Renewable Energy (Peterborough)

Debate between Steve Barclay and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Williams, and to have the opportunity to speak up on behalf of my constituents on such an important and topical issue of public policy.

I welcome the Minister. He is doing an excellent job, although my endorsement will not necessarily help his career. I have known him for more than 25 years, and I look forward to his considered response.

I am here to express serious concern about the July 2012 proposal of Peterborough city council and its energy company proxy, Blue Sky Peterborough, to build a solar and wind energy park on 900 acres of prime agricultural land to the east of the city, in the Newborough and the Eye and Thorney wards. I will not unduly focus on planning issues, not least because the first of the three detailed planning applications by the applicant for the Morris fen project is subject to an article 25 call-in process under the auspices of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. I will, however, focus on the efficacy and financial viability of the project; the lack of proper consultation; governance issues, which reveal major flaws in scrutiny, oversight and democratic accountability; conflicts of interest; lack of openness and proper financial modelling; environmental concerns; and food security.

I will make it clear that I have sought to avoid conflict with the city council, which happens to be Conservative controlled, by facilitating an alternative, brownfield renewable energy strategy, but the city council’s lack of willingness to take it forward expeditiously or with any seriousness, while reiterating its absolute commitment to its original flawed, deeply damaging and unpopular plans, leaves me with no option but to bring the matter to the attention of Ministers and the House.

The Peterborough energy park will be the largest such scheme in Europe. In all, it will mean the construction of 500,000 glass panels on 900 acres of land—the size of 700 football pitches—some of it the most fertile in England. The land is owned by the city council and has been set aside for generations for cultivation of arable crops, such as sugar beet, potatoes and wheat, by tenant farmers, originally those returning as veterans from the second world war. The nine tenant farmers and their families, such as John and Denise Harris, who have been good and loyal tenants for 35 years, are to be turfed off the land, with the legal minimum compensation, to make way for a project that, like the great wall of China, will be visible from space.

The first tranche of three—at Morris fen, 49 MW of solar and wind—was submitted by the city council as applicant to the local planning authority, Peterborough city council, on 19 December 2012. It is now subject to the call-in process, as confirmed in a letter from the planning Minister on 14 June this year. It comprises 144,060 solar panels on metal frames, the erection of a substation compound and of 23 inverter buildings, and other related development on the land. Morris fen is one of only three applications; the others are at America farm, for 8 MW of solar, and Newborough farm, 27 MW of solar and wind.

Using 900 acres of such fertile soil means stopping food production equivalent to bread for 7,000 families or potatoes for 9,000 families each year. The National Farmers Union has consistently opposed the project as

“a large commercial scheme with no apparent benefit for local farmers”.

The November edition of British Farmer & Grower quoted the president of the NFU, Peter Kendall:

“Natural disasters, global food price spikes, and John Beddington’s Foresight Report have seen global summits focusing on food security with an intensity not seen since the Second World War. Food production and the value of the wholefood industry to the national economy has really started to land with policy makers across Government. This makes plans to cover 900 acres of grade 1 and 2 land outside Peterborough with solar panels crazy.”

The council claims that its proposals for wind and solar energy will generate a profit of about £31 million over the next 25 years, but they will require an investment by taxpayers—mainly—of £331 million via the Public Works Loan Board and from cash subsidies offered to producers of green energy. In one of a number of examples of sleight of hand, the council has deliberately disaggregated each of the planning applications so that they do not fall foul of legislative powers vested by Parliament in the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to determine whether they can proceed. Nevertheless, to all intents and purposes they are one huge renewable energy project.

Peterborough city council is out of step with Government policy, in respect not only of the national planning policy framework, especially paragraph 112 and paragraph 28 on agriculture diversification, and of the recent statement issued by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on local planning and renewable energy projects and recovery appeals, but of, specifically, the strong line taken by the Minster just last month.

It is apposite to recapitulate the Minister’s letter to hon. Members of 14 October. Commenting on the developing policy outlined in the Department’s solar roadmap document, he stated:

“I want the focus of growth to be firmly on domestic and commercial roof space and brownfield sites… Inappropriately sited solar PV especially in the countryside is something that I take extremely seriously and am determined to crack down on… Our new Solar Roadmap makes it very clear that new solar installations need to be sensitively placed and… proposals… give proper weight to environmental considerations such as landscape and visual impact, heritage and local amenity, and provide opportunities for local communities to influence decisions that affect them.”

In July, in a similar Westminster Hall debate to this one, but on solar arrays, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the Minister said:

“We simply must not—and will not—allow prime agricultural land to be taken out of active food production.”—[Official Report, 11 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 163WH.]

Furthermore, I welcome the Minister’s strong commitment, in the letter that I mentioned, to eliminate subsidy for solar energy altogether by 2018. No wonder, therefore, that the main industry body, the British Photovoltaic Association, recently felt compelled to publish a “guidance document” encouraging development on brownfield land.

The sheer scale of the Peterborough project is of itself a major issue, but the lack of proper consultation, the paucity of proper financial data and conflicts of interest, as well as possibly dubious and ethically questionable conduct by senior officers of Peterborough city council, make it a wider issue of democracy and accountability and of openness and transparency.

The financial details of the project, other than a generic and speculative outline business case, have never been published; nor have they been audited, analysed or stress tested by any independent entity. Since summer 2012, the cabinet and full council have been asked to commit substantial amounts of public money on the basis of trust in the judgment of one officer, in effect, who, incidentally, has refused point blank to accede to requests by elected city councillors to release details of financial projections below the outline business case level—more of him later.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. As his constituency neighbour, I endorse his case on the visual impact and the short-termism on food security. Does he agree, as a fellow member of the Public Accounts Committee, that there is real concern about our inability to see the proposed commercial case, which does not look like value for money for the taxpayer, thereby compounding the other issues that he is rightly highlighting?

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend has a strong record on campaigning on inappropriate renewable energy projects in his constituency. He is absolutely right that this is a wider issue of democracy and governance in local government and of the ability of elected representatives, let alone the public, to see apposite and crucial financial data so as to make an informed choice.

Thus far, on a project that does not have planning permission, is likely to have its detailed planning applications called in for determination by the Bristol inspectorate and to face a judicial review, does not have a proper funding stream and is based on a renewables obligation programme regime, which may be amended substantially, the city council has spent more than £1.8 million of taxpayers’ money. Details of that expenditure and most other project information have been obtained only through the Freedom of Information Act.

Even senior council officers have described last year’s public consultation as inadequate. Expenditure on consultation has been less than £10,000, or 5.6% of total spend, and in particular the treatment of the farmers has been shoddy and high handed. In contrast, more than £440,000 has been spent on planning fees; £125,000 on financial modelling advice from Deloitte; £150,000 on legal fees, mainly to City lawyers Pinsent Masons; and an astonishing £951,000—almost twice the original budget—for technical consultants AECOM. Industry experts have stated privately that they have never seen such inflated expenditure for work on which there has been so little demonstrable progress.

A number of serious questions arise about conflict of interest. Not only is the city council both the applicant and the local planning authority, but councillors who sit and sat on the planning and environmental protection committee and determined the Morris fen application on 17 June 2013 voted to support the full energy park plans at a full council meeting on 5 December 2012. I suggest that that clearly shows evidence of pre-determination.

The city council leader, who has faced consistent criticism from a number of quarters as a result of his well-documented financial interests in green energy companies, has constantly raised the issue of the energy park plans being a simple matter of how the city council is to raise the money to fill the gap from diminishing central Government grants, but this is not, nor should it be, a planning matter. Nor should deadlines relating to the city council’s ability to benefit from feed-in tariff subsidies be material considerations.

Furthermore, not only has the council’s head of resources been appointed, at public expense and in city council time, as managing director of a new arm’s-length company, Blue Sky Peterborough Ltd—the new energy services company, or ESCO, which is allegedly dormant—but council tax payers have not been given details of the company’s board, its contractual arrangements and other core activities. Despite refusing to release financial costings on the basis that they are “commercially confidential”, he regularly challenges the media, city councillors and campaigners, most recently at the council’s rural scrutiny commission meeting on 16 September, to contest his figures.

Such secrecy and lack of transparency are deeply worrying, as is the fact that, until a few months ago, the head of resources, who holds a dual role as a section 151 officer under the Local Government Act 1972 and chief executive officer of Blue Sky Peterborough, was married to the city council’s monitoring officer, giving rise to an apparent and alleged conflict of interest. Requests to the city council’s chief executive for definitive determination of the matter have not been forthcoming.

The city council has seconded senior officers and specialists, such as ecologists, from the planning department to the energy park project to assist AECOM. At the beginning of the year, it was revealed to be pressurising planning officers to curtail statutory consultation by three weeks and to accelerate publication of the planning report, which, when it came to committee in June, predictably recommended approval, despite contravening evolving Government planning policy.

It is no surprise that the council was in such a hurry. By missing the 1 April deadline for the reduction from two renewables obligation certificates per megawatt to 1.6 ROCs and using only the indicative financial modelling published by the city council, which is £38 per ROC plus 3% inflation, it might have cumulatively forfeited about £33.3 million over the lifetime of the anticipated project, more than its basic profit level.

Surely the question is, how robust are the existing financial proposals? Of the 22 key input figures that the council proposed in the outline business case, which the cabinet discussed at least twice, nine are described as “indicative”, six as “contingent” and seven are not described at all. The business case is not Treasury Green Book compliant, and there has been no formal options appraisal and no sensitivity analysis. It is certainly far from the full business case to be expected of a project of this scale.

In addition, there is no contingency fund, and no funds have been set aside for community benefit investment, a compensation scheme or diminishing power generation over time due to age performance degradation over the project’s time scale—a phenomenon that the Renewable Energy Foundation identified with wind projects. If those factors are included in the financial model, the project will make a loss over 25 years.

The project has stalled, not merely as a result of the Secretary of State’s article 25 direction, but because the local planning authority was forced to undertake an archaeological survey of the site following strong, if belated, written representations by English Heritage just before determination of the Morris fen application in June. Just two weeks ago, the subsequent excavation yielded the discovery of Roman and Saxon artefacts, the value of which is yet to be fully determined and verified by independent sources such as Professor Francis Pryor of Cambridge university, who, in 1982, discovered the world famous Flag fen site near to the project’s location, which turned out to be one of the most notable bronze age settlements ever discovered in Europe.

I have never resiled from an open-minded commitment to alternative renewable energy sources and to developing appropriately sited sources, not least because on current projections Peterborough city council will have a gap between income and outgoings of as much as £18.6 million on a revenue budget of £399 million by 2017-18, due particularly to reductions in baseline funding. It is incumbent on the city council fully to justify its actions and to be accountable for them, but it is helpful to allow the authority to concede it has erred and to pursue other renewable energy projects for community benefit on brownfield sites. That is what local city and parish councillors, the local NFU, campaign organisations such Newborough landscape protection group, and I have sought to do since June.

[Stephen Barclay]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Department’s guidelines must be clarified to take on board the points that he is articulating so well today, particularly the gaming of the planning system to qualify, often in haste, for feed-in tariffs, and the way that is incentivising developments in the wrong areas, as well as compromising food security by building on areas with archaeological and other community and farming benefits, as opposed to brownfield sites? Would he like the guidance to be strengthened to incentivise the right developments?

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is important that the Government’s evolving planning policy takes account of cumulative impact as well as the importance of agricultural diversification. He makes the significant point that this is work in progress and that we must ensure that the planning policy adopted by local authorities is appropriate, particularly to national policy.

We have sought to work with Empower Community, with which the Minister is familiar, to build consensus and community engagement and to transfer the experience of other local authorities, such as York city council and Swindon borough council, in developing an area-wide renewable energy programme focused on residential and non-residential roofs, public sector buildings, schools, warehouses and other industrial brownfield sites.

Five months on, we have yet to see real political leadership and commitment from the council to pursue that avenue in a convincing and sustainable way. It remains wedded to plan A, with all its flaws, guesswork, subterfuge, speculation, sleight of hand and, above all, risk to taxpayers and value for money. I am never one to take conspiracies as a given in politics and government, but too many people have remarked that the Peterborough model of renewable energy is to set up an arm’s- length company to broker a short to medium-term power purchase agreement, transfer agricultural land to commercial use and then, with a change in the subsidies regime, realise the capital asset by selling the land on for property speculation, making a few people, most of whom do not live in Peterborough, very wealthy.

It disappoints me that I have to take issue with my party colleagues in local government, but some of them have failed in their duty properly to scrutinise this disastrous gamble. My first priority is always my constituents in the rural wards east of the city of Peterborough, enmeshed in a deeply troubling process over which, in the past 18 months, they have often felt helpless, ignored and impotent. Today, I have sought to give them a voice and to pose important questions about democracy, accountability and integrity, and about the use of taxpayers’ money. After all, if we cannot challenge those in authority, ask difficult questions and hold the powerful to account, why bother serving in Parliament? My challenge to Peterborough city council is to reconsider its position, seek genuine consensus and collaboration on new and viable renewable energy plans, and scrap the project at the earliest opportunity. I hope that the Minister will encourage it in that necessary and timely endeavour.

Gangmasters Licensing Authority (Civil Fines)

Debate between Steve Barclay and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

This time last year, on 20 June 2012, I held a debate on the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who is my constituency neighbour, assured the House that he had

“a package of proposed changes to the GLA, including…looking at the scope to use civil penalties.”

Indeed, he very kindly went on to say that I was right in calling for the ability to fine gangmasters. He said that the GLA board had “very few enforcement weapons” and that we needed

“a tier of measures for it to utilise.”—[Official Report, 20 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 276WH.]

It therefore may surprise the House and you, Mr Hollobone, to learn that despite the Minister’s saying that that analysis was right, the Department’s own consultation now specifically excludes the tier of measures to which my right hon. Friend was referring.

We should remind ourselves of what is at stake. I am very pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) in his place. He will know that the GLA was set up in 2004 after the tragedy of the Morecambe bay cockle pickers disaster. He has spoken most effectively in bringing these issues to the attention of the House previously. We are talking about legislation that is directed at protecting the most vulnerable people in society and particularly those working in the agricultural sector. In many cases, they are a long way from home, have difficulties with the language and are fearful of authority. They are therefore vulnerable people who do need protecting.

It is remarkable that the consultation brought forward by the Department seems to be excluding the measure that the Minister, in response to my debate last year, said was an important tool that was lacking and needed to be included. It may be helpful if I set out why I think that the Department has got itself into this situation. I think that it is in large measure down to another ministerial statement. We all like cross-departmental working, and it is very good that the Department is taking note of ministerial statements elsewhere. The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), quite rightly articulated concerns about red tape. That is a concern that many hon. Members share. My right hon. Friend therefore set out a new test: it was a general rule that new powers to fine should not apply to firms with fewer than 250 people. There was good logic to bringing in that measure, but it was a general rule; it was not absolute. This Minister may want to clarify the position with his officials. Obviously, the measure has been signed off by Ministers, but there almost seems to be a bit of gold-plating whereby what is a general rule has been applied in absolute terms.

Of course, most gangmasters do not employ more than 250 people. Indeed, if they did, the existing powers would be confined just to those above 250, but we do not do that for the criminal powers, so is it not illogical that for criminal powers we say that they apply to the gangmaster population as a whole, yet for civil powers, where one assumes a lower test, we raise the bar and say that they apply only to gangmasters with more than 250 people working for them? That is at odds not only with what the Minister said to me this time last year in response to my debate, but with the existing legislation under which the Department is acting. It is also—dare I say it?—at odds with common sense, because if we look at the use of criminal powers, we see that it is clearly not working.

Let us take, for example, two recent cases in Northern Ireland. In those cases, the fines imposed on the gangmasters acting illegally and making large sums of money—often, gangmasters are not paying tax, and quite often they are linked to other crime, such as prostitution and counterfeiting—were just £500 apiece. I think that most hon. Members would accept that the profits that those gangmasters had made far exceeded the fines that were imposed by the courts. We have a strange situation in which we have criminal powers, which the GLA rarely uses. If a gangmaster is unlucky enough to be caught, they know that the fine is likely to be less than the profits that they have made. They know that, on most occasions, witnesses are very fearful of coming forward and therefore the number of prosecutions is very low. Last year, for example, there were just 15 prosecutions against gangmasters.

Let us put that in context. We currently have under way—I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for the support that she has given—an operation in the fens, which my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) will be familiar with, Operation Pheasant. So far, it has raided 80 homes and it has a number of live inquiries, but it is finding the most horrendous issues. We had a case recently in Whittlesey in which migrant labour was living in a house and there was CCTV not just on the front and back doors but in the inside rooms in order that the gangmaster could control his labour force. We have had other cases of people living in a garage with an open sewer.

This is an issue not just for the vulnerable in communities such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough but for the local residents, because where there are high concentrations of houses in multiple occupation, there is antisocial behaviour. It is very difficult for people to stay in the house, so they tend to go out and street-drink. When they street-drink, we get urination on people’s front doors. I cited some particularly unpleasant and disturbing cases in the debate last year. I will not detain hon. Members by rerunning those, but it is very clear that there are issues of antisocial behaviour and legitimate concerns for the local population that flow back to our unwillingness to tackle gangmasters.

Therefore, I suggest to the House that the key way in which we should be tackling gangmasters is by hitting them in the area that they are most concerned about. That is in their pocket; it is through fines. That is the way in which we will change their behaviour, so I find it remarkable that the consultation from the GLA is excluding a tool that the Minister last year said was important, is gold-plating a legitimate concern of the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, and applying that in a bizarre and arbitrary way and is failing to address the legitimate concerns about antisocial behaviour with enforcement, because the criminal tools that are used are not working. They are rarely applied. The fact that there were just 15 prosecutions clearly shows that they are not working. Then when there are prosecutions, the level of the fine is derisory.

I say to this Minister that I find the situation quite disappointing. I, as a Member of Parliament, articulate real concerns about things affecting my constituency. The Home Secretary acts on those concerns with Operation Pheasant. We have good support from Cambridgeshire police—in the debate last night, I paid tribute to Inspector Sissons and the work that he is doing. I am keen that my local council do more, and I have been in active discussions to ensure that it uses its powers. I am very sympathetic about the difficulties of resourcing that the GLA has. We all know that the last Government left us with a huge level of debt. Although I believe that the GLA should be far better resourced—I think that that would be a good use of the Department’s budget—I am very sympathetic about the difficulties that the Department faces because of what was inherited. But surely the answer, if we have a problem in trying to resource it more, is to make it easier to prosecute—to make it easier to impose fines, because it is the fines that will change the behaviour of the gangmasters.

We are not talking about all gangmasters; there are perfectly respectable gangmasters, but we know that there are illegal gangmasters and heartbreaking abuses taking place in my constituency and the constituencies of hon. Members across the fens. Unwarranted pressure is being placed on local residents, who often have to bear the consequences of the antisocial behaviour that flows from the concentration of houses in multiple occupation and the lack of enforcement against illegal gangmasters, who often misleadingly attract people from overseas. Illegal gangmasters will go to Lithuania for example and say, “Come to the fens. You have a guaranteed job and guaranteed accommodation.” When the workers arrive, there is often only one, two or three days’ work before they exhaust their savings, are in debt and the gangmasters have control.

There are real issues and they were raised last year. Other Departments have gripped the problem and acted. The Minister for Housing, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) is organising a workshop in the fens, in Wisbech, for councils, so that we can share best practice. Other Departments are acting, but the Department of the Minister who is here today is not. Not only is it not acting, but it is ignoring the assurances that I felt were given to me last year, in my interpretation of what the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire said. In bringing this debate before the House again, I hope that the Minister here today will look again at his consultation and at whether the powers it equips the GLA with are adequate. If he wants to take this opportunity to announce additional resource for the fens, I will be delighted, but if he is not going to do that, what exactly is he going to do?

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and fluent case. I pay tribute to his great campaigning work on illegal gangmasters. Does he agree that time is of the essence? The imperative is to do something soon, due to the free movement directive and the likely immigration of Romanians and Bulgarians next year. The Home Secretary has said how important reducing pull factors is, and measures on gangmasters would be part of that portfolio of policies, so the urgency is very much apparent.

[Stephen Barclay]

My neighbour and hon. Friend is right; there is urgency. I am sure that he shares my frustration for that reason. A number of us have been raising concerns for some time. I secured a debate on gangmasters last year. I raised concerns in the main Chamber. I have been to see the Home Secretary on a number of occasions. The police inspector came to see Lin Homer, the top official of HMRC, with me last year. For cross-departmental government to work, DEFRA needs to come to the party and get involved and the purpose of today’s debate is to draw the consultation before the Minister more firmly to his attention. I think that the ministerial statement of the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, has been misinterpreted.

I hope that the Minister here today can reassure us, but if not, ultimately I hope that he can address the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough: what will the Minister’s Department do through the GLA to effect change on the ground? If we are to maintain community cohesion, the GLA matters. To address the antisocial behaviour that flows from the consequences and criminal actions of illegal gangmasters, the GLA must be part of the action taken. I therefore hope that the Minister can reassure the House that the comments of his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire, will form part of the consultation and the response to tackle illegal gangmasters operating in the fens.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Steve Barclay and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent and sensible point—that is exactly the case. We have worked with local authorities, such as Westminster, Telford and Wrekin, the London borough of Barking and Dagenham and others, and argued for some time that the measurement of population is too prescriptive, too opaque and does not take into account the speed of change in housing tenure and primary and secondary schools, or crime, policing and health, including additions to GP and primary care registers.

That is the background to where we are. I feel a sense of disappointment, not with the Minister, who is competent and capable, but with the lack of preparedness and the lack of an imperative from the Government to tackle the issue. They knew that it would be important to co-ordinate a policy around immigration upon their election in May 2010, yet there is a feeling that they are playing catch-up, chasing their tail and responding to the media or some Back Benchers. It is disappointing.

As hon. Members know, on 31 October 2012 I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill entitled the European Union Free Movement Directive 2004 (Disapplication) Bill. It received a Second Reading, but it has disappeared, as we know often happens, into the ether. Denis MacShane, in his swan song, was the only person who opposed it, with a passionate speech. Only he would have the chutzpah, the day before the Standards and Privileges Committee published its report, to oppose a Bill that was largely supported. I shall not digress, Mr Howarth. The Bill referred to Bulgaria and Romania and said that that the Government do not need to gold-plate the free movement directive. There is sufficient flexibility in respect of Romania and Bulgaria for us to invoke the key parts of the directive, such as public good, public safety, public health and the habitual residence test. We could do what Spain has done, as has been mentioned, and have a registration regime when someone arrives, when they get married, and when they change address or jobs. Those are methods of reducing the pull factor.

It would be churlish and ungrateful of me not to concede that the Government have acted. I thank the Minister for his letter of 9 April, in which he comprehensively outlines the Prime Minister’s and Home Secretary’s intentions for welfare, housing and health. However, I must say that I do not believe that the Home Office officials advising the Minister have looked sufficiently robustly at what we need to do to reassure our constituents that what they see as unfair will not come to pass from January next year. We have a lot more to do on the habitual residence test. We must start collecting the data on how much child tax credit is being remitted to Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic.

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the work that he is doing on behalf of not only Peterborough, but the fen region. He repeatedly highlights issues that are pertinent to not only one constituency, but several. With regard to the specific point he is making, would he explore with the Government whether they have had discussions with the British Bankers Association on whether banks are able to track transfers from accounts in the UK to specific countries? In my former career, I worked in financial crime prevention, transaction monitoring and such areas, and I would have thought that Whitehall does not need to struggle with this, because the capability is already there. People can, in fact, track such flows. The information should be available through a quick phone call.

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend tempts me down a path that might get me into trouble with the Chairman, but he has put that important and pertinent point on the record.

We do not need to speculate and look into the crystal ball; we know what happened. In 2004, the London School of Economics put together a research paper, which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) tells us was 85 pages long. The Government seem to have disregarded the paper and to have allowed the media to speculate that the number that would come to this country would be between 13,000 and 15,000, whereas we know that it was well over 1.1 million.

My final point is that we must have a fact-based empirical analysis of how likely we are to have the numbers on which Migration Watch UK is speculating. It is simply not acceptable for the Government to say, “We have no idea, guv. They could go to Stornoway, Lostwithiel, Aldeburgh or Chichester.” We are in government to take decisions. Our Ministers are in government to work for the good of the people who elected all of us, and part of that means using the machinery of government to give people facts and data with which to make decisions. I will not name the Government aide concerned, but I was very patronisingly told last week by a Parliamentary Private Secretary: “Oh, we don’t know any of the facts. We can’t speculate. We’re just going to have to suck it and see.” That is not good enough, and I do not think that my constituents or hon. Members here would expect that to be the position.

I pay tribute to the heroes of the public services in Peterborough, who eight years ago did not see the deluge of unrestricted, unplanned migration coming towards them. The teaching assistants, the teachers, the police officers, the housing officials, and my city council—with which I do not always agree—have done a fantastic job in keeping the lid on what could have been a very difficult situation. I look to the Minister to give us some answers, to tackle this most pressing problem, to keep the faith with our voters, and to reiterate that it is for us and this sovereign Parliament to decide who comes to our country and what they do when they get here.