House of Commons

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

Monday 7 June 2010

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Member Sworn

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath required by law:

Right honourable Stephen Creswell Timms, for East Ham

Oral Answers to Questions

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

1. What plans his Department has to attract more top science and mathematics graduates to be teachers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

There is clearly a problem with a shortage of specialist teachers, as only 47% of mathematics teachers and 58% of combined science teachers have first degrees in the subjects that they teach. We need to do more to encourage pupils to study sciences and maths, and encourage graduates to enter teaching in those subjects. Therefore, we are actively reviewing the routes into teaching and bursaries, along with other incentives offered to well qualified people who want to teach science and maths.

[Tony Baldry]

It is very good to see my hon. Friend at the Government Dispatch Box. Will he ensure that schools have sufficient powers and funds to offer generous retention bonuses to teachers of shortage subjects, and that schools with retention problems are fully aware of such powers?

[Tim Loughton]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments; it has been a long time coming. We are certainly considering how schools can be further encouraged to use the existing recruitment and retention pay flexibilities which are available to address local teacher shortages in maths and other priority subjects. Head teachers already have some scope to do that, but we plan to reform the existing, rigid national pay and conditions so that schools have greater freedoms to attract top science and maths graduates, along with others as they see fit, to be teachers. Such academy-style freedoms are being debated in other place as part of the Academies Bill.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

On behalf of the whole House, let me welcome my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Mr Timms) back to his rightful place.

May I warmly welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position as Under-Secretary of State? If he keeps his nose clean and pulls his socks up, he might become a Minister of State, although I think he will have to become a Liberal Democrat for that to happen. May I also welcome the rest of the ministerial team to their posts and wish them all the very best with their responsibilities?

We agree with motivating and encouraging more graduates of science and maths into teaching. On the basis of that encouraging and motivational language, will the hon. Gentleman comment on the remarks made by the Minister for Schools, who is reported to have said:

“I would rather have a physics graduate from Oxbridge without a PGCE teaching in a school than a physics graduate from one of the rubbish universities with a PGCE”?

Would the Under-Secretary like to apologise on behalf of his hon. Friend, or at least provide the House with a list of “rubbish universities”, so that graduates from those institutions need not apply for teaching posts under this new Government?

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening comments. I will certainly keep my nose clean and pull my socks up, if that is what he thinks is required. I know the job of opposition too well: the job of opposition is to scrabble around to make trivia newsworthy, and I congratulate him, on his debut on the Opposition Benches, on doing that. I am not going to comment on that trivia, but let me be clear when I say that we have many very talented teachers in schools today. We intend to build on that and ensure that organisations outside the reach of government, such as Teach First, are given the opportunity to expand and that we support them in doing so. I am sure we can all agree that we have great universities in this country. This Government are committed to supporting those universities, as we recognise the importance of all universities, courses and degrees, which, through their rigour, increase the intellectual capability of the nation and its skills base.

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

2. If he will publish each representation his Department has received from (a) head teachers and (b) associations representing head teachers in favour of greater autonomy for schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

My Department has received more than 1,100 expressions of interest from schools in relation to my offer to open up the academies programme to all primary, secondary and special schools.

[Dr Pugh]

I am grateful for that brief answer, but perhaps the Secretary of State will acknowledge, in these days of evidence-led policy, that there is limited evidence of schools demanding freedom from local authorities, as opposed to freedom from central Government tinkering. Also, the majority of schools targeted to become the new academies became “outstanding” schools within the local authority family. Finally, it is rather hard to become better than outstanding.

[Michael Gove]

Evidence shows that academy freedoms have a key role to play in driving up standards, and that academy schools have improved their academic results at twice the rate of other schools as a result of using those freedoms. Moreover, the specific freedoms that an overwhelming number of head teachers wish to acquire will be used not only to improve the education of children in those schools, but to help other schools which desperately need freedom from local and central bureaucracy in order to drive up standards for all.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I believe that the principle of autonomy will be supported in schools throughout the country, but how would the Secretary of State balance it with the need for fairness in terms of funding and admissions? In particular, what role does he see for local authorities under the new regime?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman was a distinguished Minister for School Standards in the last Government. He will know that academies will have to abide by the admissions code, and that admissions will therefore be fair. He will also know that academies will not enjoy preferential funding, and that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that local authorities continue to play a strong strategic role. I was delighted to be able to write to the Local Government Association to affirm my commitment to working with it in order to achieve that.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I am sure the Secretary of State will know that there are some excellent schools in my constituency, but there is also a fast-growing need for more school places at both primary and secondary level. Does he agree that Toby Young’s excellent and well documented campaign for a new free academy school in Acton deserves the fullest support at all levels?

[Michael Gove]

Thanks to my hon. Friend’s impassioned advocacy, I have been able to visit some of the superb schools in Ealing, and I know that they are currently led by a wonderful team of head teachers. I also know, however, that throughout west and south London there are increasing pressures on pupil numbers, and I therefore welcome expressions of interest from everyone who is dedicated to improving state education and creating new comprehensive school provision.

The gentleman whom my hon. Friend mentioned, Mr Toby Young, is one of the most fluent advocates of opening up the supply of state education. I note that the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) said that he welcomed Mr Young’s proposal, and that he hoped to be present to open the school in due course. I hope to join him then.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

3. What plans he has for the Building Schools for the Future programme.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with local authorities on plans for the Building Schools for the Future programme.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

My Department is currently reviewing the Building Schools for the Future programme to ensure that we can build schools more effectively and more cost-efficiently in the future.

[Bill Esterson]

Cancelling Building Schools for the Future would hit two schools in my constituency, Crosby and Chesterfield high schools. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would also damage the recovery by taking much-needed work away from construction workers and small businesses?

[Michael Gove]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House.

I intend to ensure that we prioritise capital spending to ensure that in areas of real need, the taxpayer and teachers are given better value for money. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that under the last Government a significant amount of the cash that was devoted to Building Schools for the Future was spent on consultancy and other costs, which did not contribute directly to raising standards or to employing a single builder or plasterer, or anyone else whom he would no doubt wish to continue to see employed. I therefore hope that he will work with me to ensure that, in Sefton and elsewhere, we do everything possible to ensure that we obtain better value for money from this programme.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Secretary of State must be aware of the considerable anxiety in communities about the fact that their new secondary school programme remains very much in doubt. Some £5 million has been invested by Stockton borough council and partners, and they are hurtling towards appointing a preferred bidder. Will the Secretary of State please assure the people of my constituency, who have not had a new secondary school for 40 years, that children in our area can still look forward to their new and redeveloped schools?

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and welcome him to his place.

I know that in Stockton there are real areas of need and deprivation, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will raise his voice on their behalf. I also know that Stockton has reached the outline business case stage of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and that a significant amount has been invested—more, perhaps, than needed to be invested, because of the additional bureaucracy. I intend to ensure in future that the costs faced either by Stockton or by any other local authority are reduced to the absolute minimum, so that we can prioritise front-line funding.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that Building Schools for the Future did not provide properly for schools that perform well but have buildings in a disgraceful state, such as the Duchess’s community high school in Alnwick, and can he offer any hope to schools in that position, whose record of good results impairs their ability to get buildings they desperately need?

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. The aim of Building Schools for the Future was to ensure that funding is prioritised for areas of need, and understandably so, but it is also the case that Building Schools for the Future amounts to less than half the total available schools capital, and there are funds available to repair schools such as the Duchess’s high school in Alnwick, which I and the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), have visited, and which, having visited, I know are in need of repair. I will look sympathetically on the case my right hon. Friend makes, and I hope that I or one of my ministerial colleagues will have a chance to visit Alnwick soon to see for ourselves how the school is coping.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wrote to the Secretary of State last night to request that, two weeks on from the Treasury announcement, he give this House details of the £670 million of departmental cuts and the £1.2 billion of local government cuts he has announced. Twenty minutes before questions, I received an answer. That answer gives no reassurance at all to the hundreds of schools whose new building plans appear to be in limbo—and I must say that this is no way to make announcements to the House of Commons. In that letter, the right hon. Gentleman does confirm that he is cutting free school meals in primary schools, one-to-one tuition and the gifted and talented programme, but there are no details at all of how cuts to local government budgets will affect children’s services, including services for looked-after children and disabled children, youth clubs and action to reduce teenage pregnancy. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm whether he was advised that by agreeing to smaller central Government savings than his Department’s equal share, he has knowingly shifted the burden to bigger and more damaging cuts for essential children’s services financed by local governments: yes or no?

[Michael Gove]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for avoiding the Labour leadership hustings in Southport and instead making his presence felt here today. I am afraid, however, that the points he made were, perhaps unintentionally, at variance with the facts. We are not stopping anyone who currently receives free school meals receiving free school meals. We are ensuring that funding is in place to cover the areas he mentioned. What we are specifically doing is cutting £359 million from a variety of budget areas that, in our judgment, are not priority and front-line areas. Details are in the letter I sent to the right hon. Gentleman, a copy of which will be available in the Library. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are not cutting front-line spending on schools, but before the general election he promised to cut 3,000 head teachers or deputy head teachers. Not a single front-line job is lost as a result of the economies the current Government have made. That is the difference between us.

[Ed Balls]

I showed the House the courtesy of coming to questions rather than going to a GMB conference, and I think the right hon. Gentleman should have shown the House the courtesy of making his cuts announcement in a written ministerial statement or oral statement to this House, in which he made it clear that children across the country in the pilot areas will be losing the free school meals that we announced some weeks ago.

Let me ask the right hon. Gentleman a second question, however, as we got no answer to the first. Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister told the House that the pupil premium will be additional to the education budget. In the formal post-election coalition talks, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) and Chief Secretary told me that the Conservative party had promised the Liberal Democrats that the pupil premium would be on top of our announced spending plans not for one year but for three years, yet the Secretary of State told the House last week that his budget was protected for only one year. Who is telling the truth on education spending: the Secretary of State or the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for revealing what went on in those coalition talks between himself and the Liberal Democrats. Those talks were clearly a roaring success, and I am surprised that his recollection is so perfect in that area when it is hazy in so many others. Let me reassure him that funding for the pupil premium—so effectively championed by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), and so effectively carried forward by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather)—will come from outside existing education spending. As the Prime Minister pointed out at Prime Minister’s questions last week, we have not cut front-line spending, but the right hon. Gentleman would have. That is the difference between the Government and the Opposition.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

4. What plans he has for the Building Schools for the Future programme in Nottinghamshire; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

This Department is reviewing the Building Schools for the Future programme to ensure that when we build schools for the future, we do so in a more cost-effective and efficient fashion.

[Mr Spencer]

Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity at some point to visit Sherwood? There are two schools specifically affected by this programme: Dukeries college in Ollerton, and Joseph Whitaker college in Rainworth. Is the Secretary of State aware that Nottinghamshire county council has spent £5 million on this scheme without a single brick being laid? What we really want is an indication of the time scale, so those schools can make plans for their future.

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; if he continues asking great questions like that, he will very shortly be my right hon. Friend. I do sympathise with him—both Dukeries college and Joseph Whitaker college do a fantastic job for the young people in their care, and they are very fortunate to have him as an impassioned champion on their behalf. I am actively reviewing how we can ensure that the maximum amount of money goes to schools, and as he rightly points out, it is quite wrong that local authorities should have to spend so much money on bureaucracy before a single brick is laid or a single contractor is engaged. It is quite wrong that a bureaucratic system put in place under the previous Government should prevent money from going where it deserves to go—to the front line, so that all our children can be better educated.

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

There is a lot of concern in Nottingham about the right hon. Gentleman’s “review” of Building Schools for the Future. Can he get rid of some of that uncertainty by saying specifically by what date that review will be over, particularly of wave 5? Will it be in the next week, in two weeks, in three weeks—can he give us a date?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is of course a former Minister, and talking of dates, I would love to have a date with him so that we can discuss exactly how poorly Nottinghamshire was being treated by the last Government, and the fact that Nottinghamshire has just reached its outline business case—[Hon. Members: “When?”] I hope to have the opportunity very soon to explain to the hon. Gentleman and others exactly when the review I am conducting is being concluded.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

6. What progress has been made on the academies programme in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

There are currently 203 academies open in 83 local authorities. More academies will open in September, with numbers continuing to grow each year now that the programme has been opened up to all schools. For the academies with results in 2008 and 2009, the increase in the proportion of pupils achieving at least five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths is 5 percentage points, an increase on last year’s academy improvement rate of 4.3 percentage points, which is double the national average.

[Bob Blackman]

Progress in opening academies under the last Government was extremely slow. Some 1,100 schools have applied for freedom from local authority interference, and freedom to set their own standards to ensure they demonstrate the highest possible quality. What comfort can the Minister give to ensure that those applications will all be honoured, and that those schools will not be dissatisfied?

[Mr Gibb]

I hope I can give my hon. Friend the comfort he seeks. Of the 1,100 schools that have applied, 626 are outstanding and we have said that we will provide them with a fast-tracking process. That should give him the comfort he seeks.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

May I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post and wish him well in it? He shadowed me on a number of occasions, and now I am shadowing him. However, is not the excellent progress made by academies in the past 12 months the result of the involvement in their development of parents and teachers and, as the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) said, of local authorities? Is placing such power in the hands of the Secretary of State not therefore a huge step backwards and a hugely centralising measure? Why are local decision making on the development of academies, parent power and devolution being replaced by centralisation and the exclusion of parents, local authorities and teachers from that process?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words; it is nice to be on the Government side of the House, instead of on the other side. However, this is not a centralising but a decentralising measure, beyond the local authority and down to the school level. This is about trusting professionals and having faith in the autonomy of schools. Our advice to schools is that it is important for them to discuss with parents and pupils their intention to convert. Existing legislation for setting up academies does not require such consultation with parents, so even when the hon. Gentleman was the Minister for Schools, there was no requirement for academies to consult parents.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I warmly welcome all the Ministers to their posts. May I ask a question both as a Member of Parliament and as the chair of governors of a Church of England primary school? Could the follow-up to the Secretary of State’s letter to outstanding schools such as ours include a letter to the chair of governors setting out the advantages and disadvantages of academy status to schools, and the advantages and disadvantages, if any, to local authorities and to diocesan boards of education?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Of course the advantages of academy status are very clear: this is about trusting professionals to run their schools without interference from politicians and bureaucrats, either locally or nationally. I am sure that all the people he refers to will be aware of that. In the last set that we have seen—that of 2009—the results of a third of all academies showed an increase of more than 15 percentage points compared with those of the schools they replaced, so the advantages of academy status are very clear.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What steps he plans to take to support children with special educational needs.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We will reform the schools system so that children with special educational needs and disabilities get the best possible support. We will improve diagnostic assessment for schoolchildren, prevent the unnecessary closure of special schools and remove the bias towards inclusion to give parents more choice.

[Stella Creasy]

Given that one in five children in this country has identified special educational needs, what measures will the new Government take to ensure that they are able to access the same level of funding and services for the provision of their teaching that they enjoyed under the previous Administration? How will any such measure fit into the new free school model that the Government propose, given the role currently played by local authorities in providing those services?

[Sarah Teather]

Nothing has actually changed in the relationship between local authorities, academies and free schools with regard to special educational needs. Schools will continue to get the funding that they need, and local authorities will continue to have a very important co-ordinating role. We will work very closely with the Local Government Association to ensure that these proposals are implemented in a way that ensures that schools get the funding they need.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The copy of the coalition agreement, which enjoys pride of place on my bedside table, does indeed say exactly what the Minister said in her reply about ending the bias towards inclusion and preventing the unnecessary closure of special schools. Will she explain to the House in a little more detail how the Government propose to fulfil those praiseworthy pledges?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks about the pride of place in which the coalition document is held, but I suggest that he should get better material to read before he goes to bed. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] It is a very good read, but it is not necessarily the most riveting. A number of important reviews have taken place in this area, for example, the Lamb and Balchin reviews. Ofsted is also about to produce a review of special educational needs, and I shall take great note of all those as we consider the way forward.

[Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position, wish her well and compliment her on wearing her new team’s colours today.

Mr Speaker, you will recall that earlier this year, at Clarence house and in the presence of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the Labour Government announced the provision of £500,000 towards the establishment of a stammering centre in the north of England to complement the excellent work of the Michael Palin centre in London. Will the hon. Lady reassure the House that the money for this important work for children with speech and language difficulties in the north of England will still be provided—yes or no?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks; I must tell her that my dress is just in fashion. I will have to look into the detail of her question and write to her, if that is okay.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of the prospects for progress on the academies programme; and if he will make a statement.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of progress on the academies programme; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

There are currently 203 academies open in 83 local authorities. Academies with results in 2008 and 2009 showed an increase in the proportion of pupils achieving at least five A to C GCSEs, including English and maths, at 5 percentage points—an increase on last year’s academy improvement rate of 4.3 percentage points. That was, of course, double the national increase. Interest from schools in joining the academies programme has been excellent: as I mentioned earlier, more than 1,100 schools have already registered interest with my Department.

[Amber Rudd]

I know that the Secretary of State is aware that in Hastings we have two new academies scheduled for next year. We are very pleased to have two very important sponsors—Brighton university and BT. May I ask what plans he has, and what steps can be taken, to encourage a high quality of sponsors to participate in the academies?

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for her impassioned advocacy for improving educational opportunities for children in her constituency. I had a chance to see just how dedicated she is to supporting them when I visited her constituency during the general election campaign.

Those who wish to sponsor academies have repeatedly said to me, in opposition and in government, that the bureaucratic burdens laid on them by the previous Government acted as an impediment to their doing the work they wanted to do to help children in disadvantaged areas. The Independent Academies Association, under Mike Butler, wrote to a Minister of State in the previous Government and pointed out that the work he was trying to do to help disadvantaged children was directly impeded by the bureaucratic burden imposed on him by the then Secretary of State. I am confident that an increasing number of sponsors, philanthropists, charities and others who want to help our poorest children will find that the changes we are bringing about enable them to do a fantastic job, not just in Hastings but across the country.

[John Howell]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his plans to revitalise the academies scheme. A great number of schools are looking forward to embracing the academies freedoms that will come with it, including the European school in Culham in my constituency, which is seeking to use its specialist multi-language curriculum for the benefit of the state sector. What plans does he have to make sure that more children have such excellent language education?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for those words. I am also much in accord with him in believing that this Government should have a place at the heart of Europe. That is why I was so disappointed to read in The Observer yesterday that the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) wanted to rewrite the treaty of Lisbon and the treaty of Rome.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let me just say to the Secretary of State that I know he is enjoying himself, and I am delighted to see him enjoying himself, but he must not enjoy himself at the expense of people lower down the Order Paper who want to get in and whom I want to accommodate.

[Michael Gove]

I will do everything possible to ensure that other schools, like the European school, that are committed to increasing our understanding of the rest of the world, prosper.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I know that the Secretary of State will want to be known as a Minister who keeps his word and who is consistent in his policy. Will he therefore confirm that the brand new academy linked to MediaCity in Salford, which is included in the £135 million Building Schools for the Future programme, will go ahead? Those programmes have got to financial close, and if he were not to proceed with that world-class academy it would give the lie to his party’s commitment to progress on the whole of the academies programme across the country.

[Michael Gove]

It is a pleasure to see the right hon. Lady in her place. If that programme has reached financial close, then I look forward to being able to visit it in due course with her.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Under the Academies Bill, the sole arbiter of applications for academies is the governing body. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the wider community has an interest in this matter? Not only the governing body should be included, but parents, local authorities and the wider community so that it understands the needs of the many and not just the few.

[Michael Gove]

It is because I am committed to the needs of the many and not just the few that I want to see this programme, which has done so much to raise attainment for disadvantaged children, move forward. I would like to see governors and head teachers working with other schools and other groups within the community to drive up attainment. That is why those who currently lead our schools will, I know, have those conversations. I prefer to give them the freedom to do so rather than to patronise and to busybody by insisting that they do so.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

May I ask the Secretary of State whether the academies programme will continue to provide an alternative route to accessing funds for new school buildings? I am thinking in particular of Withernsea high school in my constituency. I wonder whether he or the Minister with responsibility for schools might be able to visit Withernsea, see the school and see how it might benefit from joining the academies programme in future.

[Michael Gove]

It is always a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and my ministerial colleague or I will look forward to doing so in due course.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

9. How much funding he plans to allocate to (a) Slough borough council and (b) other local authorities where there are insufficient primary school places in order to increase the number of such places available in the current financial year; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

School capital allocations announced in 2007 for the current spending period include £1.5 billion for new pupil places. Additionally, around £1.9 billion is allocated for primary school modernisation, some of which will fund new places. The capital support for Slough and its schools this year is some £25 million, including nearly £9 million specifically for new primary school places.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I am glad to hear that that £9 million is confirmed. It was given by the previous Government to increase the number of our primary places. We still have 60 reception and year 1 children who do not have places for next year and those funds are essential to provide them, but a note from the Library advised me that £32 million of Slough’s external finance, which includes a number of grants in relation to education, is at risk. As we have not had a detailed breakdown of what funds to local authorities have been protected by the Government, can the Minister assure me that £1 in £6 going from the Government to Slough borough council will not be cut by the coalition Government?

[Mr Gibb]

Despite the fact that the Government inherited a public finance deficit of £156 billion, we have been able to say that there will be no cuts in front-line funding for schools, Sure Start or 16-to-19 funding.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the level of participation by primary schools in the academies programme; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

There are currently 23 all-age academies open that include primary provision. The Academies Bill will also open up the academies programme allowing all primary schools to apply to become academies in their own right. There has been a very high level of interest from schools with more than 250 outstanding primary schools already registering with the Department. We expect the first of those schools with an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted to open as academies from September 2010.

[Mr Turner]

The Minister may recall that in the early years of grant-maintained status, secondary schools were able to opt out, but primary schools had to wait, although subsequently they found that the operation was relatively easy. Will he ensure that, this time, primary schools have the opportunity as quickly as other schools?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to see in the Academies Bill, which is receiving its Second Reading in another place, that primaries will be able to apply for academy status. Indeed, the 250 outstanding primaries that have registered an interest with the Department will be fast-tracked to that status by, I hope, this September.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

12. What his Department’s priorities will be in allocating funding for new school building.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I am currently reviewing the methods by which capital has been allocated to schools, to ensure that we can build schools more effectively and cost-efficiently in the future.

[Tony Lloyd]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. During the period of the last Labour Government, many roofs were repaired—when the sun was shining. Can he give an absolute guarantee that schools in a constituency such as mine, which were not part of that programme but still need some catching up, will be rebuilt or properly maintained?

[Michael Gove]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a number of great schools in his constituency that have benefited from investment, not least Manchester academy, which is achieving outstanding results. Manchester is approaching the conclusion of its final business case for specific funding under the Building Schools for the Future programme. I want to make sure that before we go any further we strip out any bureaucratic costs with which either Manchester’s council tax payers or Manchester’s teachers might be saddled to ensure that we get the maximum amount of spending to the front line.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for his commitment in general to driving up education standards across the country and in particular for his commitment, I hope, to the new academy to be formed by the merger of Central Technology college and Bishops’ college in my constituency of Gloucester? As he knows the timing insisted on by his predecessor on the other side of the House was incredibly tight and caused the academy to be formed in late July and to open next term. Parents, staff and pupils are all desperate for further information on progress that I understand depends on my right hon. Friend’s Department’s confirming absolutely that the academy is going ahead. Could he confirm that his Department will help with announcements—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

[Michael Gove]

I know how keen my hon. Friend is to make progress, as am I, so I shall be giving him an answer very shortly.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm as soon as possible that two schools in my constituency—President Kennedy and Woodlands, where the buildings go right back to the late 1960s and early 1970s and one of whose buildings is being held up on all four sides by scaffolding—will figure in the programme, and when can he confirm that to them?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that funding under the Building Schools for the Future programme had been allocated on the basis of deprivation, not the state or dilapidation of the building. I will consider the two schools that he mentions and write to him.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

14. What plans he has for the operation of the pupil premium.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The introduction of a pupil premium will target extra funding specifically at deprived pupils to enable them to receive the support that they need to reach their potential. By targeting the funding via a pupil premium, extra funds to support disadvantaged children will be clearly identifiable. We will publish our proposals, with details on how we plan to distribute the pupil premium, in due course.

[Mr Wilson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that answer and wish her well in her new role. My constituency, Reading East, like those of many hon. Members, has deep pockets of deprivation. Will she therefore confirm today that all disadvantaged children will receive a fair share of funding from the pupil premium, wherever they happen to go to school?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am aware that he has taken an interest in the pupil premium over a long period. It is an issue that I championed from the Opposition Benches, so I feel passionately about this policy and the opportunity to change young people’s lives. It seems a sad indictment of the society in which we live that parental income remains the best predictor of educational attainment. The hon. Gentleman’s point about pockets of deprivation is precisely the reason why the pupil premium represents an opportunity to change young people’s lives. At the moment, the system for distributing deprivation funding often does not get to the front line, particularly where pockets of deprivation are surrounded by an otherwise relatively wealthy area.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady and her Liberal Democrat colleagues are clear that the pupil premium must mean rising education spending for the next three years. I confirm to the Secretary of State and the House that the old Chief Secretary and the new Chief Secretary made a commitment to me, Lord Mandelson and Lord Adonis in the coalition talks that there would be additional money, on top of rising spending this year, next year and the year after—a commitment that the Secretary of State could not make today. Does the hon. Lady agree—I will not quote her this time; I will quote the Deputy Prime Minister—that

“without money, that commitment will continue to be meaningless—more spin without substance which will yet again leave thousands of children short-changed.”?

Are the Liberal Democrats being short-changed by their Conservative colleagues?

[Sarah Teather]

The Prime Minister made it clear from the Dispatch Box last week that the pupil premium would involve substantial extra money from outside the education budget. Perhaps I should remind the right hon. Gentleman that one of the sticking points during the coalition talks with the Labour party was that it would not agree to the pupil premium.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Could the Secretary of State please confirm that the pupil premium will still include an upward adjustment for the children of military families—a matter of utmost importance for thousands of schoolchildren in my constituency, Devizes?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She makes a very good point, which we are considering at the moment. We will announce further details of our policy on the pupil premium in due course.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

15. What recent discussions he has had with local authorities on the Building Schools for the Future programme.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

As I mentioned earlier, we are currently reviewing the methods by which capital has been allocated.

[Heidi Alexander]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answers on the BSF programme, but I am afraid that I am still not clear on the detail. As a former director of Lewisham’s local education partnership, I should be grateful to him if he confirmed whether the funding commitments that underpin the strategic partnering agreements between local authorities and their private sector partners will be honoured. Lewisham council would be grateful for any reassurance that he could provide.

[Michael Gove]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her election, and she is fortunate to have many excellent schools in her constituency, including Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham, which I have had the great pleasure of visiting. Lewisham was one of the first local authorities to enter Building Schools for the Future. A number of schools have been built already under BSF, and because Lewisham is so far advanced, I cannot conceive of any changes to the BSF programme that would be likely to impact on the many projects that she will have shepherded towards a close.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

16. Which grants to local authorities for children’s services and youth services will continue to be ring-fenced.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

The Department for Communities and Local Government will be writing to local authorities with their revised grant allocations and details of the removal of ring-fences very shortly, including those affecting grants from the Department for Education.

The removal of those ring-fences will give local authorities greater flexibility to reshape their budgets and find the necessary savings that we expect them to make, while maintaining the quality of services to children and young people, which remain a priority of this Department.

[Julie Hilling]

Does the Minister agree that involving young people in determining youth service projects and the detail of spending on those projects is a good thing? Will he confirm that local authorities are to receive their full funding for this year’s youth opportunity fund and youth capital fund?

[Tim Loughton]

On the first point, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that young people’s involvement in, engagement with and ownership of youth services is vital, which is why, whenever I visit youth projects, I make a point of speaking to young people and asking them how they are involved in the project, and of promoting such things as youth mayors. In a neighbouring constituency to hers, the Bolton lads and girls club—a most fantastic facility that I have visited twice, and which the Prime Minister has visited as well—serves her constituents and does a fantastic job of engaging young people. I fully support that. It is just the sort of youth facility that we want to see more of.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

17. What steps he is taking to improve standards of discipline in schools; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We will improve standards of discipline in schools by giving heads and teachers the powers they need to deal with violent incidents and remove disruptive pupils or items from the classroom. We will introduce no-notice detentions so that poor behaviour can be dealt with immediately, give teachers wider powers of search and clarify their powers to use force. We will stop heads being overruled on exclusions and will reinforce schools’ powers to maintain good standards of behaviour through stronger home-school behaviour contracts.

[Mr Baron]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. About 70% of all allegations of physical assault and sexual assault are never proven, yet the figures released clearly show that, despite those accused being exonerated, the records are kept on file and they come up on Criminal Records Bureau checks. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. False accusations against teachers can have a devastating effect on the careers of those teachers. We intend to introduce anonymity for such teachers and will announce more details of that in due course.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I have today placed a letter in the House of Commons Library detailing how the £670 million of spending reductions in my Department will be implemented. There will be reductions of £359 million in a variety of programmes, including the ending of “Who Do We Think We Are?” week, which started under my predecessor. Given his article in The Observer yesterday, in which he sought to win his party’s leadership by outflanking the leader of the Conservative party on both immigration and Euroscepticism—something not done since Enoch Powell was a Member of the House—I hope that those cuts will be of interest to the House.

I am also today lifting restrictions that have stopped state schools offering the international general certificate of secondary education qualification in key subjects. That means that, from September, state-funded schools will be free to teach a wide range of those respected and valued qualifications, putting them, at last, on a level playing field with independent schools.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry to tell the Secretary of State that his answer was too long, but I know that he will not repeat it at Question Time next month.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on starting his spending cuts with abolishing the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, which I believe is partly responsible for undermining academic standards in science and maths A-levels and GCSEs. What does he plan to put in its place to ensure that pupils are properly prepared for university and for work?

[Michael Gove]

I know how committed my hon. Friend is to raising standards in schools. The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) will be aware that Ofqual recently pointed out that some of the changes to the science curriculum had downgraded the importance of rigour, and the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend will be aware that the Royal Society of Chemistry said that recent changes to the science curriculum had been a catastrophe. We will make sure that the finest minds in the country of all parties are invited to join us in reshaping the curriculum.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. The ContactPoint database that was championed by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Barnardo’s is to be scrapped. What assessment has been made of the impact that the removal will have on safeguarding children?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her election. Very soon she will hear further details of the demise of ContactPoint, which was not championed by a great many professionals at the front end, who knew that the bureaucracy added to safeguarding over recent years has contributed to some of the dangers to our children, so we would like to replace it with a much better system. She will hear more details shortly.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

T2. Does the Secretary of State agree that whether or not Building Schools for the Future continues in its present form, schools such as Carshalton Girls, Carshalton Boys and Wandle Valley will still need substantial investment—about £70 million—to help them improve buildings and deal with demographic pressures?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that in parts of south London, including those that he represents, demographic pressures are a real concern. One of the reasons that we are reviewing the allocation of school capital is to ensure that every pupil who needs it gets a school place. That was not true under the previous Government.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

T8. I am sure the Secretary of State will know of the considerable success that we have had in my constituency, Wigan, in creating apprenticeships, jobs and university places for young people. Can he tell us what measures he will introduce to help young people who are not in education, employment or training?

[Michael Gove]

We will increase the number of apprenticeships. I am pleased to see that the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who has responsibility for apprenticeships, is in his place. We will increase the number of apprenticeships by reallocating funding that is currently going on the Train to Gain programme, and we are increasing spending for further education colleges, which—given what happened to the Learning and Skills Council under the previous Government, when building projects were cancelled halfway through and young people who deserved to be in education and training were denied training places—will at last ensure that we give young people the chance that they deserve.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

T3. I have received a number of inquiries, as I am sure other Members have, from teachers who would like to get involved in starting up free schools but are concerned about confidentiality issues. Can my right hon. Friend advise where they should go to find out more about how to go about setting up free schools without revealing too much about their personal details?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question. She will be aware, as I am sure are Members on the Opposition Benches, that some of the finest schools in the world, such as the Knowledge Is Power Program schools in America, were set up by teachers, and those teachers would not have been able to set up schools anything like as good under the regime that prevailed under the previous Government. I recommend that anyone my hon. Friend knows who wants to get involved in improving state education contact the New Schools Network, a not-for-profit charity organisation dedicated to improving state schools.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

T9. What provisions will the Secretary of State make in the Academies Bill to safeguard the interests of parents of children with special educational needs or hard to place and other children with specific and complex needs, such as the children currently supported by EDPIP, the East Durham positive inclusion partnership in Easington in my constituency?

[Michael Gove]

The interests of all children with special educational needs, particularly those who have the most acute disabilities, are at the heart of my thoughts and those of my ministerial colleagues. That is why we are reviewing the whole provision of special needs education, so that we can ensure that whether children are in academies, voluntary aided schools or other local authority schools, they have the highest possible level of support and nurture so that they can achieve everything possible.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T5. The Secretary of State will know that there are some excellent schools in Stroud. He has visited one of them, Amberley school. What provision, guidance or support will there be for schools that want to become academies which are not so good and are struggling, but see a future for themselves as academies?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has been a fantastic champion of both schools and further education. We will make sure that schools that are in real difficulty are teamed with an education sponsor with a track record of excellence in order to improve circumstances. We will ensure that schools that aspire to become academies but are not yet in a strong enough position are teamed with people who can help them achieve their ambitions for all their children.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T10. The safeguarding of our children and young people, which is of paramount importance, has received an unprecedented profile in recent times—but for the wrong reasons. What are the Secretary of State’s plans for supporting local authorities and social workers in that crucial work, and for ensuring that all our children and young people are protected?

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that very important subject, on which in opposition we did a lot of work. Despite all the well-intentioned reforms and the dedication of front-line professionals, the safeguarding of children in this country is still not working properly. That is why I should like to inform the House that, as we first announced in opposition in February, we have decided to commission Professor Eileen Munro of the London School of Economics to carry out an independent review leading to recommendations that support good-quality, child-focused front-line safeguarding practice in children’s social care; and we will strip away the bureaucracy that has grown up too much around safeguarding in recent years.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

T6. The Children, Schools and Families Committee report on the national curriculum called for a five-year cycle of review and reform of the curriculum. Will the Secretary of State put in place such a cycle and ensure that the early years foundation stage, the national curriculum and the arrangements for 14 to 19-year-olds are viewed as a continuum? Will he also tell us whether he plans to implement the Rose review in the meantime?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Teachers do not welcome perpetual revolution in the curriculum; schools need some stability, and we will shortly make some announcements about the review of the curriculum. Thereafter, it will not be our intention to have five-yearly-cycle reviews.

Regarding the Rose review and the decision by the previous Government to implement a new primary curriculum from September 2011, as both parties in the coalition made clear in opposition, we do not intend to proceed with the proposed new curriculum. We believe that the Rose review’s proposed approach was too prescriptive in terms of how schools should teach and diluted the focus of what they should teach—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry but the answer is simply too long.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the CPD—continuing professional development—of teachers is absolutely essential, particularly in science and maths? Is he aware that the fine centre at the university of York, where teachers can go for CPD, and the nine other centres are being starved of visiting teachers because of the interpretation of the “Rarely Cover” work force agreement? The unions interpret it so strictly that we will not be able to maintain those centres.

[Michael Gove]

As ever, the former Select Committee Chairman makes a brilliant point. He is quite right: John Holman’s work in York is outstanding and we should do everything that we can to support it. I note the split between the enlightened voice of Opposition Back Benchers, challenging what the unions say, and the position of Opposition Front Benchers, who will do everything possible to ingratiate themselves with organisations such as Unite, including indulging in anti-immigration rhetoric.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

T7. Many schools in my constituency find it necessary to implement personal security measures, paid for by parental contributions and budget delegations. How do the coalition Government intend to address the future cost of the capital and revenue for security funding in such schools?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and congratulate him on his election. Both he and his predecessor have been impassioned champions for the interests of the Jewish community and other faith communities in the London borough of Barnet, and I am deeply concerned that parents of Jewish children have to pay out of their own pocket to ensure that their children are safe in school. It seems to me quite wrong that, simply because of the faith or community from which a child comes, their parents should have to pay extra to ensure that they are safe. That is why I have asked for talks with the Community Security Trust and the Board of Deputies of British Jews—to ensure that we can do everything possible to safeguard those children.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I think that I have discovered why the Secretary of State was so disparaging about the recipe book that the previous Government produced, which as you will recall, Mr Speaker, included recipes for proper English food, such as Lancashire hotpot and cottage pie. The right hon. Gentleman might not have heard of those, because I understand from The Times this morning that his favourite meal is something called “scaloppine with parmentier potatoes”. I am afraid that we cannot get that in Dudley, so I asked somebody more familiar than myself with the fancy foreign food available in expensive London restaurants, and apparently it is veal. Is that what the pupils of Britain can look forward to eating now that the Notting Hill elite are running the Government?

[Michael Gove]

I am enormously grateful to the hon. Gentleman for paying such close attention to my wife’s column in The Times. I should point out that the issue is not about fancy London restaurants; I do not have time to eat in them. The dish is cooked by my wife, and, if he and his wife would like to come round for dinner, scaloppine will be on the menu. I shall make sure that I have some Banks’s Mild, as I know that it is his favourite tipple, and we will have an opportunity to discuss together how I can help the black country.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

What plans does the Secretary of State have for the process of revising the funding formula for local authorities? I represent two local authorities, both of which are in the lowest 40 authorities for educational revenue funding.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising her concerns on behalf of the F40 local authorities. It is our intention to try to ensure, consistent with making provision for the very poorest children, that all local authorities, including those that have been most disadvantaged, have fairer funding.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Stoke-on-Trent was in phase 1 of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench will know full well the number of times that I have raised this issue. We were within a hair’s breadth of securing the BSF programme—there was just the issue of the 20:20 academy to be resolved. May I urge the Secretary of State to look carefully at the situation in Stoke-on-Trent and to try to give us some certainty about ensuring that we get the much-needed and much-deserved BSF programme through?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. His colleague, the newly elected hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), recently said on Radio 4 that he wanted money available for school buildings to go to Stoke rather than to vanity projects for yummy mummies in west London. I defer to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central when it comes to knowledge about yummy mummies in west London; however, we have been, and are, looking very sympathetically at the case for specific additional spending in Stoke.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will any attempt be made to revisit the proposed changes to the nursery grant provision system introduced by the previous Government and due to come in this September, which could have a very bad impact on private nursery provision?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We will be going ahead with extending the free child care entitlement for three and four-year-olds for 15 hours a week. However, I am aware of the concerns that the hon. Gentleman mentions, and I am listening to the views of the private voluntary sector. If he has specific concerns arising from his constituency, I would be grateful if he would write to me with the details, as that will help to inform our thinking.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), has today announced the introduction of no-notice detention. How is that compatible with good child safeguarding procedures, and how will he ensure that children who have caring responsibilities, and who often do not let their schools know that they have them, are not adversely impacted by this retrograde proposal?

[Mr Gibb]

This is a deregulation matter. It is not a prescriptive matter requiring schools not to give 24 hours’ notice for detentions: it merely enables them to do that if they wish. Trusting head teachers and teachers means that they will make these arrangements themselves if schools feel that they are necessary. We are trying to take out of the statute book impediments to maintaining good order and good behaviour in our schools.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his post, but may I return to the subject of special educational needs? He will be aware that in a low-spending authority such as Gloucestershire, parents, particularly disadvantaged parents, often struggle to get their children the special educational needs treatment that they need. Can he assure me that there is no place in this country for a postcode lottery for special educational needs and that every child in this country should get equal treatment for their needs?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. This is precisely why we need to consider and carefully review the whole provision of special educational needs to ensure that parents have a real choice about where they send their child—be it to a maintained school, to a specialist unit within a maintained school, or to a special school—and that the support is available to them and to parents.

[Mr Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State would like to agree that Sure Start has been a huge success. Can he guarantee not only that the funding will be there for Sure Start but, more importantly, that he will continue to expand the programme on the number of Sure Starts in constituencies?

[Michael Gove]

Yes.

Debate on the Address

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[5th day]

Debate resumed (Order, 2 June).

Question again proposed,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

Constitution and Home Affairs

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of Ms Harriet Harman. Once moved, that amendment will limit the scope of debate to the issues mentioned in it. Older hands can expect to be called to order by the occupant of the Chair if they go beyond the scope of the amendment. New Members making maiden speeches can expect some customary latitude.

15:34

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but, whilst welcoming the progress made by the previous administration to reform and improve the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, respectfully believe that such changes should be made wherever possible on the basis of a strong cross-party consensus; therefore call for active discussions by your Government on proposals for an elected House of Lords, a referendum on the alternative vote, recall of hon. Members, the period of any fixed-term Parliament, party funding, changes to the number of hon. Members, the drawing of electoral boundaries, and individual voter registration; consider as wholly unacceptable and undemocratic proposals to require any special majority to remove a Government and require an early general election, or to alter the number of hon. Members or the boundary rules in an arbitrary and partisan way; strongly endorse the measures which led to an overall reduction in crime of over a third, and of violent crime of 41 per cent., since 1997; oppose any measures to cut the number of police officers and police community support officers, to restrict the use of the DNA database in accordance with the Crime and Security Act 2010, to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants, or to politicise constabularies through the introduction of elected commissioners; and urge your Government to reconsider the introduction of a pre-determined cap on skilled immigrants and to maintain the flexibility and effectiveness of the current points-based system.”

I begin by welcoming the Deputy Prime Minister to the Treasury Bench and to the Government Dispatch Box on what I believe is his speaking debut in that role in the House. He takes over from me wide responsibilities for the Government’s constitutional agenda. As my colleagues and I were, he and his ministerial colleagues will be responsible for what is put before the House and the country, but in making his decisions and recommendations he will be blessed, as I was, by having officials of the highest quality, diligence and—certainly with myself—patience. I should like to place on record my thanks to them and to all the officials with whom I worked, and to wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his endeavours.

“Constitutional agenda” is an abstract term that can have the effect of emptying a room quickly, and not just when I am the one making a speech. However abstract, though, it describes something of profound importance to the effective running of any society and its political system, namely the architecture of power—the rules that set down who can make decisions and who can hold in check those who exercise power. In most systems, those rules are enshrined in what the Germans call “black letter law” and are normally subject to special procedures of entrenchment to make it more difficult for those with the power of government to misuse it to change the fundamental rules of the constitution for narrow partisan ends.

We in the United Kingdom do not have a single text, a written constitution or any protective entrenched procedures. Although I believe that over time we should develop a single text, I do not propose or support entrenchment or special procedures for constitutional change. However, the absence of entrenchment places a special responsibility on those in government not to misuse their power, and wherever possible actively to seek and achieve consensus across the House, or to ensure that the final decision is made directly by the people in a referendum.

Of course, the Government must have the power of initiative. When we took office in 1997, there had been no successful proposals for constitutional change for decades. In contrast, the new Labour Administration had a very large agenda: devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; an elected Mayor and assembly for London; data protection; freedom of information; the Human Rights Bill; phased reform of the Lords; independence for national statistics; reform of party funding; and a new system for elections to the European Parliament. All but one of those measures, however controversial they may have been at the beginning of their legislative journeys, were in the end either approved by consensus across the House or endorsed by the people in a referendum, and they are all the better for that.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is right that a great deal of constitutional change has occurred over the past 13 years, but I am not clear why he does not want to go an extra step now and have a written constitution—a Bill of Rights. Surely that would be an important way of entrenching and making absolutely clear the rights of our citizens.

[Mr Straw]

As I said a moment ago, I believe that there is a case for bringing together our constitutional arrangements in a single text, and we were working on achieving exactly that. However, the process will take a long time. Entrenchment—in other words, the sovereignty of this House being modified by some super-legislative procedure and by a constitutional court overseeing that—is a bridge too far for me and I do not support it. However, I do not believe that the two have to go hand in hand, and the case for a single text is strong.

However controversial the proposals that we introduced may have been at the beginning—I think particularly of the Human Rights Bill and the Freedom of Information Bill—in the end, we were able to achieve consensus across the House. That may have been a subject of regret later for the Conservative Opposition, but consensus was achieved. There was one exception, which I regret and, in a sense, it makes the point that I am putting to the House—the closed list system for European elections.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

I welcome the hon. Lady to the Chamber—I am glad to see her return to the House, albeit, through no fault of hers, a little late. I shall give way in a second.

The European elections system was very controversial. It was subject, unusually, to the Parliament Acts. In my view, it is not a good system and will almost certainly have to be changed in due course. However, no one could have said—no one did say—that it was introduced for partisan advantage. Such advantage has palpably not happened.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The amendment tabled by the Leader of the Opposition mentions the special majority that is required to dissolve Parliament and hold a general election. Having failed to get any sort of answer out of the Government, does my right hon. Friend have any theory about why they arrived at the figure of 55%?

[Mr Straw]

I do, but I invite my hon. Friend to stay in the Chamber a little longer—

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is one way of keeping him.

[Mr Straw]

Indeed—perhaps it is the only way of keeping him. However, I invite my hon. Friend to stay and I will deal with the point later.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am delighted to be returned to represent the new constituency of Thirsk and Malton, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He referred to the new electoral system for the European Parliament. Does he accept that, in each European election since the new election procedures were introduced, turnout has dramatically reduced. What would he have proposed had he remained in government to increase the turnout for those elections?

[Mr Straw]

One suggestion—I might even have made it—was that the new system might increase turnout. Even Homer nodded, and that has not been the case, although I think that turnout has gone up a little recently. I am in favour of either an open list, or what is called the semi-open list, which is one of the proposals for the new, reformed House of Lords. I am happy to discuss that further with the hon. Lady in or outside the House.

I have set out the importance of constitutional change being made, whenever possible, by consensus. I therefore greatly hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will resist calls from his side to use the Government’s majority to ram through change for party advantage. That would be wrong—[Laughter.] I say to those who are obviously tempted by that that, with one exception, which was never to my party’s advantage, we worked hard to achieve cross-party consensus because the constitution should not be a partisan weapon in the hands of any party.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

Let me consider the key elements of the new Government’s proposals in turn, and then, of course, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

First, let us consider the House of Lords. Next year will be the centenary of the first Parliament Act. The preamble of the 1911 Act spells out that it was introduced as a temporary measure, stating that

“it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation”

and therefore the Parliament Act was introduced as a poor substitute. It is 99 years since that historic Act and it is probably now time to complete the original proposals of that great Lib-Lab Government in 1911.

Two reforms followed the 1911 Act: the Parliament Act 1949 and the Life Peerages Act 1958, but there was no further change until 1999, when all but 92 hereditary peers were removed and clear conventions about party balance were established. The consequence has been to make the other place a less supine and more assertive Chamber. That is sometimes inconvenient to government, as I witnessed in taking through very many items of legislation, but it was rare indeed for legislation to be amended in the other place but not improved, as I have often put on the record.

I therefore hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will resist the temptation of some on the Government side, as we have read in some newspapers, to pack the other place with up to 200 Conservative and Liberal Democrat Lords to ensure that the previous convention of no one party having a majority, which has worked well, is retained—[Interruption.] I am not clear why there is such objection to that. When Labour was in government, it was absolutely fine for one third of its legislation to be subject to amendments in the House of Lords. If the proposition is that when the Conservative party is in power, with support from the Liberal Democrats, it is fine for them to have an absolute majority in the House of Lords, let that be put on the record.

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood).

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. To take him back to his phrase, “ramming through change for political advantage,” may I remind the House that Labour rammed through changes to the Lisbon treaty, denying this country an opportunity to vote on it? That is taking political advantage. I hope he now regrets that decision.

[Mr Straw]

I think the hon. Gentleman protests a little too much on that. He needs to explain, as does the Conservative element of the Government, why the Conservative party abandoned its pledge to withdraw from the Lisbon treaty. Perhaps he would like to have a discussion on that with the Liberal Democrats who support the Government.

[Mr Tyrie]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I will make a little more progress before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

For seven years after the 1999 change, the absence of any clear consensus blocked further reform. It will be recalled that in early 2003, this House voted against every single one of seven alternative propositions put before it, ranging from an all-appointed to an all-elected House of Lords. I took over responsibility for Lords reform, in that time-honoured passage from Foreign Secretary to Leader of the House, and duly established a cross-party group. Its key conclusions, which worked very well, were set out in a February 2007 Green Paper.

Thankfully, in March 2007 this House voted emphatically in favour of two consistent propositions—an 80% or 100% elected House of Lords—and against all other choices. That proposition for a wholly or mainly elected House has been the foundation for progress since. The cross-party group re-met for 15 months and did a great deal of detailed work on how an elected Lords might operate, and its conclusions were contained in the July 2008 White Paper.

At the most recent general election—for the first time—all three parties were clearly committed to action to secure an elected House of Lords. Further work to ensure that should be straightforward: a great deal has already been done, including, as the Deputy Prime Minister knows, the drafting of many of the key clauses to form the central part of any Bill. I pledge that my party will work constructively on that with him and his Administration, and with luck, we may be able to mark the centenary of the first Parliament Act with legislation finally to meet its long-term goal.

The proposal for a referendum on voting reform is another long-running issue in British politics. It took the expenses scandal for broad agreement to emerge that at the very least the British people should be given the opportunity to decide whether they wish to continue with the existing first-past-the-post system or to move to the alternative vote system. Legislation for an AV referendum was agreed earlier this year by the House by a very substantial majority of 365 to 187. That would have become law by the general election but for the refusal of the Conservative party to allow it to go through in the so-called wash-up. I am glad that the rather spurious objections that the Conservatives raised then have now dissolved. We shall, of course, support clauses on AV if they are put before the House in a similar form to last time.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that in the course of the competitive negotiations with the Liberal Democrats as to which side was going to form a Government, his party offered the Liberal Democrats a deal whereby AV would be rammed through this House without a referendum?

[Mr Straw]

The answer is no. I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that a very significant proportion of Labour Members, including myself, would never have accepted such a proposition had it been put forward—let us be absolutely clear about that.

We support proposals for recall, which we proposed before the election, although the detail will have to be carefully thought through.

Many of the other aspects set out in the coalition agreement are non-controversial. I am glad to see the Administration support the proposals of the Wright Committee, and I hope that we will see good progress made on them. I say parenthetically, on a subject that concerned me greatly when I was in government, that I continue to be concerned about how we conduct our Report and Committee stages on the Floor of the House.

There is another unsatisfactory matter, and I hope that the Leader of the House will consider it. Since there is likely to be some element of timetabling, or even if there is not, we need better order when the House is considering legislation clause by clause, not least by allowing the Chair a discretion to set time limits on speeches. One of the most important functions discharged by this House on the Floor of the House is the consideration of legislation. The old system before 1997 led to great frustration, as did the system post-1997. What we have not yet got right is adequate provision to ensure that Back Benchers especially can take part constructively in debates without those debates being undermined either by too hasty Government timetables or, frankly, by some Back Benchers hogging the whole of the time by filibustering.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

On the questions of Lords reform and the legislation for a referendum on voting reform, may we have a clarification from Labour that both will be the subject on the Labour Benches of three-line Whips here and in the House of Lords?

[Mr Straw]

The hon. Gentleman will have to allow me to say that I consult my colleagues about the whipping arrangements that would apply. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) is speculating about whether the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is worried about something. My advice is for him to worry about how he and his party are going to vote and we will worry about how we vote.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I want to make some progress.

[Mr Jackson]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am glad that the sinner is repenting. Does he regret the use of the guillotine on so many important Bills during the last Parliament? In the Housing and Regeneration Bill, for instance, which I was involved in, more than 200 Government clauses were tabled between Second Reading and Report, so Members were not allowed proper analysis and oversight of that important legislation. [Interruption.]

[Mr Straw]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) says that there were no guillotines, as they were programme motions—but they come to the same thing.

Let me say to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) that I regret the use of guillotines full stop, but sometimes they are necessary. However, I sat in the House in opposition for 18 years, and the first Bill I sat on—the Housing Bill, in early 1980, 30 years ago—was the subject of the most ruthless guillotining, and that on a major measure. There are plenty of other measures of profound importance that were also the subject of guillotining.

My view, both in government and in opposition, has been that the House—certainly over the 30 years in which I have been in it—has not got right the way in which it should deal effectively with legislation on the Floor of the House, and I think that there is a better way. We need to provide for more time, but if we do that, the quid pro quo needs to be limits on speeches, so that people can constructively take part. We also need to look at something that I facilitated on at least one occasion, which is ensuring that when the business is subject to programming or guillotining, some Opposition and Back-Bench amendments can also be the subject of votes. I put those proposals before the House for consideration.

I have set out our view on many of the proposals that are, and will be, the subject of a broad consensus. As I have said, on every proposal that the Deputy Prime Minister brings forward, we shall seek constructively to work with the Government to achieve consensus. However, it seems that consensus was the last thing on the mind of the governing parties, when one turns to some of the elements of the coalition agreement. In his first speech as Deputy Prime Minister, outside the House, the right hon. Gentleman told the nation that he proposed to secure the biggest shake-up of our democracy since the Reform Act of 1832. He described the Reform Act of 1832 as a “landmark”, from

“politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests. Who stood up for the freedom of the many”—

we have heard that phrase before—

“not the privilege of the few.”

Well, not quite, Mr Speaker, for the truth is that even after the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832, huge swathes of the population—92% of the population—remained without a vote, helpless in the face of vested interests. The Reform Act of 1832 gave the vote, a limited franchise, to the property-owning class, of whom there were remarkably few, and deliberately ensured that nobody else had the vote—no women, no working men; just 16% of men, and no women whatever.

Let me also say to the right hon. Gentleman that had the Great Reform Act been the landmark in democracy that he suggested—I do not know where he got that from; certainly not even from Wikipedia—none of the agitation of the Chartist movement that followed would have been necessary. Those of us who know a little bit of history will remember that it was the wholly dashed expectations of 1832 that fired up the great Chartist movement. However, the comparison with 1832, if not appropriate, is certainly heavy with unintended irony, for, however limited the effect, the first Reform Act at least extended the franchise. The programme to which the right hon. Gentleman has signed up will reduce the franchise, as I will explain. Some reform!

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

The former Minister is making an interesting speech about equality, but will he confirm that it was actually a Conservative Government, in 1927, who gave full equality to women and the right for them to vote, and that they did so after a Labour Government, under Ramsay MacDonald, had failed in their promise to do so?

[Mr Straw]

First, that was quite a long time after 1832. Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman might recall, the vote was originally given to women over 30 in 1918, and then extended to those over 21 in 1928.

Let me come to the partisan heart of the Government’s constitutional proposals: the plans to cut parliamentary seats, redraw boundaries and speed up individual registration. If those proposals were implemented, they would disfranchise hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of our citizens, predominantly the young and members of lower-income groups. Seats would be cut and boundaries fundamentally altered by rigid mathematical formulae devised on the basis of the current electoral register.

According to the Electoral Commission, however, some 3.5 million eligible voters are missing from the register, and that is just in England and Wales. Earlier this year, the commission reported

“under-registration is concentrated among specific social groups, with the registration rates being especially low among young people, private renters and those who have recently moved home. The highest concentrations of under-registration are most likely to be found in metropolitan areas, smaller towns and cities with large student populations, and coastal areas with significant population turnover and high levels of social deprivation.”

The commission’s study established that in Glasgow 100,000 eligible voters might be missing from the register, quite sufficient to raise all Glasgow seats to the electoral average for Great Britain and to provide for one additional constituency.

Cutting seats and redrawing boundaries in that way, without taking account of the missing voters, will produce a profoundly distorted electoral map of Britain. The map will be even further distorted if this boundary review is undertaken, as the Government have proposed, in tandem with the premature roll-out of individual voter registration, because that process will knock many more eligible people off the register—hundreds of thousands of them.

We are in favour of individual registration. Indeed, it was I who, last year, presented proposals for a new law, which received all-party agreement. But as all the parties agreed just nine months ago, to be fair the process will take both time and money.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I am glad to see the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) in the Chamber, because she played an important and constructive part in securing individual registration. She also went on record as saying, from the Conservative Front Bench, that any future Conservative Government would never take risks with the democratic process. She agreed that we must wait for the 2012 census. It is unclear whether the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing to do that. She also agreed that there must be ways of testing the accuracy of the system, as our legislation does with the requirement for a report from the Electoral Commission in 2014, and she said in terms that we must ensure that the system was utterly watertight. I hope that she still takes that view.

[Mrs Laing]

I certainly do still take that view 100%, but the right hon. Gentleman will recall that, when we debated individual voter registration, it was established that the system was intended to increase, not decrease. the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the register. Lessons have been learnt from what happened in Northern Ireland. Under the new system, the register will be more accurate and more comprehensive, and it will be fair to have constituencies that are of equal size, so that every vote has equal value.

[Mr Straw]

That is the aspiration, and I do not for a second doubt the good faith of the hon. Lady. I am glad to hear her endorse those proposals—now, sadly, from the Back Benches. As she knows, however, because we had detailed and collaborative discussions on the issue, if the process for individual registration is rushed—and the phrase used in the coalition agreement is “speed this up”—the consequence will be not what she and we seek, but what happened in Northern Ireland. As the Electoral Commission spelt out, what happened in Northern Ireland in 2002 was that a sudden change in the system of electoral registration, although there was a centralised system, led to the immediate loss of nearly 120,000 names—nearly 10%—from the register. The commission said:

“The new registration process disproportionately impacted on young people and students, people with learning disabilities, people with disabilities generally and those living in areas of high social deprivation.”

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest, but a lot of what he is saying is pure speculation. Does he think that the current system, with its vast discrepancies in constituency size, is fair? The Government in which he served did nothing to address that, yet it needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

[Mr Straw]

Nobody argues that it is not important to secure electoral equality in England, Scotland and Wales—where different rules have applied, which is a separate issue—but that must also be subject to other rules involving geography and history, as I shall explain. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the data, he will see that nowadays Labour seats in Scotland and Wales are larger than the few Conservative and Liberal Democrat seats in those two nations. In England, our seats are 3% smaller than the electoral average, and those of the Conservatives are 3% larger. There are also some very large Labour seats these days, however, as well as large Conservative seats. We pursued the same rules as previous Administrations, and the reasons for the recent trends is that there has been more rapid depopulation in areas that are typically Labour, mainly inner cities, although that is now changing.

What is crucial is that these changes are done in a fair way, by agreement between the parties, not in a partisan way. Professor Iain McLean, a lecturer at Oxford university and an elections expert, warned last month that

“to move straight to individual registration risks moving straight to mass disenfranchisement of the young, the urban, the mobile and ethnic minority voters”

and that it

“could make Britain in 2011 like Florida in 2000”.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

On the question of city seats, is my right hon. Friend aware that the first casualty could be the Deputy Prime Minister in his Hallam seat in the city of Sheffield—unless, of course, they try to manoeuvre the boundaries so as to try to save his neck, which would test the coalition?

[Mr Straw]

There is no doubt that the biggest net losers under the current proposals in the so-called coalition agreement would be the Liberal Democrats, for reasons that I shall spell out.

On election night, when the Deputy Prime Minister heard that people had been locked out of the polling stations and prevented from casting their ballots, he said:

“I share the bitter dismay of many of my constituents who were not able to exercise their democratic right to vote in this election…That should never, ever happen again in our democracy.”

Yet he now proposes a programme that could have the effect of disfranchising not only some hundreds in his own constituency, but some hundreds of thousands across the United Kingdom. I urge him to think very carefully about what is being proposed.

As for the proposal to cut the number of seats, we need not speculate about the Conservative party’s intentions because they are on the record. Just months before the general election, the Conservative Front-Bench team moved the most detailed amendments to cut the number of seats by 10% and to force the redrawing of the boundaries by rules requiring that arithmetical quotas trump all other considerations. I have a copy of one such amendment before me. It says that the electorate

“shall be as near the electoral quota as is practicable”—

only a 3% margin would be allowed—

“and all other special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency, shall be subordinate to achieving this aim”.

The scheme, therefore, is that arithmetic will trump all, so that history, geography, mountains, rivers, and even communities and the sea, are to be subordinated to arithmetical rules.

The effects would be extraordinary, especially in Scotland. The Orkney and Shetland electorate is 33,000. Under these proposals—official Conservative proposals—Orkney and Shetland would have to be jammed in with Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, which has an electorate of 47,000 in order to make a single seat exactly within the electoral average. The Western Isles, with an electorate of 22,000, is the smallest constituency in the United Kingdom. It would have to be jammed in with a vast swathe of the western highlands—of western Scotland, indeed. In England and Wales, too, long-established patterns of democracy would be destroyed in pursuit of the new Conservative formulae. How such changes, defying history and geography and people’s own sense of place, could possibly be said to strengthen our democracy I do not know. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam will be able to tell us whether he is comfortable with this scheme.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Sometimes when we talk about geography, we do not appreciate the full extent of the situation. My constituency is about the size of Luxembourg and will not meet the 75,000 threshold. The constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, whose Member is here today, is the size of Cyprus; and the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency of the former leader of the Liberal Democrats is the size of the Bahamas. It is not just a matter of numbers but of geographical extent, which makes the proposal for a 75,000 threshold ludicrous.

[Mr Straw]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point, but the truth is that under the amendment to which I referred—there is no need to speculate because this is what is proposed—all the considerations that she and the whole House are concerned about, along, I dare say, with voters across the highlands and islands of Scotland and in many other places as well, would be swept aside, “subordinate”, as the amendment says, to a simple arithmetical rule.

I have said to the House that we favour a referendum on the alternative vote, but I make it clear that we will not allow that to be used as a Trojan horse for an omnibus Bill that will profoundly harm our democracy. The Liberal Democrats would do well to consider the damage to democracy that will arise from these proposals. If appealing to their sense of democracy is not enough, then I appeal to their sense of self-interest. [Interruption.] That is always best with Liberal Democrats. Why do they and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam think that the Conservatives are now pursuing this idea? It is not out of any principled concern about the size of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister argued passionately against a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament when he was defending the size of his own constituency before the 2003 inquiry into the boundaries in Oxfordshire. The Liberal Democrats have now apparently been pulled along in the wake of this undemocratic proposal to cut seats, yet the Liberal Democrats in Oxfordshire were not then arguing for the status quo of six seats in Oxfordshire––which, at least the Prime Minister was arguing for––but for seven seats, which would have led to a House of Commons of 700.

We need to understand that a 10% reduction in the number of seats and rigid mathematical formulae will change every single boundary in the United Kingdom. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) mentioned, that is where the Liberal Democrats are uniquely vulnerable. Their seats are isolated—tiny dots of orange in seas of red or blue—and they have proportionately twice as many marginal seats as either of the other parties. I hope the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam will accept that this proposal is dangerous—dangerous to his own party, for sure, but to the legitimacy of our democracy, as well. There is to be an argument about reducing the number of seats and the way we conduct boundary reviews, but the better way through, since so many reviews have already been set up, is to have an independent examination of how we conduct boundary reviews. That would be far better than the crude and undemocratic system that is being proposed.

Let me make this last point to the right hon. Gentleman. In the United States—this idea came from there—they have simple, rigid arithmetical rules. As the Electoral Reform Society—no great friend of mine and hard-wired into the Liberal Democrat party––has pointed out, the United States also has the worst gerrymandering in the world.

That brings me to the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) raised: the proposal for a 55% threshold to secure the dissolution of Parliament. That 55% threshold appeared in no party manifesto. It is a partisan measure stitched up by the coalition partners to protect themselves from each other—nobody else—while retaining their ability to go for an early election if they believe it would be advantageous.

Where does the figure of 55% come from? That is an interesting question. [Interruption.] Well, I am going to give the answer. It comes from the fact that the Liberals and the Conservatives together have—guess what—57% of the seats in the current Parliament. They would, thus, have the power to dissolve this Parliament if the polls and the signs looked encouraging. The Conservatives, on their own, hold 47% of the seats and the rest of the parties hold 53%, so in the event of a Conservative minority Government it would be impossible to reach the 55% threshold required to force an election. If that is not a political fix, I do not know what is.

The Labour party agrees with fixed-term Parliaments, in principle, and our manifesto included a commitment to legislate. However, given that most Parliaments since the war have lasted four years or less, we favour a four-year term.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

Before entering this House, I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me why a 66% threshold was chosen in the Scotland Act 1998 when it went through this House? For what reason was that appropriate then, but not now?

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) allow me to deal with that point?

[Mr Straw]

indicated assent.

[Angus Robertson]

On that point, can we—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot have an intervention upon an intervention; a few words from Mr Straw before we hear from the hon. Gentleman would be helpful.

[Mr Straw]

I can give the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) an answer, and it is not a bad one. He ought to read carefully both limbs of section 3 of the 1998 Act. If he had bothered to read it and if those negotiating this coalition agreement had done so—I have the Act before me for the sake of greater accuracy—they would know what it states. Under section 3(1)(a), the presiding officer has to require an “extraordinary general election”—an early general election—for the Scottish Parliament if two thirds of the Parliament vote for that. However, the provision contains an “or”, not an “and”, because section 3(1)(b) states that if there is

“any period during which the Parliament is required under section 46 to nominate one of its members for appointment as First Minister ends without such a nomination being made”,

after 28 days there has to be a general election. That election is triggered by a simple majority, not by a two thirds one. Therefore, we should hear no more rubbish about there being a two thirds lock in the Scottish Parliament, because it is not true.

[Angus Robertson]

Please can we never again hear this comparison with the situation in the Scottish Parliament on this point, because it is totally spurious? The 66% threshold is required for the immediate dissolution of the Scottish Parliament, but 50% remains the threshold for a confidence vote, as it should remain in this House.

[Mr Straw]

I should also tell hon. Members that if they were to read section 3 of the 1998 Act, they would find that if, for example, the First Minister is voted out by a simple majority and after 28 days no new First Minister has been voted in, an election has to take place. That is done by a simple majority, so the only effect of this provision is to delay matters by requirements relating to a simple majority and 28 days. There is no parallel, whatsoever, in these arrangements, and the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North knows it.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

Of course I will give way to a Liberal Democrat—why not?

[Sir Alan Beith]

Is the right hon. Gentleman’s real view that the Prime Minister’s unfettered power to call a general election at a time of his choosing should be retained and that we should not have fixed-term Parliaments, or is he proposing an alternative mechanism, be it the Scottish Parliament’s combination of a 66% threshold and a one-month rule or some other mechanism?

[Mr Straw]

I do not understand. Either this has been done for partisan reasons—[Hon. Members: “Answer the question!”] Of course, I am going to answer the question—I always do—but I am allowed to answer the question in my own way. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and I have been debating this for long enough. I say to him that either this has been done for the most crude of partisan reasons, or the Government have simply misunderstood how they can establish fixed-term Parliaments and take away the right of the Prime Minister to recommend Dissolution before then. It is very straightforward. We can legislate for fixed-term Parliaments—our view is that we ought to go for four-year, not five-year, Parliaments—and we can also legislate to take away the power of the Prime Minister to recommend Dissolution before then, but what we should not do is legislate to take away the power of the House of Commons to remove a Government. I am afraid that they are doing that on some curious and spurious arithmetic.

In the same speech in which he talked about the 1832 reform Act, about which I have had to correct him, the Deputy Prime Minister also said:

“We are not taking away Parliament's right to throw out Government; we’re taking away Government's right to throw out Parliament.”

That is utter nonsense. It is casuistry in the extreme. We are talking about the Government’s right to throw out Parliament and we are talking about Parliament’s right to throw out the Government.

I remind the House of an excellent article in The Daily Telegraph, inserted by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), in which he says that the 55%-majority plan will “taint” the “New Politics” and that to

“introduce such a measure in this way is simply wrong.”

He goes on to say:

“The requirement for a 55 per cent majority to dissolve parliament, and thereby dismiss a government, dramatically reduces the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account. It is a major constitutional change, possibly one of the greatest since 1911.”

He also draws attention to what would have happened in 1979, which some of us will recall, when the Government of the day lost their majority by one vote. The then Leader of the Labour party and the Government said that there would have to be an election—it followed like night follows day. People talk about having a period of looking at a coalition in such a situation, but what do they think was being done in the days leading up to that vote but searching for a coalition? It was precisely because one was not available that the Government ran out of numbers and the vote was lost. In that situation, when there had been a vote of no confidence in the Government, the Labour Government could have carried on—they might no doubt have wished to—until the following October, because the 55% threshold would not have been achieved. If that had happened, they would have been in the ludicrous and wholly undemocratic position—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

You’re wrong.

[Mr Straw]

We are not wrong. It is interesting that whenever Ministers have sought to explain this, they have tied themselves in knots. In the very first Adjournment debate of this Parliament, on the day of the Queen’s Speech, the poor benighted Deputy Leader of the House got tied in knots not only by Labour Members but by most of the Conservative Members. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to spell out how this is going to work and, above all, to withdraw this ludicrous and undemocratic proposal. I say to him, in the full hearing of a packed Front Bench, that the Deputy Leader of the House also put it on record that the Bill would not be guillotined, so that we could forget about programme motions, and that it would be dealt with on the Floor of the House, but it might never come out of the House, such is the controversy behind it.

Constitutional reform is fundamental for any democracy that wants to renew itself and make itself responsive to the needs of an ever-evolving electorate. The Opposition are in favour of reform that will strengthen Parliament and the democratic process, and we will work constructively to achieve measures with that objective in mind. As it stands, this package of proposals contains far too many partisan political fixes, and is not so much new politics as an old-fashioned stitch-up between the two oldest parties in the House. We oppose those changes and I commend my amendment to the House.

16:25

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for opening today’s debate, which he did at considerable length—so much so that I am increasingly attracted to the idea of time limits on speeches.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke with great knowledge and at times some generosity about our proposed programme. That is no wonder given what we are proposing: a referendum on the alternative vote—a Labour manifesto pledge; the power of recall—a Labour manifesto pledge; moves to reform party funding, fixed-term Parliaments and an elected Second Chamber—all Labour manifesto pledges. In fact, never before will a Government have delivered quite so many of Labour’s election promises. Who would have thought it would be a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition that finally got around to doing that?

I recognise of course that the right hon. Gentleman has great authority on those matters. His Government, in their early days, had a clear reformist streak—devolution, freedom of information and progress on Lords reform. Unfortunately, that momentum was lost, but after the right hon. Gentleman’s speech today perhaps that zeal for political reform, which Labour lost in government, will now be rediscovered in opposition.

I have heard the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns, particularly his lengthy concerns about the boundary review, which seem a little coloured by the almost unsettling suspicion that there is a political plot at every turn. I shall seek to address some of his concerns, although I shall leave debate about the merits or otherwise of the 1832 Act to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and other historians. I shall focus primarily on the constitutional reforms being pursued by the Government, for which I have direct responsibility, although I shall say a few words about some of the issues raised by the Opposition that will be taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. She will pick up those issues later.

On the constitutional side, yes, of course we will need to work out the precise detail of the reforms we are proposing, but I sincerely hope that their underlying principles will bring both sides of the House together. Despite any differences, we all share a single ambition: to restore people’s faith in their politics and their politicians. The Government’s plans will do just that, because our programme turns a page on Governments who hoard power, on Parliaments that look inwards rather than outwards, and on widespread disengagement among people who feel locked out of decisions that affect their everyday lives. This is a moment when together we have a real opportunity to change our politics for good.

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

Stepping off his moral high horse for just a moment, could the right hon. Gentleman take the time to define the word “gerrymander”?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not think anyone in the House, and particularly outside it, would question the value of trying to reduce the cost of Parliament, by making a modest cut in the total numbers. I do not judge the quality of our democracy—nor should the hon. Gentleman—by the simple number of politicians in the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could clarify the issue I put to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) earlier. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us with a straight face exactly how he alighted on the figure of 55% rather than 54%, 56% or even 66% in his proposals? What was the logic of 55%—straight-faced?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I shall come to that in greater detail in a minute. Quite simply, the logic is to stop any single party doing what happens at the moment, which is timing the occasion of a general election for pure party self-interest. That is what needs to be removed if we are to have proper fixed-term Parliaments. The hon. Gentleman, if he agrees with his Front-Bench colleagues, supports fixed-term Parliaments, yet he has absolutely no proposals on how to implement them in practice.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I should like to make progress and then I will give way again.

First, we need to relinquish Executive control. The Government are determined that no Government should be able to play politics with the dates of a general election. [Interruption.] I am addressing the point that was made. Parliamentary terms should be fixed for five years.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Let me make some progress, and then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. Let him hear me out first.

We need a new right for Parliament to request a Dissolution, taking away the Prime Minister’s exclusive and traditional right to call an election when he or she wishes. The majority required for early Dissolution—set at 55% in the coalition agreement—has clearly sparked a lot of anguish among the Opposition. It should; it is an important decision that will, of course, be properly considered by the whole House, as the legislation progresses. But the Opposition in their amendment today are wilfully misrepresenting how that safeguard will function. Their amendment deliberately confuses that new right with traditional powers of no confidence, which will remain in place intact.

Let me assure the House that we are already conducting detailed work on the steps that are necessary to remove any theoretical possibility of a limbo in which a Government who could not command the confidence of the House would refuse to dissolve Parliament and give people their say. That would clearly be intolerable. Any new arrangements will need to build on existing conventions, so that a distinction is maintained between no confidence and early Dissolution.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman referred earlier to hoarding power. Will he explain the length of time that he is talking about—the five-year term—bearing in mind the fact that, since 1832, the average peacetime Parliament has lasted for considerably less than four years, at three years and eight months. Australia and New Zealand have three-year Parliaments. The countries with five-year Parliaments are Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and France. Which is he measuring against?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman normally talks with some knowledge, but he appears to have forgotten that the Parliament Act 1911 instituted five-year parliamentary terms and that the Labour party has just had a five-year parliamentary term. It is difficult for him to see the coalition Government introduce all the changes that he used to talk about and failed to deliver. You had 13 years finally to do something and introduce political reform. We are finally going to go on and do it.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister, but could you remind him not to ape the Prime Minister in every respect by referring to the Opposition as “you” in the House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Hugh Bayley)]

I think that the Deputy Prime Minister knows the form of address for the House.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes; I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for, once again, really picking out the important things in the debate today.

We are also committed to strengthening Parliament by introducing the Wright Committee’s proposals, starting with the proposed committee for the management of Back-Bench business before the subsequent introduction of a House business committee to consider Government business.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I should like to make a bit of progress if I may.

We also plan to strengthen the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, too, by implementing recommendations from the Calman commission’s final report. Equally, Wales will get a referendum on further devolution—a decision that will be taken by the Welsh people.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that there will be a referendum in Wales on the All Wales Convention’s proposals. Does he support a yes vote in that referendum, and do the Government support a yes vote in that referendum?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes, the Government do support a yes vote in that referendum. As for the referendum’s timing, as the hon. Gentleman may know, the Secretary of State for Wales and the First Minister are meeting today, with a view to identifying a date—most likely, in the first few months of next year—to hold that referendum.

Here in London, as we strengthen Parliament, we must of course ensure that we have cleaned it up, too. Radical steps have already been taken to put in place a new expenses regime. Although the way that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is working in its early days may be controversial to some hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am sure that everyone agrees that public confidence in how MPs are paid is absolutely crucial. Our personal arrangements should never be so grossly out of step with those of our constituents, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is already talking to IPSA about how we can move away from the generous final salary pension scheme enjoyed by Members of the House.

Expenses were only ever the tip of the iceberg. The influence of big money runs much deeper. It is time to finish what was started three years ago in the cross-party talks on party funding. Every party has had its own problems, but we all now have an opportunity to draw a line under them, so we will seize that opportunity. We will pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding to remove big money from politics for good.

Equally, we all remember the outrage felt in all parts of the House at the lobbying scandals that unfolded just a few months ago, before the general election. Much lobbying activity is perfectly legitimate. Much of it serves an important function, allowing different organisations and charities to make representations to Parliament, but it is a process—I am sure everyone agrees on this—that must be made completely transparent. We are committed to ensuring that transparency and we will introduce a statutory register of lobbyists.

Finally, if, once all those reforms are in place, there are individual parliamentarians who still break the rules, we will also guarantee that the House of Commons is not a safe house. We will introduce legislation to ensure that, where it has been proven that a Member has been engaged in serious wrongdoing, their constituents will have the right to organise a petition to force a by-election.

When people have been let down by their MP in that way, they must not be made to wait until the next election to cast their judgment, but I also want to be clear: recall will not collapse into some tit-for-tat game between party political rivals, with parties seeking to oust each other through those petitions. When MPs are accused of doing something seriously wrong, they are entitled—everyone is entitled in the House—to expect a fair and due process to determine their innocence or guilt. That is why I certainly would not be content for a body composed only of MPs, as the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges was, to be the sole route by which we decide an MP’s culpability. That is why we are looking into exactly what would be the fairest, most appropriate and most robust trigger. I shall outline those plans very soon.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

May I take the Deputy Prime Minister back from recall of MPs to the issue of recall of Governments? I am still not entirely sure that he answered the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). I understand the point that the Deputy Prime Minister is making about there needing to be a 50 per cent. majority vote of no confidence. The issue under debate is how that would trigger a general election. Will he explain why the Government appear to have hit on a figure that bears a dramatic resemblance to their own figures and their own strength, rather than the general party balance in Parliament? Why that figure?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have already explained, and the hon. Gentleman must accept, that, clearly, there needs to be a different figure for the motion of no confidence, which stands, and the figure for dissolution—a new right for Parliament.

I have also explained that, when we table the legislation, we will of course ensure that no Government can fall between those two things—a motion of no confidence and a vote of dissolution. We will, as is the case in many other parliamentary systems, set out how we can avoid a limbo in which a Government do not enjoy the confidence of the House yet a vote has not taken place, or cannot take place, to dissolve Government. That is what we will do. Instead of constantly seeking to see plots around every single corner, driven by a touch of party paranoia, I ask the hon. Gentleman to relax and wait until he has seen the legislation. Then we can have the debate.

[Mr Straw]

Frankly, if these proposals are formed already, the Deputy Prime Minister needs, if I may say so, better to spell out how they would operate. Will he please, for the benefit of the House, explain what would happen following a vote of no confidence? Let us take as an example what happened in ’79—the vote of no confidence. Everybody knew that that would trigger a general election. If there had been a 55% threshold, there could not have been a general election; there would have been limbo. What is his proposal for filling that gap?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Government are three weeks old. The right hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out that these are very important matters. We want to get them right. I have indicated today, quite clearly, that this is not just a matter of the vote of no confidence and a threshold for a vote for dissolution, and that we need to fill in the details of the legislation to prevent what I think he is rightly concerned about, which is a Government not enjoying the confidence of the House, yet a vote of dissolution—

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I should like to make progress. I have said as much as I can and wish to say at this stage on that issue.

The power of recall is just one of a range of reforms intended to shift power directly to the British people.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister knows that I approve of and support the power of recall, but I have talked to him about the scope for individual injustice in a scheme that is triggered by something that is not judicial. In his remarks about the power of recall, is he telling us that the triggering procedure, which would currently be the Privileges Committee, would become more quasi-judicial than it is now?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I can confirm that I believe it would be wrong for a Committee that, as constituted previously, is composed only of other politicians, to act as judge and jury for something as important as the trigger that would lead to a by-election and a Member losing their seat. Exactly how we could provide a fairer form of due process so that MPs are not unfairly ensnared in the mechanism of recall is the subject of reflection now. If the right hon. Gentleman or any other Member has any ideas about how we should do this, I should be grateful to hear from them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I shall give way one more time, then I shall make progress.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is being very generous. I do not expect that he will be able to represent the whole of the Conservative party in terms of policy, but if the Conservative party is committed to fixed-term Parliaments, can he explain why, during the general election, the Prime Minister committed his party to holding a general election within six months if the Prime Minister was removed? That is hardly compatible with a commitment to a fixed term.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The coalition agreement, which binds the Government as a whole, is very clear that we want to see fixed-term Parliaments. We will table legislation for a fixed-term Parliament. We will table a motion before the legislation is introduced to make sure that the political commitment to a fixed-term Parliament is made completely clear. There is consensus across the whole House on the virtues of fixed-term Parliaments. This is another issue on which the hon. Gentleman and so many others on the Opposition Benches, having failed to introduce this change for the past 13 years, are coming up with a series of synthetic reasons why they should oppose something that they themselves used to propose.

We also want—[Interruption.] I shall make progress. We want people to be able to initiate debates here in the Commons through public petitions, we want a new public reading stage for Bills, we want people to be able to instigate local referendums on issues that matter to their neighbourhoods, and we want people to decide directly if they want to change the system by which they elect their MPs, which is why there will be a referendum on the alternative vote. I will announce the date of that referendum in due course.

Electoral reform should, the Government believe, also include—

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for giving way. He will have heard the answer that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) gave when I asked him whether it had been the case that the outgoing Labour Prime Minister had offered, during the coalition negotiations, to ram through the alternative vote without a referendum. I am not giving away any trade secrets when I say that Conservative MPs were told that that was the case. The Deputy Prime Minister is in a position to know. Were the Liberal Democrats offered by the Labour party the alternative vote without a referendum? Can he set the matter to rest?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The answer is no. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) was right. That was not offered by the Labour party in those discussions. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is right—I should know whether it was offered or not.

[Emily Thornberry]

Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to address the issue of low voter registration? He may well know that on 23 February 2006 in Islington town hall there was an attempt to increase voter registration by the Labour group, which was voted down by the Liberals. After the proposal was voted down, the leader of the Liberal council shouted across the chamber, “That’s how we win elections.”

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We believe, as did the previous Government, that we need to introduce individual voter registration. I agree with the right hon. Member for Blackburn that that should be pursued, particularly if it is accelerated, with great care. It is a resource-intensive thing to do. We need to get it right.

The current legislation, which the right hon. Gentleman and others introduced, allows for voluntary individual voter registration to start now, with a view to moving towards a compulsory system by 2015, if I am correct. There is now an issue about whether we want to accelerate that process, but we can all agree that if we do so it must be properly resourced and organised.

I should now like to address the issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised at quite some length: the redrawing of Britain’s unfair electoral boundaries. I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that that must be done with care, but he must agree with me that the need for care is not a reason not to act at all. The most recent boundary review in England began in 2000 and took six years to report. By the time the new constituencies were used in the general election last month, the population of one in five constituencies in England was more than 10% above or below that review’s target figure of 69,900. In the most extreme case, we have one constituency that is five times the size of another. That is simply not right. It is the ultimate postcode lottery, whereby the weight of one’s vote depends on where one lives, so I ask the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to engage fully with the process as, over the coming months, Parliament has its say on an overall but modest reduction in the number of House of Commons seats.

[Mr Straw]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to the contrast between the Western Isles, with 22,000 people, and the Isle of Wight, with more than 100,000. I do not argue that the Isle of Wight be represented by only one Member, but does he suggest that the separate considerations that have been made for island communities, including separate seats for the Western Isles, for Orkney and for Shetland, be abandoned in favour of a strict electoral quota, as the Conservatives proposed before the election?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am not saying that there will be a rigid, arithmetical formula which—[Interruption.] No, there will be—[Interruption.] Let me finish. There will be a consistent approach towards the equalisation of constituencies throughout the nation, but of course that approach will need to accommodate some of the specific characteristics and features of the nations and regions of this country. We are now working on how we do that, and of course we will come forward with proposals.

However, I again ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he seriously thinks it acceptable that one fifth of constituencies in England are now 10% above or below the target population figure that was set when those boundaries were last reviewed? Surely he must accept that that issue requires another look, and that it is not wrong to aspire to such a House of Commons, which, in terms of the total number of MPs, is already far, far larger than was originally envisaged.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I give way first to the right hon. Member for Blackburn.

[Mr Straw]

First, on the size of the House, the right hon. Gentleman will know that the number of MPs has gone down a little since 2005, and that, although the size of the House has increased by 3% in the past 50 years, the electorate for which we are responsible has increased by 25% and our work load has shot up dramatically. I regard as completely spurious his argument that there would be some net saving by reducing the total number of MPs, unless our constituents are to receive a far less good service than they receive at the moment.

Secondly, of course we will examine proposals for ensuring that the system can be speeded up, but does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, if future reviews are to be sensible and fair—[Interruption.] If future reviews are to be sensible and fair, they must take account of not only registered electors, but the 3.5 million people who, the Electoral Commission says, are eligible to vote but not on the register.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is a problem, and that is exactly why the acceleration of the individual voter registration system must be done in a way that successfully addresses that problem, rather than exacerbates it.

The right hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues basically have a choice about the issue of a referendum on the alternative vote and the linked issue of a boundary review. Either he tries to see the issue—slightly neurotically—through the prism of pure party interest, whereby all he wants to do is to adopt a defensive position to protect his own party’s arithmetical standing in this House, or he and his colleagues should in my view be prepared to engage with the serious issue at hand, which is that constituencies are unequal, the weight of people’s votes is unequal and that that is simply not an acceptable position at a time when we have this great opportunity to renew our democracy from top to toe. That is a choice that he should make.

On everything from this matter to the 55% threshold, I would say two things. First, it is a political choice for Labour Members as to whether they want to leap straight from government, having failed to move on all these things, to outright oppositionism driven by the slightly paranoid sense that everything is targeted at them and no one else, or engage seriously in what I believe is a promising moment in our political history to reform things, and reform things for good.

[Alun Michael]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will take one more intervention, and then make some progress.

[Alun Michael]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the basic democratic right is the right to vote and that nobody can exercise that right without being registered to vote? Therefore, dealing with the 3.5 million or so individuals who are not registered to vote is not just something that comes after the sort of changes that he is seeking—it needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Urgency? The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues had 13 years to do this. How often are they going constantly to ask us to do things urgently when we have had only three weeks and they had 13 years? Of course we need to find the 3.5 million people who are not on the register, alongside the progress towards individual voter registration, but I say this to him: please do not sit there all high and mighty and pretend that we are somehow responsible for a problem that he and his colleagues in government created over the past decade.

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will take one more intervention, and then I am genuinely going to try to make some progress.

[John Thurso]

I am delighted to hear that my right hon. Friend is not bound by any strict and rigid arithmetical formula, and I applaud his commitment to more equality. Within that, does he accept that the quality of service that one can give with a constituency of 3,400 square miles is dependent on the time available, which is greater in metropolitan constituencies where travel is not such an issue? Will he ensure that that aspect of rurality is taken into account in any plans that the Government have?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Clearly the job of being an MP in sparsely populated and very large rural constituencies is a great challenge, which my hon. Friend knows more about than most. That is exactly the kind of thing that we will need to take into consideration as we progress with this measure.

I should like to turn to reform of the other place, which we all agree must now happen. It should be up to the British people to elect their second Chamber—a second Chamber that must be much more representative of them, their communities and their neighbourhoods. To that end, I should like to announce the following measures. First, I have set up a committee, which I will chair, to take forward this reform, composed of Members from all three major political parties, as well as from both Houses. Secondly, the committee will be explicitly charged with producing a draft Bill by no later than the end of this year—the first time that legislation for an elected second Chamber will ever have been published. Thirdly, the draft Bill will then be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses during which there will of course be ample opportunity for all voices to be heard.

Make no mistake: we are not starting this process from scratch. There is already significant shared ground between the parties that will be taken as our starting point. I am not going to hide my impatience for reforms that are more than 100 years overdue. Subject to the legitimate scrutiny that the Bill will deserve, this Government are determined to push through the necessary reforms to the other place. People have been talking about Lords reform for more than a century. The time for talk is over. People must be allowed to elect those who make the laws of the land. Change must begin now.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Let me just confirm that the committee will hold its first meeting as early as next week, and that its members will be the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform; the Leader of the House of Lords; the Deputy Leader of the Lords; the shadow Leader of the Lords, the Leader of the House of Commons; the Deputy Leader of the Commons; the shadow Leader of the Commons; and, of course, the shadow Justice Secretary, to whom I give way.

[Mr Straw]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said, and we will work constructively with him and his colleagues.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

No, I should like to make progress now.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Blackburn for his support, and there is something else that he can help me with. He may have heard that as part of our plans to rebalance the relationship between citizen and state, we are inviting people to tell us which unnecessary laws they believe should be repealed. The right hon. Gentleman is well placed to advise us on where to start, given that he held so many high offices of state in various Departments over many years at a time when the statute book groaned with the addition of countless new laws, regulations and offences. The process of identifying unnecessary laws is part of a broader programme to end the unjustified intrusion of the state into ordinary people’s lives. Legislation has already been introduced to scrap ID cards and cancel the national identity register.

[Dr McCrea]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will not, because many other Members wish to speak in the debate and I have been very generous in giving way. I now want to allow others to have their say.

Action will follow on proper regulation of CCTV, on preventing schools from taking children’s fingerprints without their parents’ consent and on restoring rights to non-violent protest.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Deputy Prime Minister has just announced a major new committee to look into the second Chamber of this Parliament, without any consultation with most of the parties in the House. He has announced that it will involve the three main London parties without any participation by or consultation with the smaller parties in the House. Is it in order for him to so brightly exclude the minority parties in the House in such a despicable way?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that his views have been heard by the House, but that is a matter for debate, not a matter of order for the Chair.

[Chris Bryant]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It has been customary in the House for the appointment of Committees to be subject to votes in the House, so it is not for the Deputy Prime Minister to announce the creation of a Committee of this House or of another place.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It is for the Government to decide what the membership of a Government committee should be, so that is a matter for debate.

[Dr McCrea]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have listened carefully to your ruling that that is a point for debate, but the problem is that the Deputy Prime Minister will seemingly not be willing to debate it with those Members who are not from the three major parties.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I noted that the hon. Gentleman was seeking to intervene. Perhaps he will be able to catch Mr Speaker’s eye at some later point during today’s debate.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

May I first remind Opposition Members that what was customary over the past 13 years was that an announcement such as this would have been made in the press before it was made in the House? At least I have come to the House. Secondly, it is totally legitimate for us to create a committee composed of the three UK-wide parties, all of which were united in having manifesto commitments at the general election to reforming the other place. As I have announced today, the draft Bill that we will publish before the end of the year—the first one on the subject in the past century or so—will be followed by proper pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses.

[Dr McCrea]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

No, I wish to conclude my remarks so that others can have their say.

[Dr McCrea]

rose—

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I feel that I have answered the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), so I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt).

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful. Before my right hon. Friend concludes, may I raise a matter that has been of concern to Members in all parts of the House, which is that of extending anonymity to defendants in rape cases? Will he make a few remarks on how he sees the Government being able to incorporate the views of all Members in taking the matter forward?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Deputy Leader of the House tells me that there is an Adjournment debate about the matter tonight. It is a difficult and sensitive issue, which my hon. Friend is right to raise. It has been raised many times and I read some articles in the press about it again this morning. Everybody is united in wanting the conviction rates for rape to increase. Everybody wants more support to be provided to victims of rape so that they come forward in the first place, while also wanting to minimise the stigma attached to those who might be falsely accused. However, I want to make it clear that, although the Government have proposed the idea, we want to listen to everybody who has a stake or expertise in or insight into the matter. If our idea does not withstand sincere scrutiny, we will of course be prepared to change it.

Today is only the start of many hours of lively debate on the issues that I have mentioned, and I welcome that. We have a hugely ambitious programme to transform our constitutional and political landscape so that we achieve a better balance between Parliament and the Executive, clean, transparent politics and power handed back to people. Given the scope of that package, we will inevitably disagree about some of the detail. However, let us not lose sight of the things about which we agree. Let us not forget the scale of the damage that this Parliament needs to repair, and not take for granted the chance that our constituents have given us finally to get it right.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. An exceptionally large number of Members is trying to catch the Speaker’s eye in the debate. I remind hon. Members that Mr Speaker has imposed a seven-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

17:01

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the limited time, I will concentrate on crime reduction, the work of the police and community cohesion.

The slaughter in Cumbria last week showed how difficult it is to anticipate and prevent every event, but so far politicians of every hue have wisely resisted the temptation to produce instant solutions or demand legislation. The only instant comment that I have seen was a suggestion about merging police forces. I hope that Ministers in the new Government will treat that favourite Whitehall recipe with deep suspicion. The previous Conservative police Minister, whom I shadowed in the mid-1990s, was David Maclean and he resisted an over-centralised approach. I commend his approach to the new Ministers present. The larger the force, the more remote its leaders from the community that they police. Although there is tension between dealing with terrorism and major incidents and policing local communities, good management and co-operation are the answer rather than structural change.

We had a good example of that in Cardiff on Saturday. The bigots of the English Defence League came to our city to spread hatred and division. The police had to handle them and those of us who marched to oppose them. They had to do that on a day when the South Africans were playing Wales at rugby, the West Indians were in town for a cricket match and the Stereophonics were performing in concert. Hundreds of police were ready for problems and I commend all the forces who sent officers to help South Wales police maintain order. I also commend the good sense and good humour with which South Wales police managed the day. In the end, a couple of dozen English Defence League members came and went, while 1,000 people of all colours and religions marched under the banner of Unite Against Fascism in a quiet, peaceful demonstration that had real authority and truly reflected Cardiff’s nature as a multiracial city that is determined to maintain harmony. We want to celebrate difference and value each other’s strengths instead of looking for division. The police lead showed that they get that point.

My second home truth from Cardiff is the success of our violence reduction project. It is not led by police or politicians, but by a medic, Professor Jonathan Shepherd, an A and E specialist, who brought his skills as a scientist to an analysis of violence. Basically, he asked why the number and seriousness of injuries in car accidents were decreasing while injuries from violence were increasing. Over more than a decade, painstaking analysis has revealed a lot about violence in our city—things about which we thought we knew, but did not. Joint work by the NHS, the police and other agencies through the local crime reduction partnership has worked—measured not by police statistics or arrests, but by a drop of more than 40% in the number of victims coming to A and E for treatment. That is a real drop.

We need such a scientific approach to crime and policing, and I commend to Ministers the report on justice reinvestment that was published by the Select Committee on Justice a few months ago. Good work is being done by the police, Crown prosecutors and prison officers, but our report showed the need for better co-ordination and greater co-operation across agencies, both inside and outside the criminal justice system.

Too great a focus on agency priorities and targets blurs the clarity of purpose to which all parts of the criminal justice system ought to contribute. In particular, the Sentencing Guidelines Council needs clearly to focus on the extent and gravity of reoffending. I hope that Ministers in the new Government will require great clarity of purpose from that body, which is dominated by judges. I am not sure that that is a good thing, because as Victim Support told the Committee very clearly in its evidence, other than not to have been victims in the first place, victims want confidence that they will not become victims again in future. That must be our purpose in this House.

I am proud to have played a part in drawing up the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. That measure made life hard for the bad guys and avoided burdening the good guys with bureaucracy, and it has worked, so I commend to Ministers the idea of extending its remit beyond agriculture and food packaging to industries such as construction and catering. The temptation for Ministers—and indeed for Members of Parliament—is to legislate when we see a problem, but that is not always the right answer. The challenge is to design legislation that works. As Gibbon warns in “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, laws rarely prevent what they forbid.

I urge Ministers to heed that warning in relation to the growing issue of internet-related crime. There is a consensus that teamwork is the answer, with the Government working with industry, MPs of all parties and civil society to design out internet-related crime. The United Kingdom has led the world on internet governance. If that term puts people off, may I point out that the governance of banks seemed boring and esoteric before everything went pear-shaped? Governance matters. A partnership approach is vital, because the internet is so fast-changing, chameleon-like and universal that traditional legislative approaches will not work. There is not the time.

Let us promote a co-operative approach to internet safety as well as to the more mundane aspects of criminal activity in our local communities. What counts is what works—what counts is what reduces crime and the number of people who are made victims. The partnership approach works, and I commend it to Ministers and the House as the right approach.

17:08

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

With only seven minutes, I must be brief on the issues I want to raise.

The Deputy Prime Minister will not be surprised that I am a strong supporter of much of his great repeal Bill which, after all, is the natural conclusion of the great battle over freedom that has taken place in the past five years. I hope that that Bill represents a step change not only in the law, but in attitudes in the Government, so that they will not think that in order to catch the guilty, we must punish the innocent, or that to prevent terrorism and crime, we must treat the whole country as suspects. If that step change happens, it will augur well for the future.

It is a paradox that the new politics is ushering in a return to some ancient rights. The reform of the libel laws re-establishes freedom of speech; the reform of freedom of information re-establishes open government; and reform of the DNA database re-establishes the presumption of innocence. In addition, the prevention of unnecessary intercepts, along with measures against the retention of data and the proposals on CCTV, re-establishes privacy. All those are worth while, and by themselves would justify the existence of the coalition if nothing else did.

Of the three pillars of our national traditions—liberty, justice and democracy—those proposals support the first two, so I offer two cheers for the great repeal Bill, not three. The reason for two rather than three cheers is that some things are missing from it. There is nothing on those great blots on our judicial landscape, by which I mean, first, the use of secret trials in which suspects—usually, but not always, terrorist suspects—are tried without knowing the allegations or the evidence against them, which is completely inimical to British law. That was introduced by the previous Government and I hope that this Government will remove it.

There is nothing yet on control orders—another measure inimical to British traditions, using house arrest and effective internal exile for suspects rather than for the convicted. There is still nothing yet—I hope we will see it and I hope that the Home Secretary will respond to the point when she concludes the debate—on reduction of the 28-day period for which prisoners can be held without charge. We fought over 42 and 90 days, but 28 is still too many, and I hope that the Government will take that on board. I trust that these are deferrals, not oversights, by the Government.

Another issue for the Government to think about in connection with the great repeal Bill is the need to revisit the Digital Economy Act 2010. It was passed in the final stages of the previous Parliament, and it was an error for us to allow it through, as we did in the wash-up.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Davis]

I think I have only a minute left, so I ask the hon. Gentleman please to be quick.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Like the right hon. Gentleman, I voted against the Digital Economy Bill on Third Reading, before Dissolution. Given that the Liberal Democrats also voted against that Bill being given a Third Reading and given that the Secretary of State now responsible for that measure is indeed a Liberal Democrat—the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable)—would it not be particularly appropriate for the Liberal Democrats now to act on this issue in the way that both the right hon. Gentleman and I would like?

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman restates my wish for the Government to take that issue on board. I hope that they do, and that they do so in the great repeal Bill as part of a process that the Deputy Prime Minister quite rightly laid out—a process in which the Government were listening for proposals on things to be repealed.

The trouble with the Queen’s Speech from my point of view rather coincides, I am afraid, with some of the comments made by the shadow Lord Chancellor, particularly when he quoted from an article that I wrote for the newspapers about the 55% proposal. Indeed, I have problems with three elements of the proposed Bill. One element is the alternative vote, which is no surprise; one is the issue of recall, which I believe the Deputy Prime Minister has gone some way to meeting. However, the 55% requirement is undoubtedly a significant constitutional change. We cannot sidestep that fact. It was not in a manifesto, so the proposal is, by definition, likely to be ill thought through and to require greater consideration by the House.

The issue has been represented as one that is a necessity for fixed-term Parliaments. I am in favour of fixed-term Parliaments and I have absolutely no problem with the Prime Minister giving up his right to call an election at any point in time. He can do that and I am happy that he has done so; it is entirely proper. By contrast, altering the circumstances under which Parliament can dismiss a failing Government is a massive constitutional change, which goes to the heart of Parliament’s ability to hold Government to account. One of the leitmotifs of this Government, I hope, will be giving Parliament more powers, not fewer. Such a major change would normally involve prior consultation, a prior manifesto commitment, a White Paper and ideally both the acquiescence of the Opposition and a referendum. That is the sort of pattern that should precede a major change in the constitution.

Let us think about what the proposal entails and whether we can give it the sort of scrutiny and reform that it needs. For a start, it has not been very clearly explained and it may have changed to some extent in the course of negotiations, but it is basically in two component parts. One part—and I do not think that the shadow Lord Chancellor understood this—is that a vote of confidence will still exist at 50% plus one. What usually happens now under such circumstances is that the royal prerogative is exercised to judge whether to have a Dissolution thereafter or to allow a reforming of some other Government. That is the current situation. What is being proposed, I think, is replacing that system with a Scottish-type situation under which if, 28 days after a vote of confidence, no Government can be formed, Dissolution will then automatically occur. That is my understanding of the proposal as it now stands, and it is based on what happens in the Scottish Parliament. However, I have to say—and the Scottish nats will have to forgive me—that the Scottish Parliament does not represent an independent state. For the Scottish First Minister not to exist, or to be a lame duck or retired and not replaced for 28 days, would be a problem for Scotland, but it would not be a disaster internationally.

The nature of confidence votes is that they happen only four times a century. That is the first point. Secondly, confidence votes almost always happen under circumstances of crisis—wars, depressions, breakdowns in society. Under such circumstances, for us not to have an effective Prime Minister for 28 days seems untenable. Let me say to the Deputy Prime Minister that I hope those on the Front Bench will take that point on board, because as it stands, what is proposed is not a zombie Government, but at least a zombified country for 28 days, and possibly at a difficult time.

What is the other part—the 55%—for? It is for dissolving the House without the embarrassment of a vote of confidence and for the Executive, effectively, to use their power—their whipping capability—to dissolve the House. That does not seem to be a proper thing for us to do as a Government. It is not the sort of approach that I would expect from the new politics, frankly. That is why I have some sympathy for the suspicious view that says, “Why 55% and not 66%?”, when the Government have 56 or 57% of the vote. That approach diminishes the proposals and it diminishes the Bills that the Government are bringing before the House. In truth, I would like to see my Government—because that is how I see them: as very much representing my views—putting that aside and recognising that it is something that the House will not take.

17:16

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am a little worried that the new politics might be encapsulated by the fact that I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and particularly on the 55% rule. Perhaps that is a sign of how we will go forward.

I am a little worried by the debate today, because there has been no mention of what is supposed to be one of the coalition Government’s fundamental propositions: the ideas that have been set out about the big society. The issues that have been discussed today—high-level constitutional reform, reform of the second Chamber, boundary changes, the right to look at alternative voting systems—will merit discussion, and I have no doubt that, in endless sittings in this Parliament, as has happened previously, we will go over that ground. I hope that we will resolve some of those issues in the next period. However, unless those high-level constitutional changes are underpinned by empowered citizens who really feel connected with their political system, we will end up talking to ourselves, and we have done that for far too long in previous Parliaments.

I sought guidance from Mr Speaker about when I could raise issues to do with the big society. In five days of debate on the Queen’s Speech, there has been no appropriate point at which those issues could be properly debated. That worries me enormously, because those issues are not easy to solve, but they should be permeating every Department, and they should become cross-departmental. I want to say a few words about how important it is to reconnect ordinary people with the political process at local and central Government level.

The issues that will be important for us fall into three categories. In the time that I have this evening, I want to set out three big tests for the Government. If they are really serious about the big society and about how reconnecting people with politics is about establishing trust and establishing a new relationship between politicians and the people in this country, they will have to make that real, because otherwise the whole agenda will be rhetorical. It might be full of great slogans and great ideas, but unless there are three things in place, it will simply not work.

The first test for the Government that I would like to set out is on funding. It is all very well to talk about involving people in decision making, or about having a new big society bank, as I think it is called, and community organisers active in every part of the country, but how much money will be in the big society bank, for instance? Nobody is telling us where the funds will be available. Why do the 5,000 new community organisers have to raise their own salaries and their own funding? We have genuine concerns, in that if the idea of connecting people to politics, sharing power, devolving power and involving citizens is to be made real, the funding has to be put in place. However, I am very sceptical indeed that the Government will prioritise the funding to enable that to happen in the current financial climate. I therefore seek some reassurance from the Government on that point.

The second serious test is whether there is a proper framework for setting out the ideas around the big society. Are the Government going to say to local government in particular that it has a responsibility to devolve power to citizens and neighbourhood organisations, to people who want to take over assets and run services in their communities? That will be a big political test. Are the Government prepared to create not just a national framework, but a local framework that works?

The third test concerns fairness. There is a massive gap between the capacity of people in better-off, more affluent areas and people in poorer areas to step forward and take positions of responsibility. I do not think for a moment that that disparity should be used in a patronising way—that it should be suggested that poorer people cannot do that—but our Government must give an absolute commitment to providing the capacity building, the funds, the support and the organisation that will enable people from those communities to take advantage of some of the devolutionary powers that will be created.

The issues involved in those three tests—funding, a proper framework, and fairness—are the issues on which the Government’s real commitment to devolution and involving people in their communities ought to be judged.

I want to be a constructive critic of this agenda. It is something in which I have believed throughout the 30 years that I have been involved in politics, but I know from engagement in my own community that it is not easy. We cannot simply shout the slogans about community engagement and hope that people will step up to the plate. We must back them up. We must say that ours is a long-term commitment, and that we will not move the goalposts halfway through the process when people have given their own time, commitment and, in many instances, their own resources and money to make projects work in their communities.

I think that this issue, just as much as the big, high-level constitutional issues, will be the test of whether we are really serious about new politics. New politics is about trust, but at the moment hundreds of thousands of people in the country feel utterly excluded from the political process. They do not know where the levers are, or what they should press to make things work. How can they ensure that the projects that are important to them come to fruition?

We miss a huge opportunity if we simply talk to ourselves about how we will rearrange the constitution. The way in which we run our democracy is hugely important, but unless it is underpinned by people who are genuinely empowered and feel that they can make a difference, that the Government are taking them seriously, and that local government is prepared to support them with money and practical help so that they can turn their projects into reality, we shall break that trust.

There is nothing worse than setting people up to fail. This whole area has been littered with the shattered dreams of people who have stepped forward and been prepared to put their families and communities on the line. They have not been given backing, and their projects have foundered. I do not want ever to see that happen again. We need a real commitment to building a big society in which citizens have more power and influence over things that matter to their lives. This will be an incredibly important test of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that they really mean what they say—that it is not just words, slogans and rhetoric—and that they really mean to make a difference.

17:23

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak after the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). I am sure that she means what she says; I am sure that she wants to see the changes of which she spoke, in her constituency and throughout the country. It is just a great pity that the Government of whom she was a member for 13 years spent all the money. She says that we have ideas for the big society, but the money is not there to do it. She is right. The money is not there because of the mismanagement of her colleagues for the past decade and a bit, and the country must remember that.

I want to make three brief points about constitutional reform. The first concerns the electoral system itself. As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)—I am so used to calling him the Lord Chancellor—rightly said, some good and worthwhile changes are already in the pipeline. Individual voter registration is a very important change, because it will improve the integrity and the comprehensiveness of the electoral register. It will also improve the accuracy of the ballot. However, other matters also need to be dealt with.

We need a total overhaul of the electoral system, as we discovered during the debacle about the timing of counts at general elections. I am glad to say that once again the right hon. Gentleman and I are in complete agreement on that: I tried, and he succeeded, in changing the law on it just before the general election. We discovered that there is no clear line of accountability for returning officers. That is wrong. We also discovered at the general election the disgrace of people being denied the vote as the polls closed at 10 pm. That occurred partly because many returning officers think they are a law unto themselves. Under the current system, it is impossible to ensure consistency. This matter requires attention, and when the Government bring forward proposals on it—as I am sure they will—they will have support from both sides of the House.

[Mr Straw]

I rise just to put it on record that, yes, it was I who legislated for early counts wherever possible, but that that was on the basis of amendments that the hon. Lady had moved and it would not have happened without them. I entirely accept what she says about the lack of accountability of electoral registration officers and returning officers and the need for change, but does she accept that ring-fencing of the funding for electoral administration would inevitably go with that—that is a conclusion that I reluctantly came to—and that whatever other arguments there might be about ring-fencing, we have to see this as part of a national system?

[Mrs Laing]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point, and it gives me great pleasure to be able to say for the first time in a long time what I actually personally think, because as a Back Bencher I am bound by no collective responsibility. I agree with him entirely. I personally believe that those funds will have to be ring-fenced and not simply put into the local government pot, because some local authorities, such as Epping Forest district council, handle these matters extremely well, whereas others do not do so quite so well. I therefore agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the funds will have to be ring-fenced, and also that that review of the electoral system must be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

The issue of a fair electoral system is also important. There has been much talk this afternoon about the alternative vote or AV, but there is a far more glaring anomaly, because as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his remarks—I think I mean my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, although that is also quite difficult to say—constituencies should, of course, be of the same size. Every vote cast in a general election should be of equal weight and value. Some Opposition Members talked about the size of certain constituencies in terms of square miles, yet we are elected to represent not pieces of land but people. What matters is the number of people in a constituency, not its geographical size. Every vote should be of equal value, but the argument over the alternative vote is a red herring—

[Chris Bryant]

A yellow herring.

[Mrs Laing]

Yes, I will accept that. AV would not create fairness; it would be even less proportional than first past the post. I ask the House to consider this: why should someone who supports a minority party effectively get two votes in an election, whereas someone who votes for a mainstream party have only one vote? More importantly, although I understand why my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have agreed to a referendum on AV, the facts have not changed since we debated this matter only a few weeks ago, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn said. A referendum will cost in the region of £80 million. How many special needs teachers, how many cancer nurses, could we employ for £80 million? How many serious matters could be dealt with in this country for £80 million—matters of far greater importance in the current economic climate than arguing about how people are elected? The fact is that the British people do not care about or want a referendum on AV. If they did, they would have voted for it. Far more people said at the general election “I don’t agree with Nick” than said that they do.

The third point concerns the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) dealt with extremely well. The general election has changed the political picture, but it has not changed the constitutional principle. I cannot speak here today from the Government Back Benches and say something fundamentally different from what I said at the Opposition Dispatch Box only a few weeks ago. My principles have not changed and I do not believe that the constitutional principles of this House should change. I am very concerned about the proposed imposition of a 55% threshold, which takes power away from Parliament and gives it to the Government. Perhaps I will be persuaded in due course, but principle does matter. It is the duty of elected Members of this House to do not what is popular but what is right.

17:32

[Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech today. It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing).

I should like to begin with a few words about a young woman, Ashleigh Hall, who lived in my constituency. Ashleigh was 17 years old and lived in the ward that I represented on Darlington borough council—I was lead member for children’s services—when she made one fatal error in her life. She was groomed on Facebook by Peter Chapman, who, it transpired, was a 33-year-old registered sex offender from Merseyside.

Peter Chapman, I later discovered through the trial, had absconded from his home in Merseyside, and it appears that Merseyside police were aware of this. I also learned that there was no obligation on Peter Chapman to register his credentials and his identity online, and that any breach of an obligation to do that would be met with no action whatsoever. I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) about this at the time, and I commend his efforts to get the law changed. I hope that the Government will continue those efforts and will ensure that registered sex offenders are obliged to register who they are online, and that any such breaches will be taken as seriously as those involving their hanging around outside school gates.

I want also to say a few words about my predecessor, Mr Alan Milburn. Alan was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1992, bucking the national trend by taking Darlington for Labour from the Conservative, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), as he now is. Alan was a fierce campaigner for Darlington and the north-east, speaking in his maiden speech about the need for investment in skills, education and support for business in our region. Alan spoke powerfully against the proposed Tory cuts of the day in training for young people. It is hard not to make similar comments today regarding cuts to the future jobs fund.

Alan served the Darlington constituency for 18 years. His achievements include campaigning for the repeal of the unjust “year and a day” rule in murder cases, and working to bring a new university centre to Darlington. Alan also served the country as Secretary of State for Health where, using his understanding of the practicalities of modern life, he introduced NHS Direct, devolved power to localities through primary care trusts and ended the disgrace of deaths among people who had spent 18 months or more on waiting lists for heart operations. Above all else in his political life, Alan worked to make sure that we are rewarded according to who we are, not what we are. Alan believes in social mobility, fair access to the professions and encouraging access to higher education for everyone, regardless of their background. It is, therefore, no coincidence that Darlington is to be home to a new university centre, which is to be run by Teesside university, this year’s university of the year.

Innovation, entrepreneurship and ingenuity are no strangers to Darlington. My constituency is the birthplace of the railways and home of the first national newspaper, The Northern Echo. Darlington is where the world’s first black professional footballer, Arthur Wharton, got his break and where a local entrepreneur is campaigning to build a statue in his honour. Darlington people are single-minded; they voted “no” to Tesco, no to an elected mayor and no, this time, to Tory cuts to our school-building programme, the police, health and jobs.

I have helped young people in Darlington to establish a new charity to organise live music events. Now in its third year, Newblood Live regularly attracts more than 200 young people a fortnight. Beauty and the Bike is an international, Darlington-based initiative that encourages young women to take up cycling. First Stop works with some of the most disadvantaged people in our town—people who are homeless and often suffer from problems with alcohol and drug abuse. The Darlington rape crisis centre works quietly with women who have suffered violence and abuse. Resident-led community partnerships work in many areas, and our local council for voluntary service, eVOLution, is there to help third sector groups and volunteers to improve. Our citizens advice bureau and newly formed credit union work to provide affordable credit and debt advice to those who need it. I agree with the Government that the voluntary and community sectors have a great deal to offer in delivering services and regenerating communities, but the Government need to understand that it is worklessness, above all other causes, that leads to the exhaustion, isolation and loss of hope in our communities.

The story of the north-east is not over. Our proud industrial heritage strengthens our potential for future success, and new technologies are thriving in the north-east. Thanks in no small part to support from our regional development agency, One NorthEast, we have grasped opportunities to compete globally in new energy production, green manufacturing and digital technology, thus bringing new jobs and skills to my region. That has happened not by chance, but thanks to the ability of our businesses, councils, colleges and universities to work together.

Darlington companies such as AMEC, Cummins, Marchday and Northgate all show what a great place the north-east is to do business, but to stay ahead we need, above all else, to keep on improving the skills of our people. Darlington is fortunate to have two outstanding colleges and its schools have some of the fastest-improving results in the country. Those have been achieved despite the fact that three of our secondary school buildings are in a serious state of disrepair: Branksome, Longfield and Hurworth schools have lost days of education because of heating failures, gas leaks and floods. I am delighted that they have been successful in getting to the heart of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and I encourage this coalition Government to stick to the agreement that we made with the community in Darlington to rebuild those schools.

17:38

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech to the House, and I am delighted to be the first to congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) on her maiden speech.

I wish to start by paying tribute to my predecessor, Lynda Waltho, who was a conscientious constituency MP and a powerful advocate for our area’s many voluntary and charitable organisations, more of which later. She was a teacher by profession and she used her knowledge of that profession, and of children, to champion the causes of education and the needs of children, particularly those from our most deprived communities. She also served as a member of the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families.

My constituency lies on the border of north Worcestershire and the old industrial black country. For many years, people have argued about where exactly the black country lies, and I am pleased that, thanks to our local Black Country chamber of commerce and others, we finally have the black country delineated on the Ordnance Survey map. I am very proud to represent the old black country towns of Lye, Quarry Bank and Cradley, as well as the townships that make up modern-day Stourbridge.

Lye, Quarry Bank and Cradley have a very proud industrial past of forging, nail-making and chain-making, but it is really the glass industry for which Stourbridge is best known. I was delighted to be invited to 10 Downing street a few weeks ago for drinks. It was my first visit and I was proud to see all the glass, candelabra and chandeliers on display, many of which would have been made in Stourbridge. I gather that there is also some fine work on display in Buckingham palace and the Mansion House that was made by the famous Stourbridge firms, Stourbridge Glass, Webb Corbett and Stuart Crystal.

The people of Stourbridge are proud not just of our wealth creation, but our long tradition of philanthropy. I would like to pick out one individual who inspired me as a relative newcomer to Stourbridge. He is buried in the church of St Mary’s in Old Swinford, near where I like to walk my dog. Ernest Stevens died in the year I was born, aged 100. He was the son of a miner, and tragedy struck him when he lost his young wife in childbirth. He created a vast fortune through hard work and ingenuity in the manufacture of pots, pans, baths and kettles. He responded to his wife’s death by acting in the interests of the town, donating vast sums of money, land and civic buildings. We have our Mary Stevens hospice and many parks and areas of natural beauty thanks to him and that philanthropy. The strength of our voluntary and charitable sector is a testimony to that philanthropy, and we have many such organisations. I should like to speak up for Age Concern in Stourbridge, where many thousands of older people go, 364 days a year. It is absolutely remarkable what that organisation achieves.

Social change has been paramount in Stourbridge. The Muslim community arrived from Pakistan in the 1950s. I have done much work with that community and others, and I am very proud to represent the community in Lye with all that it represents to us.

We are very proud, in Stourbridge, of our industrial history, and there is sometimes a tinge of regret at what many see as its passing, but of course it has not all passed. Many firms and manufacturing and engineering companies are still doing wonderful work in our constituency, but many people have suffered in the transition, and there are now families in which no one works and generations of people live on state benefits. That cannot go on. There is a rising sense of injustice among people who work—many for low pay—and those who have worked their whole lives and are now on state pensions. The Prime Minister is saying today that there is much pain on the way. I feel very strongly that the people of Stourbridge will face up to the very difficult decisions that the Government and local authorities are going to have to take in coming years. The people of the black country and Stourbridge hold on to certain basic truths that are not just old-fashioned notions that can simply be cast aside—for example, that one should never borrow what one cannot pay back, that we should not foster a culture in which people are led to expect something for nothing, and that, in the more elegant prose of Abraham Lincoln:

“You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

Finally, as a Christian country, and indeed a country of many faiths, we should always look after those who cannot look after themselves. During my time of service in the House, I will work to reflect those enduring values for my constituents in Stourbridge. I am so proud to represent Stourbridge, and I am deeply grateful to my constituents for giving me this opportunity.

17:45

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

May I say how much I enjoyed the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James)? She was extremely generous to her Labour predecessor. Her speech was compassionate and I am sure we shall hear a great deal from her in the months and years ahead. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) on the things she said about her predecessor, my old colleague Alan Milburn. Both hon. Ladies have a tremendous career before them.

I am not quite so sure about the third maiden speech I heard this afternoon—the one made by the Deputy Prime Minister from the Treasury Bench. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), I agreed with some of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks. The Deputy Prime Minister seemed pretty convinced about the alternative vote, but the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) probably represents the true feeling of the Conservative party. Anybody who heard what Liberal Democrat spokespeople said about our proposals for a referendum on the alternative vote some months ago would hardly have found them encouraging. Only the Labour manifesto proposed the alternative vote, so this conversion is very welcome.

The Deputy Prime Minister was a bit ungenerous about what the Labour Government did on constitutional reform over 13 years. After all, we brought in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Human Rights Act 1998. We almost completely abolished hereditary peers in the other place. By the way, I believe that the minority parties should be involved in discussions about the House of Lords. My name is not on any ballot paper this week, but I agree with what has been said on that issue.

We brought devolution to Scotland and London and, in my own field of ministerial responsibility, there was devolution for a Welsh Assembly and the establishment of the Assembly in Northern Ireland. Those huge constitutional changes were brought about by the last Government, so the Deputy Prime Minister’s references to 1832 are a bit daft and do not accurately reflect the history of the last 150 to 200 years.

A million years ago, I was taught by Michael Brock, who wrote the best book on the Great Reform Act of 1832. He wrote about the Bill’s passage through Parliament and how the then Whig—Liberal—Government wanted to stuff the House of Lords with extra peers to get their way. They tried to do the same thing in 1911, probably for the best reasons. However, the Deputy Prime Minister simply did not answer the points made to him today about the number of people he and his friend the Prime Minister intend to put into the House of Lords. That is a huge issue that we must all address in the days to come.

My right hon. Friend the shadow Justice Secretary rightly referred to the fact that for all those 13 years Labour could have packed the House of Lords, but did not. That was right. Only in 2005 did Labour have the biggest vote, although not the majority, in the House of Lords. Our Government were defeated in the other place 528 times between 1997 and 2010. No Government should have an overall majority in the House of Lords. They could be the biggest party, but not with an overall majority. That issue, together with how this House decides on a vote of confidence, is something that the House of Lords in its capacity as guardian of the constitution should examine in huge detail in the months ahead. I was not convinced by the arguments for 55%. I do not think that people outside—whether academics, political people or the ordinary man in the street—believe it either. I am told that at least 8,000 people on Facebook have already said that they disagree with the 55% proposal for a vote of confidence.

As for boundaries, the proposal for equal electoral districts is okay, so far as it goes, but it would be impossible to have absolute, rigid electoral districts. In Wales, for example, that would produce huge—mostly Liberal, by the way—constituencies in our rural areas that Members of Parliament would find it impossible to manage. Similarly, in south Wales, people can look at a map and draw lines, but those maps ignore the valleys, the mountains and the geography. The Government have made no attempt, so far as I know, to talk to the Welsh Assembly or the Welsh Assembly Government about these changes. The reality is that changing the boundaries and composition of parliamentary constituencies has a direct effect on how the Welsh Assembly is elected, as indeed it does in Scotland.

The necessity for wide-ranging reforms is a case that cannot, could not and should not be ignored, but the way that the Government have done it is a bit clumsy and calculated. They have a big job of work ahead of them to convince the people of our country that these proposals are not about rigging, gerrymandering or fiddling the rules to keep themselves in office. This is not new politics, but bad politics of the oldest kind.

17:51

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker for inviting me to make my maiden speech. I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) on their impassioned speeches on behalf of their constituents. Having spent some 24 years in local government and made three previous attempts to join the House, I think that I have served my apprenticeship, but little did I think that it would take me 25 years to make this speech. I hope that it will be worth waiting for.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Tony McNulty, who served the House for 13 years as a diligent Member for Harrow East and 11 years prior to that as a councillor in the area. He rose through the Labour party’s ranks to government and high office and eventually to become the Minister for London, and I am glad to say that that is one of the positions that we have abolished in this new Administration. I have served as a local councillor in coalitions, Mr Mayor—Mr Deputy Speaker; a Freudian slip—and I have spent the past four years in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. That demonstrates that going from one place to another is not such a big step after all.

I speak on behalf of my constituents and pay tribute to my constituency, from the great beauty of Old Redding in the north to the deprivation of Wealdstone in the south, from the opportunity areas of Edgware in the east to the tradition and history of Harrow Weald in the west. Harrow West abuts the constituency. Harrow East is the most diverse constituency in the country. We have 22 churches—not only of the Anglican and Catholic faith, but the Greek Orthodox church as well, to the south of the constituency. We have two Hindu temples, two synagogues, an Islamic centre and, indeed, the first Hindu state-sponsored primary school in the country. Some 35,000 residents stem from the state of Gujarat in India. There is a broad swathe of Muslim population, some 15,000 Jewish people and a range of people who come from every country on the planet, including some 5,000 European Union citizens who have come from the new emerging states.

This Government will do one thing of vital importance for all those people: restore civil liberties in this country. The threat of identity cards, the threat of being detained for 28 days without charge, and the huge amounts of data on individual people who are innocent of any crime kept on police DNA databases—the police state that has started to grow in this country—will be swept away. I believe that that is something for which people who are relatively new to this country will feel immensely grateful. Indeed, right across my constituency, there is a demand for better policing, better law and order and a more consistent approach to that whole process. There is also great demand in the constituency for more schools, and better schools as well. I look forward to them being set up under this Administration.

I intend very firmly to hold the new Government to account on the promises made before the election to ensure that the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in the north of my constituency is rebuilt to the standards that everyone expects. That hospital is a national treasure, with people doing brilliant work in sub-standard conditions—standards that should not be accepted in the modern world. I look forward to that rebuilding starting in 2012. I also look forward to the opportunity of safeguarding Northwick Park hospital, which, of course, has been under threat, with the potential closures in north-west London under the previous Administration.

I am very proud and privileged to represent the people of Harrow East, and I have set out my course of action over this Parliament to be their representative here, speaking up for them at every opportunity, not to be the House’s representative in Harrow. I intend to make sure that those people who depend on me will have a stern, very fierce advocate on their behalf.

17:56

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to be called in this important debate to make my maiden speech and to be the first to congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on his wonderful maiden speech, his description of the multicultural Mecca of Harrow and his generous comments about his predecessor, Tony McNulty, which many Labour Members share. Let me pay my tribute to my esteemed predecessor, Mark Fisher, who sat in the House for 27 years and conscientiously, effectively and passionately represented the interests of Stoke-on-Trent Central.

Mark’s connections to the Potteries began, improbably enough, when he was writing film scripts in Staffordshire Moorlands—an ambitious venture at the best of times in California, even more so in the Roaches of north Staffordshire. He then stood for Staffordshire Moorlands and was selected to succeed Bob Cant in Stoke-on-Trent—all the while as an old Etonian son of a Tory MP. People in the Potteries are, as I have discovered, enormously forgiving of one’s past.

Mark’s maiden speech to the House in 1983 was a heartfelt lament at the state of the national health service in north Staffordshire owing to sustained underfunding. He spoke of old buildings, outdated operating theatres, waiting lists for general and orthopaedic surgery of more than 12 months. Now, after 13 years of good Labour Government, that decline has been reversed and Stoke-on-Trent has a brand new £370 million university teaching hospital, springing up around the old City General—it is the first new hospital for 130 years. In addition, we have new GP surgeries, walk-in centres and marked improvements in public health.

Mark was also highly active in the House, working closely with Tony Wright on reforms to the workings of Parliament, the all-party parliamentary history group, which, in a different incarnation, I once had the pleasure to address and was mildly surprised at the intimate knowledge of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) of dialectical materialism and the life of Friedrich Engels.

Mark also made a contribution to the management of the art collection in the palace. He was, indeed, an Arts Minister in 1997 and formed part of the heroic team in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that delivered a great Labour pledge of free entry to Britain’s museums for the people of Britain. As his successor, I will be watching closely the incoming Administration’s commitment to honour that pledge. It is now my great privilege to take up his place in Parliament.

In an excellent maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) made an ambitious play for his city being the birthplace of the industrial revolution. While I am a deep admirer of the Derby silk mill and the Derby arboretum, and even the Derwent valley, we all know that the historic, earth-shattering event—the dawn of modernity, the dawn of industrialisation—began in my constituency with the opening of Josiah Wedgwood’s factory in Etruria, near Shelton, in 1769. Since the 1770s, Stoke-on-Trent has become the premier global brand-name for ceramics.

In a recent programme of his excellent series “A History of the World in 100 Objects”, British Museum director Neil MacGregor described the fact that

“human history is told and written in pots… more than in anything else.”

He went on to quote Robert Browning:

“Time’s wheel runs back or stops; potter and clay endure.”

At the heart of the English enlightenment, and indeed global civilisation, Stoke-on-Trent makes its place in history, but out of the six towns has emerged more than just pottery—from the rise of primitive Methodism to the works of Arnold Bennett, from the football of Stanley Matthews to the lyricism of Robbie Williams and the social justice politics of Jack Ashley.

The area has also faced profound challenges, and to be frank, globalisation has knocked the north Staffs economy sideways. Cheap labour in east Asia sparked a freefall in ceramics employment, the steel industry could not compete with China or India, and Michael Heseltine did for the last of our coal mines.

This process of economic dislocation—when “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air”— has by no means ended, but there are signs of hope. A vibrant university quarter is springing up around Staffordshire university. Onshoring is seeing the return of ceramics jobs to Stoke-on-Trent, while a new generation of designer-makers, led by the likes of Emma Bridgewater, are creating high-value, high-design, locally rooted companies. The Portmeirion business, which produces the iconic Spode designs, is successfully growing from its Stoke base, exporting to Europe, America and South Korea.

However, we have much to do in rebuilding our engineering supply chain, raising skills levels across the constituency and exploiting the human capital of Stoke-on-Trent. While we welcome the Government’s commitment to rebalancing the British economy, perhaps the best way to do that is not to begin by cutting the regional development agency funds or the Building Schools for the Future programme.

My seat is an old if not ancient one. It has a proud pedigree. Born of the Great Reform Act of 1832, of which the Deputy Prime Minister is now such a student, it was first represented in this place by Josiah Wedgwood, the son of the potter. Wedgwood was a liberal—in the proper sense of the word. Like his father, he was committed to the abolitionist cause and was a stalwart of the anti-slavery movement. It was a great pleasure to have seen that spirit reawaken in the general election this year as my constituents sent the racist, reactionary and frequently criminal British National party packing.

However, Stoke-on-Trent also knows that change has to be matched with continuity, and my constituents share a deep apprehension over the Government’s ill-thought-out plans for constitutional reform. They want to know that when a Government fail to win a vote of confidence, Parliament can be dissolved by 50% plus one vote, rather than the absurdity of the 55% self-protecting ordinance.

Then we come to the five-year Parliament—again, a retrospective, constitutional fix to get this Government through some muddy waters, and that is before we get on to flooding of the House of Lords with new Members, redrawing the boundaries, leaving 3.2 million voters off the register and underfunding the individual registration scheme. However, my hon. Friends and I will come back to those issues in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I simply thank the House for the indulgence of this, my maiden speech, on the Gracious Speech.

18:04

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me at this point in the debate. I beg the patience of the House in making my maiden speech, and pay tribute to and commend the maiden speeches made by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

For new Members such as me, this is a humbling experience. For me, it is especially daunting, as my predecessor, Ian Taylor, did such a good job over the past 23 years that when he announced his retirement last year, The Times described the constituency as

“the closest thing to paradise in the UK”.

Ian set the bar high. He promoted our diverse local enterprise. He fought for our community hospitals, which are cherished in Walton, Molesey and Cobham, and he promoted local charities, from the inspiring philanthropic legacy at Whiteley retirement village to more modest but no less vital groups such as Lower Green Community Association—the “little platoons” that define our local civic spirit, which we must revive and empower across Britain today.

Ian Taylor’s contribution to national life was no less important, particularly as Science and Technology Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry from 1994 to 1997. He pioneered free trade, leading a business delegation to Cuba in 1994. He was the first British Minister to visit Cuba in 20 years—the only one to return with cigars from El Presidente. Ian’s immense contribution to science and technology will be sorely missed as we seek to diversify and reinvigorate our economic base.

The history of Esher and Walton counsels against taking anything for granted. The constituency was once home to the Diggers—agrarian communists during the civil war—but later to US President Herbert Hoover, the intellectual architect of “rugged individualism”, which inspired the economic liberalism of Thatcher and Reagan, but also the aspirations of a certain Derek Trotter from the TV series “Only Fools and Horses”. When Rodney asks where the tenants will live if all the council homes in Peckham are sold off, Derek shrugs and, unblinking, replies, “Esher, or somewhere like that.”

My constituency is an aspirational place, and generally my constituents enjoy a high quality of life—generally, but not uniformly. Last year, the “Hidden Surrey” report for Surrey Community Foundation found that child poverty in Walton Ambleside was double the national average, and that poverty among the elderly in Walton North was two thirds above the national average.

No county pays more to the Treasury than Surrey’s taxpayers, yet we get back just one third of the national average level of funding for local services, resulting in the neglect that I have mentioned. The “Hidden Surrey” report concludes that the previous Government had choked money for local services in the area because there was “no electoral cost”. I hope that in the forthcoming spending reviews we can ensure that the funding formula reflects a truly objective, and less political, assessment of local needs.

Turning to the national picture, there is much to cheer in the coalition Government’s programme, and in particular the commitment to defend our freedoms by scrapping identity cards and by enacting a freedom Bill to restore our proud tradition of liberty in this country—eroded after 13 years of legislative hyperactivity and government by press release.

In particular, the coalition programme pledges to defend trial by jury—that ancient bulwark of British justice, dating back to Magna Carta. Steeped in our history, it was a jury that acquitted William Cobbett when he was prosecuted for campaigning for social and political reforms in the 1830s. But that is also relevant today, and not just to whistleblowers and political activists. Take the vindictive prosecution of Janet Devers, the east end market trader prosecuted for selling vegetables in pounds and ounces. She was convicted in the magistrates court of a string of petty offences, but the additional prosecution in the Crown court collapsed on day one when faced with the prospect of trying to convince a jury.

Juries are the reality check on bad law and abuse of state power. Lord Devlin famously described trial by jury as

“the lamp that shows that freedom lives”.

That light has flickered of late. In 2003, the previous Government tried to remove juries from complex fraud cases, and in 2008 an attempt was made to remove juries from coroners’ inquests—both with scant justification. Parliament defeated or diluted both those attempts, but a third attempt landed a more telling blow.

The Government enacted part 7 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, allowing for removal of juries where there is a risk of or actual tampering with a jury. In January, we had under those provisions the first criminal trial in 400 years to dispense with a jury. Four men stood charged with armed robbery of a Heathrow warehouse. Three previous trials had collapsed, at a cost of £22 million to the taxpayer, with evidence of jury tampering. The High Court refused on application to dispense with the jury, but was overturned on appeal. The four men were found guilty in March, and in the process we junked a fundamental safeguard of fair trial in this country. Immediately after that case, prosecutors lodged a string of applications to dispense with juries in further cases.

A dangerous precedent has been set. A slippery slope beckons. So I wish to put the question why, for the first time in our history, are we now uniquely incapable of protecting the integrity of our justice system? Why, after the billions invested and the enormous legal powers bestowed on our police are they today, in 2010, incapable of shielding juries in criminal trials? Let no one be in any doubt. This development is no sign of strength in law enforcement, but rather the most feeble weakness, and it is not a resource issue, given the huge amounts squandered on the previous trials that collapsed.

British justice should be firm but fair, two sides of the same coin. So I urge Ministers to review and consider the case for repeal of part 7 of the 2003 Act, in the forthcoming freedom Bill. The light that shows that freedom lives is flickering, but we have an opportunity to restore it. I hope we can take it.

18:11

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on his maiden speech. It is always daunting for Members in all parts of the House to make their first contribution to Parliament, but I wish him well in his time on the Conservative Benches. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) on their maiden speeches. In all maiden speeches and the coverage of their constituencies, it is important for hon. Members to remember that, whatever happens in the House, they are first and foremost constituency MPs. If anything weakens that link, it would be a sad day for British democracy.

I shall touch on three topics in the debate. First, in relation to the constitution and political reform, I understand that the coalition programme for government contains an agreement which states:

“Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote . . . in the last general election.”

We have already heard today that there are plans to reduce the size of the House of Commons and redraw constituency boundaries to equalise constituency sizes.

To achieve the first objective would require the creation of more than 172 new peers. That would be an increase in Tory peers from 186 to 263 and in Liberal Democrat peers from 72 to 167. I question the size of the second Chamber. The House of Lords is already one of the largest parliamentary Chambers in the world. At present, it has 734 Members, and 56 new peers were created in the dissolution honours, taking the total to 790. It is extremely unusual to have a second Chamber larger than the first. Indeed, now that Burkina Faso has abolished its upper house, there is no other country in the world with a second chamber larger than the first.

[Mr Tyrie]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Lady. She may be interested to know—I have checked—that the other place is the largest democratic Chamber in the world, except for the national people’s congress in China. We can all make up our own minds about the level of democracy available there. Does she agree that the only way we can deal with the issue is to dispense with a House of patronage and appointment, and get to a point where we can have a democratically elected second Chamber?

[Caroline Flint]

I absolutely agree. In previous votes, I voted to abolish the second Chamber. I do not think that is going to happen, but in the discussion about changes in the House of Commons, we must also discuss changes in the House of Lords, as well as the purpose of the two Houses, the purpose of constituency MPs and whom the other place represents.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Does my right hon. Friend think it possible that those appointed to the House of Lords by the Government in such a generous spirit would find once they got there that they were not so keen on democratic elections as they might have been previously? Perhaps we should insist that any appointment of extra peers comes after we have changed the democratic basis of the House of Lords, not before.

[Caroline Flint]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I have heard rumours of grandfather clauses, which is rather frightening. It suggests that whatever system we end up with, and whatever voting might take place in future for a second Chamber, those who are currently there could continue until they die. I have many friends in the other place, but this is not the right way to talk about what we are here to do in both Houses of Parliament.

The second chamber that comes nearest to the House of Lords in size is the French Senate. This year it will have 346 members, half the size of the House of Lords. We know that the United States Senate has 104 members, and internationally the average size of a second chamber is 82. It is a matter not just of size, but of cost. We have heard that one of the reasons for reducing the number of seats in this place is cost. In 2007-08, the House of Lords cost £121.5 million, which works out at £168,000 per Member. If the House of Lords were reduced in size to, say, 100, it would save more than £115 million a year—much more than the savings projected by reductions in the size of the House of Commons by 10%, yet the coalition is planning on creating nearly 200 additional peers, at a cost of more than £20 million a year, while at the same time cutting the number of MPs.

I object to the idea of reducing the Commons arbitrarily by 10% when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said from the Front Bench, the workload of MPs is growing, not decreasing. In addition, we have the proposal for a new super-majority of 55% of the Commons. What we see in the coalition’s reform package is a manipulation of our democracy, not an extension of it. It is not new politics to pack the Lords and rig the Commons.

The second topic that I shall touch on is the DNA database. The coalition proposal is to remove people not convicted of a crime from the DNA database. The database exists to provide justice for victims and their families. Having one’s DNA profile held on the database is not a punishment. It is intended to assist in the prevention and detection of future crimes, to help eliminate the innocent from inquiries, and to deal with past crimes. Many cold cases have been solved because of the DNA database. Without the database, thousands of crimes would go unsolved and many serious and dangerous criminals would be walking our streets.

Between March 1998 and March 2009, DNA evidence helped to solve over 304,000 crimes. In 2008-09, there were 252 homicides and 580 rapes with a DNA scene-subject match. In 2008-09, 79 rape, murder or manslaughter charges in England and Wales were matched to the DNA database from DNA profiles that belonged to individuals who had been arrested but not convicted of any crime. The only civil liberties being extended by the proposal from the coalition Government are those of rapists, murderers and other serious criminals to walk the streets for longer to commit crimes because a DNA record has been deleted.

The evidence shows that there is a justification for retaining the DNA of people who have been arrested but not convicted, because their risk of offending, as measured by the risk of re-arrest, is higher than that of the general population. Analysis suggests that this risk is higher than that of the general population for six years following the arrest.

We should also not forget the potential deterrent effect of DNA. People are less likely to commit crime if they know there is a good chance that they could get caught. So if people know that DNA could play a significant role in securing convictions, they will be less likely to commit the crime in the first place. I shall save my contribution on the proposal to give anonymity to defendants in rape trials for my Adjournment debate at the end of the evening.

My final point is on police accountability. We all agree that there should be police accountability, and perhaps we need to look at police authorities and how they could be made more accountable. I am worried about the proposal to introduce elected police commissioners. We must recognise that some of the policing at force level and between forces concerns serious crimes involving organised criminals and organised networks. It is about counter-terrorism. Those are always the issues raised by my constituents on the doorstep. We need to make sure that in relation to accountability, we do not allow the work of the police to be distorted by what is most popular in our communities. I understand that there are other sorts of crime that have to be dealt with.

We have Safer Neighbourhoods teams in Doncaster and elsewhere around the country because the Labour Government decided that local policing is important. The Conservatives opposed them when we introduced them. We now have local police teams dedicated to one particular area who will not be moved to another part of town and who spend their time out on patrol working with police community support officers and setting their priorities with local people. At the regular monthly meetings with the public, residents can demand action on gangs hanging around near an off-licence, on speeding cars or on motorbike nuisance. The mixture of local intelligence and public pressure provides real and practical accountability. What worries me about the hype surrounding elected police commissioners is that we will lose not only the plot on local accountability, but the commitment and funds to ensure that it continues to grow, not decline and wither on the vine. At the same time, we need effective policing to ensure that the public are protected from increasingly complicated crime.

On all those issues, there are many questions that the coalition Government have to answer in the days, the weeks and, it would seem, the years ahead.

18:20

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my first speech to the House. I congratulate all those who have also made their first speeches today. I am very struck, and a bit awestruck, by the erudition that they have all displayed. As the Member for Redcar, I am proud to be the first Liberal to represent the area since 1923 and also very pleased to hear this afternoon’s debate about potential voting system changes, which might do something to add to the House the 100 Liberal Democrats who ought to be Members but, due to our current voting system, are not.

My constituency comprises the north-east corner of the historic north riding of Yorkshire, flanked by the River Tees to the north, the North sea to the east and the Cleveland hills to the south. The coast boasts miles of golden beach, the site of the recent British kite-surfing championships and is adjacent to Yorkshire’s only proper golf links. Redcar is a bustling coastal town, incorporating the formerly separate villages of Coatham and Dormanstown, and it has a race course with one of the few straight, level miles in the country. There was much excitement in 2007 when for a few weeks our sea front became Dunkirk for the shooting of the Oscar-winning film “Atonement”.

Local delicacies include chicken parmesans, which we all know as “parmos”, and lemon top ice creams—probably not a diet that the Secretary of State for Health would choose, but nevertheless absolutely delicious. Down the coast is the pretty village of Marske, which has history going back to Viking times, and inland we have a port and industrial complex of national importance. Teesport is the second biggest port in the UK, and I am glad that this Government moved quickly to freeze the extra taxes that were imposed on PD Ports, because they put it at a disadvantage to ports in mainland Europe.

The Corus steel site still employs more than 2,000 people in steel processing, but we were all devastated in February when the blast furnace closed, ending 150 years of steel making on the River Tees. We are hopeful that the blast furnace will be sold to a new owner and that steel making can be resumed. My constituency also contains the UK’s biggest chemical manufacturing site at Wilton, another powerhouse of the national economy, where I worked for many years.

To the west of the port, steel and chemical complex lies an area that, to the uninformed visitor, looks like a continuous area of housing—casually referred to as Greater Eston by Redcar and Cleveland council. People who live there know that it actually comprises a number of separate places: the historic villages of Normanby, Nunthorpe and Ormesby; the proud former ironstone mining village of Eston; and the struggling industrial settlements of South Bank and Grangetown. They all have their own distinct centres and unique stories.

I must pay tribute to my learned predecessor, Vera Baird, QC. Vera has a tremendous capacity for work and is a formidable campaigner for women’s rights in particular, fighting on behalf of women who are the victims of violence and abuse. She was a notable parliamentarian, having won The Spectator Back Bencher of the year award in 2004 and then rising to ministerial level as Solicitor-General in the previous Government.

I cannot represent Redcar without mentioning Vera’s predecessor, the late Marjorie Mowlam. Had her health remained good, I am sure that she would still be in Parliament today. As well as her towering achievements in government, particularly on the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement, she was, and still is, much loved in the constituency. She must have had a prodigious ability to consume tea, judging by the number of houses that I canvassed where they all said, “We all loved Mo, and she was always popping in for a cuppa.”

The No. 1 issue in my area is jobs. The headline unemployment figure is about 9%, but that does not tell the whole story. There is a lot of hidden unemployment, a lot of people on incapacity benefit and many other people are out of work. A Financial Times reporter visited during the general election and had no trouble finding a woman who had just lost out as one of 490 applicants for a job cleaning the local supermarket. I hope that when this Government carry out the much-needed review of benefits policy, they will not unjustly penalise those who desperately want to work but simply cannot find a job.

There have been numerous job losses in our area: 98,000 manufacturing jobs have gone since 1971—particularly under the previous Government, during whose period in office manufacturing declined from 22% of the national economy to just 11%. I am very pleased that the new Government recognise the value of manufacturing and, in particular, want to stimulate the green manufacturing economy. Teesside is a great place to do that.

Before leaving jobs, I must mention Government jobs. After recent remarks by the Prime Minister, people might have got the impression that any cutbacks in the civil service would somehow be in the north-east of England. In fact, of well over 520,000 civil servants, only 36,000 are in the north-east, and of those very few are in the Teesside area. I shall constantly press the case for the Tees valley to be the new location of a Government agency. Indeed, the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) and I have already written to our Cabinet colleagues, suggesting Teesside as a good location for the administrative centre of the new green investment bank. I welcome the Government’s commitment to localism on planning laws and hope to see more local control over schools, rather than the central diktats that went with the Building Schools for the Future programme. Many of my constituents know how important that is.

It is a fantastic honour and privilege to have been chosen to represent the passionate and proud people of Redcar, and I shall constantly fight for what I feel is in their best interests.

18:27

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech, and I congratulate Members from all parts of the House on their excellent maiden speeches.

It is an immense privilege to have been elected to serve as the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. I have lived and worked in Sunderland all my life, and I am especially honoured to serve my local area. I should like to thank the party members and voters who put their trust in me, and I sincerely hope that I can repay them. Houghton and Sunderland South is a new constituency that was formed from the former constituencies of Houghton and Washington East and Sunderland South. I therefore intend to pay tribute to the former Members for both constituencies.

Fraser Kemp was elected in 1997 as the Member for Houghton and Washington East but had worked as an organiser for the Labour party since his late teens. He played a pivotal role in making the Labour party electable once again and secured a reputation as a fierce opponent whose success as an organiser and an election strategist was unparalleled. Fraser is a very modest man who never sought accolades or recognition for his achievements, but many of us know the debt that we owe to him. I pay tribute to Fraser not simply because he is my predecessor, but because of his values, integrity and decency. He fought many cases on behalf of vulnerable and desperate constituents whom he always treated with the utmost sensitivity and compassion.

Fraser dedicated his life to the Labour movement, and I wish him every success in his life away from front-line politics. I know that Fraser felt it was a huge privilege to serve his home seat. I very much share that sentiment, and I hope that I can show the same dedication and commitment in fighting for the people of Houghton and Sunderland South.

I also pay tribute to Chris Mullin, who represented Sunderland, South from 1987. He was never afraid to champion unpopular causes and often found himself ostracised in the process. I am sure that there is a lesson there for us all—that we should never be afraid to speak out, even if the cause appears at the time to be an unpopular or a difficult one.

My constituency contains a series of mining villages in the former Durham coalfields, and also areas of the city that were built following the post-war expansion, such as Grindon, Thorney Close and Farringdon. Shiney Row is home to the Penshaw monument. It was erected in tribute to the first Earl of Durham, known locally as Radical Jack because of his support for the extension of the franchise in the Reform Act 1832. There has been much debate today about the Great Reform Act, and I am sure that my constituents will follow developments with great interest. On the issue of voting, I am delighted to note that Sunderland city council once again delivered the first and fastest result in returning me as the Member of Parliament for Houghton and Sunderland South.

In Hetton-le-Hole, George Stephenson, one of the founding fathers of the railway industry, designed a line to serve the colliery before designing the more famous Stockton and Darlington route. I am also proud that the tongue of Big Ben, which we hear every time the bell sounds, was forged in the historic town of Houghton-le-Spring in my constituency.

We have made tremendous progress in Houghton and Sunderland South. Our area has adapted remarkably to significant economic, industrial and social change, much of it not of our choosing during the 1980s and 1990s. We are resilient and faced adversity in the past; I am confident that we can now show the same kind of determination again in meeting new challenges.

I will be unafraid to speak out where I see injustice that will damage the lives and living standards of my constituents, which have improved so greatly in the past 13 years. I will resist any measure that will damage our economy, our families, and the services on which we all rely. I remain committed to tackling inequality in all its forms. We have seen significant advances in my constituency in the past 13 years, not least in terms of the provision and resources in our schools, but it is still all too often the case that children born in my constituency are held back because of their backgrounds and unable to achieve all that they are capable of.

The north-east led the world during the industrial revolution, and I am confident that we can do so again in being at the forefront of developing new green technologies and industries. I was therefore concerned by the Prime Minister’s refusal to confirm whether the Government would honour the £20.7 million grant awarded to Nissan to develop the next generation of electric cars. The plant is not in my constituency, but many of my constituents are employed by Nissan or indirectly in supply chain jobs. I will continue to press for answers, not only on the Nissan grant but on the vital, ongoing investment that is necessary to protect the north-east economy. I know that I will have the full support of my local newspaper, the Sunderland Echo, in fighting Sunderland’s corner and championing local business. It remains of deep and lasting concern to me that unemployment remains higher than is acceptable in my constituency and that there are areas of continuing deprivation. The people of Houghton and Sunderland South need a Government who will support business and enterprise, not tip us into a second recession.

I am particularly grateful to be called to make my maiden speech during the debate on home affairs. Prior to my election, I worked managing a women’s refuge based in my constituency for families fleeing domestic violence. It is through my work with victims of sexual violence that I have such deep reservations about proposals to introduce anonymity for defendants in rape cases. I ask the Government to look carefully at prioritising measures that will increase the number of rape convictions instead of deterring vulnerable women from coming forward.

I give my pledge that I will try to speak often in the House to raise the concerns of my constituents. I intend to be a strong and tireless voice here; the people of Houghton and Sunderland South deserve no less.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)]

Order. I do not intend to alter the time limit, as that would be unfair, particularly to those who are waiting to make their maiden speeches, but anyone who can clip a minute or so off their speech will certainly gain the gratitude of some of those we might otherwise find it very difficult to fit in.

18:34

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

Let me begin by saying that that was an outstanding maiden speech by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). It was full of interesting content and probably gives us an idea of where she will concentrate her interests. I was particularly interested in some of the things that she said about the area she represents, because I contested the old seat of Houghton and Washington, as it was then known, in 1992, and I know well many of the places that she mentioned—the Penshaw monument, Shiney Row community college, and much else. I very much take her point about the Nissan plant and the effect that any Government decisions will have on the whole region if things do not go well. I was touched by her commitment to speak up on behalf of the most vulnerable in her constituency. Having got to know it quite well, I know what she is talking about as regards those former mining villages.

It is clear that the two great themes in the Queen’s Speech are the economy and the constitution: they loom large, and they are closely connected. Constitutional reform is needed, among other things, to restore confidence in our institutions, particularly Parliament and political parties. Without some progress on that, the coalition Government will struggle to secure legitimacy for the tough economic measures that are now needed. Without some public trust in politicians, leadership on the economy will be impossible. I think that that is what the Prime Minister was trying to make a start with in his speech today.

Despite appearances, there is, on both the constitution and the economy, a great deal of common ground across the House about the overall direction of policy and the importance of acting. However, before I get on to the areas of agreement, let me start with a controversial measure—the attempt to entrench fixed parliamentary terms with a 55% threshold. That certainly will not be a consensus measure; the controversy has been evident today. We have not seen the proposal written down, so it might be premature to judge it, but I have to say that I do not like what I have heard so far. How could I put it? Let me just say that it could be misconstrued as, or as looking very much like, an arbitrary fix to bolster this particular coalition with a constitutional change. After all, why 55%, not 60% or some other number? At least, that is how the other place will see it. Nor does it benefit from any protection under the Salisbury convention, and I therefore expect that their lordships might carve it up. To sugar the pill for them, I have already asked those on my Front Bench to give it pre-legislative scrutiny. If it survives that, their lordships may be more accommodating.

The 55% proposal is so clearly born of the particular circumstances of this coalition that I cannot see why it should remain on the statute book beyond this Parliament, and I therefore ask my Front-Bench colleagues to consider adding a sunset clause. Of course, we have not heard all the arguments on the proposal—as I say, it has not been published—and I am not going to rush to take a view on something that I have not even seen, but my instinct would be to try to entrench fixed terms with something less radical. Better, for example, to legislate a requirement that the Prime Minister can ask the Queen for a Dissolution only if he has been defeated in a vote of no confidence. Of course, he could still manufacture a defeat, but at least the electorate would see that ploy for what it was and could judge it accordingly at the polls.

I said that I would start with some disagreement, but I ought to refer to the large measure of agreement across the House on all sorts of things. The principle of fixed-term Parliaments is pretty much agreed across the House. During the last election, Labour was more supportive of fixed-term Parliaments than the Conservatives; likewise on the idea of a vote on a Dissolution. On the House of Lords, there is now a huge amount of cross-party agreement. All three parties are agreed on the need for a largely or fully elected House of Lords. I have to say, as there are a lot of new Members present, that when I was first elected 13 years ago it seemed to me that in the 21st century only those who have received some sort of democratic mandate should have the right to make our laws. These days, that is the majority view right across the House, and in my party too. I strongly welcome that.

The main opponent of change, of course, will be the biggest vested interest in our constitution, by which I mean the life peers. They are deeply opposed to any meaningful change and may even threaten to wreck the coalition’s legislative programme if the elected House were to force the issue. At the moment, with the coalition facing the biggest economic crisis since the second world war, this House may decide that it has other priorities. Much depends on the arithmetic of coalition politics in the Lords and whether a measure could be whipped through the other place, but I am not optimistic. I cannot see the coalition risking a massive row and using the Parliament Act with so much other vital legislation to get through. It would be a bloody battle and a rerun of another Lords-Commons clash exactly a century ago.

In the few seconds remaining to me I add one more crucial matter. We must clean up party funding. The stench in the electorate’s nostrils about the apparent purchase of access, influence and honours is serious and knocks into a cocked hat what we have had on expenses. The problem can be solved only if all parties are prepared to bring the big donor culture to an end, whether the source is corporate, institutional, trade union or individual. We must find ways to protect parties that will be adversely affected by that change and ensure that democratic politics can remain fair. We cannot leave things as they are, and I hope very much that the coalition Government will have further talks to try to secure agreement. I find the Queen’s Speech very exciting, but there is a lot of work to be done and debate to be had on it.

18:41

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches. They have been very interesting and have paid tribute to the Members who have gone before them.

When I listened to the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech, I was very disappointed that he showed a lack of respect for the smaller parties in the House. I suggest to him that he should give minority parties more respect, because he could find himself on the Back Benches shortly. One should never allow power to go to one’s head. We will put today’s episode down to inexperience, and I look forward to meaningful exchanges with him in the days to come.

Many matters in the Gracious Speech merit our attention, and constitutional issues are vital. It states:

“Measures will be brought forward to introduce fixed term Parliaments of five years.”

That would command support from my right hon. and hon. Friends from Northern Ireland and is probably one of the few examples of the coalition making changes that are not designed to improve its own chances in a future election. The governing party—or parties, in this case—has always had the ability to use a snap general election to its own advantage, and the date selected has had much more to do with the political fortunes of the Government than the national interest.

However, there are practical implications to be thought through. In Northern Ireland, we already face an election practically every year, and the dates involved mean that it could be possible to have a general election, an election to the Northern Ireland Assembly and a local government election on the same day. One can imagine what that would mean to the voters. We are not opposed to fixed-term Parliaments and see many benefits to them, but it will be necessary to consider the practical implications and the problems that could arise from attempting to organise up to three elections on one day.

We have major concerns about the introduction of the 55% rule. We wish to put a clear marker down on that, and I do that in the House tonight. We must do nothing that diminishes the authority of Parliament or its right to hold the Government to account. Parliament must have the ability to give the Government a vote of confidence when they are worthy of it, or a vote of no confidence if they have lost the confidence of the country and the House.

The Gracious Speech also states:

“A Bill will be introduced for a referendum on the Alternative Vote system for the House of Commons and to create fewer and more equal sized constituencies.”

The problems that have been mentioned today in the case of certain constituencies in the United Kingdom must genuinely be taken into account. Simply to divide the country up and say that every constituency must have the same number of electors would not be to take in the reality of the vast geographical areas of some constituencies. Constituencies need to be given appropriate and proper service. We represent not land but people, who have a right to the most appropriate and best possible representation.

There is to be legislation

“to restore freedoms and civil liberties, through the abolition of Identity Cards and the repeal of unnecessary laws.”

I can say on behalf of my colleagues that we support the proposal to abolish identity cards, which were introduced in probably the most ridiculed piece of legislation that the previous Government brought forward. It will be good to see the end of them.

There is to be legislation

“to ensure that in future this Parliament and the British people have their say on any proposed transfer of powers to the European Union.”

We must all hope that the promise of a referendum is not another cast-iron guarantee. Perhaps it is cast-iron with only Lisbon-shaped exceptions. The refusal to allow a referendum in the past has always been driven by the fear of the House actually hearing what the people of the United Kingdom have to say on the subject, but hearing the people and acting accordingly is what democracy should be all about. We will see how keen the coalition Government are to listen to the UK’s views on the European Union should the opportunity for a referendum on any subject arise during this Parliament.

I have a question for the Government. Will only one referendum be held on any proposal, or will the tactic that was displayed and deployed in the Republic of Ireland be used here in the UK? The people of the Republic of Ireland were asked about the Lisbon treaty and said no to it, and then they were asked again because the Government and the rest of Europe did not get the answer that they wanted. We cannot treat the people with disrespect. It will be interesting to see what the coalition partners do, as they will probably have different views and put different opinions to the general public. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) introduced a Bill in the last Parliament in an attempt to ensure that the previous Government would honour their pledge to hold a referendum. People will rightly be sceptical until the Government give a real demonstration that they are willing to listen to the British people’s views on the issue. All three major parties will have heard that being emphasised, and I say to them that there are other parties—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order.

18:48

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to give my maiden speech today, although not quite so grateful to follow the excellent maiden speeches of so many of my colleagues on both sides of the House. They have set the bar almost impossibly high.

Many Members will know my predecessor, Evan Harris, as an energetic and uncompromising Member of this House, and although we often disagreed on points of principle, he was one of the few politicians who never put popularity above principle. I know that he will go on to make a significant contribution elsewhere. Dr Harris was not my only predecessor to make an appearance on the campaign trail. Far too often on the doorstep, constituents would look at me, sigh, and say, “Well of course, I remember Airey Neave”, or “Now John Patten, he was a good constituency MP.” It is a little too early to work out exactly where I will end up in that illustrious line-up, but I hope that it will be recorded that I did everything in my power to serve the constituents of Oxford West and Abingdon with integrity and commitment, and that I became the dedicated constituency representative that they so deserve.

Let us be honest—there could not really be a better constituency to represent. My home town, Oxford, is surely one of the most beautiful cities in the world and its history of scholars, authors, artists, inventors and Prime Ministers fills library after library. I am particularly pleased that, even after boundary changes, I still have the opportunity to represent my undergraduate and graduate colleges—St. Anne’s and Somerville.

Oxford university and Oxford Brookes have international reputations in field after field. I know that many scholars and students are watching the university fees review with anxiety. I know exactly what it is like to pay tuition fees, having been in one of the first years to do so, and we must ensure that university funding reform is open and fair, properly supports students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, creates an academic environment that supports research, and enables our top universities to remain competitive—and even become more so—on the international stage.

Oxford West and Abingdon’s excellence is not confined to education. The NHS in Oxfordshire hosts many centres of excellence and an enormous number of dedicated health professionals—my father for one. I know that they join me in welcoming the coalition Government’s commitment to increasing NHS spending and to introducing the revolutionary idea of letting local health professionals set local health priorities.

As we struggle to maintain the recovery, it is ever more important that we support Oxfordshire’s vibrant private sector. That includes ventures at every stage of growth, from start-up university spin-offs in biotech and renewables at Begbroke science park to long-standing international publishers such as Oxford University Press and Blackwell.

Beyond the dreaming spires lies Abingdon—a beautiful market town that is one of the oldest continuous settlements in the UK. However, Abingdon’s fantastic location on the banks of the Thames and the River Ock has been a thorn in its side, creating difficult traffic problems and allowing terrible floods in 2007. Climate change means that there is an increasing risk of flooding in that area. As research shows, it is incredibly important to maintain our commitment to flood defences, which are far cheaper than the catastrophic results of unmitigated flooding. Those defences are much needed by the residents of Osney, Abingdon and nearby villages such as Kidlington. I look forward to supporting their campaign for them.

However, I have chosen to speak in today’s debate because of my commitment to another local campaign. Despite chronic under-reporting, research shows that domestic abuse accounts for 16% of violent crime. It affects one in four women and one in six men. Despite the fact that most people still think of it as a women’s issue, a third of victims are men.

The social and economic impact of domestic abuse is becomingly increasingly unsustainable. Domestic abuse claims more repeat victims—that is more police time and more repeat visits to A and E—than any other crime. It leads to the murder of four women and one man a fortnight, and affects four children in every class of 30. All that costs our economy an estimated £23 billion a year, and front-line services bear the brunt. In the current economic climate, that will only get worse. United Nations research has confirmed what common sense has told us for years: unemployment and financial instability exacerbate domestic abuse.

Surely if those on both sides of the Chamber can agree on anything, it is that no one should fear being raped or beaten in their own home, forced into marriage or killed in the name of honour. However, there are still worrying gaps in provision. In theory, the introduction of sexual assault referral centres is a good thing, but the nearest one for us is in Slough—a long way to go for someone who has been brutally raped. To add insult to injury, my local rape crisis centre currently faces a funding crisis. There is also the gender problem. Although roughly a third of victims are male, only 1% of refuge space is available for men. In Oxfordshire, there is no provision for male victims fleeing domestic abuse.

There is also a serious lack of perpetrator programmes. Despite the fact that a quarter of male probationers and 17% of male prisoners are domestic violence perpetrators, there is such a shortage of places on those programmes that, recently, some courts were expressly prohibited from using them as a sentencing option. No perpetrator programmes are available in Oxfordshire.

However, we have one thing to boast about: the champions network. When research revealed that victims can go to as many as 10 agencies before finding the help that they need, the Oxfordshire county domestic abuse service decided to short-circuit the problem and train a network of volunteers in other agencies. They were called champions. They are seen as the lead on domestic abuse issues in their agency and they can advise colleagues on management of individual cases and ensure access to local resources. There are now more than 300 champions in 60 agencies. They are all volunteers, all trained and they all make an enormous impact. As far as I am aware, it is the only network of its kind in the UK. I am proud to be a champion myself, to speak up for that excellent work. I thank the Deputy Speaker for giving me the chance to speak in this debate.

18:55

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech in this important debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) for an eloquent and elegant contribution. I also single out my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). It is so good for the House that women with her experience have been elected to serve.

It is customary to pay tribute to one’s constituency in a maiden speech. I am pleased to say that I am not in the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who appeared to have to work hard in 1997 to find something interesting to say about his constituency. However, he managed the story from June 1889, when a giant circus elephant collapsed and died on Castlebar hill. I quote from his maiden speech:

“The great pachyderm, with its last few breaths, bravely staggered forward, and is, to this day, to be found beneath the road—unfortunately, just over the constituency border in Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush.”—[Official Report, 10 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 608.]

I am delighted that, for me, the task is entirely easy and pleasurable. East Lothian is, without doubt, a constituency blessed in almost every way imaginable. It positively drips with scenic beauty. Not only is it blessed with breathtaking natural beauty, it has a continuous golden thread of historical significance. Those golden colours are reflected in the wonderful art of local artist John Bellany, who grew up in Port Seton. The constituency’s natural beauty ranges from magnificent beaches, through agricultural farm land to rolling hills, and features everything from Cistercian monks to the resting place of Concorde.

Even with that embarrassment of riches, I have not mentioned its greatest asset: its people. East Lothian is blessed with genuinely close-knit and vibrant communities. It is a part of this country that has a real and thriving sense of self. Its strong sense of identity means that, even in these most difficult times for the newspaper industry, it is served by three local newspapers. The existence of the East Lothian Courier, East Lothian and Musselburgh News and the Evening News is not a leftover from a past age but the reflection of a community with deep roots and a strong sense of social justice.

The communities of East Lothian range from former mining and fishing villages through to castles and keeps, from the market town of Haddington to the fiercely proud mining-built communities of Prestonpans, Tranent, Wallyford, Macmerry, Ormiston, Elphinstone and Whitecraig. At the east end of the constituency sits Musselburgh—the “honest toun”—which now has one of the top five race courses in the country.

The constituency’s people have a long history of not being easily pushed around and not tolerating social injustice. Those battles have not been fought only in this country. The men who left East Lothian to fight against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish civil war have their names inscribed on a plaque in Prestonpans.

As well as brave men, East Lothian also has a proud history of brave women. My predecessor, Anne Moffat, was the first woman to represent East Lothian. She began her working life as a nurse and went on to become president of Unison. Becoming the Parliamentary Private Secretary to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) when he was Secretary of State for Health was a real source of pride to Anne. She cared deeply about the NHS and her first-hand experience of working in the wards equipped her well for that post.

The House will be aware that Anne has suffered poor health in recent months, and I am sure all hon. Members will join me in wishing her good health and happiness. Anne paved the way for other women to represent East Lothian—I am sure that I will not be the last—but she was not the first woman to stand up for working people in my constituency. There is a statue in Tranent, by sculptor David Annand, of Jackie Crookston beating her drum with a small child at her side, to commemorate the massacre of Tranent in 1797. Women from mining communities across the county beat their own drums to protect their communities during the miners’ strike of 1984. That dispute and those months of hardship almost tore those communities apart as some men returned to work. Fiona Hunter, then aged only 12, wrote a poem called, “Hang on Dad” for a school project:

“Don’t go down the mine Dad

Where some of them have gone

Hang on a little longer Dad

Don’t let them think they’ve won

I know it’s hard to feed us Dad

But we’ve hung on so long

It can’t go on much longer Dad

Much better times must come.”

It is hard to believe that those are the words of a child of 12.

The common endeavour of the miners, their families and the communities of East Lothian bound them close together, so my constituency is clearly one that does not easily lend itself to dissection, the arbitrary redrawing of boundaries and the random consequence of arid mathematical formulas dreamt up in Conservative central office and breathed into life in Whitehall. The coalition Government cannot take a community such as East Lothian, with its sense of self, its sensible and natural boundaries and institutions, and its hundreds of years of organic community development, and simply apply the chainsaw of narrow party advantage in the way that has been proposed.

As I was campaigning, I was proud to mark Labour’s record, and I now want to make a pledge to the people of East Lothian: Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will fight to stop the Government’s proposals to weaken democracy and my role in representing you. I thank the House.

19:02

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am delighted to have caught your eye to give my maiden speech. May I take this opportunity to congratulate those on both sides of the House who have given their maiden speeches in this debate? It is an honour and privilege for me to have been elected by the people of my home town, Northampton, where I was born and brought up, and to represent the Northampton North constituency.

Northampton has sent some distinguished representatives over the years, both for Northampton North and Northampton South. Sally Keeble, my immediate predecessor, was a fine constituency Member of Parliament who dedicated her 13 years in Parliament to public service. She was a passionate protector of the disadvantaged and a keen supporter of, and advocate for, the poor, as many in the House will have witnessed, particularly in her work on international development. At an election campaign hustings, Sally discreetly mentioned that she was missing her son’s 14th birthday party, which is evidence of the dedication and commitment that she gave to representing the constituency. As many in the House will know, Sally’s late father was an illustrious ambassador from the Court of St James to the Soviet Union, and no doubt her dedication to public service was fostered from an early age. I wish her and her family all the very best for the future.

As I said, Sally was the most recent in a long line of distinguished Members whom my home town has sent to the House. They have not always been without controversy. In fact, there is a worrying predilection toward deselection—of both Labour and Conservative Members. The first Member sent here in 1974 from the new Northampton North constituency was Maureen Colquhoun, who I understand underwent a rather difficult time for reasons that were not unconnected to her personal life—reasons that nowadays would be a positive attribute to candidacy in the Conservative party. Maureen was followed by Tony Marlow, whose boating blazers are the stuff of legend in this House. He, too, was threatened with deselection, for reasons that were something to do with a place called Maastricht. That would not be a positive attribute for candidacy in the modern Conservative party, so some things do stay the same.

Sally Keeble actually bucked the trend, because she was not threatened with deselection. Instead, she attempted to deselect the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the then Prime Minister, in one of the coup attempts against him. I am sure it will be noted by my hon. Friends that I do not intend to follow those traditions—either of deselection or decapitation.

Going back a little further, this House has dealt rather harshly, if I may say, with some Northampton representatives. One was imprisoned in the Clock Tower, another was fined for voting without having sworn the Oath of Allegiance, and one—Spencer Perceval—was assassinated in 1812 while entering the House. I hope there will be less dramatic opportunities for me to make my mark on this place.

Northampton is an historic market town with excellent communications—we are only one hour up the motorway or from Euston on the railway—and we excel on the sporting field. We have the Saints rugby team, the Cobblers football team and the county cricket ground. The town also has an excellent business ethos, and I invite all hon. Members to visit us.

As many will know, the town has an ancient history of boot and shoe making. Many in the House—on both sides—have benefited from shoes made in Northampton, not least my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. He is often accused of wearing Hush Puppies, but in fact they are brown suede shoes made in Northampton—although I was pleased to see that he did not wear them with the full-bottomed wig when he gave Her Majesty the Gracious Speech in another place.

I thought it would be suitable to make my maiden speech during the part of the Gracious Speech that relates to home affairs, because I have been in practice as a barrister for the past 16 years. In 13 of those years, I have witnessed some rather extraordinary events that reflect the current concern with the criminal justice system in the country at large. Some 3,600 new criminal offences have been created in the past 13 years, a rate of about one every weekday. You will be reassured to hear, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it is now illegal to sell a grey squirrel and to explode a nuclear bomb. Many hundreds of other pieces of legislation have been passed: 404 forms of behaviour are illegal now that were not illegal in 1997. To give one an idea of the progress—or lack thereof—whereas for most of the past 100 years there was about one criminal justice Bill per decade, there were 60 in the past decade.

I am afraid that we have not had the progress that we would like. To give one example of that quickly, within the last several months at court, several barristers were kept waiting while prisoners refused to alight from a bus because they were worried about losing their places in an overcrowded prison system. The prison officers refused to force them off the bus, because doing so would breach their human rights. Many were kept waiting for many hours. One prisoner decided that he needed to use the facilities and was allowed to alight from the bus, go into the cells, use the facilities and go back, voluntarily, and get back on the bus, because to have forced him to do otherwise would have been a breach of his human rights. Meanwhile, many were kept waiting in court.

I hope that my time in the House will help to ameliorate some of those discrepancies and disconnections that now exist in our system.

19:10

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

I start by commending the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) on his excellent and illuminating maiden speech. I am sure we will hear much more from him in the years ahead. I wish well both him and all those who either have already or are about to give their maiden speech.

Since the formation of this Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, we have heard much in the press in Scotland about the fact that there is to be a “respect agenda”, with the UK Government improving relations with the devolved Governments and the parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is thus with some regret that I noted the Deputy Prime Minister failing even to mention that agenda in his speech; he made an announcement of important constitutional progress on the reform of the House of Lords in respect of which he saw fit to invite Members from only three parties in this House.

The shadow Secretary of State is not in his place, but I ask his colleagues to pass on to him the comments that I am about to make, because I have not been a blushing violet—or even a shrinking violet; I am now blushing, and not for the first time—when it comes to criticising the last Labour Government. During the last Parliament, there was much I needed to criticise the Labour Government on when it came to constitutional matters, but in recent times the previous Government worked hard on issues such as the reform of party and MP finance to include all the parties. Indeed, the then Justice Secretary was exemplary in his relations with the political parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is totally unacceptable that we are to see major constitutional reforms in the United Kingdom on the basis of excluding the parties of government from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I was pleased to note that other Members on the Opposition side, not least the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), recognised that as an important issue.

Moving on to discuss the Queen’s Speech, we understand that progress is to be made on further devolution of powers to Scotland. That would mean safer streets and safer communities, which is something that we welcome, as we also welcome the willingness to consider improving the financial powers to be devolved to the Scottish Government and to the Scottish Parliament. This comes at a time when we are hearing growing calls from academics and senior business leaders who want Scottish Ministers to control taxes and social welfare and to have borrowing powers.

The Campaign for Fiscal Responsibility has been triggered in part by the new coalition Government’s pledge to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. Among the leading members of the Scottish business community who are calling for fiscal responsibility in Scotland is Jim McColl, the chairman of business development firm, Clyde Blowers, which is involved in the campaign. He said recently:

“I believe we’re at the crossroads of a fantastic opportunity to take more responsibility in Scotland for its economic health… We need to have a financially responsible Parliament where politicians take full responsibility for raising the money that they spend and for the economy that they manage. We need the levers to stimulate that economy”.

That has been underlined by Ben Thomson, the chairman of the think-tank Reform Scotland, who said that there is “surprising” breadth of support for radical change, which was further underlined in The Times today by Sir Tom Hunter, who writes:

“Tinkering is not the answer to these challenges—Scotland must take a radical look at itself and change markedly. Scotland needs to control the levers necessary to stimulate growth—and benefit from the receipts that come from that growth.”

I very much hope that the coalition Government will take all these voices into account and follow their own advice on the respect agenda and on working constructively with the Scottish Government in pursuing these matters.

In the time remaining, I would like to touch on a number of other constitutional reforms: fixed-term Parliaments, the 55% threshold, democratisation of the House of Lords and reform of the electoral system. We in the Scottish National party have long supported the introduction of fixed terms—experience of which, of course, we have in the Scottish Parliament. To illustrate and underline the point made by colleagues from the Democratic Unionist party earlier, it would be a real mistake to set the date of a fixed Parliament to match exactly the date of elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. If we are to have fixed terms, why not pick four-year rather than five-year cycles? Experience in the last Scottish Parliament election showed that the more elections one holds on the same day, the more problems can ensue.

Turning to the so-called threshold question, we need only a simple majority to form or bring down a Government in the Scottish Parliament. If no Government can command 50% of support among voting MSPs within 28 days, Parliament is dissolved. The 66% barrier exists only to ensure that there is time to allow a new Government to be formed if an old one collapses. I really hope that the Government listen on this issue. For people who have practical experience of the system as it works in action, the 55% threshold is a gerrymandering effort to hold on to power, as are the boundary reviews, which seem to take no account of the geographic diversity in some parts of the United Kingdom. It is also hard to conclude anything but that this is an effort to target poorer and more rural constituencies. If there is a need to reform the size of constituencies, the Government must take account of manageable size and geography.

On democratising the House of Lords, our party is in favour of a unicameral set-up, but should there be a second chamber, it must be elected. On electoral reform, if we are to have a referendum, we should include more than one option: the alternative vote is not proportional representation.

In conclusion, we heard today from the Deputy Prime Minister in soaring reformist rhetorical tones what was in actual fact his falling at the first fence. Inclusion, debate and participation are all fine and well, but they need to include all—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order.

19:17

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech. It is a maiden speech that comes at last to me, having been selected as the candidate for South Swindon some six years ago. That means that in 2005 I was beaten by my predecessor, Anne Snelgrove, to whom I pay warm tribute today. She worked extremely hard for her constituency and for her constituents. It is interesting to note that many of the challenges that she raised in her maiden speech are the challenges that face Swindon today—on jobs, for example. In fact, the unemployment position in Swindon is now twice as bad as it was back in 2005. Town centre regeneration is another challenge; the recession has sadly put paid to many of the fine plans laid out for our town centre.

I do not want to start, however, on an unduly pessimistic note because, like the peal of 10 bells at Christ Church in Swindon, celebrated in the poetry of Sir John Betjeman, there is much to ring the praises about when it comes to the town I represent. This is the part of my speech that is entirely uncontroversial, because it is a known fact that Swindon is a cultural hub. We are the home of the National Trust and the base of English Heritage. We also have the museum of the Great Western railway—God’s wonderful railway, in other words—this year celebrating 175 years of its existence by Act of Parliament. We are home to the National Monuments Record office.

We have splendid country parks, including Lydiard park, the former ancestral home of the Bolingbroke family—a political family well known to this House and to the other place. It is now a delightful country park to the west and on the western fringes of my constituency. To the east, we have Coate Water country park, much loved by local residents, home of a miniature railway and, on the edge, home to the museum of the 19th century writer and naturalist, Richard Jefferies.

There is much to commend the constituency that I represent. It is town, suburb and country, lying as it does between the ancient Ridgeway path and its iron-age forts, and the iron road of the railway that meant so much to the development of Swindon in the 19th century. Bisecting my constituency through the middle is that 20th-century innovation, the M4. Make no mistake about it, Mr Deputy Speaker: Swindon is well and truly at the heart of our country.

Swindon’s communities, whether they be in the town centre or out in the suburban fringes, are all united by several concerns. One of those concerns is about the need to protect and preserve our green spaces, and to ensure that the development that we know will come to Swindon—it is a town that has grown over the years and reinvented itself to quite brilliant effect—is sustainable. I therefore welcome a change to the planning regime, so that my town can survive, thrive and prosper in the years ahead.

One issue that comes up time and time again with the people I now represent is their concern about the system of criminal justice in our country. It might sound like special pleading—I make no apology for that—but having spent most of my professional life working as a barrister in the criminal justice system, I think that I am allowed to make some observations about the gap between political rhetoric and the sad reality of what is happening in our system today. We have confused legislative hyperactivity with effectiveness. The sausage-factory approach that saw Criminal Justice Act after Criminal Justice Act has not resulted in a better system; in fact, it has made it a great deal worse. The law of unforeseen consequences means that the extra burden placed on the system is causing it to creak at the hinges.

The words of politicians in this House and other places sound particularly hollow to those at the chalk face trying to grapple with the reality. We have spent too much time concentrating on the consequences of offending, instead of looking at the means of preventing it in the first place. The rhetoric of being tough on crime so loved by a former Prime Minister misses the point. It is time for us to be smart on crime, by looking at the causes of that criminality and dealing with them, lest we reap the whirlwind of social problems and increased expenditure.

When there is no option, we must stop being spellbound by the complexity of things. Prison is there to perform three simple functions: to protect the public, to punish offenders and to offer the hope of rehabilitation. None of those important functions seems to have been properly valued, as the events of recent years bear out. It is a scandal that those who have to pass sentences in the Crown court and other places are influenced by pressures on prison numbers. It is simply unacceptable and literally a denial of justice.

If we are to deal most effectively with criminality in our country, we need to call criminal offences crime, move away from the unproductive and costly antisocial behaviour structure and all the rhetoric surrounding it, and remember that at the root of it all, it is crime prevention and early intervention, particularly in the lives of young people, that we will see reaping real rewards, when we come to look back at our time in office. My plea today is for effective action on crime—for a bit of cleverness, rather than the rhetoric of tabloid newspapers. I look forward to, I hope, playing my part in the debates on crime and other issues that are important to the constituents I represent in the years ahead.

19:24

[Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

Thank you for the opportunity to deliver my maiden speech in this august Chamber, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am the first woman from Glasgow East to represent the constituency. Indeed, I am delighted that my city of Glasgow has simultaneously provided two women to represent it. We are indeed on the march.

I was intimidated before coming to this Chamber and, having listened to so many wonderful speeches, I am now completely intimidated—even more so than before. I have served in the Scottish Parliament since its inception in 1999. The transfer to these Green Benches has been daunting; indeed, this is a very different parliamentary experience.

I arrive in Westminster at a time of great and momentous challenge, in the tailspin of one of the world’s worst financial crises and an unprecedented breakdown in public confidence in the political class. In such a Chamber, we inevitably look to the voices and influences of the past. We must learn from and understand them. In this era of supposedly new politics, I hope that we do not forget the major advances of the past, including those of the preceding Labour Government. Among the most radical acts of that Labour Government was the constitutional arrangements that they introduced, including the advent of devolution, which was perhaps one of the most significant shifts in Government power that any of us is ever likely to witness.

Devolution has played a vital part in the economic and social renewal of Scotland. I have seen the Scottish Parliament become firmly embedded in the body politic of Scotland, with a programme of reform that has a deep and lasting impact in my constituency of Glasgow East. That constituency has many challenges to face. It ranges from the relatively prosperous areas of Mount Vernon and Garrowhill, through to hard-working communities such as those in Craigend and Carmyle, all of which include communities that have paid too high a price for the economic policies of the 1980s. We once had a steelworks that at its peak employed 40,000 workers. Now, United Biscuits, although perhaps the largest employer in the constituency, has 800 workers, making a vital contribution to the local economy.

Work was done by the previous Labour Government to develop the economic base of the east end of Glasgow. In the past 10 years, there has been an increase of businesses of nearly 50%, and increasing every year of that Labour Government. But as I say, Mr Deputy Presiding Officer—forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker; that was bound to happen—challenges remain. We have an unemployment rate of 7.3%, against a Scottish average of 4.3%. However, it is also incumbent on me to say that there is deep resentment across the east end that its many achievements are overlooked or undermined.

There is much to celebrate in the east end of Glasgow. We have some of the highest-performing state schools, in brand-new buildings. In 2014 we will host the Commonwealth games; and, of course, we are home to one of the world’s best football teams, Glasgow Celtic. I know that my speech is meant to be uncontroversial, but I must challenge a Member who spoke previously who claimed paradise was in his constituency. Paradise is, in fact, in the east end of Glasgow. Let me be clear: Glasgow East is a place of significant opportunity, but much more needs to be done; a place of great aspiration, too much of it unfulfilled; and a place of enterprise and effort, not always rewarded as it should be.

I am sure that in tackling that agenda I would receive strong support from my predecessor, Mr John Mason. Although I did not share his nationalist beliefs or those of the Scottish National party, I know that he had a strong dedication to his cause. In an age of spin and public relations, that is very much to be respected. I was in the unusual position of having fought John in two elections. I witnessed first hand what a strong defender of our democratic process he is. I am sure that everyone in the House would wish John Mason well in his future endeavours.

John Mason and I both share an appreciation for the work of our mutual predecessor, David Marshall, who served Glasgow, Shettleston—and subsequently Glasgow East—with great distinction for nearly three decades. In fact, the east end of Glasgow has produced parliamentarians of outstanding character and achievement. Most towering of all was John Wheatley, who combined inspiring politics with practical actions and is best remembered for the Housing Act 1924, which for the first time provided affordable housing for working people in Scotland. His legacy continues in my constituency.

I am well aware that my constituency is well known to many Members, particularly the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who claims Easterhouse as part of the inspiration for his welfare reform. Easterhouse is an area of genuine warmth and friendliness, and of course he was welcome. However, I am told that local people were intrigued: they had never seen a Tory before—and after he left, they have not seen one since.

The Secretary of State has made great claims for the changes that he will introduce. He has raised enormous expectations. I should tell the House that I will endeavour with some energy to ensure that he does not dispense that sick old Tory medicine, which is that when times are hard, benefits for the poorest are cut and the better-off are given tax cuts to see them on their way. His argument will be seriously weakened if he tells people that the only answer is work when there is no work to go to, and cuts all the supports that help individuals and families to get back on their feet. The effects of Thatcherism seem to have taken him by surprise. I do not know where he was during those years, but he certainly was not in Easterhouse then. I will say this about his reform programme: the people of Easterhouse and Glasgow East will be watching his work very closely indeed.

Mr Deputy Presiding Officer—Mr Deputy Speaker; I do apologise. I have won elections and I have lost elections, and from the recent election I draw the conclusion that no one party received ringing endorsements, and there was a very marked voting pattern throughout the country. I hope that the coalition Government pay close attention to the voting patterns in my constituency, my city and my country, because those people made it very clear that they did not want to return to an agenda of cuts and unemployment. I hope that, in the spirit of the new politics, the Government will pay due attention to that.

19:30

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) on a tremendous maiden speech. Those of us who know something about Scottish politics are well aware that she has a good reputation—a great reputation—and I am sure that she will continue her work in the House of Commons. She spoke with great passion and commitment, and she joins a number of ladies from Scotland on the Labour Benches who are a tremendous asset to this place.

May I express a little sympathy with the hon. Lady? Having also come to the House of Commons from another Chamber, I spent my maiden speech addressing the assembly as “My Lords”. Happily, I was cured of the habit pretty quickly, and I am sure that the hon. Lady will soon find it very easy to address the Chair as “Mr. Speaker” or “Mr. Deputy Speaker”.

I intend to talk about House of Lords reform. However, I am tempted first to make a brief comment about boundaries, particularly after hearing the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) say that absolute numbers were everything. I politely beg to differ. If, indeed, pure mathematics dictates that this Chamber should represent absolutely the votes cast in an election, the answer is extremely simple: it is called the single transferable vote. We all accept, however—I certainly accept—that there is something very special about the link between Member and constituency, which goes beyond simple mathematics.

There are other points to be taken into account. I am very happy with the argument advanced by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister that we should have more equality, for who could be against more equality? But what sort of equality are we to have? I want to ensure that my constituents experience the same equality of quality of service that they can expect from their Member of Parliament. In an average weekend, I spend four, five or six hours in a car in order to see my constituents—because why on earth should they come to me?—as well as the 12 hours that I spend commuting to and from this place. I should not be penalised for that. I must tell my right hon. and hon. Friends that a constituency that stretched from Shetland to Argyll would be utterly unworkable. It must be possible to take account of the differences, and to achieve a proper balance between numbers and size.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise the importance of maintaining the constituency link, but would not including the option of the AV-plus system proposed by the Jenkins commission in the proposed referendum on the electoral system make it possible to maintain that link while at the same time adopting a fairer voting system? That would give us a real choice, rather than our being limited to an option that neither of the governing parties support.

[John Thurso]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but I must not become involved in a discussion on the subject. I am looking at the clock, and thinking about House of Lords reform. I can usually bore for Britain about House of Lords reform for hours on end, but I see that I have only four minutes and 48 seconds left. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but perhaps we could discuss it on another occasion.

I want to talk first about the “why” and then about the “how” of House of Lords reform. For me, reforming the House of Lords represents the linchpin of constitutional reform. Without a legitimate upper House, we do not have a legitimate Parliament. It is unacceptable for one half of our Parliament to debate, with quality, and reach a decision, and for that decision to be rejected by the other half, simply because it is not legitimate—and it is not legitimate because it is not elected.

There are many countries in the world where appointment is regarded as legitimate, but in this country—given the way in which the media in particular, but also this place, have discussed the upper House—the other place can be considered legitimate only if it is either wholly or in very large part elected. When that happens, and it has legitimacy, it will become the true check and balance on this place that it ought to be.

I am not the slightest bit worried about this House losing its primacy. A strong House of Lords, properly elected on, I suggest, a different model from this place—a fully proportionate model—and operating in the way in which it should, would complement Parliament. A strong upper House means a strong Parliament. I believe that much of what has happened in the past could have been avoided if Parliament had been strengthened to allow two functioning Houses to hold the Executive to account, each undertaking its separate functions.

That brings me to the “how”. First, we must consider the strengths of the House of Lords, of which there are many. The quality of debate is tremendous. The House has no instructions from the Chair, and Report stages and Third Readings proceed in a timeous manner. We could learn from those examples in this place. The quality of the scrutiny given to legislation, and of debates, is very high in the House of Lords, and the lack of a constituency link is essential: we cannot allow a competition with a Member of Parliament representing a constituency. It is traditional for peers to discuss their regions, but they do not become involved in constituency cases. I have long held the view that a House based on large regional constituencies, with one third elected at each election for a longish period with no re-election, would capture the majority of the benefits that currently exist in the upper House. It would become both a smaller and a stronger House.

I want to say a little about what has been called “grandfathering”. High principle and low politics are involved. The interesting thing about life peers is that they all go native. It seems that the hereditaries are the only ones who are happy to leave. Life peers are seduced by the glories of the place. I propose that they should all be allowed to stay there, and that we elect the first third, the second third and the third third. We will get there eventually. The grim reaper will take care of quite a lot of them, and I suspect that if—as I suggested on Second Reading of the Bill that became the House of Lords Act 1999 when I was in another place—we make it possible for them to retire, a great many noble Lords who have served for a long time and in an illustrious way will take that opportunity.

There is also a high principle, however. The high principle is that much of what is good about the House of Lords, and is in its DNA, needs to be passed on. If the House of Lords as it is today were changed completely and became wholly elected, that would be lost. As I have said, there is low politics, but there is also that high principle.

As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said at the outset, it is nearly 100 years since my party started this process off. Would it not be a fitting tribute if we celebrated the hundredth anniversary by completing it?

19:39

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Thus far, today’s debate has been elegantly poised between rhetoric and reality. The reality we all face is the economic situation, which has been mentioned, and some Members—even among those of us who are not born-again cynics—might wonder whether some of the rhetoric coming from the coalition Government is intended to mask some of the reality of the pain they are currently proposing. I felt that somewhat when I heard the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech, with its silken strangulation of the public sector: “I feel your pain.”

Let me turn, however, to some of the specific issues, especially voter registration, electoral reform and equal boundaries. We have heard in contributions from both sides of the House about the disadvantages of sweeping away all consideration of natural and constituency boundaries, and I very much welcome and admire the remarks of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) about getting the balance right, but we all draw on our own circumstances, and I want to say tonight that behind the rhetoric of individual registration and equal constituencies lies the reality of the existing situation in constituencies such as mine where there is under-registration. There has been talk about the need to have equalised constituencies, but not so much emphasis has been placed on equalised registration. In Blackpool and many other seaside towns, and many urban centres as well, the issues of transience and of areas of higher deprivation are key, too. If we are truly concerned about that process, we need to heed what the Electoral Commission has said about the matter. If we are truly concerned about connecting with people in a practical way in addressing voting reform, we ought to return to the issue of weekend voting, which has gone around this place like a miasma, although nobody has ever actually focused on it.

Despite the elegant attempts of some Liberal Democrat Members to defend the indefensible, I must say that they have been sold a pup. They have been given a referendum on the alternative vote, which the Prime Minister and most of the Conservative party, and, sadly—I say that as a supporter of AV—a significant proportion of my party, will campaign against. Its prospects of getting through in a referendum are therefore relatively small. In return for this, there will be a gerrymandered system that will hit hardest at the Liberal Democrats. The Prime Minister gets the gain, and the Liberal Democrats get all the pain.

There were two interesting quotations when the 55% agreement emerged—I think that is the best way to describe them. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), was a leading participant in the Liberal Democrat discussions that led to the creation of the coalition, and he said on Radio 4 on 14 May:

“It was a small matter for us to say we accept”

the Conservative party’s “concerns” and agree to this. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who was serving on the Conservative team, had a different take, however. He said it was a “considered constitutional innovation”. Clearly, he had not been in the same early-hours cabal as the Under-Secretary. It has been said that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills made his reputation by referring to the former Prime Minister as having gone from Stalin to Mr Bean. I say that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove went from Mr Bean to Stalin in an instant.

Whether we have, for good or ill, an unwritten constitution, we have it, and custom, practice and precedent are weighty matters. In that constitution, prerogative issues and the fact that the House cannot bind itself because of parliamentary sovereignty to future things, the fact that the 55% figure would insulate the Executive against Parliament and the unease that the convention of dissolution would be eroded are all significant issues. That is why there has been a chorus of protest and concern in Parliament and outside.

I shall quote a few examples. Peter Hennessy, a leading academic and constitutional expert, has said:

“It looks as if you are priming the pitch, doctoring it a bit. Not good. It’s meant to be a different politics, new politics.”

We have heard today of the reservations of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and the hon. Members for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), and there is a degree of sublime humbug about a Conservative leader who hammered away week after week in a general election campaign about the effect on markets of the uncertainty of a hung Parliament, but who now as Prime Minister blithely proposes to impose a system that, if it led to a lame-duck Government under the 55% rule, would create weeks of turmoil in the markets.

The Scottish issue has already been discussed in that respect. There is a pattern here in respect of the Prime Minister, of course. He said on 14 May:

“I’m the first Prime Minister in British history to give up the right…for a dissolution of Parliament…Others have talked about it, people have written pamphlets and made speeches…I have made that change.”

It is, however, very much the 21st-century equivalent of Louis XIV’s “I am the state”—he is, of course, the monarch who was associated with the story of the emperor’s new clothes. We should not take forward the innovation-on-the-hoof that this Prime Minister is proposing, and the naivety of the Deputy Prime Minister in that respect in talking about verdict first, trial afterwards, because he had not worked out the details in the debate today, is a telling observation for all of us.

I do not have the time to talk about the broader issues, but they were touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). If we do not look at the broader issues of connecting with people, which would require reforming local government, bringing in the third sector and so forth, we will lose the plot. Substituting the coalition’s rhetoric for the hard practice of what connecting with local people actually means is a big issue.

19:46

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak in today’s debate, and I congratulate the other Members who have made their maiden speeches as they have raised the bar. I also thank the people of Amber Valley for electing me as their Member of Parliament. It is a tremendous honour and privilege to serve them, and I will do my utmost to live up to the trust they have placed in me.

The seat of Amber Valley was created in 1983 and was previously represented by Phillip Oppenheim, whom I am sure some Members will remember, and since 1997 by Judy Mallaber. I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her work on behalf of the people of Amber Valley. She can be rightly proud of what she achieved, especially on the introduction of the minimum wage, on which she worked before entering the House as well as while she was here. It is a tribute that something that was originally a political controversy has become accepted on both sides of the House. I wish her well in her future endeavours.

Whatever our differences on political issues, we have been in agreement on the need to address the support for the British National party in Amber Valley; it had two councillors elected in 2008. I am sure the whole House will share my relief that we are not joined in this place by any members of that party. I suspect that that concern is part of the reason for the conversion of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) to thinking the European list system we currently use is a bad idea.

It is, however, incumbent upon all politicians of the mainstream to address constructively the issues that have been taken up the BNP. Immigration was the issue most often raised in my seat, and I am pleased that the Gracious Speech includes our pledge to introduce the annual cap on immigration from outside the EU—and I am a little surprised that, as today’s Opposition amendment highlights, they are still concerned about that measure, which, as I have said, had widespread support in my seat.

My predecessor referred in her maiden speech to the importance of putting Amber Valley on the map. I think I can best describe that as a work in progress. This may be the only case that data protection rules allow me to take on from her. The seat is in Derbyshire—not in Wales, as some appear to think—running from the Nottinghamshire border to the edge of the Peak district, and includes the towns of Alfreton, Heanor and Ripley, and many surrounding villages. It is a former mining area, which has developed diverse industries since the closure of the pits in the 1960s.

The seat shares its name with a borough council, although that borough council of about 100,000 electors now has three MPs. Perhaps certain measures in the Gracious Speech will reduce some of that confusion, although I will take care in saying that, as part of the council area is also represented by my Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Mr McLoughlin), and I would hate to be seen to be trying to steal part of his seat.

While some Members might not have been able to place Amber Valley on a map, I am sure they are familiar with some of its businesses. These include Denby pottery—and I disagree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) in that I claim it as the producer of by far the best pottery in the country, and I am disappointed that I have not as yet found any of its products in use in the House. They also include Matthew Walker Christmas puddings and Thorntons chocolates. If I indulge in too many of their products I can avail myself of the services of another local business, Slimming World.

Of great concern in my constituency is the need to provide good-quality jobs for local people. A recent sadness has been the final closure of the Butterley plant, in Ripley. My two predecessors referred to the great steel work made there that forms the roof of St Pancras railway station; at least they had the pleasure of the business still being around at the time. Part of the Butterley site has already been replaced by houses, much against the wishes of the local council. I therefore welcome our proposal to change the planning system to allow local people to have far more of a say not only in protecting brownfield sites on which we would like to keep manufacturing businesses, but in preventing houses from being built all over our green belt.

I turn to the issue that prompted me to speak in today’s debate. While the tragic events in Cumbria were unfolding last Wednesday, there was also a tragic event in the peaceful village of Holbrook, in my constituency, where a young woman and her two-year-old child were stabbed to death by her estranged partner. My thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims at this difficult time. This case is made more difficult by the fact that the alleged perpetrator of these offences had been arrested twice by the police the week before, following accusations of domestic violence, and had also been receiving treatment for mental illness. I therefore welcome Derbyshire police’s calling in the Independent Police Complaints Commission to review their actions. I in no way wish to pre-judge the outcome of that review—it is easy to do so with the benefit of hindsight—but I hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will closely follow the progress of this case. If any lessons need to be learned, I hope they can be learned to ensure that the risk of such tragic events happening again is as low as possible.

It is at times like these that we come to appreciate the difficulty of the job carried out by our police, and I would like to pay tribute to the courage of the officers who broke into the house to try to stop those tragic events. I wish them all the best as they come to terms with the awful situation that they found.

We know that the size of the budget deficit run up by the previous Government means that difficult decisions need to be taken, and Derbyshire police will have to take their share of that pain. I note that the amendment that bears the name of the right hon. Member for Blackburn contains a request that the cuts do not damage the number of police officers. I point out to the Minister that the police funding review carried out some six years ago noted that Derbyshire police needed a significant increase in funding, of approximately £5 million a year. However, that funding has still not been provided to this day, due to the damping mechanism. I urge the Government to have a full review of the allocation of funds for police forces, to ensure that Derbyshire police—who are currently being deprived of the 100 officers whom those funds could be used to provide—get the fair funding they are entitled to for the level of crime in Derbyshire. Only by ensuring a fair allocation of funding can we make sure that we have police services that are both effective and efficient.

19:53

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on an excellent maiden speech. It is with some trepidation that I rise to address the House to make my maiden speech, conscious as I am of the esteem and veneration in which it is held in all corners of the civilised world, of the very high standards set by previous maiden speakers in this debate, and of the very great honour that is mine in representing the people of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow.

Before I tell the House a little more about my constituency, let me pay a warm tribute to my predecessor and friend, the right hon. Adam Ingram. Adam was a trade union official and local councillor before he was first elected to this House in 1987. His talents were soon recognised by Labour Front Benchers, and he served in various positions in opposition, working hard with others for the election of a Labour Government. It was in 1997, when Labour finally took office, that Adam took his first ministerial position under Tony Blair, as Northern Ireland security Minister.

Some Members may have seen the award winning Channel 4 drama “Mo” at the end of January, in which Adam was portrayed by the actor Gary Lewis. Adam explained to me that had Gary Lewis not landed the part, both Brad Pitt and Sylvester Stallone were keen to play the role.

On a serious note, it is easy to forget what has been achieved in Northern Ireland, because nothing is more certain in politics than that, once a commitment is delivered, it is human nature to look forward, not back. None the less, Northern Ireland is a safer, more peaceful place thanks to many people, and Adam Ingram is one of them.

After his time in the Northern Ireland Office, Adam was moved by Tony Blair to the Ministry of Defence. He became the UK’s longest serving defence Minister in modern times, dealing with many complex and difficult problems on the global stage. In total, Adam served for 23 years as the MP for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow and its predecessor constituencies, including 10 years as a Minister. During those 23 years, he never forgot who put him in Parliament, and he always put the interests of his constituents first. I pay tribute to Adam Ingram’s service to my constituency and to our country.

My constituency is a mix of rural and urban. Its most densely populated area is East Kilbride, Scotland’s most successful new town, where I have lived man and boy. Equally important is our rural area, an eclectic mix of villages, each one retaining its distinctive features. Other Members have asked me, “Which constituency do you represent?” They have been rather baffled by the triple-barrelled title of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow; alternatively, they have had no idea what I am actually saying. However, they should be grateful for the brevity of the title, because many of my constituents remain upset that it does not include their areas of Auldhouse, Blackwood, Brockets Brae, Chapelton, Drumclog, Gilmourton, Glassford, Jackton, Kirkmuirhill, Sandford, Stonehouse and Thorntonhall. I suspect that after hearing that list, Members will be grateful that the constituency name was shortened.

My constituency has a history of providing jobs in both new and established industries, and my constituents do not fear hard work—in fact, they relish it. For the last 13 years, the constituency has had both private and public sector investment. Public sector investment has led to the building of a new hospital, six new high schools, 10 new primary schools, new care homes for the elderly and vulnerable, and new houses. However, that investment is now under threat, both from decisions that will be made in this House and in the devolved Parliament in Edinburgh. We have lost manufacturing jobs in the semiconductor sector and other parts of the economy, but the people of my constituency are resilient. If they are given the opportunities—and their fair share of Government support—they will succeed.

I turn now to the constitution. I learned at an early age in the trade union movement, from my former wise leader, Mr Barry Reamsbottom, that those who seek to amend constitutions rarely do so with the best intentions. That is why I listened intently to the Prime Minister on the day of the Queen’s Speech. I have to say that I was disappointed. In attempting to justify the proposal to move to a 55% majority in order to dissolve this House, the Prime Minister used the example of the devolved Administration in Scotland to suggest that the proposal was constitutionally sound. In doing so, he revealed a profound misunderstanding of the devolved settlement.

The devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales were created by legislation in this House. Under the principle of subsidiarity, decisions previously taken in this place were devolved to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This House of Commons retains its overarching authority over the devolved Administrations because this is the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. For the Prime Minister to pray in aid rules governing the dissolution of a devolved structure to justify a change in the rules of this House demonstrates an alarming lack of respect for the status of the United Kingdom. The argument of the tail wagging the dog does not stand up even to light scrutiny. My constituents have been steadfast in their support of this democratic Chamber, which is rightly revered around the world. Do not let us diminish its authority based on the result of one election.

This House comprises people of many different backgrounds and talents—business people, lawyers, economists, doctors and academics—but for this place to be truly representative we need diversity. It is therefore right that this House should also include trade unionists, plumbers, electricians and people who have worked in the voluntary sector. My late father, Charles McCann, was a boiler maker/plater, and my mother, Bridget, was a housewife who brought up five children, three of whom were born profoundly deaf. I have been a civil servant, a trade union official and an elected councillor; my parents taught me the values that have made me the person I am today. I am proud to have been elected on 6 May, and I will strain every sinew to represent to the best of my ability the people of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow in my role as their new Member of Parliament.

19:59

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to thank the people of the Hexham constituency for allowing me to represent them in the House of Commons. I will never forget that they are the people who put me here. I follow on from Peter Atkinson, and I must say that one could not meet a kinder, gentler man. He served Hexham for 18 years with great distinction and I pay tribute to the work that he did. I will do well to copy his calm and effective representation.

The Hexham constituency is the second biggest in England, stretching from the outskirts of Newcastle to the Scottish border, and down to the far reaches of south and west Northumberland. The town of Hexham, with its famous abbey, may be the centre of the constituency, but it is surrounded by hundreds of beautiful villages and towns, Hadrian’s wall, the Pennine way, Kielder forest and reservoir, and Northumberland national park. While I am on the subject of tourism, I should mention that we are showing the way, as our scenery and history are second to none; ours is the land of the Romans, St Oswald, the marcher lords, Harry Hotspur, the border reivers and George Stephenson. Our area is at the heartbeat of history, having survived historical Scottish raids and political Liberal raids—I am pleased to say that both those former enemies are now our friends. I invite any hon. Member who has not visited our area to do so. Its people are second to none, and I shall do everything that I can to promote such a beautiful part of the north-east.

However, this special place also has serious issues that need to be addressed. My area contains hospitals that need to be retained, military barracks full of soldiers who need to be supported and schools that, despite the best efforts of the amazing teaching staff, have been underfunded and poorly supported for years. I should also mention our wealth of small and medium-sized businesses that need assistance to get through tough times. My family has run manufacturing businesses for more than 100 years since coming to this country as immigrants, so I am acutely conscious of the fact that the creation of long-term jobs will be at the heart of my role as the Member for Hexham.

Farmers are struggling, hill farmers particularly so, and they all say that the Government of the past 13 years were totally disinterested in the rural way of life. However, our area’s biggest problem is the chronic lack of social and affordable housing, which is having an impact on the local economy and schools. To put it simply, young people cannot afford to buy homes in my area. Some planners call this “Cumbriafication”, whereby a community is simply priced out of its birthright as all the families have to move elsewhere to live. If we do not stop this process, we will see the ever greater loss of our vibrant rural communities. But there are answers to this problem, because what is a speech in this great House without hope, aspiration, and an ability to believe that one’s reach can exceed one’s grasp?

We face a simple choice between supporting either the British farmer or still higher profits for the big supermarkets. We in this House have to make that decision, because the farmer simply will not survive without support in this House. We have a simple choice to make, and we should provide local homes for local people, decided upon by local people. We have a simple choice: do we allow village communities to slip away or will we halt the closure of post offices, shops and pubs? Without such amenities, the rural way of life loses its heart, its soul and so much more,

I have chosen to speak in the home affairs debate because I have spent too long as a criminal and civil barrister watching while Home Secretaries meddle with the criminal justice system to little positive effect. There have been dozens of criminal justice Bills in the past 13 years, very few of which were any good. No one has introduced a prison reform Act since 1952. I, like others, have worked at the criminal Bar, prosecuting and defending in many murder trials, and I have seen enough of the inadequacies of prison life to know that wholesale reform is required. To fail to reform the Prison Service would be a crime, because we are simply not solving the problem of crime and punishment. We have doubled the prison population in the past 18 years, yet reoffending rates remain in excess of 70%. We send more people to prison than anyone else in Europe, yet we are not safer. I will campaign for a better focus on sentencing, rehabilitation, drug testing and simple education in prisons. It is often said that too often Governments consult but do not listen. I want to ensure that the victim has a voice in this House. I am proud of the fact that the previous Labour Government, in their wisdom, gave me two separate national awards, one for my help to victim support and one for my campaign to challenge the state on unlawful hospital closures. I expect no such generosity from my hon. Friends in this Parliament.

People do not expect government to solve everything; in fact, in my experience, people are amazed when government does anything good at all. But we have a fresh chance, after the dark days of economic meltdown and a broken political system, to establish a new beginning. I accept that it will not be easy, but I am ambitious for my constituents and for this country. You will probably have noticed that I have fallen in love with the constituency of Hexham and its people, Mr Deputy Speaker—that is easy to do, because it is a very special place. I hope to play my part, however small, in delivering success for all the people of my constituency—that is an ambition worth striving for.

20:06

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

It is probably just as well that this is not a maiden speech, because I would hate to have to compete with the outstanding contributions that we have heard today, not least that of the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman). On the basis of what I have heard, I am sure that he will make a major contribution to this place in the years ahead. This is not a maiden speech, but it is a long time since I have had an opportunity to address the House and I have a new constituency—new Selly Oak—which I am very proud to represent.

Apart from the rather dubious proposals on anonymity for rape defendants and the likely impact on rape victims, we have not heard much in the Queen’s Speech about the victims of crime and antisocial behaviour. What plans does the coalition have to ensure that the needs of that group are put at the centre of our criminal justice system? It is the lack of consideration for victims that causes some people to think that the system is broken and many to believe that it is weighted entirely in favour of the offender. I have been working with victims for some time now, the most recent phase of which culminated in an input into Sara Payne’s report. I take this opportunity to wish her well. I hope that she makes a full recovery, because she is a remarkable lady.

I have become convinced that we need local charters for victims that all criminal justice and public agencies must sign up to so that everyone knows what is expected of them, and that we must reweight the system by putting the rights and needs of the victim ahead of the demands and desires of the wrongdoer. I ask the Government to examine how to reshape the criminal justice system so that the victim becomes our top priority.

I understand the coalition’s desire to abolish identity cards. I do not agree with its view, nor do a great many other people who have worries relating to the contribution that ID cards can make to combating crime and fraud. Will there be any compensation for those who, in good faith, have already purchased ID cards, or are they to become the first uncompensated victims of the coalition? As the databases are dismantled, what will happen to ID cards for foreign nationals? Without that infrastructure, how will we tackle illegal immigration?

I should like to know more about the priorities on police reform. Money is tight, so why, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) might well ask, is it a priority to have elections that nobody wants at a cost of perhaps £50 million per throw? Where will that money come from? Can my constituents in Selly Oak have an assurance that it will not be stripped from their policing budgets? What will happen to the policing pledge under elected police chiefs? Can it simply be ditched? If so, how will the Home Secretary safeguard against massive variations in behaviour and performance across police forces? Is incentivised and common-sense policing still on the agenda? On DNA and reducing the retention period for DNA profiles—not abolishing them as a matter of principle, but reducing the period—is the Home Secretary convinced that her proposals will not result in an avoidable tragedy? How will she sleep at night if a murderer or rapist who could have been caught goes free and does it again?

Finally, what are the Government’s intentions in relation to closed circuit television, and what was the purpose of the Deputy Prime Minister’s outburst against it? Is he merely trying to rekindle his liberal credentials and using CCTV as an Aunt Sally? Remember all those warm words—“It doesn’t have to be like this,” “It can be different,” and “We can change it”? That was rhetoric with the shelf-life of a TV debate from someone whose ambition is now exposed as being to acquire power and hang on to it by any means possible, no matter how illiberal or anti-democratic. Let me tell him that it will not wash. The people in Selly Oak want CCTV. Of course, they want it to be used responsibly, but they want it, and they will not accept any sham diversions.

I have experience of Lib Dem-Tory coalitions in Birmingham, and I know how poor they are at dealing with crime, antisocial behaviour and victims, and how poor they are at using tools that are regularly available elsewhere. I warn this Government not to make the same mistakes, not to rob us of the very tools that make people feel safe and that assist us in the fight against crime, and, for goodness’ sake, not to do that to help to save face for an already tarnished Deputy Prime Minister.

20:12

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Parliament has returned to a sea of fresh faces, but unlike you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I recognise hardly any of them. They include my brother-in-law, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), and my former association chairman, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The party political landscape is transformed and there is a feeling of refreshed optimism, but if we do not apply a new way of thinking to fixing our nation’s problems, the very same old politics will, I fear, return.

I shall unashamedly concentrate my observations on economic matters, in my capacity as the Member for the City of London, and on constitutional reform, which I broadly welcome as a long-time and robust supporter of House of Lords elections. I fear that the spirit of the past couple of years has been uncompromisingly ugly for those of us who instinctively support capitalism, free markets and global trade. There is widespread, almost open, hostility to banks, bankers, big business, the wealthy, private education, private health and at times even to the profit motive. That stands in stark contrast to the last time that the Conservatives came into government 31 years ago, when the case for empowering people, the smaller state and individual responsibility had already been made.

The election is already behind us, but I fear that we have a coalition Government in place that lack any explicit mandate to take the very tough economic decisions that are required as a matter of great urgency to get our public finances back on track. The key problem that faces the Government is a lack of public support for the urgent reductions in public expenditure that are now absolutely necessary. In large part, that is a result of the reluctance of the entire political class, during the recent election campaign, to level with the British public about the economic crisis that lies ahead. We are yet to strike at the core of the former Government’s rhetoric, and their narrative remains too dominant for my liking. Labour will now be able to sit on the sidelines and blame the new Government for everything that it postponed addressing. For example, we acquiesce in levelling higher taxes on the wealthy without making clear the very practical reasons why, in an age of unprecedented global mobility, the brightest and best of our young people will simply leave these shores if their plans to create wealth and promote enterprise are stifled. If the coalition is to be a success—and, more importantly, if our country is to lift itself out of this economic mire—we need first to make the case for a smaller, more efficient state through public spending cuts, and, secondly, to be strong enough to make the case for an internationally attractive and competitive tax system.

I understand the public’s appetite for retribution when it comes to the financial services sector, much of which is housed in my constituency, and the feeling that the banking fraternity should take the lion’s share of new taxes. But we must somehow separate sensible measures to curb excess and to share fairly the national burden from very punitive measures that are designed only to twist the knife and that have great potential to drive away the wealth and employment creators of the future.

There has been much talk about revitalising Britain’s manufacturing and export-led growth, but this prompts the obvious question, in the current economic climate, of who exactly will be doing the importing. The UK must be eternally grateful that we have stayed out of the eurozone, but the tumultuous events on the continent, which are only starting to play themselves out, will have a massive effect on us, regardless. After all, that struggling eurozone accounts for 60% of our export market. That is very bad news for the UK. Not only will our European trading partners be importing less, but the likely rapid depreciation in the value of the euro will also detrimentally affect our exporters. One of the most worrying aspects of the UK’s economic performance, particularly in the past two years, has been our failure to take greater advantage of the significant 20 to 25% devaluation in our currency to expand our export markets. That will augur very badly for us if sterling appreciates against the euro in the months ahead.

On constitutional reform, I must confess to being rather less a Conservative and more a radical in this area. In my very first speech in the House, nine years ago, I made very clear my support for a wholly-elected House of Lords, and a few years ago I suggested a set of proposals that would have helped to tie up the anomalies that had been left by devolution and the incomplete reform of the House of Lords. As a result of this interest, I have found very disquieting the recent press reports that the new coalition proposes—in breach of both election manifestos—to ennoble 200 men and women in order to ensure that the composition of the House of Lords is

“reflective of the share of the vote”

in the recent general election.

Just before the election, I noted that there would be public outrage if a business-as-usual approach to House of Lords appointments was adopted by the political class in the months ahead. In particular, it would be totally unacceptable if any retiring Members of this House who have been reprimanded, been obliged to apologise to the House or had to repay substantial sums following the allowances scandal were now raised to the peerage. The same must apply to the former senior parliamentarians from the Commons who led the absolutely calamitous efforts to prevent the publication of MPs’ expenses through the High Court or the inadequate attempts at reform after the entire scandal broke regarding the employment of relatives at the beginning of 2008. That might be the way that things were done in the past, but it cannot be tolerated now.

It would be unwise to underestimate the challenges ahead for our nation and the challenges that we in the coalition have to take on board. The previous Government left not only a dismal economic legacy, but a discredited political system and woefully inadequate attempts at constitutional reform. An extremely tough road lies ahead, and I fear that the early popularity of the coalition will be very fleeting and that the good will towards it will be very temporary in this country. Accepting that, it would be wise for us to apply integrity, common sense and principle to every political decision that we take. That approach is more likely to receive longer-term political support than the pursuit of an agenda set by public opinion and the media. In looking at both the economy and constitutional reform, I believe we need only take the efforts of the past 13 years as our lesson. Short-termist, incomplete and superficially popular measures have a terrible habit of unravelling before our eyes.

20:19

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech today. I congratulate all those who have made maiden speeches today, particularly the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and my hon. Friends the Members for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) and for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), who spoke with passion and compassion in equal measure, as I have come to expect from them.

Representing the constituency of West Dunbartonshire would be an enormous honour for anyone but it is particularly special for me, because it is my home. It is where I am from, where I was born and raised. The reason I stood for West Dunbartonshire was to represent the people I grew up with, have lived beside and have known all my life. It is an honour to represent them here.

I pay tribute to my predecessor the right hon. John McFall, not from obligation but from true respect. As a Member of this House, John was first and foremost a champion for West Dunbartonshire. I read his maiden speech, and I could easily have used his opening paragraph, although I hasten to add that I did not. He spoke with pride of the honour of representing his home and I know that throughout his parliamentary career that was foremost in his mind.

John was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office and was there at the time of the devastating Omagh bombing. He is of course best known for his superb chairmanship of the Treasury Committee. It was a privilege to visit the constituency with John in the weeks before the election. Both he and I were welcomed with open arms everywhere we went. Even after all his 23 years of elected office, he was not wearied by the job. It was clear that he would miss his constituents, and this place, immensely.

John was also a Co-op MP and I am delighted to follow in his footsteps in that respect. I look forward to promoting and supporting Co-op policies in the House, as I believe they often provide a better answer to some problems.

Last week, John was elevated to the other place. I confess that I am slightly unnerved that he will be keeping an eye on me, but his counsel is always welcome. He will be a formidable addition to the other Chamber. Having watched him tackle the bank chiefs, I pity those who thought they were rid of him, but John was respected on both sides of the House and many will be glad to see him back in Westminster.

I pay tribute, too, to Tony Worthington, the former MP for Clydebank and Milngavie. Like John, he was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office and contributed greatly through his work on the Select Committee on International Development.

Although I did not have the good fortune to meet Ian Campbell, who so ably represented Dumbarton before John McFall, I met his wife Mary during the selection process. Living as she does in the quiet rural village of Gartocharn, she was somewhat surprised to see me at her door one night during the selection campaign, as I chased down every last party member for their vote. She was not, however, as surprised as I was when she told me that the postman had not driven up to her house for some months because of the bad weather. At that point, I worried that I might have put my determination to be selected as the Labour candidate above any consideration for the condition of my dad’s car, which my partner Gregor had driven up the steep muddy track to Mrs Campbell’s house, narrowly avoiding the sheep. I hope the car is not still rattling—if so, I am afraid the game is up. Apologies, Dad.

The constituency of West Dunbartonshire has the best of both worlds. We sit between Glasgow, in my opinion the best city in the world, and Loch Lomond, undisputedly one of the most beautiful places in the world. If Members have never visited the area, I urge them to put it on their wish list now.

I am in the unique position of having a personal connection with virtually every part of my constituency. Having been born in the Vale of Leven, I grew up in Dumbarton and while I am technically a Son of the Rock I am also half Bankie, as my dad is from Clydebank and I have family in with the bricks there. My mum and dad lived in Bowling when they were first married and growing up I often visited friends in Old Kilpatrick, Milton and Duntocher, so there is genuinely no part of my constituency that is unfamiliar to me. I look forward to standing up for all those areas as I promised during my campaign.

There is so much to be proud of in West Dunbartonshire. We have an incredible history and potentially a very bright future. I could speak for a long time about the history of Dumbarton as the ancient capital of Strathclyde and about our rock and castle, which dates back to the Vikings. I could tell the House about the famous Denny’s shipyard, the leading innovator of the time in shipbuilding, which put the finishing touches to the Cutty Sark.

I could also talk about the proud industrial past of Clydebank, heralded today by the Titan crane on the site of the former John Brown’s shipyard, famous for its liners and battleships, where the QE II was built. If I had time, I would love to expand on formidable red Clydesiders, such as Davie Kirkwood, another of my predecessors. My older constituents still remember singing about him at election time and his spirit lives on today in the vital work of the Clydebank asbestos group. I could talk about the individuality of all the communities that make up the Vale of Leven and the fantastic community-led regeneration in Renton, but I hope the House will permit me to move on to more pressing issues for my constituents.

Some people focus too much on the boundaries that divide West Dunbartonshire, while I see a brilliant area, with fantastic people, potential and ambition. But we are a people who suffered much under the last Tory Government and I fear we have much to lose under the present one. This Government should pay close attention to what is happening in West Dunbartonshire, because they could learn from the mistakes that are being made there right now.

My constituency is, I am sorry to say, ahead of the curve in facing swingeing cuts, for we are at the mercy of a Scottish National council that wishes to raise £2 million from local people. The council has ramped up home care charges for almost every service it provides. It is cutting our education services from all sides. Those cuts and charges are the No. 1 issue raised with me both by local people who use the services and council employees who are struggling to deliver them. Although it may not be parliamentary convention to address such an issue in a maiden speech, I would be letting down my constituents if I did not raise that situation in my first opportunity to speak in this place.

One of my first acts as the MP for West Dunbartonshire will be to establish a jobs taskforce, but while I am planning how to help get people into work, the Government are taking people out of work. My constituents valued Labour’s future jobs fund. Nowhere was it needed more than in West Dunbartonshire, because despite Labour’s success in tackling the desperately high levels of unemployment left as the Conservative legacy, West Dunbartonshire consistently has one of the highest levels of unemployment in Scotland. I do not accept that it is for ever our fate to be at the wrong end of those statistics, which is why I welcomed Labour’s future jobs fund, but that help will now be taken from my constituents, and I urge the Government to reconsider their decision.

I raise the issue not just for its own merit but to illustrate to the Government that many in the Chamber will disagree with their policies. That is normal and healthy in a democracy, but it would not be healthy or democratic to bind the House to an arbitrary and artificial dissolution threshold of 55%.

I am conscious that I may not have made as traditional a maiden speech as is expected, but I am firmly aware of the expectations my constituents have of me and I intend to uphold my promise to them that I will always put them first.

20:26

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) and Members on both sides of the House on the excellent maiden speeches we have heard today.

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for recognising me for this maiden speech. It is, after all, five years since my predecessor, Bob Marshall-Andrews, took to the airwaves to concede defeat. Many Members may have heard him admit defeat on that occasion, but not all may have heard him make later what has variously been described as an Al Gore-style retraction or a Lazarus-like recovery.

Bob Marshall-Andrews represented the constituents of Medway for 13 years, highly ably holding the Government to account throughout that period. During that time he faced a pincer attack from my campaign and from his Front Bench. On one occasion, the Labour Whips were so keen to assist my campaign that they leaked the fact that they had given him permission to undertake legal work in Hong Kong for several weeks while Parliament was sitting. Such things are always opaque, but I understand that it was in retaliation for Mr Marshall-Andrews having auctioned a series of Whips’ letters to recalcitrant MPs, to raise money for the Campaign group.

Bob Marshall-Andrews had a number of great successes. He defended the right to trial by jury—I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) took up that cause this evening—and he helped to prevent the extension of detention without trial. He played a major part locally in bringing the campuses of four universities to our constituency.

The counstituency of Rochester and Strood is the successor to the Medway constituency. It contains two of the five Medway towns. Rochester, with its castle and cathedral, was and should again be a city. Strood, its proud neighbour over the River Medway, grew in the patriotic fervour of the Boer war, along with Chatham dockyard, and that is recorded in street names such as Gordon, Kitchener and Cecil.

The constituency contains the historic dockyard of Chatham, which built and served our Navy from before the time of Pepys, to Nelson’s HMS Victory, to the Falklands conflict. We are proud of that heritage, but we are also proud that, 25 years on, we have recovered from the closure of that dockyard.

The constituency is two thirds urban, but also a third rural. We have the Hoo peninsula, between the Rivers Medway and Thames, which stretches from Grain to Cliffe, and where we saw off the threat of an airport twice the size of Heathrow. The constituency also contains the north downs villages of Cuxton and Halling.

On the substance of the debate tonight, I should declare an interest: I am a member of the Kent police authority. However, on occasion, turkeys do vote for Christmas, and I should like to welcome the coalition’s proposals to abolish police authorities and replace us with directly elected individuals. It must be right that those who exercise the coercive power of the state should be held to account by those whom they serve. That is a progressive cause. It is the cause of centuries of the parish constable against the remote magistracy. It is the cause of London Labour councils and the South Yorkshire police authority through the 1980s. It is the cause of the Levellers and, indeed, the Diggers, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton referred earlier. However, it is a cause today that is represented not by the Opposition, but by the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), who represents not just Burford, but democratic ideals of the Levellers who lost their lives there.

I have heard the odd senior police officer oppose those plans, yet there is no suggestion of any intrusion on the chief constable’s prerogative. The powers that will be transferred are currently those of police authorities. Surely, the objection is not merely that directly elected individuals will exercise those powers more effectively than police authorities have done to date.

We will also codify operational independence. I would caution that that does not mean that the police should be allowed to get along with things solely as they wish. The Metropolitan police have a tradition of independence because we have had a concern to guard against them becoming the arm of central Government. However, our tripartite system is a compromise between counties, where chief constables would occasionally receive instructions, and boroughs, where oversight was much greater. Indeed, the watch committee of the borough of Preston met twice a day—once in the morning, to give the chief constable his instructions, and once in the early evening, to check that he had carried them out.

Before I close, I should like to draw the House’s attention to what I consider the major trend in policing of the past 25 years. It is the movement of power from locally appointed and accountable chief constables to an organisation that is both a private company and a trade union with a closed shop: the Association of Chief Police Officers, which has grown to dominate the field of policing without the sanction of the House. It has its committees and its cabinet, and it issues instructions to us in Kent on how much we should charge for policing the Faversham carnival or the Maidstone water festival. It is right that we should now move and have directly elected police commissioners to rebalance the policing landscape and restore local democracy.

20:33

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) on his fine maiden speech. The practical experience that he obviously has of police authorities will stand him in good stead in debates in the House on such matters, even though we may not agree on the contents of what he says. As for his generous tributes to his predecessor, I am sure that the Labour Whips will hope that he is as loyal to the new Government as his predecessor was to the Labour Government.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) for her fine speech. She also paid a very generous tribute to her predecessor, John McFall. John McFall is certainly a hard act to follow, but I have no doubt that she has the talent and expertise to be a worthy successor to him. She will shine in the House, although the nice things that I had written down about her speech came to a stop when she reached the part about Glasgow being the finest city in the world. Glasgow is a fine place, but that is going a little too far. I am sure that she will do well, and I wish her well in her parliamentary career.

I want to say a few things about the issue of the 55% threshold for Dissolution of the House of Commons, which is being proposed by the Government coalition. I do not think that I am the only Member, and not only on this side of the House, who is disappointed at the way that the Deputy Prime Minister—the first Liberal leader since Lloyd George to speak at the Dispatch Box from the Treasury Bench—performed in the Chamber today. I found his refusal to enter into any real debate and answer questions very disappointing. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said from the other side of the Chamber, the proposal for a minimum threshold is a major constitutional change, and it was not even in either of the Government parties’ manifestos, so it is quite reasonable to ask questions about the proposal, how it would work and what it would mean in practice. It is not good enough to say, “It is just a few details that we will sort out later.”

The Deputy Leader of the House was taken by surprise, or ambushed, in an Adjournment debate last week. He could be forgiven for not having all the answers, but by now I would have hoped that the Government had answers to the questions that they were asked. I hope that we see better from the Deputy Prime Minister in future.

Given that the Deputy Prime Minister would not answer many of the questions that were put to him today, I hope that the Home Secretary, who is always courteous, tries to address in the winding-up speech some of the issues that the Deputy Prime Minister unfortunately failed to address. I congratulate her junior Ministers on their promotion to the Treasury Bench and hope that they will have a word with her about that before the end of the debate.

Those issues are simple and straightforward. First, do the Government accept that if a Government lose a vote of confidence on a simple majority and no alternative majority is formed within a reasonable time, Parliament will then be dissolved and there will be general election? If they say yes and make it clear that that is their position, they will deal with many of the objections held by Members on the Opposition Benches. [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House chunters away from a sedentary position, but the fact is that we have not been given clear answers to these questions. If the Government give clear answers, they will allow the debate to move much further forward.

Secondly, we have to challenge the assertion being made by the Government parties that their proposal for a 55% threshold gives away the Government’s right to call a general election. A 55% threshold does not give away the Government’s right to call an election. As has been pointed out time and again, the Government parties have 57% of the seats—a majority—so nothing has changed. There is no move to a fixed-term Parliament in the measures being proposed, from what we can understand about what they are meant to provide.

If those on the Government side of the House really want to give up the right to be able to call a general election at a time that suits the Government parties, perhaps we should go for a higher threshold for a Government motion to dissolve Parliament. Let us go for the Scottish higher proportion, as some people have suggested. That might be a fair combination: a higher threshold for the Government to be able to move Dissolution, but keeping the right of a simple majority in Parliament to throw the Government out if they no longer have the support of the House. That is the kind of debate—the kind of proposal and the kind of compromise—that we ought to have over time. It is the kind of debate in which we might get a fair degree of consensus across the House.

One lesson of the Scottish example is not simply the numbers—the threshold—required to dissolve the Scottish Parliament, but the approach to politics involved. The Scottish Parliament’s arrangements for dissolution and for no-confidence votes have stood the test of time because they were not suddenly announced at the last minute, after an election. Originally, we were told that there would be a binding vote of the House of Commons on the proposals within days of the Government taking office. That idea at least appears to have been dropped. The Scottish Parliament proposals had such broad support because they were discussed over time, and not just in this House. There were weeks, months and years of discussion in the wider political community in Scotland as well. I suggest that that is a lesson that the Government should learn from the Scottish experience.

As the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) pointed out, this is not only a question of getting measures through this place; they have to get through the House of Lords as well. No matter how many former Liberal Democrat councillors, retired Tory MPs or whatever the Government try to stuff into the House of Lords, I predict that, once they are there, they will become attached to the place along the corridor.

If the Government really want to move forward on fundamental constitutional reform, the way to do it is to try to get as much consensus as possible across the Chamber of the House of Commons. If that happens, there will not be the same opportunity for those in the House of Lords who want to stop change to do so.

Let us try to move forward with consensus. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister’s performance today was an aberration caused by his excitement at being the first Liberal leader since Lloyd George to sit on the Treasury Bench. Perhaps some of the wiser heads in the Lib Dem and Conservative parties will advise him to think differently and to approach the issues differently in future.

I am sure that we can get consensus in the House on most of those issues. Let us try to move forward on that basis, rather than force division where no division need exist.

20:39

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech this evening. It has been a privilege to listen to so many of my colleagues making their maiden speeches. I mention particularly the previous three speeches—from the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who has deep boots to fill as the successor to Bob Marshall-Andrews; the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle); and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), with whose comments about House of Lords reform I find myself agreeing strongly.

There has been much talk over the years about how statistics can be manipulated to suit the wishes of the Government of the day. I am confident that in this era of new politics, as described so elegantly by my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, such statistical innovation will not be a feature of the coalition Government—a Government of whom I am a little startled to find myself a Member.

I mention the fact of statistics or, to put it another way, results shifting with the tide, as when I had the honour of being elected at 3.30 am on 7 May by the good voters of Eastbourne and Willingdon I had already been through a 45-minute process where I had been told that I had lost. It appears that both my and my opponent’s counting agents had made the same mistake. Better to have thought I had lost only to find out that I had won, one might say—certainly better than when I fought the previous general election in Eastbourne in 2005, where for a similar period of 45 minutes, I was told that I had won, until suddenly another box of ballot papers was discovered, and I had lost. Members will appreciate, I am sure, that I now believe something only after a certain amount of time has elapsed, to allow for any variables. In my case, 45 minutes appears to be the cut-off.

Nevertheless, it is a profound honour to have been elected as the MP for Eastbourne. I am the third Liberal or Liberal Democrat to have represented such a wonderful constituency. The others were my colleague Mr Bellotti, who was elected in the by-election in 1990, and, apparently, another Liberal MP from over 100 years ago. I believe we were in government at the time, so it is a particular pleasure to be in that position again, though I note that it was rather upsetting for the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). I fervently hope that we do not have to wait another 100 years before we are next in government, though I suspect that some hon. Members present may earnestly desire that.

I would like to make reference to the contribution of two of my other predecessors, Mr Nigel Waterson and the right hon. Ian Gow. Mr Waterson had the privilege of representing Eastbourne for 18 years and I am sure many of his colleagues in the House will join me in wishing him well for the future. I am aware that the tradition in the House is to speak only good of our predecessor, and that is how it should be. However, the recent general election in Eastbourne was a bruising campaign for all concerned, and at the time and since I promised my constituents that, come what may, were I elected I would remain truthful to them, whatever the criteria.

As my constituents know, there was not a great deal of love lost between Mr Waterson and myself, and it would be absurd and dishonest for me to pretend otherwise, but I would like to pay a fulsome tribute to him on two specific issues. First, Mr Waterson played a key leading role in the town’s cross-party campaign to stop the closure of maternity services at the Eastbourne district and general hospital. His commitment and dedication to that cause played no small part in its eventual success. I, Eastbourne and the surrounding area thank him for that.

Secondly, let me provide a little context. Having spent over 20 years in business before coming into politics, I had to learn pretty quickly just how brutal a business our profession can be. It seems to be the nature of the beast. In a way, democratic politics across the world is the closest that protagonists come to war without actually killing each other. It is rather odd, but I am sure many more learned scholars than I have posited that, with a system in which there can be only one winner and the stakes are so great, tempers become frayed. As I am sure many Members know from experience, public meetings can become very heated. On those occasions when Mr Waterson was in the firing line, I observed that he was a brave man. He did not crumble or give in, and for that I respect his courage.

I should like to turn to the right hon. Ian Gow. I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr Gow, but I am aware that there remain a number of Members who knew him well. I should like to tell them and the House that he is still remembered with tremendous affection by the voters of Eastbourne and Willingdon, across all party persuasions. He will be my role model of a good constituency MP.

I should also hope that in some small way my election helps to close the circle since the IRA’s appalling and disgraceful act of assassinating Mr Gow all those years ago. I am half Northern Irish, and like many from that island my family was affected by the troubles. One of my uncles was a senior police officer who survived an assassination attempt by the IRA, while other members of my family were more supportive of the nationalist cause, and still other members were supportive of the Liberal Democrats’ sister party in Northern Ireland, the Alliance party.

Therefore, I know more than most how far Northern Ireland has come over the past 15 years, and for that I pay a sincere and heartfelt tribute to all the political parties in Northern Ireland which have moved so far, and to both the Conservative and, more recently, Labour Governments for enabling the peace process, proving, perhaps, what I said earlier: for all its Sturm und Drang, democratic politics, red in tooth and claw, really is the only sane alternative. Otherwise, as we saw in Northern Ireland during the troubles and still see throughout the world, bloodshed ensues and people—innocent people—lose their lives. Consequently, to represent the same constituency that the right hon. Ian Gow died serving is an honour, and I assure the House that his memory and legacy live on in Eastbourne.

Talking of Eastbourne, I shall give Members a little history. Many in the House will know that it is a splendid town with a fine sea front, wonderful architecture and flanked by the stunning South Downs. Some Members, however, may not know that George Orwell was reputed to have written “Animal Farm” in Eastbourne. Indeed, Friedrich Engels lived for a time in the town and, allegedly, even received the odd holiday visit from Karl Marx. Not perhaps what we would expect—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Hugh Bayley)]

Order. It is an excellent maiden speech, but I am afraid that I must now call the next speaker.

20:47

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity this evening to address the House for the first time, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), whom I congratulate on making such an engaging contribution to this evening’s proceedings.

It is perhaps appropriate that I contribute to this part of the debate on the Gracious Speech, because I am the first Member for Banff and Buchan to make a maiden speech in the Chamber since the significant constitutional changes that brought about devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Part of my duty this evening is to pay tribute to my predecessor, the right hon. Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland. My right hon. Friend made an inimitable mark on this House. He continues to serve the people of north-east Scotland as MSP for Gordon, and he continues to make his mark on what remains a live and dynamic debate about the constitutional future of these islands. I have no doubt that Alex Salmond will play an instrumental role in shaping the emerging debate, which is now gathering momentum, on new powers for the devolved Administrations. I have no doubt also that, when future generations reflect on the history of Scotland, Alex Salmond’s central place in the story of our own times will be assured.

However, some of Alex Salmond’s greatest strengths as a Member lay in the diligent service that he gave his constituents in Banff and Buchan. He worked hard to win the respect of his constituents across the political spectrum, and I aim to do likewise. I grew up in the Banffshire port of Macduff, I am now immensely honoured to represent my home area, and I shall seek to emulate the high quality of representation to which the people of Banff and Buchan have grown accustomed over the past 23 years.

Turning to this evening’s debate, I am the first to concede that constitutional change can be a dry subject. However, for my constituents, a very great deal is at stake in our constitutional arrangements. Banff and Buchan’s local economy depends heavily on agriculture, fisheries and energy and the manufacturing industries associated with them. People do hard physical work to produce tangible goods and services, and, although the oil and gas industry has brought a degree of prosperity to the area over the past 30 years, many people—especially women—still work in low-paid jobs in the processing and manufacturing sectors. Many of our older residents therefore face very frugal retirements, despite having worked hard all their days, and keeping warm in winter is a challenge for many. The constituency has been badly affected by the recession; in fact, we have experienced among the sharpest increases in unemployment anywhere in the UK.

The constitution matters to Banff and Buchan because our key industries are directly affected by decisions made at European level negotiated on our behalf by UK Ministers—too often, I am sad to say, not very effectively. In my view, further constitutional change is a necessary precursor to improving the lives and prospects of the people I represent.

The fishing industry is at the heart of our local economy, and it is the lifeblood of our coastal towns and villages. About two thirds of the UK’s fishing industry is based in Scotland, and much of it is centred around Banff and Buchan, where Peterhead remains Europe’s premier white fish port and Fraserburgh is Europe’s largest shellfish port. The fishing industry also supports thousands of onshore jobs in fish processing, retail and supply. These continue to be exceptionally difficult times for the fishing and processing industries. In the past 10 years, the white fish fleet has halved and many of the current fleet are struggling to stay in business. The underlying problem is the European Union’s common fisheries policy, which has been an unmitigated disaster at every level. The CFP is not fit for purpose. It threatens the economic viability of the industry and the social fabric of our communities, and it is causing untold environmental damage. Our fishing industry needs urgent action now to create a sustainable future.

As hon. Members will be aware, management of fisheries is a devolved issue, but the key decisions that set the policy framework are made by EU member states. Scottish fishermen have been repeatedly let down by UK Governments in EU negotiations. Just a few weeks ago, at a time of crisis for the industry, we saw the Scottish Fisheries Minister prevented from attending international talks on the CFP, while an unelected peer attended on behalf of the previous UK Government. Perhaps no issue highlights more acutely the limitations of our current constitutional arrangements. Fishing is far more important to the communities I represent than it will ever be to the UK as a whole. Although I regret that there is no mention of fisheries in the new Government’s coalition agreement, I hope that they will take steps to redress the exclusion of the devolved Administrations from fisheries talks and will, in doing so, put some flesh on the bones of their much publicised, and today rather emaciated-looking, respect agenda.

Banff and Buchan’s agricultural producers face similar representational challenges in ensuring that decisions made in Brussels reflect their interests and needs. Turriff is the most sizeable of Banff and Buchan’s rural towns and is home to one of the UK’s largest agricultural shows and a range of industries, including a large meat processing plant that supplies premium produce to supermarkets across the country. Turriff is of course more well known for the famous “Turra Coo”, which formed part of a celebrated protest by local farmers against the taxation policies of the Liberal Government back in 1913. Perhaps there is a warning there for the present Government to mind how they treat Scottish farmers.

The realities of physical geography mean that there are distinct issues for farmers in different parts of the UK. Agriculture is also largely a devolved issue, but the practice of recent years has often been for UK Ministers to conduct negotiations with the EU Commission, the presidency and other member states without the presence of devolved Ministers. Once again, I would urge the new Government to bring the democratically elected representatives of the devolved Administrations around the table. As the EU reforms its common agricultural policy, the UK needs to move away from the “one size fits nobody” approach of recent years, which does a grave disservice to those among my constituents who earn their livelihoods from the land.

The other major source of employment in Banff and Buchan is the oil and gas sector, onshore and offshore, most notably at the St Fergus terminal. However, as we look ahead, we have to acknowledge that our future prosperity lies in renewable energy. Banff and Buchan is exceptionally well positioned to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the development of offshore wind, wave and tidal power. We have the location and a skilled workforce experienced in offshore technology. However, to make the most of these opportunities for green jobs, we need to challenge the current discriminatory transmission charges regime, which disincentivises the production of renewable energy in the very areas of the UK most equipped to produce it. We also need the UK Government to release the fossil fuel levy to enable the investment in the infrastructure that is necessary to realise our potential and to build a prosperous future.

I have no doubt that I will return to these issues in the weeks ahead, and I look forward to bringing the concerns of Banff and Buchan’s constituents before the House in future.

20:54

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

It is an honour to be called to speak and to follow the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who spoke so passionately about her new constituency. She also spoke about a subject to do with the constitution that I, too, wish to address—the devolution of power to people more locally. That is a thread that binds together all of us on this side of the House. We believe that the constitution has become too centralised and that local people should be given more of a say. That is certainly true in West Suffolk.

West Suffolk has been represented for the past 18 years by Richard Spring, who was well loved in the constituency, worked tirelessly for it and was admired and respected in all parts of the House. I cannot recall the number of times that, during the election campaign, I knocked on a door and the person who answered said, “Oh, you are following Richard Spring. Well, you’ve got big shoes to fill.” If I can manage to fill those shoes and do as good a job for West Suffolk as he did over the past 18 years, I will have done a very good job indeed. I say from the bottom of my heart that that is what I intend to do.

Richard Spring made the decision early on in his time as an MP to, as he put it, “out-liberal the Liberals” in local campaigning. Now that I find myself on the same Benches as that party, perhaps it is appropriate that I have learned a trick or two from the campaigning that he undertook locally to ensure that West Suffolk was well represented in the House. His biggest impact on the constituency was undoubtedly in the town of Haverhill, which is the largest in the constituency. It has a long history and was in the Domesday Book. It is now a town on the up, largely thanks to his work and that of St Edmundsbury borough council. It has companies such as Genzyme that export to China, which is truly where the future of our manufacturing economy will come from.

West Suffolk is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful constituencies in our country. I have heard the claims of others, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—I look forward to challenging his claim to have the most beautiful constituency in the country. With villages such as Ixworth, Stanton, Bardwell, Hundon and Wixoe, and the Stour valley village of Thurlow where I now live with my family, all in all there are 42 villages of thatched roofs and pink cottages all through Constable country, which inspired the great artist.

As well as the most beautiful, West Suffolk is one of the largest constituencies in England, and that large area is united by the poor transport links that we find throughout it. The A11, which serves the whole of Norfolk, desperately needs the final nine miles to be dualled to provide better transport and a better economy to the whole east of England. At the most northerly point of the constituency, Brandon is a peaceful market town, but that peace is destroyed as the holiday traffic runs up the high street. Members will not be surprised that as a new MP, I support the fully locally funded proposal to bring a bypass to Brandon. However, they can imagine my horror when, in preparing for this speech, I read the maiden speech of my predecessor 18 years ago and found that he, too, had argued that there was a desperate need for a bypass for Brandon. I hope that it will not take a whole 18 years to bring it about.

Just south of Brandon is Mildenhall, famous for the Roman Mildenhall treasure and now, of course, home to a large United States air force base. Finally, I turn to the town of Newmarket. It is undoubtedly the most famous town in West Suffolk, and its heritage lives and breathes in the 62 studs and racing yards that are woven through the town centre. It is a unique town with a unique character, and it has unique needs. For instance, it was once illegal to blow one’s nose on Newmarket high street. That rule was in place for the benefit not of the local people but of the bloodstock that ran up and down the street.

Such attention to local need is unfortunately in marked contrast to the one-size-fits-all, we-know-best attitude that Newmarket has seen over the past 13 years, and it is to that point that I turn in the final moments of my speech. For many years, the constitution has endured a creeping centralism. In particular, in planning, John Prescott’s regional spatial strategies have tried to turn every market town into a clone town. The powers of local people to resist have been stripped away, but already the new Government are succeeding in giving power back to the people. The regional spatial strategy was forcing through an inappropriate proposal to build thousands of homes and an industrial park in the middle of Newmarket, which the council found itself powerless to reject—but no more. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has given councils the power to make decisions for themselves once again. The people were given their voice and their democratically elected councillors voted unanimously to reject the proposal.

So there we have it. After less than a month in office, the new Government are already improving our constitution to make it more local, more responsive to the people and less in hock to unelected, unaccountable quangos. A law and a quango cannot solve every ill of this world, but by trusting people and sharing responsibility, we can make a start. That principle binds us together on these Benches. I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.

21:00

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) on his maiden speech and hope that he enjoys his time in the House.

It is my first opportunity to make a contribution since the election, and I am pleased to see so many new faces, particularly so many new women Members of Parliament, and so many new young women MPs. I hope that they, too, enjoy their time in the House and change it for the better.

The election was fascinating in many ways. The pundits have been divided about how we ended up with the result. However, one thing I know—the election was not a referendum on scrapping identity cards or restricting the use of CCTV or DNA. We all know in our hearts, if not in our speeches, that the public did not endorse any party to carry out those policies.

For many years, my constituents have been telling me that their priorities are protecting their communities, and not protecting those who commit crimes and antisocial behaviour, or those who abuse benefits and immigration systems. A few years ago, I invited my constituents to Parliament to tell me how they wanted the Home Office to help in their community. I held two packed meetings in Committee Room 14—the biggest Committee room in Parliament. It was full to overflowing. My constituents believed almost universally that, in helping tackle crime, making antisocial behaviour more difficult and clamping down on immigration abuses and benefit fraud, ID cards would give them more freedom, not take it away. Out of more than 400 people, more than 90% agreed.

In the recent election campaign, people continued to tell me that ID cards, CCTV and DNA could make a difference. They will not necessarily prevent all the bad things that happen, but my constituents believe that they will protect their rights and make life harder for those who would abuse their privileges. If the Government scrap ID cards or the next generation of more secure biometric passports, we are not clear how they would ensure the security of our borders, prevent illegal working or make it harder to defraud the benefit system.

I have spoken about ID cards many times in the House, and many constituents have come to me because their identities have been stolen. Sometimes that has meant their being wrongly fined for the congestion charge, getting the wrong bills and, in more serious cases, being removed from packed planes because somebody had used their name and committed a crime. There was also the devastated family who watched the drugs squad come through their front door because the police were unaware of the identity of the people next door.

There are many simpler cases. The national identity register and biometric passports are essential to ensure the integrity of people’s identity. Many people have already obtained ID cards because they are prepared to pay for that protection and want to be able to prove their age in pubs and travel freely around Europe. They are angry that the Government will not support them.

Nobody has ever come to my advice surgery asking for CCTV to be taken away. I suggest that nobody will ever come to other hon. Members’ surgeries with such a request. People come to see us because they want more, not less CCTV. People in Gilpin close, Mitcham thought that the only way to resolve the problems of antisocial behaviour, and young people vandalising cars, taking drugs and threatening other residents, was through introducing CCTV. Thanks to the Labour Government and the hard work of their councillors, the people of Gilpin close now have that CCTV. Nationally, we heard in the past few days that the main suspect in the Bradford murder case was arrested after a caretaker found CCTV footage of one of the victims.

The same argument applies to DNA. Would a woman walking home late at night feel safer knowing that a criminal had their freedom because DNA evidence could not be used to convict them? I do not think so. The DNA database provides the police with more than 3,000 matches each month, and my constituents do not want to lose that tool in the fight against violent crime, burglaries and rape.

One of the most notorious crimes in my part of south London in recent years was solved when the killer of poor Sally Anne Bowman, Mark Dixie, was found guilty as a result of DNA evidence. If the Government have their way, DNA profiles will be retained only for those arrested for a serious offence, and for only three years unless a further court extension is granted. My constituents are worried that they will make it harder to catch the Mark Dixies of the future.

I take the use of ID cards, CCTV and DNA seriously, and my constituents share that view. I find it hard to believe that a new Government, with such a broad church, could come up with the Identity Documents Bill. They do not really have an identity of their own, so how can they protect anybody else’s?

I also find it hard to comprehend how plans to make it more difficult to use CCTV or DNA evidence could appear in something called a “freedom” Bill. To whose freedom does that refer? We read in the broadsheets and hear grand speeches about individuals, but may I suggest that the freedom of the many—of the community—is based in DNA retention and the use of CCTV, and a Government who are prepared to stand up for ordinary people?

It might be good to make great, eloquent speeches about the individual and their inalienable rights, but it is the right of an elderly lady to have the freedom to live in her own home without people sitting on her front gate and throwing stuff at her windows; the right of a woman to use the tube late at night and walk back to her home; and the right of young black men, who are the main victims of crime, to walk freely in our town centres without fear. CCTV, the DNA database and ID cards would make a strong, positive contribution to allowing those people, who are not necessarily represented in the House, their freedom.

21:07

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) in making a maiden speech in this debate. He made a fantastic maiden speech and we all now know to be very careful where we blow our noses in his constituency.

It is a great honour for my family for me to be elected for North East Somerset. My father—or my noble kinsman, Lord Rees-Mogg, as I am now meant to call him—told me that between him, myself and my sister, we have tried seven times with one victory. I fear that if we were a football team, people would be calling for the manager to be removed.

It is also an enormous honour for me to be elected for North East Somerset, which is where I was brought up and where my family have lived for generations. As everybody knows, Somerset is God’s own county, and North East Somerset is God’s own part of God’s own county.

I inherit the seat from two very distinguished gentlemen, one of whom is my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster). I am very glad he is now my hon. Friend, because I discovered when canvassing that a lot of people who were unaware of boundary changes were still intending to vote for him. When they discovered they could no longer do so, they turned out to be lifelong Conservatives, so I welcome him to the Peelite coalition that we now have.

The main part of my constituency was the old Wansdyke seat, which I have inherited from Mr Dan Norris, a most distinguished Labour Member, and a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband). He is probably sorely missed at the moment during the Labour leadership election. He was the model of an assiduous constituency MP. He worked tirelessly both as an Avon county councillor and as an MP and I indeed have large shoes to fill.

North East Somerset, which, as I said, is God’s own part of God’s own county, has a great place in British history. I am not going to go back at any great length to Bladud, the father of King Lear, who in 683 BC founded Bath—he found some pigs with skin disease in north-east Somerset, and washed them in the waters—because he is a rather peripheral figure.

Alfred the Great is more substantial. Alfred the Great, we must remember, in 878 AD, had just Somerset left, with the Danes all around, as they had begun to take over all of Wessex and already had much of the rest of England. Alfred, however, brought together the people of Somerset, Wiltshire and parts of Hampshire and they crossed over from the Somerset levels through north-east Somerset to Edington, near Chippenham, and there they fought the great battle on which our freedoms depend. They put paid to Danish occupation. Alfred was a great law giver—a man we should think about in this debate particularly, because he did not want to innovate laws; he wanted to codify laws. He wanted to tell people what ancient rights they had and how they ought to have their liberties. He was able to expel the Danes and his grandson became the first King of England on borders we would recognise to this day.

Moving on a little later, the next great figure from North East Somerset is Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, born in Weston, a village bordering north-east Somerset and Bath. He is really the first tax martyr. He was called upon to pay the Danegeld, and he took £48,000 to the Danes, then at Greenwich, and handed it over. They said, “Mr Alphege, we would like some more, and if you don’t give us more, we are going to hold on to you as a hostage.” And Alphege replied: “I will not give you more; I will not put higher taxes on my people; I will not have them suffer this imposition.” So they threw ox bones at Alphege until he died. I hope that people will not find it necessary to throw ox bones at me, but as another representative from North East Somerset, I will stand constantly for low taxation.

The final figure I am going to mention in this great pantheon of wonderful figures from God’s own part of God’s own county is John Locke. Brought up in Belluton—this really is a sop to the Whig coalition that we now have—this philosopher of the Whigs was in many ways the founder of the constitution that we now have, one that has as its essence the fact that power comes from the people up to the legislature, which is there to supervise the Executive. Members will all know that the argument at the time was about the divine right of kings and some may now think that we have another form of divine right of the Executive. Locke made it clear that the duty of the legislature was to check and to stop the Executive exceeding the powers, the rights and the authority that it had from time immemorial.

Let us take these three great Somerset men: Alfred the Great, the first Eurosceptic, who got rid of the Danes and made England independent; Alphege, the low-tax martyr; and John Locke, standing up for the legislature and the people against the Executive. For however long I represent North East Somerset, I will take these three as my great heroes and hope to model my political words on their thoughts.

21:13

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

I am not sure I am up to the task of following such an eloquent, entertaining and, frankly, self-assured maiden speech as the one we have just heard from the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Not since the days of Boris Johnson have we in this Chamber been treated to such a colourful, imaginative and evocative detailing of our history. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that I have no doubt that he will do extremely well in this Chamber, and on his own Government’s Front Bench at some point soon. I am sure that if he holds on to his seat long enough, after the next general election, he will make an excellent addition to the shadow Cabinet.

I was elected to this House precisely nine years ago today, and I made my maiden speech a few weeks after that—coincidentally, on the Queen’s Speech debate on the constitution and home affairs. During that speech, I made mention of the fact that a commitment to electoral reform was absent from the Government’s agenda that year, and I said that I hoped the absence of electoral reform would be a recurring feature of future Queen’s Speeches.

Unfortunately—alas and alack—we now face a Government who are committed to a referendum on electoral reform, and specifically on replacing first past the post with the alternative vote. As for that referendum, I am somewhat bewildered by the fact that in this new age of Aquarius—this new dawn of democracy, the new politics—we are left with a Government, both parties of whom campaigned against a referendum on the alternative vote, but who are now implementing a referendum on the alternative vote. I hope that those of us who use the phrase “the new politics” will henceforth remember to indicate the irony of that phrase by perhaps using air-quotes when they say it.

The Liberals continue to oppose the alternative vote in principle, but they support it in practice, because they see it as a stepping stone to further electoral reform. The Conservatives still oppose the alternative vote in principle, but they support it in practice, because it is the only way that they can keep hold of their ministerial Oyster cards. There is something peculiarly undemocratic about that situation.

Personally, I am looking forward to campaigning for the retention of first past the post in my constituency and throughout the rest of the country. Let me say at the outset that first past the post is not a good system for electing MPs—indeed, it is a rubbish system for electing MPs—but it has the unique value of being slightly less rubbish than all the alternatives. I do not want us to move through further electoral reform to a situation where the decision of who forms the Government and who becomes Prime Minister is taken from the hands of the electorate and given to a single individual: whoever happens to be the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I do not see anything remotely democratic in that.

Just after the election results were known, a number of my colleagues on the Labour Benches went on television to talk about “our friends” in the Liberal Democrats. Those “friends” are the same people who have supported electoral reform in some form or other over many years because they hold the view that there is a permanent progressive majority in this country that, given the opportunity and the right electoral system, would put in place a permanent anti-Conservative coalition. Leaving aside the dodgy democratic credentials of such a proposal, I would ask my hon. Friends whether they still believe that the Liberal Democrats’ centre of gravity is on the left of British politics. I would ask them to look across the Chamber and see the evidence before their own eyes. I do not believe that the Liberal Democrats would be an appropriate partner for the Labour party in a future coalition Government. After all, I do not want to touch them with a bargepole—I know where they have been.

My favourite part of the new politics so far has been watching Liberal Democrats arguing that black is white, that north is south, and that Short money was ever intended for Government parties. However, I have some reassurance for Liberal Democrat Members. If they are genuinely worried about a closing down of a valued and regular source of income—I would totally understand that—I have some words of comfort for them, because although I might be wrong on this, as far as I understand it, they now qualify for Ashcroft money.

I do not want to take up too much time, so let me conclude. There has been a lot of talk about the Government’s proposed caps on immigration, including in our considered amendment, but I want to suggest a departure not only from my party’s policy, but from that of any other party—I am effectively thinking out loud now, having listened closely and carefully to the views of my constituents during the election campaign. There is a lot of concern about immigration, but we cannot avoid the fact that there is a lot of concern not only about non-EU immigration, but about EU immigration. I wonder whether we have reached a point at which we should at last, like the French citizens until two years ago, offer the people of our country a referendum whenever we decide to enlarge the European Union—whether we should give the people ownership of those decisions, and fight for the arguments in favour of expanding the EU. Those arguments are strong; I think that they are unanswerable. But I also think that if we, the political elite, insist on making such decisions ourselves without consulting the public, we shall reap the whirlwind in terms of disenchantment with the EU and a possible collapse of support to the far right.

21:20

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but not half as grateful as my family and friends in the Public Gallery, who I rather naively suggested should be here at half-past two.

I pay tribute to all who have made their maiden speeches today. There was one common theme: each was better than the last—a pattern that I confidently expect to bring to an early closure.

While I am paying tributes, let me mention my predecessor, Nick Ainger. I do not think that, in the 20-odd years for which I knew him, there was a single issue on which we agreed, but that did not mean that we did not hold him in great regard. I know that he was respected in the House, but he was also respected in our part of west Wales, and we wish him well in whatever he plans to do now.

Let me also say what a pleasure it is to enter the House alongside my hon. Friends the Members for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), and for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies). We are a little short of the 15 Welsh Members whom we hoped to tally up with a rugby team just before the election, but I hope we now have a broad rural and urban representation that is relevant—and what we may lack in size in the Vale of Glamorgan, we undoubtedly make up for in age in Montgomeryshire.

I love my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire like a brother, but I hope he will not mind my regretting, just slightly, the loss of Mr Lembit Öpik from the House. Lembit was a good friend of many people, and—let’s face it—he brought a certain colour to proceedings on both the inside and the outside. He was also pioneering unusual coalitions long before they became a habit in the House.

I fully understand why not many Members have ever been to, or in many cases even heard of, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. It is, after all, quite a long way west. Let me, however, take a few seconds to whet Members’ appetites. There has been a bit of a competition among the new entry about who can paint the juiciest picture of their constituency. I can tell the House that there is more coastline in my part of the world than anywhere else except the Isle of Wight, and that we have 30 beaches, two estuaries, 12 castles, an oil refinery, a power station under construction, and fantastic farming and tourism industries. If all that is too much for Members, we have our own island monastery and two nudist camps—not co-located, I might add.

Dylan Thomas wrote “Under Milk Wood”, while in a sober state, in my constituency, and Gareth Edwards is still as happy catching sea trout and salmon on the River Towy as he ever was scoring tries at the old Arms Park. If the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) was worried about where the beach scene in Russell Crowe’s recent “Robin Hood” epic was filmed, I can reassure him by saying that it was in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire—and I regret to tell the House that Dobby dies in the sand dunes on Freshwater West beach in the final film in the Harry Potter series, which comes out next year. [Laughter.] I hope that I have not said anything that I should not have said.

It should not be thought that everything is rosy in our particular garden, however. We have the same economic and social problems as any other constituency, which is why today’s debate is so crucial. I was encouraged when the Deputy Prime Minister nodded in the direction of rurality in the context of constitutional reform. People who form just 2% of the electorate cannot help thinking from time to time that their votes may not count for anything at all, and cannot help thinking from time to time that Governments are there to do things to them rather than for them. If we have learned anything at all in rural communities during the election campaign it is that voters have told us that cheaper is not necessarily the same as better in politics, and that quality was raised much more often than cost in our doorstep conversations.

Our voters hope that this new coalition will adopt a less-is-more approach to government and will have at its heart four simple objectives: to keep us safe; to keep us solvent; to keep us healthy; and to keep us free from prejudice and discrimination. Honour and respect for politics and Parliament will be restored only if we apply those simple rules to every single decision we take in this House.

21:25

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I hope the House will appreciate my being unable to respond to the contributions of all the old retreads, so to speak, as I want to concentrate on the remarkable standard of debate from those making their maiden speeches, and as there were 22 of them by my count, I shall have to go through them very quickly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) spoke movingly about the tragic case of Peter Chapman and the lessons to learn from it. The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) was generous and gracious in her comments about her predecessor, Lynda Waltho, and spoke about the importance of the glass industry to her constituency. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) spoke about his predecessor, Tony McNulty, who as a former police Minister will, I guarantee, have been watching this debate on television all afternoon. The hon. Gentleman described him as having been diligent in his work on behalf of his constituency. He also mentioned the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital. As the Minister who approved the extra funding for the rebuild of that hospital, I too hope it goes through under this Government.

Having read the books of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), it was a delight to listen to his contribution, and I am sure we will listen to many more for many years to come. He spoke about there being the first new hospital in his constituency for 120 years, and gave a eulogy to the six towns. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) spoke about the contribution his predecessor, Ian Taylor, made to science and technology, and spoke well too about his aspirational constituency, but pointed out that there are pockets of deprivation there as well. The hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) spoke about the devastating effects of the closure of the steelworks there and mentioned his predecessor, Vera Baird, whom I guarantee is already campaigning vociferously against the Government’s proposals on anonymity for rape defendants.

My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) had the distinction of being the very first Member to be elected to this Parliament. She managed it on 6 May. By and large, the rest of us followed on 7 May, and some even later. She spoke of her first-hand experience of working with the victims of sexual violence, once again putting that in the context of her opposition to the proposals on anonymity for rape defendants. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) mentioned her many illustrious predecessors and demonstrated what a suitable successor she will be. She was also the only Member to mention domestic violence, which is an important issue in any home affairs debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) managed to mention all three of her local newspapers, thus guaranteeing coverage, a good trick for those yet to make their maiden speeches. She also mentioned her predecessor, Anne Moffatt, who was my Parliamentary Private Secretary both at the Department of Health and the Home Office and whom we all wish a speedy recovery following her serious illness.

The hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) spoke about his constituency’s worrying predilection for reselection, and showed why we all expect him to escape that particular curse. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) delivered an excellent maiden speech after six years as the candidate; spending a long time waiting might, perhaps, be a good recipe for making such speeches, therefore.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) is a formidable campaigner whom I know very well. She is the first woman to be elected to represent Glasgow East and is already displaying the benefits that she will bring to her constituents. I should also note that she made one further constitutional change by referring to you, Mr Speaker, as the presiding officer and to your deputies as the deputy presiding officers. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) was the only Member until my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) to mention immigration, which he quite rightly said was one of the biggest issues on the doorstep during the general election.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) rightly mentioned Adam Ingram’s contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) spoke about the need to retain vibrant rural communities and the importance of housing to that objective. He did much for Victim Support before he came to this House, and I am sure he will do even more as a new Member of it.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), in a funny speech, spoke about her pride at representing the constituency in which she was born and raised. She also mentioned the importance of the co-operative movement, which she will see has been grasped by the Government—at least for the time being. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) gave us an insight into the dark world of the Government Whips when he spoke about his predecessor, and he made an elegant argument on the importance of elected police commissioners—every word of which I disagreed with.

The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) had the unique experience of being told he had won when he had lost and lost when he had won. I think the Whips may avoid him as a teller on any future vote we have. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) spoke impressively about how constitutional issues can be of immense importance to the more prosaic, day-to-day issues that affect our constituents. The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) spoke of the beauty of his constituency and of the work of Richard Spring, which many of us in this House admired, despite his obvious failure to secure a bypass for Brandon.

The Member for Tory—[Interruption.] I meant the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg); I do like to remind myself which party they are from. He made a particularly entertaining speech. It was a little anti-Danish, but on the form he was on tonight, he will avoid having ox bones thrown at him during his time in this House.

Finally, the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) need not have worried—he maintained that very high standard to the last. He spoke about his sympathy for his family and friends, who have been here since 2.30 pm. I very much sympathise with that—I know how they feel. Given that he gave away the ending of the latest Harry Potter film, I think the Hansard people are having their arms stretched up their backs to make sure it is not in tomorrow’s Hansard.

For the benefit of the Deputy Prime Minister, I will mention just three of the contributions from retreads. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the hon. Members for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) made perhaps three of the most eloquent speeches against the proposed 55% rule. Government Members ought to listen to that argument. I was also pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister made his maiden speech at the Dispatch Box. We were very interested to hear that he has given Her Majesty’s Government’s support to a yes vote in the Welsh referendum on further devolution in Wales. I think we all took that as being a step forward.

[Ian Lucas]

Was my right hon. Friend concerned to read on the BBC News website this evening that officials in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Department have described his categorical assurance to me today that the Government do support a yes vote in the referendum as a “slip of the tongue”? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a great discourtesy to the House, and has he had any indication from the Deputy Prime Minister that he wishes to correct the record or perhaps find out what Government policy is before he makes pronouncements?

[Alan Johnson]

I just do not accept what my hon. Friend has said: this is the new politics, and what is said from the Government Dispatch Box will be carried out. I have every faith in the Deputy Prime Minister and that he will ensure that he sticks by his word on this issue.

May I welcome the Home Secretary—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

rose—

[Alan Johnson]

Ah! I give way to the Deputy Prime Minister.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Let me clarify this by saying that it was indeed a slip of the tongue. The Government avidly support a referendum in Wales, but of course we will leave it to the people of Wales to decide for themselves how they respond to that opportunity to determine their own future.

[Alan Johnson]

I am not sure whether that can be recorded as a slip of the tongue; I think that the right hon. Gentleman has made the first U-turn. I believe he also thought that the basic state pension was £33 a week—that was probably a basic slip of the tongue too. This is not a good start for the Deputy Prime Minister, because Labour Members were behind him in his stated preference for the Government to support a referendum on devolving power in Wales. We shall see what happens, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) was right in what he said.

I welcome the Home Secretary to the Dispatch Box. Labour Members like to think that we smoothed her path to this position as Home Secretary by helping to remove the former shadow Home Secretary, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), before he could do any significant damage. Among his many gaffes was a propensity to be disingenuous about crime statistics, which led to his having his knuckles severely rapped by the UK Statistics Authority. He is now in the political equivalent of a Siberian salt mine, locked away somewhere in the Department for Work and Pensions and condemned to work with a Lib Dem, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), about whom the Deputy Prime Minister once said the following—this may also have been a slip of the tongue:

“Webb must go...He’s a problem. I can’t stand the man. We need a new spokesman. We have to move him. But…As a backbencher, he’d be a pain in the”.

A word beginning with “a” follows, but if I said it, Mr Speaker, you would be off yours to call me to order. It seems to me that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister managed to sort out both their little problems at the expense of the DWP.

I am confident that the new Home Secretary will not repeat the mistakes of her predecessor as shadow Home Secretary and that she will confirm, in her reply, that crime has reduced substantially since her party left office in 1997. On violent crime, she will be able to correct the mistake made on page 55 of the Conservative manifesto, which said that

“violent crime…has risen sharply under Labour”.

It should, of course, have said “reduced” instead of “risen”. There are three measures of violent crime: the British crime survey’s figures, which show a decline of 41%; the recorded crime figures, which, since the 2003 changes in the formulation, have shown a 13% reduction; and the figures from accident and emergency departments collated by Cardiff university, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) drew attention, that show a reduction of 15% since they commenced in 2001. The murder rate is at its lowest for 20 years and the murder rate in London is at its lowest since 1978. No incoming Home Secretary in living memory has inherited such a consistent fall in crime and no incoming Government could have done more to undermine that position in their first few weeks.

On 19 May, in her speech to the Police Federation, the Home Secretary said

“make no mistake: I will be tough on crime.”

But she could give no commitment to retain the record number of police and police community support officers who are vital to that objective. How is it that under this Conservative-led Government the funding for international development can be guaranteed but the funding for fighting crime cannot? Labour would have protected them both. Do her Government consider international development a greater priority? How is it that while front-line services in health and education can be safeguarded, police numbers cannot? Will she stand up for her Department against such warped priorities? When will she ensure that, similar to what happens in health and education, the savings made within constabularies are reinvested in front-line policing? How will she be tough on crime while restricting the police’s ability to catch criminals?

The Government talk of adopting the safeguards of the Scottish system in respect of DNA retention, but they do not explain whether those are safeguards for the victims or the perpetrators of crime. The Scottish system retains the DNA of those arrested but not convicted, but only if they are arrested for a serious crime. That would be logical only if there was evidence to suggest that it was people in that category who had a higher propensity to be re-arrested, but the best available evidence indicates that the type of offence a person is first arrested for is not an indicator of the seriousness of the offence he or she might subsequently be arrested or convicted for in future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) have made these points, but let me remind the House that, each year, in about 800 cases of rape, murder and manslaughter, DNA is central to police inquiries. In about 10% of those cases, matches are made to people who have been arrested but not convicted, of which a quarter involve people who have been arrested but not convicted of non-serious offences. That is one reason why in 2008-09, the England and Wales DNA database had a 13% higher success rate than Scotland’s.

On the period of retention, there is no evidence to support the Scottish period of three years, which was plucked from the air. The best evidence available shows that the so-called hazard curve—the propensity for those who have been arrested but not convicted to be re-arrested—remains higher than that for the rest of the population for six years following first arrest. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in the debate last week, the Government should

“give the benefit of the doubt to the victim.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 43.]

The retention period of six years should remain in force until 2012, when we will have, for the first time, six years’ worth of statistics upon which to make a further judgment. Why pull that information off the DNA database and then find in 2012 that we should have kept it?

The Home Secretary intends to be tough on crime while failing to protect police numbers and restricting their ability to catch criminals, and she intends to do that while embroiling them in the operational upheaval of having elected commissioners. Aside from the fact that that will lead to years of internal turmoil and cost about £50 million for each police authority area, that idea’s time has gone. The debate on accountability has moved on. It is now focused on making neighbourhood police teams answerable to the public they serve, on doing more to ensure that police authorities have a higher profile and more expertise, and, crucially, on enhancing and increasing the role and responsibilities of local government. Notwithstanding the comments of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), local authority leaders from all three main parties oppose this measure, as do the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation. I have yet to meet a single police officer or local councillor who supports it. The measure is, as ACPO says, driven purely by dogma, and I urge the Home Secretary to think again before taking it further.

In the time available to me, I cannot deal with every issue that has been raised, but I should like to make a final point. We will discuss identity cards on Wednesday on Second Reading of the Identity Documents Bill, but the Deputy Prime Minister has, in a hyperbolic speech that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has already pointed out was historically inaccurate, promised the end of the “culture of spying” on British citizens, praying in aid ID cards, the national identity register and CCTV.

We are told that CCTV is part of the evil infringement of our rights and that it must therefore be “properly regulated”, to use the Deputy Prime Minister’s words. Will the Home Secretary tell us what that means, and will she say if she has ever been approached by a constituent who wants fewer CCTV cameras? That is important, because, apparently, as part of the big society, which is what most of us thought we would get if we failed to tackle obesity, the Deputy Prime Minister promises to ask the public which laws to repeal. We stand on the side of the Home Secretary’s constituents. An article in the Maidenhead Advertiser, entitled “CCTV will help stop crime in Furze Platt”, which is in her constituency, says:

“Almost every resident of Bridle Road, Bridle Close and Calder Close has signed a petition asking the council to put”

CCTV cameras in “as a deterrent.” We are on the side of Furze Platt. Indeed, the term could be used as cockney rhyming slang, as in, the Deputy Prime Minister must be a right Furze Platt if he thinks people want fewer CCTV cameras.

The Conservative-led Administration will either recognise the need for control orders, second-generation biometric passports, the detention of families and the DNA database, or they will endanger our national security, weaken our controls on immigration, reduce our ability to return failed asylum seekers and restrict the police’s ability to catch dangerous criminals. The Gracious Speech gave no indication that they recognise those basic facts.

21:45

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

It is a great pleasure to close this debate, which, as the shadow Home Secretary has just said, was marked by a significant number of maiden speeches, 22 in all. The debate was opened by a rather uncharacteristically rambling speech from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). He loitered somewhat over the reforms of 1832, but his history lesson was bettered only by the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) who gave everybody in the Chamber a rather more eloquent and distinguished historical lesson. I am sure we shall hear more from him, as was said earlier.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who has just closed for the Opposition, gave an amusing speech. He ran through the contributions of every Member who made a maiden speech today. I do not intend to comment on every one of those speeches, but I want to tell all 22 new Members who spoke today that making a maiden speech is a daunting experience for anybody, yet they all rose to the challenge with a remarkable degree of eloquence. Many of the speeches were extremely amusing. I am not sure what the problem of blowing one’s nose is in West Suffolk, but I dare say we shall find out at some stage. We heard delightful, enticing descriptions of constituencies such as the one from my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), although of course it will now only be known as the site of Dobby’s demise.

I particularly want to mention the maiden speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge (Margot James) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), and the hon. Members for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell), for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) and for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). They all have one thing in common, which is that they are women. I welcome the new intake of women Members to the House of Commons, which I am particularly pleased to see.

I am especially pleased to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge and for Oxford West and Abingdon, whom I have worked with over the years. They represent very well the change that has taken place in the Conservative party and in the make-up of its Members of Parliament.

I want to mention two characteristics relating to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). The first was that his speech referred to the all-important topic of shoes, although I was disappointed that my hon. Friend talked about the shoes of my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary. My hon. Friend also has the distinction of being the only person to present me with a bouquet of flowers after I made one of those tours to visit organisations in the constituency before the election. He has indeed started well in this place.

I shall try to cover as much ground as I can, but I will not be able to mention every point that has been made in this important debate. It is the first time I have wound up a debate opened by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). A few weeks ago, I sat at the Cabinet table with him for the first time and then held my first meeting with him.

Coalition Government has brought many first-time experiences for us all, but nowhere is the coalition stronger than in the field of home affairs. After the years of encroachment on our freedoms, we will restore our civil liberties. After the years of trying to run the police from Whitehall, we will free the police and empower the communities they serve. After the years of allowing immigration to soar out of control, we will bring it back to the reasonable levels of the 1990s.

We have before us a unique opportunity to work together to make Britain a brighter, safer and fairer place for all. The spirit of the coalition can be found running through the legislation that we seek to pass—a spirit of freedom, fairness and responsibility. Those themes are particularly prevalent in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. The programme that we have announced will manage the delicate balance of protecting our citizens’ safety and liberty.

Before I comment on the legislative programme, let me make this commitment: the Government will never compromise the security of the British people, and we will protect our civil liberties. Where they have been lost, we will fight to restore them, and we will fiercely preserve those that already exist. That was interestingly summed up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said that the new politics is ushering in ancient rights—it is indeed—and we will review legislation on a number of counter-terrorism measures, including on control orders, to which he specifically referred in his speech.

[Keith Vaz]

I welcome the Home Secretary to the Dispatch Box. One of her first decisions was to announce a review of the case of Gary McKinnon, a constituent of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). That decision is welcome. Does she have a timetable for when she thinks that she will conclude her review of that case?

[Mrs May]

I am not able to give the right hon. Gentleman a timetable at the moment. Indeed, I took a decision that we would agree to an adjournment of the judicial review that was due to take place towards the end of May. I was asked whether I would do that and received further representations from Mr McKinnon’s legal representatives. I am waiting for those further representations to be received.

[Mr David Davis]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her response to my question. I raised another issue—28-day detention, which is coming up for annual review very shortly. There are stories in the press this evening that she will review that limit as well. In the light of the Government’s commitment to telling the House before they tell the press, can she tell us anything about that?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity to respond to that point. As he has just said, the decision is up for renewal towards the end of July. No decision has been taken at the moment, but I can assure him that Parliament will be informed of any decision that is taken. That question partly leads on to the freedom Bill. Protecting the country from terrorist attacks is, of course, of primary concern, but striking the right balance between safety and liberty is something that the previous Administration got horribly wrong. We have seen a significant erosion of individual freedoms, and power has been diverted from the citizen to the state. That is why we are legislating to roll back the state, to reduce the amount of Government interference and repeal unnecessary laws, but our commitment to protecting the public will not be compromised. The freedom Bill will help us to balance an individual’s right to privacy and liberty against the collective safety and security of the entire country.

At the heart of our reforms is the desire to build a stronger society with responsibility and fairness at its heart. We will enable people to take back responsibility for themselves and their families. We are determined to value the British people, to invite them into the debate and to listen to them—something that was sorely lacking under the previous Administration. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) talked of linking the Government and the people—a worthy aim indeed, but it is a pity that the last Labour Government did not do that. For 13 years, they took powers to the centre and away from people and communities.

[Mr Tom Harris]

The first Bill Committee on which I served as a Back Bencher after being elected nine years ago was the one that considered the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Throughout the 39 sittings in Committee, the Conservative party constantly made requests for the measures to be watered down. Now that the right hon. Lady is in government, can she confirm that that Act will not be watered down but, in fact, strengthened?

[Mrs May]

The Government and the Conservative party will take no lessons from Labour about being tough on crime. I remember that when I came into the House in 1997 the Labour Government had been elected on the slogan, “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” What did we see? Criminal justice Act after criminal justice Act, new offence after new offence, and nothing to do with the causes of crime.

[Alan Johnson]

Will the Home Secretary please confirm—now she has seen the statistics, now there can be no ambiguity about it—that crime has gone down by 41 per cent. since 1997? Violent crime is down, burglary is down, theft is down, domestic violence is down, murder rates are down. Will she confirm that that is the case?

[Mrs May]

I was rather amused by the right hon. Gentleman’s reference— [Hon. Members: “Yes or no!”] I was rather amused by his reference to the fact that, as an incoming Home Secretary, I was inheriting the best legacy that had been left. I have to say to him that, of course, figures produced by the House of Commons Library have shown that it is wrong to say that violent crime has gone down. It has not. It has gone up. The Home Secretary who left a good legacy to his successor was in fact the former Member of Parliament for Folkestone and Hythe, the right hon. Michael Howard, under whom crime did indeed go down.

A number of hon. Members have referred to the Identity Documents Bill. As I am sure every Member of the House is aware, the new Government have made a commitment—

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady please give way?

[Mrs May]

I am going to make a little progress, if I may. [Interruption.] I am going to make a little progress.

The new Government have made a commitment to abolish the costly and unnecessary national ID cards. They are typical of the Labour Government’s blatant disregard for public opinion and common sense, and we aim to abolish this pet Labour project before the summer recess.

I say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who is one of those who mentioned ID cards, that we were always clear in opposition that we would abolish ID cards. The Liberal Democrat party was also clear in its opposition to ID cards. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said on a number of occasions, anybody buying an ID card was effectively buying a souvenir. That Bill has already been introduced. We will cancel identity cards and we will cancel the national identity register.

I note the passionate speech made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) about ID cards and CCTV, but what she said about CCTV, and what the shadow Home Secretary said, betrayed Labour’s approach to these matters: either all in favour of something or all against. We are talking about not abolishing CCTV, but ensuring that it is properly regulated.

I have touched on the delicate balance between the protection and freedom of our citizens, but part of maintaining that balance involves enabling people to take responsibility for themselves. To build a free and fair society—the big society—we all need to work together. That is why the Government will be introducing the police reform and social responsibility Bill. That legislation is emblematic of the guiding principles of this Government. We will make police officers more accountable to the public they serve and in so doing replace the bureaucratic, centralised control of recent years with local, democratic accountability.

I say to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) that I made that point absolutely clear in the speech that I gave recently to the Police Federation. Directly elected individuals will in no way interfere with the operational independence of the police. I welcome the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who, from the point of view of a member of a police authority, supported our proposals on directly elected individuals.

It was a great pity in the early stages of the debate that, on the issue of constitutional reform and the dissolution of Parliament, there seemed to be at best a misunderstanding of the Government’s position among a number of hon. Members, and at worst a wilful misrepresentation of it. Of course, the powers for the House to pass a vote of no confidence in the Government, on the basis of a simple majority, will continue to exist. They will be reinforced by powers relating to the dissolution of Parliament.

Regarding the Opposition amendment, I thought that the past 13 years had almost never happened. Endorse their record on crime, they say. After 50 criminal justice Acts—

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made.

21:59

Division 1

Ayes: 251

---

Labour: 248
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Independent: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 347

---

Conservative: 288
Liberal Democrat: 52
Democratic Unionist Party: 5

22:15

The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Ordered, That the debate be resumed tomorrow.—(Jeremy Wright.)

Business without Debate

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

Business of the House

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 15),

That, at this day’s sitting, proceedings relating to the Motions in the name of Sir George Young, relating to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Select committees (Election and allocation of chairs), Pay for chairs of select committees and Pay for chairs of select committees (No. 2) may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour, and Standing Order 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.—(Jeremy Wright.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made,

That Private Members’ Bills shall have precedence over Government business on 22 October, 12 and 19 November and 3 December 2010 and 21 January, 4 and 11 February, 4 and 18 March, 1 April, 13 May and 10 and 17 June 2011.—(Jeremy Wright.)

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Political and Constitutional Reform Committee

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It might be for the convenience of the House if I explain that I intend that this motion should be debated together with motions 4, 5 and 6.

22:16

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I beg to move,

That the following new Standing Order be made, until the end of the current Parliament:–

(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to consider political and constitutional reform.

(2) The committee shall consist of eleven members.

(3) The committee shall have power–

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time; and

(b) to appoint specialist advisers to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference.

(4) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(5) The committee shall have power to appoint a sub-committee, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report to the committee from time to time.

(6) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the evidence taken before the sub-committee.

[Mr Speaker]

With this we shall discuss the following motions on: Select Committees (Election and Allocation of Chairs)—

(1) That Standing Order No. 122B (Election of select committee chairs) be amended by inserting, after line 6:

‘(aa) the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee;’

(2) That the Order of 26 May relating to Select Committees (Allocation of Chairs) be amended by inserting at the appropriate place in the Table:

[Mr Heath]

This is a fairly straightforward matter, but I know that nothing is totally straightforward at this time in the evening and with a full Chamber, so I shall take a little time to explain what the motions will do.

Motion 3 will establish a Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, which reflects the new portfolio of the Deputy Prime Minister. Motion 4 will provide for the Chair of the Committee—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This noise is not fair to the Deputy Leader of the House, who is trying to explain these important matters. There are far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber, which I am sure will now cease.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker.

Motion 4 will provide for the Chair of the Committee to be elected from among the Labour Members of the House in accordance with the distribution of Select Committee Chairs that you indicated at the beginning of the Parliament, Mr Speaker. Motions 5 and 6 will provide for the Chair of the Select Committee to be paid.

The Government have committed to establishing the Committee as quickly as possible and with cross-party support, to ensure that the House is able to scrutinise the work of the Deputy Prime Minister. I stress that that scrutiny will be in addition to the Deputy Prime Minister’s regular questions sessions in this house. It is our intention, if the House so agrees, that the election of the Chair of the Committee will take place on Wednesday, alongside the election of all other Chairs of Select Committees, to ensure that the Committee can start work as soon as possible.

I do not wish to anticipate the debate or any individual Member’s contribution, but I shall pick up one point in advance. I think that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) suggested that a joint Committee of both Houses might be set up. Perhaps it will be helpful if I say from the outset that the Government do not believe that a joint Committee is the right way forward. First, no other Minister would be scrutinised by a Committee of both Houses. Secondly, the House of Lords Constitution Committee will continue, as its remit states, to

“examine the constitutional implication of all public Bills coming before the House; and to keep under review the operation of the constitution.”

I will be interested to hear Members’ comments, to which I shall respond. However, that is sufficient at this stage to introduce the motions.

22:20

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is the dawn of a new age and I congratulate the Deputy Leader of the House on introducing the debate so ably. When he was on the other side of the Chamber, he was keen on scrutinising the House’s actions. The House is not packed by chance tonight with Members wanting to see how the business progresses. I am sure that that will happen on many future occasions. It is a great achievement by the new Government.

For new Members, let me explain that, in the past, the Government would try to get something through on the nod, at the end of a sitting. If no one objected, it would become law. That will not happen under the coalition. The Government will table the issues for debate. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but let us consider what the Leader of the House said last Thursday.

The motion was tabled for the best of reasons. As the Deputy Leader of the House said, it was done to speed up the elections so that they could coincide with those for other Select Committee Chairmen on Wednesday. It was therefore introduced for a noble and proper reason. However, there are some questions about the Committee. As soon as an objection was made, the Leader of the House did not sulk, as the previous Leader of the House used to do. In business questions, he made helpful remarks. He explained that the motion had been tabled for speed and for the benefit of the House, but also said:

“The consequence”

of not allowing the motion to go through on Thursday

“would be that we would lose a bit of time in establishing this new Select Committee, but it would not be the end of the world if that happened—and my hon. Friend”

the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)

“could, indeed, raise in that subsequent debate the broader questions about how this proposed new Select Committee would interface with, for example, the Public Administration and the Justice Select Committees.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 582.]

In my five years in Parliament, I never heard the Labour Leader of the House say anything so supportive to the House. The new transparency and the idea that we will discuss business after 10 o’clock if necessary are a refreshing change, on which the Leader of the House should be congratulated.

Several little issues have arisen. If we could consider them briefly, that might become the pattern for such little debates, when we have a packed House and people can raise some issues. When I sat on the Opposition Benches, we were never given such opportunities.

Some people have asked me forcefully today, “Why waste the House’s time? Why keep it sitting for three or four hours?” The House will not sit for three or four hours if I have my way. However, it is wrong, when setting up a Select Committee on an issue as important as constitutional change, to deny hon. Members the opportunity to raise significant issues. Other hon. Members have said that sitting after 10 o’clock might inconvenience some Members. The fact that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has made people commute makes it difficult for Members to be here late. However, we should not be running the House for the benefit of IPSA, but for that of democracy. It is not the House that should change its hours, but IPSA that should change its rules.

This is not a minor matter: we are talking about a Committee to scrutinise our constitution. I believe that such a Committee is thoroughly right. The Deputy Prime Minister helpfully said that he is proposing the biggest reform of our constitution since the Great Reform Act of 1832, so we certainly need to ensure that we set up the proposed Committee correctly. On 2 June, the Prime Minister announced in a statement that

“the Deputy Prime Minister has been given special responsibility for political and constitutional reform”.—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 22WS.]

That includes major items and reforms such as fixed-term Parliaments, holding a referendum on the alternative vote system, the West Lothian question, all-postal primaries and, significantly, a mostly elected second Chamber, so we need to get the scrutinising Committee right.

My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House anticipated what I was going to say on that. In the previous Parliament, I sat on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. The former dealt with matters that affected both Houses, but the latter dealt only with matters affecting this House. If, as we have been told, the Deputy Prime Minister is to introduce reforms to the House of Lords, surely the scrutinising Committee should be a Joint Committee. The Deputy Leader of the House alluded to that in his opening remarks, but will he address that specifically in his winding-up speech?

Select Committees cost about £500,000 a year to run, so if we are going to set up a Committee, we must be sure that another Committee cannot do that work. I do not argue, as I used to hear when I sat on the Opposition Benches, that we will not do this or that because it will cost too much money—democracy cannot cost too much—but we must have an answer on that from the Deputy Leader of the House. Could the powers of scrutiny have been undertaken by the Select Committee on Justice? We are trying to cut the cost of government, so could that existing Committee have reviewed the activities of the Deputy Prime Minister, at no extra cost?

Given that there will be overlap between the Justice Committee, the Select Committee on Public Administration and the proposed Committee—if it is established—how do the Government see those conflicting interests working? We could have the absurd situation in which three Select Committees look at the same item and produce three reports. What does the Deputy Leader of the House have in mind and how will that tension be resolved?

On a more minor matter, paragraph (4) of the proposed Standing Order states:

“Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.”

That is fine in itself, but it suggests that the Whips will nominate the members of the Committee, whereas other Select Committees will be elected by party groups. I do not know whether that is just a matter of wording, but will the Deputy Leader of the House clarify that matter?

On the election of the proposed Committee’s Chairman, motion 4 states that he must be a Labour Member, but that is wrong, because it should state that a member of Her Majesty’s official Opposition will chair the Committee. During this fixed-term Parliament, there could be a vote of no confidence in the coalition—of course, that is extremely unlikely—and a change of government, but the Chairman of the Committee would still be a Labour Member. That is not the case, of course, with the Public Accounts Committee, which has to be chaired by a member of Her Majesty’s official Opposition. I wonder whether we could look at this further, because I do not think it was the Government’s intention to bring that situation into being. A committee looking at constitutional reform should surely be chaired by someone who is not part of the governing party.

Finally—[Interruption.] Finally, in concluding my opening remarks, I would like to deal with Standing Orders, which exist to protect this House and the power of the Back Benchers. We should always change Standing Orders with great reluctance and with a lot of thought. This motion changes paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 122B, under which 14 days’ notice is required for nominations to be given for Select Committee Chairmen, once the Committee has been set up. It is instead proposed that we set up the Committee tonight, that the nominations close tomorrow and that the election takes place the following day.

I have certain concerns about elections suddenly being announced, nominations being opened and elections being held the following day. Unless there is a really good reason for that to happen, it should not. In this particular case, there is a problem, because if Labour Members have nominated themselves to be Chairmen of an existing Select Committee, they are ruled out of putting themselves forward to be Chairman of the proposed Committee, which they did not know would be established when they put their names forward. Again, I would like to hear the views of the Government and the Deputy Leader of the House on that.

With that, I finish, having raised the issues that I wanted to raise in the debate. If we can have debates like this in future—with a packed House in which Members can raise issues about House business, rather than one in which things go through on the nod—we will be putting Parliament first. That would be a change in our democracy; this coalition has got off to a very good start.

22:32

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the formation of this Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I rise to speak because, in common with other Members, I was disconcerted by the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech today, in which he announced the formation of another constitutional Committee, which is not being created as a Committee of this House and is not going through this careful and laborious process. When the Deputy Prime Minister announced the membership thereof, he excluded all the Members of the smaller Opposition parties. I thought that that was, frankly, a disgrace. That initiative to prepare legislation for reform of the second Chamber was really disappointing.

The present proposal, which provides an opportunity for the House properly to scrutinise the other constitutional reforms offered by the current Government, risks, I think, a combination of cynicism from the Conservatives and over-optimism from the Liberal Democrats who have coalesced with them. It is important that constitutional change wins the trust not just of the whole House, but of the citizens whom we have the privilege to represent. It is very important that this Committee gets the same level of respect and power as all the other Select Committees of the House so that it can look at House of Lords reform as much as at the other issues with which it is concerned. I hope to hear from the Deputy Leader of the House that that will be the case and that the bounced-forward Committee that was announced earlier today will not in any way take powers away from the Select Committee that we are debating tonight.

22:35

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I do not think that there is a time in recent history when there was a greater need for a Committee of the kind that we are discussing this evening. I also believe that the issues that we are concerned with in 2010 largely turn on the question of who governs Britain and how. Those are matters that the Committee should and must look at very carefully indeed.

One point that I would like to put to the Leader of the House—or the Deputy Leader of the House, if he is replying to the debate—is this: are we sure that there will be an opportunity for the momentous issues put forward in the coalition agreement to be considered by the Committee before the decisions are taken and put through? I am thinking, for example, of the question of the alternative vote and the referendum on it.

I am also thinking of whether other referendums—of the kind that relate to the European Union—would be considered by the Committee and given full weight, in the light of the fact that, for so much of the legislation that goes through this House, it is in fact incumbent on us to pass it, because of section 2 of European Communities Act 1972. That raises the question of sovereignty, which is another matter that has to be considered in the Committee before decisions are taken, because the fact is that the sovereignty of this House is not just the sovereignty of this House; it is the sovereignty of the people who elect us to this House. This is their Parliament, not ours. For that reason, sovereignty is another matter that needs to be given the most careful consideration.

Then there is the issue of fixed-term Parliaments, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) mentioned, and the 55% rule that is being brought forward. Is that not something that the Committee should look at? If we are serious about the importance of a Select Committee to look into such matters, with powers, as the motion says,

“to send for persons, papers and records…to adjourn…and to report from time to time; and…to appoint specialist advisers,”

is it not incumbent on us in passing it to be aware that it is essential that such matters should be considered by the Committee before decisions are taken? Otherwise the motion might turn out to be no more than an empty piece of paper.

Then there is the further issue, which my hon. Friend also mentioned, of the West Lothian question, along with the whole question of devolution—I look across the Chamber to the Members from the Democratic Unionist party and other minority parties. These are huge issues; they are not just minor matters, to be rammed through at a moment’s notice. They need careful and proper consideration, and the Committee would be able to give them just that.

I should also mention the fact that the coalition agreement contains proposals on the sovereignty issue, which has now been taken out of our manifesto commitments, much to my regret, and put into what I hope will not be the long grass, so that there can be a proper consideration of the necessity of having a sovereignty Act—a gold-standard sovereignty Act, if I may say so, along the lines of that which I have proposed, which has been approved by eminent constitutional authorities. The reason for that necessity is that there are occasions already when measures go through—at least three such measures have gone through the European system—without proper consideration by the European Scrutiny Committee, and they are matters that would normally be subject to scrutiny reserve. The Leader of the House has kindly replied to me this evening regarding my concern on those points. They are huge matters affecting the entire economy of this country and its stabilisation, not to mention the City of London, regulation and many other things.

Then there is the whole question of human rights. That is another matter that might overlap to some extent with another Select Committee, but it is a matter of enormous importance, because it affects the entire social fabric of the nation. The Lord Chief Justice himself has recently remarked that we must beware of the manner in which the common law is being superseded by the decisions and precedents being taken by our judiciary at the expense of the common law. He mentioned in particular the Strasbourg convention—let alone the Human Rights Act itself. In a recent and very important speech, Lord Hoffmann, a former Law Lord, pointed out that the Strasbourg Court aggrandises itself, and believes that it is no more than a federal system.

In a speech the other day, the Deputy Prime Minister described the Reform Act of 1832 as the basis for the reforms now being proposed. There have been several Reform Acts, but the 1832 Act, in itself, was far less important than the Reform Act of 1867 and the Acts that followed from it, for the simple reason that the Reform Act of 1867 resulted from a massive campaign by the people of this country, in the wake of the repeal of the corn laws, to ensure that there was a proper and democratic system whereby the people’s own views would be expressed in general elections on a scale commensurate with the requirements of the time.

I must point out, with respect to the Deputy Prime Minister, that the 1832 Act was necessary to get rid of corrupt rotten boroughs, although it did not prevent rotten boroughs from persisting. The borough of Stafford, which I had the honour to represent for about 14 years, was up for the chop in 1835. The Bill to disfranchise the electors of Stafford was passed in the House of Commons, and they were only saved by the intervention of a general election.

This is an issue of the greatest importance. Parliamentary reform—radical parliamentary reform—is fundamental to the future of this Parliament and of this nation. I believe that the Committee can do the job, but it will not be able to do the job that is being prescribed for it if decisions have already been made, under the coalition Government and agreement or otherwise, which pre-empt its ability to make recommendations about the seminal reforms that are needed to return true democracy to this country.

22:42

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I should like the Leader of the House to clarify a point. This has been a learning curve for everyone. We are now to have two Committees on constitutional reform, the one proposed by the Leader of the House and the one mentioned by the Deputy Prime Minister earlier today. The Deputy Prime Minister did not seem sure of his position; he did not want to take interventions or to answer questions.

I want clarity on this issue. If we are to have major reforms—radical and far-reaching reforms—surely the best possible debate should take place in the House among Members who are representative of the whole of the United Kingdom. Is it the case that minority parties representing people in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will not be represented in either of the Committees that have been mentioned in the House today? Is that what the Deputy Prime Minister was saying? Surely it will not be reaffirmed in the House tonight, for that would be absolutely disgraceful.

22:44

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

This is a very welcome debate, which was promised by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House when I raised the issue on Thursday. It seemed from informal conversations that I held with him afterwards that the debate would take place in prime time on Tuesday week. It has been brought forward, but that does not mean that people should feel they have been detained here and must stay here. Let me say, at the risk of inviting a mass exodus, that neither I nor, I am sure, any of my hon. Friends intend to call a Division this evening; therefore there will not be a vote, and therefore there is no need for anyone to stay here unless they wish to listen to the arguments.

In brief, my argument is that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House introduced this motion without notice last Thursday, he said it could have gone through on the nod then but that he would be pleased for questions on it to be put to him, and I would like to put some of them to him now.

First, how will this proposed Political and Constitutional Reform Committee interact with the other Select Committees proposed for the new House, for whose Chairmen we will be voting on Wednesday? On the face of it, this does not seem to be a departmental Select Committee. If it were a departmental Select Committee, it would be the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and would deal with all the activities and responsibilities of that Department, including, most importantly, that Department’s budget, but it appears instead to be a cross-cutting Committee on political and constitutional reform. Therefore, I hope that this question can be responded to in answering this debate: if the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is not going to be scrutinised by this Select Committee, by which Select Committee will its responsibilities that fall outside political and constitutional reform be monitored and held to account?

Following on from that point is this question: if this is a Political and Constitutional Reform Committee with a remit to consider political and constitutional reform, does that mean that all other Select Committees of this House are precluded from looking at issues of political and constitutional reform when they think those issues are material to the matters falling within their particular remits? If the purpose of tonight’s motion is effectively to exclude all other Committees of the House from considering political and constitutional reform, the implications of that should be clearly spelled out.

Finally, how will this new Committee interact specifically with the Justice Committee and the Public Administration Committee? Prima facie, the Public Administration Committee has a remit that would cover a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities of the Cabinet Office. Will they still be within its remit, or will they instead be within the remit of this new Committee? If it will not be the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Select Committee, why are we not spelling that out in terms?

It is a pity that this motion was put on Thursday’s Order Paper without any prior notice. We were invited to let it go through on the nod on Thursday evening, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said that that should not happen so he objected to it. We have now rightly got a debate about it, and I hope that, in the spirit of the new politics, we will have some proper answers, including to the question that if this was such a good idea, why was it not thought of initially when we were setting up all the original Select Committees? Why, in other words, does it appear to be rather an afterthought?

[Mr Speaker]

With the leave of the House, I invite the Deputy Leader of the House to reply.

22:49

[Mr Heath]

First, may I say how gratifying it is that we so often seem to have a full House late in the evenings? That is, perhaps, a sign of the new Parliament’s commitment. I also must say that I am basking in the approbation of the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope). That is an unlikely position for a Deputy Leader of the House to find himself or herself in. The hon. Member for Christchurch regretted slightly that this debate was not in prime time, but what could be primer time than 10.49 pm for this House? It is the perfect opportunity to debate this matter.

Let me try to respond to the questions that have been put. One of the key issues for the hon. Members for Wellingborough and for Christchurch was how this Committee relates to other Select Committees of the House, and whether there is any overlap or crossover. Let us first be clear that it could not have been set up last week, because before last Wednesday there had not been the written ministerial statement setting out the new ministerial responsibilities and machinery of government changes that mean that the Deputy Prime Minister has areas of responsibility not covered by other Ministers of the Crown. Until that had happened, we were therefore unable to put the matter before the House in terms of Select Committees. That is an important point to make.

The second point is that as soon as that had happened, those areas of responsibility ceased to be the responsibility of, for instance, the Ministry of Justice, so they were then outwith the responsibility of the Select Committee on Justice. Therefore, if this House is properly to scrutinise those areas, it is absolutely essential that a Select Committee be formed for that purpose.

I turn to the third element. Several references were made, particularly by the hon. Member for Christchurch, to the “Office of the Deputy Prime Minister”. Let us be absolutely clear: my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has an office, but it is within the Cabinet Office. It is clear that this Select Committee is being set up to look at the specific political responsibilities of the Deputy Prime Minister, not the rest of the Cabinet Office responsibilities, which remain the province of the Public Administration Committee. I hope that once this Committee is set up and begins its work—provided that the House agrees to it—the Chairs of it, the Justice Committee and the Public Administration Committee will have an early opportunity to ensure that they are clear about their separate roles and that there is no work overlap, that they seek the advice of the Liaison Committee if there is any difficulty, and that we have a clear differentiation.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

That would appear to make sense at face value, but if we have enhanced Calman proposals on initial devolution to Scotland and the proposed referendum on parliamentary powers in Wales, would they be scrutinised by this Select Committee, with the Deputy Prime Minister’s powers over the constitution, or by the Select Committees on Scottish and Welsh Affairs?

[Mr Heath]

The position would be no different from that which obtains now in respect of the responsibilities of the Justice Committee—at least until the changes in the machinery of government—where there was that overlap and it was quite proper for the Justice Committee to look at devolution issues. Indeed, having served as a member of the Justice Committee, I know that we did look at devolution matters, but I do not think that at any stage we trod on the toes of the Scottish or Welsh Affairs Committees in the process. It is quite possible to have proper co-ordination that prevents that from happening.

Mention was made of Lords reform. Obviously, this is a key area of the Deputy Prime Minister’s responsibilities, so of course, the Committee will have the capacity to look at it if it chooses. I am not going to pre-empt the work programme that the Committee will agree. It would be a huge abuse for a Minister to set out what a Select Committee should choose to do, but I would expect it to be an early priority for the Committee to look at the emerging picture of constitutional reform, which would include Lords reform.

In answer to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), there is also a clear commitment in the setting up of the proposals for Lords reform that, first, there would be pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposals that emerge, which would involve any Member of this House who chose to take an interest. As a constitutional Bill, when any legislation is introduced—indeed this applies even to the preliminary motions before the House—it would be taken on the Floor of the House and involve every Member of the House. Therefore, I do not think that he needs to be concerned.

I listened to what the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) had to say about how disappointed she was about today’s announcement of the Government Committee—it will not be a Select Committee of the House, and that is an important distinction—to consider and introduce proposals for Lords reform. If she was disappointed at that announcement, she must have been devastated when her own Justice Secretary—her own Lord Chancellor—did exactly the same thing in the previous Parliament. I served on that Government Committee, which did not contain any Members from minority parties; only the three main parties were represented. She must have been devastated to have heard of that arrangement then, so our doing the same thing has simply added, like Pelion on Ossa, to her discomfiture. That is not a concern that we need to dwell on, because it is clear that this Government programme of consideration of Lords reform will result in proposals that will receive more than adequate scrutiny in this House.

[Mr Cash]

The Deputy Leader of the House has addressed a number of points, but not some of the ones that I raised. Would he be kind enough to consider my point regarding whether this Committee might, to put it in ordinary parlance, be bounced by the fact that decisions have been taken under the coalition agreement, or by other means, to put through proposals such as the alternative vote and other matters of the kind that I mentioned, before the Committee has had a chance to consider the issues? In particular, will he state now that the proposals under the coalition agreement to implement the Wright Committee’s recommendations in full mean just that, and that the wording of the Standing Order that will be introduced shortly will be exactly the same as that of the one proposed earlier this year?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman wished me to answer his points before I had dealt with those of other hon. Members, and I am sorry that he had to be a little patient in that respect. He said that decisions have been taken, but Parliament takes decisions on legislation. Perhaps the key difference between this Administration and the previous one is that we want Parliament to take these decisions. It is for the Government to propose and for this House to dispose of those propositions. Therefore, it is not wrong in any way for the Government to be committed to a programme of government that is placed before this House for consideration. Both my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I are absolutely committed to ensuring that this House has the proper opportunities to have its say. That is the difference between how we do business and how the previous Government did it. I am unable to deal with the hon. Gentleman’s point about the Wright Committee, because that would be completely outside the terms of this motion. However, he will find that his questions on implementing the Wright Committee recommendations will be answered in the very near future.

Let me deal briefly with the other points raised, one of which related to costs. We know that it costs money to have Select Committees, but it is equally important that this House has the opportunity to scrutinise the decisions of every Minister of this House. Thus, this is a cost that we have to bear, but I must say to the hon. Member for Wellingborough that we have abolished a whole tier of Select Committees in the form of the Regional Select Committees, which were an unnecessary and expensive farce. We have got rid of them, so we have a little money in the bank, as it were, in terms of the cost of scrutiny.

I was asked whether the membership of this Committee would be appointed. No, it will be elected, like that of every other Select Committee; this is a perfectly normal Select Committee of the House.

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

The Deputy Leader of the House is totally wrong to say that the abolition of Regional Select Committees will save any money that could be put to this new Committee. That is not true because the Regional Select Committees were served by staff who already worked on the Select Committees that were previously in place. I have inquired about this and he is wrong to say that there is any saving from the abolition of Regional Select Committees.

[Mr Heath]

It is an intriguing argument that however many Select Committees there were, they could operate and travel around the country at no cost to the House at all. That is an interesting argument, but not one for today, perhaps.

I was asked why the chairmanship of this Committee is to be Labour, and it was suggested that perhaps the wording should be “the official Opposition”. This was a decision of the House, and it decided that the Speaker should allocate the Chairs of the various Select Committees according to the proportion of Members in the House elected from each party. It was the Speaker’s decision—based, I am sure, on excellent mathematical principles—that this chairmanship should be allocated to the Labour party. Unless the House decides otherwise, it is not the Government’s position that the decision that the House has already taken should be changed.

On the time interval for nominations, that is for the convenience of the House. If the House does not like it, it is at liberty to say that it wants the full period for nominations, but I think that most want the Select Committees up and running at the earliest opportunity. They want to make sure that people have the opportunity to vote for the Chairs of all the Select Committees at the same time. They want to make sure that the best people, and not people who have been rejected for other chairmanships, put themselves forward for the Chairs in which they are most interested. I think that is the right way of doing things, but it is for the House to decide.

I think I have dealt with all the points that have been raised.

[Mr Chope]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?

[Mr Heath]

Yes, but this is the very last effort from the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Chope]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for the way in which he has responded to the debate. One point that I raised that he has not addressed yet is whether this Select Committee will have exclusive control over the consideration of political and constitutional reform, or whether other Select Committees that wish to consider aspects of political and constitutional reform that fall within their ambit will be free so to do.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is right that I did not answer that point other than tangentially in relation to the question about Wales and Scotland that was raised by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie). Every Select Committee has the right to consider matters that fall within the ambit of the Department or ministerial team that it scrutinises, and nothing will change on that. This Committee is exactly the same as every other Select Committee of the House. I expect Committees to be sensible about this and not to duplicate each other’s activities, but there are no artificial barriers and no one is going to say to a Committee that has an issue or a constitutional bearing within its departmental responsibilities, “You are not allowed to scrutinise that because we now have this new Select Committee to do the job.” That is not the way that I would expect Select Committees to work. I would expect the Chairs of Committees to discuss these matters with one another, to use the good offices of the Liaison Committee when it is set up and to make sure that there is not duplication of effort. On that basis, I hope that I have responded to the debate and that the House will accept the motions before us so that we can get the system up and running as quickly as possible and extend the scrutiny of the House to the full range of members of the ministerial team.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That the following new Standing Order be made, until the end of the current Parliament:–

(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to consider political and constitutional reform.

(2) The committee shall consist of eleven members.

(3) The committee shall have power–

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time; and

(b) to appoint specialist advisers to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference.

(4) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(5) The committee shall have power to appoint a sub-committee, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report to the committee from time to time.

(6) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the evidence taken before the sub-committee.

Select Committees (Election and Allocation of Chairs)

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

Ordered,

(1) That Standing Order No. 122B (Election of select committee chairs) be amended by inserting, after line 6:

‘(aa) the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee;’

(2) That the Order of 26 May relating to Select Committees (Allocation of Chairs) be amended by inserting at the appropriate place in the Table:

‘Political and Constitutional Reform

Labour’; and

(3) That, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 122B, the ballot for the election of the chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee shall take place on Wednesday 9 June.—(Mr Francois.)

pAY FOR cHAIRS OF sELECT committees

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

Resolved,

That this House expresses the opinion that the Resolution of the House of 30 October 2003, relating to Pay for Chairs of Select Committees (No. 2), should be further amended by inserting after “the Committee on Members’ Allowances”, “the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee”.—(Mr Francois.)

Pay for Chairs of Select committees (No. 2)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Resolved,

That the Resolution of the House of 30 October 2003, relating to Pay for Chairs of Select Committees (No. 2), be further amended by inserting after “the Committee on Members’ Allowances”, “the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee”.— (Mr Francois.)

Rape Defendants (Anonymity)

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Newmark.)

23:05

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity this evening to question the Government’s proposals to give anonymity to defendants in rape trials.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), to his new position. He is a reasonable man and I know he realises that this issue has caused much concern to many Members. I am grateful to my hon. Friends who have stayed in the Chamber this evening and I am also grateful to Members on the Government Benches. I hope the hon. Gentleman will hear the points that are made tonight.

Rape devastates women’s lives. Every 34 minutes a rape is reported to the police in the UK. Many more go unreported. The Fawcett Society suggests that 47,000 women are raped every year. Much has been done in the past decade. More rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police, although the conviction rate is still too low. More rapists are brought to justice, and across the criminal justice system rape victims can expect to find greater compassion, respect and sensitivity.

That is welcome progress, and I pay tribute in particular to Vera Baird, not just for her work as Solicitor-General, but also for the campaigns she led for victims of rape and sexual abuse long before she was a Minister or an MP, and for her advice to me in preparing for this debate.

Let us be in no doubt, though, that justice still eludes too many rape victims in too many parts of the country. Only one in 20 rapes reported to the police results in a conviction. On whatever measure we choose to use, most rapists are never held to account for their actions and most victims never see their attacker brought to justice. So what does the coalition plan to do about it?

In its programme for government, the coalition set out its solution in just one short sentence proposing anonymity for defendants in rape trials. Those proposals, if implemented, would deter victims from coming forward and make it far more difficult for the police to charge offenders and convict rapists. We know that many rapists are serial offenders; their trail of victims often runs into double digits. Many women—for a variety of reasons—do not come forward straight away. They are afraid; they want to pretend it never happened. They are embarrassed; they feel as though they did something wrong. They are ashamed; they believe that what happened was their fault. They feel alone.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why young women who may be in a dependent relationship with someone when they are raped do not come forward is that they feel that in some way it was their fault? Only subsequently, perhaps when they hear that the person has done the same thing elsewhere, do they gain the courage to speak up?

[Caroline Flint]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is often only publicity about a rape charge that leads other victims to come forward. It is only at that point that they understand that they are not alone—that it is not their fault and they can do something about it.

Let us consider the case of the black-cab driver, John Worboys. When he was arrested for a string of sex attacks in 2008, 85 women came forward to say that they, too, had been attacked by him. Offering attackers the blanket of anonymity will prevent victims from getting the justice they deserve and hinder the police in protecting the public.

However, the real question is this: on what basis do we distinguish rape defendants from those accused of any other serious, violent or sexual offence? What singling out rape defendants says is that rape victims are less reliable, less credible and less trustworthy—that they are to be believed less—than the victims of any other crime. It reinforces the myth that women who report rape are lying, and gives succour to those who peddle the same old lies about women being responsible for being raped.

Let me be clear that no one doubts the damage that false allegations cause—innocent men find their lives turned upside down, police time is wasted and public money is misused, and they insult genuine victims, belittle their suffering and make juries more sceptical than they would otherwise be—but in the most recent and authoritative report, Baroness Stern could find no evidence that the incidence of false allegations was higher in rape cases than in any other crime. A report by the Home Office in 2005 came to the same conclusion. International research in 2007 showed that, even of the very small number of false allegations, in most cases no offender was named—malice was not the motive; it was a cry for help from a distressed woman. Moreover, the law already deals with those who make malicious complaints against others, because making a false allegation perverts the course of justice and those who do it can, and do, receive substantial prison sentences.

Rape is, by its nature, an extremely difficult crime to prove. Most victims are raped by people whom they know. It takes people a tremendous amount of courage—more courage than anyone who has never been raped can ever understand—to tell someone, anyone, let alone the police, that they have been raped.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are particular issues in relation to young people who have been in the care system in cases of historical abuse and that the Government’s proposal would have a very negative effect on the opportunity for young people to come forward, perhaps at a later date?

[Caroline Flint]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I commend her for all the work in this area that she has done in Scotland. I very much welcomed the time when, as a Home Office Minister, I worked with her. She is right: more and more these days, we hear of people coming forward later, when they have developed the confidence to do so and to talk to others about the crimes that have been committed against them. Again, the serial nature of the crime that we are talking about is important, because when a crime is reported and people hear the name of the person who has been charged, they feel confident to come forward and stand by the victims in the modern day, rather than just in the past.

If we understand what the evidence actually shows—that women are no more likely falsely to report allegations of rape than any other crime—what possible justification is there for giving those accused of rape anonymity? The only other possible explanation is that the stigma associated with being accused of rape is of an entirely different order to that associated with any other serious, violent or sexual offence, but unless we seriously think that there is less stigma attached to being a paedophile, wife beater or murderer than to a rapist, or that society is more understanding of those who sexually abuse children or kill in cold blood, we cannot have anonymity in rape cases without granting anonymity across the board. That principle is totally alien to our system of open, transparent justice, where anonymity is granted only when there are overwhelming, compelling reasons to do so.

I understand that the coalition may be shifting on this matter—I would welcome that—and that it is perhaps considering limiting anonymity to defendants between arrest and charge. That may be worth looking at, but only if the same rule is applied to defendants in all violent crimes, not just rape.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Is it not true that it is very often between arrest and charge, when people hear that someone has been arrested for something, that other people come forward with similar patterns to create the weight of evidence that enables the prosecuting authorities successfully to proceed with the charge.

[Caroline Flint]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a very good point. Where do we draw the line in establishing someone’s identity—whether on arrest or charge—and then allowing other victims the time to present their experiences? We are meddling in something that should not be meddled in. Plenty of other parts of the justice system need to be attended to, and this is not one of them.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I share my right hon. Friend’s relief that the Government seem to be showing signs of back-pedalling or U-turning, or at least having a serious rethink on the issue, but does she share my concern that the proposal was not in either of the other two parties’ manifestos, yet it suddenly appeared in the coalition agreement? Does she share my hope that the Minister will explain why the proposal ended up in the coalition agreement and who was responsible for pushing the idea forward?

[Caroline Flint]

Yes, it was in neither the Conservative nor the Liberal Democrat manifesto at the general election, although I would have thought that that was the platform from which to make such a proposal. I really think that it was nine short words that conveyed this policy in that coalition agreement, and those nine short words developed a policy that has not been thought through, but is very dangerous.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I have been participating in these late-night Adjournment debates for 16 years and I have never seen so many Government Members paying such attention as they are paying to what my right hon. Friend is saying. I pray and hope that what she is arguing tonight will be well received and that we can have a change of policy. Without making a great party claim of victory, the coalition Government have got it wrong, and they should be man and woman enough to accept that tonight.

[Caroline Flint]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I hope that we can end this proposal tonight, because the real issue—the real injustice—is not the rights of defendants, but the plight of tens of thousands of women who are raped but never see their attacker brought to justice. Our priority must be delivering justice for victims of rape and protecting the public from dangerous offenders.

The last time a Government made proposals to grant those accused of rape anonymity was 1975. Despite making much of their parties’ modern, progressive credentials during the 2010 election campaign, the coalition Government’s proposals would take us back to a time when there was a residual doubt about rape victims built into the criminal justice system, which denied thousands of victims justice.

When victims of rape are afraid—afraid of what has happened, afraid to come forward, afraid that no one will believe them—we must show them that we will believe them. When rapists believe that they can attack with impunity, and go on and on wrecking women’s lives and never face the consequences of their actions, we must show them that we will bring them to justice.

When proposals such as this are made—dangerous proposals, I am afraid to say, that insult victims of rape and inhibit the ability of the police to catch dangerous criminals—in this House we must show, through the strength of our case and the passion of our arguments, that we will speak up for those without a voice.

23:17

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for welcoming me to my new responsibilities and for her kind remarks about my reasonableness. I sincerely hope that she still holds that view when I have concluded my reply to her debate. I congratulate her on raising the issue and on securing the time to discuss it. It is a matter of importance, as the exchanges at Prime Minister’s Question Time last week showed, and it merits very careful consideration if we are to be fair to all sides of the argument.

I would like to remind the House that, long before acquiring my current responsibilities, I took an interest in these issues. In 1999, I introduced the Sexual Offences (Anonymity of Defendants) Bill to protect teachers from the consequences of accusations by children who have anonymity and the subsequent reporting by a sometimes salacious media. My Bill was prompted by the suicide of a constituent, Nick Drewett, a popular and committed teacher who took his own life after being accused of behaving improperly with pupils in his care. The accusations fell very far short of any suggestion of rape, but the combination of the way in which the accusations were investigated by the police and their reporting led to his death. His headmaster, who was charged with him but tried alone, was acquitted.

My experience means that I come to this subject with a predisposition to protect victims, which can sometimes include those who are accused. We are in the business of reducing the number of future victims of crime, not inadvertently creating more.

Rape is a very serious crime. The rights and welfare of the victim are vital, and we are committed to ensuring that every victim of rape has access to appropriate support. In particular, we are looking to establish new rape crisis centres where there are gaps in provision and to put funding for such centres on a stable and long-term footing. There are 39 such centres and we are looking at the possibility of a further 15.

The Prime Minister has already made clear in the House his view that the low conviction rate in this country is a scandal. It is not good enough and we need to improve it. That means, as he has said, working with the police and also doing more to help rape victims, including backing rape crisis centres. Our overriding aim must be to reduce the incidence of the offence, not least by increasing the number of successful rape prosecutions.

The very last thing we want is investigative failures. We believe that they can be countered by more intelligence-led policing. We will carefully consider how we can support agencies’ joint working to share intelligence and good practice, and to ensure that there is an effective response to rape and victims of sexual violence. Introducing anonymity would not prevent the identities of those suspected and accused of rape from being shared among criminal justice practitioners.

As the Deputy Prime Minister made clear this afternoon, our policy on defendant anonymity in rape cases is sensitive—

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Blunt]

No, if the hon. Lady will forgive me. Let me get to the conclusion of my remarks. [Interruption.] I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s sedentary comments. It is the debate of the right hon. Member for Don Valley. I am certain that she and the House will want to hear my remarks—

[Mr MacShane]

The Home Office wrote them.

[Mr Blunt]

Plainly, the remarks have been carefully prepared in conjunction with other Government Departments—[Interruption.]—but not entirely, I am delighted to say. I have already made clear—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is not behaving in a way that does credit to the subject. It is not one that lends itself to barrack-room style interventions from a sedentary position. I would be grateful if right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches would do me the courtesy of listening carefully to these remarks. If they continue to intervene from a sedentary position—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. There are certain right hon. and hon. Members who are not serving the dignity of the House particularly well at the present time. This is a deeply serious subject. It is the subject of a half-hour Adjournment debate. I do not believe that this will be the last time that the subject is likely to be discussed in the House. At all times we should discuss things in a calm and reasonable manner, particularly, I suggest to the House, a subject of this nature.

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

As the Deputy Prime Minister made clear this afternoon, our policy on defendant anonymity in rape cases is sensitive and we will consider all the options carefully before bringing proposals to Parliament. This evening’s debate and the comments of the right hon. Member for Don Valley have been an early opportunity to listen to views, as promised by the Deputy Prime Minister this afternoon.

We will bring a policy to the House setting out our preferred option after we have considered each one with the care that this subject merits. In doing so, we will of course take into account potential implications for victims and for the conviction rate, as well as the reporting issues. There are sound reasons for our approach. Rape is such a serious and emotive crime that it attracts both a high degree of stigma for the defendant and a disproportionate degree of media interest. The combination of those factors distinguishes rape from other crimes. The reality is that sex in all its guises continues to fascinate the media. Reducing the level of prurient interest can only be in the interests of victims.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Blunt]

Giving evidence as a complainant is both difficult and stressful, and there are already policies in place to try to make this easier. Anything that can be done to reduce the pressure on witnesses in these circumstances is surely something we should contemplate. Equally, defendants accused of rape and not convicted are entitled to some protection. Anybody accused of rape is likely to be subject to minute scrutiny, often raising matters detrimental to the individual’s reputation that, in any other circumstances, would be regarded as trivial or irrelevant.

[Caroline Flint]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is he really, seriously suggesting that the stigma associated with being accused of rape is no less than that associated with being accused of child abuse, assault, murder or wife beating? Why does rape stand out? Is it really about the fact that you just believe—[Hon. Members: “You?”] Sorry, is it really about the fact that the hon. Gentleman just believes that women who come forward to accuse someone of rape must be putting forward false allegations and are not to be believed, when the evidence shows that that occurs in a complete minority of cases?

[Mr Blunt]

No, and no. I should be grateful if the right hon. Lady would, as we ought to in handling such cases, try to take the temperature out of the debate and turn to evidence rather than supposition. Let me continue with my remarks.

If the defendant is acquitted, quite apart from the lingering suspicion of guilt that might remain, there might be a range of adverse material about that individual in the public domain which would otherwise have remained private and which cannot even be expunged by an acquittal. Our approach to defendants who are accused of rape but not convicted will be based on what is just. There are a number of possible options on the timing and scope of anonymity. On timing, it could extend from the point of the accusation until the time the defendant is charged; or to the beginning of the trial; or to the point of conviction.

Further options relate to the scope of the anonymity in so far as the offences are concerned. It could cover anonymity in rape cases, but it could go wider. There are reasons why it might also be applied to other offences. I remind the House that our coalition agreement also states that we will give anonymity to teachers accused by pupils and take other measures to protect against false accusations. The principle is linked to anonymity in rape cases, as the tragic case of Nick Drewett showed. It was the reputational damage that caused him to take his own life, and, although we recognise the difficulties in any extension to particular professions or classes of offence, anonymity for those in positions of trust could apply more widely than to sexual offences. We have not yet discounted any options.

Whatever our conclusions, I can make it absolutely clear that we have no intention of extending similar protections to rape defendants once convicted. The media will be able to report the cases of convicted defendants in the usual way. A reason in principle for bringing forward the proposals is to help to restore the balance in rape cases with the anonymity given to complainants. It has often been said that the justification for complainant anonymity does not apply to defendants, on the basis that the purpose of complainant anonymity is to encourage more complainants to come forward—a factor that does not apply to defendants.

[Mr MacShane]

Go on, get someone else in that job.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) is behaving disgracefully and not assisting a debate of this kind. Now he really has enough experience of this House, as a Minister and as a Back Bencher, to realise that what he is doing is out of tune with how we should conduct our business in this House. I hope that I will not hear from him again.

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Complainant anonymity was introduced against a background of public concern about the lurid reporting of the cross-examination of complainants in rape trials. Of course, the protection from reporting provides the inducement to complainants to come forward. The underlying problem of exposure to publicity applies to defendants and complainants alike, and I want to make it clear that we have no plans to withdraw in any way the rights of complainants to anonymity. Our proposals are based on sound precedents. Defendant anonymity was the norm in rape cases for many years, and, of course, defendant anonymity continues to be the rule in all criminal proceedings in the youth court.

Let me address some of the points that the right hon. Lady made. She said this morning on the radio, in The Independent and repeated this evening that we know from the evidence that many rapists are serial offenders. I feel this to be true, but when I asked for evidence of how many rapists were serial offenders, and what proportion of convicted or charged rapists might fall into that category, there appeared to be insufficient data to form a reliable evidential picture.

Furthermore, in trying to acquire accurate detail on the number of times that convictions have been obtained because the identity of the defendant was known and further complainants came forward who were crucial to securing a conviction, I have again been unable to get a reliable picture or—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Blunt]

Let me continue.

I have again been unable to get a reliable picture or, indeed, any firm evidence at all in the time available. I would welcome help from the right hon. Member for Don Valley, and those of her right hon. and hon. Friends who are supporting her this evening, in identifying serious analysis that can help us to discuss these issues on the basis of evidence rather than supposition.

The right hon. Lady referred this morning on the radio, in her article in The Independent and again this evening to the Worboys case. The facts of that case are that it was the police who finally identified a mode of behaviour from several different complainants, identifying 12 offences. It was that mode of behaviour which led to the charging and subsequent conviction of John Worboys on 19 counts. The police were criticised for the length of time it took them to identify Worboys, but that name would have meant no more to the complainants than it did to the police. It was the manner of the offences that led to his conviction.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Blunt]

No.

Shortly before John Worboys’ trial, the police appealed, with the assistance of the media, for further victims to come forward. The appeal identified 70 to 85 further complainants—to use the right hon. Lady’s numbers; it is 81 according to the briefing that I have received—who recognised his modus operandi. However, none of those was central to his conviction as the police already had sufficient evidence, and had he been granted anonymity until conviction, it would still have been possible to identify those further complainants, and he would still have been convicted. So to understand the issues as perfectly as possible, if the right hon. Lady, and all those who have helped her to prepare, can identify cases where anonymity until conviction would have prevented an initial conviction being secured, I would be anxious to learn of them.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Blunt]

No, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

If the right hon. Lady and others have further examples, it will come down to a question of balance. That is why we have said that we intend to reflect on the provisions carefully before we bring forward legislation.

Probably the most commonly encountered criticism is that defendant anonymity inhibits the reporting of criminal trials, but one might say the same of any anonymity for the parties to criminal proceedings, including complainant anonymity in rape cases and cases involving other sexual offences. The question is where the balance properly lies. We have no difficulty with full and robust reporting of defendants convicted of rape. That is entirely proper. But we believe that because the possibility of pre-emptive vilification of those accused of rape is so great, the stronger arguments are in favour of anonymity.

The related argument is sometimes made that defendants suspected of, or charged with, a wide range of offences may experience discomfort even if acquitted. For example, people working in the City—the right hon. Lady alluded to some of these points—and charged with fraud could also argue that they are likely to suffer fundamental reputational damage. That is true, but it overlooks the particular vulnerability of rape defendants to vilification to which I have already referred. It is that vulnerability, and the unique statutory anonymity for complainants, that distinguishes rape from other crimes.

Some people argue that defendant anonymity in rape cases would imply that the Government, and perhaps by extension the criminal justice system as a whole, felt that complainants were unreliable and so deter complainants from coming forward. I absolutely and robustly reject that argument, as did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions last week. The justification for defendant anonymity in rape cases is the stigma attached to an accusation of rape. It has nothing to do with the likelihood or otherwise of acquittal. There is no implied view in our proposals of the prevalence or otherwise of false allegations in rape cases.

In conclusion—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way before he concludes?

[Mr Blunt]

In conclusion, the Government want informed contributions on the basis of evidence which will help us to bring forward proposals that will command the confidence of the House. The right hon. Lady has contributed to that process today; I rather regret that one or two of her right hon. and hon. Friends have not conducted themselves in the manner that this subject merits. [Interruption.] I am inviting the right hon. Lady, and other right hon. and hon. Members, to contribute evidence properly and sensibly rather than simply proceed on the basis of supposition. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady has contributed to that process, and I am grateful to her. The Government have the interests both of victims and of unconvicted defendants fully at heart, and the Government will proceed upon the evidence.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The Question is that this House do now adjourn—[Interruption.] Order. The House must not behave in this manner. This was a half-hour Adjournment debate, which was perhaps too short a time to contain all the opinions that, understandably, hon. Members have on this matter. It would be a pity, however, to ruin the reputation of the House by bawling from a sedentary position.

Question put and agreed to.

23:35

House adjourned.

Petitions

Monday 7th June 2010 Petitions

Monday 7 June 2010

Size Zero Models

Monday 7th June 2010 Petitions

The Petition of the students of Coloma Convent High School and the people of Croydon,

Declares that size zero models set an unhealthy and unrealistic example to young girls, and influence the incidence of eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to introduce industry guidelines for the responsible employment of health models and guidelines for the media to ensure the responsible portrayal of women.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Mr. Andrew Pelling, Official Report, 6 April 2010; Vol. 508, c. 944.]

[P000817]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport:

The Government take seriously all matters of health and wellbeing, including the prevention of eating disorders, and would like to see all those working in the fashion industry taking a strong lead on the promotion of a healthy body image, particularly to young people.

The Government keep these matters under review and this Department remains in regular touch with the principal regulatory bodies in the media whose responsibility it is to ensure that that matters of serious public concern continue to be addressed by their codes.

Wheelchair Access for Care Home Residents

Monday 7th June 2010 Petitions

The Petition of Maureen Faith, residents of sheltered accommodation at Kitkatts Road, Canvey Island, and others,

Declares that elderly residents in sheltered accommodation at Kitkatts Road, Canvey Island are in significant danger and unable to easily get around communal areas of their home due to the lack of ramps, trip hazards and other minor changes to assist their mobility around their home and make it easier and safer; notes that Josie Cooper at the home is wheelchair bound and has not been out of her home for two years due to access issues with the structure of her home and particularly the lack of a ramp at her back door and the inability of her wheelchair to pass through her door frame, which leaves her isolated and unable to enjoy her garden or join in any of the community activities, denying her choice and quality of life although she remains extremely positive and caring towards others.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage the local Council and wheelchair service providers to resolve the problems for Josie and for all residents by immediately implementing a programme of access and safety improvements for all these excellent local residents.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Bob Spink, Official Report, 6 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 317.]

[P000362]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions:

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), currently places landlords and those who manage rented premises, and commonhold associations, under a duty in certain circumstances to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people who are either tenants or occupiers of those rented premises, or the owners or occupiers of units in commonhold premises. They are only required to make the adjustments where these are requested by the disabled person and the duty is limited to making reasonable adjustments to policies, practices or procedures, or the provision of auxiliary aids or services. The DDA duties do not extend to requiring landlords and managers etc. to make physical adjustments to the let premises themselves. However, provisions in housing legislation allow disabled people to make alterations to the let premises, in certain circumstances. The DDA provides for a disabled person, to whom the provisions in the housing legislation do not apply, to seek consent to make alterations to the premises that they rent and the landlord or manager cannot unreasonably refuse to give consent.

A Government review, completed in 2005, looked at problems faced by disabled people in accessing communal areas of residential property (for example, a communal lounge or garden, or entrance hall to a block of flats). The Review Group on Common Parts carried out a thorough review of the issues and made a number of recommendations. In particular, the Group recommended that the Government should establish, through consultation, whether new legislation was required to solve the difficulties that people face when they need an adjustment made to the common parts of let residential premises, and that it should seek views on the Group’s specific proposals for England and Wales. These proposals included, for example, a requirement that the landlord, where reasonable, should make an adjustment to physical features of the common parts of residential let premises to improve access for a disabled tenant, lessee or occupier when requested to do so by the tenant or lessee. Similar provisions were to be developed for commonhold premises.

In response to consultation, the Equality Act 2010, when it comes into force, will place a new duty on those who are responsible for the common parts of premises. They will be required to make disability-related alterations to the common parts of let residential premises or units owned on a commonhold basis, where the alteration is requested by, or on behalf of, a disabled tenant, occupier or commonhold unit holder, and it is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case to make the alteration. However, the disabled person may be obliged to pay the costs of the alteration.

It will fall to the relevant authority responsible for the provision of sheltered housing accommodation at Kitkatts Road, Canvey Island, to decide how best to implement access arrangements in respect of the residents there.

Written Ministerial Statements

Monday 7th June 2010 Written Statements

Monday 7 June 2010

Telecoms Council

Monday 7th June 2010 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am pleased to be able to report back on the topics discussed and the views put forward at this Council under the auspices of the Spanish presidency, which took place during the morning (and lunch) on Monday 31 May in Brussels. I represented the United Kingdom.

The main (and sole discussion) point on the agenda was the Commission communication on the European digital agenda and Council conclusions on that, along with the presidency paper on a European code of rights. The presidency insisted on a single table round of discussion on all three of these topics. This was initiated by Commissioner Kroes who spoke about the importance of the EU digital agenda to the economic performance of the European Union both in terms of GDP growth and productivity. She recognised that the agenda was ambitious (a multitude of proposals and initiatives) but noted that the EU needed to be bold if we were to match the US and other countries in our leverage of ICT for economic benefit. She was particularly critical on broadband deployment and use across the community and urged member states to set more ambitious targets.

There was then a table round where nearly all member states spoke. There was overwhelming endorsement for the European digital agenda with many Ministers concentrating on the importance of the digital single market (for example, with respect to copyright) but also on broadband deployment and usage. There were, though, differing views on the importance of the code of rights. While the majority of us could see benefit in the codification of existing rights in such an instrument, there was considerable opposition to an extension of rights in such a code (something the Commission were contemplating). No one spoke in opposition to the Council conclusions themselves, which were formally adopted.

In my intervention, I thanked Commissioner Kroes for the ambitious scope of the European digital agenda, agreed with her on the importance of leveraging the economic importance of ICT (especially in the current economic circumstances) and agreed on the need for us all to work together in promoting the deployment and use of broadband on a competitive basis. I also noted the importance to the UK of issues such as digital piracy and updating copyright legislation, where the Commission should set out a clear roadmap. On the code of rights I noted the utility for both business and consumers in having a single point where existing rights were brought together but said the UK were not currently minded in adding new rights to such a code.

The next item, though not formally on the Council agenda, was a discussion over lunch and then a formal meeting between member states on the seat of the BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications) secretariat. BEREC was established under the telecoms package agreed in autumn 2009. The meeting formally endorsed the Latvian offer (the only one on the table) to host the secretariat in Riga.

Finally, the presidency introduced a number of items under “Any Other Business”. Commissioner Kroes gave an update on the results of the consultation the Commission had initiated on universal service, which they will summarise in a Communication after the autumn. She indicated there were divergent roles on the wisdom of introducing an obligation on the supply of broadband (though it was clear majority of respondents were not in favour). The Commission was also asked to present their “Progress Report on the Single European Electronic Communications Market 2009” and the “Europe’s Digital Competitiveness Report”. Commissioner Kroes emphasised how the former, while noting the progress being made on broadband deployment in all member states, noted divergence of regulatory approaches (which she did not welcome) and the clear need for a rigorous and correct implementation of the telecoms package. On the latter, she welcomed the clear evidence base of the impact of ICT to the wider economy and noted how here proposals under the EDA included an annual benchmarking exercise of member states. The presidency also briefly informed Ministers of the outcome of the ministerial meeting EU-Latin America and Caribbean Countries: “Digital Content for a Digital Society” in March 2010.

Just before the meeting concluded, Belgium, as the incoming presidency, confirmed their programme for the next six months, which will include discussion on a decision on a new spectrum programme, an agreement on the future mandate for ENISA (the European Information Security Agency), Council conclusions on the EU broadband strategy and on the roaming report and a discussion on e-Government.

Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters

Monday 7th June 2010 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The United Kingdom signed an amending protocol to the joint Council of Europe/OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters on 27 May 2010. The text of the convention and of the protocol is published on the websites of both organisations. A copy of the amending protocol has also been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. Draft legislation incorporating the provisions of the protocol into domestic law will be laid before the House of Commons for approval in due course.

EU Energy Council

Monday 7th June 2010 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

I represented the UK at the Energy Council in Brussels on 31 May.

The first item on the agenda was a report by the presidency on the progress of negotiations with the European Parliament on the proposal for a regulation on security of gas supply. The presidency noted the likelihood of a first reading deal with the European Parliament by the end of June and there was a short discussion.

The Commission then reported on their dialogue with member states on targets under the Europe 2020 growth strategy, in particular achieving the objective of moving towards an increase of 20% in energy efficiency across the EU. The Commission stressed that, if the EU was to meet the target, then a clear definition of the task and who does what would be necessary. In discussion, a number of member states raised questions about the methodology of calculating targets and the importance of national targets taking account of national circumstances. The Commission will now launch a study on how best to set targets to secure improvements in energy efficiency and will look to member states to provide information on their national energy efficiency targets/programmes in due course. The presidency will report on discussions of the target to the General Affairs Council in preparation for the June European Council.

The main debate at this Council focused on the EU’s future energy policy, with most member states intervening. During the discussions, I noted the importance of implementing existing legislation, creating the markets and networks necessary for a low-carbon future, supporting and developing new technologies, making progress on energy efficiency and diversifying supply routes and sources. In his intervention, Commissioner Oettinger focused on implementation of the internal market package and the questions confronting the development of energy infrastructure in the EU, as well as the need to maintain a focus on research into new energy technologies despite the economic climate. He confirmed that the Commission would publish an “Energy Strategy for Europe 2011-2020” in time for the December Energy Council. The Commission would also produce a roadmap to 2050 and a package of measures to promote infrastructure development. In addition, there would be a focus on energy policy at the European Council early in 2011. Belgium indicated that as the next presidency it would take forward work on the strategy and Ministers agreed high-level Council conclusions setting out high-level principles for the new energy strategy.

Finally, the Commission and presidency gave presentations on a number of international items, on amending the regulation on the European energy programme for recovery to use non-allocated funds, and on the Commission response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

House of Lords

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Monday, 7 June 2010.

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Guildford.

Several noble Lords took the oath or affirmed.

Economy

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

14:38

Asked by

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to bring more balance between different sectors of the economy.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, our economy is indeed too narrowly focused on just a few industries and a few regions. Growth must be spread across the country, making full use of talent across the United Kingdom and across business sectors. The Government’s central task is in fostering the right conditions for business and innovation to succeed. In specific answer to the noble Lord’s Question, we are carefully considering the recommendations made in the Dyson review: improving the current system of financial regulation, halting the rise of red tape, supporting apprenticeships and creating a green investment bank.

[Lord Haskel]

I thank the Minister for that response. Is he aware that, three days after I put this Question down, the Prime Minister rushed off to Yorkshire and made a speech exactly on this topic? Does that demonstrate the power of Question Time in the House of Lords or the urgency of the issue? In his speech in Yorkshire, the Prime Minister used many fine words such as “supporting growing industries” and providing the,

“long-term … support our economy needs”.

Can the Minister explain exactly what those words mean in terms of government action?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on being so prescient. As he identified, the Government believe that we need to reduce our reliance on one or a small number of sectors, particularly the financial sector. The most important element will be to foster and encourage technology, especially high-tech manufacturing, an area in which I know the noble Lord takes a special interest. That is why we commissioned the Dyson report, which identified five key challenges for government, including the education of scientists, engineers and technicians, exploiting knowledge better and financing and supporting high-tech businesses, which the Government are examining closely. No one suggests that this is going to be easy. We have already announced a number of reforms to simplify business taxes and to reduce red tape, which are critical to encouraging and helping business.

[Lord Razzall]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that when the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson—whom I understand we now have to refer to as the third man—held office before the election, he produced a huge number of initiatives aimed at many of the things to which the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, directs itself? Would he think it helpful if the Government could quite soon indicate which of those initiatives they propose to cancel or retain?

[Lord De Mauley]

My noble friend is quite right. On 17 May, the Government announced that a separate review process is under way to examine spending commitments made since 1 January. It includes some of the projects to which my noble friend referred. Where projects are good value for money and consistent with the Government’s priorities, they will go ahead. Where they are not, it would be irresponsible to waste money on them. The Treasury has been asked to fast-track a decision to give clarity as soon as possible to the companies and the work on which they are focusing. A decision is expected soon.

[Lord Kinnock]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us whom we should believe, especially in view of the impact on the economy and employment of government policy on public expenditure? Should we believe Mr Clegg, who says that there will be no going back to the days—as he put it—of Thatcher, or Mr Cameron, who tells us that the cuts are going to be so savage that they will change the way in which we all live? Which of them is telling the truth, because they are opposites?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will not be surprised to hear that I do not necessarily agree with him. I respectfully suggest to him that his line of questioning on job losses, in particular, is somewhat flawed in that it ignores the near certainty that job losses on a massive scale will occur if cuts are not made because of the danger of rising interest rates and their effect on business.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, as the Minister addresses the difficult inheritance that he has to deal with, will he bear in mind the fact that the greatest imbalance in our economy is between the public sector and the private sector and that without a healthy and diverse private sector there can be no effective public sector? Will he ensure that this thought is kept at the forefront of his deliberations and those of his colleagues?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend.

[Lord Myners]

Does the Minister expect to see the banking industry’s economic contribution grow or contract in importance?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, has put his finger on a very important point. He is right to point out that it is important that the banking sector does not contract. We need to rebalance by bringing up manufacturing and other sectors.

[Lord Ryder of Wensum]

My Lords, further to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will my noble friend please clarify whether Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Ireland have already announced or undertaken public expenditure reductions on a greater scale than we have here in the United Kingdom in order to address the public and the private sectors and to reduce our massive deficit?

[Lord De Mauley]

My noble friend is, of course, absolutely right.

[Lord Eatwell]

My Lords, does the Minister recall that the Prime Minister referred in his speech to the need to expand manufacturing industry? Does he agree with the Financial Times that the recent recovery in manufacturing industry—it is now growing faster than at any time since 1987—has been aided by the significant fall in the pound? Does he also agree that this illustrates the importance of maintaining demand to stimulate investment and growth?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I cannot find fault with the noble Lord’s argument that the fall in the pound has helped our exports. It is important that we maintain all efforts to promote our manufacturing industries and, indeed, exports.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

By accepting that a great deal of effort needs to be made with the deficit, does the Minister not believe that there is some danger in setting the public and the private sectors against each other? There are many in the public sector whom the Government, and certainly their Liberal Democrat colleagues, depend on to deliver services to our most vulnerable people. What are the Government going to do to maintain that balance?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that there is a balance. The public sector performs an extremely important function and nothing that the Government are doing should be taken to undermine that.

Universities: Funding

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

14:47

Asked by

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much university funding has been cut from the academic year 2010–11.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in December last year, the previous Administration made a higher education funding reduction of £449 million on their original plans. By focusing the previously announced university modernisation fund on only high-quality proposals, we were able to support both 10,000 extra student places for 2010-11 and to make available an additional £50 million to fund these. The overall effect of changes in university funding in England in 2010-11 will therefore be a reduction of some £379 million on original plans.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of what a rollercoaster the previous Government and this Government have put universities on? The funding was down by £400 million in November last year, was up again in March and is now down again. Given that the universities are only one part of the BIS budget and the only non-ring-fenced part of the education budget, they are taking a quite disproportionate cut in funding as a result of the changes that have been announced. Is this wise, given that it is widely acknowledged that the new jobs will have to come from the knowledge economy? He may wish to reply as his predecessor on the other Benches did—that the university sector has benefitted enormously from increases in the first 10 years of this century—but is he aware that these made good the neglect of the previous 20 years and that we have only just caught up with the position that we were in earlier?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, universities are not taking a disproportionate cut. One has to remember that direct public funding is not the only source of university funding in this country. It will be tough for all those receiving public spending in the next few years, but we are conscious that the science budget has to be protected as an essential part of rebuilding our manufacturing base, and that university education and technical education feed directly into regaining economic growth.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the United Kingdom has four or five of the top 10 universities in the world, despite our spending as a proportion of GDP on higher education being less than half that of the United States and less than 13 OECD countries? Surely, to cut funding to universities would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We have a highly diverse university sector in the United Kingdom. There are now some 150 higher education institutions, which range from Oxford University, Cambridge University and Imperial College, all of which are world-class and within the top 10 Shanghai rankings, to Cumbria University, Northampton University and others, which provide equally valuable but very different education foundation degrees and part-time education for others. We are conscious that we are dealing with a complex sector, which has expanded by 25 per cent in terms of the number of students in the past 15 years.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, what is the Government’s response to the lobbying by the Russell group to lift the cap on university fees? How does that square with the commitment of the Liberal Democrats at the election to abolish tuition fees?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord will be aware that the previous Administration kicked this into the long grass, as previous Governments have often done, by establishing the Browne review—The Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance—which is well under way and due to report later this year. When we have that report, which deals with full-time and part-time funding—this Government pay a lot of attention to the importance of part-time students—we will consider those proposals and will respond.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, what steps will the Government take to ensure that the pattern of cuts imposed by different institutions in response to falling resources does not endanger strategically important subjects—for example, Arabic, other languages and even chemistry?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a very complex question. I am conscious that discussions are under way in the British Academy on the teaching of unusual foreign languages, which is rather different from the future of chemistry and STEM subjects. We are conscious of the need to protect those specialist subjects, but, as I have emphasised, the interests of the top 10 universities in Britain and those providing very worthwhile foundation degrees are part of a highly diverse sector and we need to consider all those interests.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, do the Government intend to adhere to the Leitch target that by 2020 more than 40 per cent of adults will have a university degree? In the light of the inevitability of belt-tightening, and given the mess that the previous Administration have left us in, how do the Government intend to adhere to that target?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Baroness will be aware, this Government are less committed to targets for everything than their predecessor and are much concerned about improving the quality of technical education, apprenticeships and the like. We are not so worried about the target of 40 per cent. However, since the number of people reaching the age of 18 will fall in the next 10 years, without further expansion of university education the proportion of 18 year-olds going to university may increase.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, there has been a 16 per cent increase in demand for university places. The previous Government pledged an additional 20,000 places. The Conservative manifesto promised 10,000 extra. But now we see a cut of 10,000. Does that make sense, given the previous Minister’s response about the need for high-tech manufacturing? As another speaker has said, we need more people with more high qualifications in a knowledge economy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord’s use of statistics reminds me of the use made by the Daily Mail. Looking at the cuts and proposals, it appears that last December the previous Government proposed a cut of 6,000 places, and then later an increase of 20,000. The new Government have come up with an increase of 10,000. I make that a net increase of 4,000 places on the original proposed cut of 6,000, not a reduction.

Special Advisers

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

14:55

Asked By

[Lord Sheldon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many special advisers have been selected who have been approved by the Prime Minister.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, a list of special adviser appointments will be published shortly and will be available in the Library of the House. In accordance with the requirements of the Ministerial Code, all special adviser appointments are approved by the Prime Minister.

[Lord Sheldon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that response. Many parliamentary advisers who have been employed have had none of the background of civil servants, and in some cases the Government created special advisers whose role was superior to those in the Civil Service. Has this practice now come to an end?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I very much regret that I was not in a position to give the noble Lord a clearer answer in my first response because he put his Question down slightly before the Government were ready to answer it. However, we will do so very shortly. I can confirm that, under this Government, the hideous regime of special advisers telling permanent civil servants what to do will come to an end.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

Since the watchword of the two parties in this coalition is “fairness” and the role of special advisers is essentially a political one—liaising with outside opinion and Members of Parliament—will the Government exercise fairness in their appointments of special advisers as between departments and as between Ministers in the different parties of the coalition?

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords, and naturally that is subject to the coalition agreement. However, clear rules are set out in the Ministerial Code on the number of special advisers and who is entitled to them. That, of course, speaks for itself.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, perhaps we could have this issue clarified at the beginning of the term of this Government. If a special adviser to a coalition Cabinet Member breached the code, who would be responsible for disciplining that adviser? Would it be the Prime Minister?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, discipline is up to the Minister who appoints the special adviser. The Prime Minister agrees the appointment, but it is the Minister who appoints the adviser who is responsible for discipline.

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, is my noble friend able to give the figure for the number of special advisers in early 1997 compared with those who were in position before the general election this year?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in 1997 there were 38 special advisers, while in March this year there were 78. When we make our announcement, I think that the House will find that there are fewer than that under this Government.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, can the Leader of the House tell us whether any of the special advisers being appointed will be on salaries higher than that of the Prime Minister? As a comparator, perhaps he could also tell us how many of the special advisers who have been appointed will be earning salaries higher than that of a Lords Minister. What does that tell us about their relative importance in government?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the figures will be made public when we publish the announcement shortly.

[Lord Ryder of Wensum]

My Lords, can my noble friend explain the main purpose of a special adviser to the Government?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, these advisers are the personal appointments of Cabinet Ministers. Their job is to help Cabinet Ministers to do their job even more effectively than they would otherwise have done if they had not had such an appointment.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Leader of the House answered the question put by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours precisely. The question is really this: if any Minister, in relation to his or her activities in connection with a special adviser is seen to be in breach of the Ministerial Code, would it be the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister who would have to exercise disciplinary action against them?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in the first instance it is up to the Minister who appointed the special adviser, but if there was a most serious breach of the code, I am sure that it would be for the Prime Minister to take a view.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

My Lords, bearing in mind that it is readily accepted that no one should benefit from public service, will the Minister give an assurance that the incoming special advisers will receive less income as special advisers than they were receiving immediately prior to taking up office?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, as I said in answer to an earlier question, these figures will be made public when we make the announcement. I said also that we will draw to a close the regime whereby special advisers told civil servants what to do, and we will end that hideous rogues’ gallery where special advisers became even better known than their Ministers—for example, Alastair Campbell, Damian McBride, Charlie Whelan, Derek Draper. Their reign is now firmly over.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I had the responsibility, under my noble friend Lord Lawson of Blaby, of constructing the original structure for special advisers’ salaries. Can my noble friend indicate whether the same logical rationale to the structure will be published on this occasion?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the depths of knowledge of my noble friend never cease to amaze me. I am amazed because I did not know it beforehand and so I am unable to give him a positive answer. However, when he sees what we publish, I think he will be very impressed.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, the noble Lord cited the names of various special advisers, but I remind the House that this Prime Minister is the first Prime Minister to have been a special adviser and I am sure that he would agree that, on the whole, they do an excellent job. Does the Leader of the House agree that most Prime Ministers are elected with a firm commitment to reduce the number of special advisers but that, over time, the rhetoric seldom matches the reality? We will be watching the numbers. I am not a betting woman in many cases, but I would bet that those numbers will go in one direction—upwards.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the Leader of the Opposition is right—the Prime Minister has made a firm commitment about the number of special advisers appointed. It will be up to us all to make sure that his resolve is maintained.

Barnett Formula

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

15:01

Asked By

[Lord Barnett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to change the Barnett formula.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the Government recognise the concerns expressed by your Lordships’ Select Committee report on the Barnett formula, the Holtham commission on Welsh funding and other commentators on the system for devolution funding. However, as set out in the coalition programme for government, at this time the priority must be to reduce the deficit, and therefore any change to the system must await the stabilisation of the public finances.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, the noble Lord must know that he has not answered my Question. The Select Committee to which he referred unanimously pointed out that approximately £1,600 per head more is spent in public expenditure in Scotland than in England, which has serious implications for the coming cuts. The Select Committee, which included a former Conservative Chancellor and two former Conservative Secretaries of State for Scotland, unanimously recommended that the system should be changed and based on need. What is he going to do? Is he going to do nothing at all?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, not only for producing his eponymous formula at the end of the 1970s, when he was a much respected Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but also for his powerful arguments in recent years for change. He of course knows more than I will ever know about the Barnett formula, and he makes a valid point; and the coalition understands his concerns very clearly. However, I am sure that he will be among the first to acknowledge that, in the light of the grave financial situation that the country faces, it would be wrong for a new Government to rush to a decision on this complicated matter.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, perhaps I may assist my noble friend. I entirely agree that the number one objective—the Government are right—must be to reduce the appalling size of the deficit. If he re-reads the unanimous report of the Select Committee to which he referred, he will discover that its recommendations would assist that task, not fly in the face of it. I hope he will embrace it.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his intervention. We recognise the force of the arguments and are carefully considering the various reports. There is as yet no consensus on exactly what a needs-based assessment would take account of. In the mean time, the coalition’s priority, as I have said, is to reduce the deficit.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, given that the Barnett formula funds on the basis of population and not need, does the Minister agree that it is profoundly unfair to overfund Scotland by the extent of some £4 billion to £5 billion a year, while requiring underfunded local authorities in the rest of the country to make further savage cuts as their contribution to reducing the deficit?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, in circumstances where the public sector debt is approaching £900 billion and the PBR forecast for 2009-10 is for net additional borrowings of £156 million, or about 11 per cent of GDP, I am surprised to hear that the noble Baroness thinks that the Barnett formula is a more urgent matter.

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

My Lords—

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is plenty of time for both noble Lords to speak. Let us hear from the noble Lord from the Cross Benches.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, is it not the case that the whole economic and financial landscape has changed so fundamentally over the past 30 years that a rough and ready yardstick of calculation, as it was then, now becomes something utterly inequitable; and that if there is no radical change, parts of the United Kingdom, such as the land and nation of Wales, will suffer the perpetuation of this inequity? Is it therefore a matter not of waiting for events to happen but of radically tackling a massive injustice?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the Government hear what the noble Lord and other noble Lords say. However, while we recognise the concerns expressed by, for example, the Holtham commission, as I said, the priority must at the moment be to tackle the deficit.

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

My Lords—

[Lord Peston]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, this always works very well when we take it in turns. Could the noble Lord, Lord Peston, sit down?

[Lord Peston]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, we cannot both stand up at the same time. I think that I have the Floor. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, should be given an opportunity to speak.

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

Thank you, my Lords. The Labour Benches have already had two questions.

Does the Minister agree that, unlike its author, the Barnett formula is now well past its sell-by date? Does he recognise particularly the concerns expressed so thoroughly by the Holtham commission on the whole system of public sector or devolution funding? While obviously accepting that the deficit is the immediate problem, does he not also accept that moving towards fairness between all four nations of the United Kingdom is an important part of getting the deficit sorted?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I have just said that we recognise the concerns expressed by the Holtham commission, and the Government are listening to what noble Lords are saying.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, I was under the impression that the Liberal Democrats were part of the Government. I know that we need to sort out the protocol, but they really have to get used to what they have sold their souls for. They really do.

May I ask the noble Lord, with all lack of respect to my noble friend Lord Barnett, whether it is not about time that the Barnett formula was simply allowed to die? Should we not let it rest happily in its grave until we can come back to invent a new formula?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the dulcet words of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, when he was a Minister answering almost an identical question, were along the lines that the Barnett formula is simple, robust, and it works. The coalition, on the other hand, and as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, implies, recognises that there are concerns over the allocation of funding. But, as I said, there are other priorities.

Academies Bill [HL]

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

15:09

Moved By

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, the House will be aware that I am now the Minister in charge of this Bill rather than my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in whose name the Bill was introduced. I am happy to assure the House that I, too, believe that the provisions of this Bill are compatible with the convention rights and I would have been content to sign the necessary statement had I been in a position to do so when the Bill was introduced.

This Bill will grant more freedoms to schools, give more responsibility to teachers and help to ensure that standards rise for all children. Last week we had an excellent debate on the measures contained in the gracious Speech. Rereading the whole debate over the weekend—that is the kind of pastime that I now find myself reduced to—I found that there was broad agreement on the need to trust professionals more, to reduce the bureaucracy that they face and to give them more opportunity to drive their own improvement and deploy resources in the most effective way. It is precisely those freedoms that the measures contained in the Academies Bill will help to deliver.

I have had some very thoughtful discussions with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln and others about managing expectations for this Bill, so let me be clear from the outset that the Bill does not in our view represent a revolution in our school system. Rather, it builds on what has gone before. We can trace its roots to the reforms introduced by my noble friend Lord Baker through the Education Reform Act 1988, which led to the opening of the first city technology colleges in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, it was under a Labour Government that the pace of reform really picked up—I recognise that contribution very clearly. The Learning and Skills Act 2000 saw the beginning of the academies programme and the education White Paper of 2005 built on it. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, by saying what I said in his absence last week—how much I respect his achievement and what high standards he has set for those who have come after him. I am happy to pay tribute to him and to my other predecessors, who should feel pleased at the good that they have done through the academies programme and the thousands of children’s lives that they have already changed for the better.

I am not arguing that academies will always be the answer. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, reminded us in the debate on the gracious Speech that many outstanding schools are not academies and that not all academies are outstanding—and she is, of course, right. Overall, however, academies represent one of the best and fastest routes to school improvement. They have transformed some of the worst-performing schools in the country into some of the best and, in doing so, they have transformed the prospects of tens of thousands of young people. In 2008-09, academies saw GCSE results increase twice as fast as the national average.

It is also clear that the extension of the academies programme that we now propose seems to be what the previous Labour Government intended to do. In a speech given the day before the publication of the 2005 White Paper, the then Prime Minister, the right honourable Tony Blair, said:

“We need to make it easier for every school to acquire the drive and essential freedoms of Academies … We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self-governing independent state school … All schools will be able to have Academy style freedoms … No one will be able to veto parents starting new schools or new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there are local surplus places. The role of the LEA will change fundamentally”.

It has taken five years, but this Bill is giving effect to what the previous Government intended.

It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves why we need reform. Despite the best efforts of previous Governments, 81,000 11 year-olds still left primary school last year without achieving the required standard in reading. Half of young people left secondary school without achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths. In the last year for which we have data, out of 80,000 young people eligible for free school meals, just 45 made it to Oxbridge.

Raising standards is not simply about structures, a point made well in last week’s debate; it is about the quality of teaching, which is why we will also build on the previous Government’s excellent Teach First programme. At a time of great pressure in public spending, we have prioritised investment in education by protecting front-line spending this financial year for Sure Start children’s centres, 16 to 19 learning and, of course, schools. However, giving schools and teachers more freedoms will help them to do the job that they came into teaching to do.

The Bill will give all schools—including, for the first time, primary schools and special schools—the opportunity to apply to become an academy. I stress “opportunity”; this is largely a permissive rather than coercive Bill. Its aim is to help schools across the spectrum, from the very worst to the very best. Schools already rated as outstanding by Ofsted may have their applications fast-tracked and may open this year if they wish. In return, we will expect every outstanding school that acquires academy freedoms to partner with at least one other school, to raise performance across the system.

Schools that are really struggling will see government intervention. There has always been a focus in the academies programme on the weakest schools, which will continue. The Bill will therefore allow the Secretary of State, where a school is struggling, to remove it from the control of the local authority and reopen it as an academy. That will mean that we should be able to deliver faster and deeper improvements in deprived and disadvantaged areas. For the schools in between—those doing well that could do better—academies will present a real opportunity to achieve excellent results through the core freedoms that all academies enjoy: making their own decisions about the curriculum, teachers’ pay, the length of the school day and how they spend the money that is currently spent on their behalf by local government. Again, it will be for head teachers, governing bodies and school trustees to decide whether to apply.

I was struck by the following sentence in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, last week:

“There is a good argument for successful schools being given more managerial autonomy and flexibility, provided that that is on the basis of fair admissions, fair funding and a recognition of their wider school improvement responsibilities”.—[Official Report, 3/6/10; col. 382.]

That fair statement summed up well what we are trying to achieve with the Bill.

I shall say a few things about what the Bill will not do. It will not help just a small proportion of pupils in leafy suburbs. The original focus of the academies programme on underperformance and deprivation will remain a key feature. The Bill will not allow a small number of schools to float free above the rest of the state school system. It should help all schools to improve standards by increasing the number of heads inspiring other heads and teachers learning from other teachers through greater partnerships between schools. It will not impinge on a school’s unique ethos or religious character if it becomes an academy. We want to give schools greater freedom and the preservation of a school’s unique ethos will be an important consideration in deciding whether to apply for academy status. That is also why the legislation ensures that, for foundation schools and voluntary schools with a foundation, consent must be gained from the trustees of a school’s foundation before it can apply to become an academy.

The Bill does not provide a back door to selection, which is, I know, another concern of some noble Lords. While the small number of schools that are currently selective will be able to keep their selective status, non-selective schools, if they choose to become an academy, will not be able suddenly to become selective. A fair and open admissions policy will mean that intakes at academies will be diverse, inclusive and drawn from the local community. We will aim to ensure that the position with maintained special schools is mirrored. We want a special school that converts to an academy still to take only children with statements. The Bill will not disadvantage any maintained school financially, nor will there be extra funding for academies that maintained schools will not get.

The Bill will not create a two-tier school system; indeed, we believe that it will help to close the gap in our current system. Most important, while it is not catered for in the Bill currently before noble Lords, we will also target resources on the poorest through a new pupil premium. That will take money from outside the schools budget to make sure that those teaching the children most in need get extra resources—for example, to deliver smaller class sizes, more one-to-one tuition, longer school days and more extra-curricular activities.

In concluding, I will update noble Lords on the response that we have received from schools so far. In a little more than a week, more than 1,100 schools have expressed an interest in applying for academy freedoms. More than 620 outstanding schools, including more than 250 outstanding primaries and more than half of all outstanding secondary schools, have expressed their interest, along with more than 50 special schools. There seems to be real demand for the measures set out in the Bill. Our aim is to meet that demand and to ensure that heads and teachers have the freedoms that they want and need, that parents have the choice of a good local school and that a child’s background does not dictate whether they succeed. I know that this is a vision shared on all sides of the House. I am pleased to present the Bill for your Lordships’ consideration and I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

15:22

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. Although it was his maiden speech plus three days, I welcome him again. Just to be absolutely clear, it is a delight to respond to the Minister at Second Reading.

Labour’s academies programme supported some of the most deprived communities and children in our country. The academies programme was targeted at schools which were failing their pupils and communities by not raising aspirations enough. When a school underwent a change to an academy, we usually insisted on a change of leadership and always on an injection of outside expertise from a sponsor. Sponsors that were not existing successful education providers or charities had to make a significant financial contribution. We were extremely grateful to those that did. We normally provided extra support in the form of additional resources to improve facilities and to drive up standards. It was a really significant programme of school improvement. We are very proud of the contribution of my noble friend Lord Adonis.

This was about transforming failing schools, strengthening school leadership and creating hunger for success for some of our most deprived children. As the Government recognised, GCSE results in academies have risen faster than in their predecessor schools and faster than the national average. Some academies have not succeeded: that is true. We understand the challenge that many schools face. However, several academies, as the Minister pointed out, have been established in deeply deprived communities and have become some of the best-performing schools in our country. They deliver GCSE results on a par with—and sometimes better than—schools in much more affluent areas, showing that it is possible that the negative link between aspiration and deprivation can be broken. This is what the Labour academies programme was about.

The Bill represents a new approach. It simply does not compare with the Labour academies programme and does not provide all the support that we used to give to deprived schools. We are very proud of what the programme has achieved. The programme at which we are looking does not represent a continuation of Labour’s programme. Labour is proud of the achievements of the pioneering academies. As the Minister rightly pointed out, when we were in government we committed to doubling the number of academies to 400. In so doing, we committed to create real benefits for the most disadvantaged children. However, I note that in the impact assessment for this Bill, the Government have struggled to demonstrate real benefit resulting from their policy of rolling out a scheme which was designed to transform failing schools to the highest performing schools in this country. There is a real issue there.

I believe very strongly that there is a good argument, as the Minister stressed—and we should make no mistake about this—for successful schools to be given more autonomy and flexibility, provided that it is clearly on the basis of fair admissions and funding, and a recognition of, and commitment to, their wider social improvement responsibilities. When in government, we understood that to excel schools need to be interconnected with their communities and supported by their local authorities. It seems to me that unless robust safeguards are in place, there will be serious implications for local communities, local children’s services and, indeed, for the schools which are left behind. There are real issues about which the Minister needs to think carefully, as I know he will.

The Minister must answer the question: will creating so many academies in already successful schools create a two-tier system? He tells us that it will not, but we need to know what the safeguards are to ensure that that is not the case. Funding for schools is allocated to local authorities on a formula, taking into account local costs, needs and deprivation. Some funding is retained by the local authority to pay for services centrally provided by it to those schools and their pupils. This includes such things as school travel, school meals, special needs, statementing, pupil referral units for children excluded from school, school library services, jointly provided sports, music facilities or teaching as well as advisory support for teachers and schools. These are very important services.

The new academies will, in a similar way to the existing academies, receive all their per-pupil funding as well as their share of the local authority central funds. As the need for these services varies, and already outstanding schools are often less likely to need particular kinds of support than other schools, this could create funding shortfalls in support of the remaining local authority schools. A real issue needs to be thought through there. The per-pupil amount received by academy schools would, as a result of this, be greater than that for neighbouring schools. As the budget for centrally provided services will fall as a result, these other schools will lose important support. We need to understand where the Government are going with that. Under the existing academy scheme, this creates a transfer of extra funds to those schools most in need of extra support. However, under the new scheme, where most new academies will already be outstanding schools, resources will be shifted to those schools which are already performing well. This is the two-tier threat to which Dame Margaret Eaton referred when she voiced her concerns about a possible two-tier system and disadvantaged children losing out. At no point does the coalition explain the impact that this may have on other schools in the area. There must also be clarity on the impact on nursery education, and on care for three and four year-olds, because this is causing a great deal of concern outside your Lordships' House.

As with funding, we need clarity on the admissions code. Local authorities are the admissions authorities for all schools except academies. There is a great deal to be said about academy agreements, which I do not have time to go into here. Greatly increasing the number of academies will have implications for admissions planning. The Government must be clear about how they will respond to this. There are implications particularly for children in care who currently have priority. Will that be maintained with a much greater number of academies? There are implications, too, for disabled children and those with special needs. How will they be catered for by the new model? For example, parents of children with autism are already reporting problems with the admissions arrangements for current academies. How will this translate across the system? In their manifesto, the Liberal Democrats were particularly concerned about fair admissions and said that they would replace academies entirely with sponsor-managed schools accountable to local authorities and not to Whitehall. I would be interested to know the Liberal Democrat view. I know that they want to position themselves separately, as well as being part of the coalition.

Our academy programme was one part of a national approach designed to ensure that every school in this country was a good school. This approach led to a significant fall in the number of schools failing to achieve the 30 per cent benchmark that we set of five good GCSE results. That number has gone from thousands in 1997 to hundreds now. It is a significant improvement, and I am glad that the Minister acknowledges the achievement. The Government have also said that schools under Ofsted special measures for a year or more will be converted to academy status if they do not improve. This represents fewer schools than those that were covered by Labour's National Challenge programme, in which schools were supported and challenged to improve or faced intervention, including the possibility of conversion to an academy or a national challenge trust. If this is the extent of the coalition’s school improvement programme—I am sure the noble Lord will tell me that a lot more is going on—we should know. We should know in much greater detail how the new academies will be expected to fulfil their responsibilities to partners in their community and to promote school improvement.

I agreed with my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley when she said that it is the quality of teaching that makes the most difference to children from poor backgrounds and disadvantaged areas. I am glad that the Minister, too, liked that contribution. Like my noble friend, I look forward to hearing much more from the coalition Government about the policies that will help with that. When in government, our aim was to make teaching a masters-level profession, with time off to train and a new teaching masters qualification. We enshrined in our Children, Schools and Families Bill a licence to teach that incorporated both time off for continuous professional development and an ongoing assessment of teacher training and development; but sadly, the Conservatives objected to that in wash-up.

This is not part of what I would see as a progressive education policy. I recognise that the Bill is permissive and not coercive; but, as ever, it will be what is not in it that will give greatest cause for concern. It has not enshrined the aspirations that we had in government for a progressive academies programme; and it does not represent a good place to start the coalition Government’s programme. If the teaching unions, Matrix Chambers, early-years specialists, local government leaders and parents’ groups are to be believed, the Bill will need an awful lot of attention in your Lordships’ House. We shall need to work really hard to get it into the kind of shape that it needs to be in before we can comfortably send it down to the other end. With my noble friends Lady Royall and Lady Crawley and our Back-Benchers, I look forward very much to working with the Government to get the Bill into a much better shape.

15:35

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Minister to his new position. I spoke on Wednesday, not Thursday, last week, so I did not have a chance to do so on that occasion but I am glad to have the opportunity now. I am afraid that I heard only the last half of his maiden speech, but I read it all and agree with everyone else that it represented a most auspicious beginning in this House. I am sure that we shall all enjoy working with him.

It is possible to have more than one view of our education system—it depends on what you choose to look at. This was graphically illustrated when we debated the previous Government’s Children, Schools and Families Bill in this House last March. On the one hand, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, could claim that we had the highest ever standards of education in this country. She pointed to the increased capital investment, the 4,000 new, rebuilt or significantly refurbished schools, more than 40,000 more teachers than in 1997 and more than 20,000 support staff.

On the other hand, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for the Opposition, made great play of the fact that 40 per cent of pupils leave primary school without being able to read, write or add up properly; half of all pupils do not get five good GCSEs, including English and maths; and every day more than 300 children are suspended from school for assaulting another child. On Thursday, the Minister described this state of affairs as unacceptable and referred to the fact that the UK has fallen from eighth to 24th in maths, from seventh to 17th in reading and from fourth to 14th in science. In his speech introducing the Bill to the House this afternoon, he gave further evidence of ways in which the education that we provide in our schools is not coming up to scratch. A major extension of academies is therefore the Government’s prescription but I very much welcome the non-dogmatic way in which the Minister introduced it.

In the debate last Thursday, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, described herself as “deeply suspicious” of the Government’s expanded academies programme. I do not know whether I would go as far as that; I would rather describe myself as agnostic. The local authority system has a proud tradition and provides a framework within which consistency can at least be aspired to. With the proliferation of academies, there are understandable worries about the development of a two-tier system, although I suppose that the more academies there are, the less risk there is of that happening. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said in the Guardian recently, the coalition may underestimate the role of state action in promoting equality. I think that the evidence on academies is equivocal and that the jury is still out on how effective they are, but this is the Government’s approach. We must hope that having a greater diversity of institutions will help to drive up standards and we must work to make academies as fit for purpose as we can.

The Academies Bill is largely about the process that has to be gone through to establish academy status. As such, it contains relatively little about how an academy has to conduct itself. According to Clause 1(6), it must give an undertaking to provide a,

“balanced and broadly based curriculum”,

and,

“education for pupils of different abilities”.

According to Clause 1(5), it must be organised,

“to make special educational provision for pupils with special educational needs”.

However, there is nothing about how the academy is supposed to do that, and it is to this omission that I wish to direct the rest of my remarks. In other words, the question that I wish to address is how the Bill can be disability-proofed and what we need to do to make it fit for purpose to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs. I should declare my interest in these matters as a vice-president of the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

Twenty-one per cent of children have some form of special educational need. The latest evidence shows that the overall percentage of pupils with special educational needs across academies is 33 per cent—considerably more than the average for England as a whole, which stood at 18 per cent—and that 12 per cent of children with special education needs achieve five GCSEs at A* to C level, compared with 57 per cent of their peers. These statistics vividly demonstrate that a key test of the Government’s academies policy will be how they improve outcomes and experiences for children with special educational needs.

The coalition Government’s commitment that all new academies will operate a fair and non-selective admissions policy, as well as Clause 1(5), is a positive sign that the Government believe that addressing the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities should be a priority for academies. However, as presently drafted, the Bill does not go far enough or into sufficient detail as to how academies are supposed to do this. Academies do not have the same duty to use their best endeavours to meet the needs of children with special educational needs—a duty which Section 317 of the Education Act 1996 places on maintained schools. There is a lack of clarity as to whether the special educational needs code of practice must be followed.

The most obvious way of remedying this deficiency would be to require that Part IV of the Education Act 1996 should apply to academies as it does to maintained schools. This contains what is commonly known as the SEN framework, which makes provision, so far as pupils with special educational needs are concerned, for the assessment and statementing process, admissions, delivery, the need to have regard to the SEN code of practice and so on. Exclusions and discipline, as they relate to pupils with SEN, are dealt with elsewhere in education legislation. As we go through the Bill, I shall seek amendments to ensure that the SEN framework applies to academies as it does to maintained schools.

Organisations representing disabled people and the field of special education have a number of other concerns about the Bill. They feel that there is a lack of accountability in the arrangements of existing academies. Funding agreements can be inaccessible to parents and cannot be used to obtain a remedy if there is a problem. Those organisations want parents to have a strong voice in the new system, whereby they can work with academies to ensure that their children get the right support, the challenging curriculum and the positive outcomes that they deserve. The SEN framework in current legislation gives parents the means to ensure that their child’s SEN are met. These principles remain valid. Academies are independent schools that are funded directly by the Secretary of State and are accountable mainly through the funding agreement, rather than the education Acts.

This raises important questions about how academies will be accountable to parents of children with SEN and disabilities. Empowering parents to engage with their child’s education is key to driving up standards and is something which the Government should wish to foster. I am sure that the intention behind the academies programme is not to reduce the role of parents in relation to their child’s education; however, there remains the problem that, even where the statements contained in a funding agreement are clear, they do not offer parents the same right to redress and protection that is offered by the current legislation. Here again we need to import into the academies framework the protection for the parent’s voice contained in the current legislation.

There are concerns, too, about what will be the effect of weakening LEAs, which is bound to be the result of a great expansion of academies. Local authorities currently offer a range of specialist support services for low-incidence special educational needs, such as hearing and visual impairments. Schools cannot be expected to have that specialist expertise to address every individual need, so the ability to access external services is critical. As schools increasingly receive funding direct from central government and local authority education functions are reduced, it is critical that this specialist expertise in SEN and disability is not lost.

A body with an overview of local need, such as an LEA, is able to plan services that, due to low demand, an open market would be unlikely to be able to provide at a reasonable cost. It may prove significantly more expensive for schools to commission these specialist services on a case-by-case basis—always assuming that the expertise is not lost in transition as the LEAs wind down their role and academies gear up for meeting special educational needs. That is what happened in the transition to local management of schools some 20 years ago, and we need to learn the lessons of that experience. I would welcome the Minister's clarification of the Government's view on how the strategic role of local authorities is to be maintained and what alternative ways of commissioning specialist support services are envisaged if local authorities no longer provide them.

Finally, there are a number of other, more detailed requirements applying to maintained schools that benefit children with special educational needs and disabilities, some of which do not apply to academies. Examples of those requirements include the following. Maintained schools are required to ensure that their special educational needs co-ordinator, or SENCO, is a qualified teacher. Maintained schools are required to participate in behaviour and attendance partnerships, which seek to reduce the number of children with special educational needs who are permanently excluded from school. Also, the Local Government Ombudsman can consider the actions of maintained schools that are failing to make provision for pupils with statements.

Those are just some of the aspects of the special education legislation that is intended to protect the interests of the most vulnerable children in our school system—children with special educational needs. These aspects are present in current legislation but are signally absent from the Academies Bill. Along with organisations that are versed in the field of special education, I shall be anxious to seek substantial amendment of the Bill in order to ensure that the protections that exist in current legislation for children with special educational needs are imported into the academies legislation.

15:47

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate in my capacity as chair of the Church of England Board of Education and the council of the National Society which, next year, celebrates 200 years of delivering excellent education across all communities and throughout the country. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has consulted us and co-operated with us as this Bill has made its way to this particular point in the process.

There is much in this Bill that we welcome. We want to be helpful so that it can be fit for purpose—a phrase already used several times in this debate—and enable us to continue to fulfil our long-standing commitment to first-class education for all as an expression of our calling to promote what Jesus called,

“life in all its fullness”.

The Church of England is the biggest provider of academies—27, with 15 in the pipeline. We are in the business for two reasons only. First, it is a key part of our mission to the most disadvantaged communities in our country. Secondly, it is part of our desire to create 100 new church secondary schools, as recommended by the late Lord Dearing in his report in 2001. Currently, no fewer than 34,000 children, all in areas of significant social deprivation, are being educated in Church of England-sponsored academies.

However, the proposals before us today significantly shift the basis on which we have engaged with the academies programme so far. We identify entirely with the Secretary of State’s desire to encourage greater independence for schools with a good track record, but not if outstanding status is largely attributable to particular admissions policies or at the expense of neighbouring schools. That would skew the academy culture towards the more privileged and away from the more disadvantaged in our society, so the Church of England’s commitment to disadvantaged pupils and their families—the reason for our being in the academies programme at all—would be diluted. We welcome the Minister’s reassurances on that point in terms of the Bill’s intentions but, as it stands, we must remain sceptical.

Of course, we welcome the provisions in the Bill for the automatic transfer of religious character and for the protection of land and title, which mirrors that of the current wave of academies—although there are a number of technical issues about the transfer of land, trust deeds, capital and even VAT to which I am sure that others will refer in this debate and which need further attention.

Whether any of our church schools choose to convert to academy status will be greatly influenced by how such issues are resolved. If in the detail the devil resides, we will definitely be supping with the devil on a regular basis over the next few weeks.

The question of what determines the religious character of the school is key. Ethos, values, and curriculum design will all be of critical significance, but so will three matters directly pertaining to the Bill: governance, admissions and partnerships. Let me spend a little time on each in turn. The Bill gives no detail about governance arrangements for schools converting to academy status. Who will make those decisions, and will the role, rights and influence of the Christian foundation of the school be protected?

With regard to admissions, I note that the Bill provides for current admissions policies to transfer, including for selective grammar schools. The original purpose of academies was for them to be schools for the local neighbourhood and for admissions policies to reflect that. The new wave will include schools drawing in Christian applicants to the possible exclusion of local people. We would encourage the Government to look again at how admissions to academies—not least among them, Church of England academies—can be essentially inclusive rather than otherwise. Again, we hold ourselves in readiness to assist in helping inclusion to be part of the DNA of academies of all kinds.

As for partnerships, we are concerned about how benefits consequent on partnerships between schools and the local authority and, in relation to church schools, the diocesan boards of education can be provided within the new arrangements. That will especially apply to strategic planning for the provision of good quality, well resourced and well funded schools in a particular locality. That is especially important as there is no provision in the Bill for consultation with parents or local communities when academy status is pursued on the fast track.

On the other hand, we warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to encouraging partnerships between high-performing academies and weaker schools. In fact, we would wish that to be a requirement, rather than a mere expectation. I may well press that point in Committee.

How many academies will be created as a result of the Bill, on what timescale, and in which locations remains to be seen. Where this will leave local authorities, schools still in contact with local authorities and schools with very denominationally specific admissions policies remains to be seen. What all these structural changes will actually do to enhance teacher morale and performance and promote effective leadership and governance remains to be seen. Whether these new freedoms deliver fairness and appropriate democratic local accountability remains to be seen, and we look forward to reassurances on those points from the Minister when he sums up the debate.

Finally, the priority given by this new Government to education in our schools is to be welcomed and applauded so long as being seen to do something quickly is not at the expense of being sure of doing it well.

15:54

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Lords, I must declare two interests: I am the chairman of the Edge Foundation, the largest charity in our country promoting technical, practical and vocational education, and I am chairman of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which was established to promote and develop the new technical academies, university technical colleges. I draw no remuneration from either charity.

It comes as no surprise that I am in favour of the Bill and of extending academies, in that they are the heirs of the city technology colleges that I established in 1986. They were revolutionary in that they were the first schools that were truly independent of the local education authority. They had distinct advantages. First, they were free from the LEA. Secondly, the head was in charge. Thirdly, they controlled their own budgets, particularly on pay and conditions. Fourthly, they had freedom to introduce changes; for example, they started at 8 o’clock in the morning with breakfast and went on to 8 o’clock at night. Those were revolutionary changes in the 1980s, and most local authorities objected to them for other schools. Fifthly, there was some freedom in the curriculum, although most followed the national curriculum, and there was a big emphasis on computer technology. In those days, there were only two or three computers in every school, but we wanted every child to have access to a computer. Sixthly, there was industrial and commercial support. My Ministers and I raised more than £44 million from industrialists such as my noble friend Lord Harris, who was one of the first to take over a very rundown school in Croydon and who has now sponsored 10 academies. To bring not only the cash but the commitment from industry and commerce—I know my noble friend puts that in—was a breakthrough in educational terms.

At the time, the Labour Party was totally opposed to city technology colleges. They were the cuckoos in the nest and were to be destroyed at the first opportunity. Fortunately, David Blunkett and Tony Blair came to like them—they believed they invented them and I do not complain about that—and developed and expanded them substantially and improved the standard of education in our country enormously.

The big argument is whether city technology colleges hit other schools, as the Minister said. They did not. They became beacon schools that other schools aspired to copy. That was the pattern right across the country, so I believe that the fears that the shadow Minister expressed are groundless. She expressed the view that in future academies may not want to do failing schools. On the contrary, I think there is a big opportunity. For example, the Edge Foundation has sponsored three academies with amounts totalling nearly £5 million. The first was a school in Milton Keynes that was failing appallingly. Only 19 per cent of pupils got five subjects at GCSE and 80 per cent of the children had a reading age that was two years lower than their chronological age. The gifted head teacher, Lorna Caldicott, has already started the teaching of basic reading using phonics, and a catch-up is happening in that school. It has been going on for nearly four terms and has been remarkably successful. That school also provides real vocational courses for youngsters that are very popular.

This school and the other academies have increased teaching hours. The Minister will discover, if he has not discovered it already, that teachers cannot work more than 1,265 hours a year. That is imprinted on my soul because I agreed it with the unions in 1986 to settle the strike. It has not changed; it has survived, remarkably. That means that most teachers teach only 25 hours a week. This school has won an extra hour a day, which means 30 hours’ teaching a week, principally by abolishing many of the meetings that teachers went to and other tasks that they were doing. The advantage of an extra hour’s teaching a day is that on a five-year teaching course you gain a whole year’s extra teaching. I hope that the Government will spread that throughout the whole educational system.

The second academy was in Nottingham in a very depressed area. Again, it has a gifted head, Graham Roberts. Again, only 14 per cent of the school gained GCSEs at 16. It has established very strong business links already. There are various things that these schools can do. This school got all the students to design their own uniform, so uniforms are accepted. They wear uniforms up to 16, and from 16 on they dress smartly, as for the office.

The third academy was in Telford in a very depressed area indeed. Edge put in £500,000 for a skills centre in a separate building in the school. This now has catering equipment, and youngsters of 12 and 13 make their own buffet lunches, help with the canapés and begin to acquire skills. These are the sorts of things that academies can do for failing schools and will continue to do.

What is left for the LEA to do, as my noble friend Lord Low asked? I will be even more ambitious than him about special education, because I think that it is the one role that should be left quite specifically to LEAs. I hope that the Government will look at this very seriously. The first thing that they have said is that they will look at the definition of special education. I find it very difficult to believe that 20 per cent of students and pupils at schools are classified as having special educational needs. I say that from my personal experience, because during the war I went to a Church of England primary school in Lancashire. In those days, I am absolutely certain that one in five of my classmates did not have special educational needs. I do not know whether this was the luck of Lancashire, but it was certainly not the case that one in five had special educational needs. Looking at the definition of special education is therefore the first thing to do.

Having made local authorities responsible for special education, I must say to my noble friend Lord Low that I would encourage them to establish more special schools. He will know that I have for several years been president of a charity that maintains one of the leading blind schools in the country, and I am greatly in favour of more special schools. The policy of inclusion has not worked well. The author of the policy—Lady Plowden—used to be in the Chamber. She is on record as having said that her recommendation was the biggest mistake of her life. It has been a mistake, and special education will be a very real role for local authorities in the years to come.

Finally, I will plug the schools that Ron Dearing and I worked to establish before he unfortunately died: technical academies for 14 to 19 year-olds, not for 11 to 18 year-olds. We believed that 14 is a more natural age at which to transfer. They are really a revival of the old technical schools that went down with comprehensives, but differ in two very important respects. First, they are for 14 to 18 year-olds, because 14 is a better age at which students themselves can select which school they want to go to. Secondly, they are adopted and sponsored by a university. That increases their status in the eyes of the students, of their parents and of business.

We have three such academies on their way. The first is Aston, which will open in two years’ time. The University of Aston wants to tutor and mentor pupils at 14, 15 and 16, and I think it is the first time that a university has ever done this. Twenty are waiting. I will not ask my noble friend for a commitment on these today because he will have to speak to the Secretary of State and his department, but I hope that we will have a network of these colleges across the country in the next few years. They will be of real interest to youngsters, many of whom are pretty disengaged at their local comprehensive schools at 13 and 14 and do not want to continue their studies but want to do something more practical.

In these schools, they will start at 8.30 in the morning with a trowel, hammer, welding machine or spanner in their hands, and in the afternoon they will do English, maths, science and IT under the same roof. I do not suggest that all new academies should be technical academies, but I would like a good share of them to be because they are already proving to be very popular. I therefore warmly support this Bill and the opportunities that it will give to make substantial improvements to the education system of our country.

16:05

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, this Second Reading is in some ways a continuation of last week’s debate on education in the gracious Speech, when some noble Lords expressed concerns about the proposals for academies. My noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley and I reflected on what makes a good school. We spoke of dynamic leadership, a positive ethos and good classroom practice. I remain convinced that, given sufficient resources and support, local community schools can provide those qualities. As we know, many do.

Earlier this year, a MORI poll showed that 96 per cent of the public want a good local school under the local authority. What is the sense of spending millions of pounds when a satisfactory structure for schools exists and standards have risen and are rising? Of course there are problems, but I am not convinced that academies will necessarily address all of these. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, kindly reminded me, yes, I am suspicious.

Some Liberal Democrats have been critical of academies. I am not making party-political points: I realise that they have had to make compromises. However, I hope that one of those compromises will not entail potential damage to the education system. I am simply saying that there are concerns and I hope that the Government will heed those concerns. I hope that there will not be a headlong rush to bring in academies. I am with the right reverend Prelate in maintaining that speed of implementation can be a serious enemy of due process, which involves careful debate and consultation—about which more shortly.

This Bill needs a great deal of clarification and amendment. I know that this House, with its usual incisiveness and concern for children, will begin the process of improvement. I will comment briefly on some aspects of the Bill that trouble me and later I will work with others to formulate amendments in those areas of concern.

On structures, there is currently a framework that ensures that all those with a stake in a school are represented on the governing body. I am a school governor. It is unclear whether such arrangements will be compulsory for academy schools. The British Humanist Association, of which I am a member, states that one-third of academies have religious sponsors. The Academies Bill forces a state-maintained school with a religious character, a faith school, automatically to become an independent school with that religious character—again, more on this shortly.

All land and facilities transfer to the private ownership of an academy. There is concern that this may remove facilities, such as school playing fields, from availability for use by local communities outside school hours. I seek assurances that academies will still have some duties to co-operate with the community in their local area.

A number of existing requirements apply to maintained schools to benefit children with special educational needs, as eloquently described by the noble Lord, Lord Low. Some of these do not apply to academies. Exclusions of children with special educational needs are disproportionately higher in academies. The fact that academies have not made significant progress in reducing such exclusions suggests that more needs to be done for these children.

No formal consultation through a Green Paper or White Paper or other mechanism for consultation is apparent. Clause 3 enables any governing body to apply to become an academy under an academy order without any consultation with the local authority, teachers, parents, children or the wider community. The lack of consultation with parents of young children in particular has the potential to impact on education and well-being. Parental involvement in schools, particularly in relation to children at an early age, is crucial.

The Children’s Rights Alliance points out that Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child gives children the right to express views on all matters affecting them and to have these views given due weight. Failing to consult students on matters that may substantially alter the character and curriculum of their school is a significant backward step with regard to implementing Article 12.

On funding, around one-third of all state-funded schools are faith schools, with the majority being primary schools. For the first time, this Bill will permit those primary schools that are high performing to become state-funded religious academies. The BHA is concerned that, once a faith school has become such an academy, it will not need to follow the national curriculum. Does this mean that a Catholic academy would be allowed not to teach sexual reproduction in biology or wider sex education? There is the potential for religious authorities to use restrictive teaching in line with their religious ethos. The BHA wants protections to prevent academies from teaching creationism, giving unbalanced religious education and having narrow and subjective teaching across their curriculums.

The same concerns apply to whether this Bill will have an impact on the employment of hundreds of teachers, teaching assistants and non-teaching staff who are currently employed by faith schools that then become academies. UNISON points out that school support staff will be directly employed by the new academies, thereby taking them outside all recognised pay and conditions agreements. This leaves them much more vulnerable to worse working conditions and lack of protection.

Primary and special schools are very dependent on local authorities for a whole range of core services to ensure that they can meet the individual needs of their pupils. They are worried that the removal of the link to local authorities and shared budgets will have an impact on the availability of specialist support for children. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Low, covered this most eloquently. Local families of schools will be broken up. How will this issue be addressed? By getting direct funding from Whitehall, academies will benefit from a 10 to 15 per cent increase in funding. Will this result in corresponding cuts to the local authority funding that provides specialist services and jobs?

The issue of charitable status raises many concerns. All academies automatically become charities. However, I understand that they will be exempt from Charity Commission regulations, thus making them less accountable. In January this year, when the previous Government tried to introduce this exempt status, the Charity Commission said that it was a retrograde step.

On standards, the NUT states that there is no independent evidence to show that academies deliver significantly improved results. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ fifth annual report on the academies programme, published in 2008, stated that a judgment on academies as a mode for improvement was not yet possible. A 2010 report highlights that academies are allowed to opt out of publishing data on how students are performing in specific subjects, so it is impossible for anyone to assess how their improvement is reached. The Association of Colleges points out that academies do not necessarily offer an affordable or wide range of quality provision at level 3, the A-level equivalent. The data show that in 2008 some academies—there were 42 of them—did not have all subjects available, including geography. The point scores for academies are not high when compared with sixth-form and FE colleges. The average point score in 2009 for level 3 was 800 for sixth-form colleges, 683 for FE colleges and 678 for academies.

Academies and free schools are based on a system used in Sweden. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study reported on trends in average scores from 1995 to 2007. Scores in Sweden were lower. We need to ensure that excellent schools work with underperforming schools to raise standards. In my view, there is no need for a completely new system.

The Bill states that all new academies will follow an inclusive admissions policy. Does this mean that all academies will be required to have regard to the school admissions code of practice and the SEN code of practice? The National Children’s Bureau seeks clarification in relation to academies’ admissions policies for vulnerable groups of children, including those in care and those with special educational needs.

I have many questions on inspections. Michael Gove has stated that schools rated as outstanding by Ofsted would be exempt from further inspections. He has also said that schools would be in a position to choose to hire consultants to review their performance. The recent example of the Shireland Collegiate Academy in Birmingham, which had been rated as outstanding but, when it became an academy, was judged as inadequate by Ofsted, should serve as a warning against the assumption that simply becoming an academy will guarantee high standards. The Government have proposed an early warning system if the data indicate that an academy is experiencing problems, but who is to be responsible for such a system and how will it work?

We shall explore many of these issues at a later date. In the mean time, I hope that the Government will think seriously about whether this Bill is financially and, above all, educationally entirely appropriate.

16:15

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to his new post and look forward to working with him on this and other legislation. Your Lordships’ House has a duty to scrutinise legislation and on these Benches we shall continue to carry out that scrutiny while conscious of the different responsibilities that come with being partners in the coalition Government.

After the monumental Bills in the previous Session, it is something of a comfort to have only 16 clauses to consider, although that may be a false comfort, as there are many broad areas in the Bill where the devil will be in the detail. It is to be hoped that these will be clarified during debate and that we shall have time to consider the advantages and sort out any unintended consequences of implementing this major piece of legislation.

The rationale behind the Bill is to implement the academy model in order to achieve school improvement and higher attainment. There have been some great successes among academies set up under the old model, which involved sponsors and setting up the schools in disadvantaged areas, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, set out. These are new types of academies and I share concerns that the speed of implementation leaves little time for consultation with stakeholders, including parents and governors.

We welcome measures that free schools from centralised bureaucracy and allow teachers to use their professional skills and judgment about what works best for the pupils in their schools. Every class has a different dynamic as pupils respond and learn in a variety of ways. Teachers have to adapt and improvise in order to encourage the potential of each individual class and child. All that diversity has to be guided towards achievement against national standards, leading to nationally recognised certification. The Bill brings forward proposals for a new type of school to try to find the balance between freedom and accountability.

With new ideas in education, it can pay dividends to start with a pilot, with a small enough number of schools participating to enable progress to be monitored, evaluated and improved before the measures are rolled out more widely. Change is disruptive in the short term, even when it turns out to be of long-term benefit, and each generation of schoolchildren has only one opportunity of primary and secondary education. Little would be lost and much could be gained by starting with fewer schools as volunteer guinea pigs in order to ensure that the template was truly fit for the majority of schools. Perhaps the Minister will say whether thought was given to opening this academy status initially to a more restrictive number of schools so that lessons could be learnt from their experience.

We shall be discussing the role of parents in the academies. The Explanatory Notes state that parents will not lose any rights that they currently have, but we know that existing academies tend to have fewer parent governors than other schools. It is not clear whether parents will have any say over a school becoming an academy. We hope that there will be reassurances on parents’ involvement with academies.

I follow the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, in wishing to explore in more detail provision for pupils with special educational needs. Questions need to be raised, including whether the SEN statutory framework will apply to the new academies, how the new admissions policy will work for children with SEN and whether all academies will be required to have trained SEN staff. I listened with interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said about that. Currently the local authorities have an important role in co-ordinating the needs of those with SEN. Who will be responsible for that co-operative working in the academy structure? We know that children with autism, for instance, are more at risk of exclusion because their behaviour may be difficult to manage. What measures will be put in place to ensure that they are not disproportionately affected by exclusions from academies? Who will be responsible for arranging and funding SEN transport? Some local authorities have extensive—and, indeed, expensive—systems for ensuring that pupils can access the most suitable schools in the area. There is a danger that services currently supplied at regional level will be fragmented if academies operate independently.

Both primary and special schools tend to be smaller than secondary schools, with smaller administrative resource. As they take on academy status, it is not only SEN tasks that will fall to them but a range of other responsibilities, including property management, admissions policy, staff employment and health and safety. These duties may well require additional training. What provision will be in place to enable them to cope with such responsibilities? There is expertise within local authorities, and academies may wish to contract back a range of services to the local authority, but these are matters that they will need to discuss, negotiate and agree on. In many parts of the country, schools have strong partnership relationships. It would be valuable to maintain such collaboration, but it may not be straightforward in the more competitive world of academies.

Perhaps I, too, may touch on the charitable status of academies, which the noble Baroness raised. The Bill provides for academies to have exempt charity status and thus not to be regulated by the Charity Commission. They would not need to provide accounts, public benefit reports or any other information to be displayed on the public register of charities. We would welcome clarification of the rationale for this. May we assume that charitable status, among other things, would carry with it a duty to share facilities with other schools in the area, where that would benefit less advantaged pupils?

There are enthusiastic supporters of academies. The coalition Government are committed to tackling educational inequality and giving greater powers to parents and pupils to choose a good school, with the ultimate aim, surely, that all schools should be good schools. As we proceed to Committee stage, we shall work co-operatively to ensure that the new academies open opportunities to all and that the choice of a good school does not become the preserve of the more articulate but is extended, with fairness and responsibility, to disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils. We look forward to the detailed scrutiny ahead.

16:20

[Baroness Murphy]

My Lords, I support the Bill. First, however, I declare an interest as chair of St George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, which has been an enthusiastic advocate and implementer of the widening participation agenda. We started early, long before Alan Milburn advocated that the profession should take it more seriously. We have used what I know some have described as social manipulation to ensure that we recruit, from the widest possible number of state schools, the very best medical students and health scientists. The policy has been enormously successful, and the recruits that we have had as a result of this “social manipulation” have been extraordinarily successful in becoming excellent doctors and health scientists. However, I do not really like the social manipulation that we have to go through to do it, because of the extraordinary variability of the quality of the schools from which our applicants come. We need a step change to ensure that there is not this variability of quality; everybody needs to ratchet up.

What I like about the Bill is that it is intended to move us from a system of direct performance management by local authorities to an autonomous, regulated system. This is what we have been trying to do in health policy, and I entirely support it. I particularly like the proposals to allow these schools to set their own pay and conditions for staff and to change the length of the school day and the terms, as well as a wide range of other provisions which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, so eloquently described. I know that we shall hear from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about what has happened in the schools that he has sponsored. These are freedoms that we should now give to so many other schools.

I also like the potential for creating a broader range of 14 to 19 year-old technical schools, an area which we have neglected so much in recent years. The idea of free schools is encouraging, although I hope very much that they will in due course be able to make a profit, because we see from evidence from the United States and Sweden that that degree of competition, and the ability to have profits to reinvest, really gets schools to make their mark.

Conferring academy status on a school will, of course, not automatically improve it. Turning a poor school round will take even a good head teacher far longer than one year. All schools in tough areas need support, but the Bill provides the structural context in which teachers can get on with teaching. There is ample evidence from abroad that competition for pupils and the market agenda is to the good, as long as we have key regulatory systems in place to monitor quality. Is the Minister confident that the regulatory system currently available will be adequate to monitor the performance of these schools?

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, in an article in the Guardian last week, made the observation:

“This choice agenda is in some ways little more than a shift in power, from local authorities and schools, to parents”.

That is exactly the point, I should have thought, and all to the good. But it also brings me to the dangers, and I echo some of the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, repeated.

Around one-third of all state-funded schools are schools with a religious character or faith schools, and this number is growing, with some minority religions and Christian denominations running new schools or taking control of the increasing numbers of schools in the state sector or of academies. Many faith schools are exclusive, most are divisive, and all are counterintuitive to social cohesion. Despite claims of inclusiveness, many have control of their own admissions, creating school populations that are far from representative of their own populations in religious or socio-economic terms. Many also discriminate in their recruitment and employment on religious grounds; applicants can be rejected and teachers barred from promotion because they are not of the right religion or of no religion or because of their sexual orientation. Teachers can also have their contracts terminated while in post, if their conduct is deemed incompatible with the tenets of the school’s religion. In addition, many faith schools teach—instead of the religious education taught in community schools, which I believe is a crucial part of the curriculum; we need to know about each other’s beliefs—their own syllabus, which the law permits to be confessional and which does not have to include learning about other religions or non-religious philosophies.

I draw attention to Professor Ted Cantle’s interim report last year on community cohesion in Blackburn and Darwen following the 2001 Oldham riots. He pointed out that the level of segregation in schools is high, growing and more extensive than the level of residential segregation would suggest, with the number of faith schools a particular issue. Although the report calls on faith schools to reconsider their admission policies in the light of the impact on cohesion, some schools in the towns have already made it clear that they do not intend to change their policies. At the launch of the report, Professor Cantle stated that faith schools with religious admission requirements were,

“automatically a source of division”.

Freedom for parents to educate according to their principles is one thing. Freedom for a faith group to exert an influence on the very structure of the community is another. At the medical school, we do have difficulties when people come from segregated schools of faith; some things have to be changed and restructured, and they have to be re-educated in another way of thinking. This is profoundly concerning.

I support this Bill very strongly because of the general policy direction, but the Government must think very carefully about what may be created in the name of parent power. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me that my fears will be guarded against.

16:28

[Lord Harris of Peckham]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and the noble Lord, Lord Baker, started CTCs in the late 1980s, I agreed to sponsor a school in Croydon and one jointly with the church, Bacon’s, in Bermondsey. The school at Croydon was one of the worst in the country, with a GCSE pass rate of only 9 per cent and only 400 pupils. Of those 400 pupils, 60 every year were expelled—that is 15 per cent. The teachers on average lasted only six months, so there were supply teachers. We were letting the children of our country down. Now the school has 1,200 pupils, and the spend on it in those 20 years has been only £2 million. This year we had 2,000 applicants for 180 places. Over the years, the school achieved “most improved” school in the country twice, and last year had 99 per cent of five A to Cs, 84 per cent including English and maths. Some 15 per cent of the children come to the school from as far as Lambeth. More importantly, 147 out of 165 children went on to university.

When we took over the school, most of the teachers were replaced. There were 40 there, and we took 30 new teachers on, five of whom are now heads of our other academies.

Last November, under the new Ofsted rules, the Harris City Academy Crystal Palace, as it is now known, achieved an outstanding Ofsted report of 30 grade 1s. It is one of only two schools in the country to have achieved that so far. The 15 schools that had become CTCs saw their GCSE results improve by 43 per cent, against the national average of 34 per cent. Since 2001, the CTCs that achieved five As to Cs including English and maths had seen a rise of 12.6 per cent compared with 8.6 per cent for all other schools. Remember that most of the schools were failing schools.

Academies began in 1998-99, and again proved very successful. There are now 203 academies of which we—the Harris Federation—sponsor nine and one with the Church of England. Approximately 20,000 children attend our academies, six specialist schools and four primary schools.

We took over a failing school in September 2008 in Bexley. A third of the school was condemned—unusable. In just one year—two terms with the children—the GCSE results for five As to Cs with English and maths have gone up from 17 per cent to 42 per cent, and we expect them to be 65 per cent this year. The rate of five As to Cs has moved from 47 per cent to 92 per cent, all in the first year. This year we expect 95 per cent. That proves that failing or unpopular schools can be turned around quickly by motivated staff and pupils, strict discipline and creating an environment to learn.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for all the help that he gave us to achieve the opening of eight more academies. It has been fantastic; no one could have done a better job for us. All those were failing schools when we took them, with 35 per cent of the schoolchildren on free meals, against the national average of 12.9 per cent. In a short time—two to three years—five of the schools have now been judged outstanding, one good, and one satisfactory with outstanding potential. We took two of them on last September, and we have our own team inspecting them; in the next 12 months, we expect them to receive at least good and probably outstanding status.

Harris academies’ exam rate of five As to Cs last year was 84 per cent compared with the national average of 67 per cent. Bear in mind that five of the schools were failing badly less than three years ago. In Croydon alone we have three academies, with 4,500 applicants for just 600 places. Because we are so oversubscribed—as much as five or six times—we are always accused of taking the best pupils, but we do not. We put them into 10 bands and take 10 per cent from each band. I am dyslexic, and 10 per cent of our children are dyslexic as well. That is why our value added is pretty impressive.

Bermondsey, Merton and South Norwood are all in the top 2 per cent in the country—outstanding. Crystal Palace is in the top 4 per cent—the children, who start there at 11 and finish at 16, are at a better standard than those at other schools—and is outstanding. Falconwood is in the top 6 per cent—outstanding. Peckham is in the top 15 per cent—good. East Dulwich girls’ academy is in the top 25 per cent—satisfactory with improvement.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, allowed us to operate one centre across the three academies for our sixth form, which has been very successful. It has been agreed that we can put the sixth form of all our schools together. By 2012 we will have 2,000 sixth-form students and we hope to get at least 80 per cent of them to university. I am a great admirer of and believer in academies. There should not be failing schools in the UK. If there are, we are letting our children down. I thank our head teachers, staff and support staff for making all our schools so successful. I hope that, over the next few years, the Harris Federation will have as many as 25 successful schools in south London. I support the Bill. We want to give a better education to our children in this country.

16:35

[Baroness Morgan of Huyton]

My Lords, I am sure that this is the first of many days that we will spend on this subject. I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, who is, I am sure, coming back. He has a great and very important job. I declare my interests. I advise the charity ARK, which sponsors and runs city academies. I also serve as a school governor of a city academy, and chair Future Leaders, a charity which intensively trains prospective head teachers for challenging urban schools and receives government funding via the National College.

I am an academy enthusiast. I share much of what the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Harris, have just outlined. My experience is similar to theirs. When I started to read the Academies Bill and the Explanatory Notes, I sat down to summarise what I think the new Government’s overall strategic approach should be. This goes for academies and beyond. The Government should set clear desired outcomes for the system as a whole and its constituent parts. They should give as much autonomy as possible to teachers, parents and pupils in pursuing those outcomes in the most appropriate way for them, while at the same time reserving the right of control to get the basics in place and intervene when pupils are failed. They must properly fund the education system, recognising the needs of the most disadvantaged. They must hold institutions and professionals to account. This is not a question of being top-down or bottom-up, but of being clear about where the state can be effective and where it needs to give others the power to deliver. The state needs to be intrusive where the basics are not in place and where there is failure, both obvious and hidden. However, in other areas, genuine and lasting achievement is most likely to be brought about by the teachers, parents and pupils for themselves.

From 1997, the Labour Government dramatically improved the education system, increasing resources and giving three-year funding agreements to allow head teachers to plan properly. They cut class sizes, rebuilt the schools estate—remember outside toilets and leaking roofs—and regenerated the teaching profession, improved standards and brought new expertise and diversity into the system. More pupils leave school with a good set of qualifications and there are far fewer failing schools. Underlying literacy rates have improved significantly and schools serving disadvantaged communities have improved faster than the average. There is stronger accountability and more transparency for parents when choosing schools. What often worked best was a combination of investment and reform—for example, in relation to the teaching profession, where much was achieved, though there is still some way to go. As an aside, I do not quite understand why the abolition of the GTC will raise the standing and standard of the profession. By all means, reform and strengthen it—it needed that—or even replace it, but do not leave a vacuum.

One reform was particularly controversial—particularly, I remember, with some Members opposite—and that is the one that we are talking about today. That was the attempt to foster dynamism to deliver excellent schools where there was failure, leading to the concept of city academies. The idea, we now know, was simple: to create independent state schools with support from business, successful individuals who wanted to put something back, universities or independent schools. Each school would have its own ethos, clear behaviour codes, a focus on literacy and numeracy, and high aspirations for all pupils. The controversy was huge both inside and outside the educational establishment. It is important to think first about the rationale that underlay those original academies. They were, above all, a means of getting the best schools into the areas that needed them most. They were not conceptualised as a way of extending market reforms to education. It was not about competition per se but about seeking to replace failing provision and providing a spur to achieve higher results across the piece. It was about trying to give some of the best to those who were denied even the average, and largely it has worked. There are now fewer failing schools than at any time since records began and we have high-performing providers effectively delivering outstanding education in areas that have been blighted by unacceptable standards. What is more, GCSE results in academies are improving faster than the national average. The evidence now tells us clearly that outstanding schools can overcome a pupil’s background in determining outcomes. That is crucial.

There has also been a massive investment in new and renovated school buildings. Those are part of the equation; amazing buildings do not deliver great education, but poor or dingy buildings sap morale, limit the curriculum and perpetuate the divisions in the education system. We should not underestimate the effect of investing in the fabric as well as in the teaching. I will never forget talking to a girl at one of the first academies I visited who said, “I never believed I could come to a place like this”. “This” included the tangible results of the investment she saw around her every day. Great principals, such as Sir Michael Wilshaw at Mossbourne, talk very clearly about how building design actively contributes to curriculum delivery and behaviour standards. I know that finances will be very tight going forward, but let us not underestimate the effect of the environment on behaviour or the delivery of the curriculum.

For me, the next big push would be to extend the principles behind city academies to coasting schools and poor primaries. We need top-notch providers to replace poor management teams at schools which may be above national benchmarks but are still below what we should be expecting. The Labour Government had announced that chains of academy providers and successful school operators would be able to take over coasting schools. This is important not just for reasons of improving schools across the system but because of equity concerns. Even in schools where more than 30 per cent of pupils achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, it is still on the whole the poorest students—those who are eligible for free school meals—who perform worse. Tackling this debilitating achievement gap must remain a priority. I am somewhat unclear about government plans in these schools. Will there be a strong push on these schools or will it just be left to the market? Will the hidden underachievement be left? My fear is that these are not the schools that will grasp the chance to become academies. They will be left somewhere in the middle. They are not the failing schools but they are not the schools that will grab this process and run with it.

In this context, therefore, I was surprised that the only new priority seems to be to allow outstanding schools to become academies. I would appreciate clarity around that. I am in favour of excellent schools gaining more freedom in their operations but have some questions. I hope that this legislation is not rushed through without the proper time that we need for scrutiny. If we want a big increase in academies, we need to ensure that the detail is right. First, what is the plan for admissions? In the Explanatory Notes, we read:

“Academies are all-ability state funded schools”.

However, the Bill seems to suggest that existing selective grammar schools may become academies. I do not understand this and how it fits into the statement that academies are all-ability schools. I have to confess that a sceptic may think that the 1922 Committee had to be thrown something to keep it quiet. I am sure that there is more of a rationale behind it, but I should like to know what it is.

Secondly, the new Government need to be clear on accountability. I make no apology for the regimes of testing, targets and national programmes that Labour introduced. They produced a level of discipline in the system, a focus on driving up literacy and numeracy standards in primary schools, a relentless spotlight on minimum standards in secondary schools and a level of transparency for parents choosing a school. Going forward, there needs to be an even stronger system that measures both performance and teaching, builds confidence in standards and gets beyond a narrow focus on borderline grades. As the Education Select Committee recognised before the election, that means getting Ofsted refocused on teaching and learning and making sure that head teachers assess individual teacher effectiveness. It means that the whole system and the wider public need properly bench-marked data to underpin standards. It also means that we need to instil the principle that it is just as important for a student to move from a B to an A as it is to move from a D to a C. In relation to outstanding schools, reduced inspection will put greater pressure on somewhat imperfect measures. There is a real need to move beyond the A-to-C measures and value-added.

Ultimately, accountability must be more than data measurement and teacher-level assessment. It is about politicians and local authorities having the courage of their convictions and booting out providers that are not getting the job done—whether they are the local authority or an academy sponsor. Supply-side reform is pointless unless we can change supplier. No one can be exempt from performance measurement. The current funding agreement covering academies in effect bestows conditional stewardship. That is spot-on as an approach for the future, and I wonder whether it will continue. The Labour Government had announced that parents were to be given the mechanism, through a ballot, to demand change of leadership in schools. Have the new Government looked at that issue?

The third question relates to fair funding. What is proposed for the academy funding regime? It is important to see the detail. Fourthly, what are the proposals for proper oversight of academies? Clearly the YPLA is in limbo; but has an alternative been proposed? Will the oversight duty go back to the department, and if so, how will that cope with large numbers of schools? Beyond an occasional Ofsted inspection, what will be the scrutiny—and in particular what will be the improvement proposals—if an academy is struggling? Is the assumption that there will be something like a one-way valve, and that once a school is doing well it will happily continue to do so? We all know that this is the case often—but by no means always. In the event of failure, action is needed quickly to halt the decline. We do not want this to reach the level of special measures.

Fifthly, what are the proposals for public and parental consultation when a school is transitioning into an academy? While current procedures are arguably overcomplicated, it would be wrong not to have wider consultation. Sixthly, it appears that transferring schools can carry forward surpluses. This is a good thing if it encourages careful financial management: but what happens about deficits? It would be wrong if Ofsted-defined outstanding schools with deficits could transfer and lose the deficit while gaining the freedoms. For this category of schools, will strong finances be part of the gateway?

Sixthly, will the Government learn from the mistakes that a previous Government made in relation to grant-maintained schools? These were independent of the local schools community, there being in effect a regime of divide and rule, and were unfairly—favourably—funded. In particular, will there be tight and specific requirements that outstanding academies must take on school improvement roles? I do not mean woolly words, but something precise. We have heard reassuring words on this, but we would all be grateful for clarity that the requirements will be tight.

Finally, I am anxious that, in tough economic times, we should spend wisely and pool resources and expertise. Reforms will have to be well planned and not dogmatic. Competition mechanisms in education will necessarily be slow, because parents will not constantly move their children in and out of schools. Strong interventions from the centre will remain vital in driving up standards. In some areas, new schools will be the answer—no doubt we will debate that. However, a slow drift downwards in the number of pupils attending schools in an area may damage the education of many pupils—again, unless there is strong, transparent accountability and fast action. In many communities, focused inspection, rigour and new leadership of existing schools may be what are needed.

Our goal should be simple: the best teachers, leaders and schools for all children, combined with a focus on the children who need them most. Academies can play a great role; but the devil, as always, is in the detail, and I look forward to seeing those details in the coming weeks.

16:47

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I add to the welcome given by many noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, as he takes over his challenging position. I wish him well in his dedication to trying to get the best education system that we can. It is appropriate to begin my short speech by referring to the Prime Minister’s speech earlier today, which set out in dire terms the economic situation that we face. It is important in this debate—and in all debates that we will have on public services—to reflect on the effect of those dire circumstances on public services. When I speak today about the Academies Bill, I will very much bear in mind, as I hope all noble Lords will, the effects that we are likely to see, not this year when we are still living in what one might call the aftermath of the election honeymoon, but in the coming years, of the severe cuts in public services on education, health and other services. We bear those in mind when we talk about the best way to handle education.

I should add that in my view, as a member of the coalition, we all accept compromise here. However, because we accept compromise and because we are trying to bring together the best heritage of both parties, it is all the more important that Parliament in no way abdicates its role of scrutinising, examining and, wherever possible, improving legislation. In some ways, at the beginning of a very new kind of government, we need that role from the House of Lords and the other place more than ever before, and I shall address my remarks on the Academies Bill bearing that very much in mind.

Perhaps I may roll back for a minute and talk briefly about what I think were the real achievements of the Labour Government. Particularly in the early years of new Labour, they included, among other things, the excellent training of teachers, and not least of head teachers, so that they would fulfil their leadership role. They also included the creation of hundreds of teaching assistant posts. In the rather more academic discussion that we are having, we should not forget that teaching assistants have probably done more for deprived children—children who are deprived not only because of the poverty of their background but also because of their emotional and other needs—than for any other group in the community.

Quite often, we speak about attainment in education as though education is unrelated to things such as housing, health or the opportunity to move out of one’s immediate circle. These things have a great deal to do with educational poverty and they are one reason why, when we finish talking about how wonderful academies and other school systems are, we should never forget that, even today, the social background of a child is still the single most significant factor in whether he or she achieves the outcomes that we all want to see. That is hard to understand because it means that we cannot look only at education. However, it is very important to say it because it is what the whole challenge is really about.

I believe that in the second part of its time in office, Labour made the great mistake of pursuing attempts to control to an extent that could not be justified. Here, I declare an interest as the chairman of the judges of the Teaching Awards, which provide awards for the most outstanding teachers in the country, whether they are in state schools, faith schools or, indeed, independent schools. They have taught me a great deal about the challenges of teaching. In that second period, new Labour made the great mistake of accepting not so much local authority control—the Bill talks a great deal about that—but far too much central government control. That was where the control over teaching really came from, and the regime of testing, examination and endless monitoring made it very difficult for creative teachers to be creative. I welcome what has been done in this Bill to strip away that bureaucratic control over teachers and to recognise the importance of their contribution. I also welcome in the Bill what I consider to be the very important recognition of the leadership provided by head teachers.

Having said that, I turn to a number of troubling questions that arise from the Bill. In many ways the Bill is very loosely drafted, perhaps because some of the details have not yet been fully worked out. Some of the questions that I wish to ask have already been asked by other noble Lords but I want to emphasise them yet again.

The first question, which although not necessarily the most significant is very important, arises, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out, from Clause 1, where there are direct references to academic agreements and also to a new child on the block known as “academic arrangements”. I am troubled by what those are. They appear to make very few demands of an academy. They are expressed in subsection (6) but very broadly. So far as I know, they do not include requirements about admissions or about provision for educationally troubled or challenged children; nor, so far as I know, do they include many of the requirements that are implicit in academic agreements, yet Clause 1 refers to both almost as though they were the same thing. They clearly are not. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: what is an academic arrangement? What forms of accountability are there? How far can we be sure that the admissions and other codes are implicit in academic arrangements, and how is the academy concerned to be accountable for the money provided to it by the Secretary of State?

There is also a second question, which has been raised by a number of noble Lords. What now constitutes accountability? Governors of academies are appointed usually by the proprietor of the academy or will be in the future, but it is not at all clear where the governors will be drawn from and what contribution they can necessarily make to the running of the academy. They may be outstanding, but not all have been outstanding successes and there may be a weakness at the level of the governing body. How does the Secretary of State see the accountability of academies that are governed by an arrangement, as distinct from an agreement, and how will he deal with the problems that therefore arise?

The third question was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and others, including my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal. What happens to schools that are not academies, which are not accepted as academies or do not apply, and which at the other end will benefit to some extent from pupil premium? I deeply believe in the pupil premium; it is one of the best ideas that Liberal Democrats came up with. In the present straitened financial circumstances it is not clear how they will be financed. The danger is if they are financed by running down existing programmes, such as ESN, monitoring and one-to-one programmes rather than adding to them. Related to that is the serious issue of exactly what incentives will be provided to maintain schools that will continue to be the largest section of our educational system for quite a long time.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, in an excellent speech, referred to the original motivation behind academies, a motivation which, among others, motivated the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It was that academies should provide an alternative route for children in the most deprived communities or in the most challenged personal situations. The decision by the Secretary of State indicating that he will accept academies if they are from outstanding schools leaves the huge question that the right reverend Prelate asked. What then will happen to the least advantaged children who do not get a pupil premium as they are above the pupil premium level and will no longer be likely to see academies in the more impoverished and desperate parts of our community?

I have two final questions. The first was raised forcefully by my noble friend Lady Garden, who talked about the almost total absence of any degree of parental involvement in future academies, let alone the possible free schools where we could have a great deal or very little. It will not do to write parents out of the system. They are as crucial as schools in raising children with a capacity to learn, to love knowledge and to be good citizens. They are at least as important as schools. The big division that is emerging from this Bill between the role of parents and the role of teachers and governors shows that we are looking at a very troublesome issue.

Last of all, I say simply that we should approve and be pleased by the extent to which the Bill will raise the pressures on teachers and, in particular, the endless flow of directives, requirements and orders, which was the serious downside of new Labour’s achievement in education. It is not surprising that we have seen a slow decline in the past couple of years in comparative tables with other countries, to which the noble Lord, Lord Low, referred because we have probably reached the end of what one might describe as the bureaucratic model. The new model must be democratic, not just managerial. We have a strong obligation in this House to ensure that as we pass the Bill through its essential and important processes, that democratic, responsive and accountable element is very clearly seen to be there.

16:59

[Lord Turnbull]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the Minister to the Front Bench. He was a valued colleague of mine in No. 10 and I am confident that he has the qualities to thrive in this House, notably courtesy and a willingness to listen.

Let me also set out my interests. About four years ago, Dulwich College, of which I am chairman, agreed to become the lead sponsor of an academy on the Isle of Sheppey, in partnership with Kent County Council and the Diocese of Canterbury. I spent many hours in the laborious planning work, although that is nothing compared with the effort that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, must have put in. The Isle of Sheppey Academy opened last autumn. It is one of the largest in the country, with some 2,500 pupils, and is almost certainly one of the most complex. It is a single academy on two sites, divided into five schools. Already, less than a year into its existence, one can see changes in the spirit and energy of the place, the behaviour of pupils and the commitment of staff. This can be corroborated by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, whom I accompanied to the opening of one of the schools—it is named after his grandfather, who pioneered powered flight on the Isle of Sheppey.

While only 25 per cent or so of pupils achieved levels A to C at GCSE last year, the academy confidently predicts that there will be a significant improvement this year. This has taken place while operating in the rundown and, in places, decrepit premises that the academy inherited. A £50 million rebuild programme is two years away. The improvement has been achieved by better governance, invigorated leadership and engagement with the community. The key to success is, therefore, people issues more than the buildings. I can vouch for the power of academies to transform the quality of education provided—and to do so quickly. In general terms, I welcome the proposals to extend further the academies programme. I congratulate in particular the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on developing this initiative in a way that enjoys extensive cross-party support.

Nevertheless, I have some significant reservations about the particular proposals before us. First, the initial phase of the academies programme was rightly focused on schools that were performing worse and in poorly served communities. It seems likely that opening the doors to a much wider range of applicants will mean that a queue will form outside the department. Priorities will need to be exercised. In my view, it is essential that the schools most in need of a lift should continue to be put at the head of that queue.

Secondly, we must not fall into what philosophers would call the fallacy of composition—believing that, because something is true of one unit, it is true of all such units taken together and that, because academies are good, the system is best if all schools are academies. It does not follow that if the number of academies increases sharply the remaining system will continue to function effectively. The optimum system does not necessarily emerge from the sum of atomistic decisions. There are some strategic obligations to ensure that there are enough places in the right places—that, for example, all the sixth-form provision does not congregate in the leafier parts of the borough—that collective facilities such as pupil referral units are provided and that there is fair and adequate provision of school transport. Most important is that children with special needs are provided for, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned. None of these is guaranteed in a world of atomistic decision-making. Special needs provision needs to be looked at very carefully. Academies, while they are independent in governance terms, are still publicly funded and must accept an obligation to take their fair share of SEN children. Academies must not be allowed to turn their backs and place the burden on the schools that remain with local education authorities.

Thirdly, there is a serious naivety in the department’s description of the freedoms to be enjoyed by an academy. One is the ability to vary pay and conditions for staff, which is, of course, necessary in order to fill another of the freedoms—the ability to vary the school day or year, to which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, referred. In major cities, many academies have been created by closing a failing school, dispersing pupils and staff to other schools in the area, rebuilding the school and then reopening it. Sheppey was different. The predecessor schools closed in July 2009 and reopened in September 2009 on the same site, in the same buildings, with largely the same staff, other than the leadership team. The legal advice was that this was a transfer of undertakings to a new employer. As a result, about 80 per cent of the staff remain on their old contracts, variations of which cannot be made without negotiation. It will take a number of years as staff turn over to convert staff to new conditions. While it has proved possible at Sheppey to raise the motivation of staff—I am told that absenteeism is now among the lowest in the country as opposed to the highest—it has added to costs and a number of staff have been retained on old and in some cases expensive pay rates. It seems clear that many of the new wave of academies will be conversions of existing schools and not creations of new ones, so there needs to be a recognition of the constraints that that may impose.

Fourthly, I have a great deal of concern about the haste with which the new wave is being pursued. The Explanatory Notes state that the Bill will make it possible for outstanding schools to convert to academy status very quickly, possibly by September 2010. Frankly, that timetable is seriously misguided, even if it is reinterpreted to mean giving the go-ahead by September 2010 for implementation a year later. It shows no recognition of the complexities involved. The granting of academy status is being treated as though it were school prize winning—if you have good enough marks you can just turn up and collect your reward. That is a recipe for complacency. The granting of academy status should be seen not just as a reward for past achievement but as an opportunity for future improvement.

Candidates should not be invited to write a “Yes please, me too” letter, of which we have had a thousand already; they should be required to reflect on how they can turn these freedoms to advantage. They should think about their governance structures rather than simply carrying on with existing boards that were created in a different regime. The opportunity to bring in new sponsors with new ideas must not be skipped. At present, an accreditation committee examines applicants from aspiring sponsors. Apparently, in Clause 8, it will be replaced by a new regulator appointed by the Cabinet Office. An aspiring academy also needs to think through afresh its ethos, the curriculum that it offers, its policies on a huge range of issues and how it will co-operate with the community. There are in practice six weeks left until the end of term. A school cannot do a thorough job of preparing its prospectus in that time, let alone get it approved by the department and the as yet non-existent regulator. We should not be encouraging schools to skimp on this important work.

At a more mundane level, a host of relationships with the local education authority need to be renegotiated, such as HR, payroll and property and grounds maintenance. The value of surpluses or deficits needs to be established and audited. There appear to be no obligations to consult the local authority. While I accept that the local authority should not have a veto over whether the school leaves its control, that local authority still has rights. When an academy pulls out of a local authority-provided service and turns to an alternative provider, the local authority could be left with surplus staff and it is entitled to advance notice to enable it to manage that situation.

A serious hole in the Bill is that there is no obligation to consult parents and the wider community to explain the academy’s ambitions. Nor is sufficient time being allowed to consult TUPE-ed staff. That is an omission and may prove to be dangerous judicial review territory.

The last time that I spoke in the old Parliament was on the Personal Care at Home Bill. Along with a number of others, such as the noble Lord on my left, I argued that excessive haste was leading to bad policy-making even where the underlying principle was sound. I was hopeful that we would see a more considered approach, particularly from a coalition that aspires to a five-year mandate. I hope, therefore, that more time will be taken and that the laudable aim will not be spoiled by an overhasty timetable.

17:09

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, at about the height of his popular fame just over a century ago—a fame hardly diminished today—that distinguished private detective, Sherlock Holmes, was returning by train from an investigation of a crime in the southern counties, bound for Charing Cross. In the southern suburbs of the metropolis, he pointed out to his companion and biographer, Dr Watson, the large four or even five-storey buildings that stood every few miles in the vast sprawl of terraced housing that was and is south London. He was pointing out the schools. Some of them would have been national schools, as they were called in those days—that is to say, Church of England foundation schools built for the education of the whole community. Others would have been local authority schools. Either way, he declared that such schools were beacons of hope standing out amid their drab surroundings and that the education that they would provide would transform society and, Sherlock even said, eliminate crime.

That the Government today, of whatever political hue, continue to be deeply concerned with the problem of delivering Conan Doyle’s admirable aspiration, put into the mouth of his sleuth, indicates that the late 19th-century liberal confidence in the delivery and effects of education has been seriously knocked, despite everybody’s best efforts. In last Thursday’s debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, noted the constant structural reform of our education system with which all Governments since the Second World War have been preoccupied. As the Minister said at the beginning of today’s debate, changed structures will not necessarily deliver everything. Sometimes schools and the quality of education can be transformed even within present structures.

I say that not to oppose Second Reading—indeed, I support the Bill—provided that we recognise that structures alone cannot deliver a good education without an ethos of purpose and common good among pupils, parents, teachers, governors and support staff. I strongly support my noble and right reverend friend the Bishop of Lincoln in stressing the significant stakeholding of the Church of England not just in faith schools narrowly conceived but in education for the whole community. Not for nothing were the Church of England schools fostered, as we have already heard in this debate, under the auspices of a body called the National Society. Perhaps it was a National Society for a big society. Our concern here is not self-interest; it is disinterested in the original meaning of that word. With my noble and right reverend friend, I think that there is both space and need now for a lot of discussion with all stakeholders in the academies project as it moves forward.

One matter concerns me. What of rival academy projects? What of the possibility, as has already been mentioned, of an academy project in effect, to put it crudely, killing off a neighbouring school? Here I am given some encouragement by the Minister in his introductory speech, but let me tell the tale of a school. Already this afternoon, your Lordships have heard the late Lord Ron Dearing mentioned several times. Among his many achievements was considerable assistance to the Church of England in the revitalisation of Church of England schools, but he was also the saviour of a particular school, a Church of England high school in my diocese of Guildford. Church schools, especially church high schools, are not necessarily located, as some sometimes suggest, in the plush suburbs. The particular school lies at the centre of a genuinely deprived locality in Surrey. It was failing. However, the co-ordinated efforts of staff, pupils, governors, parents, the diocese and the local authority inspired and—those of your Lordships who knew the late Lord Dearing will know what I mean—badgered by Ron Dearing turned it around. An academy route was not at that point a possibility, but had there been a rival academy project I doubt whether that school would have survived. Today, it is flourishing and successful in and beyond its local community.

Academies will help towards a better education, but I invite the coalition Government to continue to talk, as I know they are beginning to, with all the educational stakeholders especially about local strategic planning of academies, rather than simply allowing naked laissez-faire competition.

17:13

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate for a number of reasons. The first is that it is terrific to welcome an Education Minister back to the government Front Bench after the rebranding and renaming of that department. It states quite clearly what the department is about. It is great to have an Education Minister and an education Bill. The second is that the Academies Bill is clearly focused. It has just 16 clauses and two schedules. It is an outstanding example of what legislation should be. It is clear and focused, which is significant because it reduces the potential for reams of Department for Education guidance and other edicts to interpret what the Minister said or should have said at Second Reading, in Committee or at Third Reading. It allows clarity about what is intended from the Bill.

I also welcome my noble friend to the Front Bench because of the skills he brings. He has significant experience of government from the inside—the Civil Service end. That will be important because there needs to be a sense of urgency about what the Bill is trying to achieve with its two-pronged strategy. We will improve education overall in the country by doing two things: by freeing people at the top to be able to excel and improve beyond what they are currently doing and by directing attention to the bottom to try to raise standards there. I shall return to Clause 4, which particularly refers to academy orders, the main focus of the Bill. It is also a great statement for this new coalition Government to have an education Bill as the first Bill to be considered in this House. I am particularly proud that it is starting here and that this coalition Government are putting education at the heart of what they are about.

Much has been said about what goes into making a successful school and academy. People have rightly focused on the fact that outstanding teaching makes a major contribution. However, there are other elements. There is discipline within the school. I know that in a cosy world we do not like to focus on it too much, but if children in the classroom are prepared to listen and teachers do not have to spend their time on crowd control but can deliver their lessons, the chances of success are increased immeasurably.

There is also the added value of the leadership that comes from the sponsor. I found the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, inspiring because of what has been achieved in the schools, academies and city technology colleges that he has set up. It brought in one of the most critical dimensions: the importance of expectations. I grew up in an inner-city comprehensive school in Gateshead on Tyneside. There was a world of expectation there, not for the academic side, but about football matches. There was an expectation that people would succeed and that the school would perform well in a sporting capacity. Not surprisingly, the school produced many great footballers, among them Paul Gascoigne. What would happen if you shifted the same expectation on to academic standards in maths, English and science? What could you achieve? A lot of people at that time took the view: “Be careful. If people are from a tough background, they cannot necessarily achieve or excel”. The reality is that whatever you expect is often what you get. If you go in expecting academic excellence, and expect people to compete for places at Oxbridge and at Russell group universities and to go on to be scientists, professors or partners in global law firms, that is what you will get. If you go in expecting them not to do that and to fail, that is what you will get. Expectations are critical in this area.

I will focus on two elements. I very much enjoyed the contribution, as I always do, from my noble friend Lord Baker, who initiated this process with the city technology colleges, which were a huge success in Gateshead, where I was. The performance of that local education authority took it from being about 115th out of about 116 in the country at one point to being 10th in the country. That was an outstanding performance. The city technology college—the Emmanuel City Technology College, of which I had the privilege of serving as a director for some time—was a beacon of excellence. It was outstanding to see what it achieved.

My noble friend the Minister might like to consider another element: catchment areas. This has not necessarily been touched on yet, so I will introduce it as a concept. The city technology colleges had wide catchment areas. You were allowed to apply to go to one from a broad area, so parents and children had to choose seriously to go to a given school. That act in itself made a huge difference to the school and the atmosphere in it. Immediately the school was filled with people who had one thing in common; they all wanted to be there. That makes a difference. Currently, you go to the school that is nearest and no thought is given to which school is best for your child. When people shop around for a car, a fridge or a flat screen TV, they do not just go to the shop that is nearest to them; they shop around seriously. When it comes to a child’s education, which is one of the most important things that can ever be provided for, it behoves them to look at different options and to find a school that will be suitable and bring out the best in their child.

My final point relates to the definition of a failing school and the circumstances in which the Secretary of State may issue an academy order. Clause 4 refers back to the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which stipulates in Section 60(3) that a school is eligible to be considered for that intervention if,

“the standards that the pupils might in all the circumstances reasonably be expected to attain”,

were low. That does not have the clarity that I enjoyed in the Bill. There is a need for an objective standard, which could be what Ed Balls set out as Secretary of State almost two years ago to the day when he said that there should be 30 per cent A to C grades, including in English and maths. He said:

“We don’t want to see excuses about poor performance, what we want to see is clear plans to raise standards in every school with a clear expectation that if by 2011 there are still schools stuck below 30 per cent ... and there’s not been a radical transformation at that point, our expectation will be that the school closes and reopens as a national challenge trust or academy”.

There seems to be remarkable cross-party consensus here. I would say to my noble friend the Minister that that was a clear statement from the previous Secretary of State—why do we not take it as read? He was referring to potentially 635 schools which failed that test nearly two years ago. We should say to those schools in those areas, “You have had your chance and you had your notice from the previous Government. If you fail to reach that standard by next year, you will be handed over to another education provider”—which I hope will be very much like that led by my noble friend Lord Harris.

17:24

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on the way in which he has introduced his first piece of legislation. His speech was very conciliatory and I think that the ensuing debate in Committee will be much welcomed by the rest of the House. I look forward to taking part in that Committee stage with him. I also want to put on record my congratulations to the academies, which have done some magnificent work over the past decade, and to the city technology colleges which did the same in the preceding years. I also make clear my admiration for the work of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who has contributed to this debate, and the chain of academies which now bears his name—the Harris chain—and operates in some of the most challenging areas of London. They have transformed opportunities not only for his students but for their families, communities and every generation to come—because that is the way it goes. I am in awe of what he has managed to achieve.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, was right when he said that the Bill’s origins lay in the city technology Bill of the 1980s. They can be traced through the city technology colleges, Grant-maintained schools, Specialist schools, academies these sorts of academies and free schools. You are left thinking that if something was meant to be that good back in the mid-1980s, why did we not just get on with it and do this before in the past 20 to 30 years? Why did we need five categories of school, with five titles and umpteen pieces of legislation, to try to get all schools to be like these schools, which are meant to be the ideal? When I look at the description of each of these categories of school, I see that they all say the same. They are intended to build a school system of independent state-funded schools that are free from local authority control. The key words are “independent”, “free” and “free from local authority control”.

I differ with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and the Minister in that I do not think there has been an even-handed approach to the issue of category of school throughout those 30 years. I do not accept that previous Governments—certainly not previous Conservative Governments—introduced city technology colleges or grant-maintained schools without an ambition that they would become the norm. I believe that they had that ambition but that they did not introduce the legislation necessary to make it a reality. They went to the ballot, and they sought external funding for city technology colleges. This Bill is another attempt to establish a norm without showing the necessary courage and making the necessary provision to make it happen.

Over the past 30 years we have had a period of not knowing, of uncertainty and flux. These independent state-funded schools exist alongside other structures of school. They are also excellent and I always make that clear. I often speak in favour of local authority-maintained schools, because excellence is found in every structure. But these independent schools have always been the favoured child. They were the favoured child of both the previous Tory Government and the previous Labour Government—my Government. They are also the favoured child of this Conservative Government. This favoured child has never quite achieved its potential. It has never quite taken over or grown to the extent necessary to make independent free schools the norm rather than the exception.

The Minister was right. I believe that it was the intention of some members of my party—including my former party leader, for whom I have the greatest respect and affection—to make these free schools the norm. They were wrong, and that is where I disagreed with them. But regardless of whether it was the intention, the truth is that the academies are now focused on the least affluent schools in the most deprived areas and not on the rest. Given that so many schools which are not academies are also successful—some are as successful as the academies, and some are more so—what is the justification for speeding up the move to academies? When Ofsted has already described a school as outstanding, what is the justification for changing its structure from community school to academy?

There are three key questions here. First, what evidence is there that a system that is in its entirety independent, with schools free from local authority control, will be more effective than what we have at the moment? The evidence which the Minister quoted is that schools that had been underachieving and were turned around improved their attainment more than the average across the nation. I am sorry, but that is to be expected given the attention that they had. Quite honestly, with all that we put into the academies, if we could not have turned them around, we would not have deserved to hold the job. Moreover, it is not only academies that can do that. It is not a trick and we know what to do with underachieving schools. You put in damn good head teachers and let them attract really good staff. You support them and give them some more money. You monitor them, but you let them get on with it. It was not the freedom of the academy status that caused the improvement in results, but something quite different which I shall come back to. So my first question is this: what is the evidence that there will be a systemic improvement and not just improvements for individual schools?

Secondly, what will be the effect on the rest of the education system, which will consist of an increasingly small maintained sector? Thirdly—and for me the key question—is it really worth focusing the attention of the Secretary of State, of the department, of local government and of both Houses on going through this structural change? As the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, said, this will be a big move. What is the justification for taking the focus of the whole machinery of government and the education service away from teaching and learning and putting it on whether to apply for academy status or not? The only justification for this Bill is if the noble Lord can prove that, in itself, it will improve the quality of teaching in the classroom. I am glad that there is agreement across the Chamber that it is that which makes the difference. Which clause in this Bill means that schools with academy status will see improved teaching and therefore improved learning? There is actually nothing about teaching and learning in the Bill; no mention is made of them. So I am left to conclude that the intention of the legislation is that these freedoms will somehow improve the quality of teaching and therefore the quality of learning. I do not believe that and I have never believed it. Indeed, that has been the cause of some of my unhappiness with some of the things that my own Government have done.

I want to look at this in a little more detail. Many of these freedoms are illusory. The letter sent to schools by the Secretary of State does not set out a long list of extra freedoms because many of those freedoms are already available to maintained schools. It is not the local authority that stops schools using the freedoms they have; it is fear of the accountability mechanism. The problem is not that schools do not have enough freedom, but that not enough schools use what is available to them.

As we have heard in some speeches, the Government feel that two specific freedoms will do the trick: freedom from the curriculum, and freedom from the local authority. Whether teachers should have control of the curriculum is a different debate for another time. I do not think that they should. The knowledge that we pass down from generation to generation is not the responsibility of teachers to decide; it is a responsibility for us all. It is a civic responsibility and duty. What I know is this: a poor teacher does not become a good teacher just because you change what they teach. Changing the history syllabus will not make a poor teacher a good one.

As for freedom from local authorities, it should be noted that they do not run schools or have such powers over them. I find it incredible that both the Minister’s Government and my own Government have spent two and a half decades removing the powers of local authorities. When I was Secretary of State I intervened on underperforming local authorities by outsourcing to private or third sector contractors probably more often than any other Secretary of State. Having achieved that and changed the role of local authorities, why do we still talk about them as though they are still running schools? It is as though we do not want to claim the success we have had in terms of local authorities. We have had successes in our party, and the Minister’s party has had successes as well. Academies under the Labour Government were successful not because they were free to develop their own curriculum or because they were free from their local authorities, but because they were a small group of disadvantaged schools in disadvantaged areas that were given a lot of high quality attention and clear focus.

Let me list some of these things. Those schools attracted some of the best head teachers in the country, along with some of the finest teachers we can offer. They did so because they were seen as the place to be. If I had been a young teacher when the academies were introduced under Tony Blair, I would have gone for them. They were the sexy sort of school, the club where things were happening. If I wanted to get on, that is where I would have sent my first job application. That is also why, when it was set up, Teach First operated predominantly if not solely in the academies. The academies had banded intakes. They changed overnight in a very good way by taking not only children from the local area but—as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, described—by ensuring a mixed ability intake. Every single academy has that sort of intake. The schools were given external support by the department, from sponsors, from the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and from anyone else who wanted to contribute. Quite frankly, far from being free, independent schools, the academies were the most monitored, watched, weighed and measured we have ever seen in this country. And the result was that they improved in the way that the Minister described. But unless we understand why they improved, we will get it wrong again. They did not improve because they were given extra freedoms; they improved because they were supported and given the best quality leadership and teaching. I see nothing in the Bill that can possibly make those advantages available for every school that applies to become a city academy. Indeed, by the very nature of what my Government did, they cannot be replicated until you have more good teachers and school leaders being given lots more support and a bit more in the way of resources.

If this Bill is passed, there will be consequences for the education system. Many noble Lords have talked, first, about the important role played by local authorities and how they need the capacity to fulfil it, and, secondly, about the fragmentation of the schools system. To tell the truth, I object to the notion that schools which become academies will be made to link with other failing schools. Why would anyone think that that is the preserve of the academies? It is what schools are already doing and is one of the greatest achievements of the last Labour Government. They joined schools together to teach each other and enable all to learn from the best. Church schools, community schools and special schools link in with each other. We do not need an Academies Bill to ensure that underperforming schools are supported, because that is already being done. So we must not allow the academies to be seen as the group that makes it happen.

I shall finish with some questions, many of which have already been referred to by other speakers, but one or two of which have not. On admissions, like other noble Lords, I would welcome an assurance that the admissions code of practice will apply. I can see, even though I might not be thrilled about it, how it is possible legally for a grammar school to be transferred into an academy and still be allowed to select under existing legislation. What I cannot see is how Clause 1(6)(d) can state that academies must have,

“pupils who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.

I do not know of one grammar school that draws wholly—100 per cent—or even mainly from the area in which the school is situated. Will the Minister clarify that, in the future, grammar schools will have to accept pupils wholly or mainly from the area in which they are situated?

Secondly, there are two routes for funding: academy agreement and academy financial assistance. I do not know why the second route has been introduced, or indeed what it is for and how it will be used. Thirdly, I add my voice to the others which have said that we must consult parents and look at charitable status.

My final question—which I have not heard mentioned; I may have misread the legislation—is what does the Minister envisage will be the role of sponsors? Does he believe that, with 1,000 applications of interest in gaining academy status by September this year, and with six weeks of the school term left, he can put in place sponsors for each of those academies? That external sponsorship, that external eye on the role of education, has been a power of good. I look forward to the rest of the debate today, certainly to the Committee stage, and to gathering responses to my questions when the Minister replies.

17:40

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on his innovative introductory speech—his first speech introducing a Bill. I have been taken aback at the prospect of taking part in a debate which has so far featured many people with knowledge, expertise and distinction in education which surpass mine. It has been a long time since I earned my crust as a teacher and most of my experience of education since then has been as a local politician, a governor and a parent. I wanted to take part in the debate because the Bill has great consequences for local democracy and local communities which go wider than simply the school system, important as that is.

It is a great privilege to follow the two former Secretaries of State for Education who I have most admired over the years—my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. I almost stood up and said, “I agree with nearly all of that; I have not much else to say”, after the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, sat down.

The basic problem with this legislation is that if there is an overwhelming view in the Government that the system of governance, control and management of schools—the system as a whole as opposed to individual schools—is to change, where is the vision of what the system will be like in five, 10 or 15 years’ time if the proposals the Government are putting forward come about? That is one of the important points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. If academies are to become the norm, the system of academies will have to change from what it is now and from what it is in the Bill. If every school in the country becomes an academy, it is horrendous to think that they will all be subject to control from Whitehall; that there will be no system of local involvement and local control and that local education authorities will disappear. A single national bureaucracy is not the way in which schools should be organised and managed.

I am surprised and have a little regret that this is the first Bill to be tabled by the coalition in this House. The Bill has certain commendable features—it is slim, it is short and is quite elegant in the way that it is written. This is unusual because the Bills we normally get here are fat and the opposite of elegant. However, the effect of its introduction will be more complex than is being suggested and may well be divisive. People have referred to the two-tier system but it may be more complicated than that; it has the potential to be divisive between the parties of the coalition. However, I am told that we can engage in constructive criticism and I shall do so. I shall be more constructively critical than I will be on other Bills, not least because these proposals do not feature in the agreed coalition programme. I find it slightly odd that it is the first Bill to be brought forward.

As this is Second Reading, I want to touch on one or two broad themes. The first concerns the idea of the big society. Like others, I have been trying to find out what the big society is, particularly since the coalition was formed and I thought we might have to do something about it along with the Conservatives. I still have not really found out what it is all about but I am still trying. No doubt we shall get some tuition about it in your Lordships’ House. It seems to be about devolution, decentralism and localism, to a large extent, and the involvement of local people and groups in their communities and societies. However, if you are devolving power and setting people free, who is it that you are setting free and who will be involved? Many of today’s contributions have pointed out that when it comes to involvement in basic decisions about which schools should become academies, quite large and important sections of local society seem to miss out. It does not seem sensible to legislate for the governance and control of schools without looking at the school in the context of its local community. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, said, schools need to be interconnected with communities. This is absolutely fundamental and we shall have to probe the issue in Committee.

There has been a vast amount of consultation, particularly in deprived areas, over the past decade or more, a great deal of which has fallen into disrepute because people have simply been consulted about the same things by different consultants year after year. However, consultation on real decisions about important local matters surely has to take place; it is almost inconceivable that there should not be a system of formal consultation and discussion with parents. However, this issue goes wider than parents. When decisions about institutions such as schools are made, the people taking those decisions—I take it this is all part of the big society—are taking them not only for the people in those schools at the time but they are taking them in trust for the future generations of children who will go to those schools. Therefore the wider community is just as important as the parents of the pupils who are at the school at the time the decisions are taken.

The question of the use of community facilities which schools or local education authorities own and control is crucial. For a long time there has been a great deal of talk about the need for the facilities that schools provide to be available to the wider community and not only to the school. This is very difficult to do because there are questions of cost, control, supervision and so on, but the best schools do it. Part of the raison d’être of new schools has been to provide facilities—sporting facilities, educational facilities, arts and so on—to the wider community. The question of whether this will be required of academies, how it can be guaranteed in the future if they are to become independent and how you can prevent them changing policy on this issue is very important and will have to be discussed.

This is particularly important in a small or medium-sized town which has one secondary school, or a village with one primary school, where the school is at the very heart of the community. Making decisions about the future of that school and how it is to be organised, run and controlled without the involvement of and discussion and debate with the wider community is not the way forward.

Many people have discussed the governance and accountability of schools. Accountability to governors is important and it is vital that parents and teachers continue to have a role on the governing body—and, I would argue, the local community as well—but accountability has to go further than the governing body. Very often, the nature of a school, particularly a smaller school, is such that the governing body is in a difficult position if it wants to intervene when things start to go wrong in the school. The head teacher, the leading governors and perhaps the whole governing body get very close. They do so for obvious and very good reasons, often because they are involved in doing important things in running the school. Schools bring in accountants and solicitors who work for free. Involving them when something is going seriously wrong is very difficult. It usually involves the intervention of the local education authority or the diocesan education authority. I can quote two examples from my own part of Lancashire where this has happened. The head teacher of the schools in question and, in one case, other senior staff, had to go because of what was going on in the school. It is very difficult if nobody who is reasonably local can intervene. Is that intervention possible if a large number of academy schools are directly responsible to bureaucrats in Whitehall, who are in many ways more bureaucratic than the local authority? If you talk to head teachers about the stream of directives, circulars, memoranda and advice that they get from above, you will learn that most of it comes from the centre; it does not come from the local education authority. Alternatively, it comes from the centre via the local education authority. If the coalition Government can dramatically reduce the amount of that sort of stuff—I was going to say “paperwork”, but most of it comes by e-mail nowadays—they will be doing schools a favour.

If more than half of a small education authority’s schools become academies, how can it manage to maintain its services to its existing local authority-maintained schools? It will have difficulty maintaining the services; it will certainly have difficulty maintaining its unit costs. Unit costs are bound in the short run to rise under those circumstances and keeping them under control will be very difficult.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, academies can and do succeed. They have had special talent in many cases; they have had extra funding in many cases; they have had the ability to focus on particular problems or subjects, or just to focus on their activity. They have been special schools, and if they had not succeeded it would have been quite extraordinary. They can do that because they are a minority that has had special attention and treatment. Whether that can be translated to a system where a large number of schools become academies is a big question.

There is a lot to talk about. The House of Lords is often said to be a Chamber of scrutiny and revision. This is a Bill where the House’s skill, ability and experience in scrutinising and revising will be absolutely necessary for it to become legislation which we can send to the Commons with confidence that it will actually work.

17:53

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, this is an important Bill which I look forward to supporting. The direction of travel is right. It is a further extension on the journey from the city technology colleges of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, through the changes that have been achieved over the years to complement the work of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I pay tribute to them both.

I make two initial points in welcoming the Bill. First, I was delighted, perhaps even a little surprised, to find the Minister exhibiting just a touch of humility—we have not heard an awful lot of that from the Front Benches—in saying that it was important to manage expectations, which is absolutely right. No legislation that I have seen in a comparatively short time in this House can ever achieve what it is often alleged to be able to achieve. That is as true of this Bill as any other. Legislation can take you so far, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, stressed in a magnificent speech—I have to say that I did not agree with all of it, but it was magnificent none the less—it is the quality of teaching and school leadership that carry you the rest of the way. This is an enabling Bill. We should have just a touch of modesty about what it will achieve, while making sure that we have the support in place to make it work for at least some of those in the system who needed support most clearly.

Secondly, the Bill is part of a one-wheeled tandem. In the Minister’s speech in the debate on the Address last week, we were promised further legislation on standards, dealing effectively with regulation and accountability. These are not add-ons; they are absolutely essential. It would be good to have seen the whole picture. We have not, but I am happy to proceed in the expectation that we will have a considered legislative programme put before us that deals with standards, accountability and regulation. That has been stressed by other speakers in your Lordships' House.

One other minor surprise about the speeches so far is that both Front Benches seem to share an assumption that there is something out there called a two-tier system that is either to be resisted or will inevitably follow the implementation of the legislation. We have a two-tier system—or, even more realistically, a multi-tier system—already in place. There are schools that do the most that they possibly can—most schools do that—but have high achievement for a whole variety of reasons, in the end to do with the quality of teaching and leadership; and there are schools that fail our pupils. We have heard the statistics—I shall not repeat them—about those who leave primary school without an adequate grasp of reading. That is a handicap the importance of which we can hardly assess, sitting as we are on these privileged Benches. There are pupils who leave school—they are no longer children—not having picked up the basics of what is essential for playing a strong and important part in employment, family and community, all of which we would normally expect to follow. We have at least a two-tier system.

It used to be very clear and straightforward. When I first came to London in the mid-1970s, I had young children, all at primary school stage, and they went to the local primary school. We then inquired about secondary schooling. We were from a privileged community, a small town in Scotland, where there was one secondary school which was terrific. That was not true of what we found in south-east London. We got the message that there were the private schools for which you paid, that there were the rest which had a very rigid banding system, A, B and C—your may remember this from the days of Ken Livingstone—and then that there was a tiny silver lining for some which I used to think of as the Holland Park syndrome: those who could afford to buy a house in that educationally favoured part of town. We have had two- and three-tier systems; we have got them now. It is not a question of whether the Bill will create a further one; it is whether it will move us forward and erode some of the differences that we all deplore in the schools of this city and of this country. I have to say that the same is true in Scotland, despite its traditional reputation in this area.

A second criticism that has been made of the Bill in principle is that it will weaken the power and role of local authorities and reduce their capacity to afford to provide common services. To that, I say that there is a risk. A very interesting proposal was made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, about giving specific functions to local authorities dealing with children with special educational needs—that idea should bear very close scrutiny. There may well be other functions which a local authority, alive to the shape of the local community—language difficulties is an obvious one—is given. One sees across the schools in this city and elsewhere specific problems—they are not the problems of Walsall or of parts of the north of England and central Scotland—to do with the fact that, in many a school, 40, 50 or 60 languages are spoken at home which are not English. That creates specific educational problems. We need to address that issue with the same attention as properly as we have begun to pay to special educational needs. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I have visited some of his schools—I should not call them his schools, but some of the schools which he has been instrumental in helping and enabling to flourish. These schools are working as consortia and groups. They have sharing capacities, and we have heard about the sixth forms. But there are other capacities that they share that make it possible for schools not directly linked to the local authority as now to begin to plan for the future and share common problems as well as common capacities. This is one way forward.

I go back to one of my early points. A significant number of schools will become academies; the fact that 1,000 have expressed interest is reason enough to go ahead with the Bill. If no one was interested, I would hear the siren calls and say, “Drop it”. But if 1,000 schools think that this is worth looking at, it is worth looking at. These are the teachers and head teachers, the parents and the governing bodies, which will be able to debate locally whether it is the right thing for them.

In passing, I should say that many of those schools are primary schools, which may be quite small in some cases. So they will need partners; they will not have the capacity to take the leadership on matters of property or salary—the whole range of matters about which some noble Lords know a great deal more than I do. The capacity to run a school at that level is like running elements of a small or medium-sized business. Small primary schools will not have that capacity and will need help and co-operation and those who can support them. No single structural or legislative change will solve the problem that we have had as long as we have been able to measure ability and outcomes, nor will it solve all the problems, not even this one. But if it can move us forward, that is immensely important and we must take it on board.

The Bill is largely permissive, as has been stressed, rather than coercive. Schools doing well are invited to express an interest. However, one element of possible coercion or compulsion is complicit in the Bill. Underperforming or failing schools can be required to step out from under the guise of local authorities and possibly to become academies. I would not object—indeed, I think that it is very important—to that capacity. I stand before noble Lords as the person who signed the first order declaring a school in England to be failing, many years ago when I helped to set up Ofsted. It was a considered and difficult decision, but there are such schools, and the pupils in them have to be rescued and helped. I refer noble Lords to an article in today’s Times by Libby Purves. But there may be complex reasons for why a school is not delivering; there may be a definition of what it is to deliver that is not quite adequate or right for the context of the school. All I ask is that the Secretary of State and Ministers show pragmatism and empiricism in deciding what to do about these schools and do not follow an ideology that may develop, because that would be the death of the importance of this particular approach. This is a pragmatic and empirical way in which to help to improve schools.

Finally, if we are to move in this direction—and we will—there are some measures that we must put in place to deal with those schools that are not doing so well. First, the Secretary of State must have the power to intervene and require special measures, including the possibility of academy status. Secondly, the public commitment given in the speech last week that there would be further legislation on accountability, regulation and standards must be brought forward as soon as possible. Thirdly, the commitment to pupil premiums is very important. I confess an interest: I chair the Goldsmiths’ Company Education Committee, an education charity. One of the main things that we do, which has been successful, is to give small sums of money up to £6,000 a year to head teachers of schools in difficult areas—most of them in this city, but some in Walsall, which I have already mentioned. We give them this money, which they welcome not only because it is cash but because it is money without a tag attached. The inventiveness and imagination that they show in applying it to the most needy corners of the school means that there is clear to us a huge, untapped reservoir of ability if we allow the professionals to have a proper part in the process.

18:04

[Lord James of Blackheath]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hill, to his new task and wish him well with this very welcome Bill. I look forward to it unfolding its various stages.

I come to this debate today out of what the Americans would call “left field”—not a political left field, this side of the House will be pleased to hear. Rather, it is a definition of the direction of the game being changed for a moment by an unexpected move. I hope that I might provide that. I love the idea of these academies. I only wish that I could have gone to one, but that would have been a long time ago and, in any event, I know that I would not have got in; I would have been classified as a special needs child and I would not have got into the system at all. My special need was that I was classified as mentally retarded. I have no argument with that assessment at all. I have made no secret of it since I came to your Lordships’ House. It causes me no grief now and I came to terms with it many years ago. What concerns me are the many children in this country today in a similar category who will also never get to an academy and how they can be motivated to set their eyes on a horizon worth aiming for, for the enrichment of their lives, which is otherwise a difficult issue in the present circumstances. This should engage the political parties of all persuasions in this House and should not be an exclusive issue for one.

We have a problem in this country that is beginning to look to me like a replication of the circumstances that gave rise to the difficulties experienced by my generation during and after the Second World War, when I began my educational progress. I am 73 years old. My first vivid memory is of five minutes past 10 on the morning of 20 May 1940. I was just short of my third birthday at the time and my mother had just cleared away the breakfast—bear with me, this is relevant. She cleared away the breakfast and put the radio on to what should have been “Housewives’ Choice”, or something of that sort. Instead, it was Alvar Liddell in his darkest, most sepulchral tones, announcing that France had capitulated and that we were now on our own. Immediately, the BBC announced that it would suspend services for the rest of the day until the Prime Minister could speak, but that it would repeat the message of the capitulation every five minutes and, meanwhile, between each message, it would play what it said was Purcell’s trumpet voluntary. It was not, but the BBC thought that it was.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Mentally retarded?

[Lord James of Blackheath]

I did not know it at the time, my Lords, but found out in rather changed circumstances many years later. The BBC ended up playing this damned tune every five minutes the whole day, but my mother would not switch off the wireless because she wanted to hear when the Prime Minister came on. So we listened to it. That has been very much in my mind in the past month, because of the celebrations of the Dunkirk deliverance. However, we knew nothing of that at the time; all we knew was that France had fallen. We did not know that operation Dunkirk was going on at that time or that 380,000 soldiers were coming back to help the defence. My mother was convinced that the Germans would be there for tea, and she did not have any apple strudel. I suspect that they would have wanted something other than that, but that was her problem at the time. We had this terrible phase of two weeks or so of misery before we had an army back; had we but known it, in another four months we would have the victory of the Battle of Britain to announce.

So we got through the war, more or less. We had three times the ritual of the little orange envelope being delivered, starting off with the words, “The War Office regrets to advise”—but that happened in every family. The war ended, really on VJ Day not VE Day. On that day we learnt for the first time the terrible power of the atomic bomb. From that moment on we knew, as a generation, that we were doomed. There was no point in working—why bother with school? We had no hope whatever, which was how we were brought up for many years to come. We also had the threat of the great red horde flooding across Europe. Berlin was going to fall—the Berlin air lift was a waste of time and was never going to succeed. When it did, we had to wait to see whether we could survive the Korean War and the yellow horde coming from the other direction, so we had no hope anywhere. Who was bothering to sit their exams with any serious intent, or to pass anything? We did not, so I got sent to a school for what would today be called special needs. We really were special needs, but we were not quite as stupid as we might have been thought: of the 22 boys in the class that I was sent to, two played for England at chess within 10 years of the class being formed.

In the fullness of time, one went on from there and—hoping for the best—I got an Oxford entrance place. I could not go, because I had to put up a guarantee of £1,500 to get there—to pass “Go”—and I had not got £1,500. But I went to a better university: Ford Motor Company. My 10 years at Ford were better than what any university in the world could have done for me. Ford even paid me to be there. That brings up a big demotivating point that politicians need to think of today: you have to let the young people who succeed receive some of the benefits of their success. There came a day when I got a huge promotion and my salary went up from £8,000 to £10,000. When I went home and worked it out that evening, I realised that thanks to Mr Wilson and his colleagues I was going to receive £160 a year out of my extra £2,000. It was not enough to start a mortgage for a house or anything, but I calculated that at least it would pay for three tickets a month to see Maria Callas, Schwarzkopf and all the rest of them at Covent Garden for £5.25—five guineas, as they called it in those days. The money went to a good purpose, but it did not advance my way of life.

Around me, all sorts of things were happening. The Teddy boys came on the scene. They gave way to the beatniks and the beatniks gave way to the hippies. Why? These were the remnants of my generation, who had no motivation and no thrust for what to do with their lives, all because the education system had failed to do anything with them when it could have done. Now I see a similar pattern emerging. At that time, we were frightened out of our wits by the atomic and nuclear threat and the prospect of communist overrun. We have exactly the same factors today, only all children today believe that there is no point in working on because global warming will destroy everything in their lives—they are frightened out of their wits about it. Also, they believe that the world economy has been destroyed and has no prospect of recovery, so there is no point in them working to take a role in it. We have to get the political sights up. With all due respect, the right reverend Prelates at the end of these Benches have a role to play as well, in reminding children that God has given us everything with which to support ourselves and have a good life, provided that we use it and take God’s strength with us to do it. It is time that the churches all got together behind that with a much bigger voice.

I ask that we do something very positive and think in terms of how we motivate and take with us the people who will not go to the academies and who will have special needs arising not out of being stupid but out of the complete lack of any inspiration or motivation on which they can draw, because of their depression due to the circumstances around them.

As a postscript, I shall pick up on the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, to me about Purcell and the trumpet voluntary. When I was picking the music for my wedding, I chose that my wife should enter the church to the sound of the same piece of music and was informed by the organist at St Paul’s, where we were getting married, that it was not by Purcell, but was Jeremiah Clarke’s march for the Prince of Denmark. Then my wife asked me why I had chosen it. I said, “I wanted to get rid from my mind the association I have between it and the fall of France”. She said, “You think marrying me is comparable to a disaster like the fall of France?”. I said, “Good gracious, no—I just want a happy event to replace the terrible association I have with it”. She said, “I knew about this—I guessed that was the reason—and I’ve got one for you too. When France fell, Hitler had all the cricket fields in every corner of France dug up to make cabbage patches and he banned cricket in all its forms. That is what we should take into our marriage—no cricket matches on television, no test matches, and you are never to wear the tie of that dreadful, miserable cricket club”, by which she meant the MCC. So she naturally got the last word.

This is a splendid Bill. It will do well for the clever ones who get there, but please can we not forget the non-clever ones who have their lives to lead and who will make a big contribution to the economy of this country in time to come if we look after them properly?

18:15

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, having studied the Bill before us—thankfully, it is very short—I saw little that took into account community cohesion. It appears to say that academies are the answer to all the problems in our school community and that those who are not satisfied should set up their own schools, give local authorities the brush-off and go their own way. I sincerely hope that my understanding is not correct. Today I want to bring before you my concerns about the British Afro-Caribbean child, whose experience of the school system in the early days was less than satisfactory.

Most of the children coming into Britain then were sent to SEN schools. We are now at a point where black children, given the support suited to their needs, can and do succeed. However, many parents now feel that the battle almost won is about to recreate itself in what this Bill suggests and there is a fear that the struggle will begin again. I make it clear, once and for all, that education has always been accepted as the means of upward mobility. Research will show that from the day when the phonics of the alphabet were made available to the enslaved Africans, they have embraced education, looked within the system and more or less found solutions. It is now well known that black children achieve in schools at an equal rate to kids from other backgrounds.

The high standards set by the last Government were easily reached by black Caribbean children. What changed most of all was the need for the children to understand that the expectations for them were the same as those for white children—expectations that came from families but were reinforced by teachers, for which I thank them. My purpose today is to make it reasonably clear that there is a need to consider the deep-seated cultural and social differences that characterise black children in our attempt to educate, counsel and assist them in the UK system.

From the early 1960s, a variety of efforts have been directed towards the amelioration of the apparent problems, ostensibly a function of certain disadvantages suffered because of skin colour—but that is untrue. Research efforts of a bewildering variety have been designed and implemented to discover the reasons for the poor performance of such children as a group, using various measures to construe that a lack of intellectual and academic abilities could be a function of genetic disablement.

Parents took this as a condemnation of their children. The result was that we set up Saturday schools, run by black parents and black teachers. They showed that the black child is capable of achieving any standards that are set. We have now seen a great improvement among young boys. The major shortcomings in attempts to educate young black children, and the inability or unwillingness to come to grips with the deep-seated differences between them and white youngsters, meant that it was left to the black community to secure for its children a mixture of black and white teachers so that both black and white cultures were valued and recognised in their own right.

We know today that disadvantaged schooling is a real issue. Also, there is a recognition that the dominant culture, being lettered, needed to value the oral culture. That culture’s styles, thought processes, behavioural learning patterns, concept of time perceptions, morals, value systems, communications and assessment had to be understood by LEAs so that today we have black children achieving, in most cases, as well as their white counterparts.

Nothing in the Bill appears to recognise the steps that have been taken. I therefore ask the Minister how he sees the academies achieving the standards of community cohesion if, as the Bill suggests, schools could opt out of the control of local authorities and, at the same time, become foundations, which are then likely to separate communities still further. That is all that I want to add about the Bill at this time. I feel sure that the black community fears that the Bill, as set out, would set us on the road to segregation.

18:21

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the Minister. I hope he will at least read my congratulations. I wish him well in his demanding position. In this House one has the task of concentrating on what one perceives as weaknesses in a Bill, but I should not let the opportunity pass to say that there are many extremely good and forward-looking measures in this one.

As one who habitually complains about the amount of legislation put forth by this and the other place, I add that this is an extraordinarily complex Bill, short though it is by modern standards. I fear that it will give my profession a wonderful feeding ground for the future. However, the task of the House in Committee and at later stages is to improve on it. I will quickly mention that it seems as though the powers of the Secretary of the State to enter into academy arrangements, as they are called, and to make academy awards are entirely discretionary. Even if an applicant fulfils the characteristics required of it, it will not, by any means, certainly get academy status. The Minister might like to ponder on that.

I will also mention the charitable status provisions of Clause 8, which say that all academies will, ipso facto, be charities. It is an inadequate clause, most particularly because it does not make any provision for a regulator. It is, in my view, essential that the regulation of this new body of schools be on a statutory basis. It must require the regulator to make an annual report to this and the other place. They must be accountable and transparent.

Secondly, I am a little foxed, and again, I hope the Minister might, in winding up, let the House know whether the provisions of the Bill are so framed as to allow the promoters of one of these schools, in effect, to outsource the running of the school to a profit-making provider. If that is the intention, I have to say that—as one who spends much of his life advising on charity law—I am not at all sure that the arrangement would be properly lawful. That will need careful consideration.

I echo briefly, because it so important, the remarks on implementation of the Bill that have been made by various noble Lords. It seems that we are rushing our fences with the Bill. There are hugely important matters to consider, plan and consult on before a single academy school under the new aegis should be up and running. I hope that the consultation requirements will be in the Bill, as they are in many other Bills, including the late-lamented and soon-to-be-consigned-to-oblivion identity cards Bill.

I will spend the rest of my time talking about new free schools. They are not specifically mentioned in the Bill or the notes accompanying it. However, the Government must sing their own tune with regard to new schools. They will, no doubt, be called academy schools. However, they are not schools that are converting from an existing maintained school; they will be created by parents and other interested parties. I commend the Minister in the other place, Mr Michael Gove, for what he said about this. He said at the beginning of his speech that we are,

“dedicated to ensuring that every child has a better start in life”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/10; col. 455.]

Later, he said:

“We have—we have been bequeathed—one of the most stratified and segregated school systems in the developed world … That is why we are pressing ahead with the sort of changes that will drive improvement across the whole of the state school system”.— [Official Report, Commons, 2/6/10; col. 463.]

That is my concern. Unless the new schools are constrained by the addition of characteristics to Clause 1(6) to make sure that this danger will not occur, there is a real prospect that they will do the very thing that the Secretary of State and the Minister in this place said that they were committed to preventing—that is, widening the gap between the best schools and the worst schools, to put it crudely.

The particular danger is that the new schools will siphon off pupils from the more middle-class families, leaving existing schools with a depleted intake. I spent this morning in my native town of Sudbury in Suffolk, which is an absolutely typical English market town. It currently has two secondary schools serving 25 or 30 villages. I was told by the excellent head and the chair of governors of one of the two, Cornard Upper School —my wife is a governor of the same school—that its position under the Bill could be made extraordinarily difficult. I am absolutely sure that that would be inadvertent, but our job is to guard against inadvertence. The key school in its present catchment area is proposing to set up as a new school. There are three principal damaging effects of that probability. First, it will unbalance the existing intake of the school. The head, Michael Foley, put it like this:

“All I can tell you is that in this area, the formation of a free school in one of the surrounding villages would lead to segregation by default. The existing fully comprehensive school, which has allowed children from all backgrounds to flourish … would be replaced by two schools in stark contrast: one with a largely privileged intake and the other largely populated by children living in challenging circumstances”.

It is a commonplace that in the past 20 or 30 years villages around cities and towns have become gentrified.

Then there is the massive cost of creating a new school. The local authority reckon that it will cost £4 million just to uprate the buildings of this feeder school to enable it to gain new independent status at a time when Cornard desperately needs to modernise its existing buildings as 10 classrooms leak when it rains. It is fruitless to pretend that the capital expenditure on these new schools will not affect the budgets and incomes of the existing maintained schools.

There is a third potential problem with the new schools, unless we guard against it. Cornard school will lose 40 per cent of its intake. That will create real viability problems with huge cuts in staff, massive disruption and consequent denting of morale in a school which this year has received a certificate from the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust stating that it is one of the most improved schools in Suffolk. The LEA in Suffolk noted that it had achieved the greatest added value over the past year. The Ofsted report stated that it was “a good school”. It continued:

“The quality of care, guidance and support that is provided for students is outstanding. The school has gone from strength to strength since the previous inspection”.

I urge the Government to include a further characteristic in Clause 1(6) along the lines that a new school can be established and maintained only where, on balance, it will improve education not only for its own pupils but for those of adjacent schools.

18:31

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, to hear how carefully he has consulted with his local school and to hear him repeat Michael Gove’s concern about stratification. I share his concern that the Bill could inadvertently add to that problem. The noble Lord reminds me how very different our system is to that of many of our neighbouring countries that seem to provide fairly consistent, good quality, publicly funded systems and where private schools have difficulty finding business due to lack of demand. So much human potential is wasted in this country. My noble friend Lord Sutherland drew attention to our variable quality of education.

The chief concern I wish to raise this evening is the education of children in public care and how the Bill may affect their chances, particularly as regards the admissions priority which was granted to them in 2008 by the previous Government, from which academy schools were exempted. I shall come back to that and concentrate on a few of the principles we are discussing. I reiterate how welcome it was in the debate on the Queen’s Speech to hear the Minister clearly lay down the subsidiarity principle by which the coalition operates; namely, to pass down decision-making as far as possible to professionals, clinicians and parents in the immediate area. I welcome that move. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and to the late Lord Dearing for what they have done with technical colleges. It is a tragedy that we have so poorly provided for our young people’s vocational training needs. It is very good to hear of the action that they have taken in that regard. National Grid Transco runs a programme in young offender institutions that has reduced reoffending rates from 70 per cent to 7 per cent by offering those young people a guaranteed job after three months’ vocational training at NVQ level 3. More than 1,000 of those young people have been guaranteed a job under that scheme, but would it not have been better if they had received an education which grabbed their interest and gave them the opportunity to get into work rather than crime?

I hope the Minister agrees that it flows from what he has said that we need to recruit the very best people into teaching and give them the best training and continued professional development and support if they are to become the autonomous head teachers we seek who can make the best decisions for their schools. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, in asking what plans the Government have for implementing the proposals for a Masters qualification for teachers. Primary school heads have told me that they are disappointed in the numeracy and literacy skills of some of their recent intake of teachers. There needs to be a greater commitment to attending to those skills of the teaching workforce, although I welcome the previous Government’s commitment in that area, particularly as regards Teach First. That is a very promising initiative with more than half the candidates staying on after the two years’ probationary introductory period. I welcome the new coalition’s commitment to expand that. However, I am troubled that teachers on the Teach First initiative will have a few months’ teacher training in just one school. This differs from a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, where students spend a year in two schools with more pedagogic training. In the past, many teachers had a Bachelor degree in education, gained after several years’ training. That is very important as the Teach First teachers may become the school leaders of the future. However, we are giving them a very shallow foundation in the theory of education at the start of their careers.

The Office for National Statistics found that in 2004, 9.6 per cent of our children between the ages of five and 15 had a mental health disorder. Teachers are not therapists, but good teachers have to be successful in managing their relationships with their pupils. They have to be particularly skilful in managing the relationship with those 10 per cent of children if they are to be successful teachers. Therefore, it is imperative that we insist on having the best teachers. Finland consistently has the highest outcomes in numeracy, literacy and science and very highly qualified teachers, all of whom have Masters degrees and undergo lengthy training. In Finland, classes are smaller but are all-inclusive with no streaming. I am not sure that they are allowed to exclude children, so teachers have to work with every child in a school. I am not saying that that should be the case in this country, but it suggests that investing in teachers is the key to success for all our children. It was gratifying to hear the Minister talk of the success of the academies. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to teachers. In the furore that may arise over the efforts to roll out academies, we should not forget how important it is to concentrate on obtaining the best possible teachers.

I look at what has happened in health over the years. The previous Government invested heavily in health, and we have seen much improvement; but we also now have a gross shortage of health visitors, and midwives in many areas are very demoralised, with case loads that are far too large. It is easy, even with the best intentions, to overlook the needs of the workforce. In the area of children’s services, too, the Government put in a great deal of investment, and there was much legislation; but still today we have a vacancy rate for social workers in London authorities of 40 per cent, and a shortage of 10,000 foster carers in England and Wales. We have alienated many of our best guardians—professionals working with children and families in our family courts. If we look back at our shadow, we see that we are failing sufficiently to support those people at the front line.

The noble Lord, in his eloquent opening speech, was very reassuring about expectations. In particular, he said clearly that this was not going to be a revolution. That is comforting; but how does he know that it will not be a revolution? He talked about the interest from many schools. This is perhaps something of a Pandora’s box. Once the genie is out of the bottle, where will it lead? My noble friend referred to the current multi-tier system, and I was comforted by his lack of concern; but, perhaps because of my ignorance, I fear that this might exacerbate a situation that we all recognise is highly undesirable, with a very good education for relatively few, and a very poor education for those who would most benefit from extra attention and support. Seeing soldiers back from Afghanistan visiting the House today, I am reminded of the need for the type of strategic planning that did not take place when we went into Iraq. When one starts on an enterprise of this importance, one must have a good strategy.

I turn to the admission to academies of looked-after children, and apologise for taking so long. Seven per cent of children in public care obtained five A* to C GCSEs in 2008, compared with 49.8 per cent of the general school population. We all recognise that the educational needs of looked-after children have not been attended to. The Centre for Social Justice report, Couldn’t Care Less, highlighted, among other outcomes for these young people, the fact that one-third of rough sleepers and 23 per cent of adults in prison had experience of care. It was very welcome in 2008 when the Government introduced a duty on schools to give top priority to looked-after children. A particular problem with these children is the instability of the system. Often, their foster placements will break down and they will be moved to a new area and foster carer in the middle of a school year. It helps immensely if they are the top priority for admission to the good schools in that area, and can therefore move into a good school in the middle of a school year. What was happening was that all the popular schools were full, so the children would end up in a school that had vacancies, which was less popular and less good.

The academies were exempted to some degree from this prioritising of looked-after children. I hope that the Minister will consider bringing forward an amendment to the Bill to ensure that these children get the priority status that they clearly need and deserve. Perhaps he will want to meet some interested parties at some point. Sarah Gentles is an excellent teacher who works for Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa, and has supported young people in care with their education over many years. The Minister might like to consult her.

I am concerned that we might inadvertently be going towards a more divisive system. I look to the Minister for reassurance on that. I look forward to working on the Bill, and particularly to learning more about the very good outcomes from the current work of the academies. I hope that perhaps we will have an opportunity to meet some head teachers from those academies and learn more about their work.

18:44

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench and I welcome this Bill. It has an excellent precedent. It was the child of my noble friend Lord Baker; it was excellently looked after by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in his long tenure; and somehow the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, and others who did not feel the same way about it refrained from strangling the infant. Now it emerges to manhood at the point where it can be set free. I welcome the momentum that is embodied in the Bill and the feeling that we are going forward with speed and determination.

Letting excellent schools become academies is not a precipitate risk. We know what academies are. The schools that are being pitched into this can explore and innovate safely for a year or two and such regulation as is needed can catch up. They are already well governed and well operated institutions. I do not share the caution of my noble friend Lady Garden. I certainly do not share the ambition of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, to turn every new aeroplane into a Bristol Brabazon, which, as noble Lords will remember, was designed with immense care by a big committee, had 10 engines and flew only once. There is a great deal to be said for getting things done with determination. It is one of the many things for which I admire my noble friend Lady Thatcher.

I have a strong conviction that innovation comes from below: one can see that all through life. The reason why we do not see it much in schools is that it has been suppressed for so long by regulation and the immense burdens put on schools of targets, paperwork and control. In the tenure of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, we had an education Bill that was supposed to allow schools to innovate, but all it said was that if you submit an immense application to the Department for Education you may be considered in due course and perhaps allowed to make small changes to the way in which you run a school. Where the previous Government had allowed bottom-up innovations to happen, such as the growth in academies and the excellent experiment of technical colleges launched by my noble friend Lord Baker, they worked. Where they tried to impose change from above, such as AS-levels and diplomas, they did not work. That is inevitable in a system such as education, as you cannot control 25,000-odd schools from the centre. A particular change is never right for all schools at the same time. You must have a system of evolution and adaptation rather than one of imposition if you want good ideas such as diplomas to flourish. Diplomas were an excellent idea, but they should have been allowed to evolve and adapt to schools, which would then have found out how they worked best. One would then have got a sensible system—as we still may, depending on what my Government decide to do with them.

Inevitably, as has been said by many of my noble friends, particularly those to my left, we shall not abandon our traditional inquisitorial attitude to the Government just because we happen to be part of it. There are many things that I wish to know about the Bill. In particular, I want to know how far the freedom to innovate goes and how much real freedom will be allowed to these schools. I very much hope that my noble friend will circulate to all of us who have taken an interest the model agreements and associated documents that doubtless are being sent to those thousands of schools that have made applications. They cannot possibly be dealt with by an à la carte system. There must be a standard procedure, which should be shared with us before Committee.

I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, and others that partnership will be an important part of the new educational landscape. It has been pioneered to effect by the previous Government. If we are not to have central control or control by local authorities, there must be a way for schools to get support and for good practice to spread. Of all the things that have been tried, that seems to work best in schools through partnership. I very much hope that that will be explored and strengthened in the Bill.

We need to be careful about the governance of the new academies. While there were only a couple of hundred of them and they were being looked after by association with reputable businesses and charities that could put in resources, expertise and understanding when things went wrong, and while they were quite thinly scattered or concentrated in areas where the current system had clearly failed, that, to my mind, was less of a worry. Now we are looking at a system where potentially, in the course of five years, quite a high proportion of our state schools could become academies, so we have to understand how governance will work. Governance is an imperfect matter—boards of governors go wrong. One can see that clearly in the private school system, where, as noble Lords may know, I spent a lot of my time as editor of the Good Schools Guide watching schools being destroyed by the idiocies of governing bodies.

How are we to deal with governance in academies—particularly those that convert from excellent schools—and how are we to preserve the interests of the local community? How, indeed, are we to approach quality control as a whole in a world of academies? I should very much like to learn from the examples of my noble friend Lord Harris of Peckham, who says that he has his own inspectorate in his schools. How does that work? In what ways is it better and more efficient than Ofsted?

I can think of lots of ways in which Ofsted could be better and more efficient. It does not seem to be an organisation that demonstrably has its finger on the pulse of schools. It looks at them only every four years or so and does not provide a good service for parents. If there is a dodgy Ofsted report on a school, you hear nothing more for four or five years and, if it is a good school, you are not told whether it is going wrong. Ofsted does not seem to provide good value. It has a large number of immensely well paid executives, but I do not see that that level of spend is producing value for money. In general, I do not see Ofsted being supportive of schools. It simply seems to go in and be critical and not, as Her Majesty’s inspectorate used to do, provide good ideas, support and comfort to schools. Frankly, I think that a lot of cost could be cut out of that section of the department and that much better value could be obtained from the expenditure that remains. My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby pointed out other areas where we could tackle costs, such as in the degree of central diktat and directive and in the level of imposition on schools—the sheer amount of effort in schools that has to be devoted to complying with these things and to watching what is going on. A great deal of money could be saved by reducing that.

We will inevitably come on to the matter of faith schools—a subject already covered by the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan of Huyton and Lady Murphy. In previous battles in this Chamber, we have extracted some hard-won concessions from the churches about inclusiveness—opening their schools to people of all faiths and none. The Church of England has very much led in that, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford said, but not all his schools are like that; some of them are not only religiously but intensely socially exclusive and the Church of England does not have the necessary degree of control over that. However, I know of schools of other faiths that are much less open to their communities. I think that we should try to move towards a situation where we welcome the ethos and value that faith schools bring to our children. Although I am not religious myself, I would happily send my children to faith schools. However, if we pay for them as state schools, they should be open to all. We should not see in the Bill a rowing back from the commitment to include the wider community in faith schools that we have extracted from the churches to date. Nor should we see an increase in sectarian teaching. There are Catholic schools that teach that Gandhi is burning in hell. Frankly, I do not think that we should fund that on the state.

The matter of special needs will clearly be important. I think that I disagree with everything that my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking said, so we shall clearly have some interesting arguments in Committee. There is a great deal to be said for inclusion for the right children, but we should not have compulsory inclusion for those who would be better served by special schools. I think that the incidence of special needs is about right at 20 per cent. It has come from a greater understanding of the variations in children. A lot of the increase has been due to specific learning difficulties and just represents an understanding that children can be very strong in some areas and very weak in others. That is a fundamental point and it requires schools to adapt their methods of teaching. We have also understood that there is a spread of autistic spectrum disorders and other things. It is all about helping schools to teach better, to understand their children, to understand how children in a school interact with one another and to produce better results from them.

I certainly do not agree with my noble friend Lord Baker that local education authorities should remain in charge of special educational needs. One of the features of the way in which schools, and certainly academies, developed under the previous Government was that they became much more co-operative with one another, forming their own groups. Windsor and Maidenhead—one of the smaller local authorities—runs a very good special needs service because it is big enough to have central expertise but small enough so that the people on the team are known by, and know, all the schools that they look after. In Slough, which is next door, the situation is horrible. I do not see why schools should not be able to opt into, or create for themselves, special educational needs services. That should not be beyond a group of schools co-operating together.

The handling of admissions will be important but, again, I do not share the caution of some people. I hope that we will move to a much more dynamic arrangement and abandon the rigidity of the current system. If academies admit from a much wider spread than the schools that they replace—that would follow the pattern of the academies that we have to date—schools in the leafy suburbs will be opened up to those in neighbouring areas of deprivation. There will be a lot more parental discomfort as a result of that and, in that case, local authorities will need to become the parents’ friend. They will need to make sure that there are suitable places—if necessary by pushing schools around a bit and saying, “Hang on. There are five kids living right next to you that you have to let in because there’s no other sensible place for them to go”. They will need to do battle with independent schools on behalf of parents. That really should be the role of the local education authority, as should dealing with special needs. Goodness—it would be a change if LEAs were to move from being seen as the enemy of parents, trying to prevent them from getting their children into schools, to being the friend of parents, trying to get their children into the schools that they should be in. That would be a much more natural and better relationship and it would be a better role for local education authorities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, touched on freedom of information. I agree that we should not allow, through this Bill, a whole host of schools to pass out of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. This was highlighted in the Times Educational Supplement a week or two ago. Actually, the article itself was rubbish—the data that were said not to be available are available—but the principle that schools should not move out of the range of the Act was there.

I thought that perhaps the question of the curriculum and freedom from the national curriculum had gone in the coalition agreement. I thought that we believed in our pupils having an understanding of the world and of our history and who we are. The curriculum’s incorporation of Shakespeare, British history and an understanding of the world was important to us at that sort of level. Are we to abandon all control over that and allow it to become completely spotty or will there be some overriding continuity?

In the debates on this Bill and in those that follow, we will get deep into an argument on the role of government in education—central and local. I very much look forward to that. I do not share the pessimism of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. We can move from a position where all levels of government have seen their role as control to one where they see their role as supporting.

19:00

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, I felt as if I was hearing the winding-up speech there—and I wanted to defend local authorities against the charges laid against them, governing bodies against the charge of idiocy levelled against them and the Church of England against just about every charge made against it. As the provider of faith schools, the Church of England, by law established, should be recognised as being in a different category from other faith schools, since it is legally obliged to make provision for all and sundry who come its way. Let a Methodist minister say that because the Bishops may feel a bit more reluctant to do so. However, I look forward to the Minister’s second winding-up speech later.

I have gotten the feeling from various comments in the debate thus far that this is a kind of fill-up-an-empty-week sort of Bill. It has 16 clauses, but I have heard lawyers say that it is poorly drafted, a field day—therefore, a financially profitable field day—for them, and that it leaves more unsaid than said. We have to get through this week; the people backstage have to make their legislative programme in greater detail, and they need more time to do so. I just got the feeling that this was a kind of quickie to fill in time. However, I worry about some of the consequences, intended or unintended, of such legislation if it is passed in its crude form.

For the past 30 years I have been a school governor of secondary schools—grant and voluntary-aided schools, schools in the public sector and even an independent school. Before that I was deputy head of a large lycée in Haiti. I am proud to bring that into my little CV at this point. I have held senior positions in the governance of Roehampton University, and before that I was a lecturer in the University of Wales. Education is in my DNA. I declare my interest because I definitely have an interest to declare—a great interest in the way that we provide for the education of our children. I was the product of free school meals, free transport, national assistance benefit, tons of support from our local community and fantastic teachers. Soon we will be inviting a school friend of mine to join us on the Benches opposite—Michael Howard. We were great pals in the sixth form but his life took him one way and mine brought me another, but great pals we have remained. All of the advantages that I got through my education gave me the possibility of breaking out of the straitjacket of poverty and into worlds that I previously knew nothing about.

I approached this Bill, as I approached its several predecessors, with only one question: will it enhance the opportunities of all children, in the words of an old-fashioned hymn, to,

“lay hold on life, and it shall be thy joy and crown eternally”?

As a Methodist, I almost sang it for you, just to lighten things up at the end of this debate.

A lot has been said which I have no desire to repeat except in a bullet point sort of way, because these are the questions that we want answered. Proper recognition has been made of the virtues and achievements of existing academies, but we also recognise that the existing academies have been set up in a particular way, in particular places and for particular reasons. I need to hear what will happen to the idea and the model when it is expanded outwards to regions for which it was never intended at the time of its creation. We await the Minister’s reply to that. The Minister has been asked serious questions, which I shall not repeat, about all kinds of things, including special needs provision and the role of the local authorities.

My noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley made a speech and what a speech it was. Who needs to say anything more? She said everything that needed to be said. When she finished, I wanted the Minister to get to his feet there and then. I wanted him to be rooted to his place—nailed to his place—until he had answered every one of her questions to her satisfaction. That is the agenda. Those are the questions. That is what we need to hear about how things will go forward.

So much has been said and I have no desire to repeat it. However, I do have two concerns which I shall share very quickly. The first is school governors. I am a school governor, and sometimes I am an idiot, but most of the time I am not. The people I work with are not idiots; they work very hard. They give time sacrificially. They give up working days to attend to the needs of governing schools. In the independent sector, to which the noble Lord who preceded me referred, there may be idiots. I do not know, because I am limited to working in the public sector—the government-supported sector—where the governors are fantastically self-sacrificial.

In the years that I have been a governor, I have noticed a steady accumulation of responsibilities and duties coming our way. Large budgets have to be managed. Health and safety regulations are only some of the welter of regulations which we have to attend to and monitor. Teaching and learning inputs and outputs have to be carefully noted and myriad directives, policy documents, guidelines and orders have to be kept track of. I am not a fool. I know that the previous Government, on whose Benches I sit, have sent a fair few of them my way.

Our governing boards in Islington and Tower Hamlets have somehow kept up to speed. We value the contribution of parent governors and would not want that to be lost in the way that these new academies are governed. The involvement of local authorities is bringing a wider breadth of understanding. Local authorities must not be demonised in our discussion of how education should be provided. Without them, we governors may well have turned out to be idiots. Perhaps governors who are not subject to their healthy support are the ones who turn out to be idiots. I do not know. All I know is that we have been able to draw governors from the wider community—from the worlds of business and the church and from various aspects of culture—to help with the running of schools in disadvantaged London boroughs. I also notice that every new vacancy seems harder to fill. Islington and Tower Hamlets are poor boroughs and it is increasingly difficult to find governors because of the kind of skill set required. I promise you that it was much easier to find governors in the leafy suburbs where I once lived. It was also much easier when I was governor of an independent school.

My questions arising from that are simple. First, how will the governance of these new academies be established? What new duties will accrue as a result of this Bill reaching the statute book? Will the contribution currently made by local authorities now become the responsibility of governors? Will that come our way as well? We are voluntary; we are not paid; there is no expenses scandal in the realm of school governors. We do it for nothing, and it is harder and harder to find appropriately skilled people with the time to do it. As for a separation of powers, the head teacher will be given a chance as the CEO to run the business—but how will we countermand and in some way modify the absolutism of that position? Governors are on the front line of the checks and balances to be provided. We must give scrupulous attention to the way in which we work this aspect out.

Secondly, I am vice-chairman of a foundation that supports two schools—the Central Foundation Schools of London, which are distant relatives of the body so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, who spoke earlier. We have to try to get our Central Foundation Girls’ School through the hoops established by Building Schools for the Future, which was set up by the previous Government when they were trying to get a new school built under that programme. As part of preparing ourselves for the new era which we are about to enter, the foundation has put a quarter of a million pounds into paying professional fees. The foundation has committed £7.1 million of its own resources, in addition to government resources, to accomplishing this end. However, I am worried that the BSF programme will not happen and that the money dedicated to it will be siphoned off to fuel the new academies we are discussing. I should like an answer to that question. We have people waiting on us, and not just at the school where I am a governor but also at others. What is happening to the BSF programme? Please give the same diligence and speed to answering that question as was given to the writing of letters to head teachers urging them to become academies.

There is lots to do, and there will be lots of fun. I look forward to it.

19:11

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his new position and thank him for his clear exposition of the Bill. I join others in congratulating him on its brevity and clarity. It is no secret that we Liberal Democrats have for some time had reservations about the academy programme because, like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, we have not seen the freedoms that were offered to academies as making the difference. We recognise that what made the difference was the teaching and learning under which many schools were turned around—although there were failures—by bringing in new heads and good leadership.

Above all, where we differed from the Opposition and my noble friends in the Conservative Party was that we have never seen local authorities as oppressive powers. Above all, we have seen education as a system which serves a local community; it is very necessary for schools to work together, whereby nursery schools link with primary schools, which then link with secondary schools. Together they should provide for the educational needs of the local community. Serving the local community was, therefore, the most important part of the system. You needed to have some kind of authority which could judge the needs of the local community—whether it was in the provision of new places, helping to orchestrate admissions and exclusions, providing for special educational needs and other specialist services, or, for the smaller schools, especially primary schools, the provision of important back-office functions in terms of employment and payroll.

It is also important to realise that since the Education Reform Act in 1988, local authorities have not run schools. Governing bodies and heads run schools. The bureaucracy that we all rail against—I did my bit of railing against it during the debate on the Queen’s Speech last Thursday—has been imposed by central government. I mentioned in that speech the report from the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of this House which looked at the impact over the years of the statutory instruments, guidance and directives that had been issued to schools. I noted that typically a school received 760 pieces of guidance every year. That is an appalling figure. It is freedom from this bureaucracy—imposed by central government, not by local authorities—that schools really need.

The main worry of many people about the establishment of academies is that they will fragment this local community of schools that we see as so important. However, the academies introduced by this Bill are a different breed from those introduced by Labour. As many noble Lords have mentioned, for Labour, academies were introduced to raise the standards of poorly performing schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This usually meant turning over a new leaf—a new building, a new head and a new governing board. In some circumstances, they have been very successful; in others, they have been somewhat less successful. This Bill introduces important changes. Academy status is aimed not only at reversing poor performance, although that decision will not now be jointly taken by local authorities and the Secretary of State, but will be that of just the Secretary of State. Academy status will also be a reward for good performance with the promise of a fast-track procedure for those 2,600 schools—900 secondaries and 1,700 primaries—which are currently judged to be outstanding by Ofsted. Again, the decision whether a school may become an academy is just that of the Secretary of State. The governing board, which includes the head, has to make the application, but the decision whether to grant academy status is that of the Secretary of State. The local authority plays no part in either the application or the decision.

A number of noble Lords have spoken already of their reservations about the democratic deficit that this implies—whether the Secretary of State should have these powers without the requirement to consult with stakeholders, including the staff, parents, children and the communities which the schools serve. Other noble Lords have spoken of their concerns about whether, as independent state schools, academies will be able to cope adequately with the requirements of those from disadvantaged backgrounds—especially those with special educational needs—and how far the schools will remain within the community as local schools in relation to matters such as admissions and exclusions. I do not wish to add anything further on that, but my noble friend Lady Walmsley will, I know, talk about some of these issues.

I want to probe the Minister on procedures, because the Bill as it stands is not quite clear on what is involved in these fast-track procedures, and neither the Explanatory Notes nor the impact assessment provides further clarification. First, as I understand it, the Bill comprehends two procedures for acquiring academy status. The first is the old procedure whereby failing schools are converted into academies, involving fairly lengthy negotiations over an academy funding agreement which sets out the details of how the new academy is to operate. This does not change much, except that the Secretary of State alone has the power to decide whether such a school should become an academy. What I am not clear about is whether in future such a school has to have a sponsor, as in existing procedures. If not, who appoints the governing board?

The second procedure is the real innovation. This is the one that allows any school to apply for academy status and particularly encourages those schools which have been judged to be outstanding by Ofsted to apply. Here I seek clarification as to whether I have understood the procedures correctly. Under the first part of the procedure, in Clause 3, the school’s governing body expresses an interest and submits an application. The department examines the application and either accepts or rejects it—but on what criteria? The department has already received as a result of all the letters it sent out—not just to the 2,600 outstanding schools—1,100 expressions of interest, yet the impact assessment published with the Bill makes the assumption that only 200 schools will convert to academies this year and only 200 in the following three years. It seems that many schools may be disappointed. What will be the choice criteria? How will the Secretary of State decide, among all the applications that he is likely to receive, which schools will go forward to become academies?

When a school is accepted for academy status, Clause 4 states that an academy order will be given. That enables a school to convert to an academy. But precisely what is involved after that? Does the school have to negotiate an agreement similar to the agreements for existing academies, which essentially lay down the way in which the school is to be run? If there is to be a standard form of agreement, it will still have to be individualised for each school. How long will that take? Presumably, the fast-track schools, which are the outstanding schools, will have priority over the other schools, but even with the fast-track procedures, how long will the negotiations over the agreement take? Is it feasible for schools to be established by September?

Once a school has opted for academy status, can it revert to being a maintained school, as some of the grant-maintained schools did in the 1990s? Can the procedure go backwards? Since TUPE regulations will apply to any conversion, in so far as the school exercises its freedom to recruit teachers on its own terms, who bears the cost of meeting any redundancies? Will the schools be liable for those redundancies? Once an academy agreement has been concluded, will the detailed financing and, in an audit sense, the supervision of the academy, fall to the new quango, the Young People’s Learning Agency? How detailed will that supervision be? What happens if the school fails? Some schools that were judged outstanding were two years later judged by Ofsted to have serious weaknesses. Head teachers count enormously and a different head can make a great deal of difference. Presumably, the YPLA will have not only to look out for fraud, but to keep a supervisory eye on what is happening at the school.

Finally, once a school has converted to academy status and become a company limited by guarantee, with the existing governing board as directors and trustees, presumably it will become a self-perpetuating governing board appointed by its own successors. Will there be any provision, for example, for elected parent governors? How is the local community represented? Is it all by choice of the governing board?

I would like to probe a little further on the impact assessment. In a meeting with the Minister’s officials last week, it was made clear that the figure given in the impact assessment about the establishment each year for the next four years of 200 academies was merely a guess—perhaps one should say a guesstimate. That is okay, but I worry in the light of that guesstimate whether expectations have not been raised too high in the 1,100 schools that have already written in expressing an interest, although not yet applied. On the basis of 200 a year, it will take more than five years for those schools to become academies. That is a very different picture from being able to become academies by September. I understand that the department was just guessing and will adjust according to demand, but there are clearly limits to the number of schools that can be processed in this short period.

September is less than three months away and, as indicated, an academy order is one thing and an academy agreement another. If thousands of schools apply properly before the summer holidays, can the Minister give the House an estimate of the realistic number of academy orders that are likely to be processed over the summer and how quickly those orders are likely be turned into agreements? I worry that there is a real expectation among schools that they can move forward quickly. If that is not going to be the case, it is important for Ministers to damp down expectations now.

Talking of managing expectations, it is also important not to raise expectations among these schools about how much extra money they will get from being free from local authorities. I have spoken to a number of local government colleagues, and it is clear that the proportion of the budget going to the local authority is not 10 per cent. It is more likely to be 2 per cent to 3 per cent. Again, schools are talking quite loudly about how much they may get. It is important that that is realistic.

I have two further questions for the Minister. In relation to the impact assessment, all the costings are of course related to the guesstimates of 200 academies a year being processed. The one-off costs are put at £66,000 per school or £17 million a year for the 200. The annual costs are £275,000 per school rising from £33 million for the coming year to £198 million in four years’ time, when it is estimated that 800 academies will have been established. Clearly, if more schools convert, those costs rise. If 1,000 schools were to convert this year and a similar number next year, the bills would be very different and much larger—much closer to £1 billion than £200 million.

Finally, will the Minister clarify the position of academy applications already in the pipeline? A number of schools are currently being processed. Are those likely to be held up while the department processes the schools applying under the new procedures? Will outstanding schools wishing to convert be given priority in the conversion process?

19:26

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I intend to be brief. I congratulate the Government on giving such a high priority to improving the quality of the nation’s less successful schools. I support their attempt to remove the heavy-handed burden of bureaucracy deriving from local government and Sanctuary Buildings, although I have to say I do not fancy their chances of success.

I want to draw attention to one or two issues concerned with this Bill that we will need to explore further in Committee. They relate entirely to the impact that the legislation may have on the children of disadvantaged and chaotic families. We have a duty to be concerned about the impact on those children, not only for the children themselves, but because children from disadvantaged backgrounds may well be disruptive in the classroom and impede the progress of other children in a school.

I have just five questions for the Minister, some of which he may wish to write to me about. My first two points relate to the proposal that academies should be set up by groups of parents. Experience in the independent sector—I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will support me in this—suggests that governing bodies comprising only the parents of children currently in the school tend to make decisions that will bring short-term advantage to their own children rather than make decisions on the basis of the long-term well-being of the school.

My second concern is that the proposed parent-controlled academies will founder on the same rocks as some of the original Sure Start projects. When the previous Government set up Sure Start, it seemed such an excellent idea. Noble Lords will remember that its aim was that severely disadvantaged families should be helped by making funds available to provide services, not on the basis of any preconceived government plan, but in response to the felt needs of the parents and communities concerned. Many Sure Start projects failed in that objective because they were hijacked by able and intelligent parents who were quick to see the potential of the scheme for their own children. They crowded out those in greatest need—the children of disadvantaged families whose parents had neither the time nor the will to become involved nor the ability to lead or organise the schemes. I fear that the same may happen with parent-controlled academies.

My next concern relates to Clause 1(6)(c), which imposes on academies an obligation for a mixed-ability intake. It states that the school must provide,

“education for pupils of different abilities”.

What does that mean? There are two very different factors that may define different abilities in a child—a child’s potential ability to engage and to succeed in school. The two are sometimes referred to as IQ and EQ. The first relates to the child’s potential ability to cope with the academic content of school life; the second relates to the child’s ability to cope with the social and emotional challenges of school life. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, spoke of children leaving school without hope. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, spoke of training and the need to motivate. Many children enter school without love, without hope and without the emotional, social and interpersonal skills that they need in order to be able to cope within the school community.

For children from disadvantaged families, their lack of emotional and interpersonal skills may be as or, indeed, more important than any other skills. The EQ of a school’s intake may also be critical to the whole school community, because children with low EQ scores tend, because they lack self-assurance, security and hope, to be disruptive and disengaged in school and therefore to hold back others.

Do the Government intend that all academies should be required to take some children with low EQ scores or with emotional or behavioural problems? If so, will those schools be given the resources to begin to address those children’s problems before they arrive in nursery or primary school? Almost all of those problems originate in the family and in the first five years of the child’s school life. The problems are sometimes very difficult to eradicate by the time that a child gets to secondary school.

Finally, I want to ask two questions about the PSHE and relationship education policy of this Government. The relevant clauses in the Children, Schools and Families Bill were lost in the wash-up, as noble Lords will remember. What is the Government policy on PSHE and sex and relationship education? I should explain that those questions are relevant to the Bill because if we are to have any hope of reducing the number of children damaged by disadvantaged and chaotic families, we must increase the number of young people—the number of potential parents, both mothers and fathers—who understand and accept the responsibilities of parenthood and the parenting needs of young children. One important tool to achieve that must be more and better compulsory PSHE and relationship education. I am sorry to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is not in her place to hear me say that.

Is it the Government’s policy to make PSHE and relationship education compulsory for older children, as was the policy of the previous Government? Is it the Government’s policy to develop guidelines for relationship education along the lines of the draft guidelines, which were subject to consultation that closed in April this year? I ask that because, although I believe in compulsory PSHE, I believe that the guidelines were seriously flawed. They failed to emphasise the importance for older children of education that refers them to the challenges and responsibilities of parenthood and which encourages them to think about the role, responsibilities and challenges—both for fathers and mothers—in preparing their child emotionally and socially for school and for life. What is the Government's position on PSHE and relationship education?

19:33

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, first, I should draw attention to my interests as chairman of a company involved in construction and maintenance of schools under Building Schools for the Future and the academies programme.

I join others in welcoming my noble friend Lord Hill to the Dispatch Box and congratulating him on introducing the Bill. It may not be revolutionary, but I think that it will be seen as something of a landmark, because the core idea of decentralising from Whitehall to the head teacher and the governors is long overdue. Like the former Prime Minister in 2005, I look forward to the time when all state schools are independent, state-funded schools, able to operate under their own aegis.

The truth is, however, that during the past decade, despite the continued development of academies, the overall thrust of education policy has been huge centralisation—what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, called the bureaucratic model. In truth, local authorities no longer run or manage maintained schools. They have long since lost that power. Maintained schools are de facto controlled from the centre through targets, plans, the imposition of ideologies and the curriculum, much of which I fear has not been advantageous to schools and much of which, such as the removal of the need for a language qualification at GCSE and the move toward single sciences, has been to the detriment of the quality of education in this country.

It is time that we moved away from the bureaucratic model to embrace fully the idea that the best people to run schools are head teachers. As my noble friend Lord Baker said, there are huge benefits from giving freedoms to schools to deliver what parents want, and the innovation of which my noble friend Lord Lucas spoke. As others have said, that includes full control over their budget, more control over the curriculum and teaching staff and, most importantly, the quality and ethos that is so important to the way in which schools are run and pupils perform.

As others have said, we know what makes the difference between a good and a bad school. It is primarily about the quality of the head teacher—their leadership and their freedom to run the school in the way that they think best to motivate their staff and inspire their children. My complaint is not that we are going too fast; it is that it has taken more than 20 years to get here from the first conception of academies.

With decentralisation, of course there needs to be proper governance and accountability but, to my mind, the best accountability is to parents via choice and competition. That is what we must focus on as we go through the Bill.

Rather than repeating those arguments, let me deal with some of the concerns that I have heard raised in this debate, on which I would like to put my slant. First, the concern has been raised that competition benefits only middle-class or pushy parents. The reality is that it is the forces of competition which raise standards for everyone. That is why markets work. If it is not too superficial, it may be helpful to make the comparison with supermarkets. When supermarkets compete, it is the active shoppers, the people who shop around, who ensure that all shoppers benefit from competitive prices and qualities. Although schools may be very different from supermarkets, they will work in the same way in terms of the active parents—the active shoppers—driving up standards through competition which benefit all children in the area. As others have referred to, the good schools then become beacons of excellence which other schools have to emulate to maintain their standing and attract pupils.

As others have, I wonder about Clause 6, which appears to restrict schools to recruit mainly from the area in which they are based. Competition will clearly work best if parents have the widest possible choice of schools and that schools doing well can draw in from surrounding areas and expand, while those schools not competing as well and not offering what parents want are exposed. We do not want poor schools left to exploit a local monopoly without parents having the choice of taking their children to a better academy down the road, where the head teacher has managed to raise standards and deliver better results.

The other requirement of competition is that when schools fail, they are taken over and different management is put in place. I am encouraged by the Minister's comments that the programme will continue to address poor as well as successful schools, but if an academy does not perform—no doubt, over time, some academies will not perform—will the same triggers operate in terms of requiring a change in the management of a failing academy as a failing maintained school?

The second concern that I have heard raised is that academies will not benefit disadvantaged areas, but we have heard many contributions—notably from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln and even the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin—pointing out how successful academies have been in raising standards in underperforming areas. We should all take the point of view that we will not accept that schools in poor areas have to have low standards. There are many examples that show how schools with the right leadership can achieve outstanding results in even some of the most deprived areas, so academies are not just for the leafy suburbs but are for disadvantaged areas as well. I welcome the Minister’s assurance that those schools will still be part of the programme, and I also welcome the pupil premium, which is the additional answer to those who fear that those schools will be left behind.

The third concern is that allowing successful schools to convert to academies will open up a two-tier system, apparently because there is a fear that those schools will then get better. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, was particularly concerned about this. I do not quite understand why it is such a terrible outcome if good schools get even better. We should not seek equality in education by holding good schools back. We want every school to be the best it can be and then to challenge every other school to match the best.

I would like government policy to go even further in due course in restoring the pursuit and celebration of excellence in education. In particular, we should ensure that the brightest children from whatever background have equal access to the best education based on ability and merit. One of the saddest outcomes of the past quarter-century is that social mobility has declined. We have reduced the opportunity for the brightest children from modest backgrounds to reach the top in their chosen field. We talk about special needs, but the one group that is often not considered in special needs is that of the few per cent of children who are very able, who often benefit from the standards and motivation of a high-performing peer group. Those from the poorest backgrounds often benefit most from moving into an environment that stretches their aspirations. Those children now too often face being trapped in poor local schools. This is important not just because of the tragedy for those bright children if they are not able to achieve their potential, but because we also need to recognise that as a country, we rely heavily on the top performers in every field to be our future leaders, whether in arts, science or business. It is a poor deal for the country, as well as for the individual, to waste that talent.

The solution to this problem of poor achievement by the brightest children and the loss of social mobility is not to legislate to force top universities and professions to lower their entry standards. Instead, we need to give the most able children the chance to achieve and compete on merit. The only fair way to do that is to include in the school system the choice for those who want it to apply to a highly academic school where entry is on ability and merit, not on ability to pay. That is the sort of school—direct grant schools, for example—that many of us here, in truth, benefited from but, sadly, have allowed to decline over the past quarter-century. I should be clear that I am not suggesting a mass return to forced selection. Most schools should remain mixed-ability entry, and that is clearly the objective of the Bill, but we foster excellence in football and we celebrate excellence in music and arts, yet somehow we deny the pursuit of excellence for the talented group in academic schools. The state system should provide for those children rather than only independent schools for fee-paying pupils being able to provide that kind of quality academic education. I welcome the fact that at least existing selective schools are protected in the Bill. The Minister will be relieved that I will not press for the Bill to go further, but it is something that the Government will need to come back to on another day. In the mean time, I welcome the Bill and look forward to supporting its passage through the House.

19:45

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Promethean World, an educational technology company, and as chairman of Futurelab, Britain’s premier educational research trust—I can already hear the howls of outrage from just about every other research trust, but that is the way I see it. I add my welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, not just to the Dispatch Box but to the House itself. I have known the noble Lord for some while in his professional life and I can attest to the fact that we are all fortunate to have gained him as a colleague. His intelligence and integrity will, I hope, inform this Chamber for many years to come.

It had been my intention to put in an appearance last week in response to the gracious Speech, but the vagaries of international travel made that impossible, which is unfortunate because I could have covered at least some of what I am about to say this evening. I had the privilege of spending eight very happy and, I hope, productive years in one iteration or another of the Department for Education, where, among other things, my task was constantly to take the temperature of the teaching profession and those who support it. One way or another, the best part of 1 million people, along with parents, in England alone are directly engaged in the world of education. I learnt very early on that when it comes to bringing about change, unless you can carry the vast majority of those people with you, you are unlikely to make anything like the impact that you might expect or even hope for.

My own party, when in power, consistently made four mistakes. The first was to confuse initiatives with progress and to interpret each and every swallow as heralding summer. The second was that, although it talked a great deal on arrival in government about evidence-based policy making, such evidence as there was quickly became subsumed, or sometimes even distorted, into promoting more ideologically driven solutions. The third was to pretend to consult when in reality far-reaching decisions had already been arrived at. Experience tells me that few things infuriate intelligent people more than being cynically dragged through the motions of consultation. It is demeaning to the point of condescension and it infantilises the very people whom you are pretending to consult. It is also somewhat dishonest. Last, and to my mind most inexcusable, was the failure fully to grasp and implement what just about every piece of education research had been telling us for the past Lord knows how many years: it is the quality of classroom teaching, not changes in structure or administration, that fundamentally determines educational improvement.

I mentioned evidence, and the Minister may be pleased to hear a little from his own Benches. Earlier this afternoon, an outstanding former Secretary of State was seated behind him: the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard. In fact, at one point, we had no fewer than four former Education Secretaries in the Chamber. I wonder how many other legislative chambers in the world can boast that level of experience and expertise.

In a new book that looks back on the educational successes and failures of the previous Government, the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, is quoted as saying:

“I came ingrained with the view, which I retain, that Ministers ... can say what they like about what teachers should do, but in the end teachers are on their own in the classroom and, therefore, they are the most important component in education”.

Here is another other eminent educationalist, the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, in the same book, making the same point:

“You can fiddle about with examinations; you can introduce targets and all the rest of it, but they’re not at the real heart of the thing. When, as a teacher, you get into the classroom and shut the door, it’s between you and the kids”.

Lastly—I know that this new Government lay great store by the views of captains of industry—here is a marvellous contribution from the private sector. No less a person than John Pepper, the former chairman and CEO of Procter and Gamble, had this to say in a speech just two months ago. He believes that,

“our single-biggest realistic opportunity for progress”,

is,

“significantly improving the preparation and continued professional development of principals and teachers … we must give them the quality education and continuing development we would expect in any profession”.

Here are three experienced and respected voices coming to exactly the same conclusion; or, as Bill Clinton might have said, “It’s the teachers, stupid”.

What has all this specifically to do with the Bill? The answer is everything. Here we are with a new coalition Government who are making exactly the same mistakes that we made 13 years ago and trampling on many of their most vaunted devolutionary principles in doing so. I will argue in Committee that, one way or another, the Bill as drafted repeats all the errors of judgment that I have painfully conceded we were guilty of. I will give an example: consultation. The Minister knows more than I will ever know about the corporate world and the way in which it communicates with the outside world. Can he imagine, in the case of a merger or an acquisition, anyone writing to the CEO of the target company, telling them of their intentions and putting a note to the chairman on the website? I can think of no faster way of ensuring that no such collaboration ever took place. At best, I would say that it was clumsy. Yet, in a sense, that is precisely what was done in the letters that went out to head teachers last week. Is it possible that we have learnt nothing in all the intervening years about how to communicate with this complex and interconnected profession?

Strange as it may seem to some of my colleagues on these Benches, I want this experiment in coalition government to succeed, if only because I believe that the only way in which this nation will claw its way out of its present problems is through a dramatic and well resourced improvement in educational standards. We need those if we are to make even a reasonable fist of what will be a highly competitive 21st century. Furthermore, we cannot wait another five years to get it right, as this would jeopardise the life chances of a further five cohorts of young people in the process.

As I hope is by now evident, I will have a great deal more to say when legislation reaches this House to, for example, abolish the General Teaching Council for England. I also intend to be pretty lively when it comes to consideration of the other educational issues of which the Minister gave us advance notice last Thursday. For now, I will simply ask two questions.

First, having listened to the debate this afternoon, and given the significant ramifications of this Bill, let alone the complexity involved in implementing it, does the Minister really feel that two days in Committee will sufficiently scrutinise the Bill and offer answers to the many, many questions that have already been raised? In this respect, I am not sure that he is being all that well advised and I suggest that he clears his diary for several weeks, if not months, ahead.

Secondly, will the Minister give this House a commitment that, in one form or another, the advancement of professional classroom practice will be the sine qua non of this and all future education-focused legislation that emanates from his Government? I ask this because, should that not be the case, with a heavy heart I must advise him that, despite all his best efforts, this Bill and this coalition Government will ultimately fail to enhance the life chances of several million children and young people in this country—but then it is quite likely that his mother, from her own experiences as a teacher, has already told him that.

19:52

[Lord Rix]

My Lords, I am motivated to speak out today because of my concern about certain elements of the Academies Bill. If the end of my speech echoes much that other noble Lords, especially my noble friend Lord Low, have already said, I can only apologise, but as it concerns children with special educational needs and disabilities, I trust that a second helping will inspire the Minister, whom we of course welcome to the government Front Bench, to give a positive response.

In common with many in your Lordships’ House, I received numerous representations in the period running up to today’s Second Reading from charities, disability organisations and parents of children with special educational needs, all of whom seek assurances that this Bill will not be used as an opportunity to deny disabled children the right to access a mainstream education in the setting of an academy if that is the child’s and the parents’ stated wish.

This seems an appropriate opportunity to suggest that the notion that special schools have been closing all over the country is a myth. Some local authorities have developed inclusive policies, but not a single one has got rid of all its special schools. It is a postcode lottery. You were 20 times more likely to be sent to separate provision in Newcastle than in Bury if you were issued with a new statement in 2008. There has been a shift in where some pupils are educated. Children whose behaviour is challenging are more likely to be moved into separate provision, while some children with physical and intellectual impairments who were previously in separate provision have been placed in mainstream provision. In England, the nature of the segregated population may have changed but, with the arrival of pupil referral units, numbers have remained constant. There were 1,577 special schools and PRUs in 1995 and 1,512 in 2009—a diminution of exactly 65, which hardly indicates the large-scale closure of special schools all over the country.

These statistics do not count students who are now in separate units that are attached to mainstream schools, which frequently operate in relative isolation from their mainstream neighbour. Some schools are genuinely engaged in the process of inclusion, while many have just been paying lip service to the idea. At their best, local schools can be innovative and responsive to local community goals. At their worst, they will exclude students who make teaching too much of a challenge and who are traditionally excluded, thus perpetuating established inequalities and resigning us to a permanent underclass that is regarded as a worthless burden on the state. I trust that the Academies Bill will not further perpetuate those inequalities.

A moment ago, I referred to the many organisations that have made representations to me on the Bill. One such body is the Special Educational Consortium, which aims to protect and promote the interests of disabled children and children with special educational needs. Mencap, of which I am president, is an active member. As the Special Educational Consortium has pointed out and as my noble friend has stated, 21 per cent of children have some form of special educational need, while 12 per cent of children with SEN achieve five GCSEs at A* to C compared with 57 per cent of their peers. Such statistics reveal that a major factor when analysing the details of this Bill must be an assessment of how the Government’s academies policy will improve the outcomes and experiences of children with SEN and disabilities.

The Government’s own equalities impact assessment of the Bill states that,

“the proportion of SEN pupils achieving 5 good GCSEs including English and Math is lower”—

in academies—

“than the national average”.

While I appreciate that these figures relate to existing academies, of which there is a fairly small sample, they raise legitimate concerns about the outcomes for children with SEN and disabilities in academies. Those outcomes must be of prime importance as we consider the passage of this Bill.

As the Minister will be aware, much of the legal framework and basis for SEN, which was consolidated with cross-party support in the previous Conservative Government’s Education Act 1996, gives parents the right to ensure that their child’s special educational needs are being met. I remain of the view that these important principles are as valid today as they were when the legislation was passed in the 1990s. However, as academies are in effect independent schools that are funded directly by the Secretary of State, they appear to be accountable largely through the funding agreement as opposed to the Education Act. Such a distinction raises important issues as to how academies, particularly as they become more widespread, will be accountable and transparent to parents of children with SEN and disabilities.

As the Minister will be aware, and as my noble friend Lord Low has stressed, a number of existing statutory requirements apply to maintained schools with the specific intention of benefiting children with SEN and disabilities. Maintained schools are required to ensure that their special educational needs co-ordinator, or SENCO, is a qualified teacher. Will this be the case with academies? They are also required to take part in behaviour and attendance partnerships, the purpose of which is to reduce the number of children with SEN who are permanently excluded from school. Will academies be obliged to take part in such partnerships? Finally, because of the schools’ maintained status, by definition, parents can seek redress via the Local Government Ombudsman to consider the actions of schools that they deem are failing to make appropriate provision for children with a statement. What equivalent mechanisms of redress will be in place with regard to academies?

I recognise that a key principle behind academies is to give greater freedom and control to schools, while at the same time empowering the role and importance of parents. How does the Minister expect academies to be made accountable to the parents of children with special educational needs or those who may be disabled? I look forward to a clear and definitive reply in his response.

20:00

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, when the academies programme was first introduced to this House by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, he said that the intention was to tackle underperformance in existing schools. While accepting that conversion to academies was not the only way in which the former Administration tried to tackle failing schools, I would point out that the evidence shows that academy status, as even the Minister accepted, is not a silver bullet. Some existing academies have done very well, but some have not. There has even been one that has returned to the local authority.

This Bill proposes types of academies very different from those which have gone before and few of them will get shiny new buildings like the majority of the existing 200. Since the letters were sent by the Secretary of State to heads, teachers and directors of children’s services—not to governors, noble Lords will notice—there has been both interest and concern. Parents, governors, councillors and officers of local authorities, and those representing the most vulnerable children, have asked many questions. I will comment on some of them in my remarks.

First, noble Lords may remember how we on these Benches—well, not on these Benches as we were over that side of the Chamber at that time, and now, as the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, said on Thursday, we are travelling steerage—welcomed the power to innovate in relation to the curriculum and asked why all schools could not have it. We asked for the same powers for all schools when the specialist schools came along, and I am pleased to say that that has come to pass. We are not against this sort of freedom at all. We also, of course, welcomed extra spending on deprived children. Who would not?

However, in common with many of those who have expressed their worries over the past few weeks, we have a concern for the most deprived children. If the stated objective of this policy is to improve the education we offer to all children, improve equality and narrow the attainment gap—of course that is the objective—we must scrutinise the mechanisms of this structural change extremely carefully to ensure that such damage is not an unintended consequence of the policy, which is what this House is very good at.

We must look at the evidence of existing academies, since that is the only place we can look at the moment. Unfortunately, some of the evidence underpins the concerns, so we must learn from it. There is evidence that some of the existing academies have been selecting the children and parents, and not the other way around. That makes it easier for the academies to raise their overall exam results. We must ensure that this does not happen with the new tranche of academies. How will the Minister ensure that all the new academies will abide by the local admissions code as we are told that they will be obliged to do? Who will ensure that they do not exclude inconvenient students, thus obliging the local authority and other schools to pick up the pieces? Will he put a duty on the new academies to take children from across the demographic range in the local community? There is evidence that a mixed intake benefits all pupils in a school, so this is good educational practice.

There are serious concerns about the funding of the programme, which my noble friend Lady Sharp has addressed. But I am very concerned that the coalition Government’s promised pupil premium should not be used to top up the payments to the academies or to the local authorities if too much resource is directed towards the academies. The pupil premium is intended to enrich the education of children in all schools who come from deprived backgrounds and therefore need more help to reach their full potential. It should be on top of what is spent otherwise and was never intended to be used to underpin structural change in the school system. Will my noble friend assure me that that will not happen?

No school is obliged to apply for academy status. I would hope that any governing body considering applying should think very carefully about the real advantages of doing so. I would also hope, as advised by the National Governors Association, the Association of School and College Leaders and several of your Lordships today, that it would consult widely with pupils, parents, the local authority and the local community before taking this step, even though the Bill does not oblige it to consult anyone. This is good practice. I would prefer that governors should be obliged to make a positive case for becoming an academy as part of its application, outlining the benefits they foresee for all the children in their neighbourhood. That will take time, but there is no rush for outstanding schools. They are already providing a good education to their local children.

There is evidence that some academies have harmed other neighbourhood schools. Evidence has come from the NUT in the case of Sneyd Community School that the number of free school meals children at Walsall Academy decreased from 51 per cent in 2002 when the school first opened to 11 per cent in 2007, due entirely to selection. In the mean time, the FSM numbers in all the surrounding schools were much higher. The figure for Sneyd rose by 28 per cent in one year alone. This tells us that there must be a mechanism for ensuring that the admissions practices of the new academies do not allow them to unload all the more difficult children on to other schools. The new academies must be measured on how they help to improve the attainment of the most deprived and vulnerable children, not by the way they adjust their intake.

I am comforted by the words that say that schools must provide education for children of different abilities. But this must include the right proportion of children whose attainment to date has been poor. I am also comforted by Clause 1(6)(d), which states that schools should take children mainly from the local area. However, among many of the briefings that we have been sent in preparation for today, Save the Children has pointed out that there may be a problem with this if we want the most deprived children to have access to the best schools, which of course we do.

In the more affluent neighbourhoods, the cost of housing alone makes it impossible for certain children to access the local school. How does the Minister propose to deal with this? Will he consider putting something in the academy order to the effect that an academy must offer a number of places, perhaps by ballot, to children from more deprived areas not in the immediate vicinity of the school but within reach of it, and also to looked-after children, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who deserve a place in the best possible school?

I am also concerned about behaviour partnerships and exclusions. In the meeting which the Minister kindly arranged for us last Wednesday, it was mentioned that schools could be freed from certain obligations, such as taking part in the local behaviour partnership. I would be very concerned about that. Setting school against school is a very negative thing to do. There is currently a very healthy culture of collaboration among schools, which I would not want to lose. I welcome the expectation that academies should work with weaker local schools, but that should include managed exclusions.

This brings me to accountability. These schools may be independent, but they will receive millions of pounds of public money to educate our children on our behalf. They must be made accountable in a rigorous and appropriate way. By that, I do not mean simply by looking at their exam results. The Minister and the Secretary of State have mentioned their intention to review the league tables and Ofsted inspections. In a way, this Bill puts the cart before the horse, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, who suggested exactly that. I would feel more comfortable with the Bill if we had done these other two things properly first. However, we are where we are.

Perhaps I may say something about the curriculum. The Bill states that it must be “balanced and broadly based”. What does that mean? No doubt we will look at this further in Committee, but is there to be a core group of subjects to which all pupils will be entitled? Like the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I am concerned about whether this will include PSHE, or education for life, as I like to call it. I do hope so, since all children will have a future life and schools should be obliged to equip young people to make the most of it. What about child protection issues? We hear that Ofsted will concentrate on education, but we know that children do not learn well if they are distressed, threatened, abused in or out of school, or distracted by terrible issues in their home life. In other words, their welfare must be as paramount in schools tomorrow as it is today. Who will ensure that that happens? I am not convinced that Ofsted has ever done this well, so perhaps we now have the opportunity of giving the job to someone who understands the issues better.

I turn briefly to early-years education. Primary schools are to be allowed to become academies. Apart from a few all-through five to 18 schools, until now academies have had little experience of very young children. Of course, primary schools that apply will already have that experience, but how will their new curriculum freedoms link up with their obligation to follow the early-years foundation stage? Many of us think that this stage needs to be revised anyway. Do the Government have any plans to do that? How will the independence of academies impact on the successful integrated model of working with very young children?

I should like to ask about the duties and strategic controls that are to remain with local authorities. How can we sure that they will not be left with weakened levers with which to support non-academy schools? Will academies be expected to co-operate in times of crisis such as those of flood, fire or terrorism? How will the school improvement agenda be affected? Will academies that now become exempt charities still have a duty to provide community use for their facilities? Many local authorities such as Sutton and Richmond, along with other London boroughs, already struggle to find enough places for their own children when others come in from adjoining authorities. How will they be helped with this duty, which they will continue to have if many of the schools in which they currently find places opt out of their control? I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, that local authorities do not run schools now, or control the funding of schools, and yet they provide a valuable safety net and support services which the opting-out schools will have to provide for themselves.

By the way, I would remind my coalition partner Lord Blackwell that two-thirds of our schools are now found by Ofsted to be “good” or “outstanding”, so they should not be penalised. These services are of particular value to small schools, especially primary schools. I hope, therefore, that they will think hard before deciding whether they want or need the freedoms in this Bill. Finally, on that point, I should like to ask the Minister this. If a school wants the same curriculum freedoms as an academy without cutting itself loose from the support of its local authority, would it be able to do so?

20:12

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the fine speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. We have had a full discussion on the Academies Bill, but it is one that leaves serious questions for the Government to answer, and I endorse what several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Puttnam, have said. We will need a goodly time in Committee in order for the Government to address all the issues that have been raised—and that is just by the government Benches themselves.

It is a pleasure to work on the first Bill for which the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, will be responsible, and I, too, congratulate him on his new role and his eloquent and inclusive speech. I pay tribute to the expertise on these issues that so many noble Lords have ably demonstrated and brought to bear on the Bill, and I must apologise for coming to the debate as someone not remotely qualified to be one such expert. However, I do come to it as someone who cares deeply about education. It is the key that unlocks talents and freedoms, enables people to escape poverty and deprivation, and ensures a successful economy and a healthy society. A fair society needs a fair education system. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Low, said about the challenges that persist, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, pointed out, we have to ratchet up our efforts. Notwithstanding the mistakes that some would say were made by the previous Government and which were cited by my noble friend Lord Puttnam, I am proud of our record and very proud of the achievements of my noble friend Lord Adonis, who was our pioneer on the academy programme.

However, I would argue that my noble friend’s vision has been corrupted in the current Bill, and I agree with much of what was said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. I congratulate the Church of England on the forthcoming 200th anniversary of its provision of education. Like my noble friend, I believe that the Church of England provides an inclusive education, although I have some concerns that were also expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen, about the inclusiveness of some of our schools. I note, too, the concern around the Chamber about PSHE, and I would certainly like some responses from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, about its provision, which is extremely important.

Like many other noble Lords, I have visited some superb academies which have transformed the achievements, aspirations and lives of their pupils. I have not yet had the pleasure of visiting a Harris academy, but I can see that that is something that I have to do. I certainly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, on all that he has done. Academies have brought in extra money and expertise, and have improved buildings to ensure that the most disadvantaged pupils from the most disadvantaged communities get a better chance. I know that my noble friend Lady Whitaker, who is not in her place today, will be especially vigilant on the importance of design and the built environment, also mentioned by my noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton.

The noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, spoke of the importance of motivation. I believe that good schools, be they academies or community schools, do motivate young people. That is why education and schools are so important. I note the views expressed by my noble friend Lady Howells about cultural differences and the importance of community cohesion. Of course, not all academies have succeeded, but the vast majority are a success story. So we are not opposed to academies. We celebrate their success, and as my noble friend said, we did want to expand their provision to coasting schools. However we are concerned about aspects of the Bill that we believe are, in effect, more of a return to the Conservative Party’s past policy of grant-maintained schools rather than building on our own policy. My noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley was right to point to the excellent work of some community schools but, like all schools, if they are failing they are doing a disservice to pupils and to the community. I shall read very carefully the speech of my noble friend and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in relation to failing schools.

I shall briefly focus on five areas of concern: speed, centralisation, consultation, funding agreements and standards. First, on speed, I share the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, and others, and I trust that the Minister will pay heed to the “fallacy of composition” which was mentioned by the noble Lord; I like that phrase very much. I understand that any new Government are anxious to make their mark, demonstrate their readiness for action and signal those areas in which they want to make immediate headway. However, we do not need the “quickies” referred to by my noble friend Lord Griffiths; the pace of reform must not have a detrimental effect. The Bill raises so many unanswered questions and precipitates so much change which will have a fundamental impact on our education system, that the pace of reform as currently envisaged could do more harm than good. Indeed, one of the clauses in this short Bill is devoted to “Pre-commencement applications”, and that is testament to the unseemly and unsustainable rush that we are embarked on at present. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who said that it is a deceptively simple Bill. I believe that it is a complex Bill when you start delving into it.

The Liberal Democrats have always espoused the principle of local empowerment, and the Conservatives are now wedded to the idea of big society. However, as my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said in the debate on the loyal Address, while the coalition agreement proclaims radical devolution of power and greater autonomy to councils, the rhetoric and the reality are somewhat different. With this Academies Bill, local authorities will lose powers, lose influence and lose budgetary flexibility. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that this is entirely a bottom-up process. It might be a permissive Bill, but rather than the decentralising measure that we are led to believe it is, the Bill gives more power to the centre and more power to the Secretary of State. Only an order from the Secretary of State will be required to sanction a change. Rather than decisions being taken by local people and locally elected representatives who know the schools and the communities that they serve, decisions will ultimately be taken in Whitehall.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and others mentioned bureaucracy. As the number of academies grows exponentially, as the Government desire, the Secretary of State will have to create a central bureaucracy to deal with the decision-making. So perhaps we will have decentralisation and bureaucracy rather than the decentralisation envisaged. Indeed, the Minister of State for Children and Families, Sarah Teather, is on record as saying that the creation of 200 academies in 2006 would be a,

“thoroughly centralising measure that allows the Government to be the largest maintaining authority and have a veto that will effectively overrule local decision making of the kind of provision that people want”.

If that was the case for 200 academies, how can the creation of 2,000 or more not be an act of centralisation? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how the Bill fits into the terms of the coalition agreement on the devolution of power and greater autonomy for councils.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I have listened carefully to what the noble Baroness has said. Does she agree that a decision by an individual school and its governors—and, one hopes, the parents whom the school has consulted—to apply to become an academy will be taken at a much more local level than even the local authority? It really is local decision-making.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, that is an interesting question. However, the key issue which the noble Baroness raises is that an application or decision made by a local school should be taken in tandem with the governors, the parents and the pupils. Currently the Bill does not provide for that element of consultation. We must, together, work on that.

I turn to the issue of consultation, which is linked to the role of local councils and the wider community—an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Under the Bill, the local authority will explicitly not be consulted on applications for schools to become academies; neither will parents nor the teaching and support staff nor the pupils. As other noble Lords have said, the role of parents must not and cannot be underestimated. I was peripherally involved with a proposal for an academy in Gloucester. A consultation was undertaken but parents, governors and pupils did not think that it was as thorough as it should have been. The result was frustration, sadness and ill-feeling—not the best start to the new life of a new school. A good school must have the confidence of the community that it serves. I would suggest that consultation is a prerequisite for confidence.

Many noble Lords and many organisations have raised issues relating to special educational needs, excluded pupils and children in care. They included the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and many others. That leads me to my fourth concern, on funding agreements. Funding agreements must enshrine fairness and cover compliance with SEN legislation and the school admissions code. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, pointed out, there are problems with the admissions code at the moment. That is why fairness must be enshrined in any new provision.

Several noble Lords spoke of two tiers. The Minister said that the Bill would not create a two-tier system. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said that we do not have a two-tier system now, but a many-tier system. We should not create a situation whereby those schools with the greatest need receive the least resources. That is what we mean when we talk about a two-tier system.

The noble Lord, Lord James, said that we on this side of the House and perhaps others were trying to hold back good schools and excellence. That is not what we are trying to do—we want to ensure fair provision of resources. We want to ensure that special educational needs provision is properly planned, and we do not think that that is the case at the moment. If money that LEAs currently receive for SEN is gradually diminished while schools with the greatest SEN remain as mainstream schools, how will the strategic role of LEAs be maintained and the funding gap plugged? Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Baker, rightly said that LEAs play an invaluable role in relation to special educational needs. We must not demonise LEAs, which provide an invaluable function and ensure that many of the duties currently enshrined in legislation are delivered.

I turn finally to standards. The Bill deals with structural change but makes no mention of standards—although the Minister raised the question of standards in his opening speech. That is a further and fundamental difference between our policy for academies and the Bill that we are discussing today. Our programme was to drive up standards for the most disadvantaged pupils. The Bill will do nothing to assist that process. I agree with my noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton, who said that strong intervention from the centre is necessary to drive forward and maintain high standards.

Most of the current academies which we established are thriving because of the quality of teaching and strong leadership. These factors, as many noble Lords have said, are the most important ones in a good school. There are some superb teachers and leaders in our schools. Under the proposals before the House today, there is a clear danger that teachers from the most challenging schools will be attracted by better conditions to teach in the outstanding schools which become academies, thereby exacerbating the problems in the schools with the most difficulties. I am sure that that is not the Government’s intention, but we must ensure that it does not happen.

Our academies were about improvement for all by means—at least initially—of improvement for the most disadvantaged. The Government’s academies are about improvement for a minority of pupils who are already the most advantaged. As the Sutton Trust said at the weekend, we must provide better education for the many, not the few, and for all children, not just the most privileged. I fundamentally disagree with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, about competition in education.

We shall seek in Committee to apply the perspective of the need to ensure a better education for the many. We shall aim to ensure that schools fully and properly reflect the social mix of the communities which they serve; that they fully and properly reflect the views of the local community and the local authority, as well as of parents, staff and governors; and that they fully and properly offer the most opportunity for most pupils. We shall seek to improve the Bill to improve educational standards, educational performance and education for all.

20:28

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her kind words. I am grateful also for the kind words that have been said by many noble Lords in welcoming me, even by some who know me—which makes it even more remarkable that they paid me such tributes.

It has been an excellent debate. I am beginning to learn about the very important job that this House does in improving legislation and holding the Government to account. I said last week that I would try to listen and learn, and I have listened and already learnt an awful lot this afternoon. It really is a great privilege to be able to listen to so many forceful speeches from such distinguished educationalists—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said, four former Secretaries of State. That makes it quite a daunting occasion for me. One problem that I am discovering in this House is that the contributions are so powerful that I find myself nearly agreeing with all of them, even with that of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, at one point, when she made her powerful and impassioned speech.

I shall do my best to respond to the main themes raised today. However, as I am new to this, I hope that noble Lords will bear with me a little. I may not be able to answer the many hundreds of points that have been raised and the questions that I have been asked. A lot of them will be taken forward in Committee but, before then, I shall write to noble Lords and respond to as many of the points that have been raised as I possibly can.

I start by paying tribute to so many in this House who have done so much to support academies and who are so knowledgeable about them. I refer in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, whom it is extremely nice for me to see after a very long gap and who spoke inspirationally about the Harris academies and what they have achieved. Many thousands of children have reason to be grateful to him, as I certainly am. I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for the work that he has done on university technical colleges, a subject that he has raised repeatedly in my short time in the House and assiduously outside this House. I look forward to discussing it with him further and reading the book that he gave me—and I do not know whether I have to declare it as an interest, but it was a very cheap book—about the importance of brain and hand working together. I am very attracted by the work that his trust and Edge have done and extremely interested in seeing whether we can do more to help with taking forward this idea of technical academies, which I know has been welcomed by many noble Lords.

With few exceptions, there seemed to be broad support for the idea of more academies, and I was grateful for that. However, there are clearly a number of practical concerns on all sides of the House, which require further clarification. Obviously I shall work as hard as I can to provide that clarification in the days and weeks ahead.

What is also clear from this debate is that we all start, on all sides of the House, with the highest ambitions for our young people and the highest expectations for school standards. It is also apparent that there is great respect on all sides of the House for the teaching profession and the superb work that teachers, head teachers, governors and others do every day to give children the best possible education. It is my belief that the respect that we feel for teachers can be better reflected in our education system and that professionals should be trusted with the decisions that they are best placed to make as leaders and staff at our schools. We are keen that they should be enabled to do so without constant intervention from government. That is what this Bill seeks to achieve; it says to schools, “Here is a mechanism for school improvement that you can adopt if it best meets the needs of your school and, more crucially, your pupils”. That in part is my answer to one main thrust of the extremely powerful speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. She asked what evidence there was that academies were better and whether this was worth the effort.

We talked earlier about some of the statistics that we believe support the case on this side, but I recognise that education is about a lot more than statistics. Many head teachers of academies argue persuasively that academy freedoms have helped them and have helped them improve standards. The fact that more than 1,100 schools have already expressed an interest tells us something about the relationship that they feel they have with their local authority and how they think academy freedoms may help them to do a better job. That is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland made, and I agree with him on that.



I shall take some of the main themes raised this afternoon and try to respond in broad terms. The one that struck me most was special educational needs. The noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Turnbull, the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Garden, and most recently the noble Lord, Lord Rix, spoke extremely forcefully and persuasively about that. I recognise totally that we will need to provide more reassurance to those noble Lords and others in the organisations for which they speak. However—this picks up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall—academy funding agreements will require academies to have regard to the SEN code of practice in the same way as maintained schools. Local authorities will retain responsibility for pupil SEN assessments, statementing, funding of statemented pupils, ensuring that arrangements are in place for statemented pupils, and the monitoring of statemented pupils. Academies will have to ensure fair access and deliver provision. This is such an important area—I want to get it right—that I am keen to organise a special briefing on the subject before Committee for Peers who are interested. I think that my office has been in touch with the noble Lord, Lord Low, about that, and we are working on a date. I hope that as many Peers as are interested will be able to come along, and we will do our best to respond to some of their points.

Admissions was another broad area raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Garden, the noble Lord, Lord Low, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. The academy funding agreements will require academies to comply with the school admissions code and law, as with all maintained schools. The code and related legislation outlaw additional selection and require the highest priority to be given to looked-after children.

Points were raised about governance and parental representation by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams of Crosby and Lady Garden. As has been pointed out, the governance arrangements are not in the Bill, and they need not be. Governance structures are set out in an academy’s articles of association. We expect that an existing foundation or trust will continue to appoint the majority of governors. We do not anticipate that the existing trustees would consent to the conversion unless they were satisfied with the proposed governance arrangements. Academies are required to have at least one parent-representative on the governing body, and of course many choose to have more.

The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Massey, raised points about charities and charitable status. The thinking behind the provisions on charities is that deeming academies to have automatic charitable status should make the process of establishing an academy easier by removing the need for each one to apply for charitable status individually. Given the number of potential academies, we think that will reduce a burden on those schools. It will make academies consistent with voluntary and foundation schools, which are already deemed charities in law and will shortly be exempt charities. It will be important for academies’ compliance with charity law to continue to be regulated and, in response to questions raised about that, I will discuss further with the Minister for the Cabinet Office who would take on the role of principal regulator for academies. I will report back to the House as soon as I am able to inform it of those discussions.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Before the Minister leaves that area, can he say whether the so-called academy arrangements are required to meet the same requirements on admissions and other issues that he referred to in the case of funding agreements?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I fear that, if I may, I will need to write in more detail to the noble Baroness. I understand her point, but I do not want to get myself into deep water. I will follow this up with her specifically.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Before the Minister goes off the subject of charity, and given that the Charity Commission is a highly effective and experienced regulator of all sorts of other charities—large and small—does he think it sufficient to leave the regulation off the face of the Bill? I am thinking particularly of the desirability for public accountability of regulation.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That, too, is a point on which I need to reflect. Generally, I will follow that up with the noble Lord if I may.

Consultation was a recurring theme. It was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Turnbull and Lord Greaves, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Williams of Crosby. The concern was expressed that there would not be sufficient consultation with parents or others. Current legislation does not require consultation with parents or the local community on the acquisition of academy status. The Bill does not change that. However, we anticipate that schools will want to consult parents about this, as they do at present.

In addition, maintained schools have parent governors who will be able to take part in the governing body and the decision-making process on whether to convert to academy status. Consultation with staff is another important point. Schools are required by the TUPE regulations to undertake appropriate consultation. We are advising schools on how best to carry out that process. That is linked to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, about speed, which I will return to in a moment.

The role of local authorities is clearly of great importance. I repeat a point that I made in the debate on the gracious Speech and earlier: there is, I hope, nothing in the Bill that noble Lords will interpret as an attack on the role of local authorities. We do not seek to send that message. Strong local authorities will remain central to the Government’s plans to improve education. We want to work with local authorities on what these changes will mean. We certainly envisage that local authorities will have a strategic overview of services in the local area and that they should help to support parents and pupils to choose a good school as part of a mixed economy of schools provision. They will retain a key strategic role in supporting the delivery of educational excellence. The law already allows local authorities to supply goods and services to schools, including academies. Many academies buy these services from the local authority. We expect this to continue. Nothing in the Bill will prevent an academy from buying a service from a local education authority and, if the academy considers the local authority to be the best supplier of that service at the best value, I am sure that it will continue to do so. As I have said, the local education authority will retain responsibility for ensuring that pupils’ SEN needs continue to be met.

The speed of the process was another recurring theme. The noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, led the charge, but the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey, Lady Sharp and Lady Royall, returned to it. I underline the fact that schools can carry out this process at their own pace. I understand the point, which has been raised before, about expectations. There has, perhaps, been a sense that the Government expect all outstanding schools to be ready to go in September—that they are rushing and that schools are being encouraged or pressured to convert by September. That is not the case. The aim of the Bill is to be enabling and permissive rather than coercive. Our wish is for schools to do this at their own pace. We believe that some schools will be ready to convert at an early stage. Others will certainly choose to convert at a later date. We are currently telling schools that we expect the fast-track process for outstanding academies to take three months, although a longer process may well be needed in exceptional circumstances. It should be noted that not all the outstanding schools that have so far expressed an interest in converting want to convert as soon as September 2010 or will be able to do so. Although we want to give the schools an opportunity, I am conscious of this point, and we will not force any school to do it any quicker than it wants to.

I say in response to a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that converting outstanding schools will not take priority over academies already in the pipeline. I am assured that we are able to deal with both. Nor do outstanding schools need to have an external sponsor. They will in effect be self-sponsoring, which will include existing arrangements with faith bodies.

The pupil premium, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred, is to be separately funded and will not be used as a subsidy for academies. We believe that academies have proved their success. I think that that point is broadly accepted on all sides of the House. Where they have worked well, their impact has been tremendous. This Bill will allow more schools to become academies, with a simpler application process and more trust given to the professionals who we think can and should be making decisions about how their school is run.

Raising standards in all schools is our primary goal—seeing the best performing schools do even better, supporting others to do the same, being more ambitious for the schools which are doing a good job but which could do better and transforming those schools which are underperforming and currently not delivering the standard of education that their pupils and parents rightly expect. We believe that academies are an excellent mechanism for achieving those aims placing, as they do, school improvement at the forefront of their focus, and working in a flexible way to achieve that. This is an important Bill. I am grateful for the advice that I have received today from all sides of the House. I look forward to continuing these important discussions in Committee, for however long that takes. I commend the Bill to the House.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 8.45 pm.