Business of the House
Keith Vaz Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will speak to my hon. Friends at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to secure a response to it. In so far as the Government have regulations and require people to be on databases, it is important that the information is valid and reliable.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Leader of the House has mentioned the immigration figures. He will know that today the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency has published a report showing that, last year, 300 people entered Birmingham airport without proper checks. May we have an urgent statement from the Home Secretary on how that was allowed to happen? May we also have an assurance that anyone entering this country has undergone the full border checks that are required?
Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that the chief inspector published a report on Birmingham airport. Regrettably, it included the fact that, over a number of occasions, 278 passengers came through the primary control point when the biometric chip-reading facility had been deactivated. As the report acknowledges, that is one of a number of checks that UK Border Force officers conduct to verify identity. All criminal and immigration checks remained in place and action has already been taken to ensure that that cannot happen again. All contingency staff deployed to the border were fully trained to enable them to undertake the necessary security checks.
Select Committee Effectiveness, Resources and Powers
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Sir Alan Beith
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. My own Committee has held online consultations with people in the public service who cannot come out openly to express their views, but whose views are important to us. We did an online consultation with prison officers which gave us a much better understanding of their working environment and problems. We did the same with probation officers. We had difficulty with the Ministry of Justice when we tried to do the same with court staff who were affected by the court interpretation and translation service changes, on which we will report in a few days. We were rather surprised to find the Department much less co-operative in that instance than it had been on previous occasions.
The social media are extremely important to the work of Select Committees, as are Parliament’s website facilities. The web and intranet service is working on some new designs for Select Committee homepages that will allow for more individual branding, giving Committees more control over the appearance of their online presence and greater flexibility in respect of what individual Committees can promote on their homepage. We would like to see this implemented as soon as possible. I do not claim to be the House’s expert on social media—I am the last person to make such a claim—but they clearly offer tremendous opportunities for engaging with the people who are affected by what is agreed and passed in the House. That is one of the things at the forefront of Committees’ work.
Our report honestly assesses where Select Committees can do better. It makes a range of best practice recommendations. We encourage Committees to be forward-looking in their scrutiny of departmental performance, not confining themselves to raking over the coals of past events unless there are important lessons to be learned from them. We urge Committees to give more attention to the financial implications of departmental policy and how Departments assess the effectiveness of their spending. We encourage them to experiment with different approaches to evidence taking; to broaden the range of witnesses and make more use of commissioned research; to produce shorter reports, making it clear which are the most important recommendations and who is supposed to be carrying them out; to follow up recommendations to ensure that reports have impact; and to report to the House at least once each Session on what their Committee has been doing.
Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said, Committees need to be more effective at communicating. That involves the social media, but it also involves traditional print and broadcast media. We get a lot of coverage and a lot of interest from the broadcasters. Occasionally they annoy us by failing to distinguish between Select Committees of this House, elected by the House, and all-party groups, which have a role and a usefulness but are not the same thing. A Select Committee of this House is a Committee of people who have a degree of expertise developed over a period but are not united by a common cause in their membership of the Committee, as is so often the case with an all-party group. There is a big difference between the nature of a report produced by a Select Committee and one produced by an all-party group. The use of the term “a group of MPs” to describe either body, which we find in the broadcasts even of the BBC, is something we deplore.
The motion before the House invites us to endorse these best practice recommendations. They are not a straitjacket; it is for each Committee to determine its own priorities in how it goes about its business. However, Committees have core tasks, and we hope that they will see the good sense of the recommendations that we are making; indeed, many are already doing so.
One of the areas where we want to develop the work of Committees is in our scrutiny of policy development at the European level. We have had a lot of discussions about this with the European Scrutiny Committee and with the Minister for Europe. Far too often, this House is confronted with draft European legislation long after the important decisions and negotiations have taken place. Committees can much more usefully engage at the early stages, as long as they can be clear which work programme issues of the Commission are attracting real interest and are likely to get somewhere; otherwise they can get submerged in a vast amount of material that is not really going anywhere.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that another way to ensure that we scrutinise much better what is happening in Europe is to have better liaison relationships with Chairs of Committees in other national Parliaments? That will help us to understand what is happening in those countries and develop these relationships even further.
Sir Alan Beith
Yes, I agree. I have tried to do that, as has the right hon. Gentleman, conspicuously so, in the home affairs field. We should also communicate more effectively with British Members of the European Parliament so that they are aware when Committees have done some work on a subject and do not go blind into discussions completely unaware that this Parliament has already examined that subject in detail and expressed views on it. We have also been arguing for some time that we want the very good assistance that we get from UK representatives in Brussels and their staff to be used on a more active and less passive basis so that Committees are alerted when issues that they could usefully consider are coming up, such as those that may be of concern to the Government or are likely to excite controversy.
We talk about the powers and privileges of Committees. Sometimes an impression is given in public discussion that Committees are lacking the powers to do their job. By and large, I do not believe that to be the case. There are improvements that we could make, and the report deals with some of them. There are also some things that it is rather difficult to do—for example, in relation to privilege and the compelling of witnesses. The Liaison Committee is not convinced that statute is necessarily the right way to go, but the issue is shortly to be examined in a Joint Committee.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). He covered so much ground with his description of how the Select Committees began that I am tempted just to say, “I agree” and sit down. But this would not be Parliament without everyone adding a little extra to what he has said.
I should like to acknowledge the presence in the Chamber of many of the Select Committee Chairs. This could almost be the Liaison Committee meeting for the first time in the Chamber of the House of Commons. The Chairmen of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Environmental Audit Committee, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the Education Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee are all here this afternoon, as is my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.
I would not want this debate to consist only of us talking about ourselves and about how well we have all done. The reason that we are in this place, and the reason that so much has changed in the past five years, is that Parliament has changed. The occupant of the Chair, in the person of Mr Speaker, has decided that the procedures of Parliament should make the Government much more accountable than I can remember them being in all the 25 years I have been in the House. I know that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has been here even longer than that. The fact that Mr Speaker has decided to use those processes to a much greater extent than they have ever been used before, and the fact that we have put in place the right reforms and that those on both Front Benches decided to implement them, mean that the Select Committee system is almost there, as far as scrutiny of the Government is concerned. I say “almost there” because, although the Chairman of the Liaison Committee rightly mentioned all the positive aspects of the system, there are a couple of things that I think could make it even better.
I also want to pay tribute to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in the persona of the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), for going where no Committee, or Committee Chair, has dared to go before. He rightly mentioned phone hacking and the Rupert Murdoch affair, because those events represented a line in the sand for the powers of Select Committees. I can tell him that frequently when witnesses refuse to appear before the Home Affairs Committee, I do not have to come here and seek an order; all I have to do is remind them of what happened to Mr Rupert Murdoch when he decided he would not appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee—which conducted a very good inquiry, of course.
In a sense, however, we are making these rules up as we go along. As has been said, we do not know what powers we have at our disposal if somebody refuses to appear before a Committee. When witnesses say they are sick, I now ask for a sick note sent via a doctor with initials after their name, so I can be certain that that is why the witness cannot attend. We must clarify what these powers are. In one sense, I am reluctant to do so because it is always useful to have the mystique of Parliament—to have the fear of the unknown, so that people do not know what will happen. In that respect, therefore, it is better not to write things down, but to keep them vague and use that as a way to cajole people to appear. At some stage, somebody will refuse to attend and will not answer to a warrant, however, and that is when we will have to decide how to proceed.
I want to pay tribute to my Committee secretariat staff: Tom Healey, Richard Benwell, Elizabeth Flood and all the other staff who work extremely hard. The Chair of the Liaison Committee said that we had good staff, but he did not point out that we do not have sufficient resources. We need more resources if we are to be able to do our job effectively.
We need to put a stop to the practice of Clerks being moved around too regularly, and often just when they are about to really get into their job. In the past they have moved rather too swiftly. One of my former Clerks has ended up clerking three Committees and is currently clerking the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. She is so good that, like Ronaldo, she gets passed on to all the big teams. We should allow Committee staff to develop their specialisms. I am grateful to the powers that be for the fact that over the past year my Clerks have not changed, and I hope very much that we can stick to the unwritten rule that we have them for the whole of the Parliament, as that enables them to develop fields of expertise.
We look across the Atlantic in awe at the number of staff the chairs of congressional and senate committees have. Only a few months ago, I was in Washington and I met the chair of the homeland security committee, the equivalent of our Home Affairs Committee. I was told he had a staff of 32 and that was just for the majority side in Congress. I am not suggesting for one moment that we should increase the staffing of the HAC from nine to 32, because I know I would never get away with that. If we are to do our job, however, we need staff with expertise.
We also need to make sure our Committee staff are, indeed, Committee staff; far too often, they have to go off and do other House duties because that is part of the deal. I want them to be able to concentrate fully on the work we do.
Despite that little whinge, the HAC has thus far in this Session produced 11 reports, seen 118 witnesses in 49 sittings, and addressed 20 subjects. The House may therefore think that nine staff members is sufficient, and that the HAC should not be given any more staff as that would only mean we would go on for even longer. We are able to do so much work, however, only because of the expertise of the people who work for us.
The HAC has tried to travel around the country, although we do not do so often enough. We should engage with the public by getting them to come here, although they are very willing to do so because of the new regime that now runs the visitors’ facilities. We should also use social media, as the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said that he did in the Education Committee. We stole his idea and used it the last time the Home Secretary appeared before the HAC.
Not all of the questions that were suggested by members of the public were constructive, but it is always nice to hear their thoughts not just about the Home Secretary, but about members of the Home Affairs Committee. That is all about public engagement, and I am willing to try anything new.
I welcome what has been done by the House authorities to change the websites over the past few years. We should embrace the new technology and develop it in the best way that we can.
Another way in which we could help the public to understand the distinctive contribution that Select Committees make would be to end the great ballot to find out in which room Select Committees will sit on any given day. In America, Select Committees have confirmed office space and rooms. Under that system, one would know that the Home Affairs Committee would always sit in Committee Room 19. I know that there is a problem in that the broadcasters choose which is the best session to cover.
I think that the House’s facilities should be used more imaginatively so that not only do we have a degree of permanence in where we sit, but Select Committee Chairs are close to their staff. I have an office in Norman Shaw North, but my Select Committee staff are in Millbank. I do not know about other Select Committee Chairs, but I would think that at least 60% to 70% of my work in this House is Select Committee related. It is not difficult to ring up Select Committee staff, but it would be much more helpful if they were in close proximity to the Chairs of their Committees.
We have reached a stage that some of us would not have thought possible even a few years ago. However, it is not enough to stand still. We need to move forward, because I still believe that the most effective way to scrutinise the operation of any Government is not at the Dispatch Box, where Members have the opportunity to ask just one question, apart from the Leader of the Opposition who gets several bites of the cherry, but in a Select Committee system, where one can probe, ask and sometimes even argue. At the end of the day, I believe that that sort of scrutiny gets a better result.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Three Members want to take part in this debate. We also need to get both Front Benchers in and leave a couple of minutes at the end for Sir Alan to wind up. I therefore ask Members to be mindful of the length of their contributions.
Business of the House
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the achievements of Sir Robert Peel, who was one of the founders of this Conservative party. In addition to the great reforms my hon. Friend mentions, Peel also oversaw legislation such as the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, which forbade the employment of women and children underground, and the Factories Act 1844, which limited working hours for children and women in factories. Although Benjamin Disraeli fashioned the phrase “two nations” and the principle of a one nation party, in a sense Sir Robert Peel implemented those things in policy terms well before that—recognising the responsibility we each have to one another. One of the great traditions of conservatism was born with him.
I entirely share my hon. Friend’s desire for such a debate. Those who have a reforming instinct and introduce reforms they believe to be right are often the subject of considerable criticism. They look and hope to be justified in the long term.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I do not know how many teaspoons of sugar the Leader of the House had in his cup of coffee this morning, but he will know of the dangers of sugar and the fight against diabetes. As the architect of the responsibility deal, is he concerned that a third of school leavers of primary school age are either obese or overweight. Is it not time we had a statement or debate on the success of the responsibility deal?
Mr Lansley
I introduced the responsibility deal with my colleagues at the Department of Health precisely because I am concerned about the number of people in this country who are overweight and obese—[Interruption.] Contrary to the sedentary remark from the Opposition Front Bench, the deal is working. I will not go into this at great length now, although perhaps we will find an opportunity to do so. The deal includes the calorie reduction challenge, which is one of the world-leading opportunities for us—not just the food industry, but all working together across the board—to consider the extent to which the virtual abolition of artificial trans fats, the reduction of saturated fats, the reduction of sugars in foods, and a reduction of calorie intake can get us to sustainable, healthy weight.
HEALTH
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making this debate possible before the Christmas recess. I shall raise an important issue, access to advanced therapeutic radiotherapy. I have raised this previously and I make no apology for doing so again. I intend to keep raising it until my constituents and those all across the country have proper access to advanced and innovative therapeutic radiotherapy systems.
I remind the House that prior to the Conservative party conference the Prime Minister pledged that from April next year cancer patients who need innovative radiotherapy will get it. That pledge was confirmed to the House by the Secretary of State for Health on 23 October and by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has responsibility for cancer services, in written replies on 30 October.
The Department of Health’s press release on 8 October expanded on the Prime Minister’s statement, indicating that a new £15 million cancer radiotherapy innovation fund was being created, drawn from the underspend of the cancer drugs fund. I bring to the House’s attention the fact that the £200 million cancer drugs fund has been under-spent by an average of £150 million each year since it was established. That was reported to the House on 16 April 2012—column 134W in Hansard.
The Health Minister confirmed on 30 October that the pledge meant three specific things: patients would have access to appropriate radiotherapy wherever they lived; the new national Commissioning Board would be responsible for funding; and intensity-modulated radiation therapy, known as IMRT, stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, know as SABR, and stereotactic radiosurgery would be included.
Since the Prime Minister’s pledge, the Department of Health has contacted all cancer centres to inform them that the cancer radiotherapy innovation fund is a revenue fund only and that its use is to be focused on getting as many centres up to the standard of delivering 24% access to IMRT by April next year. In a letter to all cancer centre chief executives on 17 October, the cancer tsar, Sir Mike Richards, stated that only four of the 50 centres were reaching the 24% requirement set by the national radiotherapy implementation group.
In a letter to all radiotherapy service managers on 25 October, the national cancer action team stated that the cancer radiotherapy innovation fund was to be used effectively so that the Prime Minister’s pledge could be honoured and that if they are not delivering IMRT at the required 24% they were to submit an action plan by the end of November indicating how they would achieve that.
The letter also stated that the radiotherapy service managers could access initial funding of up to £150,000 to help them reach the target. However, the Health Minister, when questioned about funding for the pledge on 30 October, told the House that there would be no extra or ongoing funding similar to the cancer drug fund for commissioners to draw on and that any capital funding requirements would have to be met from the current £300 million bulk purchase fund announced earlier this year. In other words, there was no extra money. It seems to me that the pledge cannot be met, in terms of both revenue and capital.
Over the past two years adequate revenue funding has never been available to local commissioners to fund all the radiotherapy patients who have needed it. I know that full well from cases in my constituency. There is no indication that the new national Commissioning Board is to receive any additional funding. Without extra money, how will it fund care for the new 8,000 to 10,000 cancer patients the Prime Minister claims his pledge will help?
I would like to consider capital for a moment. I received an e-mail last night from the charity Breast Cancer Campaign, which indicated that, given the current age profile of the linear accelerators in England, an additional 147 new LINACs will be needed by 2016, at an average cost of £1.5 million. I want to ask the Minister how those will be funded. There are simply not enough advanced radiotherapy systems in the NHS to deliver the pledge. The Department of Health has admitted that only four of the 50 cancer centres are able to deliver IMRT to the required standard. At full capacity they could treat between 1,200 and 1,500 patients a year.
There are only four systems in the NHS delivering SABR up to the required standard, as the Minister has confirmed in written answers, and I have been to see one of the machines in St Bartholomew’s. At full capacity they could treat 1,000 patients a year. There is only one Gamma Knife in the NHS delivering stereotactic radiosurgery—in Sheffield—and at full capacity it could treat around 300 patients a year. With no extra capital available to fund new machines, it will be impossible for patients in most of England, including my region, to be treated by the NHS. There are some machines in the private sector, but the treatment is very expensive.
I am asking not for more money for cancer care, but for a more equal distribution of resources. The Department of Health is telling commissioners that radiotherapy, in conjunction with surgery, is very effective, curing 70% of all cancers. I have come here neither to lambast the Minister, nor to condemn him with faint praise; I have come bearing gifts, as it is Christmas, in the form of a potential solution. If the total underspend from the cancer drugs fund was transferred to radiotherapy in each of England’s regions, the systems could be upgraded with the most advanced radiotherapy equipment by 2015, which would enable constituents in my region and across the country to access life-saving therapies and allow the Prime Minister to fulfil his pledge.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris). I share the concerns of all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken so far about the importance of our national health service and our concerns about its current state. I think that the Minister—I have said this to him privately—is one of the most effective of the junior Ministers who have appeared at the Dispatch Box since the reshuffle. Because he is a doctor, I hope that he will take the concerns that I raise today on diabetes extremely seriously.
I suffer from type 2 diabetes—I declare my interest—having discovered it only five years ago after a routine test. I thought I had it under control, because I was taking my medication and doing a little exercise every day, walking from Norman Shaw North to the Palace of Westminster, until I read the national diabetes audit report published on 10 December. It states that people with diabetes are 48% more likely to suffer a heart attack, 65% more likely to have heart failure, 144% more likely to need kidney dialysis, 210% more likely to have leg amputations, 331% more likely to have part of a foot removed and 25% more likely to suffer a stroke. Overall, those with diabetes are, on average, 40% more likely to die each year than those without it. Members will understand my concern, as we approach Christmas, after reading statistics of that kind.
I know that other hon. Members have subsequently discovered that they, too, have diabetes. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), who is in the Chamber, discovered he had it only after being tested here in Parliament by the Silver Star charity. He went to see his GP and then knew that he had been diagnosed.
We are facing a diabetes epidemic, and I ask the Government to take more note of what is happening as far as diabetes is concerned. Generally, people with diabetes look fairly normal—I do not know whether you think I look normal, Mr Deputy Speaker—and do not make a virtue of telling people we have diabetes, except in debates of this kind. That normality lulls us into a false sense of security. We need a national campaign on diabetes in the same way as for other illnesses. Because people are getting treatment and are able to go and get their Metformin or other medication on a regular basis, they feel that everything is going to be all right.
This issue will not only not go away but will get worse. At the moment, 3.7 million people have diabetes, and that figure will rise by another 700,000 in a few years. Some 80% of amputations are preventable with proper care and management. I say to Ministers that this is something we can help the population with now. If we do so, we can save the 10% of the budget that is currently spent on diabetes care and the £1 million an hour that is spent on medication and care in our hospitals. These issues are very much in our hands.
I welcome the new Minister with responsibility for diabetes, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has made an excellent start. The first thing she did was to hold a summit for those with an interest in diabetes. It included Diabetes UK, which does some fantastic work on the subject, Silver Star, a charity of which I am privileged to be the patron, and others, including clinicians. She said what very few Ministers have said in my career in this House—“I want you to tell me what I should do about this subject”—and she was given a lot of good advice and ideas about how to take these matters further.
One thing that we could do immediately is to send out the message to GPs, even in the current climate of ongoing changes within the NHS, that it takes only a minute to offer each patient who comes to see them a diabetes test. I know that we are having screening for those of a certain age and disposition, but people go to see GPs for all kinds of reasons. Campaigning organisations such as Silver Star and Diabetes UK are able to go out to communities and conduct these tests. Indeed, anyone can conduct them. I have my kit with me, and although I am obviously not medically qualified, I can still conduct the test on people and am happy to do so. It is very easy to do. We should say to GPs, “Don’t wait for the screening process—begin now by testing anyone who comes to your surgery.”
We need to send out through the Department of Health a message about what we eat. You have changed physically, Mr Deputy Speaker, in all the years I have known you. I know of your great interest in rugby. You used to be a very beefy character when you were first elected to this House, but you have slimmed down, perhaps since you have been an occupant of the Chair. If people look after their lifestyles better by taking exercise and being careful about what they eat, that could help them. Every time anyone drinks a glass of Coke, eight teaspoons of sugar go straight into their system. When I went over to Atlanta and met the chief executive of Coca-Cola, I asked him what he was doing about it, and he said that Coke Zero is the answer, but it is only part of the answer. The kids in our schools are offered drinks in vending machines which have a huge amount of sugar, and then they get addicted to it for the rest of their lives. This is about things that we can do ourselves and things that parents can do to bring down the bill for the NHS.
When I finish this speech, and after I have listened to the Minister, I will be going to the Tea Room. When we get to the very helpful people there, we find that we have chocolates and mince pies on offer to us. If we turn to the left, we see a lot of food that is totally unfit for diabetics. Of course, I continue to eat this food because we do not have a choice, but it would be possible, through labelling of the drinks and food that we consume, as for people with a nut allergy, to add the words “Suitable for diabetics” or “Unsuitable for diabetics”.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making an absolutely excellent speech. Does he think that we should take the bull by the horns and legislate to reduce the amount of sugar in all food products? If we look at any kind of food, we often find totally unnecessary sugar in it as well as in all the soft drinks that he mentions.
Jeremy Corbyn
No, that is not true. I wish to place on the record that my right hon. Friend has been deeply misled on this matter. I have not taken my sons to McDonald’s, I have no intention of taking them to McDonald’s, and I have no intention of visiting McDonald’s myself. Is that clear?
Keith Vaz
I will not tease my hon. Friend, but I think that the word “McDonald’s” did enter the conversation somewhere. However, I accept that his response is now on the record.
I would support legislation aimed at ensuring that we are very careful about the amount of sugar, and salt, in our diet. Indeed, I have introduced a ten-minute rule Bill that says exactly that. Denmark started a “fat tax” but then decided that it was unworkable because the food industry lobbied so heavily against it, and so the tax was removed. I am not saying that the Government are going to legislate on this; I do not think they will. The food industry is one of the most powerful in this country. The sugary drinks industry, from Red Bull, a can of which contains more than eight teaspoons of sugar, right down to the people who make Coke and all these other drinks, will fight very hard on this. In the meantime, let us send out a message and work together to stop this epidemic consuming and subsuming our country.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
For the wind-ups, the guideline on speeches is 10 minutes, but the clock will not be in operation.
Business of the House
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
The Chancellor has made the right judgment in recognising that, in the year after the introduction of the 50p rate, the number of people reporting income of more than £1 million people halved, and the tax revenue from the richest went down by £7 billion. One must make a judgment. We cannot keep reducing the top rate of tax and hope continually to increase revenue, but it is important to support entrepreneurship and wealth creators. That is one reason why the further reduction in corporation tax by April 2014 to 21% will help put us in a very competitive position in the global race.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
As the House is not sitting tomorrow, may I take the opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, and Mrs Bercow a very happy 10th wedding anniversary?
Hon. Members
Keith Vaz
There will be no Division on that.
On the subject of families, can I ask the Leader of the House about the Succession to the Crown Bill? As he knows, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on this last year. The Deputy Prime Minister chooses to use his own draftsmen to put the Succession to the Crown Bill through the House. Does the Leader of the House have a timetable for us, because he keeps telling us it will be introduced shortly? It is important that this is done before the royal baby is born.
Mr Lansley
Can I put in my own bid to be creep of the day? It is of course the seventh anniversary of the Prime Minister’s taking up leadership of the Conservative party, so it is a chance to congratulate him too—I know which side my bread is buttered.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s question, synchronicity being what it is—[Interruption.] It is always a pleasure to have the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) here. We were unable to proceed with the Succession to the Crown Bill until all the realms of which Her Majesty is Head of State signified consent. I believe that that happened on Monday, before the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted to hospital and an announcement was made, and we are now in a position to introduce the Bill shortly.
Business of the House
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
Many of us have experienced flooding, to varying degrees, in our constituencies. I know that my hon. Friend’s constituency has experienced serious flooding in the past and is at risk now. It is important that we keep the House fully informed—my hon. Friend will make sure that we do—about the steps that the Government can take, through both the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Communities and Local Government in supporting local authorities. I know that I do not need to encourage those Departments to keep the House and Members fully informed.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May we have an urgent debate or statement on the devastating report that was published this morning by the chief inspector of the borders and immigration service? It revealed that in Liverpool there are 100,000 letters from Members of Parliament and the public that have not been opened. When may we have a debate on that important issue?
Mr Lansley
The UK Border Agency chief executive will have written to the right hon. Gentleman as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee to address some of the issues raised by the report and make clear that UKBA has accepted all the chief inspector’s recommendations. The chief inspector was clear that UKBA is now tackling those problems—and has been since April 2012—although I would not diminish the scale of the legacy problems it inherited and some of the difficulties and errors that have occurred. My colleagues in the Home Office are determined to ensure that UKBA not only deals with those legacy issues, but that it continues to improve the service it provides, and they will report on that to the House.
Business of the House
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
As my hon. Friend knows, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 prohibited the erection of tents and the use of sleeping equipment in Parliament square. The Act also enabled local authorities to attach the power of seizure and retention of property to byelaws. So the powers in the Act allow the police to remove tents and other sleeping equipment from the square. He also raises operational matters relating to the square and its impact on Parliament, which are of course a matter for the Metropolitan police force and its commissioner. To help my hon. Friend, I will ensure that the points he has made in this House are drawn to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s attention.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I declare my interest as a type 2 diabetic. Has the Leader of the House seen Tuesday’s report from the Public Accounts Committee, which estimates that 4.4 million people in the United Kingdom will have diabetes by 2020? I appreciate what he did as Health Secretary to raise awareness, but may we please have an urgent debate on preventing diabetes?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments about what we are continuing to hope to achieve. I have seen the Public Accounts Committee report. It is important that we recognise that the prevalence of diabetes is rising and that it is important to tackle it. Prevention is, as the cliché goes, better than cure. In that respect, we are making more progress on health checks, which can make an enormous difference in ensuring that the proper management is in place. Although we know that there is significant variation across the country, there is a rising overall level of adherence across the country to the nine principal recommendations for the care and treatment of those with diabetes.
General Matters
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). I had no idea there were so many issues involving wind farms in her constituency. When I travel up the M1 to Leicester on Friday, I shall be looking out for them, and I know that if local people need a champion against them, they have the best possible MP, as the hon. Lady’s speech today illustrates.
I wish to talk about violent video games. I want to make it clear that I am not against video games as such. I know that members of the public—and, indeed, Members of this House—play them and that the Prime Minister’s favourite video game is “Fruit Ninja”. I am not against those who play video games, therefore, but I have had concerns about violent video games for a number of years.
The issue was brought to my attention by the mother of a 14-year-old young man, Stefan Pakeerah, who was stabbed repeatedly by 17-year-old Warren Leblanc in Leicester in 2004. During the trial it became clear that Warren Leblanc had become obsessed with a game called “Manhunt”. My interest in examining the issues associated with video games began with that case. Mrs Pakeerah and I had meetings with successive Prime Ministers, all of whom promised to do more to deal with violent video games.
I am glad to say that progress has been made, and I will discuss that later in my speech, but unfortunately some of the games have become even more violent. Only a few weeks ago, the coroner in the inquest in the case of Callum Green, a 14-year-old who committed suicide in Stockport after playing “Call of Duty” on a regular basis with his stepfather, said the following about video games:
“It’s very important that young children don’t play them or have access to them.”
Anders Breivik, who has recently been convicted of the murder of 69 young people on an island outside Oslo, was shown in his trial also to be obsessed with “Call of Duty”. In March 2012, Mohamed Merah killed seven people in three gun attacks in Toulouse, and he, too, was obsessed with the same violent video game.
I am not saying that over-18s should be prevented from playing any games that they want; my concern has always been that these games fall into the hands of under-18s, some of whom become susceptible to the violence played out in them. People have asked what the difference is between somebody getting into an 18-plus film and somebody playing a video game. The difference is that a violent video game is interactive. Obviously I do not support under-18s going to see violent films, but even if they get in to view a film they are not participants in what is going on.
A lot of independent research has been done on this matter. The university of Indiana found that young men who played violent video games for 10 hours a week exhibited less activity in frontal brain regions associated with emotional control and cognitive functions. Other research conducted by universities all points to problems that occur with young people—those under the age of 18—having access to these games, which is why the previous Government set up the Byron review. Tanya Byron, a celebrated columnist for The Times, produced an excellent report, but the tragedy is that her recommendations have still not been implemented.
The Deputy Leader of the House will be making his first speech from the Dispatch Box, and I congratulate him most warmly on his appointment. He is a former member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, and I said to other members of the Committee, “Look how well he has done.” If they all work hard and eat their cereals, they will end up speaking for the Government one day. I congratulate him, because I know that when he replies he will be examining the points I am making. Will he please tell us when he anticipates the Byron review being implemented? Tanya Byron did a great job, and it is extremely important that if we set up commissions—I know that this was done under the previous Government—we actually accept their recommendations.
There are three responsibilities associated with violent video games, the first of which is the responsibility of the video games makers. We, in London, are at the heart of the creative industries. The Government have recently given tax breaks to video games makers, who have a responsibility to ensure that when they produce games of a violent nature they accept that there is a possibility that the games will fall into the hands of children.
When we started this campaign, many years ago, the size of the warning on the packet was very small—it was non-existent. It was then increased to about the size of a 1p piece and, eventually, to the size of a 10p piece. The first responsibility is that when the packaging is produced it should make it very clear that the video game is violent so that everybody knows that it is for someone over the age of 18.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
On that specific point, games such as “Call of Duty” have clear age guidelines that are regulated by PEGI—Pan European Game Information—and clearly show the age-rating and a brief summary of the content. However, we all need collectively to ensure that parents are aware of the new rating systems so that they can make suitable decisions on behalf of their children.
Keith Vaz
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who is absolutely right. That was the third of my three points. The first was about the game’s maker, so let us move on to the second, which is about parents.
I am the parent of a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House is the parent of two young children, although I do not know how old they are. When I go into my children’s room—they have a joint room where they have their computers—even I do not pick up the video games they are watching and check whether the content is suitable for their age, but that is the responsibility of parents. I wonder how many parents buy video games to ensure that their children enjoy themselves playing the games and leave their parents in peace. Parents have a big responsibility to check the contents of what their children are watching, and if we can do that we will help with the problem of violent video games.
I urge anyone who has young children under the age of 18 to go tonight into their bedrooms or sitting rooms—wherever the video games are kept—and check the age limit on those games. I would be amazed if they did not find that at least one or two were meant for those over the age of 18.
The third element of responsibility belongs, of course, to the Government. I mentioned the implementation of the PEGI system and I was delighted to hear in May 2012 that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport was going to end the dual ratings system to ensure that there is one easily enforceable ratings system. That is a very important step forward, because if the Government try to clear away the additional regulations and make one clear set of guidelines that everyone can understand that will make a huge difference to those who manufacture video games and those who sell them.
Part of the Government’s responsibility is for enforcement. During our last Attorney-General’s questions, I asked how many retailers had been prosecuted for selling 18-plus games to those under the age of 18. I was told that no retailers had been prosecuted; perhaps the Minister can update us on whether those figures have increased. The responsibility rests with the retailers, those who sit at the checkout counters and those who sell games at outlets such as GAME to check the age of those who buy the games, and I do not think that that happens. When someone goes to a supermarket and takes a violent game up to the checkout counter, the pressure on those sitting at the tills means that it is difficult to check first the rating and then the age of that person.
I want to see better enforcement. If those games are sold to those under the age of 18, I want to make sure that those responsible—I do not care whether it is GAME, Tesco or Sainsbury’s—are prosecuted. I think that a high-profile prosecution—I know that all Governments are keen on such prosecutions—would make a huge difference to those wishing to sell video games.
I will end by referring to the words of one person who is responsible for the sale of more video games than any other person in the world, Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario. In a recent interview he urged children to drop their joysticks and venture outside every once in a while. Let us do the same. The university of Essex conducted a survey of 315 Essex 10-year-olds in 2008 and compared them with the same number of 10-year-olds in 1998. It found that the number of sit-ups the kids could do had declined by 27%, their arm strength had fallen by 26% and their grip strength had fallen by 7%, because they were sitting at home playing video games rather than going outside. There is a health aspect to this. If we want to ensure that our children are less obese, let them put down their joysticks, as Super Mario says, and go out and start playing. Ultimately, this is not about censorship; it is about protecting our children.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I am glad to have this opportunity to discuss a vexed issue of tax policy, namely air passenger duty, which has been described succinctly by the TaxPayers Alliance as an unwelcome burden on family holidays, a cost to business and redundant now that the European Union’s emissions trading system is being applied to aviation.
I declare an interest at the outset as the constituency Member of Parliament for Peterborough, which houses the international headquarters of Thomas Cook, so tourism and leisure issues are important to me. This is also a wider issue relating to business competitiveness, the impact on family budgets and household incomes, and the ongoing debate about sustainability, the environment and climate change.
The fair tax on flying campaign has been one of the most successful campaigns in recent parliamentary history. More than 130,000 individuals have written to their MPs in support of early-day motion 174, which calls on the Government to undertake a comprehensive study of the full economic effects of aviation tax in the United Kingdom, including its impact on employment.
APD was introduced in 1994 at an original rate of £5 per person for short-haul flights and £10 for flights elsewhere. In 2008, the then Government announced that the per-plane duty proposal that they had suggested the previous year would not go ahead and that, instead, APD rates and geographical bands would be restructured. Following the general election, the coalition Government have explored plans to switch to a per-plane duty, as outlined in both the coalition agreement and the 2010 emergency Budget. The overall APD tax take increased significantly from 1 April 2012, after the Government implemented an 8% APD increase.
A typical family of four pays an average of more than £115 in APD each year. A family of four flying in economy class to Florida from the UK would pay £262 in APD, whereas in France the equivalent tax is £38. Compared with seven years ago, APD rates have risen 160% on short-haul flights and up to 360% on long-haul flights, with inflation over that period being about 18%.
The tax has a significant and deleterious effect on the economy. The British Chambers of Commerce found that APD could cost the economy a staggering £10 billion in lost growth and up to 250,000 fewer jobs over the next 20 years. Many European countries, including Belgium, Holland and Denmark, have abandoned their aviation taxes because of the negative effects on their economies. In the longer term, analysis undertaken by Oxera in 2009 shows that the UK economy will forgo £750 million in wealth and 18,000 jobs because of the rises in APD since November 2010, with about half of the extra revenue raised offset by tax revenue losses in the wider economy.
Although it has to be conceded that the research on APD is piecemeal, it does point to significant damage to the economy in the long run. The Government’s figures project 7,000 fewer flights in 2011-12 as a result of the APD increase in 2010. A 2011 report by York Aviation estimated that APD would result in Scotland losing 1.2 million passengers, 148,000 tourists and £77 million in revenue by 2014.
Aviation is vital to the UK economy. It contributes £53.3 billion or 3.8% of GDP. It supports 963,000 UK jobs—352,000 directly in the sector and 344,000 indirectly through the supply chain. A massive amount of economic activity is dependent on the success of tourism, leisure and aviation.
Mr Jackson
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the impact on people who take long-haul flights, such as to India or the Caribbean.
APD is having a significant impact on people who want to come to the UK from growth economies, such as China. Such people would spend money and drive growth. In 2011, the Tourism Alliance produced a report entitled “Air Passenger Duty: the Impact on Visitors from China”, which found that the UK’s share of the Chinese market had more than halved from 0.5% in 2001 to 0.2% in 2010. If the UK had retained its share of the outbound market from China, it would have gained more than £1 billion in additional tourism revenue from China over the last decade.
Britain has the highest air taxation of all European Union and G20 countries. It is so high that the Treasury will collect more than twice as much in passenger taxes this year as all other European countries combined. Only five other countries in Europe have a similar tax. In August 2010, the German Government approved an air travel levy. It was introduced on 1 January 2011 and ranges from the equivalent of about £7 per passenger for short trips to £39 for long-haul trips. That is well below the UK’s APD, which starts at £13 for short-haul trips. In 2009, the Netherlands followed Belgium in abandoning its equivalent of APD because, although it raised the equivalent of £266 million in one year, the Dutch calculated that the loss to the wider economy was more than £950 million. Germany has set its rate at about half the UK’s level.
Given that one of the Government’s economic ambitions is for Britain to have the most competitive tax system in the G20, it is extraordinary that the World Economic Forum’s recent tourism competitiveness report ranked the UK 134th out of 138 countries for air ticket taxes and airport charges. That was before the 8% rise in the last Budget.
This tax is having a direct effect on constituents across the country—ordinary working people on modest salaries who want to go on holiday. That is the important point that Treasury Ministers need to think about when preparing next year’s Budget.
The British Chambers of Commerce has found that UK airports believe that rises in APD have contributed to a number of key routes being lost at local airports. Peel Airports, which operates Liverpool John Lennon airport, Robin Hood airport Doncaster Sheffield, and Durham Tees Valley airport, provided an analysis of its lost routes in a joint submission to the Treasury by the Northern Way, a coalition of regional development agencies in the north of England. Following the doubling of APD in 2007 and the subsequent rises, Liverpool John Lennon lost six domestic services, five European services and two long-haul services to north America, and Robin Hood airport Doncaster Sheffield lost one domestic service, six European services and three long-haul services.
People will inevitably say that this tax is about maintaining some kind of traction on air travel and aviation in order to reduce the dangers of climate change. However, attempts to justify the tax on environmental grounds have been unpersuasive, and particularly with the application of the EU emissions trading scheme to the aviation sector, I believe that the aviation tax should eventually be phased out.
In his 2011 book “Let them Eat Carbon”, the chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance, Matthew Sinclair, noted research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that suggests that by 2050 aviation will still be responsible for only 5% of the human contribution to climate change. That figure, although significant, is still pretty marginal. With aviation expected to continue to make up such a small share of global emissions, stopping people flying is not critical to limiting climate change, and we know that aeroplanes are now quieter, cleaner and more efficient than ever. APD is excessive, unfair and inefficient as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and it is duplicated in a number of other policy interventions. I therefore believe that it should eventually be abolished.
In their working paper “The impact of the UK aviation tax on carbon dioxide emissions and visitor numbers”, Mayor and Tol found that the 2007 increase in UK aviation tax had had
“the perverse effect of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, albeit only slightly,”
while reducing the number of travellers to Britain.
A 2008 cost assessment by the Department for Transport found that the aviation tax was excessive following the doubling of air passenger duty rates in February 2007. The Government have since—surprise, surprise—stopped carrying out such studies, but results show that even with a high estimate for the social cost of carbon, it is hard to justify the current APD rates on the basis of aviation’s contribution to climate change.
In the run-up to the autumn statement and next year’s Budget in March, the Government have an excellent opportunity to reconsider this tax, which I believe is regressive, inefficient and, above all, damaging to what we all care about—British jobs and British growth. Even more important, we as hon. Members must defend the interests of our constituents. They are not wealthy and do not own Learjets and jet across the world at the drop of a hat, but are decent working people who wish to have a holiday with their family. At the moment, we are clobbering them, but next year we have a real opportunity to right that wrong and bring in a fair tax regime that will compare with other such regimes across the world. We should do the right thing, and I believe that over the next few years, this tax should come to an end.
Although no Treasury Ministers are sitting on the Front Bench, I hope that they will listen to people power—some 130,000 people have written to hon. Members about this issue, and it is time for a change.
Business of the House
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am in favour of marriage and I do not think we need to debate bigotry because in the House we seek to engage with all our affairs in a way that respects good language. If my hon. Friend is referring to the draft of a speech for the Deputy Prime Minister, I reassure him that the Deputy Prime Minister did not make the remarks and nor did he intend to.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May we have an urgent debate on the situation in Yemen? On Tuesday, the Yemeni Defence Minister narrowly escaped assassination and today 5,000 Yemenis have stormed the American embassy in Sana’a. The country is sliding into civil war. Please may we have an urgent statement?
Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman has raised an issue that we all recognise is both urgent and increasingly difficult. I will, of course, talk to my colleagues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office about it. I do not have knowledge of any immediate opportunity for debate, but I will talk to them about how they might further report to the House.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Keith Vaz Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Wayne David
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hoyle.
The Opposition have tabled the amendments because we are concerned about the schedule. Like the Electoral Commission, we are concerned about the watering down of the responsibilities of electoral registration officers. We think it is important that the Bill clearly defines the role of EROs in individual electoral registration and afterwards.
Amendment 37 seeks to redress what the Opposition see as a deficiency in the law—there is a lack of powers vested in EROs to detect and investigate electoral fraud, so allegations of offences under electoral law should be made to the police. That leaves a large gap in the powers of EROs. The amendment would, for the first time, place a duty on EROs to report to the police any suspicions that an offence might have been committed.
That is important. The Government have said time and again—incorrectly—that the Opposition are concerned about completeness and nothing else. We are concerned about completeness, but we are also concerned about the accuracy of electoral registers. The surest way to detect and act upon alleged fraud is for the individuals responsible for the administration of the process of registration to have a power vested in them—a duty upon them—to say that they are concerned about something. If they, as the experts, are concerned, they would have a duty to pass that information directly to the police, who would then act. We think, then, that the amendment addresses a gap in the current legislation and the Bill.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I support the amendment. Locally, EROs might be faced with competing local interests and not wish to offend a particular group, which is why this is extremely important. If there is a duty on them, they will have to act when allegations are made or serious offences committed. If they do not have a duty, they will tend to want to retain the status quo in order not to upset anybody.
Wayne David
My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. In a sense, the amendment would remove the discretion that EROs might feel they have and which often places them in an invidious position. As I have said, it is important not to exaggerate the occurrence of fraud, but if EROs have genuine concerns, they should have a duty to pass that information on to the police.
Keith Vaz
I again endorse again what my hon. Friend says, as we all have experience of turning up to counts and meeting electoral registration officers and others involved in the process, some of whom, to be perfectly frank, do not have the training and experience to deal with these situations. Amendment 40 would not only enable the sharing of good practice but ensure that if people are perhaps not doing their jobs as effectively as they could, the commission at least had the power to try to put things right.
Wayne David
Yes, my colleague makes a very astute point borne out of his own experience. All of us who have been involved in democratic politics for a number of years can testify to that. The standard of EROs’ work varies enormously, so we need to ensure that everything possible is done to secure higher standards to reinforce the democratic process. Giving the Electoral Commission a key role and a key power in this respect will be important both for building up confidence and for ensuring that the system is as effective as possible.