House of Commons
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Oral Answers to Questions
(14 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
1. What plans he has to support the activities of local and regional media providers; and if he will make a statement.
Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
7. What plans he has for the future of regional news on channel 3.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
9. What plans he has for the future of regional news services; and if he will make a statement.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
13. What representations he has received on the future of local and regional media; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
It is a fundamental priority for this Government to reform the regulatory structure to allow the emergence of a new generation of local media companies, including high-quality local TV companies, which we have never properly had in this country, and I have already taken steps to make that happen.
Nigel Adams
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on local media. We have a great tradition of local newspapers in this country, including in my constituency the magnificent Selby Times, and not forgetting The Press and Wetherby News. Does he see such local papers playing a role in the development of local television stations?
Mr Hunt
I welcome my hon. Friend to his position, particularly given his background in the telecoms industry. I hope he can contribute to a discussion of that policy area, given his understanding of convergence between telecoms and broadcast technologies. He is absolutely right that this is not simply about the future of local television, but about the future of our struggling local newspaper sector. He mentioned in glowing terms his local newspapers, but the truth is that for everyone in this country local newspapers are incredibly important as a focus for community activities and in holding locally elected politicians to account. I hope that by relaxing the cross-media ownership rules at a local level, local newspapers such as the ones in his constituency can develop into multi-media operations across different technology platforms.
Miss Begg
What the Secretary of State just said flies in the face of the fact that one of his first decisions in government was to scrap the independently funded news consortiums that STV was depending on to deliver its news, which it finds increasingly expensive. STV is now very worried about the future of news, as are the people of Scotland, because we might be left with the BBC as the only pan-Scottish news deliverer on terrestrial television. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that STV can continue delivering news, and to ensure that a plurality of news is provided through terrestrial TV in Scotland?
Mr Hunt
I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that it is absolutely essential that we have a plurality of news provision. However, the previous Government’s policy in that respect was to have two state-funded regional news broadcasters in every part of the country, which I think is the wrong way to ensure plurality of provision. What has worked very well in British broadcasting is that we have some broadcasters funded by the licence fee, others by subscription, and others by advertising. That is what we need to look at, which is why we have a much more ambitious model. STV is obliged to continue broadcasting in Scotland under the terms of the licence until 2014. We need to make sure that new models are up and running by that time so that it is possible to go forward with proper plurality of news provision.
Emma Reynolds
Thousands of my constituents watch BBC’s “Midlands Today” and ITV’s “Central Tonight” news, and indeed, they read the most successful regional paper, the Express and Star. Given that the Government have scrapped independently funded news consortiums, what guarantee can the Secretary give me that ITV will continue to provide a quality regional news service for the west midlands?
Mr Hunt
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position—I believe that she also name-checked the Express and Star in her maiden speech. If we had Wolverhampton TV, she could name-check that as well, which she should welcome, because that is very much a part of the Government’s vision. ITV news providers are obliged to continue under the terms of their current licences until 2014, as I told the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg), so we have a window between now and then in which to allow for the emergence of a new generation of strong, profitable, ambitious and successful local media companies. We are doing that by modernising the regulatory framework, which unfortunately was not done by the previous Government, and which was set up in the pre-internet era. That is why so many local papers are struggling. I hope the hon. Lady supports our plans, because I think that they would be good for local papers in her area and for a new generation of TV companies.
Jason McCartney
May I welcome the Secretary of State and his Ministers to the Front Bench? As everybody else is doing this, may I also name-check my local newspaper, the Huddersfield Daily Examiner? As someone who used to work in ITV regional news, I know the importance that Ofcom attaches to vibrant local and regional media for local democracy. Bearing in mind the current economic climate, what definite plans does the Secretary of State have for ensuring that ITV regional news provides strong competition for BBC regional news?
Mr Hunt
I also welcome my hon. Friend, and particularly as someone whose background includes working both as an ITV broadcaster and as a BBC journalist, because BBC journalists have often tended to be represented more on another side of the House. The answer to his question is that we have to ensure that BBC news provision has competition. That is essential, although it is not necessarily the case that that competition must come from ITV; it might come from more local news providers. That is why the plans that we are putting forward will be so significant.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
I give a warm welcome to the Secretary of State and his colleagues in their new posts, but could he please explain to the House why he has allowed his Department to be downgraded, in that we have lost 15 minutes from our previously hour-long Question Time?
On regional news, is the reason why the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who is an excellent Member of this House, has been excluded from this Front-Bench team—indeed, why all Liberal Democrats have been excluded—that they agree with us on this question and not with the Secretary of State?
Mr Hunt
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for the courtesies that he extended to me when I was in his position and he was in mine. He will be amused to know that local newspapers from his area are still being delivered to my private office, because it takes some time to cancel the subscription. I would like now to give him a copy of the Western Morning News, in case he is missing it. Let me tell him that under this Government, my Department has not been downgraded; it has been upgraded, because we are now responsible for the Olympics, which we were not before.
Mr Bradshaw
The right hon. Gentleman might like to know that tickets to the Royal Opera House for him and his wife have been delivered to my home in London—tickets that I have been foolish enough to send back to the Department. However, given what he has just said about local and regional news, can he point to a single other European country—not America, where market conditions, including in the advertising markets, are completely different, as he knows—where his model flies?
Mr Hunt
I cannot, because no other country in the world is trying to allow the emergence of truly cross-platform multi-media local media operators in the way that we are envisaging. If we look at countries such as France and Germany, we see successful local TV stations in places such as Paris and Lyon. I would ask him why, when he was Secretary of State, he did nothing to progress proper local TV in this country, when it is something for which communities up and down the country are crying out.
Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)
2. What recent representations he has received on arrangements for the performance of live music in small venues.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
I welcome this question from my honourable colleague. He has been a long-term campaigner on this issue, and he makes an important point. He will know, because we have had discussions on the issue, that we are committed to moving as fast and as positively as we can towards better arrangements for the performance of live music in small venues. I hope to be able to make an announcement on that in due course. Specifically in answer to his question, we have received one representation from a Member of the House of Lords and one from a member of the public.
Mr Foster
I congratulate the Minister and all the Front-Bench team on their appointments. Let me say how delighted I am that the Minister has confirmed that this Government are pressing ahead to improve the position for live music performance in this country, and particularly in small venues. However, I hope that he will agree, first, that no further consultation is necessary, and secondly, that we need to make the case more effectively for more reliable and trusted data on the current position of live music in this country.
John Penrose
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the concerns about the quality of the data. I am told that the statistics produced by the Department are all compliant with Office for National Statistics guidelines, but there is a great deal of concern among live music performers in particular that although the data might be technically accurate, they do not represent the whole truth. However, if he or the industry has some specific examples of how they can be improved, I would be delighted to hear them.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his post. Britain’s rich musical culture is still inhibited by restrictions on performances in small venues. Would it not be more rational to impose limitations on the volume of music—on amplification and decibels—and not on the numbers of musicians, and on where and what they play?
John Penrose
The hon. Gentleman has made the point during questions before—and very accurately—that it depends not on the number of people playing but on the volume to which the amplification machinery is cranked up. He is absolutely right. One of the crucial points that needs to be examined is whether there is a noise-nuisance solution as opposed to a solution to do with the number of performers, and that is one of the options that we will be looking at going forward.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee—that there should be an exemption for smaller venues of a capacity below 200—was supported by the previous Government, who were intending to introduce a regulatory order to provide an exemption for venues of a capacity below 150, and that there was widespread disappointment that that was not done? Will he confirm that he sees no need for any further consultation and that he will move to introduce the necessary order as soon as possible?
John Penrose
My concern is that my hon. Friend’s proposal goes for a particular solution when there might be a broader and potentially more radical solution that should also be considered. If we go for other alternatives, we will need to consult on them, but if we decide to go down the route of ideas that have already been thoroughly canvassed, I would obviously want to move as fast as possible and reduce the level of consultation to the bare legal minimum.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
One thing that really irritates fans of live music, whether in large or small venues, is all too often having to pay £200, £300 or £400 on the secondary ticket market for a ticket that at face value costs only £20, and that none of the money goes either to the venue or to the artist. Will the Minister look again at the issue of secondary ticketing?
John Penrose
I would be delighted to entertain any suggestions that the hon. Gentleman might send me.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
3. Whether he plans to take steps to increase coverage of women's sport in the media.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
As the hon. Lady will realise, it is not for the Government to intervene in the editorial policy of individual media organisations. However, the Government can help through investment to promote women’s sports, as they have through London 2012—I remember the hon. Lady’s contribution to the Committee involved—the Whole Sport plans and the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation.
Jo Swinson
I thank the Minister for that reply. Research by the Women’ Sport and Fitness Foundation showed that 61% of girls find that watching successful sports stars inspires them to be more active, but while we have male sport stars all over our screens, there is far less coverage of women’s sport. Will the Government include some women’s sporting events on the free-to-air list to help promote female sporting role models to the nation’s girls?
Hugh Robertson
The answer is in two parts. We have called for independent economic analysis on the listed events review. That is due in the Department this week. We will look at that carefully before coming to any formal decision. I absolutely agree with what the hon. Lady says about the positive promotion of female role models through sport. London 2012 is a fantastic opportunity for that, and I very much welcome the decisions made about women’s boxing and the equalisation of events in cycling. That, I believe, is the way to move forward.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
I add my congratulations to the ministerial team on the Front Bench. It is good to know that the Government are to make a decision on the listed events—in the very near future, I hope. It is right that we have seen a massive increase in the number of sportswomen who have achieved success, and they have done that through bodies such as the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation. Can the Minister assure me that the funding for that organisation will continue? How can we have role models when the Government are doing things like cutting free swimming?
Hugh Robertson
Free swimming was, of course, a mass participation scheme, not an elite scheme, so it is completely different. As far as the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation is concerned, we will know after tomorrow’s Budget what the overall funding envelope will be and will then be able to make a decision about that scheme.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
4. What support his Department is giving to the Football Association’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
I know that, as this question is about the World cup, the whole House will want to wish Fabio Capello and the England team every success in the crucial match on Wednesday night. With your permission, Mr Speaker, as this is the first day of Wimbledon, we also wish Andy Murray, Laura Robson and all the British competitors success.
The 2018 World cup bid is an extraordinary opportunity for this country; the Government are wholly committed to it. The Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport and the Olympics and I have spoken to or met the FIFA executive committee members who will make the decision.
Dr Coffey
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. If I had not had the joy of being elected to this House, I would have been in South Africa right now, watching the games. [Hon. Members: “Ahh.”] I know it is sad, but I would rather be here representing. I hope to enjoy being able to watch the games here in 2018. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the people of England on their display of fervour for our team—including my local paper, the Evening Star, which for the World cup rebranded itself the “England Star”?
Mr Speaker
Order. We are making rather slow progress, but the question is about the 2018 World cup.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I am sure that the Minister is aware that Newcastle is one of the cities bidding for the 2018 World cup, and that it is immensely proud of its premiership football team. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that the supporters of teams such as Newcastle United—I should say that I am on its supporters trust—can take steps for the co-operative ownership of their football teams? Will he meet me to discuss the matter?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss that issue, which we are committed to exploring in a great deal more detail. If we win the 2018 World cup bid, Newcastle will be one of the successful host cities, which will be brilliant for her and fellow supporters of Newcastle United.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
5. What his policy is on the future of the national lottery; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his long-term interest in sports and local sports in his constituency. We will reform the lottery so that more money goes to arts, heritage and sport, and we will examine the case for moving to a gross profits tax. We will also stop wasteful spending, by banning lobbying activities by lottery distributors and by driving down their administration costs.
Mr Evennett
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for that response and I congratulate him on his appointment. I am sure that he will do a tremendous job. There have been concerns about the distribution of funds, however, and it has been alleged that the previous Government siphoned off funds from the national lottery to pay for their pet projects, with the result that some worthwhile groups have missed out. Will he assure us that the matter will be looked at, to ensure that the good causes and groups that need the funds actually get them?
John Penrose
Indeed, I can. As a result of the change in shares that will be introduced over the next two years, there will be £50 million more per year for each of the major groups of good causes—the arts, heritage and sport—from 2012.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
In his answer, the new Minister did not mention the Big Lottery Fund. It has contributed to many good causes across the country, including the Peter Pan special needs nursery in my constituency, which takes profoundly disabled children from birth. Will he give the House some comfort that that sort of cause will continue to be supported as he conducts his review?
John Penrose
I am delighted to make that commitment, although I cannot make promises for individual good causes, as that is rightly a question for individual lottery distributors. However, as a result of the share changes and tailing-off of the Olympic top slice from the lottery funders, the total available to voluntary and community sector organisations of the kind he mentions, within the Big Lottery Fund, should increase over the next two to three years in cash terms.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
6. What recent assessment he has made of the effects on the arts sector of the funding it receives from the national lottery; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
May I welcome my hon. Friend to these Benches and say what a delight it is to have such a distinguished author among us? I understand that her latest novel—
Mr Speaker
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman resume his seat? I do not want an essay at the start of a reply to a question. The hon. Gentleman will answer the question, and we will make do with that.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I say to the Minister that he should answer the question, and then we will move on?
Ms Bagshawe
I thank the Minister for his welcome. May I say to him that my constituents have been dismayed to see national lottery funding for the arts, sport and heritage cut by more than 50% under Labour? Will he expand a little on how he intends to return lottery funding to its original purpose, so that it will help grass-roots organisations in my constituency?
Mr Vaizey
I share my hon. Friend’s concern. In opposition, we campaigned against the cuts to national lottery funding imposed by the previous Government. I am delighted that we are bringing forward measures to increase the funding available for the arts from the national lottery: in two years’ time it will have increased by £50 million a year.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
The Minister will know that the Heritage Lottery Fund was a major contributor to the award-winning Wedgwood museum in Stoke-on-Trent. He will also know that, as a result of Pension Protection Fund legislation, the museum is in real danger of closure and threatened with a dispersal of its collection and archive. Will he meet my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and me, so that we can ensure that the Government have a proper solution to the impending court case?
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
8. What steps he is taking to maximise the sporting legacy of the London 2012 Olympics.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
We have restored lottery funding to 20% of good causes money for sport, which will be of enormous benefit to community sports projects and the encouragement of competitive sport in schools.
Mr Thomas
Given that the Olympic stadium was built in substantial part with the taxes of Londoners, can the Secretary of State assure me that as part of negotiations with any London premiership team over its future use, as a key part of the sporting legacy of the Olympics, he will ensure that a representative of the football supporters trust will be on the board of any such team using the stadium in the future?
Mr Hunt
We are strongly in favour of supporters’ trusts being set up and represented on the boards of football teams, and of the presence of a football element in the legacy of the 2012 stadium. Most of all, however, we want to ensure that there is a sporting legacy that touches every school in the country, whether or not it is within travelling distance of the big Olympic venues.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
A strong start can lead to the greatest of legacies. May I ask the Secretary of State whether the torch can come to Britain via Dover?
Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State and his colleagues to the Front Bench. As I think the right hon. Gentleman will recognise, the achievement and ambition of the sporting legacy for the Olympics are widely acclaimed and appreciated by the International Olympic Committee. There has been sustained investment in sport in schools, an improvement in facilities, the introduction of free swimming, an unprecedented level of investment in elite sport, and lottery funding from more than just the sports lottery. A signal has already been sent that free swimming is to be abandoned. Will the Secretary of State give us a commitment that the sporting legacy—so clearly in place and so widely acclaimed—will be protected?
Mr Hunt
Let me take this opportunity to thank the right hon. Lady for her outstanding contribution to the Olympic project to date. I hope that she will be able to continue to contribute as the project reaches its final two years. I must tell her, however—while expressing the greatest respect for her efforts—that although some elements of a sporting legacy were in place, we do not believe that enough was in place. I am thinking particularly of the creation of a sporting legacy in schools throughout the country. We very much hope that we will be able to work with the right hon. Lady to ensure that every child in every school in the country is able to be touched by, and be part of, the Olympic dream, not just in 2012 but in every year thereafter.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
10. What recent discussions he has had with representatives of business organisations in Wales on measures to ensure a positive legacy for the private sector in Wales from the London 2012 Olympics.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
The Olympic Delivery Authority has met over 10,000 businesses as part of its engagement programme across the United Kingdom. To date, 10 businesses registered in Wales have won work supplying the ODA, and more are winning work in its supply chains, including one— B and W Tunnelling—in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Indeed. I welcome the Minister to his post. Does he agree that the Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius”—swifter, higher, stronger—should apply not only to constituents of mine such as David Guest, who at the age of 20 has just become the highest-achieving decathlete apart from Daley Thompson, but to private companies such as Turfgrass Enterprises Ltd, which provided the turf for the Beijing Olympics? What more can he to do encourage excellence in the Welsh private sector?
Hugh Robertson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his positive words about the process. The short answer is that the Olympic Delivery Authority has devoted a huge amount of time to taking the message around the country and encouraging firms to bid for contracts, and the organising committee is about to go through exactly the same process. I hope that he and other Members across the House will encourage firms in their constituencies to get involved. This is not a matter of party political difference: it is a huge opportunity for everybody and I encourage him and others to take it up.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
11. What steps he plans to take to encourage young people to participate in sporting activity.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
Increasing opportunities for young people through sport is one of my personal, top priorities. We have already announced an increased lottery share of 20% to sport to finance that, and further details of the Government’s plans for young people’s sport, including a schools’ Olympic-style competitive sport competition and a community sports legacy plan, will be announced shortly.
John Robertson
I thank the Minister for his answer, but I am somewhat confused. He has said, while chopping free swimming for under-16s and over-60s, that 73% of under-16s and 83% of over-60s would pay because they already swim, but his Department says that more than 50% of the people who use free swimming were non-swimmers before they started. Where does that lie in relation to the answer he has just given?
Hugh Robertson
Very simply, like any Department, we have to establish that any scheme that we run gives value for money. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report, established under the previous Government in April 2009, shows—
Hugh Robertson
No; they are PricewaterhouseCoopers’ figures, so they are not mine at all. The figures show that there is an 83% dead weight, and that does not, I am afraid, represent value for money.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
What plans does the Minister have to promote sport between schools?
Hugh Robertson
That is an extremely good question—[Interruption.] The Opposition should try asking it themselves. Promoting competitive sport in schools is absolutely this Government’s key legacy objective for school sport. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is taking the lead in the Department’s initiative in that regard and he will make an important announcement about it next Monday.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that the schoolchildren of Shirebrook are only too anxious to help the sporting legacy of Britain on a brand new playing field, but unfortunately it is linked to the Building Schools for the Future programme. Will he ensure that it is built this year, so that we will have a sports field as well?
Hugh Robertson
We will do everything possible to ensure that sports facilities are built up and down the country. That is a key part of the community sports legacy plan that we are working on. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot today, before the Budget, give him a firm commitment on Building Schools for the Future, but the direction of Government strategy, and of this Department’s in particular, is very clear.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
12. What recent estimate he has made of the future level of demand for FM radio.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
No estimate has been made of the future level of demand for FM radio, which will depend on a number of factors. However, FM radio remains a popular medium and currently plays an important part in UK life.
Sir Alan Beith
Is my hon. Friend aware that there are more than 100 million FM radios, enabling people to enjoy music and speech in their cars, in the various rooms of their houses and on their hi-fi equipment? It would be a tragedy if all that were switched off simply because even the majority of homes had bought one digital radio.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
14. What steps he plans to take to reduce the level of ticket touting at major sporting and music events.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
The Government have no plans to extend existing legislation covering the resale of tickets. However, those protections are in place under the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 and under most legislation involving major sports events.
Mrs Hodgson
I am sure the Minister is aware that it is increasingly difficult for genuine sports, music and theatre fans to buy tickets, especially at the last minute, and even within days of tickets going on sale. He says that there is coverage for the Olympics, but does he agree that this cover should be extended? Does he agree that we should consider introducing legislation to tackle the practice of buying tickets in bulk and selling them to people at huge profits, as that takes the price of tickets totally out of some people’s reach?
Hugh Robertson
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. Indeed, I looked at the issue in view of quite a lot of the work that was bequeathed to us by the previous Administration. There is a practical problem relating to the police. I am afraid that it is very rare that ticket touts ever come to court, even when the police catch them, because the amount of police time involved in bringing the prosecution makes that very unlikely. I think that the previous Administration adopted the correct approach, which is to encourage a much more vibrant secondary ticket sale market and much more vibrant exchange market, so that fans who buy tickets but cannot attend the event can readily exchange them.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Does the Minister agree with the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport in the previous Parliament, which found that the secondary market for tickets was perfectly legitimate, and with the Office of Fair Trading, which found that it often works in the consumer’s best interests?
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
16. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on the introduction of single and double summer time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
I am delighted to confirm that, in line with my hon. Friend’s long campaign and, indeed, with the support of both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party when it was in government, we are committed to examining this issue tremendously carefully, and I have already had conversations with my opposite numbers at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Mr Ellwood
Today is the longest day, and no one needs to be a visitor to Stonehenge or, indeed, a great reader of the Bournemouth Echo to realise that this is a very popular move that has cross-party support. Does my hon. Friend agree that the tourism industry at least would like such a change? Indeed, it has been calling for it for a number of years.
John Penrose
I agree that the tourism industry would like such a change, but some people have very grave and important concerns that we would do well to listen to as well. Notably, people who live in the north of the UK, particularly in the northern parts of Scotland, are deeply worried about the issue, and we need to ensure that we take their valid concerns into account.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
In my first month as Secretary of State, I have established key priorities for my Department, including boosting philanthropy to the arts and culture, introducing a network of new local TV companies, promoting super-fast broadband, creating an Olympic tourism legacy for 2012 and setting up an Olympic-style school sports competition, and we have made good progress in all areas.
Stephen Hammond
I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place; I am delighted to see him there. He will obviously be aware that a school tennis tournament is taking place in my constituency this fortnight. He will also be aware of the Davies review of listed events. Will he please ensure that the Davies review’s proposal to alter the status of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which both the Lawn Tennis Association and the All England Club have decried as affecting investment in grass-roots sport, will be looked at by his Department before it proceeds?
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
We have heard a bit about the legacy for sport in the Olympics, but in my constituency we are seeking the legacy of skills post-2012. What discussions is the Secretary of State having with other Departments, because decisions taken by his Department now could have a major impact on the legacy delivered by others after 2012?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. Indeed, it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) in this regard. Someone told me about a month or so on from the election that, in terms of the greater legacy, it is not that nothing is happening but that we have possibly not got it into the right sort of story that people can understand. We are looking at all the different components of the legacy. We are working out how best to bring them together, and we will certainly take on board the points that the hon. Lady raises.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
T2. I welcome the recent speech given by the Secretary of State on improving internet access right across our country, especially in rural areas. That is particularly welcome to my constituents in Suffolk who suffer from not-spots and slow spots. Will he meet me particularly to discuss the fact that fibre optics are available across parts of our country, but they have been paid for by the state, and there are concerns that European state-aid rules are blocking access to something that could be used to the benefit of people right across our country?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I completely take on board the point that she makes. Indeed, I have raised it with officials. My understanding is that this is a grey area on which local authorities need some clarity.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Earlier, the Minister claimed that free swimming did not represent value for money, but in Wythenshawe, where many people are at the wrong end of health inequality, there has been a 56% increase in the use of the local pool by young people. Where is the value in cutting a scheme that helps to keep them healthy?
Hugh Robertson
I think that I said, when the figures were announced at the end of last week, that the scheme was a luxury that we could no longer afford. The fact remains—[Interruption.] I could get political about this. [Interruption.] Okay; right. One might ask some questions about a Government who, as the main plank of their sports legacy, approve a scheme that, when independently audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, is shown to have an 83% dead-weight figure.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
T3. In the careful discussion of the summer time issue that the Minister mentioned, will he bear in mind not only the needs of northern Britain, but the unacceptability of a time zone boundary at Berwick, despite the potential advantage of my being able to arrive at my daughter’s house at a time before I had set out?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
Such a thing would never do. I am happy to confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that the issue is not a delegated matter; it is therefore the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and we agree that it should stay that way.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Why did the Secretary of State not put in his manifesto that he was planning to axe free swimming for under-16s and pensioners?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
We did not put that in our manifesto, but why did the hon. Gentleman’s party not put in its manifesto that it had £50 billion of uncosted spending commitments? If his party wants schemes such as free swimming, which in principle we like, the best thing that it could do is have a sustainable financial basis for this country.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
T4. The Secretary of State was right to refer to the football World cup and the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which are taking place at the moment. May I remind him of the sport that attracts the second highest number of spectators in the country—horse racing? It continues to produce a magnificent sporting product, including the Cheltenham gold cup in my constituency and Royal Ascot, which was last week, but horse racing does not get the publicity that it deserves. Is there anything that the Secretary of State can do to help it to increase its profile, because it has many good—
Mr Speaker
Order. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that races must come to an end.
Hugh Robertson
Despite the fact that horse racing does not directly fall into my brief, I can answer my hon. Friend’s question, for the simple reason that many of the races that attract the largest television audiences are, of course, part of the listed events review. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, we have called for an independent economic analysis and are looking through it at the moment, and we hope to make an announcement at the beginning of July.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
MPs from all parts of the House attended a seminar convened by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on race hate and the internet. What is the next stage for the Department in this important initiative?
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
T5. As we seek to host the World cup, will the Minister ensure that FIFA focuses less on excluding women in orange dresses, and more on including ordinary spectators, who are increasingly priced out of watching the beautiful game?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent question. He is absolutely right that the great opportunity in hosting an event such as the World cup is the opportunity for people to go to these hugely exciting events who may otherwise not have the opportunity to do so. We talked about that to FIFA, and the big strength of our bid is that it will mean that 4.5 million more people play football; that every girl in the country gets the opportunity to play it; and that we have a disability football centre set up. So there are huge strengths in getting more people involved in the game.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently say to Ministers that while it is absolutely understandable that they look behind them, they must face the House? Otherwise, they are not as widely heard as they might be.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Cycling fans like me will be glued to the television over the next few weeks, cheering on Britain’s competitors in the Tour de France. With more road races in this country being cancelled than ever before as a result of out-of-date regulations and other problems associated with police support and the rest of it, will the Secretary of State or the Minister with responsibility for sport, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), meet representatives from British Cycling and me, and make ironing out those problems their top priority?
Hugh Robertson
Not only can I give the hon. Gentleman that undertaking now, but I have already given it; British Cycling wrote to me as soon as I was appointed—it was a very nice letter, as he would expect—and asked if it could come and meet me to discuss exactly that issue.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
T6. Would the Secretary of State be good enough to update the House on plans and preparations for the diamond jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen in 2012?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that, after questions, I have a meeting with the Queen’s private secretary to progress discussions in that very area.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
It is 15 years since the publication of the Bannister report, which looked at the vital role played by student sport in the Commonwealth games, which Glasgow will host, the London Olympics and the future World cup. What plan does the Secretary of State have for a second Bannister report to develop student sport?
Hugh Robertson
I have not had the chance to do so since becoming Minister, but in the five years in which I shadowed this brief in opposition, I met a number of university sports groups, although none of them asked me for a new review. What they wanted was a higher profile for their sport and increased opportunities. With London 2012, we have a magnificent opportunity, when this country’s sport is in the eye of the world, to do precisely that.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
T7. My constituency of Kingswood in Greater Bristol is excellently served by the Bristol Evening Post, whose local reporters are well established and can get into the issues that matter to the local community, particularly people who do not often use the internet to get their news. Will the Minister assure us that we can support local print media better?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
The best way for us to support local print media is by not constraining them with regulations that prevent them from evolving new business models that work in the digital age. Those are exactly the plans on which my colleagues and I are working right now.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Will the Secretary of State commit his Government to pursuing the measures agreed in the Digital Economy Act 2010, or will he take advice from the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who rejected the measure with his hon. Friends and now have it as Liberal Democrat policy to repeal large sections of it?
Mr Hunt
The Act remains on the statute books, and it will be implemented. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the next stage, when Ofcom may decide to suspend connections, requires a decision by the Government. Parliament has to be consulted in that process. We will look at the progress of the earlier measures before deciding whether to proceed to that critical next stage.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
1. What recent discussions he has had on the establishment of a Backbench Business Committee.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will know, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House heard the views of hon. Members from all parts of the House in the debate last Tuesday.
Chris Bryant
I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has been set up, and pay tribute to the Minister and to his colleague for doing so. Something that can be immensely frustrating for Back Benchers is having to take a ten-minute Bill or a private Member’s Bill through the ludicrous shenanigans of a Friday morning. Will the Minister undertake to make sure that private Members’ Bills are looked at by the Committee, so that we consider them on a Wednesday evening, for the greater convenience of all hon. Members?
Mr Heath
Again, as the hon. Gentleman may know, that was debated last Tuesday. We all share the frustrations of having private Members’ legislation blocked in the extraordinary procedure that we use in the House for such legislation. The Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), suggested that he wished to look at the whole process of private Members’ legislation, and I hope that his Committee can do so as a high priority. We will certainly keep in touch with that Committee and with the Backbench Business Committee in the hope of finding a better way of doing that particular area of business.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
2. If he will bring forward proposals to introduce low-cost LED lighting across the House of Commons part of the parliamentary estate.
Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough)
Several trials of LED technology have been undertaken in the House of Commons, and LED lighting has been installed in the upper Committee corridor, the Commons Library, the Lower Waiting Hall, the New Palace Yard turnstiles and other places. Following those trials, we have included further installations of LED lamps in Parliament’s low-energy lighting programme, such as at 1 Parliament Street and Derby Gate stairwells.
Mr Hollobone
I welcome the progress made by the House authorities. Given the fact that LED lighting uses just 5% of the electricity used by normal bulbs, hardly ever needs to be replaced, and contains no mercury, so it can be recycled very healthily, have they given any consideration to lighting Big Ben with LED technology?
Sir Stuart Bell
That is an intriguing question so early in the parliamentary Session, and one that the Commission would be happy to look into. As the hon. Gentleman knows, incandescent lighting on the parliamentary estate has been gradually replaced with lower energy lighting over the past five years. The majority of these replacements have occurred during routine lamp changes. Due to the size and complexity of the estate, detailed records of light bulbs are not kept and the proportion of low-energy lamps is not known. However, on the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, we keep developments in lighting technology under review and we will adopt low-energy solutions as they become available.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
3. What proposals he plans to put to the House for the pattern of sittings of the House for the rest of 2010 and 2011.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The House has already agreed to a sitting in September this year. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I would welcome Members’ views on how the pattern of sittings should be organised.
Simon Hughes
May I make an early bid for a pattern of fixed and family-friendly sittings that allows colleagues to be away some time for school holidays in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as in England, and that gives us an annual regular cycle, with the wash-up at the end of the Session in September before the conferences, and a fixed date for the start of the parliamentary year every October?
Mr Heath
I recognise the issue of Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish school holidays. Different local education authorities have different term dates, so it would be impossible to align the sittings of the House completely with the school terms, but I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. There is a case for a more fundamental review of the annual sitting patterns of the House.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman also take into account the extra-curricular activities of MPs of the better kind, such as contributing to VSO overseas? I have reluctantly cancelled a two-week engagement with VSO this summer because of the uncertainty. It is undoubtedly the case that the additional activities that MPs undertake—for example, on promoting workers’ rights overseas—are to be protected. Will the hon. Gentleman take that into account as well, in looking at how we manage our timetable?
Mr Heath
I am not sure that we can guarantee to protect the timetable for all the extra-curricular activities of hon. Members, but the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. We indicated at the earliest opportunity what we would be doing this summer, but hon. Members want a degree of certainty about the parliamentary calendar, so far as that is possible. I hope the hon. Gentleman will contribute to the review that we will set up to look at that.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
4. What steps he plans to take to increase the confidence of the general public in the House of Commons.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)
We will bring forward powers for public petitions to trigger debates in the House of Commons and to initiate legislation, and we will introduce a new public reading stage for Bills. The House has also voted for significant new powers to hold the Government to account through the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee.
John Robertson
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his answer, and a good answer it was too. Does he agree that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has been a bit of a shambles? We brought it in without thinking about it. Can we make sure that there is consultation with Members and staff, to ensure that the reputation of the House is upheld, rather than the way it is at present?
Sir George Young
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, and I know that a number of colleagues have had difficulties in accessing the system. The whole purpose of allowances is to facilitate and enable MPs to represent their constituents and hold the Government to account. I am considering whether we can have a proper channel of communication between the House and IPSA to get a sensible dialogue under way. I hope he welcomes the announcement a few days ago that there will be a review of the scheme later this year.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Since the start of this Parliament, the coalition Government have repeatedly ignored the House of Commons when making major policy announcements, thus avoiding scrutiny in the Chamber. There have also been some major leaks. Today we have the BBC announcing that the Chancellor will freeze council tax in the Budget, and the Department of Health announced major changes to the NHS operating framework to the media hours before a written ministerial statement on those changes. The Government’s discourtesy also means that copies of statements are delivered late to the Opposition Front Bench, often with only minutes to spare. Will the right hon. Gentleman, who I think believes that good scrutiny leads to good government, assure us that statements will be made first to the House and not to the media, and that the Opposition Front-Bench team will receive a copy of the statement at least an hour before it is delivered?
Sir George Young
Of course, statements should be delivered to the Opposition on time, and during the last Parliament Opposition spokesmen did receive copies of statements later than they should have, but I wholeheartedly reject the hon. Lady’s allegation about statements. By the end of today, Ministers will have made no fewer than 10 statements since the Queen’s Speech, and I think that she will find that that is a higher strike rate than was achieved by the last Government. Of course, the House should be the first place to hear of any changes in Government policy.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
5. If he will assess the merits of providing the House with provisional information on its business for more than two weeks in advance.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to deal for a second with future engagements, in offering my congratulations to my hon. Friends the Members for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) on their announcement at the weekend of their coalition arrangements.
I can see that there would be advantages to hon. Members in announcing the business further in advance, but decisions about the business for three or four weeks’ time is usually too provisional to be helpful to the House.
Jo Swinson
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words.
Most other workplaces manage to make some plans more than two weeks in advance, albeit on the understanding that sometimes plans have to change. Publishing greater information about future business would help hon. Members to manage their time more effectively and lead to a better functioning of the House. Will he consider experimenting with more advance notice about the business of the House?
Mr Heath
I certainly agree with the principle that my hon. Friend sets out, but this place is not quite like other places in that business on the Floor of the House is subject to many factors, including the progress of business in Committee and in another place, and decision making within Government. It is not always possible to schedule business with any certainty more than two weeks in advance, and there is a risk that providing the House with very provisional information that is subject to change could frustrate rather than inform hon. Members in their diary planning. In addition, we always seek to be topical, and that might be lost if we planned too far ahead. However, I certainly take my hon. Friend’s point.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
6. What his policy is on the use of programme motions to regulate proceedings on legislation; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The Government intend to provide adequate time for consideration of Bills on Report, when the most serious problems occurred in the last Parliament.
Philip Davies
The Minister and I regularly used to vote against the previous Government’s routine use of programme motions in the last Parliament. What will be different about this Government, so that we do not have the situation where people in opposition complain about programme motions, but in government routinely use them?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman remembers well what happened in the last Parliament, when very often huge parts of Bills were not considered by the House, which was a disgrace. What will be different is that there will be fewer Bills, better drafted Bills and an end to the automatic guillotine of the Report stage. However, that depends on all parts of the House having a grown-up attitude to how we consider business. [Interruption.] I hear the grown-up attitude evinced by Opposition Members.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Is not the answer to remove timetabling, or at least relax it, so that it no longer strangles debate in the House? For years now, Bills have gone through with very little debate on key parts. The answer is to go back to a time before the Jopling proposals, when we had full and free debate, and when the House could sit as late as was necessary.
Mr Heath
This is the first opportunity that I have had to welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the House. I am very pleased to see him here.
Yes, we want to ensure that the bits of Bills that need longer scrutiny receive that scrutiny, and that we have a sensible dialogue with all Members of the House—the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee will help us in non-legislative areas—to ensure that the House has its say on matters about which it is concerned, and that we do not waste time on areas where no one has a genuine interest. That is what I mean when I talk about a grown-up way of looking at the business of the House. Let us hope we get it.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
7. What recent representations he has received on the process for Ministers making oral statements in the House.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
A number of Members have raised issues surrounding ministerial statements in the House in recent weeks. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I are always happy to continue to take representations on that and other issues.
Mark Tami
When in opposition, the Deputy Leader of the House, like his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, was very concerned about the leaking of statements, the overuse of written statements and the lack of advance notice that was given to shadow Ministers. When will the hon. Gentleman and his colleague practise what they preach?
Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
8. What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the implications for the House of the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference on parliamentary representation.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The Government wholeheartedly agree that we should take all the steps that we can to increase diversity in Parliament, and that there is a real need to make political parties reflective of the communities that they serve. We are considering the Speaker’s Conference report and recommendations very carefully as we develop policies and agree priorities. As part of our coalition agreement, we have already made an early commitment to introduce extra support for disabled people who want to become MPs, councillors or other elected officials—one recommendation of the Speaker’s Conference.
Diana R. Johnson
Women now make up 22% of the House—notably, the majority are Labour Members. At the start of a new Government, perhaps we ought to look at the issue with fresh eyes, so will the Deputy Leader of the House look again at the over-representation of middle-aged, middle-class white men in the House?
Mr Heath
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have to say that my party is, very sadly, under-represented in terms of women in the House, and we deeply regret that. The ministerial responsibility for the issue lies with the Minister for Women and Equalities, and I hope that she will make very swift progress on bringing proposals before the House.
Free Schools Policy
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education to make a statement on the free schools policy, which was announced in a press notice on Friday 18 June.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for this opportunity to update the House on our progress on reducing bureaucracy in the schools system, giving more power to front-line professionals and accelerating the academies programme, which was begun with such distinction under Lord Adonis and Tony Blair.
During the Queen’s Speech debate, I outlined in detail our plans to extend academy freedoms. I mentioned then that we had more than 1,000 expressions of interests from existing schools. I can now update the House by confirming that more than 1,700 schools have expressed an interest in acquiring academy freedoms, with more than 70% of outstanding secondary schools contacting my Department—a remarkable and heartening display of enthusiasm by front-line professionals for our plans. As I have explained before, every new school acquiring academy freedoms will be expected to support at least one faltering or coasting school to improve. We are liberating the strong to help the weak—a key principle behind the coalition Government.
As well as showing enthusiasm for greater academy freedoms in existing schools, teachers are enthusiastic about the opportunities, outlined in our coalition agreement, to create more great new schools in areas of disadvantage. More than 700 expressions of interest in opening new free schools have been received by the charitable group the New Schools Network, and the majority of them have come from serving teachers in the state school system who want greater freedom to help the poorest children do better.
That action is all the more vital, because we inherit from the previous Government a schools system that was as segregated and as stratified as any in the developed world. In the most recent year for which we have figures, out of a school cohort of 600,000, 80,000 children were in homes entirely reliant on benefits, and of those 80,000 children only 45 made it to Oxbridge—less than 0.1% and, tellingly, fewer than those who made it from the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition.
Given that scale of underachievement, it is no surprise that so many idealistic teachers want to start new schools, such as those American charter schools backed by President Obama, which have closed the achievement gap between black and white children. In order to help teachers do here what has been achieved in America, we announced last week that we would recreate the standards and diversity fund for schools, started by Tony Blair and abandoned under his successor. We are devoting to that fund £50 million saved from low-priority IT spending—less than 1% of all capital spending allocated for this year—and we are sweeping away the bureaucracy that stands in the way of new school creation, with the reform of planning laws and building regulations.
Five years ago, the then Prime Minister said outside this House:
“What we must see now is a system of independent state schools, underpinned by fair admissions and fair funding, where teachers are equipped and enabled to drive improvement, driven by the aspirations of parents.
We have pushed higher standards from the centre: for those standards to be maintained and built upon, they must now become self-sustaining to provide irreversible change for the better.”
That is the challenge that Mr Blair laid down, and this coalition Government intend to meet it.
Ed Balls
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for coming to the House, because his free school policy raises important issues of funding, fairness and standards—and it should not have been smuggled out in a Friday morning press statement. I should also say that Lord Hill has written to my colleagues in the other place confirming that the Academies Bill will, in fact, be enabling legislation for free schools. The Secretary of State should have the courtesy to inform this House, and those on the Opposition Front Bench, of his plans in that regard.
On funding, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm not only that his free school policy will establish a free market in school places, in which parents will be encouraged to set up taxpayer-funded new schools at will, but that he has secured no new money at all from the Treasury to pay for it? Will he confirm that he is using savings from cutting free school lunches for poorer children to fund his announced £50 million of start-up support, and that that is a drop in the ocean compared with the billions involved in the actual cost of his new policy?
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm Professor David Woods’s finding that the proposal for a new parent-promoted school in Kirklees would
“have a negative impact on other schools in the area in the form of surplus places and an adverse effect on revenue and capital budgets”?
The question is whether existing schools will see their budgets cut and lose teachers to pay for the new schools, and whether the Building Schools for the Future programme is now on hold to fund his new free schools policy. On fairness, does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Swedish Schools Minister that
“free schools are generally attended by children of better educated and wealthy families making things even more difficult for children attending ordinary schools in poor areas”?
How will he ensure that the losers from the budget cuts will not be the children of middle and lower-income families?
It is important that the right hon. Gentleman should answer this question. Has he put in place clear safeguards to stop existing private schools from simply reopening as free schools, with taxpayers taking over the payment of school fees? On standards, can he confirm that since the Swedish free schools policy was introduced, England has risen to the top of the TIMMS—Trends in Mathematics and Science Study—league table in maths and science, but Sweden has plummeted to the bottom?
Will the Secretary of State amend the Academies Bill to prevent parents from delegating the entire management of free schools to profit-making companies? Alternatively, can we look forward, as in Sweden, to the grotesque chaos of private companies scuttling around the country touting to parents, saying that they will set up a new school for them, and make a profit, at the expense of the taxpayer and other children’s education?
Michael Gove
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. May I seek to put his mind at rest? He asked whether the Academies Bill created the provision for the creation of free schools. I confirm now, as I confirmed during the Queen’s Speech debate, that it absolutely does. He specifically asked about free school meals and their funding. It is interesting that he should have asked that, because when he was at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, he did not secure the funding for the extension of free school meals; in fact, figures from the Treasury confirm that that was an underfunded promise, which raised the hopes of the poor without the cash being there to sustain it. It was a cynical pre-election manoeuvre, typical of the right hon. Gentleman.
I confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that under no circumstances will I take for the free schools programme money intended to extend free school meals to poor children. That money will go towards raising attainment among the poorest children. I rejected the idea that the right hon. Gentleman has attempted to advance. As I pointed out in my statement and on Friday, the money for the programme comes from low-priority IT projects. If he had simply read the press statement, rather than relying on unsubstantiated and unsourced reports, he would know that.
If the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about saving money and making economies, may I ask him this? Two weeks ago, I wrote to him asking whether he would help us to find economies in the education budget by releasing the Handover report, which he commissioned when he was in office to try to find economies in the schools budget. If he is serious about bearing down on costs and greater efficiency, will he now confirm that he will allow us to read that secret report on saving money? His silence is eloquent in itself.
The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to refer to the words of the Swedish Schools Minister, Mr Bertil Östberg. Let me just say that the Swedish Schools Minister—[Interruption.] What a tongue twister that was. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, Swedish is a language, particularly given the diminution in the number of people studying modern languages under his Government, that fewer and fewer people can translate properly. He clearly cannot, because the Swedish Schools Minister said that the article from which Labour are quoting was
“very biased. It is taken out of context…I have not warned the British Government against introducing Free Schools. I clearly said to the newspaper that the Swedish Free Schools are here to stay and that is something positive”.
All the academic evidence from Sweden shows that more free schools mean higher standards. All schools improve when the number of free schools increases. A second study found that in a given municipality, the higher the proportion of free schools, the more standards rise all round. The evidence not only from Swedish free schools but from American charter schools shows that such schools help to close the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest children. It is that innovation in the cause of social mobility that lay behind the original academies programme introduced under Tony Blair, traduced by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), and brought back under a reforming coalition Government.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Secretary of State, but just as a point of clarification—because we must not mislead the public—Ministers do not ask questions but answer them. It would be wrong to give people the impression that the shadow Secretary of State has a right to come back to the Dispatch Box during this exchange. He has not—he has had his say—and we must not mislead people to the contrary.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
Has the Secretary of State had a chance to meet people from the neighbourhood school campaign in my constituency, who have already made considerable progress towards the establishment of a new secondary school in Wandsworth—a campaign that I note that the shadow Secretary of State supported prior to the election?
Michael Gove
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I have had an opportunity to meet that idealistic group of parents, and others in Wandsworth. I want to pay tribute to Mr Ron Rooney, Mr Jon De Maria and the other members of the group, who have done so much. My hon. Friend is right: the right hon. Gentleman was warm towards that group when he was in government. Warmth towards the group has also been extended by the local authority—Wandsworth borough council—and its leader, Edward Lister. Like so many other local authorities, it has warmly welcomed this initiative to introduce pluralism, diversity and high quality in the state education system.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that admissions policy is at the heart of any policy in terms of opening up schools to pupils in a fair way? Does he have any plans to change the admissions code or the power behind it that ensures that it works?
Michael Gove
I intend to ensure that all free schools and all academies continue to abide by the existing admissions code, that all schools that are currently comprehensive remain comprehensive, and that schools are as inclusive as possible.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
What can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that free schools can be set up quickly and easily in places such as Reading, where they will prove very popular indeed?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I know how committed he is to improving education in Reading and elsewhere. We are ensuring that we reform the building regulations that hold schools back at the moment. Under the previous Government, we saw the absurdity of schools having to measure the distance between cycle racks before they could go ahead with construction; unless that was between 600 mm and 1 metre, the school could not be built. It is that sort of absurd, pettifogging, centralising bureaucracy that we need to sweep away so that money goes where it needs to go—towards the front line and towards children in Reading and elsewhere.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
If the funding for academies and free schools is to come from the cancellation of low-priority IT schemes, does that mean that the Secretary of State is firmly committed to the Building Schools for the Future programmes and other financial support that was promised in my constituency to tackle the shortage of school places that exists, not only in primary and secondary schools?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I know that in Camden, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat-led council has been working incredibly hard to ensure that there are sufficient school places. I am grateful to her for her support for that programme, and to University College London for doing so much to help to support an academy. We are doing everything we can to ensure that we guarantee school places for children in Camden.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Will the Secretary of State apply a wider interest or public interest test when considering applications for free schools, and can he guarantee that he will give due consideration to local authorities’ views, whether they be favourable or unfavourable?
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for announcing the number of schools that have expressed an interest in the project. Will he publish the list of schools so that we can see what the national picture is, and will he explain why not, if there is a problem with doing that?
Michael Gove
I am talking to all those schools now to ensure that we can all have as much information as possible about those that have expressed an interest, so that we can celebrate their moves towards greater independence.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend tell us what discussions he has been having with teachers? I believe that it was teachers who were the driving force behind the charter school movement in America.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One of the most heartening things has been the enthusiasm that teachers have shown for our extension of academy freedoms. Just last Friday I was talking to Jodie King, an inspirational assistant head teacher in Ealing who wants to set up a free school, and I have spoken to the Sutton Trust, which represents the interests of teachers who are keen to promote social mobility, and which wants to see free schools established.
I have talked to Mr Heath Monk, the head of Future Leaders, the programme that has done more than any other to encourage great young people to become head teachers, and found that it wants its alumni to support the extension of the free schools programme. I was also able to talk to Brett Wigdortz and a number of Teach First alumni, all of whom want to join in extending the free schools programme. That is all on top of the more than 2,000 head teachers to whom I spoke at the conference of the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services last week, who gave me a cordial response.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State tell me how many free schools he anticipates will open in converted shops?
Michael Gove
I hope that the schools will be set up in a variety of new buildings—[Interruption]—and in some old buildings as well. If we examine what has happened in Sweden, for example, we see that many new schools have opened in libraries, disused university buildings and observatories. They are model buildings, but I am sure we all agree that the most important thing about education is the quality of teaching and learning. That is why the enthusiasm of the teaching profession for the changes that we are making is so hot.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Could my right hon. Friend tell me what measures he will take to prevent the loss of land usable for education and schools, which we have seen over the past decade, so that free schools can be set up on the land of schools that have closed down?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We are taking steps to ensure that D1 land, on which schools are built, remains there for school buildings and is not used for commercial reasons.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that he will not at any time during the course of this Parliament use financial or political pressure to push schools into applying for free school status?
Michael Gove
I absolutely can. The legislation will be permissive, which is why it is so important that we rely on the enthusiasm and idealism of teachers to push it forward.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I used to be an education barrister, and my last case, in March 2010, was on behalf of the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. It was probably his last ever success.
Does the Secretary of State see a place for rural schools in Northumberland receiving proper funding in future, as they have been underfunded for so very long?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood was lucky to have had such an effective brief to act on his behalf.
I appreciate that in Northumberland, as my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) have pointed out, there are real problems with the state of the fabric of school buildings. One problem that we had with the Building Schools for the Future programme in the past was that far too often money did not reach the front line with sufficient speed. Local authorities had to spend an average of £7 million each before a single brick was laid or builder contracted. That degree of waste and bureaucracy was scandalous, and we will end it.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give us an assurance that when a successful primary or secondary school wishes to pursue Government policies, the Government will support it even if the local authority decides not to do so for ideological or other reasons?
Michael Gove
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s support. We will do everything possible to support teachers, just as I know she would wish.
Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)
Given the Secretary of State’s very welcome assurance that before a free school or an academy is agreed to, the wider public interest test and the views of the local education authority will be considered, does he believe that in addition there may be a role for the schools adjudicators to evaluate areas of concern?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point. I know that he, as someone who used to lead for the Liberal Democrats on education, is particularly concerned about the impact of changes on his area of Bath and North East Somerset. We have had fruitful conversations about the position in that local authority, and I hope that we will continue to have such constructive conversations.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Secretary of State tell us the position of the national curriculum in those so-called free schools? Do the proposals mean that religious extremists will receive state funding to carry out education not in accordance with the national curriculum?
Michael Gove
I share the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to fighting extremism in all its forms, and I pay tribute to the role that he has played, both as a constituency MP and on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, in drawing attention to the dangers of extremism. He will be aware that as an Opposition Member, I was insistent that we do not give public money to extremist groups. That is why I have said that no school can be established unless the individuals who are setting it up do so with an ethos and curriculum that are in accordance with the democratic values of this country. More than that, we will operate according to the principles that were laid out in the Policy Exchange report, “Choosing our friends wisely”, which was endorsed by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), as a means of ensuring that not only violent extremists, but extremist groups, do not receive public funds and are unable to exploit the generosity of the state.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that one of the first applications he received for new academy status was from the outstanding St John’s comprehensive school in Marlborough, which has just had an enormous, £25 million rebuild without a penny of Government money? Does he agree that the model it is proposing of a rural federation, whereby it has a suite of primary schools, is incredibly important in large rural constituencies?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, as ever. It is critical that people realise that outstanding schools are going on the journey to acquiring greater academy freedoms in order to help other schools. That may mean underperforming primaries, or nearby faltering or coasting schools, and the example of St John’s, Marlborough, and everything it has done, is inspirational.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State tell us why he is going to give £500,000 to the New Schools Network, an organisation run by his former special adviser?
Michael Gove
I am giving that money to the New Schools Network because it is the organisation that is best placed to carry forward our programme of ensuring that we provide support. May I say that I am proud of the fact that the New Schools Network has among its trustees Geoffrey Owen, the former editor of the Financial Times—and a former employer of the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood. If Geoffrey Owen’s judgment is deficient in any regard, I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will tell me all about it.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
In the United States, one of the greatest champions of greater school freedoms is President Obama. Can the Secretary of State tell us about the successes of the charter schools movement in the US, particularly in New York?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is passionately committed to improving the education of the very poorest, and therefore I am sure he will be interested to know that in New York, charter schools, including the Knowledge is Power Program charter schools, have closed the attainment gap between children from African-American and white backgrounds, and that the Harlem Children’s Zone, an inspirational project led by Roland Fryer, has ensured that the gap in attainment between the very poorest ghetto children and white children in New York has been closed successfully. For those who argue that charter schools, academies or free schools cream, skim and select only the most aspirational or talented, the work of Caroline Hoxby and other academics proves that such schools recruit the very poorest children and then ensure that they go to the very best universities. That is an inspirational model that I hope to see established here.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give some reassurance to Babington college in my constituency, which I visited on Friday, and which has just become a national challenge trust school? As part of the bid to become such a school, it was promised money to provide extra one-on-one tuition, which is beginning to make a real difference in one of the most challenging and deprived parts of my constituency. Will he reassure that school that it will get that funding so that it can provide the necessary tuition?
Michael Gove
I congratulate the hon. Lady on being elected as secretary of the Labour party’s Back-Bench education committee. May I extend an invitation to her and other members of the committee to come to the Department, so that we can talk not just about the issues in Babington, but more broadly? We want to ensure that national challenge trust schools and those schools that have been in difficulty continue to receive funding and, more importantly, that they continue to receive the support that they need from national leaders of education, in order to drive up standards.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
As we move forward on the innovative free schools idea, can we have an assurance that their responsibilities towards excluded children will be exactly the same as those of any other school in the state system?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is a former teacher, and a brilliant one at that. We will ensure that all academies continue to abide by the same rules on admissions, hard-to-place children and exclusions that apply to all state schools.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State knows that I have spent the past five years trying to persuade the councils responsible for Dudley school to transform standards by introducing academies and producing a decent bid for Building Schools for the Future. Before the election I was promised that the Department had funds available if the councils were able to produce a decent bid. Does that promise still stand?
Michael Gove
I know how passionate the hon. Gentleman, who is the son of a head teacher, is about ensuring that that school moves towards achieving academy status, and he knows how keen I am on academy status. I suggest that he come into the Department, so that we can talk about exactly how we can advance that programme.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
There is a desperate shortage in some of the schools in my constituency. In particular, the other day I met a Navy wife, like myself, who has five kids who go to four separate schools, which must be an absolute nightmare logistically. Will the Secretary of State give more details about the planning changes that will be made to ensure that schools can set up quickly and easily to meet parental demand?
Michael Gove
I am hugely sympathetic to my hon. Friend. The number of children born in the past few years has risen dramatically, and as a result of that welcome baby boom, there is pressure on school places across the country—in Slough, in south and west London, and in Hampshire, too. We will ensure that we remove some of the obstacles that exist with regard to the use class order system so that buildings that can be transferred to school use are transferred more quickly. We will also change some of the onerous building regulations that currently inhibit the effective use of handsome buildings that could be brilliant schools.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State explained earlier that the free-market schools programme was going to be paid for by savings from lower priority IT programmes, and he seemed to indicate that he had an idea of how much they would cost. Can he therefore tell the House what the budget will be in this financial year for that venture?
Michael Gove
Yes, we are devoting £50 million from the harnessing technology fund from lower-level IT projects, in order to recreate the fund that was set up by Tony Blair—the standards and diversity fund—which was abolished under the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). I know that the hon. Gentleman was a keen Blairite before he became the previous Prime Minister’s campaign manager. Let me say to him that his earlier allegiance to standards and diversity is now being upheld by this coalition Government.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to colleagues for their co-operation, but all good things come to an end. Time is pressing and we must move on.
Mr Speaker
The shadow Secretary of State will know that points of order come after statements, so he will have to raise his point of order later.
European Council
(14 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to Trooper Ashley Smith from the Royal Dragoon Guards, who was killed in Afghanistan last week. He died serving our country, and our thoughts are with his family and friends. We have also heard news this morning that a member of 40 Commando Royal Marines has died from his injuries. He is the 300th member of the British armed forces to lose his life as a result of the conflict in Afghanistan.
When such a tragic milestone is reached, we should re-emphasise our support for our armed forces and for all that they do. Inevitably, some will use this moment to question our mission and our purpose there. We are paying a high price, but let me be clear: we are in Afghanistan because the Afghans are not yet capable of securing their own country from terrorists. It is for our own national security that we help them. When they can do it alone, we will leave. In the meantime, we must give our armed forces everything they need to get the job done, and that includes our unequivocal support right across the country.
With permission, I should like to make a statement on last Thursday’s European Council. It was rightly focused on securing the economic recovery, and it was unanimous that this required early action on budget deficits. The Council also dealt with Europe’s growth strategy, the need to sort out the problems in the eurozone and our approach to the G20. It also delivered important progress on Iran. I would like to take each point in turn.
On deficits, the conclusions from the Council could not be clearer. Delaying action would entail “major risks”, and the Council called on member states to meet budgetary targets “without delay”. Since the last European Council, the problems in Greece and the scale of the sovereign debt crisis have become apparent to almost everyone. That is why there is such unanimity across the EU for early action. It is also why President Barroso paid tribute to the efforts the UK Government, saying:
“Consolidation is necessary for confidence and without confidence there will be no growth.”
On growth, the Council agreed a new strategy called Europe 2020. This follows on from the Lisbon agenda, the aim of which was to make Europe the most competitive market in the world. The document has some worthwhile objectives, including raising the level of research and development and improving education. This should not interfere with national competencies, so I secured explicit agreement that the new strategy must be
“fully in line with the relevant Treaty provisions and EU rules and shall not alter Member States’ competences”.
We should be clear that all the strategies in the world cannot conceal the fact that EU countries all need to get to grips with the real problems that harm our competitiveness—not by endlessly setting targets, but by taking action. This includes action on the extent of our debts, on the affordability of our pensions and on the scale of our welfare dependency. Europe has never lacked strategies, but European countries have frequently failed to deliver them.
We will also continue to press for the real stimulus that European economies need—that is, more trade, more international investment and more action to break down the barriers to business. This means pushing for agreement on Doha, reforming and completing the single market and making the process of trade easier. Even without Doha, there is a huge amount that countries across the world can do to facilitate trade. I want Britain to be one of the driving forces in helping to bring this about.
Next is the eurozone. Britain is not in the euro, and, let me be clear: we are not going to join the euro—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—but a strong and successful eurozone is vital for the British national interest. Already, about half our exports go to the EU, four fifths of them to the eurozone. As this House is aware, however, with the situation in Greece and the need for a support package from the other eurozone members, there is no doubt that the eurozone as a whole faces real challenges. So I was generally supportive of the Council’s efforts to strengthen the eurozone governance arrangements, but I was equally determined to ensure our national interests are protected.
On budget surveillance, let me be clear: the UK Budget will be shown to this House first and not to the Commission. Of course, we will share projections and forecasts, just as we do with the International Monetary Fund and other international bodies: so, co-ordination and consultation, yes; clearance, no, never.
On sanctions, for those who breach their economic obligations, the Council agreed that
“Member States’ respective obligations under the Treaties will be fully respected”.
Because of this, and because of the special opt-out negotiated by the last Conservative Government, sanctions cannot be applied to the UK under the current framework.
Sorting out the eurozone and adding to its governance arrangements is clearly vital for Europe. There may well be significant changes coming down the track. Whether they require treaty changes or not, our position will be the same: we will back measures that will help sort out the eurozone; we will not back measures that pass power from the UK to Brussels. As we are not members of the euro, we will not back measures that draw Britain further into financial support for the euro area.
On the G20, the EU Council discussed our priorities for the upcoming meeting. As well as taking action on the deficit, the Council also agreed about the importance of reforming the financial system. It is vital that the meeting in Canada back the right action on reserves and on capital.
On the issue of a banking levy, the European conclusions were helpful. We wanted the Council to endorse the idea of countries introducing a levy on financial institutions to ensure they make a contribution to rebuilding public finances. We did not want the Council to mandate a particular form of levy or how the money raised should be used. I am pleased to say the Council conclusions reflect that approach.
On Iran, we argued that it is time for action, not just words. The Council conclusion refers to measures, including restrictions on trade, banking, transport and the oil and gas industry. Final agreement will be reached at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
The Council also reached important conclusions on Iceland’s application to join the EU. This country should be a good friend to Iceland and a strong supporter of continued EU enlargement. But Iceland does owe the UK £2.3 billion in respect of the compensation paid by the Government to UK investors, following the collapse of its banking sector. We will use the application process to make sure that Iceland meets its obligations, because we want that money back.
Finally, it is important that even in difficult times we support people in the poorest countries who suffer from the most severe poverty. The European Council reaffirmed its commitment to achieving development aid targets by 2015 and, supported by the UK, to review that annually.
The Council delivered good outcomes for Britain. Our citizens do not want new structures to talk about things, but a new resolve to do things, such as getting a grip of our massive budget deficit, developing the single market and building the conditions for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. That is what the Council was all about. I commend the statement to the House.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
May I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the two soldiers who have lost their lives: Trooper Ashley Smith from the Royal Dragoon Guards; and a Royal Marine from 40 Commando Royal Marines. As the Prime Minister has said, 300 members of our forces have now given their lives in Afghanistan in the service of our country. We pay tribute to their bravery and honour their sacrifice, and our thoughts are with their families. I strongly agree with the Prime Minister about the cause for which our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan: they are fighting there to keep our streets safe here. That is why the Opposition join the Government in support of our troops and their mission. As we approach Armed Forces day, let us remember all our servicemen and women, whether they are stationed abroad or at home. Their skill and courage are unsurpassed.
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. First, may I endorse his support for the summit’s declaration on Iran, which again shows that on issues of international concern, we who are EU member states have a bigger impact when we combine our efforts? Does he agree that while the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran remains a matter of the utmost concern, the international community is now more united than ever before in searching for a peaceful solution, and that the active EU diplomacy we have seen in recent years has played an important part in that? Will he tell us whether there is a timetable for further EU action on Iran? Will he confirm the importance not only of sanctions and diplomatic pressure, but of international engagement with the people of Iran? Will he therefore give an undertaking that the BBC Farsi service will be protected from any threats to the budget of the BBC World Service?
Secondly, may I also welcome the EU summit’s strong commitment to meeting the millennium development goals by 2015 and the Prime Minister’s endorsement of that? The terrible crisis of drought, food shortages and starvation in Niger is a vivid reason why we must have international action on development. Will he not be a stronger voice in the EU, for the whole of the EU to make development a priority, if his Government continue to prioritise development? Following the Labour Government’s commitment, the European Commission recommended that all EU member states should consider legislating to enshrine the 0.7% aid target, which the Labour Government established. Will the Prime Minister take forward in this Session of Parliament the Bill that we introduced to make that target legally binding?
Is it not the case that we can only be effective in Europe if what we say and do there is matched by what we say and do at home? In that regard, may I commend the Prime Minister on his reference in his pre-summit article to what he describes as the
“shocking inequality of women in many parts of Europe”
and what he says is the “urgent need for change”? If he recognises the “shocking inequality” of women elsewhere in Europe, can he act on it here? Will he show Europe that he means at home what he says in Brussels by committing himself to implementing the Equality Act 2010 as soon as possible and to pressing on with the plan to make employers publish the gender pay gap?
What will the Prime Minister do about his Tory MEPs who clearly have not got the message at all and abstained in the vote on the millennium development goals, and who voted against measures to combat gender inequality only last week? He thinks it is “shocking”, but they seem to be all in favour of it.
The Council focused on economic growth, and I welcome the summit’s adoption of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth, which stated that
“priority should be given to growth-friendly budgetary consolidation strategies”
and that
“increasing the growth potential should be seen as paramount to ease fiscal adjustment in the long run.”
In other words, it said, “Don’t undermine growth when you’re cutting borrowing”, and, “You need growth to be able to bring borrowing down.” According to the official summit conclusions, one of its main objectives is
“to unlock the EU’s growth potential, starting with innovation and energy policies”.
We agree with that. That is what the Prime Minister signed up to in Brussels. However, he is doing something very different here at home. How does it help growth to cut business investment support, and how does it
“unlock the EU’s growth… starting with… energy”
to cancel the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters allowing it to build the next generation of nuclear power stations? Does this not mean that Europe, as well as the United Kingdom, will lose out as South Korea and Japan proceed with that work?
Let me turn to the important question of financial services. We welcome the intention to implement a new system of levies and taxes on financial institutions, and to explore an international approach. May I ask the Prime Minister to say more about the progress report on the work of the taskforce on economic governance? There is a British representative on it, and the taskforce has implications for the United Kingdom as well as for eurozone countries. Which, if any, aspects of enhanced economic governance might be applied to the United Kingdom?
This was the Prime Minister’s first European Council. He is now representing our country in Europe. So is it not time for him to have a sensible rethink about the wisdom of continuing to exclude himself from the grouping of centre-right political leaders? The European People’s party includes President Sarkozy, Chancellor Merkel, and the Prime Ministers of Sweden, Italy, Poland and many other countries; but instead of meeting them to prepare for the summit, the Prime Minister has a meeting with one Polish MEP to prepare for Britain’s contribution.
The general election is over. The right hon. Gentleman is Prime Minister now. Will he put aside his pandering to his Europhobic Back Benchers and agree with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners on this point? That is what would be in Britain’s interests.
The Prime Minister
Well, the right hon. and learned Lady is right about one thing: the general election is over.
The right hon. and learned Lady is absolutely right about Iran. We do need great unity on this issue; and Europe forging ahead together with a very strong statement about sanctions, then introducing sanctions, is right. She asked when it would be finalised. That will happen on 26 July, at the Foreign Affairs Council, and the sanctions should come into effect in October.
The right hon. and learned Lady asked about the BBC service in Farsi. I can confirm that it will continue to be funded well, because it is important. We should be looking at all the elements of soft power and how we project our influence in the world, and that is clearly one of them.
The right hon. and learned Lady mentioned the millennium development goals and the importance of prioritising development. We agree with her about that. It was on the insistence of the British, among others, that we put the annual review of development assistance into the Council conclusions, partly so that we could ensure that other countries are living up to the obligations under which they place themselves. We will continue to do that, although we are clearing up the most almighty financial mess at home. As for making it legally binding, we agree with that, and will produce plans to make it happen.
The right hon. and learned Lady spoke about consistency, and about the importance of recognising the gross inequality of women. We will set out measures for greater transparency, including transparency in pay. We are in favour of that.
The right hon. and learned Lady mentioned our MEPs at great length. I can tell her that I will be keeping a careful watch on what Labour MEPs vote for, because they do not always vote in a sensible way.
The Prime Minister
We will be having a look at them too.
The right hon. and learned Lady also spoke at great length about borrowing. She mentioned the dangers of falling behind South Korea. I have to say that if we followed her advice, I think we would be falling behind North Korea, but let me say this to her about the issue of borrowing. The Council’s conclusion could not be clearer. It said:
“We reaffirm our collective determination to ensure fiscal sustainability, including by accelerating plans for fiscal consolidation where warranted”.
Where is it more warranted than in Britain, where Labour left us with a £155 billion public sector deficit?
It is interesting that, following the sovereign debt crisis and what has happened in Greece, the Labour party is completely isolated in Europe in not believing that we need to take early action on the deficit. Every other country is having to take this sort of action, including painful action. The right hon. and learned Lady does not have to talk nonsense because she is not taking part in the Labour leadership election, so she should talk some sense and recognise that we have to get our deficit in order, we have to take action and it is the right thing to do.
Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)
The Council called on the Foreign Ministers at their next meeting to implement the United Nations sanctions against Iran. Does the Prime Minister agree that that is a big step in the twin-track strategy of combining sanctions with engagement and assistance, and does he have in mind any event or date that would trigger a definitive assessment of whether or not the twin-track strategy against Iran is actually working?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. The key is to try to get the maximum number of countries behind the most specific list of sanctions possible. I think that what we have had in recent years is a lot of talk about sanctions and a lot of commitments to sanctions. Now is the time for countries actually to come up with what they are specifically going to target in terms of bank accounts, trade finance, oil and gas works and the rest. That is what should happen. My hon. Friend asked for a specific date as to when this should be assessed; I think it is an ongoing process. What we are trying to do here is tip the balance in the mind of Iran in terms of making progressing with a nuclear weapon more expensive, in order to get it to think again. There is no one date for that; it should be continually assessed.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
May I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the 300th member of the British armed forces who lost his life, not least because he lost it in my constituency of Birmingham, Edgbaston, where the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and the medical facilities are located?
On the European Council meeting and the Prime Minister’s response, he was very positive about the 2020 agenda. Given that the 2010 Lisbon agenda was vacuous, useless and did not deliver anything, why does he think the 2020 agenda, which is going to build on that, will produce anything more useful?
The Prime Minister
First of all, may I agree with what the hon. Lady says about the medical facilities in her constituency? Like her, I have been to the Selly Oak hospital and what is done there is incredibly impressive, as is the fact that our returning servicemen and women have access to all the many excellent hospitals in Birmingham, so that all the specialities can be dealt with.
On the 2020 document, I did not think that I did sound that enthusiastic about it, because like the hon. Lady—I suspect we agree about this quite a lot—I am rather suspicious of these strategies, as what really needs to be done is greater action within each European Union country to deal with the problems of our lack of competitiveness. That is about welfare dependency, the scale of our pensions obligations and our uncompetitive tax rates. Sitting around and strategising is one thing, but what we really need to do is roll up our sleeves and get on with the work of making our economies more competitive; otherwise, 2020 will join Lisbon in being dreams that are unfulfilled.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
Can the Prime Minister tell us whether there was any discussion at the Council about the European security and defence and policy, and in particular whether, either at the Council or later, he had any discussion with President Sarkozy about the possibility of closer defence co-operation between the United Kingdom and France? Would that not be a very good memorial to General de Gaulle?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right in raising this issue. It was not specifically discussed at the European Council, but I discussed it over lunch with President Sarkozy when he was here for the de Gaulle commemoration. There are some real opportunities, because when we look at the defence needs of Britain and France, we see that we both have effective armed forces, we both have a nuclear deterrent and we both have important naval forces. There is room for more collaboration and co-operation. This has fallen down in the past because we have often talked a big game, but nothing has happened. What we should do is start with some smaller projects, where we begin to collaborate and work together and show this makes sense, and then we can take the work forward. But I think this is good for both of us when we want to maintain strong defences, yet we know that we both face—if I can put it like this—issues of affordability.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister referred to enlargement of the European Union only in the context of Iceland, but was there any discussion about what is happening in the western Balkans in relation to membership of the EU not just for Croatia, but for the other states of former Yugoslavia?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was in Sarajevo recently. The hon. Gentleman will find that there is great enthusiasm on the Government side of the House for further enlargement of the European Union. Obviously, Macedonia is a candidate country, and, obviously, we want Croatia—and, in time, others—to join the EU. It struck me, at my first European Council, just what a positive difference enlargement has made, particularly in relation to members from central and eastern Europe, who, on many issues, take a similar view to us and can be very useful allies. This is an agenda that we want to push forward. In terms of maintaining stability and peace in the western Balkans, anchoring those countries into the European Union is a thoroughly positive thing to do.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Prime Minister referred to economic recovery. There are currently as many as 30 European directives in the pipeline which will deeply affect our financial regulation and economic governance, nearly all of which are by qualified majority voting and co-decision. There is also the issue of European social and employment legislation. How will my right hon. Friend—and, of course, the Chancellor tomorrow—regain and retain control over those economic issues?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very good and reasonable point. There are threats to our competitive position coming from the European Commission and, more particularly, from the co-decision procedure and the great strength that had been given to the European Parliament under the Lisbon treaty. It makes our work harder, I have to be frank. In relation to the de Larosière package on financial regulation, a reasonable compromise was reached, but the European Parliament has unpicked that and made it much more burdensome from the British point of view. Now, there is no alternative to having to fight back to the compromise that we left. It is not a satisfactory situation. One thing on which my hon. Friend and I agree is that the Lisbon treaty was not a step forward.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to service personnel. These tributes resonate especially in my constituency, which has suffered the single biggest loss of UK service personnel aboard Nimrod XV230 in Afghanistan.
While he was in Brussels, did the Prime Minister have the opportunity to congratulate Mr Bart De Wever, the winner of last week’s Belgian general election? Does the Prime Minister join me in wishing both Flanders and Wallonia well as neighbours and partners within the European Union?
The Prime Minister
Getting involved in potential grief between Flemings and Walloons is an area that I do not want to head into, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the fallen, and I warmly congratulate him on the judicious way in which he balanced British and European interests at the European Council. Did he have an opportunity to discuss the accession of Turkey to the European Union? Will he confirm that, not least because Turkey continues to play a very important role in world affairs, that continues to be a cardinal act of British policy?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about supporting Turkish membership of the European Union. I think that we should back it wholeheartedly. It is very important for the future of Europe and for the future of Turkey. It was not specifically discussed at the European Council, but we should all be concerned by the signs that Turkey is beginning to look in other directions, and we should be doing all we can to anchor her into the European Union. The decision that the Turks have taken regarding Iran is depressing from that point of view, so it should continue to be our policy to support Turkish membership wholeheartedly and to try to persuade others to do the same.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
On tackling the deficit in pensions obligations, did the Prime Minister discuss his review of state pensions in the UK, and can he confirm that that extends to the armed forces pensions schemes?
The Prime Minister
What I can confirm is that the former Member for Barrow and Furness, John Hutton, is going to lead this review, which is looking at pensions within the state sector. It is a very important piece of work and I am sure that its terms of reference will, in time, be placed in the House of Commons for the hon. Gentleman to look at.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the striking unanimity on urgent deficit reduction shows how right the Government are to get on with it? May we take it from his statement that Britain’s liability towards future eurozone stability will not extend beyond the measures agreed by the former Chancellor on 9 May?
The Prime Minister
I can give that assurance. It is absolutely our view that we should not go further than the last Government, in our view, mistakenly went. Britain has advantages from staying outside the euro. I have never supported our membership of the euro and never will, because I have always believed that, once we join the euro, the pressures for single economic government get greater and greater, and that is what we are seeing within the eurozone. But it is in our interests for the countries of the eurozone to sort out their problems. We should not stand in their way, as they try to do that. Our conditions should be that we will not support something that transfers power from Britain to Brussels, and we will not support something that takes us further into financial support for the eurozone, but we should be in favour of measures to make sure that that zone works.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
European investment funds have played a major part in boosting jobs and the economy in Liverpool and other parts of the north-west, with the Northwest Regional Development Agency playing a major role in ensuring that they come to the region. Was there any discussion about how that can be continued?
The Prime Minister
We did not discuss regional policy specifically. It is important that we make sure that investment continues into the regions, and the hon. Lady will know that we have announced plans for how we think we can do even better than the regional development agencies have done. I recently read out a list about some of the very wasteful amounts of spending they have been engaged in. What we want is real money going into our cities to make sure that development takes place. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton) shouts about Sheffield. I ask her to look at the shareholder structure of that organisation to see who would really benefit from that not very well thought through piece of financial engineering.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments on progress on Iran, but does he agree that the future of Afghanistan is also important to all members of the European Union? Does he agree that it is time that some of our European partners did more to share in the sacrifices of blood and treasure that our forces are making there?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and it is one that we should, and do, make all the time in the EU and NATO. As he knows, one of the things we should push for is the reform of NATO, so that we get a common operational fund so that countries such as Britain that are making such a big contribution do not have to pay twice. So we believe in trying to do this. We should also be clear to other countries, which perhaps feel that they cannot do more in the front line, that there is huge amount of logistic support—helicopters, transport and other support—that they can do now and that is incredibly welcome.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Did the Prime Minister show a little bit of gratitude for the decisions of the Labour party conference and people such as Labour Members who decided not to join the eurozone many years ago, showing great foresight and calling on the then Chancellor to write out the five conditions that kept us out? There must be a little part of him that is envious of that.
The Prime Minister
I do not want to sound uncharitable, but I remember that the last Conservative Government negotiated the opt-out from the single currency that gave us the ability to stay out of the single currency, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who, in difficult circumstances, made the argument against the single currency. What I remember, when the hon. Gentleman was sitting on the Government Benches rather than on the Opposition Benches, is the then Government wasted about £30 million on preparations for joining the euro. I could have given them that advice for free: do not join it.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
May I congratulate the Prime Minister on showing some leadership in Europe once more—Britain is grateful—and will he confirm to the House and the public at large that, having drawn red lines in the sand on our position in this country, he will never give them up just to further his own career after the House?
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know what the former Minister for Europe had for breakfast, but perhaps we should be on it—or, alternatively, perhaps we should not.
The Prime Minister
I am not going to go there; neither am I applying for some European supernumerary position and all that, but it is important that we set out clearly what we want to achieve. But I say again that we are not against members of the eurozone sorting out their own affairs. We should not stand in their way. We want a strong eurozone; we just do not want Britain to be part of it in joining the single currency, and we also do not believe that we should give it further financial support. Those are the keys that we must stick to.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
In this era of pan-European budget consolidation, will the Prime Minister confirm that he will insist, in the spirit engendered by the words, “We are all in this together”, that the continually rising European Commission budget benefits from considerable shrinkage in future?
The Prime Minister
Can I say first how glad I am that my hon. Friend decided to quit the European Parliament and to join us here in the Westminster Parliament, although he left the European Parliament just at the moment at which it has given itself a large dollop of extra power? I absolutely agree with him: the next European budget needs to be at worst a freeze and at best a reduction. I do not say that because of any particular ideological animus; I say it because we will be making difficult budget decisions here in the United Kingdom, and our constituents will not understand if we make budget reductions in the UK, but the European budget increases—it just will not wash.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
The Prime Minister made a statement on the formal business at the European Council, but as it was his first Council meeting, would he like to share with us, in the privacy of the Chamber, how he really felt about being there, in terms of his attitude, support and work with other leaders? Did he get a feeling that those leaders understood that the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom do not want any more powers to go to Europe, and indeed want to get some powers back as soon as we can?
The Prime Minister
I think that there is a good understanding in the European Union of the British position, and an understanding that we are practical, logical, sensible people. We think that the European process of integration has gone too far and should not go further, but we also want to be constructive and positive. The hon. Lady asked for my impressions. One of the things that does strike one is that enlargement has been a success for the United Kingdom, in terms of being able to drive our national interests forward; that is helpful. The other impression is about the primacy of the economic problems that Europe faces. It is a really difficult situation that some European countries face, and grappling with that, with the future of the euro and the eurozone, and with how it will work, will consume an enormous amount of attention in Europe. I thought that there was a general approach—positive, from our point of view—that the organisation should now be about action, substance and political will, rather than endless treaties, processes and institutions. If that could be the case for the coming few years, I, for one, would be very grateful.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
After the Prime Minister’s constructive discussions with European leaders, and the European Commission President’s emphasis on fiscal consolidation and structural reform, is he feeling isolated in Europe, as Labour Members suggested he would?
The Prime Minister
Absolutely the opposite. What is interesting is that, since what has happened in Greece and the problems of sovereign debt, European Union members are pretty much unanimous that one has to take action on budget deficits, and one has to do it now. The risk is falling confidence; that people will not lend us money; and going the same way as Greece. The one group of people who now seem to be completely outside that consensus are those in the British Labour party. They, for reasons of political advantage—or pretend political advantage—are the last people who think that one does not need to deal with the budget deficit. That is very short-sighted and very wrong, and I think that they will come to regret it.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
If the Prime Minister is telling us that there is widespread agreement across Europe that deficits need to be cut, can he tell us exactly what progress was made in getting his European partners to agree that the money with which we subsidise the European Union will be cut? I am talking about not just the costs of the bureaucracy, but the subsidy that we give every year to the EU.
The Prime Minister
I know that the hon. Gentleman takes quite a robust view on this, but I have to say that, from where I stand, the previous Government gave away £7 billion of the British rebate and got nothing in return, in terms of a proper review of the common agricultural policy. As I said, when it comes to financial perspectives for the EU, we have to constrain the spending of the organisation, particularly as we will be constraining the spending of pretty much everything else.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Could the Prime Minister tell the House how he was received in Europe now that we have a British bulldog representing the interests of Britain, instead of the former Prime Minister, who was like a French poodle?
The Prime Minister
Perhaps when it is a person’s first European Council, they give them a slightly softer ride. If Britain states our positions clearly, and if we work hard, particularly with allies in France and Germany, to put forward our positions and why they matter so much to us, we can meet with success, but we should have a positive agenda. As well as protecting our competences and keeping ourselves out of the single currency, we should have a positive agenda about trade, Doha and completing the single market, because all our economies need the stimulus that trade and investment can bring. There is no money left in the European kitties; one can see that by looking at the other leaders sitting around the table, and at how they are feeling, given their own budget deficits. So the best stimulus that we can have is free trade, Doha and completing the single market.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
As a matter of record, will the Prime Minister say that, at the European Council, there was absolutely no discussion whatsoever of the risks to economic growth from cumulative or excessive spending cuts across Europe, or was he just not listening to those bits?
The Prime Minister
I was focused and listening to every minute of the discussions. We want to get it right in dealing with deficits and encouraging growth, but the conclusions make it clear that those countries with really bad deficit problems have to take action. When one sits at the table and looks at the problems in Greece, and at the difficulties in Spain, one asks oneself who has the biggest budget deficit, and the answer is Britain, because we were left it by the Labour party.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) accused the Prime Minister of pandering. Does the Prime Minister agree that the only people who are behaving like pandas, which have notoriously bad vision, are the Opposition, who have signed away so much over the past 13 years?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. Over the past 13 years, we have had a succession of treaty changes, whether Nice, Amsterdam or Lisbon, but we have not had the action that we needed to complete the single market to make the differences that would help our economy. We should aim for fewer institutional changes—not more treaties—and getting things done in Europe that will benefit the British economy.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Understandably, much of the discussion focused on economics and the financial situation, but may I ask whether, in his discussions with Iceland, and in future discussions at the International Whaling Commission, the Prime Minister will make sure that the previous Government’s long-standing position on a moratorium on whaling is upheld, and that there is no diminution to allow a resumption of commercial whaling?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. Two things stand out. First, if Iceland is to join the European Union, which has a ban on whaling in its waters, it must accept that what it does is incompatible with membership, so that would have to change. Secondly—I raised this in my meeting with the President of the European Commission—it is important that, if Europe discusses its position on whaling, countries should be able to vote against any form of resumption of commercial whaling without being in danger of some sort of infraction proceedings. I made that position absolutely clear.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
May I ask the Prime Minister how warm a welcome he received in Europe, bearing in mind the fact that he went over there to get commitments on our behalf, whereas his predecessor used to travel over there to concede our powers?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We must take a clear approach and talk with other European leaders about our concerns, as it is an organisation in which people are fundamentally trying to help one another, rather than do one another down. If we are clear about why we have red lines and what they mean, it is perfectly possible, when we have built up alliances, to get them agreed. This country should always stand up for itself in Europe. We do not aim to be isolated, but there will be occasions when we are on our own. It is important that we are prepared to stand up and say what we think when that happens.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
May I press the Prime Minister to say a little more about his discussions in the European Council on the banking levy, and where that leaves those of us who are desperate for action on global poverty and climate change, particularly the introduction of a so-called Robin Hood tax?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for that question. There was a long discussion about the issue of a transaction tax, and great support for that within the European Council. I was keen to make sure that countries such as the UK that want to introduce a banking levy, and that would like international agreement but nevertheless want to go ahead in any event, should be able to do so without being bound by the EU to introduce a particular sort of tax or to spend the money in a particular sort of way. That was achieved.
If the hon. Lady looks at the EU Council’s conclusions, she will see that they say that we should continue to explore and develop the case for a transaction tax, which is sensible. However, I must tell her that it will be difficult to get international agreement for such a tax, which is why Britain is right to take the approach that it has taken.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
There did not appear to be any agreement on the future shape of the European External Action Service. How can Britain’s best interests be advanced in that respect?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Obviously, our party did not support the Lisbon treaty or the creation of the European External Action Service. I am very keen that resources are not badly spent or badly used on the service. Not much progress has yet been made. We will work to try to ensure that the service increases nation states’ ability to project themselves in the world, and does not become an expensive bureaucracy.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister tell the House the number of countries in Europe that have understood the difference between emergency financial help and structural change of their economy? The only party left to understand the difference is the Opposition.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a good point. All the countries of Europe understand the need for action to reduce budget deficits and have signed up to the 2020 document, which, as I said, has good things in it, but the real action that we all need to take to make sure that the countries of Europe are not stuck in a slow-growth uncompetitive position as against Brazil, Russia, India, China and all the future fast growers, is to look at our real problems—our structural problems, our high costs, our high taxes—and to work out that we will have to take difficult decisions to make Europe more competitive, so that we can pay for the public services and the higher living standards that we all want.
Points of Order
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I ask your advice? Tomorrow the House will vote for the Chair of the new Backbench Business Committee. Given that the aim of the Committee is to give Back Benchers control over non-Government business, would it not be inappropriate for members of the Government and Opposition Front-Bench Members to vote in the election tomorrow?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. The advice is that on the one hand, there is no provision in the Standing Orders barring any Member from taking part in the proceedings; on the other hand, voting is not compulsory. I am sure that Members will listen to that advice. This is ultimately a matter for individuals to decide for themselves, rather than for the Chair to decide.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It may be helpful to the House to know that the business managers on the part of the Government—my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, myself, the Chief Whip and the Deputy Chief Whips—will not take part in that election.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I think the answer has been made clear. It will be interesting reading for other hon. Members to take that advice on board.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I received an answer today to a parliamentary question to the Treasury on the distributional impact of a 1% rise in VAT. The Treasury answered me by saying that it cannot provide that information. Is it in order for me to ask for a Treasury Minister to come to the House urgently to explain what the distributional impact of a 1% rise in VAT would be? Is it not extraordinary that, on the day before the Budget, the Treasury seems unable to give that information?
Mr Deputy Speaker
I am sure that, with his experience, the hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a point of order for the Chair, but he has got it on the record, and no doubt if he puts a message in to the Speaker tomorrow, it could be looked at in due course.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I welcome you to the Chair? On the basis of my experience, there is no doubt that the Treasury has that information. The only question is why it is unwilling to bring it to the House. On a different issue, may I seek your guidance on urgent questions? I asked the Education Secretary a particular question, which was whether private schools could reopen as free schools and then pass on their school fees to be paid for by the taxpayer, rather than by parents. Is there any obligation on the Secretary of State to answer an urgent question in the House, or will the Department follow the path of the Treasury and not answer the question even when it knows the answer?
Mr Deputy Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record. It is not a matter for me, but I am sure that it will be read tomorrow.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. At 9.25 this morning, the Department of Health announced a major revision of the NHS operating framework, and the story ran in the media all morning. I checked repeatedly for a written ministerial statement; it did not appear. There was no copy of the announced changes until 12.40 pm, more than three hours later. The statement deals with major changes in health policy, including the removal of guaranteed access to a general practitioner and the guaranteed 18-week waiting time for hospital treatment, and the lowering of the threshold of four-hour waits at accident and emergency. Should there not have been an oral statement to the House on these major NHS policy changes, not a written statement issued three hours late?
Mr Deputy Speaker
That matter is now on the record. If the hon. Lady were to table an urgent question, I am sure it would be considered through the usual channels.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Further to the point of order made by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), Mr Deputy Speaker. It is surely right that the Backbench Business Committee should be elected predominantly by Back Benchers, not by Front Benchers. I fully understand and accept the point made by the Deputy Leader of the House that the Leader of the House and the business managers will not take part in that vote, but may we publish not how people vote, but whether they vote tomorrow, so that we can know whether Ministers vote?
Mr Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman rightly makes his point, which I am sure will be taken on board and considered in due course, but it is not for the Chair to make that decision today.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, the Chancellor announced on the BBC a major review of public sector pensions, but today the Prime Minister was unable to confirm the terms of reference for that investigation. Have you received representations from the Chancellor or the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to come to the House to tell us the terms of the review, or would the Secretary of State for Defence like to enlighten us in the next debate?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Many points of order are being made that are not a matter for the Chair. Once again, the matter has been put on the record.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On 10 June, I asked the Minister for Housing a question concerning the powers that Southampton city council has concerning homes in multiple occupation, and in regulation. The answer I received that those powers would be maintained has proved not to be true and to be seriously misleading. Is it in order for you to ask the Minister to come to the Chamber to give me an answer that is both true and not misleading?
Mr Deputy Speaker
The point has been well made and it is on the record. It is not for the Chair to decide, but I am sure that the usual channels will pick up that point.
Strategic Defence and Security Review
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of the strategic defence and security review.
On this sad day when the House has heard the news of the 300th member of the armed forces losing his life in Afghanistan, our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends, as well as with all those other service families who are mourning their losses. It is also appropriate to remember the families of the victims of violence from 9/11 to the present day. We did not initiate this cycle of violence, but we will certainly confront it.
I am pleased to open this debate on the Ministry of Defence contribution to the strategic defence and security review. All parties in the House committed themselves at the election to holding this review. The Green Paper from the previous Government, with its all-party approach, produced broad agreement on the need for fundamental reform, and I am sure that all Members will agree and reiterate that the defence of the nation should be above the worst excesses of partisan party politics.
In this review, we will need to challenge many preconceptions and think clearly about what we as a country want and need from our armed forces, and what we can afford. I want to ensure that we benefit from the expertise in the wider defence community, including partners in industry, academia, non-governmental organisations and the charitable and voluntary sector.
It is also essential that members of the House of Commons have a proper opportunity to make their views known on behalf of themselves and those whom we represent. In that light, Members submissions on the defence review should be made directly to me at the Ministry of Defence. Those in the other place with specialist interests will also be especially welcome to make submissions. Most importantly, the Prime Minister and I are determined that members of the armed forces and their families have an opportunity to contribute, and the service chiefs will set out shortly how that will be achieved. There has already been a lively debate about the choices that we face, and the MOD will continue to engage. Today, I shall set out the coalition Government’s broad approach to the defence review, an assessment of the financial backdrop, a description of the strategic environment and, finally, the way ahead.
Conducting a defence review while fighting a war in Afghanistan is rather like trying to build a ship while still at sea. Afghanistan must remain our priority, and as part of the international coalition of 46 nations we must prevail. None the less, after 12 years without a defence review, when our armed forces have at times been overstretched, with some current equipment overused or out of date, with programmes from the cold war that are of less relevance today, and in our dreadful economic and financial circumstances, it is clear that change must come. The review will need to provide a step change, not salami-slicing. We will have to bring defence policy, plans, commitments and resources into balance, confront the harsh facts of the economic climate in which we operate and make a clean break from the military and political mindset of cold war politics.
Let me give the House just one example. In the past, military might has been measured by conventional capabilities, such as tanks, aircraft and ships that we can inspect and review; but technology is already moving on at such a rate that there are new domains of warfare, such as cyber and space, where we will require capabilities in which the Government will have to invest but which the public might not be able to see. We also see the development of asymmetrical capabilities that serve to deny us the effectiveness of our conventional capabilities. It makes sense for any adversary to develop what are commonly referred to as area-denial or anti-access strategies in order to deny us the use of our conventional military capabilities without matching us tank for tank, ship for ship or jet for jet. We should not hope that our adversaries do not do so; we should expect and plan that they will; and it is vital that the review consider that point.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his new position. Ministry of Defence statistics show that since the previous strategic defence review there have been more than 10,000 defence job losses in Scotland and an under-spend of more than £5.6 billion. What consideration will be given in this SDSR to ensure a fair and balanced defence footprint throughout the nations and regions of the United Kingdom?
Dr Fox
The point of the review is to ensure that we have the proper defence for the United Kingdom. We will have further things to say about the defence industrial strategy and how we will take that forward, not least because it represents high levels of employment in some economically less well-off parts of the United Kingdom, and we will come to the House with those proposals in the near future.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new post. I could make a similar point about St Athan with regard to Wales and, for that matter, more deprived areas of the country. However, that is not the point that I want to make about St Athan. Rather it is that, in the light of what the right hon. Gentleman said about the changing nature of warfare, technical training is far more important now than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Is it not absolutely vital that one of our highest priorities be to ensure that such training is improved for all our troops? Does that not mean that we should support and he should support—this is my submission—the St Athan defence training college?
Dr Fox
Given my experience of the hon. Gentleman, I would be extremely surprised if that were the end of his submission, and I look forward to an undoubtedly weighty document landing on my desk. I understand his points, and training is absolutely vital, particularly given the increasing professionalism in the armed forces and the increasing complexity involved. None the less, he will understand that, while that project is being considered as part of the SDSR, it would be inappropriate for me to give him even a hint of our position on it, but if he makes a personal submission, I shall certainly ensure that I read it—undoubtedly at length.
Mr Watson
I shall be polite to the Secretary of State even after that comment, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State was always courteous to me during my short time as a junior Defence Minister, and I hope to return the courtesy over the next year or two.
Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the review will consider the international conventions used for the engagement of advanced technology? I am thinking particularly of drone planes. Does he believe that such planes are within international law when they are used for the targeted extra-judicial killings of suspected terrorists?
Dr Fox
As the hon. Gentleman would expect, that issue will not be part of our review, but it is part of the sort of discussions that we need to have with our allies about the wider issues in respect of the conduct of warfare. I am sure that the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues, as well as Ministers and officials inside the MOD, will want to take on those discussions.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said towards the beginning of his intervention. He was always extraordinarily courteous to the Opposition when he was in government. We shall endeavour to act in the same way, and I am sure that he will bring us up if we fail to do so.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way and, like others, I congratulate him on his appointment. In his opening remarks, he said something to the effect that he was going to do away with cold war thinking and look at problems of expenditure in that context. Britain’s development of nuclear weapons was entirely a product of the cold war. As I understand it, Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons and the Trident system will be ignored and not taken into account in the defence review. Has there been any change of thinking on that? Some of us would be astonished if defence policy could be reviewed without a review of nuclear weapons as well.
Dr Fox
A few years ago, we had an extensive debate in the House of Commons on what we thought, as a Parliament, was the best way to take forward Britain’s nuclear deterrent. The Conservative party, in opposition at the time, agreed with the Labour Government’s position then, and our position has not changed.
However, I say this to the hon. Gentleman. I said that we would have to get rid of some of the cold war mindset. It would be very nice if nuclear weapons had disappeared with the cold war, but when I look at what is happening in North Korea and Iran, I see that we will face the threat of nuclear proliferation in the future. Nuclear weapons are not simply a by-product of the cold war.
Dr Fox
I have given way a number of times and I shall give way again later.
I believe that at the beginning of this debate it is vital and useful to go back to first principles and remind ourselves about the purpose of defence. It bears repeating that the first duty of a Government is to provide security for our citizens. Although many arms of government are directed towards or contribute to that aim, the armed forces are central to the effort. Of course, our armed forces can do many things for the promotion of our national interest and to support Government policy more widely. But we must not lose sight of their primary mission—to maintain the capability to apply military force, when needed, so that political decision makers have the widest possible range of choices when making strategic decisions.
That has two aspects. First, our armed forces protect our citizens and territory by deterring and containing threats, preventing possibilities from becoming actualities. The nuclear deterrent is, of course, fundamental to our ability to deter the most extreme threats to the United Kingdom. As I just said in response to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), in 2007 the Conservative party in opposition supported the decision to renew the Trident system based on the analysis set out in the 2006 White Paper, and we remain committed to continuous at-sea deterrence.
As the coalition agreement has made clear, we are scrutinising the Trident renewal programme to ensure that we get value for money, and my Liberal Democrat colleagues will continue to make the case for alternatives. However, we underestimate the value of deterrence at our peril and we do ourselves a disservice if we merely confine the concept to nuclear weapons. We know from historical experience that a declaration of peaceful intent is not sufficient to dissuade aggressors and that a weakening of national defences can encourage them. All our forces, including conventional forces, have a powerful deterrent effect, which we should seek to maximise. Recently, we have not recognised that as much as we should have. I want the SDSR to change that—to take a fresh look at what we are doing to dissuade aggression and at how we might do it better.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I happen to agree with the Secretary of State’s stance on nuclear weapons and Trident. Will he say a little more about the extent to which he regards Trident to be, as well as a deterrent, part of our obligations as a permanent member of the Security Council—as one of the P5, at the top table?
Dr Fox
It is not an obligation, but I certainly think that it adds credibility to our position as a member of P5. As I have said, our position on nuclear weapons is that in a dangerous world, when we are looking to 2050 or beyond, we cannot play fast and loose with Britain’s defences. We do not know what threats will emerge or what will happen in terms of future proliferation, and we are simply not willing to take a gamble.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
The Secretary of State began this passage of his speech by talking about returning to first principles. That allows me to take up an issue that he dealt with a moment or two ago, which is this: in determining the structure of our armed forces, in determining the location of bases, and in determining procurement decisions, must we not accept that the motivation has to be what is in the best interests of defence? If I may be excused for putting the matter pejoratively, we should not be using defence as some kind of job creation scheme.
Dr Fox
I have a degree of sympathy with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, but it is worth pointing out, at a time when the economy is going through a great deal of trouble, that the defence industry provides 300,000 manufacturing jobs—jobs that actually make and sell things to the benefit of this country’s balance of payments. The defence industry contributes a very high value to Britain’s exports, and it punches above its weight. It will be the aim of the Government to increase Britain’s defence exports, partly as a way of securing British defence jobs in the longer term, because the more markets we have, the less the British defence industry is dependent on the British domestic economic cycle.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I agree with the Secretary of State about industrial capacity. Before he moves on from the deterrent, will he clarify whether the value-for-money Trident review is solely considering the ballistic missile submarine system, or are alternative systems being considered?
Dr Fox
There are a number of elements in the Trident renewal programme, and we are looking for value for money in each of them, and trying to see where we can, if possible, get that capability for lesser cost. However, there is no question but that we will move ahead with a continuous, minimum, credible at-sea nuclear deterrent for the United Kingdom.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Dr Fox
I will in a moment.
This brings me to the second aspect of the armed forces’ primary mission. Defence is also there for when everything goes wrong—when despite our best efforts, deterrence and containment have failed, diplomacy is exhausted, and, as a last resort, the use of lethal force is required. No other arm of government can deliver this or is designed for this purpose. So our armed forces must be structured, first, to deter; and secondly, to deliver the use of force in support of our national interest and to protect national security. We undertake this strategic defence and security review at a time when our armed forces are delivering on that primary mission in Afghanistan. We must have strategic patience and resource that mission fully, but it would be a mistake to base our future security on the assumption that future wars will be like the current ones. That is why we must maintain generic capability able to adapt to changing threats.
I now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).
Dr Lewis
My right hon. Friend must have read my mind; perhaps that is not difficult to do. I congratulate him on taking up his post; it is a pleasure to see him there.
My right hon. Friend says that we cannot assume that future wars will be like current counter-insurgency campaigns, yet some very senior figures in the Army are asking us to make that very assumption. It cannot be safe for this country to plan on the basis that just because we are engaged in irregular warfare now, we do not have to worry about state-against-state conflict in future. Will he say, once and for all, that there is a danger that we could one day find ourselves opposed by a modern, well-armed, industrialised state, and that we have to be prepared for that terrible eventuality?
Dr Fox
I would never be so presumptuous as to believe that I could read the complexities and high intellectual level of my hon. Friend’s mind, but let us just say that having spent four years in opposition together, I have a fair idea of what he is likely to raise and when. He is absolutely correct, and I reiterate that it would be wrong, and fly in the face of everything that we have learned from history, to believe that future wars will be predictable or like the ones in which we are currently engaged. We must maintain generic capability that is flexible, adaptable and able to deal with changing future threats of a sort that we cannot possibly predict with any certainty.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
I am struggling to understand at the moment how the Secretary of State plans to deal with the issue of the deterrent. I know what the coalition agreement said and what the Liberal Democrats’ position is, and I have heard him say various things, but will the value-for-money study be part of the strategic defence review, has it started, and how and in what forum will his coalition partners be able to pursue their separate views on the shape of the deterrent?
Dr Fox
The value-for-money study on Trident has begun, as has the SDSR, and it will be concluded long before the SDSR. I hope that it will be concluded before the summer recess.
I want to be as open as I can about the backdrop to the SDSR. To take one aspect, the defence budget itself, the future programme is entirely unaffordable, especially if we try to do what we will need to do in future while simultaneously doing everything in the way that we do it today. The legacy that the new Government have inherited means that even if defence spending kept pace with inflation, we would face a deficit of many billions of pounds over the life of this Parliament and more over the next decade. To make things worse, there are additional systemic pressures on the defence budget that exacerbate the situation, including the trend of pay increases above inflation. The previous Government’s approach was too often characterised by delay-to-spend rather than invest-to-save. The decision to slow the rate of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers in 2009, for example, increased the overall costs by more than £600 million at a stroke.
The bottom line is this: no matter how hard we bear down on the costs of administration and drive up efficiency, we cannot expect to bridge the gap by those means alone. The problem is structural, so the response must be structural to put defence on a stable footing. The Ministry of Defence, as a Department of State, must itself face wide-ranging reform. We intend to reorganise the whole organisation into three pillars: first, strategy and policy; secondly, the armed forces; and thirdly, procurement and estates. We intend to create a more efficient and leaner centre, in which everyone knows what they are responsible for and to whom they are accountable, with clear deadlines and budgetary discipline. Major reform of our procurement practices will be accompanied by a number of industrial consultations that I will shortly outline to Parliament.
As much as structural reform is required, however, I am equally determined that the armed forces be reconfigured to meet the needs of the evolving security environment and satisfy the expectations of this country. Although the SDSR is necessarily financially aware, it is policy-based, and I wish to set that policy out to the House.
Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I apologise for interrupting now, because what the Secretary of State has just said is hugely important, but may I go back to what he said about the review of the deterrent? May we be clear that the financial review of the nuclear deterrent is due to take place before the recess, that it is a one-off activity and that it will not be part of a continuing review at each of the various stages of the programme that has been outlined, including the main gate stage? Will the Secretary of State clarify that point?
Dr Fox
As part of the coalition agreement, we agreed that we would have a value-for-money study to examine the costs of the programme and see where we could achieve better value within it. That is the process that is now ongoing.
The Foreign Secretary has set out the new Government’s distinctive British foreign policy, which has at its heart the pursuit and defence of UK interests and a recognition that our prosperity and security is bound up with that of others. That will require the enhancement of diplomatic relations with key partners, using Britain’s unique network of friendships, bonds and alliances and working bilaterally as well as multilaterally. That does not mean that we must be able to do all things at all times. We will need to be smarter about when and how we deploy power, which tasks we can undertake in alliance with others, and what capabilities we will need as a result. That must be based on a hard-headed assessment of the current security environment and the growing threats to peace and stability.
We live in a period in which direct military threats to UK territory are low, but in which the wider risks to our interests and way of life are growing. Over the coming decades, we could face weak or failing states creating new focal points for exportable Islamist terrorism that threatens our citizens and our allies, as we have seen in Yemen and Somalia. We could also face a nuclear-capable or nuclear-armed Iran destabilising Shi’a-Sunni and Arab-Persian fault lines, as well as those with Israel and the rest of the world. That could create an uncontrollable cycle of nuclear proliferation and, at worst, the erosion of the post-Hiroshima taboo against nuclear use by both Governments and terrorists. Elsewhere, we could see the emergence of old or new regional powers and the return of state-versus-state competition and confrontation. More immediately, competition for energy and other resources, including fresh water, could take on a military nature.
It is conceivable that we will negotiate the next half century without confronting any of those risks—I certainly hope so—but it is equally possible that the UK could face security policy decisions relating to any or all such risks during the course of the next Parliament. That is the reality of the world in which we live, and we must break away from the recent habit of planning for the best-case scenario and then hoping the worst never happens. Unlike what happened during the cold war, we cannot be confident about how and how quickly such trends may evolve. I shall therefore conduct a thorough stocktake of our contingency plans in the months ahead.
Of course, responding to such events would not be for Britain alone. Britain’s relationship with the United States will remain critical for our national security; it is the UK’s most important and prized strategic relationship.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Given the contingencies that my right hon. Friend outlines, is it not important for us to have a strategic reserve? What lessons can be learned from last year’s debacle, when the previous Government had to do a humiliating U-turn over cuts to the Territorial Army, to ensure that we do not make such mistakes again in the coming defence review?
Dr Fox
It is very clear that we require civil contingency in the UK, and as part of the wider SDSR, we are looking at the protection of the UK homeland. We cannot simply direct our armed forces at external threats while ignoring internal threats. That must be a raised priority, as it will be as part of the wider security review.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State and his team to their positions. When in opposition, he was always steadfast and unwavering in his calls for a larger Army. Does he share my concern and that of my constituents that the review ought not to be used as a way of delivering major cuts to Army manning levels, which would be quite unwise and, indeed, dangerous?
Dr Fox
The defence review is not about predetermining the size or shape of the armed forces. In fact, the size or shape of the armed forces will be determined by the review. I can comfort the hon. Gentleman by saying that the service chiefs will each thoroughly defend their service in the review, as one might expect. I would be surprised—Opposition Front Benchers would be even more surprised—if that were not the case.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
These are complex and difficult issues, and if they are to be approached thoroughly, they cannot be approached quickly. Does the Secretary of State intend to take any decisions that might pre-empt the results of the review? In particular, what are the implications for procurement contracts that are running? Does he intend to take any steps to halt, restrict or in any way constrain existing procurement contracts? He might be able to think of the one I have in mind.
Dr Fox
On this occasion it is rather easier to be a mind-reader. I am well aware of the project to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. We thought about making an interim statement to Parliament just before the summer recess about which programmes were likely to go ahead, but we decided that it might cause more instability than it was worth. We therefore intend to announce all the programmes that we believe give reality to the capabilities that we want when we reach the end of the review.
Having said that, let me tell the hon. Gentleman that we are acutely aware of the fact that it is unavoidable that there will be insecurity during the period of the review. He asked about the speed. The last defence review, in 1998, was an 18-month process. We have brought the process forward partly because, to be frank, most of us in the House who take an interest in such issues have a clear idea of the sort of choices that will need to be made, but also partly because we wanted to minimise that period of insecurity for the defence industry and those who work in it.
Dr Fox
I am going to make a little progress, as I know that a large number of Members wish to speak in this debate.
NATO will remain our first instrument of choice for responding to the collective security challenges that we face. In the past decade, NATO has moved outside its traditional geographic area, with European allies such as Germany deploying troops abroad in ways that would have been inconceivable a decade ago. Of course, NATO is not perfect, and we are keen to streamline command structures and decision-making processes. We began that process at the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels last week, making more progress than most of us expected. However, we must use every lever at our disposal—including the Commonwealth, the UN, the EU and other regional organisations—to protect our security in an uncertain, unstable and unpredictable world.
We will look to step up cross-Government overseas engagement. Defence co-operation is an important component of that, particularly with nations who share our interests and are prepared both to pay and to fight, such as France. We intend to ensure—and consequently fund—a defence diplomacy programme in the SDSR that can make an important contribution to our global influence. Clearly we need close consultation with our allies on the SDSR. I had a good opportunity to engage in early exchanges at the recent NATO ministerial meeting, and I will follow up with detailed discussions with our closest allies. In particular, I intend to visit Washington in the near future to take forward discussions already begun there.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I warmly welcome what the Secretary of State has said about defence diplomacy. Does he agree that, inevitably in an age of restraint, defence diplomacy is an extremely important and effective asset for this Government and something that this country has historically done well? Does he also agree that to pare back our work in defence diplomacy at this time would be to cut off our nose to spite our face?
Dr Fox
I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. Not only is defence diplomacy effective; it is cost-effective. It provides this country with great overseas influence at relatively little cost, compared with other elements of the defence budget. We are very foolish as a country if we ever ignore the fact that joint exercising, training and defence exports can achieve a great deal for this country at a relatively low cost. In recent years there has been too much penny-pinching in certain areas, which has had a disproportionately negative effect on this country’s influence, and a good deal too much short-termism, when we need to be looking at what we do well and doing it more often.
Mr Brazier
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has been making the most robust case possible for keeping a full range of military capabilities, despite the fact that we are engaged in an important operation. With his visit to Washington coming up, does he agree that it would be truly extraordinary if we alone continued to have 85% of our defence capability in expensive regular manpower, when the mightiest and richest country on earth has almost half its total defence capability in volunteer reserves?
Dr Fox
My mind-reading abilities seem to know no bounds today—no doubt like those of my colleagues. I pay a full tribute to the reserve forces of the United Kingdom. They make a tremendous contribution to our national security. If we ever fail to value them fully, we are making a profound mistake. I know that my hon. Friend would not expect me to go further, given that the structure of our forces is an unavoidable part of the review itself. Suffice it to say, I think it is very clear just how wedded is most of this House, and not least the Conservative party, to the well-being and existence of our reserves.
Let me sum up the Ministry of Defence’s approach to the strategic defence and security review. First, relevance: our posture and capabilities must be relevant to the world we now live in. This is our opportunity to dispense with much of the legacy of the cold war. Secondly, realism: resources are tight for the country as a whole, and defence is no exception. We cannot insure against every imaginable risk, so we will need to decide which risks we are willing to meet and which risks we are willing to take.
Thirdly, responsibility: as a nation, we have a duty to give the brave and capable men and women of our armed forces our full support in return for the selfless service and sacrifice they are prepared to make in our name. We must ensure that they have what they need to do what we ask of them, and that they and their families are looked after properly during and after service. There has never been a formal document setting out precisely what this means, which is why, for the first time, this Government will create a tri-service military covenant. It will be the foundation of the new Government’s far-reaching strategy for, and obligations to, our servicemen and women, their families, and veterans.
The National Security Council and the SDSR will consider defence interests in the round, along with other security risks and interests, including terrorism, cyber-security and civil emergencies. I have stressed the need for the review to follow a logical sequence. We must begin with our foreign policy priorities, reflecting our interests. The establishment of the National Security Council has allowed us to have a full debate and to ensure that departmental priorities will be aligned with our conclusions. The first stage is the development of the new Government’s national security strategy, which will be wide-ranging and draw on the work of all Departments concerned, including the Ministry of Defence.
We must understand the environment in which we will protect and promote those interests, in particular the threats and risks. Under the auspices of the NSC, the MOD is playing a full role in work to establish a prioritised register of those risks that will be a key element to the national security strategy. Decisions on the capabilities required will be based on this overarching strategy, but these decisions will need careful preparation.
I am determined to understand fully the operational and resource implications of the options. I have therefore directed the Department to initiate a range of detailed studies on specific capabilities and force structures. We will begin to move to conclusions as our strategic posture becomes clearer, and we can test our work against the agreed policy baseline to produce a synthesised force structure and risk assessment. I would expect to see the emerging conclusions in August, and the House will understand why I will not speculate on them today. They will then be discussed in detail by the NSC. We expect that the defence section of the SDSR will report in the autumn, which will coincide with the outcome of the comprehensive spending review.
I am also determined that we fully understand—and, where possible, mitigate—the risks we are taking and the assumptions we are making about future operations, from the partners we will work alongside to the tactics and adversaries we will confront. I have therefore directed the vice-chief of the defence staff to lead a detailed process of force testing, which will look at the effectiveness of possible future forces against a range of scenarios. I will receive updates in July and August to ensure that emerging findings can be reflected in our strategic choices; and a final report in September to ensure that I and the NSC can validate the decisions we are taking.
There will undoubtedly be difficult decisions ahead. We will have to confront some long-held assumptions. There will be competing priorities to assess, risks on which we will have to make judgments, and budgets to balance. It is inevitable that there will be the perception of winners and losers as we go through this process. I am determined, however, that defence as a whole will come out in a stronger position. The prize is a safer Britain, with secure interests and a sustainable defence programme able to address the needs of today and prepared for tomorrow. As I said earlier, providing security for our citizens is the primary and overriding duty of Government. The SDSR must become a national, not a party political, endeavour, and all in this House must have the political resilience, strength, will and resolve to see us through.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
I join the Secretary of State in offering my commiserations, thoughts and sympathies on the loss of the 300th member of our armed forces in Afghanistan. We must remember that each loss, whether or not it is one of the milestones that attracts the media so much, is a tragedy for the family and friends of the individual concerned. It ought also to serve as a reminder to Members of the unique commitment made by our armed forces on our behalf.
As others will obviously and understandably do the opposite, we ought also to restate our support not only for the members of our armed forces but for the mission that they are undertaking. When we visit our armed forces in Afghanistan, they expect, require and repeatedly tell us that they want support not only for them as individuals but for the work they are doing. They believe in the mission in Afghanistan and that it is achievable, and they expect support, from both sides of the House, while they are in theatre carrying out such dangerous work. I hope they will continue to receive such support.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Now that the right hon. Gentleman is in opposition, does he agree, on quiet reflection, that it is a pity that at times in the past few years the previous Government were less than clear on the mission statement in Afghanistan? They allowed themselves to be diverted so that, in the minds of many, it seemed that the purpose of being in Afghanistan was international development. However, the prime mission always has been, and must be, the national interest of the United Kingdom.
Mr Ainsworth
I am glad the hon. Gentleman has said that, as it gives me an opportunity to say that I do not agree. However, there were times when members of the media, as well as some Members on his side of the House, made it difficult for us to get our message across. The current Government will find that we as the Opposition will genuinely support the mission in Afghanistan, and will not play fast and loose with that support. We will not state in the House that we support it wholeheartedly, and then say things, without first checking them properly, that effectively undermine the confidence of the British public in the British Government’s ability to support their troops. If there have been mixed messages about Afghanistan, they have the potential to continue, and we ought to join together to ensure that they are not effective.
I say to the Secretary of State for Defence that his Government need to make sure that the messaging is correct. We do not need the Secretary of State for International Development saying that development opportunities are central to our ability to succeed in Afghanistan, while the Secretary of State for Defence appears to say something different. It is important that we all say clearly what we are trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it. The mission in Afghanistan and, overwhelmingly, the way in which we have joined up the mission in Helmand province, is the envy of many nations operating in that theatre, and that ought to be recognised.
I can understand the temptation for a new Government, but they should not try to suggest that a new strategy is being pursued in Afghanistan. What our troops expect—and what I believe is the fact—is continuity between what the new Government are doing and what the Labour Government were doing a month or so ago. We were pursuing a coalition strategy laid out by General McChrystal last year, and the new Government are doing that. There is no year zero; there is continuity in what we are trying to do, and in the methods we are using in order do it.
Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab)
I find it slightly puzzling to hear my right hon. Friend tell the Secretary of State for Defence to stay on message. Does he not think that what is going on is in fact more interesting than he suggests? There seems to be some ambivalence on the Conservative side about what we are doing in Afghanistan. It is the Opposition, from my perspective at least, who seem to be more determined to pursue the strategy we had before, and that might mean we are more closed-minded than they are.
Mr Ainsworth
I am not certain of that. I would not go as far as my hon. Friend. I have, however, seen unfortunate headlines when, as a result of things that were being said, the press were able to suggest that the Government were propagating some kind of exit strategy. I do not believe that that is so. I believe that the Government are pursuing the same strategy that we pursued. I believe that they accept that we must stay in Afghanistan until such time as the Afghan forces themselves are able to defend their own country, and that they will not take any precipitate decision to reduce our force levels in that country before that happens. I certainly hope that that is the case.
Dr Julian Lewis
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for being so generous in giving way, but he must accept that it is not just a question of mixed messages in one part of the alliance, given that President Obama himself has suggested the possibility of a run-down of troops in Afghanistan as early as 18 months from now. If we are to come out with our strategic interests intact, we must have new thinking about how best to protect them, and sending people out on uniformed patrols day after day to be shot at and blown up may not be the most intelligent way of doing that.
Mr Ainsworth
I know the hon. Gentleman’s views. I have heard him describe, both privately and publicly, his position on Afghanistan and how we can pursue it. I have to tell him, however, that we are pursuing a counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan—that is agreed across the coalition—and while that is so, while there are people in theatre and while they are doing the very difficult work that we have asked them to do, we must give them support.
During Labour’s years, big changes were made to the structure of our armed forces’ capability. A great deal of modernisation took place. There were big moves away from cold war capability towards the modernised expeditionary capability that our armed forces have shown in recent years. I accept what the Secretary of State has said—that he wants to continue that move—and I also accept that the threats have changed. We need to examine the emerging threats, and consider what role we need to play in the world. I hope and believe that I made a start on that during the Green Paper process, about which the Secretary of State has used very kind words. I hope he will be as open and engaging in the methods he will use in relation to the strategic defence review as I tried to be with the Green Paper.
What the Secretary of State has effectively said to us, it seems, is that a process is under way and that he will invite everyone to participate, but the way in which we will participate is by having an opportunity to make submissions to him. I suggest to him that anyone and everyone has always had that ability. If this means we cannot continue to write to him expressing our views, I think he will miss a real opportunity. He knows that there are considerable financial pressures on both the MOD budget and the public finances overall. I do not believe that, when he is faced with all those difficulties, it is in his interests or those of a proper debate to do anything other than continue to be open and give people an opportunity to share—[Interruption.] Well, if the Secretary of State did say that, I am wasting my breath, but I am worried that what he said was, “We have a decision-making process, and if you want to make a submission, you are free to do so.”
I would have thought that it was in the Secretary of State’s interests, and those of the Government and the nation, that he share his emerging thinking with us. It seems that he has even cancelled the interim assessment or interim announcements that he was going to give. When are we going to hear what his emerging thinking is, because he has said very little about that today? We are only six weeks away from the recess and the Government have set themselves a very tight time scale. Do they genuinely want to engage the nation, the Opposition, academia, industry and everyone else who needs to be involved; or are they simply going to invite us to make written submissions?
Mark Lancaster
Last year when the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Defence, he effectively made policy on the hoof by announcing he was going to scrap the Territorial Army budget and thereby stop people like me training for six months. Given the mistakes he made last year and the appalling way he carried out that review, does he not think this current process is much better?
Mr Ainsworth
With the greatest of respect to the hon. Gentleman, let me point out that we were dealing with in-year budgetary measures—yes, they proved very controversial, and significant changes were made that people subsequently came to welcome, even if they could not find the ability to do so on the day—but that is very different from dealing with a strategic defence review, which is about the shape and framework of our armed forces for the years to come. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it therefore ought to be tackled in a different, more open way. There is lots of expertise and interest on both sides of the House and outside this place. The people who possess it want genuinely to engage with this process, and I would have thought that, if the Secretary of State wants to fend off the purely financial pressures, it would be in his own interests to welcome that.
Mr Watson
I feel the empathy between the two Front Benches on the financial pressures at the MOD, and I, too, am familiar with that. Does my right hon. Friend agree that emerging thinking should come early, at least in respect of the military covenant issues? I am thinking in particular of the announced review of armed forces pensions. Can we have a reassurance that existing members of the scheme will not be affected? Does my right hon. Friend think the Government Front-Bench team should reassure us of that, at least, today?
On a slightly more controversial note, does my right hon. Friend think we should hear from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), about the mental health of serving personnel? He was completely hopeless on “File on 4” yesterday, and seemed to contradict himself three times on whether we would have screening of military personnel. He eventually had to endure the humiliation of being interrupted by the MOD chief press officer because he was going off-script.
Mr Ainsworth
I missed that programme—sadly, by the sound of it. My hon. Friend raises an important point when he says a review of armed forces pensions has been announced. As I was in the Chamber at the time, I know that he tried to get an answer on that from the Prime Minister earlier today, and answer came there none. These are very important issues. Is the armed forces pension scheme part of the general review? Are we going to have any wider discussion of welfare issues?
Mental health is a very important issue, but it seems that Government Front Benchers have views that contradict each other greatly. Some of them say we need to do much more than the last Government did, and to introduce general screening for mental health; yet the Minister with responsibility for veterans, the hon. Member for South Leicestershire, appears to be totally and utterly opposed to screening for mental health—or did appear to be, unless he said something else in the programme to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) referred.
Mr Brazier
Will the right hon. Gentleman concede that before he arrived at the MOD, Labour carried out a substantial review of armed forces pensions that did not affect any of the civilian part of the public sector, but as a result of which people in the scheme for subsequent years lost very significant sums in potential pension rights?
Mr Ainsworth
I know the hon. Gentleman is very interested in the welfare of the armed forces. All we are trying to do is solicit an answer. Everyone needs to know whether the armed forces pension scheme is part of the review or not, but we cannot get an answer. We need an answer and we certainly cannot wait until the summer recess for one.
While I am talking about welfare issues, let me address what the Secretary of State said about the non-existence of a tri-service Government document. May I recommend to him the preamble in the Command Paper and suggest that he should consider seriously whether he can improve on it? Will he continue with the commitments in that paper and will he, as part of the strategic defence review, look seriously at something that was in the Labour party manifesto—the introduction of a service charter? Many members of our armed forces whom I have met—I am sure that he will have had the same—recognise some of the improvements that have been made to many aspects of their service and support in the past few years, but want them to be entrenched in law. Is he prepared to make such a commitment?
The Secretary of State seems to have said that a process to examine the value for money of alternatives to Trident has already started and will be all over before the summer. We are only five weeks away from that and from the future successor, but we have heard nothing about it from him or his coalition partners. If we hear nothing at all on this before a final decision is taken, it will only increase the cynicism that many of us had about the Liberal Democrats’ position in the first place—that it was about them trailing their coats in the direction of unilateralism without actually going there. They never had, as I think the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) effectively exposed in his paper, a sensible alternative to Trident. Is there going to be a process and will we be told anything about it, or is this just a way of getting a rather embarrassing chapter in the coalition’s creation off the agenda as quickly as possible?
I understand as well as anyone the very difficult decisions with which the Secretary of State is confronted. I appreciate and totally agree that salami-slicing is not the way to go. I agree that a step change is probably needed and that some difficult decisions will therefore need to be taken. I am sure he regrets some of the rhetoric that he used in opposition and some of the promises he made, such as those about a bigger Army and a bigger fleet. Now he is in government, he will need not just to say those things but to deliver them. I hope he will do that in an open manner in which we can all engage, and I think it would be in his interests to do so.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Did the shadow Secretary of State ever consider whether the strategic defence review might have taken place a few years ago? It seems to have taken a very long time to get to, and it might have been quite useful to have had it in 2004. Both parties have said that they would go ahead with it, but did he consider doing so much earlier?
Mr Ainsworth
We carried out a strategic defence review in 1998; we updated it through the new chapter and the White Paper. I became Secretary of State in the late summer of 2009. We committed ourselves to a strategic defence review in exactly the same way as the Conservative party did. We would have been carrying out a strategic defence review in exactly the same way as the Government are. We would be confronting the same difficulties. We would try to be as open and inclusive as we possibly could. I genuinely believe that defence is more than a simple party interest and that it ought to expand beyond that.
Mr Davidson
Surely, the Opposition spokesman would agree that we would not have carried out the defence review in exactly the same way, since he and his colleagues were much more supportive of the aircraft carrier contract than some in the Government are.
Mr Ainsworth
I do not think we will get an answer on specific capabilities from the Defence Secretary—we have not got many answers from him at this stage—and I suppose that that is understandable. I did not expect him to come to the House and be able to tell us today what his conclusions will be. I am asking him—I think this is perfectly reasonable—to share his emerging thinking with the House and not to think that he can present a fait accompli at the end of the day, because that would make things a lot worse.
I want to raise two points of contention. First, the Government announced, and the Prime Minister repeated this in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, that £67 million has been applied to doubling the number of improvised explosive device teams. As we applied £150 million to the IED capability in Afghanistan a few months ago and that doubled the IED teams, I wonder how the new Government have managed to double them yet again with only £67 million. We should not be spinning about that; we ought to be clear. I hope we will hear some explanation when the Minister winds up about exactly what that £67 million has bought. Are they re-announcing the doubling that took place under the previous Government, or have they managed by some means or another to redouble an already doubled capability for about half the cost? That really would be magic money indeed.
Secondly, I do not believe that the manner in which the impending resignation of the Chief of the Defence Staff was dealt with was in any way appropriate. To suggest that he is in some way responsible, as it was put, for past failures in Afghanistan or was too close to Labour is quite a sad thing for anyone to have suggested. The existing Chief of the Defence Staff is a man who, as far as I am aware, believes in democratic control. He therefore believes that Ministers ought to take decisions and that commanders ought to give advice. If people detract from that, they do themselves no favours whatsoever.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before we continue, may I tell hon. Members that Mr Speaker has imposed an eight-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches?
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
The defence review inevitably involves, as we have heard this afternoon, the consideration of abstracts and concepts, but the 300th death in Afghanistan is eloquent reality. As the shadow Defence Secretary indicated a moment ago, for every one of those people, 300 families are in mourning. We have a brief acknowledgement of the sacrifice, but for those families, the sacrifice goes on for as long as they live. Particularly when we see the montages of the 300 people who have lost their lives, we must think about the promise, discipline and service that have been cut down by the fact of their deaths. That is why on these occasions we should think more than in a perfunctory way about what it costs to defend our country and the sacrifice that, sometimes painfully, must be made.
Iraq and Afghanistan have skewed our priorities, but more than anything else, they have breached the assumptions of the 1998 defence review. They have put an intolerable financial burden on the Ministry of Defence, and indeed on the Government’s Contingencies Fund. I spend a little time referring to Iraq and Afghanistan because neither the duration nor the intensity of either was anticipated by the 1998 defence review, which was none the less regarded as a successful operation. Indeed, if I may pick up a point that the shadow Defence Secretary made, part of that success was due to the degree to which there was consultation, and the degree to which people were invited in—not asked to make written submissions, but actually allowed to sit face to face with John Reid and George Robertson, and to argue the case with them. If that is not to be possible on this occasion, the Government will, in a sense, be restricting themselves, and perhaps shutting off a degree of help, assistance and contribution that would enable the conclusions of the defence review to be well founded.
The principles of a defence review are easy to articulate. One must establish the foreign policy objectives or baseline; assess what military capability is necessary to enable one to achieve those objectives; and finally allocate the resources. In 1998, the Government never published their foreign policy baseline, but if they had, it would not have included the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, because that came after 1998, in a speech made by Prime Minister Blair in Chicago. However well founded and well regarded it is, it is an element of British policy, with military consequences, that was not embraced by the 1998 review.
The review envisaged one short-term, high-intensity conflict going on at the same time as a medium-term operation such as peacekeeping, but in fact we had two hot wars being fought simultaneously, plus Sierra Leone—a notable success of Prime Minister Blair’s, in my view, and, of course, there was Kosovo, where, it has to be acknowledged, he was responsible for holding the feet of the rather reluctant American President to the fire, thereby producing an outcome that all of us regarded as the best possible.
In spite of the success attributed to the 1998 review, there was a continuing argument about resources and, in particular, helicopters. The reason that I point to that is that we imagine that there is some kind of immaculate conception of a defence review, but the truth is that it is based on assumptions and judgments, and the unexpected will almost certainly be part of the terrain that defence has to cover in the next 20 or 25 years.
There is an element of rush about the review. When one considers the complexity of the issues at stake, setting a time limit of a few months is unwise. I would like the foreign policy baseline to be not only published, but the subject of debate in this House, because it is on that baseline that subsequent decisions will rest. If there is not unanimity, or at least general consensus, on the foreign policy baseline, what comes thereafter will undoubtedly be regarded by some as flawed.
Angus Robertson
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is generous to give way. Does he appreciate that it is not simply carrying out the strategic defence review within the time scale that is problematic, but the fact that the comprehensive spending review and the Ministry of Defence’s planning round 11—PR11—are all happening at exactly the same time?
Sir Menzies Campbell
Indeed. During earlier exchanges, the thought occurred to me that, if there were any Treasury Ministers looking in on the debate, they certainly were not getting any encouragement about a willingness on the part of anyone in any part of the House to give up any capability or programme, or any installation or base that happened to be in their constituency.
Sir Menzies Campbell
No, I will not, because I will deal with the hon. Gentleman in a moment. The central question is: what role do we want Britain to play, and how much, as a nation, are we prepared to pay for that? On this occasion, the question is: how much can the nation afford to pay? The blunt truth is that a large part of the review will be an expenditure review, and not necessarily a defence review.
I have some sympathy for the hon. Gentleman in his argument about the carriers. The carriers are the answer to this question: should Britain have a global role? However, can Britain afford a global role? If I might offer him a moment or two of advice, perhaps he will find that line of argument a little more compelling than his understandable determination to maintain jobs in his constituency.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not agree, though, that we also have international responsibilities that must be met, including towards Britain’s overseas territories? With regard to the carriers, one overseas territory for which we still have a huge responsibility is the Falkland Islands. Given those far-flung territories, we must have the defence capability to meet those responsibilities.
Sir Menzies Campbell
It is all a question of flexibility and adaptability; the hon. Lady will find that in the Green Paper. Take, for example, Afghanistan. We enjoy aerial supremacy there. There is no challenge in the air. That has been enormously important in the provision of close air support or interdiction, in the protection of our forces, and, indeed, in allowing them to take part in the kind of operations in which they are now engaged, but just imagine if there were not host nation support—if we did not have available airfields. The obvious platform from which to provide close air support and interdiction would, in that case, be a carrier, so carriers have enormous utility in a variety of circumstances. That is one of the reasons that I think that we should build the carriers; they provide the sort of flexibility and adaptability that lie at the very heart of the Green Paper. In that sense, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) may find, much to his surprise, that I am rather more sympathetic to him than he anticipated.
In the days of the cold war, we had the four-minute warning. Now we have an eight-minute warning, perhaps almost to the same effect. The reason that I have such enthusiasm for the Green Paper is that the shadow Defence Secretary, then Secretary of State, invited the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) and me to be part of the group of people who considered its terms. We are not responsible for everything in it, but I hope that we made a valuable, or at least valid, contribution to it. Page 32 talks about partnership, and asks
“how we can strengthen European nations’ contribution to global security, including through more effectively aligning resources and priorities; how we can further improve cooperation between NATO and the EU”
and
“whether there is scope for increased role specialisation or capability-pooling within NATO and the EU in order to create a more coherent and capable output”.
It is partnerships of that nature that will enable us to provide the all-round spectrum. No one here who I have heard so far has sought to argue that we should finish with one particular capability. There is a determination to maintain an all-round spectrum, but we cannot afford that. The only way in which that will be done is with our neighbours, and as part of a partnership.
On Trident, let me say briefly that my views are well known. I do not see how one can have a value-for-money assessment unless one considers what alternatives are available. In that sense, the review, which the coalition document embraces and endorses, will be much wider than many people think.
Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate.
These are difficult economic times, with more problems to come, no doubt. The temptation to cut the defence budget is inevitably high. If there are efficiency savings to be made, we should make them, but they must be made in the back office, and not, in these circumstances, in any way that affects the front line.
Robert Flello
Does my hon. Friend agree that something that we should look at very carefully is the number of top brass? Indeed, the suggestion has been made that there are more admirals than there are vessels in the surface fleet.
Mr Crausby
It is important that we use our helicopters for what we need to use them, and not use them to ferry our top brass to other functions.
If we can make efficiency savings in the back office, I am in favour of doing so, but may I take the opportunity to emphasise the fact that there is nothing more important than the defence of our people and the land in which we live? To cut any further our already stretched resources will put our security and service personnel at even more risk. I do not accept that our forces are overstretched, but only because they demonstrate the absolute reverse through their ability to cope. However, they have certainly been under immense pressure for too long, and that simply must not continue.
I have consistently held the view that the defence budget is too small. To cut it now would be unthinkable. Education and health are vital, and it is right that they should be ring-fenced, but their importance will pale into insignificance if our way of life is threatened by terror or, even worse, if we find ourselves under the heel of a foreign power. The difficult question is, as always, estimating the level of the threat that we face, but we must always err on the side of caution and fear the worst. The justification for defence expenditure should be based primarily on necessity, rather than affordability. In conjunction with the strategic defence review, we must look at our foreign policy commitments, because we must decide what sort of country we want to be before we make up our mind on our strategic defence position. We could, for example, model ourselves on Belgium, Switzerland or Scandinavia, and send the message to the world that we do not intend to do anyone any harm, in the vain hope that they will not do us any.
Alternatively, we could growl fiercely at our would-be aggressors, declaring that if they give us a problem, we will sink our sharp teeth into them. One thing is clear: we would be unwise to flip between the two models. It is sensible not to be too aggressive, but Britain’s history, its place in the world, and our culture define us as a nation. For my part, I confess to feeling much more comfortable with an ability to bite potential invaders, as opposed to begging for forgiveness and pleading for mercy.
George Robertson, in the last defence review in 1998, said that the cold war had been
“replaced by a complex mixture of uncertainty and instability.”
That certainly has not changed. The 1998 review was radical, and it reflected a changing world. The reality is that the Ministry of Defence has reformed, and made considerable progress since 1998. Our forces are much better configured to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Change was essential, and there is room for more, to enable us to meet and to defeat the new threats that we face, but such ambitions do not come cheap, and no defence review is effective if it is used simply to save money.
Government after Government have failed to provide the financial resources needed, which is simply unfair on our Army, our Navy and our Air Force, and it just cannot go on. We are extremely fortunate that Britain’s armed services have dealt with a lack of resources in most ingenious ways—it is what we would expect—but make do and mend cannot last, and time to train, and to recover, is absolutely vital to maintaining the world-class standards of our forces. I therefore urge the Conservative-Liberal coalition not to make the same mistakes as previous Governments by under-resourcing and over-expecting. If we are not prepared to lay out the resources that will increase our forces’ size and complexity, we have a responsibility to downgrade our global role.
I do not think that we should do so, but we cannot have it both ways. As the 1998 review explained, we can decide not to have a significant military capability. What was true in 1998 is even more true today, and we must now add Iraq and Afghanistan to our commitments. We must always be prepared to be able to defend ourselves against threats that we do not expect. For example, the discovery of oil around the Falkland Islands means that we must be ready to defend ourselves against increasing tensions in the south Atlantic. My genuine fear is that coalition government is not exactly the ideal vehicle for the task in hand, especially a coalition as diverse as one including Conservatives and Liberals. I really hope that I am wrong.
An important question is the future of tranche 3 of Eurofighter Typhoon. In the general election campaign, the Liberals said that they would cancel tranche 3, and the Conservatives said that they would retain it—I agree with the Conservatives. It would be interesting to know what the coalition intends to do with Typhoon—and the industry is entitled to know sooner rather than later. The prospects for our new aircraft carriers are another worry, and their acquisition is in the interest of those who will gain useful employment from their construction. Much more importantly, they are vital to Britain’s independent defence capability.
We need two aircraft carriers, and we must have joint strike fighters to fly from them, and indeed the support ships to defend them. The Treasury must be quaking in its boots, because all of that will be expensive, but I return to my earlier point: our defence capability must match our foreign policy expectations. If we are not willing to keep our forces up to speed, we should not expect them continually to perform miracles without resources. In conclusion, the most important job for the coalition is not just delivering an effective strategic defence review, but paying for it.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby), with whom I served on the Select Committee on Defence in the last Parliament. I always knew that he had a great speech in him that would defend the strains in the Ministry of Defence. We certainly heard it today, and I congratulate him on it.
We all accept that in this Parliament debt reduction must be the coalition’s main effort, but in this dangerous world, the UK needs to be able to protect itself from the threats it may face, now and into the future. The possession of a flexible, deployable military capability remains an indispensible component of any cost-effective defence and security strategy. As the Secretary of State told the Royal United Services Institute last week, defence is as much about deterrence as the actual use of force—and we heard that again today. The strategic defence and security review must be preoccupied not just with the capabilities we deploy during this period of “hot peace”, as opposed to cold war, but with maintaining those capabilities that we hope never to use in anger.
I have no fear of further scrutiny of the Trident deterrent programme, first because Trident is the cheapest option available. Its costs are vastly overstated by its opponents, amounting only to 0.5% of the defence budget over its lifetime. No one knows how expensive the alternatives would be, but they would demand the creation of a whole new weapons systems without the input of allies. Does anyone expect this to be a cheaper option than piggybacking on American technology?
Secondly, the development of an alternative weapons system would also put us in breach of the non-proliferation treaty. What would the international community say about that? Thirdly, Trident is the most effective system. It is safe from first strike, unlike land-based missiles. It is supersonic, unlike cruise missiles, which would be vulnerable to interception, and crucially, it is the least detectable.
I draw the attention of the House to something that Baroness Williams wrote in The Guardian this morning, which she clearly fails to understand. She argues that by having three Trident submarines instead of four, we would not only save, as she terms it,
“several billion pounds a year”,
which is questionable, but could maintain a
“smaller but still effective deterrent”
if we
“keep Trident submarines in port, with at least one on alert status able to sail in a developing crisis situation.”
The suggestion is that the UK should be forced to deploy our nuclear deterrent in the face of the world’s media in the midst of a full-blown international crisis. To plan for such a public escalation is strategically illiterate.
But Trident is simply one part of our deterrence. We need the new smaller surface warships to deter drug smuggling and piracy. We need more drones to protect ground forces on operations. Strike aircraft and cruise missiles help deter aggression by rogue states that threaten to destabilise their regions. How else would we defend the Falkland Islands today? The ability to deploy ground troops at a distance acts as a deterrence and also hugely increases our influence with our key allies, especially the United States.
Astute submarines can deter almost any other navy from putting to sea against us. Flexible, deployable capability gives us broader deterrence effect, and that indefinable and indispensable quality, influence. Such capabilities take decades to create and will take decades to re-create if we give them up now in the face of a one-off fiscal crisis.
But what can we afford? Even if spending is maintained, there will have to be substantial cuts in personnel and equipment. Bernard Gray, the author of the excellent MOD report on procurement last year, said that, if the MOD budget is frozen, the Department will be unable to order any new equipment for the next 10 years. If defence is to come out stronger, as the Secretary of State said it must, following the review, it is very difficult to see how spending can be cut—a point implicitly accepted by the protection of defence spending in the current year.
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have both stated that they have no wish to oversee the decline of the UK as a world power. The task facing the Secretary of State is to ensure that his “policy-led, resource-informed” cross-Government review does not lead to the UK stumbling toward decline as a result. I have set out my own basis for the review in the form of a memorandum which the Prime Minister might well have sent to the Cabinet Secretary in his first week of office—a memorandum which the Royal United Services Institute very kindly published on its website today.
The defence review is about what sort of nation we wish to be in, say, 2020, and it must also explain how we get there. Are we to become just another medium-sized European country, like Spain or Italy, or must we recognise that our historical and geographic inheritance has presented us with a unique global role that we should be prepared to shoulder?
Robert Flello
I am thoroughly enjoying listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, which is well reasoned and considered. Has he considered—perhaps in his paper, which I have not had an opportunity to read yet—the position of our forces abroad, for example in Germany? He may come to that in his speech.
Mr Jenkin
Those forces should certainly be part of the review. It is difficult to imagine how we can hang on to a heavily armoured capability, give up those bases and provide for the expense of bases elsewhere. It is an open question. I do not present solutions or capabilities in the paper; I set out parameters for the discussion.
As I have said in the House before, for British prosperity and security, the UK’s global role is not a lifestyle choice; it is an imperative. It is not merely an expression of our aspirations. It defines who we are as a nation. We have unique capabilities and advantages that other nations do not possess, and it is in the interests of all free nations, and it is our national responsibility, that we use them for our mutual benefit.
In the past, there was nothing inevitable about the abolition of slavery, the defeat of fascism, or the facing down of communism, and in the future there is nothing inevitable about the continued spread of democracy and free trade, yet we depend upon democracy, free trade and the international rule of law utterly for our own prosperity and security. We must play our role in the world, simply because we can. That role reflects and reinforces our values and interests.
If we wish to step back from our global role, we must be frank about the likely consequences of such a move. We must ask which nation will take our role as America’s most influential and enduring ally. Are we to encourage the US to become unilateralist by disengagement? Who would protect our shipping from Somalian pirates? Who will invest in NATO if we choose to disinvest? Which other nation or nations would gain from our retreat? Would they promote freedom and democracy, or their own agenda, not ours?
The world is getting more dangerous and more fluid. We are in an age much more akin to the 19th century than the relative stability of the cold war stand-off. In today’s world overpopulation, competition for food and resources, the risk of environmental catastrophe, mass migration, accelerating technological change, nuclear proliferation, nationalism and extremism are all on the rise, and that is quite a list, aggravated further by the global recession. Is this the moment for us to substitute soft power for hard power? Too often, advocates of soft power are those who have decided that they can take a free ride on the hard power of others.
The Conservatives in 1979 inherited an economic and fiscal mess almost as bad as the one that we now face, yet between 1979 and 1985 defence spending increased by 30% in real terms or by almost 0.9% of GDP. The national interest was put first, and it should be put first now. Defence spending in 2009-10 was £35.3 billion, historically very low as a percentage of GDP. Other programmes, such as social security, are several times larger. While spending will have to be restrained in the long term, with a modest phased spending increase, savings of perhaps £3 billion in procurement and overheads, and a moratorium on discretionary operations, we could maintain a broad spectrum of capabilities and retain the UK’s global role. That would be outstanding value for money for this country and for the world, and would help to create a safer, more secure, and therefore more prosperous world for the next generation.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) who, as ever, was thoughtful and knowledgeable.
I welcome the decision by the current Government to follow through, as recommended in the Gray report, on the Labour Government’s proposed strategic defence review, now the strategic defence and security review. We have heard from right hon. and hon. Members across the House of the importance of assessing our forward requirements and cutting our cloth to ensure that we do not leave our country, our armed services or our people at risk from the range of potential threats that we face. How we equip ourselves to meet those risks and the implications for the UK defence industries, for service personnel and their families and for the taxpayer are all questions which the SDSR will have to answer.
I accept that linking homeland security to the review makes sense, but this will make the process a hefty task and clearly one that should not be rushed. Does the Secretary of State have any concerns about the capacity of those undertaking the work to deliver an outcome within a realistic time scale, given the Government’s intention to cut as far and as fast as possible in all Departments?
So what are the risks? Across the globe there are three main areas from which threat could develop, areas where pressures have already built, or are building, and could lead to the need for engagement—engagements in which we as a nation could, or perhaps should, become embroiled. We need a sensible assessment of the international context in which the review takes place and of the future character of emerging conflicts. Those risks involve climate change, globalisation and global inequalities, and the sense of injustice that grows from that. This SDSR will need to make an assessment of the nature of the changes that will arise from climate change. There is an increased likelihood of mass migration as a direct result of the scarcity of materials and natural resources and the loss of habitable land.
Globalisation presents different concerns, which could need a military solution. Competition for goods and markets will increase, and there is an inevitable increase in the use, internationally, of telecommunications and cyberspace, and, therefore, the vulnerability of companies and countries to cyber attacks and the threat posed by serious organised crime, occasionally masquerading behind an ideological or religious front. The continuing divide between rich and poor nations, and between the rich and poor within nations, and between different societies and groups, is also a flashpoint that might need a military response from Britain, or indeed bring terrorist or other activity to our shores.
The Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre's strategic trends programme sets out those risks in great detail, looks at the next 30 years and offers analysis on the type of future military capability that might be required. We know that our armed forces have undertaken over 100 operations since the last strategic defence review. Those varied from major conflicts in Iraq, international operations in places such as Kosovo and a counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan, through to counter piracy work in the Indian ocean and drugs patrols in the Caribbean.
We have in the last decade moved beyond the cold war scenario and our capabilities have changed to match the new requirements. However, we have always to be mindful of the risk of a sudden change to the demands being placed on our armed forces, including a new cold war, and this SDSR has to ensure that we are equipped to meet all risks while ensuring that the UK maintains its place at the top table internationally. We do not want to be caught out, as Governments were in the past following earlier defence reviews in which swingeing cuts were the outcome, and find ourselves in a Falklands war scenario with inadequate equipment and a reduced Navy, or, as at the time of the first Iraq war, with an Army that has been cut back. Both, incidentally, followed Conservative Government strategic defence reviews.
I want an assurance that this Government will not cut for the sake of it, but that they will, as they seek to ensure that we have a flexible and affordable capability, listen very carefully to the advice being offered to them from across the services and avoid being Army-centric. Clearly, as a Plymouth MP, I would be expected to say that, but a number of the signals from Ministers, both before and since the election, have suggested an increased role for the Army. However, the other two services, especially the Navy from my constituency perspective, are vital. Perhaps the Minister could confirm whether the settled view of the Government is that the Army is too small or needs enlarging.
I would argue that there is an ongoing requirement for the capability to ensure that our merchant shipping is protected and sea lanes remain open. We could not afford to be caught out with an undersized Navy were another Falklands-type incident to arise, and we certainly need to be able to move armed forces by sea and into the littoral environment quickly and safely on vessels that can give hard support to troops on the ground.
I do believe that we have to have a nuclear submarine based deterrent, but I am unclear exactly how Trident and its platform—the successor to Vanguard—fits into this SDSR. I did ask the Secretary of State this question during our last exchange, when I gave my second maiden speech, but I did not, perhaps because the right hon. Gentleman was thrown by the response of the House to that comment when he made it, get a reply. What specifically will the remit be for this proposed value-for-money review into Trident, and how would that process be scrutinised? Given that Trident money was earmarked as Treasury spend originally, not MOD, what pressure is the Secretary of State under from his Treasury colleagues, let alone his Liberal Democrat friends, to bring Trident forward and for these costs to be cut?
The economic benefits to British industry and to its work force of maintaining this programme, and indeed the Astute programme, which is so vital to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), are significant. Babcock, which has its headquarters in Plymouth and which punches above its weight, as the Secretary of State mentioned earlier, is not only involved in successor submarine contracts but has a major commitment to the carriers. The first sub blocks have already made their way from Appledore to Rosyth, on time and on budget. That is very much in line with what Bernard Gray, in his report, wanted to see. My constituents are also benefiting from the work on the carriers as Babcock moves work down from Rosyth to accommodate the expansion of the carrier build. The new ships should be a vital component in the future fleet. When the Minister replies, will he explain what the options are of not proceeding with one or both of the carriers?
The future surface fleet combatant, or the new Type 26 class, was designed to replace the Type 22 and Type 23 frigates. What scope is there for BAE to bring forward initial concept designs offering the full range of options, from the gold-plated option down to the workhorse frigate? We in Plymouth believe that the workhorse frigate would give us some opportunities not only to base port, but to continue to service.
This SDSR has to balance the UK's need to preserve its position internationally with the role that our armed forces play in protecting our security at home and abroad and support our trade routes. Therefore, I would suggest closer working between Departments. But given the Treasury's strong involvement in the process, will the Minister confirm whether the Treasury will be the final arbiter rather than the MOD?
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) made a light-hearted reference to her second maiden speech, but I am proud to tell the House that this is my first maiden speech. If the House will indulge me for a few moments, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor as a Member of Parliament for Fylde, the right hon. Michael Jack.
Michael was known to the House most recently as an incredibly capable MP who served as Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and he was held in great esteem. But Michael also served this country as a Minister both in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in the Treasury. More importantly for me, he served the people of Fylde with real class. When I look to someone as a model Member of Parliament, Michael Jack is such a person. Without the glare of publicity, he just got on and did the job. With that in mind, I hope to be able to serve in his footsteps. Michael Jack was also a great defender of the Typhoon Eurofighter, which I hope to talk about later in my speech.
The Fylde constituency is the jewel of the north-west. I am glad that it is you, Madam Deputy Speaker, not one of the other Deputy Speakers, who is in the Chair, because they might disagree with that comment. I am often asked by hon. Members where Fylde is, and whether it is next to Blackpool. It most certainly is not. Blackpool is in the Fylde, not the other way around. Fylde is famous for a great many things. It has world-class golf courses and will soon host the world open golf championship. It has some of the cleanest beaches anywhere in the United Kingdom and some of the finest agricultural land in the north-west. Lytham Green, with its iconic windmill, which this year hosted the local proms, is an example of a fine green space which is attractive to tourists.
My constituency does have its problems, however. The high street of Kirkham, a proud market town, like many high streets throughout the country, has many empty local shops. Councillor Elaine Silverwood runs a local bookshop there, but she also makes ice cream and has a tearoom. That spirit of entrepreneurialism gives me a lot of heart. It is not about sitting back and complaining about how things are; it is about encouraging people in the constituency to go out there and make a difference, to take over empty shops and really start to bring something new and different to the high street. I pay tribute to such people in my constituency.
Fylde is also a beautiful constituency. Wrea Green is a stereotypical English village. As someone who was born in Scotland, even I can fully appreciate it. Cricket is played there in the summer, and one can hear the sound of leather on willow. Until recently, like many villages in my constituency and towns throughout the country, Wrea Green was threatened by the Government’s regional spatial strategy. I thank the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for his swift action in abolishing the targets set by that strategy, giving hope once again to people who cherish green space.
I also congratulate Blackpool football club. I would not seek to claim credit for Blackpool’s elevation to the premier league, nor would I claim that the club is located in my constituency, but its training ground is, its very talented manager lives in my constituency, and what is more, most of the players do, too—so if I am going to take the glory for someone else’s hard work, this is the moment.
Fylde is also incredibly fortunate to be served by two very good local newspapers, The Gazette, which is printed six days a week, and the Lytham St Annes Express, which is a shining example of how a talented editor—Steve Singleton in this case—can do a lot in difficult times. However, if the sun ever fails to shine in Fylde, one can always jet off to warmer climes, because Blackpool airport is very much based in my constituency.
Let me turn to the substantive issues in today’s debate. Fylde is neither a twee constituency nor simply the beautiful rural jewel that I have described; there is much more to it than that. We make things in Fylde. It is the home of nuclear fuel, employing 2,000 people, and in a future debate I wish to expand on that point. It is home also to the military aircraft division of BAE Systems, employing more than 8,000 people directly. Indeed, it is not only the home of the Typhoon Eurofighter; Nimrod final fit-outs and all the developmental work on unmanned aerial vehicles takes place there. The Americans take the credit for many things, but one thing for which they cannot take credit is that technology. The United Kingdom is the world leader in that technology, and it is developed in my constituency.
On the defence review, I should like to make an appeal to the Minister. I know that budgets are tight and many Members from all parts with interests in defence procurement are making pitches, but we need Typhoon tranche 3b for a number of reasons. We live in an unpredictable world, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said, we cannot tell what the future holds, other than that it will be unpredictable. At times Government Front Benchers talk about export potential, and British Aerospace is working very hard in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Japan to win exports. However, the aircraft’s cost model is built on the premise of a future RAF order, and Ministers must be aware that if a future order is not forthcoming the cost dynamics will change, and BAE might not be competitive with the United States and France in export markets.
Finally, on that subject, I pay tribute to Unite. I may be the only Conservative Member to do so, but there we have an example of the trade union working with BAE management and the Government to deliver what is important: a quality product, products coming off the production line and everyone pulling in the same direction. I really hope that Unite continues to work with the current Government and with BAE to deliver that.
Time is catching up, so I should quickly move away from BAE and mention my other defence interest, Weeton army barracks. The soldiers based there have just returned from Afghanistan, having served this country well, and I appeal to the Minister to ensure that we do nothing that puts Weeton’s strength in any doubt.
Madam Deputy Speaker, it has been a privilege to make my maiden speech. Thank you very much.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who, in the finest tradition of maiden speakers, was gracious towards his predecessor and agile in the promotion of the beauty and attributes of his constituency and constituents. He may not be aware of this, but we have a shared interest: the Nimrod aircraft, which is based in my constituency at RAF Kinloss. No doubt he will develop a strong interest in Nimrod and in all the other industries in his constituency. On the Nimrod link, and on this day, having heard about the 300th casualty in Afghanistan, I, too, pay tribute to all those brave servicemen and women who have made all the ultimate sacrifice—while not in any way losing sight of the pain and suffering of their families, 14 of whom are related to service personnel who died aboard Nimrod XV230, which was based at RAF Kinloss.
The strategic defence review is long overdue, and it is correct for foreign policy, defence and security considerations to be the drivers of such an exercise. But, it is important that during the process we do not lose sight of achieving a balanced and fair defence footprint throughout the nations and regions of the UK. I make an appeal to Ministers on the Treasury Bench on that subject, because I shall return to it repeatedly. We cannot overlook or underplay the fact that the financial drivers behind this SDR are massive, and the consequences of decisions will be significant for many parts of the UK. We know that, because the Royal United Services Institute—RUSI—estimates a likely defence budget cut of between 10% and 15% over the next six years, and a 20% personnel cut over the same period. If that were applied in Scotland, it would result in 2,400 job losses.
Many Members may not be aware that there are already fewer service personnel based in Scotland pro rata than in the defence forces of the Irish Republic. If RUSI’s expected reduction is realised, Scotland will have fewer service personnel in real terms than the Irish Republic. That is not a surprise if we try to understand what has happened in recent years, but if we do not do so the SDR will run away with itself, leaving Scotland—and, incidentally, other parts of the UK—with such a denuded footprint that there will be very serious consequences.
Since the previous SDR, the number of defence jobs in Scotland has gone down by about 10,000. That includes 1,880 fewer service personnel, 4,600 fewer civilian personnel and 4,000 fewer jobs associated with the defence sector. All those numbers come from the Ministry of Defence.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my surprise at the fact that the Liberal Democrats do not seem to care about the closure of RAF Leuchars, which would have a devastating impact on the Fife and Tayside economy?
Angus Robertson
The hon. Gentleman is a new Fife Member, and I welcome him to his place. He is very alive to the risks in Fife, as I am to those in Moray and others are to those in their constituencies. I am very surprised by the fact that the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who is not now in his place, did not seem to acknowledge that it would be important if there were cuts at RAF Leuchars.
This is not just about jobs, but about defence expenditure, and again, using MOD statistics, we can understand that under the previous Government there was a significant defence underspend—the difference between Scotland’s population share and the amount of money that the MOD spent in Scotland. That underspend ranged from £749 million in 2002-03 to £1.2 billion in 2007-08, representing a 68% increase over the period. Between 2002 and 2008 the defence underspend in Scotland totalled a mammoth £5.6 billion, and the largest recorded underspend in one year was £1.2 billion, between 2007 and 2008. Those things should be taken into consideration.
I said in passing that this has impacted not only on Scotland, but on Wales and Northern Ireland in exactly the same way. When Scotland had an underspend of £5.6 billion, the underspend in Wales was a staggering £6.7 billion, while in Northern Ireland it was £1.8 billion. Some might ask themselves whether cyclical factors are involved, and think that defence contracts have simply come and gone—but when we look at the numbers we see that that is not the case: there is currently a structural underspend.
All that has happened over a period when there have been job losses across all three services the length and breadth of Scotland. The list is long. At RAF Lossiemouth in my constituency, one announcement revealed that 340 service jobs were being terminated, and then there was another announcement that 700 service jobs were being terminated. As has been mentioned, 160 service jobs were terminated at RAF Leuchars. At RAF Kinloss, which is in my constituency, 180 service jobs were terminated.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that if he had his way and there were an independent Scotland, there would be no UK defence jobs and no UK defence contracts in Scotland at all?
Angus Robertson
Perhaps the hon. Lady will concede that if we spent our population share on defence, we would have significantly more service personnel; more would be spent on procurement and as part of the defence sector in Scotland than is spent now. I do not know whether she was listening at the start when I said that the UK already has fewer service personnel pro rata in Scotland than the Irish Republic does.
The hon. Lady obviously did not want to listen to the litany of further closures that took place under the Labour Government. HMS Gannet lost 245 service personnel and hundreds of jobs were lost on the Clyde; incidentally, there are fewer shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde now than when Labour came to power. RAF Stornoway was closed, as was the mooring and support depot at Fairlie. The royal naval storage department in Rosyth was closed, while RAF Machrihanish was passed to Defence Estates. The Army depot at Forthside in Stirling was also closed, as was RAF Buchan.
The list goes on and on. I should like those on the Treasury Bench to understand that the strategic defence and security review cannot take place without an understanding of what has happened to the defence footprint across the United Kingdom. If there is not such an understanding, the review will be severely denuded. We had only to open one of Scotland’s best selling quality newspapers this weekend to learn that, apparently, areas slated for closure include RAF Kinloss, RAF Lossiemouth, 45 Commando, Fort George, the Queen Victoria school at Dunblane and the 2nd Division at Craigiehall. There are concerns about procurement projects, including carriers on the Clyde and in Rosyth.
At the start of this debate, I asked the Secretary of State what consideration he would give to the concept of the defence footprint at the end of the review. He said—I paraphrase—“We will be considering these matters as part of the defence industrial strategy.” With the greatest respect, this issue is much bigger than the defence industrial strategy. It is about the location of bases and the companies that produce for the major contracts—about what is left open and what closes. I repeat that, of course, the driver in an SDSR must always be defence and foreign policy considerations. That is understood; everybody understands that.
Angus Robertson
I am running out of time, and I want to conclude by saying this. Unless those issues are considered at the MOD now, they will be lost as the different services interplay and trade off the different things that they will lose as part of the SDSR. Somebody needs to take charge and ask themselves what will come out of the situation and what will be left of the defence footprint around the UK. What will be the impact on the nations and regions? If that does not happen, I predict that there will be big losers and virtually no winners.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech during this important debate. Unfortunately, the previous maiden speech was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who set such a high standard.
I am proud to be a new MP and represent the new seat of Lancaster and Fleetwood. It was formed from the old seats of Blackpool, North and Fleetwood and Lancaster and Wyre, and I pay tribute to my two predecessors. For 13 years, Joan Humble was Member of Parliament for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood and she represented the town of Fleetwood to the best of her ability. I know that in this place she was well respected on both sides of the divide for her work on the Social Security Committee and for her chairmanship of all-party groups, including the all-party group on childcare. Joan stood down before the last election, and I am sure that we all wish her the best in whatever career she develops.
My other predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), is still in the House; he was selected for that new seat and elected with 52% of the vote—a figure that I aspire to, given my current majority. I owe a great deal to him. He was a friend, mentor and guide while I was a candidate and he has set me a high boundary to hit, given his campaigning for his constituency in the last Parliament. I particularly highlight his work in defending the people of Wyre against plans to store gas under the River Wyre. I hope to join him in that campaign, alongside his constituents and mine.
Many people have commented on my constituency’s boundaries. I visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde frequently, because I have to travel through three other constituencies to get to a third of my constituents. I do not know whether any other Member faces such a situation. Fleetwood is a town on a peninsula with the River Wyre on one side and the sea on the other—one of those seaside towns and fishing ports that have been so neglected in recent years. Its infrastructure has been neglected; its railway has no trains and its A road has only a single carriage. Its fishing fleet has almost been destroyed by the depredations of the common fisheries policy. What is left of it is now also threatened by the new plans for offshore wind power.
At the centre of Fleetwood there is a whole community of family businesses. Perhaps the famous “Fisherman’s Friend” is the most well known to Members; I am told that it sells 4,000 million lozenges per year, in more than 100 countries. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] That makes for a damn lot of hot air, I would imagine. I particularly compliment the family that runs the company; Doreen Lofthouse, the head of the family, has contributed so much to the town of Fleetwood and sets an example of what businesses can do for their own areas.
A third of my constituency is rural and many Members, particularly on the Government side, have understood the neglect that such areas have suffered following 13 years of a Labour Government. Village shops and post offices have been lost, and there is a feeling that that Government left them behind and forgot about them. Those areas have great hopes that the Conservative Government will rebalance that agenda. The rural area of my constituency is a fantastic part of the world. It is bounded by the Pennines and the sea. Bowland forest is a favourite spot; it has been well known in the country throughout history. In that rural area, however, villages in the upland areas still lack contact with broadband provision. To reach Wray, one of those villages, and the hamlets beyond it, I have to drive through yet another constituency —that of my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris). I think I can already claim some kind of record. I am perhaps the only Member who has to travel through four separate constituencies to reach the various parts of his constituency.
To top it all, there is the ancient city of Lancaster. It is useful in a pub quiz, because most people assume that it is a county town, but it is not. It is, however, an ancient town and city, with its fantastic university and castle. According to The Times, the university is one of the top 10 British universities. I proudly say that in the few weeks before the election, Lancaster university had its annual battle of the Roses with York university. It triumphed yet again, as Lancashire always does.
The other key issue in Lancaster is that we have a very large Territorial Army base. Across the north-west, 3,400 volunteers—men and women—are in the TA, on top of the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and the Royal Marines Reserve. Since 2003, 1,700 of those volunteers have served in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans. I wish to pay tribute here to the chairman of my association, Dr Robin Jackson, who is commander of 207 Field Hospital (Volunteers), soon to go out to Afghanistan. I am sure that all hon. Members’ prayers, as well as mine, go with those people on their second tour of duty in that country. I was so pleased when, in response to questions from more eloquent Members than me, the Secretary of State spoke about the importance of our reserves, what they contribute, and the mobility that they give to this country and to the Army’s capability. They are a fantastic operation.
As I am sure most Members understand, all our constituents are questioning our engagements abroad at the moment. Certainly in my constituency—where people are, as they say, not backward in coming forward—the jury is still out on what is going on in Afghanistan. However, I will tell Members what they will not put up with and what they expect from this new Parliament: whatever future engagements the Government have for our soldiers, whether regular or volunteer, never again should they be sent out there without the best equipment that this country can provide.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my neighbours, the hon. Members for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), on their excellent and persuasive maiden speeches. That sentiment is all the more heartfelt, given that probably more than half my constituents also wish that they were fellow Lancastrians.
No function of Government is more important than the defence of their people and support for those who put themselves in harm’s way. It is therefore absolutely right that in this review, the needs of country and of the front line must come first. Our manufacturing base is critically important. I represent a constituency where 5,000 people are employed in Barrow shipyard alone—the foundation of the whole economy. There is a supply chain that reaches right across the UK, with the Trident successor set to provide work for nearly 400 suppliers stretching from Aberdeen to Portsmouth. Furness would be decimated if production were to cease. Yet I know that it is the contribution that employees in my constituency make to their country’s security that gives them such pride. They include workers at BAE’s Global Combat Systems making the M777 howitzers for troops in Afghanistan, the likes of Oxley and Marl responding to urgent operational requirements such as infrared lighting to support night driving in that difficult terrain, and workers at BAE’s Submarine Solutions building the Astute class boats that will potentially, in future conflicts, lessen the need for front-line troops to put themselves in harm’s way.
My case is not that the strategic defence review should create defence priorities to sustain our prized industrial base; rather, jobs and capacity within the UK must be maintained precisely because they are essential to keeping our nation safe. We must of course be more efficient and make some very difficult choices, but retaining a unique industrial capacity will continue to give us a military edge in key fields in responding quickly to the next urgent operational requirement and producing subs whose maintenance is not reliant on offshore expertise, compromising our sovereignty and security. How we create a capability through a new defence industrial strategy is critically important, but so, of course, is what we create.
I want to devote the rest of my speech to the importance of taking the right decisions on our independent nuclear deterrent.
Mark Tami
Before my hon. Friend moves on to the nuclear issue, does he agree that many countries have often found that when they simply buy off the shelf from the US, it is a bit like buying a car and finding that there are lots of blanks where all the important gizmos should be, because the Americans keep them for themselves? There are also lots of ongoing costs regarding servicing and the black box technology that the Americans keep for themselves.
John Woodcock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Very difficult decisions are involved in this review, but we must not overlook the advantage that home-grown, home-made kit gives our armed forces out in the field of combat.
Of course, as parliamentarians and as individual human beings, our instinctive feeling towards the ultimate weapons of mass destruction that the deterrent represents is one of deep hostility and revulsion. It is a responsibility on all of us to strive for a world free from nuclear weapons. So for all the thousands of people who depend on it in my constituency, if abandoning the deterrent now would make the world safer from the threat of nuclear holocaust, it would be my duty to embrace that. However, unilaterally scrapping or delaying the renewal of Trident would make our country and the world less safe, not more so. Instead, it is vital that we secure genuine progress on the multilateral non-proliferation talks that are currently under way. While the threat persists, as we know it will for the foreseeable future, it would, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) argued well, be wrong to jeopardise our country by stalling on renewal.
We must guard against the dangerous spread of woolly thinking on this issue. We must not repeat the costly mistake of the last Conservative Government, who left too long a gap between completing the Vanguards and starting the Astutes; and we must resist opting for a platform that, while still capable of great evil and destruction, is no longer an effective deterrent against a hostile strike. Today, I am afraid, the Secretary of State again refused to say whether the new value-for-money review of Trident is considering only the cost of a new ballistic missile submarine platform, or alternatives to it. As the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said, the surprise decision last week to suspend work on the successor programme suggests that the review may be more significant than we had first thought, because the former approach—driving out unnecessary costs as a programme develops—is what any Government should do all the time. The latter approach, however—considering alternatives to the successor—needlessly reopens a question settled in the 2006 deterrent White Paper. Even if new Ministers end up reaching the same conclusion as the previous ones, this could cause serious delays in a timetable which is already very tight, and ultimately spell a further gap in the order book that could again see skills lost and thousands laid off.
If the Government reach a different conclusion, however, serious consequences would follow for the public finances, jobs and the security of the nation. As far as I can tell, the Secretary of State has said that the Government remain committed to a submarine-based deterrent, so let us consider the alternatives that fit those criteria. On the option of refitting the Vanguard class submarines, we could do that, but relying on a relatively short and very expensive life extension would mean taking a massive punt with our national security.
It is also time to puncture the seductive myths around the second alternative: redesigning the Astute-class submarines so that they could carry nuclear warheads. There is a myth that this option would be cheaper, but it would not. It would not simply be a case of nailing an existing warhead to an existing Tomahawk missile and shoving it aboard one of the seven Astutes that are already slated to be built. We would need to construct many more new warheads from scratch, at vast expense and possibly in contravention of our non-proliferation treaty obligations. We would need to procure a new missile system, again at huge cost. We would need a costly redesign of the sub, as one cannot just slot a nuclear missile into a tube designed to fire a conventional Tomahawk. Finally, we would need many more submarines than we have at present. A fleet of conventional Astutes would still be needed to guard the new ones—they could not just double up—and missile size constraints mean that it could well be necessary to build many more vessels than the four ballistic missile boats they would be replacing.
This would not only cost UK taxpayers more but leave them significantly more vulnerable. The range of cruise missiles is much lower than that of ballistic missiles, and they can be much more easily stopped, so the UK would be left with chilling nuclear weapons, but without the strategic deterrent capacity that ultimately makes the horror of nuclear war less likely. That is truly an option that would deliver less for more.
I suggest that some who argue for a cheaper deterrent really mean that we should not have a deterrent at all. They should just come out and say that. To those who usually dislike American dominance but seem happy to leave the US and the French with the responsibility of protecting the world from nuclear war, I say, fine, but let them make that clear too. It is wrong for our country’s security and our ultimate aim of a nuclear-free world, and yes, it is wrong too for jobs in my constituency and across the country. However, a debate on those terms would at least prevent us from wasting money chasing an unrealistic middle way at a time when there has never been a more pressing need to ensure that every pound of defence spending is invested wisely.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and he will not be surprised to hear that I agree with almost every word—no, actually with every word—that he said about the nuclear deterrent. I hope that that does not damn his political career for eternity. He paid generous tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) for their maiden speeches, which I am happy to endorse.
Perhaps I can cheer the hon. Gentleman up a little by letting him into a secret. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was aspiring to the leadership of our party, he held a series of interviews with his hon. Friends, of whom I was one. When I went in, I asked him only two questions. One need not concern us today, but the other was about his attitude to the nuclear deterrent, and I am delighted to say that he was extremely robust about it. If the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members care to check the response of our current Prime Minister to the statement of former Prime Minister Tony Blair on the subject in December 2006, they will see that it was once again extremely strong. That was the only occasion when I was ever called in to have anything to do with drafting a response to a Government statement. Our current Prime Minister made two alterations to what his speechwriter and I had drafted between us, both of which were to toughen up his response, not to weaken it. Although our coalition partners may hope to chip away at the edges on this matter, if I know the Prime Minister as well as I think I do, at least on this subject, they will undoubtedly be disappointed.
As hon. Members on both sides of the House will undoubtedly be aware, in the mid-1920s, a glassy-eyed rabble-rouser called Adolf Hitler was incarcerated in Landsberg prison, putting the finishing touches to “Mein Kampf”. At the same time as, sad to say, that man was pre-determining future history unregarded in that cell, the chiefs of staff of the armed forces were trying to decide what they would have to defend Britain against in the future. So incapable were they of predicting the future, understandably, that each of the armed forces prepared its hypothetical contingency plans against an entirely different potential enemy.
The Royal Navy—understandably, because Japan had a large navy—felt that we should prepare against possible Japanese aggression in the far east. The Army—understandably, because Russia had a large army—felt that we should prepare against possible Russian aggression somewhere in the area of the Indian subcontinent. The Royal Air Force was a little bit stuck, but eventually came up with an idea. Because the French had a rather large air force, it decided that we should prepare against a possible war with the French. Not one of the three wise men heading the three services, which had eventually done so well in the final stages of the great war, predicted that the real enemy that would face us, only 15 years later or less, would be a revived Germany led by that man scribbling away in a cell in Landsberg prison.
Mark Tami
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and we do not need to go that far back. When I was growing up in the 1970s—I know it does not seem possible, but I am genuinely that old—we were facing what we were sure was the actual threat, which was the Soviet Union pouring across the plains of Germany, massed tank battles and the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and then no doubt some form of nuclear holocaust engulfing the world. Nobody mentioned North Korea or Iran—they were not even on the radar. It is clearly difficult to guess what the future holds.
Dr Lewis
I am delighted that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, who is absolutely right. I could add to the examples that he gave the Yom Kippur war, which was not predicted by hypersensitive Israel, the Falklands war, which was not predicted by us, the invasion of Kuwait, which was not predicted by anybody, and the attacks of September 2001, which were not predicted by the world’s then only superpower. I therefore very much welcome the Secretary of State’s acknowledgment that there is an unpredictability factor. We simply do not know what enemies will arise, when, and what sort of threat we will face.
This argument has been had over and again throughout the history of defence, most notoriously between 1919 and 1932, when something called the 10-year rule was in operation. It was felt that we could cut forces, because we could always look ahead a decade and say, “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any threat facing us now.” It is impossible to know significantly in advance, if at all, when we will next find ourselves at war. That means it is a limiting factor when we say that a defence review must be foreign policy-led, or even defence policy-led. At the end of the day, what we are doing in the strategic defence and security review is calculating the premium that we are prepared to pay on the insurance policy against harm befalling this country. With a normal insurance policy, if we knew when an accident would happen or when an injury would be inflicted, we could probably take steps to avoid it and would not need to spend money on the premium in the first place. However, we do not know, and that is why we have to spend the money.
As I indicated in an earlier intervention, I am particularly concerned about a frame of mind that is prevalent in some quarters of the Army, and which asserts that, because we are engaged in a counter-insurgency campaign now, anybody who says that in 20 or 30 years, or even longer, we might need modern aircraft to defend our airspace, modern naval vessels to defend our waters and lines of communication or even modern military vehicles to enable our Army to fight—hopefully alongside others—a foreign aggressor that not just had irregular or guerrilla forces but was possibly a hostile state, is living in the past or still thinking in cold war terms. I think like that, but I am not still thinking in cold war terms. I am thinking of the wars that we might have to face two or three decades hence, not just the conflicts in which we are engaged today.
A few years ago, I heard a senior military officer say that a tipping point might come when we had to choose between fighting the conflicts in which we were currently engaged and fighting a war at some time in the future. In other words, he was trying to contrast the small expectation of a big war in the future with the big expectation of a small war that we might have to fight sooner. I said at the time that I felt that to be a false choice, but if I had to make the choice, I would rather insure against the danger of a big war in the future than that of a small war closer to hand.
Mr Jenkin
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. To reinforce his point, I add that the small wars that we have fought recently have had more characteristics of state-on-state warfare than many people would care to admit. Serbia fought like a state, as did the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein certainly fought like a state twice. The idea that we should give up state-on-state warfare capability is absolute madness.
Dr Lewis
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that that is absolute madness. I shall not name the senior Army officer who first proposed that thesis—all I will say is that he has become a very senior Army officer, and some say that he might even become an extremely senior Army officer—but leave it to people’s reading of the runes.
The reality is that in those conflicts that we fought, our high-end, precision materiel, our modern techniques, and our use of aircraft, naval vessels and mechanised warfare equipment, have been essential in getting us into theatre. The country has been disturbed and worried not by the casualties we have taken going into a theatre and displacing a hostile Government, but the casualties we take in day-by-day attrition that result from our persisting with methods that make it inevitable that our opponents can inflict them. I say this to shadow Ministers: it is not unpatriotic to question the strategy that is being followed in Afghanistan. Strategies can be improved. In previous wars, we have used strategies that failed over and again. Eventually, when they were changed, the outcomes improved. That can happen in Afghanistan.
I understand that resources are scarce and that each of the armed forces will want to make a case that suits its book best, and to claim most of those scarce resources, but we must have balanced forces, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State indicates that we will.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
It is with some trepidation that I follow the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who, as always, spoke with erudition, energy and great humour. He left us with a tantalising question: what was the other question asked those years ago by the Prime Minister? No doubt many of us will ply him with alcohol later to try to find out.
This morning, I was in Bridgend with my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), raising a flag to honour servicemen and women ahead of this year’s armed forces day on Saturday. In Bridgend, the links that bind ordinary families to the military are long-lasting. Many have the military woven into the fabric of their daily lives—it is not always on show, but it is strong and enduring. The strength of those links is a challenge, because the public now demand a new legitimacy for our actions: they demand an understanding of the actions that place our armed forces in harm’s way. Setbacks, mistakes, failures, and civilian or military casualties, can all diminish military and public acceptance of, and support for, intervention.
As has been said, the defence and security of the realm is the primary responsibility of the state, the Government and the House. Without the capacity to defend ourselves and secure the lives and prosperity of citizens, we face instability, insecurity and ruin. War is the final option in our defence and homeland security armoury, and Governments must go to greater lengths to secure that legitimacy, and the public’s engagement and understanding, before taking it. That is why debates in the House are so important, and why they must address what we seek to defend and why; against what risks and dangers we seek to defend ourselves; what defence forces we need and have available; what equipment, skills and training our defence forces need; how those forces will be deployed and managed; and, importantly, how our forces and their families will be cared for during service and in their lives after service, which might well be blighted by their service. We carry a huge responsibility for that, and the review must firmly address it.
The British public have the luxury of living their lives mostly ignoring the dedication and hard work carried out in their name by our vast defence and homeland security services, because the services do their jobs well and effectively. Defence Ministers are on the Front Bench today, but all Departments have a defence and security role to play. We have talked a lot about the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but the Home Office and the Department for International Development are also key players; there are huge implications for the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; and, as access to water and food, and energy and climate change, rise up the political, military and defence agenda, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have increasingly important roles.
We need to look at the lessons that have been learned and examine what changes are needed, what challenges are to be faced and what costs are to be borne. Terrorism, extremism and fundamentalism are not new challenges to Britain—they litter our history—but one new challenge is the global communications world, as that is how recruitment for our enemies can be increased.
Disillusionment among our public will grow from our failures. In recent years, we have seen the failure of the western economic model, human rights abuses and corruption damage the image of western democracies, and how actions in Gaza, even against evil such as Hamas, have turned public opinion against democracies. I was pleased that the Saville report into the events of Bloody Sunday demonstrated that there is no hiding place when such mistakes are made.
One issue that has not been addressed in the debate, but which must be addressed as part of the defence and security review, is the use of private military companies in combat zones. The use of such companies has proliferated. Many private sector companies are indispensable to front-line troops, providing repair and maintenance for essential equipment, logistic support, supply lines and provisions, but there is growing concern about the use of military security companies in combat and combat support roles in the absence of strict licensing and regulation regimes. DFID staff have told me that they were even prevented from going forward to do their jobs not by our military commanders on the ground, but by the diktats of private security companies. That cannot be allowed to happen, and those companies must form an important part of the review.
Setting values and ethics is complex at times of state-on-state warfare, but that threat has diminished. Coalition partnerships have new challenges in setting up new values and ethics as we work together and use new weapons that pose increasingly high risks to civilian populations. Although the Grey report revealed that the UK has better procurement than most comparable military nations, it still demonstrated that our process results in us procuring worse boys-let-loose-in-a-toy-store lethal weapons than I ever thought imaginable. Procurement must be addressed and tackled.
We have new challenges and risks and a change in the balance of power in the world. The impact of the rise of new economies—China, India and Brazil—and the demise of American, western hegemony, and our political, economic and ideological dominance, will impact on our defence and security. I hope to be a member of the Defence Committee in future, to look at how the review plays out, and to challenge some of the decisions that are made in our name and the leaders who make them.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
May I first congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on assuming your role as a Deputy Speaker and, secondly, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate on the strategic defence and security review? I am grateful, because it is an important debate for my Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport constituents.
I came into politics as a Conservative party agent. For 10 years I was Angela Rumbold’s agent, who I am very sad to say died on Saturday evening. I am very sorry about that, because she was an incredibly good friend and I am grateful for all the advice that she gave me—I am thinking about the speech that I am making now as well. May I also thank my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench for all the help and support that they have given me over the years? When the Secretary of State was formerly the shadow Defence Secretary, he used to come down to Plymouth quite a bit, as he did when he was the party chairman, so I am afraid that he has had to get rather used to me asking him for things on a regular basis. It is also an enormous privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who both raised a number of issues that I hope to pick up.
Making one’s maiden speech is an incredibly daunting experience, but from my point of view it is made even more daunting by the fact that I am following Nancy Astor, Janet Fookes, Michael Foot, Dr David Owen, Alan Clark and Joan Vickers, with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) both representing parts of the predecessor of my constituency. Then there is my immediate predecessor, Mrs Linda Gilroy, whose energetic social justice campaigning on the issue of fairer water bills for more deprived communities in the south-west was incredibly important. Indeed, we had an Adjournment debate on that last week. Her work on the Select Committee on Defence also ensured that nobody was unaware of the role that Plymouth has played in the defence of our nation.
In the course of the past month or so, many of my hon. Friends have commented to me about my fighting the Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport seat and its predecessor three times. Let me remind them that it was Sir Francis Drake, who entered this House in 1581, who had to finish his game of bowls before he was able to go and beat the Spanish armada, clearly demonstrating that patience and commitment are important in Plymouth.
From Plymouth’s magnificent natural harbour, some of our leaders have gone out to explore the world and show us what was going on. They include Sir Francis Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, Sir Francis Chichester and, of course, Scott, whose anniversary it will be in two years’ time. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers left from the Mayflower steps to establish America’s second settlement. In 1690, the first dockyard was built on the River Tamar at Devonport. Plymouth as a city also has a number of major assets. It has a university with a distinguished reputation for marine science research; wonderful, diverse architecture; some of Britain’s finest—and liveliest—students; a dramatic waterfront; the excellent Theatre Royal; the remarkable Peninsula college of medicine and dentistry; and, of course, an historic dockyard and naval base.
However, Plymouth has also paid a high price in defending our country. It was badly bombed during the blitz, and it also provided a series of ships and servicemen to win back the Falklands in 1982, and, just recently, 29 Commando—including my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti)—to serve out in Afghanistan, as well as the Royal Marines, who have played a significant role in defending our country while based in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am very aware that the sacrifices that they ended up making have left a lot of families bereft of their relatives, with all the heartache and sadness that goes with that.
Despite that, there is a sense that Plymouth has been slightly left out, being at the far end of the peninsula, especially when people have seen the frigates and their families being moved to Portsmouth and the submarines moved up to Faslane. The city was surprised—and, I think, rather hurt—that it was not included as a location for the national veterans weekend in 2009. However, I very much hope that those on my Front Bench might be willing to take that point on board when the position is reviewed in 2012.
The big issue that I feel is going to be important in this debate on the strategic defence and security review is that of combat stress and the facilities that we need, including in Plymouth. I realise that a number of colleagues have spoken about this issue, but I very much hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State takes on board the ticking time bomb that is lurking in Plymouth as well. Coming from a service family whose father entered the Navy at the age of 14, I was brought up with an understanding of some of the mental health issues that went with his colleagues and friends. Recently, the Royal British Legion made it clear to me that it can take up to 14 and a half years for issues to do with combat stress to become apparent.
Plymouth has a serious drug and alcohol problem. Unless we take action now, I am afraid that we will be putting greater pressure on our health service, police, prisons and housing, so I would say that this is a case of “Action stations now”. If I do nothing else in my time in this House but raise the issue of mental health and combat stress, I feel that I will have made as significant a contribution as those other Members, including Dame Joan Vickers, who was a pre-eminent Member of Parliament.
Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your weather eye, Madam Deputy Speaker—a new dawn, if not a red dawn.
Anyway, let me turn to the question at hand, which concerns the strategic defence and security review. I do not want to deal with some of the things that ought to be in the review; I would like to return to the discussion about how we are going to conduct it. It seems to me that we are talking about a collection of reviews. There has been much talk about, for example, the discussions that we have had in the past about the strategic nuclear deterrent and other things. As far as the strategic nuclear deterrent and the last discussion that we had on it are concerned, I can say as a member of the Defence Committee at the time—there are other members in the Chamber today—that we had to fight to have that discussion in the first place. We produced three reports—in order to do what? To inform a discussion; so there must be scrutiny.
We have heard about scrutiny of the current nuclear deterrent review. As I understood it—there are people here who can correct me on this—the coalition document says that it has been agreed, quite rightly, that
“the renewal of Trident should be scrutinised to ensure value for money.”
I thought that that would mean scrutiny of the process as it went along, but it appears today that it means a one-off shot. I am sure that there are Liberal Democrat Members who will be somewhat surprised, as I was, that this scrutiny will not form part of an ongoing process of deciding where we are. I thought that the debate about whether we should have a strategic defence review was a debate about possibly having one at the start of every Parliament. Over the past 10 years, we have effectively been having a series of strategic defence reviews, but in an ad hoc and piecemeal way, without taking a strategic approach.
In “On War”, Clausewitz said that strategy is more like an art than anything else. What is the art? It is the art of timing. Knowing what to do and how to do it can be the science; knowing when to do it is the question, and that is what we should address. In doing that, we also have to open the process up to some form of scrutiny. We are talking about a strategic review, apparently of both security and defence, and it was the Secretary of State who talked about the MOD’s contribution to that discussion. That assumes that we will therefore have a Foreign Office contribution and a Home Office contribution as well, with all the different elements coming together. I hope so, and I hope someone is going to explain to me the sequence of events by which we can scrutinise not only the strategic nuclear deterrent, but all the elements that make up what counts as strategic or otherwise.
Alison Seabeck
My hon. Friend is making entirely appropriate points, but does he share my concern about the time scale and the fact that the SDSR and the comprehensive spending review seem to be on top of each other? Which will take priority—the MOD or the Treasury?
Mr Havard
I could give my answer, but it is not mine that is important, is it? What is important is the question, and as I understand it, based on published coalition documents, the position is this:
“The parties commit to holding a full Strategic Security and Defence Review… alongside the Spending Review with strong involvement of the Treasury”.
Mr Havard
I bet there will be strong involvement from the Treasury, but is that involvement just about the costs, or will it also consider other things? The statement I quoted refers to a review conducted “alongside”; it does not say that the parties commit to “having a review of the nuclear deterrent by July” and it does not actually say that they commit to “determining the whole of the strategic defence review before the comprehensive spending review”, but that seems to be precisely what is said in the agreement. I am most confused about what the exact sequence of all these events will be, because if proper scrutiny is not allowed for, there will be a democratic deficit. After all, legislative change could be required. One would have thought that it was a good idea to have pre-legislative scrutiny—we agreed that in the past, but now it has apparently been forgotten. One would have thought that it was a good idea for the various Select Committees to be involved. That was supposed to happen in the new Parliament.
This was supposed to be the new dawn, if I may use the pun again, whereby Parliament, and not just the Front-Bench team, would have an important role in the process. [Interruption.] I am asked, “Where are the speakers?” A good question. I have been in this Parliament for a number of years and taken a strong interest in defence, yet there are some defence debates that I have not bothered to attend. Let me explain why—because I was not going to sit here for six hours to get three minutes to speak. We debated the whole matter of the replacement of the nuclear deterrent in six hours, and two hours of that were taken up with a ping-pong Punch and Judy show at the front. Back Benchers who had an interest in the matter were not allowed to speak because the great and the good came in for that debate and they were given priority in the pecking order. What we need to do is to look at the process: it is not just process in the Ministry of Defence that needs looking at, but the processes here. We need to scrutinise them, and having the McKinsey book of boys consultancy, or whatever, applied in the MOD is not going to hack that. Well, the Foreign Secretary was trained by that book, so presumably he can make a contribution to it all, but that is not going to be important for the public’s understanding.
If we are truly committed to taking people with us when it comes to a serious set of choices, we have to address the public, and we have to provide them with information—ground truth, that is what we need here. This is not a party issue. It is about information, reality and understanding. The Government are effectively claiming that, at last, we have an integrated and coherent process that deals with the issues and lays out the involvement of all the different Departments—but they should do it, not just claim it. From what I have heard today and from how I see the sequencing of events, they will not, in fact, be doing that. It will still be a case, as mentioned earlier, of working in silos, with each individual service doing its bit. The rubber heels at the MOD will do their bit, and everyone else will do their bit—and it will be in bits, and no matter how high they are piled up, bits do not make a strategy.
This issue is too important for such an approach. We are at the beginning of a period of change. The Government are setting an agenda for a generation and committing money that will be spent in 30 years’ time. The Government know that: they know it intellectually, but they do not seem to know it in terms of how process works. They can deny it as much as they like, but the strategic nuclear deterrent will have to become part of a review. Put it in; do it properly; do it comprehensively. That sort of thing happens with DFID and when we go into Afghanistan—the comprehensive approach. Well, this is a comprehensive approach with large parts missing; that is what this SDSR is about.
I plead with the Front-Bench team to look back—or, rather, to step back—and consider the timing of events. It was argued earlier that we do not have to do all of this by a week next Wednesday; and we do not have to do it in a six-hour discussion, in which most of the people here, who represent the real people outside, will not be able to participate. That shows the dysfunctional level to which this Parliament has got to, and I thought that that was exactly the sort of dysfunctional activity that we were meant to be changing. Government Members have that opportunity, because they govern the debate; there are no Back-Bench opportunities to influence that yet. Perhaps that is something that those engaged in the discussion over Back Benchers and Parliament should try to change. Unless and until that debate takes place, whether it is prompted by the Government Front-Bench team or whether it is forced on them by those in others parts of the House, it will not be a real one.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
We have heard three excellent maiden speeches today, and I am delighted to say that I have some connection with all three. I know that their constituencies are wonderful. I was born near Lancaster, a fabulous place—
Bob Stewart
Thank you.
I learned to dive under Royal Navy command at Devonport, despite being a pongo, and I joined my regiment in 1969—a very long time ago—at Weeton camp in the Fylde constituency. When I joined my regiment I joined a battalion that had an establishment of 750. When I handed over command of it some two decades later, it was down to 638. We had lost 20% of the manpower of our battalion. The theme of my speech, then, is resilience at the front line. It is still called a battalion, but it has been salami-sliced and hollowed out. This is a big problem, which the strategic defence review must look at. We must ensure that our front-line troops have the capability to do the job we expect them to do.
On resilience, just consider the 3rd Battalion the Rifles, which returned in April. When it came back after six months of the winter tour in Afghanistan, it had lost eight men killed in action and had 67 casualties. That meant, in terms of the fighting men for that battalion, a 14% casualty rate. My own battalion, the 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment as it was—now, for some strange reason, called the 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment—is in Afghanistan at the moment. It has been there two months: it has lost five men killed in action already, and it has 35 people wounded.
If we think about the basic fighting strength—I return to the theme of resilience—of a fighting unit in our infantry, it is the eight-man section. It is very sad statistically to understand what that means—that in an eight man section, it is likely that one or two of the men fighting at the moment in Afghanistan in 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment are likely to come back to this country either in a box or on a stretcher. Thank goodness we have the Territorial Army, as it heavily reinforces the regular Army. It does that extremely well. Indeed, in Helmand at the moment, 10% of the troops out there are either Territorial Army or reserves. It was the same in Iraq. When I visited the coalition operating base in 2007, the figure was 10%. In 2004, with the invasion of Iraq, it was 20%, so the strategic defence review has to look very carefully at how we use the Territorial Army, which has now become a proper reserve force for the regular Army.
When our troops are deployed on operations for six-month tours, they have a period in the middle of their tour called rest and recuperation—R and R—which is normally two weeks long. I put it to the House that approximately 1,000 of the 9,500 troops deployed to Afghanistan are either not there or are travelling to or from R and R. Effectively, in resilience terms, some infantry sections—I see the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) nodding his head, because he knows what I am going to say—are down to four or five men. Infantry cannot fight with sections of four or five men, so they are put together, with the result that combat power is reduced. Whatever the outcome of the strategic defence review, we must ensure that our front-line units are properly manned and that their ORBAT—organisation for battle—is good enough to sustain them properly.
I have concentrated on the Army, but the principle remains the same for the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. We have a problem with the Navy, and we must ensure that the ships deployed on operations are manned and equipped properly. The Royal Air Force currently has 74 Harrier jump jets, less than a third of which are operational. We must get this right across the services.
I totally understand how difficult it is for Governments of either persuasion to get money for defence. It is extremely difficult, and I will not be found criticising the Opposition on that matter. However, we must ensure that the question of resilience is dealt with properly in the strategic defence review. We must not send our young men and women into battle without adequate manpower to sustain operations when things go wrong.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on taking the Chair. I also congratulate those Members who made their maiden speeches—I almost said “nervous speeches”; I was certainly nervous when I made my maiden speech, but they were not. To talk in military terms, they will be pleased to have got off the runway, and I am sure that they will sail high in the future.
If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything, it is that the challenge is not winning the initial conflict, but securing the peace. Our opponents in both conflicts learned that standing and fighting in the open ended in their defeat, but that if they used the terrain, whether in the countryside or in towns and cities, and used hit-and-run tactics and improvised explosive devices, they could fight us effectively, and that insurgency would spread from province to province and—what we fear most—from country to country. To counter that, we have recognised the need for more mobile forces than we have had in the past—forces that can respond rapidly to ever changing situations. At the heart of meeting that challenge is the availability of more troops and equipment to be put down, often under fire, in difficult situations. Helicopters are only part of the answer to that, and we need large-scale strategic lift to support our forces engaged in ground operations.
Our forces are still reliant on the ageing Hercules, which have been excellent workhorses over many years but are now showing their age. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep them serviceable for the number of hours that our forces require. Although the C-130J has good tactical performance, it cannot carry outsize loads because its cargo hold is too small. The C-17, which seems to be the transport plane of choice, is a good outsize-load airlifter, but is costly and has limited tactical capability. It is fine if it can land on a proper airfield, but it cannot be used or operated from soft fields—or at least, as someone once advised me, it can land on soft fields, but only once. Not only is our use of leased aircraft expensive, but often they are not available at the time required, and many of the aircraft share the same problems as the C-17.
The decision of the Labour Government—I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench for this—to commit themselves, confirm and sign up to the Airbus 400M programme was extremely welcome. Derided by its opponents as a paper aircraft that would never take to the air, it has now flown, and by all accounts performed extremely well in its trials. The A400M will be able to carry either the same payload as the stretch C-130J more than twice as far, or double the payload over the same distance. It will be able to operate at high altitude and at high speed and respond to a greater range of mission requirements. Probably most importantly, it can operate from soft and rough fields, and can therefore deliver support to forward positions where it is most needed. To do that, it has advanced protection systems, which compare favourably to the airlifters currently in use. It will be able to carry helicopters and armoured vehicles and—we are currently unable to do this—deliver them directly to where they are needed.
Furthermore, the aircraft will be cost-effective, which we can rarely say about military projects. Compared with the C-130J and C-17 fleets, it will have the highest availability and the lowest life cycle costs. It has been designed and built to meet operational requirements, rather than being modified or shoehorned to meet the task required of it. The export potential of the aircraft is also positive: its rivals are either ageing or unable to meet the full operational requirements; no new aircraft, either in development or on the drawing board, can rival the A400M. It could sell well around the world, and even in the US, although our experience with AirTanker would lead us to believe that the Americans would try to gerrymander any situation to the advantage of Boeing. Our American allies think that it is fine for them to have open access to our markets, but that we should be prevented from competing in theirs. However, that is an argument for another day.
There are those who have always been opposed to UK involvement in the A400M programme, believing instead that we should just buy something off the shelf. The current Secretary of State for Defence has said that on several occasions. Underlying that is the Conservatives’ opposition to European co-operation: they really dislike that aspect of the project. That attitude makes no sense on a number of fronts. It makes us totally reliant on the US—we would have no access to the intellectual property—and undermines the UK aerospace industry. It has a direct impact on jobs not only in the military sector but in the civil sector. For Airbus in the UK, the stakes are even higher: the A400M will be the first aircraft to be built with composite wings. In this country we have long prided ourselves in being at the centre of wing excellence, but that will be at risk if we do not take part in the project. Given how Airbus operates, if we pull out of the project the work share would be divided between the remaining partners, and Spain has long made it clear that it would get the chequebook out and be more than willing to take on that work. That would have a direct impact within the civil programme. Rather than our being the natural builder of the wings for future Airbus aircraft—in particular, the replacement for the A3320—we would find ourselves competing with Spain. If we lost that order, the future of Airbus in the United Kingdom could be at stake.
I plead with the Secretary of State and the Minister to think of the future, not just in terms of a military project but in terms of the effect on the whole of the UK aerospace industry, including both direct and indirect employment. The last Government signed up to this project, which has ramifications far wider than military use. I appeal to the present Government to sign up to the project and ensure that it goes ahead, for the future of the United Kingdom.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to contribute to this vital debate.
I am delighted that it is customary for Members to use their maiden speeches to pay tribute to their predecessors. I have the honour to do so twice over, because my wonderful constituency of Filton and Bradley Stoke—known to many as FABS—is a new seat, created from three former seats. Two of the Members who represented those seats are no longer in the House.
Dr Doug Naysmith served Bristol, North-West for 13 years with straightforward honour and distinction. His political foes marked him down as a good and decent man. He was personally kind and—dare I say it—supportive to me whenever we met. I wish him well in his new political career as a member of Bristol city council, and I may yet come to forgive him for defeating my old Avonmouth councillor friend Spud Murphy after a nail-biting four recounts when lots had to be drawn.
Roger Berry, who represented the wards of Kingswood that are now in FABS, is someone with whom I would have had little in common politically, but in the part of my constituency where he was formerly a Member he was well regarded across the political spectrum for his endeavour, his independence, his forthright political opinions, and his work as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on disability.
Filton and Bradley Stoke is a fascinating and diverse place. It is the home of the British aerospace industry. Concorde was built at Filton, and today it is still the British home of EADS and Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and a large part of GKN. This year, 2010, marks the centenary of aviation in Bristol. Founder Sir George White, a great entrepreneur and Bristolian who came from humble beginnings, was so proud of his city that he named his company the Bristol Aeroplane Company after it. We are home to the university of the West of England, one of Britain’s most successful new universities, and we are fortunate to have the world-famous Frenchay hospital, which is internationally renowned for its work on the treatment of bones and head injuries. Frenchay was sadly downgraded by the last Government, but I will continue to fight for its existence as a community hospital with as many facilities as possible to serve the residents of south Gloucestershire.
My constituency is at the centre of the debate on the strategic defence and security review. At its heart lies the MOD procurement centre at Abbey Wood. EADS makes missiles, and Rolls-Royce contributes to the building of not only the Type 45 destroyer but the engines of the new US strike fighter. Airbus and GKN lead the world in the development of composite wing technology, and Airbus is also engaged in the development of the new and fantastic A400M plane, a transport plane designed to replace the now ageing Hercules. The A400M will have its UK debut in the south-west at the royal international air tattoo in Fairford on 16 July. It will be flown by the aptly named chief test pilot Ed Strongman, who is a Cornishman and a graduate of Bristol university.
At a time of straitened economic circumstances, the development of those projects and the huge costs involved will provide the substance of many ensuing debates on the nature and cost of the country’s defences. I hope the new Government will learn one lesson from their predecessors, and will never forget it. We may enter into wars at short notice and with good reason, but we must never do so again without a full understanding of the implications for the lives of our troops whom we place in harm’s way. Waging war costs money, but that cost is nothing in comparison with the lives of the men and women involved, and our duty to our service personnel does not stop with a homecoming parade and a few beers in the mess afterwards.
As several of my hon. Friends have already pointed out in their maiden speeches, it is time for this country, and this Government, to take seriously the ongoing issue of the welfare and, in particular, the mental health of so many of our returning heroes. From the comfort of my home in Filton, I cheered nearly as loudly as our troops in Camp Bastion when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his announcement about the doubling of their operational allowances. I know what that sort of practical support means to the troops on the ground. However, it must be accompanied by a real and ongoing commitment to looking after our troops, sometimes for the rest of their lives.
I believe that the one thing that will distinguish this Parliament from many of its recent predecessors is the number of us sitting here today who have served. That includes new hon. Friends from as far afield as South Dorset and Penrith and the Border, as well as many in between. My own military experience is as a serving Territorial Army soldier. I am a Gunner with 266 Commando Battery of the Royal Artillery. As a mobilised reservist, I had the huge honour and privilege to spend a year serving with the mighty men of 29 Commando Regiment, five months of it in Afghanistan on Operation Herrick 9.
As a private soldier, Gunner Lopresti, I spent my tour in Helmand, where I saw at first hand what decisions made in the House of Commons can mean for the men and women on the ground. I worked with the Rifles for a bit of my tour of duty as a member of infantry force protection on the Medical Emergency Response Team, who work in the back of a Chinook helicopter. I watched some awe-inspiring young people fly in and out of danger to pick up and treat casualties, sometimes in the very worst of circumstances and sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I learnt exactly what our future decisions could mean. I also worked alongside a remarkably brave and inspirational soldier, a Lance Bombardier from 29 Commando, whose foot and lower leg were blown off by an improvised explosive device while he was driving a Land Rover with no mine protection in 2006 and who, less than two years later, was back doing a second tour of duty with his regiment as part of 3 Commando Brigade. That was just amazing.
My experience is what will inform my thinking when the debate on the shape of our military future takes place. Our new Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will certainly have the support of this new Member of Parliament if our Government honour their commitment to renew and strengthen the military covenant, but I will also reserve the right to be a critical friend, not only mindful of Britain’s place in the world and our international duties and obligations, but conscious above all of our duty properly to equip and care for those who put their lives on the line for our country. This country needs many culture changes; let us ensure that the ongoing welfare of our servicemen is among them.
Making my maiden speech in this place is a truly humbling experience which I assure the House I will never forget, but nor, as we review our defence priorities, will I ever let this place forget the debt that we owe to our service personnel. As the great General George Patton once said, wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.
Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti). I wish him well in his time in the House, and many years in which to serve his constituents. I also welcome the maiden speeches of the hon. Members for Fylde (Mark Menzies), for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), and for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile).
The hon. Member for Fylde mentioned golf courses in his constituency, which gives me an opportunity, as a proud Ulsterman, to record our delight that Graeme McDowell has won the US Open championship. For British golf and for golf in Northern Ireland, that is something to be greatly welcomed. Our congratulations go to Graeme and, indeed, to his family, who must be very proud of that wonderful achievement.
On a sadder note, I acknowledge the tragic death of the 300th soldier to be killed in Afghanistan. He was a member of 40 Commando. Last week the funeral took place of my constituent Corporal Stephen Walker, who also served in 40 Commando. He was killed in Sangin in Afghanistan, and our thoughts continue to be with his family at this difficult time.
I welcome the commitment given by the Secretary of State to the tri-service covenant, which I support. I also welcome the fact that many Members have mentioned the welfare of our armed forces personnel. If this review is about anything, it must be about ensuring that the men and women who serve in the armed forces have the best support and resources available, because without them we do not have a military capability. It is important that the covenant be honoured, and that we look at that in the context of the review and seek to ensure that those men and women who serve our country are given the support they deserve.
One key area of concern to me is post-traumatic stress disorder. I know from my own service in Northern Ireland and from comrades and members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who developed PTSD that this is a major, long-term issue that needs a long-term solution, and that many of the men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan developed PTSD after coming home. Indeed, The Lancet magazine recently warned of a “tidal wave” of soldiers suffering from mental trauma as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a major developing issue.
I know from my constituency work and my work in Northern Ireland that soldiers suffering from PTSD at times do not get the long-term support they need to cope with this very difficult condition. That has real consequences for them. Many of them struggle to find permanent employment after leaving the armed forces, and they can develop major health issues and have marital problems. In effect, PTSD can destroy their lives after service.
I welcome the work undertaken by various charities and veterans organisations, and wish in particular to mention Combat Stress, which has launched a campaign to raise £30 million to improve mental health services for veterans. This work is excellent, but it needs the support of the Government. I hope that, as part of the strategic defence and security review, we will take a long hard look at the impact of PTSD and mental health problems on our veterans and our soldiers, airmen and sailors, and at what we can do to ensure they receive adequate support and care as they seek to live their lives after service.
I also wish to refer the House to an excellent article in yesterday’s edition of The Sunday Telegraph, which told the story of a former reserve Territorial Army soldier from Northern Ireland who had served as a medic in Iraq. In 2004 he was involved in a major incident, which is outlined in the article. Corporal Paul Gibson—I understand that that is not his real name—is quoted in the article, and speaks of the terrible impact PTSD has had on his life. He pays tribute to the work of Combat Stress and says it effectively saved his life at a time when he was not getting the support and intervention he needed. The article reports that he has lost his job and spends most of his time at home
“enclosed in a world of his own”.
He is quoted as saying:
“I’m a totally different person…I don’t have any ambitions any more. There’s no purpose to my life. I just try to get through the day.”
We cannot allow our brave servicemen and women to be left in that kind of situation. We have got to look after them not only while they are in service, but after they leave.
I am aware of several cases in my constituency and in Northern Ireland involving former military personnel who are facing real problems. Their pensions are being reduced—their war pensions and the other benefits they receive are constantly the subject of review. Part of the problem is the medical profession’s failure adequately to recognise what PTSD does to the life of an individual. There is an educational issue here that we would do well to examine, in order to see how we can ensure a better understanding among the medical profession of PTSD and its long-term impact on service personnel.
Finally, I agree with the comments made today about our military capability. On resources, I am concerned that an argument is developing that we need a light-end capability at the expense of a diminishing heavy-end capability. I agree with those Members who have warned against complacency. We may well face major wars in the future and be involved in major conflicts, and we will need heavy-end capability as part of our military resources. I hope that that will be understood during the review, and that heavy-end capability will not be diminished because of the need for financial constraints.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The conventions associated with maiden speeches now apply. I call Penny Mordaunt.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Having waited for over a month to speak in a debate, it seems a little strange to call this my maiden speech. Perhaps it could be more aptly described as my spinster speech.
I must thank the Speaker for introducing the new rules that have permitted me to show a little ankle and flirt with participation in the proceedings of the House. As those who know me will testify, keeping quiet for a whole month would have been a great strain, but silent I would have been, for I was determined to speak for the first time in a defence debate.
During my first days as a Member of Parliament it was not at all clear from which set of Benches I would be delivering this speech. In the week following the election, as the fog of uncertainty resolved into strong and stable coalition Government, I had time to reflect that I and colleagues who had to wait past the midnight hour for our results made our first utterances as Members of Parliament on the 70th anniversary of the Norway debate. That momentous occasion in 1940 precipitated the fall of the Chamberlain Administration, caused the King to send for Churchill and the formation of the formal coalition Government.
During that historic debate, the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth Sir Roger Keyes rose from his place in full dress uniform with six rows of medals pinned to his chest, and delivered what Harold Nicolson called the most dramatic speech he had ever heard. Sir Roger began:
“I wish to speak for some officers and men of the fighting, sea-going Navy”.—[Official Report, 7 May 1940; Vol. 360, c. 1125.]
My uniform remains in my wardrobe, and I do not pretend to high drama, but I have come to the Chamber today, and will come again on many other days, to do as Sir Roger did: to speak for the Navy.
First, however, let me make mention of another of Sir Roger’s successors. I am speaking today because Sarah McCarthy-Fry is not. This election was, if the House will indulge a topical metaphor, the second match of our personal contest, and so I can really only claim to have levelled the score, although given the size of the current majority I think I can say that I am ahead on goal difference.
In the intervening years, Sarah was very much the super-sub, occupying almost every ministerial job going, including a mere fortnight at the Department for Communities and Local Government. I pay tribute to Sarah’s service to our city, and in particular to her fight to keep Portsmouth naval base open and viable. I will continue that campaign, although unlike her I hope not to have to fight my own Government to achieve it.
I am happy to report to the House that Sarah has quickly gained new employment and has taken a job of hard labour—or hard Labour—which might have gathered dust on the average Jobcentre Plus shelves. I am sure that my hon. Friends will join me in wishing her well as campaign manager for the shot at the Labour party leadership of the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls). In light of his recent utterances, it must be a great comfort to the right hon. Gentleman that he did not have to look to immigrant labour to do a job that most British people simply would not have touched.
I could have spoken today about any of Portsmouth’s manifold attributes: the innovation and ambition across all sectors, the world-famous Pompey spirit so evident at the recent FA cup final, and my pride that my home city has put its trust in me. However, there is one particular issue at the heart of Portsmouth’s history and daily life on which I wish to speak today: the Navy service.
I was at primary school in Portsmouth during the Falklands conflict. Britain did not expect to face such an act of territorial expansion, but the Navy was unfaltering in its readiness and commitment to the defence of the British people. That spirit of duty and service made a deep impression on me, even though the Navy had already played a major role in my life before that. Indeed, I am named after HMS Penelope, which was the first cruiser able to do a complete about-turn within her own length—a manoeuvre that I hope never to have to deploy here.
That spirit of service is as strong as ever in the Royal Navy, but although it is understandable that recent debates in the House and the wider media have focused primarily on the Army, the senior service has, as a consequence, often felt under-represented and unappreciated. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House recognise the contribution that the Navy makes to our way of life, to our ability to trade, to hydrographical and meteorological services, to tackling crime and to providing help in times of crisis. However, the breadth of its role should not detract from the depth of its contribution to the defence of the realm—continuous at-sea deterrence, delivery of commando force and air assets and mine counter-measures are but a few of its roles.
In the review, we must not be sea-blind. We face very tough challenges and calls for immediate cuts. To see the scale of the challenge, one has to look just at the disparity between what the last strategic defence review suggested for the Navy and the current number of ships in service or planned to be in service. For example, the last review recommended 12 destroyers, but we are building only six. To close the gap between need and affordability and to preserve the development and maintenance capability that we want in our bases and dockyards, we need a planned but flexible approach to procurement. The review must listen to the drum beat of production in those UK yards and must seize every opportunity to strengthen UK exports.
We need to take a longer-term approach to our ordering of ships and we need to end wasteful delay to production schedules. As the Secretary of State pointed out earlier, the decision to slow the rate of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers in 2009 increased overall costs by £600 million. Having seen the carriers being built last Friday, I can report that they are already at an advanced stage and that they have gone beyond the first cut of steel. Lessons should be learned from the carriers and the Type 45s. We could have laid down nine destroyers one after the other, thereby supplying the Navy with what it needed when it needed it, allowing the yard to maximise returns on its investment and ensuring the defence budget was sustainable. Of the six we are building, the last will be ready for sea trials in January 2013. Small orders built at lightning speed short-change the Navy and the yard and place stress on the defence budget.
The Type 26 presents an opportunity to act upon those experiences. Consideration should be given to the timing and specification. If they are to be built, let us ensure that other navies will want them too. After all, if they are good enough for the Royal Navy, they are good enough for any navy. If we achieve that, it will be a dreadnought moment in UK procurement. We have not sold a new Navy-designed ship abroad since the 1970s, but it is achievable. Britain is already selling standard kit to the US navy. Innovative Rolls-Royce gas turbines will power the DDG-1000 and are already powering the USS Freedom. We must focus on trade deals where they are viable and strategically advantageous. I am sure that there will be disagreement about my views, but I will not falter in making this argument, and I point out to my critics that HMS Penelope latterly became known as HMS Pepperpot because of her ability to endure massive amounts of shelling and remain afloat and able to return fire. I thank hon. Members for listening to my arguments and I shall end as Sir Roger did, by quoting Lord Nelson, whose words are as relevant now as ever:
“The boldest measures are the safest”.
Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab)
I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). She certainly advanced a sophisticated argument for the interests of the Navy and she should be congratulated on listening so carefully to her predecessor, Sir Roger. However, I am not sure about all of that knights on chargers stuff—I am always a bit sceptical about all that. I thought she was a bit scary. It was nice that she referred to my colleague and her predecessor, Sarah McCarthy-Fry. I know that everyone who serves a constituency with a big military naval or air force interest must largely follow that trend, but I think that the world we are in leads us to leave that behind. Today’s debate leads us to reflect on the fact that many people, including Opposition Members, have to consider not only their constituents’ interests but the fact that we are in a complex and difficult time financially and that we have to look to defend the realm in ways that leave sectional interests behind. However, I thought that the hon. Lady’s speech was super. I can imagine her on a horse, but I am trying to stay legal here. It was a tremendous speech. There have been a number of really good opening speeches tonight. I have probably said enough about that, except I must say that I thought her comments about her predecessor were a bit acerbic.
I want to address two issues in the brief time available to me, starting with a quick word about Trident. My personal perspective is that Opposition Front Benchers are slightly constrained by the fact that we were in government until quite recently, so we cannot really put a proper Opposition perspective on things at the moment. That is simply the way it is. I am not being critical of Labour Front Benchers, who are all very good and who excelled as Defence Ministers. It is just the way things are: things change, we are now in opposition, and I think that our profile will change in some ways too.
It is bizarre to argue that we voted Trident through in 2007, so now it should be fine, which is essentially the Secretary of State’s position. There are many things that we voted for in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 on which the position will have changed, because, as I understand it, this Government have a different prospectus from the previous Government. The idea that Labour had that as a policy when in government and should therefore follow that line is not really an argument at all. The fact is that both the Conservatives and Labour are afraid of Trident as a truly political issue, and this is not really a defence issue, but a political issue. The Conservatives are afraid—some Back Benchers are afraid—because it looks as though we are yielding something to the French or yielding some international prestige. Labour is, to some degree, afraid, because it looks as though we are going back to the 1980s.
The Secretary of State said something quite prescient in his opening speech—that we must not have a view that is essentially the view of that a generation ago. There are Members on the Government Benches who know much more about this than I do, but that is a classic position on defence policy—that we must not look to the past few campaigns to work out what to do in future. However, that is exactly what we are doing with Trident.
I have with me a whole bunch of cheap quotes—I could not help noticing that the Minister for the Armed Forces glanced up at me then—but I am not going to use them. I just am not cheap enough. I cannot; I am not going to do it. The Minister has advanced many intelligent arguments, but now he is in government he cannot do that, so he must be very frustrated. There was a piece in The Guardian today by Baroness Williams from the other place. I do not know whether the Minister put her up to it, but it was preposterous, saying that we should perhaps reduce from four boats to three. Conservative Members might say, “Hang on—that was kind of hinted at from your perspective six months ago”, but it is ridiculous and absolutely mad. People at the Ministry of Defence probably spent 15, 20 or 25 years thinking what our policy on replacing Polaris should be. They did not just say, “Is it four, or is it three?” Hon. Members can imagine a guy turning up at the MOD with a very large lorry, going upstairs to the fifth or sixth storey and saying to the Secretary of State, “Here are your boats mate; here are your Tridents,” and the Secretary of State saying, “Right, let’s have one up there in Scotland, one doing training or something and one out at sea.” Can hon. Members imagine the chap saying, “Well, you’ve got another one—a fourth one,” and the Secretary of State replying, “There’s a fourth! I didn’t know about that. Can you stick it up in Hertfordshire and cover it with foliage and twigs, and we’ll chat about it in a couple of years’ time”?
Dr Julian Lewis
I am fascinated by this point about the number of submarines required. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the plan was originally to have five Polaris submarines and that the number was reduced to four by the incoming Labour Government to give them an excuse to say that they were doing something different from the previous Conservative Government? I sometimes get the impression that some of my now allies are trying to make the same sort of suggestion about changing the number from four to three for a similar reason.
Eric Joyce
I enjoy giving way to the hon. Gentleman. He made an excellent speech earlier, and I will come to him in a moment; the second part of my speech is on Afghanistan.
Although I may not be qualified to say this, the position of successive Governments on Trident is incoherent militarily; it is political argument. Frankly, the idea that someone can simply pop up in an article in The Guardian or as part of the Government and say, “Let’s knock it from four down to three” is completely mad. Therefore, this turns on a geopolitical argument, which we can discuss, but—guess what?—if it is excluded from a defence review or, indeed, to be fair, a shadow defence review, we cannot discuss it. We simply say, “That’s not going to cut the mustard, so we’ll just leave it out. It’s a bit embarrassing, so just push it out.” That is like suggesting that we should exclude Trident when considering how much we spend on defence each year, or not saying that we spend 2.3% of our gross domestic product on defence, but, for those reasons, we should not do that.
Trident is not really a military question at all; it is a geopolitical question and one for the Prime Minister. I sometimes think that it is rather odd that we even discuss it in defence debates. It is most peculiar that Trident is excluded, and perhaps any defence review with proper integrity would include it. Such a review may conclude that we need Trident or its successor, that we need something different or that we need nothing, but leaving it out is simply an admission that we cannot stack up the argument.
In my last two minutes and four seconds, I shall zoom on to Afghanistan. The same problem exists, because we have an interim situation in the Opposition. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has ideas that are worth fleshing out. We cannot properly oppose the position at the moment, because politics is as it is. I listened to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and other Members with very great interest. My instinct is that Government Back Benchers have considerable experience, which creates a sense of not disloyalty but ambivalence, with a generation of different ideas that are not classically conservative but are creative and imaginative. That is not to say that one agrees with them, but a lot more of that is going on among Government Members than can happen among Opposition Members. The difficulty is where we are at the moment politically. That will change at the end of the year, but defence debates can be decidedly dull for correspondents in other places, because we tend to agree, which is a bit boring, is it not? However, quite interesting stuff is going on among Government Back Benchers, and Opposition Back Benchers are a little constrained at the moment.
Crucial though issues such as jobs are, I should like to think that future debates in the House would not simply revolve around constituency sectional interests and manufacturing. Our debates need to be about something rather more than that; they need to be much more about the future of foreign and defence policy, what we need to do in this country, whether we pay too much obeisance to the United States and whether we get back in return what we give in geopolitical influence. Those are the key issues that we should be considering, and some of them have been broached tonight.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
I am grateful to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate all the hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches tonight.
My constituency of South East Cornwall was known as the Bodmin constituency until 1983. It is an honour to follow my predecessor, Colin Breed, who was a dedicated campaigner on behalf of those who work in the defence industry until his retirement from the House this year and who was well respected throughout the constituency. I should also like to pay tribute to Sir Robert Hicks. Held in high esteem by so many and first elected as MP for Bodmin in 1970, he spoke up for Devonport naval base and dockyard throughout his political career until 1997.
It is ironic that another former MP for Bodmin, John Rathbone, was killed while defending our nation in December 1940 during the battle of Britain and was succeeded by his wife, Beatrice, the first female MP for Bodmin who was elected unopposed in 1941. As Beatrice Wright, she became vice-president of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and founded Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
South East Cornwall is a mainly rural constituency, bounded by the River Fowey in the west and the Tamar in the east. It is economically reliant on farming, tourism and small enterprise. It is a truly beautiful part of the county, with hill farms on the border of Bodmin moor and lush market gardens in the Tamar valley, the beautiful Rame peninsula, where I am fortunate to have my home, and a coastline and beaches that attract thousands of holidaymakers. I would welcome any hon. Member to come and have a holiday in South East Cornwall, because I know that they would be made to feel welcome.
Six small towns form the main areas of population throughout the constituency. At Lostwithiel in the west, the Stannary palace is reputed to be the oldest non-ecclesiastical building in Cornwall. The market town of Liskeard was home to the former Caradon district council and is where the fortnightly cattle market provides an opportunity for farmers and rural villagers to come together. The coastal town of Looe, along with the neighbouring villages of Polperro and Polruan, provides superb tourism locations, while the much depleted commercial fishing industry is just about withstanding the devastating hardship heaped upon it through the present economic situation, the European common fisheries policy and the disastrous way in which the last Administration mishandled the quota management system for the small under 10 metre fishing fleet—believe me, I know, because I am married to a fisherman.
In the north of the constituency, Callington is home to Ginsters—the largest enterprise in the constituency—and the town also boasts the first school in Cornwall to gain foundation status.
Saltash and Torpoint on the eastern bank of the Tamar rely on the neighbouring city of Plymouth for much employment. Devonport dockyard and naval base generate around £850 million per year for the immediate local economy and are responsible, directly and indirectly, for 24,000 jobs. A large number of the Devonport work force live in South East Cornwall and, without that, Torpoint and Saltash could become ghost towns.
I am delighted to welcome my right hon. Friend as the new Secretary of State for Defence, although he is not sitting in his place at the moment, and I welcome my colleague, the Minister for the Armed Forces.
The news that the Trident replacement will not be included in the forthcoming strategic defence and security review is welcome. The nuclear deterrent is necessary to deter the most destructive forms of aggression. I believe that the most cost-effective way to deliver a future maintenance programme for the continuous at-sea deterrent will be to use the refit facilities already in place at Devonport dockyard, and I hope that my right hon. Friends agree.
HMS Raleigh—the Royal Navy’s premier training establishment in the south-west and a real part of the community, where all ratings join the service and receive the first phase of their naval training—is located in South East Cornwall and has considerable influence on the town of Torpoint, as well as the Rame peninsula. Four new accommodation blocks, built as part of the major upgrade of facilities, have recently been unveiled. They are named Antelope, Ardent, Sir Galahad and Conqueror to commemorate four ships that played a part in the Falklands campaign.
I have a specific interest in the Navy because my daughter is a serving Royal Navy officer. I have gained first-hand knowledge of the various ways in which our senior service operates in many roles around the globe. The Royal Navy is flexible, resilient and capable, providing Government with a range of options to deal with threats and challenges facing the UK and her allies. The varied tasks undertaken include: providing support for the Department for International Development; supporting the Home Office in protecting the territorial integrity of our home waters; providing fishery protection in English, Welsh and Northern Irish waters; and supporting the Cabinet Office in co-ordinating UK maritime surveillance information.
The UK has been the world’s most successful defence exporter over the past 10 years, and the naval sector earns around £3 billion of revenue per year. Flag-officer sea training is based in Plymouth. Over 100 ships and submarines from the Royal Navy and the navies of NATO and allied nations benefit from FOST’s training expertise each year. I hope that the strategic defence review will recognise the return that could be generated from any investment in the Royal Navy, which offers variety and flexibility in the way in which it operates. I hope that my colleagues on the Government Front Bench appreciate that Devonport’s dockyard and naval base provide South East Cornwall and, indeed, the city of Plymouth with a huge amount of benefits. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to keep funding in South East Cornwall, and to use the wealth of expertise that we have in our area.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
May I first congratulate all Members on both sides of the House on their superb maiden speeches? We have heard some excellent contributions, including from the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray)—I am sure that the House wishes her daughter all the best in her career—and the hon. Members for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), and for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile).
This has been an excellent debate because of the cross-party consensus about the need for a rational, thoughtful defence review. I think that we Labour Members can all recognise that there are areas of waste that we can look to cut. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) will be happy to supply the Government Front Benchers with a list of projects and areas of expense that they can cut to begin with.
I hope that the Minister for the Armed Forces will give answers on some pressing issues that my constituents—and, from the sound of it, constituents of Members on both sides of the House—have about the future of our two new aircraft carriers. It might be helpful if I gave a flavour of the size and scale of the two new super-carriers, and their importance to the Royal Navy. Each is 65,000 tonnes at full displacement. They are three times bigger than anything that the Royal Navy has ever built or used, going back 500 years. Each will have 1,600 personnel and 40 aircraft on board, and have a range of up to 10,000 nautical miles. They are absolutely crucial to our future force projection and to the expeditionary role that our armed forces will play. It is perhaps also worth reflecting on the fact that there are 10,000 British highly skilled, highly prized manufacturing jobs at stake.
Thomas Docherty
I note that the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) is nodding away; he will know, as will Members on both sides of the House, how crucial such jobs are.
Perhaps it is worth reflecting on why we need these two new super-carriers. It was clear from the last strategic defence review, carried out in 1998 by the then Secretary of State, that the existing carrier fleet was from the cold war era. It was built around the idea of anti-submarine warfare. That threat has thankfully receded, and we will face new types of threat. It is not plausible simply to rely on the good will and good nature of foreign powers in letting us use their territories for conducting expeditionary operations. That is why we need the force projection that only the carriers can provide. It took five years to set up the aircraft carrier alliance, which has developed the project. That is important, because when discussing something in the region of £4 billion-worth of expenditure, people tend not to rush into things, and I hope that Members in all parts of the House accept that the previous Government made sure not only that there was a good deal for British industry but that, crucially, there was a good deal for the British taxpayer. That is why it took so long for the project to come to fruition. I note the comments about the bow sections, which have now been completed for the first of the two aircraft carriers and have arrived in my constituency for assembly.
Many Members, however, are rightly concerned about the comments about the second aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, which is due to roll into the Forth in 2017-18. I should be grateful if the Minister tried to answer four or five questions. First, when will the formal period of consultation on the defence review begin? There is great anticipation, both in the House and across the country, and we want some certainty. Secondly, how long will that formal consultation last and will he, as the previous Government did in its SDR, make sure that interested organisations—I am thinking of trade unions, the defence industry, local authorities, the Scottish and Welsh Governments—have an opportunity to make some input into the SDR?
Will the Minister also clarify what weighting the Government will give, not just to military need, which should be paramount, but—and we have heard some good contributions on this—the vital role that the contract will play as a platform for our defence industry to export ideas, technology and skills to other countries? There has been some speculation—and the Minister may wish to shed light on this—about whether or not a foreign country has expressed interest in buying an aircraft carrier, using the skills and expertise that British companies have developed. Finally, will he explain what weighting will be given to the socio-economic role played by the aircraft carriers? As I have said, 10,000 jobs depend on the contracts going ahead, and there is trepidation among Opposition Members, who fear that if the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills gets his way, and the second carrier is delayed, mothballed or downgraded, those jobs will be in danger.
Will the Minister explain whether, as part of the overall defence review, the future of the Fleet Air Arm will be considered? Without wishing to prejudice the argument, many people would suggest, given that the two carriers will use the joint strike fighter with the Royal Air Force, that the time has come to have a thorough review of whether the Fleet Air Arm should become part of the RAF. I should be grateful if he outlined his thoughts on that. Finally, this has been an excellent debate, and I should like to conclude by wishing the Minister well in his role, and assuring the House that the Opposition will give our full support to a thorough, thoughtful and long-term defence review.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
First, Mr Deputy Speaker, may I congratulate you on your new role? We have known each other for more years than I care to remember—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] To put that in context, I helped Nigel in his first ever by-election in Ribble Valley many years ago. I do not remember exactly when, but it seems a long time ago.
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to give my maiden speech in this great debate. I welcome the review, and very much look forward to discussing the issue with my constituents and to making my submission. I pay tribute to the courage and determination of all our armed forces fighting on the front line in Afghanistan. I would especially like to pay tribute to those in the Mercian Regiment, some of whom are from my constituency, and want to give a special mention to a brave soldier from Redditch whose funeral I attended last year—a lance corporal from the Parachute Regiment.
It is an honour to be the first elected Member of Parliament for the new constituency of Redditch county. Although I was unsuccessful, I fought the old Redditch seat twice before. The new seat of Redditch county includes the rural areas of the Lenches and Hanbury, whose church, legend has it, features in the radio show, “The Archers”. They are very beautiful parts of the county of Worcestershire and I am honoured to represent them. These parts of the new seat were, until this election, represented by my good friend, and hon. Friend, the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), who has helped and supported me through my whole time in Redditch.
I would like to pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, the right hon. Jacqui Smith, who was this country’s first woman Home Secretary. Jacqui was renowned in Redditch for being a great constituency MP and in that I certainly have a hard act to follow. Jacqui Smith and I have three things in common. We are both mothers with two children, we both have sisters called Sarah, and we both have husbands called Richard. But I think we will leave that one there. I wish her well in whatever she now chooses to pursue.
Other former Members of Parliament to represent parts of Redditch include the late Eric Forth and Hal Miller, who both had highly distinguished careers.
Redditch is a new town and was designated so in 1964, the year I was born. Back then it had a population of some 29,000 and included lovely areas such as Headless Cross and Webheath. It has grown significantly since then, and the new constituency has some 66,000 voters and includes the lovely villages of Cookhill, Feckenham, Inkberrow, Hanbury, Stock and Bradley Green, Abbots Morton and the Lenches. For those who listen to “The Archers”, it is believed that Inkberrow is the model for Ambridge, so I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to come to Inkberrow for a drink in the Old Bull, which is delightful.
Redditch county is a mixture of rural and urban communities and in that there are many challenges to face. The town of Redditch has suffered the loss of many manufacturing jobs over the years, especially with the demise of the car industry. However, in their place, there are many small and medium-sized businesses that will be looking to us to try to build the economy and ensure direct investment into our country and into Redditch. One of those companies hoping for a push in the right direction is Mettis Aerospace, a company that provides components to the aerospace industry and employs hundreds of Redditch residents. I am sure the Secretary of State remembers visiting that successful company with me a few years ago.
As well as the larger employers in Redditch, we cannot forget the many smaller companies that I have visited over the years. I have been extremely impressed by their dedication, business know-how and commitment to their staff.
I hope that Members here today will take the time to visit Redditch, especially the site of Bordesley abbey, where the 12th century monks set up home, as well as the Forge Mill museum, which tracks the development of industry in Redditch through needle-making and the manufacture of fishing hooks. I am happy to say, and I know my constituents will be delighted to hear, that in 2012 Redditch will have a brand-new swimming pool, courtesy of the Conservative-controlled council, to complement a wonderful theatre that has been lovingly refurbished.
There are many fine schools in Redditch. I firmly believe in the best education that we can provide. Both my children were educated in the state system and received a great education at St Augustine’s high school in Redditch. I am very proud to be chairman of governors at Vaynor first school, which is one of the largest first schools in the UK. For those Members who do not know, Worcestershire is one of the lowest funded authorities in the country, and I promise to make it my mission to address that while I am a Member of Parliament.
I would like to finish by saying that I am so proud to be here, standing up for the people of Redditch county, and fighting on their behalf. It has taken me 10 years, but it has been worth it. I hope that I am able to make a difference to their lives and repay the trust that they have put in me. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech today.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) on a wonderful maiden speech. I gave mine a couple of weeks ago, and I know that making the speech is not as trying as the nerves while waiting to make it. The hon. Lady makes Redditch sound idyllic, and if I have the chance I will visit it one day.
As one Welshman to another, I welcome you to your place, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As you said to me once, we Evanses must stick together.
I would like to pay my own tribute to all the men and women who serve in our armed forces. Our hearts go out on this sad day to all those who have lost loved ones. Their bravery and courage is truly remarkable, and their dedication both to their duty and to our country demonstrates why they are rightly described as the finest force in the world. We should all be very proud of them and deeply grateful for all they do to protect our country. Joining the forces is not like joining Barclays or Tesco. We ask those brave men and women to put their lives on the line for our security, and in return we must honour their commitment. Therefore, the guiding principle of the strategic defence and security review must be the safety of our armed forces.
We all know very well that the troops who are in greatest danger today are those serving in Afghanistan. Our security here in Britain is directly affected by what happens in Afghanistan. If we are to prevent terrorism on our streets here at home, we must see our job in Afghanistan through to its conclusion. The Secretary of State said recently, in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, that our people in Afghanistan will get the best possible support. For me, the best possible support for our forces is to provide them with the best possible equipment.
Our forces in Afghanistan are continually exposed to the threat of attack from Taliban forces, using improvised explosive devices. The Prime Minister’s announcement on his recent visit to Afghanistan of extra spending on armoured vehicles and other specialised equipment that will protect British forces in Afghanistan from those devices is certainly welcome. In one of their last acts, the Labour Government awarded the contract for the new generation of armoured fighting vehicles to General Dynamics for its ASCOD specialist vehicle. I well remember being at its site in Newbridge in March to hear employees greet the announcement with cheers and a sense of relief.
Once in service, these new specialist vehicles will bring significant benefits for our troops serving in places such as Afghanistan, including improved protection, greater fire power, longer-range sensors and sighting systems, and greater reliability. During its testing, the vehicle withstood attacks from the latest mine threats, and it also allows additional protection to be fitted as new threats arise. This affords the maximum protection to our troops inside the vehicle and will, without doubt, save the lives of members of our armed forces.
Warfare of the type currently encountered in Afghanistan requires vehicles that can protect our soldiers from all kinds of attack. Protection is now the essence of modern warfare, and the new specialist vehicle will deliver exceptional levels of protection for British troops from the day it enters service. The era of the cold war is now long in the past, thank God, and it seems increasingly likely that the conflicts of the future will involve fighting of the type seen in Afghanistan. We must now focus on equipping our forces properly for such of conflicts, and I hope that this review will focus on how best to achieve that. Therefore, I urge the Government to protect this vital project.
In addition to the military case for maintaining the contract with General Dynamics, there is also an economic case for continuing the contract. Eight regions of the UK are set to benefit in terms of employment as a result of General Dynamics being awarded the specialist vehicle contract. In addition, supply chain jobs fall across the country, as key suppliers are located in Scotland, the north of England, the north-west, the east midlands and the south of England, as well as in Wales and the west midlands. Across the UK, this will mean that 10,500 jobs will be created or safeguarded for British-based companies and organisations.
In Wales, we expect at least 200 new jobs to be created and 250 more to be protected, many of which are based in my constituency of Islwyn. When the Oakdale colliery closed in 1989 with the loss of hundreds of jobs, the future for the local economy looked bleak. However, now in place of the pits is a business park where General Dynamics employs hundreds of highly skilled engineers who will, we hope, soon be working on another of the Government’s most important defence contracts. Providing jobs for such a large number of people across our country, at a time when many fear unemployment, would be a great boost for many local economies and will help us to secure the recovery. Creating and protecting those jobs right across the country will also safeguard key skills and sustain future capabilities for armoured fighting vehicle development and production in the UK. That will ensure that the British tank building industry is maintained, which can only be good for jobs, for industry and for the economy.
I caution the Government against going back on deals that have already been signed. If international companies are given the runaround by the Government they may decide to pack up and leave, which would be a huge blow to the economy, both locally and nationally. Therefore, I urge the Secretary of State and his colleagues to ensure that this vital piece of kit for our soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan is delivered as soon as possible, both to protect our troops and to protect our jobs. The consequences of cutting that project would be disastrous for our armed forces and our economy. I ask the Government to guarantee today that the project will not be cut, and to assure me that our soldiers’ safety and our economic recovery will not be endangered in the name of reducing the deficit. Our troops are brave, and I sincerely hope that the review will ensure that in the years to come they will be able to do their job in the best possible way. They are the best, and they deserve the very best from the Government. Anything less will be a betrayal of their commitment.
Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Congratulations to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on your elevation. I am grateful to you for allowing me to speak in this debate. Today is my wedding anniversary, and I hope that making my maiden speech in this place is just about a good enough reason for not wining and dining Mrs Brine this evening. I pay tribute to colleagues from all parts of the House for their good speeches in a very good debate, and to colleagues who have made their maiden speeches—probably far better ones than this. There can be few debates of more significance right now, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary on his new position and pay tribute to him for the strong lead that he gave the House in opening today’s debate.
I have the great honour of rising to address the House as the Member for Winchester. The area first returned Members to Parliament only in 1295. Modern day Winchester has undergone significant boundary changes since the 2005 general election, yet it remains focused on the great city of Winchester itself. I also represent, and am pleased to do so, the charming market town of Alresford in the north, famed for its watercress beds and steam railway, the pretty villages of the Itchen valley, including my own village of Easton, the stunning Hampshire downlands of Wonston and Micheldever, and as far south as Colden Common and Twyford.
I also represent four wards of the borough of Eastleigh, across Chandler’s Ford and Hiltingbury. It is often said to me that at each election the people of Chandler’s Ford and Hiltingbury look very carefully to see where they are going to be asked to vote this time, so often have they been moved around, so I ask the Boundary Commission, if it looks at Hampshire again, to leave the good people of Chandler’s Ford and Hiltingbury in peace just this once.
Those major changes mean that I take over from one current Member and two former Members: the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), Sandra Gidley and Mark Oaten—who vacated the major part of the new Winchester constituency. It is no secret that my predecessor left the House in difficult circumstances, but I pay tribute to Mark for his work over 13 years as the Member for Winchester, and I thank him genuinely for being a gentleman and a consummate professional in his dealings with me when I was a candidate. I count Mark today as a friend, I know how very well respected he was in the constituency and in the House, and I wish him and his family every success for the future.
Members will be aware that Winchester is an ancient place. Once, during Saxon times, it was the capital of England, and we shall be happy to take that status back at any time. The cathedral is still at the heart of life in our city, and the Bishop of Winchester is one of just 26 Church of England bishops to sit in the other place during their time in office. We have the second oldest mayoralty in the land, but our main newspaper, the Hampshire Chronicle, is a relatively new boy, having been established only in 1772.
We do history well in Winchester. King Arthur’s legendary round table hangs in the great hall, we have England’s oldest and most perfect almshouse at St Cross, and we have King Alfred—Alfred the Great. The great man is far from forgotten by today’s residents. He keeps watch over the city from his vantage point on the Broadway, and he is served magnificently today by the Hyde900 project.
Today, Winchester is a vibrant, bustling and cosmopolitan city that boasts one of the largest sixth forms in the country at Peter Symonds college, the self-confident university of Winchester and, quite literally, schools to move for. As the county town of Hampshire, we host the headquarters of Hampshire county council, HMP Winchester and the headquarters of Hampshire constabulary.
My constituency has a proud military tradition, and I look forward to making my voice heard in the House on defence matters. The city has no fewer than five military museums, including the Royal Hampshire Regiment museum. The Royal Hampshire, now the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, is based in Winchester and counts a Brine, my grandfather, as part of its proud history. The city will be very much focused on the brave men and women of 11 Light Brigade on Wednesday this week, when we host the royal welcome home parade from Afghanistan. I will be there, of course, as will several Front-Bench Members. I assure the House that we will give the brigade the best Hampshire welcome home.
In my constituency we are proud of our military history, but it is not all about museums, and it must never be. The Army is still firmly in my constituency at Worthy Down camp, which is still—for now, at least—the home of the Adjutant General’s Corps. My constituency also includes the Army training regiment, whose future I am keen to secure as contracts are considered and reviewed for initial support and logistics training.
The strategic defence and security review is a marked opportunity for our nation to re-engage not only this House—we have certainly done that this afternoon—but the wider public in the invaluable work done by our armed forces to secure our national security. While I am in this House, I intend to be a clear and persistent voice in favour of ensuring that the new Government honour their promise, as I know they will, to repair the military covenant for the sake of our men and women in the field, as well as the families back home living in places such as Worthy Down camp in my constituency.
The national health service is one of the factors that drove me into the House. At present, my constituents are well served by a much loved district general hospital in Winchester—it was home to much of the good work of Florence Nightingale in her early days—and by large general hospitals in nearby Basingstoke and Southampton. During my time as a candidate, including during the election, I campaigned vigorously and clearly to maintain services, most especially A and E and maternity services in Winchester. I believe that I was elected with a clear mandate to see that that happens. The issues affecting the future of district general hospitals such as Winchester’s will be at the heart of the health debate in this Parliament, and I promise the House that I will argue passionately for their place in a modern NHS.
Already the people whom I represent have felt the new Government’s presence. The removal of regional strategies and top-down housing targets has been warmly welcomed in Winchester and Chandler’s Ford. The tireless campaigners of the Save Barton Farm group and many others in my constituency are among those who warmly welcome their abolition. I pay tribute to the work of those campaigners to protect Winchester and surrounding areas from gross overdevelopment.
This is probably a cliché, but it is no less true for that: I am the first member of my immediate family to go to university, and many are proud of that. As I said, my family includes a brave man of the Royal Hampshire Regiment, one of the original Tolpuddle martyrs—according to family legend—and now the Conservative MP for Winchester. Brinism, if there is ever such a word, is a very big tent indeed.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr Brine), who took us on an enchanting tour of his constituency and touched on some serious issues; I am sure he will represent his constituents excellently.
Defence spending and investment is of particular importance to my constituency, which is potentially under attack on two fronts by more than one party in the Chamber. Faslane naval base, the home of Trident, sits just outside the western end of my constituency and the Clyde shipyards working on the aircraft carriers sit just outside the eastern end. Disappointingly, the new Government have not committed to backing the new aircraft carrier projects and, frankly, have not given good enough answers today about the replacement of Trident.
At the same time, the Scottish National party Government would, if they could, try to remove Trident from Faslane, and as a consequence would run down the base there. Multilateral disarmament is a noble aim that I support, but it would be foolhardy, to say the least, to get rid of our nuclear deterrent when other countries will not. Negotiation is the best way forward. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is now in his place. I thank him for his letter to me and a few other Members last week, which came with a glossy booklet that seems to have been commissioned since his appointment. In his letter, he writes:
“The importance of defence within constituencies, but also across the country as a whole, warrants far greater attention from us all.”
I agree, and I echo those sentiments. But to give some meaning to the words, will he commit to including an assessment of the economic impact on constituencies of any decisions made as a result of the review?
The new Chancellor may be looking to the defence budget to save billions of pounds, but does he have any idea of the economic impact and financial cost to my constituents if he gets his way on defence cuts?
Alison Seabeck
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is some confusion on the Government Benches, given that the Business Secretary is clearly of the view that it is really important to keep manufacturing in the UK going, yet some of the changes that might come about could have completely the opposite effect?
Gemma Doyle
Yes, I do agree. I share those concerns, as will my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock).
My constituents watched the demise of their world-class shipbuilding industry under the previous Conservative Government, and I can tell the House that that might have something to do with that party’s share of the vote in West Dunbartonshire even today. It has taken not years but decades to try to recover from the devastation caused by the decisions and inaction of the previous Conservative Government. We are only now in the middle of regeneration works on the former site of John Brown’s shipyard. As such, Members will understand my concerns, which arise not only from the prospect of cuts to the defence budget but the further damage that is likely to be done to my constituency because of this Government’s desire to cut public spending at the expense of vital services.
The Secretary of State should note that some 6,000 jobs in Scotland are dependent on the aircraft carriers alone, along with, I believe, another 4,000 jobs in other parts of the UK. Any slippage in the project could cost jobs and skills, and I urge him to give some reassurance to these workers that their jobs are safe. I mentioned that Faslane naval base is at the other end of my constituency, just outside it. Some 7,000 jobs are based there, and given that the entire submarine fleet of the Royal Navy will be based there in future, I understand that that figure will increase.
There has recently been much gnashing of teeth in the press by SNP Members concerned about the impact of cuts on defence projects and jobs in Scotland. They should stop their crocodile tears, however, because under their plans for an independent Scotland, all UK defence contracts and jobs would be lost. They advocate the scrapping of Trident and, according to reports, would be happy to see Faslane run down to become a small facility. What it would be doing in an independent Scotland I am not quite sure, but perhaps this shows that they agree with the sentiment once expressed on the Conservative Benches that unemployment is a price worth paying.
On that note, I should mention that many of my constituents work at the MOD personnel centre in Kentigern house in Glasgow. I imagine that it will be tempting to target cuts at so-called backroom staff. The Secretary of State should know, however, that the previous Government had already reduced the number of MOD civil servants by a third to maintain investment in the front line, and he should be cautious of further reducing back-up services to front-line staff.
I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to an excellent article in today’s Financial Times by Professor Alison Wolf, in which she argues:
“Defence R&D matters to Britain’s manufacturing future because it offers able graduates the incentive to work as engineers and scientists rather than as bankers or analysts.”
That is an important point that those of us who support Britain’s manufacturing industries should bear in mind. Under the previous Government, the strategic review would have examined what our modern defence needs are and how we can best meet them. I am afraid that this Government will not follow our lead and will instead use the strategic review as a smokescreen for cuts.
Yesterday I attended a service to celebrate Armed Forces day in Clydebank town hall. As this is the first time I have spoken in this place on defence, I would like to put on the record my gratitude to our armed forces, although my words hardly seem adequate. We now have an entire new generation of men and women who have seen active battle, many of whom are from my generation. They are heroic men and women who serve their country with such skill and bravery. Their job is the difficult one; mine is only to speak up for them.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak this evening.
I have the great privilege of representing the wonderful people of Castle Point. As everyone here should know, it is a borough constituency on the north side of the Thames in Essex. The seat takes its name from two of its most prominent landmarks: the ruins of Hadleigh castle, which overlook the Thames, and Canvey Point, the easternmost point of Canvey Island—a true island, below sea level, which fortunately enjoys some of the lowest levels of rainfall in the country. Hon. Members will know that the castle is the subject of a beautiful and haunting painting by John Constable. Indeed, I am often confused by people who say they are going to visit Constable country and then mistakenly head off for Suffolk instead. I very much look forward to being able to show off the beauty of my constituency when Hadleigh downs hosts the 2012 Olympic mountain biking event.
Castle Point has a rich history. Canvey Island hosted an early Roman settlement and was drained by Dutch engineers in the 17th century, and the Saxons fought off the Vikings at the battle of Benfleet. Castle Point’s recent political history has been no less interesting. My immediate predecessor was Dr Bob Spink, who was an extremely active Member of the House and an enthusiastic presenter of petitions. In recent years he was associated with several parties, including a short fling with the UK Independence party as its only ever MP, however briefly. He ultimately fought the election leading his own Independent Save Our Green Belt party—an important issue in Castle Point. I have met many people whom he has helped over the years of his service, and he was a very hard-working Member of Parliament. I wish him the best for the future.
However, no Castle Point MP should talk about the constituency without paying proper tribute to the late Lord Braine of Wheatley, who served the area with great distinction for 43 years and was Father of the House until his elevation to another place. Sir Bernard is still remembered with real affection, and at my first meeting with a local campaign leader I was presented with a 30-year-old copy of Hansard recording his marathon three-and-a-half-hour filibuster as he strove to talk out a railway Bill that would have made more likely the construction of two oil refineries on west Canvey marshes. The development would have blighted the whole borough to this day.
Like a lot of men, Sir Bernard seemed to have no great difficulty talking for three and a half hours without pause. That said, he was helped by supportive colleagues on the Back Benches intervening to complain, after only two hours, that he was pursuing his argument in too hurried and superficial a way, and requesting that he please give more background and context in order for them to get a better grasp of his arguments. I am happy to say that Sir Bernard and the tenacious local residents won the day. The refineries were never built, and one of my first public engagements as a Member of Parliament was attending the formal opening of a superb new Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserve where one of those refineries would have stood.
Bernard showed how an experienced and determined Member might use this Chamber to deliver real benefits to the community that he represented, benefits that are well remembered nearly 40 years on—quite a lesson for a new Member like myself. He understood the Castle Point community and saw it grow rapidly as people moved there from London. In doing so, they sought to bring up their families in the safe, green, pleasant villages of Benfleet, Thundersley, Hadleigh, Canvey Island and Daws Heath. That housing development, though, is balanced by the presence of ancient woodlands, heathland, marshes and glens and vital green belt, the preservation of which is hugely important to the local people, who want to ensure that Castle Point remains a peaceful and attractive place to live—a subject I will return to in future debates. As Members may guess, I and my constituents are delighted at the abolition of regional housing targets.
Despite its rapid growth, Castle Point has maintained an exceptionally strong, even old-fashioned, sense of community—something that its people have preserved, and that I as their MP wish to help them preserve. Castle Point residents are very proud of their community, and also fiercely proud of our country—even, it seems, of our national football team. Above all, they are hugely proud of our armed forces and will line the streets for them on Saturday for Armed Forces day. I am delighted that this year, the 1st Battalion the Royal Anglians, better known as the Vikings, will be joining the parade.
The Vikings recruit in and around my constituency and are just back from a third tour of duty in Afghanistan, where they have fought bravely, helping to provide security to the Afghan people and to us in the UK in turn. They lost five of their number and many more were injured. I had the privilege of receiving last week a briefing at county hall from their senior officers on their achievements during the mission, and was greatly encouraged by the progress they have made on reconstruction and development, on winning over the local community leaders, and on investment in the training of the Afghan national army and police. More than 10,000 Essex people turned out last week to give them a proper Essex welcome, demonstrating their heartfelt support for those who bravely put their lives at risk on our behalf.
However, that support has not stopped those same people from asking searching questions about the mission and equipment, and about the care we give to the injured and their relatives, both in mind and body. Some ask why we are in those locations, what we realistically hope to achieve, and whether all the money and personnel could be better deployed in protecting our domestic security in a more direct way. Like many others, my constituents have experienced terrorism first hand and its changing character over the years. The IRA sought to detonate an oil storage tank on Canvey in the ’70s, and many of my constituents work in London and were affected by 7/7.
I hope the defence review gives us a proper chance to look hard at our priorities as we consider how best to make our country secure again, with the background of a diverse and rapidly changing security threat, and the realities of our economic circumstances. My briefing from the Vikings showed clearly the principle that security can be won and maintained only through the combination of military and policing action, negotiation and diplomacy, and aid and investment, and that one should not undermine or work against the other. I hope that the strategic defence and security review, while determining the future shape of our defence and armed forces, will also give the British public confidence that when our brave men and women are sent to war on our behalf, it is for this country’s security interests.
I shall close by saying what a great pride I have in representing the people of Castle Point. I offer total commitment to serving them in this House, to repay the trust they have placed in me by sending me here.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
It is an honour to speak after so many fantastic maiden speeches, in particular those of my hon. Friends the Members for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for Winchester (Mr Brine), and for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester on his wedding anniversary. Mine is tomorrow, so I know the feeling of being away from family down here in London. It is also an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who spoke with such passion and authority on the necessity of ensuring the resilience of our front-line units in Afghanistan.
It is well known that the percentage of gross domestic product that we spend on defence is at historic lows. However, as a result of our equally historic deficit, it is now likely to fall even lower. I was a soldier, and I do not want that, but I am a realist on the state of Government finances, so I recognise that the Ministry of Defence must take its share of the pain. I am hopeful that if that is done through the prism of a comprehensive strategic defence and security review, we can ensure a sustainable balance between resources and requirements.
The SDSR cannot be conducted independently of a thorough review of the defence industrial strategy. A quarter of our defence budget is spent on equipment and services, and our current approach to acquisition is, at best, a mixed bag. The urgent operational requirement system allows for a valuable degree of flexibility and provides a way into the procurement system for our strong phalanx of small and medium-sized defence companies, but in too many cases, the core programme level is a disaster.
At this stage, I must take issue with the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who praised the A400M aircraft. They said that it was a fantastic aircraft with which we should be delighted to be involved. I do not doubt that the aircraft that finally results from the programme will be a fine aircraft, but the acquisition process that has got us to this point is an example of how not to procure an aircraft. It is more than three years late and almos £10 billion over budget, and arguably, it is now considerably over-specced for the initial requirements.
Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), in her maiden speech, noted that the United Kingdom has not exported a naval vessel since the 1970s. Type 45 destroyers were originally supposed to cost something like £280 million each, but they now cost more than £1 billion each. Is it any wonder, given the gold-plating that happens in our procurement process, that we end up with bits of kit that are simply too expensive to export? It cost the previous Government £100 million simply to avoid making a decision on the future rapid effect system for a year. The frictional costs at Abbey Wood have been estimated at some £0.5 billion a year. That would pay for a brigade of soldiers.
I am a strong supporter of the UK defence industry. It is a UK good news story, employing some 300,000 people and representing 10% of UK manufacturing jobs, and these are high-quality jobs—they are high-tech, high-value added jobs. The industry turnover is some £35 billion, of which 22% is from exports. However, the question must be asked whether the current acquisition process is designed to support our armed forces or our defence industry. It is supposed to do both; it is in danger of doing neither.
I am old fashioned: I believe that the defence budget is there to equip and train our armed forces, and to support them in performing their duties at home and abroad. The defence budget is not there to support industry—there are other Departments with that remit. I am not even convinced that the defence industrial strategy as it currently operates is good for our defence industry. We have some of the most successful high-tech, highly skilled companies in the world—companies that are hampered, not helped, by the MOD’s constant gold-plating and moving of the goalposts. The MOD too often limits the industry’s export potential by specifying equipment that is simply too expensive and too specialised for the export market. I am not arguing for scrapping the defence industrial strategy or for abandoning partnering between the MOD and industry, but anybody who thinks that the current acquisition programme is working is deluding themselves.
Alison Seabeck
I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman, but from the tone of his argument, he seems to be suggesting that those on his Front Bench should perhaps have the opportunity to purchase off-the-peg items from overseas, rather than from British industry.
Dan Byles
There is a balance to be struck. In fact, before the hon. Lady intervened, my very next sentence was going to be: there is a balance to be struck between supporting our vibrant defence industry and ensuring that our soldiers get the equipment that they need in a timely manner. I recognise that there is a balance to be struck—it is not about one thing or another—but we are simply not striking it at the moment. We have to look hard at how we equip and sustain our armed forces, and we must do so as part of the strategic defence and security review, not later as a stand-alone review. I sincerely hope that that will be the case.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
I am glad to have the chance to contribute in such a vital debate and to follow so many fine maiden speeches, most recently from my hon. Friends the Members for Winchester (Mr Brine) and for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). I greatly enjoyed hearing about the rich historical heritage of Winchester, and I also enjoyed the fluent and amusing speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point. I now know which is the true Constable country, and I will not be fooled by anybody else’s claims.
During the election campaign, defence was, perhaps surprisingly, a major issue on the doorstep in my constituency. There was a strong feeling that our troops had gone into battle overstretched and under-resourced. I know that a strategic defence review is the only way to square that circle, and I am encouraged by what I have heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and in particular his commitment to restoring our military covenant. However, I implore the Government to go still further. We have heard, in many fine speeches, from all parts of the House in this evening’s debate, great concern about the welfare of our troops when they are off the field of battle, with the issues ranging from health care to mental health provision. I implore our coalition Government to go still further: to be bold and to make the proverbial virtue of necessity.
As the profligacy of 13 years of Labour Government has necessitated this root-and-branch review, let us add something completely new to the mix. I advocated this in my maiden speech, and it would be remiss of me not to advocate it again today. This country needs a Veterans Administration. Tracing its roots back to 1636, when the pilgrims of Plymouth colony established a fund to help disabled veterans of wars with the native Americans, the modern Veterans Administration in the United States was set up in 1930 with a specifically co-ordinating function: to
“consolidate and coordinate Government activities affecting war veterans.”
Ms Bagshawe
I will in a second, because I believe that I am about to develop the point that I believe the hon. Gentleman is about to raise.
In 1989, President Bush senior created the Department of Veterans Affairs, with a Cabinet seat in the US Government. As he said,
“There is only one place for the veterans of America, in the Cabinet Room, at the table with the President of the United States”.
Today that Department is the second largest in the US Government, with 280,000 employees and a budget—here I urge the Secretary of State to take heart and not to flinch—of $88 billion.
Mr Kevan Jones
I was looking at the Secretary of State’s face when the hon. Lady was saying that she wants to spend a great deal more money. Can I ask her to get out of the la-la land of the campaign and look at what the last Labour Government did? We were the first Government ever to have a Veterans Minister and we were the first ever to have a Service Personnel and Veterans Agency—something that no Conservative Government ever provided.
Ms Bagshawe
If the hon. Gentleman had allowed me to develop my speech further, he would have heard me say that the cost implications are not the same for similar provisions in this country. Yes, of course there was a Veterans Minister and of course some progress has been made to care for our veterans, but I think that most hon. Members, and certainly most people in the country and in my constituency, think—as has been reflected in the speeches we have heard, including those from Labour Members—that the care provided is totally inadequate.
I am wearing today the Help for Heroes wristband. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) mentioned in his own maiden speech, the existence of Help for Heroes is a rebuke not only to the hon. Gentleman’s Government, but to everyone in the House, as it is properly a function of Government to care for our veterans. Its popularity stems from the fact that it is seen to be filling the gaps in state care. The Ministry of Defence website includes anybody who has ever fought or worn this country’s uniform, and it is estimated to reach about 10 million people in the UK, which is a hefty chunk of the population. There can be no comparison in terms of extra or additional spending for a British model of a Veterans Administration, because 87% of the American VA’s spending costs are for medical care alone, so they are already covered in this country by the NHS.
Some half-hearted attempts have been made in this direction, such as the Veterans UK website, which is an information portal, but is, to be honest, very small beer compared to a dedicated Department focused on the military and their families. Many projects that are being brought forward, such as shared equity house purchasing and pilot schemes for extra mental health provision, which were of course announced in the Conservative manifesto, as was the application of the pupil premium to military families and their children, are in their infancy, but Rome was not built in a day. I recognise that the previous Government did not leave us the money to construct a Walter Reed on UK soil.
Our forces, who are, of course, the best in the world, have been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq under-equipped and under-resourced. When they return home, they should not have to hunt out and search for what help is available. A simple reorganisation of existing and, indeed, planned benefit changes is necessary. All these things can and should be easily accessible in one place, and, crucially, one Department should have responsibility.
Other measures such as legislation—for example, I would advocate making illegal the refusal of service at hotels or hostels on the ground that a soldier is wearing the Queen’s uniform—or educational initiatives would help. For example, it is customary in the USA to thank military personnel for their service—something that we might usefully teach our own children. That would be effective in raising morale and would, of course, be totally free of cost.
We are embarking on a strategic defence review. Let us review, as part of it, the wholly inadequate present arrangements for supporting our troops and their families when they are off the field of battle. Let the new coalition Government signal their complete seriousness about restoring the military covenant and the pride they have in our troops. I urge the Government to go further than the piecemeal steps taken by the last Labour Government and to take steps to examine the feasibility of a UK Veterans Administration.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
We have had a very good debate, with 27 contributions and nine excellent maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) gave a fitting tribute to his predecessor; I agree that he was a very strong advocate for the defence industry and for BAE Systems and the Eurofighter. However, I feel that the hon. Member Fylde will find strange bedfellows in his new Liberal Democrat friends, when his two major employers are the nuclear industry and BAE Systems.
We heard a very good maiden speech from the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw). He paid tribute to Joan Humble, a very good friend of mine, who did a lot of work in the House on Deepcut and welfare issues. The hon. Gentleman explained the tortuous way in which he gets round his constituency by going through other Members’ constituencies. I do not envy his task when he puts in his mileage claim to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and explains how he makes his journey.
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) paid tribute to another good friend of mine, Linda Gilroy. He also paid tribute to the Royal Marines. When I was a Minister, I had the privilege to visit Plymouth on a number of occasions, and we should all be proud of and humbled by the work of Hasler Company on recovery capability, which, I have to say, was fully supported and financed by a Labour Government.
The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) spoke from his experience in the Territorial Army, and I thank him for his service to the nation. He paid tribute to the medical emergency response teams in Afghanistan. I have also met the individuals involved and they do a fantastic job. I hope that they will soon get recognition through the award of a campaign medal. He rightly spoke about the footprint of the defence industry in Bristol and the surrounding area. He also rightly lauded the doubling of the operational allowance, although, on the basis of the written answer I received this week, it is an unfunded commitment, because the Government do not know where the money will come from.
The speech of the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) showed that she will be a strong advocate for the Navy, and I am sure that she will be popular with the Navy in that fine city. She said that she hoped she would not have to fight for the Navy against her Front-Bench colleagues. She might have to fight hard to support her constituency and the Royal Navy, because in opposition the Conservative party was very Army-focused—
Mr Jones
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s comment from a sedentary position—he was the lone voice on the Conservative Front Bench arguing for the RAF.
The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) gave a beautiful description of what is a beautiful constituency, and she is a good salesperson for her local tourist board. She also paid tribute to Colin Breed, with whom I served on the Defence Committee and who had a keen interest in defence matters. She mentioned HMS Raleigh—if you want to see the best of British youth, Mr Deputy Speaker, you need to go to HMS Raleigh. As a Minister, I was honoured to attend a passing-out parade there last year, and it is humbling to see those who were once raw recruits passing out, with their families in tears, and going on to make a great contribution to our Royal Navy.
The hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) made, I think, a fitting tribute to her predecessor, as well as to a very good old friend of mine, Eric Forth, who once represented the area, which I had not realised previously. She also rightly pointed out her constituency’s contribution to our armed forces, and I am sure that she will be a strong advocate for that constituency.
The hon. Member for Winchester (Mr Brine) represents a strong military area, which I was fortunate to visit on numerous occasions as a Minister. One of those visits was to launch the armed forces welfare pathway with Hampshire county council, with which I hope the new ministerial team will continue.
I have to say that the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), in defeating Dr. Robert Spink, has done a favour to us and the rainforests of South America, because we will no longer have to put up with the nightly petitions he used to present. I thank her for that contribution to the environment. She also said rightly that she represents her constituency with pride, and I am sure that she will do a good job. She made the point that her constituency is a large contributor of men and women to our armed forces, and I wish her well in representing that constituency.
The debate had a large number of contributions. There is usually consensus across the House in such debates, although one would not think that if one saw some of the press comments, or the spin that came from Conservative Front Benchers, before the election. However, this is a serious subject, and we ought to ensure that Members in all parts of the House, as well as in the wider community, are involved in the review.
The right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell)—who nowadays, I have to say, looks a bit like the unhappy father of the bride at a shotgun wedding—
Mr Jones
The right hon. and learned Gentleman may not be paying for it personally, but I think that his party may well do so.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman made a good point in saying that foreign policy clearly underpinned the review. He also made a good point about finance. One thing that I think the Government Front-Bench team will soon recognise is that the enemy is not in the Ministry of Defence or in its own parties, but across the road in the Treasury.
It was remiss of me not to welcome members of the Front-Bench team to their new positions. Let me also say that I am sad that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who were collateral damage in the reshuffle, are no longer in that team. They worked very hard in opposition, and always dealt with me courteously when I was a Minister.
I think that we have taken a simplistic approach to finance in the context of the review. When we were in government, we fell into the habit of assuming that the civil service was bad and the military were good. I had the privilege and the great honour of being a Minister in the MOD, and I want to record my thanks to the civil servants and the military personnel with whom I worked. The MOD comes in for a great deal of criticism, but one thing that I would not question is the commitment and dedication of the individuals in that Department. It is true that we reduced expenditure on civil servants by cutting their number by 45,000, but savings will now have to be made across the board, and it would be wrong to make them in such a simplistic way.
An important question that has emerged today relates to the parameters of the debate that is to take place. We need to ask whether decisions have already been made, and whether some areas will be ring-fenced. In opposition, the Conservative Front-Bench team made it clear that they wanted to increase the size of the Army. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) said earlier that he would not quote things back at them. I am sorry, but I cannot help doing so.
In opposition, the then hon. Member for Woodspring—now the Secretary of State—was keen to ensure that we had a bigger Army. On 18 February 2008, he was asked by Adam Boulton of Sky News:
“So are you saying that you want… a bigger army?”
He replied:
“We want to see a bigger army.”
That rather contradicts what he is saying now, and what he was quoted as saying the other week in The Sunday Times—that
“nothing had been ruled out—even cuts to the numbers of uniformed personnel.”
Are we to believe that what the Conservatives said before the last election was just the rhetoric of opposition? Was it not, in fact, a cynical ploy to give the impression that they were the party that was standing up for the armed forces?
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
May I help the hon. Gentleman further, and ask him to confirm that the last Conservative Government reduced the size of the British Army, and that the Conservatives opposed the then Labour Government’s cuts in the number of infantry units?
Mr Jones
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does, but I am sure that he will have some tough decisions to make over the next few weeks.
We must also ask whether the size of the Navy is sacrosanct. In the same article in The Sunday Times, the current Secretary of State asked:
“Have we cut the surface fleets too much in order to buy high-end capability?”
That suggests that somehow the size of the Navy is ring-fenced. We are therefore slowly seeing whole chunks of the review being ring-fenced or put off-limits, so I question what type of review it is going to be.
That brings me to the nuclear deterrent, where I must say we have got one whole of a dog’s breakfast. The Minister for the Armed Forces said before the election:
“The Labour and Conservative policy of like-for-like replacement of Trident is absurd”
and that
“Labour wants to press ahead with a £100 billion nuclear weapons system designed for the Cold War and won’t even consider Trident in the upcoming defence review. That makes no sense.”
I understand from the coalition agreement that Trident will be scrutinised to ensure value for money but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) ably pointed out, we are not quite clear what the value-for-money review actually means. Does it mean going back to the proposals of the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife for a cruise-based alternative, or is it just about tinkering with the figures? The new Chief Secretary to the Treasury clearly did not have a clue when he addressed the House last week. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness, he said:
“The hon. Gentleman has no doubt studied carefully the coalition programme…The value-for-money review will do precisely what it says on the tin: we want to get the best value for money from the project and not waste taxpayers’ money unnecessarily on the renewal.”—[Official Report, 17 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 1049.]
Everyone would agree with that, but are we reopening what the Liberal Democrats were putting forward?
Eric Joyce
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Does he not think that Labour should conduct its own review in opposition and include Trident in it?
Mr Jones
Well, no, I do not, because I have to say that I agree with the Conservative Front-Bench team that we must make sure to replace Trident. I must also say that my hon. Friend threw me a little when he said in his speech that he was now supportive of myself and other former Ministers; I am glad he has turned over a new leaf in opposition.
Dr Fox
As the hon. Gentleman agrees with the Government’s position on this, given his own experience will he enlighten colleagues as to why the previous Government came to the decision that Trident was the most effective and cheapest way of providing us with a continuous at-sea deterrent?
Mr Jones
Well, because it is, and we had the White Paper in 2006 that said that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness raised an interesting point—the idea that we can play stop-go with the building of nuclear submarines is wrong; instead, we need to keep the skills base together. People must recognise that key point. That policy is what led to the problems we are currently facing with Astute. The options were looked at in detail and it was found that, in terms of the procurement of warheads and of the boats themselves, Trident is the most cost-effective way to proceed.
However, I must ask the Minister for the Armed Forces whether, in terms of the review, we are talking about basic principles or simple value for money? A yes or no answer will suffice. Alternatively, is this, as we all suspect, simply a bit of political posturing to keep the unilateralists in the Liberal Democrats on board while not scaring the cold war warriors in the Tory party such as the hon. Member for New Forest East?
Much was said in the debate about the covenant and the work on that—or lack of work, as the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) said. She should look at what we actually achieved in government, and it would be nice if she could support and build upon that.
On value for money, the Treasury will of course look in detail at whatever review takes place, and it is clear that the Secretary of State is also looking at that requirement. In the article that I mentioned earlier, he said that there might not be so much “fat in the system” as was previously thought, but that although the overall defence budget would be protected, dramatic savings would still have to be made. Between 1997 and 2008, Labour added an average £1 billion a year to the defence budget and there was the longest-sustained growth in defence expenditure ever in this country. It is important to get some clarity tonight. If the defence review says there is a need for more defence expenditure, will the Secretary of State argue for that or will he simply take an inflation increase, which would effectively be a cut in the defence budget?
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I was responsible for personnel issues within the Department. There has been much criticism in the past few weeks about bloated public sector pay and pensions. Armed forces personnel are public sector workers, although we do not see them as such, and it will be interesting to see whether he will exempt them from the pay restraint being suggested. Is he going to implement fully the recommendations of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, as we did in the last Government? On pensions, will he exempt armed forces pensions from the review that is taking place? If he is looking for hopeful signs from the former Member for Barrow and Furness, Mr John Hutton, let me tell him that when I suggested that we should look into this, Mr Hutton was the one who scuppered it and then went against the permanent secretary who recommended that the issue should be looked at.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) said earlier, we welcome the responsible way in which we will make a contribution to this debate. However, there is still confusion around what programmes are included in all this and about the finance. For five years, the Secretary of State has been going around promising larger Armies, bigger Navies, better accommodation and higher pay. Some of his Front-Bench team have even called for higher defence expenditure, although I notice that he has never offered a penny more in relation to any of those commitments. Will he now, with his party and its new Liberal Democrat friends, be straight not only with the armed forces but with the country? We need an effective strategic defence and security review not just to meet our commitments at home and abroad, but to do the right thing by the men and women who daily put their lives at risk on our behalf.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)
This has been a frank and important debate at a crucial time for defence. Many of us will remember Thursday afternoons in the last Parliament when defence debates were typically rather poorly attended by the same people making—I hope it is not too rude for me to say this—the same speeches. It has therefore been very welcome to see so many new faces here and to have that participation. We look forward to seeing a huge improvement in our defence debates to come.
The strategic defence and security review gives us the opportunity to look afresh at the role we see for our armed forces in the 21st century. It is a chance for us to harmonise defence policy, plans, commitments and resources. There is a good deal of consensus in the House on the need for change and there is recognition of the need to take difficult decisions. There is probably even quite a lot of agreement about what some of those decisions will have to be. However, we also have to be aware that the nature of the review and the difficult decisions that have to be taken mean that we will not be able to please everyone. My ministerial colleagues and I are grateful for the thoughtful contributions that have been made today on a wide range of topics, and we will consider them further as the review moves forward.
More broadly, we are engaging with the defence community as a whole—with industry and academics as well as with the charities and volunteer groups that support our efforts. That will include giving an important voice to members of the armed forces, as the Secretary of State highlighted earlier. The crucial thing is for defence as a whole to emerge stronger from the review. If it is to do that, we cannot make changes at the edges. Efficiency savings can be made, but they alone will not fix the structural difficulties in the Ministry of Defence’s finances, so we will have to face up to the realities and prioritise.
Structural problems can be resolved only by structural solutions. The review will therefore grapple with fundamental issues. We face a more unpredictable security situation than we have had for many decades. In Afghanistan, which I visited last week, there are clearly many challenges, but I have seen for myself that real progress is being made.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
On Thursday, 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment— the Vikings—held a post-Afghanistan homecoming parade in Southend that was attended by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and me. Will the Minister join us in congratulating the regiment on its achievements? In particular, will he ensure that the troops from the battalion who were injured in the conflict will be properly cared for?
Nick Harvey
I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman’s comments. It was a particularly distinguished tour of duty, and the homecoming parade, which I have read about in his local newspaper, and which was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), was certainly very notable and shows the depth of appreciation in the communities for the work that those forces did.
It is imperative that we continue to build up the size and strength of the Afghan national security force. That is the direct route, ultimately, to our troops coming home. Sometimes that is not as well understood as it could be. While conducting our strategic defence and security review, we must not lose sight of the importance of explaining our mission in Afghanistan. We cannot make the mistake of assuming that all future conflicts that we will be involved in will be like the conflict in Afghanistan, but in deciding what our armed forces should look like, we must consider what the most likely operations that they will be asked to undertake are. In that sense, the review will be policy led.
There has to be a balance between supporting the needs of today and being prepared for whatever tomorrow might bring. There are many potential tasks that we may wish our military to undertake—each will have its own requirements and could be very different indeed from what is going on in Afghanistan—but we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that we can do everything. In that sense, the strategic defence and security review must necessarily be financially aware.
A number of hon. Members have asked questions about how the review will be conducted. Among others, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) specifically asked about the timing of the review, and suggested that it was being conducted very swiftly. I acknowledge that it is being conducted swiftly, but the reason for that is quite simply the financial predicament that the nation faces, and the fact that a comprehensive spending review will take place this October. If we were to wait until after that to start the strategic defence and security review, we would inevitably end up doing so within a financial envelope given to us by the Treasury.
By conducting the strategic defence and security review first, we can make a case to the Treasury on the basis of the foreign policy that has been set out, the security assessment that has been arrived at, and a number of detailed programmes of work on what the armed forces’ structure and configuration will need to be to meet those foreign policy and security requirements. There is clearly an absolute necessity to do that first, so that we can battle our corner within the comprehensive spending review from a position of strength, with a thought-through, strategic position for defence, not by chasing along afterwards to an agenda that has already been set for us. For that reason, it is absolutely right that we have to get on and do it as quickly as we can.
Bob Russell
Can the Minister say whether he and his team, as they battle on behalf of the men and women who serve in Her Majesty’s armed forces, will ensure that there will be no cuts in the modernisation programme for housing single soldiers and families?
Nick Harvey
I hope very much that all Members who have taken part in the defence debate today and think of themselves as part of the defence community in Parliament will fight shoulder to shoulder to ensure that defence gets the best possible outcome, as we all compete for very limited resources in the coming months. To that extent, I very much hope that this issue will not be too divisive between parties, and that we can help each other towards that goal.
Mr Watson
I am delighted to see the Minister in his post. Will he clarify the position on the mental health screening of personnel? His junior, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan)—a demoted former shadow Deputy Chief Whip—made a Horlicks of it on Radio 4, and we do not know whether the Government are in favour of mental health screening or not. What is the position? Can the Minister put his junior right, please?
Nick Harvey
The simple answer is that the Government have promised a new approach to mental health services to support the armed forces. The Prime Minister has asked the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) to establish the most effective way of improving the care that we provide. On mental health screening, clinical experts have advised that further research is necessary before any new plans are put in place, so we are looking into the matter, but we will come back to the hon. Gentleman and the House on that subject in due course.
A number of hon. Members have, understandably, raised various points of local interest in their constituency, or matters of particular interest to themselves, and that is entirely right. That, after all, is the point of devoting an entire day’s debate to the strategic defence review. I was completely baffled to hear an Opposition Member ask when Parliament would get the opportunity to debate the strategic defence review; he was saying that in the middle of a full day’s debate on it.
Let me say to the hon. Members for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) and for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who made points on behalf of the Navy; to the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who referred to Typhoon; to the Scottish National party spokesman, the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who talked about the situation of Scottish industry; to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), who raised the issue of the carriers; to the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who talked about the important aerospace industries in his constituency; to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), who talked about the Territorial Army in his constituency; and to the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), who talked about the ship industry, that we quite understand why they made the points that they did. I cannot offer any promises or any comfort to anybody at this stage. We are just embarking on a genuinely comprehensive review. Nothing is completely safeguarded from it, but equally, no decisions have yet been taken that should give any of those Members specific cause for alarm. We are embarking on a comprehensive piece of work. It is right that they should articulate their concerns, but we cannot arrive at the conclusions at this stage, when we have not embarked on the piece of work.
On the time scale, which Opposition Members are asking about, the work streams are now in place. Hon. Members—and everybody else—have the opportunity to contribute and make whatever representations they wish to make. If there are hon. Members who feel that they are under-informed, and want more information to inform representations that they might make during the review, they need only let us know. Ministers have an open-door policy, and Members are welcome to any further information that they feel they need.
Angus Robertson
During the previous Parliament, the Labour Government provided statistics on employment and expenditure throughout the nations and regions of the UK. Will the new coalition Government give a commitment to continue producing those statistics?
Nick Harvey
Yes. Whatever information right hon. and hon. Members need in order to make representations to the review—
Nick Harvey
That is a yes. Hon. Members need only ask for any information that they need.
A variety of Members, including the shadow Defence Secretary, raised the issue of Trident. I think that I should clarify as best I can, because there seems to be some confusion—or perhaps I should say that some people seem moderately determined to be a little confused—about the value-for-money review of the existing plan for the Trident successor. It is a value-for-money study of the existing plan. If the study were to conclude that a particular aspect of the existing plan did not represent good value for money, it might start looking at different ways of doing things, but I have to stress that it is not a review in which we look at all the possible alternative ways in which we might provide a successor, and see which works out the cheapest. It is a progress report on the work taking place on the Trident successor project. The Ministry of Defence work on that should be completed by roughly the end of next month. The report will then go to the Cabinet Office, and ultimately these things will be decided by the National Security Council.
This afternoon we heard eight or nine maiden speeches, to which it is my happy duty to respond. If I have missed any, I can only say, with great apologies to those who made them, that they spoke with such aplomb and assurance that I did not recognise them as maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Fylde told us, among other things about his constituency, that Blackpool players tend to live in his patch. I congratulate them on reaching the premier league, and I wish them every success next season, as I wish him success in his seat. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood discussed the neglect of rural areas and the decimated fishing industry. I certainly recognise those problems, and I am sure that we will hear a lot more from him about them. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) gave us an account of Plymouth’s naval history, and discussed the work of Combat Stress and others in dealing with the human fallout. He asked whether Ministers would come to Plymouth, and I can reassure him that I am going there this weekend as part of the Armed Forces day celebrations, so it is not being ignored.
The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke told us about the importance of defence industries in his constituency. He told us that he had served in Helmand, and he promises to be a strong advocate for troop welfare. The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) stressed her naval heritage by pointing out that she had been named after a naval cruiser—that will take some beating. She urged us not to be sea-blind, and I can assure her that we will not be. Her point about the exportability of new naval craft was extremely well made, and it is something to which the Government are committed.
The hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley), as was said, made the place sound quite idyllic. I acknowledge her tribute to her predecessor. The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) gave a charming account of her constituency, and made a generous tribute to her predecessor Colin Breed—I thank her for doing so—and to Bob Hicks, the Member before that, whom we all remember fondly. The hon. Member for Winchester (Mr Brine) gave us a geographical tour of his constituency, with which I am familiar. He told us how Chandler’s Ford and Hiltingbury had moved from one constituency to another. As a native of Chandler’s Ford, and indeed Hiltingbury, I am aware of that change, and I wish him well in his representation of the seat. The hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) gave us a worthwhile reminder of where Constable country is.
I should like to respond to the points made by the shadow Defence Secretary, which I did not think were justified, about the departure of Sir Jock Stirrup as Chief of the Defence Staff. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that Sir Jock Stirrup himself said that it had always been his wish to retire at the end of the strategic defence and security review, which was
“an obvious point at which to make the transition.”
I quite understand that, while it was thought that that review would last until the middle of next year, it might have been assumed that that was the point at which he was going to resign. However, given that, in fact, it will be concluded at the end of October, that is the natural point for him to go. He has no hard feelings about that; it is a perfectly civilised departure, and we thank him for his very fine service. [Interruption.] Any suggestion that he has been picked out as a result of sympathies for the previous Government must come from people who have not met him. Sir Jock Stirrup is about the least likely closet socialist anyone would ever come across—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Minister of State, but if Members wish to intervene they should seek to do so in the conventional way, and they have to put up with the results. We cannot have incessant wittering from sedentary positions.
Nick Harvey
No, I am in the last minute of the debate.
There were many other thoughtful contributions, and I particularly agreed with the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that future battles will not all be like Afghanistan. When the Secretary of State says that there are legacies of the cold war that have to be laid to rest, that does not mean that we will focus entirely on Afghanistan and what Afghanistan entails. We must be prepared, as the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, for whatever the future might hold for us and whatever the case might be in three decades’ time. That will be the watchword of the defence review. As we look at all our capabilities across the board, we will try to be ready for any eventuality—
Housing Development (Swindon)
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
This is a great opportunity to address the House this evening on a subject that at first blush may seem of only local importance, but which is of wider importance not only regionally but nationally. I am grateful to hon. Members for staying to listen to my remarks. In particular, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who made her maiden speech this evening. She has been a redoubtable campaigner on this important issue—the quality and scale of housing development in her area and nationally. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) faces the same challenges as we face in Swindon.
To the west, Swindon is bordered by the constituency of North Wiltshire. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) shares a deep concern about what is happening to his rural hinterland. To the east, the Wantage constituency is represented by the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). He, too, has become increasingly concerned about the potential effects of uncontrolled and unsustainable development.
The issue is not only for academics and planners. For the ordinary residents of my town, it is becoming the most important issue in their lives. Swindon has doubtless benefited greatly from expansion and growth in recent decades. Many would agree that its economic success was underpinned by that growth. However, it has now reached the stage where it is difficult to discern which comes first, rather like the chicken and the egg—is it housing development that engineers growth, or is it the wider economy? I am clearly of the view that it is economics and the country’s economic situation that fuels the growth of towns such as Swindon, and that housing development, important though it is, is not the engine of economic growth.
We in Swindon are increasingly in danger of moving from a system of predicting growth and then providing houses, to one of providing houses and hoping, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. Until the election and the welcome change brought about by the new coalition Government, we in Swindon were facing an extra allocation of 37,000 new homes in only 16 years, 2026 being the target date. We already have thousands of new homes being developed both to the north and to the south of the town, and many of those who live there do not work in Swindon.
The question that many local people are rightly asking me and others is, “Who is going to live in all these new homes?” Another question they rightly ask is, “Where is the infrastructure going to come from? Who is going to pay for that?” The pressure on road infrastructure, drainage and existing services could become so unbearable that Swindon risks being strangled by inappropriate expansion. Even allowing for the recent recession, housing development locally has proceeded at a breathtaking pace. Although we are nowhere near the heady heights of the middle of the past decade, when more than 2,000 homes a year were being completed, average house completions locally have reached 1,100 to 1,200 a year for the past 15 years or so.
I have mentioned ongoing development, but we face the spectre of more and unsustainable development in several forms. To the east of the A419, the eastern development area has been developed by the local authority in response to the unsustainable housing target imposed upon it by the regional spatial strategy—12,000 homes in an area that is too small. It represents too high a density and the sort of urban extension that, rather like the layers of an onion, creates more problems for existing infrastructure and residents. To the immediate west of my constituency in north Wiltshire, we face thousands more homes being earmarked on land areas immediately adjoining west Swindon. The problem there is compounded by not only the lack of infrastructure, but the fact that any planning gain, in the form of section 106 moneys, will be retained by another local authority. In other words, Swindon will have to take all the pain while having none of the gain. That is yet another urban extension to the west.
Is that a spatial strategy? Of course it is not. There is no regard whatever for the need for rural buffers, and no understanding of the importance of the words “sustainable development”. If we are to translate those laudable sentiments into something real, we must acknowledge that it is time for a different approach.
I thoroughly welcome the Government’s commitment to the withdrawal of the RSS and housing targets, but we are now walking—this is my principal worry and the main reason for tonight’s debate—into a potential planning vacuum. Like politics and nature, planning abhors a vacuum, and already we see developers making planning applications locally: 800 homes to the immediate west of Swindon, on the Ridgeway Farm area; and 950 homes just to the east, on the much-loved Coate country park. These applications are being made for a reason: planners believe that into the vacuum something must fall, and that something is the existing housing figures and the existing evidence that was presented to the inquiry in public in 2006.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I do not represent Swindon or Wiltshire, but this is an issue in other parts of the country. He talks in particular about the vacuum that exists. Although in my constituency we are grateful that the regional spatial strategy has gone, we are unsure as to where the local development framework is heading. We have the reverse situation, with small communities being deemed unsustainable when we know that they are sustainable.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Into the vacuum that is being created by the current change will fall, to my great concern, applications that will seek to take advantage of current evidence. We need quick action from local authorities to change their approach. But as well as scrapping the RSS and housing targets, we need to get rid of the system of five-year land supply. At a stroke, that system continues to cause problems for local authorities when allowing them genuine autonomy in making planning decisions. My worry is that that system will be used by applicants and developers to force local authorities into having to grant wholly unsuitable applications. It would be tragic if, despite the coalition’s excellent work in freeing up councils to make local decisions, they were left still hoist by that petard. Local planning with financial incentives for allowing development, and incentives for working with neighbouring councils to deliver growth figures for the Swindon travel-to-work area, represent the best way forward for a sustainable Swindon that works well for all its residents and businesses.
I am not opposed to organic growth and expansion, but I am opposed to command and control time frames and targets that make a mockery of sustainable development. We should let councils get on with the job. Let us forget about 2026 and 37,000 new homes. Let us trust local authorities to earmark areas for sustainable development with the consent and involvement of local residents in order to create a Swindon that works. I look to the new Government for their strong support for that new approach to planning and housing development not only in Swindon, but nationally—one that rewards sustainable development and encourages developers to build wisely and well.
Mr Speaker, earlier I notified you that I wished my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) to contribute to this debate, bearing in mind his obvious interest and concern, so I shall now resume my seat.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this Adjournment debate, which is extremely important for our town. It is a real credit to my colleague that he has secured this debate so early in the parliamentary cycle, and I thank also the Minister, who visited Swindon within days of the new Government being formed.
I wish to highlight two issues. In my maiden speech I touched on the first problem, which is associated with high-density developments. They produce a lack of open space for activities involving jumpers for goalposts and, in particular, young children’s sporting activities. That in turn leads to increased levels of childhood obesity and, potentially, to antisocial behaviour, because their endless enthusiasm is not burned off. I have further concerns about shrinking gardens, which have fallen in size by about one third since the 1960s, and we also have problems with a lack of parking provision. Residents are creative and will find their own parking spaces, including on pavements and roundabouts, which creates a real nightmare, particularly on school runs, as mothers have to push their prams and pushchairs on to the main road. That is very dangerous, and emergency vehicles often cannot gain access to certain roads.
The second problem is unadopted roads. Developers, as they sell houses on the new roads, make every effort with maintenance, but during the delay between the last house being sold and the area being adopted maintenance levels all too often fall away. It often takes far too long for areas to be adopted, and there is seemingly no incentive for developers to complete their task quickly. Despite the glossy sales brochures that they put out promising all sorts of glorious infrastructure, it either arrives late or not at all. On that issue, I would push for stronger powers to create a bond scheme, into which developers would have to pay in advance of a development. If they did not keep to pre-agreed levels of maintenance, the local authority could carry out the work and deduct the cost of it from the bond. That would encourage developers to secure the area’s adoption quicker, because they would then be able to reclaim their bond. Let us not forget that, while the area is unadopted, local residents still pay council tax.
However, I welcome the Government’s announcements on the ability to create lower-density developments. During my 10 years as a councillor I found the previous situation very frustrating, in that I could protest if a development were not high enough in density, but not if it were not low enough. I also support the powers to defend gardens through our anti-garden-grabbing policies. We are moving in the right direction, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon and I will be strong advocates of those two development prongs.
The Minister for Housing (Grant Shapps)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing this debate, which is excellent and timely, given all the changes in housing and planning, and given what is going on in Swindon. I am tempted to say that he has done such a great job, there is almost nothing that requires a response. He has simply nailed the subject in a manner that has eluded the packed Labour Benches. [Laughter.] Despite having professed great interest in housing over the years, Labour Members have let themselves down this evening by failing to turn up at all.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) mentioned, I went to Swindon the other week, and I found a place that is keen to build more homes. It has made a name for itself by building not just a few, but tens of thousands of new homes, developing new communities and putting in infrastructure. It has seen some of the key advantages of sustainable development, but now it has a problem. The previous Government insisted that there could almost never be enough homes in Swindon and that the only way to convince locals, who had already produced so much additional housing, to build more, was to introduce top-down targets. They thought that the way to do that was to divide the targets up, through the regional spatial strategy, into a figure.
That was simply unsustainable from the point of view of infrastructure or of bringing in the right kind of vibrancy or sustainability to Swindon and the surrounding area—“Greater Swindon” we might call it. When we were in opposition it seemed to us that no matter how much we explained that to Ministers in the previous Government, they could not understand how or why the harder we push down from above and the more we try to impose housing targets, the fewer homes get built.
It is a question of human nature. If we tell someone to do something, give them no choice and exclude them from the decision-making process, they are much more likely to object to the overall plan. By contrast, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon so clearly identified in an eloquent and purposeful speech, we should give people the option, the tools and the benefits of development. We have a proposal to provide on an ongoing basis six years’ worth of council tax for every single new home that is built, and 125% match funding when it is an affordable home. That means that we are saying to local people, “When you build homes, you will get not only the additional housing and a bit of the inconvenience that that might bring, but new infrastructure and facilities and a sense of ownership, because you will decide whether the homes are built or not.”
I should like to address a number of specific questions that have been raised; they were well made and absolutely to the point, and they helped to explain the coalition Government’s policy in these areas. There is the question of the five-year land target. In the previous Administration’s view, unless local authorities planned for five, or even 15, years’ worth of land availability for housing, land simply would not become available. That is because they simply did not trust people.
By contrast, we have said that, with the abolition of regional spatial strategies, we will ensure that the incentive scheme is all that is required to guarantee that local authorities will want to look a reasonable distance in advance to decide whether they need to make land available. That can be done according to local objectives, with local plans in mind and without reference to regional spatial strategies imposed on the area by national Government.
I confirm to my hon. Friend that, although we will not impose five-year plans, we freely expect that many councils will want to adopt them. They may want to look ahead, mainly for reasons of their own financial and sustainable development, to see whether they want to pinpoint land because they will know that a large chunk of their funding will be down to their decision about how much development they want in their area. I confirm to my hon. Friend that the decision will be a local one.
My hon. Friend made a great contribution and raised a number of key issues. As Swindon has got bigger and its population has grown, density has become an issue. As he rightly identified, gardens have got smaller, properties have got smaller, and garden grabbing has become all too common. We simply have to put a stop to the situation. Indeed, we will put a stop to the situation. We have already announced that garden grabbing is to end, and that gardens will, properly, be described as greenfield, which they so obviously are, not brownfield, as the previous Government insisted that they should be described. Instead, people should be allowed to identify, on a local basis, the density of housing that is right for their community. Those in Swindon, who are admirably pro-sustainable development, will no doubt come to a perfectly balanced and justifiable decision about how dense housing should be in future.
It is worth touching on what my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon said about the lack of infrastructure that too often accompanies developments. Where a planning authority is going to give the go-ahead to new housing, it will be able to make a simple calculation. It will take the amount of council tax that will be collected from the band of house that is to be built on that site by a developer and multiply that by six, and then it will know precisely how much money there will be over that period of years to invest in infrastructure, local facilities and services. So the guesswork is gone. No more will we have the randomness of the housing planning delivery grant, doled out by Ministers from this Dispatch Box in random circumstances for the past few years without anybody having a clue as to how on earth that was accountable to the actual level of delivery in the area. Instead, the incentive scheme will link this directly with the aspiration in the area to build more homes. No longer will we have growth point funding, with its random delivery based on the whim of the latest Minister—and Housing Ministers tended to come and go very quickly under the previous Government—in wanting to deliver more money to their chosen project or pet area. Instead, funding is guaranteed and locked into the housing incentive.
I was very attracted to a new idea put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon in relation to what happens when a new estate is developed. Like him, I have a lot of new housing in my constituency, and I am afraid that the issue of adoption rears its ugly head. One finds time after time that, although these developments have been finished for five, six or seven years, the basic services are not available. For example, there is no way of ensuring that police can come and police the roads because the roads have not been properly adopted. Dealing with issues such as speeding, antisocial behaviour and repairs to vital services is often a huge struggle for local residents. I was interested by my hon. Friend’s idea of a bond scheme of some type. I will take that away and have a further think about how it could be implemented.
It would be wrong not to mention the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) about housing in a rural context. I think that to the west of Swindon, on the Wiltshire border, there is a proposal for 3,000 properties on a rural site and therefore connected to this debate. Our plan is to introduce local housing trusts, which means trusting local people to decide whether they want to grant themselves planning permission in order to build properties in that location. So if people want to save their local school, which might be struggling with only a half form entry, save a post office, or keep a convenience store in the village, all those things not only become possible but are in the hands of local people in that more rural setting. My hon. Friend made a very valuable contribution.
Mr Buckland
The issue of the 3,000 homes immediately to the west of my constituency is all about the urban extension nightmare versus the local vision that my right hon. Friend has been elucidating. Instead of a rural buffer with a sustainable rural settlement, we are facing yet another extension of Swindon into open countryside, with all the problems that that will engender.
Grant Shapps
I certainly recognise the problems that my hon. Friend describes, and the interesting thing is that I just do not think it needs to be like that. It is a matter of fact that other countries have already discovered the value of what we are now implementing. In future, under our incentive scheme, local authorities will not push development away across the border. In fact, they will want to welcome it into their areas. Why? Because there will be six years’ worth of council tax incentive there for them if they accept it on their side of the fence. Already in places such as Sweden and Germany, areas vie to allow people to build homes, and under our scheme that can happen here in our country, too.
Where homes are on the boundary of two different authorities, is it not right that there should be an agreement between those authorities? Should they not come to some sort of settlement? We will ensure that there is a duty to co-operate. In other words, one authority—Swindon or Wiltshire in this case—could not simply build all its homes along its boundaries. Instead the authorities would have to co-operate with each other, and we will ensure that the local plans to achieve that are signed off.
I happen to know that Swindon’s local development framework is now out for consultation and therefore quite close to being filed. The previous system of local development frameworks was so incredibly complex that very few local authorities in the country—just 16%—ever got around to filing them, despite the fact that they have been around and worked on for the past four years. The one in Swindon is close, and it will now be for Swindon borough council to decide whether it wishes to go back and have another look at it before filing it, and what it wants to do with the housing demands placed on it under the regional spatial strategy. In doing so, it will want to examine its budgets and give proper consideration to the next five, 10 or 20 years, or whatever time it thinks appropriate for the needs of its community, not some random date of 2026 prescribed in a regional spatial strategy. It will be able to ask itself, “Is this appropriate or not, and how much development needs to be done to ensure that we have the budgetary means to sustain our area?”
In other words, for the first time there will be a properly joined-up system that not only puts local people back in control of their housing but provides proper incentives to ensure that in future, rather than people in any area being told where, when and how to build homes, and how many to build, local people and localism will dictate the shape of future communities.
Question put and agreed to.
Petitions
Incinerator (Croydon)
Written Ministerial Statements
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Further Education Investment
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr John Hayes)
On 24 May it was announced that a further £50 million would be invested in further education infrastructure to support the development of new college facilities. This is in keeping with the Government’s determination to make further education a key priority.
In that spirit, I am pleased to inform Parliament that the Government are today launching the College Investment Fund, and that the Skills Funding Agency will from today begin the process by which this extra resource is to be invested.
Many colleges up and down the country are still reeling from the effects of the crisis last year in the capital investment programme, which forced a review by Sir Andrew Foster that criticised
“failures in the general management and financial management of the Learning and Skills Council”.
While this Government are unable to undo the previous mismanagement of the FE capital programme, I fully recognise the crucial significance of ensuring the teaching and learning facilities in our further education colleges are up to date and fit for purpose.
Indeed, I am determined to ensure that colleges across Britain are the best they can be.
That is why the Government are so keen to support those colleges that did not previously benefit from large-scale public investment. For that reason, the £50 million additional capital will be available to all those further education colleges that have received less than £5 million in total grant support from the Learning and Skills Council since 2001.
Today, the Skills Funding Agency will write to all eligible further education colleges and confirm that they will each receive a share of a £30 million renewal grant. This will support 153 colleges across the country that have yet to benefit from significant capital funds. Each will receive approximately £225,000. I am advised that such investment is expected to facilitate considerable additional private finance.
The remaining £20 million will be made available to colleges through an enhanced renewal grant. Approximately 20 colleges will have the opportunity to add to their renewal grant, by bidding to build their total allocation to £1 million. Again it is anticipated that these grants will leverage substantial additional private finance, providing final projects of significant value.
Applications for the enhanced renewal grant will be assessed using key criteria, including the existing condition of bidding colleges’ estates and facilities; resulting benefits to learners; and the contribution which each applicant’s proposals make to the regeneration of their local community. Projects will be expected to meet exacting design standards, ensuring a built legacy of which all concerned can be proud.
The Skills Funding Agency and an expert panel will assess and prioritise all applications, with a view to announcing successful bids by the end of this summer. Crucially, all projects will have to be completed in time for learners to benefit from the new facilities by the start of the 2011-12 academic year.
I will be writing today to all Members of Parliament regarding this important announcement, and asking them to encourage eligible local colleges to apply for this new fund.
National Minimum Wage
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
I am pleased to announce that the Government have today written to the Low Pay Commission setting out the remit for their 2011 report. I would also like to take this opportunity to set out our response to the Commission’s 2010 report which was published on 25 March 2010.
The remit for the Low Pay Commission’s 2011 report
The Low Pay Commission is asked to:
Monitor, evaluate and review the NMW and its impact, with particular reference to:
the effect on pay, employment and competitiveness in the low paying sectors, with particular reference to the competitiveness of small firms;
the effect on the pay structures and employment of different groups of workers, including in particular different age groups, women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and migrant workers.
Review the labour market position of young people, including those in apprenticeships and internships.
Review the levels of each of the different minimum wage rates and make recommendations for October 2011.
Review the arrangements for the apprentice minimum wage.
Report to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills by the end of February 2011.
The Low Pay Commission’s 2010 report
The main recommendations put forward by the Low Pay Commission concern the rates of the minimum wage and an apprentice minimum wage. The Commission have recommended that the adult hourly rate of the minimum wage should increase from £5.80 to £5.93 and reaffirmed the recommendation in their 2009 report that the adult rate should also apply to workers aged 21. They have also recommended increasing the development rate (which will cover workers aged 18-20 years) from £4.83 to £4.92 and that the rate for 16-17 year olds moves from £3.57 to £3.64. They recommend that these changes take place in October 2010.
The Commission has also recommended that there should be a single apprentice minimum wage rate of £2.50 per hour for those apprentices currently exempt from the national minimum wage; that is, all those under the age of 19 and those aged 19 and over in the first 12 months of their apprenticeship.
The Government accept these recommendations.
In addition, the Government accept the Commission’s recommendations that there should be specific guidance on the national minimum wage for the entertainment sector; and that HMRC investigates whether contract and agency cleaners in the hotel sector are receiving their entitlement under the national minimum wage for their hours worked.
The Government note the Commission’s recommendation that there should be a commitment, as a minimum, to maintaining current funding in real terms for monitoring and enforcement of the national minimum wage until at least March 2014.
Government’s response to individual recommendations in the Low Pay Commission’s 2010 report
National Minimum Wage rates
We recommend that the adult minimum wage rate should increase from £5.80 to £5.93 from October 2010.
We recommend that the youth development rate should increase from £4.83 to £4.92 and that the 16-17 Year Old Rate should increase from £3.57 to £3.64 from October 2010.
We recommend that the accommodation offset should increase from £4.51 to £4.61 per day from October 2010.
Accept
Apprentices
We recommend that non-employed apprentices are excluded from the apprentice minimum wage and continue to be exempt from the national minimum wage.
We recommend that the apprentice minimum wage be applied as a single rate to those apprentices currently exempt from the national minimum wage. That is all those under the age of 19 and those aged 19 and over in the first 12 months of their apprenticeship. The wage should cover both those employed on traditional contracts of apprenticeship and employed apprentices on government-supported level 2 and 3 schemes.
We recommend that all hours of work and training (relating to both on-the-job and off-the-job) under an apprenticeship should be counted as hours for which the apprentice wage must be paid. All hours should be paid at the same wage rate.
We recommend that the apprentice minimum wage be set at an hourly rate.
We recommend the apprentice wage is set at a rate of £2.50 per hour and is introduced from October 2010.
We recommend that in England transitional arrangements are put in place so that current apprentices retain a contractual entitlement to at least £95 per week for the remainder of their apprenticeship or until they are entitled to the national minimum wage.
We recommend that the Government include the review of the apprentice minimum wage rate and arrangements in our annual terms of reference.
Accept
Particular Groups of Workers
We recommend that the Government produce, in conjunction with interested parties, sector-specific guidance on the national minimum wage for the entertainment sector.
We recommend that HMRC investigates whether contract and agency cleaners in the hotel sector are receiving their entitlement under the national minimum wage for their hours worked.
Accept
Compliance and Enforcement
We recommend that the Government commit, as a minimum, to maintaining current funding in real terms for monitoring and enforcement of the national minimum wage until at least March 2014.
Note
The Government consider that effective enforcement of the national minimum wage is extremely important; however we do not believe that it would be appropriate to accept a recommendation that would commit the Government to the allocation of resources for future years.
Copies of the Low Pay Commission’s remit and the Government’s response to the Commission’s 2010 report have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Inland Waterways
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
I am pleased to be appointed as Waterways Minister as I am familiar with the public benefits the waterways provide and I am making this statement to set out how I intend to take forward inland waterways policy for England and Wales. The Government consider civil society has a very valuable role to play in delivering public services as part of our commitment to creating a big society. We will therefore be continuing to look in detail at whether a third sector model would be appropriate for British Waterways, including the possible inclusion of the Environment Agency’s navigations as the other navigation authority grant aided by Government. My Department will be engaging a wide range of stakeholders in this work, and liaising with the Scottish Government. However I must make clear that, given the Government’s overriding objective of reducing the financial deficit, no decisions on such a change will be taken until after the forthcoming spending review. In the light of this I have also decided not to proceed now with a new Government waterways strategy and I will review the situation following the spending review.
EU Documents
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
In the interest of the House and on behalf of Government I am depositing in the Library a full list of explanatory memorandums submitted by the Government from 12 April to 9 June. This covers the period of Dissolution and the subsequent weeks during which the parliamentary scrutiny Committees have not met.
I will also deposit a full list of EU documents deposited by the Government in the Library of the House during the same period.
I would invite members to examine both these lists and to raise any questions of policy in the usual way or via correspondence. It is vital that the House has a chance to scrutinise the work of Government and to consider policy. This is particularly true of our EU business.
As noted by the Foreign Secretary to the House on 3 June, we are looking to improve parliamentary scrutiny of decision-making in Europe and ahead of ministerial Councils.
NHS Operating Framework
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
Today I am publishing a document setting out the revisions to the NHS operating framework for 2010-11. The document has been placed in the Library and copies are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office.
In now moving towards a health service which puts patients at the heart of decision making, which focuses on quality and outcomes not processes, and with more devolved responsibilities, this short document sets out a number of areas subject to immediate change.
The Department will cease to centrally performance-manage the previous Government’s targets on 18-week waiting times and access to primary care. More clinically relevant accident and emergency indicators will be developed for 2011-12. Locally led plans should deliver improvements in median waiting times and access.
The coalition Government are committed to stopping top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care. To that end, a moratorium is in place for future and ongoing reconfiguration proposals. All current and future reconfiguration proposals will need to meet four new tests as I set out in the document; and can go forward, if and when they do so.
I shall set out that primary care trusts (PCTs) should accelerate the process to transform community services with clear deadlines.
I have asked each strategic health authority (SHA) region to now go further, faster, to release all possible resources to meet demand and quality challenges. The overall ceiling for management costs in PCTs and SHAs will now be set at two thirds of the 2008-09 management costs (£1,509 million), the ceiling will therefore be £1,006 million. In aggregate, PCTs and SHAs will need to save at least £222 million in 2010-11 and a further £350 million by the end of 2011-12.
I am asking NHS organisations to ensure that they demonstrate similar discipline to central Government on consultancy, marketing and information, communications and technology spend, recruitment, and centralised procurement for goods and services.
The number of best practice tariffs shall be expanded where payment is linked to best practice care, as well as expanding the list of never events so that no payment is made for services, which compromise patient safety.
I announced on 8 June 2010 my intention to make hospitals responsible for patients 30 days after discharge, one of the key health commitments in the coalition agreement. If a patient is re-admitted during that time, the hospital will not receive any further payment for the additional treatment. Making hospitals responsible for a patient’s ongoing care after discharge will create more joined-up working between hospitals and community services and may be supported by the developments in re-ablement and post-discharge support. This will improve quality and performance and shift the focus to the outcome for the patient.
These are the only changes I am making in-year. The remainder of the NHS operating framework 2010-11, which was published on 16 December 2009, still stands and I expect the NHS to play its role when partnership approaches are needed to secure better outcomes.
Control Order Powers Report
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Section 14(1) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (the 2005 Act) requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of every relevant three-month period on the exercise of the control order powers during that period.
The level of information provided will always be subject to slight variations based on operational advice.
The future of the control order regime
The document “The Coalition: A. Programme for Government” released on 20 May 2010 and available to view at: http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk sets out the Government’s plan for the next five years. In that statement the Government stated that
“We will urgently review control orders, as part of a wider review of counter-terrorist legislation, measures and programmes”.
This review is now being taken forward as a priority. We will report the outcome of the review to Parliament in due course.
The exercise of the control order powers in the last quarter
As explained in previous quarterly statements on control orders, control order obligations are tailored to the individual concerned and are based on the terrorism-related risk that individual poses. Each control order is kept under regular review to ensure that the obligations remain necessary and proportionate. The Home Office continues to hold control order review groups (CORGs) every quarter, with representation from law enforcement and intelligence agencies, to keep the obligations in every control order under regular and formal review and to facilitate a review of options for bringing each control order to an end while managing the risk to the public. During this reporting period, two CORGs were held in relation to the orders currently in force. In addition, further meetings were held on an ad hoc basis as specific issues arose.
During the period 11 March 2010 to 10 June 2010, two non-derogating control orders were made with the permission of the court and served. Three control orders were renewed in accordance with section 2(6) of the 2005 Act in this reporting period. In this reporting period there was one revocation of a control order on the direction of the court on the basis that the court considered that the order was not necessary.
At the end of the reporting period 12 control orders were in force, 10 of which were in respect of British citizens. All of these control orders were non-derogating. Four of the individuals subject to a control order were living in the Metropolitan Police Service area; the remaining individuals were living in other police force areas. During this reporting period, one individual has been charged with breaching his control order obligations; and one set of criminal proceedings for breach of a control order were concluded following a CPS decision that prosecution was no longer in the public interest.
During this reporting period, 43 modifications of control order obligations were made. Ten requests to modify control order obligations were refused.
Section 10(1) of the 2005 Act provides a right of appeal against a decision by the Secretary of State to renew a non-derogating control order or to modify an obligation imposed by a non-derogating control order without consent. Three appeals under section 10(1) of the 2005 Act have been lodged with the High Court during this reporting period. A right of appeal is also provided by section 10(3) of the 2005 Act against decisions by the Secretary of State to refuse a request by a controlled person to revoke their order and/or to modify any obligation under the order. During this reporting period two appeals have been lodged with the High Court under section 10(3) of the 2005 Act.
One judgment has been handed down in relation to substantive judicial review proceedings under section 3(10) of the 2005 Act during this reporting period. In Secretary of State for the Home Department v. AN, handed down on 12 March 2010, the court directed the Secretary of State to revoke the control order on the basis that the court considered that the order was not necessary. No further detail can be given for legal reasons.
One judgment has been handed down in relation to proceedings under section 10(3) of the 2005 Act during this reporting period. In Secretary of State for the Home Department v. BX, handed down on 10 May 2010, the court upheld the decision to relocate BX on the grounds that his removal from his extremist associates was properly regarded as necessary for purposes connected with preventing or restricting BX’s involvement in terrorism-related activity and proportionate.
Another judgment was handed down in relation to BX by the Court of Appeal, on 4 May 2010. The court dismissed BX’s appeal, holding that the High Court had reached a proper decision in concluding on the material that there were strong grounds for an urgent relocation and in setting early hearings for disclosure and for the appeal. The court found that (other than in a rare case not so far identified) the proper and appropriate route of challenging a modification decision is by way of a statutory appeal under the 2005 Act and that an interlocutory application for an injunction can be made under section 10 of the Act.
One further individual previously subject to a control order has been granted permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Most full judgments are available at: http://www. bailii.org/.
Social Fund Consultation Closes
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
The consultation on the proposals set out in the Green Paper “Social Fund Reform: debt, credit and low income households” (Cm 7750) closed on 7 June 2010. I would like to thank those who took the time to respond. Sixty-eight responses were received in total; 64 from organisations and four from individuals. The Government will now consider the responses as they develop proposals for wider welfare reform.
House of Lords
Introduction: Lord Liddle
Introduction: Lord Deben
Death of a Member: Lord Quinton
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
My Lords, I regret that I have to inform the House of the death of the noble Lord, Lord Quinton, on June 19th. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and friends.
Health: Cancer
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have proposals to use photodynamic therapy (PDT) for the treatment of cancer, particularly oral cancer.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, it is for clinicians to decide on the suitability of treating a patient with photodynamic therapy—PDT. It is then for primary care trusts to consider whether to fund that treatment, taking into account the available evidence. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued interventional procedure guidance on photodynamic therapy for nine cancer indications, including oral cancer.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree with me that the most important thing, whatever the type of cancer, is early detection? Will he encourage the research that I hear is being done and which we read about in all the newspapers, which entails a very simple blood test that detects cancer at the earliest stage?
Earl Howe
My noble friend is absolutely correct. It is now generally agreed that the most important reasons for the lower survival rates in England compared with other European countries are: low public awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer, delays in people presenting to their doctors, and patients having more advanced disease at the time of diagnosis. We are looking very carefully at how best to achieve earlier diagnosis. There are some key messages on the NHS Choices website and the national awareness and early diagnosis initiative has been under way since 2008. As for my noble friend’s second question, on the blood test, the newspaper reports in recent days have been extremely exciting in terms of the potential. However, it is clear that researchers will have to demonstrate improved clinical outcomes for patients before any large-scale rollout can be applied.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton
My Lords, given the Minister’s reply, does he agree that targeted screening remains the best way to prevent growth of oral cancer? Given the success of the previous Government in cutting the overall rates of cancer deaths, is he prepared to guarantee that the current investment and screening programme will continue?
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness is quite right that screening plays a very important part in the detection of cancer. However, it is not universally applicable to every cancer. In terms of oral cancer, which was the particular subject of my noble friend’s Question, there are difficulties. For example, there is considerable uncertainty about how the disease progresses—its natural history—and we cannot predict which lesions will be malignant and which will not. We need clear guidelines—for dentists, for example—and we do not have those. There is also no clear evidence base for the management of malignant lesions when we find them. However, the National Screening Committee will review its position again in about three years’ time and will no doubt take all the current evidence into account.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, does my noble friend accept that when we are trying to improve treatments for cancer, we are looking for non-invasive approaches and specific and, so far as possible, less expensive approaches? Photodynamic therapy has been very useful not just for oral cancer but for skin cancers of various kinds, particularly squamous cell carcinoma. Does he accept that encouraging not just dermatologists but also general practitioners to move in this direction will mean that we can have specific, non-invasive and generally quite efficient treatment, and that that is to be encouraged by the Government?
Earl Howe
I am very grateful to my noble friend. It may help the House if I briefly explain what PDT is. It is a technique that uses laser or other light sources combined with a light-sensitive drug, which in combination destroy cancer cells. When the light is directed in the area of the cancer, the drug is activated. As my noble friend indicated, although this is an invasive procedure, it is minimally so; and its advantage is that, unlike radiotherapy, no cumulative toxicity is involved, so someone can be treated with PDT repeatedly. However, there are difficulties, one of which is that there is no obvious clinical leadership in this field, and that has to be addressed. There need to be centres of excellence in order for the right lessons to be learnt and the right research to be done.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, there is no doubt that, once patients are at the hospital, they are likely to get the treatment, but can the Minister assure us that GPs will be encouraged to make speedy referrals? In the cases that I know of, the difficulty has been in getting from the GP to the centre of excellence in order to get the treatment.
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness is quite right, which is why in the NHS there is such an emphasis on speed of referral when a GP first suspects that cancer may be present in a patient. This is an area to which we are very alive, and I hope that we will be able to make further announcements about it in due course.
Baroness Thornton
Does the Minister accept that new cancer treatments such as PDT have benefited both from crucial investment by the Government and from partnership with leading cancer research charities? Is he prepared to guarantee that this crucial research will continue to be funded by the Government so that more deaths from cancer can be prevented in the future?
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness is quite right. This is a partnership effort, and she may know that a systematic review of PDT has been undertaken as part of the Health Technology Assessment programme, which is an element of the National Institute for Health Research. The final report on that will be published in August, but the institute has already identified that there are not enough high-quality research studies in this area. We know from experts in the field that there are at least three or four areas where further research should be prioritised.
Baroness Deech
Is the Minister aware that this month is the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser? At that time its use in medicine could not have been foreseen. Does he therefore accept how important it is to enable universities to continue to do research in this field, in the hope that there will be future inventions, and not to cut them back in this area?
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness makes a crucial point. I am sure she will agree that neither basic research nor translational research should be neglected when we look at the research effort. Indeed, my own department is looking carefully at how the barriers to clinical research can be reduced. Therefore, she is absolutely right to focus our attention on the importance of continuing research.
Dangerous Dogs Act 1991
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to amend or to improve the operation of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, on 1 June a wide-ranging public consultation on dangerous dogs laws closed. This consultation received 4,250 responses, which will need to be analysed before any action relating to dangerous dogs legislation is considered.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, given the explosion in the number of attack dogs in London, with the number seized by the Metropolitan Police—I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority—rising 22-fold in five years and with the Met having to budget £10.5 million for kennelling costs alone, when can we expect the Government to complete this review of the legislation? What, in the shorter term, is going to be done to expedite the processes that can often mean that dogs have to be held for many months before a final decision can be taken by the courts on their disposal?
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to the growth in such attacks and in the number of people who have to seek hospital treatment as a result of attacks by dogs. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 is not the only piece of legislation available to local authorities and others dealing with those matters. There is the Dogs Act 1871, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006. We will certainly consider carefully the consultation started by the previous Administration and make appropriate decisions afterwards.
Earl Cathcart
Is not one of the problems of the Dangerous Dogs Act the unintended consequences of listing four types of dangerous dogs? Thousands of responsible owners have had their pets destroyed not because of how they behave but because of how they look. Surely new legislation should concentrate on irresponsible dog owners rather than on only the breed.
Lord Henley
My Lords, we will certainly look at the problems of irresponsible owners, but there are certain advantages in breed-specific legislation. The police are of the view that without the restriction that that legislation gives, particularly on pit bulls, there would be many more serious dog attacks.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior
Does the Minister agree that many of the dangerous dogs are imported from overseas, especially from Europe? They are imported into Ireland initially, and from there go to Northern Ireland and then to the mainland. If the dogs were microchipped, as they are under the Pet Travel Scheme on the importation of dogs, it would be known to whom they belonged and whether people were training them to be attack dogs. The ownership and movement of those dogs could be followed by a simple procedure of microchipping. It would also help to identify, as has been mentioned, whether the dogs are dangerous.
Lord Henley
My Lords, compulsory microchipping was considered in the consultation. I do not think that it would necessarily solve all the problems because those who possess such dogs might not bother to get them microchipped and they would still be in breach of the law. The evidence from abroad is that where there is compulsory microchipping only 50 per cent of the dogs are microchipped.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that one of the problems facing the police in dealing with dogs which they suspect to be pit bulls is the pit-bull-type dog? It can take many months for the police to establish exactly the breed or the type of dog and at enormous cost to public funds. Some of the dogs’ homes are considering refusing to take these dogs because of the time taken and the cost to the charities. Is that part of the consultation?
Lord Henley
My Lords, there have been problems with dogs being kept in kennels for rather a long time as a result of the legal processes. We will certainly want to talk to colleagues in the Ministry of Justice about whether the legal processes can be speeded up so that the dogs need not be kept in kennels for so long. We have heard from the Metropolitan Police in particular that the costs are very high and rising.
Lord Elton
My Lords, what action is available to the courts for disposal of dangerous dogs and prohibited breeds? While the owners await decisions of the court, is it the case that a number of the dogs disappear?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am not aware that any have disappeared from kennels while waiting for the court’s decision. If my noble friend has any evidence of that, we would be grateful if he would pass it on to us. The Dangerous Dogs Act deals not only with specific breeds but, under Section 3, allows action against a dog of any type or breed if it is deemed to be behaving dangerously.
Baroness Quin
My Lords, following my noble friend’s point about timing, can the Minister tell us when the Government will respond to the consultation and whether they will publish the results?
Lord Henley
My Lords, as regards timing, I do not think that I can help the noble Baroness much more than by saying that we will do that as soon as is possible—we have all said that before—but we will certainly publish the results of our consultation when we make the appropriate decisions about how we should respond to it.
Lord Elton
My Lords, I asked my noble friend what disposals were available to the courts respectively for dangerous dogs and prohibited breeds. Perhaps he could remind me.
Lord Henley
My Lords, the courts can order the dog to be put down if they find that it is a prohibited breed or if it is dangerous, but that will be done in the most humane manner possible.
Lord Addington
My Lords, has the noble Lord considered that resources and the number of people trained to deal with the Act might be one of the most important factors in whether this or any other piece of legislation works?
Lord Henley
My Lords, Defra offers guidance to police forces, and all police forces have to have a designated dog legislation officer who knows what the law is and how it can be used to best effect. We certainly assist in providing training for those dog legislation officers, so that local authorities can enforce the law in the most appropriate manner.
Justice: Legal Fees
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lester of Herne Hill
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to exercise the power conferred by section 58(4)(a) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 to reduce the maximum success fee chargeable under a conditional fee agreement in defamation proceedings.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
The Government are currently considering the recommendations from Lord Justice Jackson’s report, Review of Civil Litigation Costs, published in January 2010. The Government’s analysis of Sir Rupert’s recommendations, once completed, will determine the next steps on the success fee in defamation proceedings.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and the right honourable Jack Straw, who began to focus on the abuses created by conditional fee agreements with 100 per cent success fees. I urge the Minister and his colleagues not to wait for consideration of the vast Jackson report before taking urgent action to deal with what I think is a scandal, where some fellow members of my profession charge inordinate fees through the conditional fee agreement so that the costs far outweigh any damages that NGOs, individuals or the press may have to pay. That is a very urgent matter.
Lord McNally
My Lords, we recognise the sense of urgency, but also the complexity of the issue. As my noble friend will know, the proposals made by the previous Government ran into trouble at the other end of the building. We are looking at the Jackson report and we will treat the matter with the urgency that my noble friend said that it deserves.
Lord Bach
My Lords, the Minister knows that on 25 March last, this House agreed the statutory instrument that would have given effect to the intention of his noble friend Lord Lester. Will he please use his undoubted great influence in government to ensure that that intention is fulfilled and that that happens soon? It needs to. This is a bit of a scandal. We cannot wait for Jackson. We look forward to the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in due course but this needs quick government action. Can the Minister please do his best to ensure that that happens?
Lord McNally
I can give assurances that we will treat the matter with all due seriousness. Whether we will follow the same path as the previous Administration is more questionable. As the noble Lord will know, Lord Justice Jackson has made a different recommendation about how to deal with this problem. We will weigh up what he has argued in his report and consider the debate in this House and other views on what the previous Administration was proposing to do.
Lord Pannick
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that a very large proportion of success fees are paid in defamation cases brought by claimants who are sufficiently wealthy themselves to pay a proper professional fee for their action? Therefore, success fees make no contribution whatsoever to proper access to justice. In asking that question, I declare an interest as I act for Mirror Group Newspapers, which is bringing proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights relating to success fees in the case of Naomi Campbell and her privacy complaint.
Lord McNally
Having spent some years treading the line between public relations clients and what I could say in the House, I am always very envious of how my learned friends manage to tread that line so well. This defamation area produces great scandals, and I think that the balance of Lord Justice Jackson’s report will point us in the direction of urgent action. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who has made available to my department his not inconsiderable research and preparation for a Defamation Bill, which will, I hope, enable us to move forward very quickly on this. I do not think I will say any more about the Mirror Group case.
Lord Bates
Can the Minister confirm whether this change in success fees would apply to cases heard in the High Court? If so, is he aware of a ruling in the High Court this morning that the decision of the previous Government to impose unitary authorities on Norwich and Exeter was unlawful? Given that this is a victory for common sense, will he ensure that there is no maximum in the success fee available to counsel?
Lord McNally
I thank the noble Lord for bringing me up to date on that saga. I think there should be a limit on success fees or, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggested, that the success fee should be borne by the successful claimant.
Lord Clinton-Davis
What are the views of the Bar Council and the Law Society about this issue? Do they think it can wait or do they demand urgent action?
Lord McNally
We are taking the advice of the Bar Council and the Law Society. Nobody has suggested that the issue should wait. Lord Justice Jackson has produced a 500-page report which even due courtesy would suggest should be studied before the Government proceed to action.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Would my noble friend look more widely at the conditional fee situation now prevailing? As he may know, there are large commercial purchasers of cases from the public—they are not subject to any Law Society or Bar Council rules—who then sell them in bulk to solicitors for a fee per case plus a proportion of the conditional fee gathered in the course of it. Would he not accept that that is a gross problem for justice today?
Lord McNally
The way the conditional fee regime has grown up has produced a number of abuses and anomalies. Right from the beginning, from those Benches across there, I raised some of the actions of the companies to which my noble friend referred. I know that Lord Justice Jackson has looked at the actions of those companies in his report and has made some recommendations. I think that right across the House, there is a general feeling that there are abuses in the conditional fee system. We have to get the balance right between the access to justice that conditional fees give and some of the anomalies and, indeed, abuses that have grown up in practice. We will do so after consideration of Jackson, but with all due urgency.
Economy: Eurozone
Lord Trimble
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to members of the European Union to protect the British economy from the financial situation in the eurozone.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Treasury Ministers attend regular meetings of EU Ministers, including the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers—ECOFIN. These discussions cover a wide range of issues, including the ongoing situation in sovereign debt markets.
Lord Trimble
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer, and I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. I have two points to raise with him. Funds have been established to try and help countries in the EU that are in difficulties, but one of the underlying causes of those difficulties is the loss of competitiveness. Is that likely to be solved before the money and time run out? If it is not solved by then, what then happens?
Secondly, I draw my noble friend’s attention to the alternative investment fund managers directive that is currently being imposed on us. The European Parliament estimated that that directive would cost the European Union as a whole roughly 0.2 per cent of its GDP, but, as most of the alternative investment funds are in the United Kingdom, the potential cost to us is much greater. Have the Government managed to draw any of this directive’s teeth? If not, how much is it likely to cost the United Kingdom?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I will deal first with the question of competitiveness. The UK Government, the European Council and the Union well recognise that competitiveness must be improved in parallel with steps that are being taken to deal with the immediate financial situation of a number of member states. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the EU economic taskforce under the leadership of the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, which will report to the October Council. As well as dealing with crisis resolution matters, it has competitiveness indicators very much on its agenda. Indeed, it considers competitiveness absolutely in parallel with crisis resolution issues, as well as more broadly as part of the Europe 2020 exercise.
On the alternative investment fund managers directive, the European Council and the European Parliament have each taken positions that do not agree with each other, so the UK Government and the industry have a short window up to the end of July in which to make final representations and attempt to make sure that we get the best deal for what is a very important industry for the City of London out of this trialogue process.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that a good way in which to protect the British economy would be to refuse to underwrite massive sums for Brussels, such as the £8 billion mentioned by his noble friend Lord De Mauley on 8 June, which are illegal under the treaties? How many billions are we going to be exposed to through the illegal breach of Article 125, which forbids member states to bail out others?
Lord Sassoon
I thank the noble Lord for his questions. First, to be clear, it is the view of the UK Government that no illegal action has been taken under Article 125 or any of the other relevant articles. On the UK’s exposure, we have not as a country participated in the €440 billion special purpose vehicle for assistance. We do, however, participate in the €60 billion finance facility, which is available to any member state under Article 122.2 and which we think strikes an appropriate balance between the eurozone taking primary responsibility for stabilisation within the eurozone and the important part that we have to play as part of the wider EU 27. For completeness, we participate in the IMF standby facilities.
Lord Myners
Can the Minister confirm categorically to the House that the Government will in no circumstances divulge to European institutions the thinking behind or the detail of proposed Budgets or the work of the OBR? Does he agree that if that categoric assurance cannot be given, there are grounds for a referendum?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I can give an assurance that any request to submit the UK Budget to Europe will not be completed until the Budget has been submitted to and approved by the UK Parliament.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we want to see growth in Europe and businesses growing, expanding and being given the opportunity to borrow money from the banks? Is it therefore a sensible time to think about taxing the banks and reducing their ability to make that money available?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I think that we will probably come back to the question of bank levies tomorrow after my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Budget. He has made it completely clear that the UK supports bank levies. We will take unilateral action, but we want to seek international agreement to make sure that the bank levies are, as far as possible, introduced on a common basis.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, the noble Lord will have noticed that he did not answer the Question on the Order Paper. Does he recognise that there are serious consequences for the UK if there is any major collapse in the economy in the eurozone, not least to the UK banks which have large numbers of debts owing from many countries within the eurozone? In those circumstances, should we not seek to help rather than hinder them and gloat over their difficulties?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am grateful for the reminder that not only are 40 per cent of the UK’s exports exposed to the eurozone—so we want to see a stable eurozone—but that through financial linkages the whole financial system, including the banking system, is exposed. That is why we believe that the forthcoming publication of bank stress tests is an important part of the support going forward.
Allhallows Staining Church Bill [HL]
The Chairman of Committees
That the Commons message of 16 June be now considered; and that the promoters of the Allhallows Staining Church Bill [HL], which was originally introduced in this House in Session 2009–10 on 25 January 2010, should have leave to proceed with the Bill in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 150B (Revival of Bills).
That the Commons message of 16 June be now considered; and that the promoters of the Kent County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill [HL], which was originally introduced in this House in Session 2009–10 on 25 January 2010, should have leave to proceed with the Bill in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 150B (Revival of Bills).
Works of Art Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Baroness Maddock be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Smith of Clifton, resigned, and that Lord Roberts of Llandudno be appointed a member of the Select Committee.
Business of the House
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
That leave be given to advance the Motion in the name of Baroness Verma from Monday 28 June to Tuesday 22 June.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, in moving the Motion, it may be helpful if I say a few words about the scheduling of business in the next few weeks. The Motion on the Order Paper today seeks leave to bring forward from next week to tomorrow the debate in the name of my noble friend Lady Verma on progress towards meeting the millennium development goal on universal primary education. This proposed change has come about as a result of discussions on the Academies Bill, which the House will begin considering in Committee today.
Last Wednesday, the Chief Whip published Forthcoming Business, which set out three consecutive days for Committee stage on the Academies Bill. I must confess that there was a misunderstanding as to how this came about, which led to some feeling that this was not the optimum way to proceed. As a result, there were further and very constructive discussions between the usual channels, which led to the republication of Forthcoming Business. This revised edition sets out three days for Committee stage on the Academies Bill—today, Wednesday 23 June and Monday 28 June. I am sure that these revised dates will be welcomed by all sides of the House. Furthermore, the usual channels have agreed to take Report stage on Wednesday 7 July.
The usual channels are a vital part of self-regulation in this House and we remain committed to ensuring that they work effectively on behalf of the whole House. I beg to move.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I warmly welcome the statement and the clarification from the Leader of the House. The usual channels provide a very important function for and within this House, although sometimes some noble Lords think that perhaps the system is too opaque. However, I believe that it works very well. For the smooth running of business and the well-being of the House as a whole, it is crucial that the whole House has confidence in the system. The noble Lord’s statement demonstrates that we agree on the importance of a fair system which respects the role of the Government and the Opposition. I thank the noble Lord.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, at a convenient point after 4 pm today my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford will repeat an Urgent Question as a Statement on the free schools policy, followed immediately by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who will repeat a Statement on the European Council.
Academies Bill [HL]
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
We begin today the first scrutiny in Committee of the first Bill from the new coalition Government. The Government have tried to present the Academies Bill now before us as non-controversial, as an extension of Labour policy on academies, and so as something that should be easy for reasonable people on this side of the House to support. It is to be a decentralising measure, devolving more power to local people to run their schools and making a contribution to improving the quality of teaching and learning in schools, with all the benefits to children’s life chances and to our wider society that that implies. This Bill is also being presented as a contribution to the big society—the idea which the Conservatives promoted a little in the general election. I suspect that we will hear less about that as we go forward, but nevertheless it is a very interesting idea.
I believe that the Bill is nothing of the sort. We on this side recognise it for what it may well turn out to be—highly centralising, potentially damaging to children’s education, damaging to communities, and a device more to establish free schools by the back door. The Bill does not seek to improve our education system. Instead, it may well be shown that it seeks to make fundamental and damaging changes to it. The Government would not increase the number of Labour-designed academies, designed when we were in government; rather they seek to create a new class of school with a motive which is entirely different from the laudable aims behind the Labour academies. The schools that they would create are not necessarily appropriate to bear the name “academy”. That is why we seek to deny that name to these schools. They should be called what they will be: direct maintained schools.
Ministers have spent so many years attacking local government that they have forgotten something about which their own Conservative-controlled Local Government Association has reminded them:
“Councils don’t run schools and haven’t done for many years”.
That is a quotation from an LGA Bill briefing. Schools run themselves, which is how it should be, but councils do have a range of statutory duties to protect the welfare of children in their area, including a duty to promote,
“the fulfilment by every child concerned of his educational potential”.
Councils make sure that there are enough school places for all the children who need them, and their top priority is to make sure that the same high standards of education are offered to all students, whether they are taught in a community school or an academy. Councils make sure that the admissions process operates fairly so that every child gets a chance to go to a good local school. They oversee the distribution of funding in conjunction with local schools in a cost-effective way. They provide support for children with special educational needs, something I know that the Committee is concerned about, and they are the champions of children in care.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly reminds the House of the accomplishments of the academies that were set up in the past decade. We pay generous tribute to the success of those academies. Because we have been able to observe how strongly they have raised the standards of so many young people, this Government have decided to build on that success and create even more academies and much more quickly.
I find it very sad that the noble Baroness, who played such a major part in the growth of the academies when her party was in power, should now seek to denigrate the attempt that is being made to spread that much more widely. I will not attempt for a moment to answer all of the very many questions that she asked and the very many criticisms that she directed at the policy, but at one point she asked whether she had misunderstood. I would like to pick on one particular area where she has misunderstood. It is perfectly true that the intention is to allow those schools that are rated outstanding by Ofsted to come through on a fast track, but the main thrust of the policy is exactly as it has been before: to establish academies in those places with the least successful schools—the most failing schools in the most deprived areas—so that the standards for those children who have been educationally so poorly served can be greatly improved. That is a misunderstanding.
I realise that it is a common misunderstanding because I have had it said to me by many people and many friends in the education service over the past few weeks. I am sure that my noble friend will underline the fact that it is important to recognise that just because there is a fast track for outstanding schools, it does not mean at all that schools that are educationally failing so many of their young people are not still the main focus of our policy in the Bill.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I do not intend to make a Second Reading speech, but I understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, did so. She makes a good case for keeping on academies. Even though one or two of them have not done quite so well, most of them have. However, she did not make any case for not allowing other schools to have the freedoms that her Government felt were so important to give to schools that needed to improve. That is what this Bill does. My breath was taken away to hear her comments about centralisation given the track record of the new Labour Government.
At first glance, the amendments look as though they are about labels. I have always been of the view that a label should say what is in the tin. Indeed, in the Liberal Democrat policy paper about our version of academies, we decided to call them exactly what was in the tin, which was “sponsor-managed schools”. Our version of academies was slightly different from the one that we are considering today, but now we are in coalition.
Indeed, the amendments would return us to the new Labour version of academies. In particular, Amendments 39 and 40 would remove the ability of outstanding schools to apply for academy status. When the Labour Government first introduced academies, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches asked why other schools should not have the same freedom to innovate as was being offered to these schools. We believe strongly in the importance of the professionalism of teachers, and schools have a duty to provide a curriculum that is appropriate to their particular cohort of students. Most schools actually do not use the range of freedoms to innovate that they were given in legislation passed under the previous Government. We are very much in favour of allowing professionals to innovate and provide appropriate education for their children. Those sort of freedoms should be given to all schools, but I can understand why my noble friend wants to approach first those schools that have already proved the professionalism of their leadership and their staff by becoming outstanding, to allow them to run with those freedoms and use them well in providing a good education for children. There is a lot of logic in adding to the cohort of what were failing schools, which will now get special attention under the academies scheme, those schools that have already demonstrated that they can provide an outstanding education, and in giving them the freedoms that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, introduced in the first place.
I do not support any of these amendments. They are not just about labels, of course. They are about removing a very important group of schools from the Bill.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln
My Lords, the Church of England has the largest family of academies under the existing provisions, as noble Lords will be aware, and is currently educating 34,000 children from relatively poor areas, so we are interested very much in the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, is making. As it stands, the Bill encourages her in the line that she has taken. However, as I look through the amendments tabled for us to debate in Committee, I see real potential—if the Minister is minded to accept some of them—for the Bill to enable us to recognise clearly the family resemblance between the new wave of academies and the ones that are now in existence. I await with interest the way that this debate develops. At the moment, I would find it quite easy to support the amendments, but I hope that I will find it very difficult by the end of this process.
Lord Adonis
I begin by paying tribute to the Church of England for the outstanding work that it does in promoting academies. As the right reverend Prelate said, the Church of England is the largest single sponsor of academies. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and I worked closely on the development of academies in Liverpool and the area around, and they are making marvellous progress, extending opportunity in an area that has not had it in the past.
This is my first opportunity in the House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hill, on his appointment, which I do very warmly indeed. I should also say how glad I am that my noble friends Lady Royall and Lady Morgan are leading on this Bill for the Opposition. They bring a wealth of talent and experience to the task.
My noble friend Lady Morgan raised a number of policy issues about the extension of academies, which I shall leave the Minister to respond to. However, on the specific issue about the legal name that should be given to a certain category of school, I find myself in surprising agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. She and I are survivors from the interminable debates on the Education Act 2005, on which our views did not coincide all the time, particularly on the issue of academies. But she is right that, in terms of legal category, the schools to which the Bill proposes to accord that status have all the essential characteristics of existing academies.
I know that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet but, for two reasons, I do not support this amendment on the name that it gives to a legal category of schools. First, the schools which we are talking about in this Bill are academies in all their essential legal characteristics. They are managed independently of the local authority, on a contract with the Secretary of State that regulates a whole host of their policies and funding and which will be similar to that of existing academies. My noble friend says that academies are schools largely in deprived or challenging circumstances, and she is correct, although I need to point out to the House that that is not the exclusive preserve of academies. A number of entirely new schools have been set up as academies in very mixed social areas and a number of successful schools, including successful independent schools, have come into the state system by using the legal category of academies.
The legal status is clearly set out in Section 65 of the Education Act 2002, which is cast in similar terms to Clause 1. I emphasise the fact that the 2002 Act, which was passed by the last Government, does not specify that academies, in legal terms, can only be schools that pass a threshold either of deprivation or of low achievement. On the contrary, I invite Members of the Committee to look at Section 65, which says:
“The Secretary of State may enter into an agreement with any person under which … that person undertakes to establish and maintain, and to carry on or provide for the carrying on of, an independent school in England with the characteristics mentioned in subsection (2)”.
Those characteristics are that the school,
“has a curriculum satisfying the requirements of section 78 of the Education Act 2002”,
and that it,
“provides education for pupils of different abilities who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.
Those provisions are almost identical to those in the Bill.
If there is no legal distinction between the schools that we are talking about in this Bill and those referred to under the Education Act 2002, is there another public policy reason for us to give a different label to certain schools within a similar legal category? I urge your Lordships not to do so. We already have an alphabet soup of different names for schools within the state system: community schools, foundation schools with a foundation, foundation schools without a foundation, voluntary aided schools, voluntary controlled schools, trust schools, city technology colleges, grammar schools, maintained special schools and non-maintained special schools. If the schools that we are talking about are academies, as they are in their essential legal characteristics, the right thing to do is to call them academies and not to add to the alphabet soup.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, paid tribute to the right reverend Prelates, so I shall pay tribute to him. He was a most excellent Schools Minister and was largely responsible for the success of the academies programme. As the Minister said, the party opposite has every right to be proud of what it achieved. I also praise the noble Lord for starting off his life as a Back-Bencher exactly as I hope he will continue, feeling free to disagree with his Front Bench. As my noble friend Lord Hill will discover, feeling free to criticise one’s own side when one feels that it is getting it wrong is the mark of respect that every Back-Bencher seeks to attain.
I feel that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, although she was in turn an excellent Minister, is getting it wrong. It was always inevitable that the academies programme, once it had proved itself and gained momentum, would be open to existing schools. The idea that schools have to fail in order to become academies is not tenable. The substance of the amendment is political phooey and should be disregarded.
The noble Baroness raised a number of points that I suspect I will agree with later—or at least I will share her concerns. This is a new phase for the academy movement and it raises questions which were left in abeyance when the academies were few and had strong sponsors but which need examining now. However, a change of name, with further confusion for parents and everybody else, is not required.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, at Second Reading many noble Lords pointed out that most parents want a good local school, whatever it is called, and that good schools depend on good leadership, good teachers and good classroom practice, none of which I see mentioned in the Bill. My noble friend made some interesting points about academies, as did the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—I quite agree with him about the alphabet soup of schools. However, this is not just discussion about a name.
I have never particularly liked the name “academy” for a school, despite my respect and affection for my noble friend Lord Adonis. To me, the term has always meant a Scottish secondary school, the garden where Plato taught or, as in the Brixton Academy, a nightclub. As I understand it, we are talking about names that have legal and constitutional significance. No doubt we will tease out some of these legal and constitutional issues, such as buildings, charitable status, admissions, inspection, employment, VAT regulations, freedom of information and data protection, throughout the passage of the Bill. My noble friend is right. If these apply to what are called direct maintained schools—in other words, if they have to obey the rules I have just mentioned—the name should be looked at again. Could the noble Lord please spell out—I am sure he will—the differences between the name “academies”, as referred to in the Bill, and other kinds of school which now exist, and tell us why the name should not be changed?
Lord Bates
I totally support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about the name. The name “academies” followed from the creation of the city technology colleges. Although the city technology colleges were a wonderful idea in the Education Reform Act 1988, the name was a bit of a mouthful and did not describe well what those fine institutions sought to achieve. When the Learning and Skills Act 2000 first made provision for city academies, it was a clarification. In Greek learning, an academy is a place of high education and research. That is exactly the type of name and message that one wants in our education environment. However, the term “city academies” was then changed. The “city” part was dropped, which in many ways makes the point that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was presenting. At that point, in the 2002 Act, when city academies were replaced by the concept of academies, there was a distinct intention that the academy movement should be broadened. I think that is right. Therefore, what is being proposed by the Government is also right.
I make another point in support of my noble friend Lady Perry, who spoke about the Bill’s role in tackling failing schools. Clause 4 covers academy orders, which are directly targeted at the failure which exists within many local authority areas. The noble Baroness may have mentioned from the Front Bench that it is almost a divine right that every child in a local authority area will have access to good quality education. However, we know for a fact that that is not happening. That is why the Bill is necessary.
I register an interest as a former director of four academies. The other point is that the existing academies were invariably quickly oversubscribed. The notion that they were open to all was, again, not true. That is why we need a big expansion of the programme. We also need new schools. The other point was about ability. As I recall, there was certainly a provision, which still exists, to say that the academies could select up to 10 per cent of their pupils on the basis of aptitude in the school’s specialism. Again, that element is there. I see that the Bill has merely continued that.
The amendment probably falls into the category of “brave try”. As a former Shadow Front Bench spokesman, I know that brave tries are our lot in life. However, the term “academy” is a sound one, which should continue and be extended.
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool
My Lords, I declare an interest in that the diocese of Liverpool is a co-sponsor with the Catholic arch-diocese of three academies, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned. We have already seen remarkable progress being made in our first academy situated in an area of great deprivation. Within four years, the Academy of St Francis of Assisi has gone from 27 per cent to 66 per cent of its pupils gaining five GCSEs at Grades A to C. The one thing that I have learnt from the academy experiment—it is now more than an experiment as it is well established—is that children’s performance is improved through investing in the training and performance of teachers. There is a direct correlation between the performance of teachers and that of pupils. This surprised me, even though I began my professional career as a teacher. Investment in the head, the senior management team and the teachers in academies has made a remarkable contribution to improving people’s life chances, especially in deprived communities.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is right that under the previous Administration there was a shift from the original intention, which was to break the mould of education in deprived communities, but the policy has broadened out and schools have benefited. In the context of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, made a powerful point. The Government may resist her amendment and stick with academies, but I hope that they will share the aspiration of the previous Administration to change the nature of education in our deprived communities—whatever name we choose, that is what is at stake—as the academy programme has shown that we can do that. If the Government persist with the title “academy”, I hope that they will also persist with the ambition to improve the life chances of young people in our most deprived areas.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords, this is an interesting debate that has raised important issues. Legal status and legal titles are exactly that, but at the end of the day they are not the mark of success or failure in our education system. We may disagree on whether legal status is the measure that raises standards or whether it is something other than that. I very much agree with the previous speaker that standards are raised through the quality of teaching and of leadership rather than through legal status or title. However, whatever the relevant legal status was under the previous Government, the fact was that most of the effort and resources were put into the areas of greatest deprivation. I believe that is what academies should do. Once you spread the size of the club, you make it less special and you are not able to devote the same expertise to the schools that need it most. That is the decision that the Government have to make. In that respect, I wish to ask a very specific question about the impact assessment. On page two, it is estimated that over four years the net benefit will be £1.72 billion. I am surprised at that. The relevant figure is £282 million a year. The impact assessment states:
“Benefits are in terms of the increase in estimated lifetime earnings of the additional number of pupils attending academies and obtaining improved GCSE results … Evidence for impact of academies on pupil attainment is based on evidence from academies that opened before 2006”.
I find that very strange and would welcome an explanation of it. The schools that became academies before 2006 were situated in challenging areas. They were often failing schools that were letting down very bright students. The minute they got the chance, their grades improved, and over 12 to 24 months some schools went from fewer than 20 per cent of their pupils getting five A to C grades to as high a figure as 40, 50 or 60 per cent. The Government have decided to concentrate their effort, time and resources on outstanding schools, which may already have 90 per cent of their pupils getting five A to C grades, including English. Given that evidence, I am surprised at the impact assessment and the amount of money that is quoted. The maximum improvement that schools could make would be to increase from 90, 91 or 92 per cent to 100 per cent of all pupils. I like to think that I am an optimist in life, but I am surprised at how that could create a net benefit to the Exchequer and the nation of £1.72 billion over four years.
I have a further question on that. The figures relate to lifetime earnings. What measures or mechanisms are Ministers using, and in which years of these young peoples’ lives might that money accrue to the Treasury?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I should like to make some points which are, I am afraid, against the group of amendments. I accept that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, has a certain logic on her side, but I do not like the logic. I rather take the point made by the right reverend Prelate—at least I think it was his point—that, whereas academies hitherto have been for underachieving and underprivileged communities, henceforth they will, as far as I can see, be at the other end of the educational spectrum. I actively dislike the prospect that they would be called something different, as if to emphasise that they are of a different “class”—a ghastly word. I like the idea of these posh new future academies being linked to the existing ones.
I endorse entirely what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said. So often in this Chamber we underestimate or forget how our legislation will impact in the real world. We underestimate the effect of the mishmash of new names caused by our astonishing excess of legislation and constant wish to change and refine. For goodness’ sake, let us not create another category of schools.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, much as I admire—and I really do admire—the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the considerable strides made on education by the previous Government, we all should admit that whichever Government have been in power—the previous Government and the Government immediately previous to them—we have not achieved the best education for all our children. That is the aim we should go for. I am delighted that we have had this debate. I did not consider that it would begin our debates on the Bill, but it has totally confirmed my view that, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said, we need to get away from this mishmash—this alphabet soup, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, called it—and stick to one name. Then we can get on with the business of looking at the many detailed amendments which will ensure that the Bill will achieve its purpose. We should vote here and now for the use of the name “academies”—and no other name for the way forward.
The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells
My Lords, from the diocese of Bath and Wells, I should point out that in Taunton we have just inaugurated an academy that will begin in September. It comprises two schools with a history of difficulty; we have spent a lot of time in preparation for them to become an academy, and we are very much looking forward to that.
Once the Bill was announced, one of our successful—indeed, our most successful—church secondary schools made a bid to become an academy. Listening to the reason given by the head of the school that it serves to produce an additional half-a-million pounds for his school budget made me a little cautious about motive. I have been a supporter of the academies since they began. I have no difficulty whatever with continuing with a single title, provided that we can ensure that none of this will make the more vulnerable in our schools less able to enjoy the benefit of full academy status.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I have listened to the debate with great interest and am prompted to speak by what the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, said about the independent, and possibly isolated, schools. I want to ask the Minister one quick question, which may well fall within the ambit of later amendments. I recently met a social worker, whose job is to work with and support a number of schools in the local area. I also spoke fairly recently to a head teacher, who said how helpful it was to have a social worker support her in what she does. Therefore, I would appreciate an assurance from the Minister that in this legislative process we are not going to make it any more difficult for that sort of set-up to carry on working.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I shall start by speaking to Amendments 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 65, 77, 86, 87, 93, 94, 194 and 195, which all seek to change the title and name of all existing and future academies to direct-maintained schools. Before I do so—perhaps with the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln ringing in my ears at the beginning—I should say that I know that the whole point of Committee stage is for us to tease out misunderstandings and to try to get clarity on various issues as we go forward. I am committed to doing that during this process and shall do my best to do so in the days ahead. I have already had lots of help and advice from all sides of the House over the past couple of weeks and I know that that will continue.
I am a little perplexed as to why the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, would want to turn her back on a policy and a name which, greatly to its credit, her party pioneered in government. I was even more perplexed when over the weekend I read the 2005 White Paper, Higher Standards, Better Schools for All, which clearly argued for the extension of academy freedoms. As I think we mentioned at Second Reading, the day before the launch of the White Paper, the then Prime Minister was even more explicit. He 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 freedom”.
That, in general terms, is what the Academies Bill makes possible.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, argued that using the name “academy” for all schools converting to the programme might in some way dilute the original intentions, and she specifically mentioned grant-maintained schools. These were quite different, not least because they got additional funding and operated effectively outside the system, which is not what is proposed with academies. She spoke about the policy now being for outstanding schools, rather than the original focus of the policy, which was, she said, on the most challenging schools. That point has already been picked up by my noble friend Lady Perry. I know that there has been a lot of comment about this and I am sorry if I did not do a better job in explaining it at Second Reading. The fact is that the focus on failing schools remains and, if anything, is strengthened because the Secretary of State will be able to act more decisively without local authority consent, should that be necessary.
Secondly, in line with what we believe was the previous Government’s intention, all schools will be able to apply for academy status, should they want to. In other words, the outstanding schools are simply a sub-set of all schools. I hope that that provides some reassurance on the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool. In what we propose, there is no intention that the generality of schools should be excluded from the chance to take part in this programme. Because those schools are outstanding, we believe that conversion for them should be relatively straightforward, and therefore we are saying that, if they want to convert, they should be able to go first. They would not have to have sponsors, but all other converting schools would.
My main argument in resisting the amendment has already been made for me by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am particularly sympathetic to what was described as alphabet soup—what I think of as Alphabetti Spaghetti—in that, as a new Minister trying to get my head round the descriptions of all the different kinds of schools, the thought of having one more to learn would be almost intolerable.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
Will the Minister please answer the specific question I asked?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, as I wrote myself a note to do so. The general point is related to the notion that all schools can apply for academy status, not just the outstanding ones. I can see the logic of the noble Baroness’s argument: that if a school is already highly performing, the ability to make the kinds of improvement that the original wave of academies have made may be slightly more reduced. Given the intention that in time all schools, not just those in the outstanding category, will be able to apply explains more broadly why there is the opportunity for that uplift. I will need to write to the noble Baroness on her specific question about the maths and how officials came up with that figure.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
I thank the Minister for his helpful reply. I am happy to withdraw my amendment at the appropriate moment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for his comment, “Brave try”. As a Minister, being called brave was something I always used to worry about, but as an Opposition Front-Bencher, perhaps I will not mind that so much.
This debate has been helpful and interesting. I am interested in the point about academies as defined in the Bill being exactly the same as academies defined in previous legislation. Thinking about why we need the Bill focuses on the questions: what is the difference and what is the real motivation behind the Bill? Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, I want to be convinced, and hope that I will be as we go through Committee. I know that an awful lot of thought has gone into a wide range of amendments.
I have one question, which I hope I will learn more about in our debates today. If academy status will be exactly the same legally, I need to understand what Clause 1(2)(b) is all about. When we come to the Statement on free schools, I might understand that a bit more. Like all noble Lords, I do not see the benefit of increasing the number of letters in our alphabet soup. I am very interested in the comments that noble Lords have made. I have just learnt that outstanding schools will not be expected to have a sponsor, but those that come after will. That is a very interesting point.
I was also very interested in the point made by my noble friend Lady Morris about the focus of government policy. That highlights the challenge that we have when scrutinising legislation. We are looking at the Bill, but surrounding the Bill is government policy and how the Government promote their priorities. I am concerned that the Government continue to focus on poorly performing schools and coasting schools. I am very much comforted by the Minister's reassurances on that, but we will come back to the question of what the additional arrangements for academy financial assistance actually mean and whether that is a significant change in the legal instruments surrounding the legal definition of academies. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Free Schools Policy
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I beg leave to repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to an Urgent Question in another place. The Statement is as follows.
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to update the House on our progress in reducing centralised bureaucracy in the education system, giving more power to professionals on the front line and accelerating progress on the academies programme begun, with such distinction, under the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and Tony Blair.
During the Queen’s Speech debate, I outlined in detail our plans to extend academy freedoms. I mentioned then that we had more than 1,000 expressions of interest. I can now update the House by confirming that more than 1,700 schools have expressed an interest in acquiring academy freedoms, with more than 70 per cent of outstanding secondary schools contacting the department—a remarkable and heartening display of enthusiasm for our plans from front-line professionals.
As I have explained before, every new school acquiring academy freedoms will be expected to support at least one faltering or coasting school to improve. We are liberating the strong to help the weak—a key principle behind this coalition Government.
As well as showing enthusiasm for greater academy freedoms in existing schools, I can also report to the House that teachers are enthusiastic about the opportunities outlined in our coalition agreement to create more great new schools in areas of disadvantage. More than 700 expressions of interest in opening new free schools have been received by the charitable group the New Schools Network, the majority of them from serving teachers in the state system who want greater freedom to help the poorest children do better.
That action is all the more vital because we are inheriting a school system from the previous Government which was as segregated and stratified as any in the developed world. In the last year for which we have figures, out of a school cohort of 600,000 children, 80,000 children were in homes entirely reliant on benefits. Of those 80,000 children only 45 made it to Oxbridge—less than 0.1 per cent—and, tellingly, fewer than from the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition.
Given that scale of under-achievement and lack of social mobility, it is no surprise that so many idealistic teachers want to start new schools like those American charter schools backed by President Obama that have closed the achievement gap between black and white children. In order to help these teachers do here what has been achieved in America, and in order to help philanthropists, community groups and parents set up new schools, we announced last week that we would recreate the standards and diversity fund for schools started by Tony Blair and abandoned under his successor. We are devoting £50 million saved from low-priority IT spending to this fund, which is less than 1 per cent of all capital spend allocated for this year, and we are sweeping away the bureaucracy which stands in the way of new school creation with reform of planning laws and building regulations.
Five years ago, the Prime Minister said outside this House:
“What we must see now is a system of independent state schools, underpinned by fair admissions and fair funding, where teachers are equipped and enabled to drive improvement, driven by the aspirations of parents”.
We have pushed higher standards from the centre. For those standards to be maintained and built upon, they must now become self-sustaining to provide irreversible change for the better. That is the challenge Mr Blair laid down, and this coalition Government intend to meet it”.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to this Urgent Question from the other place. I have a number of questions to ask him, but before I do, I want to make the point that this Urgent Question followed a press release issued by the Minister’s department on Friday about the process for progressing the coalition Government’s free schools policy. Just a moment ago, we were in Committee looking at the Academies Bill, and it would be very helpful for the House if we could understand how the Government’s different policies and priorities fit together so that when we are scrutinising the legislation we have a full picture of what the Government are trying to achieve. It was therefore a bit of a disappointment that the Secretary of State for Education chose to announce the process for progressing the free schools policy in a press release on Friday when we could have heard more about it in this House. However, the Minister has repeated the Statement to the House, which I very much appreciate.
We have heard a great deal from the coalition Government about the challenging economic times that we are in. We on these Benches recognise that and the real challenge of having to make cuts in the near future. How will these new free schools be paid for? The Guardian suggested, possibly on Friday, that funding from the previous Government’s proposals to widen access to free school meals will be used to pay for the new free schools policy. Will the Minister explain what assessment has been made of surplus places? Surplus places might not be a very cost-effective way of funding school places. Indeed, creating surplus places through the development of a free schools policy could be quite an inefficient way of using what will be scarce resources.
I believe that the coalition Government are keen to broaden the number of providers that deliver education through the free schools model, and I am interested to know whether the coalition Government envisage new providers coming into education being able to make a profit from using public funds to develop free schools, or whether, under some enterprise model, any surplus that was generated through the use of public funds would be ploughed back into public benefit.
I was quite interested on Friday to see a little box on the form on the website that has enough space for 200 words that are designed to show what parental demand there is for a new free school. For the benefit of those who are interested in taking forward an idea such as this, will the Minister say what he is looking for in those 200 words that will give a really good picture of parental demand? Will there be published criteria? I know that the Secretary of State will have to look at each of these applications, and I understand that there have been many expressions of interest. When the Secretary of State looks at these 200 words, over breakfast on Sunday morning perhaps, what will he be looking for to assess parental demand?
There is also a space on the form to set out the premises that have been identified or to say what the premises would be like. The Minister mentioned planning requirements when he repeated the Statement, and I am interested to know how any legislation on this will work. Again, what is required in the box about premises? Will the new free school have disabled access, for example, or will a car park, office block or corner shop work just as well?
How will local authorities be involved? The Secretary of State for Education said very clearly in a letter that he sent to directors of children’s services that there would be a role for local authorities in that local authorities are central to the Government’s plans to improve education. It would be very helpful to understand what that vision is in relation to free schools.
It is also interesting that the coalition Government have made strong statements about a commitment to fairness in approach. How will the admissions code, which I think is all about fairness for children’s educational opportunities, work in the free school setting? How will vulnerable children and those with special educational needs, about whom this House cares very much, be catered for? I am aware that I have asked a lot of questions, but it is important that this House hears from the Minister the vision and the practicalities of how it will work.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I will try to answer all the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin. On her first point, no disrespect to this House was intended. The view was taken that this was an announcement about practicalities. The principle of the policy had previously been announced and had been long trailed. Over many years it was in the Conservative Party manifesto and it features in the coalition agreement. As the noble Baroness knows—we will be discussing it in Committee over the next three days—free schools will be set up as academies under the Academies Bill. They will have the same framework, rights and responsibilities as the academies that we have just been discussing in our first group of amendments in Committee. The view was taken that this was a practical implementation and a first step of policy rather than a new policy announcement.
On the point fairly made by the noble Baroness about the challenging economic times, perhaps I may reassure her about the modest funding for what is, in effect, a series of pilots that we will look at over the next year to see how this policy works out. The £50 million will not come from free school meals pilot money. As the Statement in the other place made clear, the department is basically recreating a programme which the noble Baroness may know—the standards and diversity fund. The money has come from the harnessing technology grant. Therefore, as the Statement made clear, it has come from money that was put aside for IT, not from free school meals.
As regards the noble Baroness’s question about profit, the school or trust must be non-profit making. As now under existing legislation, a school can subcontract to a provider of a service, which, if a commercial operation is providing that service, will charge what it needs in order to make a profit and a living. As now, the school cannot make a profit. There is nothing here which will enable free schools to be profit-making schools.
As the noble Baroness will understand, parental demand, and the Secretary of State’s breakfast, is work in progress. We have made clear that a demonstration of parental demand might be, for example, a petition. An interested party can make the application and then work with an official in the department who will work up the detailed application. As part of that process, some of the noble Baroness’s fair questions on how these things will be demonstrated will be worked through.
On premises, revised planning guidance will be issued by CLG in due course, which should free up and remove a lot of the bureaucratic systems that currently make the establishment of a school for anyone extremely difficult to countenance. The noble Baroness’s point about precisely what the requirements will be needs to be worked through.
On the role of local authorities, I have somewhere another letter—we in the department are busy writing letters at the moment—written by the Secretary of State to local authorities specifically on the free schools announcement, which is subsequent to the previous letter to which the noble Baroness referred. It makes clear that part of the process under which he will judge the criteria for whether an application to be a free school should be able to go forward will include consultation with the local authority.
The admissions code for free schools will work just as the code for academies because the free schools will be set up under the academies legislation. All the safeguards and requirements that were put in place for academies will apply to free schools. That remark also applies to the noble Baroness’s final and extremely important point about vulnerable children. All the safeguards, particularly with regard to vulnerable children and SEN issues, which will be discussed at greater length as we go forward with the Academies Bill, will be in place.
The Earl of Listowel
I thank the Minister for the Statement and welcome the Government’s general thrust, reflected in their announcement, of giving head teachers much more control over the environment that they teach children in. If I may say so, that is a very good direction to be moving in. But can he offer me a reassurance on the issue of stratification? There is some risk that if a significant minority of schools opts neither for academy nor free school status, many teachers will vote with their feet and go to work in these good schools. That might mean that pupils who would most need and would benefit from good teaching will actually be denied the best teachers because they will be in these other schools.
Elsewhere, the Government have proposed the introduction of independent social work practices in the style of GP practices and legal firms. Although this has been warmly welcomed by social workers who like the idea of running their own business and not being interfered with by local authorities so much, a respectable and experienced director of social services pointed out to me that if there is one service only for children with care orders, there is a danger that all the best social workers from the surrounding fields will want to work in that area and would be creamed off. We need social workers to support families where the children are not taken into care.
My second question is brief. Can the Minister assure the House that the complexity of taking forward these new measures will not distract him from maintaining a strong focus on the continuing professional development of our teachers and introducing the master’s in teaching and learning? This point was stressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful to the noble Earl and hope I can give him the reassurances he seeks. On the broad point about fears of stratification—which I am sure we will come back to as we debate the Academies Bill more generally—I understand the anxiety, but I think that quite a lot of it is misconceived. I say that because on Friday, when the department made the announcement on free schools, I was lucky enough to meet beforehand a number of the teachers and teacher groups who are most interested in taking free school status forward. I have to say that those teachers could not in any way be characterised as people who are looking for a quiet life and want to teach in a leafy suburb, or who want to turn their back on vulnerable children. They formed an extraordinarily impressive and passionately committed group of people whose reason for going into teaching—some through Teach First and some through the Future Leaders programme which, much to their credit, were set up by the previous Government, who I will load with laurels as often as I can as regards those two wonderful programmes on which we want very much to build—arises out of a strong sense of social commitment. I found it immensely reassuring that those teachers see this legislation as enabling them to do more for the neediest, most vulnerable and most left behind children.
On the issue of CPD and the master’s, as the noble Earl knows, we will have further legislation coming forward later in the year. This comes back to a point made previously by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, but I do not think that the choice is between structures and teachers. Sometimes it is caricatured that people who want structural change are crazed ideologues who do not understand people, but that is not my view at all. My view, which was confirmed by meeting those excellent teachers, is that the structural change can give them the freedom to enable them to do more for the neediest children, about whom I know the noble Earl cares most strongly.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be churlish for the Church of England, in particular, to object in principle to what is being proposed? We enjoy relative freedoms in some of our schools and we would encourage those freedoms being shared more widely. However, as the Minister will recognise and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, has indicated, we will need to see the workings.
In relation to accredited providers, am I right in understanding that any parents or community groups seeking to establish a free school will be expected to work with an accredited provider? If that is the case, will the Minister welcome an assurance from the Church of England and other faith groups that we will make available all the experience we have as quite long-standing providers in the field of education? If accredited providers are required to co-operate with such groups, will he bear in mind the readiness of the church to co-operate? Perhaps I may go further and suggest that any prospective group of parents might be encouraged to co-operate with an accredited church provider. There will always be one near to where they are.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful for those observations. I would be very keen to discuss further the role that the Church of England can play in this. The general approach to providers currently is to make the system as open as possible. However, I shall follow that up further in the future.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Future Leaders. I share the Minister’s position on the enthusiasm displayed by many teachers who are interested in setting up free schools. I also share his belief that they are passionate about trying to deliver for the most disadvantaged children.
My question is about money. We have heard about the changes in the planning rules, but that does not answer the money question. When will we get real details about the setting-up costs of these new schools, particularly in relation to capital? I am clear how the running costs will be met but, particularly where there is a shortage of school places and there are not obviously empty old school buildings, there is a real challenge about finding suitable building space and meeting the capital costs. We need facilities to deliver a decent curriculum, particularly for older children taking GCSE and A-level sciences, and I am anxious to know when we will have a little more detail.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, in particular for the work that she does for Future Leaders. On the issue of detail, that is work in progress and I shall keep her informed and posted. We made the announcement about the outline shape of the process on Friday, and we recognise that we have to provide this kind of detail. I shall keep her closely informed.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, can my noble friend give me comfort on two aspects? First, will he reassure me that the existence of surplus places in the vicinity of a proposed free school will not be a bar to the establishment of a free school? Secondly, can he tell me whether virtual schools may be established under this legislation—that is, schools which are to ordinary schools as the Open University is to universities?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I can certainly give my noble friend Lord Lucas the reassurance that he seeks on his first point. I shall need to write to him on the second point.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his post. Can he be more specific on the issue of the creation of surplus places by the development of one of these free schools? I still bear the scars from dealing—in Lancashire County Council many years ago—with the issue of surplus places. It is no good saying that there will be the same per capita per pupil for existing schools, because if there are surplus places, the per capita will have to go up to protect the curriculum.
Can the Minister also be a little more forthcoming about the relationship between the teachers, who he says have very good motives in setting up these schools, and potential conflicts with parents? Major parts of special educational needs in our schools are to do with behavioural problems. In my long experience of governing bodies where parents served, the parents would quite frequently wish to exclude the children with behavioural problems. This could totally wipe out the aims of the teachers whom he has described.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope that I can give the noble Baroness some reassurance at least on her second point. The provisions which we will be discussing in the Academies Bill, particularly in regard to vulnerable children, and which will be delivered through the funding agreement and will give these children broadly the same protections as are delivered through maintained schools, will also have to be delivered by free schools, which will be set up as academies and governed by the same safeguards. A free school could not decide to take an approach towards vulnerable children—statemented children—that is different from the approach of any other kind of school.
On surplus places, it was recognised as long ago as the 2005 White Paper that one of the effects of the policy was that, in some places where there was not parental demand, there would be surplus places. The whole point of the policy is to try to create something new for parents where there are surplus places.
Baroness Walmsley
Will the new free schools be eligible for funding under the financial assistance provisions in Clause 1(2)(b) of the Academies Bill, which in turn looks to Section 14 of the Education Act 2002?
Perhaps I may also ask the Minister about the New Schools Network. Interested groups are directed by the website to contact the New Schools Network. Does the Department for Education have any contractual arrangement with the New Schools Network? Are there any alternatives for groups of people who wish to set up a new school, or do they have to go through that process? If so, are there any financial considerations that the House should know about?
Perhaps I may also press the Minister a little more on local authorities. Whenever a new school is set up, it will have an effect on other schools, as no school is an island. Will the Secretary of State publish the criteria for the weighting that will be given to various consultations with the local authority, and the points that the local authority makes to him when there is an application for a new school?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I shall respond to my noble friend’s questions in no particular order. The funding mechanism can apply to all academies; it could well apply to free schools. The point of having a grant rather than a seven-year funding arrangement is that, particularly with a free school, which is a new and untried school, the Secretary of State might not want to be bound into an agreement for seven years and might prefer something that gives him greater flexibility. The department has entered into a contractual arrangement with the New Schools Network to provide support and advice. I will happily send to the noble Baroness the letter that sets up that arrangement. Forgive me, but I have forgotten the third point.
Lord Hill of Oareford
As I said earlier, the Secretary of State has made it clear that he sees local authorities having a role in shaping his thinking. We will need to reflect precisely on the criteria, how we set them out and what is then done with those criteria.
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, I apologise for missing the beginning of the proceedings, but I do not think that anything has been said so far about design standards. The Minister will know very well that the impact of the environment in which children study is extremely important from an educational point of view. What guarantee can he give that free schools will conform to acceptable design standards?
Lord Hill of Oareford
One point of the policy is to give schools greater freedom and flexibility over where schools are set up and in what kind of building. Overall, the department intends to look at the whole set of regulations around buildings for all schools because our view is that they are expensive and bureaucratic and the process of building schools takes too long. Some of the regulations do not seem to serve any particular purpose while others serve an extremely good purpose. We will look at them all and, as part of that, we will obviously need to take into account important points about design.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I want to pick up the point about planning. Is the Minister saying, in a technical sense, that the Government will issue a new planning policy statement referring to schools? Will that therefore apply to all schools, since planning clearly has to be neutral with regard to the question of who applies for a particular type of planning permission? Is it not the case that when the Victorians built a large number of new schools—first the churches and then the state—they discovered that setting up schools in odd corners of mills, factories, barns and other buildings was entirely unsatisfactory and that schools actually needed purpose-built new premises designed as schools, with playgrounds, playing fields and all the other facilities that schools need? Is that not still the case?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The overriding imperative in this policy is to attempt, where there is poor provision, to give teachers’ groups and parents the chance to improve the quality of teaching as rapidly as possible. Our starting point in this is that every year that passes is another school year that has been missed out and another generation of children who are falling behind. I understand entirely the points that my noble friend Lord Greaves makes. However, in the balance between perfect provision, carefully planned, and giving groups greater opportunity to start the urgent work of improving the teaching for children who need it most in areas of greatest disadvantage, we come down on the side of more flexibility over premises rather than going for the full, perfect Monty.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords, will the Minister say a little more about parent-led free schools? We all want parents to be involved in the education of their children, because the more involved they are the better, but I see two problems. If parents set up a school, the contract they let to a provider could be as long as seven years. Within that time, there could have been 100 per cent changeover of parents at the school. The further point is that the parents who are the original promoters of the school may not even get their children into the school if an oversubscription criterion of, for example, a ballot were used. So there could be a situation in which the original parent promoters do not have children in schools, and within three to four years the percentage of parents with any say or influence at all over how the school meets its contract is very low. Will the Minister explain his thoughts on that?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful for the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. The truth in this, as with a lot of these things, is that the announcement made on Friday kicked off the process. There will be all sorts of important practical considerations that that process will throw up. Officials in the department, assisted by the New Schools Network, will be thrashing through those considerations and coming to Ministers with recommendations on the back of the process. These kinds of points—which are extremely important; I do not belittle them in any way at all—will need to be thought through as part of the process.
European Council
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
This may be a useful point at which to hear a Statement made by the Prime Minister a few minutes ago in another place. The Statement was as follows:
“I am sure that the whole House will join with me in paying tribute to Trooper Ashley Smith from the Royal Dragoon Guards, who was killed in Afghanistan last week. He died serving our country and our thoughts are with his family and friends. We have also heard this morning news that a member of 40 Commando Royal Marines has died from his injuries. He is the 300th member of the British Armed Forces to lose his life as a result of the conflict in Afghanistan.
When such a tragic milestone is reached, we should re-emphasise our support for our Armed Forces, and for all that they do. Inevitably some will question our mission and purpose there, and we are paying a high price. Let me be clear that we are in Afghanistan because the Afghans are not yet capable of securing their own country from terrorists. It is for our own national security that we help them. When they can do it alone, we will leave. In the mean time, we will give our Armed Forces everything they need to get the job done.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on last Thursday's European Council. It was rightly focused on securing the economic recovery, and it was unanimous that this required early action on budget deficits. The Council also dealt with Europe's growth strategy, the need to sort out the problems in the eurozone, and our approach to the G20. It also delivered important progress on Iran.
Let me take each in turn. On deficits, the conclusions could not be clearer. Delaying action would entail ‘major risk’, and the Council called on member states to meet budgetary targets ‘without delay’. Since the last European Council, the problems in Greece and the scale of the sovereign debt crisis have become apparent to almost everyone. That is why there is such unanimity across the EU on early action, and it is why President Barroso paid tribute to the efforts that the UK coalition Government are taking and said:
‘Consolidation is necessary for confidence and without confidence there will be no growth’.
On growth, the Council agreed a new strategy called Europe 2020. This follows on from the Lisbon agenda, whose aim was to make Europe the most competitive market in the world. The document has some worthwhile objectives, including raising the level of research and development, and improving education. This should not interfere with national competencies. So I secured explicit agreement that the new strategy must be,
‘fully in line with the relevant treaty provisions and EU rules and shall not alter member states’ competences’.
We should be clear that all the strategies in the world should not conceal the fact that EU countries all need to get to grips with the real problems that harm our competitiveness, not by endlessly setting targets but by taking action. This includes action on the extent of our debts, the affordability of our pensions, and on the scale of our welfare dependency.
Europe has never lacked strategies, but European countries have frequently failed to deliver them. We will continue to press for the real stimulus that European economies need—more trade, more international investment and breaking down barriers to business. This means pushing for agreement on Doha, reforming and completing the single market and making the process of trade easier. Even without Doha, there is a huge amount that countries across the world can do to facilitate trade. I want Britain to be one of the driving forces in helping to bring this about.
Next, the eurozone: Britain is not in the euro and—let me be clear—we are not going to join the euro. However, a strong and successful eurozone is vital for the British national interest. Already about half our exports go to the EU, fourth-fifths of this to the eurozone. However, as this House is aware, with the situation in Greece and the need for a support package from other eurozone members, there is no doubt that the eurozone as a whole faces real challenges. I was generally supportive of the Council’s efforts to strengthen the eurozone governance arrangements, but I was equally determined to ensure that our national interests are protected.
On budget surveillance, let me be clear: the UK Budget will be shown to this House first and not to the Commission. Of course, we will share projections and forecasts, just as we do with the IMF and other international bodies. Co-ordination and consultation, yes; clearance, no—never. On sanctions for those who breach their economic obligations, the Council agreed that:
‘Member States’ respective obligations under the Treaties will be fully respected’.
Because of this and because of the special opt-out negotiated by the last Conservative Government, under the current framework sanctions cannot be applied to the UK.
Sorting out the eurozone and adding to its governance arrangements are clearly vital for Europe. There may well be significant changes coming down the track. Whether they require treaty changes or not, our position will be the same. We will back measures that help to sort out the eurozone. We will not back measures that pass power from the UK to Brussels and, as we are not a member of the euro, we will not back measures that draw Britain further into financial support for the euro area.
On the G20, the Council discussed our priorities for the upcoming meeting. As well as taking action on the deficit, the Council also agreed about the importance of reforming the financial system. It is vital that the meeting in Canada backs the right action on reserves and capital.
On the issue of a banking levy, the Council conclusions were helpful. We wanted the European Council to endorse the idea of countries introducing a levy on financial institutions to ensure that they make a contribution to rebuilding public finances. We did not want the Council to mandate a particular form of levy or how the money raised should be used. I am pleased to say that the Council conclusions reflect that approach.
On Iran, we have argued that it is time for actions, not just words. Following the UN Security Council’s recent adoption of Resolution 1929, the Council agreed to step up the pressure, issuing an unequivocal leaders’ declaration. This refers to measures including restrictions on trade, banking, transport and the oil and gas industry. Final agreement will be reached at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
The Council also reached important conclusions on Iceland’s application to join the EU. This country should be a good friend to Iceland and a strong supporter of EU enlargement, but Iceland owes the UK £2.3 billion in respect of compensation paid by the Government to UK investors following the collapse of its banking sector. We will use the application process to make sure that Iceland meets its obligations, because we want that money back.
Finally, it is important that, even in difficult times, we should be supporting people in the poorest countries suffering from severe poverty. The Council reaffirmed its commitment to achieve development aid targets by 2015 and, supported by the UK, to review this annually.
This was a Council that delivered good outcomes for Britain. Our citizens do not want new structures to talk about things; they want a new resolve to actually do things, such as getting to grips with our massive budget deficits, developing the single market and building the conditions for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. That is what this Council was all about”.
I commend this Statement to the House.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I join the Leader of the House, in repeating the Statement made by the Prime Minister, in paying tribute to the two soldiers who lost their lives, Trooper Ashley Smith from the Royal Dragoon Guards and the Royal Marine from 40 Commando Royal Marines. As the Prime Minister said, 300 members of our forces have now given their lives in Afghanistan in the service of our country. We pay tribute to their bravery, we honour their sacrifice and our thoughts are with their families. I strongly agree with the Leader about the cause for which our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan. They are fighting there to keep our streets safe here. That is why the Opposition are united with the Government in support of our troops and their mission. As we approach Armed Forces Day, let us remember all our service men and women, whether they are stationed abroad or at home. Their skill and courage are unsurpassed.
I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement. I start by welcoming the continued EU focus and government commitment on two important issues. First, on Iran, I endorse the support for the European Council’s declaration, which again shows that on issues of international concern, we who are EU member states have a bigger impact when we combine our efforts. Does the Leader of the House agree that while the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran remains a matter of utmost concern, the international community is now more united than ever before in searching for a peaceful solution; and that the very act of EU diplomacy that we have seen in recent years has played an important part in this? He says that the Prime Minister tells us that it is time for action, not just words; is there a timetable for further EU action on Iran? Can he confirm the importance, not only of sanctions and diplomatic pressure, but of international engagement with the people of Iran? Will he therefore give an undertaking that the BBC Farsi service will be protected from any cuts in the BBC World Service?
Secondly, I also welcome the strong commitment of the EU summit to meeting the millennium development goals by 2015. The terrible crisis of drought and food shortages in Niger is a vivid reason why there must be international action on development. Will the Prime Minister be a stronger voice in the EU for the whole EU to make development a priority, if his Government continue to prioritise development? Following our Government’s commitment, the European Commission recommended that all EU member states should consider legislating to enshrine the 0.7 per cent aid target, which we established. Will the Government now take forward, in this Session of Parliament, the Bill we introduced to make the 0.7 per cent legally binding?
Is it not the case that you can only be effective in Europe if what you say and do there is matched by what you do and say at home? In that regard, I commend the Leader on the Prime Minister’s reference in his pre-summit article to the shocking inequality of women in many parts of Europe, and the urgent need for change. If the Prime Minister recognises shocking inequality of women elsewhere in Europe, can the Government act on it here? Will the Prime Minister show the rest of Europe that he means at home what he says in Brussels by giving us a commitment that he will implement the Equality Act as soon as possible, and commit to pressing on with the plan to make employers publish their gender pay gap?
I welcome the fact that the summit adopted the European 2020 strategy for growth. The summit said:
“Priority should be given to growth-friendly budgetary consolidation strategies”.
It also said:
“Increasing the growth potential should be seen as paramount to ease fiscal adjustment in the long run”.
In other words, do not undermine growth when you are cutting borrowing and need growth to bring borrowing down. According to the official summit conclusions, one of its main objectives is to,
“unlock the EU’s growth potential, starting with innovation and energy policies”.
That is what the Prime Minister signed up to in Brussels. However, he is doing something rather different at home. On growth, the Leader of the House said that the Government will continue to press for the real stimulus that the European economies need, but the reality from the Government here is very different. How does it help growth to cut business investment support? How does it help unlock the EU’s growth, starting with energy, to cancel the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters to build the next generation of nuclear power stations? Does this not mean that Europe, as well as the UK, will lose out to South Korea and Japan as they take this work forward? On the important question of financial services, we welcome the intention to implement a new system of levies and taxes on financial institutions, and the intention to explore an international financial transactions tax. Will the Government commit to maintaining the UK’s strong leadership in advocating these reforms?
This was the Prime Minister’s first European Council. The Leader of the House, in repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement, says that the Prime Minister believes that this is a Council which delivered good outcomes for Britain. The Prime Minister is no longer the leader of the Opposition, grandstanding to his Back-Benchers. He is now representing our country in Europe, so perhaps it is time for him and the Government as a whole to have a sensible think about continuing to exclude themselves from the grouping of centre-right political leaders. The European People’s Party includes President Sarkozy, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Ministers of Sweden, Italy and Poland. However, instead of meeting with them to prepare for the summit, the Prime Minister had a meeting with one Polish MEP to prepare for Britain’s contribution to the summit. The election is over. Will the Prime Minister now put aside his pandering to his Europhobic Back-Benchers and agree with his Lib-Dem coalition partners on this vital issue of Europe? That is in Britain’s interests and would be a good outcome for Europe and Britain. We on these Benches invite the Conservatives on the Benches opposite to join the Liberal Democrats on the Benches opposite—and, indeed, we on these Benches—by getting serious about Britain’s interests in Europe and putting practicalities and policies ahead of prejudices and politics. That is what Europe needs from Britain. That is what Britain needs to do in Europe.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for welcoming the Statement, at least in part as I accept that she became slightly less welcoming as she continued her speech. However, she started extremely well by congratulating the Government and the Council on our position on Iran. She was right to do that because our position on Iran is unequivocal. It underlines the clear view in Europe that Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. Europe has asked Iran to return to the negotiating table and has made clear that the alternative is further isolation. I am unable to give the noble Baroness the timetable that she sought, but my understanding is that we await the next Foreign Ministers’ Council, where final agreement will be reached. I am hopeful that there will then be quick action to put in place the various sanctions that have been recommended.
The noble Baroness asked me rather a good question about the BBC Farsi programme. If I had an answer to that, I would give it to her, but perhaps I can write to her on that point. The Government have rightly been congratulated on continuing with the millennium development goal commitments, as the noble Baroness recognised. In our view it is very important that these commitments talk about European countries meeting and achieving their targets by 2015. There has certainly been no slippage on that on our part. Even in difficult times when we are having to make tough decisions in our own economies, it is important that we should support people in the poorest areas of the world suffering severe poverty. It is important that we maintain that commitment. The European Council reaffirmed its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on development aid by 2015, and agreed to monitor progress towards this target annually. I cannot at this stage give a commitment on the legislative proposals that we will make as regards the 0.7 per cent target, but it is our intention so to do.
The new European 2020 strategy is focused on promoting conditions for growth and improving the single market. A stronger European economy is overwhelmingly in Britain’s interests, given that around half of the UK’s exports go to the EU. However, noble Lords will no doubt agree that action in Europe clearly needs to recognise the different circumstances faced by different member states and strike the right balance between European and national action. The conclusions that we came to at the Council thus make clear that the strategy will not affect member states’ competencies on, for example, education. However, it will help Europe recover from the crisis and come out stronger internally and at the international level by boosting competitiveness, productivity, growth potential, social cohesion and economic convergence. It was kind and thoughtful of the noble Baroness to show her concern about the EPP. I assure her that we are happy with the current arrangements.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, I welcome the forthright attitude taken by the Prime Minister regarding the eurozone, but clearly the situation there presents considerable risks to the United Kingdom, even though we are not a member of the euro. Are we to understand that there was no detailed discussion at the Council on the widespread discussions taking place outside on the possibility that some members of the eurozone might find themselves in a position whereby they have to withdraw? Indeed, it has recently been suggested that it might be disruptive in that context if Germany were to withdraw, rather than the countries in the weakest position. At all events, the scheme was designed to prevent people withdrawing and it is important that we should not hide our heads in the sand regarding that possibility and we should make contingency plans. In particular, there is a major practical problem. Is there not perhaps some case for setting up a contingency fund of what we might call euro-exit notes and coins, which would be used if a particular country had to withdraw? Surely it is better that we should plan for that possibility, whatever our position might be on whether it is likely to happen, rather than suddenly finding that we are in a situation where nothing can be done because of the practical point that I mentioned.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, my noble friend raises an important and interesting issue. The eurozone is of course extremely important to the British economy. We want a strong and competitive eurozone area, but it is clear to anyone who has been following this subject in recent months that there are substantial problems with the euro and, most notably, with Greece. However, I am not in a position to speculate in any way on what may or may not happen in any other eurozone country or, indeed, on what contingency plans are envisaged over the next few months. The G20 has recognised that countries with serious fiscal challenges need to accelerate the pace of consolidation. In that regard, we welcome the recent announcements of further consolidation plans by the Governments of Spain and Portugal. It is important that to rebuild confidence all Governments implement in a rigorous manner the measures that they have announced. It is that confidence which will provide strength again to the eurozone. That in the long term will be to all our benefits.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement in the other place. He highlighted the fact that, on a number of occasions, the Prime Minister repeated that we were going to play an active and engaged role in working with our colleagues to solve the international financial and economic crisis that affects all countries. Even if, under the coalition agreement, we are not for the moment committed to joining the euro—and a lot depends of course on what happens to the euro—does the noble Lord agree that the logic of the single market means that a single currency is really necessary later on? Conservative Ministers frequently enunciated before 1997 that you could not have a genuine single market without a single currency. That reality prevails.
Does the noble Lord not agree that we in this country should be careful not to be too complacent or gleeful about the apparent crisis in the eurozone, given that we have the only currency that was driven out of the preliminary arrangements before the euro was created? A notable and spectacular devaluation ensued; in fact, we have had seven devaluations since the war. That was always the easy way out, rather than solving problems with a disciplined currency system. Does he agree that this is as much a crisis of the banking statistics and asset bases of the commercial and investment banks as it is of sovereign debt, and that we need to deal with both on an active basis? Will he therefore emphasise that the UK Government are supporting the suggestion of the Spanish Government that stress-test figures should be published in the second half of July showing the different states of various banks in the member states, within and without the eurozone, including, I think, five or six banks from the United Kingdom? Furthermore, as the Prime Minister was, quite rightly, warmly received in Brussels, does the noble Lord agree that that adds to the arguments for his party rejoining the EPP, as the shadow Leader of the House suggested?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I can give my noble friend no encouragement whatever that we are about to join the euro any time soon—an answer that he may find rather disappointing. However, all the evidence over the past few years indicates that we were entirely right not to join the euro, as the former Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor, ensured would be the case. That was the right decision then, it is clearly the right decision now, and we shall continue with that. However, that does not mean that we should not play an active and engaged role, as my noble friend Lord Dykes said, and we will continue in the way that we started. Indeed, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister was very much welcomed in Brussels for his positive attitude and constructive approach to a whole range of extremely difficult issues that face Europe. I say to my noble friend, as I did to the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition, that the EPP issue is not one that we shall reopen.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, will the Minister accept my thanks for allowing a question from Benches other than the government Benches after six minutes?
I congratulate the Government on the confirmation of the millennium development goals, which I think is a very positive step. However, do they not recognise that some members of the European Union—not the United Kingdom—are not fulfilling their obligations to move to 0.7 per cent of GDP? To give an example, Italy is cutting back on its aid. Does that not demonstrate the necessity for proper co-ordination at the European level when these commitments are entered into and the need to ensure that they are followed? Simply saying all the time that we are not going to do this or that in co-ordination has its disadvantages when we are in the lead and other people do not follow.
The noble Lord mentioned education. Does he not recognise that our higher education sector is the leader in Europe, that we have four of the world’s top 10 higher education establishments and that we are extremely well placed to give the lead in this essential part of making Europe more competitive? I hope that the Government will take that to heart and will see how, without transgressing any transfer of powers, we can make more of a reality of co-operation in the higher education sector and make it a more competitive part of the European economy.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, with regard to the millennium development goals, the Council reaffirmed its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2015. The important point that I think will encourage the noble Lord is that the Council also agreed to monitor progress towards this target annually. Therefore, if a country lags behind, no doubt this will be brought to the Council’s attention at the time and appropriate action will take place in that member country.
I agree with the noble Lord about the excellence of Britain’s university education system and that we have a lot to contribute to this debate, at least by example. That is why we believe that this matter should remain firmly as part of the national competencies and not be raised to a higher level through command and control and instruction by the European Commission and others. That is precisely why we got the conclusion in the final report with which we were happy—namely, that education would remain part of those national competencies.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I share with sorrow the sentiments expressed from the Front Benches about the two latest deaths in Afghanistan.
Turning to the Statement, does the noble Lord agree that it really is beyond belief that the EU should presume to examine our Budgets before Parliament debates them when its own internal auditors have been unable to sign off its own accounts for the past 15 years? Can he comment on that? Will he also comment on Mr Van Rompuy saying last week that the Government’s refusal to submit our Budget to Brussels is unfinished business? How will the Government react if they are outvoted on this in the autumn? Finally, and more widely, the Government’s protestations of their innocence do not exactly chime with the wording of the Council’s conclusions. I shall read three extremely briefly. First,
“we fully agree on the urgent need to reinforce the coordination of our economic policies”.
Secondly,
“All Member States are ready … to take additional measures to accelerate fiscal consolidation”.
Thirdly,
“The crisis has revealed clear weaknesses in our economic governance, in particular as regards budgetary and broader macroecononmic surveillance. Reinforcing economic policy coordination therefore constitutes a crucial and urgent priority”.
Which one is right—the Government’s Statement or the Council’s conclusions?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is right when he says it is beyond belief that the EU should wish to inspect our Budget before it is presented to Parliament. He is entirely right. In that there is not a cigarette paper of difference between him and the Prime Minister, or I suspect even the Opposition. We would all agree that the EU has no role and no place to look at our budgetary arrangements and, indeed, our parliamentary procedures. That position has been made entirely implicit in the Statement that I repeated a few minutes ago. It is not unfinished business; it is firmly finished business and we will be leaving it entirely the way that it is currently.
The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, made great play of looking at the conclusions and the Statement that we made. This is an old game to play and the noble Lord does it with great skill. I assure him that again there is no difference between the conclusions and the Statement that we made. They can live together entirely side by side and there is no difficulty for the Government.
Lord Grocott
The Leader of the House has reported, quite rightly, that there were extensive discussions about the ongoing problem of Iran. Were there any discussions on the wider issue of the region and the ongoing problem of the blockade of Gaza? How can the suffering of the people of Gaza be relieved? How and when will there be discussions at some stage, as surely there must inevitably be, between representatives of the European Union and representatives of the current Administration in Gaza?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, there was a discussion on Gaza. Generally speaking, the conclusion was positive about the steps that have been taken and we very much hope that the measures taken by the Israeli Government will be part of reducing tension in the area.
Lord Hylton
Are the Government aware of the very delicate situation now existing in Kosovo? This is already sub judice at the European Court of Justice. In addition, it so happens that the new Patriarch of all the Orthodox Serbs will be enthroned in the historic monastery of Pecs in October. This event could be seen by the Albanian majority as provocation or an act of cultural assertion. Do the Government agree that this makes it urgent to normalise relations between all the Serb monasteries and their Albanian neighbours? These have been tense since 2000—10 years ago. Will the Government ask the European Union to commission and pay for an independent third-party attempt at conciliation, which has already, I am glad to say, been invited by both parties in the conflict? I conclude by declaring a non-financial interest in the NGO in question.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I cannot confirm that there was a discussion at the European Council but clearly the situation in Kosovo is immensely tense and the noble Lord has great expertise on it. The words that he has spoken today will of course be taken fully into account by my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Lord Trimble
Further to the point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Higgins, I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to what happened under the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates whereby on occasions Germany revalued the deutschmark upwards, thus taking account of the changes between it and other countries on competitiveness. Surely what we need in the eurozone is some mechanism of that nature whereby one can adjust for changes in competitiveness rather than force countries, as is proposed to be done, through incredibly tough measures which they probably are incapable of sustaining.
Lord Strathclyde
My noble friend raises a point that we could debate and discuss for a very long time. He is right to mention the Bretton Woods arrangements. As to whether there should be an automatic mechanism to adjust for competitiveness, that is a matter not for the Government but the European Bank. It must take into account all the needs of all the economies within the eurozone and it is one of the reasons—only one—why we supported the view of the then Government that we should not join the euro in 1999.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
I want to make two points. First, with regard to the reference to budget surveillance on page 4 of the Statement, this does not go far enough. It says that,
“the UK Budget will be shown to this House first—and not to the Commission”.
It is not a question of showing the Budget to the House; it is a question of the House of Commons agreeing the Budget before the Commission has its way. Surely that is right.
Secondly, why on earth do the Government continue to harp on about 40 per cent of our trade being with the European Union? The world is a much bigger place than that these days, so would it not be better if we expanded our trade with China, South America, India and indeed the Commonwealth, instead of concentrating on the backyard of Europe?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, on the question of the Budget, the noble Lord is in danger of tilting at windmills. We are not playing any verbal gymnastics that somehow when we say that it will be presented to Parliament first it means that round at the back door we are busily presenting it to the Commission. We are not. Tomorrow there will be a British Budget which will be presented to the British Parliament first. After it has been presented it will be a matter of public record and knowledge. I dare say that the Commission may be interested; it may indeed be very interested in looking at it before it is finally agreed by Parliament. Therefore, I do not think that there is a fundamental difference between the two of us on this issue. Neither, incidentally, is there about what the noble Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said about trade with the rest of the world. It is an important plank of British foreign policy to expand our trade beyond Europe. That is vital to our long-term prosperity and the creation of jobs in this country. We are using all the natural advantages that this country has built up over many decades—centuries even—with countries whose economies are growing extremely quickly. To ignore them would be an enormous mistake. So I hope that I can put a smile on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, by saying that I very much agree with what he said.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, the Statement mentioned the banking sector. We all agree that, less than two years ago, young couples with children, first-time buyers, were sometimes offered a mortgage of more than 100 per cent. It is understandable that the banks have to tighten their belts—or, perhaps, to behave themselves—but young couples are now being required to find 25 per cent of their new mortgages. For young couples with children to find £25,000 to £30,000 is very difficult. Can the Prime Minister speak to the banking sector to make the point that if young couples can buy homes, that will help the building industry and relieve tension on community-based housing associations and local authorities?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that may not have been quite a matter for the European Council, but the noble Lord, Lord Martin, raises an important point for young people and people starting families who are trying to purchase a house. The background against which we operate is now extremely different from what it was only two or three years ago vis-à-vis the whole question of mortgages and deposits. I assure the noble Lord that the President of the Board of Trade, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister himself are very involved in trying to ensure that lending is allowed and encouraged to people who can pay it back, not just in the commercial and business sector but in the domestic sector.
Academies Bill [HL]
(14 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
We turn now to the issue of free schools. As I said a moment ago, I am very grateful to the Minister for making the Statement repeating the Answer given to the Urgent Question asked in the other place, and for taking such a comprehensive set of questions. However, the Statement has generated more questions than answers. I am sure that as we go on in Committee we will learn a lot more.
Even the disinterested passer-by cannot help but notice that free schools are a flagship policy of the coalition Government—or at least of the Conservative part of the coalition Government. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were clearly delighted to be photographed during the election campaign with parents celebrating their promise of a new school on demand. It was great campaigning, I am sure that noble Lords will agree. A whole page of the Conservative manifesto was devoted to a case study of the Swedish education system, the model for the Government’s free school proposals. Actually, when I looked at it, most of the page was taken up by photographs—very nice too—but at least nominally there was a page on the subject.
The Chancellor cited the reform as key to the Government’s plans to close the deficit, as it would see free schools use money more efficiently. The Secretary of State says that he has seen the future in Sweden and it works. The Government seem to want a great deal of attention focused on this policy, but considerably less scrutiny about the practicalities of it. We may be changing that today.
Nowhere, however, in the pronouncements of the Secretary of State in connection with the Swedish-style free school reform, of which we have heard so much, has the Academies Bill been mentioned—until today. The Bill was announced under the headline, “Legislation to give more schools opportunity to become academies”. The Department for Education website carries a document outlining the purpose of the Bill. It states:
“The Academies Bill will enable more schools to become Academies and give them the freedoms and flexibilities they need to continue to drive up standards”.
The document makes no mention whatever of new providers entering the school system. The Explanatory Notes to Clause 1 state:
“This clause replaces similar existing provisions in section 482 of the EA 1996. It enables the Secretary of State to make ‘Academy arrangements’ with another person, to establish and run an Academy. That person will be funded by the Secretary of State further to either a contractual agreement (an ‘Academy agreement’) or, by new subsection (2)(b), through grant funding under section 14 of the Education Act 2002”.
There is no mention of new providers here either, merely an oblique reference to previous legislation and “other persons”.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, Amendment 3 in this group is tabled in my name. It is similar to the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, has just moved. I tabled this amendment because I have read the Bill several times—more times than is good for me—and I cannot work out whether the Government intend to include free schools within this legislation, and this is meant to be the legislation that will apply to free schools, or whether it is just about converting existing schools. My confusion, which is similar to that of the noble Baroness, arises because all the Government’s statements about the Bill relate to converting existing schools into this new kind of academy. That is how the Bill was promoted. I read the Second Reading debate, and that was largely what it was about. So I was confused as to whether Clause 1, in particular subsections (1) and (2), could apply to free schools. The Bill states:
“The Secretary of State may enter into Academy arrangements with any person”.
That seemed to me to provide an ability to include any group of people who put themselves forward to set up a so-called free school.
Then there was the announcement at the weekend and the Statement that we have just had, and it now appears that the Bill includes free schools and that they will be set up within the terms of the Bill, if and when it becomes law. That is the real reason I put this amendment down for clarification. Will the Minister confirm that that is the case? Or do the Government think that free schools can be set up under existing legislation? In that case, they have a choice. If free schools are included in the Bill, a great deal of unanticipated extra discussion and debate is required, particularly in Committee.
I thank the Government and Ministers in both Houses for the amount of discussion they have been prepared to enter into with all Members of the House, and in particular with the Liberal Democrats, concerning the Bill. However, going over the notes I have made of meetings, I see that free schools have hardly been mentioned. The meetings have all been about conversions. Suddenly this weekend, the terms of the debate on the Bill seemed to change substantially. At this stage I do not want to enter into detailed debate about free schools. However, if there are to be free schools, the legislation and rules under which they are set up will need to be laid down at least as clearly as the rules for conversions are set out in the Bill. Given the quantity and detail of the amendments that have been tabled, we may feel that the detailed rules and regulations for conversions are insufficiently set out in the Bill and need improvement.
The system for setting up free schools does not exist in the Bill, as far as I can see, unless there is stuff that I have read without understanding what it means. This amendment is a means of getting from the Minister some clarification of these matters so that, in the rest of this debate in Committee and when the Bill goes back to the House, we can understand exactly what we are talking about. It may be that amendments that noble Lords might want to see in the Bill will be different according to the answer that the Minister gives. The basic questions are: do free schools need new legislation; can they be set up under old legislation so that the Bill does not apply to them; and, is the Bill necessary and fundamental to the setting up of free schools?
Lord Adonis
I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that entirely new schools can be set up, and indeed are set up at the moment, as academies. So, to the extent that that is true, free schools can be set up at the moment under existing academy legislation. I warmly welcome the suggestion made by my noble friend Lady Morgan that free schools should be called academies. I hope that the Minister is able to accept that suggestion, which my noble friend makes with great generosity of spirit, to make clear that we have a much more uniform nomenclature available. I am very keen to see all categories of schools that have the legal characteristics of academies called academies.
Lord Low of Dalston
I shall speak to Amendments 13 and 76, which are tabled in my name. When we debated the Bill at Second Reading, there was widespread concern throughout the House that academies should have obligations to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs that are no less rigorous than those which apply to maintained schools. The Minister was very clear that he was fully committed to this, and I am grateful to him for the trouble he has taken in meeting Peers with these concerns and also in writing to provide assurance that that is what the Bill achieves. However, there are still areas that remain unclear, where the commitment could do with being spelled out more fully or where gaps in the obligations to which academies are subject need to be plugged. These amendments are directed at remedying these deficiencies.
Amendment 13 is a probing amendment with two purposes: first, to ascertain whether academies receiving academy financial assistance will be required to have funding agreements in place; and, secondly, to ascertain whether meeting the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities will be included as a standard requirement within arrangements for academy financial assistance, just as it currently is in funding agreements.
Currently, academies are principally accountable through and governed by funding agreements signed with the Secretary of State. Clause 1(2)(b) introduces a new form of funding for academies—
“arrangements for academy financial assistance”.
These are not found in the original academies legislation. Arrangements for academy financial assistance are a form of direct funding from the Secretary of State granted through powers conferred by Section 14 of the Education Act 2002. Arrangements for academy financial assistance are an alternative to funding through an academy agreement so that it appears possible that, where arrangements for academy financial assistance are put in place, an academy may not be required to have a funding agreement.
While it is possible to have reservations regarding the scope and effectiveness of funding agreements as accountability mechanisms, there has none the less been clarity in funding agreements signed after 2007 that academies should have regard to the SEN code of practice and use their best endeavours to ensure that special educational needs are met. There are concerns that this new form of academy funding—arrangements for academy financial assistance—will bypass the safeguards contained in funding agreements in relation to SEN provision. This amendment gives the Minister an opportunity to make the position clear and to reassure us that academies receiving academy financial assistance will be required to have funding agreements, and that meeting the needs of children with SEN and disabilities will be included as a standard requirement within arrangements for academy financial assistance.
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, I very much support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Low as I follow his interest in special educational needs. I have tabled Amendment 24 in this group, and I intend throughout Committee to introduce amendments and to speak about a particular form of special educational needs: those of children who have grown up in severely disadvantaged and chaotic families and who so often end up being statemented with emotional and behavioural difficulties.
In that context, I ask who will govern these new academies. Who will make the decisions on the ground? I fully acknowledge that parents sponsoring and running a school may be a good idea, but I am not convinced that a whole or even a majority of the governing body composed of parents of children at the school is at all desirable. My own modest experience in the independent sector has certainly indicated that short-termism tends to dominate decisions that are taken when there are too many parents with children at a school. Parent governors will obviously want the best for their children and are right to do so. Indeed, we want the stimulus of parents who push to get the best for their child, but there is a real danger that, if we get the governance of academies wrong, they will end up with the same fate that has unfortunately befallen so many of the admirable Sure Start centres which the previous Government introduced. Money was put to serving the community, the community was encouraged to consider how it wanted the money to be spent and the money was then spent in that way. What has tended to happen is that the brighter, pushier and more intelligent parents have jumped on the bandwagon and got the kind of input and outcomes that they wanted, and the parents with disadvantaged children who have no experience of addressing leadership or influencing events—the hard-to-reach parents—have gone to the bottom of the pile and the funding that was intended to go to them, if it is not wasted, at least does not reach them.
What is the Government’s intention for governance? I refer to all the different kinds of school: free schools, parent-sponsored academies or academies sponsored by existing schools.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Low, has set out the case for reconsidering special educational needs, as this is a very important and complex issue. I am also pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, mentioned governance, and that my noble friend Lady Morgan talked about standards, which are key. I understand that some academies have been allowed to opt out of publishing data on pupils’ achievement, which we will no doubt talk about later.
Amendments 2 and 3, in the names of my noble friend Lady Morgan and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, respectively, deal with consulting governors. I am a governor of a primary school in Wandsworth, and I think that school governors are important people in all this. I know that some later amendments deal with consultation, but for now I want to talk about governing bodies.
I understand that academies are required to have only one elected parent member on their governing body, while the existing principle is that a third of governing bodies should be parents. Parent governors are crucial. I am a governor at a school in a deprived area of Wandsworth, which attracts parent governors who are very helpful and useful to the school. This is particularly important in early years institutions if they are to become academies. Parents on those bodies will be essential. If parents are not involved in the early years, the children and the school suffer. I should like to ask the Minister about consultation with governing bodies. How is the future governance of schools foreseen?
Lord Lucas
I apologise for the misprint in my Amendment 33. For the word “roles” noble Lords should read “rules” and they will get a greater, if not absolute, idea of the sense of it. I am concerned about how the governing bodies of these academies will be dealt with when they go wrong. They can get into a mess from time to time when they are captured by strong individuals with very particular ideas. They can become at odds with parents and heads, and can contribute to poor performance in the school. I understand what happens under current academies with sponsors. But in an academy without a sponsor, what process will be gone through to set the governing body back on the right path? Who complains to whom? Who reaches a judgment as to what is happening? Who takes action under what powers?
What general powers will parents have to set things right if they see things going wrong? I do not think that there are any contractual arrangements with parents. So, if a school is failing to provide education, what is the route for the parent to enforce the right to education for their child? Finally, at Second Reading, I asked whether we might be circulated with a model funding agreement. I have not seen that yet and I am keen to do so while we are discussing these matters.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, the debate so far has been extremely interesting. It started with a clear indication that we will go down the academy route for all schools. I supported that direction very strongly before the break. To add free schools, when clearly they all fall within the same family, does not make any sense. I was slightly surprised at the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, addressed, to replace “person” with “governing body”. No noble Lord has said one word about the governing body and its role.
I must declare an interest as president of the National Governors Association. Therefore, all these areas interest me quite a bit. Given all that and the rather confusing and conflicting view that noble Lords around the Chamber seem to have about whether governors and parent governors are a good or a bad thing, it would be extremely helpful if the Minister—to whom I also add my thanks because he gave up a lot of time before we even began debating this Bill—could indicate how important he thinks that the role of the governing body is. It will have a hugely important role in seeing that these new academies—however many of them there are—come to the conclusion that I think many of us would see as an important step in British education.
Baroness Warnock
My Lords, I support the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Low. Rightly, they were narrowly focused. At Second Reading, he said:
“Academies are independent schools that are funded directly by the Secretary of State and are accountable mainly through the funding agreement, rather than”,—[Official Report, 7/6/10; col. 514.]
through educational legislation. I am interested in accountability. I strongly support Amendment 13 because it requires that any other—to me, rather mysterious—mode of supplying financial assistance to academies should be as equally open as the contracts that are agreements between the applicant and the Government. I entirely endorse the desire that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, expressed to see a copy of one of these model agreements.
The issue is about openness and accountability of how much money is being handed over—it will be a considerable amount—and exactly what the academy is committed to providing with that money. This is where I come to my noble friend’s main interest; namely, to seek an assurance that the money must be spent on provision for children with special educational needs. I think that we will come to more detail on that later. I share his feelings that the local authority must retain a good deal of responsibility for the provision of educational facilities for children with special needs, especially in very difficult cases of rare disabilities or multiple disabilities where individual academies could not afford to spend the money required.
There is a good deal of unclarity regarding special educational needs. Parents will be very much confused—perhaps more so if they read today’s Hansard than they were before. Amendment 13 would clarify the position with regard to the accountability of an academy, whatever way it receives its money from the Secretary of State.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln
My Lords, on this group of amendments, the issue about whether these free schools will be academies could be a trifle academic if the Government are saying that the point of the future trajectory is that all schools should at least have the opportunity to be academies. We need to see this debate within that context.
Much more seriously, I endorse the recommendations that the security of those with special educational needs be affirmed in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Low, referred to the avoidance of doubt, and bishops are always up for the avoidance of doubt. There are some issues where it is too risky to leave matters simply to good will or mutual understanding, and special educational needs is one of them. We need to ask the Minister if he will look at ways in which that dimension of academy life can be secured clearly in the Bill.
My third point is to do with governance—not with who can be a governor, but with the purpose of school governors in this brave new world. Many of us have lived through various recensions of governance. I go back to when I was first ordained in the early 1970s and I was a governor of a school. It seemed that the main purpose of the governors was to meet quarterly, hear the head teacher tell us how good the school was, and to pat the head teacher on the head saying, “Jolly good. Keep it up”. It was not long before we saw the development of teacher governors and parent governors. Governing bodies became representative bodies that articulated the range of interests of those with any connection with the school. The role of governors changed quite significantly. Then the most recent Bill of the last Government, just before the election, looked dangerously as though it was tipping towards having governors acting as the Government’s narks. There were going to be requirements for governors to be able to spill the beans and blow the whistle when they thought the head teacher or someone else was not quite up to it. I am sure it will be said that that was not the intention, but that was how it looked. Certainly there was a shift going on in our understanding of governance.
What I ask the Minister is this. Before we even start nailing down categories of people who should be governors, what will we be asking them to do? What will be the role of governors in this new world of academies that is now emerging on the back of the primary wave? I cannot make a decision about the issue of who until I have some understanding of what it is that the governance of academies will entail. What will be the function of the governors? What gifts and qualities will be required of them? We will then be able to answer the question of who might be the most competent people to fulfil that vital role.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I support, first, the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low. It is important that special needs are recognised. I also support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I have been a governor of a girls’ school and am now a governor of a boys’ school. As a governor of the school to which my daughter went, I was not actually asked to take on the role until she had left. That seems to be the ideal situation because you then have a parent with a real interest in the school but without the rather special interest which is local and time-limited. To have a predominance of parent governors while their own children are in the school would be a retrograde step, so I strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I also support my noble friend Lord Northbourne’s amendment. I emphasise that there is much to do. Some children need smaller schools and special teachers to work with them, but others do not, even though they may face serious challenges at home. Good support can be offered in schools to include these children to the benefit of all. I give one example: the charity Voluntary Reading Help, which works in over 1,000 schools. It recruits volunteers to work for one or two lunch hours a week with particularly difficult or challenging children. I have seen for myself in a primary school nearby how the volunteer will sit down and read with a child for half an hour and then play a little game. The child chooses the book and they enjoy their time together. A significant number of these volunteers are men, which is particularly valuable given that we have so many young boys growing up without fathers. These are important relationships that can be built up over the course of a year, which is the minimum commitment. This is the sort of thing that helps to include children who might otherwise be challenging. It is important to consider who should make up the governing body and what its function is. It should take a strategic view and be able to adopt sensible approaches like the one I have outlined.
I was encouraged when Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said last week that he intended to recruit more men into early years childcare. I hope that he will also look at primary schools and how initiatives like Voluntary Reading Help might be developed. The charity is keen to expand in order to be able to help more children.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I follow directly on what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said, as well as what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. The House has been concerned about the position of children with special educational needs. It is one of the areas where a good governing body can make it very clear indeed that the school must make provision for children in this group. Indeed, the force of governing bodies has been one of the pressures that has encouraged the move towards children being educated at least partly in mainstream schools if they possibly can be. Not the least of this has taken place in primary schools, where the governing body is often a crucial factor in ensuring that these youngsters are given the education they need and deserve.
I do not want to detain the Committee for long. First, I ask the Minister whether more assurances can be given on the position of children with special educational needs, about which we have learnt a great deal more in the past 10 years. Far more children are now helped in schools, in some cases through one-to-one assistance, to overcome the obstacles they encountered as very young children so that they often catch up with their cohort. In the long term their special educational needs are not a handicap to them. We would like to associate ourselves closely with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and of course by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock.
I want to make one other point quite strongly. It was the former Secretary of State for Education who brought in the requirement that governing bodies had to include representatives of parents, teachers and non-teaching staff. Will the Government consider very carefully whether we should not consider, as is implied in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, widening somewhat the requirements in the Bill so that governing bodies are rather more representative than the single parent governor that is presently required for the academies? In the country as a whole, there are some 300,000 governors, or at least vacancies for governors. This seems to be a perfect example of what the Prime Minister meant when he talked about the importance of the big society, because these are men and women who volunteer their time and energy and make a fantastic commitment to ensuring that their schools are as good as they can be. I have seen it over and again, particularly in respect of smaller primary schools through what I should declare as an interest in my capacity as the chairman of the judges of the Teaching Awards. Among others, we give awards directly to the governors of schools. It has been striking to see governors from often deprived parts of the country committing themselves deeply to getting their communities involved in their school. It would be a tragedy to see that go.
With regard to special educational needs, can the Minister say a little more to ensure that such children get the care and attention they need? Given the large number of academies that are to be created, I also ask him to consider again whether we should not ensure, at the very least, representation of parents—I share the view that it should not be a majority—and staff, including non-teaching staff, on the governing body in order, to put it bluntly, to ensure that those non-teaching staff members are strongly committed to the successful outcome of the school. That is a very important part of making education responsible and responsive to the community and the country as a whole.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, I am sure that none of us wishes to extend the debate any longer, but I feel strongly that the support being shown for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, may be misplaced or perhaps misunderstood. I say that because I am disappointed that we should in any sense offer support to the idea that a governing body with a majority of parents is not a delightful and wonderful thing. I hope that the free schools will include those started by groups of parents because surely parents more than anyone else care about the welfare of their children and know what they want for them.
The commitment that you get from parents involved in the running of a school where their own children are present is one of the solid gold threads of education in this country. Many years ago I was involved in the early days of the pre-school playgroup movement. This was established entirely by mothers for their children and it was absolutely wonderful. The way in which the mothers organised themselves and their children—they wanted the absolute best playgroups and so set up training courses for themselves—is exactly what the big society is about. I hope that some of the free schools will generate that excitement again.
The idea that it is only sharp-elbowed, middle class parents who have this kind of excitement is extraordinary. Many of the pre-school playgroups were—
Lord Northbourne
Will the noble Baroness accept that I am prepared to withdraw the phrase “middle class”?
Baroness Perry of Southwark
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that because, certainly, many of the parents came from different backgrounds. I have seen pre-school playgroups on council estates organised by single mothers and so on which were inspiring. So perhaps we should reconsider the idea that a governing body composed of a majority of parents is not necessarily a good thing.
Lord Rix
My Lords, as the grandfather of a splendid little lad with Down’s Syndrome who is nine years’ old, perhaps I may say that the massive support that my noble friend Lord Low has received from around the Committee is music to my ears. I should like to add my support to the amendments.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I hope that I am not going to spoil the party by referring to the first two or three amendments in this odd group. The debate seems to have become about the composition of school governing bodies which, as far as I can see, is the subject of a later group of amendments. Never mind; we soldier on.
The first two amendments in the group seek to amend the words at the start of the Bill:
“The Secretary of State may enter into Academy arrangements with any person”.
“Any person” seems an unambitious expression and one wonders why it should not, for example, say, “Any charity”. I understood the Minister to say earlier without equivocation—this is how I read the Bill—that only a charity can be “the other party” for the purposes of academy arrangements. If we were to get technical—which is what we are supposed to do in this House—we would consider the Interpretation Act, which states, I think I am right in saying, that “any person” is any corporate entity or any individual person. It does not, for example, cover unincorporated trusts—and a great many charities are just that.
If I had been kinder I would have raised these issues with the Minister before the debate, so I do not expect him to answer directly. However, I strongly recommend that the phrase “any charity” should be substituted for “any person”. That would be happier, clearer and avoid the technical argument I have touched on.
Lord Bates
Following on from the previous speaker, I should like further clarification on the rules concerning the new schools. It is desirable that the Bill should encompass all three types of new schools. This would, first, allow the best schools to become better by freeing them up; secondly, tackle the failing schools through the academy orders in Clause 4; and, thirdly, make provision for the new schools so that they, too, can become academies. It would be tidy if those three elements could be within the Bill.
We do not need to be too anxious about the burden that this will place upon the Government. Taking things in context, the brief on the Bill pack prepared by the House of Commons includes two or three helpful sections on new schools. It states that currently 19 per cent of the 3,200 secondary schools are judged to be outstanding and will qualify for the fast track. So that is potentially 600 schools out of 20,000. At the other end, depending on how you define inadequate Ofsted reports for longer than a year, there are about 100 failing schools. So, added together, that makes approximately 700 schools out of 20,000.
In the document Raising the Bar; Narrowing the Gap, which was the discussion Green Paper of the Government when they were in opposition, it was anticipated that the total number of new schools—roughly about 300 to 400—would be equivalent to about 220,000 places. I mention this for two reasons. First, all of the proposed changes might touch upon, potentially, 5 per cent of the total cohort of schools within the country. Therefore, the sense that this will send shockwaves through the entire system is unfounded and it is perhaps unfair to concern people about that. Secondly, the catchment areas of the new schools—
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
When the noble Lord refers to “new schools”, does he mean free schools?
Lord Bates
The terminology is getting to us all. I do mean that. I come from an inner city urban area on Tyneside and it happened quite regularly that, where you had a failing school in a suburban area, dissatisfied parents who could afford to, or opted to, would take over an old large Victorian terraced house and its grounds—we have all seen them—and set up a new independent fee-paying school. The parents who could afford to opt out of the system would then pay fees for their children to go to that school. This movement still exists and is happening within the private sector. I cannot understand how anyone who has a passion for narrowing the gap and giving greater opportunity could possibly object to it. We should do all of these things in inner city areas and make them free and available to everyone. That would be entirely laudable.
I wish to make two other brief points, the first of which relates to catchment areas. If there is going to be a greater number of schools, broadening catchment areas would be a good thing. When the city technology colleges were established, they covered not only one entire local education authority area but often encompassed two or three. In other words, if the parents were prepared to undertake the duty of getting their child to school and it was not going to damage the child’s education, it was deemed acceptable for the child to attend there. Where there is greater choice the catchment areas need to be broadened. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, rightly made the point that narrow catchment areas could have too severe an effect on neighbouring schools.
The final point on which I seek clarification from the Minister concerns the properties that could be used. There are many buildings in inner city areas—including, many educational buildings—under the control of local authorities. Indeed, where they have a surplus of places they are paying additional money for them. Does my noble friend agree that local authorities should look at their existing stock of prepared educational establishments, embrace this change and, where there is a surplus, hand over existing buildings to a new school provider? That would give the authority an additional income and would mean that the provider was not forced into premises that might not be suitable.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, it has been wide-ranging debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, pointed out, we have in some ways already got on to some of the issues that we will discuss in later groups of amendments. We can pursue them in greater detail then. Given how wide-ranging the debate has been, it would perhaps be helpful if I briefly restated the amendments and their purpose.
Amendments 2 and 3 would mean that academy arrangements could be made only with the governing body of an existing school rather than any other group. They are linked in this group to Amendment 24, which would mean that, for future academies, the academy proprietor would have to ensure that its governing body was not controlled by a majority of parents of pupils at the academy—which was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.
Amendment 13 seeks to ensure that the SEN annex of an academy agreement, which sets out the school’s detailed obligations in relation to pupils with SEN, would apply also to the arrangements for academy financial assistance. Amendment 33 seeks to prescribe in the Bill that the academy agreement includes details of the roles, composition and continuance of the governing body. Amendment 76 seeks to ensure that academy funding agreements include additional provisions on SEN, including a requirement to comply with special educational needs legislation and regulations as if it were a maintained school.
Perhaps I may start with Amendments 2 and 3. The Government want to make it easier for teachers, charities, educational groups and groups of parents to start new academies. As the 2005 White Paper stated:
“We believe parents should have greater power to drive the new system: it should be easier for them to replace the leadership or set up new schools where they are dissatisfied with existing schools”.
We debated that earlier. I do not feel that I need to go through much of it again.
I should make it clear to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan—I think that my noble friend Lord Greaves also raised the point—that a free school could be regulated either through a funding agreement or a grant under Section 14 of the 2002 Act. In both cases, similar requirements will be placed on free schools as are placed on academies which convert from a maintained school. The only difference would be more flexibility in relation to the length of the funding period, a point that I made in our earlier debate on the Urgent Question. The more flexible arrangement would be used mainly in cases where new providers did not have a previous track record.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
It would be helpful if the Minister set out in greater detail in writing what he has just said. We received a letter from the Secretary of State today—I am scrambling around to find it among my papers—stating not only what he has just said but also that academies funded through grant would have the conditions of their grant outlined in a letter. It states that the provisions would be in line with those in the funding agreement, as the Minister has just said. However, there is anxiety that, for issues around SEN, vulnerable children and all the areas set out in the funding agreement, the provisions might well be “in line with” but not the same. The Minister has just made a strong statement. It would be helpful to have that more clearly set out. My noble friend Lord Adonis said that the Secretary of State can already fund schools in this manner under the 2002 Act. If that is the case, and all the instruments exist, why do we need this additional route? If all the instruments exist, are we not just confusing matters? Around the Chamber, we are starting to understand the importance of the academy agreement. If we introduce another way of doing things, will it not confuse things further? Perhaps a letter would be helpful.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am very happy of course to write further and set out what the noble Baroness seeks, because it is absolutely our intention that the two forms of funding should be on a completely equal footing. I recognise that many Members of this Committee want as much reassurance as they can have on that. If I can help in making it clearer, I will be delighted to do so.
Amendment 13, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low, seeks to ensure that the SEN annex of an academy agreement, which sets out the school’s detailed obligations in relation to pupils with SEN, would apply also to the arrangements for academy financial assistance. In a way, that is a variant of the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. The amendment is unnecessary, because academies whose arrangements take the form of an academy agreement and those whose arrangements are for financial assistance will both be under the same obligations in relation to special educational needs. I shall pick up again on special educational needs in connection with Amendment 76, although I know that a later group of amendments has been tabled on SEN.
Lord Northbourne
Might the Minister perhaps think a little more about the composition of governing bodies and write to me and the Committee? Just to say that there will be more than one parent governor, but, apart from that, that it is a matter of chance, is not quite enough.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am not sure that I would say to the noble Lord that it would be totally a matter of chance. Fundamental to the Bill are trust and the principle of freedom. Throughout the Bill, we are seeking to be as enabling, permissive and as little prescriptive as possible. That principle would obtain also in our attitude to the question of governance. Our starting point would be that people wanting to set up these schools and exercise these freedoms would have a view as to what the most sensible membership of a governing body would be. The noble Lord will know from his experience that the best kind of governing body has a broadly drawn membership, bringing in expertise and experience from many areas. I am happy to discuss with him outside this debate whether there is anything further I can do.
Baroness Walmsley
Notwithstanding that my Amendment 82 in a later group deals with this very matter and I would like to talk about it then, does the Minister not agree that if a school is set up on the demand of, and by the organisation of, a group of parents, it seems a little strange to have only one of them as a governor?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am being helped by noble Lords opposite who know far more about this subject than I yet do, so I am grateful for their prompting. The proposal is that there should be at least one parent governor. In practice, if one were to draw up a list and look at what happens on the ground, one would find that academies tend to have varying numbers of parent governors, often many more than one. That is because academies have worked out for themselves that having those parents involved is a good thing. Parental involvement is a good principle. It is sometimes thought that academies are conspiracies against their local area and against local people, but I have seen no evidence of that whatever. In the academies that I have seen, it has been exactly the opposite. It would be wrong if I have given my noble friend the impression that I consider one parent is correct. The statutory requirement is for at least one, but in practice it would be many more than that. However, we will return to this debate later.
Picking up on that point, it is the Government's view that there should be broad representation on the governing body of academies. That is rightly a matter for academies. We are seeking not to be too prescriptive in setting down what those freedoms should be.
Free schools will have to have a fair and transparent admissions policy, just like other academies. They will have to provide places to pupils of different abilities drawn wholly or mainly from the local area and we would expect parent governors to reflect that intake. The arrangement for the election of parent governors will be set out in the articles of association of the academy company. It will make clear that the election of a parent governor should be by the parents or pupils attending the academy and, once elected, they will be appointed to the governing body of the academy trust.
On Amendment 33, moved by my noble friend Lord Lucas, I first apologise that we have not yet been able to circulate the model funding agreements. I want to do that as soon as possible. We are proposing to be able to circulate specifically the elements that deal with admissions, SEN and exclusions, which I know are of particular concern to many noble Lords. We will do that as soon as we can and I am sorry that we have not been able to do it in time for today.
On the question asked by my noble friend Lord Lucas about intervention powers, the Secretary of State has power to intervene when educational standards are in question, if health and safety is an issue, and where governance, including financial management, is at issue. Of course, parents can complain to the Secretary of State and ask him to intervene.
On the substance of Amendment 33, all academies are managed by an academy trust which, before it can enter the funding agreement with the Secretary of State, must have finalised and lodged at Companies House its governing documents, with the memorandum and articles of association which set out the governance arrangements and the governing body. That prompts me to respond to a question asked by my noble friend Lord Phillips. Because of the technical detail, I feel I should write to him to follow that point up.
In the case of outstanding schools converting, we will discuss and need to agree with the governing body of the converting school who will be responsible for establishing the academy trust and the proposed composition of the board of the governing trust. We envisage that the composition of the governing body of the trust may therefore be very similar to that of the governing body of the converting school. The effect of Amendments 2 and 3 would be to deny teachers, charities and parents the opportunity to set up new schools. It would be wrong to deny them that choice, which the previous Government themselves intended to give them and that the Conservative Party promised in its manifesto and restated in the coalition agreement.
Lord Greaves
I am still confused. Either free schools can be set up under the 2002 Act or they cannot. If they can, why do they also need to have provision in this legislation?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The point of having two ways of establishing an academy is that in addition to the current funding agreement route, it was thought to be sensible also to have a flexible way of approaching the subject, particularly in so far as the new free schools might be concerned. We believe that it is necessary to have that extra flexibility in the system.
Lord Greaves
So is it the Government’s intention to use this new legislation and not the 2002 Act for free schools? That is the clarity that we need.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will need to make that clear subsequently to my noble friend Lord Greaves. I will do that as soon as I am able.
Lord Hill of Oareford
Of course.
Amendment 76 in this group would ensure that academy funding agreements would include additional provisions on SEN, including a requirement to comply with special educational needs legislation and regulations as if it were a maintained school. Academy funding agreements already include and will continue to include, as will grant arrangements, provisions setting out the responsibilities of academies in relation to pupils with SEN and disabilities. These include the responsibility of the governing body of the academy trust to consult the local authority and the governing bodies of other schools in the area to the extent that that is necessary for co-ordinating provision for pupils with SEN.
Academy funding agreements also already include provisions that require academies to use best endeavours to meet any special needs of pupils, have regard to the SEN code of practice and have an SEN policy. Academies are already required to appoint a suitable person to co-ordinate SEN provision, but they currently have the freedom to decide who that should be. Nevertheless, academy funding agreements are clear that the key elements of this role are to ensure that the special educational needs of those pupils with such needs are met, including through the co-ordination of specialist provision within the local authority. Where an academy fails to meet its SEN funding agreement obligations, the Secretary of State has the role of ensuring that these obligations are met. Academy parents and pupils also have the same rights of access to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability).
I hope that the setting out of those measures will go some way to reassuring noble Lords on this issue and I know that we will return to debate it further. However, I have listened to a whole range of noble Lords speak eloquently in this House and elsewhere about the need for absolute parity between academies and maintained schools and those points have been forcefully made again this evening. I have had meetings on SEN with a number of noble Lords from the Cross Benches and all sides and I have been particularly impressed by my noble friends of the Lib Dem Benches on this issue. I am conscious that the expertise in this House on special educational needs and vulnerable children is considerable, and I am certainly not an expert in these areas myself. I have tried to approach the question of parity from first principles rather than from having the depth of knowledge that many Members of this House have. Having thought about it from first principles and reflected on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, endorsed by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and underlined by my noble friend Lady Williams and many other Lib Dem noble friends, I can say to the House that I will commit to think about how best to achieve parity. In principle, that seems the right way to go, and I shall come back to the House on Report with proposals.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
I thank the Minister for giving way. Will he also think in his deliberations about both routes for academy designation—through an agreement and through the grant letter?
Lord Hill of Oareford
One is approaching this from first principles, and first principles are first principles. I give an undertaking to come back at Report with proposals as to how one could put the principle of parity into effect.
Lord Rix
I had intended to thank the Minister for the letter that he sent to many of the Peers who spoke at the Second Reading of the Bill and to ask that he at least acknowledge some of these points. The Minister has already done this, which means that he has shot our fox to a certain extent, because a lot of us have a lot more amendments to make. I trust that the Minister will take them in the spirit in which they are offered, consider them and perhaps meet us again before Report. If he could do that, we would be extremely grateful.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I would not like to deny the noble Lord, Lord Rix, the pleasure of the hunt. I had no intention in shooting his fox, but it struck me in listening to the debate that, given that was my view, it made sense to make that clear sooner rather than later. I know that the noble Lord and others who know huge amounts about this subject will want to make many points, and I am always happy to have them made to me.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
I have just one small point. The Minister indicated that having given very full consideration to all these points he will come back at Report with proposals. There are strictish rules about the sort of questions that can be asked at Report. Given that the Minister will be making almost a Committee stage announcement, will it be acceptable if some of the questioning flows back into the allowance given to Committee stage?
Lord Hill of Oareford
We have two more days to debate these issues, and I am sure that we will come back to them. The answer to the noble Baroness’s question is, as much as it is possible, yes, of course.
Having concluded on Amendment 76, I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, the noble Lords, Lord Greaves, Lord Lucas, Lord Northbourne and Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, not to press their amendments.
Lord Lucas
I thank my noble friend for his reply and look forward to the model agreement, or the bits of it that we will get. Yes, charities do evolve, generally, a self-sustaining model for their governing body, but those that do not, die. Schools that do not either die, as many have this year, or the bursar very quickly puts other arrangements in place. It does not seem that those triggers are there for a straightforward maintained school with no sponsor. I shall return to this matter again in another context but, before the passing of the Bill, we need to know how we can stop schools getting into a real mess and how we can pick it up early and do something about it.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
We have had a very helpful and full debate, and I thank the Minister for replying so comprehensively and in such a helpful way. To return to my earlier remarks, and picking up on the point that my noble friend Lord Adonis made, I think that it would be helpful—now that we know that free schools will be academies, and being in favour of reducing the alphabetti spaghetti, or soup, as the House was earlier—if the proposal forms for the free schools were called proposal forms for academies. We should get that clarity and consistency, so that those outside, who have not had the benefit of listening to the deliberations that we have had, can be clear about the relationship between new schools, free schools and academies. That would be very helpful.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I hesitate to prolong this debate, but after all that has been said on this group of amendments, is it not sensible to have the phrase “free school” somewhere reflected in the Bill? The Government themselves refer to these new academy schools as “free schools”. I should have thought that, in trying to make the legislation as helpful as possible to the poor devils who have to implement it hereafter, that would be a useful thing for the Government to contemplate—and I should be grateful if he would.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, in moving Amendment 3A, I shall speak to Amendments 4A and 101. My noble friend Lord Adonis drew our attention to the similarity between Clause 1 of the Bill and the relevant Section of the Education Act 2002. However, the difference between this Bill and the section devoted to academies in the 2002 Act is the scale of the new initiative and the fact that this Bill will encompass so many new schools. Therefore, it is right that there are more safeguards and stringent checks than were perhaps required in the past.
Amendment 3A and the first part of Amendment 4A in some ways refer back to the debate on the previous group of amendments, but they are still pertinent. It is surprising that there is no provision in the Bill for any “fit and proper person” test to discern whether a board of governors or anyone to whom they may contract the running of a school are appropriate persons to take on the role of governing an autonomous school without local authority support—and, seemingly, much reduced inspections. This lack of safeguards would be concerning, but it might be understandable were there provision that the concerns of the community were taken into consideration in conferring this significantly increased responsibility or even power on existing boards of governors. This Bill appears to compound that lack of safeguards rather than tempering it by cutting out any right of these obviously vital stakeholders to be consulted. Amendments 3A and 4A are designed to address that crucial gap in the proposals.
The issue of consultation should be central to the Bill. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, said at Second Reading, consultation is a serious hole in the Bill. Amendment 101, in the name of my noble friend Lady Morgan, would ensure that the requirement to consult various interested groups in the community is in the Bill. This is not a delaying tactic—I am not attempting to put any delaying hurdles before the Bill—but I believe that consultation is an imperative.
The amendments are also intended to temper an effect that the Minister of State for Children and Families in the Department for Education identified some time ago, when she said:
“Unless you give local authorities that power to plan and unless you actually make sure that there is money available ... it’s just a gimmick”.
I am sure that this Bill is not a gimmick, but local authorities have a role in planning and delivering education in the community that remains far more democratically accountable and responsive than a system that relies on the Secretary of State sitting at his desk in Whitehall. As was pointed out at Second Reading, there is difference between political rhetoric and reality in relation to the Bill. The Prime Minister said some time ago:
“So we will take power from the central state and give it to individuals where possible—as with our school reforms that will put power directly in the hands of parents”.
The coalition programme—in section 4, on communities and local government—says:
“The Government believes that it is time for a fundamental shift of power from Westminster to people. We will promote decentralisation and democratic engagement”.
I believe that consultation is a vital part of democratic engagement. However, this Bill is not so much about decentralisation as about centralisation. Power is being taken away from the people and given to the Secretary of State.
Community cohesion is dealt with in the next group of amendments, but at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made the important point that the wider views of the community should be taken into consideration in relation to decisions about schools, as the education system must serve the whole community. I believe that the community should be included in any consultation. Consultation, apart from being the right course of action, enables time for reflection about governance and accountability and about how schools can best use new freedoms to their advantage but without disadvantaging the rest of the community. Local authorities, parents, children and the staff—both teaching and non-teaching—see issues in the round and, unlike the Secretary of State, are aware of local circumstances and sensitivities. They are best placed to know the needs of the community and to express concerns that might not have been considered about the consequences of a conversion. They can reflect on the impact on neighbouring schools.
I also believe that there must be parental involvement from the first if the schools are to succeed. That means involvement in a parental consultation process. To have one or possibly two parents on the governing body that makes an application to the Secretary of State is not enough. Wider consultation with parents is needed.
The Secretary of State has said publicly that he hopes that some schools will be able to convert to academy status by the beginning of the new academic year this September. Some looking at this from the outside suspect that the haste and determination with which these schools are to be converted owe more to political considerations than to any particular urgency. I believe that there is more to this issue than politics. Introducing a proper measure of consultation would enable the Government to demonstrate that this Bill is not just about politics but about improving standards and improving our education system. However, time is needed for consultation. If that means that schools that are anxious to become academies have to wait a few more months before they can do so, so be it. Consultation is important for the schools and for communities.
In the Statement, I think that the Minister said—I may be mistaken—that there would be consultation on the setting up of free schools. Why is there to be consultation on free schools, which will then become academies, but no consultation on academies in relation to this Bill?
In my view, consultation is the key to the success of these new academies. Consultation, when properly undertaken, is a means of ensuring that the right policy for a particular school is pursued and of ensuring the wider ownership of this policy. It will engender the confidence of parents, pupils, staff and the community. This is a means of ensuring the success of the policy.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, my Amendment 104 is in this group. I am not quite sure why Amendment 3A is in the group—I think that it should have been in a previous one—but the rest of the amendments are all about consultation. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that appropriate consultation, over a sufficient time, leads to good decision-making. The decision that schools have to make about conversion to academy status is terribly important, so I think that they should consult.
I have a few words to say about the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Morgan. I am not sure why they felt the need to include CRB checks in Amendment 4A. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that all those who had dealings with schools had to have CRB checks anyway. Indeed, I know a young teacher who does both paid and voluntary work in a number of schools and has had four CRB checks. I hope that the coalition Government will smooth out that totally unnecessary duplication. Also, surely the Government normally do due diligence on anyone with whom they intend to sign a contract, so I think that the second subsection in the amendment may be superfluous, too.
The main point of this debate is consultation. Of course schools should consult all the relevant people and provide them with the information that they need to be able to respond appropriately. To become an academy is an enormous change in the governance and funding of a school. Indeed, I think that it is very risky, as Clause 1(2)(b) and Clause 1(3)(b) give enormous power to the Secretary of State without any scrutiny by Parliament. Perhaps we will get that changed during the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House. We will discuss the merits of these arrangements later, but the fact remains that a school that becomes an academy under the Bill does so entirely at the whim of the Secretary of State, so it needs to be sure about the potential benefits of the change to the education that it provides to all the children in its locality.
Incidentally, I do not believe that these schools should be called “independent”, as they have been described. They will be totally dependent on the Secretary of State for their funding and the terms of their operation. My noble friend Lord Greaves referred to them as “autonomous”, which I believe is a better expression.
The difference between our amendment on consultation and those tabled by the Opposition is that we do not include the trade unions. I thought that I should explain why that is. Unions are national organisations, whereas we have proposed consulting local people or organisations that have a keen interest in the school. No national organisation can have a relevant view of the merits of the application of every individual school. The local people matter here and it is they who should be consulted.
That is especially true of the children. I have been in your Lordships’ House for 10 years. At the start, when the Labour Government brought legislation before us, we had to put down a lot of amendments about what I call the voice of the child. Gradually, the Government got the message and, I am glad to say, such provisions started to appear in Bills, so we did not need to put down those amendments. I hope that the Minister will take into account the fact that, when you consult children about things that affect them, you get better decision-making. I also hope that, if he cannot accept these amendments, he will at least put this in guidance, so that schools have to consult the appropriate people.
On the matter of the documents that should be sent out to the people who are being consulted, Amendments 101 and 102 are far too prescriptive. We would leave it to the schools to judge what material it is appropriate to send out. On these Benches we intended to add something much briefer and less prescriptive but it got lost and did not go down in the end. The period suggested for the consultation is six weeks by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and four weeks by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. However, the school will have to make the TUPE arrangements with staff, which requires 10 weeks and should not be during the school holidays. Schools will have to take a lot longer than four weeks, and so they should. I have already urged my right honourable friend Michael Gove to hasten slowly, and I shall do the same to my noble friend Lord Hill. That should be the watchword. The decision does not need to be fast but it needs to be right.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
I support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Royall. This is a very strange part of the Bill, and I am not sure what the rationale behind it is. The Bill purports to want to know the views of people in communities or schools where children’s lives are affected by what legislation says. However, it excludes from consultation at key points anybody outside the school. I wonder if this comes from the Government’s fears over what happened when they had ballots over grant-maintained schools. If so, I well understand that. That was a procedure that ended up causing terrible arguments and distrust between groups of people and communities who should have been working together. There is absolutely no way that I would want to return to that. Indeed, in my time at the department, we did not have ballots in that manner. I am sympathetic, but the Minister mentioned in the last debate that people are somehow suspicious of academies and free schools. There is no better way of making them more suspicious than to exclude them from being consulted. If the Minister accepts that that suspicion is already there, I am not sure why he wants to risk building it up by, as I say, excluding people from consultation.
I have two more points. When this issue was previously been raised in the course of the Bill, the Minister said that the previous Government did not have means of consulting anyway. Correct me if I am wrong, but the essential difference was that, under the legislation used by the previous Government, one school was closed and a new one was opened. The consultation took place as part of the school closure and opening. In the Bill, the conversion of a school—as far as I can see, there is no official closure and opening—excludes any consultation at all.
Finally, the amendments do not seek to take away from the Secretary of State the right to decide whether or not a school should be granted academy status. You might argue that they ought to, but they do not. I cannot see that they would delay any consideration. If I was the Secretary of State in this situation, I would want to put myself in a position where I took the community with me, just to give any new school the best possible start to its life. To load a school with potential suspicion when that need not be the case is really not acceptable. To accept amendments along these lines, if not in such detail, would be very good for any schools that become academies under this legislation.
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool
My Lords, as a supporter of academies, I very much encourage the Government to accept the spirit of these amendments. I have been involved with three academies. I chaired the first and co-chaired the second. The first academy arose from community consultation. When there was anxiety in the community over the other two, there was consultation which allayed people’s fears. I put it to the Government that the people who are being proposed for consultation—young people, parents, governing bodies—are the constituent parts of the big society. It seems a contradiction that if you want to build the big society, you then exclude the very people who are the essence of it. Consultation is called for here.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I refer to my Amendment 102. It is interesting that several differing groups have tabled more or less the same sort of amendments, calling for much greater consultation. The differences between us tend, perhaps, to reflect our own particular interests. The whole area of consultation is crucial and I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said about consulting parents, children and young people. This is crucial in today’s world. They will certainly have a view. We can disagree about trade unions but they could be relevant on the ground in local areas.
The point I would like to stress in my amendment is that the governing bodies of other schools in the areas, which might reasonably be considered to be affected by the making of an academy order, should be consulted. This comes back to the wider issue of whether the academy will advantage or disadvantage the rest of the school population in the area. The Minister stressed that he is not disallowing consultation. He is no doubt encouraging it, but he is not giving the view that it should definitely happen. It is not compulsory. I would like to see in the Bill some degree of requiring that consultation take place. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is not very keen on the second half of our amendment. Nevertheless, if you want to set out a range of issues that need to be looked at and thought about before deciding whether to apply to become an academy, that half is important too.
Finally, there is the letter to Peers dated 15 June from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, in which he wrote about understanding the importance of parental engagement with the conversion process. Everybody is very pleased to see him acknowledging this in the Committee. However, the Department for Education’s guidance to schools wishing to become academies suggests only that schools consider how they might wish to inform staff, pupils and parents of the intended conversion. That is not what I would call consultation before a decision is made by the governing body. It is about informing stakeholders once a decision has been made. I gather, too, that this guidance has not been changed since the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, advising schools to engage with parents. I would have thought that this would be something that the department should include and send off to the various areas that need to consider this issue. On that basis, I would certainly support what the noble Baroness said in moving the first amendment. All the points that she made are very important in making a decision.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I will not go through the full list of people to consult, but I will comment on two groups specifically. One is children, who were mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the other is schools in the area. On children, Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child so beloved of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, 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 alter both the character and curriculum of their school is a backward step in implementing Article 12. The Government should seriously think about consulting children.
I believe that academies do not have to be part of the local family of schools and that there is no obligation to co-operate with other neighbourhood schools. Unfortunately, I cannot remember where the survey that I have in front of me came from. It was taken a few years ago and involved schools situated near academies. It appears that only 27 per cent of those schools were consulted about the academy proposals, 32 per cent said that the academy specialism was not shared with them, 23 per cent said that it had a negative impact on intake and 36 per cent said that it had a negative impact on the allocation of resources. In order to remove the suspicion about which my noble friend Lady Morris spoke, to get better decisions on these issues and to move slowly, we need to take communities along. Therefore, I urge the Minister to look again at involving local schools that may be affected by the development of an academy.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, there seem to me to be two distinct issues. The first is that of good practice in the establishment of academies, which was rightly raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool. It is clearly good practice that maximum efforts are made to engage the local community. Indeed, it is very unlikely that an academy proposal will be a success if it does not have a very wide measure of support from the parental body, the staff body and the wider community. As the right reverend Prelate rightly says, although the statutory consultation requirements are not present in the case of academies because very few statutory requirements apply in respect to academies, an elaborate process of consultation has taken place in relation to their establishment. In virtually every case consent has been given before an academy is established. I say “virtually” because, in the case of some failing schools, it is not possible to gain the consent of the parental body or sometimes even of the governing body. However, that is distinct from the precise provisions we propose to put in the law. As soon as you read Amendment 4A tabled by my noble friend Lady Morgan, you will see the difficulty of trying to put this into legislation. Having dealt with these issues at the Dispatch Box over a long period, I can say that they are only too clear to me. My noble friend’s amendment says that the groups to be consulted must include those it is perfectly reasonable to include, such as:
“(a) the parents of children of the school
(b) the children and young people of the school”.
I entirely agree with my noble friend Lady Massey about the importance of consulting pupils. One of the things the previous Government did which I think was a big step forward was strongly to encourage pupil engagement in schools, including with school councils, which were a very worthwhile development in schools in recent years. I would certainly expect to see school councils consulted before proposals of this kind came forward. However, paragraphs (f) and (g) of the amendment move into the land of the extremely subjective and difficult to determine. Paragraph (f) refers to,
“any local authority which sends a significant proportion of children to the school”.
What is “significant”? We shall be in the courts as soon as an application is challenged on the meaning of “significant”. Paragraph (g) refers to,
“the governing bodies of other schools in the area which might reasonably be considered to be affected by the arrangements”.
But who decides who might,
“reasonably be considered to be affected by the arrangements”?
Those who oppose proposals for schools to become academies will embark on months of litigation and will latch on to ambiguous wording in legislation that enables them to go to the courts.
While the spirit of these amendments is clearly correct and should be encouraged, as we want to see strong parental and community engagement in proposals for academies, I caution the Committee against seeking to put in primary legislation vague requirements which will open the floodgates to opponents to engage in litigation on the ground of ambiguous legal wording.
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, I should like to set down a marker. If academies are required to accept children with special educational needs, those who understand the needs of those children should be consulted to find out what the effect of the academy would be on their well-being.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, it seems to me that there is a good deal to be said for consultation in this area, in accordance with the spirit of what was said in relation to the big society, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool has pointed out. I am sure that we very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about the desirability of reducing the impact of litigation in this area, as that could at best produce only bitterness. Although it might provide rewards for some, it is not a particularly attractive process. Perhaps the consultation should be the responsibility of the Secretary of State rather than of one of the parties given that consultation originated by the Secretary of State, on an application being made to him or her, would be more likely to be regarded as proper consultation than would consultation initiated by the party making the application. Open-mindedness is implicit in the notion of consultation and I am not certain that a party wanting to make an application would necessarily have sufficient detachment to make the consultation effective.
Lord Bates
My Lords, following that point, we need to be clear what we are consulting about. There has to be meaningful consultation in this regard. If we are dealing with a school judged outstanding by Ofsted, and the governing body and the head teacher have said that they wish to apply for academy status because they believe that it will give them greater freedom, then what exactly is there to consult about? There seems to me to be a strong case there. I noted the comments made about the right of children to be consulted under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, who consulted the children when a school was failing? Where was their voice then? Who came round with a clipboard saying, “Tell me what you think about the fact that you’re getting 20 per cent five A to Cs when the guys up the road are getting 60 and 70 per cent?” We have to be clear about what the consultation seeks to achieve and be absolutely sure that we are not trying to delay a process. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and his successor wrestled with that process in relation to the academy programme. Consultation could sometimes go on for years while schools were failing. Where a school body has an outstanding record, the process should be allowed to proceed on the say-so of its governing body. However, where a school is failing, in my view the governing body has forgone any rights in that regard and the Secretary of State has a right to intervene. That is in the best interests of children and parents.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I fundamentally disagree with the eloquent but mistaken case that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, has just put forward. I discussed the matter this weekend with two chairs of school governing bodies in the area where I live. One of the schools is not sure what to do but has probably made further investigations and is therefore probably on the Government’s list of those schools that have made inquiries. It would rather not take this step but is wondering whether it will be forced to do so because otherwise it will be bad for the school. However, schools should not take this step for that reason. The second school has said plainly that it will not apply, no matter how good it is, because it does not want to break its links with the local authority. That is the school’s decision. Just because a school is outstanding does not mean that it is the right thing for that school to become an academy. A decision has to be made by the people connected with the school and, in my view, by the local community as a whole. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, if the proposal does not have considerable local support, it is unlikely to succeed.
I have a further amendment on this matter in the next group. As well as being confused about other things in the Bill, I am confused about today’s groupings, which all seem to be mixed up. Unfortunately I was stranded in Yorkshire this morning—the overhead wires were down in the Keighley area, and now I cannot even ask the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to intervene in the situation—so I could not get here in time to sort out the groupings in relation to my amendments. Noble Lords will therefore have to listen to me again on the next grouping.
However, the issue of the wider community—to which I referred at Second Reading, in comments to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, kindly referred—is crucial and must be addressed. That would address some of the problems which the noble Lord referred to in terms of getting it right. Of course you have to get it right. However, I do not agree that the principle of consultation should not be in the Bill because the specific amendments which have been put forward are not quite right. I think that the Government will find it a great deal easier to get support for the Bill, and to get it through Parliament a bit quicker, if they are prepared to look very seriously at this issue.
The real problem is that the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, whom I admire in many ways, is a man with a rather revolutionary mission on this and other matters. Although I am all in favour of revolution, I am a liberal, and revolution must be based on two things. First, it has to be evolutionary—however revolutionary the end product is—and you must get there slowly or fairly slowly. Secondly, you have to take people with you. A sort of Leninist revolution whereby there is a leadership which everyone follows, and if people do not follow it someone such as Stalin comes along and makes them follow, is not the way forward. You must take people with you. A good process of consultation and debate locally among interest groups such as teachers, who have a legitimate interest in the school, and the wider community, is crucial.
The Secretary of State has impaled himself on a problem by setting September as the date by when the first new academies should be set up. Looking at the parliamentary timetable, I am not sure that this legislation can get through by September—not because it will be blocked or obstructed, but simply because of the time that it takes to reach the statute book. There is talk of bringing the Commons back, but if the Commons makes a few changes to the Bill, it will have to come back here, which would mean that it will not go through until we come back in October, unless we are all to be dragged back here screaming in September to get the Bill through in the interests of the revolution. I am not sure that the House of Lords is a body which usually marches behind revolutions—but who knows?
The Government must get themselves off this hook on which they have impaled themselves. They should accept that to do it properly—and it has to be done properly if it is going to work—it will take a bit longer. That is not delaying the legislation by years. Clearly that would be ridiculous. We need a sensible timetable, a sensible way of doing it, and a sensible way of getting local communities—all the people involved in the school, and other schools—to understand and to come to agreements on what is going to happen. If the process is done on the basis of a school selfishly and aggressively breaking away, it will not work. If it is done by agreement among people locally that this is an evolutionary way forward that will probably lead to other schools in the area becoming academies in due course, and if it is done in a sensible and organised way, then it might work.
Baroness Thornton
I cannot resist a comment on a division in the coalition between gradualist and vanguardist politics. I wish to make only one comment, which is that this coalition Government trumpet local responsibility and empowerment for local people. All that I urge the Minister to do is to pay heed to his noble friend Lord Greaves, not his noble friend Lord Bates.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
I do not think that anyone who has spoken or, indeed, anyone in the House disagrees with the idea that consultation is a good thing and is probably right and proper. The only disagreement is on whether one needs to legislate for consultation or whether one trusts sensible and grown-up people to behave in a way which guarantees—or provides as near a guarantee as is possible—that their move towards academy status will be a success and will be accepted. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said, there are very few examples where consultation does not happen—not because it has been legislated for, but because grown-up people have behaved in a grown-up way.
I wish that sometimes in this House we could avoid the temptation to think that every good thing has to be legislated for. Sometimes we should trust people to behave sensibly and in a way that guarantees that when an academy is set up it has the enjoyment and consent of local people.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I should say briefly that all the amendments we are discussing are relevant to maintained schools converting to academies. They do not address the issue of creating an entirely new school, when there will be no pupils, parents or staff. Yet the need for consultation when a brand new school is created is surely pre-eminently more obvious than for even a school which is converting. I merely make that point; maybe my noble friend will provide some reassurance on that issue.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, as has been the pattern today, we have had a good and lively debate, which has certainly given me food for thought as we go forward. Perhaps I may briefly restate the amendments.
Amendment 3A would change who the Secretary of State could enter into academy arrangements with from a person to an individual or organisation. This is an unnecessary amendment because in law, a “person” is taken to mean either an individual or an organisation.
Amendments 4A, 101 and 102 would require proper checks of any person who was party to academy arrangements and, with Amendment 104, require the governing body of a maintained school to consult certain persons listed in the amendments before applying to the Secretary of State for an academy order. These people would include pupils at school, parents, school staff, staff trade unions, relevant local authorities, other local schools who might be affected and any other person who it is appropriate to consult. It is important to be clear that current legislation does not address these issues. These would be additional legislative requirements that the noble Baroness is seeking to introduce, although I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, quite properly and fairly about the change in status; currently there would be an obligation to consult if the school was to close. The circumstances are different and she is right about that.
I will first respond to the broad thrust of what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked—why the urgency? Why can we not take some time? That point was in some way echoed by my noble friend Lord Greaves. I know that I have made this point repeatedly, but part of the answer to the urgency question is that, five years ago, the Government of whom she was a member set out down this path. Five years later, we are still debating it and that represents another five years of children who have not been able to take advantage of some of these freedoms that I know her party, when in government, were keen to extend. In another part of the answer to the urgency question, I underline the point that we made in previous debates that our approach to this legislation is fundamentally permissive, rather than coercive. Simply by putting a flyer there and saying to schools, “Is anyone interested in this? Are these freedoms something of which you would like to avail yourselves?”, more than 1,750 schools have said that they would be interested. Thinking about the point that my noble friend Lady Perry made, that tells us something quite powerful about trust, which one always has to balance against our natural instinct to try to make sure that nothing goes wrong. One needs to listen to those who are clearly keen to get on and feel that there is a need for urgency. My starting point in this is not so much the question of why we need to move so rapidly as of what is preventing us getting our skates on.
I turn to a specific point which my noble friend Lady Walmsley has already picked up on. It is already part of our process to carry out full due-diligence checks on anyone who is party to a funding agreement, and regulations also require CRB checking of all governors. I, like many Members of the Committee, I suspect, have been CRB-checked more times than I care to remember—although not because there was a particular problem, I should make clear.
I was struck by the point that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made about drawing a distinction between the spirit of consultation and making it a legislative requirement. He gave examples of the difficulty of getting a satisfactory definition in the Bill within which everyone could operate—and which did not have the problem alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, of the old system of ballots, which caused acrimony—and which would not give people who, for particular reasons, might want to frustrate this policy the opportunity to do so. I think that there is broad acceptance on her side of the Committee that the policy is fundamentally good, and these are the detailed questions that we are working through. I was very persuaded by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, concerning the dangers of being overly legalistic. However, I also accept the point made by him and many other noble Lords on all sides of the House about the spirit of consultation. It is something that clearly one must take seriously.
We certainly expect schools, in deciding whether to make an application to convert, to discuss their intention with students, their parents and the local community. A point that has been well made by a number of Members of the Committee is that that is what happens already, and it would not make sense for a school not to do so. The governing body of any maintained school that is considering converting does, and will, include parent governors, staff governors and local authority governors. These governors will all be part of the decision-making process. Currently, the employer of a school’s staff would also need to conduct a TUPE consultation with all staff and the unions as part of the staff transfer process. On a small point of fact—I know that this point has been raised before—I say to my noble friend Lady Walmsley that there is not a minimum 10-week consultation period; the time is not specified in law but there would clearly have to be consultation with all staff and the unions as part of the process.
In response to a point about informal consultation that I think was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe—I hope I shall be forgiven if it was not her—I shall try to be brief as I know that supper beckons. The departmental website will make it absolutely clear that we expect teaching staff, other staff, parents, pupils and the local community to be consulted. The question with which we are grappling—the debate has grappled with it this evening—is how far this process needs to be formalised, with the risk that that might either slow it down or make the process acrimonious. Our view is that there are clear disadvantages—
Baroness Walmsley
Does my noble friend accept that if schools want to convert by September, that will give them quite a lot of time as long as they get on with it? However, if he does not want to put this into legislation, will he consider putting it in guidance and not just on the website?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful to my noble friend. The point about whether schools will be able to convert in time for September has certainly been raised, and there has been a suggestion that the timetable has been politically driven. As I said before, our approach has been to put out the idea and be permissive. Some schools may well convert in time for September, which we think is perfectly possible, as my noble friend says, but other schools will no doubt take longer, and that is also fine.
In response to my noble friend’s more substantive point, which is where my argument was heading, having listened to this debate I recognise that we have to be as transparent as possible in this process. As I said, I recognise the points that have been made about the spirit of consultation, and I can say to the Committee that I am willing to take that thought back to the department and consider how best we can ensure that the conversion process carries the confidence of all interested parties—a point made forcefully this afternoon. On that point, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate and I am grateful for the Minister’s response. It is not that I do not trust people; I fundamentally trust human beings—that is my position. However, I recognise that the need for consultation was not enshrined in the previous Act and that, to date, academies have undertaken consultations because they have believed it to be the proper thing to do, which it is. However, there have been about 200 academies to date and we are now talking about a further 200, another 200 and another 200. If free schools all become academies, that will be an awful lot of schools. We are talking about a fundamental change in our education system. It is not a question of a lack of trust; it is a question of ensuring that proper procedures are undertaken.
I shall certainly reflect on the debate. I certainly understand the fears expressed by my noble friend Lord Adonis, and I would be the last person to want to be overly legalistic. I shall also reflect on the suggestions put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, suggested that consultation could be dealt with in guidance. That might well be an interesting way forward but, if that were the case—and, as I said, I want to reflect on it, as I shall certainly want to come back to this issue on Report—I would want to see some sort of draft guidance. I would want to ensure that the guidance came before, and was agreed by, Parliament. I believe that consultation goes hand in hand with confidence; it is a matter of dispelling doubts and suspicions.
This is a critical part of the Bill. I am glad that the Minister is going to reflect further, as I think we must all do, and I look forward to our debate on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Social Security (Claims and Payments) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 2010
(14 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Lucas
To move to resolve that this House regrets that the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/870) have been based on an inadequate design which will be unable to produce reliable evidence.
Relevant documents: 17th Report, Session 2009–10, from the Merits Committee.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Freud for turning up to respond to this Motion. The instrument that I am praying against is not of his genesis and if I get hot under the collar I hope he will accept that I am not aiming at him in any way.
The instrument first appeared before your Lordships’ Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee with a very inadequate Explanatory Memorandum. When the committee challenged them we were given more data that not only amplified what had been there before but indeed said different things. The first thing I want to say is that I very much hope that my noble friend will see the importance of making sure that Explanatory Memoranda accurately and fully reflect the intentions and details of the instruments concerned.
Secondly, although this is not in my Motion, I wanted to take the opportunity to question my noble friend on whether he really thinks that the proposals in this instrument are an appropriate use of the department’s time. It seems odd to be conducting research into what is effectively how to shift money from one government pocket into another. Here we are concerned with people on benefits. Even with the generosity of the past 13 years, benefits are still pretty marginal. If we consider the list of deductions that are generally allowed, such as mortgage payments, rent arrears, fuel and water charges, child support arrears, and so on, they are pretty important and essential to life. Yes, we allow fines to be deducted too, but that is when a court pronounces that there is a serious punishment involved. I do not think that debts to the Inland Revenue rank alongside that. Given that social security payments are basically set so that a person can meet life’s essentials, how is someone supposed to find 15 per cent of their income spare to repay the Inland Revenue? They can end up only in a worse position by having to rely on the state to a greater extent. Hence my feeling that this is just shifting money from one pocket to another.
There are other problems with this. We are not looking at large debts, but what will be the cost of recovery of these debts? Are we not looking at a system that actually costs more in its administrative functions than the money that it will recover? Is that an appropriate use of time when it comes to poor people? What is a tax debt anyway? If one is moving in and out of employment, a tax debt varies with the month. You can start off appearing to owe the Inland Revenue a good deal of money because you have not paid. You are then unemployed for six months and your allowances accumulate and you end the tax year with the Inland Revenue owing you money. It is not at all clear whether we are talking about debts that are in some way established or whether they just appear to be debts at a particular moment but may well not be debts six months later. It is an odd thing to be spending time on. This is persecuting poor people when the department ought to be trying to extract money in ways that are more efficient and have less of an impact on the very poorest.
My reason for bringing forward this Motion is the statistical inadequacy of what is proposed even with the additional explanation that I have been provided with. I know, or at least I believe I know, that the Department for Work and Pensions has a number of good statisticians—I am assured by no less than Andrew Dilnot that this is the case—but they do not appear to have been involved in the design of this research. The first thing we get is that about 5,000 tax credit customers and 5,000 self-assessment customers will be approached to volunteer to take part in the trial. Those 10,000 will then be divided into those who agree and those who do not agree. Those two groups are fundamentally different. The group which agrees will have one set of motivations and the group which does not agree will have another set. You immediately get into deep statistical water in trying to draw any conclusions when comparing two groups with different motivations. There is an attempt in the design of this experiment to compensate for that by having a third group—a control group. Presumably one could try to work out the behaviour of the first group—those who volunteer for the trial—by subtracting the behaviour of the second group from the control group and supposedly having a control for the first group.
Given the wide diversity of circumstances, we are looking at a sample that to my mind is far too small to allow that kind of second-hand approach to generating reliable results. It is a daft way of going about it when we have a perfectly good and statistically valid way of doing it, which is to double the number who agree to take part in the trial and then put only a randomised half of them through it. You would then have a matched group which will give some pretty statistically valid results. Even then the experimental design will tell you how well it works only for those who are motivated to take part in the trial. It tells you nothing about the behaviour and circumstances of those who are not motivated to take part in the trial. We are not dealing with mere mechanics; we are dealing with the effects of different methods of reclaiming money on people’s behaviour, the trouble they get into, compliance, and so forth. We are dealing with human characteristics and you cannot read those across from one group to another when you have already separated them on the basis of a fundamental characteristic such as motivation. If you wanted to find out something about the second group—those who refuse, who I suspect will be the large majority—you have to conduct a pilot that is not sample-based but area-based. The previous Government did that on several occasions. I can remember the pilots coming through the Merits Committee. A particular office would switch to a new system and would compare its results with a neighbouring, similarly placed office’s results. If you have enough other data on your claimants, you can make that reasonably statistically reliable. You could even run a randomised control through an office. But what is proposed here would not yield any useful information on the behaviour of the second group—those who refused to take part in the trial—were they to be moved to be compelled to under the new proposed system.
There is no defence in the documents that I have seen of sample size, no discussion of anticipated errors, no discussion of what are the real targets, what is expected to be achieved and what are the expected problems. There is no demonstration of the validity of the methods being set out. We have here a simple case of garbage in, garbage out. A trial on those lines will not yield any useful results. If we proceed on the basis of the results that it yields, we will have no clue whether the full, scaled-up system will work. I am comforted that the Social Security Advisory Committee, at paragraph 4.16 of its report, shares my view.
I welcome trials—they are an excellent way to make progress in the area of benefits and social security, to find out what works before one commits oneself to a whole system—but I ask the Minister to ensure that the people who really understand what are the same sort of statistical operation as drug trials have control over what goes on, make sure that what is designed is fit for purpose and ensure that the data that the trials produce can be relied on for policy formation. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, very much for the comprehensive way in which he introduced his Motion and welcome him to this most exclusive of gatherings in London; the tiny number of us in this House who speak on DWP orders and the even tinier number who table regret Motions to them.
Before going any further, we have discovered from the response given by my right honourable friend Steve Webb to a letter from the chairman of the Merits Committee last Session that the new Government may decide not to go ahead with this pilot, but I suppose that we must carry on as though they will go ahead at this stage, unless the Minister wants to interrupt at this point to say that they will not. There is no interruption, so I shall carry on.
First, I am glad that the Government have listened to the Social Security Advisory Committee's recommendation, which urged them to bring the list of benefits from which HMRC debt recovery repayments can be made into line with the current list of benefits from which priority debts can be deducted. In other words, any deductions would be from means-tested and not contribution-based benefits. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about that being money from the poorest people in the country, whichever benefit it is from.
I am also glad that the SSAC highlighted the vital point that claimants understand the voluntary nature of the trial and the impact on their income of signing up for the trial. A lot of people will not know what “voluntary” means—although they may pretend that they do. The Government have responded positively to that point, saying that they will share copies of the letters sent to claimants with the committee, and that they will ensure that the letters, and contact centre staff, will direct the claimant, or customer, to the availability of independent advice.
The SSAC understandably believes that there is scope for confusion among claimants who receive letters from HMRC. Just seeing that letterhead is likely to lead to many claimants into thinking they are being hounded for recovery of their tax credit overpayments, whatever the letter actually states. If claimants then telephone HMRC, is the Minister satisfied that they will be told in every case that they do not have to repay their debts by having them deducted from their benefits? Will they be told in all cases that they might want to take independent advice, which might lead to some of their debt being overturned or even written off?
Before leaving the subject of letters from HMRC, perhaps the Minister can tell us why it does not provide an explanation of a tax credit overpayment to claimants in all cases; that seems not to be provided as a matter of routine. I cannot think why not. I know that the Minister does not speak for HMRC, but as this SI is a joint project between the two departments, I make no apology for asking him that on this occasion.
We must remember that the Government did not agree with the SSAC that repayment should be at a lower level than they are proposing in this trial, which is three times the normal amount per week. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, pointed out, benefits are not generous, and there are rumours that they will not be uprated as usual—we shall hear more in tomorrow's Budget. If claimants in debt have no other source of income except their weekly benefits, many of them will suffer severe hardship if they are being encouraged to repay their tax credit overpayment from those pretty meagre benefits. I may have got the wrong end of the stick here, but I find it horrifying that the SSAC understands that HMRC staff may suggest that debtors apply for a commercial loan to pay off debts—presumably they would never suggest a commercial loan to pay off a tax credit overpayment.
Turning to the design of the pilot, and first, to the aim of the pilot, this appears to be twofold: to find out if there is a demand from claimants for this method of repayment—that sounds almost like an oxymoron—and to see if the scheme is cost-effective. There is more information in the answers to questions from the ever-vigilant Merits Committee about how the scheme will operate. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, there are to be three groups for evaluation purposes. The first group will be those who volunteer to take part in the trial. The explanation goes:
“The evaluation will look at how much was recovered, the spread of weekly deduction rates, how long a person is in receipt of a relevant benefit and what could have been recovered had they been taking part in the trial for the whole two years taking account of expected levels of movement on and off benefit”.
That sounds fiendishly complicated with so many permutations that you wonder whether any comparisons will really make sense. The next two groups are about those who declined to take part in the trial who will form the control group. First, they have to agree to respond to a letter asking them to take part. I wonder how many will be keen to do that. Not very many, I imagine. Therefore, a key question is: how small does the sample size have to be to produce robust data? I note that the Government say:
“We accept that the smaller the sample, the less able we will be to draw definitive conclusions."
I also note what the Government say about those who go off benefit during the pilot period; namely, that there is no minimum number of weeks for which deductions have to be made in order to regard the participant and repayments made as significant for evaluation purposes. I would have thought that was a rather significant fact.
Perhaps the most encouraging sentence in the whole explanation is:
“In addition the performance of new joined up operational processes between HMRC and DWP will be assessed”.
Is the Minister really confident that this trial will produce a reliable result, in view of all the problems that the SSAC and others have pointed out?
Lord Goodlad
My Lords, I have very little to add to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Lucas. The Merits Committee reported to the House on this matter in April and again following a meeting last week. He has deployed all the considerations that we had in mind with his usual thoroughness. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, added to that. We will hear what the noble Lord on the Opposition Front Bench has to say. Whether to proceed with the trial is clearly a matter that will have to be considered in the light of, among other things, what is said tonight. A very large number of people, including the poorest people in our society, are involved in all this, and we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, but it is an extremely important matter.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, I am pleased to be able to follow colleagues in this technical but important debate. I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on joining the Motion-to-regret club. The bad news for him is that the chairman is my noble friend Lady Thomas, I am the secretary, and he will now have to be the treasurer because there are only three of us who have been through this process. He is a very welcome addition to the clan. It is a very distinguished group, as my noble friend said.
I will take a slightly wider look at the background to the order. I am very worried that it will become a default option for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, which would be a very bad thing. The first thing that we should bear in mind is that we are talking about recovering overpayments that have been made by the Treasury. A number of questions flow from that if it is true, which I believe it is. Why on earth is the department rolling out pilots of this kind at a time of real stress and difficulty, with administrative cuts and all sorts of pressure on DWP staff? I make no complaint about that because I think we are all prepared for it, but these are some of the most difficult financial circumstances that low-income households have ever faced. This is a once-in-100-years event—I have certainly seen nothing like it in the 30 years that I have been in public life—and we should not start spraying letters around to people who are in debt only to the extent that the Treasury has miscalculated the amount of tax credits that they are due. We have to bear in mind the fact that this is not just debt but an overpayment; it is a function of error at the hands of Treasury officials. We have to be very careful about the context in which we are sending these letters and raising these proposals, even though this is supposed to be a voluntary scheme.
Incidentally, I do not expect the department to have these figures available in the Minister’s brief this evening, but I would be very interested to know how many customers on benefit are affected by self-assessment error. There cannot be a big number of them across the country. Self-assessment is used mainly by people who are outside PAYE and who are self-employed and the like, so the question of self-assessment by people on benefit puzzles me, given the constrained nature of the benefits to which this order applies. How many people across the country in the system are in that position?
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, cares about this and is enthusiastic about reform. The complexity of the system is part of the reason why these overpayments are made in the first place, and rolling out pilots to mitigate the damage that is done by complexity and error is the wrong way around. We should concentrate, and I believe that he will concentrate, on getting the system right first time and on not creating the overpayments in the tax credit system that create these debts. We need a root and branch review, and I hope that he will not lose his enthusiasm for that. Knowing him, I think that that is unlikely. I would strengthen his hand to get this done. It will not happen quickly, but I hope that he will use his undoubted expertise in financial systems to help to bring that about.
Secondly, third-party deductions are a very important part of the social security benefit system. They were contrived in 1988 and were an anti-poverty measure to protect levels of benefits. The Social Security Advisory Committee’s report on this shows—at paragraph 4.4, table 1—that mortgage payments, rent arrears and fuel charges were the essential things for which deductions could be made. People needed a deduction for housing or they were evicted, and they needed a deduction for fuel charges or they became hypothermic. That was why the third-party deduction system was put into place. It has been extended as the SSAC memorandum suggests, most recently for child maintenance purposes in 2006. However, we must be very careful about why and when we use third-party deductions or we get into management objectives and not anti-poverty ones. Third-party deductions should be used absolutely only in circumstances in which they cannot be avoided. Benefit levels are already at poverty levels. Measured against average median household incomes, poverty levels are built into some of the levels of benefit that we have at the moment. We should interfere with third-party deductions only with great care. The SSAC memorandum says—an occasional paper was done on this in 2008—that we should look at all these things and indicates the part that the social fund should play in dealing with anti-poverty.
My noble friend mentioned the hardship rules, which are important. There are some circumstances, which I came across myself not that long ago, where write-offs would have been properly argued and could have been suggested in ways that would help the households. But they are able to be determined only by people who know what they are doing. Citizens Advice and independent financial advisers who specialise in this kind of work and who know what they are doing can make recommendations which otherwise would be left unknown to the households that these things affect.
Thirdly, this cannot be done without safe, independent financial advice. I know that the FSA has tried to roll out a financial capability scheme—it may have been caught by purdah during the general election campaign—but we can be sure that these debts are being recovered safely, even in a so-called voluntary capacity, only if there is independent advice to which people can be referred so that they know that what they are doing is sensible in the totality of their debts.
The excellent recent publication, State of the Nation Report: Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependency in the UK, produced by the Secretary of State, states that 79 million people in the United Kingdom are in serious debt. An independent advisory service would serve not only the purposes of these regulations but would have a wider purpose as well. One could argue that some FSA rules about treating customers fairly would require people repaying debts to HMRC to be given a statement of what their repayments are doing in terms of extinguishing the debt over a period of weeks or months, but I hope not years. There are no statements. In my experience, a lot of people have no idea of how their benefit payments are made up or of what payments are being made to other parts of the system which may also have third party deductions on their benefits.
The treating customers fairly rules of the FSA should be applied if this pilot ever is rolled out across the country because £9.75—the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, effectively made this point—to a household operating on a weekly cash basis, as a lot of benefit families and households are, is a huge amount of money. Many of these households have to work on a cash basis from week to week, robbing Peter to pay Paul and trying to stay out of default. It is a very difficult balancing act for them to manage.
As regards the timing of this, the earlier memorandum and other papers suggested that a roll-out would almost be upon us even now. The response from Steve Webb to the committee at a later stage made it clear that there was some reconsideration of whether the thing would even start. This is an important moment to stop and think about whether the pilot is necessary and, even if it were was successful, whether we are creating a default option which just makes it easier for the Treasury and HMRC to correct errors that they should not have made in the first place.
Finally, the SSAC recommendations, taken together with the timing and the context into which these pilots are being introduced, are inimical to the interests of benefit households in the way that they are currently cast. I for one would recommend to the Minister that he suggests that this pilot is cancelled.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for the opportunity to discuss these regulations. As other speakers have said, he has joined the exclusive band of those involved in Motions of Regret, one that I myself have joined, although I have been on the receiving end of several. I should say that I find myself in the rather unusual position of dealing with regulations that were promulgated under the previous Government and for which I would have had some responsibility in terms of explaining and defending, but a responsibility from which I am now free.
In his introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talked about how these regulations would persecute poor people. If that was what they were about, the Government of which I was a member would have had nothing to do with them, and I am sure that that runs for the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud. The noble Lord also said that people can only end up in a worse position. Again, if that were the case it would not be something that I or the former Government would have wanted to have any truck with. This does not inevitably have to involve that position because it is a voluntary scheme with maximum amounts, and of course collecting debt in this way is cost-free to the individual, although there may well be administrative costs for HMRC and the DWP. One of the other ironies we are faced with is that my noble friend Lord Rosser, who joins me on the Front Bench, was previously chair of the Merits Committee. I think that he preceded the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and in his time has been responsible for various Exocets, of which this may have been one.
I cannot support the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because I do not think that he has made his case, but I accept that the explanations given in the Explanatory Memorandum and initially to the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Merits Committee could have done more to set out the detail of the proposal, especially the methodology and the evaluation, but in our view the response of Steve Webb, Minister of State for Pensions—I still have to pinch myself when I say that—to the Merits Committee has, in our view, gone some way to rectify that.
However, we have a timely opportunity to reflect on these regulations and to take the coalition Government’s mind on them. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, both mentioned, Steve Webb’s response indicated the possibility that the Government may choose not to proceed with the pilot at this time. Can the Minister give us an update on this and indicate the factors that will be taken into account in making any decision to defer? The proposed trial is of course partly focused on the recovery of tax credit overpayments. I am bound to say that, as I understand it, they do not inevitably flow from official errors—they are not necessarily the only cause—but we will have to see the extent to which the proposals might be affected by the cuts in tax credits that the Government are poised to announce tomorrow. We have heard the coalition promise to reform the administration of tax credits so as to reduce fraud and overpayments, and again we will have to see what that means in practice. If it can be accomplished in a fair way and without impairing take-up, all well and good, but the emphasis should be on the “if”.
It is accepted that the transition from work to benefits is a difficult one and can pose problems with budgeting for the repayment of existing debt, so these proposals offer help to those who cannot afford to settle their debts in one go. They provide a nil cost method of payment and are in addition to the other methods of payment available. Given our debate this evening, can the Minister tell us more about these other methods and whether there are any proposals to extend or restrict them? The principle of an additional voluntary method for people to repay tax overpayments has been welcomed by the SSAC and the respondents to the consultation undertaken by the committee were positive about the proposals.
One of the concerns expressed by the SSAC was the proposed maximum level of deduction for tax credits—three times the 5 per cent of the single over-25 rate for income support. The committee pointed out that this was greater than the maximum individual deduction under the third party deduction scheme. Although other recommendations were accepted, this was one area where the previous Government were unable to accept the SSAC recommendation, which was to limit the maximum amount deducted to 5 per cent of the income support rate. Have the current Government a different view on this? We know from our debates on the Welfare Reform Bill that the Minister is exercised about the impact of cash deductions from benefit levels—this was in the then context of sanctions—and he hinted at the prospect of other types of sanctions, possibly vouchers. Has the thinking developed further? How would such a system sit alongside the TPD scheme and these proposals—or can we take it that vouchers have been ruled out?
In its report in February to the then Secretary of State, the SSAC reflected on the history of the TPD scheme—and we have heard it from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, today—where the type of deductions allowed from benefits has grown over the years. The last DWP response to the request for a review of the scheme was rejected, with the assertion that it had a twofold purpose: to provide last-resort rescue where a claimant is struggling with arrears of essential household outgoings, and to impose compliance with social and monetary obligations. Is this still the position of the Government?
We would all agree, I hope, that it is important that the manner in which the trials are conducted makes it clear that it is voluntary and that participants can withdraw at any time. It is also vital, as was envisaged when the proposals were devised, that the repayment from benefits should not be seen as the easy or default option for dealing with HMRC debts. In particular, it should not displace the HMRC code of practice which provides for overpayments to be written off in cases of extreme hardship. Access to advice therefore remains paramount. If the proposed free national advice service is to go on the back burner, then continued funding for those agencies, national and local, which work tirelessly at the moment to fill that gap will be critical.
As we have heard, the Merits Committee under the incisive chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Rosser did not question the objective of the regulations and the proposed trials but was concerned whether the proposed methodology would deliver sufficiently meaningful data to support its extension. I think that is the thrust of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Concerns were expressed around the control groups, the percentage take-up from those contacted, minimum levels and time spent on benefits. Like the SSAC, the Merits Committee was anxious to know what advice had been sought on the design of the pilots. Frankly, I think the reply from Steve Webb of 31 May covered these matters and should allay the fears of the Merits Committee, the SSAC and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.
The nature of the communication inviting individuals to participate in the trial is recognised as being critical to both emphasise the voluntary nature of the trial and to help individuals understand the impact on their income of signing up for trials. This was one of the SSAC recommendations which we accepted. We also agreed to share copies of proposed communications with the SSAC. I trust this agreement will endure with the new Government.
At the end of the day, whatever the methodology, what matters is implementation. Neither HMRC nor DWP lacks experience in implementing pilots, but these require resources and training. As the matters we are discussing by definition impact on the poorest and the most vulnerable—those which the coalition Government have pledged to protect—we seek reassurance that any pilot will be properly resourced.
Although we cannot support the noble Lord’s Motion, we agree on the importance of the department providing good information, generally in explanatory memoranda, and its engagement with SSAC and the Merits Committee—which might have obviated the necessity for our interesting discussion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling the Motion and for giving me the opportunity to explain how this voluntary debt recovery trial will be evaluated. I take the point about the numbers in the House for this debate—this is an exclusive group—but I can claim to be a member, albeit a new one, of the DWP regret club from earlier this year. I need, however, to apologise, albeit on behalf of the previous Administration, for the fact that the Merits Committee was not provided with sufficient information when the regulations came before it.
I should say by way of background that the amendment to the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 2010 will enable voluntary deductions to be taken from a person’s social security benefit to repay certain HMRC liabilities of under £1,000. The types of debt included are those arising from overpayments of tax credits and those arising from personal tax liability.
The transition from work to benefit can be difficult. Before the previous Government introduced tax credits, it was possible for overpayments of in-work benefit, then known as family credit, to be recovered from other social security benefits. Once tax credits were introduced, this option ceased, even though many customers found it an easy and convenient repayment method. The regulations reinstate this option for those who wish to use it. As well as providing a convenient method of repayment for individuals, this will help those unfortunate enough to have a debt with both the Department for Work and Pensions and the HMRC. Under current processes, both departments could seek repayment independently and both expect repayment. Under the trial process, the departments will work together and ensure that customers have only to repay one debt at a time.
Participation in the trial is purely voluntary. There is therefore no question of excessive compulsory deductions being taken from a customer’s benefit. The option to use this form of repayment and the rate at which any deduction is made will be agreed with the customer before any repayment commences.
This brings me on to the issues raised by the Merits Committee and by my noble friend in this Motion. It is suggested that the trial has been based on inadequate design which will be unable to produce reliable evidence for evaluation. The real issue is perhaps rather that the Explanatory Memorandum failed adequately to explain the design of the trial and specifically the evaluation protocols. This is regrettable and I fully accept that the Merits Committee should always be given sufficient information in order fully to assess the validity of regulations coming before it. In fact, even before this Motion was tabled, the department had written to the Merits Committee, giving a much fuller account of the proposed evaluation methodology than was provided originally.
It may be helpful at this point if I give some details of how DWP and HMRC will work together to run and evaluate the trial. We intend to approach tax credit customers and self-assessment customers who are in receipt of a relevant social security benefit and have new debts to HMRC. My noble friend criticised the structure of the trial as being a case of garbage in and garbage out. I think that the issue is that it is rather more narrowly focused than a wider trial might be.
The aim is to assess whether voluntary deduction of debts owed to HMRC from DWP benefits is attractive to debtors and a cost-effective means of recovery. Outcomes of the trial will be compared to outcomes achieved through existing HMRC debt recovery methods. The trial will provide evidence to inform any future decisions on use of deductions from benefits. If the trial evaluation shows that this is a cost-effective recovery method for government and that it is attractive to customers, it will be retained post trial. However, if that proves not to be the case or there proves to be no interest from customers, it will not be continued beyond the period of the trial.
The objectives of the trial are, first, to test proof of concept. By that, I mean to ensure that the deductions process is operationally effective, that customer information is safeguarded, that customer records are updated and that additional cash recoveries are accounted correctly. The second objective is to assess levels of customer take-up and the factors which motivate customers to participate in the trial or to pay directly to HMRC. The third is to assess cost-effectiveness; that is, the additional recoveries achieved net of departments’ costs.
There will be three groups for evaluation purposes. The first group will consist of those customers who volunteer to take part in the trial. The evaluation will look at how much was recovered, the spread of weekly deduction rates and how long a person is in receipt of a relevant benefit from which deductions can be made. The DWP and HMRC will both analyse their costs in running the trial to permit an overall cost to Government to be calculated. In addition, the performance of new joined-up operational processes between HMRC and the DWP will be assessed. As part of the evaluation, HMRC will seek feedback from its customers on the effectiveness of the trial and their overall customer experience.
Lord Freud
I will not rise to that.
My noble friend Lord Kirkwood asked when the trial was due to start. It will start next month, and the first letters will go out then. We do not intend to cancel this trial; we will go ahead with it, although we will extend it only if it is successful.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked whether other methods of repayment would be available. Clearly, if the customer signs up for the trial, no other method will be used. If the customer does not sign up, the repayment methods could be lump sum or instalments by direct debit or standing order. He also asked whether the new Government stand by the decision to deduct at three times the 5 per cent rate. Yes, we stand by that, but it is the maximum rate and participants can choose a lower rate. Finally, he probed the question of other ways of applying sanctions. This is, of course, not a sanction—it is a repayment of a debt—although I can tell him that we are exploring non-financial sanctions.
I commend the principle of the trial as a convenient alternative repayment method for those who wish to use it and as an example of joint working. The design of the trial is adequate, but I accept the criticisms of the Merits Committee and of my noble friend Lord Lucas. We need to get this right in the future. We need to make sure that all our regulatory changes meet the standard expected by the Merits Committee and that we provide all the necessary supporting information in good time.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for that comprehensive and helpful reply. I shall not trade blows with him on matters to do with welfare, as I am merely an extremely junior acolyte at his feet. This has been a fascinating debate for me and I shall feel tempted, now that we have a Minister in this House who is so much at the forefront of welfare reform, to sit on the Benches and, at least, to listen. However, I am quite happy to trade blows with his statisticians.
The Minister has made me understand one thing that I did not understand before. The trial is clearly voluntary, but is he saying that the rollout will also be voluntary, even if the trial is a success? That certainly would remove a lot of my worries. However, the effort being expended to create a control group and to look at what is happening in the second, probably larger group of those who will not take part in the trial rather suggests to me that there was an intention—noble Lords opposite may know whether this is the case—that this should be a compulsory way of reclaiming HMRC debts.
If you want to understand how to operate this effectively with people who volunteer, you do a randomised control trial just with those people. You go on until you have a couple of thousand volunteers and you assign them randomly—half you monitor under the current system and half you monitor under the new system. You then have a conventional and statistically robust way of comparing behaviour. It might be fun and informative, and it might have a peripheral virtue to try to understand why the people who have not volunteered have not done so and to try to find out how to encourage them to do so in future, but you certainly would not bother with this functionless control group that sits as an appendage at the bottom.
As I say, there is a simple and statistically robust way of dealing with this if the trial is for a voluntary system, which would not have all the characteristics of the trial that has been put in front of us. If the Minister is prepared to set up a meeting with his statisticians, I should enjoy it very much, because I do not think that they have come up to the mark on this occasion if, as I say, this is a trial for a voluntary system. If I am wrong and this was designed as a trial for a compulsory system, I come back to my old criticism that it does not function as that. You do not get enough information on the likely behaviour of the people who have declined to take part in the trial to be able to predict how they would react if they were compelled to take part.
However, I cannot be churlish when I have received such a good reply from my noble friend, particularly if he sets me up with a tea date with his statisticians—and how could any statistician refuse tea in the Lords? Whatever the circumstances, I happily beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Academies Bill [HL]
(14 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
“( ) If the Academy arrangements are entered into other than in relation to a maintained school converted into an Academy, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the new Academy meets a public need in the area concerned and will not cause undue detriment to any neighbouring school.”
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, this is a broadly good Bill, but in boldly extending academy status from underachieving schools to any school, we must surely ensure that the Bill does not inadvertently undermine its avowed purpose,
“to raise school standards for all”.
Michael Gove in the other place and the noble Lord, Lord Hill, in his accomplished Second Reading speech here emphasised that primary focus of helping the educationally underprivileged. Mr Gove put it this way:
“We believe that the function of the state is to promote equity … the power of the state should be deployed vigorously to help the vulnerable and the voiceless, those who lack resources and connections, and those who are poor materially and excluded socially”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/10; col. 463.]
My amendment is to ensure just that—that the coalition walks that talk and exemplifies its values. It addresses the risk that the free schools—the brand new academies—do not cause undue detriment to existing neighbouring schools. I accept that that would never be the purpose of any group promoting such a new school. However, sometimes any of us—indeed, all of us at times—can so concentrate on our own children and our own back yard that we overlook the needs of others. That is a particular danger when social considerations intrude, as they too often do in this country, vis-à-vis education. At Second Reading I gave an example from my own part of Suffolk of the proposal to convert a feeder middle school into a secondary academy school. That would devastatingly undermine the really good school into which it feeds by the consequent impact on its entry numbers and all that that would mean for finances, staffing, social balance and, ultimately, morale.
Britain is still a sorely disfigured country—disfigured by acute inequalities of life chances. That underlines, among other things, our social and law and order problems, and leads to huge financial and moral setbacks. It is against this backdrop that I very much hope that the Government—my Government—will accept this constructive amendment, which will provide an essential but practical safeguard against the unintended consequences of the Bill as it stands.
Lord Adonis
The noble Lord is a stickler in this House, and rightly so, for precision in language and comprehensibility in legislation. In his amendment he uses some very general terms. He talks about the Secretary of State being satisfied that an academy meets “a public need” and that it,
“will not cause undue detriment”.
Will he set out somewhere for us how he defines “public need” and “undue detriment”?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, the noble Lord made much the same point before the dinner break. If he looks back over some of the legislation that he introduced, he will find that it is peppered with considerations and language of that kind. You cannot legislate without using general terms. The amendment that I have put forward has a long-stop protection in that it is capable of being judicially reviewed. If the noble Lord were to suggest that that is the very evil against which more precise language would guard, I would have to tell him, first, that more precise language cannot be used in a situation such as this and, secondly, that to give a controlled guided discretion to the Secretary of State is a device used in every Bill in every month of every year in this place. I am confident that it will work in this case. You have only to look at Clause 1(6), which refers to,
“pupils who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.
You could argue till the cows came home about what “mainly” means and what,
“the area in which the school is situated”
means. As I say, at times legislative language must, and can only, resort to generalities. I think that the amendment I have produced is capable of being used practically and to effect. The alternative would be to have nothing in the Bill, which I suggest would be the worst of all worlds.
Given the backdrop that I have described, I very much hope that the Government will accept this amendment, which does not apply, of course—I have specifically excluded it from doing so—to maintained schools converting to parallel academies, which will be by far the larger number. However, there would still be a significant number of new free academies, which must surely also be expected to serve the higher purpose of educational justice for all, not just their own pupils. A big society, surely, must be an equitable society, particularly towards its most needy. My amendment may not be perfect, but something like it must be in the Bill if we want to end what Mr Gove called in his Statement today a “segregated and stratified” school system. I beg to move.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, Amendments 191 and 114 are intended to probe the Government’s view of the long term of this reform and speak to concerns expressed elsewhere in this debate. In answer to questions about the Statement on free schools, I think that the Minister spoke of pilots, although I may be wrong. The amendments to which I speak ask the Government to pilot the Bill’s approach in limited areas, or initially to cap the numbers of these new academies so that the effect on nearby schools can be considered in the light of experience. It seems reasonable to me that if the effects that have been forecast of the disruption and funding shortfalls for vital services transpire, we will know that proceeding further along this road would be an error. Other amendments in this grouping discuss the need for openness and the consideration of the wider effects of this policy when proceeding with changes of status on this scale.
Amendments 119 and 177 relate to the criteria for acceptance of an application for conversion to an academy. Crucially, they relate to the need to consider the local impact of the change in the round and to consider the impact on community cohesion of the change to academy status. These constitute very real concerns. The amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, spoke also addresses the local impact of these schools. I support the amendment. Questions need to be answered in relation to the example that he gave of a school in Suffolk.
Amendment 76A seeks to introduce a requirement for academies introducing new or significant sixth-form provision to consult existing providers of sixth-form courses, including sixth-form colleges and FE colleges in the area. It also seeks to ensure that academies are part of regional and subregional planning groups for 16 to 19 provision. This will ensure that there is no duplication of existing provision within an area and avoid inefficiency.
Local authorities currently act as commissioners for courses for 16 to 19 year-olds funded by the Young People’s Learning Agency. They engage with all providers across local authority boundaries to ensure that courses are provided which meet the needs of students and provide the best value to taxpayers. We would need to be assured that that process would continue with academies, because there needs to be an overview.
Amendment 92A seeks to introduce a fair funding element to 16 to 19 year-old provision in academies to ensure that 16 to 19 year-olds are not treated more favourably than existing providers of education for 16 to 19 year-olds. Currently, if an academy provides or introduces new 16 to 19 year-olds’ education, the funding is top-sliced from that which is given via the YPLA to other providers in the area. This funding is provided on the basis that all the places offered by the academy will be filled.
That is not the case for other providers, which are funded on the basis of the places that they have filled in previous years. It can also create an anomalous situation whereby, if places are not taken up at an academy, but the students instead choose to go to a sixth-form college, it is still the academy rather than the college that receives this funding for those places. That creates a financial incentive for academies to offer courses for which there is no or little new demand. I am not an expert in these areas, but when I was alerted to these specific issues, it seemed that these were the very issues that we should be probing and seeking answers on from the Minister.
These amendments are not designed to shackle the Secretary of State and they do not prevent him continuing with his plan. They merely seek to assure those who have perhaps been unnerved by the speed with which he is pursuing an end to any form of community accountability for schools.
Lord Bew
My Lords, I shall address some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, in his Amendment 4. Much of this is an issue of context. I was struck by the example of the case in Sudbury, which he gave in his speech at Second Reading. It is of concern that what we are doing with this new second phase of the academies project will leave certain schools and communities behind.
However, I want to suggest an angle of vision on this which I hope will be helpful in a small way to the Committee. If you look at a very traditional elitist system such as that which prevails in Northern Ireland—the grammar school system—which is different markedly from the system that is being discussed, although there is a small grammar school element to it, you will see that the results achieved at A-level and GCE are by far the best in the United Kingdom. At the bottom, the results are not so good—but nor are they now so divergent from those in England. Girls are actually doing better in Northern Ireland. Boys in Northern Ireland are doing worse than in England. However, those results tell you something: the way that our system has evolved over a generation or more is that we now accept that Northern Ireland will for ever lead the academic attainment lists at the highest level in the United Kingdom unless there are changes in policies. They tell you that at the bottom level this elitist system is not as bad in relation to England as we once thought it was. It is actually very close indeed. It is bad to be at the bottom level in England and in Northern Ireland.
The point I am trying to make is that the Northern Irish grammar school system, for all its many joys, was not formed in a political culture whereby a Minister for Education talked, as he was talking today, about using the state as a weapon for equity. In other words, the context is enormously important. It is important that the context is right when we discuss these questions and that the policy of the Government is directed towards greater equality of opportunity, which seems to be, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, conceded, where the Minister is coming from. He may not be quite the Marxist-Leninist that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talked about, but none the less that seems to be the approach. The status quo is leaving people behind. We already have a segregated system. The status quo is already having negative effects, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, whose point about unintended consequences I accept, is rightly concerned that they will become more marked as side effects of this new system.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, if I may—I have some amendments in this group. I should like to speak to Amendments 98, 136 and 177. I also intend to speak to Amendment 137 along with Amendment 98, as they go together. I apologise that with all the toing and froing with the groupings this morning, I did not notice that Amendment 137 had not been included in this group. However, I believe that I am able to speak to it all the same.
The purpose of Amendments 98 and 137 is to probe the application of the school governance procedures regulations 2003 to a resolution by the school governors to apply for academy status. The current regulations provide for special procedures for important governing body decisions about the future of a school—particularly ones such as this, which would lead to a decision by the local authority to discontinue supporting the school. The special procedures currently include a requirement that the decision cannot be delegated to a committee or individual, and the chair cannot direct that a period of notice shorter than seven days be given for a governing body meeting. Indeed, in certain cases, a second governing body meeting must be held within 28 days to confirm the original decision.
Therefore, can the Minister confirm that a decision to apply for academy status cannot be delegated to an individual governor or even a small committee of governors? Will the regulations require the local authority or parents to be informed of the date when the governing body proposes to make a decision? Should not the regulations be amended to this end if they do not already do so?
Amendment 136 is a different way of dealing with the same matter. Clause 5(9) disapplies current legislation. Conversely, if we remove subsection (9), as Amendment 136 does, the current situation regarding consultation, safeguards and time periods and so on regarding who can make the decisions remains.
Amendment 177 would insert a new clause that would extend to academies a current duty on the governing bodies of maintained schools in England to promote community cohesion in the discharging of their functions. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, touched on this in the earlier debate on consultation. I well recall our debates during the passage of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which introduced a duty on all maintained schools in England to promote community cohesion and on Ofsted to report on the contributions that they make in this area. Both these duties have now commenced.
Governing bodies of existing new Labour academies are not subject to the same duty to promote community cohesion as applies to maintained schools, despite our protestations, as I recall, when the Bill went through your Lordships’ House, yet from September 2008 their contribution to community cohesion has been reported on by Ofsted. I think it is vital that the new academies are also required to promote community cohesion, especially where they are located in areas where the community is very diverse. This is particularly important given the concerns that academies may increase social division and inequality, rather than reduce them, which of course is the intention of the programme. That is not how we want academies to be. They should be part of, and serve, the local community.
On the question of new 16 to 19 providers, mentioned by the noble Baroness on the opposition Benches, I think that if an academy extends the age range which it intends to serve beyond that which it had when it first applied to be an academy, there may very well be a case for having to go back to the Secretary of State to renegotiate the terms of the academy agreement. Can the Minister let me know whether that is the Government’s intention? It would be a major change in the academy’s provision and the original consultations would no longer be legitimate.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I, too, have tabled amendments in this group—Amendments 116, 117, 119 and 129. Since this is the first time that I have spoken on this Bill, I welcome and congratulate the Minister on his position and the way in which he has hitherto dealt with the Bill. However, I cannot give the same welcome to the Bill itself. He needs to know that I have fairly fundamental objections to it, which may appear from time to time. It may have a rougher ride as we go forward.
It is true that I also had some reservations about the previous Government’s academies programme, contrary to the position of the Front Bench and other colleagues. However, it was very different—it was different in execution, although some would say that it was not that different in ambition. In execution, the Labour Government, with their fewer than 300 academies, recognised that there were failing schools, or at least schools that were underperforming in educational terms, and that there were areas of social deprivation, which was detrimentally affecting educational attainment. The Government used the academies as a way of compensating or intervening at the extreme end of special measures. That I can understand. In a sense, it was a comment on the failure of local authorities and the governing bodies that central government had to take them over. In general, I believe that the education of a community’s children ought to be the responsibility of the local authority elected for that community. It is only in very specialised and specialist cases that you would override that.
That is a political and an educational principle. It is an educational principle for reasons to which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has just referred. A change in the status and the relative resources and attention given to one school will have a knock-on effect on other schools. Sometimes it might be beneficial, but it will undoubtedly have a knock-on effect.
The record on Labour academies is mixed. Some have been very successful; some have improved, though it could be argued that they could have been improved by less drastic interventions; and some have failed or nearly failed. The case is not yet fully proven. To take away from local authorities the responsibility for educating their populations, which they have had for well over a century, is a very drastic move. In this short Bill we are changing the provision of education in this country.
This depends on initiatives being taken by the school and on the attitude of the Secretary of State to the application of the school. However, the ambition has been clearly laid out by the Minister and the Secretary of State. They want a large number of schools to opt out of local authority oversight. I say “oversight” and not “control” because local authorities have not managed schools for many years. They have supported schools and given them administrative support, help in specialist matters and special needs, and help in many other areas, but they have not managed the schools in the way which is sometimes implied by the criticism of the current system.
The Bill is taking a big step to remove the relationship between schools and the local authority. I appreciate that I am not going to be able to persuade the Government or the coalition—or at least most of the coalition—that this is the wrong way to go. But if we are to go down that road, it is essential to reassert the role of the local authority. We had a debate just before the break about consultation. I take some of the points from my noble friend Lord Adonis and others that to prescribe exact forms of consultation in primary legislation can lead you down difficult paths and that perhaps it is better covered by a code, guidance or, certainly, practice by the Secretary of State and those who are promoting academies and free schools.
The one bit of consultation that I do not believe you can escape is consultation with the local authority. The local authority might in some cases agree that it would be a good thing to have an academy. It would certainly have views on it and it would certainly have views that are informed by the impact on the rest of education in the area of its oversight. My first amendment is my ideal. Amendment 116 says that the local authorities should be consulted and should agree the proposals.
I appreciate that that is fairly close to cloud-cuckoo land, given the Government's intentions. In any case, if there was a disagreement between the local authorities and the Secretary of State, you would have to build in an arbitration process. I have therefore given the Government an alternative, which simply states that there is an obligation to consult the local authority.
Personally, I think that if that is not inserted in some form into the Bill, it will be greatly flawed. I suspect that it will make for a difficult ride in another place if local authorities are not written in, so I therefore strongly advise the Government that if they are to continue to go down that road, they ought at least to recognise the special role of local authorities in that respect.
I also take the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, before the break, but perhaps the obligation to consult ought to be not on the party proposing the school but on the Secretary of State him or herself. At the end of the day, the Secretary of State will have to make the judgment and explain to Parliament whether an effective consultation has taken place, so I place the responsibility not on the proposers but on the Secretary of State. That makes sense.
My Amendment 119 goes further to state—in a sense, with the same motivation as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—that there should be an assessment of the effect of taking a prospective academy out of local authority oversight on the rest of the educational provision in the area. Where it differs from the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and probably therefore avoids the objection of my noble friend Lord Adonis, is that it simply states that there should be an assessment. That assessment, or at least its conclusions, should probably be available publicly—although the amendment does not state that—but it still leaves the final judgment to the Secretary of State, whereas the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, would prescribe something that is difficult to define, as my noble friend said. Nevertheless, I think that the noble Lord and I are both on the same page here: before we move to approve an academy, an assessment needs to have been made as to the effect that will have on the total educational provision in the area.
I hope that the Government take some notice of the amendment. Personally, I find it very difficult that in the name of removing the burdens of red tape from head teachers and governing bodies, we move from a system of local authority oversight to one of centralised funding, centrally regulated. The red tape which has undoubtedly been imposed on the teaching profession by successive Governments over the past two or three decades has largely emanated from central government and their agencies, not from local government. The relationship with local government has been, by and large, constructive. We ought to maintain that. Even if we are going for change which some local authorities may approve of, there must be a vital role for local authorities in that process.
My final amendment simply gives some flexibility on timescale, so I will not go into it in great detail. The key point here is that local authorities must be present under the Bill to be consulted, engaged and involved, reflecting the impact of a decision on one school on the totality of education in their area.
Lord Greaves
I have one amendment in this group, Amendment 106—which, as I previously explained, should have been in the previous group, but it has ended up here, so I will speak to it here.
It was originally intended as an addition to the amendments on consultation in the previous group proposed and spoken to by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Howe of Idlicote. I thought that rather than tabling three amendments adding on to them, I would table just one to discuss alongside them. I failed miserably, because we have to discuss it now.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said that he thought that he would not be able single-handedly to persuade the coalition that this Bill should be scrapped and that we should start again. It would not take a lot to persuade me, but I do not think that I could persuade the coalition either. Even the combined forces of the noble Lord and I would not succeed in that. Therefore, we have the Bill that we have, and we have to do what the House of Lords traditionally does very well: look at the Bill, not challenge it in principle but look at how it will work, whether it will work successfully and the effect that it will have on everything else around it. That is what we are doing, and what we have to do.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
I am very interested in the noble Lord’s view on this. Does he think there is a material difference between what a community might have to say about a primary school and about a secondary school? Is there a difference between those institutions in terms of the community engagement and collective responsibility?
Lord Greaves
I think there is a real difference between primary schools and secondary schools for other reasons, but the relationship between a school and the community in which it is situated varies hugely between schools. Some schools cut themselves off from the community, unfortunately, a tendency that has increased in recent years because of the pressures put on the schools, but other schools look outwards. I do not think there is necessarily a difference between a primary school and a secondary school, although primary schools—by their very nature, because they take in very young children and bring mothers in and so on—are often more closely involved in the community than some secondary schools. However, I do not think there is necessarily a direct relationship between that, and I know secondary schools that are heavily involved in the community.
The parish council in a village, the town council in a town and the district council can all legitimately have a say. I am not saying that they should have a right of veto; I am saying that these are community institutions and if a community is to have a proper debate, no matter how quickly, everyone in that community has a right to it.
There are two principles of general consultation. They help with the difficulties, which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, identified, of being too prescriptive about whom you consult or of trying to be prescriptive but vague at the same time and perhaps leaving things open to legal challenge. First, you must publish what you are proposing for general discussion so that anyone can pick up information about it and take part in the discussion, and you must publish the responses. That is proposed new subsection (1A) in my amendment. Secondly, once you have the responses, whether from parents, teachers, the parish council or just a group of interested people, you must obviously consider them and decide whether you want to allow them to influence your decision. If, after the consultation, you decide to send your application to the Secretary of State, you send a summary of the responses or the responses themselves to the Secretary of State alongside your application so that someone who is looking at the application can consider them at the same time. Those are the two principles of genuine public consultation and debate.
The argument against such a consultation might be that it will delay the process, but so long as you have a pretty strict timetable and people are fairly rigorous and efficient with it, it does not have to delay the process very much. I think there is also a worry on the part of the Government that if there is too much general public debate about a particular proposal, it will encourage people to decide not to go for it. They might say that it is a bit controversial and hang back a bit. However, given the scale of the interest which the Government assure us there is in these things, whether it is a free school or a conversion—they say that 1,800 schools at least have now asked for more details—the Government and the department cannot possibly deal with that very quickly and will have to go ahead with far fewer, so I do not think that the argument about putting people off carries any weight whatever.
I support the coalition Government, but everything that people have said and everything that they have published so far—in the original agreement and in the coalition document Our Programme for Government—talks about more public involvement, more consultation and more involvement of citizens. We are slowly learning what the big society means, but if it does not mean genuine consultation on something that is as important to a local community as the future of its school, what on earth does it mean? Something needs to be in the Bill about consultation, and it needs to involve not just particular interest groups in the school but the wider community.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I support Amendments 114 and 191. I particularly support Amendment 191, because it asks the Government to pilot the academy schools and I think that a conservative approach to this is appropriate. This is so significant to our children’s lives. I recognise that this is an enabling Bill, but we expect many schools to buy into this programme. This is a huge experiment and it really does behove us to act in a conservative and considered way. Piloting a scheme, as the amendment suggests, would be a good step forward.
I have previously raised with the Minister my concerns about not only the most vulnerable children in the system but also the workforce and how these schools might cream off the best teachers and head teachers from the schools around them. I think that there is a consensus that the quality of teachers and head teachers makes the most difference to the education of children and young people.
To give examples from other areas, in the prison system we now have a mixed economy of private and public prisons. Private prisons are often accused of paying huge sums of money for the best executives from the public sector. The public sector trains the best prison officers, who get creamed off by private companies. They are also accused of putting junior officers in place who are underdeveloped and undersupported, and they quickly move on. I do not know whether that is a fair accusation but, from the statistics, the turnover of junior officers in private prisons is very much higher than in public prisons. There were all sorts of benefits to introducing a mixed economy in terms of breaking down inflexible practices, but I hope that the illustration shows that there is some cause for concern.
As regards childcare, I was speaking to the manager of a voluntary nursery which is not far from your Lordships’ House. She said, “We are very keen on training our childcare workers. They work for their national vocational qualification level 3 in childcare and as soon as we train them up they move to the local authority system where they get better pensions, benefits and job security”.
I have already mentioned independent social worker practices. I heard the Minister’s response to that. It is super that such new models can be very attractive to people coming into social work or teaching. They see themselves gaining the autonomy they want to run their own businesses. There is great enthusiasm for that. However, Paul Fallon, who was director of social services at Barnet, reduced the level of social work vacancies in his local authority from 30 per cent to 3 per cent in three years—I hope that I have the figures right, because they sound a bit too neat. He was well respected and was asked by the Government to be part of a committee advising on independent social work practices. His main concern was that these social work practices would cream off all the best social workers from thereabouts and that there would not be the continuity of provision essential in dealing with these children to ensure that they get back to their families.
This is a bit like a game of chess and the devil is always very good at enticing us with an attractive knight, a rook or even a queen. But we have to look further down the game. When we are dealing with something as serious as this, we have to look a number of moves ahead to the end game. I am concerned about this matter. I wish to learn more. I appreciate the Minister’s serious endeavours to reassure me and others.
I also recall the right-to-buy policy, which had many benefits for many people. Unfortunately, the need for councils to redevelop public provision—the local authority homes that were being sold off—was overlooked in that policy. I am sorry to say that in many areas this has condemned some families to sharing a kitchen or a bathroom with five other families. Many families have to live in awful conditions in poor-quality private accommodation because sufficient thought was not given to the overall impact of that policy. This is a good proposal from the opposition Benches and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I am sorry to return to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but I believe that it is fundamentally unworkable. It is not a question of judgments having to be made about terminology in legislation; these judgments have to be made the whole time. The problem with his amendment is that there are deeply competing interpretations within the education world as to what the words he has used in his amendment would mean. Having been on the receiving end of representations about the setting up of new schools, including schools in the county from which the noble Lord hails, I can tell him that he is setting up a procedure that will see every proposal for a new school that does not have near universal local support end up in the courts being bitterly contested because of the imprecision of language that he proposes to impose on the Bill.
Let me take the two specific terms he uses: that a new academy must meet “public need” before the Secretary of State is allowed to agree to it and that it should not,
“cause undue detriment to any neighbouring school”.
King Lear got this right more than 400 years ago when he said:
“O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous”.
But when it comes to defining need in respect of new school places, two fundamentally competing views are held. One is that “need” should be defined as a numerical need for additional places, while another and essentially different interpretation is that “need” should be based on parental demand for a new type of place or, as alas is too often the case in local authorities with a large number of failing schools, for better places, which is what has driven so much of the academy movement. It is not that there have not been enough school places in a locality, but that they have not been of a quality that parents in good conscience wish their children to take up.
The noble Lord owes it to the Committee to be frank and direct about which concept of need he has in mind. Is need to be defined simply as a numerical need for places or is it to be defined in terms of appreciable parental demand for a type of place—it could be for Montessori-type schools with a different educational philosophy—or better quality places than those on offer in the existing schools?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but he has rather challenged me. The answer to his question is this. My amendment leaves a discretion with the Secretary of State, and it will be for the Secretary of State to decide on the two or more interpretations of need. In the same way, it will be up to the Secretary of State to come to conclusions about undue detriment. If, through guidance, the Secretary of State gives a further indication of how the two tests have been interpreted, all the better. But as the noble Lord is well aware, the only basis on which this could be challenged in a court—and challenges to ministerial discretions, which are widespread, are extremely rare—would be that the Secretary of State had acted in a way that no reasonable person could have acted.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I do believe that that is a straight cop-out. Parliament has to be clear on what it means. There are two competing notions of need here and Parliament needs to state, before it charges the Secretary of State with these responsibilities, which one it means. As for judicial reviews and legal challenges being rare, there was one point when I was in the job now being done by the noble Lord, Lord Hill, when I was barely out of the High Court and the Court of Appeal on challenges to academies, most of them with support from the National Union of Teachers and a good number with support, one way or another, from bodies associated with local authorities. So Parliament needs to be clear on what it means.
We come then to “undue detriment”. Again, there are two competing views of what this is. It could be taken to mean making another school or schools totally non viable or it could be taken to mean that it would have a serious, definable or appreciable impact on another school or schools. Again, there is a fundamental difference between those two concepts of detriment—whether the detriment causes a school to become non viable or whether it simply has an impact or an appreciable impact. Again, Parliament needs to be clear which of the two it means.
This goes to the central point about school improvements as well. The noble Lord’s amendment says that the Secretary of State may not allow a new academy to be established if it causes undue detriment. I have to say that in many cases it is the dealing with the undue detriment that should be the duty of the Secretary of State or the responsible local authority using the huge array of school improvement powers available, including those that the Government of whom I was a member provided over 13 years. The idea that parents should not be able to access new or additional school places in areas where the schools are not providing good quality places simply because the provision of those places will cause detriment to other schools fundamentally ignores the interests of parents and their right to have a decent quality school to send their children to. If there is not such a decent quality school and someone is prepared to do something substantive about it, they should be applauded and not put through the legal rigmarole that the noble Lord is proposing, which will work fundamentally against the interests of parents, particularly in places where schools are not of a high enough quality. The imprecision of the language, where it is not clear what the definitions of essential terms such as “detriment” and “need” will be, will ensure that the only people who will gain from this are the lawyers, who will make huge fees while this is fought out in the courts over many years.
Lord Baker of Dorking
My Lords, I support entirely what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said. It is a pity that he is not saying it from the Labour Front Bench because he is absolutely right.
On listening to the debates both before and after dinner, I was struck by how similar they were to the debates on the Education Reform Act 1988, when I decided to establish two groups of independent schools—city technology colleges, which were totally independent of government and financed by business people, and grant maintained schools, which were almost independent of government—which we had to get through as a result of an elaborate electoral process which in those days your Lordships tried to hinder, restrict and limit. I was told at the time that these schools would destroy the education system, that the detriment to schools would be overwhelming and that ordinary secondary schools would be undermined and destroyed. That is not what has happened.
In 1988 the Labour Party objected so strongly that it said it would abolish them all; that it would destroy them as soon as it came into power. That did not happen. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was a member of a Government who actually expanded and developed them at the expense of local education authorities, I would remind him. He was a senior member of a Government and a Minister of State who approved all this. The CTCs were not voted down. They became beacon schools which other local schools tried to emulate.
In the early days of city technology colleges, the local education authorities opposed them so strongly that they told the other local authority schools for which they were responsible to have nothing to do with them; not to play games with them. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will remember; he was in the House in those days. The local authorities ostracised them; they said that they were the cuckoos in the nest that would destroy them. Now they tell them to co-operate with them; they are trying to imitate them and to reach the standards that they have established. That is an enormous change, as it was with the grant-maintained schools. I shall allow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to intervene but I want him to listen to me for a moment. Again, the Labour Party spent 10 years totally opposing the grant-maintained schools and then it reinvented them and called them trust schools.
However, let us forget all of that. I do not want to make party points tonight. This provision for alternative types of schools is good for the whole education system; it drives up standards. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, if parents are dissatisfied with a local school and the local authority has tried to improve it—it has thrown resources at it and changed the head three times in two years and done everything it can—and it still has not happened, what does it do? Just let it go on to the detriment of all the pupils? I shall give way to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in a moment, because he is being stirred, but I shall give way to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, first.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am intrigued. Is the noble Lord, Lord Baker, saying that the creation of a new school cannot severely damage an existing good school? If he acknowledges that it can, is he saying that nothing should be done about it?
Lord Baker of Dorking
Very often, if there is a good local school there will not be the creation of another school. If you have got a very good primary school that is satisfying the demands of the parents and children, you will not get another group of parents and teachers wishing to create a new primary school.
The noble Lord does not know how difficult it is to start a school. For the past three years I have been starting new schools—at first with Lord Dearing—the new university technical colleges. It is a hard row to hoe because many people do not want it. These are colleges for 14 to 18 year-olds—which is disruptive for an 11-to-18 system for a start—specialising in technological and academic subjects. When Ron and I started, local authorities were not very interested. They did not like them for all the reasons that the noble Lord gave: they hurt good schools. Now I find that local authorities are coming to my little team, saying, “We’d like one of those, please”. They have seen that it is a new model that they like; it is better. I do not believe for a moment that a good school is threatened—that is rubbish, if I may say so to the noble Lord. He should not get up; he has had his go. Only bad schools are threatened; that is the problem. I can tell the noble Lord that it takes enormous effort to get a school started—to get parents together, to get teachers together. Meetings do not happen. Who is the champion? Can they bring it together? Then we have a divisive curriculum. Then they have to find support and make it viable economically: they have to find a primary school for 150 pupils and a secondary school for 500 to 600 pupils. That is an enormous hurdle. All the hurdles that Members of this Committee have tried to put in the way of the new schools over the past few hours is nothing compared to the task that committed groups will have to take on. That is the reality of life. It requires enormous effort and a tremendous act of corporate activity. We should not try to hobble and hinder that activity too much.
I prefer working with local education authorities. For the schools that I am establishing, we talk first to the local education authorities. If you are creating 14-to-19 colleges, they have to accommodate the 11-to-14 pupils. They also have to accept that it is a very different body in their school organisation. But now I am finding that local authorities like it. It is novel; it is different; and it will be effective. It will be effective, because in every comprehensive at age 12, 13 and 14, you have a vast number of disengaged pupils who do not want to continue in their local comprehensive school. We are providing an alternative which the state system has not yet provided. It provided it back in the 1950s as technical schools, but they failed because they were skill by snobbery. That is why we get a university to sponsor each of our colleges.
I therefore say to Members who are anxious about all this disrupting our education system that the new academies, to the extent that they will exist in the future, will improve our education system. They will improve the standards; they will get the commitment of local people, which will be very energetic. Even the Liberal Party knows how difficult it is to get local people to do anything—even to vote for them occasionally. So let us imagine how difficult it is to get local people committed to establishing a new school. That is why the Government are trying to make it as easy as possible. We should not make it too difficult for them to do so. This is a very imaginative proposal by the Government and it should be welcomed. It will be welcomed first by the Liberal Party—obviously; it will be welcomed reluctantly by the Labour Party, just as it came to welcome the city technology colleges and the grant-maintained schools. It is only a question of time. It is still in the mode of fighting the last election. When it starts fighting the next election, it will begin to realise that what we are saying is really rather attractive, responsive to the needs of people and beneficial to the education of our country. I cannot wait for the day.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I do enjoy this coalition politics, but I think that my noble friends on my left are looking too much at institutions and too little at parents. They should think in terms instead of the interests of parents and the pupils. They are taking too static a view of the schools system. Schools are changing and jostling for places all the time. In a town with three or four secondary schools, the least popular may suddenly get a good new headmistress who makes a great difference and the school becomes popular again. Pupils flow to her away from the other schools. This is a naturally dynamic system which can easily absorb other levels of change. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, the Government have lots of levers to deal with any problems that develop as a result of change—we will come to that when we talk about inspections and how we watch the way which the system is going. We are talking about a change which results in parents being happier, pupils doing better and provision being much more closely aligned with the best interests of pupils and parents. Yes, there may be a few bumps in the road, but if we are careful as a Government, we will make sure that they do not hurt people. That must be the way we should go, rather than sticking with what we all agree is a system with a very large proportion of unsatisfactory, or at least sub-optimal, provision.
Lord Whitty
I owe the noble Lord, Lord Baker, at least a brief response since he took us back not only to 1988 but to the 1950s. I read his article about technical colleges and I have some sympathy with it because, for the record, I am strongly in favour of local authorities. But that does not mean that I am against choice and diversity of provision. I do not think that the local authority has to provide everything or that everybody who works at the local authority school has to be employed by the local authority. That is not my position. My position is that the local authority should have oversight. The local authority is responsible for the community and the future of that community. However, the amendment that the noble Lords, Lord Phillips and Lord Greaves, and I are proposing is much more modest. It simply says that the local authority should be consulted, and that these things should be taken into account.
Despite a wide-ranging difference of ideological approach between the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and me, the actual answer to these amendments is relatively restricted. It emphasises the importance of local authorities. Unless the Bill keeps in mind that local authorities are big players in this game, there will be conflict and difficulties.
The other point that I would make to the noble Lord, Lord Baker is that much of what he was describing is not what is being proposed by this Government but what was being enacted by the previous Government. In other words, they were seeing schools that were failing and areas where the local authority was performing badly overall. They introduced academies into that context. I do not totally agree with it, but I sympathise and understand the motivation for that. But what the Minister and his boss Michael Gove are proposing is almost the opposite. They are saying that all schools can apply, but they will take the outstanding ones first. They will automatically take the outstanding schools away from the role of the local authority and leave it to manage the less good schools.
That is an inversion of how the noble Lord, Lord Baker, described the motivation for establishing academies. To some extent, it is an inversion of what the previous Government were attempting to do with the academies that they established. That is the part of the strategy I object to. But I repeat that our amendment is much more modest. I hope that the Minister can at least accept one of our amendments.
Lord Bates
My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for tabling Amendment 4 and giving us the opportunity to look again at Clause 1(6)(d), because there is a potential difficulty for the Government down the line. We intend to provide freedom for people to establish schools, yet paragraph (d) says that,
“the school provides education for pupils who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.
The noble Lord, Lord Baker, has just spoken. Of course, the city technology colleges were successful because they did not have that restriction. There was nothing to say that they had to “wholly or mainly” draw pupils from the area of the school. Therefore, they could draw them from a wider area, which was how they became beacon schools.
From my reading, Swedish schools are not subject to the same restrictions in terms of having to draw from very narrow boundaries. There is a potential risk, particularly in the primary sector as distinct from the secondary sector, of deleterious effects on neighbouring schools. I ask my noble friend to look again at the wording of that clause and see whether “wholly or mainly” needs to be included or whether a general statement about pupils being drawn from the area in which the school is situated would suffice.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, there have been times in the past half an hour or so when I thought that I should contract my job out to the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Baker, and I have been sitting here feeling rather redundant. Between them, they made many of the points that I hoped to make, perhaps more briefly but no doubt less forcefully and persuasively and argued with far less experience, in my case, than that which noble Lords bring to bear. Both their contributions very eloquently made the core point that I would like to make in response, particularly to Amendment 4.
Generally, these amendments probe the Government’s intentions in relation to local authorities and the effect of academy orders on local provision, particularly in circumstances in which a large number of maintained schools wish to convert within a single local authority. We also have a specific amendment to do with new schools, to which I shall come in a moment.
We had an earlier discussion about consultation, which noble Lords will be relieved to know I do not intend to rehash. I said in the light of those comments earlier that I would ponder further and, in doing so, think about the points made to me by my noble friend Lord Greaves. We expect schools to consult parents, staff and pupils.
I move to one general point that touches on the points made by my noble friend Lord Baker and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I think that it is the case—and I am discovering this already with anything to do with academy proposals—that there is no shortage of people coming forward when there are academy proposals, making their views known. The local press tend to make their views known and local groups make their views known very forcefully. Groups of parents not in favour of conversion make their views known and groups in favour make their views known. It is not as though currently these academy proposals are considered in a vacuum or in some kind of Trappist silence. I am sure that that vigorous debate in which local people, whoever they are, make their views known as widely as possible will continue.
Our point of principle in this Bill is that schools that want to pursue academy status should have that freedom. Others have made that case far more forcefully than I am able to do or need to rehearse.
On the point of the role of localism, which in the coalition we discuss frequently and to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred, the debate will clearly continue. People have different views on what localism means and how it should be represented and policed—if that is the right word. With the Bill, we think that individual schools—
Lord Greaves
I do apologise, but I cannot avoid jumping in. How do you police localism?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I apologise to the noble Lord. The word “police” came unwittingly from my lips. He may have sensed that I was fumbling my way through my sentence and I withdraw it unreservedly.
It is our view that, with regard to local decision-making, involving individual schools, teachers and parents is about as local as it is possible to get. We can argue about how we make that work, but I think that that is pretty local. We think that responsibility for educating children and young people should be devolved to the most local level possible. It is that principle, which I know that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, disagrees with strongly, which has led us to decide that local authorities should not be in a position to veto academy conversions. We know that existing rights in the past have meant that that has happened. If we were to give local authorities the right to be consulted on aspects of this new conversion process, our fear would be that they would be frustrated as it has been frustrated in the past. As has already been set out very eloquently by others, the need to tackle problems of education failure is too urgent to allow that to be frustrated.
I turn to the individual amendments. Amendment 4, moved by my noble friend Lord Phillips, would require the Secretary of State to be satisfied, before entering into academy arrangements, that any new academy met a public need in an area. We had an interesting debate in the House in which these points and the potential legal downsides were aired. I have listened with care to the points made by my noble friend Lord Phillips. He and I have discussed this issue and the specific case that he has in mind, so I understand his view. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on the amendment. I am concerned about its wording, which could give rise to the danger that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, pointed out. The whole point of the free schools policy is that in some cases the proposals should be able to cause detriment to a school if that school has been failing and has let children down repeatedly over a long period. Such a school should be able to be challenged and detriment should be caused to it, so that a new and better school can be established or the school ups its game and improves the education that it offers. That said—
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I regret interrupting the noble Lord, but he misses the main point of my case, as did the noble Lord, Lord Baker. Considerations on the part of some of those who wish to form new schools are not genuinely to do with educational need; they are—let us put it brutally—about a sort of social separateness. I am thinking of the leafy suburbs to which the noble Lord referred. The case that I referred to at Second Reading and tonight involves a good and improving school—indeed, it is the most improved school in the county of Suffolk—which will, according to its head and chair of governors, be mortally damaged if the new school is created. I cannot believe that that is what this coalition Government want to enable.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I understand the point that my noble friend Lord Phillips makes. As I said, we have discussed it. It is in no one’s interests to come up with proposals that would damage education overall in an area. That is not the intention or purpose.
The decision whether to go ahead with a free school will not be taken in isolation. The Secretary of State has the discretion to take all relevant considerations into account as part of the approval process. Those considerations would, I am sure, include the kind of issues that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, raises. I go back to my earlier point: it seems inconceivable that concerns of the kind that he has raised with me and the views that I know are held by the people concerned with this case would not be made known, not least by my noble friend. The Secretary of State would have to reflect on those in making his decision.
During the application process, proposers will be expected to discuss their plans with any local partners, including the local authority, and we will encourage them to do that. The Secretary of State has said—as I mentioned in our debate about the free schools announcement, he wrote to local authorities about this at the end of last week—that, alongside other checks in place, he will talk to local authorities to make sure that he fully understands the local context and circumstances before making a final decision on whether to support the establishment of a free school.
I hope that these are common-sense and practical reassurances and that they will provide some comfort that the process gives the Secretary of State the flexibility to take these issues into account. As I also mentioned, these are early days of the free schools policy. Our approach is to work through the implications of the applications as they come in. I am sure that, over time, we will resolve these issues; we certainly have a willingness and desire to do so.
Lord Greaves
Is that letter to local authorities somewhere on the website, or can we please have a copy of it?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am happy to send that to my noble friend. It has been widely publicised and I think it has been circulated, but I will make sure that he has his own special copy.
Lord Greaves
Maybe other Members of the Committee would like special copies as well. Can we have them individually signed or in different colours?
Lord Hill of Oareford
We will have one colour for the coalition. I thought that the letter had been made available in the Library. If it has not, I will make sure that it is. I will still give my noble friend his own special copy.
It is our view that all schools should be free to apply to become academies, subject to the decision of the governing body and its foundation where appropriate. That does not mean that all schools will be approved to become academies. Some schools may not meet the criteria of acceptability or show sufficient evidence that they will be able to deliver an acceptable level of education. Some may not show evidence of enough demand to make them viable. We will consider each case on its merits in the light of the situation in that area.
Amendments 116, 117 and 129 would require the local authority to be consulted about several aspects of the conversion process. I have already set out our view in this respect. We do not want to be in a position where a local authority could veto the process.
Lord Whitty
I gently say to the Minister that, yes, one of my amendments would give local authorities a veto but another would not, and nor would those of the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Phillips. Consultation is not a veto. Ministers in this Government will find that all sorts of statutes require Ministers to consult before they make a decision. It is a bit irritating. At the end of the day, Ministers can ignore it or override it, but at least they have gone through the process. That is all we are asking for here.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I understand the point that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, makes. I stand corrected. Amendments 119 and 191 propose an assessment of the educational impact of each academy conversion before it can go ahead, and a pilot process to make similar assessments over several years. Academies are not a new phenomenon. We know that that they have achieved great things over the years. They already work in partnership with other local schools. They make sensible and co-operative arrangements with local children’s services. If we were newly introducing academies, these proposals might well be worth considering very carefully, but we are not. We are, therefore, not convinced that they are necessary.
Amendment 177 would require academies to promote community cohesion. That is obviously, in broad terms, a worthy aim. The question is, how do we see this being achieved? As a condition of grant, an academy is already required by its funding agreement to be at the heart of its community, sharing facilities with other schools and the wider community. Future academies will continue to be under this obligation.
I am mindful that somewhere in these amendments was Amendment 137, tabled by my noble friend Lady Walmsley. She asked about the delegation of decisions to an individual governor. We would not expect governing bodies to delegate decision-making in connection with an application for an order to an individual. We would ensure that our system required governing bodies to forward to us a copy of the minutes of the governing body meeting so that we can be satisfied in that connection.
Amendments 76A and 92A deal with post-16 arrangements in academies. I hope that noble Lords will be reassured to hear that where we are being asked to fund an expansion of post-16 provision in an academy we will require the academy to make a strong case for expansion and to show that other local providers have been consulted, but we are not convinced that such a requirement needs to be in the Bill. Recurrent funding in academies, including for sixth-form provision, is formulated to ensure that academies are no better off and no worse off than maintained schools for the provision of similar services. However, as we know, they receive funding to buy in services from a local authority or another provider where these will no longer be provided free of charge to the school. A cap that prevented academies from receiving funding for these services would leave academies worse off than maintained schools.
In light of the general discussion that we have had about the role of the local authority, I urge all noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.
Lord Baker of Dorking
Before my noble friend sits down, I draw his attention to the point made by my noble friend Lord Bates. However, I am not asking him to make any commitment tonight. My noble friend Lord Bates said that the new schools should provide education if pupils were,
“wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.
That may be too narrow. If there is a wider catchment area for the new schools, the effect on the area local schools will be much less. Certainly, we have very wide catchment areas for the university technical colleges; for example, half the Black Country. This is acceptable to local authorities because no individual school is hit too much. Will he consider that before Report, please?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will certainly reflect on that point and see where my reflections take me. In conclusion, I urge all noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
At this hour, and having had this very considerable and useful debate, I am sure that it is incumbent on me to withdraw my amendment.