Persistent Rough Sleeping in Nottingham

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

May I begin by sending my best wishes to the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), and her husband? I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), is supporting her at present, and I am sure that he will share the information from this debate with her when she returns.

According to homelessness charity St Mungo’s, the average age of death for a man who dies while homeless is 47; for a woman it is just 43. Rough sleeping is the most dangerous form of homelessness. It can be lonely, frightening and violent. For some, it is quite literally a death sentence. Holly Dagnall, Nottingham Community Housing Association’s director of homes and wellbeing, describes homelessness as a human emergency and who could disagree?

Until 2015, the snapshot figure of people sleeping rough in Nottingham was almost never in double figures, but the latest official estimate, in November last year, was of 43 rough sleepers. Six months on, that figure has not fallen. Nottingham is not an exception; the city ranks 56th of all local authorities for the rate of rough sleeping. Official figures recording a 169% rise in rough sleeping in England since 2010 will surprise no one. We have all seen the evidence of the growing crisis with our own eyes on the streets of Westminster and in many of our constituencies every night.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we have homelessness across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does she agree that perhaps it is time for a dual strategy that addresses not only homelessness, but the issue of helping people to get employment? We have to give them vision, we have to give them hope and we have to give them a future. The Government need to look at both things together.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that this is about providing people with not just a home, but the means by which they can sustain themselves in a home.

The reasons for the increased numbers are far from a mystery. Crisis cites the impact of welfare reform, rising rents and the housing crisis. People become homeless and sleep rough for many reasons, but the single biggest cause of statutory homelessness is now the end of an assured shorthold tenancy. The cost of private rented accommodation has risen three times faster than earnings in England since 2010, and real earnings are still lagging behind 2008 levels a decade on.

Although I firmly believe that the Government bear a great deal of responsibility for the rise in homelessness and fear that their target of halving rough sleeping over the course of the Parliament and eliminating it altogether by 2027 lacks the urgency that the situation demands, I do very much welcome the Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 and the Government’s decision to develop the national rough sleeping strategy. My reason for seeking tonight’s debate is to address the content of that strategy.

Concern about rising levels of rough sleeping in Nottingham was one of the drivers behind a new investigation commissioned jointly by Framework Housing Association and Opportunity Nottingham, the Big Lottery-funded programme supporting people with multiple needs. “No Way Out: A Study of Persistent Rough Sleeping in Nottingham” was produced by Dr Graham Bowpitt from Nottingham Trent University and Karan Kaur from Opportunity Nottingham, with help from Nottingham’s street outreach team.

The study sought to discover how far the recent increase in rough sleeping might have arisen

“not just from more people coming on to the streets, but also from people remaining there longer or repeatedly”.

It sought to identify

“the characteristics that distinguish persistent rough sleepers from the wider street homeless population, and any common features in their circumstances that might help to explain persistence.”

In the remainder of my speech, I will focus on the study’s key findings before commenting on wider issues in Nottingham and at a national level.

For the purposes of the report, and therefore this debate, the definition of persistent rough sleeper is

“someone who was recorded sleeping rough on at least 10% of nights between 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2017, i.e. 36 nights (the ‘sustained’), or who has been seen sleeping rough in at least three out of the six years between 2012 and 2017 (the ‘recurrent’).”

The report says:

“There were 72 persistent rough sleepers who met the above definition…7 who were both sustained and recurrent, 33 who were sustained and 32 who were recurrent. Of these…10 were women…and 62 men…58 were recorded as of White British ethnicity...most of the others being White (Other)…13 were recorded as having a disability (18%).”

According to the report, Opportunity Nottingham’s beneficiaries are recruited to the programme because they are assessed as having

“at least three of the four prescribed complex needs: homelessness, substance misuse, mental ill-health and offending.”

Of the 72 persistent rough sleepers, 67—that is 93%—had problems with substance misuse. Some 49 were offenders or at risk of offending, and more than half had mental health problems.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend my hon. Friend for securing the debate, and Opportunity Nottingham and NTU for producing the report. My hon. Friend mentioned that over half of those persistent rough sleepers had a mental health issue. Is it not hardly startling that there is a correlation with the reduction in the number of overnight mental health beds—not just nationwide, but specifically in Nottinghamshire? We have lost 176 mental health overnight beds since 2010, and that is one of the core drivers putting people back on to the streets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the way in which cuts to our health service and other services are having an impact on the prevalence of rough sleeping.

Of the 38 Opportunity Nottingham beneficiaries, 32% had spent at least two weeks in prison since engaging with Opportunity Nottingham, 42% had experienced at least one eviction from accommodation, 42% had been excluded from a service because of unacceptable behaviour, and 24% reported begging as a source of income. In each case, those proportions are much higher than among the whole beneficiary cohort.

The study also identified common themes in the narratives provided by the street outreach team and Opportunity Nottingham personal development co-ordinators in relation to those persistently sleeping rough, stating:

“rough sleepers…and those who work with them are encountering a diminishing range of options when seeking to leave the streets, arising from cuts in public funding and adverse changes in the housing market. Hostels have closed, Housing Benefit availability is more restricted, affordable tenancies are more limited in terms of quantity and quality, and the supply of tenancy support has all but dried up.”

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the powerful case that she is making on behalf of our city. I served on the council in our city at a time when we virtually eradicated rough sleeping, and now we are back to where we are today. Does my hon. Friend agree that this situation has been caused by a toxic combination of under-employment, poor housing supply, cuts to drug and alcohol services, inadequate mental health services and other eminently tackleable issues?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These issues were preventable and they are preventable. The last Labour Government did a great deal to tackle rough sleeping and it is very disappointing that we find ourselves where we are today.

Financial issues obviously loom large in the lives of many rough sleepers. This was found to be particularly true of migrants with no recourse to public funds, but many local rough sleepers also encountered restricted access to welfare benefits. The system can simply be too hard to negotiate, resulting in a preference for begging. Of course, that is an unreliable source of income, and it puts accommodation at risk, which is particularly relevant to the recurrent group.

The high proportion of persistent rough sleepers who have been in prison find that a lack of support on discharge frequently precipitates a return to a previous chaotic lifestyle. The operation of homelessness legislation itself can act as a barrier in some cases. For instance, rough sleepers fleeing from another locality, perhaps because of domestic violence, can be interpreted as having no local connection to Nottingham, while others vacating accommodation because of intimidation may be viewed as having become intentionally homeless.

The level of complex need generates particular problems, with many specialist facilities having been lost, as we have heard. As a result, many rough sleepers carry the baggage of past evictions and negative risk assessments, leaving them barred from many facilities and making them harder to accommodate. They often miss out on mental health or other assessments that might otherwise have opened up access to specialised support.

Ambivalent relationships with hostel accommodation are frequently mentioned, with stories of evictions for rent arrears or inappropriate behaviour, perhaps because of a lack of support. There are also stories of intimidation or financial exploitation by other residents, resulting in many refusing offers out of fear or trying to avoid being lured into a lifestyle they wish to escape. Personal relationships may have a toxic effect on the lives of persistent rough sleepers. Women, in particular, can be trapped in exploitative and abusive relationships that impede solutions to their housing problems.

When those factors are combined, it can often create disillusionment with what is perceived as a hostile system, making the option to live on the streets attractive. Experiences of repeated failure, the sense of there being no alternative, and the effect of growing numbers of rough sleepers in generating a mutually supporting community create an inertia in engaging rough sleepers to pursue better options.

While this was a limited study of rough sleeping in one locality, I hope that it will prompt the Minister to consider initiatives that are worthy of further research and experimentation. The report recognises how an ambivalent relationship with hostels can leave rough sleepers stranded, calling on the city council and other social housing providers to adopt schemes such as Housing First that bypass hostels and accommodate rough sleepers straight from the streets with appropriate support. Housing First is being piloted in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool—places with a devolution deal. What resources exist to develop Housing First as part of the solution in areas with high levels of persistent rough sleeping where there is not a directly elected mayor?

The complexities of human relationships should be acknowledged when drawing up personalised housing plans. For example, requirements such as a local connection and intentionality rules should not be applied too harshly to people who have a genuine need to escape a damaging relationship. Couples in a valued relationship should be able to be accommodated together.

As has been said, mental health problems have been shown to feature prominently among Nottingham’s homeless population. The Care Act 2014 was introduced to make social care assessments more readily available, but there is evidence to suggest that homeless people struggle to access this provision. Some councils have taken the view that rough sleepers with poor mental health or alcohol and substance-related problems have no entitlement to a needs assessment under the Care Act because, it is said, their need for care or support is caused by “other circumstantial factors” such as homelessness or rough sleeping rather than an underlying health condition. Can the Minister confirm that that interpretation of the Act, which has the effect of excluding rough sleepers from an entitlement that exists for the rest of the population, is incorrect? Will the Government issue guidance to clarify that people sleeping rough are entitled to a needs assessment under the Care Act on the same basis as everyone else? Does the Minister agree that when an individual who appears to have support or care needs presents to a local authority for assistance under the Homelessness Reduction Act, a referral should be made to the appropriate authority for a care needs assessment, with the outcome of that assessment taken into account when developing any personalised housing plan?

The correlation between persistent rough sleeping and recent spells in prison reflects a failure in offender rehabilitation. That was supposed to have been remedied by the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, but there is evidence that despite the passing of this Act, short-term prisoners are still being discharged to no fixed abode. What measures will the Government take to ensure its more effective implementation?

I first started applying for my Adjournment debate on this subject many weeks ago but, as so often happens in this place, the timing of today’s debate has proved incredibly fortuitous, because earlier today St Mungo’s launched a new report here in Parliament entitled “On my own two feet”. That peer research, which I am sure the Minister is aware of, examines why some people return to rough sleeping after time off the streets. It identifies a range of factors that can push people away from housing or services, and also pull factors that can draw people back on to the streets. When push and pull factors work together, they can lead someone to choose to return to rough sleeping or to see no alternative when a crisis comes along. The research also considered how holes in someone’s personal safety net can put them at greater risk. I hope the Government will look carefully at the recommendations in the St Mungo’s report before publishing their rough sleeping strategy next month.

I do not have time to talk at length about the excellent work being undertaken in Nottingham to tackle homelessness over decades. Since 2010, the Framework street outreach team has been identifying rough sleepers and linking them into assessment, support and accommodation. In 2016, Nottingham was successful in bidding for the Government’s £40 million homelessness prevention programme, and it used that to extend the reach of the outreach team across the rest of the county for two years.

Nottingham City Council and Framework have continued to resource and implement a “No second night out” policy after Government funding ended. Since 2016 the city council has committed more than £240,000 in additional funding to enhance its winter measures and ensure sufficient provision to meet the council’s pledge that no one needs to sleep rough in Nottingham. Their co-ordinated approach has formed part of the sound basis for their bid for the new £30 million rough sleeping fund announced by the Department in March 2018 for enhanced year-round support. I hope that the Minister can clarify whether the £30 million announced can only fund emergency measures, or if it can be used to support long-term resettlement for persistent rough sleepers. Is the fund a one-off measure to produce a short-term temporary outcome, or will there be further allocations for future years?

In the 2016 Budget, the Chancellor announced £100 million of capital funding to assist with the cost of developing Housing First and move-on units for people who have been sleeping rough. Some £50 million of that was allocated to the London Mayor, who now has the programme up and running. The other £50 million was for the rest of the country, where rough sleeping has risen more quickly than in the capital. When will it be possible for providers outside London to bid for some of the remaining £50 million, and what is the process for them to do so?

Alongside the city council and housing associations, including Framework and NCHA, there are many voluntary organisations and faith groups that make a huge contribution to supporting fellow citizens in Nottingham via food banks, day centres, night shelters and many other support services. We would not be without them. For some rough sleepers, particularly those with few options, they are a lifeline. What advice does the Minister have for local authorities dealing with long-term rough sleepers who have no recourse to public funds? What accommodation and support options are available to them, and how can they be funded?

Homelessness is a human emergency, but ending it is not an impossible task. The Government say they have a target to reduce rough sleeping by half by 2022, and to eliminate it entirely by 2027. If they are not to fail, Ministers must ensure that their strategy addresses the needs of all rough sleepers, including those who are hardest to identify, reach, support and sustain.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)]

First, I would like to commend the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for securing such a worthwhile debate. I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), will have heard her kind words.

Homelessness and rough sleeping is an issue that I am sure is close to all our hearts. It goes to the heart of who we are as a people and as a society. The Government recognise the challenges in Nottingham and across the country in tackling rough sleeping, and we are absolutely committed to tackling it. That commitment is enshrined in our manifesto pledge to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it altogether, more importantly, by 2027. The hon. Lady rightly mentioned the report by Dr Bowpitt and Karan Kaur about the persistent rough sleeping in Nottingham, and I know that our officials will have noted it with interest. I will certainly be following that up with officials with some form of response.

As many right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, we are doing a significant amount of work in this area, and we will be publishing the strategy shortly. First, if I may, I will outline some of the work we are doing in this area nationally, as well as what we have been doing in Nottingham, to tackle rough sleeping. This March, we announced our new rough sleeping initiative, which has been mentioned. It comprises tried and tested measures designed to bring down the levels of rough sleeping in the immediate term. A key part of this is the £30 million that the hon. Lady mentioned, which we have provided to the 83 local authorities that are the most challenged by rough sleeping.

I know that the hon. Lady and other hon. Members from that fine city will welcome the fact that, as part of this fund, we have allocated it just over £420,000 from the rough sleeping initiative. This will enable the council to bring down rough sleeping numbers this year, before the annual count, and we are providing help through our new rough sleeping team. The team is made up of experts from the sector, as well as from charities and local authorities. It is part of our initiative to ensure that our ambition comes to pass. Nationally, the rough sleeping initiative funding will allow local authorities to recruit over 500 new staff focused on the problem. Crucially, that will include more outreach workers to engage with people on the streets, specialist mental health and substance misuse workers—they have been mentioned—and dedicated co-ordinators to drive efforts to reduce rough sleeping in their areas.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I want to record that I did not include in my speech reference to a new service in Nottingham, Edwin House, set up by Framework and the Recovery Nottingham Network. It is specifically providing residential detox, but also residential care in a controlled environment for people with a record of substance misuse. Would the Minister like to come and visit the service, which has opened only very recently, to see for himself the work that is being done in Nottingham?

[Nigel Adams]

I certainly would—any excuse to go back to Nottingham. I remember going there very often as a child to visit family, and I would very much like to do so. I am sure my diary secretary will be scribbling down something to ensure that we get it in the diary in the near future.

This initiative will also provide over 1,700 new bed spaces, including in both emergency and settled accommodation. As I mentioned briefly, another key part of the initiative is the rough sleeping team that we have established. It comprises experts from local authorities across the country, Government agencies and charities. They will support this work and ensure that resources are applied effectively. They are continuing to work in partnership with staff in each area to support local authorities, voluntary sector partners and others to ensure this work delivers the real change we need.

We were delighted to announce recently that the rough sleeping initiative will be led by Jeremy Swain. I am sure the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), is very aware that he brings with him 30 years of valuable in the sector, most recently as chief executive of Thames Reach.

While the initiative is focused on bringing down rough sleeping numbers this year, there is an existing project, now in its second year—the hon. Member for Nottingham South referred to it—which has focused on Nottingham and neighbouring local authorities. The £20 million rough sleeping grants, announced in December 2016, have seen 48 local authorities take forward bespoke projects that are relevant to their area’s needs. In Nottingham, the city council has received £371,000 to establish a rough sleeper prevention service. As we have heard, this includes the roll-out of “No second night out” beyond the city and multi-disciplinary outreach services, such as the provision of health support. This has enabled support for more entrenched rough sleepers with complex needs. As hon. Members from the city know, the programme in Nottingham is now in its second year, and I am delighted to say that it supported more than 300 rough sleepers in the first year.

More broadly, to support local authorities to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping generally, we have committed £617 million in funding in the form of our flexible homelessness support grant. This ring-fenced fund gives local authorities more control and flexibility in managing local homelessness pressures. The hon. Lady will be encouraged to hear that, as part of that support grant allocation, Nottingham City Council has received £623,000.

As I have noted, tackling rough sleeping is a key priority not only for me, but for the Prime Minister and her Government. In order to meet our manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping for good, we are developing a cross-Government strategy that will make clear how we will achieve that. The development of the strategy is being overseen by a ministerial taskforce comprising relevant Ministers from across Whitehall. The taskforce is being support by a group of experts, in the form of our rough sleeping advisory panel. We are grateful to St Mungo’s for being part of the panel—I had the pleasure of speaking to its representatives this afternoon at the launch of its latest report. The strategy will set out the Government’s course of action for working with local authorities, the voluntary sector and the wider public sector to meet our aim of eliminating rough sleeping by 2027. We will be setting out further details shortly, but I can tell the House that our focus will be in three core areas—prevention, intervention and recovery—so that by 2027 nobody should have to sleep on our streets.

Before moving on to the other action that the Government are taking to tackle rough sleeping, I want to draw Members’ attention to the recent decrease in the number of people recorded as sleeping rough in London. Data from the combined homelessness and information network shows that there has been a decrease of more than 600 since last year. That is an encouraging sign, and we are committed to ensure that it continues, and at an increasing rate.

In pursuit of that objective, to support some of the most entrenched rough sleepers off our streets, we have announced three innovative Housing First pilots, to which the hon. Lady referred. The pilots will focus on around 1,000 of the most entrenched and persistent rough sleepers, making sure that they get the bespoke support and care they need to make a long-term recovery from their homelessness and rough sleeping. The £28 million fund that we have made available to support the pilots will provide individuals with stable, affordable accommodation and, importantly, intensive wrap-around support. That will hopefully help them recover from complex issues, such as substance abuse and mental health difficulties, and also sustain their tenancies so that they can stay in their homes. We expect the first people to move into the accommodation in the autumn, and I very much look forward to the positive impacts of the pilots being realised.

The hon. Lady asked about widening the Housing First programme. We will be analysing the results extremely carefully as soon as we get them. She asked whether there will be additional funding for the rough sleeping initiative after this year. We will announce the funding for 2019-20 shortly. She asked whether we will review the allocation of the Care Act 2014 in the strategy, and we will be looking at that—she made her arguments incredibly well, but I ask her to be a little patient. She also asked about the causes of homelessness and rough sleeping. We are certainly doing lots of work across Departments to ensure that we understand the causes fully. We will be commissioning a feasibility study to determine how we can carry out robust and useful research in that regard. She asked what we are doing about migration, with regard to people who are not entitled to benefits. The controlling migration fund provides local authorities with funding for projects to tackle rough sleeping by non-UK nationals, and funded projects are working with non-UK national rough sleepers in a range of ways, including supporting them to secure regular employment and accommodation, or facilitating a voluntary return to their country of origin.

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which came into force in April, will fundamentally transform homelessness service delivery. I have seen some fantastic results in the borough of Southwark, where the provisions have been implemented for over 18 months. We are working closely with local authorities to examine the data on this, and we will be supporting them to implement the Act.

I thank the hon. Lady once again for bringing this worthwhile debate to the House. I hope that I have gone some way towards assuring her, and other Members representing Nottingham constituencies, that the Government are absolutely committed to tackling rough sleeping, and not just in Nottingham South but across the country.

Question put and agreed to.

Concessionary Bus Passes

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered concessionary bus passes.

It is a pleasure to serve when you are in the Chair, Ms Ryan. During my three years in Parliament, it has been noticeable that although most of our fellow citizens use buses, we rarely get to discuss bus issues in the House. I am delighted to see in the Chamber my good and hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), Chair of the Select Committee on Transport, who I am sure will be putting that right in the coming months and years. Today, I shall focus mainly on the concessionary fares scheme and highlight its value and how it could be extended, but I shall also make a few observations about the problems that arise when running such a scheme in parts of the country with unregulated bus systems, and draw out possible solutions.

The national concessionary fares scheme has been a huge success. It has really changed the way older people live their lives, by increasing their freedom and, in many cases, reducing loneliness and isolation. As I think hon. Members will be aware, the bus pass in England provides free bus travel for older and disabled people during off-peak times—from 9.30 am onwards. Ironically, should anyone have chosen to use their concessionary fares pass to get here this morning, they would have been late. I can see that some of my colleagues set out much earlier—not that I am suggesting they would qualify for a bus pass. I am very pleased that so many people have made such an effort to be here at what is quite an early hour for Parliament on its return from recess.

The age of eligibility for the concessionary fares scheme has become slightly flexible. If the eligible age had remained what it was when the scheme was first announced, I might almost have qualified by now, but it seems to be slipping into the distance; I hope one day to catch it up. I think it is now 66. I hope that, in the future, many more people will be able to benefit from the scheme.

The trigger for calling this debate was the 10-year anniversary of the scheme. I congratulate the National Pensioners Convention, which made a big effort to celebrate it, including by sending birthday cards to Downing Street; I joined members to go and hand those in. I have to say that I was hoping there might be slightly more enthusiasm from the Government for celebrating the anniversary. We did have a discussion at Transport questions, and the Minister, I am delighted to say, had removed the threat of ongoing review, but I was hoping for something slightly more celebratory—a bit more Jürgen Klopp, a bit more dancing up and down, celebrating the success of the bus scheme.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is a very long-standing supporter of buses. Will he also congratulate the TUC Midlands pensioners’ network? Its members marked the 10th anniversary of the concessionary bus pass by touring the midlands using their passes. My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that, when they came to Nottingham and we were talking to residents in Market Square, the overwhelming number of people did not avoid us; they came and spoke to us, and they expressed their great joy and made celebratory remarks about the bus pass for older people and disabled people, because they know what a lifeline it has been for so many people. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is very prescient, because the TUC campaign was in the next paragraph of my speech; she has pre-empted it. She is right. Those of us who have done market square campaigning will know that we are not always a magnet for people to come and join us and enthuse, but I find that whenever we speak to older people, they are enthusiastic. I echo my hon. Friend’s congratulations to not only the east midlands TUC but Richard Worrall, who, when the scheme was initiated, set off on a tour of the country and was able to demonstrate that, using his bus pass, he could get round the whole country, which was very exciting. I am told that he is going to do that again, and certainly if he comes through Cambridgeshire I shall be very pleased to join him, although I shall be paying the extortionate fares that we suffer in rural Cambridgeshire—should we be lucky enough to find a bus. I say that because the enthusiasm to which I have referred is tempered by the fact that, in far too many areas, the Government seem to be managing decline rather than celebrating new routes. I will say a little about how that might be addressed, but first I would like to go back to the history of this scheme.

As I look around the Chamber, I see that some of us are old enough to remember that in the ’80s and ’90s pensioner campaigning was central to everything we did. I remember that, as a parliamentary candidate, I was summoned to many vibrant meetings—the pensioners’ organisations had a long list of demands at the time. That was because they compared, strangely enough, our situation in the UK with that in many other European countries and found that our European neighbours often enjoyed a whole series of things that pensioners in our country did not. One success of the post-1997 Labour Government was that they addressed pensioner poverty. I am thinking of measures such as free eye tests, the winter fuel payment and so on, and the bus pass was of course a key part of that.

However, there was not a particularly smooth path to that. We started with quite a panoply of schemes. Some places, such as London, had long had better schemes. Some of the urban areas—I have to say that they were almost always Labour-run areas—had been much more generous in the past. However, in the shires, it was much more of a battle. A kind of halfway house was introduced back in the Transport Act 2000, which gave pensioners half-price fares. That led to quite a lot of even more vexed campaigning.

I remember going to a Labour policy forum in 2004 with colleagues from adjoining counties in the rural east of England—I particularly remember the then leader of Norfolk County Council, Celia Cameron, and Bryony Rudkin from Suffolk. We sat with the then Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling—this was long before he realised he was to become Chancellor of the Exchequer—and explained to him why we thought that a concessionary fares scheme of this type would be not only equitable and fair but hugely popular. I remember the look on Alistair’s face: he said, “Do you know how much that would cost?” That was actually quite a good question because, as I shall explain in a minute, the question of costs has never been properly tied down. His point, of course, was that it would be quite a costly commitment. We went away, having established the idea in principle, but with no great hope that it would necessarily be adopted, so it was with huge joy that we greeted the development a year later. I am not suggesting that it was just we who achieved this; it was a wide range of campaigners, but in the 2005 Labour manifesto a full scheme was suggested, and it was finally implemented in 2006.

The issue of funding is important because, right from the beginning, it has proved to be complicated and difficult. When I was a parliamentary candidate, I spent many a happy hour trying to work out, with my local county councillors and district councillors, who was paying for what and how much it was really costing, and, frankly, coming to the conclusion that probably no one was entirely sure.

We are told that, overall, this scheme now costs £1.17 billion per annum. Not surprisingly, the cost has increased since the scheme was introduced. We are told that, in 2013-14, 9.73 million concessionary travel passes were issued across the country; that puts the average cost at £120 per person. When the scheme was first introduced, the Government provided an extra £350 million for 2006-07 through the formula grant system to fund the cost to local authorities as they then saw it. Between 2008 and 2011, the Department for Transport provided a special grant, totalling just over £650 million, to local authorities to pay for the statutory concession.

Since 2011, however, it is the formula grant that funds the bus pass; money is no longer ring-fenced. Of course, it is a familiar sleight of hand by central Government to apparently put money into the local government grant and tell local government that it has to do this. As the years go by, it becomes less and less clear what the money is for. There is a strong suspicion that it is a sleight of hand, and particularly when councils are being so heavily squeezed, it is asking a lot of them.

Therefore, my first question to the Minister is whether she would like to have a word with the Treasury about looking again at providing proper, ring-fenced funding for the scheme to local authorities. It is not entirely clear to me that the current system of local government finance, particularly with the move away from central Government funding and, supposedly, to business rates retention, actually provides a good, sustainable model for supporting a scheme such as this.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to the social and environmental benefits in a minute. This partly shows us how complicated it is to assess the long-term benefits.

Returning to the relationship between central Government and local government, local authorities were charged with coming up with a reimbursement system that left the operator no better or worse off, but they are in a difficult place, and I will come on to the reimbursement system in a minute. The Local Government Association estimates the cost to local authorities at around £760 million a year, with a funding shortfall of £200 million. I suspect that that pressure will only get worse.

The operators are not keen on the system at all. I frequently hear complaints. It is difficult to prove what it costs to carry passengers for free, in a way that observes that reimbursement rule. Putting some extra people on half-empty buses does not necessarily cost more. If there are too many extra people, however, extra services are required.

I understand that the prime task of the bus operators—the big five and many smaller operators—is to return a profit to their shareholders. That is right and proper; that is what they do. They will inevitably claim that this costs rather a lot. In the early days—this was my experience in Cambridgeshire—the bus operators did quite well, because the reimbursement cost they extracted from the county council was rather high. Over time that seems to have settled. As has been said in questions to Ministers, the number of appeals has settled down, which suggests that there is a kind of settlement in all this. I think there is a wider question, however, of how and whether the reimbursement system works.

There is a comparison to be made between London, which has a regulated system, and the rest of the country. Thanks to the Bus Services Act 2017, we hope that some of the new mayoral authorities will adopt franchising. I hope my own in Cambridgeshire does. In London, where you have gross cost franchising, it is much simpler for Transport for London to make decisions about the public good. It decides the fares and the frequency, and then it pays the operator to deliver the service. In a way, the operator has much less to worry about, provided it does not drive up usage and extra costs too far. For London, which groups pay and which do not, and how much is made up by the fare box and how much is raised in others ways, are political choices.

In the rest of the country, it is much less clear. It could be suggested that operators have a perverse incentive to put up fares, because if they know that many of their passengers will be concessionary fare holders, they will be reimbursed for that. We will see whether that gets any response from the operators. The choice over discounts and whether young people should qualify for similar fare schemes is essentially market driven; it is not a choice around social need or the social good. There is a huge opportunity, if we shift to franchising, to move to a much clearer and more efficient model. It may reduce operators’ profits, but if it provides lower fares and space for social choices for the social good, it is worth them paying that price.

I pay tribute to the work being done by the Transport for Quality of Life team, including Lynn Sloman and Ian Taylor, who have begun to look at European systems where, effectively, transport is provided for free across an urban area—it is predominately urban areas at the moment. That is not a novel or unprecedented idea, because many people take the view that public transport—like health, education, policing, parks and museums—is an essential public service that contributes to the fabric of local life. The organisation’s work—often commissioned by my trade union, Unite—shows that this is already happening in 100 towns and cities worldwide, including more than 30 in the United States and 20 in France. Dunkirk, with a population of 200,000, will apparently become fare-free in September. The largest city in the world to have made its public transport free is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, with a population of 440,000. Free transport was introduced to residents in 2013. It has cost the city €12 million, but it believes that that has been offset by a €14 million increase in municipal revenues, as many more people have moved there, increasing the tax base.

That links to some of the work being done by my colleagues on the Transport Committee about mobility as a service. We are looking at a whole new range of ways of getting around cities. My vision is what I see when I visit an airport. Some airports are like small cities. There are travellators, lifts, shuttle metros and shuttle buses. The noticeable thing is that we do not pay to get on each of them, because it is in the interests of that community to get people where they want to go quickly and efficiently. I argue that is in the interest of all of us, in all our cities and smaller towns, to ensure that people can get around quickly and efficiently.

That is my vision for the future, but to return to the present, extending franchising beyond the mayoralty areas would allow local authorities much more control over services in their areas. It would put them in a much stronger position to maintain stability in funding the national concessionary travel bus scheme. The additional flexibility could also be extended to the community transport sector. That is sometimes a controversial issue, but it is being raised by people in the sector. If we are looking for a flexible mix of transport solutions, particularly in rural areas, I think it should be considered.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) has already raised the social issues involved. Very good work has been done on that by Claire Haigh at Greener Journeys. She demonstrated, in research done a few years ago, that each pound spent on a bus pass generates at least £2.87 in benefits to bus pass users and the wider economy.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Like my hon. Friend, I am very familiar with “Bus2020: The Case for the Bus Pass”, produced by Greener Journeys. I noted that in responding to the Government’s decision to confirm the bus pass, Claire Haigh produced an updated figure. Greener Journeys’ research has now shown that every pound spent on a bus pass delivers at least £3.79 in wider benefits for society. That updates the case made in 2014, when Greener Journeys first published that research.

[Daniel Zeichner]

That shows why my hon. Friend is Chair of the Transport Committee—I should keep up. That is an even bigger benefit. I know it is always difficult for Government when such figures are put forward, but in straitened times, understanding the wider cost-benefits is one of the challenges. How many of us have sat on councils where we have talked about trying to pool budgets and make things work more efficiently? It is a challenge, but one worth pursuing.

As we have heard, there are also savings for social services. The social benefit is intangible, but some interesting recent research by Transport Focus has shown that the social benefit of the bus—people talking to one another as opposed to taking separate taxi journeys—has a real value. We must not underestimate these social benefits. The bus absolutely contributes to the wider social good.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. Does he agree that the value of the bus is not only in its social benefits, but in the opportunities for the Government to realise some of their other policy goals, such as tackling poor air quality and congestion in our cities? Does he share my concern that the Government’s figures on congestion and traffic rises indicate that by 2040 there will be a 55% rise in traffic and an 86% rise in congestion? That is why it is in all our interests for the Government to adequately support bus travel.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The environmental benefits are really important. I was pleased to see the Minister announce at the UK bus summit the retrofitting proposals, which I was happy to see in the Labour party manifesto last year. It is always good to see the Government adopt such things, and I will have some more suggestions for the Minister in a minute. Alongside that proposal are the very good hydrogen buses that are being developed. I suspect that other Members, like me, have been happy to go and see them. All those things add to my point that the bus is one of the important ways forward in improving the quality of life in our cities, towns and villages.

One extremely good way of promoting buses is by looking at the younger generation, who we are reading about this morning.

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[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am pleased to speak in this debate about concessionary bus passes. As the House will know, the matter is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and it is a policy to which myself and my party remain absolutely committed. As we have heard, the point of free bus passes for our senior citizens is not only to enable them, but to actively encourage them to go out and about and to socialise. We know that improves their wellbeing and their mental and physical health. It is worth remembering that society encouraging good physical health in senior citizens, even in purely monetary terms, is a sensible and ethical thing to do since the older someone is, the more likely they are to develop problems with their physical health.

It does not help senior citizens or society for our older people to be trapped at home, whether that is for reasons of poverty or a lack of social contact. We want them to live productive lives, travelling about the country, volunteering, spending time with grandchildren and building up social networks. That will keep our communities vibrant and our older people healthier for much longer. Indeed, a fairly recent study by KPMG found that every pound spent on the bus pass generates more than £2.87 of benefits for society and the wider economy. We have heard from the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) that that has been revised upwards to £3.79, which is good news. The same report said that scrapping the passes would cost £1.7 billion due to the likely decline in volunteering and poorer health and wellbeing among older people. The news on free bus passes is very positive.

The scheme enables older and disabled people to have fuller and more efficient access to the key public services they need and to take part in activities that would not be affordable to them without the free bus pass. That freedom to travel has a wide range of social, economic and environmental benefits, including the ability to use local shops and being more able to look after children and care for others. The study says that four out of five of those eligible to take up bus passes do so. The 12 million pass holders altogether took more than 1.2 billion trips across Britain in 2012-13. According to Passenger Focus research, some 95% of passengers believe that older and disabled people should be entitled to a free bus pass.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The Department for Transport’s latest statistics reveal that outside London, concessionary bus journeys have decreased by 14% since 2010-11. In London, they decreased by 4.8% in the same period. Does the hon. Lady not share my concern that the reduction in bus travel generally and the reduction in services, particularly supported services, by local authorities is leading to fewer people making use of their bus pass, perhaps because there is not a bus on which they can use it?

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Lady anticipates an important point I was going to make. My party and I are absolutely committed to free bus passes, because the policy makes ethical and financial sense. We know it would be penny wise and pound foolish for the bus pass to be under threat, and the hon. Lady makes a very good point.

In Scotland, Transport Scotland provides an annual subsidy of about £70 million to the bus industry, the aim of which is to keep fares at affordable levels and to enable bus operators to run services that might not otherwise be commercially viable. However, as a bus user myself, as someone who relies on public transport and having listened to what my constituents tell me—which I see for myself every day—I am concerned about cuts to bus services across North Ayrshire. That has persuaded me that we need to look seriously at bus reregulation—in my constituency the cuts to bus services have been nothing less than savage.

There is limited value in giving someone a free bus pass to encourage them to get out and about and to improve their health and wellbeing, if the bus services are cut to the point at which one cannot go where one would like to go using that bus pass. We need to look at bus reregulation, because the cuts have had a devastating effect in my constituency. I know that I am not alone in that situation.

Politics is always about choices. The principle of the free bus pass is a prize that we need to hang on to. Whatever else happens, it is something that we need to value, not forgetting the benefits it brings to us and to older people in our wider society. Politics is about choices, and we in the Scottish National party will continue to support the principle of free bus passes for pensioners but, like the hon. Member for Nottingham South, I am concerned about the overall cuts to bus services in our communities.

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[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who spoke passionately and movingly about the progressive policies in Northern Ireland. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who certainly did the bus proud in celebrating the 10th anniversary of concessionary bus passes. I am 57 years old, and I hope—if the Lord spares me—to get my own bus pass by the 20th anniversary. There is no greater joy in life than sitting on the front seat at the top of a double-decker bus, as I did this weekend. I must put on the record that, in my unbiased opinion, Keighley bus station is the friendliest in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Strangford rightly said that conversations on buses can be frank. Having conversations we would not normally have is one of the great joys of travelling on buses. I left the House in 2010 and spent a number of years outside it. I used to get the little hopper bus—the 962—from Otley to Ilkley. I was the youngest person on that bus by far. A particular lady who was well into retirement shouted across the bus to me every week, “Have you got a proper job yet, love?” The whole bus was riveted by the progress of my career outside the House.

The question of means-testing comes up from time to time, but the evidence shows that concessionary bus passes are a progressive policy. They are used by the middle class, but they are used most by those who need them most. If I remember the statistics correctly, a 2016 Department for Transport study showed that people with an income of £10,000 or less make twice as many journeys as those who earn more than £20,000, and that non-drivers tend to use their concessionary pass about three times more than drivers. It is a progressive policy. A quarter of people, like the hon. Gentleman, do not use their bus pass, but that is self-selecting. I do not think people waste their bus passes, but those who need them most use them most.

We have heard a lot about loneliness. This policy—one of the Labour Government’s most progressive measures—was introduced in 2006 for local public transport in England and extended nationwide in 2008. To be frank, loneliness did not come into the debate very much at that time. However, as other hon. Members have put more powerfully than I can, whatever someone’s income and however many friends they have—even if they have nowhere to go—they can get on a bus and get out, do a bit of window shopping, have a few conversations and so on. That is wonderful, and I hope that all parties commit in their next manifestos to leaving the scheme unaltered.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about people making journeys almost for the sake of it, to keep up with friends or just to get out of the house, but around 25% of bus journeys by older people using concessionary bus passes are for medical appointments. Many of those people struggle with inaccessible or irregular bus services, as Age UK stated in its recent “Painful Journeys” report. Does he share my concern that those journeys are becoming increasingly difficult because of the number of bus routes that have been cut?

[John Grogan]

I do. As the number of bus routes is cut, the potential for journeys is cut. I think that is why there has been a slight but significant decline in the use of bus passes.

One of the great things about the scheme in 2008 was that it was universal in England. People over 60 knew that, wherever they went, they could travel on a bus for free. With the rise in the pension age and so on, that is no longer true. There is a patchwork of schemes across the country. As I understand it, London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have put extra money into the scheme so that people over 60 can travel for free on buses. In the rest of the country, I think that is true only in Merseyside. The scheme, which was national in England, and indeed throughout the United Kingdom, is now broken, in the sense that people over 60 cannot be sure, unless they live in certain areas, that they can travel for free. That is a cause of resentment in areas of England outside London.

I will not divert too far into rail, but in some parts of England bus passes also give people rail concessions. Indeed, a number of years ago there was a revolt by so-called “freedom riders” against Sheffield City Council’s plans to abolish the rail concession completely. As in West Yorkshire, concessionary bus pass holders in South Yorkshire now get half fares on the railway, so there is that anomaly, too. I would like us to return to the idea that people over 60 can travel throughout England as of right, as they can in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London and Merseyside.

I do not want to detain hon. Members for much longer, but it is worth looking at bus regulation and the Opposition’s plans for the under-25s. The politics of bus regulation is fascinating for those of us who were lucky enough to be in the House in 1997. If we are honest, even though the Labour Government were progressive in bringing in the concessionary fare scheme, they resisted bus regulation. We brought in a very complicated scheme of bus partnerships—it was almost impossible to jump through all the hoops—and we consulted on strengthening bus regulation only when we were out of office, because there was a lot of pressure, particularly from urban councils, to introduce it.

The current editor of the Evening Standard, George Osborne, then came along and wanted to do deals on devolution. What was the obvious thing he could offer to get Labour councils to sign up? Bus regulation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge said, it suddenly became fashionable in areas that were going to have Mayors. Then, lo and behold, some Tory shires thought, “We want a bit of this as well; we want to have a little bit more control of our buses,” hence we have the Bus Services Act 2017. We will have to see how that develops.

In theory, areas throughout England now have the potential to go for bus franchising. I have always thought that it is a very good idea, for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge outlined. I understand that we now have a policy on free bus travel for the under-25s, and I look forward to hearing the details. Whatever we decide to do must be properly costed to stand the rigours of a general election campaign, and I am sure that it will be, in time. I would like whatever we offer to be a national offer. Otherwise we shall be doing exactly what was done in the 1990s for the over-60s. There is a patchwork of schemes, depending on whether councils opt for bus regulation. I believe in devolution and in councils’ right to determine the best way forward, but in my humble opinion it would overcomplicate things to say that under-25 concessions should be given only in areas that adopt a particular model of bus franchising or ownership.

I want to end on a positive note. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge lifted our eyes to the horizon of what is possible, and talked about free public transport as a possibility in some areas. That is not an idea of just the left or green elements of European politics; Chancellor Merkel’s Administration are clearly looking, on grounds of air quality rather than anything else, at running some experiments with free public transport in places such as Bonn, in the west of Germany. In future, on environmental as well as social grounds, it will be well worth looking at those ideas—properly costed.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this debate about concessionary bus passes, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan.

I am a little bit nervous that I am not dancing or doing cartwheels, and the hon. Gentleman wanted a lot of excitement. Nevertheless, he is right that this debate is very timely and I am delighted that we are here this morning to mark the national concessionary bus pass. Instead of my dancing and singing, the good news may be that I announced some legislation only last month to protect the national concessionary travel scheme in its current form. I know that this issue was raised by more than one Member, so the Government have demonstrated our commitment to making sure that we no longer have to review legislation every five years, and this scheme will now be protected. Surely no greater celebration than that is needed.

Buses are essential for many people to get to work, to school, to doctors, to hospitals and to shops. Also, many hon. Members have commented today on how buses help to tackle loneliness and aid cohesion. For many people, particularly those in rural areas such as my constituency, the bus is a lifeline and without it they would not be able to access essential services or go shopping and socialise, with over half of those who rely on buses having no access to cars.

[Lilian Greenwood]

As the Minister represents a rural area, does she share my concern about the fact that the number of bus miles being served is decreasing? In the last year alone, there has been a 13.8% decrease in mileage on local authority-supported services, which she will know are approximately a fifth of all services. What will the Government do to address that decline in supported services?

[Ms Ghani]

Bus services in rural areas are a concern —especially in my constituency of Wealden—when we are dealing with an older population and people who might not have access to cars. However, this issue is complicated; it is not just about making sure that there is more money available. Funding is available through the £250 million grant that supports bus services, and the bus service operators grant, with £40 million going directly to local authorities. It is also about making buses accessible and easier to use. I will go on to discuss the other things that we are doing to make buses a far more attractive way to travel, in one’s own constituency let alone across the country.

Before that, however, I will just go on to another issue that the hon. Lady raised, which was loneliness. As part of the Prime Minister’s commitment to deliver a national strategy on loneliness, a ministerial group has been set up: I sit on that group as the representative of the Department for Transport. I am a passionate campaigner—even if I am not doing the cartwheels that the hon. Member for Cambridge wanted—for explaining and sharing how buses are vital in tackling loneliness and helping cohesion.

The benefits of a reliable and innovative bus service are clear—less congestion, greater productivity, and communities that are connected rather than being kept apart. However, we need more people to benefit from buses. That is why we introduced the Bus Services Act 2017, which provides local authorities with new powers to bring about change and unlock the potential for the bus industry to achieve more for passengers than it does today.

That includes a range of powers to introduce franchising or enhanced partnerships, with guidance on how local authorities and bus operators can work together to improve bus services in their area. These could include multi-operator tickets, improved vehicle standards and better connections between transport modes, employment and housing, all of which will drive an increase in bus usage and performance.

That is also why, as I mentioned earlier, last month I announced a change in legislation to protect the national concessionary travel scheme in its current form, so that it can continue to provide free travel for elderly and disabled passengers for years to come. It has been noted that the scheme has a value of £1 billion for 10 million people, which means 929 million concessionary bus journeys, or, on average, 95 bus journeys being taken per bus pass.

The concession provides much-needed help for some of the most vulnerable people in society, offering them greater freedom, independence and a lifeline to their community. It enables around 10 million older and disabled people to access facilities in their local area, and helps them to keep in touch with family and friends. It also has benefits for the wider economy, which was a point made earlier.

The national concession sets a minimum standard available to any eligible person anywhere in England, but of course it does not come cheap. That is why, given the current economic situation, there are no plans to extend the remit of the basic concession any further. However, local authorities have the powers to enhance the offer with discretionary concessions, according to local need and funding priorities. That may include extending the times when concessions are available to include peak-time travel, offering a companion pass for people who need assistance to travel, and offering concessions on different modes of transport. Some 71% of local authorities offer further concessions for elderly and disabled passengers. In Cambridgeshire, there are concessions for the elderly and the disabled before 9.30 am and after 11 pm.

Encouraging bus use among the elderly and the disabled is about more than just concessions. We are doing a lot to make buses more accessible. I draw attention to the comments made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on dealing with disability in his family and accessibility. On occasion, when I am allowed to leave this place, I am a carer for my parents, who both have very different disability needs. I know full well the occasional difficulties of being unable to understand which buses are running on which routes when dealing with people with different disabilities.

I will say more about accessibility later, but the hon. Gentleman will know that the Equality Act 2010 requires the bus industry to ensure that buses are as accessible as possible for disabled passengers. Recently we also made announcements to make it clear that priority seating should be for people in wheelchairs. Since 2016, all buses have been required to meet minimum standards, with low-floor access. From March this year, all drivers are required to complete disability awareness training. The next step will be to ensure that all buses have audio-visual announcements, so that people with hearing or visual impairments have confidence that the bus they take will work for them. We plan to consult on those proposals this summer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

The Government are continuing with detailed preparations for all possible March 2019 scenarios, including ensuring that Departments have adequate resources to prepare effectively for EU exit. To date, the Treasury has allocated to Departments nearly £700 million for preparation activity, and we are currently in the process of allocating the 2018-19 funding from the additional £3 billion over two years that I announced at autumn Budget 2017.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

T4. “The health and social care system has been pushed to its limits in recent weeks”—those are not my words, but those of my local hospital trust. Last month, it was forced to cancel about 325 operations and 640 outpatient appointments. That not only means that my constituents who are unwell or in pain are being made to wait longer for treatment but makes the trust’s already challenging financial situation even worse. When is the Chancellor going to give our health and social care system the sustainable funding it needs?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady should acknowledge that the NHS has been rated as the best healthcare system in the world. We recognise that there are extra demands on the health system and that is why we put in an extra £6.3 billion of funding at the Budget.

Public Sector Pay Cap

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I mean to accommodate remaining would-be interrogators, but questions and answers from now on need to be shorter. They have been becoming ever longer as the session has proceeded.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Fifty-five per cent. of public sector workers are not covered by review bodies, including most of our civil servants and some of those on the very lowest incomes. Will the Chief Secretary give any hope that real pay rises will be considered for the 3 million public sector employees without a review body, and what will be the mechanism for doing so?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As with people who are under the purview of the pay review bodies, we need to ensure that we retain and recruit the best possible civil servants. At the same time, we need to ensure that that is affordable for the public purse.

Concentrix: Tax Credit Claimants

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Not only are more women affected than men, but they are affected by more costs than men. Four fifths of the savings that the Government have made through their so-called austerity programme have been contributed by women. One thing for which I was really proud of the previous Labour Government was that they increased the amount of resource that went into women’s purses compared with men’s wallets. Through measures such as child tax credits, they dealt with maternal poverty pretty effectively. The current Government are doing their jolly best to reverse that progress.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. However, this is not just about mums, important as they are; it is about the impact on their children. My constituent Sinead is a single parent. She went from receiving £122 child tax credit to absolute zero. She is paying off a crisis loan and that is impacting on her relationship and her ability to be a great parent to her five-month-old child. There is also Caroline, whose two children are in nursery. She is thinking of quitting her job because she cannot now pay the nursery fees. This issue is having an impact on children as well as mothers.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, for most of the victims of this situation, there has also been a significant effect on their self-confidence and on their reputation. Some get these letters at very stressful times in their lives—following a difficult divorce, while they are trying hard to separate themselves from a violent partner or after childbirth. The behaviour of Concentrix just added to their stress.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

I will not take lectures from somebody who believes that 80% of market rent is affordable for people in London, or from somebody who calls in planning applications, such as the one for Mount Pleasant in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), to drive down, not up, the number of affordable homes. That is not what I call a good record on affordable homes.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Having visited my constituency, my hon. Friend knows that one thing the local authorities are doing is investing in our social housing and ensuring that it is of a decent standard. Does she share the consternation of the chief executive of my local arm’s length management organisation, Nottingham City Homes, who notes that the reduction in social rents will lead to a reduction in investment and a failure to invest in the housing standards that tenants would like?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. As we have so many Members who wish to speak, we need short interventions.

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[Jonathan Ashworth]

Of course I would support Leicester and Leicestershire working together. We have a mayor in Leicester. I am sad that Leicester Conservatives oppose that. I hope the hon. Gentleman will support me in the campaign to get the Government to deliver on their promise on midland main line electrification, which they have broken, as he knows.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Given that Network Rail’s board minutes from March made reference to

“decisions required jointly with the DfT re enhancement deferrals from June”

does my hon. Friend agree that Ministers need to come clean about when they actually decided to shelve that vital investment in our region?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She will recall the Chancellor coming to Derby in February to launch his long-term economic plan for the midlands, one point of which was that the Tories would deliver electrification of the midland main line. The fact that they have now shelved it and there is nothing in the Red Book about when they are going to bring it back on track—excuse the pun—is an absolute disgrace and the Government are letting down the people of the east midlands.

I was talking about tax credits, and let me make it clear that I cannot support a Budget that spends £1 billion giving an inheritance tax cut to some of the richest estates in the country while cutting deeply into tax credits. In Leicester, the diverse city I represent, larger families are very typical and we are going to see further cuts to tax credits, which I fear will increase the already severe child poverty in our city.

A small change to tax credits that has not been remarked upon is the decrease in the income disregard, and I am worried about what it might mean. Conservative Members may recall that in 2002-03 this measure was brought in to deal with the overpayments that were plaguing the system. The problem might not now arise as the Government’s IT systems may have been updated, but I will be interested to know whether Ministers are confident that this small change to tax credits will not lead to the overpayment problems we had in 2002-03.

The increase in the national minimum wage—it is not a living wage, despite what the Chancellor told us at the Dispatch Box—was a bit of a conjuring trick. It was a bit of semantic prestidigitation from the Chancellor—[Laughter.] I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) that we are intellectuals in Leicester—perhaps it is not the same in Hartlepool. He should just ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). It was a conjuring trick by the Chancellor—I will stick to that terminology—because he said he was increasing the living wage. It was an increase in the national minimum wage for over-25s—that is a pay increase and of course we would welcome it—but it will be interesting to see what happens to the Chancellor’s gamble on whether the jobs market can withstand that increase and we will watch that carefully. That increase, however, is not going to make up for these tax credits cuts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that that is—

Carnforth Station

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

May I take this opportunity, Mr Davies, to wish you, hon. Members and all the staff of the House a very merry Christmas?

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) on securing the debate—and indeed, on securing one of the last items of parliamentary business for this term. I also welcome the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) to the Front Bench at a transport debate, and I congratulate her on her new role as a rail Minister replacement service. I know that she is familiar with a number of the issues being discussed today, and I hope that she will address the points raised by the hon. Gentleman.

As the hon. Gentleman said, Carnforth station is known internationally as the main filming location for “Brief Encounter”. I am sure that the film’s many fans would argue that it is beyond criticism, but speaking as a proud native Lancastrian, I could suggest one improvement and say that it should have been set in Lancashire. Of course, “Brief Encounter” was inexplicably set in the home counties instead, but fortunately, the true location was given away in once scene, as perhaps those in the Gallery will know, by a platform board that advertised services to Hellifield, Skipton, Bradford and Leeds.

Carnforth station is part of Lancashire’s rich cultural and railway heritage, and I join the hon. Gentleman in celebrating the £1.4 million raised by the local community to build a visitors’ centre and restore the station’s buildings, including the famous refreshment room. The refreshment room was described by Celia Johnson’s character as— I will not try her accent—

“the most ordinary place in the world”,

but it certainly does not sound as though that could be said today.

Given the station’s past, I can well understand the frustration expressed by the hon. Gentleman over current service levels. As he said, the long-distance platforms were removed in 1970, and although Carnforth is still an important rail junction, only two platforms now remain in operation. Of course, the plot of “Brief Encounter” frequently relied on Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard being forced to part to change platforms, so I think it is fair to say that some of the romance would be lost today. And although some would say that the nation’s love affair with the railways has been rekindled—with passenger numbers doubling over the last 20 years—Carnforth’s former connections have not been restored.

We all know that there are serious capacity constraints on the west coast main line. It is both a vital transport artery for the north-west and the busiest mixed-use line in Europe. That means that improving services in one area can be detrimental to provision elsewhere. Indeed, I have seen some stations further south, near Stoke, that have had all their services withdrawn over the last decade. When the hon. Gentleman secured a debate on this subject in 2011, the then Transport Minister, the right hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), said:

“Initial analysis by the Department suggests that a call at Carnforth would require a stop at another station to be deleted.”—[Official Report, 11 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 138.]

When the Minister responds, will she tell us whether that is still the Department’s understanding? What recent discussions has the Department held with Virgin Trains and First TransPennine Express regarding the possibility of stopping at Carnforth, if funding for restoring the platforms is identified? In addition, it would be good to know how the Government plan to make use of the additional paths on the west coast main line, once HS2 provides that essential capacity relief. Opposition Members support HS2, because it will transform the transport connections of the midlands and the north, providing crucial extra capacity and making new journeys possible.

HS2 Ltd has said that it is looking to recruit an experienced operations manager, with a view to planning how HS2 will interact with the existing network. Will the Minister say how the Department for Transport, and for that matter, the Treasury, will support HS2 Ltd’s work? Will it form part of a wider Government strategy for those new journeys? What assessment has been made of Network Rail’s “Better Connections” report, which identified some of the options for improving local journeys in the north?

Passengers will also want to see improvements to their existing services, and I am sure that they share concerns that the process for awarding the new Northern and TransPennine Express contracts has been delayed. Will the Minister confirm press reports that those contracts have been delayed as a result of overruns to the electrification programme? Can she give a revised date for the publication of those documents, which should have been produced this month? Will she also say whether any improvements are planned to the existing services between Barrow-in-Furness and Manchester airport, including to Lancaster, or to the services between Lancaster and Leeds?

I received a written answer, published yesterday, from the rail Minister, the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), confirming that the cost of the electrification programme has doubled and that TransPennine electrification has still not been costed. The delays are holding up plans to introduce additional trains to the north, and many of the passengers from Carnforth are still forced to board Pacers for their journeys on Northern services. As the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale will know, Pacers are essentially a 1970s British Leyland bus stuck on top of a freight train. They are uncomfortable; they are not compliant with disability access regulations; and they were never intended for many of the long-distance routes that they are used on today.

Of course, it must have seemed like a relief when the Chancellor announced in his autumn statement speech that he was

“replacing the ancient and unpopular Pacer carriages with new and modern trains”—[Official Report, 3 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 313.]

—but as we all know, the devil is in the detail. Indeed, when I turned to page 50 of the green book, it said that the Government would only

“encourage bidders to replace the outdated pacer trains”

and

“bring all the trains that remain up to modern standards”.

Will the Minister confirm that, in fact, there is no firm commitment to replace all the Pacer trains, and that passengers from Carnforth may be forced to use them for many years to come?

The truth is that this Government have broken their promise on getting rid of the Pacers, even when passengers have seen their fares rise by 20% since 2010. Pacers may be used on Northern services, but TransPennine Express also has serious rolling stock problems to confront. TransPennine Express operates some of the most overcrowded trains in the country, but it is about to lose 13% of its fleet. The Department knew last October that nine TransPennine Express trains would be transferring to Chiltern. The Secretary of State saw a copy of the new lease agreement and did not object. However, without those trains, the operator’s improved May timetable cannot work, and 14 months on, there still is not a solution from the DFT. Indeed, we have been told since March that an answer was on the way, but we have not had it yet. However, we have learned that Ministers are sounding out manufacturers over a possible emergency order of new, diesel trains. That is just nine months after the Rail Delivery Group said that on current assumptions,

“no new diesel vehicles (or other self-powered vehicles) would be required to be built in either CP5 or CP6.”

It is clear that the Government’s plans for the north’s railways are falling apart. Prospective additional trains are stuck in the sidings; electrification is running close to the wire; and passengers are left to foot the bill. Those are some of the immediate issues that affect all rail passengers in the north, and I urge the Government to reconsider their approach to them, alongside the calls to restore Carnforth station’s mainline status. We need to ensure that the north receives improvements to its rail services in both the short and the long term. The cross-party consensus on the need to invest in the railways is immensely valuable, and I hope that I can speak for both sides of the House in saying that we all want to ensure that investment in the north is no brief affair.

I am sure that those who have campaigned for years to restore those mainline platforms must occasionally feel like Trevor Howard as Dr Alec Harvey, who said that

“it seems an eternity since that train went out of the station”,

or like Celia Johnson as Laura Jesson, who said:

“This can’t last. This misery can’t last.”

I wish those campaigners well and I hope that the Minister will address the points raised when she sums up the debate.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) on securing a further debate on Carnforth station, but first may I extend apologies to you, Mr Davies, to my hon. Friend and to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry)? She is unable to be here to respond to the debate. She will write to our hon. Friend and she pays tribute to the campaigning that he continues to do for his constituents on this important issue.

As has been pointed out, this is my debut at the Dispatch Box, and it is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, especially as we served together on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. I thank the hon. Member for Nottingham South for her warm welcome and her—dare I say it?—little joke. I am sure that it could go down well in a Christmas cracker, and I will use it again myself at my next constituency do.

As has been eloquently said, many people will be familiar with Carnforth station only as the setting for Noël Coward’s famous 1945 film “Brief Encounter”, which is commemorated in the excellent heritage centre and refreshment room. Indeed, when I informed my mother this morning about my debut today, she said that she had visited the heritage centre and would thoroughly recommend it to others. However, as my hon. Friend has so eloquently explained, this is about more than a heritage centre. The station plays an important role in supporting the economy of north Lancashire. Good transport links, such as the Furness line linking Carnforth with Barrow, Lancaster and beyond and the links to Morecambe, Skipton and Leeds, are essential to support a growing economy. I acknowledge the importance of good rail services and connections to delivering the economic priorities of our local partners in Lancashire and Cumbria.

I will turn shortly to my hon. Friend’s main concern, the question of reinstating the mainline platforms, on which he has spoken with great clarity, but I want first to assure him that the prospects for Carnforth station are good even without that development. As he observed, Carnforth station has seen encouraging growth in the past few years. The Office of Rail Regulation statistics show that 206,590 passengers used the station in 2013-14. That was an increase of 10,000 on the previous year and 29,000 higher than in 2009-10. We want this station and the services using it to continue to prosper, and this Government’s plans for record investment in the railways and the refranchising programme will help to ensure that.

Long-distance connections from the south, via a change at Lancaster, have been enhanced. From December 2013, Virgin Trains combined the hourly Birmingham to Scotland service with a London to Birmingham service, which improved connectivity from Lancaster to places such as Birmingham International, Coventry and Milton Keynes. Additional capacity has been provided on Virgin Trains services, with 106 additional Pendolino vehicles added to the fleet in 2012.

I recognise that the reduction in through services between Carnforth and Manchester from December 2013 caused much local disappointment. The effect on services to Carnforth is the result of a new timetable that introduced a new electrified TransPennine Express service between Manchester and Scotland from May 2014. The introduction of new electric trains has facilitated an increase in services, including a fifth TransPennine Express train each hour to increase capacity between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and York. Additional TPE services between Manchester, Lancaster and Scotland now offer additional capacity on that popular route.

TransPennine Express has had to decide on the best balance of services to meet its passengers’ needs across the franchise. To provide additional services and capacity on the North TransPennine and Manchester to Scotland routes has required amendments to the overall timetable. Every effort has been made to retain as many services as is practical. Carnforth and stations on the Furness line are being served by through services to and from Manchester airport over and above the minimum number required by the May 2014 passenger service requirement on Mondays to Saturdays.

Let me turn to future developments. To address record and growing demand, we are continuing to invest in the most significant rail modernisation programme for generations. Network Rail’s northern hub programme, together with electrification of routes in the north-west, including the recently announced confirmation of electrification of the Windermere branch, and the North TransPennine line and other enhancements—together adding up to more than £1 billion of investment—will transform rail connectivity across the whole of the north of England by increasing capacity, reducing journey times and facilitating the introduction of cleaner, more reliable electric trains and new direct services. Those investments provide an essential foundation to the wider plans for a northern powerhouse on which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has spoken in recent months. That includes Government backing for the development of a high-speed rail link—HS3—further to improve connectivity between our great northern cities. I am particularly keen to see that happen, because although I represent a Suffolk constituency, I was born in Lancashire and spent my early years there.

As I mentioned, new electric services between Manchester and Scotland and a fifth train per hour on the North TransPennine route have already been introduced. However, there is much more to come. The transformation of Manchester Victoria station is nearly complete, and other schemes will come on-stream in the next few years.

Our new franchising programme is key to delivering the benefits to passengers of the investment. A new directly awarded franchise agreement with Northern Rail, agreed in March this year, sets challenging new targets for customer service. Shortly after that, we concluded an agreement to provide four-coach electric trains on Northern Rail services between Liverpool and Manchester. Those will commence passenger service early in 2015, with further electric trains due to enter service on local routes in the north-west in the next few years.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Obviously, the new electric trains will be incredibly welcome, but can the Minister give us a date by which she expects that there will be no Pacers operating on Northern services?

[Dr Coffey]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I am not in a position to give her an answer today, but I am sure that if there are questions that I do not manage to cover in my response, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will write to her.

In June, we launched the competitions for the next TransPennine Express and Northern franchises—they are due to start in February 2016—with a consultation document. We have ambitious plans for rail in the north of England to support the growth of the economy in the north, and those franchises will be key to transforming the way in which rail contributes to communities and businesses across the region—including Carnforth—building on our investment. I am very pleased that we are taking the franchises forward in partnership with the Rail North association of local transport authorities from across the north of England, including Lancashire and Cumbria county councils. Our developing partnership with Rail North is bringing a much stronger local focus to the franchises.

The consultation on the franchises posed important questions relating to the future operation of the Furness line, including the possibility of transferring the Furness line stations and services from TransPennine Express to Northern, and sought views on the appropriate number of through services and shuttle services to Lancaster and which destinations should be served by the through services. We received more than 20,000 responses to the consultation. Those included representations from the Carnforth railway action group, authored, I believe, by Peter Yates, to whom I pay tribute.

I welcome the fact that the response to the consultation has been so strong. It is important for us to hear the views of the public and stakeholders, so that we can take those into account in developing the specifications for the two franchises. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale that before reaching final decisions, we will give very careful consideration to the views expressed. I hope that he will understand that I cannot go further at this stage. The invitations to tender for the franchises are due to be issued early next year.

Work is already under way, led by Network Rail, to consider the strategic priorities for further investment in our railways in the next control period from 2019. Network Rail is undertaking a long-term planning process in consultation with industry partners and other stakeholders, including local enterprise partnerships, to develop the industry’s priorities and inform the Government’s next rail investment strategy. Key future stages relevant to the services at Carnforth are a refresh of the industry’s electrification strategy, which is due for publication for consultation in spring next year, and the northern route study, on which work is due to commence in early 2016.

I recognise that there is strong local interest in the potential for the electrification of the Furness line. My hon. Friend may be aware that to inform decisions on the next generation of electrification projects in the north of England, the Secretary of State announced in December last year the creation of a taskforce consisting of three MPs from the north of England, Network Rail and two council leaders nominated by Rail North to advise him on the priorities.

The taskforce is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones). I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale that it is carefully considering all remaining non-electrified rail lines in the north of England, including both the lines that serve Carnforth. The taskforce expects to submit its interim report in early 2015, to enable its recommendations to be considered alongside Network Rail’s draft electrification strategy. Through a supporting stakeholder working group, which includes local authorities, the taskforce is drawing on a wide range of relevant information including local enterprise partnerships’ strategic economic plans.

Looking further ahead, to provide the capacity and connectivity the country needs in the longer term, the Government continue to progress High Speed 2. I welcome my hon. Friend’s support, and the support of the hon. Member for Nottingham South, for that vital infrastructure project. As has been noted, HS2 offers the prospect of faster connections from Carnforth and the Furness line to London and the midlands. We are considering the impact of HS2 on other routes, and Network Rail is closely involved in the discussions. The Government are fully behind HS2, and the Bill is being considered in Select Committee.

I have heard my hon. Friend’s strong representations in favour of the reinstatement of the mainline platforms at Carnforth station. Government policy makes it clear that it is for local bodies to decide whether that would be the best way to meet local transport needs. Local bodies would have to prioritise that solution to receive funding from the resources that the Government make available to local bodies through the local growth fund, and they have not chosen to do so to date. The Department would, of course, be happy to provide advice and guidance should those local bodies change their minds.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend has taken the words right out of my mouth. I urge the council to give every support to the project that he is backing so strongly; it would be of great merit for the residents of Carnforth. Although not everyone might agree with my hon. Friend that Carnforth station is the centre of the rail universe, it is an important connection for many people and businesses in that community.

My hon. Friend alluded to the process followed to close the platforms in the 1970s. I assure him that the Government are of the opinion that the mainline platforms were correctly closed. There was no statutory requirement at the time for any form of consent to be sought for the partial closure of a station. I understand that the Department wrote to his constituent in detail on the matter on 8 December this year.

I hope that my hon. Friend can persuade the council to look in more depth at the possibility of reopening the platforms. It may be helpful, however, to remind hon. Members of some of the operational and commercial challenges that would need to be addressed in developing any viable proposal. A key issue is whether a proposal to stop mainline services at reinstated platforms at Carnforth would work operationally and commercially. As was indicated in the last debate on the subject in July 2011, line capacity would be reduced.

The west coast main line is heavily used, with up to three long-distance services per hour between London, Birmingham and Manchester, and Glasgow and Edinburgh, plus regular freight services. Those trains are already popular and well loaded, and further growth is expected. Network Rail’s 2011 route utilisation strategy for the west coast main line corroborates the heavy usage of the line and the resulting capacity problems.

The journey time of a service that called at reinstated platforms at Carnforth would be increased. Further examination, with Network Rail and the relevant train operator, would be required to determine the potential commercial impact of that, and to determine the impact of such a stop on other services that used the line. The modernisation of the west coast main line and the introduction of the December 2008 timetable delivered some significant journey time reductions and more frequent services, which have delivered significant revenue growth since December 2008 and increased rail’s share of the total travel market on the routes served by the west coast main line. Rail serves those markets well, and there are strong calls for further journey time reductions.

My hon. Friend referred to the potential impact of HS2. I caution that released capacity is likely to be on sections of the west coast main line further to the south that are bypassed by the new high-speed line. Nevertheless, the advent of HS2 services will provide a further useful stimulus to rail demand in the area. All those issues, and others, mean that stopping any service at Carnforth could involve a number of trade-offs, now and in the future, which are less straightforward than they might first seem.

It is already possible to travel directly between Carnforth and stations to the south, including Preston and Manchester. As my hon. Friend has noted, that means that the main benefits of stopping Windermere services at reinstated mainline platforms at Carnforth would be to create better journey opportunities between Carnforth and stations to the north, including Oxenholme, Penrith, and Carlisle, and to provide better connections to the north from other stations on the Furness and Skipton lines.

I certainly do not want to rule out the possibility of developing a viable proposition at some point, but local authorities and local enterprise partnerships must want it to progress, and they must back it financially. They did not identify such a proposition as a priority in their response to the franchise consultation. The position of the current holder of the TransPennine Express franchise is encouraging, but that franchise is coming to an end and my hon. Friend will need to encourage the local authority to engage with the shortlisted bidders for the new franchise as they develop their bids next year.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I was about to answer one of the hon. Lady’s questions. She asked about the delay to Northern invitations to tender. My understanding is that, as stated by the Chancellor in the autumn statement, the invitations to tender will be published in early 2015, but the date for publication will be announced in due course. Does the hon. Lady still want to intervene?

[Lilian Greenwood]

indicated dissent.

[Dr Coffey]

In conclusion, I should say that my hon. Friend has been a real champion for his constituents. He has achieved a lot for them, including the securing of the Heysham-M6 link road. I can see how hard he is working for his constituents on this important rail matter. I hope I have been able to assure him that the Government’s plans to invest in, and develop the services on, the rail network to address record levels of demand provide the conditions under which Carnforth station can continue to prosper and develop its important role in supporting the economy of north Lancashire.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s continued and assiduous campaigning on the matter, and I hope that he will pursue the case for reinstating the mainline platforms with Lancashire county council and the local enterprise partnership. They would need to take the lead, working with Network Rail and a train operator, in establishing whether there is an operationally and financially viable proposition.

If there are questions that I have not been able to cover, I will ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to write and respond to those points. As we approach the busiest weekend of the year for rail services, I wish all hon. Members a merry Christmas and I hope that everyone gets home safely on the train tonight.

Autumn Statement

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Given that one in five workers are earning less than the living wage, that wages have fallen further in this Parliament than in any Parliament since Victorian times, and that the Chancellor is spending billions of pounds more on tax credits and housing benefit for working people, is it any wonder that tax receipts are lower than expected and borrowing is higher? Does he finally understand that the cost of living crisis he has created for my constituents is self-defeating and the very reason he has had to break his promise on the deficit?

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Lady neglected to say that in her constituency unemployment has fallen by 17%—[Interruption.] That seems to be a source of disappointment to the local Labour MP. It should be a source of encouragement to people living in Nottingham South that jobs are being created and that people can get them. However, we have to ensure that people have the right skills to get those jobs, which is why we are supporting apprentices in her constituency. Of course, people in Nottingham would see themselves returned to the economic instability and crisis of the past if there were another Labour Government.

Consumer Rights Bill

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I want to speak in favour of new clause 1 and new schedule 1, which call for independent advocacy and citizen involvement in decision making in public services. I commend my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for proposing them.

I wholly welcome the extension of these rights into the public sector. It is only right that people should be able to seek redress when things go wrong or to expect their complaints about service failure to be treated seriously. It is certainly right that people should have more power to influence decisions made about them by other people. I worry that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow said, the Bill in its current form will not allow that to happen as readily as it should.

A number of Labour councils are part of the Co-operative Council Innovation Network, of which I am very proud to be the patron. The councils involved are working together to find new ways to hand power to service users so that they have more control over the services they use and the people and organisations who provide them. That approach is already demonstrating that it can improve outcomes for citizens. One of the lessons those councils have learned is that handing people more power, on its own, is not enough. Many people who rely heavily on public services do so because they are extremely vulnerable or socially excluded. They lack the capacity or experience to exercise the power made available without additional support to allow them to do so.

Let me offer an example. Personalised budgets are a fantastic opportunity to give more control to people who rely heavily on care services such as home helps, day care, or assistance in managing chronic health conditions at home. Yet many of the people offered personalised budgets feel poorly equipped and supported properly to manage them. Research shows that this is one of the reasons why there has not been a higher take-up of personalised budgets, and that is a missed opportunity. The answer is to put in place the support that people need to exercise control. For someone not used to handling relatively large budgets, it can be a frightening experience to be asked to do so, particularly at a time when their health may be failing. Bringing budget-holders together with experienced advocates—people who are on their side and can help them to understand and articulate their real needs—can transform the situation. We need to build people’s capacity to participate in order to make this power meaningful.

Another example is children’s services. Many service users are children who have experienced severe trauma or disruption in their lives. They do not, of course, have any professional experience themselves of running things—they are, after all, children—but that does not mean they cannot take more control, as long as appropriate support is on offer. When I was elected leader of Lambeth council in 2006, the authority’s children’s services were rated by Ofsted as among the worst 3% in the country. By 2012, Ofsted rated exactly the same services as the best in the country by a considerable margin. One of the key reasons for that transformation was the active involvement of children in shaping their own services—but providing those children with support was fundamental in making that process work. That is why the new clause is so important in improving the Bill.

We also need much greater openness and transparency of information and data in public services. People cannot participate in decision making if they do not have full access to information. I was bitterly disappointed to see Croydon council, which covers the constituency I am proud to represent, failing to understand this. It took a decision to sell off the borough’s public libraries to a private developer in secret, behind closed doors. Doing it in that way fuelled public concern that the deal was not in the best interests of residents. That feeling appeared to be justified when the buyers, Laing, quickly sold the libraries on to another developer, Carillion—at a considerable profit, one would assume, but unfortunately we are not allowed to know.

These are public resources and public services, and decisions about them should be transparent and open; the public should be able to participate. At the council I led, I introduced a very simple open data charter which stated that the authority would publish everything that it was not legally prevented from publishing. Once we did that, the public started asking for data in different formats so that they could use them to scrutinise services more thoroughly and propose better ways to run services, and alternative providers to run better services. That approach helped to create community-run parks, a community-run youth services trust, more tenant-led housing estates, and even a new council website designed by the residents who were using it.

However, citizens need support to take advantage of these opportunities, or the potential for change that they offer will never be realised. We need the new clause and the new schedule if we want these powers really to work for everyone and not just for a privileged few.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I should like to speak in favour of new clause 2, which seeks to clarify how the Bill will be implemented and how consumers will be informed of their rights.

In particular, I want to ask some questions of the Minister about the implications for rail services. It was welcome news in Committee when, in responding to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), the Minister confirmed that the National Rail conditions of carriage will be refreshed to provide stronger provision for consumers in order to make them consistent with the rights set out in this Bill. The operators’ trade body, the Rail Delivery Group, has said:

“The Conditions of Carriage are under review. They will be published by the end of the year and will be fully compliant with the Consumer Rights Bill.”

It also said:

“They’ll be more consumer-friendly in terms of the language used”.

That will be a huge improvement from the passenger’s point of view.

I have a number of questions about how this implementation will be carried out. Do the Government intend to conduct a wider review of the passenger protections in the National Rail conditions of carriage? They could use the Bill as an opportunity to strengthen passenger rights where, for example, the train operator fails to provide passenger assistance, which is so important for disabled passengers; where someone finds that the seat reservations on their train are not being honoured; where there are planned engineering works that the operator could have known about in advance but has not informed people about; or where someone finds on arriving at the station that part of the journey they expected to be by train will be on a replacement bus service.

If the intention is to carry out this wider review of the National Rail conditions of carriage, why has Passenger Focus so far been excluded? Can the Minister guarantee that there will be no watering down of passenger protections in the National Rail conditions of carriage that may be additional to the protections provided in the Bill? All the consumer protections in the Bill are subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and the public have had an opportunity to influence them and have a view on them. Changes to the National Rail conditions of carriage are not usually subject to such public consultation, but this is an unusual circumstance. Will the Minister clarify whether the proposed revisions to the National Rail conditions of carriage to make them consistent with the Bill should be subject to public consultation?

I have a few more questions about implementation and the consequent need for further guidance, as set out in the new clause. The National Rail conditions of carriage do not apply to light rail systems such as the Docklands light railway or the London underground, where separate conditions of carriage are set out by Transport for London. Have the Government made an assessment of the various light rail conditions of carriage? Do Ministers plan to exclude them from the rights in the Bill, as with the National Rail conditions of carriage, or, indeed, to do something different about them?

There are also a number of issues concerning equivalent protections and how they will be met. At present, under the National Rail conditions of carriage, a passenger is entitled to a full refund only if they decide not to travel after the service is cancelled or delayed or when a reservation is not honoured and the ticket is unused. Passengers are entitled to partial refunds if they decide not to travel for other reasons, but they are subject to a £10 administration charge. Passengers who start their journey are entitled to compensation of only 20% of the price paid, and only if their service is more than an hour late. Although some rail operators offer a more generous delay/repay compensation scheme, that is not set out in the national rail conditions of carriage.

If passengers are entitled to a repeat performance, as set out in clause 54, on the grounds that the journey was not in accordance with the information given about the service, as outlined in clause 50, will they now be entitled to a full refund? Could that therefore be the stronger provision relating to compensation for consumers that the Minister mentioned when she responded in Committee in March?

I also want clarification on another issue. When passengers are affected by planned possession works by Network Rail, rather than the train operator, they will clearly be receiving a substandard service, but will they be entitled to compensation? I do not think they have such an entitlement at present.

Obviously, I am speaking in my capacity as a Back Bencher rather than from my position on the Front Bench. Many of our constituents are frustrated by their experiences on the railways, and they want to know that the rights set out in the Bill in relation to rail fares and services are being addressed by the Minister and that there is an opportunity to strengthen consumer protections in such an important area of policy.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I want to talk briefly about new clause 3 and new schedule 1, particularly because they relate to the private sector and one of the three sectors named under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.

As the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has said, this country, like the rest of the world, is undergoing a revolution in data in terms of their volume, richness and accessibility, and, in some ways, their associated risks. There is also a rapidly changing market in price comparison, and the hon. Lady has referred to some of the benefits that can accrue from that. The development of that market is not entirely benign and is certainly not without cost. There are two opposing forces: consumers’ ability to compare prices and services side by side tends to bring prices down, but the nature of the marketing—the branding land grab, the cost of advertising and particularly the pay-per-click auction model on the internet—tends to drive costs and therefore prices up. It is certainly true, however, that price comparison has great potential to make markets work better. I am very proud of everything the Government are doing with midata to help make that a reality.

One market that does not work at all is one of the three mentioned in the 2013 Act: retail banking current accounts. The actual cost to consumers of having a current account is, on average, £152 a year, but nobody we talk to, including informed consumers and even Members of this House, knows that. Whenever we talk about “free” banking, we should use inverted commas, because, of course, there is no such thing as free banking. If consumers could see how much they are actually paying, both explicitly in behavioural charges and implicitly through forgone interest, the retail banking market would work better because there would be more diversity and competition.

Critically and perhaps even more importantly—this touches on some of the new clauses and amendments we will debate later—the fact that people do not know how much their banking is costing them inhibits the development of new retail banking products. Such products include budgeting bank accounts—so-called jam jar accounts—for which people have to pay a fee, but through which they are much less likely to tip into debt, because they make it easier to budget money and also that tiny bit easier to save a small amount.

New clause 3 is not necessary because progress is already being made. The powers already exist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Willott]

I apologise to the hon. Lady. That was a very sensible question. That is being looked at. As she says, more and more people are buying online, so this is an important outlook for retailers. We need to ensure that consumers are aware of their rights, whether they are buying things on the high street or online. As we discussed in Committee, some requirements are being introduced in June that will provide more information and safeguards for consumers who purchase items online. The implementation group is looking at all the ways in which consumers buy goods and services to ensure that they are protected and know what their rights are.

The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) asked a number of questions about rail conditions of carriage, but such questions would be much more properly put to the Department for Transport. If I may, I will direct her points to Ministers in that Department and ask them to write to her with details of how the conditions of carriage are being reviewed. That is not a matter for the Bill but it is being considered by the Department for Transport, and I will ensure that her points are raised.

[Lilian Greenwood]

In Committee the Minister said that although rail services are excluded from the Bill, it was intended that any rights introduced by the Bill be incorporated in the rail conditions of carriage to ensure that consumers were no worse off as a result of that exclusion. How will she ensure that that is implemented?

[Jenny Willott]

I understand that rail conditions of carriage are more detailed and already go further than the fundamental backstop rights in the Bill. However, the Department for Transport is reviewing them, and I will ensure that her questions are passed to Ministers so that she receives a more detailed answer. We will ensure that the Bill is not confused with the rail conditions of carriage, and that they take primacy.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) raised an important constituency case, and I understand why he wished to do that. It concerned a business that had to pay a deposit for a telecoms contract, but the Bill does not affect business-to-business rights; it is about consumer rights and affects consumer-to-business rather than business-to-business contracts. I cannot comment specifically on the case, but it would probably not be covered by the Bill since it is a business case. Generally, however, we are doing more to protect deposits that are paid under contract.

Under the Bill, if a consumer enters into a contract for services and pays a deposit but then cancels, the trader does not have a free hand to retain that deposit. Any term in a contract that allows a trader to retain a deposit must be transparent and prominent to avoid challenge in the courts on grounds of fairness. Where such terms do not also provide equivalent compensation for the consumer when the trader dissolves the contract, they are liable to be challenged as unfair, even if they are transparent and prominent.

Our reforms also include clearer cancellation rights in consumer contracts regulations for consumers who buy at a distance or at home. Consumers must be informed that they have 14 days to change their mind and cancel such contracts, and a trader must reimburse them within 14 days of being informed by the consumer about a cancellation of the services. Those regulations will come into force in June, which will give consumers additional protection.

amendment of the law

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

If the hon. Gentleman is so confident that things are so much better under this Government, can he explain why in my constituency the claimant count for over-25s has increased from 185 in May 2010 to 450 the last month and why for young people it has increased from 100 in May 2010 to 145, peaking at 205 last March?

[Stephen Mosley]

I would hope that the hon. Lady stands up, champions her constituency and goes to employers and investors saying, “Look this is what we have to offer. Come and invest here. Come and create jobs here. Come and employ people here. We want you.” My constituency is great—Chester is great—and I want to sell it the whole time; we have jobs fairs and business fairs, and we get the investment and the jobs— I am proud of that.

But it is not just in this place that Conservatives are doing a good job: up and down the country, in town halls and city halls, our councillors are freezing council tax, and in some cases cutting it, while protecting front-line services. My local Conservative-run Cheshire West and Chester council is doing all it can to help my constituents, and it is freezing council tax for the next two years. Over the five years of this Parliament, council tax payers in Chester will have seen just a 1.65% rise in their council tax bill, which of course compares massively favourably with what happened under the previous Government, when council tax bills more than doubled. This means that band D council tax payers in Chester are £131 a year better off. It is this Government who have given my local council the funds to freeze council tax. My council knows that it has to do more than always look to central Government for more money and that the way to improve local services is to make them more efficient. That is why it is now sharing its back-room services with other local authorities. A recent deal with Labour-run Wirral borough council will see council tax payers in West Cheshire and Wirral saving some £69 million. Management costs have been cut by 33%, saving tax payers £3.2 million. At the same time the council is improving local services, as can been seen in its fostering and adoption services. Working with two more Labour councils, Halton and Knowsley, it is sharing expertise, experience and costs to improve the services offered to children. Adoption figures are now the best in the north-west, with the time taken to place children half the national average.

By making local services more efficient, the council is making them more effective as well. It is using the savings to keep taxes low and to invest in our residents and in Chester's future. Work is currently progressing on a new £37.5 million theatre, replacing the old Gateway theatre that was shamefully closed by Labour in 2007. I was therefore delighted to hear the additional support that the Chancellor announced for regional theatre in his Budget on Wednesday. Cheshire West and Chester will be knocking on his door.

I was also delighted to hear about the new £20 million to support our cathedrals in this anniversary year of the start of the first world war. Chester cathedral stands at the heart of our beautiful city. It was recently voted by American readers of USA Today the fifth prettiest city in Europe. The cathedral also hosts memorials, and has a memorial garden, to the soldiers of the Cheshire Regiment, 8,420 of whom died serving our country between 1914 and 1918.

On 5 April, the new tourist attraction Cathedral at Height will open, allowing people to climb to the top of the cathedral tower to see the panoramic views across the city and the inside of the cathedral. The cathedral has massive plans to boost the Chester visitor offering, and it will be keen to explore the opportunities that this new money provides.

As we reflect on the Chancellor’s Budget, let us look at the reality for my constituents. A four-year transformation of our country’s economy has delivered more jobs, better services and a council tax freeze. Every step of the way, Labour has opposed our long-term economic plan that is making all that possible. What a clear choice for the people of Britain. They can have more borrowing, more taxes and more debt from the Labour party, or more pounds in their pockets with the Conservatives. Bring on the election!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

In his statement on Wednesday, the Chancellor evoked an image of Britain that thousands of my constituents will simply not recognise. This Budget ignored the 2,882 people in Nottingham, including 1,092 children, who needed to use a food bank in the past year. This Budget ignored the nearly 5,000 households in Nottingham affected by the bedroom tax, which has left thousands of my constituents with a debt they have no prospect of paying off. This Budget failed to offer any hope whatever to thousands of families in Nottingham whose living standards have plummeted. The Government are yet again making the poorest in our society bear the burden of their failures, and the Chancellor’s silence on any measures that will help young people and lift the long-term unemployed back into work has been deafening.

Nottingham is a young city, with almost a third of its residents aged 18 to 29. Many of them are students, but too few stay and obtain jobs once they graduate, even though many would like to. Long-term youth unemployment in Nottingham South is 45% higher now than in May 2010, demonstrating that the recovery is leaving too many behind. It is not just an economic cost, but a human one too. This wasted potential matters not just to those young people who are affected but to their parents, grandparents and the wider community, yet it has been glossed over by Ministers. The Government continue to betray a generation of young people who, decades after the Chancellor has left office, will be the ones who continue to pay the price for his misguided policies. The slowest recovery for 100 years is hitting those new to the jobs market more than most, and many of my younger constituents feel that they are not even being given a fair chance right at the start of their working lives.

Cities such as Nottingham simply cannot afford a lost generation of unskilled and under-developed employees. We cannot afford to see residents demoralised and humiliated by unemployment. Something must be done, but the Government continue to dismiss Labour’s jobs guarantee that would use revenue from a tax on bankers’ bonuses to ensure that there is a paid job for every young person who has been out of work for a year.

Instead of setting aside additional funding for our cities, which are struggling to deal with the fall-out from a global recession, the Government have made places such as Nottingham bear the brunt of their cuts. Our city is the 20th most deprived local authority area in England, yet it has been targeted for some of the deepest cuts. It has been estimated that by 2017-18 Nottingham city council will have lost £848 per person as a result of Government funding cuts and welfare reform, compared with a loss of £117 per person in wealthier Windsor and Maidenhead.

Alongside the cuts, people in Nottingham continue to deal with the greatest cost of living crisis in a generation. They face soaring gas and electricity bills, real wages that have fallen by 5.6% and, of course, the housing crisis. The Chancellor’s unbalanced economic recovery means little to those struggling to make ends meet in places such as Clifton in my constituency, which has already seen its energy company obligation-funded solid wall insulation programme scrapped after this Government, panicked by Labour’s plans to freeze energy prices, did a deal with the energy companies.

We have already heard during this debate that one of the major causes of the current cost of living crisis is the housing shortage. The Government are doing too little, too late to tackle the chronic shortage of homes being built and are presiding over the lowest levels of house building in peacetime since the 1920s.

In Nottingham, 70% fewer homes are being developed since the coalition came to power, despite new affordable homes being built by our local arm’s length management organisation, Nottingham City Homes. Demand for housing is increasing, but the Government are doing nothing to address supply and the banks continue to withhold finance from smaller construction companies that know the local market and could make a huge difference. The Government seem to be passively reliant on developers to bring forward planning proposals, even in inappropriate locations, when too many brownfield sites lie empty. It is an abdication of responsibility.

The Government’s failure on housing means that an entire generation in Nottingham could be locked out of home ownership entirely, left to cope with the insecurity offered by the private rented sector and facing rents that are expected to soar by an average of 39% by 2020. It is shameful that homelessness has risen every year under this Government. According to local homelessness charity Framework, around 40% of its service users are between the ages of 16 and 25. Despite the increased demand for homelessness intervention services, councils hit by this Government’s unfair cuts have been forced to cut tenancy support services. Yet again it is younger, vulnerable members of society who bear the burden of this Government’s ideologically driven cuts agenda.

We need real action to tackle the housing crisis. My constituents need a Government who are on their side, but, instead, people in Nottingham feel let down—let down by a Prime Minister who is happy to hand a tax cut to those at the top while doing nothing to ease the cost of living crisis that leaves everyone else worse off than they were in 2010.