Scotland Bill
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
The Secretary of State and I have a different perception of time frames and what they mean to people living on limited incomes. When the Scottish Government sought permission to raise the cap on DHPs, the UK Government used exactly the kind of blocking and delaying tactics that will be left open under the Scotland Bill. These are not theoretical, worst-case scenarios. I would like to refresh the Secretary of State’s memory, as it was early in 2014 when the Scottish Government first sought the UK Government’s permission to lift the cap on DHPs, and I raised the issue on more than one occasion in this Chamber subsequently. In fact, it took until May last year for the Government to grant permission—for something that could have been done overnight. Most of the public organisations I deal with in my capacity as an MP have a 21-day turnaround, yet the Government take months at a time. That is an awful long time for someone living on their uppers and struggling with their income.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Is it not amazing to hear the nanny-esque statements coming from the Conservative Front-Bench team about the Government giving the Parliament permission? That is the sort of thing that they would not tolerate themselves if the European Commission, the French or the German Government were involved, but they expect the Scottish Government to come cap in hand to Westminster when all they want is to do the decent thing for people. It is ridiculous.
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point.
During the intervening months between the simple request and getting the permission we needed, some of our most disadvantaged citizens continued to accrue rent arrears or had to do without essentials in order to meet their liabilities. That is just one concrete example of how restrictions of this type currently act as a stalling mechanism and a barrier to progressive change, and they demonstrate why we need to get rid of the veto.
Other examples of things we could do with these provisions include the power to maintain direct payments of housing benefit to social landlords—something that I think is in everybody’s interests—and the power to ensure that under universal credit claimants can receive individual payments, which potentially benefits women and children and protects their interests. Then there is the power to equalise the earnings disregard between the first and second earners in a household. Again, given the persistent pay gap in Scotland between women and men, that measure could predominantly benefit up to 70,000 women by up to £1,200 a year. By contrast, if we leave the Bill unamended, we curtail the powers of the Scottish Parliament to enact policies that are overwhelmingly in the interests of our citizens and are supported by them. We risk seeing such measures batted off into the long grass.
We also store up trouble down the line. It is fair to say that the Secretary of State got himself in a richt kirn earlier this month on the “Scotland 2015” programme when he was asked directly about the veto. When the presenter put it to him that
“it could be used to block if there was a political will to do that because who would decide if the Secretary of State was unreasonably withholding consent?”,
the Secretary of State said:
“Well, I would hope that it would never come to that, but because it’s on the face of the legislation ultimately it might be the courts that would decide.”
I fear that the Secretary of State has let the cat out of the bag; I suspect he was a lot more candid than he intended to be. I think we can infer from that very revealing remark that he knows that, in practice, this Bill’s measures will act as a veto on the Scottish Parliament—pure and simple. I put it to the Committee that if the Scottish Parliament has to go to court to enforce the powers devolved in the Bill, it is not worth the paper it is written on.
Amendment of the Law
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
The thematic focus on jobs in this debate helps us to get to the heart of why last week’s Budget was a huge missed opportunity. The Government had a chance to move away from a cuts agenda that has stifled recovery, but they failed to take it. Instead, Scotland alone is looking at a further £12 billion of cuts over the next four years, which will hamper our economic recovery, damage our public services and harm our poorest communities and families.
Everyone welcomes the fact that finally the economy is recovering and unemployment is falling, but it has been a painfully slow process. It is the slowest recovery from recession in history. The OBR does not expect real wages to return to 2008 levels until the second quarter of 2016. On the most recent figures, the UK’s GDP per capita is still 1.8% below pre-recession levels and the current account deficit—a measure of our trade and income flows with the rest of the world—is worse than at any point in the UK’s history.
In 2010, the Chancellor said that the UK would run a surplus of £5 billion in the current structural budget this financial year. Instead, he now expects a structural current deficit of over £45 billion. In the six years to March 2016, the Chancellor’s borrowing target from 2010 is set to be missed by £150 billion. The austerity programme simply has not worked in the way he led us to expect.
If austerity has failed in economic terms, it has been a disaster for people, especially people on the lower half of the income spectrum. When we look at the cumulative winners and losers from the changes to the tax and benefits system over the past five years, we see that those who are trying to raise children have taken some of the heaviest hits to their incomes and living standards. The distributional analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies demonstrates that in every income group households with children have lost relative to those without children.
Given the rapid growth of child poverty levels, we should be particularly concerned about those in the lowest-income households. The Child Poverty Action Group points out that almost two thirds of the children who are growing up in poverty in the UK today have at least one parent in work. I have said before in the House that in-work poverty is one of the greatest challenges we face. The Budget offers little that will help those families. Indeed, measures such as the increase in the personal allowance tend to benefit higher-paid workers and higher-rate taxpayers far more than those in low-paid work. That is symptomatic of the wrong priorities that we have seen from this Government. On the Government’s own figures, the poorest 20% of households will be worse off by an equivalent of £466 a year. I am fortunate to represent a constituency in Aberdeenshire where unemployment is extremely low, yet in parts of Banff and Buchan, one in four children is growing up in poverty.
Mr MacNeil
Does my hon. Friend agree that the increase in VAT, which was proposed by the Liberals and the Tories, certainly did not help poor people, and that it is unforgiveable that Labour abstained on that vote?
Dr Whiteford
I agree with my hon. Friend that regressive taxation has played an important part in driving up child poverty. The pernicious combination of low pay and cuts to tax credits and child benefit has been the main driver of child poverty in our communities and of the increased pressure on parents to comply with the sometimes quite unreasonable and disproportionate conditionality in the system.
Child poverty has long-term consequences for the health, education and life chances of those who experience it. That is why it is short-sighted of the Government to short-change families and inflict yet more financial pain on those who are already carrying the can for the financial collapse.
I do not want to leave the topic of jobs without acknowledging the significance of the Budget announcements on the North sea fiscal regime. Many of the better-paid jobs in my constituency are in the energy sector. However, it is not just those who work directly in the oil and gas sector and its supply chain who depend on the industry, but myriad large and small local businesses, including retailers, hoteliers and service providers. The Government’s U-turn on the fiscal regime in the North sea, at long last, is very welcome, but it could have been done months ago when problems started appearing on the horizon—some of them predating the fall in oil prices. It has taken the Chancellor four years to reverse the tax increases he has imposed on the sector since 2011.
Will the Chief Secretary, who is back in his place, now accept that his supplementary charge was a mistake that has had a detrimental impact on our offshore energy sector and on the people who work in the industry, onshore and offshore? Will the Government provide assurances that their poor stewardship of our oil and gas resources will give way to a period of fiscal stability for the sector? Over the past five years, the one consistent chorus that I have heard from every part of the industry has been, “Stop shifting the goalposts on tax.” While we are still seeing announcements of job losses in the north-east, it is more important than ever that the industry can plan ahead with confidence.
There has been a cosy consensus around austerity that implies that it is inevitable, necessary and unavoidable, but there is nothing inevitable about it. The Chancellor had headroom in the Budget to make small increases in public spending, while still bringing down the deficit and debt. Such small increases would help to protect our public services and our social fabric, which has never looked so worn and fragile. Professor Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford university argues that the Government’s austerity programme may have cost the UK economic growth equivalent to 5% of GDP. No doubt economists will argue the toss on the detail, but the huge loss of potential tax revenues that that represents helps to explain why the OBR’s 2010 forecasts on public borrowing have been £150 billion out over the past six years.
An alternative approach to deficit reduction could benefit the economy and expand the tax base, bringing real and sustainable economic growth. The benefits of that are simply not reflected in the Treasury’s modelling. The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has set out an alternative to the austerity agenda to support jobs and public services. I hope that in a few weeks’ time, an enhanced group of MPs will sit on these Benches and make that case. We will be a strong voice not just for the people of Scotland, but for everyone in the UK who wants a progressive alternative to this failed austerity project and this failed coalition Government.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes an astute and telling point.
We need to know that there will be no obligation to open up the NHS in Scotland to US private providers, even if that is what England’s NHS decides to do, and we need to know that there is no chance whatever that the treaty will expose the Scottish Government to investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms.
People’s legitimate fears are not being assuaged. The Commission has sounded a note of caution regarding these mechanisms, because they are being misused around the world. We have seen an escalation in the number of aggressive cases being brought against countries that have made perfectly legitimate decisions. The fact that it has only happened a couple of times here does not mean that it will not happen more in future. That is why we need to debate the issues now.
I appreciate that Members will hold profoundly different views about the wisdom of opening the NHS to privatisation; indeed, some Members might see it as a one-way street, but in Scotland we have chosen a different direction of travel, and we need to be sure that that will not be derailed by complacency over the drafting of a trade agreement. I am also of the view that any disputes need to be resolved in our domestic courts, not through ISDS mechanisms.
Before I finish, I want to address some of the implications of TTIP for Scottish agriculture. There are undoubtedly potential benefits from better market access for our food and drink producers, but a number of non-tariff issues have potential downsides. My questions to the Government today focus on how they plan to address and mitigate those issues. I am particularly concerned about our livestock sector—which is key to the economy of my constituency—where risks as well as opportunities are likely to emerge from TTIP.
For example, Aberdeenshire produces some of the best beef in the world—Scotch beef that commands premium prices, is fully traceable and is produced to the highest standards of animal welfare. US beef is notably cheaper to produce. Producers in the US have some economies of scale, climate, and less rigorous compliance regimes, and they are allowed to use hormone growth promoters that are not permitted in the EU. I would like an assurance from the Minister today that TTIP will not lead to a dumbing down of production values, whether in the way animals are farmed or in the quality of the food that ends up on our plates.
It has also been suggested that protected geographic indicator labels could be a stumbling block within the TTIP negotiations. For many of our most iconic food and drink products, their origin is a core factor in the success of their brand and, critically, in the premium price it is able to command. Protected geographic indicators are essential to sustaining the livelihood of smaller-scale producers who rely on the high quality and uniqueness of their product to add value. Will the Government take the opportunity today to outline what they will be doing to ensure that PGIs are not undermined in the TTIP process, and assure Scottish beef and lamb producers that the markets for their distinctive premium products will not be harmed by opening the market to cheaper imports?
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend makes a good point. From my own experience, I would want to ensure that Stornoway black pudding, for instance, had its protected status maintained.
Dr Whiteford
Marag is, as my hon. Friend knows, the food of the gods, and any steps should be taken to protect that vital aspect of our culture and economy.
Governments need to legislate and regulate in the public interest—not in the interests of corporations or shareholders, but in the interests of citizens. As things stand, there are entirely legitimate fears that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership could significantly restrict our ability to do that. Until the Government can provide meaningful and detailed assurances, public scepticism is unlikely to be assuaged, and I urge the Government to take a lot more action to spell out the detail of how it will affect different sectors of our economy.
National Minimum Wage
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but in fact the Government have not gone nearly far enough, because inequality in this country is growing, not reducing. There have been vast increases in income at the top end of the income spectrum, while increasing pressure is being put on people at the lower and middle parts of the spectrum. The gap between the richest and poorest in our society is widening and that is not in any way sustainable.
It is important to understand that if the minimum wage were linked to inflation, it would have a much better chance of keeping pace with the actual cost of living. That would help avoid the current situation, whereby the minimum wage is well below the cost of living and forces people to be dependent on in-work benefits. It would also help address Labour’s prescriptive proposal, which limits us to the increases on the table without knowing what the economy is going to do between now and 2020. Anyone with a crystal ball would be well advised to be cautious in their predictions.
Yesterday and earlier today the House discussed the promise of extensive new powers for the Scottish Parliament, which are now being considered by the Smith commission. The minimum wage is a prime example of a policy that I would like to see devolved, and I am pleased that the Scottish National party’s submission to the Smith commission has set out the benefits of that, particularly the ability to link the minimum wage to inflation, which would immediately improve the position of low-paid workers and, over time, reduce reliance on in-work benefits.
The Scottish Government’s expert group on welfare reform has also considered the issue and recommended that the minimum wage should begin to rise, in phased stages, to the level of the living wage. Like others who have spoken, however, I do not think it is possible to divorce the issue of the minimum wage from the wider tax and benefits system.
Given that a very high proportion of people in low-paid work are in receipt of in-work benefits, we need to look at the design of the welfare system. One of the greatest failures of the UK’s welfare model has been the disincentives it has created for part-time workers in particular to increase their working hours, because of clear financial disadvantages and risks associated with doing so. For instance, for a couple with children and one parent in work, increasing working hours from 50% to full-time work results in 82% of the extra earned income being lost through tax and loss of benefits, which radically undermines the perception of work as a route out of poverty. A redesigned model would have the potential to address those high withdrawal rates and tackle the existing disincentives so that lower-income households could keep a greater proportion of the increases in earned income.
I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown). The people who are getting the biggest and fullest benefit from changes to the tax system and the lowest rate of tax are those on the highest incomes. The changes are benefiting those at the top end of the income spectrum and having a fairly marginal impact on those at the lower end, because what they gain in tax they lose in benefit. The net impact in many cases has been to reduce their income, particularly in relation to average income in the country as a whole.
A redesigned model would be especially important for families and those with dependent children. In a week when we have seen very sharp increases in child poverty—this has been referred to by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway—it is really important to make the point that most of the children in poverty in Scotland are children in working families. They are the children of working parents, and the changes to the tax and benefits system have pushed them into an even harder position than they were in previously. They have been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. I want to challenge the view that having one in five children living in poverty is inevitable, because that is simply not acceptable. We could change that if we put our minds to it. We need to get our priorities straight.
When the minimum wage was introduced in the 1990s, I remember fears of Armageddon being expressed from some quarters and apocalyptic warnings that jobs would be lost and that the economy would go to hell in a handcart. Of course, that is not what happened, because when people had a bit more money in their pockets they spent it. The higher costs to businesses, which we all take seriously, were more than outweighed in economic terms by the benefits to businesses, including job creation, and in social terms by the huge benefits and improvements to the standard of living for people in low-income households.
There are also potential fiscal benefits from an improved minimum wage in savings to the benefits bill, and potential for increased tax receipts. We need to recognise that and not pretend that it is simply a cost. It is actually a way of getting people into work and improving the standard of living for many people throughout our society—not just the people in those jobs, but those who depend on them, such as their children and other dependants.
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend is making a fine speech. What she is saying could be summed up by the economists Krugman and Stieglitz, who say that one person’s spending is another person’s earning. When we put money in people’s pockets, it has a very good economic effect all around.
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point.
I want to touch on another issue that has been mentioned by others, namely the disproportionate number of disabled workers and minority ethnic workers in minimum wage jobs. We have already heard about Lord Freud’s disgraceful comments and I hope the Government will step back from what was an outrageous thing to say about people who are already disadvantaged in the labour market.
Charter for Budget Responsibility
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
This welfare cap is a reprehensible and regressive measure that once again puts the most disadvantaged people in our communities on the front line. The cap that has been proposed is a crude blunt instrument. It is arbitrary and it simply will not be flexible enough to respond if the economy or our changing democracy drive greater structural need.
The Government recognise implicitly that the drivers of welfare spending are largely structural and they have excluded the most obviously cyclical benefits from the cap, notably jobseeker’s allowance and pensions. Other benefits also have a cyclical component, however, and the Government persist instead in pursuing an agenda that victimises and stigmatises people on low incomes and punishes them for the shortcomings of Government economic policy.
In the short time we have to debate the motion today, I want to address the impact of the welfare cap on sections of our society that are likely to be affected. State pensions have been excluded from the cap, but it does not exclude pension and savings credits. The very poorest pensioners, those who have spent their working lives in low-paid private sector jobs or who have spent years caring for others, will potentially be hit. That could affect 300,000 pensioners in Scotland, most of them women.
The second group I want to mention is children. We already know that as a consequence of the UK Government’s welfare cuts 100,000 more children in Scotland will be growing up in poverty by 2020. We also know that the majority are the children of parents in low-paid work. The cuts to tax credits and the below-inflation uprating of child benefit, housing benefit and other forms of support for families are already expected to drive up child poverty, and the arbitrary welfare cap just puts a tin lid on it.
The Child Poverty Action Group points out that child poverty places a huge burden on our economy, not least through the £15 billion spent on addressing its consequences through social services and extra educational support. The group makes the point that in the medium to longer term, the Government’s approach will hinder deficit reduction and we will all pay for the costly long-term legacy of low skills and poor health associated with childhood deprivation.
Disabled people and their unpaid carers are also in the firing line, again. We need to understand the structural challenge as the baby boomer generation develop more health problems and disabilities associated with old age. We need to support family carers, who are the backbone of our community care system. It is a wholly false economy to subject the benefits paid to carers to the welfare cap.
Underpinning the circumstances of all those people is the UK’s pernicious combination of low pay, wide labour market inequality and high housing costs. Housing benefit remains one of the biggest ticket items in welfare expenditure. Increases are driven by chronic shortages of affordable homes, soaring private sector rents in areas of high demand—most notably in London and the south-east—and the failure of Governments to address that. The welfare cap will not address those underlying structural problems and the scandal is that people in good jobs cannot afford to pay rent.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Dr Whiteford
I will not, because other people need to speak.
The best way to reduce and manage welfare spending is to restore the economy to a state of health and that is exactly what the Government are failing to do quickly enough. If the Government were serious about reducing welfare spending, they would be creating more job opportunities in sectors that pay a living wage, investing in child care to enable parents to work or increase their hours, and building more affordable homes and taking action on housing costs.
In Scotland, we spend a lower proportion of revenue and GDP on social protection than the UK as a whole. We have invested heavily in affordable housing and in child care and we have increased apprenticeships. That has enabled more people to work full time, which is why our child poverty rates have fallen more quickly. Those long-term efforts to address the drivers of welfare spending, not just the symptoms, stand in sharp contrast to the Government’s ill-conceived, punitive and counter-productive approach.
I intend to vote against this measure today and I hope that Scottish MPs from all parties will do so too. To acquiesce in this nasty Tory nonsense that piles yet more pain on our poorest pensioners, carers, disabled people and low-income families would be an abject failure of leadership and a betrayal of the people of Scotland who elected us and who, frankly, deserve better.
Fairness and Inequality
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Inequality is one of the great political scandals of our age, and it is important that we have had a chance to debate the subject at length today. I have been somewhat disappointed, however, at how few speeches there have been from Government Members. Nevertheless, what we have lacked in quantity we have made up for in quality, with a number of substantial and considered speeches from both sides.
Over the past three decades, the gap between the rich and the poor in our society and elsewhere has grown exponentially. The rewards of economic growth have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small minority, while those in the lower half of the income spectrum are being increasingly deprived of the just rewards for their efforts. We on these Benches have made the case that inequality, on the scale that we see in the UK and internationally, is bad for all of us. It is in no one’s interest to have a society that is so divided by extremes of income and so damaged by social deprivation, but it is especially bad for those people who find themselves trapped on low incomes and who have seen their spending power and social mobility reduced dramatically over the past 25 years.
We have had a wide-ranging debate today. It has tackled issues as diverse as land ownership, fuel poverty, health inequalities, taxation and social policy, as well as a range of other disparate policy issues that would normally be debated separately. All those topics have been underpinned by the issue of economic inequality and the income gap that has grown so wide over recent decades. We have argued that inequality is not inevitable, and that it is a political choice. The Government have at their disposal the fiscal levers to enable progressive and more redistributive measures, but in recent times we have seen tax and benefit policies that have allowed the gulf between the haves and the have-nots to widen. A number of hon. Members have pointed out that the impact of the tax and benefit changes has fallen disproportionately on those in the lower half of the income distribution, particularly those in the lowest quintile, who have paid the highest price for economic austerity.
Mr MacNeil
It is important to bear in mind that redistribution applies not only after tax but before tax. In regard to productivity gains, we need to ensure that people get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend makes a useful point.
It is also important to note that those fiscal levers are not the only tools at the Government’s disposal for tackling inequality. Addressing the underlying drivers of wage inequality requires sustained effort and a fresh mindset about the policy choices that we can make to further a more equitable model of economic growth and to build a fairer, more inclusive and less divided society.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) outlined some of the positive ways in which equitable growth could be pursued in Wales. He opened the debate by drawing our attention to the geographical distribution of inequality across the UK, and argued convincingly that while much of Government policy was oriented towards the needs of London and its surrounds, the consequences of that for the other nations and regions of the UK could be dire. Many of us have paid a heavy price for London’s prosperity.
It is notable that, with a few honourable exceptions, the speakers in today’s debate have come from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Perhaps that shows how seriously the issue of inequality—which is distinct from, but related to, poverty—is taken in these islands. It is obviously a pertinent issue in the context of Scotland’s referendum later this year, as we weigh up the two futures that are opening up before us and consider not only the benefits of making policy decisions based on our own values and aspirations but the uncertain consequences of continuing along the path that the UK seems determined to follow, with wealth and opportunity being increasingly concentrated among a small elite.
Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Just a few minutes ago the Prime Minister said that he would look carefully at individual cases. I feel a little bit sorry for whoever keeps his correspondence in check, because the Department of Work and Pensions equality impact assessment shows that two thirds—66%—of the households affected by the bedroom tax are home to someone with a disability under the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
A higher proportion of those who might write to Dave will be people from rural areas who will simply have nowhere else to go. This iniquitous, unfair, disastrous tax will do for the Conservative party what the poll tax did for it.
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend makes a very important point on the differential impact between rural and urban areas. I hope I will be able to address that later.
Perhaps it should not surprise us that sick and disabled people are over-represented among those who rely on housing benefit, given that many of them will have been assessed as unfit for work, while others who are in work are more likely to be working part-time or in low-paid and insecure jobs. The numbers are a damning indictment on the Government’s attempts to balance the books on the back of disadvantaged people. In Scotland the picture is even more stark—79% of disadvantaged people in Scotland affected by the bedroom tax are either disabled or living in a house with someone who is disabled.
Dr Whiteford
Colleagues from Wales are saying that there the Labour Government have passed on 100% of the cuts. Surely it is better that the Scottish Government have tried to mitigate the impact of those cuts on households, rather than passing them on wholesale. We must remember that most of our social housing was built in an era when people had much larger families and different housing needs. Existing housing simply does not match today’s demographics.
Public Service Pensions Bill
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
I am afraid that I am not privy to the Scottish Government’s processes on this, so I cannot answer the hon. Lady’s question with any certainty whatever. What I can say is that the Scottish Government got clarity only a few weeks ago on the extent to which they can deviate from the proposals for England and Wales, and that the degree is quite limited indeed. I think the Scottish Government will have some flexibilities on accrual rates and some revaluation bases.
Dr Whiteford
I will not give way to my hon. Friend at the moment because I want to make some short remarks in this part of the debate, and save my fuller comments for later.
The Scottish Government also require explicit consent from the Treasury for any cost-sensitive changes to the NHS or teachers schemes.
Will the Minister accept my amendment and recognise how tight the time scales are, given the complex range of responsibilities—varying responsibilities relating to different schemes—and how tough the negotiations are? Not all partners to the negotiations even accept the need for this set of reforms. In 28 months’ time, when the provisions would otherwise commence, the Scottish Government would have had not only to complete the negotiations and prepare and pass legislation, but ensure that the employers and scheme administrators could prepare their systems and processes before the 2015 deadline.
This is a very technical amendment in some respects, but it is a very important one. I hope that the Minister will have listened carefully and will be pragmatic in his response to it later.
Common Fisheries Policy
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Whiteford
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to take up the comments made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). I know that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) was not present to hear that speech, but it dealt extensively with such problems.
Obviously I cannot discuss the situation while criminal proceedings are taking place, but the fact that the police launched such a successful investigation into the criminality that was taking place has taught us the lesson that we cannot take our eye off the ball in terms of our own compliance. However, we must ensure that criminality is not also symptomatic of people’s loss of confidence in the system. We should bear in mind that otherwise law-abiding people resort to it because they do not believe that the system is working.
I was glad that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton referred to aquaculture. Because of the crisis in the sea fisheries sector, it is often not given the attention that it deserves. I am concerned about by the Commission’s proposal for multiannual national strategic plans, and, buried in there somewhere, the rather bizarre suggestion that there should be a regional advisory council for aquaculture.
I believe that Scotland is the largest producer of Atlantic salmon in the EU, and the third largest producer in the world. In 2010 we produced 154,000 tonnes of salmon, worth more than half a billion pounds at farm gate prices, which represents more than a third of Scotland’s food exports. We also export substantial amounts of shellfish including mussels, oysters and scallops, and other species such as trout and halibut. The rapid growth of the sector at a time when the rest of the economy has been stagnant has been very encouraging. It is a success story for job creation and for economic growth, including growth in remote rural communities that do not have much else going for them. I see no benefit whatsoever in imposing a new layer of European regulation and bureaucracy on that sector, and I expect a great many risks to be posed to it if we go down that road.
I have a particular constituency interest. Although Banff and Buchan is often thought of as being at the heart of the fishing industry, it is also a major centre for fish processing. The factories in the north-east process large amounts of farmed fish, and at a time when the sea fisheries are so unstable and uncertain and can fluctuate so much, the farmed fish sector has a hugely stabilising effect on the viability of the processing sector. An increase in political interference in the aquaculture sector from Brussels—or from anywhere else—would not be in anyone’s interests. We must not try to mend successful businesses that are not broken.
There is no consensus across the UK about transferable quotas—or individual transferable concessions as they are now being called. I welcome the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s remarks about the problems the ITCs cause for the under-10 metre fleet. Those problems are not confined to that fleet, however. Other communities will also be affected, including some in my constituency.
The real issue is that most of the fishing industry in Scotland still involves family-owned vessels that maintain a strong link to a local port. They are at the heart of communities, and I do not want those communities to be bought out by large multinational fishing conglomerates.
Mr MacNeil
Does my hon. Friend agree that the ITCs are a gift for speculators and that we would be bemoaning them in five or 10 years’ time?
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
My real fear is that any safeguards we put in place to protect the economic link between the quota and the community or the member state will not be robust enough to withstand the law. I suspect that they will be open to legal challenge, and that we will quickly find that our fishing communities become tradeable commodities. That would be a death blow to communities that are heavily dependent on fishing, and where there have historically been strong family and community ties at the heart of the industry.
I make this plea to the Minister, therefore: any system of quotas must not be mandatory. I would like an assurance from him on that. We must introduce a workable system that does not make such quotas mandatory.
I want to conclude by talking about the objective of social and economic sustainability. Stating that in the legislation would mark a huge step forward; it would make it clear that we want the sustainable development of our coastal communities. That recommendation in the Committee report is important, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton for putting it there. That move would change the whole terms of how we discuss fisheries in Europe. It would make it clear that the subject is about not only the fish in the sea, but the people who live in harmony with the ecosystem in our coastal communities, and who have done so for centuries. I urge the Minister to push for that at the European level, and, as always, I wish him well in the ongoing negotiations.
Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr MacNeil
It is not just crofters in the outer Hebrides about whom I worry; I worry about the commuters of Milton Keynes as well. We are talking about human experiences, and it was not the people of the outer Hebrides who were responsible for the reversal of the time change; it was the good people of Milton Keynes, who were experiencing that particular misery over three winters. We should bear it in mind that the Bill commits us to at least 15 months of really dark winters, although I hope that my amendment will get around that to some extent.
To use the obvious example, how do we feel when we have to get out of bed on a dark and dreary morning, rather than when the sun is up? Our entire mood is changed because of the lack of sunlight. If the clocks are changed, nearly all of us will have to wake up and go out in the dark for a longer period of the year. As I said earlier, Portuguese children were found to be irritable and have poor attention, and according to the national association of teachers many fell asleep in the classroom. It is worth noting that this is damaging to young people’s education and that divorce rates increase significantly, so even an experiment has dangerous consequences for many people. On energy consumption, we have heard from Lighter Later that there could be serious energy cost savings as a result of people not needing to consume energy in the evenings. As I stated on Second Reading, this is erroneous, because people would need to turn on appliances on colder, darker winter mornings.
Dr Whiteford
I am concerned about the winter morning issue. Last week my heating in London broke down and I did not even notice because the temperature here is so much higher than it is in more northerly parts. I think people would put on their heating during the coldest part of the night and also when energy is at its most expensive, which will have an impact on not only energy consumption but fuel poverty.
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that the cold in Banff and Buchan is balanced only by the warm hearts of its people, and certainly by their good sense in yet again returning an SNP Member. Her points are well made and serious, and indeed they are backed up not only by her own experience, but by evidence from Indiana in the United States and from Portugal. The phones have been busy between my office and Portugal in the last wee while. Mr Rui Agostinho, director of Lisbon’s astronomical observatory, the institution responsible for legal time in Portugal, has said that a company contracted by the European Commission at the time showed that the energy savings gained were ultimately lost with the increase of energy consumption during the morning.
Mr MacNeil
Does my hon. Friend feel, as I do, that the safeguards that we are looking for are a way of fixing the goalposts? At the moment, there is a danger—the Minister refused to say that it was not possible—that the Government might renege, change their mind, choose another policy or override Scotland. We just want the goalposts fixed so that we know the terms of reference. Then we could move on quite happily.
Dr Whiteford
That is right, and I agree.
I will conclude my remarks, because I know that other people want to speak. Ultimately, it is a quality of life issue. One thing that struck me after the last debate on the Bill was that a huge number of people from England, mostly older people who remember the last trial, got in touch with me by letter, phone or e-mail. They all said the same thing: “This was a disaster when they did it in the ’70s.” They found it miserable getting up, going to work and delivering things in the dark. People who remember it did not like it. Ultimately, that has to be our arbiter: is this going to be helpful for our quality of life? I know that it is going to impact more on my part of the world than some other parts of these islands. For the sake of our health and well-being, we need to think carefully before messing around with something that might not need to be changed.
Fisheries
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I do not think that we could make this debate more timely if we tried. Negotiations to reform the CFP are under way, and it is vital that the voices of the fishing communities that we represent are heard in this debate.
The challenges that we face need to be seen in the context of a common fisheries policy that has systematically damaged our marine ecosystem for 30 years. It has eroded the livelihoods of fishing communities and fishermen, and it has been applied inconsistently in different EU states. There is a growing consensus, even in the House, that a decentralised approach offers a better way forward than the one-size-fits-nobody approach that we have at the moment, as it would allow coastal states to develop workable solutions and, crucially, it would allow the expertise of fishing industry leaders and other local stakeholders to come to the fore.
In my view the reform process will stand or fall on the strength of the regionalisation proposals, but it is not clear how regionalisation will work in practice, given the treaty constraints raised by the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie). I hope that the Minister will spell out the mechanisms and processes that are under consideration and how they might be made fit for purpose, because there is a great deal at stake for our fishing communities.
There is a great deal to be learned from the experience of regional advisory councils on the value of long-term planning and the need to bring fishing industry representatives into the decision-making process. There is a great deal, too, that we can learn from the efforts of our fishermen in recent years to put the industry on an environmentally sustainable footing. The Scottish fleet has been at the forefront of efforts to push alternatives to discarding, but when we discuss discards it is crucial to remember that they are a direct consequence of the impositions put on fishermen by the failed CFP. No one gains from discards.
In that respect, the catch quota pilot schemes in Scotland and England have shown real potential. They were trialled to see how good they were at cutting discards and improving the economic viability of vessels, and they have been extremely effective. So far, however, only a relatively small number of vessels have been able to benefit from them. More boats could benefit, and I urge the Minister to prioritise the issue with our international partners, particularly the Norwegians and the European Commission, and drive it forward so that we can expand the catch quota system and build on the success of the model across the EU.
The Scottish fleet has been more successful than any other European fleet in ending discards. Catch quotas are only one factor in that success: the conservation credit scheme, using selective gear and real-time closures, is the thing that has really made a difference by improving the sustainability of our fisheries, as has longer-term planning and sound science. Too often, science has been used to justify policy making of dubious quality, and it has sometimes been used as a blunt instrument. It has been made to say what policy makers want it to say. There is now widespread recognition that good science and sound scientific data are beneficial to everyone, but if we want to build trust in scientific data we have to use them consistently. When the scientific data show that stocks are healthy and fish are plentiful, we need commensurate increases in total allowable catches. The forthcoming Council meeting could not be more timely, as we should not have more quota cuts if the science says that that is not necessary.
Consistency is required. I have concerns about transferable fishing concessions, as the Commission is now calling them.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I urge the hon. Gentleman to think before intervening. He has already made a speech, and we are running out of time. More Members have indicated that they wish to speak. It is up to the Member in charge but, to be honest. I would be disappointed if the hon. Gentleman intervened.
Fisheries
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(13 years ago)
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Dr Whiteford
It is very important that the UK Government avoid having the Commission make a knee-jerk response to the problem that could cause damage to certain stocks and jeopardise the livelihoods of fishermen who have already made huge sacrifices to put the industry on a sustainable footing. We only have to go to the ports of the north-east to see that the white fish fleet has basically halved in the past 10 years, and that is a huge sacrifice that the industry has made in order to be sustainable. We need to avoid the same top-down solutions that we have had from the EU hitherto, and we need solutions that come from the industry itself and from the communities that are most directly associated with it.
Mr MacNeil
I understand that in 2009 the value of discards was about £33 million—about a third that of the white fish that was landed. However, since 2008 the efforts that the Scottish National party Government have taken have seen discards decline at a greater rate than in any other country in the EU.
Dr Whiteford
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and I hope to address it in my speech.
Today’s debate gives us impetus for a different approach to fisheries management. We want to avoid, rather than replicate, the one-size-fits-nobody approach that has characterised the CFP for several decades and had a devastating impact on the communities that I represent and our marine environment.
We need a greater role for regional management, and that is happening in fishing communities not only in Scotland, but in other parts of the UK and Europe. We also need longer-term management plans and meaningful stakeholder involvement. That is the way forward, and I hope the Government press that agenda in the ongoing and forthcoming European negotiations.
It is important to recognise that discarding is a particularly big problem in mixed fisheries, where the rules and regulations simply do not reflect the reality of the eco-system.
Fisheries
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Angus Brendan MacNeil(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
It is my great privilege to open this afternoon’s debate on fisheries, and I am grateful to see so many hon. Members, who I suspect have postponed rather arduous journeys home to far-flung parts of the UK to be here. I am very grateful to them all.
With the EU Fisheries Council talks less than two weeks away and with officials, I believe, already in Bergen ahead of the talks, this is a timely and very necessary debate. It is likely that we are facing reductions in total allowable catches for some of our key stocks in the year ahead. That means that, in spite of having made substantial progress in conservation, certain parts of our fishing industry are facing a very bleak outlook next year.
As I am sure most Members would agree, fishing is part of the DNA of our coastal communities. It is a multi-million pound industry, and it employs thousands of people—5,500 people in Scotland alone. In addition, fishing directly supports many more thousands of jobs onshore, in processing, retail, supply, maintenance, boat building and so on.
However, we must remember that fishing remains an inherently dangerous and demanding occupation that takes place in a hostile marine environment. Last year, 13 men on UK-registered fishing vessels lost their lives. It is important today that we remember them; that we express our condolences to their families and communities, and that we pay tribute to the Fishermen’s Mission, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, our coastguards and all those who offer support to our fishermen in their hour of need.
I am very grateful to have the opportunity to lead this debate today, so I am disappointed that it is not taking place on the Floor of the House. In my view, it is very important that the Government should have the chance to inform our discussions this afternoon by setting out their priorities for the EU negotiations. Nevertheless, I hope that we will have a full and productive debate.
As I am sure Members are well aware, this year’s EU talks are taking place against the backdrop of ongoing consultation on reform of the common fisheries policy. At the outset, I think that we have to acknowledge that the CFP is an abject failure. It has failed the fishing industry, it has failed as a conservation strategy and it has failed our coastal communities.
The significant challenges that we now face have to be seen in the context of a CFP that, for more than 30 years, has been systematically damaging our marine environment, systematically undermining the livelihoods of those who seek to earn a living from the sea and has been inconsistently applied across the member states of the EU. It is simply not fit for purpose. It is my belief that we will not realise an economically and environmentally sustainable fishing industry until the CFP is consigned to history and replaced with a workable model of fisheries management.
There is growing consensus in the fishing industry among fishing leaders, fishermen, scientists and environmental non-governmental organisations, that a regionalised approach offers a better way forward than the “one-size-fits-nobody” approach that we have at the moment.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend, of course, on securing this debate. With Scottish National party eyes, I perhaps see a new “Madame Ecosse” in the making—I am not sure, but we could well have another one within the party.
On the point of regionalisation, surely the way in which the CFP and fisheries are managed at the moment places restrictions on fishing west coast prawns and causes problems, because of the multiplicity of species in the sector. There is a lot of whiting in the sea that eat young prawns, but the fishermen are unable to get them, and rescue and sort out the prawn fishery. As a result, there are distortions right across Scotland, but particularly on the west coast. I wonder if my hon. Friend would address that.
Dr Whiteford
I thank my hon. Friend for making that very important point about the need for a whole-ecosystem approach to fisheries management. In addition, our fishermen need the ability to plan their business on a long-term basis and certainly on a much longer-term basis than they do at the moment.
I cannot think of any other industry that is subjected to the intense degree of micro-management and annual uncertainty that the fishing industry is subjected to every year at this time. Fishing is a politically managed and politically regulated industry, and we just simply have to do better.
Fishing is very much the lifeblood of the coastal communities I represent, which include Peterhead, Europe’s premier white fish port, and Fraserburgh, Europe’s biggest shellfish port. Between them, Peterhead and Fraserburgh are also home to a large part of the UK’s pelagic fleet and home to a large processing sector. We have a very diverse industry and it does not just involve major ports such as Peterhead and Fraserburgh. In my constituency, many coastal towns and villages define themselves by their maritime traditions: Whitehills, Gardenstown, Rosehearty, Cairnbulg, Inverallochy, St Combs, and my home town of Macduff. These communities have paid a very high price for the failure of the CFP, which has essentially been a failure of political leadership.
I know that the diverse fishing industry I see in Banff and Buchan is reflected around other parts of the UK coastline. One of the advantages of having a general debate this afternoon is that it will enable Members from around these islands, I hope, to express the concerns and interests of different parts of the fishing industry that pertain to their own locale. Nevertheless, I hope that Members will understand that I myself want to focus this afternoon on a couple of issues that are of particular interest to my own local area.
Perhaps nothing symbolises the mismanagement of fisheries policy more than the present predicament of our white fish fleet in relation to the whole problem of discarding good-quality fish. Under the current regulations, nutritious and marketable food that could be landed and sold is instead thrown back dead into the sea, polluting the marine environment and needlessly depriving boats of landings that could keep them afloat financially.
Mr MacNeil
On that point about discards, some fishermen from the west coast of Scotland have said to me that they feel that the increased quota restrictions, which it must be said are often called for by environmentalists, actually lead to higher discards and that it is a counter-productive way of managing fishing, with micro-management from outside the fishing industry leading to these increases in discards.
Dr Whiteford
I agree with my hon. Friend that the current quota system is counter-productive with regard to discards. We have to recognise that discards happen for a number of reasons, but one of the key problems is that quotas are currently set for the amount of fish that is landed in port and not for the amount of fish that is actually caught.
I know that the Scottish fleet has worked extraordinarily hard in recent years to reduce discards. Since 2008, discards have declined by a third, which is a greater reduction than has been seen anywhere else, and it has been due in no small part to the introduction of real-time closures and the use of selective gears. However, while those have been very valuable mitigation measures, I do not think that anyone would argue that they have gone far enough. One in three cod caught in the North sea are still being discarded and discard rates are still unacceptably high. More than 14,000 tonnes of cod are still being dumped. That means that more cod is actually being dumped into the North sea than can be landed in the whole of the UK.
That is an environmental outrage, but it is also economically disastrous. In the North sea in 2009, 60,000 tonnes of white fish were landed in Scotland, worth £68 million, but the total catches amounted to 88,000 tonnes. That means that almost 28,000 tonnes—potentially up to a third of the value of the Scottish cod, haddock, whiting, saith, plaice and hake catch—were thrown back into the sea. In financial terms, we could speculate that up to £33 million-worth of good fish was dumped last year. That is a criminal waste in economic and environmental terms, and I can assure Members that nothing creates greater anger and frustration in fishing communities.
With quotas set to be reduced further, discards are actually expected to rise next year. That is why we need to take seriously the success of the catch quota pilot schemes in Scotland and Denmark, which have been running in recent years, and build on those schemes in the years ahead. Those taking part in the pilots have been freed from certain effort restrictions and awarded higher quotas in return for fully monitoring and recording their catches, and avoiding discards. Those fishermen are removing fewer fish from the sea, but they are able to land more fish. It is a win-win situation for them; it keeps the cod recovery plan on track, while rewarding fishermen who do not discard. It is also providing valuable scientific data on what is actually going on in our seas, which is no small point of controversy.
Mr MacNeil
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. She mentioned pilot programmes and programmes that we have had. Of course, on the west coast of Scotland we feel the great loss of the by-catch for dogfish, which I think should be looked at again. Particularly on the west coast, there is an awful lot of squid at the moment, but there are no ways for the fishermen to catch the squid. I hope that the Minister will look at enabling fishermen on the west coast of Scotland to get near that squid fishery at some point.
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend advocates well on behalf of his constituents.
I think that it is recognised that catch quotas are no panacea for the white fish fleet. They will help to mitigate the most damaging social and economic impacts of this year’s expected quota cuts and reduce discard levels further, allowing our fishermen to catch less and land more, but in order to take things to the next level, we need the opportunity to trial a mixed-species catch quota option. The North sea is really a mixed fishery, and we need to consider the ecosystem as a whole. I hope that the UK Government will pursue a full catch quota system for cod in the year ahead. I also urge the Government to secure options to trial catch quotas for other species such as haddock, whiting or plaice. If fishermen are to reap the full benefits of their conservation efforts, the Government must secure changes in the management regime.
Over the past decade, the Scottish white fish fleet has more than halved as the industry has attempted to place itself on a more commercially and ecologically viable footing. We must start rewarding our fishermen for successful conservation efforts and recognise their central role in managing and conserving our fishing resources. In my experience, it is fishermen themselves who want a whole-ecosystem approach to fisheries management. They see the dangers of displacement and know only too well that cack-handed management measures have unintended consequences for them and for the marine environment.
It is also important to remember that the quota reductions likely to affect the white fish fleet next year will have a knock-on effect on processers, some of which are already under pressure from the impact of the recession on global markets and the reduced availability of quotas. In such circumstances, the argument for extending the catch quota scheme next year is compelling, and I hope that the Government will pursue it vigorously.
The other big issue that I want to address is the so-called mackerel war between Iceland and the Faroe Islands and the rest of Europe. I have welcomed previous assurances that the Minister is not minded to acquiesce to the unreasonable demands of Iceland and the Faroe Islands for huge chunks of the global mackerel quota and is keeping pressure on the European Commission not to cave in on the issue. As he knows, about 60% of the UK pelagic fleet is based in my constituency. I have been in regular contact with pelagic fishermen and their representatives during recent months, as I know he has, and they keep saying to me that they want a negotiated settlement, but not at any price.
Mackerel is the UK’s most valuable fish stock. It is also one of the most sustainably managed. Iceland and the Faroe Islands have awarded themselves quotas amounting to 37% of the total allowable catch. Their grossly irresponsible actions are jeopardising the sustainability of the stock and threatening the Marine Stewardship Council accreditation that the pelagic fleet worked so hard to achieve. Our fishermen accept that there are mackerel in Icelandic waters and that Iceland is entitled to some quota, but they argue rightly that that quota must be proportionate and in line with the long-term management plans that exist to protect the stock. There can be no doubt that the increase in mackerel in Icelandic waters is attributable to the successful implementation of conservation measures elsewhere in the North sea. I do not want that work to be undone in order to give Iceland an expedient political payoff.