supportive comments from charities, as demonstrated in the quote I gave earlier. There are always additional asks, and we would all want to be open to ideas about how we can further support charities. However, we think that the measures that we have introduced in the Bill are important next steps to make it easier for charities of all sizes.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

There is a lot of merit in the Bill, which reaches out to ensure that smaller charities benefit from the scheme. Does my hon. Friend recognise that many smaller charities do not even know that the scheme exists, so part of the challenge that we face is communicating with them properly so that they know that the scheme will be a lot less complex and that they can benefit from it? What measures will she put in place to ensure that that happens?

[Jane Ellison]

I have already mentioned HMRC’s outreach work, which I will certainly be encouraging. More promotional opportunities are planned, and I know that the Minister for Civil Society will say more about that at the end of the debate. It is a fair point and we want to make it easier, but obviously there are people who just do not know about this and still perceive barriers, so everything we can do to challenge that is welcome. We are extremely keen to hear thoughts from across the House on how we can do that, so we are always listening. I am very happy to put those suggestions to HMRC, and I know that my ministerial colleague will be happy to consider that in his Department as well.

Let me clarify the anomaly and how we are addressing it. The anomaly in the original legislation allows some charities to claim more than others, based only on how they are structured. The Government welcome the supportive and constructive approach adopted by the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups during the recent consultation on the change.

The Bill also considerably relaxes the rules on where charities can receive donations that are still eligible for the gift aid small donations scheme. Currently, the scheme’s so-called community buildings rules mean that charities can claim top-up payments only on donations received during charitable activities that take place within the community building. However, we know that many local charities, although based in community buildings, carry out most of their activities in the local community, away from the building itself, which means they are unable to benefit fully from the small donations scheme. The Bill therefore relaxes the rules to allow charities based in community buildings to claim top-up payments on donations received outside the building but within the local community area. Colleagues will be delighted to know that, among the many small, local civil society groups, the scouts and guides, the air and sea cadets and other local uniformed groups, in particular, will benefit significantly from this change and will be able to receive the support they deserve for the vital work they carry out in our communities.

Taken together, this package of reforms has the potential to provide a real boost to many charities, particularly the up to 9,000 new charities that apply for recognition by HMRC each year. Based on provisional estimates, these changes are expected to benefit charities by £15 million a year, a significant increase that underlines the Government’s commitment to supporting a greater number of charities and a greater number of donations. The final figures will be certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility as part of this year’s autumn statement.

So far I have talked about the changes that will further support our charities. Let me turn briefly to the tax-free childcare aspects of the Bill, which will help us ensure that it is easier for hard-pressed parents to receive the support they need. In the previous Parliament we legislated to introduce tax-free childcare. That will provide up to £2,000 of Government support for childcare costs per child a year, which parents can use with any childcare provider they choose. The idea is that they can simply apply online to open an account for each child, and that for every £8 a parent pays in, we will pay in an additional £2. The system will be trialled later this year and then gradually rolled out to parents from early next year.

During our user testing of the system to date, we have found a couple of minor technical issues that we need to resolve in order to make it as straightforward as possible for parents. The Bill therefore makes two minor technical amendments to ensure that the scheme operates as intended. The first technical change relates to the duty of parents to confirm that they remain eligible to receive tax-free childcare each quarter. The Bill will allow greater flexibility over when parents are asked to make this confirmation. It will mean that once a quarter parents can confirm their eligibility for all their children at the same time, rather than having to do it separately for each child if they registered them at different times.

The second technical change will mean that parents can use a standard online form if they want to query a decision. That will make the process much more straightforward and convenient. We still want to ensure that everyone can ask for a review, so anyone who would struggle to get online will still be able to raise their queries in other ways.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I am a fairly new Member of Parliament and was not here when the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 was passed, so it is interesting to hear some of the history of how the small donations scheme started and how it has got to where it is just now. It was also interesting to hear about some of the changes being made as a result of looking back, three years in, and thinking about how the scheme has worked. I am pleased that the Government have taken on board some of the suggestions charities have made, to ensure that the scheme works as well as possible for those charities using it and for the Government, who have to administer it.

Some of the measures in the Bill are welcome. The SNP welcomes the removal of the eligibility criteria for new charities. That is a sensible way to go—it is sensible to make changes particularly in respect of the two-in-four-year criteria. The inclusion of contactless payment is to be welcomed. There was an interesting comment about text donations. I am not entirely sure how they fit in, but I would be keen for text donations to be included in the small donations part of gift aid and not just in the general part of gift aid, because so many people nowadays give by text message—it is a very easy way for people to give—but do not follow up with a text about their address. I have done the same thing.

I could be wrong, but from my reading of the Library briefing, I understand that the UK Government have the ability to change the matching requirement without the need for further primary legislation, as introduced in the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012.

Like the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), we have concerns about the 10:1 ratio. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) mentioned charities that are run solely by volunteers. Some of those charities do not do gift aid because the paperwork is far too cumbersome. Doing general gift aid and gift aid small donations claims paperwork would be doubly cumbersome, particularly for those that do not have staff. Those are among our smallest charities. In some cases, they never get donations of more than £20. They work in our most deprived communities and therefore are most in need of those donations—they get £3 here and there but it is just too complicated for them to jump through the hoops of any of those schemes. They believe that they are unable to deal with the small donations scheme because of the requirement additionally to take part in the matching for the gift aid scheme.

It would therefore be good for the Government to consider the impact on small charities. As was mentioned, for those small charities, it will not involve huge sums of money and people spending thousands of pounds sending their children to private schools. For example, a local organisation in my constituency buys shovels so that people can clean the pavements in the winter time—they are smaller-use pavements that the council does not get to. It receives a very small amount of money, but is most in need of access to those schemes and is being excluded because it does not have the staff and the ability to fill in the paperwork. If the Government could consider that and the matching requirement, it could have an impact on small charities.

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Lady is making a thoughtful and constructive speech and highlights some of the challenges for smaller charities that are mostly comprised of volunteers, who do not always have the understanding of and expertise in complex legislation when they are in post. That will clearly be the challenge of this and other legislation in the field. In that respect, is she saying—there may be merit if she is—that some of the anti-fraud measures are too restrictive and add complexity in respect of the funding requirements? Given the other anti-fraud measures in charities legislation, is there an argument for scrapping some of those measures altogether?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I would worry about the unintended consequences for anti-fraud legislation—I would not want to scrap those measures for very large charities that deal with large sums of money. We need to consider how very small charities, which cannot defraud the Government out of thousands of pounds in gift aid claims because they get donations of only £500 in total in a whole year—they will not break the bank—will access both the gift aid small donations scheme and the gift aid scheme in general. That is the majority of what I wanted to say on the gift aid small donations scheme.

On tax-free childcare, I cannot declare an interest in having set up a charity. As the parent of a five-year-old and a three-year-old, however, I can declare an interest in the current childcare voucher scheme and I am likely to be a beneficiary of tax-free childcare from next year when it is introduced. The childcare voucher scheme has been useful but limited, so I welcome some of the changes that will come in through the tax-free childcare scheme. These schemes will be easier to access for parents from less traditional employment backgrounds. That is a positive benefit, as is the uplift in the amount of money they will be able to claim. However, the UK Government’s proposals do not go far enough.

The Bill’s proposals on flexibility of dates and the ability to make requests digitally are hugely positive. The childcare voucher scheme has sometimes fallen down because of the inability to make some changes digitally. I know parents who have not changed the amount they claim when they needed to because it takes 15 days or so to make a change, and it involves a lot of printing out, posting and so on. The three-month rule is much clearer.

The UK Government’s proposals on childcare and inequality are not universal enough. The Scottish Government pledged in their manifesto to almost double the free early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week. Both my children have benefited from the uplift in free childcare and nursery places, and that has been hugely positive. Nursery places are now for three hours and 10 minutes a day. That is a length of time one can do something with, whereas two-and-a-half hours is not. By the time you get home and make a cup of tea, your morning has gone, whereas you can pop out and do a full shop in three hours and 10 minutes. Having those extra few minutes makes the biggest difference. The additional changes will make even more of a difference, with full days for two, three and four-year-olds. It is important that the changes are not just for three and four-year-olds, but some two-year-olds too. The changes mean that some three and four-year-olds will receive free school meals. Primary and one, two and three-year-old children in Scotland already receive free school meals. Again, that is a huge benefit. Again, I declare an interest as someone whose child receives free school meals—they are absolutely brilliant and he loves them. Nursery children will now also receive these meals.

The benefits that families in Scotland receive are universal, not means-tested. There is not a complicated means-testing system to decide which families receive them. There is no requirement for both parents to be working. Children across the board receive the benefits, which benefit both children and families. All children, whatever their demographic or socioeconomic background, are benefiting from high-quality free childcare.

We are also introducing baby boxes, again on a universal basis. They are an import from Finland and they have been hugely successful. The issues with the tax-free childcare scheme relate to it not being universal and not being provided to enough families. Some of the families most in need will not benefit from access to free childcare, particularly if they are going through the process of job seeking or anything like that. They are the ones who would benefit most from free childcare, which would enable them to access appointments, interviews and interview preparation, so the lack of universality is a concern.

We are largely supportive of the specific proposals in the Bill. We have concerns about gift matching and we will likely return to that next week, but I appreciate the opportunity to speak today.

Post Office Closures

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on securing the debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whose remarks, as always, were considered.

I hope to inject some optimism into the debate. Our debates in this place are often full of doom and gloom about issues facing our constituencies. Of course, it is right that we advocate on behalf of our constituents, who need to access local services, but some good things have been happening to post offices that have benefited my constituents. I will refer to a few of those things and talk about the issue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle raised, of the challenges that communities face when post offices temporarily close, often due to unforeseen circumstances.

Post offices are the lifeblood of many rural areas and of many of the shopping parades on the periphery of our larger town centres. That is certainly true of my constituency. The service that they provide to older people is particularly important, offering a focus in the village or community for people who have little daily contact and may otherwise be isolated. That is particularly true in rural areas of Suffolk. There is some cause for optimism, however, because the Government have taken supporting post offices seriously. At the beginning of the previous Parliament, as a result of the spending review, £1.3 billion was put into securing a modernisation programme for post offices both large and small, including Crown post offices, main post offices and local post offices. The programme is bringing benefits, certainly to my constituents. A further raft of £640 million was announced in 2013, £20 million of which is specifically for remote rural post offices. Residents in central Suffolk have benefited from that.

One issue that was flagged up when the modernisation programme was taken forward was that the Post Office needed to modernise some of its practices, recognising that we now live in a digital age. We need a Post Office that can benefit from economies of scale and from collocation with other community services. Post offices can benefit village shops by attracting more customers and helping to maintain the viability of shops and services that may otherwise be at risk as people move towards online shopping.

[Andrew Percy]

I hope my hon. Friend does not think that we are all being negative. The post offices at Pollington, Eastoft, Airmyn and Wrawby were all closed under the previous Government’s closure scheme, and we are pleased that that scheme has gone. The concern about the current positive policy is the huge delays when people are told that they are getting a new post office but then it does not open, meaning that people change their behaviour and start using other services or post offices elsewhere. That is the concern, and I would not want him to think that anyone who is criticising that is at all negative about what the Government have done on post offices. We have protected them in a way that previous Governments did not.

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I am sure that the funding and investment that I have just outlined is welcomed by Members from both sides of the House, because it has gone directly to maintaining the viability of some of the most remote rural post offices. However, the challenge that my hon. Friend throws down, which was also raised at the outset by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, is a good one.

When a post office is temporarily closed, such as the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle mentioned in Heathfield, a village with which I am familiar having spent some of my younger days in his constituency, the problem is that the closure can become de facto permanent. Even when a temporary closure is flagged up to the local community and the Post Office many months in advance, the Post Office does not always act quickly enough to put in place either a temporary or permanent solution. I am lucky to have an engaged parish council that considered a number of options for maintaining the viability of the post office in Stradbroke. I helped in that process, and I am pleased that we still have a functioning post office service.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, the danger, and the evidence from elsewhere, is that a temporary closure can last for many months. The viability of the service is then lost and many customers start to take their custom elsewhere, which can have a knock-on effect on the potentially fragile local economy that benefited from having a post office. When the original £1.3 billion was provided, conditions were imposed to ensure that services remained accessible and viable. I am interested in what the Minister has to say about how we can better work with the Post Office to deal with the issues around temporary closures and to speed up the process, so that such closures do not become de facto semi-permanent and so that services can be put back in place. At the moment, it seems that a good policy that has benefited and encouraged the viability of many rural post offices, particularly through collocation, can be undermined in some communities by temporary closures.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Poulter]

I will, but I am conscious of the time and the need to close my remarks.

[Jason McCartney]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate all those who have contributed to the debate. I was not aware that other Members were in the same situation as me. My own village post office in Honley has now been closed for six weeks and I have been struggling to get any explanation from the Post Office as to why. Business has been migrating elsewhere. Only this afternoon, the post office in Meltham, which is where we were supposed to go, has also closed. I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, which I am now aware exists across the country, not just in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that any community could face temporary closures. The great tragedy of such closures, some of which can be unforeseen and happen at short notice, perhaps due to the death of a long-standing postmaster, is that they are often not sudden and are flagged up many months in advance when a postmaster wants to retire. We need prompter action and early engagement from the Post Office in such circumstances. Given the conditionality of the money in the £1.3 billion modernisation programme, I am interested to hear what further steps the Government can take to ensure that the Post Office gets it right. We do not want temporary closures to become permanent, and we must recognise that temporary closures can have a detrimental effect on the other shops in a village or community that relied on the footfall brought in by the post office.

The Government have taken some promising steps towards reinvigorating the Post Office. I believe that 150 new branches opened last year as a result of the modernisation programme. That is good news, but we need to address temporary closures properly. I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Green Economy

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to those of other colleagues to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing today’s important debate. As a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, I am conscious—as our Chair, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who is no longer in her place, mentioned earlier—of the need to have a green thread running through every area of Government policy. That, of course, gives us the opportunity to have a very wide-ranging debate today. I am conscious, however, of the number of Members who wish to speak, so I shall try to keep my comments brief and restrict them to just two areas.

First, we have seen over the last few days the importance of fuel tax as a fiscal measure, and we are all well aware of the impact of high fuel prices on our constituents—not just on motorists, but on the consumers of goods transported by road, which in this country is, of course, absolutely everything. The carbon emissions from road transport make up a significant proportion—over one fifth—of the UK’s total CO₂ emissions. Passenger cars, in particular, emitting in the region of 76 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, contribute 13% of all CO₂ emissions.

Clearly, this is an area where Government policy must be used constructively not only to encourage shifts in modes of transport, but to encourage road transport users to look for cleaner, greener alternatives. I am a big fan of differential rates of vehicle excise duty, as there is nothing that concentrates the mind of the user quite so much as choosing to drive a car that attracts a lower duty tariff. I urge Ministers to ensure that ultra-low levels of duty are retained for the cleanest and most efficient engines.

I do not wish to dwell today on passenger transport and the private car, so I shall move on to road haulage and the freight industry. This is an area of policy relating to green transport, which is a matter of concern to me, and I have asked a number of parliamentary questions on the subject. I particularly emphasise today the duty differential for used cooking oil biodiesel, which expired in March this year. I appreciate that biodiesel is currently little used in the passenger car sector, although it does have potential; it is far more significant in freight transport, which accounted for 26 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions in 2010.

Without the support of the duty differential, many biodiesel users will inevitably switch back to fossil fuels, resulting in higher emissions and risking the loss of up to 3,000 jobs in the low-carbon economy. The double certificates allowed under the renewable transport fuel obligation look unlikely to be able to support this sector, particularly given that recent certificate values have fallen as low as 10p. While this industry is maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Transport, looking to find an alternative solution, Treasury support and awareness is also vital.

The second area of policy I wish to highlight is house building. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) mentioned the efficiencies that can be made through better insulation. Better use of water should also be highlighted, as should better and more efficient boilers. Linden Homes, a house building company that operates in my constituency, has come up with an innovative way to help the Government to progress a zero carbon policy. Its proposal to create a “new homes sustainability bonus”, has the potential to contribute towards a zero carbon policy in a sustainable and affordable way, at a time when the industry faces significant challenges.

At present, all new homes constructed in the UK are required to meet stringent Government energy and water efficiency standards—and rightly so. This company’s idea, as part of the policy mix for national carbon reduction, is that developers could, for all new units built from 2013, contribute a new homes sustainability bonus paid into a central fund, which would then be used to find the most cost-effective ways to reduce carbon within the UK’s existing housing stock, which chronically falls behind new home standards and has significantly higher energy and water consumption. Only 40% of all homes currently have energy-efficient boilers.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good point about existing housing stock, which is the majority of the stock in this country. Retrofitting and improving energy efficiency in those homes is good not only for business, but for consumers, particularly for those on fixed incomes such as the frail elderly and people in other vulnerable groups.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. He makes exactly the point I was moving on to.

Last year, the Environmental Audit Committee went to visit the Sustainable Building Centre in Leamington Spa, where we learned that if everyone in the UK with gas or oil central heating installed a high-efficiency condensing boiler, we would save more than 6.5 million tonnes of CO₂ every year—and that is only one aspect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

It does not make me feel any better to know it is also closing plants in other parts of the world. It has clearly said one of the reasons why it did not go ahead in Sheerness was that it did not have enough orders for turbines on the order book. If that is a problem here in the UK, we should be addressing that, rather than worrying about what is happening in China.

One measure that would provide huge and tangible benefits both in my constituency and the rest of the UK is a massive investment in making the UK housing stock super-energy efficient. As others have said, that would not only be good in terms of getting our emissions down and creating lots of jobs; crucially, it would help tackle fuel poverty as well. This measure should be funded not through more levies on energy bills—as the Government plan, and which is inherently regressive—but from using funds such as the revenue from the carbon price floor and auctions of carbon emissions permits through the EU emissions trading scheme. That would have benefits in job creation, tackling high energy bills and achieving rapid emissions cuts. Some 118 Members have now signed the early-day motion on the Energy Bill Revolution campaign, which calls for precisely this step.

Members support that EDM because they know that, sadly, as it is currently designed, the green deal policy instrument is extraordinarily weak and the energy company obligation part of it—the bit that is supposed to be tackling fuel poverty—looks set to fail miserably both against the Government’s own objectives and in terms of doing what is needed to cut carbon emissions and end fuel poverty. The truth is that the final shape of that fuel poverty package could result in a 50% drop in the funding targeted at low-income and financially deprived households. There will be far less money in the ECO than there is in the measures that are being phased out—the carbon emissions reduction target, the community energy saving programme and Warm Front.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I think the hon. Lady is being disingenuous, to say the very least, in respect of this Government. It is because of the policies of this Government that we are seeing investment in increasing numbers of offshore wind farms, not only off the Kent coast, but, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) will point out in his speech, off our coast in Suffolk. Will the hon. Lady at least accept that there have been many good advances in green energy—some of which are being delivered right now in Suffolk?

[Caroline Lucas]

That has probably happened in spite of Government policy, not because of Government policy. [Interruption.] I hear the muttering on the Government Benches, but what I say is true. The measures of investment figures show that under this Government investment in green technologies has decreased.

[Dr Poulter]

rose—

[Caroline Lucas]

I apologise, but I will not give way again, as I do not have much time left.

For many low-income households the green deal financial mechanism simply does not stack up. [Interruption.] The mechanism is based on loans with interest rates of between 6% and 7%. That creates the risk that these loans will be taken up by middle-class and well-off households, which might be able to afford to take them up without needing any support, rather than by less-affluent families with next-to-nothing in their pockets. Although there are limitations in respect of this market mechanism, if we are going to use it, we will at least need support to bring interest rates down to a more realistic level—as Germany has done through the development bank, KfW.

Renewable energy enjoys massive public support. That is true even of wind—although judging by the outcry from some Tory Back Benchers, we would be forgiven for assuming otherwise. In November, a YouGov survey found strong support for renewables, with 60% of people supporting wind power subsidies. The Prime Minister said in his half-speech at the clean energy ministerial meeting in April that he passionately believed that the rapid growth of renewable energy was vital to the UK’s future, but, sadly, his Government’s policies do not reflect those warm words. Instead, we hear rumours that he and his Chancellor are seeking backroom deals for a 25% cut in subsidies to onshore wind. Any reduction beyond the proposed 10% cut to wind subsidies would fly in the face of environmental and economic common sense, jeopardising the future of both onshore wind and investment in other renewables across the country, as well as the thousands of jobs they could bring.

The solar feed-in tariff fiasco provides another example of coalition Ministers creating harmful uncertainty. As one solar company in my constituency described it, the industry has had to endure a series of “unsettling knee-jerk changes” that have undermined not only investor confidence, but public confidence in the solar industry. Solar energy has huge potential in the UK and it is a tragedy that we are not supporting it more.

Marine energy also has massive potential. With the right support the UK industry could seize almost a quarter of the world’s potential market, according to the Carbon Trust. That would be worth an estimated £29 billion per annum to the UK economy by 2050 and would support more than 68,000 jobs. Sadly, that potential looks hugely unlikely to be realised, given that we have a Government Budget with a £3 billion tax break for more offshore oil and gas drilling—

Summer Adjournment

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I rise to speak briefly in the time available to me about mental health services throughout the country. The Government are quite rightly focusing on mental health, as well as on provision in the acute sector. Their commitment to “No health without mental health” is absolutely right, and the £400 million being put into the early prevention of mental health conditions through talking therapies is an important commitment.

Before I go any further, however, it is worth highlighting how mental health services have historically been something of a Cinderella service in the context of the NHS budget. A good reason why we need reform to get rid of primary care trusts and put medical professionals in charge of service delivery is that mental health services have been particularly targeted for front-line cuts by PCTs over the past few months. For example, Leeds has seen £3.5 million cut from mental health budgets, with Oxford and Buckinghamshire withdrawing all police mental health liaison officers from their services. I am sure that the Minister would agree that mental health services are already under-invested locally throughout the country, and also that such cuts to front-line services are not desirable given the importance of early primary intervention in mental health. Indeed, that is exactly why we need reform to put professionals in charge of the NHS, so that they can deliver the community-focused services that we need.

It is also worth pointing out that nearly half of all adults suffer from depression at some point in their lives. We know that 60% of adults in hostels and the homeless have some form of mental health condition, while 90% of prisoners are estimated to have one too, so there is a big issue. We know that intervening and helping those individuals earlier in the disease process—through exactly the sort of commitments that the Government are making, with their £400 million commitment to talking therapies, and through commitments on a local level throughout the country—would make both a difference to health care economics, by driving down the cost of care for mental health patients later on, and a huge human difference to the patients themselves.

In the time available to me, I want briefly to call on the Minister to reconfirm the Government’s commitment to early intervention. We know that too many people are presenting with mental health conditions in the acute sector too late, when they are already in crisis, which is expensive for the NHS and bad for those people. The failure of mental health services has been to become a responsive service, rather than what we need, which is a service focused on patients and developing a properly community-sensitive approach, particularly in isolated rural areas and areas of high population churn, such as the inner-city areas over the river from this place.

I am not going to say much more; there is no time to develop a full argument. What I would like to hear from the Minister—I am sure that he will give us this—is a confirmation of the Government’s commitment to one of the key reasons for the NHS reforms that we are putting through, which is that we need much more of a community focus to mental health services, much less reactive mental health services and a much more proactive focus on helping people early on in their condition. Such a service would be good for them and good for the NHS, not only because it would reduce the cost to the taxpayer, but primarily because it would be good for the patient.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

It is actually called the family nurse partnership, but I assume that we are talking about the same thing. I know that in Blackpool it has worked with about 200 families in the past year. The numbers are clearly far fewer than those who could access the health in pregnancy grant, but once again the hon. Lady is returning to the debate that we have had over and over again about the universal versus the targeted.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference with schemes such as the one in Bristol that he and the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned is that they can show tangible results, whereas the health in pregnancy grant can show no tangible evidence of how it has been beneficial?

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely. That is a very fair point. It was never clear whether the Opposition believed in universality or targeting. It seemed to depend on which amendment they happened to be pressing at any moment in time. It was part of the incoherent approach that they seemed to have to the debate.

The previous Government never tackled the issue of how it took up to eight weeks merely to process a health in pregnancy grant claim. The money often came through not in the 25th week but in the 33rd week—well beyond the time at which there was any hope of achieving real dietary change.

I specifically tackled the hon. Member for Bristol East on the issue of usefulness versus effectiveness. When she said in Committee that this was a useful grant, I asked her how she defined useful. She mentioned access, which I have dealt with, but never really dealt with the issue of effectiveness. That was my concern with the Opposition’s argument. At no point did they try to evaluate properly how effective the scheme was. I know that many amendments were tabled asking for such an evaluation, but all along the Opposition’s rhetoric was to use the word “useful” rather than “effective”. At no time did they argue that the scheme was effective, so we were left with not very much more than the shadow Minister trying to argue that it was nice to hand out other people’s money to other people. It might well be, but that is not a firm or solid foundation on which to build a health in pregnancy grant.

I support the abolition of the grant for the simple reason that we have a number of alternative mechanisms to support families who need assistance during pregnancy. The grant was not paid out at the right time in pregnancy, in my view, and I do not believe that it has achieved its goal. I do not believe that we would even be able to provide the evidence if that were the case. I wholly support the Government in what they are trying to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I made the point at the start of my speech that unless we look at the bigger picture and reduce the deficit that the country is bearing, the generation that those mothers are now bringing up will have to bear the burden of interest on interest for years to come, and their life chances will be far lower than £190 could compensate for.

The healthy start vouchers were described in evidence by Belinda Phipps of the National Childbirth Trust as

“a really good scheme… It has been put together well and people can get a broad range of healthy foods for the vouchers.”

The health in pregnancy grant is poorly timed. Belinda Phipps said in evidence:

“If you are setting out primarily to improve the… health of the baby”

the payment of the health in pregnancy grant

“needs to be earlier. If you… really want to change the future of the baby, it needs to be as early as possible.”––[Official Report, Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2010; c. 79-89, Q205-224.]

The 25th week is simply too late.

Although there is no doubt that the grant does some good for a number of families, that certainly does not justify the expenditure of £150 million per annum. Indeed, it is a rich irony that, throughout the evening, Labour Members have been exhorting sound financial management, yet now, in the same debate, persist in pursuing what is an example of a seriously ineffective use of public funds—precious public funds of £150 million a year.

[Dr Poulter]

We have heard a lot this evening about universal benefits and the need for targeting. I think that we all agree that having a grant that would allow us to give every pregnant woman £190 sounds, in principle, like a good idea, but clinical practice—for me, as an obstetrician—and what we have heard from many colleagues tonight indicates that there is no firm basis or grounding to support a grant of that nature.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Given my hon. Friend’s experience, does he agree that some of that money would be better targeted on front-line services, especially midwives in areas such as my constituency where there is a shortage?

[Dr Poulter]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He makes the point that I shall develop a little later. If we want to make a real difference to pregnant women, the resources must be given to the front line. I had the experience of working at Brighton hospital for a considerable number of months. There was a great shortage of midwives at my hon. Friend’s local hospital.

[Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Poulter]

No, I will not.

The pregnancy grant would be much better directed if it was used to improve care at the time of delivery, when we know that maternity care matters most in reducing the number of foetal deaths and in reducing poor outcomes in pregnancy and delivery.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) made the point that we need to be able to measure the effectiveness of the grant, and that it should be a nudge in the direction of good behaviour. I accept that any intervention should encourage good behaviour. Unfortunately, what I saw in my clinical practice, and I speak also as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on maternity, is that unfortunately many mothers from vulnerable backgrounds were spending the grant on, among other things, cigarettes, which we know have a detrimental effect in pregnancy. There is also a high though often unseen rate of drug and alcohol misuse in pregnancy. The grant is potentially spent on those harmful things as well. Giving an intervention, such as the grant, 25 weeks into pregnancy is far too late to help women deal effectively with those substance misuse problems.

[Kate Green]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that the majority of mothers are not substance misusers or alcoholics. Indeed, there is considerable evidence over many years, including from the Policy Studies Institute, that shows that if women are given more money, what they do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, is spend it on their kids.

[Dr Poulter]

That is a fair point. Nevertheless, many women smoke during pregnancy and do not necessarily give up smoking. The hon. Lady made the point in her speech earlier about low birthweight babies, a factor which we know is linked to smoking. The grant can be used by mothers to support their smoking habit. To be used effectively, a grant must be tied in with results and effect. We all want mothers to have better nutrition, but unfortunately the grant was often spent on harmful substances. The main problem with the grant is that it was not targeted, it was not effective, and it was not making a difference at the time that we know matters to mothers, which is at birth and delivery.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am slightly suspicious about the extent to which the hon. Gentleman speaks with authority on what the women who come to see him in his surgery spend their health in pregnancy grant on. I cannot imagine them saying, “I’m off now to spend my grant on rather a lot of packets of fags.” What is the difference between the point that the hon. Gentleman is arguing now—that during pregnancy women should not be given a lump sum that they can spend in any way they choose because some of them might spend it on the wrong things—and what happens with child benefit after a child is born? Surely mothers could spend their child benefit on cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. If that is pursued to its logical conclusion, is it not an argument against giving them child benefit?

[Dr Poulter]

We are not talking about child benefit this evening. We are debating the pregnancy grant. On the principle that the hon. Lady outlines, if we want to provide an intervention and if we want to make a gift of money effective, we need to target it effectively. We have no evidence to show that the grant is an effective intervention in pregnancy. No one on the Labour Benches has shown that the intervention is effective in improving nutrition in pregnancy.

Granted, in my clinics I obviously did not discuss in detail where the grant was spent. Nevertheless, I saw in my clinical practice far too high a rate of women smoking during their pregnancy. I would much rather see effective and targeted advice, independent of any grant, being focused on making sure that women do not smoke while they are pregnant. That would be a much better way of dealing with the issue.

[Sarah Newton]

I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. I took the time to read in Hansard the entire debate that took place when the Bill was first introduced. The very points that my hon. Friend is making now were made then—that the grant is not the right way to encourage good nutrition in women of child-bearing age, which we all agree is vital.

[Dr Poulter]

I thank my hon. Friend for her point. On nutrition in pregnancy, we know from all the evidence that the biggest and single most effective intervention in nutritional terms is to give women folic acid pre-conception and in the early days of pregnancy. Most problems or birth defects occur in the first six to eight weeks of development, when the embryo is very small, so if we are to intervene effectively that is the time to do so. We already do, because all GPs, midwives and obstetricians encourage women in the first stage of pregnancy to take folic acid, which is the single most effective intervention to prevent neural tube defects and all others.

We have heard how we need to ensure that when we intervene, particularly with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, we do so effectively. When the Act was introduced, the whole point of it was to reach those groups, yet people from Traveller communities, Gypsies and people from deprived backgrounds often still do not access maternity services until the time of delivery or when it is far too late. The hon. Member for Bristol East tried to argue that the grant improves access to maternity services among disadvantaged groups, but lots of clinical audits and data prove that it does not. The evidence shows that the grant is not at all effective in helping improve access to pregnancy services. The hon. Lady’s point fails, and I hope Members will bear that in mind later.

We are talking about targeted, results-driven and evidence-based care, but there is no evidence to support the grant as a nutritional intervention or in terms of improving childhood outcomes at birth, so for all those reasons we must target our resources where they belong, on putting those 3,000 extra midwives on to the front line, because they, not a £190 grant, will make the difference.

[Mr Hoban]

It has been a brief but thoughtful and thought-provoking debate. The amendments that the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) proposes seek to achieve one of three things: keep the health in pregnancy grant in place, delay its abolition or require the Government to conduct a review into the case for maintaining it in another form.

The grant was introduced in April 2009 by the previous Government. When announced in the 2006 pre-Budget report, the provision was to be paid as child benefit from the 29th week of pregnancy to recognise the important role of nutrition in the last months of pregnancy, when nutrition is most important, and in the first weeks after birth, with parents bearing the extra costs. Then, the payment was to be a £190 one-off grant, made from the 25th week of pregnancy with the intention of providing support for the general health and well-being of women in the later stages of pregnancy and helping them to meet costs in the run-up to birth.

Those were laudable objectives, but, as we have outlined on Second Reading, in Committee and again tonight, the grant has been essentially flawed from the outset. There is no requirement to use it for better health and well-being: women can spend the money on whatever they want; and it is paid to pregnant women regardless of their income or need. As Dr Samantha Callan of the Centre for Social Justice said in an evidence session on the Bill:

“There was absolutely no guarantee that the grant would be spent on nutritious food.”––[Official Report, Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2010; c. 116, Q279.]

In the context of the unprecedented budget deficit, therefore, we believe that this payment to all pregnant women is a poorly targeted use of limited public funds. Abolishing the payment will help to reduce the UK’s budget deficit, saving £40 million in 2010-11 and £150 million per annum from 2011-12 onwards.

Having decided that we need to abolish the grant, the Government believe it should be done quickly to maximise the Exchequer savings. By delaying the abolition until 2014, as amendments 44 and 45 seek to do, we would reduce those savings, and amendment 3 would keep the grant in place, so additional money would have to be found through other spending cuts, borrowing or tax rises this year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, there are other priorities. The coalition Government are clearly committed to increasing spending on health in real terms over the lifetime of this Parliament. Are Labour Members saying that that commitment should be relaxed to enable us to keep the health in pregnancy grant?

Much was said by Opposition Members on Second Reading and in Committee about the importance of a healthy diet during pregnancy, the importance of vitamin supplementation, and, especially, the effect of these on women on low incomes. There is no doubt that maintaining a healthy diet throughout pregnancy is important. However, the evidence suggests that that should start at the earliest possible stage. Belinda Phipps of the National Childbirth Trust said in the evidence session on the Bill:

“If you are setting out primarily to improve the nutrition of the mother to improve the health of the baby,”

the payment of the health in pregnancy grant

“needs to be earlier. If you…really want to change the future of the baby, it needs to be as early as possible. It is not possible easily to do it pre-conception, but the earlier in pregnancy you can do it, the better.”––[Official Report, Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2010; c. 79, Q205.]

Amendments 43 and 44 would stop the abolition of the grant and require the Treasury to conduct a review to consider whether the grant should be retained in its current form, means-tested or replaced by a system of vouchers. As I said on Second Reading and again in Committee, the Government are committed to supporting the health of pregnant women in low-income households through the Healthy Start scheme, which provides support from the 10th week of pregnancy, when diet is particularly important in a baby’s development. The Healthy Start scheme provides vouchers worth £3.10 a week for fruit, vegetables and milk, as well as coupons to exchange for Healthy Start vitamin supplements containing the recommended daily amounts of vitamins C and D and folic acid for pregnant women and new mothers. The Department of Health is also co-ordinating a consultation exercise that seeks views on the extension of the scheme to allow vouchers to be used to buy plain frozen fruit and vegetables. This would increase the flexibility and choice for women supported by Healthy Start while encouraging them to include more fruit and vegetables in their daily diet at the time in their pregnancy when that is particularly important.

The amendments would delay the abolition of the grant or keep the grant in place. That would mean that additional money had to be found through other spending cuts, borrowing or tax rises this year. The Government have to face some difficult choices as to where to cut public expenditure, and we cannot afford to continue spending £150 million a year on the cash payment of a health in pregnancy grant regardless of what it is spent on and whatever the income or financial position of the recipient. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) explained, it is not well focused, well targeted or well timed. That is why I believe that it is right to scrap this grant, recognising that measures are in place to help to support maternal nutrition among families on low incomes. We also have the Sure Start maternity grant, which is a lump sum to help those on the lowest incomes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in the last moments of the debate. It was an enormous privilege to serve on the Public Bill Committee and to listen to my colleagues on the Opposition and Government Benches, as well as to the many organisations that gave evidence.

Listening for all that time brought home to me why I am so pleased to be sitting on the Government Benches and not on the other side. I believe absolutely that Government Members will form the most reforming Government that I have seen in my lifetime—a Government who are prepared to make the tough decisions that will provide the solutions to the problems, as the Bill seeks to do.

There is no doubt in my mind about the good intentions of the Opposition when they introduced these three measures some years ago. There is also no doubt in my mind from reading Hansard from that time and from re-examining the evidence that we have been given over the course of the past few weeks that there is no evidence base to show that the measures will tackle the vital issues of alleviating poverty and helping the most disadvantaged people in our society.

[Dr Poulter]

On that note, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a great pity that it has taken the advent of the deficit for us to examine properly some of the previous Government’s policies? We all want to look after the most vulnerable, but the only way to do that is to target our resources properly. At the moment, in difficult economic times, there are fewer resources than there once were, and the only way to do it is to base that targeting on the evidence and to ensure that the resources go to the most vulnerable. That is what the Government are about. We are getting rid of universal policies that do not work.

[Sarah Newton]

I am delighted to agree with my hon. Friend. It is essential that we use the evidence base, and I find it frustrating that the evidence was available when the legislation was introduced a couple of years ago. Let us consider the debate on maternal health—I know that my hon. Friend has great expertise in this area. It was very difficult for my colleagues who were in the House at the time to get evidence on maternal health from the then Government, but it was demonstrated that the data set that could reasonably be used to measure the impacts of any additional nutrition on maternal health did not exist. When hon. Members are pouring out their crocodile tears, as we have seen for weeks, saying how poor the affected people will be and how we must take more time and evaluate these measures, they know full well that the data set does not exist to measure the impacts.

We should listen to my hon. Friends, and to midwives and clinicians up and down the country as they give their practical experience of working with women of child-bearing age to improve maternal health. We have heard about policies and projects that deliver. For example, we know that not enough women understand how to cook nutritious meals on a low income. Much more needs to be done about cooking in schools and in the community so that people on low incomes can cook nutritious food, and plenty of evidence supports the idea that that is an effective thing to do.

As my hon. Friend said earlier, we know that the single most important thing that we can give to a mum in her early stages of pregnancy is folic acid. All the support that the Government are putting in place through their reforms to the NHS will target help at women of child-bearing age and at those who are the most vulnerable in our society and who need such effective services from the NHS.

This Government are all about giving people a hand up, not a handout. Week after week we sit here and Opposition Members’ answer to every problem is to throw some money at it. We in the Government will ensure that hard-earned taxpayers’ money is spent where the evidence shows it will be most effective.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

My hon. Friend is exactly right, and from her background outside the House as well as inside it, she will know how important that contribution is, but let me move on to the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill, which was introduced in 2009 by the Labour Government, again to encourage people on low incomes to save for their future.

Cash savings accounts were created for those on lower incomes, providing a financial incentive to save, with the Government matching, pound for pound, the money that people saved in the scheme. The scheme was proposed in 2001: 22,000 people have so far taken part in the pilots, and £15 million has been invested in savings through those pilots. The accounts have run for two years, and they have been a positive way for people to start to save, with help and support for those in our poorest communities.

The first pilot ran between 2002 and 2004, and 1,500 saving gateway accounts have been opened in Cambridge, Cumbria, east London, Manchester and Hull, in the part of the world of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Additional pilots have been run recently in South Yorkshire. Those schemes have shown that we can generate new savers, new saving and, indeed, help people on poorer incomes to put aside money to meet some of the challenges that they face in their daily lives.

Hon. Members need not listen to me about the importance of those schemes; let me give them an authoritative voice on the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill:

“The Bill serves a valuable purpose in encouraging people, particularly those on low incomes, to save. People on higher incomes have an opportunity to smooth out fluctuations in income and expenses to which those on low incomes do not have access. If the Bill is successful in encouraging people to save, it will enable them to create a modest buffer against variations in income, such as the unexpected expense of being laid-off for a short period. It will give people a degree of financial security they have not had hitherto.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 323.]

Those are not my words, nor those of my right hon. and hon. Friends; they are the words of the Minister, who is now introducing proposals to end such schemes, although he supported the 2009 Bill—doing one thing in opposition and, yet again, another thing in government. At a time when potentially 500,000 people are being laid off because of the public sector cuts as part of the comprehensive spending review, the Government will take that support away from those who need it most.

In the absence of the saving gateway scheme, how does the Minister propose to promote the culture of saving among people on lower incomes? As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, how do we ensure that saving is not the preserve of the rich and that it is done throughout society, so that people can help themselves and ensure that they save for the future in partnership with the state?

If we turn to the last part of the Bill, we see the full force of the coalition’s new politics turning itself on those who are pregnant. Any hon. Member who is a parent knows that raising a child is a uniquely rewarding experience, but we all need to recognise that it can be financially challenging in the run-up to a birth and that it can be difficult for young mothers and young families. Not only was the health in pregnancy grant introduced in recognition of the health benefits of covering some of the additional costs involved during pregnancy, but it was paid universally to all mothers to ensure that they could buy help and support during the last weeks of their pregnancies. Such support covered healthy eating, vitamins, medicines, books on healthy pregnancy or the cost of maternity clothes or folic acid, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). Folic acid can help to reduce the risk of spina bifida, but 400 mg costs £9.99 at Boots. The health in pregnancy grant can be used for those costs and put towards getting help and support for health, and it is linked specifically to ensure that advice is given to mothers in pregnancy as part of the deal.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree it is important to target resources at the most vulnerable, but in dealing with pregnancy specifically, can the right hon. Gentleman point to any evidence that such help has improved the outcomes of deliveries, or births, or the health of ladies during their pregnancies?

[Mr Hanson]

If the hon. Gentleman cared to listen not just to me but to a range of groups that support pregnant mothers—from maternity groups to the Fawcett Society and others—he would find that there is a real input. He has a medical background, but if he is telling me that the grant does not matter to individuals who pay extra for healthy eating and minerals, who take medicines to reduce the risk of spina bifida and who need to buy maternity clothes and so on, I would like him to stand up and tell his constituents why that is so.

[Dr Poulter]

The right hon. Gentleman is making points about a grant that is given later in pregnancy and talking about minerals that are given earlier in pregnancy, so he needs to understand the issue a little better, but can he give any evidence of how the grant has improved the outcomes for mothers during pregnancy? Can he produce such evidence from any birthing group, any obstetric group or any midwifery group?

[Mr Hanson]

The hon. Gentlemen need not listen to me but should listen to the groups that are arguing for the retention of the grant. It is important not just for health but for costs of pregnancy, such as maternity dresses or equipment for the home, or covering time taken off work through ill health. Women on poor incomes need help and support to cover those important things, and this universal grant can help individuals to meet those needs at a time of great stress in the 25th week of pregnancy.