Alcohol (Minimum Pricing)

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on securing this important debate. As vice-chair of the all-party group on alcohol misuse, I believe that this is an incredibly important issue for all hon. Members, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling the serious issue of alcohol abuse. The proposal to introduce a minimum price for alcohol is undoubtedly a small step in the right direction, although I say that having listened to the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who says the opposite.

I want to say clearly and early in my contribution that minimum pricing is just one aspect of what must be done to deal with increasing dependency on alcohol. I look forward to future statements by the Government on their alcohol strategy. In my view, treatment and rehabilitation services in this country are poor, availability is limited and service is disjointed across agencies. Little is done to help individuals and families ripped apart by alcoholism. The availability of cheap alcohol has undoubtedly encouraged the kind of drinking and antisocial behaviour that blights town centres each weekend. A culture, which is exclusive in many respects to British streets, has emerged in which it is fashionable to drink more than one is capable of. As a consequence, ill health and antisocial behaviour have become common.

The cost to the NHS of alcohol-related harm resulting from that culture is alarming. The statistics are well known, but one indication of strain on the NHS can be seen in the proxy services dedicated to treating binge drinkers. An SOS bus patrols Medway towns on Friday and Saturday nights, providing services to inebriated revellers. I visited it recently, albeit early in the evening, as I did not particularly want to see the consequences of heavy drinking. The dedicated volunteers are amazing and divert pressure away from the blue-light services, keeping vulnerable and very drunk youngsters safe. I certainly intend to try to protect that service during these financially constrained times, but it is a sad indictment of our weekend drinking culture that it is needed in the first place.

On minimum pricing, evidence points to a link between cost and sales. The theory is, obviously, that as cost rises, demand will fall. That might be a basic economic mechanism, and in principle it should make minimum alcohol pricing an effective policy for driving down dangerous levels of alcohol consumption, but the decision to set the base at the low rate of duty plus VAT is clearly controversial, and it remains to be seen whether it will work.

I share the concerns expressed by colleagues and others that such a policy will do little to help our beleaguered public houses, which must now compete with supermarkets rather than each other. I was interested to hear the price statistics quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), but I do not believe that the proposal will help tackle long-term alcohol dependency. It will be a small step in the right direction, if its aim is solely to clamp down on aspects of binge drinking such as pre-loading, which other hon. Members have discussed and the sole motivation of which is keeping the costs of a night out to minimum. Most leave their homes already very drunk, which prompts the question why they are allowed to continue consuming alcohol in licensed premises having already drunk enough before they arrive. As others have pointed out in this debate and others, one of the good things about public houses is that responsible landlords tend to prevent overly drunk and disorderly behaviour by stepping in and refusing to serve those whom they believe have had enough to drink.

As my hon. Friend, drawing on his experience, has pointed out, minimum pricing will, in theory, abolish the deep discounting that encourages that kind of drinking, thus equalising the cost of a night out and driving down alcohol consumption. However, the low minimum price proposed will only stop the very worst cases of discounting, and it may play out differently in practice. Therefore, bolder proposals should still be considered, targeting specific drinks associated with binge drinking, such as strong lagers, white ciders and alcopops.

It is important that we in this Chamber give credit where it is due. I was pleased to learn that Heineken, which produces White Lightning, recently discontinued the product due to its binge-drinking connotations. It should be commended for acknowledging the need to reinforce its stance on responsible drinking.

We must consider the limited scope of the policy and the likelihood that it will make headway only with a certain type of drinker. There is a growing dependency culture, and it is often hidden behind the closed doors of houses throughout the country. They are difficult to identify and affluent enough to absorb any increase in price, especially something as low as duty plus VAT. However, just because the minimum price does not impact upon them directly, that does not make them any less of a concern or any less dependent on alcohol and at risk of serious health issues in years to come. Current research reinforces that concern, because wealthy districts dominate the top of hazardous-drinking league tables. Although minimum pricing will target the binge drinkers who do it on the cheap, it is clear that it will do little to tackle alcohol dependency as a whole.

I appreciate that the Government have to balance their strategy of introducing a policy that meets their stated aims of reducing dangerous levels of alcohol consumption while not penalising the vast majority who enjoy alcohol sensibly. The question is: does this minimum price do that?

The pricing of alcohol is only part of the problem. It must be introduced in conjunction with a review of the late-night licences available to establishments, stricter alcohol-control zones and a close examination of the quality of treatment and rehab offered to those with a high dependency.

[David Simpson]

Will the hon. Lady join me in congratulating the Scottish Health Minister, who introduced a price structure in relation to vodka last September? As has been mentioned, the minimum price used to be £7.97, but it is now £11.81 under the new structure, which also applies to some beers. We encourage all the regions, including the Northern Ireland Assembly, to do the same.

[Tracey Crouch]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have read about the new proposals in Scotland, which are currently being debated. We should look at what is happening in Scotland. Indeed, we should have looked at what was happening there in relation to the 24-hour drinking culture before it was introduced here. The evidence that the police had gathered in Scotland should have been made available to the previous Government before they introduced the licensing extension.

In conclusion, we need to engage with the professional classes and young adults who regularly drink to hazardous levels, and target those establishments that prop up the binge-drinking culture through irresponsible sales and business practices. If we can in any way reduce the weekend strain on the NHS, the police and the local authorities that clear up the mess created by binge drinking, we can certainly hail this as a small step in the right direction. However, in order to reduce dependency on alcohol across the board and to stem the devastating effects that it has on the lives of individuals and families, let alone its financial cost to society, so much more needs to be done.

Temporary Immigration Cap

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady did not listen to the answer that I gave the shadow Home Secretary, but I am quite happy to repeat it. The judgment was given on Friday but we do not have the written judgment yet, and we will not get it until January. It is clearly absurd to ask us to decide what to do about individual applications in advance of deciding whether to appeal against the judgment, and we cannot do that until we have the judgment in writing.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that it is a bit rich for the shadow Home Secretary to talk about chaos, given the parlous state of the immigration system that the new Government inherited?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly good and valid point. The reason why we needed the interim limit was that we inherited an immigration system that was in complete chaos. We said at the election that we were going to introduce a permanent limit that would come into force next April. Between that point and next April there would have been an unimaginably large surge in applications if we had not imposed an interim limit. It is a perfectly sensible policy, and we will take steps tomorrow to ensure that it meets the Court’s requirements so that it can continue to do the essential job of bringing immigration numbers back down to a level with which this country can feel comfortable.

Immigration

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

As a new Member speaking in a debate that has been called as part of a new process, I must confess that it feels a bit odd to be speaking after the Minister and the shadow Minister have summed up the debate thus far. I am in no doubt that my contribution and those of hon. Members still to come will encourage the shadow Minister to offer more than just cautious support for the Government.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) on securing the debate. I also congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech, with which many people on both sides of the House will have agreed. I record my appreciation of the fact that the Backbench Business Committee has secured time in the Chamber to discuss this issue, which has been a key concern for some time in my constituency and across the country.

I am proud of the British sense of tolerance and the generous manner with which we have welcomed a great many people to our country over hundreds of years. The vast majority of those who come to the UK make a valid contribution to our society and enhance our multicultural credentials, which I value very much. Although I am proud of our tolerance, however, I am acutely aware, unlike the previous Government, of the fact that our generosity has been overstretched.

I appreciate that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is elsewhere in the House, but given his earlier intervention, I am sure that he will be delighted to read in Hansard tomorrow that I intend to focus the majority of my comments on EU immigration. Our porous border controls have materialised into a considerable problem across the country, but welcoming vast numbers of migrants from eastern Europe into the country with no thought to their integration or the sustainability of our public services has proved incredibly short-sighted. At the time, Opposition Front Benchers warned of the impacts of uncontrolled immigration from eastern European countries. The then Home Secretary gave reassurances that despite the high estimates of net migration for 2004 and beyond, the country was well placed to accommodate new migrants. In fact, net migration for that period dwarfed those estimates, and net immigration totalled nearly 244,000 in that year.

At the time, we were shielded from the true effect of that drastic and sudden increase by our economy’s relatively good health. A booming construction industry soaked up many accession migrants seeking work, and our public services were able to cope with the unprecedented strain. Now, however, our economy finds itself in a weaker, less prosperous position, competition in the job market is high, demand for housing continues to rise, and our health and education services are struggling to meet the demands of a growing population. With a substantially different economic outlook, with slower growth predicted and with pressures on public services, the decision to welcome such a high number of EU migrants to our country is cast in a rather unflattering light.

That is most evident in deprived wards. Two of the most deprived wards in the country fall within my constituency. Tensions there run high and social divisions are deep. That is partly down to the fact that those who are on low incomes or who are welfare dependent feel themselves to be in direct competition with, if not threatened by, new migrants arriving in the neighbourhood. Indeed, constituents from those areas contact me regularly, deeply concerned at the impact of the unprecedented scale of immigration into the area, and they specifically cite people from eastern Europe. They have real concerns about their communities, about the erosion of traditions, language and heritage, about the added strain on our public services—education, welfare, housing and health care—and about heightened competition in the job market.

The impact on public services is becoming acutely obvious in my constituency. I was recently shocked to learn of a primary school in one of the deprived wards in my constituency suffering from a vast influx of eastern European migrants and reporting that almost 40% of its pupils did not have English as a first language. I appreciate that that figure is considerably higher in other wards across the country, but it is new for parts of Chatham. Furthermore, we have found that the migrant community is less settled, creating a worrying inflow and outflow of pupils during the school year. There is a genuine concern that such volatility will have an adverse effect on children’s schooling because teachers are unable to plan properly, based on full-term and yearly educational progress.

The impact of migration and of the significant number of pupils in the area who do not have English as a first language is illustrated in the percentage of pupils achieving level 4 in English at key stage 2. In the four years following EU enlargement in 2004, those percentages dropped significantly from 70% to 61%, a trend completely at odds with that in the rest of my constituency and the country. Importantly, it is not the quality of teaching that is in question. If one compares those percentages with those for pupils who achieved the equivalent grade in maths and science, one does not find a similar fall in achievement.

Similarly, the cost of Kent police’s translation services increased by some 30% between 2004 and 2007 to more than £420,000, according to figures reported in my local press. My constituents will interpret that those figures are a direct result of the rapid increase in net migration, and their assumptions would not be unfounded. Following a recent freedom of information request, Kent police confirmed that the top five languages required by its translation services in the past four years were those of countries that joined the EU in 2004, with the exception of Russian.

In one ward in my constituency, Chatham Central, there is growing tension between the eastern European migrant population and their native counterparts. Divisions are not limited to culture; there are also geographical boundaries. Migrants occupy and dominate certain areas, making them no-go areas for neighbouring residents. Those areas are typified by multiple-occupancy homes, antisocial behaviour and high levels of criminal activity, which makes life for those who have lived in the area for many years unbearable—I am afraid to say that it also makes them hostile to immigrants. That is clearly a concern, and efforts have been made by the local authority, in partnership with community groups, the local police and their excellent community support officers, to help to ameliorate the divisions. Regular seminars, development programmes and cultural events are held, but we are still in the early days, and measuring the success of those events will be key.

Following on from that is the issue of integration, which other hon. Members have spoken about. Integration is viewed by some immigrants as a scheme from which they can opt out, which is quite simply not good enough. We cannot aspire to cohesive communities without wilful integration, and we must do more to ensure that it happens. One of the EU’s common basic principles on integration states:

“Basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions is indispensable to integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge is essential to successful integration.”

As the host nation, we have a duty to enable migrants to acquire the basic knowledge to integrate successfully, but we must stress that that is very much a two-way relationship. Far too often, immigrants have arrived with no intention of learning the basic tenets of our society, despite our attempts to allow that to happen. That reflects the majority of views that have been expressed to me on the doorstep and in local resident association meetings in my constituency, where communities in deprived areas are characterised—sadly—by an us-and-them approach.

In conclusion, I reiterate that immigration is a good thing for our country as long as we have the right to exercise control over our borders. Controlled immigration can help to stimulate an economy while enriching the fabric of our society, but for too long it has been assumed that we cannot control the inflow of immigrants, and our public services suffer as a result. That is why my constituents and I welcome the Government’s ambition to restore net migration to the levels of the 1990s.

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend rightly identifies the issue of the supply of EU migrants. However, on the other side of the coin, there is a demand problem. One local farmer to whom I was chatting recently in my constituency of Bromsgrove told me that of his 60 employees, 54 are from the EU, mostly from Poland. He has found it very difficult to hire local workers. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s approach—a universal benefit, other welfare changes, the skills strategy and so on—will make a difference on the demand side and help the situation?

[Tracey Crouch]

Welfare reform and the demand for proper provision of opportunities have been touched on in this debate. When I was at university and studying for my A-levels, I worked in McDonald’s. At the time, there were very few non-British people working there, but now it is very difficult for young people seeking employment in the service sector to get a job, whether in McDonald’s or a sandwich chain. There has to be a balance between the provision of opportunities and a sensible approach to welfare reform that can encourage people to take all the opportunities available.

It is important that we are brave on EU immigration—indeed, we must be brave—and provide for future conditions, even if that means renegotiation in relation to those wishing to come to the UK. Like the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex, I recognise that welfare reform will play its part in that process, but we cannot rely on that alone to reduce the numbers of people wishing to make the most of the services that the UK provides. It is important that local authorities and community partners receive support to help promote integration and cohesion in communities suffering from social divides and tensions, but that needs to be done much better.

Finally, I am sure that our constituents will all welcome this sensible and constructive debate on what can be a sensitive issue, and I join others in calling on the Government to take note of the comments made in the Chamber today.

Counter-terrorism and Security Powers

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments. She was indeed another Member in the battle against the 90 days, which we all felt was government authoritarianism gone mad.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Under the previous Government, a photographer from Medway was arrested in Chatham high street under section 44 stop-and-search powers, and he and fellow photographers from Medway will welcome today’s announcement from the Home Secretary. Will she assure the House that any future revision of anti-terror legislation will strike the right balance between protecting the public and safeguarding the rights of individuals?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to give that assurance to my hon. Friend. She may have noticed that in my statement I specifically said that we would look at the issue of photographers and stop-and-search powers. It is one issue that has been brought home forcibly to me. I have had constituency cases of people who have been stopped under those powers and been concerned about it, and I have received a number of representations from Members of this House, and indeed of another place, about those problems.