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Oral Answers to Questions
(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
1. If he will discuss with his French counterpart joint UK-French procurement of medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to the Royal Marine who died in Afghanistan last Thursday. His family and friends are in all our thoughts and prayers at this very difficult time for them. We are very fortunate to have such men in our armed forces.
I will be discussing a range of issues when I next meet my French counterpart. I would expect the subject of unmanned aerial systems to be among them.
Mike Crockart
I thank my right hon. Friend for his response, but what assurances can he give me that the progress made by the UK recently in technological advances in UAV research, which have been particularly effective in the fight against improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, will not be lost owing to budget cuts coming up in the Ministry of Defence?
Dr Fox
Both Britain and our key partners have defence aerospace skills and technologies that we wish to maintain as sovereign capabilities. As part of assessing any procurement system—we have made no decisions—the impact on critical UK aerospace skills and capabilities will be considered in the strategic defence and security review, as well as in the upcoming budgetary rounds.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
But is the Secretary of State aware that the French are thinking of buying in the Reaper drone from General Atomics because their EADS also is so far behind in producing this kind of essential new weapon? After reading your interesting interview in The Independent today, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if you are aware of the report by two French Deputies exactly on drones, produced last December in the French National Assembly—a 90-page specialist report by a Socialist and a Conservative MP presented to the French Ministry of Defence? Do we not need such input from MPs to try to help the Secretary of State as he makes decisions?
Dr Fox
I am always open to the help offered by the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps one day we will find a use for it. We are indeed in discussions with the French about joint procurement, but a decision by the French to join Predator would not necessarily preclude them from joint procurement in the future with the United Kingdom on long-term solutions.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
2. When he plans to publish the results of the Trident value-for-money study.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
The Ministry of Defence’s work on the value-for-money study should be completed at the end of this month. The findings will go to the Cabinet Office, and will then be considered by the National Security Council. The council’s conclusions will inform the strategic defence and security review and the comprehensive spending review, which will be published in the autumn.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Will the results of the value-for-money study include plans on the infrastructure that supports our deterrent?
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
Given that Trident is costing us perhaps £1 billion or £2 billion every year, and an estimated £96 billion over its entire lifetime, does the Minister agree that we should listen to the military figures who are increasingly saying that it is not necessary and counting it as something to be considered in the comprehensive spending review?[Official Report, 19 July 2010, Vol. 514, c. 1-2MC.]
Dr Fox
Ultimately, it is up to the Government to decide what the policy should be. There is a wide range of advice, military and otherwise. The House came to the conclusion that it did in 2007 on the basis that we believed that that was a cost-effective way for this country to go forward with a nuclear deterrent. We know that abroad there are a number of countries trying to develop nuclear weapons. We do not know what will happen between now and 2015—the time scale for the Trident replacement programme—and we cannot play fast and loose with Britain’s defences.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
3. What recent progress has been made on the reform of NATO.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)
In 2009, NATO agreed a series of measures to improve working practices in its headquarters in Brussels, and a new defence planning process better to help allies develop, acquire and maintain the capabilities required for the full range of NATO missions. Work to reform NATO’s resource management, rationalise its agencies and streamline its command structures is also under way, and should be agreed by the NATO summit in Lisbon in November.
Bob Stewart
Will the new structure that is in place in NATO be altered again so that we get better results from our operations out of area, particularly in Afghanistan?
Mr Howarth
My hon. and gallant Friend makes a very good point, and at the NATO Defence Ministers’ summit last month my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary made it clear that command structure reform is a key priority for the United Kingdom and for the alliance, because NATO’s structure is too big and static, and too much is simply not geared up for the missions that we are undertaking, such as in Afghanistan. The House might like to ponder on the fact that, significantly, NATO did not employ elements of its command structure in any meaningful capacity in Afghanistan; instead, it put together a bespoke operation.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
As the role of NATO in Afghanistan is increasingly criticised and the threat of terrorism here comes far more from our own disaffected Muslims than from the Tora Bora mountains, is it not rather bizarre that from on high we have heard recently that there are likely to be cuts in our counter-terrorist units here while we continue to sacrifice the precious, heroic lives of our young people in an unnecessary and unwinnable war against the Pashtun tribes?
Mr Speaker
Order. I know that in the reply from the Front Bench the hon. Gentleman will of course refer to the reform of NATO.
Mr Howarth
I have quite a few challenges, Mr Speaker, but that is one that I am not entirely geared up to meet in the light of the observations and question from my hon. Friend. His views are well known and I have a huge admiration for him, but I have to tell him that I am not responsible for the resources that are devoted to counter-terrorist operations. None the less, I can tell him that there is a very clear view from the Government Front Benchers here that the mission in Afghanistan is a NATO mission. It is not an American mission; it is not even an Anglo-American mission. It is a NATO mission, and it is extremely important that that mission succeeds.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
4. What estimate he has made of his Department’s expenditure on military equipment in 2010-11; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
The Department’s current planned expenditure on the procurement of military equipment—excluding urgent operational requirements for Afghanistan—for the financial year 2010-11 is £6.6 billion, of which £5.5 billion is capital expenditure. In addition, planned expenditure on the associated military equipment support costs for the financial year 2010-11 is £6.3 billion, of which £1.6 billion is capital expenditure.
Claire Perry
Will the Minister confirm that he has digested fully the lessons of the Bernard Gray report, which was suppressed by the previous Government and, when released, suggested that £2.5 billion was being wasted on procurement procedures? When will he update the House with the new procurement procedures?
Peter Luff
I congratulate my hon. Friend on a very sensible question. Labour’s record on debt and financial instability makes that challenge even more important than it already was. I have digested the lessons of that very important report, the strategy for acquisition reform continues, and I hope to report to the House at a later date.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
The Government recently made a commitment to publish regional and national defence expenditure statistics and then, within days, reneged on it. Does the MOD have any commitment to equitable defence spending throughout the UK?
Peter Luff
If Scotland accepted the case for the nuclear deterrent, the hon. Gentleman’s argument would be a lot more impressive.
Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)
It is good to hear about the Department’s planned expenditure and, particularly, from my hon. Friend. Last year, on 20 July, the Ministry of Defence published its accounts, which set out the planned expenditure, and for the third year running those accounts were qualified. Will they be published again this month, and will they be qualified again this year?
Peter Luff
They will be published at a very early date, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend’s Committee will take a very close interest in them when they are.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
In December last year, I announced £150 million to improve the capacity of our counter-improvised explosive device teams in Afghanistan, and, as that is the highest threat level that our forces face, expenditure was kept under review. Recently, the Prime Minister announced another £67 million for the same purpose, and I welcome that, because it is really needed. However, will the Minister clarify the situation? The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that that £67 million will double the number of counter-IED teams. Is that true?
Peter Luff
The £67 million is intended to provide enhanced protection for our teams in Afghanistan and additional mine-detecting equipment, and to procure working dogs—a very effective part of counter-IED work.
Mr Ainsworth
I understand that, and it is welcome. That is exactly what I put in place when I was doing the job that the hon. Gentleman and his team are doing now, and I kept that need under review. However, is it all new money, and will it do what the Prime Minister repeatedly said it would? He said in terms, “We are doubling the counter-IED teams.” He cannot double the counter-IED teams for £67 million. Let us have a straight answer.
Peter Luff
The right hon. Gentleman is understandably concerned, as this is about a very important threat to our armed forces. I can tell him, however, that the difference between this Government and the previous Government is that we have found the money that is crucial in dealing with this threat, and lectures on new money or old money come very ill from him. In the past, commitments were made for many things, but we are actually going to find the money and deliver this vital tool for our armed forces serving in Afghanistan.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
5. What plans he has for future support for cadet forces.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
The Government remain committed to the cadet movement, the origins of which date back 150 years. It is one of the oldest and most successful voluntary youth organisations in the world. The strategic defence and security review is looking at all areas of defence, and it would be wrong to speculate on its conclusions.
Charlotte Leslie
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. Will he join me in paying tribute to the Avonmouth and Filton sea cadets in my constituency, with whom I actively work, and to the volunteers who give up so much of their lives for these organisations? Can he assure me that they will continue to have Government support, since the role they perform is so valuable and they do not always perform it in the best of facilities?
Mr Robathan
I can certainly reassure my hon. Friend that I pay tribute to those organisations. The cadet movement is extremely important; as I said, it is one of the most successful voluntary youth organisations in the world. It has been somewhat under-appreciated in past years, and we very much hope that it will now raise its levels of appreciation. Indeed, tomorrow I am going to the march-past and parade in the Mall to celebrate 150 years of the cadet movement.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
During the series of Government cuts that we all face, will the Minister consider whether buildings belonging to the Government that are being closed could have a future life in providing headquarters for the cadet movement? Many cadet forces are struggling to find accommodation, and there could well be small offices or equipment stores that they could use. Will he look at that, please?
Mr Robathan
I would be very happy to look at it. The Government welcome any submissions, from wherever, about broad or individual cases such as those that the hon. Lady mentions. We cannot prejudge the results of the SDSR, as she will understand, but I would, by all means, be grateful if she would make a submission on individual or general cases.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)
I am lucky enough to be the Honorary Colonel of Nottinghamshire Army Cadet Force—a famous fighting unit. We provide almost 60% of our soldiers—cadets—as recruits for the regular Army. Sadly, too many of these individuals are going to Lincoln and Nottingham Army careers information offices and finding that they are being turned away having been told that there is a delay of at least nine months, and in many cases 12 months, before they can join the regular Army. I do not find that acceptable.
Mr Robathan
Nottinghamshire Army Cadet Force is very privileged to have my hon. Friend as its colonel, and I know that he will do very good work for it given his gallant past in the Army.
Regarding recruitment, at the moment the Army, in particular, is almost exactly at full recruitment levels, and there are therefore no places available. However, as my hon. Friend will know from his past experience, these things change literally by the month. I hope that the keen cadets from Nottinghamshire will continue to come forward, and I hope that we can find places for them in the Army. However, especially when we are considering an SDSR, I am afraid that we cannot swell the Army just because there are excellent recruits coming forward; we look forward to seeing them.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
6. What his plans are for the future of the aircraft carriers programme.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we are in the process of carrying out a strategic defence and security review within which all aspects of the defence programme, including the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, will be examined. The impact on any specific equipment projects will be announced following the conclusion of the review in the autumn.
Mr Hepburn
I thank the Minister for that reply, but urge him to stand by the Defence Secretary’s pre-election comments and statements saying that these particular carriers were of urgent and vital importance to Britain’s defence. May I urge the Minister to give full steam ahead to these projects and invite him to meet me at my constituency shipyard to discuss the matter further?
Peter Luff
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman in his constituency and look forward to doing so on a mutually agreeable date. However, he will understand that with a strategic defence and security review going on, it is impossible to give the type of commitment that he seeks. I wish I could, but I cannot.
Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
7. What recent discussions he has had on alternatives to the Trident nuclear deterrent.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
The Government are committed to retaining a minimum nuclear deterrent based on Trident. We have commissioned a review to scrutinise existing plans to renew the deterrent, to ensure value for money.
Diana R. Johnson
Have the Liberal Democrats put forward their alternatives to Trident as set out in the coalition agreement, and if so, what are they? They kept very quiet during the general election about what they were.
Dr Fox
I am responsible for a lot of things, but the Liberal Democrats’ answers on specific points of policy are a matter for them, not for me. The coalition agreement is very clear that although the Government have set out their policy, the Liberal Democrats are very good at coming forward with their own particular solutions, as I can make clear to the hon. Lady.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
In the inexplicable absence of any Liberal Democrat on his feet, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees that as an alternative to Trident, the idea of putting nuclear-armed cruise missiles on Astute class submarines would be more expensive and less effective, would put the submarines at risk and, because one cannot know what sort of warhead is on a cruise missile until it has landed, could start world war three by accident? Does he agree that apart from that, it is a great Liberal Democrat idea?
Dr Fox
I am unlikely to be tempted down that route.
As the House will know, when we considered the entire issue in 2006 and 2007 we looked at options for other systems, including cruise missiles, silo-based missiles and air-launched weapons. Those other options were discounted due to effectiveness and cost. That analysis has not changed, and alternative systems will not be considered as part of the value-for-money review.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
8. What steps he plans to take to improve the standard of armed forces accommodation; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
The coalition Government place a high priority on the welfare of service personnel and their families. We will look at whether there is scope to refurbish the armed forces’ accommodation from efficiencies within the Ministry of Defence.
Natascha Engel
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer, because as he is fully aware, the Labour Government put aside £3 billion to improve the living accommodation of the armed forces. Has that money been ring-fenced to protect it from the 20% Treasury cuts?
Mr Robathan
The last Administration may have put aside a great deal of money, but they did not say where it was coming from, and indeed the money did not exist. As the hon. Lady will know, we are living with the serious economic and financial conditions that the last Administration put in place. In the SDSR we will prioritise the needs and accommodation of defence personnel and their families.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that as well as being extremely important to the regular armed forces, accommodation is also crucial to the reserve forces and cadets? Following the earlier question of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), may I urge him to examine the remarkable work of Greater London Reserve Forces and Cadets Association in finding ways of saving money by sharing cadet accommodation with a variety of different youth organisations?
Mr Robathan
My hon. Friend has been explaining the situation of the reserve forces to me for a very long time, and as he knows, I broadly agree with him. He makes a very sensible suggestion, and I would be most grateful if he made a written submission. If we can save money and be more efficient, we would certainly be delighted so to do.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
For starters, has the Minister signed off the money for this year? The money is there, and I wish he would not keep peddling these untruths that things are not costed.
The Conservative defence team, when in opposition, gave a high priority to armed service accommodation. The Secretary of State, in The Daily Telegraph last January, wrote:
“Welfare is another major issue that needs to be better addressed. We all too often hear about substandard housing”.
I am sure that Conservative Members, and more importantly members of our armed forces and their families, will expect the coalition to match our funded commitments on accommodation, or are we just to see yet another cynical ploy whereby the Conservatives support the armed forces in opposition with various spending commitments but then cynically withdraw them, as we saw last week with the freezing of armed forces pay?
Mr Robathan
There are such things as parallel universes. We had 13 years of the last Administration and now, after seven weeks, we are accused of failing to address the issues of armed forces accommodation. This is complete nonsense. The hon. Gentleman accuses me of peddling untruths; I refer him to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Defence Committee, who wants to know about the Ministry of Defence accounts. When we see those accounts, we will be able to judge whether the money was there.
Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
9. What his most recent assessment is of the security situation in Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)
We recognise that the security situation in Afghanistan remains very serious. However, we remain committed to protecting the Afghan civilian population and to developing the Afghan national security forces, to enable them to take on the lead for security themselves.
Nick Harvey
There are currently about 119,000 members of the Afghan national army and about 104,000 members of the Afghan national police in Afghanistan. Targets for significant increases in both the army and police, supported by the international community, were agreed at the London conference. I remind my hon. Friend that that target is 171,000 members of the army and 134,000 members of the police by the end of next year. That would take the total security force numbers to more than 300,000.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
A detailed American investigation into the Afghan army reports that a third of this group of drug-addicted mercenaries desert every year and that its members have little or no loyalty to their election-rigging President, their own Government or international Governments. Why on earth do we expect to build a stable Afghanistan on that crumbling foundation?
Nick Harvey
I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s description. I visited Afghanistan just two weeks ago and British and American armed forces spoke very well of their Afghan colleagues. Nobody pretends that the situation is perfect, but we are involved in an embedded partnering relationship with the Afghan national army to try to ensure that the highest degree of skill and professionalism continues to grow and develop. We are impressed with what it has done so far; it is increasingly able both to plan and execute missions in its own right, and I have no doubt whatever that we are continuing to progress in the right direction.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I, too, have been out to see the Afghan national army being trained in Afghanistan. My impression is that it has been doing extremely well under the brilliant professionalism of the British instructors. But does the Minister accept that the police are much more worrying and have hugely further to go? The issue is about not just how many there are but the quality of their training. Can we not get more help from the Metropolitan police or other British police forces to help with their training?
Nick Harvey
In recent years, it has certainly been true that there have been concerns about the police not being as good as the army. However, I think that that situation is being rapidly addressed and that there is a tangible improvement in the training being given to the Afghan national police. The Helmand police training centre is based strongly on western models. There is a lot of western assistance in there, and most recent reports say that the quality of police recruits has improved tangibly on what it was like a couple years ago.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
Can the Minister for the Armed Forces help to clear up some of the recent confusion on Afghan policy? The Prime Minister seems to be saying, both in the House and elsewhere, that there is a deadline—that all our troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of the Parliament, by 2014. The Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary appear to be saying something slightly different. And we now have Lord Guthrie; I am so pleased to be able to quote Lord Guthrie. He warns us that
“The Army doesn’t want a government that dithers.”
I agree. Is there a deadline?
Nick Harvey
The key to our exit from Afghanistan is that we want to see the Afghans take control of their own security. They are not able to do that yet, but will be better able to do it as time goes on. As they progressively do that, our own troop numbers will come right down and our role will completely change. The process of handing provinces and districts to Afghan control will take place on the basis of an assessment of the facts on the ground. However, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that there will not be British troops in a combat role or in significant numbers in five years’ time. Of course, troops will still be there in a training role, as part of a wider diplomatic relationship like that which we have with other countries.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
10. How much his Department has spent on works of art since 2005.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
Since 2005, the Ministry of Defence has spent on average around £58,000 a year protecting, preserving and maintaining its art collection. No works of art have been bought by the Department in the last five years.
Harriett Baldwin
Was the Minister as surprised as I was to learn that the Ministry of Defence has some 1,500 works of art, complete with curating staff? Does he agree that the MOD should focus on running our armed forces rather than an art gallery?
Mr Robathan
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that we should concentrate on running the armed forces, but I am sure she would agree that £58,000 is not a huge amount to spend on curating. However, I was pretty surprised to discover that in 2004, £250,000 was spent on Hoque and Cattrell paintings for the foyer of the main MOD building. It seems to me that that money could have been better spent on, for instance, armed forces accommodation, which has was raised earlier.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
Will the Minister therefore confirm whether the Department or the Government have any plans to sell off any of the Government art collection?
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
11. If he will consider, as part of the strategic defence and security review, the merits of the Army returning to RAF St Athan rather than RAF Cosford.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)
Plans for the defence training review package 1 project remain unchanged, and consequently it is still planned for 102 Logistics Brigade to relocate to RAF Cosford in 2018 under the BORONA programme. Like everything else in the defence world, that is subject to the strategic defence and security review. At this point, no decisions have been taken.
Mark Pritchard
Let me be clear: Shropshire has a long and proud history of working with the British Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, but does it not make sense, given the presence of the excellent special forces support group and 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment, and indeed the logistic hangars and a very long runway indeed at RAF St Athan in Wales, for 102 Logistics Brigade to return to St Athan rather than to RAF Cosford in Shropshire?
Nick Harvey
My hon. Friend is aware that there were two different proposals in the final analysis for the defence training review facilities: Cosford and St Athan. Those were subject to the most detailed scrutiny to decide which was the better fit for our defence requirements and the decision was that the defence training review should relocate facilities to St Athan. We believe that there is an obvious synergy between that and other work at St Athan, particular in high technology, and a lot of work has already gone into preparing for that move. To change course now, as he suggests, would undo a great deal of investment that has already been made and add considerably to the final cost.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly endorse what the Minister says. He is a brave man: he has seen off the first of the Tories of the afternoon, and I am delighted that he is sticking with St Athan. Is he prepared to meet a cross-party group of MPs from Wales so that we can feed into the ongoing discussions on the strategic defence review, and so that we can ensure that he understands fully the enormous value of bringing those elements of training together in south Wales, better to support our armed forces, which, in the end, is the single most important thing we can do?
Nick Harvey
I take the hon. Gentleman’s endorsement in the spirit it was intended. He will understand that our concern is to ensure both value for money and that the training facilities that we secure are best fitted to our defence needs. Decisions on progress will be necessary in the course of the next few months, and as part of that consideration and that work, I will be happy to talk to him and to others.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
12. What plans he has for a tri-service military covenant.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
We are committed to rebuilding the military covenant through the creation of a tri-service military covenant and have identified a number of areas that will allow us to do so. These measures are listed in our programme for government that was published on 22 May. The Prime Minister recently announced the doubling of the operational allowance in Afghanistan, which was an important first step on this road.
Stephen Mosley
It is crucial that we care for our serving personnel, but we must also care for our veterans. What measures will my hon. Friend put in place to ensure that we care for our veterans properly in the future, especially with regard to mental health issues?
Mr Robathan
On the broader issue, I have had two meetings in the past week on the military covenant and its implications. My hon. Friend mentions mental health in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who is in his place, is considering health issues and will report this summer on all such issues, including the mental health needs of ex-service personnel.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
13. Whether he has considered a timetable for the withdrawal of UK forces from Afghanistan.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
United Kingdom forces are in Afghanistan as part of an international coalition. We will take decisions on troop numbers in consultation with our partners.
Derek Twigg
Was the Secretary of State given advance notice of the Prime Minister’s statement in Canada recently that he wanted our armed forces home by 2015, and did No. 10 see a copy of the Secretary of State’s speech before he made it in Washington last week?
Dr Fox
The G8 in Canada in June sent a collective signal that we want Afghan national security forces to assume increasing responsibility for security within five years. 2015 is a full year beyond General McChrystal’s assessment of ANSF capability and it is entirely realistic that we will not have combat troops in Afghanistan at that time.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that any timetable will depend not just on the numbers in the Afghan national army, but on its effectiveness? What discussions has he had about the emerging problems of recruitment and retention, infrastructure and logistics? Are not those matters critical to the effectiveness of the Afghan national army?
Dr Fox
My hon. Friend is correct on all those issues. In fact, the number of the Afghan national security forces has tended to be ahead of trend in recent times. The quality of the training is constantly kept under review and I had discussions in Washington on the subject last week.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the security issue in Afghanistan is really whether we have enough troops on the ground? Even by General Petraeus’s assessment, we have barely one third of those required. Unless and until we can increase that number—and there is no prospect of doing so from any side—the choice will be to expose our troops and the American troops to more danger or, conversely, to expose the Afghan people. In the light of that, will he make a statement about the prospects for the future? Without security we have no future.
Dr Fox
We are seeing an increase in the number of American troops at the moment. As for the UK troops, it is not just the number but the relative force density that is important. That has improved in recent times and there is now a better match between our footprint and the size of the force. That happened under the previous Government and will continue to happen under the current Government until we are satisfied that we have an appropriate ratio.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
14. What steps he plans to take to ensure that injured service personnel are treated in dedicated military wards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
Injured service personnel will be cared for in the best specialist hospital ward for their clinical condition. Operational casualties with multiple trauma injuries will usually be treated in the military ward at the new Queen Elizabeth hospital in Edgbaston, but all patients, wherever they are treated, are given the invaluable military welfare, care and support that can contribute so much to their well-being and recovery.
Nick Smith
Will the Government be proceeding with the four purpose-built recovery centres first proposed by the Labour Government?
Mr Robathan
We are indeed proceeding with personal recovery units as part of the Army recovery capability. That was a legacy of the previous Administration, and one that I praise.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that under the previous Government the Haslar royal naval hospital was the last military hospital to be shut down. We are now at risk of losing another massive employer in Gosport in HMS Sultan, the Royal Navy engineering training school—recently graded outstanding by Ofsted—which could move to St Athan. Has the Minister considered the effect that any such move would have on the local community?
Mr Robathan
I have to confess to my hon. Friend that I have not been looking at that particular issue; however, I am sure that the closure—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Well, I am awfully sorry, but it is not part of my remit. However, I am sure that, as with everything else, we will be looking at that issue in the strategic defence and security review, and I hope that there will be no unfortunate implications for employment in the Portsmouth area.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
May I pay tribute to the dedicated staff at Selly Oak and to the men and women of Defence Medical Services, whom I had the honour of working with? We owe them a great debt of gratitude, and they include some previously unsung heroes who were rightly honoured in the recent Queen’s birthday honours list. I enjoyed reading about the coalition’s new defence policy in The Sun last week, including the re-announcement of the new military ward at Selly Oak. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has announced that the Army recovery capability, which was fully funded, will be continued. However, can we have an assurance today that Defence Medical Services will be protected in the defence budget, or will we just see cynical re-announcements of Labour achievements, albeit without the funding to go with them?
Mr Robathan
I do not feel that I have been cynically re-announcing any Labour achievements. What I would say is that it is not Selly Oak doing the work any more; it is the new Queen Elizabeth hospital down the road, which is replacing Selly Oak. It is a good hospital, and the scheme was planned and executed—although the facility was not opened—under the previous Administration. I entirely accept that. Indeed, I visited Selly Oak not a month ago, and I think that the care that people receive there is pretty good—it was not so good to begin with, but it is pretty good now. I shall not be cynically re-announcing anything; I shall just be planning on the basis of the coalition’s policies.
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
15. What recent representations he has received on arrangements for armed forces pensions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
I am just so busy today that I missed that one, Mr Speaker. We have received a number of representations on armed forces pensions, including in relation to the 1975 armed forces pension scheme and eligibility for those who served prior to its introduction; the link to the retail price index; and widows’ and widowers’ pensions for life.
Mr Hamilton
I thank the Minister for that delayed answer. Let me make a plea on behalf of one particular group of people. One important thing about the armed forces is the number of people who extend their terms of reference—who want to extend their period in the armed forces. It is imperative that that is not stopped. When the Minister looks at the review that is currently under way, will he ensure that the extension is protected for that group of armed forces personnel, for whom the pension is an important part of the decision to extend their time?
Mr Robathan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I should declare an interest, in that I am an armed forces pensioner—under the 1975 scheme, I think. I am not entirely clear about the question, so perhaps he could write to me with the details, and I will certainly respond to him.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
16. What role he will play in the appointment of a new Chief of the Defence Staff; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
The outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff provides an assessment of his potential successors, together with his recommendation. I then discuss the recommendation with him and my Defence Ministers, before making a recommendation to the Prime Minister. Thereafter, the approval of Her Majesty the Queen will be sought.
Frank Dobson
Once the appointment is announced, will the Government ensure that both the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister make it clear that they support the new appointment, and do not indulge in the spectacle of competitive briefing, claiming that they were the individual who got rid of the predecessor?
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
17. How many defence procurement contracts have been frozen since his appointment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
Out of the 57 equipment-related projects that were subject to re-approval as part of the exercise announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 17 May, two projects—the search and rescue helicopter project, and the procurement of long-lead items for the successor deterrent—have been suspended pending the outcome of urgent ongoing reviews. However, all projects, including those that have been re-approved, are being considered as part of the strategic defence and security review.
Mr Carswell
Does my hon. Friend believe that it is in the best interests of our armed forces that senior officials involved in preparing MOD contracts are regularly recruited to work for the contractor and lobby Government on its behalf?
Peter Luff
Like my hon. Friend, I have severe doubts about that particular practice, and I can assure him that I am watching it very carefully.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Can the Minister tell the House when he expects to agree the contract signed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) for the A400M, which is built in Bristol and serviced in north Wales? Twenty-two planes with 22 sets of wings are under contract by the Labour Government, but they have been frozen by the Conservative-Liberal Government.
Peter Luff
I wish I could answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question at length, but all I can say is that the A400M, like all other major projects, is part of the strategic defence and security review—the long overdue strategic defence and security review.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
My departmental responsibilities are to ensure that our country is properly defended now and in the future, that our service personnel have the right equipment and training to allow them to succeed in their military tasks, and that we honour the military covenant.
Dr Lewis
Only last August, a top military adviser stated publicly that it would take between 30 and 40 years for us to nation-build in Afghanistan under the present strategy and that there was no question of NATO pulling out. Within the last few days, the same top military adviser has stated that the time has begun for talks with the Taliban and that we could indeed have resolved our mission within the next four years. What does this conflicting advice say about the quality, the coherence and the consistency of the strategy which our Government have inherited in Afghanistan?
Dr Fox
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will probably remember a former Prime Minister saying that advisers advise and Ministers decide. For the benefit of newer Members, let me say that she was absolutely correct to do so. The Government decide the strategy in Afghanistan. We believe that we are there for reasons of national security, and we believe that we will have succeeded in our mission in Afghanistan when it is a stable enough state to manage its own internal and external security without reference to outside powers.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
T6. On reflection, does the Secretary of State think that the best way to advise of the retirement of the Chief of the Defence Staff is through the pages of The Sunday Times even before the Prime Minister has been consulted or before the Queen has been provided with that information?
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
T2. With defence exports being of critical importance to the economy in Fylde and jobs in the north-west, can the Secretary of State update me and the House on efforts made to drive the export potential of the Typhoon Eurofighter?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)
I can tell my hon. Friend that the good news is that the Typhoon aircraft, a formidable piece of kit, is in demand across the world, and there are a number of countries that have expressed serious interest in the Typhoon. I can also tell him that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already had a number of discussions with a number of interested parties, and that we shall arrange some cross-departmental ministerial visits to promote this very important aspect of our policy.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
T9. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is absolutely essential that the training of the three armed forces should be integrated into one site?
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)
As I said in the earlier part of questions, it remains our intention to proceed as planned, but this, of course, like everything else, is part of the strategic defence review.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
My hon. Friend will have observed that the Secretary of State declined an opportunity to state that he would publish the results of the Trident value for money review. May I urge him to publish the foreign policy baseline, which is the starting point of the defence review, so that the House can have the opportunity to debate the Government’s foreign policy objectives before we are presented with a fait accompli in the defence review itself?
Dr Fox
During the debate on the strategic defence and security review, I set out the foreign policy baseline, as I have on previous occasions, and as the Foreign Secretary also has. It will be considered as part of the debate inside the National Security Council as part of cross-departmental security reviews.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
The Veterans Minister just said that he was redoubling efforts to honour the military covenant and he praised the Prime Minister for doubling the operational allowance, yet he also admitted that he was cutting accommodation, freezing Army pay and making service personnel pay more for their pensions. Will he therefore explain what he means in practical terms by “redoubling” the effort?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
I have always maintained that the hon. Gentleman is much nicer than his reputation. However, I have not said that we are cutting accommodation. As he knows, the whole country is faced with the appalling economic and financial situation that was left by the previous Government. We are considering all ways of saving money, including a pay freeze across the public sector. However, the spine increases for armed forces personnel will continue.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
T3. The Prime Minister’s announcement last month of £67 million to deal with the threat faced by our troops from improvised explosive devices was most welcome. Will my hon. Friend say what part of that will be for training, which is an integral part of the deal? In particular, will he note the excellent service provided by the International School for Security and Explosives Education in Chilmark in my constituency, which I visited on Friday?
Nick Harvey
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There is no doubt whatever that high-threat counter-IED operations in Afghanistan are the most dangerous activity undertaken by members of the armed forces. The Prime Minister’s announcement of a further £67 million included £40 million for protected vehicles for use by CIED teams in Afghanistan and £11 million for remote control vehicles. The remaining funds will be used to enhance other critical capabilities in the counter-IED campaign, including enhancements to our military working-dog capability. There are problems with training, which we are doing our best to address. One problem is the inherited shortfall in counter-IED experts, which needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.
Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
Ministers will be aware that the Royal Irish Regiment is to deploy to Afghanistan later this year and that our armed forces personnel from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales make a major contribution to operational deployment on a continuous basis. Is it not therefore incumbent on the Secretary of State in his review to look again at the distribution of defence expenditure on a more equitable basis across the United Kingdom?
Dr Fox
The allocation of defence spending across the United Kingdom will be determined in the light of what we think are the best decisions for the defence of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman is correct, however, about the contributions made by our armed forces from different parts of the United Kingdom. They are United Kingdom armed forces. When I meet troops in Afghanistan, they do not ask one another whether they came from Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh or London. They are forces under the Crown and proud of it.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
T4. On the eve of the Turkish Foreign Minister’s visit to London, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that Turkey is one of our foremost allies in a most volatile region. What steps can his military take to increase our strategic co-operation with Turkey?
Dr Fox
My hon. Friend is entirely correct: Turkey is a very important strategic partner for the United Kingdom, not only because of its geographic location and the countries that border it, but because of other issues such as energy security. I had a long discussion with the Turkish Defence Minister at the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, and I intend to see him again in London next week. We intend to continue to discuss issues such as joint exercising, joint training and potentially joint procurement. It is enormously to this country’s advantage to have Turkey onside and looking westwards rather than in any other direction.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Will Ministers tell me how effective they consider Vector Aerospace, in Almondbank in my constituency, to be in keeping the UK’s armed forces’ front lines effective?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
I am delighted to pay tribute to the many defence companies that make such a valuable contribution to the work of our armed services, and I would be delighted to hear more from the hon. Gentleman about the company in his constituency. I know that its work is very valued.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
T5. In view of the constraints on military spending, both financially and in terms of personnel, what help has the Ministry of Defence been asked to give the Home Office in providing security for the Olympic games?
Dr Fox
My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. In the National Security Council, we are committed to a cross-departmental defence of the United Kingdom and defence review. As part of our ongoing discussions, we will continue to discuss arrangements for the Olympics. The Security Minister and I have had a number of discussions on that subject.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
There is a growing public perception that the Trident replacement is being insulated from any kind of scrutiny—including the defence review—while the Government continue to tear conventional forces to bits. I am thinking particularly of the cuts in aircraft, which have already been mentioned. How long will the Secretary of State be happy with that situation?
Dr Fox
There will be no plans for any part of the defence of the United Kingdom until the defence review is completed in the autumn. We will, of course, face a very adverse financial position because of the utter financial incompetence of the outgoing Labour Government, who have left the country with record debts, and, sadly, we will have to make decisions about defence and other Government budgets in that light.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
What steps will the Secretary of State take to reduce homelessness among former members of the armed services? Will he promise to take steps to provide support in regard to mental health and tenancies, and to support those who turn to drugs and alcohol after their time in the armed services?
Mr Robathan
We are certainly concerned about any ex-service personnel who are homeless, but I do not think that we should overstate the case. According to the most recent review, conducted by the previous Government, only 3% of homeless people served in the armed forces, and three quarters of those were over the age of 45. That is not to say that we are not concerned about people over 45, or people under 45.
We will examine the issue as part of the military covenant. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) is examining mental health issues, which do indeed take a long time to come to the fore—typically, about 14 years.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be an extremely retrograde step for the cuts in Government spending to sacrifice the new coastguard search and rescue helicopters that are such an important part of front-line rescue services in our country? They would be 30% faster than the Sea Kings, they are fitted with forward-looking infra-red, and they are good at low-flying night-time search and rescue. Surely there cannot be any more front-line expenditure than that.
Dr Fox
The hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of the services to which he refers. They are currently under review, as part of the defence review and our ongoing discussions with the Treasury. However, it does not come well from any member of the former Government to lecture anyone about public finances when we are having to make decisions on public spending against a more adverse financial backdrop than any Government have faced at least since the second world war.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the anger in my constituency because the reverse bidding for the contract for the supply of socks did not work effectively? Does he understand that HJ Hall, which has supplied socks for three generations, lost the contract because it could not make its bids within the existing system, and will he please look into the issue?
Peter Luff
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his vigorous defence of his constituents. I agree that the matter is important, and I should like to discuss it with him further.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
When personnel tragically lose their lives on active service, is there a time limit by which their families must vacate service accommodation? If so, what is the time limit, and what assistance are those families given to find alternative accommodation?
Mr Robathan
I should make it clear that I was not warned of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I understand that there is no such time limit. However, it is obviously in the interests of families—apart from any other considerations—to move out of service accommodation at some stage. We are examining all these issues because we are convinced of the need to support, especially, the families of brave young men cut down in their prime, and also those who have been injured. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will provide that support.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is the Minister aware that the previous Government shut down the Harlow Territorial Army centre? What plans has he to restore Territorial Army morale in Harlow and elsewhere in the country?
Dr Fox
The role of the Territorial Army has been greatly undervalued too often in the past. I pay tribute, on behalf of the Government, to the role that it plays in the security of our country. The specific future role of the Territorial Army, along with the roles of all sections of our armed forces, will be considered as part of the ongoing defence review.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I am most concerned by what I read in the newspapers about the Taliban’s reaction to the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. What implications does that have in respect of the issue of the Taliban in Pakistan, and has the Secretary of State had conversations with the Pakistan Government, given the crossover and the sensitivity between the two?
Dr Fox
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has recently been in Pakistan and has had discussions with the security services there about the importance of the Pakistani Government dealing not only with the Pakistani Taliban but the Afghan Taliban. Unless we see these as a continuum in terms of security, we will not be able to make the progress we want and to achieve the security on the Afghan-Pakistan border that is vital for the security of the people of both countries.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
Following on from the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), what decisions, if any, have been made about putting money into home-grown defence projects, especially in the Lancashire region?
Dr Fox
The Government intend to look at the value of home-grown defence projects in further consultations about the role of small and medium-sized businesses in the defence industry and the issue of sovereign capability for the United Kingdom. I look forward to my hon. Friend making some very full contributions to that debate when it takes place.
Political and Constitutional Reform
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s proposals for parliamentary reform.
Every Member of this House was elected knowing that this Parliament must be unlike any other—that we have a unique duty to restore the trust in our political system that has been tested to its limits in recent times—and if anything was clear at the general election it was that more and more people realised that our political system was broken and needs to be fixed. They want us to clean up politics. They want to be able to hold us properly to account.
So the Government have set out an ambitious programme for political renewal, transferring power away from the Executive to empower Parliament, and away from Parliament to empower people. That programme includes: introducing a power of recall for MPs guilty of serious wrongdoing; tackling the influence of big money as we look again at party funding; taking forward long overdue reform of the other place; implementing the Wright Committee recommendations, and taking steps to give people more power to shape parliamentary business; speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration; and increasing transparency in lobbying, including through a statutory register.
Today, I am announcing the details of a number of major elements of the Government’s proposals for political reform. First, we are introducing legislation to fix parliamentary terms. The date of the next general election will be 7 May 2015. This is a hugely significant constitutional innovation. It is simply not right that general elections can be called according to a Prime Minister’s whims, so this Prime Minister will be the first Prime Minister to give up that right.
I know that when the coalition agreement was published there was some concern about these proposals. We have listened carefully to those concerns, and I can announce today how we will proceed, in a Bill that will be introduced before the summer recess. First, traditional powers of no confidence will be put into law, and a vote of no confidence will still require only a simple majority. Secondly, if after a vote of no confidence a Government cannot be formed within 14 days, Parliament will be dissolved and a general election will be held. Let me be clear: these steps will strengthen Parliament’s power over the Executive. Thirdly, there will be an additional power for Parliament to vote for an early and immediate Dissolution. We have decided that a majority of two thirds will be needed to carry the vote, as opposed to the 55% first suggested, as is the case in the Scottish Parliament. These changes will make it impossible for any Government to force a Dissolution for their own purposes. These proposals should make it absolutely clear to the House that votes of no confidence and votes for early Dissolution are entirely separate, and that we are putting in place safeguards against a lame-duck Government being left in limbo if the House passes a vote of no confidence but does not vote for early Dissolution.
I am also announcing today the details of the Government’s proposals to introduce a Bill before the summer to provide for a referendum on the alternative vote system, and for a review of constituency boundaries in order to create fewer and more equally sized constituencies, cutting the cost of politics and reducing the number of MPs from the 650 we have today to a House of 600 MPs.
Together, these proposals help to correct the deep unfairness in the way we hold elections in this country. Under the current set-up, votes count more in some parts of the country than others, and millions feel that their votes do not count at all. Elections are won and lost in a small minority of seats. We have a fractured democracy, where some people’s votes count and other people’s votes do not count; where some people are listened to and others are ignored. By equalising the size of constituencies, we ensure that people’s votes carry the same weight, no matter where they live. Only months ago the electorate of Islington North stood at 66,472, while 10 miles away, in East Ham, the figure was 87,809. In effect, that means that a person voting in East Ham has a vote that is worth much less than a vote in Islington North. That cannot be right. These imbalances are found right across the United Kingdom.
Reducing the number of MPs also allows us to bring our oversized House of Commons into line with legislatures across the world. The House of Commons is the largest directly elected Chamber in the European Union, and it is half as big again as the US House of Representatives. It was never intended that the overall size of the House should constantly keep rising, yet that is precisely the effect of the current legislation—the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986. Capping the number of MPs corrects that, and it saves money too. Having 59 fewer MPs saves £12 million a year on pay, pensions and allowances alone.
On the referendum, by giving people a choice over their electoral system, we give that system a new legitimacy. Surely, when dissatisfaction with politics is so great, one of our first acts must be to give people their own say over something as fundamental as how they elect their MPs. The question will be simple, asking people whether they want to adopt the alternative vote, yes or no; and the precise wording will be tested by the Electoral Commission. [Interruption.]
As for the date of the referendum, in making that decision we have been driven by three key considerations: first—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy Prime Minister. The statement by the Deputy Prime Minister must be heard with courtesy. If Members want to question him, they will have the chance to do so. The Deputy Prime Minister will be heard.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The first is that all parties fought the general election on an absolute pledge to move fast to fix our political system, so we must get on and do that without delay; secondly, it is important to avoid asking people to keep returning to the ballot box; and finally, in these straitened times we must keep costs as low as possible. That is why the Prime Minister and I have decided that the date for the referendum on the Bill will be 5 May 2011, the same day as the elections to the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and local elections in England. That will save an estimated £17 million. I know that some hon. Members have concerns over that date, but I believe that people will easily be able to distinguish between the different issues on which they will be asked to vote on the same day.
Our Bill will make explicit provision for the Boundary Commissions to report on more equally sized constituencies and for the process to be completed by the end of 2013, allowing enough time for candidates to be selected ahead of the 2015 election; and we will ensure that the boundary commissions have what they need to do that. That means that, in the event of a vote in favour of the alternative vote, the 2015 general election will be held on the new system, and according to new boundaries. These are complementary changes—the outcome of the referendum is put in place as the new boundaries are put in place, too.
The Bill will require the Boundary Commissions to set new constituencies within 5% of a target quota of registered electors, with just two exceptions: Orkney and Shetland, and—[Laughter.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
The exceptions are Orkney and Shetland, and the Western Isles, which are uniquely placed, given their locations.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt the Deputy Prime Minister, but the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) must not, however strongly he feels, shriek from a sedentary position in that way. It is very unseemly and, if I may say so, very untypical of the hon. Gentleman, who is normally grace itself.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The two exceptions are Orkney and Shetland, and the Western Isles, which are uniquely placed, given their locations. We have listened also to those who have very large constituencies, so the Bill will provide that no constituency will be larger than the size of the largest one now, and we intend that in future boundary reviews will be more frequent, to ensure that constituencies continue to meet the requirements that we will set out in our Bill.
I understand that this announcement will raise questions from those in all parts of this House, as these are profound changes. Let me just say that, yes, there are technical issues that will need to be scrutinised and approached with care as these Bills pass through Parliament, but ensuring that elections are as fair and democratic as possible is a matter of principle above all else. These are big, fundamental reforms that we are proposing, but we are all duty-bound to respond to public demand for political reform. That is how we restore people’s faith in their politics once again. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
I begin by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for early sight of his statement. First, will he acknowledge that his proposal today to abandon the 55% requirement for Dissolution following a vote of no confidence represents the first major U-turn of this Government, and it has come in less than two months? Why did he not think before about the impossibility of a Government hanging on after they had lost a vote of no confidence by a simple majority? That would have saved him a great deal of embarrassment. As to his now subsidiary proposal for a two-thirds majority for any other Dissolution, what is its purpose? It is not completely superfluous? Either he is in favour of fixed-term Parliaments as long as the Government of the day enjoy the confidence of this House or he is not.
On the issue of a referendum on the alternative vote system, the House will be well aware that just such a proposal was in a Labour Government Bill and was agreed by this House but not the other place before the election. Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that during the general election campaign he told The Independent that the alternative vote system was a “miserable little compromise”, saying
“I am not going to settle”
for that? Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House what has changed his mind?
Let me turn to the question of the date for this referendum. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he decided on this May date, which coincides with the Scottish parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections, and local elections in some, but by no means all, parts of England without any prior consultation with the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive or—as far as one knows—local government? Will he confirm that none of the four previous referendums held in the United Kingdom—the EU referendum in 1975, and the more recent Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland referendums—has been held on the same day as elections? What is the argument for not following that precedent? Would it not have been altogether more sensible to consult widely on the best possible date and then to add the date to the Bill in due course? What is the argument against that?
The House will be well aware that we not only sought before the election to legislate for British voters to have a choice about whether to have the alternative vote system or to continue with first past the post, but we pledged to do so in our manifesto at the election. So my party is in support of voters having that choice at a referendum. However, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we will not allow that support to be used as some kind of cover for outrageously partisan proposals in the same Bill to gerrymander the boundaries of this House of Commons by arbitrarily changing the rules for setting boundaries and by an equally arbitrary cut in the number of MPs?
There never has been an issue about the need for constituencies to be broadly equal in size. That principle has been embodied in legislation for decades and has all-party support. As it happens, six of the 10 largest constituencies in the United Kingdom are Labour and only three of the 10 smallest are Labour. The right hon. Gentleman has agreed in debates in this House since the election that there is a huge problem, highlighted by the Electoral Commission this March, of 3.5 million citizens who are eligible to vote but are not on the electoral register. If his aim, as he says, is principle and to make the system fairer, why has he said nothing in his statement about how he will ensure that those 3.5 million are included in the Boundary Commission’s calculations about the size of constituencies and how he will get them on to the registers in time for the review?
If the right hon. Gentleman now accepts that there is a case for Orkney and Shetland, with an electorate of 37,000, and the Western Isles, with an electorate of 22,000, to be given special consideration, what on earth are the arguments for natural and historic boundaries elsewhere not to be taken into account by the Boundary Commission and by the legislation? As he claims that he wants to “empower” the people—his word in his statement—is it his intention that local communities should continue to have a right to an independent local boundary commission in their area if those local people wish it? If that is his intention, when he says, “we will ensure the Boundary Commissions have what they need” to complete this huge task by the end of 2013, only two years after this legislation has any chance of getting through, what additional resources and staff will the Boundary Commission be given?
Let me now turn to the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal to cut the number the number of MPs from 650 to 600—the most arbitrary and partisan of all his proposals. Does he recognise that his international comparisons are tendentious in the extreme since virtually every western country has many more proportionately elected representatives below the level of their national Parliaments than we do, whether the other nation is a federal state such as Germany or a unitary state such as France?
As for all the nonsense that the right hon. Gentleman came up with about how under Conservative legislation passed in 1986 the number of MPs has allegedly been rising inexorably, does he recognise that over the past 50 years the total number of Members of this House has increased by just 3% whereas electorates have increased by 25% and that the work load of Members of Parliament and the demand from constituents on them has expanded exponentially? How will having fewer Members of Parliament enable the British people to be given a better service by their Member of Parliament?
Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware that his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when he gave evidence to his local Oxfordshire boundary inquiry in 2003, castigated the notion that there might be too many MPs? He said then:
“Somebody might take the view that at 659 there are already too many Members of Parliament at Westminster.”
He continued
“I certainly hope that is not the case.”
Was not the Prime Minister right then, and are not he and his deputy completely wrong now?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Before I deal with the questions that the right hon. Gentleman raised, I want to acknowledge, recognise and pay tribute to the fact that he and his colleagues in the previous Government—certainly in the early years—were a party, at one point, of political reform. They introduced significant reforms: getting rid of the hereditaries in the other place; changing the electoral system for election to the European Parliament; and devolving power to Wales and Scotland. Opposition Members have a choice, and I hope that they will take this opportunity to rediscover that spirit of political reform.
I shall respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s specific questions. He suggested that for the Government to listen represents a major U-turn. We listened to the objections raised on both sides of the House to our proposed 55% threshold, and we have acted on them. The inclusion of the two-thirds threshold gives an additional, new power to Parliament. Let us be clear what we are doing with the fixed-term provisions—provisions that his party used to support. We are taking power away from the Prime Minister and giving Parliament more power over the Executive. Surely that is something that he and other Opposition Members would support.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the fact that the referendum will coincide with elections being held on the same day. Is he seriously suggesting that people are incapable of taking more than one decision in a day, or of filling in an extra box to answer yes or no to a straightforward question? That is misleading and patronising at best. He claims that the ambition to have more equal constituencies is “outrageously partisan” and involves gerrymandering. It was the Chartists, back in the 1840s, who first proposed equal-sized constituencies. The Labour party used to believe that votes should have the same weight, wherever they were and whatever part of the country people found themselves in. How on earth can he and other Labour Members brand something as simple as giving fairness to every voter in the country as “outrageously partisan”? This proposal is based on a simple principle of fairness and he should support it.
The right hon. Gentleman cited the figure of 3.5 million unregistered voters, and I agree that something should be done about that—[Interruption.] Something has needed to be done about it for the past 13 years, and we will bring forward proposals to accelerate individual electoral registration, precisely to help to do that.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether local people would be heard during the boundary review process. Yes, of course they will. He also returned to the issue of the size of the House of Commons. Let us remember that existing legislation—the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986—already suggests that our Chamber is far too large. If we do not change that by capping the number of MPs, that number will just ratchet up and up.
It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party have a choice. Are they in favour of reform, or of the status quo? Over the past few weeks, the signs have not been very promising. Last week, he turned his back on any progressive reform of our criminal justice system. Every day since the election, he and his colleagues have opposed every measure that we have put forward to sort out the black hole in the public finances that they created. Is the Labour party a party of progress or of stagnation? Is it a party that stands for something, or does it just stand against everything? Is the Labour party in favour of change, or just in favour of itself?
Mr Speaker
Order. A great many right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, and accommodating most, let alone all, of them will require economy in questions and answers.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if a referendum on a major constitutional issue such as voting reform is to be seen as fair, it should not be the case that a mere 50% of those voting on the day should make the decision? Ought there not to be a threshold of, say, 40% of those entitled to vote, as was the case in 1978 in Scotland?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The coalition agreement is very clear that the referendum will be decided on the basis of a simple majority. If we had thresholds for legitimacy, many Members of this House would not be here right now. It is a simple principle that a simple majority should be sufficient to pass the referendum one way or the other, and that is what we will do.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that if we are to reform our democracy, one of the most important things is that we take not only our people, but our Parliament with us? Will he therefore ensure that there is effective pre-legislative scrutiny of the two Bills that he has proposed and the Bills that are to come? Without that, he is in danger of denying the legitimacy that his proposals will depend upon.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I agree that it is essential that the Bills are properly scrutinised. As the hon. Gentleman knows, given that they are constitutional Bills, every stage of the passage of the Bills will be taken on the Floor of the House, so that every hon. Member can scrutinise these important Bills and have their say in the final shape of the legislation.
Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)
Obviously, I welcome the historic progress towards the alternative vote referendum and the fixed-term Parliaments. May I be a little more parochial and ask a question on the issue of constituency size, as for the past 27 years, under three sets of radically different constituency boundaries, I have had the privilege of representing the largest geographic constituency in this place—just below the 13,000 sq km cap that my right hon. Friend proposes to introduce? Can he confirm that the boundary commissioners will retain the flexibility in the Scottish context that they had last time round for the Westminster boundaries, when they could have opted for two Highland council area seats—that is a land mass the size of Belgium, let us remember—but in fact they opted for three?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I recognise, of course, the outstanding job that my right hon. Friend does across a constituency that is by far the largest in the country. That is why, taking the cue from his constituency, we will specify in the Bill that no new constituency can be any larger than his present constituency—just shy of 13,000 sq km. As for the basis upon which the Boundary Commissions will make their decisions, the exceptions on the face of the Bill will be very limited—for obvious reasons, the two island constituencies that I set out, and the geographical cap in size that I specified. Beyond that, the duty will be on the Boundary Commissions to deliver what we have always intended should be delivered—constituencies that are more equal in size in terms of the number of voters in each constituency.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
If one were to cut the number of MPs but keep the same number of Government Ministers, as is laid down in statute, one would have increased the stranglehold of the Government over the House. If the Deputy Prime Minister is to proceed with the cut, will he undertake to cut the number of Ministers, and if so, could he cut it by 22?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The key question is whether the package of reform increases the power of Parliament to hold the Executive to account. That is the fundamental issue of principle which members of the Labour party, when they were in favour of political reform, used to understand. This package of reform unambiguously puts this Parliament back in the driving seat.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I commend the Deputy Prime Minister for changing his mind on the 55% proposal, but may I ask him to think again about the timing of the referendum? The reason that the Electoral Commission recommends against holding referendums on the same day as elections is not that people cannot decide on more than one thing at a time, but that it leads to differential turnouts, which means that the subsequent referendum is unrepresentative. Would that not be unfortunate on such an important issue?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Electoral Commission, which the right hon. Gentleman cited, said just last week:
“There are benefits of holding elections and referendums on the same day—for example to encourage turnout, but there are risks associated with combination too.”
What we must do is act in order to minimise those risks and increase the benefit. The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. There were real problems in the elections in 2007 which, as analysed in the Gould report, raised concerns about combining elections at the same time, but let us remember that as the Gould report demonstrated clearly, the complexity at that time arose from the coincidence of elections to Holyrood and very complex and lengthy ballot papers for the local elections in Scotland. In the proposed referendum, there will be a very simple question to which there is a simple yes or no answer. I think people will understand that that is best held at the same time as they go to vote on other matters, rather than asking them to return to the ballot box on another occasion, at great additional expense to the taxpayer.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Making this announcement and fixing, to use the right hon. Gentleman’s word, the date of the next general election for the same day as the Scottish and Welsh elections totally ignores the strong recommendations of both the Gould and Arbuthnott reports. It sounds to me not like the respect agenda, but actually like the contempt agenda.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do not recognise that it is contemptuous towards the people of Britain, wherever they live, to give them that opportunity for the first time—an opportunity, by the way, that was first promised by the Labour party in its 1997 manifesto, but never delivered, like so many other points of the political reform agenda that remained undelivered over the past decade. I do not think it contemptuous to ask people—wherever they live in Wales, Scotland, England or whatever part of the United Kingdom—to have their say on the electoral system that elects Members to this House, and to ask them to do so on a very simple yes or no basis at a time when they are voting in any event. It underestimates the people of Wales, Scotland—the United Kingdom—to suggest somehow that they are incapable of deciding more than one thing on the same day.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
That is not the suggestion being made. We all know that voting reform—changing the voting system—is a big deal in here but of very scant interest to the vast majority of our voters. What is the justification for artificially inflating turnout by coinciding the referendum with other elections, when the right hon. Gentleman has yet to receive any formal advice on that topic from the Electoral Commission?
The Deputy Prime Minister
With respect—[Interruption.] It is absurd to suggest that it is artificially inflating turnout by just giving people the opportunity to have their say. There is absolutely nothing wrong with giving people the opportunity to have their say and doing so on a very simple basis, with a simple question and a simple yes or no answer, at a time when people are voting in any event—unless the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we waste millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on organising it for another occasion. I see no logic in that whatever.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
It is a great shame that the Deputy Prime Minister did not have the guts to fight for the best change in the electoral system, and the one in which he once believed and I still do—that is, proportional representation. Would it not be fair to give the electorate a say on that as well as on the alternative vote in the coming referendum? If he couples the alternative vote, which benefits only the Liberals, with a reduction in the number and redistribution of seats, which is designed to hurt the Labour party, is that really democratisation or the biggest gerrymander in British history?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Once again, another Labour Member calls a simple act of democracy—giving people in a referendum the right to have a say about how we are elected to this House—gerrymandering. Only in the weird and wonderful world of a party immersed in the most mind-numbing, introverted leadership contest would that be called gerrymandering. It is simply aimed at one objective: to make sure that our elections are conducted more fairly and people’s votes are of the same weight wherever they find themselves in the United Kingdom. That is an issue of principle which I believe is right, and I hope that when the hon. Gentleman thinks about it he will join the rest of us who want to give people the chance finally to reform our broken political system.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister for having listened to the views of Back Benchers on the ludicrous 55% proposal, but will he reconsider the answer that he gave to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)? If the right hon. Gentleman’s avowed intent is to give more power to Parliament at the expense of the Government, how can it be right to maintain the current number of Ministers while reducing the number of MPs who hold them to account?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman. He is a long-serving Member who will always hold any Government’s feet to the fire, and I respect him for that and pay tribute to him—
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise—[Interruption.] Order. There is simply too much noise in the Chamber. The House must behave in a more seemly fashion.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also agree, however, that the measures that we have announced today will strengthen the role of Parliament in holding the Executive to account. They will strengthen the power of this House to throw out a Government through a motion of no confidence, and if a Government are not re-formed within 14 days there will be a general election and a Dissolution of the House. That seems to me to be a very significant shift that takes power away from the Prime Minister, which has never been done before, and gives more power to the House. It is something that I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Government’s decision to implement Labour’s election manifesto pledge for a referendum on the alternative vote system. Many Labour Members will support a yes vote in that referendum, but we will not support the gerrymandering of parliamentary constituencies. What concrete action will the Deputy Prime Minister take to reduce the number of people—3.5 million—who are eligible to be on the electoral register but are not?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for a referendum that would allow people to have their say on the electoral system. I believe, none the less, that the boundary changes that we are proposing are perhaps more modest than he and other Labour Members fear. [Interruption.] Well, it is a cut of 7.7% in the number of Members of this House. It brings the size of this House much more into line with existing legislation on what it should be, it starts to bring the size of this Chamber into line with those in other parts of the democratic world, and—this is perhaps part of the answer that I should have given to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)—it does not impede the ability of this House to hold Ministers, however many or few of them there are, to account. That package, combined with the additional powers of Dissolution, provides fairness in the votes that are cast and provides more power to this House.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister has, like me, noticed how the Labour party has mutated from a party that believes in political reform to one that would quite like it, but not now, and not this particular reform. Given Labour Members’ opposition, as with the 1832 Reform Act, to their rotten boroughs being removed, does he see that they have now given up on the idea of one person, one vote of equal value?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree. It is quite remarkable for a party that was once proud of its credentials as a movement of political reform now to act with barely disguised paranoia about a perfectly logical approach to redrawing our boundaries and with churlishness at the opportunity finally to have a referendum that would usher in AV, which is a proposal that the Labour party used to make—a party, remember, which back in 1997 fought the election campaign on a manifesto commitment to giving people the right to have their say about how people are elected to this House. This is, yet again, a commitment to political reform that the Labour party has failed to deliver and that we are now delivering for them.
Mr Speaker
May I reiterate the request for short questions and economical replies? A very large number of colleagues wish to contribute, and I would like to enable them to do so.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister now regret using the term “fix” in the context of the political system? Does he believe that the referendum that takes place—I would support that—will remain simply on the question of the voting system, or might it not also give people the opportunity to express a view on whether they support the programme of increasing VAT and making cuts that the Liberals have endorsed, and allow us to give a verdict on whether we approve or disapprove of the Liberals?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I suspect that I know how the hon. Gentleman might vote in that referendum. No, the referendum question is just on the narrow point of giving people the option to support the alternative vote system, and it will be susceptible to a simple yes or no answer.
Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s proposals to equalise the size of constituencies. Does he agree that this is not just a case of giving equal weight to each vote but it is very important in the context of removing an element of bias in our electoral system and making the system that we have much more proportional than it is at the moment?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. It cannot be right that we can have a situation whereby, as I cited earlier, there are 20,000 more voters in one constituency than in a constituency just 10 miles down the road. That means, quite simply, that the weight of the vote where there are 20,000 more electors is worth less than that in a constituency just 10 miles down the road. It seems to me that it is obvious to most people that that is unfair and needs to be changed.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
As the Member with, I believe, the sixth largest electorate in the country, I am acutely aware, despite having 86,000 electors, that in the most deprived parts of my constituency very large numbers of people are not on the electoral register. There is a huge bias in our system against the most deprived people living in the most deprived areas, and unless the Government do something to get them on the register, this really will be a fix.
The Deputy Prime Minister
But what did the previous Government do for 13 years? Of course we can all agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is bad and wrong that 3.5 million people are not on the register—he is absolutely right about that—but we will take measures to increase and accelerate individual electoral registration. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I genuinely apologise that I have to keep interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister, but I want to hear him. I want to hear the content of his arguments and his mellifluous tones, and I keep being prevented from hearing him by people chuntering away from a sedentary position. Please do not.
The Deputy Prime Minister
They chunter because they do not like to be reminded that they did nothing on voter registration for 13 years. They did nothing to give people the chance to have a say about how we are elected to this House, or to rectify the unfairness of the way in which votes are distributed across constituencies. If we could work together across parties to deal with these big issues, including ensuring that those who are not registered become properly registered, I would welcome that, but I just do not think it is helped by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) somehow accusing a new coalition Government, who have been in power for only a few weeks, of failing to do something about a problem that his Government did nothing to rectify for 13 years.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has made a brave and courageous statement for a Government who want radical reform. However, does he agree that referendums should not be held on the same day as elections, so that we can have proper debate? Would it not be a good idea to hold a series of elections on that date, and perhaps another vote that was a matter of yes or no?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I disagree with him for the simple reason that I do not think that the question that will be put forward will be very complex. Is it a simple choice: do people want to have the alternative vote as the system by which Members are elected to this House—yes or no? I personally do not see why it would be right to incur the additional cost, complexity and delay that would arise if we had the referendum on a separate date.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
We already know that the Prime Minister will campaign for a no vote in the referendum, and many of his Conservative hon. Friends will back his lead. If the Deputy Prime Minister is seeking a yes vote, he will need a lot of support from people such as me—electoral reformers on the Labour Benches. Does he realise that he is not likely to get that if there is a single question on both increasing the size of constituencies and moving to AV? The only way he will get support for AV is by having separate questions on AV and the number of constituencies.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The review of the boundaries will not be subject to a vote in the referendum. The referendum question will simply be on whether people—yes or no—want the alternative vote as the means by which Members are elected to this House.
The hon. Gentleman alludes to the fact that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I will be on opposite sides of the argument. I understand that for the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members it is difficult to imagine that there might be different shades of opinion in Governments. I read in the newspapers this weekend of a pollster for the Labour party who disagreed with the party but was too frightened to leave the Government because she said she knew that she would be smeared in the newspapers. At least we on these Benches are grown-up enough to be open and relaxed about differences where they exist.
Mr Andrew Turner
Could the right hon. Gentleman assist me by saying how much consultation there has been with either residents of the Isle of Wight or those further afield?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course there must and will be consultation with the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, as there will be with constituents up and down the country. I recognise, of course, that he will have particular concerns as he represents an island constituency, but I hope that he will be able to see the virtue of a general principle of fairness and more equal constituencies applying across the United Kingdom, with the exception of the two island constituencies that I referred to earlier.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister could give a clear answer to a simple question. Did he or any of his Ministers have discussions with the Scottish Government or any of the Scottish party leaders prior to the date of the referendum being trailed in the press? If he did not, what does that say for the so-called respect agenda for the devolved Administrations?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Clearly, we will be consulting with the devolved Administrations. [Interruption.] I do not think that there is anything wrong with the Government’s putting forward their proposals in the manner that we have. We have been open and transparent about it and moved as fast as we can. We have told the House first; I often hear Opposition Members complaining that announcements should not be communicated to others. We have come to the House at the earliest possible opportunity. The date and all other matters will now be subject to full scrutiny here on the Floor of the House of Commons, as is right for all Bills that have a constitutional significance.
Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)
Could the Deputy Prime Minister kindly inform the House about who was consulted about the date of the referendum? If anyone was, what was the response he got? Can he also assure me that there will be legislation before the summer about the reform of the House of Lords, which seems to be sadly lacking in the statement that he has made to the House this afternoon?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will not repeat what I said earlier about the consultation on the measures that I have described today. As for the Bill for the reform of the other place, I remain determined—we remain determined as a coalition Government—to produce a draft Bill, for the first time in more than 100 years in the debate about reform of the other place, by the end of this year.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister specifically what consultation there was with the First Minister about the issue of the Assembly election and the AV referendum being held on the same day?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is within the gift of this Government to make the proposal and to come to this House first with the announcement. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways; he cannot criticise us for talking to others outside the House when in fact this time we are doing what he and his Labour colleagues have been saying for weeks—that we should come to this House. That is what we have done and that is the right way to proceed.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister wants to hold a referendum to change the voting system and make a coalition Government more likely in future. Why does he not think that it is worth letting people see for much longer what a coalition Government look like, so that they can make an informed choice on the voting system rather than having the decision thrust on them so quickly? Why the rush?
The Deputy Prime Minister
By the time the referendum is held, people will have had a whole year; I suggest that that is long enough for them to make a judgment, even if my hon. Friend has made an instant judgment himself.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
In 1832, Wales had 32 MPs and a population of 1 million. Now Wales has a population of more than 3 million and there has been only an 8% increase in its percentage of MPs. Is that just?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am afraid that I do not agree with the right hon. Lady’s assumption that the worth of the House should be judged by the number of Members sitting in it. I do not think that a constant inflation of politicians is a sign of the health of any democracy. I really do not think that a cut by 7.7% of the number of Members in the House is the chilling, draconian measure that she and so many Opposition Members seem to think it is.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister proposes a referendum on how we are elected. He has also proposed an in-or-out referendum on Europe. Is he aware that some of us will vote to give him a referendum on AV only if he gives us the in-or-out referendum?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the coalition agreement also includes clear provisions for a referendum lock on any further transfer of power and sovereignty from Parliament to Brussels and Strasbourg. That will reassure him and everybody else that that matter will be put to a referendum of the whole country.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I have heard before the words that the right hon. Gentleman uses about making every vote count, and I supported him, although in that case they referred to a more proportional voting system. However, I would support him in making every vote count in terms of equal constituencies if he could confidently show the House that that would be the result of the changes. In view of the fact that the census will report in 2013 and that he proposes a new registration scheme, what resources has he sought to ensure that everyone eligible is registered, so that we can get genuinely fair and equal constituencies?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady will know, we need to start with the work of the boundary review as soon as possible in order that it can be concluded in the timetable that we have set out. That is why the boundary review will be based on the electoral register that will be published at the beginning of December this year.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. He will be aware that the boundary between Cornwall and England was set more than a thousand years ago, sadly by conquest. Will the direction that he and the Government give to the Electoral Commission through the Bill take account of such ancient boundaries?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hear what my hon. Friend says about the boundary between Cornwall and England, although I am sure that many of his constituents would be delighted to know that they are also citizens of England and the United Kingdom. The rule of thumb will be that the Boundary Commission should seek to redraw boundaries according to the simple principle that constituencies should be of a more equal size than they are at the moment, within the parameters that I have described. That will be the predominant requirement on the boundary commissions, and it will be of greater weight and importance than any other considerations.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
On fixed-term Parliaments, does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the statement that the Prime Minister made during the general election campaign that unelected Prime Ministers ought to face election automatically within six months?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We have been very clear in the coalition agreement that we want to see the introduction of a Bill for fixed-term Parliaments in which exceptional elections will be just that, and so that we will never again be subjected to the pantomime of 2007, when the Government of this country were paralysed by the Prime Minister’s dithering and indecision on whether or not to call an election. The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have finally put an end to that.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that with an approximate 8% reduction in the number of MPs, there will also be at least an 8% reduction in the ridiculously high administrative costs of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority?
The Deputy Prime Minister
IPSA, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is entirely independent.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
We are the only Parliament in the world whose second Chamber is larger than the first, and Labour’s next phase of reform would have addressed that—[Interruption.]
Caroline Flint
Is it true that the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition plans not only to allow existing peers to remain until they die, but to create nearly 200 more peers at a time when they are going to cut the number of MPs?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am delighted to hear that the right hon. Lady is already talking about the next phase of Labour’s reforms. I wonder what that is. Is it the phase that was in the manifesto in 1997 that was never delivered; the phase about improving individual electoral registration; the phase in favour of a referendum; the phase to devolve power; or the phase to decentralise government in this country?
The Deputy Prime Minister
At the rate the Opposition are going, there is never going to be another phase.
Mr Speaker
Order. It has been a bit broad so far. I gently remind the Deputy Prime Minister that we must focus on the policies of the Government, rather than those of the Opposition.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is the responsibility of local authorities to address their record in electoral registration in time for this new electoral roll to be used in his boundary review?
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
As I hope the House knows, I am a supporter of mathematics in all its guises, but to use mathematics as a cover for what is essentially the gerrymandering of constituencies is an insult to mathematicians everywhere. Newcastle has thousands of unregistered voters, and it also has an identity that we want to keep without continual boundary reviews. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that the only votes that did not count at the last election were those of Liberal Democrat voters in search of a progressive party?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I remind the hon. Lady that we all fought the last general election on a boundary review based on the electoral register of 10 years ago. The system is deeply, deeply imperfect. What we are trying to do—and it did not happen in 13 years under the Labour Government—is hold a boundary review, without threatening the identity of Newcastle or any other area. We want it to be done quickly and for it to be established on the simple principle of fairness, with all votes being of equal worth wherever people live in the United Kingdom.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) is an excellent constituency MP, thereby demonstrating that he is fully capable of representing 86,000 constituents, contrary to what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said, and that all of us should be capable of doing the same?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I happen to agree that if the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) can do it with a larger constituency than that envisaged in our Bill, any of us can.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
The referendum has been set for May 2011, but the people of Northern Ireland expect to have two elections on that day already—for the Northern Ireland Assembly and for local government. Do the Government plan to move the local government elections to March, with the referendum and the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in May? That would be two elections in two months. What happened to saving money?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have been consulting with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point of principle. If we were to do what Opposition Members suggest and parcel out votes on different days, it would not only incur greater expense but devalue the elections that came later in the cycle. Let us imagine having three different votes on three different matters over the course of three months—that would be an act of disrespect to voters in Northern Ireland as it would to voters in other parts of the UK.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on an excellent statement. I ask him to look again at one issue—the timing of the referendum. I understand his arguments on cost and convenience to electors, but a further consideration is the perception that the referendum is fair. Holding it on a day when my constituents in London have no local elections, but people in Scotland and Wales are electing their national Parliaments, could lead to a skewed result.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman raises the question of the date, as many others have. I simply reiterate that it is uncomplicated to ask people to answer yes or no to a simple question on the alternative vote at a time when they are voting on other matters. I do not accept the argument that it is difficult for people to make those different decisions on the same day. I hope that he would also agree that to do otherwise would incur significant additional cost at a time when we are rightly seeking to keep costs down.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
On three occasions this afternoon, the Deputy Prime Minister has been asked about the 3.5 million people missing from electoral registers. On two occasions he has mentioned individual registration. Does he not realise that that will compound the problem and potentially drive the figure up to 5 million or 6 million people? Where is the equality in conducting the review, with all those people missing from the registers?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We have inherited a register from the previous Labour Government. For 13 years, nothing was done about the large numbers of people who are not on the register. We are now looking at the matter urgently. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman that individual electoral registration would not help to deal with the problem if it is done properly, and if it is properly resourced and given sufficient time to be implemented correctly. That is what we will be seeking to do.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister not agree that, in addition to the three welcome modernising proposals, which give more power to the legislature over Government, more power to the voter and more power to individual MPs, who will have greater authority because a majority of their constituents will support them, the Bill gives us the opportunity to respond to the other fallacious argument—that there is gerrymandering in the Bill—and ensure that we can have a modern electoral registration process that captures everybody in the months before voting, so that there can be no excuse for anybody who wants to vote not being on the list and no argument that the constituencies will not be fair in future?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. Once the synthetic fury about the proposal dies down, I hope not only that Members in all parts of the House will see that the proposal to cap the number of Members of this House at 600 is a sensible one, based on the simple principle of fairness and equality, but that this will be accompanied by greater efforts—I hope that we will be able to work on this across party lines—to ensure that those who want to vote are registered to vote in the first place.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister touched on the malign impact of big money on politics in Britain, a point on which I totally agree. Does he not accept that the only way to control that is to have rigid and low limits on spending at elections and between them, to ensure that Lord Ashcroft and his friends do not buy elections in future?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should of course strive towards a cross-party approach on party funding, which is something to which this Government will return. We explain clearly in our coalition agreement that we want to pick up from where the cross-party talks on funding reform in the previous Parliament collapsed—and collapsed on all sides—and finally get big money out of British politics, so that the way in which we conduct ourselves and fight campaigns is beyond reproach.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that preferential voting systems such as AV are used for internal party elections in most, if not all parties in this House, as well as for elections to positions in this House—including your position, Mr Speaker—and that some Members were elected to this House using such systems until 1950? Given that, does he understand why some Members believe that preferential voting is good enough for us, but not good enough for the public?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend that preferential voting is not as alien a concept as it is sometimes made out to be. All three main parties in the House use a form of preferential voting to elect their leaders—in fact, the Labour party is doing it right now—and a form of preferential voting was used for the election of the Mayor of London. AV is not a proportional system; it is a preferential system, and it is right that people up and down the country should now have their say on whether it should be introduced or not.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
On the issue of Wales, if the Government received a request from the Welsh Assembly under the Government of Wales Act 1998 to delay the Welsh Assembly elections by a month, as is allowed under the regulations, what will the Government’s response be? Is the Deputy Prime Minister ruling that possibility out?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will of course consult the Secretary of State for Wales, and, indeed, the Secretary of State for Scotland. I know that the Secretary of State for Wales is in Cardiff today. If that request is made, we will of course have to take a decision at that time.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), the Deputy Prime Minister used the argument that people would not be confused about voting on two separate issues on the same day. I entirely agree with him, but if we are going to change the voting system, it must have complete credibility, and there is a real risk that in holding this referendum on a day when there will be differential turnout in different parts of the United Kingdom, it will not have that credibility. Will the Deputy Prime Minister reflect on the fact that if we are going to make this change, it would be in his interest for it to have complete legitimacy?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hear what my hon. Friend says. I suspect, to be honest, that for those who quite rightly wish to argue that there should be no change to the system, almost any date will be construed in one way or another as being a reason for why the vote should not proceed on that date. My view is that the arguments we have put forward—of cost; of getting on with it, given that we have all recently fought an election campaign in favour of political reform; and of preventing people from returning over and over again to the ballot box—are arguments well made, which I hope my hon. Friend will, over time, share.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
May I be the first Member unequivocally to say to the Deputy Prime Minister this afternoon that he has my full support for a yes vote in the referendum? On civil service reform, does he intend to prohibit the practice whereby Ministers can make political appointments by granting temporary civil service status to members of staff? Will he tell me how many people are currently in that position?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I cannot answer the latter question. I am very grateful, however, for what the hon. Gentleman said at first—that he is keen to provide support for the referendum campaign.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
What consideration has been given to the gerrymandering—an issue raised across the Floor—of postal votes in connection with electoral reform?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I think there is widespread concern on both sides of the House about the evidence of irregularities in the way postal votes are administered. We are indeed looking at that right now.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
When the Deputy Prime Minister said only months ago that the electorate of Islington North was 66,472 while only 10 miles away, the comparable figure in East Ham was 87,809, was he referring to the position before the general election at which point the Boundary Commission came in to remedy that situation? Does he not think that it was perhaps disingenuous to mislead the House in that way? Does he accept that—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I did appeal for economy in questions and time is moving on; we must progress. I think that we have got the thrust of his question, and we are grateful for it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The figures I cited were the figures that prevailed at the time of the last general election.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Deputy Prime Minister is a student of Germany. He will be aware of what happened in the early 1980s when Hans-Dietrich Genscher betrayed Helmut Schmidt, crossed the floor, and propped up a new Government without the election of Helmut Kohl. Is it his aspiration to be the Hans-Dietrich Genscher in British politics? [Interruption.]
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
It will probably come as no surprise to the Deputy Prime Minister that, in common with other Members, I fundamentally disagree with his arguments about boundaries and cutting the number of MPs, but will he accept that whoever is right or wrong on that argument, it is an entirely separate argument from whether we should change the voting system? Why, then, has he sought to put all this together in one Bill? Does not this appear to be more of a deal between coalition partners than the deal that he should be involved in—a deal with the British people to give them a say on the kind of voting system that they want?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I of course agree that as far as the referendum is concerned, it is purely on the issue of the electoral system. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that there is somehow no link at all between the electoral system by which Members are voted to this House and the size of different constituencies. In a sense, it seems to me that both these measures are complementary; they work hand in hand to deal with a fundamental unfairness whereby votes in some areas are frankly disregarded while in other areas the worth of someone’s vote is much greater than elsewhere. These measures taken together seek to remedy that.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I welcome the opportunity for the electorate to have a chance to vote on AV, but does the Deputy Prime Minister share my concern that it gives a second bite of the cherry to minority parties such as the BNP?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that the alternative vote system, were it to be introduced, would not be susceptible to the dangers of some other electoral systems of fostering and allowing extremist parties to get a foot in the door of mainstream politics. If it were susceptible to such dangers, I would be as concerned as she is.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister had the audacity to mention the Chartists, who did not believe in taxing the poor, but did believe in annual Parliaments. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us the average length of a Parliament since 1867 and why this Government, of all Governments, should last longer?
Mr Speaker
May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister not to read a history book before providing his answer?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is 20 questions by a historian. The last Government—the hon. Gentleman’s party in government—governed for five years. We are merely legislating—[Interruption.] Instead of setting history questions, why does he not think about why his party, which was once a party of political reform, now seems to be backing off from that long-standing political tradition? It is a great shame that that is happening.
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
No matter how much gerrymandering the Deputy Prime Minister does, it will not make one bit of difference in Scotland, because there will not be another Tory who gets elected up there. The biggest issue I face every year is the number and complexity of elections taking place, and the type of elections taking place. Surely the logic is to have a referendum with a multitude of choices, so that people decide once and for all which electoral system to adopt, ending the current plethora of electoral systems.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree that the development of different electoral systems for different bodies creates complexities of its own. However, we should not make the best the enemy of the good. We are aiming not for excessive neatness, but simply asking people whether they want to change the system of election to this House to the alternative vote—yes or no. As our political system evolves, the longer-term question, which the hon. Gentleman poses, is whether we should seek greater consistency across different elected bodies’ electoral systems.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
If the boundary review goes ahead on the basis of the register in December, it is likely that at least 10% of my electorate will be missing from that register. Contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman said about individual registration, all the evidence suggests that its introduction, especially on an accelerated programme, is likely to make matters worse. If more than 3.5 million people will be missing from the register, all of us in the House need to ask whether that will be good for democracy.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said, we have inherited the deep flaws in the register from the previous Government. It is incumbent on all of us, and on local authorities that administer the process, to encourage people to register in the first place. Clearly, with the prospect of the boundary review being conducted on the new electoral register, local authorities and every Member of the House have an added incentive to innovate locally, door to door, to get more people to register in the first place.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
On the issue of recall, does the Deputy Prime Minister consider himself in danger of recall, given the serious wrongdoing he has inflicted on the people of Sheffield, Hallam?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Thanks for the relevant question.
As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the loan pledged by the last Government to Sheffield Forgemasters—an outstanding company about which I suspect I know a great deal more than he does—was announced for political purposes, just before the general election, to allow the then Prime Minister to make a late-night photo-opportunity visit to Sheffield Forgemasters two days before the election, and the Government made that announcement in the full knowledge that they did not have the money to make the promise in the first place. What was cynical—deeply cynical—was for a Government to raise the hopes of people in Sheffield by making promises which they knew they could not afford.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
In his statement the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned sorting out the influence of big money in politics. Does that include trade union money?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Clearly, any new arrangement for the funding of political parties will need to be binding on all political parties in a consistent manner, and that is what we will aim to achieve.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
The Prime Minister is already committed to answering questions in the Scottish Parliament on issues of real importance. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us when the Prime Minister will go to Holyrood to answer questions about the referendum date?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I am sure that he will reply to the hon. Gentleman’s question as soon as he knows when he will be answering questions in the Scottish Parliament.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
My right hon. Friend and I used to represent a region containing 4.2 million people in the European Parliament, and we now represent constituencies with electorates of roughly the same size. Can my right hon. Friend tell us how large he thinks the electorate would be in the ideal seat?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We estimate, on the basis of calculations that will need to be derived from the electoral register published in early December, that the optimal size will be about 75,000.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister think again about the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)? If there is a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament but not in the number of Ministers as set out in the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975, there will be an increase in the ratio between the number of Ministers and the number of Back Benchers. Does he understand that point, and will he now address it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I simply do not accept that there is an imbalance between the number of Ministers and the manner in which they are held to account by a House which will be about 7.7% smaller. I believe that a House with 600 Members will be as well equipped to hold this and, indeed, any other Government to account as the present House is with 650.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister seems to accept that chaos occurred both during and following the 2007 election in Scotland, when more than 100,000 ballot papers were spoilt. The Gould report recommended that never again should people be presented with different ballot papers on the same day. The Deputy Prime Minister chooses to ignore that. Can he tell us why? He constantly refers to a ballot paper saying simply “yes or no”. Can he answer “yes or no” to this question? Has he consulted the Scottish Executive?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As it happens, the hon. Gentleman is wrong on a point of fact. The Gould report said very clearly that there was merit in votes coinciding on the same day, but said equally clearly that the way in which the ballot papers were designed in the 2007 election caused enormous confusion to voters. I do not believe that that dilemma will arise for people in this referendum, given the simplicity of the choice and the simplicity of the question.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that in poorer working-class areas, fewer people register to vote and there is a lower turnout? Does he agree that it is important for those communities to have fair representation?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I accept, of course, that we must all make efforts—as individual Members and, as I said earlier, in co-operation with local authorities—to encourage people to register to vote if they are not already registered. However, I cannot escape the fact that we are having to operate with tools which we inherited from the last Government, and which allowed the wholly unacceptable circumstances in which 3.5 million people are not on the electoral register to occur in the first place. We will do whatever we can in trying to remedy that, but I ask the hon. Lady and other Opposition Members what on earth they were doing for 13 years if they feel so strongly about the problem now.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
If we move forward on House of Lords reform to an elected House, which I would support, will we then subject the poor voters of Brigg and Goole and other constituencies to a referendum on the electoral system for that House too?
The Deputy Prime Minister
In the Bill that we will publish before the end of the year, we will also propose the electoral system by which Members of the other place would be elected.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister has repeatedly suggested that the electoral register was inherited from the last Labour Government, but he also agreed with his colleague, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), that it is within the domain of local authorities to compile the electoral register. Which one is it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Clearly, the system is one that we have inherited from the previous Government, but equally it is right that local authorities have a statutory responsibility to take steps to make sure the electoral register is up to date. I do not think those two things are mutually exclusive.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm whether the new, reconstituted constituencies will cross current regional boundaries?
The Deputy Prime Minister
They may do, but the intention is that they will none the less retain the key building block of any constituency, which is ward boundaries. We want to keep that building block in place, as it would be simply too complicated to conduct the boundary review on the scale that has been proposed by any other means.
Mr Speaker
Order. We shall now move on to the statement on education funding. I ask Members wishing to leave the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly.
Education Funding
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on education funding.
This coalition Government are determined to make opportunity more equal and to reverse the decline in the performance of our education system relative to that of our international competitors. Over the last 10 years we have declined from fourth in the world for the quality of science education to 14th, from seventh in the world for literacy to 17th, and from eight in the world for mathematics to 24th. At the same time the gulf between rich and poor has got wider, with the attainment gap between students in fee-paying schools and those in state schools doubling. But the action necessary to improve our schools is made more difficult by the truly appalling state of the public finances left by the last Government.
This coalition Government have inherited a national debt approaching £1 trillion, a budget deficit of £155 billion and debt interest costs every year that are more than the entire schools budget. It is no surprise then that the last Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer felt he had to pledge a 50% cut in all capital spending, the last Labour Education Secretary could not make any firm promises to protect schools capital spending in the future, and the last Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury left a letter saying simply, “There is no money left.”
Faced with the desperate mess left by the last Administration, this Government have had to prioritise, and our first priority is raising the attainment of the poorest by investing in great teaching. We know that the world’s best education systems have the most highly qualified teachers, and we are fortunate that the current generation of teachers is the best ever, but we must do better if we are to keep pace with the best in the world.
No organisation has done more to attract brilliant new recruits into the classroom than the charity, Teach First. Since its launch, Teach First has placed hundreds of highly accomplished graduates in our most challenging schools and has helped to drive up attainment in those schools for the very poorest children. We believe that every child should have access to excellence, especially the poorest, which is why we will more than double the size of this programme from 560 new teachers a year to 1,140. We will help recruit hundreds more teachers into areas of poverty, so there will be Teach First teachers in one third of all challenging schools, and, breaking new ground, we will fund the permanent expansion of Teach First into primary schools so that more than 300 superb new teachers will be working in some of the country’s most challenging primaries.
However, while we have chosen to invest in people, there have been alternative submissions on how to make savings in the education budget. The shadow Education Secretary has argued in The Sunday Times that we should be sacking 3,000 heads and deputy heads this year in order to balance the books. I have rejected that advice. While the Labour party’s answer to our economic mess is further undermining the teaching profession, our answer is supporting great teaching. Therefore, in order to clear up the economic mess we have been left, we have to bear down on the waste and bureaucracy that has characterised Labour’s years in office and rein back the projects that have not been properly funded.
Even before we formed this coalition Government and had the opportunity to look properly at the scandalous mess we inherited, we knew that Labour Ministers had no proper respect for public money. The whole process by which the then Government procured new school buildings was a case in point. The Building Schools for the Future scheme has been responsible for about one third of all this Department’s capital spending, but throughout its life it has been characterised by massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy.
The BSF process had nine meta-stages: preparation for BSF; project initiation; strategic planning; business case development; procurement planning; procurement; contractual close; construction; and then operation. Each of these meta-stages had a series of sub-stages. Meta-stage 3—strategic planning—for example, had another nine sub-stages. Step 1 required local authorities to produce a strategic overview of the education strategy. Step 2 required local authorities to produce a school and further education estate summary. Step 5 required local authorities to produce another strategic overview—this time with “detail and delivery”. Step 6 required local authorities to use the school and FE estate summary to develop an “estates strategy”. Only once we had reached step 9—once the Department for Education had given approval—did part 2 of the “strategy for change” become complete. This level of bureaucracy was absurd and had to go.
For those who doubt that money was wasted on the process, I have here just the first three of more than 60 official documents that anyone negotiating the BSF process needed to navigate. This whole process has been presided over by the Department for Education and the quango Partnerships for Schools, and at various times has involved another body, 4ps, and Partnerships UK. Local authorities involved in this process have employed a Partnerships for Schools director, a Department for Education project adviser, a 4ps adviser and an enabler from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment—another non-departmental public body.
Local authorities have also had to set up a project governance and delivery structure, normally including a project board of 10 people, a separate project team of another 10 people and a further, separate, stakeholder board of 20 people. They formed the core group supervising the project. Beyond them, local authorities were expected to engage a design champion, a client design adviser and a 4ps gateway review team—a group of people who produce six separate gateway reviews over the course of the whole project. It is perhaps no surprise that it can take almost three years to negotiate the bureaucratic process of BSF before a single builder is engaged or brick laid.
Some councils that entered the process six years ago have only just started building new schools. Another project starting this year is three years behind schedule. By contrast, Hong Kong international airport, which was built on a barren rock in the South China sea and can process 50 million passenger movements every year, took just six years to build from start to finish.
Given the massively flawed way in which BSF was designed and led, it failed to meet any of its targets. BSF schools cost three times what it costs to procure buildings in the commercial world, and twice what it costs to build a school in Ireland. The last Government were supposed to have built 200 wholly new schools by the end of 2008; they had only rebuilt 35 and refurbished 13. Those schools that were refurbished had to abide by a regulatory regime that prescribed the size and shape of cycle racks and of changing rooms next to showers, and even the precise species of plant allowed on school sites. The cost to each school for just participating in the early stages of the programme was equivalent to the cost of a whole newly qualified teacher. The cost of setting up the procurement bureaucracy before building could commence has been up to £10 million for each local area.
And this expenditure did not guarantee quality. One BSF school was built with corridors so narrow the whole building had to be reconstructed; another had to be closed because the doors could not cope with high winds. One was so badly ventilated that additional mobile air conditioners had to be brought in during the summer, and pupils were sent home. In three other BSF schools pupils collapsed from heat exhaustion, as design faults repeatedly sent the temperature up to 38° Celsius; that is hotter than August in the Sahara. After Labour’s 13 years in power only 96 new schools out of a total secondary school estate of 3,500 schools have ever been built under BSF. The dilapidated school estate that we have today is, alongside our broken public finances, Labour’s real legacy. Far from using the boom years to build a new Jerusalem, the previous Government only managed to fix just under 3% of roofs while the sun was shining.
The whole way in which we build schools needs radical reform to ensure that more money is not wasted on pointless bureaucracy, to ensure that buildings are built on budget and on time, and to ensure that a higher proportion of capital investment gets rapidly to the front line. That is why I can announce today that a capital review team, led by John Hood, the former vice-chancellor of Oxford university, Sir John Egan, the former chief executive of BAA plc and Jaguar, Sebastian James, the group operations director of Dixons Store Group, Kevin Grace, Tesco’s director of property services and Barry Quirk, the chief executive of Lewisham council, will look at every area of departmental capital spending to ensure that we can drive down costs, get buildings more quickly and have a higher proportion of money going directly to the front line.
In order to ensure that we do not waste any more money on a dysfunctional process, I am today taking action to get the best possible value for the taxpayer. I will take account of the contractual commitments already entered into, but I cannot allow more money to be spent until we have ensured a more efficient use of resources. Where financial close has been reached in a local education partnership, the projects agreed under that LEP will go ahead. I will continue to look at the scope for savings in all these projects. Where financial close has not been reached, future projects procured under BSF will not go ahead. This decision will not affect the other capital funding in those areas; schools will still receive their devolved capital allowance for necessary repairs. The efficiencies that we make now will ensure better targeting of future commitments on areas of greatest need.
There are some areas where, although financial close has not been reached, very significant work has been undertaken, to the point of appointing a preferred bidder at “close of dialogue”. There are 14 such cases, in which two or, occasionally, three projects have been prioritised locally as sample projects, to be the first taken forward in the area. I will be looking in more detail over the coming weeks at these sample projects to see whether any should be allowed to proceed.
As we believe in supporting those in greatest need, my Department will be talking to the sponsors of the 100 or so academy projects in the pipeline—those with funding agreements or that are due to open in the coming academic year—which are designed to serve students in challenging schools in our most deprived areas. Where academies are meeting a demand for significant new places and building work is essential to meet that demand, where there is a merger and the use of existing buildings would cause educational problems, and where there is other pressing need, I will look sympathetically on the need for building work to go ahead. But where projects are some way from opening or sponsors can use existing buildings to continue their work, any future capital commitments will have to wait until the conclusion of our review.
That review is made all the more necessary because as pupil numbers rise in years to come we have to ensure that our first duty is guaranteeing an expansion in capacity to meet that demographic growth. Action is urgently needed today because the whole of my predecessor’s Department’s spending plans were based on unsustainable assumptions and led to unfunded promises. In the forward projections that we inherited, the previous Government were relying on taking massive underspends, worth billions of pounds, across Government to fund promises on college places for teenagers and school buildings. That was a fundamentally irresponsible approach to so important an area. Fortunately, in this coalition Government we have a proper relationship between the Department for Education and the Treasury. That is why we have deliberately reduced our forecast reliance on underspends elsewhere and brought our spending into line. In the process, we have kept capital spending within the envelope outlined by the previous Government, so there are no reductions beyond those for which the Treasury had budgeted.
By bearing down on costs now we can ensure that money will be available in the future to help secure additional places, to help the most disadvantaged pupils and to refurbish those schools in greatest need. We have safeguarded front-line revenue schools spending, we have safeguarded front-line spending on Sure Start and we have safeguarded front-line spending on school and college places for 16 to 19-year-olds this year. We have cut spending on wasteful quangos, we have cut the unnecessary bureaucracy which has swallowed up so much money and we have reduced the amount spent on regional government, on field forces and on unnecessary Government inspection regimes; but we have prioritised funding for better teachers, we have invested more in the education of the poorest and we are giving schools greater control of the money that has previously been spent on their behalf. For everyone who believes in reforming education that has to be the right choice, and I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to say that the Secretary of State significantly exceeded his time, which he will not be allowed to do again. In fairness, I shall also have to allow some modest leeway for the shadow Secretary of State.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
The Labour Government built or refurbished 4,000 schools—the biggest school building programme since the Victorian era—and today is a black day for our country’s schools. It is a damning indictment of this new Tory-Liberal coalition’s priorities and it is a shameful statement from this new Secretary of State, who will for ever go down in history as the man who snatched free school meals from 500,000 poorer pupils and has now, today, in one stroke axed hundreds of brand-new schools from communities across the length and breadth of our country.
Building Schools for the Future was a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the whole local fabric of education—of secondary education, special schools and vocational learning, too. The freezing of the programme that has just been announced is a hammer blow for many hundreds of thousands of children, parents, teachers and governors who will now not get the transformed new school they were promised.
I predicted this day during the general election, and, after weeks of indecision, uncertainty and media speculation that has led to widespread confusion and concern in schools and in the construction industry, too, I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman has finally made a statement to this House. However, is it not a disgrace that, even now, the Secretary of State has not provided a list of all the schools that will be affected? How can hon. Members on both sides of the House ask questions of the Secretary of State when they do not know which of the schools in their constituencies will be affected? The Secretary of State knows the names of the schools. I believe that he has a duty to tell the House and the country and that he should agree to publish the list now—straight away—so we can give it proper scrutiny.
Let me turn to the some of the detailed issues that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. On standards, will he confirm that in the recent trends in international mathematics and science study—or TIMSS—England has risen from 25th in the world to seventh in the world and that among 10 to 14-year-olds we now have the highest achievement in mathematics of all European countries in that study? Why cannot he stop running down the achievements of our children and teachers in our schools?
On teaching, does the Secretary of State agree that we have the best generation of teachers that we have ever had? Will he confirm that the previous Government had already invested in expanding Teach First, including pilots for primary schools? Is he aware that it was the leadership of Teach First who warned me that to accelerate the expansion of the programme any faster would put at risk the quality and success of Teach First—a risk that he has just taken in this statement?
On the Building Schools for the Future programme, the National Audit Office looked into the programme last February and said that originally the forecasts were “overly optimistic”, and that local authorities were asked
“to spend more time to improve their proposals, because…it was more important to improve the quality than to accelerate the programme.”
The NAO concluded that the processes for procurement had “significantly” improved and also found that the total capital cost of each BSF school was similar to that of other schools and 17% cheaper than that of previous academies.
In the next year, as the Secretary of State travels around the country opening the 200 new schools set to open under the BSF programme, will he tell pupils, parents, governors and contractors that their school is part of a programme he believes to be “dysfunctional” and a “waste” of money? Or will he withdraw these unrepresentative and vindictive remarks? It is not the bureaucracy that he is abolishing, but hundreds of new schools for children in our country.
As for my record as Secretary of State, some very serious allegations have been made. I have this afternoon written to the permanent secretary at the Department for Education, who was also the accounting officer for the whole time I was Secretary of State. I have asked him to confirm that all capital funding announcements, including those on BSF, were made with prior agreement between the Department and the Treasury in a normal and fully legitimate way and with his full agreement as chief accounting officer and to confirm that if that had not been done properly, the accounting officer would have insisted on a ministerial direction but that no such directions were issued by me and none were requested. If the right hon. Gentleman has evidence that the proper processes were not undertaken, it is incumbent on him to provide that evidence to the House, rather than make these allegations. I hope that he will agree that his permanent secretary must be encouraged to clarify these issues as soon as possible today.
The right hon. Gentleman has chosen today to freeze BSF and to ask one of the Prime Minister’s old university chums to review the whole programme. He has offered no assurance that this review is anything more than a fig leaf, however. Is it not the truth that 750 schools that have not yet signed their contracts will now be told that they will not get their new school building? We need to know how many schools will be affected, where they are, and how much money has already been spent on those programmes. Is it correct, as the Financial Times reports, that more than £1 billion-worth of new undertakings have been signed since the general election? Does the right hon. Gentleman have an estimate of how much his Department will now have to pay in legal and contractual costs associated with those frozen or cancelled contracts? How many private sector jobs does he think will be lost as a result of these decisions?
The Secretary of State says that this decision is inevitable. That is what Ramsay MacDonald said in 1931, and Margaret Thatcher said to the House in 1980 about investment spending cuts. Only a few weeks ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House in the Budget statement that
“an error was made in the early 1990s when the then Government cut capital spending”
and said that he had decided that there
“will be no further reductions in capital spending totals”.—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 170.]
Is it not the truth that, while I won my battles with the Treasury for rising education spending, the Secretary of State has lost his battle and is now planning cuts of between 10% to 20% to the schools budget? Will he also confirm that his top priority for the spending review will be his free-market schools policy, which will see new schools being built in an unfair two-tier system paid for by cuts to the Building Schools for the Future programme and to the new schools that were promised over the past year or two in the constituencies of hon. Members on both sides of the House?
What we have seen from the coalition today is another attack on jobs, another assault on opportunities and a huge blow to the life chances of children in communities across our country. This was not an unavoidable decision; it is a choice that the right hon. Gentleman has made, and in my view, he has made the wrong choice. I say to every family, every school, every Member of Parliament and every community blighted by this decision that we on this side of the House will fight to save our new schools. We not stand idly by and see this happen.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for his questions. As I pointed out in my statement, the number of schools rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future under the previous Government was just 96 out of 3,500 secondary schools. Under this Government, 706 projects will go ahead. It is also the case, as he said, that we know where those school projects are. As hon. Members will know, projects will go ahead in those local authorities that have reached financial close, and I presume that they will know whether their local authority has reached that stage. Every single one of the school projects that is to go ahead will be listed, and every Member of the House and every local authority is being written to today to be told which projects are going ahead—[Interruption.] The Opposition will appreciate that, with more than 1,500 projects involved, many of them needed to be looked at in detail. That is why I will be writing to every Member of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman said that we were going to cancel free school meals. I must remind him that not a single child in receipt of free school meals will lose their free school meals under this Government. That is an unsubstantiated allegation. He also said that he predicted today’s announcement during the general election. However, during the general election, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) said that we would be looking at Building Schools for the Future, and that we could not guarantee any project beyond financial close. So there was no prediction on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, but there was a grim warning on the part of my hon. Friend that the devastating assault on the public finances over which the right hon. Gentleman helped to preside meant that tough decisions would have to be taken by anyone, whatever the result of the election.
The right hon. Gentleman argues that under the proposals, the private sector will lose out. I have to point out to him that we are sticking precisely to the limits on capital laid out by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). If the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) thinks that the proposed level of capital spending is devastating for the private sector, he should have been campaigning against the last Chancellor of the Exchequer before the last election. [Interruption.] Let me rephrase that. He should have been campaigning more vigorously against the last Chancellor of the Exchequer before the last election.
The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood says that the leadership of Teach First did not back our proposals for expansion. I have to say that our proposals for expansion were negotiated with the leadership of Teach First, who were delighted to see the Government carry forward what the previous Government were not able to do. He says that that is money wasted, and he refuses to back that expansion of Teach First. I believe that investing money in quality teaching in our poorest schools is the right choice for the future. It is interesting that he thinks it is the wrong choice. It is also interesting that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that having gone to a public school and Oxford university automatically rules someone out of making any decision about the future of school capital, in which case he is hoist by his own rhetorical petard.
Let me make it clear that if we compare the improvement in attainment between Building Schools for the Future and Teach First, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that Building Schools for the Future had little statistically significant impact on people’s attitude and behaviour and there was no firm evidence of improved attainment, whereas Teach First, in a study by the university of Manchester, has been shown to have led to a statistically significant improvement in GCSE results.
The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman made unsustainable and irresponsible promises that he knew no Government could keep. He went around the country saying that new schools would be built, when the Chancellor had pledged to cut capital spending in half. He asks about the reality of his irresponsible spending. In the three years in which he was in charge of his Department, the amount of spending that he was relying on coming from other Departments—the amount of underspend that he was relying on—rose from £80 million to £800 million and now to more than £2.5 billion. That £2.5 billion of unfunded commitments is evidence of scandalous irresponsibility.
If anyone in the House wants an example of a truly damaging decision on school building, I remind Opposition Members what the last Labour Government did with the Learning and Skills Council. Ministers invited scores of schools and colleges to submit building plans, which cost those schools and colleges millions of pounds. Ministers then arbitrarily and without warning cancelled 90% of those projects scheduled to go ahead. When those projects were cancelled, schools’ budgets were devastated and there were holes in the ground—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently say to the Secretary of State that I am witnessing something that is, in my experience in the Chair, unprecedented? The right hon. Gentleman must answer the questions that are put to him. He is not supposed to be reading out a previously written script which either was or was not said before. What I want the Secretary of State to do is briefly to respond to each question, and I would like Back Benchers to have a chance to participate.
Michael Gove
I am very grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. The point that I was making is that if we are looking at school building projects and we want to see what scandalously went wrong, we need to look at what went wrong under my predecessor. When he was responsible for the Learning and Skills Council, 90% of projects were cancelled. When he was responsible for education funding, we know that 90% of projects had to be—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry. Let me say to the Secretary of State that the assurance of his gratitude is of no interest to me; adherence to my ruling is. The right hon. Gentleman has had his say. We will now proceed to Back Benchers. I want to accommodate as many as possible, and that requires economy both in question and in answer.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Building Schools for the Future achieved too little at too great a cost, as the Labour-dominated Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families concluded in the previous Parliament. When will the new review team report back to the Secretary of State so that we can have a clearer view of the policy going forward?
Michael Gove
We hope to have an interim review reporting in September, which will tell us how we can make significant improvements in efficiency, which will feed into the spending review. The culmination of that review should be by the end of the calendar year.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Schools in Liverpool will be devastated by the Secretary of State’s announcement today. When the Building Schools for the Future programme was devised we deliberately decided to focus first on the schools in the poorest parts of the country. He said at the beginning of his statement that his priority was raising the attainment of the poorest. How does the announcement today do that for communities such as the one that I represent in Liverpool?
Michael Gove
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question and can confirm that four schools in his constituency are unaffected and five have been stopped, but it is my—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. At this point the Secretary of State’s answer is entirely orderly. Let us hear it.
Michael Gove
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s contribution when he was a schools Minister. He will appreciate, as I do, that the most important thing in improving attainment for the poorest is making sure that we improve the quality of teaching.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Ever since I was a candidate, I have watched local education partnerships—mentioned only briefly—soak up endless time and money. Academy sponsors have come to me in despair because of the amount of money that those bureaucratic layers have soaked up—money that should be going to the poorest. I believe that Labour Members have a concern for bridging the gap between the rich and poor, and I know that my right hon. Friend does. Does he agree that it is a tragedy to see every penny soaked up by local education partnerships, by the papers on his table and by bureaucratic layers, rather than going to those children who most need it?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. In every local authority that has entered Building Schools for the Future so far, the average amount spent on local education partnerships is between £9 million and £10 million. That money should have gone to the front line, into bricks and mortar and into improving education, not into the pockets of bureaucrats.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
The previous Tory Government closed the last 10 pits in the Derbyshire coalfield. Is the Minister going to tell me now that the prospect of two schools at Tibshelf and Shirebrook in that deprived ex-coal mining area has been stopped as well?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that some schools in his local authority area have reached financial close, and those that have reached financial close, including Shirebrook, are unaffected.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Is the Secretary of State aware—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I do apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman, but I am hearing from a sedentary position, “Point of order”. May I say gently to the House that points of order follow statements? I have an almost insatiable appetite for hearing—[Interruption.] Order. I have an almost insatiable appetite for hearing and responding to points of order, but everything in its time. The House will want to hear Sir Alan Beith.
Sir Alan Beith
Does the Secretary of State realise that the arbitrary rules of Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme excluded schools in desperate need of replacement in counties such as Northumberland? Will the mechanism that he proposes to use allow for some of those urgent cases to be considered?
Michael Gove
I am very conscious that Building Schools for the Future was constructed, as I have pointed out, in an absurdly bureaucratic way and often meant that schools in real need, such as The Duchess’s community high school in Alnwick, did not receive the funding that quite properly the right hon. Gentleman has argued for. It is hoped that our review will concentrate on ensuring that all schools in need receive the funding that they deserve.
Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Lab)
Three years ago, within weeks of a Tory-Lib Dem council being elected in Bury, a state-of-the-art school for the most disadvantaged community in my constituency was scrapped. Within weeks of a Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government having been formed in this country, the same school has been denied hope as a consequence of Building Schools for the Future funding being cancelled. Why has the Secretary of State not responded to my request for a meeting of five weeks ago, so that he might hear for himself from representatives of that disadvantaged community about why, if it is to have a future, it desperately needs a state-of-the-art school?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point; I know that he is a passionate supporter of improving educational standards in his area. I shall be delighted to meet him, and I understand that the school that he mentions is under review. I shall come back to him.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that now there should be an inquiry into the abuse of the end-of-year flexibility rules by previous Ministers, under which so much false hope was extended on the basis of commitments that were not properly funded?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In the past three years the dramatic rise in the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ reliance on end-of-year flexibility has been striking. In effect, the Department was relying on underspends throughout the Government to sustain its own programme, including the so-called September guarantee—the guarantee of school and college places for 16 to 19-year-olds. The agreement that the Department entered into with the Treasury in order to rely on underspends elsewhere is not one that we believe to be either sustainable or prudent.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that for more than 100 years we have had a proud tradition of democratic participation in education and an education system in every local education area? Is he today announcing, finally, the death knell of democratic educational participation in our country?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the many intelligent questions that he asks, but sadly that was not up with the best of them. I am absolutely insistent that we move towards a greater degree of local participation in deciding educational priorities. That is why future capital decisions, instead of being a matter for the bureaucrats who have been responsible for making so many of the decisions in unaccountable quangos, will increasingly be a matter for local communities.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
What total financial savings does the Secretary of State expect for national and local government from cancelling all this unwelcome bureaucracy?
Michael Gove
At the moment we expect that there will be a significant saving of billions of pounds. I will write to my right hon. Friend about the precise sum when we have made our final decisions and determinations on the sample projects that I mentioned, which we are reviewing, and the academy projects, which we are also reviewing.
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
When the Secretary of State started his speech, he said that he wanted to make opportunity more equal. He then went on to say that in determining which schools were to get funding, he would give priority to schools where there was a financial close, to academies and to free schools. Will he please tell me why he will not give priority to the 12 projects in my constituency, many of which are designed to provide the additional places that are required because of the additional numbers of pupils coming into the borough?
Michael Gove
I respect the right hon. Lady, who is now Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, but I fear that she may be confusing two things; that is entirely understandable given the complexity of capital funding arrangements. I think that she may be confusing Building Schools for the Future with basic need capital, which will continue to be supplied. I believe that there are four projects in her constituency, not 12, one of which is a sample project that is under discussion.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State as appalled as I am to learn that consultants extracted £60 million-worth of fees from local authorities—enough to build three new schools—under the Building Schools for the Future programme? That is yet another example of the previous Labour Government throwing money around like confetti.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an impeccable point. The fact that so much money was spent—I would argue wasted—on consultancy rather than on going to the front line marks one of the greatest deficiencies in the way in which the Building Schools for the Future programme was managed.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State accept that, to use his words, the truly appalling legacy was the legacy that was left to a Labour Government in 1997—that of schools throughout Birmingham with leaking roofs and kids getting taught in corridors? Does he also accept that today’s announcement will be a bitter blow for Birmingham, leaving 50 schools in limbo; a bitter blow for the children of Birmingham, who deserve new schools to get the best possible start in life; and a bitter blow for Birmingham’s construction workers, many more of whom will end up on the dole as a consequence of the Secretary of State’s announcement?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I appreciate his disappointment and the passion with which he puts his case. As regards the impact on the private sector, as I pointed out earlier, under the projections for reductions in capital spending made by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West, capital spending overall would have been reduced by 50%; we are operating within that capital envelope.
On the hon. Gentleman’s broader point about the legacy that the Labour Government inherited in 1997, that legacy was a healthy economy, growing fast, and an opportunity to make investment not just in schools but in hospitals. It is a pity that the Building Schools for the Future programme was so bureaucratic that in the 13 years that the Labour Government had, only 96 new schools were built.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement on doubling the number of recruits into Teach First. What other plans does he have to increase the number of great teachers in our schools?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. One of the things that I am most determined to do is reform the way in which teachers are trained by ensuring that we improve and increase employment-based and school-based initial teacher training. That will mean that more great teachers can be trained in the classroom, learn their craft from existing great teachers and continue to improve the quality of education that young people receive.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
What was markedly missing from the Secretary of State’s quite shameful and inadequate statement was any concern for the future of all our children. My constituency is served by two local authorities, Brent and Camden. Both are facing a serious shortfall in places not only in secondary schools but in junior schools. His failure to give any information to parents, pupils, schools and my local authorities on which schools will go ahead and which will not, and on what funding will be available to provide additional places, was an absolute and utter disgrace.
Michael Gove
I know how passionately the hon. Lady fights for her constituents. She mentions junior schools; she will be aware that junior and primary schools are not covered by the BSF programme, and today’s announcement does not affect the primary capital programme.
As far as secondary schools go, the hon. Lady will know that her principal local authority, Camden, has reached the close of dialogue but not yet financial close. As a result, she will know that there are two sample projects in her local authority area, and they fall under—[Interruption.] I am sure that she will know the schools in her own constituency that are sample projects.
Michael Gove
If the hon. Lady does not know the schools, I regret that, but they are of course the UCL Camden academy and Swiss Cottage special school. Those are the two sample projects in her constituency.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
While money has, in many cases, been squandered on consultants, pre-procurement processes and wasteful bureaucracy, my constituency has not had a single school built through the Building Schools for the Future programme. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is outrageous that fewer than 200 schools have been built while billions of pounds have been spent?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and the fact that the disadvantaged students of Reading have not received the benefit that they should have done under the school-building programme is one of my concerns, absolutely.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State said that he would look sympathetically on the need for building work to go ahead where the use of existing buildings would cause educational problems and where there was other pressing need such as a rise in pupil numbers because of demographic growth, both of which are issues in my constituency. Will he confirm that that applies to schools that are currently part of BSF but are not academies and do not intend to become free schools?
Michael Gove
Absolutely, and because Leicester council has reached financial close, I can say that all the schools in the hon. Lady’s area that are part of Building Schools for the Future will go ahead.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I share my right hon. Friend’s concern about the wastage of resources, but I am obviously concerned about schools in my constituency, particularly a special school, Montacute school. Can he assure me that special schools will be given every consideration in the review?
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Sutton Centre community college in my constituency is in the process of gaining academy status. In order to get that status, it was guaranteed a new building because the college is in urgent need of repair. The Secretary of State says that he wants more academies and wants to help pupils in deprived areas. Will those two principles mean that the new building for Sutton Centre can go ahead?
Michael Gove
If Sutton Centre has either signed a funding agreement or has academy status in the pipeline, it will be one of the projects that is reviewed. I hope to talk to the hon. Lady to ensure that its progress towards academy status is encouraged if it is proceeding properly, but I do not know the specifics of that particular school’s case.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State consider fast-tracking academy status for outstanding schools that were hoping to benefit from the BSF programme? I particularly mention the case of Castle community college in Deal, which, seeing the writing on the wall, is now seeking to be an academy. It is an outstanding school, and I hope that the Secretary of State will give it full consideration.
Michael Gove
I welcome that application from what I know is an outstanding school, and I will do everything possible to ensure that if the headmaster and governing body want to take advantage of academy freedoms, they can do so. With that, there is no additional preferential or other capital spending commitment that I can make. I can, however, reassure my hon. Friend that the Duke of York’s royal military school in his constituency, which is moving towards academy status—in fact, I think it enjoys that status now—and which required extra accommodation for the children of service people, is one of the academy projects that I am most anxious to see go forward.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I am afraid that I do not know the difference between the close of dialogue and financial closure, and the local authority does not ring me up and tell me when they happen. Will the Secretary of State confirm that all nine schools in the BSF programme in Leicester East will remain in it? If there are any financial penalties as a result of what the Secretary of State has said today, will the Government reimburse local authorities that signed contracts in good faith?
Michael Gove
I am afraid that local authorities entered this process under the previous Government and the responsibility lies there. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the difference between close of dialogue and financial close, and I agree that the process can be confusing. It is precisely because the Building Schools for the Future programme was so confusing that we needed to simplify it. As I pointed out to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), Leicester is a local authority that has reached financial close, so the projects that were slated to go ahead in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency should go ahead.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
Following the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), I should say that the people of Suffolk had the temerity not to return a suitable number of Conservative Members of Parliament in previous elections and therefore were right at the back of the queue for Building Schools for the Future. They were kept waiting under this inadequate system. Can the Secretary of State confirm when the people of Chantry high school and Stoke high school, who have been kept waiting for many years, might expect some sort of investment? I am thinking also of Holywells school, which is part of the national challenge scheme.
Michael Gove
I am disappointed that Ipswich has had to wait so long as a result of that. I am afraid that schools in that local authority area did not reach financial close. There is an academy in my hon. Friend’s constituency that will form part of our review programme. I am afraid that today’s announcement means that, sadly, Building Schools for the Future investment will not go ahead for Chantry high school.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Wakefield City high school serves pupils on the Eastmoor estate, one of the most disadvantaged in the country, yet it is one of the top six schools in the country for gross value added. Can the Secretary of State tell us how that school will be served following his triple whammy of cutting the extension of free school meals, cutting local council funding for both capital and programmes for disadvantaged pupils, and today’s cutting of the Building Schools for the Future budget? How does that assist his avowed aim of helping the education of the poorest children in the country?
Michael Gove
I am sorry that the position we inherited meant that the capital investment for which the hon. Lady quite properly argues in her constituency could not be delivered. She should bring up the issue with her parliamentary neighbour the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) and with the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who were responsible for taking us into the dreadful economic situation that necessitated today’s unavoidable announcement.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is the Secretary of State aware that Building Schools for the Future spent £20 million on building a school in Essex and that, sadly, Essex county council was forced to close it down six years later? Is he also aware that the BBC quoted a local authority IT officer who said
“lots of money has been spent and nobody seems to know where it’s gone”?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I have lost count of the number of people in the educational world who have made it clear to me that the Building Schools for the Future programme was not managed as it should have been if it was to guarantee the best possible investment of taxpayers’ money.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State understand the huge levels of concern and anxiety in my constituency and throughout the rest of Barnsley because of his announcement today? He has had a bit of a shocker at the Dispatch Box, so I will try to be helpful. If he has a list affecting my constituents, or others in Barnsley or elsewhere, why does he not put it before the House now?
Michael Gove
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be aware that his local authority in Barnsley has reached financial close, and for that reason the schools will go forward unaffected. I will write personally to every Member to make it clear to them exactly what is happening in their own constituency. I shall also, of course, be writing to every local authority. I appreciate how seriously Members take this issue, so I presume that most Members will know whether their local authorities were in financial close or at close of dialogue.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
Will my right hon. Friend please tell me how many primary schools will gain a Teach First teacher? Also, how many such teachers will go to middle schools, of which there are two in my constituency?
Michael Gove
More than 300 Teach First teachers will be going into primary schools, and Teach First will be expanding for the first time into every part of the United Kingdom. Hitherto, it has not operated in the south-west of England, but now it will. The Teach First model has concentrated mainly on major cities, but we are consulting Teach First on precisely how it can expand into areas such as the south-west.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the excellent BSF applications from the previously Lib Dem-Tory council in Brent, which were supported at the time by the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), will be subject to the freeze? Could that be why the Minister refused to debate those issues with me at the Brent teachers association last week, and why she looks so bloody miserable today?
Mr Speaker
Order. My tender sensibilities have been gravely affected, but I am more concerned about people in the country, particularly young people. Will the hon. Gentleman please withdraw that unseemly term?
Barry Gardiner
Mr Speaker, I withdraw the unseemly term and replace it with “miserable”.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend the Minister enjoys debating with the hon. Gentleman at every available opportunity. He will be delighted to know that we want to ensure that the academy that is being opened by ARK in his constituency goes ahead. We also want to ensure that in future, we look to guarantee that future capital spending that might affect his constituency goes to those pupils and schools in greatest need, including primary schools.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
The Secretary of State specifies 14 cases in which he will reconsider so-called sample projects. Can he explain what criteria and aspects he will consider when looking at those so-called sample projects, and what will most guide his decision making with regard to them?
Michael Gove
I want to be sure that the legal and contractual position is secure for those sample projects, and also look at the arguments that have been made specifically to them. There are sample projects in Blackpool that we will want to review. I know that my hon. Friend, as a passionate fighter for education in his constituency and more broadly, will want to ensure that effective representations are made on behalf of his constituents, and I look forward to receiving them.
Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)
How many school building projects have been frozen as a result of the coalition Government’s announcement, and how many of our children are affected by that coalition freeze?
Michael Gove
Of the existing stock of BSF projects in the pipeline, which is broadly just over 1,400, about half have been frozen, and about half will go ahead.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that schools such as Todmorden and Calder high schools in my constituency, whose fabric is incredibly poor but which do not currently meet BSF low attainment and deprivation criteria, will be considered in the review?
Michael Gove
I know that my hon. Friend, as a lead member for children’s services in his local authority area, has been a dedicated fighter for improved investment in school fabric, and how disappointing the current BSF process has been for him. I will certainly do everything I can to seek, in the course of the review, to prioritise investment in schools whose fabric has, over the years, become so dilapidated that we need desperately to do something.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State clearly has a list, so could he please stop teasing us and let me know whether the Joseph Leckie school in my constituency is on it?
Michael Gove
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. It would undoubtedly be helpful if she could tell me whether her local authority is in financial close or in close of dialogue. My understanding is that Walsall has not reached financial close, but I believe that her constituency benefits from an academy project.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
The court of public opinion will judge the shambolic way in which the BSF programme was administered by the previous Government. Does my right hon. Friend have an estimate of the number of teaching hours that were wasted by teachers and schools devoting time to the BSF programme?
Michael Gove
We know that thousands of teaching hours were devoted to it. In many cases, deputy and assistant head teachers had to take time out of school—often for as many as two or three days a week—in order to take part in the procurement process. Time that could have been spent on teaching and learning was instead spent entangled in bureaucracy.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
On Friday I had a meeting with the head teachers and chairs of governors of the six schools in my constituency that were expecting to be rebuilt or refurbished later this year under wave 6 of BSF. None of those six schools was a sample school, and none of them was at financial close, but all of them had proceeded on the basis that this vital investment would be forthcoming. Why does the Secretary of State think that it is okay for some students in my constituency to learn in portakabins?
Michael Gove
I do not believe that temporary accommodation is right for any student if we can do better. The problem that we have is that we inherited a financial situation and the money simply is not there. As the hon. Lady knows, her local authority was a participant in an earlier wave of BSF. There are some schools in Liverpool that have benefited from that earlier wave, but a later wave has not reached financial close and so, regrettably, the investment cannot go into those schools. That is a direct consequence of the economic mess that we inherited from the last Government—and she stood in their support in the election.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
Is my right hon. Friend considering using the staggeringly expensive PFI funding, on which present arrangements are based, when considering future capital spending on education?
Michael Gove
Like me, the hon. Gentleman is sceptical about the way in which PFI operates. One of the problems with the BSF projects is the way in which the PFI programme was managed.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
What does the Secretary of State’s decision mean for school buildings in Rochdale?
Michael Gove
Again, if the hon. Gentleman can let me know whether his financial authority has reached financial close, I will be able to tell him. I will write to him, and a full list of schools is being put in the Library. In Rochdale, I think that all the schools will go ahead.
Mr Speaker
Order. Questions with the brevity demonstrated by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) are an inspiration that others might seek to follow.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the hard work that the many inspirational teachers in West Suffolk do to wade through some of the bureaucracy with which they have to deal. Does he agree that it is irresponsible to raise hopes of new schools when no sustainable funding is available?
Michael Gove
I entirely agree. It is irresponsible, cynical and poor politics. It was one of the terrible things about the last Government that they raised hopes before the last election knowing that they would not be able to honour them.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will know that I asked him in education questions a few weeks ago about Stoke-on-Trent. My city was in the unique circumstances of being in phase 1 of the process. He said that he would look at the position sympathetically, so can he now give the people of the area, who are anxiously awaiting this decision, a positive answer?
Michael Gove
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to his constituents. He will be aware that the situation in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the worst examples of the way in which the bureaucracy associated with BSF has delayed necessary investment in rebuilding the school estate. Stoke-on-Trent is one of those local authorities that has reached financial close, so therefore school rebuilding will go ahead—and I hope that it will do so more quickly and efficiently.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is curious that Labour Members seem so obsessed with state-of-the-art buildings and so uninterested in the quality of teaching in schools? Will he confirm that our Government will have different priorities?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It was interesting that the shadow Secretary of State was so contemptuous of the investment in Teach First: it was very revealing of his priorities.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
We are in the absurd position of constantly having to ask the Secretary of State to read from his list. I know precisely which schools in my area have not reached financial close, but I do not know if they have got to the close of dialogue stage. Those three schools are La Retraite, Dunraven and Bishop Thomas Grant. Can he tell me from his list whether they will go ahead?
Michael Gove
Again, I hope that hon. Members appreciate that the confusion that exists about whether schools have reached financial close, close of dialogue or another position is a consequence of the way in which the whole BSF project was designed. Their confusion is a direct result of the bureaucracy. Dunraven school is a sample school, and therefore falls within the group of local authority schools that we will look at. Elm Court, a special school in his constituency, has already opened under BSF. I believe that two other schools have not reached financial close, and I will confirm that in my letter to him. A full list of all schools is being placed in the Library—[Hon. Members: “When?”] It is in the Library now.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
When the review team reports, can the Secretary of State ensure that its recommendations give priority to tackling dilapidation, so that schools such as Carshalton girls school in my constituency can get the works that they need?
Michael Gove
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s determination to ensure that dilapidation forms part of the criteria for our capital review. I can confirm that we want to ensure that those schools that are in the worst state receive the most favourable treatment possible in future, given the constrained financial circumstances in which we are all operating.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
This is an absolute disgrace. The Secretary of State has a list that he is reading from. He could have stated at the outset that the list was in the Library, so that Members could have asked him about what was happening in our constituencies. Can he tell the House whether there are any phase 1 schools for which he has stopped projects and whether there are any phase 5 schools that are going ahead? We need to know what is going on in our constituencies, because we have learned nothing today that was not in the papers over the weekend.
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that we need to know what is going on in our constituencies. The point that I would make is that inevitably, because of the complicated way in which Building Schools for the Future was arranged, there is confusion. However, I can say that I believe that the phase 1 projects in his constituency—I hope that he will confirm this—of Broadoak, Crown Woods, Eltham Hill and Thomas Tallis are unaffected. The academy base for Eltham Hill is under discussion, but I am afraid that in four other areas the later wave of projects has been stopped because they have not yet reached financial close.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
As somebody who completed their teacher training in a new school that did not originally have enough entrances to get the pupils in, I certainly welcome the common-sense approach to new school design. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it is not just about buildings, but about what goes on inside them, and that there are plenty of schools and authorities throughout the country that did not qualify for BSF? Can we therefore have an assurance that he will ignore the petty, party point scoring from the Opposition? Does he agree that, as we move forward, we need to divert resources to the most needy children in our local communities, and especially those who are excluded?
Michael Gove
I quite agree. My hon. Friend has consistently made it clear that the care of excluded children is one of the most important things on his mind. When it comes to future investment—for example, in pupil referral units or alternative provision—we want to ensure that we do everything possible to bear down on costs and make sure that more provision can be secured for those vulnerable children.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said that we should know what the situation is in our constituencies, but by having the information in advance, we could have seen what was happening in our regions and the country generally. With hindsight, does he agree that it would have been better to provide that information before the debate, rather than during it, and that this would have been in the interests of transparency, so that we could have had a full statement and full interventions by Members from all parts of the House?
Michael Gove
I take the right hon. Lady’s point, but I have made it clear that there are rules-based criteria by which we have made our judgment, based on whether schools have reached financial close. As the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) made clear earlier, not only was there speculation in the press, but it was also the case that before the general election the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), made it clear that it was unlikely that we would be able to proceed with those projects that had not reached financial close. Once again, I appreciate that the different stages of the Building Schools for the Future programme have led to confusion. However, I am sure that the right hon. Lady, like many other Members who care about their constituents, will be aware of the precise stage that projects have reached in her area and the local authority area that covers it.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that some of the projects that he has put on hold today were in a position to be signed off by the previous Government before the general election? Is it not also the case that the shadow Education Secretary knew a lot more about what would and would not be possible when he was running his Department than he seems to know now, when he is running for his party leadership?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make the point that there was a mismatch between the commitment to rebuild or refurbish so many schools and what any member of the Labour Cabinet would have known to be the true state of the public finances.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I am assuming that all of the £210 million of BSF money for Hammersmith and Fulham is gone, including the £20 million for Phoenix high school—one of the most deprived yet improved schools in the country, and where the Secretary of State gave the address at the last presentation evening—and the £21 million for William Morris sixth form, of which I should declare I am a governor. But how are we supposed to know all that from a disgraceful statement comprising four pages of point-scoring waffle and one page that is totally unclear? The language of financial close is not the language that our local authorities have been using with us, so will the Secretary of State please not blame us or our local authorities, but instead blame his Government for not even being clear about which school projects they are cutting?
Michael Gove
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman feels that way. I appreciate that Phoenix school in his constituency—a school that I have visited, as he rightly pointed out—is an excellent school. The language of financial close is not my language; it is the language that has been chosen for Building Schools for the Future. It was the language developed by the Government of whom he was a part and the language used by the shadow Education Secretary.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
Is the Secretary of State disappointed to hear that when I asked why two of the three allowable phase 3 new build projects in Bradford were in schools with some of the highest levels of attainment in the district—instead of in schools serving deprived communities—I was told that raising educational attainment was not a criterion for the allocation of BSF phase 3 funds?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes the very good point that the criteria that govern Building Schools for the Future were not as they should be. The capital review will be looking to ensure that when future money is allocated, a more sensitive set of criteria will form part of that process.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
Over the past five years I have seen nine new schools in my constituency improve their standards of education and behaviour. What can the right hon. Gentleman say to parents who have signed up to send their children to the two proposed academies in my constituency, on the basis that they would indeed be academies on 1 September? Can he confirm whether those projects will go ahead, or do I have to refer to the bootleg version of the list that is now doing the rounds in the Chamber?
Michael Gove
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Those two academies will form part of the group that we are reviewing, as I mentioned in my statement. It is also the case that Estover community college in her constituency is, I believe, unaffected.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s passion for teaching is a welcome change from his predecessor’s passion for bureaucracy and financial waste—waste that has cost the taxpayers in Bedford borough council £500,000 on their Building Schools for the Future proposal, with no progress at all made on building. However, as my right hon. Friend is aware, there is a complex change in Bedford, involving a transition from three-tier to two-tier education. Will he agree to have a meeting on that issue?
Michael Gove
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and representatives from Bedford.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I have written repeatedly to the Secretary of State over the past six weeks asking him to confirm the funding for the three Durham academies, in Consett, Belmont and Stanley. I have to say that it is absolutely disgraceful for the information to come out as it has, and it has meant that Members are having to stand up in this place and individually beg for information from the Secretary of State.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady asks about the two academies. In my statement I made it clear that Consett and Stanley academies—[Interruption.] I will have to write to the hon. Lady about Belmont in due course, but Consett and Stanley form part of our review.
Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)
May I first congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement today? I might add that he was far too generous about the bureaucracy, because anybody in local government or schools who has been involved would have been far more attacking than he was. Will he look especially at the two cases in my city—the Priory school and King Richard—both of which are just weeks away from financial closure? If there is a review, may I ask that it take place speedily, so that such schools can get a clear answer? That will prevent several more hundreds of thousands of pounds from being spent, by both the local authority and the bidders for the two projects concerned.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point. I know that the leader of Portsmouth council, Mr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, has also suffered at the hands of the bureaucracy associated with BSF, and I will look as closely as I can to try to help.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State tell me what the names are of the schools that could be affected in my constituency? Ernesford Grange and Finham Park are rebuilds, while there is refurbishment at Westwood, Whitley Abbey and Blue Coat. Let me say to the Secretary of State that it is no good referring the issue to local authorities. It is his job to get briefed by his officials who are in contact with local authorities. If he cannot answer those questions, there is something wrong, because I am appalled at the way in which he has answered the questions in the House today, and I have been politics a very long time.
Michael Gove
I thought it was my duty to tell the House of Commons first about the principles that guided this. I made it clear in my statement how we decided that local authority projects that have reached financial close will go ahead and those that have not cannot. I also made it clear where the exceptions would take place and mentioned the reviews that will follow. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, Coventry South is not part of a local authority that has reached financial close, so the projects there will be stopped.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is right to focus on teaching standards and value for money, but does he accept that there are some local authorities that have received hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, while others such as my own have received nothing? Will the review look to address that unfairness and, in particular, will he look at the case of the Quest academy, which takes over from Selsdon high school in September—a very dilapidated building that needs major refurbishment?
Michael Gove
I take note of the school to which my hon. Friend refers, and I will look sympathetically at it.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State aware that it is at the very least disrespectful to Members to make a general statement without informing us about the individual cases that we have all raised with him several times both in writing and orally in the House? As far as Coventry North West is concerned, will either the President Kennedy or The Woodlands—both sample schools and both very near final closure—proceed?
Michael Gove
I have to say that I do not believe that they qualify as sample schools—I will check that information—but they have been stopped.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s statement and for his telling me that both Wilnecote and Belgrave high schools in Tamworth are applying for academy status. Does he agree that we should meet to discuss the former Labour county council’s decision arbitrarily to abolish sixth forms and give them over to one single sixth form? Can we discuss how to unpick that situation?
Michael Gove
I know that my hon. Friend is very concerned about the way in which sixth form allocation has been secured in his constituency. He has already made representations on that. My Department will consider and discuss with him further exactly what we can do to help.
Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)
Only three weeks ago, the Prime Minister promised to do everything in his power to help and support the people of west Cumbria. Will the Secretary of State honour that commitment?
Michael Gove
I will do everything I can to help the people of west Cumbria, but I am afraid that, because financial close was not reached, the projects in his constituency will be stopped.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
During the general election, the Conservative candidate in my constituency made a public statement to the effect that schools due to be rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future would indeed get their funding and that that had been confirmed by Conservative central office. Can I take it from this that the three schools due to be rebuilt in my area will get their funding?
Michael Gove
I think that the hon. Lady falls within one of the local authorities that has reached financial close. I am sure that she will confirm that that is the case and let me know if it is not. As a result, I think that the schools will go ahead. As for any communication during the election, as I say, the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), indicated that we would find it very difficult to say yes to schools that had not reached financial close.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to continue to invest in the science education of our young people, who need to be equipped with the skills they need for the future? If so, will he explain why new academies sponsored by Durham university and a new science campus in my constituency are to be stopped?
Michael Gove
I sympathise with the hon. Lady. I am committed to doing everything I can to support science. I will talk to Durham university about the situation, but I am afraid that Durham was one of the local authorities that had not reached financial close.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
It is obviously important that we are discussing the issue of school buildings, but I fear that members of the public listening to the questions and answers over the past hour might have been left with the impression that first-class teaching and inspirational school leadership play no part in improving children’s life chances. Would the Secretary of State like to confirm that on the Government Benches, we recognise the crucial importance of those things?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an impeccable point, and I totally agree with her.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I attended Kenton comprehensive in my constituency under the previous Conservative Government in the 1980s. We had great teachers, but we also had peeling walls, leaking roofs and prefab buildings. On Friday, I was able to attend the opening of the new Kenton school, which is a £33 million investment in the future of Newcastle’s children, made under the last Labour Government. Now I know that this coalition—
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for having to interrupt the hon. Lady, but we simply do not have time for preambles at this point. Will she please bring herself to put a question?
Chi Onwurah
Yes, I would like to ask the Secretary of State if he will at least acknowledge that the investment of the last Labour Government will reap real rewards for Newcastle, for my school and for my city.
Michael Gove
I know that in Newcastle, schools are either open or have reached financial close. I have had the opportunity of talking to the head teacher of Kenton school, which I know is excellent and I hope to visit it in the future.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I regret that we have to obtain information in this way, and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State told me what reassurance I can give to King Edward VII school, which sits both in my constituency and that of the Deputy Prime Minister. As I understand it, it fits the criteria that the Secretary of State described in being a school that has not reached financial close, but on which very significant work has been undertaken in a project significantly to enhance the teaching of STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—which are critical not only to school students but to our economy.
Michael Gove
I believe that Sheffield is one of the local authorities that has reached financial close, so I think that the King Edward VII school is unaffected.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I quite like him, but may I say that the way in which he has presented his statement today has been nothing but a disgrace? In so doing, he has treated the House and individuals in it with contempt. He said in his statement that the poorest communities will not be affected, but what will be gained in Stanley in my constituency—one of the poorest areas in this country—by reviewing an academy that has the support of the local community and will put in great work to change the lives of thousands of children in the years to come?
Michael Gove
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s kind words at the beginning. I have stressed that academy projects are those that, as we both appreciate, were designed to help children in the most difficult circumstances. If he would like to write to me, we will make sure that we do everything possible to help to support that academy project.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
In the light of the shambolic way in which information has had to be eked out of the Secretary of State today, he will forgive me for pressing him a little further. Can he say that he will honour every penny of the previous Government’s promise on the primary capital programme, including the £12.6 million to benefit three primary schools in my constituency, and the secondary enlargement programme, which, although outwith the Building Schools for the Future project, is vital to the future of education in my constituency?
Michael Gove
I can say that the Furness academy in Barrow and Furness is unaffected. The hon. Gentleman made reference to primary schools in his constituency, but nothing in today’s announcement directly affects the primary capital programme or devolved capital for this year. Obviously, future capital decisions will form part of the comprehensive spending review.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
Hurworth school in my constituency is an excellent school with inspirational teachers and excellent pupils as well. It was down to receive BSF money earlier this year. I want to know whether that funding will still be in place. If not, the school is already close to falling down. It has shown an interest in academy status. Does the right hon. Gentleman think it should still go ahead for that status, given that it is a broken-down school, or does he think that the 650 pupils should move into a disused shop under the free schools scheme?
Michael Gove
I am afraid that County Durham is one of the local authorities that has not reached financial close, but I would encourage all schools that believe that they can make use of academy freedoms to move down that route. We are, of course, encouraging sponsors, with whom we have been in negotiation, to do everything possible not just to transform teaching and learning, but to improve the environment in which children learn.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that, whatever his criticisms of the Building Schools for the Future programme, some of which were justified, his announcement today will cast a pall of gloom and uncertainty over areas such as mine, which have yet to benefit from it? Does he also agree that in north-east Lincolnshire, we have particular problems in that we desperately need the new school building as a stimulus to the system and we desperately need the jobs and economic stimulus that that building will bring? It is also an area of high unemployment and under-privilege, which suffers from under-attainment in educational standards. Should not the particular needs of an area such as that be taken into account before deciding to cancel any part of our programme?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points about the defects in the Building Schools for the Future programme, which shows him being typically bipartisan and capable of rising above party divisions in order to acknowledge such flaws. I also appreciate that in his constituency a fantastic school, Havelock academy, is unaffected by today’s proposal. However, I am afraid that because two schools in his constituency have not reached financial close, they will not receive the investment that he might have hoped for. I appreciate that in Great Grimsby there are problems with educational attainment, and I look forward to working with him to do everything that we can to raise attainment in that constituency.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
You are aware, Mr Speaker, that I have raised this point on two previous occasions with Government Front Benchers. My right hon. Friend the shadow Education Secretary raised it earlier and did not get an answer. The Secretary of State clearly refers in his statement to projects that have not been properly funded, and uses as an example the new school building programme. As the shadow Education Secretary said, however, if we had announced projects that were not properly funded, he would have been asked for a letter of direction from the permanent secretary. Therefore, will the Education Secretary produce the letter of direction confirming what he has said today? Again, under this Government, Halton has been badly affected by terrible cuts—much worse than more affluent areas.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. My argument is that, because the shadow Education Secretary made spending promises on Building Schools for the Future at the same time as the then Chancellor of the Exchequer was making it clear that capital spending would be reduced by half, those projects were unfunded and unsustainable.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for doing the job of the Secretary of State and bringing us the documents from the Library. As a result, I now know that four schools in Blaydon will not get support. Are we not seeing the real cost of the Tory Budget? Is it not the truth that the Government are giving corporation tax cuts, introducing a very timid bank levy and doing nothing about tax evasion and avoidance, but the people paying for it are the schoolchildren of Blaydon?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point. I am afraid that Blaydon will not benefit because it falls within one of the local authorities that has not reached financial close. However, two schools in his constituency have already opened under Building Schools for the Future—[Interruption.] In Blaydon. I hope the pupils in those schools are benefiting. They will certainly benefit in future from the expansion into the north-east of Teach First, which will result in supremely talented teachers in secondary and primary schools who can help to raise attainment in his constituency.
Mr Speaker
Order. Before I take points of order, let me acknowledge, without apology, that I ran both statements very long today. That is unusual, albeit, I suspect, not unprecedented, and it certainly should not be regarded as the norm or a guide to what Members can expect. I took account both of the level of interest in the two extremely important matters and of the nature of, and likely interest in, the business to follow. I think that is perhaps worth the House knowing.
Points of Order
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. A Member of the House doing an interview with the BBC at 5.25 this afternoon was given the full list of schools in her constituency on the departmental list. It transpires that that was sent out to the media by the Department at 5.20, but at 5.45 there was still no list in the House of Commons Library. Is that not a shameful way to treat the House? How can Members respond when they are not given the information being given to the press?
Further, at 4 o’clock this afternoon, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury made a written ministerial statement in which he announced a £1 billion cut to the budget of the Department for Education—a cut that was not mentioned subsequently in the Secretary of State’s statement, which was labelled a statement on school funding. How can that happen?
Further, allegations have been made in the House about financial improprieties that happened before the election. I said clearly that there had been no direction, and that everything was agreed with the Treasury. The allegations were then repeated. Can we have chapter and verse and a reply from the accounting officer at the Department before the House rises tonight, so that we can clear up the matter and find out who is telling the truth?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Matters of procedure, or indeed of process, are matters for me in the Chair. Matters of content of statements are not. What I can say to him, and to the House, is the following. Obviously, I have done, or have had done for me, a little bit of research in anticipation of the possibility of points of order on this matter. “Erskine May”, on page 441, makes it clear that
“a document which has been cited by a Minister ought to be laid upon the Table of the House, if it can be done without injury to the public interest.”
That principle does seem to apply to the list—the document, or documents, in this case. It, or they, should be available to the whole House, rather than just to individual Members when they ask or through correspondence afterwards. I think that the thrust of what I have said is clear.
We had extensive exchanges and considerable dextrousness was required from the Secretary of State for Education. He was asked a great many questions and sought to answer them. It seemed to me a pretty unwieldy process, to put it mildly, for us not to have the documents available at the appropriate time. I have noted what the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) has said about the timing of the passing of documents to members of the media and so on, but before I pass any comment on that matter, I think it is only right to ask the Secretary of State for his comments in response to the point of order and to what I have said.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful to you for your direction from “Erskine May” in that regard. I wanted to ensure that we made a decision based on rules-based criteria, and I hope that that was clear in my statement. It was also the case that a list was placed in the Library of the House. I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House, if Members feel that the decision to place it in the Library of the House was in any way too slow and in any way impeded their capacity to ask the questions that they properly want to ask.
Mr Speaker
Order. Before I take further points of order—I am happy to do so—let me say that I am grateful to the Secretary of State for what he has said, but there is a response to it. First, I think that laying the documents either upon the Table of the House, to coincide with the start of the statement, or in the Vote Office, would be the proper course to follow in these circumstances. I have put that on the record, so that he can be clear for the future. Secondly, with reference to the question of timing, I wonder whether he can confirm or refute the suggestion that a copy of the list was passed to members of the media while his statement and the exchanges on it were still in progress.
Michael Gove
I am not aware of that because I was here in the House answering questions.
Mr Speaker
In response—I do not want to have an extended exchange with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his efforts to co-operate —[Interruption.] Order. If the Secretary of State says that he is not aware—he is a person of his word—I of course accept that he was not aware, but what I would say is that the Secretary of State should be aware of whether something has been passed to the media before the statement is concluded. If he is not aware, it is inevitably possible that something would be passed to the media, as it has been suggested has happened, before the statement is concluded. That would be a rank discourtesy to the House. I have known the right hon. Gentleman for 20 years, and I have always known him to be a person of the utmost courtesy, but it is fair to say that there has been something of a breach of courtesy today.
Ed Balls
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. On your ruling, I told the House five minutes ago that the list was circulated to the press at 5.20. Either the Secretary of State for Education doubts my word, or he should apologise to the House for the list being sent to the media 25 to 30 minutes before it was placed in the Library of the House. Can we also have answers to the question on the allegations about my impropriety? Will he provide a reply with evidence about these allegations of financial impropriety from the accounting officer and the permanent secretary of the Department before the House rises tonight?
Mr Speaker
The shadow Secretary of State has now twice, very clearly, made his point about the timing of the release of the documents to non-Members of Parliament. The Secretary of State has offered a form of apology; whether he wishes to add to that is a matter for him.
As for the other important matter raised by the shadow Secretary of State, namely what he regards as a slur on his good name, I must tell him that, procedurally, it is not a matter for me. It is a matter of debate, and I have a feeling that it will be the subject of continued exchanges between the two titans for some time to come.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope you will agree that the House is being treated with contempt this afternoon. One copy of that list was finally put in the Library, and those who were queuing to try to obtain it were unable to return to the Chamber before the end of the statement. That is a complete and utter disgrace. Will you try to find out when it was decided to put the copy of the list in the Library? It is highly suspicious that the Secretary of State did not make clear in his statement that a copy was in the Library; we forced it out of him that it had been done while he was making the statement. Will you also find out, Mr. Speaker, when the copy actually went into the Library? It is impossible for us to question the Secretary of State on what is going on in our constituencies unless we have the details.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I hope that you will compare the statement with the list that was in the press over the weekend, because the substance of the statement was what was in that list. We heard nothing from the Secretary of State in the House today that had not been in the newspapers over the weekend.
Mr Speaker
The first point that I will make to the hon. Gentleman is this. I think I have already made clear—but let me underline the point—that it is not sufficient simply to provide the Library with a copy of a document. If the document appertains to a matter that is currently before the House, in order to aid and abet Members in their scrutiny duties, copies of that relevant document should be available in the Vote Office, on the Table of the House, or, better still, both.
Secondly, let me say to the hon. Gentleman that we cannot have a continued exchange on every point of detail now. I have, I think, made clear that, whether inadvertently or not—I leave others to judge—the House has been unfairly and discourteously treated. I have made that point extremely robustly, and I do not think that I need add to it at this stage.
As for what the hon. Gentleman said about what was in the media, I am happy to undertake my own reading at an appropriate time. I suggest to the Secretary of State, who is listening to these exchanges—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State may wish to add to whatever apology he has already uttered, but I suggest to him that it would be helpful if he would look into the matter of timing of release of documents by his Department and report back to me, because it is clearly a matter of interest to Members of the House.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hear what you say about the papers and the sort of apology that we have already had from the Secretary of State, but much of this information was in the media throughout the weekend. Moreover, in a statement earlier this afternoon the Deputy Prime Minister told us that he wanted to come to the House before consulting the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament, but the date of the referendum on the alternative vote was in all the media last Friday. In fact, it started to appear in the media almost the moment Parliament finished sitting last week. I have a suspicion that the Deputy Prime Minister himself spoke to journalists for precisely that purpose.
I see that the Leader of the House is in the Chamber. I wonder whether you, Mr Speaker, could consult him and the shadow Leader of the House to consider ways of ensuring an end to the practice of briefing the media before coming to the House. Some of us had hoped that when there was a hung Parliament, the House would take more authority than the Government.
Mr Speaker
As I have just been reminded, I have opined on this matter on many occasions, and I may have cause to do so again in the future.
Let me briefly say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, the appearance in the media of a date for a referendum was the subject of media speculation at the time. There is a limited number of dates that might be considered, and I do not put that in quite the same category as the disclosure of the detailed contents of a statement. Secondly, although I have listened very carefully to the hon. Gentleman—who never raises points of order lightly, and is always very well briefed when he does so—I think it fair to say that one cannot simply act on suspicion. The hon. Gentleman said a moment ago that he suspected that the Deputy Prime Minister had passed material to the media. I must rest content with what I know to be true. The hon. Gentleman has made his point, it is fairly on the record, and I will keep a beady eye on these matters—not merely on a weekly or monthly basis but, as I think he will know, on a daily basis.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure it will not have escaped your notice that this is the third apology that we have heard in less than a week, and that two of those apologies have come from Secretaries of State. That must be some sort of record.
Hundreds and hundreds of schools and constituencies have been affected by today’s announcement. It is extremely important. The Secretary of State said that this project had not been properly funded. It is a matter of fact that, if it had not been properly funded, the permanent secretary would have asked the then Secretary of State to provide a letter of direction. Can we not ensure that the Secretary of State returns to the House by 10 o’clock tonight to make a statement on that very issue?
Mr Speaker
I know that my response to his point of order will disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I must tell him that the nature and quality of statements are for both the Minister concerned and others to assess. They are not, in this instance, a matter of order. There is a genuine dispute, and it is a dispute about which the hon. Gentleman feels passionately. He is entitled to do so, he has put his point on the record very clearly, and I have a feeling that he will share it more widely with those who have recently re-elected him.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you require the Secretary of State to come back tomorrow and make a proper statement on this matter? I asked about spending in my constituency, and the Secretary of State did not answer the question. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who has now given me the answer—all 13 projects have been stopped—but I should not have to ask such questions; I should be given the information here. There was plenty of time for that during the extended session on the statement.
As you will see if you look at the statement, Mr. Speaker, the first four pages are about what the last Labour Government did. It is point-scoring waffle. There was plenty of time for the information to be given, and if it had been given, we could have asked questions based on it. Will you ask the Secretary of State to come and make a correct statement on the matter?
Mr Speaker
I have been very explicit about the parts of the handling of this matter that I regard as unsatisfactory. What we cannot do—or it would not, in my judgment, be a proper use of the time of the House later in the week for us to do it—is rerun the statement.
The hon. Gentleman is a man of great ingenuity and indefatigability, and I feel sure that he will find ways in which to highlight his concerns—if not tomorrow, later in the week or on other occasions. I feel sure that as soon as he leaves the Chamber, he will be dedicating his grey cells to precisely that pursuit.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I dread producing a few facts to cover the Labour party’s synthetic anger, but when I heard that the list of schools was in the Library, I thought it would be useful to go and get a copy. It does raise a complex point of order. We have had a relatively long session on a statement about an important issue. At what time should documents be put in the Library? We should bear it in mind that as soon as they are in the Library they are in the public domain, and can be handed to the media. These documents went to the Library at 17.52. Should documents go to the Library and be available generally at the start of the statement, or at the end of it? That is an important point of order.
Mr Speaker
Let me say first to the hon. Gentleman that his points of order are always important, and that this was no exception. Secondly, let me say to him that I thought I had made this point clear, but if I failed to do, I apologise to the House. My very strong view is that relevant documents should be available on the Table of the House or in the Vote Office, or both, at the start—I repeat, at the start—of a statement, to make it easier for Members to conduct their duty of scrutiny. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman and the House.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Further to the point of order made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), Mr Speaker. Today there was a written statement of the additional £1 billion of cuts in the education capital spending budget, which will further affect hundreds if not thousands of schools that may have already engaged builders to carry out the work. Can we not be given extra time tomorrow in which to question the Secretary of State on this matter, and to drill into the detail of not just the £1 billion that we have lost today, but the extra £1 billion that was snuck out when we were all sitting in the Chamber?
Mr Speaker
The frustration of the hon. Lady is overflowing like Vesuvius, and I entirely understand why that is the case, but what I would say to her, in very short order, is, “No I can’t make that commitment.” She has very eloquently put her concerns on the record, but the reason why I cannot make that commitment is that the manner in which Government make a statement, whether it is written or oral, is a matter for the Government. I understand what the hon. Lady says, and the Secretary of State will have heard it, but it seems to me to be in a different category from the other matters of which we have treated in these points of order exchanges.
If there are no further points of order—if the appetite has been exhausted—we can move to the presentation of Bills. Before we move on, however, may I thank the Secretary of State, the shadow Secretary of State and all Members who took part in what were admittedly somewhat heated exchanges? These are very important issues and they have been fully aired.
Bills Presented
Employment Opportunities Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Mr Mark Field, Adam Afriyie, Mr Douglas Carswell and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to introduce more freedom, flexibility and opportunity for those seeking employment in the public and private sectors; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 24).
Drugs (Roadside Testing) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Greg Knight, Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to make provision for roadside testing for illegal drugs; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 10 June, and to be printed (Bill 25).
United Kingdom (Parliamentary Sovereignty) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mark Pritchard, Mr Philip Hollobone, Mr Brian Binley, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mr David Nuttall and Mr John Whittingdale, presented a Bill to reaffirm the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 26).
Broadcasting (Public Service Content) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Mark Field, Mark Pritchard, Mr Philip Hollobone, Mr David Nuttall and Mr Douglas Carswell, presented a Bill to define public service content for the purposes of public service broadcasting.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 April, and to be printed (Bill 27).
Training Wage Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Mr Robert Walter, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Brian Binley and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to make provision that persons receiving a training wage are exempt from legislation relating to the minimum wage; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 28).
Minimum Wage (Amendment) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Mr Mark Field, Mr David Nuttall and Mr Douglas Carswell, presented a Bill to enable the national minimum wage to be varied to reflect local labour market conditions; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 March, and to be printed (Bill 29).
Referendums Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Mark Field, Mr Philip Hollobone, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr David Nuttall and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, presented a Bill to provide for minimum turn-out thresholds for referendums; to impose restrictions on holding elections and referendums on the same day; to facilitate combined referendums on different issues; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 30).
Tribunals (maximum Compensation Awards) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Mark Field, Mr Brian Binley and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to enable maximum limits to be established for compensation in tribunal awards for cases involving unlawful discrimination; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 31).
Public Bodies (Disposal of Assets) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Douglas Carswell and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to make provision to require certain public bodies to dispose of unused or under-used assets by public auctions; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 32).
Regulatory Authorities (level of Charges) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Peter Bone, Philip Davies, Mr Robert Walter, Mr Douglas Carswell and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to provide for controls on the powers of certain regulatory authorities to impose charges for their services; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 33).
National Park Authorities Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Christopher Chope, supported by Mr Desmond Swayne, Dr Julian Lewis, Mr Mark Field and Mr Peter Bone, presented a Bill to empower the Secretary of State to abolish National Park Authorities; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 April, and to be printed (Bill 34).
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has a lot of reading to do, and we look forward to the results of that.
European Union (Audit of Benefits and Costs of UK Membership) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to commission an independent audit of the economic costs and benefits of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 10 June, and to be printed (Bill 35).
Residential Roads (Adoption by Local Authorities) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to require the handover of residential roads built by developers to local highways authorities within certain time periods; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 36).
National Service Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to provide a system of national service for young persons; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 March, and to be printed (Bill 37).
Young Offenders (Parental responsibility) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to make provision for a mechanism to hold individuals to account for any criminal sanctions imposed upon young people for whom those individuals hold parental responsibility; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 38).
Return of Asylum Seekers (Applications from Certain Countries) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to provide for the immediate return of asylum seekers to countries designated as safe; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 December, and to be printed (Bill 39).
Apprehension of Burglars Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to provide immunity from prosecution or civil action for persons who apprehend or attempt to apprehend burglars; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 February, and to be printed (Bill 40).
Taxation Freedom Day Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to provide for an annual Taxation Freedom Day to reflect the proportion of tax paid by individuals from their income; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 April, and to be printed (Bill 41).
European Communities Act 1972 (Repeal) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and related legislation; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 April, and to be printed (Bill 42).
Rights Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to set out certain principles in a United Kingdom Bill of Rights; to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 43).
Sentencing (Reform) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Philip Hollobone presented a Bill to reform sentencing provision to ensure that the length of a custodial sentence reflects the sentence of a court; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 February, and to be printed (Bill 44)
Mr Speaker
We look forward to the product of the hon. Gentleman burning the midnight oil.
European Union Membership (Referendum) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Philip Davies and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to require the holding of a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 March, and to be printed (Bill 45).
Broadcasting (Television Licence Fee Abolition) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Philip Davies and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to make provision for the abolition of the television licence fee; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 46).
Elector Registration Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to require each elector applying to register to vote to certify their entitlement to vote; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 March, and to be printed (Bill 47).
Electoral Law (Amendment) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to enable electors in the precincts of a polling station before the time designated for the closing of the poll to vote; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 October, and to be printed (Bill 48).
Human Trafficking (Border Control) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Philip Davies, Mr David Nuttall and Dr Térèse Coffey, presented a Bill to require border control officers to stop and interview potential victims of trafficking notwithstanding entitlements under European Union law to free movement of persons; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 49).
Medical Insurance (Tax Relief) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mr Brian Binley, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies and Mr David Nuttall, presented a Bill to provide for tax relief on medical insurance premiums.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 February, and to be printed (Bill 50).
Snow Clearance Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies, Mr David Nuttall and Dr Térèse Coffey, presented Bill to provide immunity from prosecution or civil action for persons who have removed or attempted to remove snow from public places; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 November, and to be printed (Bill 51).
Armed Forces (Leave) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies, Mr David Nuttall and Chris Heaton-Harris, presented Bill to provide that leave for members of the armed forces serving overseas should be calculated from the time an individual arrives back in the United Kingdom; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 19 November, and to be printed (Bill 52).
Transparent Taxation (Receipts) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Peter Bone, supported by Mr Philip Hollobone, Mark Pritchard, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Nigel Dodds, Mark Reckless, Mr Brian Binley, Mr William Cash, Philip Davies, Mr David Nuttall and Chris Heaton-Harris, presented a Bill to make provision for all receipts printed in the United Kingdom to contain a figure for the total amount of tax paid on the goods and services purchased.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 January, and to be printed (Bill 53).
Alignment (Clear Line of Sight) Project
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
I beg to move,
That this House approves the proposals for simplifying the Government’s spending controls and financial reporting to Parliament, as set out in the paper, Alignment (Clear Line of Sight) Project, Cm 7567, of March 2009, and the response of October 2009 to the relevant report of the Liaison Committee (Second Special Report of the Liaison Committee, Session 2008-09, Financial Scrutiny: Parliamentary Control over Government Budgets: Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report of Session 2008-09, HC 1074).
The motion seeks the authority of the House to implement changes to the structure and content of the Supply estimates that set out departmental spending plans and are subject to approval by the House. These changes stem from work that began under the previous Government, and which has enjoyed cross-party support throughout. The aim of the changes is to provide a simpler and more effective system of public spending control.
As hon. Members will remember, the previous Government announced in the Green Paper, “The Governance of Britain”, in June 2007 that they would simplify the spending control framework and the Government’s financial reporting to Parliament further to enhance consistency and transparency at all stages of the process—budgetary spending plans, parliamentary Supply estimates and expenditure outcomes in resource accounts. That will lead to the following: a simpler and more transparent system, making it easier for Parliament to understand and challenge Departments; a strengthening of the existing budgeting framework by underpinning it with parliamentary control; and the streamlining of Government spending documents, making it easier to understand what is happening with public money.
Government’s and Parliament’s control and scrutiny of public spending is currently managed against four different frameworks. First, there are the national accounts, an integrated set of economic accounts covering the whole of the economy. Those accounts are produced by the Office for National Statistics in accordance with the European system of accounts 1995. National accounts are used to determine fiscal performance. Secondly, there are budgets, which are defined by the Treasury and used to control public spending. Budgets are allocated by the Treasury in spending reviews and reported on to Parliament at successive pre-Budget reports and Budgets. Certain elements of budgets are aligned to national accounts definitions. Others, such as those introduced with the move to full resource accounting and budgeting in 2003-04, relate to commercial-style accounting concepts and are designed to improve value-for-money incentives in Departments.
Thirdly, there are Supply estimates, which seek annual parliamentary authority for the expenditure of individual Departments following the plans set out in spending reviews. Estimates are largely, if not entirely, aligned to generally accepted accounting practice—GAAP—accounting definitions, rather than to national accounts, although they do not encompass all of the departmental expenditure and income that would be accounted for under GAAP. There are significant differences between estimates and budgets: about a third of departmental spending in budgets is not included in estimates, and about a sixth of what is included in estimates is not in budgets. Fourthly, there are resource accounts, which report Departments’ actual spending during a particular financial year, following GAAP, as adapted for the public sector. That means that there are some substantial differences compared with budgets and national accounts.
Those four frameworks have developed in different ways over the years for good reasons, since they serve different purposes. However, the result is significant misalignment between the different frameworks, with only two thirds of Government expenditure fully aligned across budgets, estimates and resource accounts.
Current misalignments can broadly be broken down into two categories. First, there are differences in the various boundaries—the entities and spending included in budgets, estimates and accounts. Those cover both different types of income and expenditure within the budgets and the different treatment of entities within respective boundaries. For example, the spending of non-departmental public bodies scores in budgets, but the grant-in-aid paid to those bodies scores in estimates and resource accounts, not their total spending. Secondly, there are differences in the policies. Specific transactions are often treated differently between the three frameworks. Examples include capital grants, provisions and other non-cash items within budgets.
At present, there are significant differences between the ways in which the three main elements of the public spending control framework define and treat expenditure. Those three elements are: departmental budgets as set by the Treasury; departmental Supply estimates as authorised by this House; and departmental resource accounts presented to this House after the year-end. To give just one of many potential examples, departmental estimates and accounts currently include only the spending of the relevant Government Department, whereas budgets also include the expenditure of any non-departmental public body for which the Department is responsible. This means that Departments have different controls against which to manage, and that it is very difficult to track spending from plans through to out-turn. That, in turn, limits the scope for effective parliamentary scrutiny and adds to the complexity of managing public money; it also requires time and effort to reconcile the frameworks.
The principal aims of the proposed changes are therefore to increase the transparency of public spending information; to improve accountability to this House and to the wider public; to make it easier for Government Departments and other public bodies to understand the controls to which they are working; and to provide a more efficient control framework that builds in the right incentives to deliver better value for money.
As I have said, the different frameworks have developed in different ways over the years, and for a range of reasons. For example, international standards have helped determine the definitions of expenditure currently applied within both accounts and budgets, with budgetary definitions being determined by Government but supporting internationally recognised fiscal definitions, and accounting policies reflecting international financial reporting standards adapted for the public sector context. Some misalignments between those frameworks will inevitably remain. What matters most is that they occur only where there is good reason, and that they are properly understood and kept to a minimum.
Budgets and estimates will be fully aligned under the new framework. The remaining misalignments will be with resource accounts—amounting to about £22 billion—where enforcing alignment would be contrary to the principles of the alignment project. By far the largest example, amounting to £19 billion, is the treatment of capital grants paid by Departments to the private sector, local authorities and public corporations. That is because capital grants are treated as resource spending in departmental accounts, reflecting international financial reporting standards, but as capital spending in budgets, reflecting national accounts treatment. As hon. Members will recognise, this is not a straightforward area.
Nevertheless, there is much improvement that can be made while adhering to these standards, and the alignment project represents an excellent opportunity to achieve greater consistency between the different frameworks. The main changes designed to achieve the aims of alignment are the extension of the departmental estimates and accounting boundaries to accommodate non-departmental public bodies and other bodies classified to the central Government sector, bringing their expenditure within the coverage of estimates presented to Parliament for approval. The power to do that, through a Treasury Order listing the bodies to be consolidated into estimates and accounts, was provided in part 5 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
It is worth spending a couple of minutes reflecting on the different nature of non-departmental public bodies, which vary enormously in size and in the functions they carry out. Consolidation will include bodies that spend very large amounts of public money, such as the Environment Agency and the Legal Services Commission, which will be consolidated within the estimate and accounts of, respectively, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice. Both those bodies spend over £1 billion per annum. Some of these bodies are charities—the national museums and galleries, for example—and others have statutory independence, so it is important that we create alignment in a way that neither constrains their freedom to act nor puts their status at risk. The provisions of the 2010 Act, approved by this House earlier this year, include protection for that independence, so that we can combine operational freedom with financial accountability.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend recall that in 2007, the Treasury Committee acknowledged
“that the requirements of the alignment project mean that it is not possible for Parliament to maintain control over gross totals. We are concerned that without adequate levels of information regarding income, Parliament’s authority may be diminished.”
How can the Minister reassure Parliament that our authority over Supply will not be diminished in any way following alignment?
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
May I ask a number of questions on the non-departmental bodies with which the hon. Gentleman was dealing? First, when will they be incorporated into the estimates? Secondly, how will NDPBs that get some of their grant funding from a number of Departments be dealt with in the estimates? The third, and contentious, issue is NDPBs that may have reserves of moneys raised outside of Government, and which want the freedom to spend those moneys in ways appropriate to their governing bodies.
Mr Hoban
The right hon. Lady raises some interesting points. On her first point, my understanding is that this provision will come into force for the financial year 2011-12. On her third point, we of course want to make sure that NDPBs still have the freedom to act, and we have said that they will—they will have the independence they had prior to this process. That issue was, I think, taken into account in drafting the 2010 Act, which the right hon. Lady will have supported as a member of the then Government. So those controls are in place.
Margaret Hodge
On my second point, the freedom of NDPBs to spend reserves from moneys they themselves have raised was not dealt with under the 2010 Act, which I did indeed support. As a member of the then Government, I pursued that issue and did not get to a good end. I hope that the Minister will undertake to look at it, in order to give those NDPBs their freedom.
Mr Hoban
We will look at it, but incorporating NDPBs into the clear line of sight project so that their results are reported in estimates and departmental annual accounts is something that should be done, and the principle underlying these reforms is to do it in a way that does not compromise their status.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
While the hon. Gentleman is on the subject of NDPBs, can he clarify now for the House the future of the Tenant Services Authority, about which there has been some speculation in the media? Apparently, the Housing Minister described it as “toast”, and the Financial Times has speculated that the Chief Secretary overruled the Housing Minister.
Mr Hoban
No, I want to make some more progress. A number of Members on both sides of the House wish to participate in this debate, and I am conscious that there is also private business after this.
I want to talk now about the next stage of the alignment process: the coverage of estimates and budgets by including all non-voted budgetary expenditure and income in the estimates presented to Parliament. Parliament will not be asked to approve this spending as it will already have separate legislative authority, but Members will see the full picture of departmental budgetary expenditure. For example, spending financed from the national insurance fund will now be included in the accounts and the estimates, even though it does not have to be voted on annually. Going back to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), we will align the treatment of income in estimates with budgetary controls. Income will be retained by the Department, provided it is of a type allowed to be netted off budgets and included in the description of income in estimates. To this end, a new description of all relevant categories of income will be included in estimates and replicated in Supply legislation. That will ensure that such information is disclosed in the estimates, and those bodies will therefore be accountable for those sums.
We will simplify the presentation of expenditure information by fully aligning budgets and estimates, reducing remaining differences with accounts to those that are absolutely necessary, and providing clear reconciliations between any necessary misalignments that remain.
Mr Leigh
Let us get this absolutely clear. Although the Treasury originally said that there might be a problem with this information coming to Parliament, the Financial Secretary is going to make sure that it is fully available because he appreciates that this is an incredibly complicated and difficult matter for Members of Parliament to come to grips with. There is no point in having an alignment project if less information ends up coming to Parliament and the situation is less clear than it was before. I think that my hon. Friend has given us the necessary reassurance, but I wish to press him, so that there is no doubt that we will get just as much information as we have always had.
Mr Hoban
My understanding is that that is the case. What we will also be able to do—this deals with something that frustrated me when I first came into the House—is track information from budgets set by the Treasury to estimates and to the out-turns. That consistency of information will help Members of this House to hold the Government to account on how public money is being spent.
These changes have been the subject of constructive cross-party consultation over the past three years. During the previous Parliament, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury submitted three memorandums on alignment to the Chairmen of the Treasury Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Liaison Committee, in November 2008, March 2009 and February 2010. The March 2009 memorandum contained detailed proposals for achieving alignment and was published as a Command Paper. All the Committees indicated their support for the proposed changes, and the Liaison Committee took the lead in providing detailed responses. I am grateful to that Committee for its engagement with, and support for, the alignment proposals throughout. The Committee noted in its report on financial scrutiny published in April 2008 that the alignment project was “potentially an historic development”. I fully endorse that view.
The Liaison Committee published a further report in July 2009, which was, again, strongly supportive of the proposed changes. It also made reference to wider issues related to the parliamentary scrutiny of public spending, including the number of days available for debates on the estimates and the outcome of spending reviews, and the scope of such debates. This Government’s establishment of the Backbench Business Committee represents a significant step forward in this area. That Committee has at its disposal 35 days in each Session, some of which are taken in Westminster Hall, to schedule debates on subjects of its choosing, including the scrutiny of public spending.
This Government are fully committed to enhancing transparency in public spending and supporting effective scrutiny by this House. We have already published data held on the Treasury’s public spending database going back to 2005-06. Further measures are being taken that will see details of all new spending of more than £25,000 published from November 2010.
Mr Thomas
The Financial Secretary rightly made reference to the support of the Liaison Committee and to the work of the Backbench Business Committee. However, the Liaison Committee also made it clear that the Government should give an undertaking to provide a day’s debate on the outcome of each spending review and on each year’s pre-Budget report. Can he confirm that it is the Government’s intention to do that from now?
Mr Hoban
Clearly, the Liaison Committee’s recommendations preceded the decision by this Government to set up the Backbench Business Committee. The Backbench Business Committee has the power to use one of the 35 days available to it to deal with the issues proposed by the Liaison Committee, and that is the right way to proceed. It is right to give the House a power to engage in that degree of scrutiny.
The House is today being asked to approve formally changes that will further support the move towards greater openness and transparency, and make effective scrutiny of spending plans by this House far easier to achieve. An explanatory note outlining the purpose of the alignment project has been made available in the Vote Office. With the authority of this House, these changes will be implemented for the financial year 2011-12, and I commend this motion to the House.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, welcome this opportunity to debate the clear line of sight project. What happened this weekend will have dispelled any last remaining doubts about the need for more clarity, transparency and scrutiny of the Government’s plans for public spending. The measures that we are debating will help to make that process a little easier.
As the Financial Secretary said, this project to align better the measures of Government spending was initiated by the previous Government and was strongly supported by many of the Committees of the House. I should, at the outset, acknowledge the important contributions made by the Hansard Society—its contribution went back as far as 2006—the National Audit Office, and, of course, the Treasury Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Liaison Committee in championing these reforms.
The Financial Secretary alluded to the fact that in our June 2007 Green Paper, “The Governance of Britain”, we announced the establishment of the clear line of sight project. In a memo in November 2008, we published the first broad ideas, which were then developed into a clearer set of proposals published in March 2009. These ideas set out to do the following: first, to modernise the public spending process to make it more transparent and easier for parliamentary scrutiny purposes and, therefore, to make the Government more accountable; secondly, to make the public finances easier to understand by reforming the way in which the Government publish financial information; and, thirdly, to create greater incentives for value for money by improving the way public spending is managed.
In short, the project was designed to resolve the basic problem that Treasury budgets, which are announced in spending reviews and published in the departmental annual reports, estimates laid before Parliament and resource accounts each currently measure and report expenditure in different ways. That inevitably makes it difficult to compare figures, thus creating, on occasion, confusion and a lack of understanding. Given the Budget that we have just seen, with the scale of impact on the poorest, this has never been more necessary to resolve.
In March 2009, we set out a series of specific proposals in a Command Paper proposing key changes. The first was that the estimates presented to Parliament would be organised, so that when Parliament voted on them it was voting on the same totals as the Treasury would be using to control Government spending—as the Financial Secretary has said, that is particularly significant for non-departmental public bodies. The second was that parliamentary controls over expenditure would be on a net basis, rather than on a gross and net basis. The third was that Parliament would actually approve the capital spending plans of Departments, rather than just be made aware of them. Other proposals were that there would also be changes to the format of the estimates to help simplify them further, and that financial publications would be rationalised to three annual publication events.
The March 2009 proposals had identified misalignments between budgets, estimates and resource accounts of almost £500 billion from the 2008-09 departmental resource spending plans. The extent of misalignment after today’s proposed changes would have reduced to approximately £22 billion—that is a very significant and substantial improvement. Nevertheless, I hope that the Financial Secretary will undertake to keep under close scrutiny, in partnership with Parliament, the scope for any further reductions in this level of misalignment.
We demonstrated our further commitment to this project by taking forward within the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 the one aspect of these proposals that required a change to legislation. That proposal—the consolidation of non-departmental pubic bodies within department resource accounts—was included within the Act and passed in the wash-up period before the general election. I welcome the fact that the explanatory note that the Financial Secretary has put in the Table Office gives some indication of the timetable for introducing the order that will list the bodies to be consolidated into the estimates and accounts—that relates to part of the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge). However, I would welcome his including in his winding-up speech an explanation for the somewhat lengthy time lag between the primary and secondary stages of this particular process.
In the previous Government’s original proposals of March 2009, we said that we wished
“to develop, over time, a set of ‘mid-year’ departmental reports giving a provisional view of spend and performance for each department during the current financial year”.
The Liaison Committee strongly supported that proposal, so will the Financial Secretary explain how he sees the Treasury developing that particular part of the March 2009 proposals?
Perhaps, the Financial Secretary could also set out how the proposals might impact on some of the new bodies that he and his Department have announced. The Office for Budget Responsibility has not had the best of starts, with its independence being questioned and its statistical analysis set for early scrutiny. At the moment, the OBR sits within the comfortable embrace of the Treasury and I wonder whether the Financial Secretary can explain to the House whether he has plans to establish the OBR as a non-departmental public body. I ask because, if that were to be so established, under these proposals the House would be able more clearly to see what the OBR was costing and on what it was spending its money. The House would be more able to make a clearer assessment of whether the OBR’s communications and economic analysis were genuinely independent of the Treasury. If he does not plan to establish the OBR as a non-departmental public body, perhaps he can explain how he plans to offer the House the same level of scrutiny over the OBR’s spending and therefore help the House to assess how independent of the Chancellor and his spin doctors the OBR is?
Perhaps the Minister, too, can set out how these proposals will impact on the independent Equitable Life commission that he plans to establish. Again, will he establish this commission as a non-departmental public body? I ask this without prejudice.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
I am slightly puzzled by the shadow Minister’s speech, because it sounds like a debate for tomorrow.
Mr Thomas
With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, if he had done some research into what these proposals are about, he would understand the significance of including non-departmental public bodies in the estimates and accounts and would therefore understand the advantages for the House of these proposals.
If the Equitable Life commission that the Government plan to establish were to be set up as a non-departmental public body, the House could assess how much the Government were spending on the administration of the commission as well as on the payments of the scheme. The House could therefore potentially understand more easily how the functions of the commission, which, incidentally, are yet to be made clear, were being implemented. If the Financial Secretary and his colleagues do not intend to set the commission up as a non-departmental public body, will he tell the House how it will be able to scrutinise how the commission is funded and what it spends its money on?
Similarly, the Financial Secretary’s proposals, announced in this House, for a consumer protection and markets authority and a new economic crime agency have not so far been subject to any scrutiny other than that given to the original statement to the House. Under the alignment project proposals, the House could scrutinise more effectively their spending plans and compare them to their predecessors in that regard if they were established as non-departmental public bodies. If he does not propose to establish these two bodies as non-departmental public bodies, will he explain how Parliament will be able to approve their spending plans and scrutinise their accounts? Again, I ask that without prejudice.
One of the real concerns about the Minister’s proposals was the loss of energy within regulatory agencies as individual staff focused, inevitably, on their own futures. The Minister still needs to explain how such a loss of energy in regulatory oversight is being prevented. Will he recognise today that clarity on the status, budgets and ultimately expenditure levels for the new bodies will be fundamental in giving the House confidence in the ability or not of these agencies to do the job that the coalition plans for them?
I welcome this further opportunity to confirm support for the sensible changes that the last Government created under the alignment project, which have taken place after considerable useful debate, but I look forward to the Financial Secretary giving some more clarity on the questions that I have asked.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
The hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) strayed rather a long way out of the line of sight of the line of sight project, if I may say so. His points about the importance of the Office for Budget Responsibility are well made and well taken, and that is something that I hope my Committee will consider and something that I am not yet convinced we have achieved. However, I think that that is a debate for another day.
These proposals will significantly improve parliamentary scrutiny of spending. The previous Labour Government deserve a lot of credit for having put this work in train, just as the coalition Government deserve some credit for acting on what they inherited. I also want to pay tribute to the Liaison Committee and its staff and, in particular, to the work of the Treasury Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon). He put in a great deal of hard work on all this, some of which is now bearing fruit. I understand that he intends to catch your eye in a moment, Mr Deputy Speaker, and he will no doubt make these points in more detail. However, in the 2007 report he expressed a number of concerns, and two main concerns in particular. One was about the timetabling of publications and the other was about the treatment of income lines in the estimates. On the first, the Government have proposed to publish their departmental reports and accounts by mid-June of each year and to publish the main estimates earlier. That is a step forward. On income streams, the Government’s original proposal—this has been mentioned—was that the House of Commons would vote only on the net estimate. That would have been a step back from the current arrangements whereby Parliament at least votes on both the gross and net figures.
The Treasury Sub-Committee, when considering this matter, acknowledged that with alignment it would not be possible for Parliament to maintain controls over gross totals, but it argued strongly that adequate information should none the less be provided. That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) made a moment ago.
On the question of income streams, I think that the Government’s latest plans are a great step forward. Let me explain why. If I get this wrong, the Minister can intervene and tell me. As I understand it, under his proposals any income used by Departments to support spending must be of a type specifically approved by Parliament. That is the first key point, of which there are four. The second is that tax receipts cannot be used as income by Departments to boost spending. In other words, the tax receipts must still go to the Treasury in the normal way. The third is that information on estimated income will still be presented to Parliament and the fourth is that Departments will still be required to explain variations between planned income and actual income at the year end. The Minister has not intervened on me yet, so I have high hopes that I have got that right. If I have, the Government have gone a long way towards satisfying the concerns of the Sub-Committee’s report of the previous Parliament.
This is a complex area with a lot of unknowns still as we develop these changes. We must be realistic about what is achievable and we must be clear that there was no golden age when Government estimates were routinely rejected or reduced. The House of Commons abandoned any attempt to debate estimates in that sort of detail not in the post-war era, as many people suppose, but sometime in the 19th century.
I am also clear that great care needs to be taken before pressing for dramatic increases in powers for Parliament in this area as they can have unforeseen consequences. It is certainly worth considering, for example, ensuring that supplementary estimates are approved by the relevant Sub-Committee, but I am wary of anything that could create the conditions for the growth of a pork barrel style of politics in Britain through the back door. I have been an advocate of stronger Select Committees for many years and we have a lot to learn from our counterparts in Congress, but I do not think that we have much to learn by importing pork barrel politics.
Mr Tyrie
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I am near the end of my remarks and I would rather get to the end because I have discovered—surprisingly on this subject—that quite a few people want to speak.
We will have to see whether the proposals provide better opportunities for the Select Committees that shadow spending Departments and we will soon see whether they can start to scrutinise better the spending decisions taken by them. We will have to wait to find out whether these Committees take up those opportunities—that includes the Treasury Committee, which also monitors spending Departments.
I warmly welcome these proposals from the Government. We now need to monitor them carefully.
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I join others in warmly welcoming the moves that are being taken to simplify and align the reporting mechanisms to Parliament and to make better sense of the arrangements for budgets, estimates and the accounts. I also pay tribute to all those hon. Members who played a part in ensuring that we reached this point. This is the first opportunity that I have had in the House to acknowledge the contribution of the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) when he held the position that I now hold. Throughout his entire tenure of that office, he did a brilliant job of ensuring proper accountability for Government expenditure, and I know that he also played a part in developing these particular proposals. My grateful thanks go to him.
The proposals are being put forward at a particularly important time for Parliament. As we go through a period of financial constraint and cuts in public services, it is hugely important that the decisions taken by the Government are properly accounted for to Parliament. If the new arrangements make it easier for Parliament, either through its Select Committees or through debates in the House, to ensure that the Government are better held to account, we will all welcome that. This is a particularly important period, in which real value for money for every taxpayer’s pound spent is of paramount importance to members of the public.
Better, more consistent figures are one part of the story, but I would like to raise two further issues. First, we need proper time in which to debate the issues that will come out of the special financial accountability to Parliament, and I hope that Ministers will not always designate the days that are controlled by the Back-Bench Committees as those on which we can debate them. These matters are of enormous importance to Members, and should not be contained within those 35 days. I ask the Minister to ensure that the Government will make time available for the proper debate of pre-Budget reports, the spending review and Select Committee reports on expenditure.
My second point is that we all need proper time to carry out financial scrutiny of the figures for the public, whether in the form of estimates, budget estimates or accounts. I hope that Parliament will be given appropriate time to do that, to ensure that accountability.
In generally welcoming these measures, I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions. First, if we are to be able to exercise effective public scrutiny, we shall need timely presentations of the estimates—as close as possible to the Budget or to the start of the financial year. What precise undertaking can he give us on when the estimates will be presented to Parliament?
My second question is on supplementary estimates. In the report produced by the Liaison Committee, there was a suggestion that we would strive to—[Interruption.] Is that ringtone an attempt to cheer up my contribution? There was a suggestion that we would strive to reduce the number of times that it was necessary for us to consider supplementary estimates. Has any advance been made on that matter, and on the Liaison Committee’s recommendation that supplementary estimates should come before the House only once a year? I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) that it would be helpful to know what progress has been made on the development of mid-year reports on spending and performance, with an update on the provisional allocations for next year. When can we look forward to those being introduced?
I warmly welcome the Government’s decision to publish online all expenditure over £25,000, but will the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to calculate the administrative costs and bureaucratic burden of that new measure of accountability? As well as putting that information on the website, will he also ensure that it is placed in the Library, so that all Members of the House may have easy access to it? With that, I join others in noting that there is agreement across the House on these proposals, and I look forward to their early implementation.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
May I start by apologising to the House for my mobile phone ringing just now? It was definitely switched off a while ago. When I was on Birmingham city council, we used to have a policy where, if that happened, we had to give money to the lord mayor’s charity. Perhaps the Speaker’s charity should receive a small payment in this instance.
My experience on Birmingham city council gave me a good understanding of how to control public spending. In moving towards a system with a clear line of sight, all our budgets are set out so that what has been agreed matches what is being recorded. If Parliament decides that that is in fact slightly misaligned, and that we are not spending what we expected to spend, we will need to be aware of the effect that that will have at the other end of the cycle.
We had that experience with the neighbourhood renewal fund in Birmingham. The Government had strict rules on how much money should be spent in each financial year. It was a new system, and if we had not found enough useful projects to spend the money on as we got close to the end of the financial year, there would be a “dash for trash” as we tried to find something to spend it on, so that the Government would not take it away in the next year. It is right to improve the way in which we record these things, but we must ensure that we do it in a way that does not cause those people who are managing the budgets to go for a “dash for trash” at the end of the financial year, just to ensure they fulfil their budgets. Obviously, if we are recording depreciation properly, that will not vary; only the cash issues will be affected.
There are two aspects to accountability. The first involves the authority to spend public money. The second involves finding out whether the expenditure represents value for money. We need to look beyond the system of departmental accounting. Colleagues will know that I am greatly concerned about the child protection system, which is horrendously complex from a financial perspective. When a child is taken into care, the foster carer can cost about £40,000 a year. Further costs can include the parent’s lawyer, which can cost about £25,000 in legal aid. The other parent’s lawyer could cost a further £25,000 in legal aid, and expert fees might have to be paid by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, a separate non-departmental public body.
All those different charges might apply, but, when an assessment of the cost effectiveness of the process is carried out, they might not all be taken into account. When it comes to parliamentary scrutiny here, the Justice Committee will look into the legal aid costs, the Education Committee will look into the foster care costs, and so on. They might not all be put together in a way that leads us to make the right decisions, however. I have encountered many situations, for instance, in which access to a mother and baby unit has been refused on the ground of cost, although such access would have kept mother and baby together for life. The lifetime cost of that not happening is about £250,000 per child, and it could well have been a false economy to save the £6,000 cost of the mother and baby unit in the first place.
When we are considering value for money as part of the accountability programme, we need to find mechanisms to look at project costs on a value-for-money basis. Similar situations occur with capital projects. We are very pleased that the work on New Street station is going ahead, for example, but that is funded out of a number of different pots, and we are not sure what is coming from which pot. Some might be coming from the city council, some from the regional development association, and some from the Department for Transport. That uncertainty makes it difficult, from the perspective of parliamentary scrutiny, to find out what is happening. Trying to compare figures from project to project is also very difficult, because these things are so complex.
We have a similar problem with the funding costs of private finance initiatives. The great difficulty is comparing all the figures involved in what is called optimism bias. I asked the Government what the optimism bias figures were for a number of different PFI projects, and they came back with a wide range of figures. Let me explain a bit about optimism bias, for those hon. Members who are not aware of it. When a PFI project is put together, there is an assumption that, if it could be done through the public sector, it would be done through the public sector, so it must therefore be done in the most cost-effective way. A calculation is made of what the public sector project would have cost, but an optimism bias is then added to it, on the assumption that the public sector calculation is optimistic and therefore too low. That is then compared to a PFI cost without an optimism bias.
The interesting thing is that people are told to pick their own optimism bias, and if the optimism bias is such that undertaking the project through the public sector is cheaper, they must do it through the public sector, but there is no money for that so it will not go ahead. Inevitably, people pick an optimism bias figure that means that the PFI looks cheaper, when it is not. Such things have been going on substantially around the country. Although the clear line of sight project is a positive move, we need to go further.
Other hon. Members wish to speak. I could go on at great length about financial control, having dealt with it at the city council level and in various private sector businesses, as well as in this place, but to be fair to others, I shall conclude.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this important debate.
The effective monitoring of Government expenditure and the exercise of control over it by the House of Commons is crucial to why we are here at all, but over the centuries it has become virtually impossible for ordinary Members of Parliament to understand what is going on. It is like the classic Schleswig-Holstein question—only three people understand it, and one of them is mad and one is dead. It is so complicated and so difficult.
That is why I was happy to attempt to serve on the Liaison Committee in the last Parliament with Michael Jack, who was the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and John McFall, who was the Chairman of the Treasury Committee. We tried to gets our own heads around the subject, and it made our heads hurt to try and understand what was going on. I hope that some of the comments in our Liaison Committee report have found their way back into what the Government are trying to do—indeed, I know they have, because the previous Government replied to our report. There is nothing partisan about this. Both sides of the House are agreed that the present system is broken and we must do something about it.
As we made clear in our report, the present arrangements present obstacles to sensible and informed scrutiny of public expenditure. It is extraordinary that we have estimates days, but we never discuss estimates. When I tried to interest the Liaison Committee in this work in the last Parliament, there was a collective groan from the Chairmen of the other Select Committees. They said that their people were interested in policy not money, but money is all-important. Policy flows from money. How extraordinary that after centuries of accumulation, like barnacles on the ship of state, we never discuss the Budget in detail.
The Budget process is a farce—not the Budget statement, although in previous years, as we know, much of it was hidden in the Red Book. In the Finance Committee— the Committee that considers the Budget—there is only a matter of seconds available to consider each amendment. Scores of amendments are tabled, the Government swat them all away, and there is no proper debate, and the estimates days do not deal with estimates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) spoke about the American process, which works. The Office of Budget, a presidential body, proposes a budget. The President may propose, but Congress disposes. In our system, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister propose, and the Chancellor and the Prime Minister dispose. Parliament has very little effect on the process.
In America, there are hundreds of hours of meetings on the budget process. I know that my hon. Friend mentioned pork barrel politics. That is a regrettable aspect of the process but it is often much exaggerated. Recently, Senator Byrd died at the grand old age of 90. I might still be here at the age of 90, boring the House with these matters. We know that Senator Byrd showered largesse on West Virginia, whereas it is impossible for me to give a single penny to Gainsborough, or in the case of my hon. Friend, to Chichester, but surely there is a sensible halfway house, so to speak, whereby the House can receive reasonable, sensible information, we can know what is going on, we can have estimates days that discuss the estimates, and we can make a difference.
That is why I suggested in the last Parliament that there should be a triple lock on the scrutiny process. The right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the present Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, has already spoken in the debate. We have a superb post-audit system in the UK, perhaps one of the best in the world. Although we have one of the best audit systems in the world—actual audit systems through the National Audit Office, and parliamentary audit through the Public Accounts Committee—we have one of the weakest Budget processes. When the Hansard Society produced a report before the Liaison Committee examined the matter in the last Parliament, in terms of effective parliamentary scrutiny we were at the bottom of the heap, together with New Zealand, ranked lower than any other democratic Parliament in the world, bar none. Such was the weakness of our parliamentary control.
What I suggested was a triple lock. We already have, as I say, a good audit system. Is it not surprising that it is so difficult to interest the other Select Committees in money? On education, for example, we had an hour and a half on a statement today with people battling over policy, yet it is difficult to get the Education Committee to get to grips with the education budget, from which those policies derive.
I think we need a specialised Budget committee, which will be a Select Committee of the House and have a permanent membership, like other Select Committees. When, under the alignment project, the Government bring forward various proposals, there would have to be a trigger mechanism when any Department sought to increase its budget by a certain amount. That could trigger a potential inquiry by the Budget committee, which would have to be resourced by the scrutiny unit of the House and by the National Audit Office.
Thus we would have a particular committee, a kind of appropriations committee, which is the most powerful congressional committee. It would have to have real teeth, not just be a talking shop. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester will not mind my relaying our private conversation earlier. He said that once we gave such a power to any Select Committee, pork barrel politics would inevitably flow from it. There would have to be safeguards, a process and gradual reform, as we always have in the House. No Government will suddenly surrender to a Select Committee or to Select Committees of the House the kind of powers that congressional committees have, but surely there is no harm in our waving the flag, as parliamentarians, for greater parliamentary control.
We would have the PAC as a kind of audit system, and a Budget committee looking at the Budget in detail in a way that the Finance Bill Committee cannot do. The third part of the triple lock on wasteful spending in Government should be some kind of Star Chamber within Government. The Treasury do a fantastic job, but when spending was increasing very rapidly during the past 10 years, it was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of decisions pouring on to officials’ desks. It was perhaps too much of a paper-based exercise. Perhaps the Chief Secretary could not get adequate control of it.
I believe that Ministers and their officials who were proposing the expenditure of large sums of money should have to come before a Star Chamber to justify their proposals and to be questioned in private and give honest answers. I have served on four Select Committees of the House in more than 20 years. Do we ever have Ministers and officials giving entirely honest answers to our Select Committees? No, because those are held in public and Ministers and officials deal with questions by playing a dead bat. I am not denigrating the role of Select Committees and I quite understand the game that Ministers and officials play in front of them, but there has to be some equivalent process privately within Government, so that as expenditure plans are being dreamed up, there is proper control and reform.
Such scrutiny will continue to be a dry subject which nobody understands or is interested in unless the Government, in the alignment process, listen to what we were trying to say. We said:
“To be properly effective improvements in presentation need to be accompanied also by improved opportunities for Members—as individuals and through select committees and front benches—to debate the figures (both in the form of the formal Estimates for the current year and the spending plans for future years).”
That is absolutely vital.
We want a clear line of sight and to know in simple terms, whether from the Department for Education or the Ministry of Defence, what they spent last year and plan to spend next year. There would be a day in Parliament when we could debate it and vote on it, and that would start to bring Parliament back into the process. In doing so, that would surely restore Parliament to what it should be about: Members acting on behalf of their constituents to control public money, so that very large sums of money are never again spent without adequate controls. That is a great prize. For all the technicalities of our discussion, for all the difficulties and for all the talk of “moving from cash to resource accounts”, “the introduction to Government budgets” and “the concept of departmental expenditure limits”—all those words that, frankly, leave most Members cold—in the end, this is not a technical process. It is a process of real parliamentary democracy, and is therefore to be warmly welcomed.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), and all of us look forward to hearing from him in this Chamber on his 90th birthday.
I, too, welcome warmly and, I hope, briefly the motion and the Government’s early action on the clear line of sight project. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, it has had a very long gestation. We are being asked to take note of a document that is 16 months old, and of a proposal that is at least three years old, and probably four years old. For all that, it is a welcome proposal, because it puts budgets, estimates and accounts on the same basis, and the Treasury Committee has long encouraged such a move. It is very good news to hear from the Government that the budgets will be aligned from this April, and I understand that the estimates will follow from April next year. I welcome that.
I have only three technical points and then a proposal. I hope that they are not too technical, but if they are I am happy for my hon. Friend to write to me. First, I understand that in budgets, public capital expenditure by private bodies is treated as capital expenditure, but that, when it comes to estimates and accounts, it is treated as recurrent expenditure. My hon. Friend proposes to remove the cost of capital charges from the accounts, but I am still not quite clear how the estimates and how Parliament will see the capital that private bodies expend on the public’s behalf.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) has already discussed my second point at length, and I am grateful to him for his kind words. It is about the loss of control—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough referred in an intervention—between the gross and net income totals. We have to accept that there is some loss of control, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reassure us that what matters is the detail of the net income to be provided. For current expenditure, that might be fees for capital expenditure, receipts or whatever, but it is important that we have sufficient sight of the income totals, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will reassure me on that.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) touched on my third point, which is about the treatment of private finance initiative contracts. I understand that, under international finance reporting standards rules, PFI contracts are now shown on the balance sheets of individual departmental accounts, but that they might not appear in the calculation of net debt in the new, whole of Government accounts. Therefore, I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister could explain how he proposes to reconcile public sector net debt, which is calculated on the national accounts basis, with the same figure that appears in the departmental accounts using the IFRS standard. That will be especially important as the PFI process peaks.
As the proposals are adopted, and as the assessments are prepared on that basis next year, the ball returns to our court. Therefore, I shall touch on the suggestions that my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester and for Gainsborough made and, indeed, what the Minister and his shadow, the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), said. It is true that we will have the advantage of the Backbench Business Committee being able to allocate further days for debate, but they will be for debate only. What is unsatisfactory about the current process, particularly when it comes to the supplementary estimates, is that literally billions of pounds go through on three particular evenings a year after only a single debate or, perhaps, two debates about just two items of departmental expenditure, important though they are. Those huge sums flash through on three particular evenings.
We have the new Select Committee structure and the new Select Committees, which have been elected by the whole House, and I am therefore wary of the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that we set up yet another Committee. I think that he was going to call it the Budget committee, but we have an awful lot of Committees, and given that we now have elected Select Committees I ask the House to think again about how we involve them more in the process under discussion. I fully take the objection to pork barrel politics, which bedevils the United States Appropriations Committee that my hon. Friend seemed to like so much, and I should not suggest line-by-line amendment or, indeed, veto by a Select Committee. However, I should suggest that no supplementary estimate be presented to the House by any Minister unless it has first been approved by the relevant Select Committee. Nothing would transform the power of Select Committees more than my simple suggestion.
It would be up to the Department to establish a proper relationship with its Select Committee, and it would be up to the Secretary of State to plan his expenditure properly, knowing that if he went back to the Department with a huge supplementary estimate and wanted suddenly, mid-year, to transfer a vast sum from one end to another, he would have to explain himself to the Committee and win its approval. I do not suggest that the Committee should have the power to amend the proposal, simply that it should have to give its approval before that supplementary estimate is presented to the whole House. At a stroke, we would transform the relationship between the Executive and Parliament and give our Committees the power not simply to grandstand, ask questions and hurl abuse at witnesses, but to become more thoroughly involved with the work, planning and control over the money of the Departments that they scrutinise. The Committees would, therefore, become interested not simply in policy but in the huge sums that Departments spend. With that proposal, and my three technical comments, I warmly welcome the motion.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I did not intend to speak in this debate, but I was enormously cheered by the contributions from the hon. Members for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) and for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming). I do not know whether that is down to the new faces among us, but after 18 years in this place, I had begun to despair of achieving any sensible discussion on the scrutiny of public money. We spend other people’s money, but it had seemed to be the last thing on anybody’s mind in this place.
I do not downplay the steps that the previous Labour Government took, the framework that the Minister has inherited or his steps to put that framework into operation as quickly as he has, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) put across something else very important. The proposal to put online anything over £25,000 in a budget is an enormous step forward, because we are discussing streamlining and stopping the overlap between, and the disjointed effects of, the varied financial information that covers what we spend of taxpayers’ money. I pay tribute to the Minister for that proposal.
We have to remember that we spend hundreds of billions of pounds every year. When I first came here from local government, where we knew about every line, I had the cheek to ask people in one of the Departments to break down a budget head, and I could almost hear their terror. They thought that I was very impertinent even to suggest it, and said, “It would be too expensive to give you this information.” We could take any line in the book that is in the Vote Office now—the central Government supply estimates. I picked it up this afternoon, as a geek, to go through it. There is a line referring to £1.5 billion, with a few words of explanation. If we attempt to find out what that covers and how it is broken down, we are thought to be exceeding our brief.
I listened to what was said by the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), for Sevenoaks and for Chichester, who has, I think, disappeared in case he gets talked into agreeing to something. I do not think that this is pork barrel politics. It is a duty of Members in this place to know the detail of the legislation we are passing and what we are spending, but the system does not allow us to do that. There is a good argument for the Committees chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking and the hon. Member for Sevenoaks getting together, in whichever way, whether it is by taking the suggestion of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks or a combined option, with a joint Sub-Committee of the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Committee rather than a budget Committee. Whatever we did, it would frighten the officials. It would bring us so much power and so much ability to have a say in what we are spending if we set up an apparatus that allowed us to break all these lines down. However we do it, we need to get a system whereby we set up a group of Members who are willing to spend their time on this. That is one of the difficulties of suggesting that we have another Committee that would add to all the hours put in by members of the Treasury Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.
Two weeks ago, I made a suggestion to the new Chairman of the Treasury Committee regarding the Sub-Committee so admirably chaired by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks over the past few years. I said that we already look in outline terms at the budgets and work of the Departments and bodies covered by the Treasury Committee, but we could also run a yearly exercise whereby we took one Department and, instead of just having a two-hour session, spent the whole year going through its budget line by line, and we would do that for each Department in turn. When the Treasury Committee tried to scrutinise the work and expenditure of a Department, the people from that Department had only to see the Committee for two hours a year. They could take whatever abuse was thrown at them and bat off whatever questions they were asked, but then they knew that they were free for the rest of the year. If they knew that, on a yearly cycle, they would have line-by-line scrutiny of their Department’s budget, they might be a bit more sensible in the way they spent public money.
Some wonderful suggestions have been made, and this is wonderful new ground. We should all resolve to accept the proposals that are on the table, but we should not be satisfied in thinking that they go anywhere near to allowing us to scrutinise properly. I have one last thought. I would love to have the opportunity that the Government are taking. I do not agree with their policies, their time scale, and so on; I think I made that clear the other night. However, I do agree with the music that is coming out whereby they are forcing Departments to sit down with them and go through, as much as is possible in the time scale, the make-up of the budgets to determine whether the money is being spent sensibly. That is a wonderful step forward.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
I broadly welcome the motion. I particularly welcome the proposal that parliamentary time must be provided to debate spending reviews and the annual pre-Budget report, and I hope that in future that will be the case—mind you, in the light of recent Treasury reporting standards, just to have a spending review at all would be a marked improvement. However, I have some concerns about the clear line of sight project, and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me and the House about those.
I am not an economist or an accountant, but I have seen enough episodes of “Yes Minister” to take a cautious approach to projects that seek to allow the cleansing light of scrutiny to fall on less information. I am concerned that “clear line of sight” might become “out of sight” in relation to some high-spending and income-generating Departments. For me, the Sir Humphrey element of this project concerns net accounting throughout—in other words, less information being presented, with potentially less transparency as a consequence.
Other Members have raised that issue, so I will not dwell on it. However, I wish to address the underlying assumption that Departments should be allowed to spend that additional income. It is stated as an advantage of this proposal that it will encourage Departments to be more frugal and squeeze better value for money for the taxpayer. I would argue that, paradoxically, the contrary might transpire, as Departments used the licence of net estimates to indulge in non-core activities aimed at increasing revenue for the Department. That would, in effect, be spending by stealth. Additional income raised would have to be spent in order to maintain the net figure, and presumably if the net figure were maintained Parliament would be content. Surely we would do better to have a system that set out gross expenditure and that enabled Parliament to choose how any additional income should be spent, held in reserve, or used to reduce the burden of that expenditure on the taxpayer. Unless we guarded against that, over time, we might see a distortion in the price of purchasing services such as passports, which are now practically compulsory, or in fees that might be paid, for example, to the UK Border Agency.
A second scenario might see a Department creating an income-generating activity that failed to deliver value for money or came at the expense of the statutory service that that Department was charged with carrying out. I will give the House a quick example from real life, not “Yes Minister”, although it could well have been used for that. When I was a director of Kensington and Chelsea council, I discovered that one of our local hospitals was hiring out one of its closed, but fully equipped, wards to a film company to use as a film set. To add insult to injury, the movie was a pornographic one. Although I cannot claim to have seen the final picture, as I understand that these things are no longer claimable on parliamentary expenses, it was a big-budget affair and it generated substantial income for the hospital—but apart from cheering up a few of the in-patients, it could not be said to be contributing to the objectives of the primary care trust.
The absence of scrutiny on gross income and expenditure is the equivalent of saying to the public, “Don’t bother to fill out your tax return—just tell us what your net income is and we’ll take it at face value.” Tax inspectors should see what items an individual is claiming against their income, and Parliament should be able to do the same. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will provide me with that reassurance when he sums up.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
I rise to speak on a topic that is of great importance to this House but that sadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said, is not engaged with in the same way as some of our policy debates are engaged with. However, I have to say that the name of the project is rather unfortunate. As well as confusing me the first time I read it, it definitely does not do what it says on the tin. I, for one, would have preferred a simpler name.
Transparency in all areas of Parliament, specifically in the use of the public purse, is of course of paramount importance. We must ensure that the public can follow and understand the decisions that are taken here. It should be a lot simpler for those who are interested to interpret the expenditure of Government, so that taxpayers can see where their money is being used. The clear line of sight project is a step forward in that regard. It is intended to simplify Government public expenditure information in both its presentation and publication, something that I as a businessman firmly believe is imperative, especially in such difficult economic times. Now more than ever, we must ensure that every penny we spend is spent wisely.
It is very important that we mention the achievements of the previous Government when considering this project, as it is one of their successes. It was established in 2007 by the previous Government and is now supported by the new coalition Government. The aim behind it is to simplify how the public can view Government expenditure, which can be done by ensuring that it is published in a simple format and that the information is presented in as easy and accessible a way as possible. I must say that even with those changes, I am not convinced that the documents in question will ever become bestsellers.
The current arrangements must be seen for what they are—confusing and unhelpful. They have even been described as obstructive of proper scrutiny. Given the recent trials of this House, I strongly believe that a change has to come. One of the most obvious ways in which that can occur is if we ensure that public expenditure is controlled and measured in one clear way. At the moment we have Treasury budgets, parliamentary estimates, resource accounts and others, each using different methods and subsequently giving us different answers.
The clear line of sight project will do a number of things to rectify that situation. It will align the different measures of public spending and ensure that the estimates are configured so that Parliament and the Treasury use the same control tools. The expenditure of non-departmental public bodies—quangos—will be incorporated into the estimates and resource accounts of the sponsoring Department, which is a good thing. The project will also ensure that financial publications are rationalised into three annual results. As a result of those changes, departmental annual reports, estimates and resource accounts will all include figures on the same basis, making it easier for the House and the public to compare figures and trends on a like-for-like basis.
Sadly, it is important to note that the current view of politics held by many of our constituents is negative. We have been through a difficult time in recent years. The expenses scandal galvanised public anger towards politics and politicians, an anger made all the greater by the perceived lack of transparency when the scandal arose. The public believe that our political system is broken, and upon taking office this Government promised changes to the political system to make it far more transparent and accountable. The clear line of sight project will hopefully be a small step forward. That is why we are here today—we need to start to fix what has been broken. The coalition has an opportunity to right the wrongs and thus lay the framework for a new politics.
Transparency is a simple thing, yet it will make a huge difference to the view of those outside the House. It will be a powerful instrument for change. If we allow the public to scrutinise and understand the things that are done here, I believe we can have a positive debate about how we want to be governed. We talk about engagement with people, yet our system of government works against that very goal. I firmly believe that, if more people understand the figures and are not put off by what they see as Government mumbo-jumbo, more people will engage in the decisions that have to be made and that affect their lives. That can only be a good thing.
A large part of what we describe as political apathy is people not feeling like they are included in the system. At the moment things are dauntingly complex, and the clear line of sight project is one way in which we can simplify them. It is for those reasons that I believe it is an important step to take, for the sake of both transparency and encouraging the public to analyse and discuss the important financial decisions that need to be made.
That is why I am a huge supporter of the opening-up of government. We have had an unprecedented amount of bureaucracy since the second world war, whether from Europe or from our own Departments in the UK—I would say that it has been an extraordinarily bureaucratic time. The coalition has an opportunity, with this drive for transparency and openness, to create a post-bureaucratic age. I commend the motion to the House.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I am sorry to delay the Minister further, but I felt it important to say how broadly I welcome this proposal. I know that it has had a long genesis; indeed, I was lucky enough to meet its team when I was part of the former Opposition’s Treasury team. I echo many of the comments that have been made commending both the clear line of sight team and the various heads of Committees who have helped to steer the process forward.
We will now have an alignment that takes care of some of the major problems, such as the £86 billion-worth of estimates that are not in budgets, the £71 billion that is in budgets but not in estimates, and the £58 billion that is in budgets but not in resource accounts. How could anyone manage a whelk stall, let alone public accounts, on that basis? Under the current system, 25% of public spending is not even seen by Parliament, so I welcome the current proposals, particularly the one to consolidate non-departmental public bodies. A complete lack of accountability has been built up in their financial reporting and processes.
I wish to echo a couple of points that other hon. Members have touched on, one of which is on the private finance initiative. We have an enormous problem of off-balance-sheet PFI commitments, which must be reconciled. I hope that the Financial Secretary will urge that that matter be brought forward and included in the project.
I should like us to go further still. While working for the Opposition team, I was lucky enough to meet one of the major heads of one of our largest outsourcing companies, who effectively has 35,000 civil servants working for him—the size of a decent Government Department. He manages it with three Excel spreadsheets, which report the same numbers at the top of the organisation and down at the bottom. We should strive further to get to that level of transparency and simplicity at all levels of Government.
It is commendable that so many Members have come to this debate and recognise how important it is, but it is not commendable that we have built up a system that most people, including most Members of Parliament, find utterly incomprehensible. As a result, we have had an enormous increase in the lack of accountability and transparency further down in the organisation of government.
I refer Members to the NAO report of February 2008 on financial performance measurement and management in government. It stated that the financial performance of a Department formed no part of the standard performance assessment criteria for a permanent secretary; that only 40% of Departments provided policy decision makers with a full financial analysis to support policy proposals; and that the last Government were teaching a course called “Managing public money” that had two stated objectives:
“To avoid a Department being disadvantaged in the public expenditure process”
and to
“protect the Accounting Officer’s position”.
There is not one word about taxpayers and, as the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) said so eloquently, not one acknowledgment that we are managing other people’s money in everything that we do.
The current proposal is long overdue and has been three years in the gestation. I welcome it warmly, but I should like the same commitment to transparency and accountability to be pushed down to all levels of government.
Mr Hoban
I wish to respond briefly to the debate.
As someone who in his previous career was a chartered accountant, I find something elegant about ensuring that figures are reconciled, but that is not an end in itself. In my former career it was to ensure that one could hold the management of businesses to account, and in my current career it is about being held to account myself and giving hon. Members the tools to hold Ministers and the Government to account on public spending.
A number of questions were asked about income being reported on a net basis. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), in his four comments, was correct on all points, as one would expect. The control of income, which was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) and for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), is an issue to consider. The Supply estimates will continue to report a Department’s expected levels of income, and they will include a note breaking them down in detail. Only income of a type included in the description of income in the estimates will be able to be retained by Departments. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North gave an example from her knowledge. Departments will continue to be subject to rules on fees and charges. That will determine the costs that can be charged for and ensure that full costs are recovered but that Departments do not generate profits. There will still be control over the types of income raised, which will be in line with legislation. There will be a note in the estimates analysis of income, which will ensure that these issues are transparent and that we can be held to account for them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks raised a number of technical issues to which I shall respond in writing. I commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House approves the proposals for simplifying the Government’s spending controls and financial reporting to Parliament, as set out in the paper, Alignment (Clear Line of Sight) Project, Cm 7567, of March 2009, and the response of October 2009 to the relevant report of the Liaison Committee (Second Special Report of the Liaison Committee, Session 2008-09, Financial Scrutiny: Parliamentary Control over Government Budgets: Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report of Session 2008-09, HC 1074).
City of Westminster Bill [Lords]
Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
This debate arises purely on a procedural motion, instigated at the behest of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who has assiduously sought to safeguard the interests of pedlars on many occasions in respect of other private Bills in the past two years or so.
I do not intend to go into great detail on the merits of the City of Westminster Bill—nor would you allow me to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker. Suffice it to say that the main purpose of the Bill is to replace and consolidate the existing street trading regulations that apply in Westminster—namely, the City of Westminster Act 1999, which was itself a consolidating piece of legislation. We need new legislation that is fit not just for 2010 but for some years to come.
I should make it absolutely clear from the outset that the Bill does not affect pedlars wishing to trade in Westminster; the Canterbury City Council Bill and the Nottingham City Council Bill, which we shall debate tonight, would affect pedlars in the relevant areas. As far as pedlars in the City of Westminster are concerned, the position is exactly the same as it has been since 1999, so I am a little surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch should have chosen to object to the revival of the Bill.
The Bill updates the 1999 Act, through which the council is able to regulate street trading using a fairly sophisticated licensing system understood by residents, traders and, no doubt, by many of those who have to go to court about these issues. Clearly, there has to be some sort of regulation in a place such as Westminster, which has world-famous shopping and tourist centres, or else there would be a free-for-all. Indeed, I often wonder whether any of those who come to London to set up their stalls and sell come what may do so because they feel that a free-for-all is already in place. Yet it would be wrong to suggest that there has not already been a fairly sophisticated regulatory system.
Among other things, the Bill gives Westminster city council additional powers to de-designate existing street trading pitches. I hope that that deregulation measure will find favour with my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Shipley (Philip Davies). The Bill also allows street traders to trade through companies rather than just as sole practitioners or members of partnerships. It enhances the powers of council officers to deal with the real problem of unlicensed hot dog trolleys by allowing them to be seized before trading starts and introducing a sunset provision on existing provisions that allow street trading licences to be passed on to relatives.
In London, there has been a costermonger-type community that goes back many generations and several centuries. In fairness, it is felt that there should be an opportunity for a sunset clause on the passing of street trading pitches from generation to generation. The Bill would allow pitches to be passed on one more occasion for each licence currently in play. As far as pedlars are concerned, the position remains as it has been for 11 years: a street trading licence will be required unless the pedlar is selling from house to house.
Clause 52 would allow the council to regulate touting in the city. I should make it clear that that has nothing to do with ticket touting; it is about touting for business in the street, which is a considerable annoyance to residents, workers and visitors. The City of Westminster has some 140,000 residents and some 500,000 people come to work here every day. There are also, of course, countless millions of visitors from the UK and abroad. The fact that the touting provision has nothing to do with ticket touting might find favour with my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Shipley; it is a much more general prohibition on touting for other purposes.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I am delighted that the Bill does not impinge on ticket touting, but presumably people tout for business because they can get it. If they are getting business, they must be offering something that people are looking for, and at the right price. Surely that is in the consumer’s interest. Why would my hon. Friend wish to stop people who are clearly acting in the consumer’s interest?
Mr Field
That would be a legitimate argument if there were no opportunity for street trading in the City of Westminster, but there is already a huge opportunity. The whole licensing process tries to focus on ensuring that that opportunity is in place We are seeking not to end the idea of street trading, but to regulate such trading to a certain degree, so that there is not a free-for-all. That would be undesirable and seem to make the streets of central London ever more unsafe and unpopular for visitors, workers and residents alike.
The idea is not to stop street trading, for which there are significant opportunities. As with any Yorkshireman, my hon. Friend’s heart lies in Shipley and other parts of his fair county, but he will recognise that there are still enormous opportunities for people to come to London and buy things on street corners. The Bill would not prevent that; it would prevent simply the rather unsavoury and perhaps unsafe practices involved in elements of street touting. They do real damage to Westminster as a tourist attraction. Westminster wants to remain a global attraction; we want people from all corners of the globe to come to this great city.
The motion is purely about whether the Bill should be revived in the current Session of Parliament. The Bill was initially introduced in the House of Lords on 22 January 2009. Its Second Reading took place after a debate in that Chamber on 13 March 2009. Petitions were deposited against the Bill, quite legitimately—we should be able to discuss these things. It was then referred to a Select Committee, hence the delay of almost 15 months. The Committee, which sat in July 2009, disallowed the petition of pedlars on the grounds that they had no locus, for the reasons that I have already set out. As I said, the Bill does not change the position on pedlars, unlike the consolidation Act that came about 11 years ago.
At that juncture, the Committee was adjourned and no further date could be found for the recommencement of proceedings before Parliament was dissolved for the general election. The Select Committee members, the promoters and the National Market Traders Federation, the sole remaining petitioner, are all standing by to reconvene in the House of Lords on 19 July this year, assuming that the motion is passed today. All the parties concerned have put a lot of work into the preparation for the hearing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has every right to object to the procedural motion before the House today. However, I hope that he and his friends and colleagues—my friends and colleagues—will not push the matter to a vote. The promoters of the Bill did all they could to move it on in the last Session. They wish to continue to do so in the new Parliament, as is evidenced by the fact that a Select Committee awaits, barely two weeks from now. Only the fact that we ran out of parliamentary time in the fifth year of the Parliament meant that we were unable to get this legislation on the statute book before then.
As the Bill originated in the Lords and the Lords has already passed a revival motion, I hope that we will be able deal with this business in the Commons with due haste tonight. The Lords ought to have the opportunity to scrutinise the Bill in detail, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and other hon. Members will have ample opportunity to do so themselves when it returns to the House, as I hope it will early next year.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) on taking the matter before us seriously. The reason why I and other colleagues shouted “Object” to prevent the revival motion from going through on the nod was so that we could hear from the Bill’s sponsor exactly why it was held up for so long in the House of Lords between Second Reading and the completion of its Committee stage, which, as he said, has not yet happened. We now understand from the promoter’s statement that a date for the resumption of that Committee has been fixed for later this month. That will mean that the Bill and the petition against it will be considered in the Lords. As he said, if passed in the other place, the Bill will come to this place in due course, when hon. Members can give it proper scrutiny. I am all in favour of that.
I heard what my hon. Friend said, but it is worth emphasising that a revival of a private Bill is not a right but a privilege, and it is right that Members of the House ensure that a motion to revive a Bill is made on good grounds and that the case is made. We will have a chance in due course to consider aspects of the detail of the Bill, but one point my hon. Friend did not deal with is the interaction between the City of Westminster Bill and the possibility of more general legislation applying to pedlars. The Bill consolidates much of the private legislation relating to pedlars in the city of Westminster.
In the previous Parliament, the Government initially asked Durham university to carry out research, which was subsequently conducted and consulted upon. Proposals were then introduced and subjected to further consultation. I hope that during the course of the evening, in response either to the debate on this Bill or to the debate on the Canterbury City Council and the Nottingham City Council Bills, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey) will say what the Government’s initial thinking is on their approach to pedlar legislation. What impact would national pedlar legislation have on the provisions in private Acts in relation to Westminster city council? Obviously, it might be a waste of time if the House or the other place spend a lot of time discussing the consolidation measures in the City of Westminster Bill if the Government subsequently introduced national legislation on pedlar activity.
At the moment, traditional pedlars cannot operate within the city of Westminster boundary. They can go from door to door, but they cannot act as pedlars on the street, which means that they are severely disadvantaged, notwithstanding their national licences to peddle. I hope for national legislation and a national approach to the matter, and that the Minister tells us what the Government’s thinking is on the prospect of such legislation, so that we do not have piecemeal proposals from councils up and down the country.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Is that not the crux of the matter? The previous Government talked about introducing national legislation. It costs local councils an enormous amount of money to promote private Bills, so would not such legislation solve that problem?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are told that had there not been so much resistance from him and others to private Bills in the previous Session and the one before that, there would have been many more. That it was difficult for such Bills to make progress through the House acted as an effective deterrent for the very good reason he articulates. Such legislation is expensive and will often be seen by local taxpayers as a disproportionate response to a local niggle. That is why a large number of councils did not go down the private Bill route. Obviously, the City of Westminster has a very well-resourced council—it also delivers one of the lowest council taxes in the country—and has decided that it will go down that route, but it is important to point out that many of the private Bills promoted by local councils to deal with street trading and peddling were encouraged by the City of Westminster Bill, which has acted as a sort of precedent. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and others will be interested to see what the City of Westminster council thinks of touting. I notice that its Bill includes a lot more information on seizure powers and what to do with the receptacles that are used for street trading, and that it includes some of the powers that were eventually excluded from the Bournemouth Borough Council Act 2010 and the Manchester City Council Act 2010, which were passed following a gentlemanly compromise prompted by the opponents of those provisions.
Some of the developing law is contained in the City of Westminster Bill, which is why Members who are alert to the concerns of individuals who try to eke out a living as street traders or pedlars should be vigilant on their behalf. We want to ensure that oppressive, disproportionate legislation is not introduced under the radar. That is why this evening’s debate is important, but I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster that it is not my intention to press the motion to a Division.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
First, may I declare an interest as a former leader of a London borough council that had to deal with street trading on a day-to-day basis? My postbag on street trading was far bigger than my postbags on many other areas of council activity.
I should like to address a few of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I understand the law of supply and demand and the effect of regulation, and that if people are selling things that people want to buy, we should not get in the way. That is fine, but if it were true, we ought to allow drug trading and prostitution to be completely unregulated. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is quite right that a revival of the City of Westminster Bill does not stop subsequent detailed scrutiny.
I have risen to support a revival of the Bill because I feel strongly about localism, which is not an à la carte concept. We cannot say that local councils should have the rights and powers to do what they think is right for their areas only as long as we agree with them.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, but the crux of the argument is that we want national legislation to allow local authorities to introduce the right pedlar laws for their areas, and not for councils to have to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds on private Bills. We may be on the same side in that respect.
Mike Freer
That is quite right. It would be helpful if we could get the Department for Communities and Local Government or whichever is the correct Department to regulate on a national framework. However, in the absence of that, I shall support the city of Westminster in its promotion of the Bill. Those who have to deal with the scourge of street trading know that it is not simply a matter of the touting and the pedlars. The high streets of many major cities—especially the London boroughs—are virtually obstacle courses. One has to dodge not only the normal street furniture, but the goods and services being peddled on the pavements.
I am pleased to see that clause 18(e) deals with disabled access, because many people in wheelchairs or who use zimmer frames—or even families with pushchairs—find it difficult to manoeuvre around the variety of plastic tubs or greengrocery in the high streets. It may sound trivial, but it is not when we are trying to maintain our high streets as vibrant economies. They have to encourage trade while also retaining their attractiveness for local people. If families or disabled people feel that they cannot manoeuvre along their high street, they will go to the major shopping centres, which are regulated. On that basis alone, I support the Bill.
Importantly, the Bill also deals with the detritus of smoking. Many councils spend tens of thousands of pounds cleaning up after smokers. I expect that hon. Members were keen to ban smoking in public places, but they may not have realised the cost that was pushed on to local councils.
The fundamental issue is that if we support localism, we must allow the democratically elected councillors of Westminster to bring forward what they believe is right for their people.
Philip Davies
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point about localism, but if we were to take it to the lengths that he seems to be suggesting, we need not bother having a national Parliament. Does he accept that the duty of Members of a national Parliament is to preserve our freedoms and not just to give carte blanche to any local authority to follow an authoritarian route and ban things that it does not like? We have a duty to defend people’s freedoms as well as to defend the principle of localism.
Mike Freer
I accept entirely that this House acts as a check and balance on the powers of local governance, but I also look forward to my hon. Friend tabling a private Member’s Bill to legalise or deregulate prostitution and drug dealing on our streets. We cannot pick and choose which freedoms should be traded on our streets.
The City of Westminster and other areas need these powers, not to regulate in a heavy-handed manner, but to revoke the licences of those who seek to cause an obstruction or damage to our local environment. On that basis, I support the revival of the Bill.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) who has experience in his borough of the problem. However, he does not have the experience of listening to the hours of debate in this Chamber. The problem really revolves around the previous Government refusing to bring in national legislation. If that had been done, each of the local authorities could have decided whether they wanted to take powers over pedlars and introduce their own legislation—exactly the localism that we are looking for. What might be right for the City of Westminster might not be right for Wellingborough. We almost teased the last Government into such legislation, so I am looking forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say.
The one aspect that is new to the debate—we did not know about it when we discussed it last year—is the amount of human trafficking of children into London to be pedlars, although it is false peddling as they do not have the licence from 1871. This is such a serious problem that we have seen people imprisoned. A national newspaper recently reported the case of a Romanian father who had sold his daughter to traffickers in this country to go on to the streets and, in theory, to peddle old issues of The Big Issue. In fact, that was completely false and bogus. He got four years in prison and served two, and now he is back home in Romania. Similar cases apparently involve thousands of children.
While I welcome the legislation for local councils to make their own decisions on peddling and how the law should be enforced in different areas—although I regret the thousands of pounds it has cost local councils to get to this stage—all the councils seem to have missed the question of what we do with these false pedlars, many of them young children, when it is discovered that they have been trafficked. We have to get to grips with that issue, because the children who have been trafficked over here are not criminals; they are victims of crime. It is a frightening problem and I hope that this Parliament will get to grips with it. That is why I would welcome national legislation.
I shall not oppose the revival of this Bill tonight, but the issue of the children trafficked into this country—especially into London—is one that we need to note.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
May I begin by saying how much I appreciated the speech by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), who outlined the motion very well? I am aware that the issue before us is whether to revive the City of Westminster Bill so it can complete the parliamentary process started in the previous parliamentary session. A lot of time, effort and expense has been spent on this and the other Bills that we are considering and there is a good argument that we should not waste that by refusing to revive them. The Bills will be scrutinised in detail on their merits during later stages if the motions are passed.
We think that it is important that this Bill and the others that we are considering later are given the opportunity to complete the parliamentary process. In terms of the motion to revive the Bills in this parliamentary session, it is worth noting that the councils in question have demonstrated local support for the Bills, not only by way of council resolutions but through the support of Members of this House and of the other place. Suffice it to say that Westminster city council has made a strong case for this legislation during the passage of the Bill so far.
The main reason for the legislation, as we have heard, is to deal with the regulation of street trading in Westminster and to deal with deficiencies, identified by Westminster city council, in the City of Westminster Act 1999. It contends that, while the 1999 Act has enabled the council to have some success in controlling unlicensed street trading, the Bill would alter—and, the council suggests, would improve—the 1999 Act by giving more flexibility on the designation of licensable areas within which street trading can be licensed; by giving more flexibility in varying existing trading licences; by providing more discretion in deciding whether to allow an application for a licence; and by setting out new general grounds on which the council can refuse to grant a street trading licence, including public safety, amenity of the area, and the suitability of the application.
When this Bill was debated in the other place, Baroness Parks reflected on the importance of having these wider powers to refuse a licence because of the huge number of conservation areas in the City, including large numbers of listed buildings for which more stringent controls might be necessary. However, other measures in the Bill serve to preserve the vitality of markets in the City and, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, there is nothing in the Bill specifically related to pedlary.
I do not intend to go through the Bill’s provisions. I have merely mentioned a few, as I hope that the House can see that they relate to important issues for Westminster council and should be given parliamentary time. The Bill also contains necessary checks and balances, most notably through consultation with those affected, an opportunity for them to make representations to the council, and an appeals system. It should be further noted that opposing views have been expressed too, and obviously these need to be thoroughly debated in the House. Indeed, the point was well made in previous deliberations by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd), who pointed out that although there might be much in the Bills before the House this evening to unite us, legitimate questions should be debated thoroughly and allowed a proper examination. I totally concur with that, and I hope that we can agree this evening to proceed to the remaining stages in the parliamentary process.
Members of the other place also commented on the need to review the law on trading in the streets and selling door to door, with a view to producing national legislation that reflects current conditions. I am sure that the Minister will know that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills initiated a consultation on national legislation following detailed research on the topic by Durham university. The consultation finished in February 2010. Previous debates demonstrated clear cross-party support for a national framework, which could mean that a large number of private Bills on street trading and related issues are unnecessary. I hope that the Minister has something to say on that matter. I do not always agree with the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), but I do agree with him that it would be helpful to move to a national framework as soon as possible. I wonder whether the Minister could tell us how he proposes to move forward on that matter.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
We have had a good debate this evening, helped by the experience from previous debates. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), who opened the debate, and my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who are veterans of discussion on this legislation. However, we have also benefited from new experience, on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who spoke of his local authority days. I also welcome the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) to her place and thank her for her contribution.
It is right that I should begin by restating an important procedural point. Traditionally, the Government do not take any view on the content or progress of private Bills, unless they are exceptionally moved to do so. From the speeches that we have heard this evening, I would note—as I am sure other hon. Members would—that there seems to be no real opposition to reviving the Bill. Although I hope to catch your eye and speak in the related debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, at this stage it is right that I should set out a little of the new Government’s thinking in this area.
Let me start by saying that, overall, having looked into the issue in some detail in recent days, I personally believe that we need to protect the rights of the genuine pedlar as we look at legislation across the piece—I say that to hon. Members from across the House and to local authorities looking at the issue. The rights of pedlars are traditional rights, going back to the Pedlars Act 1871. Although there might be people engaged in illegal street trading under the protection of a pedlar’s certificate, that should be dealt with separately. We should not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut by cracking down on genuine pedlars. They have rights that should be recognised.
The previous Government consulted on the issue, and I hope to be able to publish the Government’s response to that consultation within the next two or three months. I can tell the House that about 80 people and groups responded to the consultation, although they had differing views. The Government will reflect on those differing views and provide the House with our thoughts. Therefore, I cannot commit this evening to any particular timing for future legislation, although I can confirm something on which I believe there has been a cross-party consensus: that there is a need for a national framework, as the hon. Member for City of Durham set out and as other hon. Members stated.
Of course we need a national framework, and we need one for two reasons. We do not want local authorities across the country to have to spend tens of thousands of pounds on bringing forward private legislation. It is sensible that the Government should provide a national framework that in no way undermines localism or local responses to local situations. Therefore, although I cannot commit to any particular timing for that, that is certainly the intention, and we will be exploring those opportunities in the time ahead.
Mr Bone
The Minister is making a splendid speech and a splendid announcement. It seems strange that every time a Liberal Minister stands at the Dispatch Box, I find myself agreeing and saying what a wonderful job he is doing. [Interruption.] If I reflect on where I am sitting, I get a bit worried. Will the Minister endeavour to let councils know that that is the intention, so that those thinking of introducing legislation can hold back from so doing?
Mr Davey
I note that I am wearing a blue tie and the hon. Gentleman is wearing a yellow tie, which might suggest that this coalition is founded on many things. More seriously, I think he can be reassured that the interested local authorities will be reading Hansard; we do not need to spend money on stamps to tell them, as they are quite capable of clicking on the internet to read our deliberations.
Philip Davies
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I am greatly encouraged by what the Minister has had to say. If the Government introduce their own legislation on this issue, will it trump the private legislation that local authorities wish to pass; or if the local authorities pass these Bills and they end up being more authoritarian than the Government’s proposals, will those measures still stand? It is important to clarify that point before we decide whether these Bills are worth reviving.
Mr Davey
I think my hon. Friend is trying to tempt me to pre-judge the response to the consultation. Tempting though that is, I am afraid that I am not going to accede to the request for an absolutely straight answer—save to say that if the rights of genuine pedlars were embedded in a future national framework, whatever form it took, local authority legislation could well be superseded. When we respond to the consultation and look at future legislation, we will consult local authorities and try to ensure that any legislation is flexible enough to take account of the special concerns of any particular local authorities.
Given the real spirit of coalition behind our exchanges, I would like to answer a particular point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). He made an important point about examples of false pedlars being involved in the trafficking of children. I am sure that the whole House will be alarmed to read those reports and will want to know that action can be taken. I am sure that my hon. Friend is well aware that it is not for this legislation or any legislation that might come from it—whether it be a national framework or future private Bills—to tackle that issue. It is a matter for the Home Office, but I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that I will write to Home Office Ministers to bring their attention to this very important matter. At this point, it is right to pay tribute to the former Member for Totnes, Anthony Steen, who I believe retired at the last election, as he campaigned so brilliantly for the rights of women who had been trafficked to this country. It is right for this House and this Government to ensure that we take action on trafficked women. It is not an issue for my Department, but I hope and believe that this Government will want to look at the problem.
Mr Chope
May I say how much I appreciate the fact that the Minister is going to respond to this consultation within two or three months? When we last debated one of these Bills, I think he said that waiting for the framework might be like waiting for Godot. What he has said tonight suggests that he has taken it on himself to push this matter forward, on which I congratulate him.
Mr Davey
I am obviously grateful for any congratulations. I hope that I will not be too Beckett-like in my approach to this matter. I do want to make it clear, however, that we are not promising early legislation in this area, as I would need to speak to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House about that. If I gave an unduly certain commitment, I am sure I would be called to order, but that is not to say that we do not think there is room to progress action in this area—I shall return to this in my later remarks—as there are other reasons for us to look at this with the degree of gravity that it requires.
The debate has shown the cross-party consensus on the legislation and what the Government need to do in due course to relieve the burdens on local authorities in tackling the issue, to ensure that the rights of pedlars are respected, and to ensure that we crack down on those who are trading illegally on our streets and genuinely causing problems. That is promising for debates to come, and I hope that we make progress with the Bill tonight.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) on being such a dogged advocate for his local authority and his constituents. I would not want to say that I know his constituency, or what is required there, better than he does.
Mr Mark Field
I would at least do my hon. Friend the honour of suggesting that he knows my constituency better than I know his, but there is a good reason for that.
Philip Davies
That may well be true.
I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), without whose dogged pursuit of the issue we probably would not have reached this stage this evening. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude—certainly, genuine pedlars do, because without his persistence, many bad bits of legislation would have been passed to their detriment. I am sure that we are all grateful that he is here keeping people’s feet to the fire to ensure that unworthy legislation is not sneaked through the House.
The Minister’s contribution to the debate was especially helpful, although, inadvertently I suspect, it questioned whether the Bill and related Bills are worth reviving. He seems much more determined than the previous Government to see progress on national legislation in this field. If we are to move quickly towards such legislation, it is utterly pointless for local authorities to pursue their own private legislation, which, as he seemed to indicate, may shortly be trumped by a national framework.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend might be right, on this as he is on most issues. The Minister was at pains to stress that he would not prejudge what the national framework and legislation would be. The question is whether the Bills are worth reviving in light of the fact that the Government will push on with some kind of national legislation. The matter would have been more clear cut if the Government had said that they have no intention of pursuing national legislation, and that it was for local people to make up their own minds through local authorities. The Minister has slightly muddied the waters.
We all believe in the principle of localism. No one argues with that. My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) made a forceful defence of localism, and I would tend to share his enthusiasm. However, it is difficult to expect people to know the different legislation relating to peddling as they move from one local authority to another. Certainly, when I am in London, I find it difficult to know which local authority I am in, because there is no obvious boundary between one London local authority and another. It might be clear if one is a resident and can benefit from the low council tax that Westminster city council provides, but otherwise it is difficult to know which part of London one is in.
Mr Mark Field
Let me defend the honour of Westminster city council’s cleansing department by observing that the cleanliness of Westminster’s streets marks a very obvious distinction between it and, say, Camden or Brent.
Philip Davies
I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. He clearly examines the litter in various London streets in much more detail than I do, and he clearly knows which local authority area he is in, but other people may not. Pedlars may not know whether they happen to be in Lambeth or Westminster: they may not know where one of those areas begins and ends, and which part of a bridge is in which area. When legislation is of such a local nature, it is difficult for people to know exactly what the law is in their area.
Given that the Government are talking about a national framework, and given that—particularly in a city such as London—people may not know which council area they are in, I question whether it is sensible to revive the Bill. However, on this as on so many matters, I take my lead from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. It appears from his remarks that he is satisfied that the Bill is worth reviving. Perhaps he is merely being collegiate and not wanting to cause his colleagues further discomfort or delay, but given that he seems happy for the Bill to be revived for the time being and to be scrutinised later, I will follow his lead. However, I question whether any of these Bills is worth reviving, even if the motion is passed tonight—as I am sure it will be—especially in the light of the Minister’s encouraging remarks about a national framework, which is so important in this context.
Mr Mark Field
With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker.
We have had a useful and constructive debate, but it has concerned a simple issue of procedure rather than all the aspects of the Bill. I know that my hon. Friends’ appetites are whetted by the prospect of the return of a fully fledged Bill following the deliberations in the House of Lords Select Committee on 19 July. I was encouraged by the Minister’s support for a national framework, and I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), for her helpful and praiseworthy comments. I am hopeful that a national framework for pedlars will be introduced.
Let me try to assuage the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I do not believe we should see what is proposed for the city of Westminster, or perhaps even what is proposed in the Bills relating to Nottingham and Canterbury, as a template or precedent. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) about the importance of localism. I think it right for a framework to exist in relation to issues such as this, but local considerations should then take much more control.
One of the most significant aspects of the debate is that local conditions will change in time. I speak for the centre of London, but I am sure that the same applies to the centre of Nottingham, which has changed beyond recognition in the last generation, and which I hope—as, no doubt, many of its residents hope—will change significantly in the decades to come. We should always be strongly aware of local conditions, and I hope that that will emerge in the detailed debates in which we will no doubt engage in the months ahead when the Bill returns to the House of Commons.
I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions, and wish the Bill a fast journey to the other place for 19 July.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved
That this House concurs with the Lords in their Resolution.
Canterbury City Council Bill
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this we will also consider the following motion:
That the promoters of the Nottingham City Council Bill, which was originally introduced in this House in Session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008, may have leave to proceed with the Bill in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I welcome the opportunity to address the revival motion briefly. I shall talk mainly about Canterbury, and I believe that the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) will lead on the Nottingham Bill.
Both Bills were first deposited in the House in 2007, and they were first debated in the House on 21 January 2008. Since then, we have been through two cycles and one previous revival motion. We have spent many hours debating the merits of the Bills on the Floor of the House, and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would certainly bring me to order if I were to go into that in any detail. I was, however, extremely pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Minister say not only that he sees a long-term future for a national framework in this area, but, crucially, that he sees scope for local variation, because different cities have different issues.
Canterbury’s particular problem is that we are the third or fourth most visited city in the country but we have narrow mediaeval-width streets in parts of the centre, and we have a particular problem with large numbers of illegal street traders who operate alongside street traders who have paid £800 each for their licences, with the former frequently causing an obstruction to the public. The Bill’s provisions will allow Canterbury city council to tackle the problem not of pedlars peddling but of pedlars acting illegally as street traders, and to do so in a way that is nowhere near as costly and burdensome in terms of officer time, prosecutions and so forth as the current arrangements. In fact, the current arrangements are effectively unenforceable. I was glad to hear the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), suggest there was room for a national framework and, if I understood her correctly, for local variation. I was delighted, too, that my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) progressed with his Bill a few moments ago.
I do not want to say any more about the Canterbury Bill, except that I welcome the fact that a number of my hon. Friends made constructive speeches on the earlier Bill and I hope that the same spirit will be exhibited in respect of the Canterbury Bill and, indeed, the Nottingham Bill. I commend this second revival motion to the House.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) on introducing the revival motion, and on trying to seduce the House by not going into much detail about the background and history. If he were to do so, people would be reminded that of the four Bills dealing with pedlars introduced in this House in the last Parliament—there were also two others that started off in the other place—the Leeds and Reading Bills are now in the other place and their revival motions have not been objected to, and I think it would be sensible to put on the record why I did not object to their revival motions, whereas I did object to the revival motions in respect of the Canterbury and Nottingham Bills.
In a nutshell, the reason why I objected to one group of Bills and not the other was because in the last Parliament the promoters of the Leeds and Reading Bills and their respective council officers realised that the best way of making progress would be to have some constructive discussion about the contents of their Bills. That constructive discussion resulted in the equivalent of the clause 5 provisions on pedlars in the Canterbury and Nottingham Bills being significantly amended.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
There are a number of new Members in the House tonight who will not quite understand why councils have to come to individual Members in respect of these Bills, instead of their being like Government Bills. Will my hon. Friend expand a little on the procedure so Members can understand what is going on?
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The short answer is that there is no compulsion at all, but obviously, councils that are in close touch with their council tax payers will want to be able to ensure that the resources they spend are spent wisely. The view was taken in Leeds and in Reading that the provisions in the equivalent of clause 5 of the two Bills in question were not necessary for their areas, which is why they were prepared to have significant amendments. In particular, those amendments recognised that pedlars carrying their goods with them about their person should be able to continue to do so and to display and sell them in the city centres of Leeds and Reading, and to use modest additional trolleys and so on if appropriate. The issue in Leeds in particular was that the trolleys were causing the obstruction, which is why they were prepared to have their Bill amended.
Unfortunately, and despite my best efforts, the opportunity has not arisen to get any compromise out of Nottingham or Canterbury, save that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury did agree that when his Bill progressed, he would remove completely clause 11, which deals with touting. Although there was an opportunity to do that in the last Parliament, it was not seized on for one reason or another. I am not criticising my hon. Friend, however. I know he is keen for clause 11 to be removed as soon as his Bill goes before a Committee in the other place. I hope he will also ensure that clause 5, on pedlars, is significantly amended to bring it into line with the Reading Borough Council and Leeds City Council Bills.
Mr Brazier
On the first point, my hon. Friend has of course seen a copy of the letter from the Bill’s promoters confirming that they will immediately strike out clause 11, as originally proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). On the second point, I am afraid I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) no such assurance, because of the simple practical fact that, given the circumstances in which we in Canterbury find ourselves, making the same amendment would not leave us with workable legislation. At the end of the process, the situation would be as unworkable as it is at the moment.
Mr Chope
I am disappointed at my hon. Friend’s response, but not surprised; a lot of time has been spent in this House trying to tease this matter out. If his Bill is revived, goes before a Select Committee in the other place and the petitions against it are heard, I hope that Members there hearing them will take into account the compromise that has been reached by other councils—including, of course, on slightly different areas, Bournemouth borough and Manchester city councils. Obviously, my hon. Friend—and I, for that matter—will have to accept whatever verdict is reached in the other place when it considers the petitions’ merits.
One thing that emerged from what the Minister said in the previous short debate is that the Government will come forward in two or three months with their response to the consultation. I strongly urge Members of the other place to defer convening a Committee to look at the detail of these Bills and the petitions until after they have the Government’s response, because the information may be very helpful in enabling them to consider the petitions in detail. So I hope that, for the sake of a month or two, the Bills will be put on hold and that priority will be given in the other place to the Bills that were the subject of the constructive compromise to which I referred. If it is not possible to hear petitions against all the Bills at once in the other place, I hope that the Reading and Leeds cases will be dealt with before the Canterbury and Nottingham ones. That is another reason why I thought it would be helpful to put them on a different time frame by ensuring that we had this debate and that the other ones would already have gone through the other House with the revival motions unopposed.
So that is the background. We, in this House, no longer have any control over what happens to the contents of the Canterbury City Council Bill and the Nottingham City Council Bill. For that reason, the pertinent question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in the earlier debate is more pertinent in respect of these two Bills—he asked whether the Bills are worth reviving. It remains open to this House to consider the contents of the City of Westminster Bill, but the Canterbury and Nottingham Bills are outwith our control. We have no opportunity to propose further amendments in the light of any suggestions that the Government may make, so we are at the mercy of the good sense of their lordships. To look on the bright side, I should mention that last week I met one of their lordships who is very interested in and concerned about these issues relating to pedlars. He spoke as warmly in support of the principle of pedlary as the Minister has just done, and I am sure that if that noble Lord is involved in the Committee, as I hope he will make it his business to be, the pedlars will receive a good hearing in the other place.
Mr Bone
I just wish to get this point clear in my mind. This is now in the other place, so we may now have only one option tonight if we have concerns about these Bills, on which we have had hours of debate. So if we were to divide and the Bill were not allowed to be revived, would that, in effect, kill the Bill off?
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
If this is going to be the end of the consideration of these Bills in this place, does that mean that more than 200 newly elected Members will have no say about them?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a very potent point, and the short answer to his question is yes. One of the extraordinary oddities is that our Standing Orders allow for legislation to be passed on from one Parliament to another, but only in very exceptional circumstances. That does not apply in the case of primary legislation and public Bills; it applies only in the case of private legislation in special circumstances where a strong and compelling case is being made. That is why it is important that when an attempt is made to revive one of these Bills, not just from one Session to another, but from one Parliament to the next, we should have the opportunity to consider it carefully. He makes a powerful point about whether it would not be better to introduce these Bills afresh now with a new House, as could happen, or to pull back and allow the Government to pronounce on the results of the consultation and then introduce whatever legislation might be appropriate. I look forward to hearing him develop his point later in the debate. He is speaking on behalf of many hon. Friends and Opposition Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who is not in her place at the moment—oh, I see that she is now. I have already spoken about this subject, and one of her constituents is very exercised about what he sees as a persistent campaign over many years to try to vilify pedlars and pedlary. As my hon. Friend was keen to point out, at this time of all times, when an enormous number of people are without work but are eager to try to find work, tonight’s short debate gives us the opportunity to promote the case for pedlary. If individuals who are keen to try their hand at entrepreneurial activity get a pedlar’s certificate for £12.25, they can try selling goods to members of the general public during the course of the summer season.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I want to reiterate the point. I, like many new Members, perhaps had an impression of pedlars as people one would not want knocking on one’s granny’s front door. However, I was impressed by the work of the pedlars’ organisation and by my constituent who has shown enormous entrepreneurial zeal in setting up a business, trading legitimately within the law, obeying all the licensing regulations in the cities that he visits and running a thriving enterprise. I want to echo my hon. Friend’s point: at a time of high unemployment, I want to encourage such entrepreneurial zeal. The Bills drive out the spirit that we are looking for.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) was entirely right to point out that many people now in this place were not cognisant of the previous debates. Without wanting my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) to reprise the content of the debates in the previous Parliament, I would be interested to know whether there had been any discussion of the competition and free market issues that arise. If we control pedlary in one town, what happens in another? My town, Ipswich, might be concerned if pedlary were controlled in one place as that might have an impact on market traders in another place where there was no such control. Will my hon. Friend elaborate on whether that was discussed in the previous Parliament and whether he thinks it should be discussed now?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which was discussed in the last Parliament in the context of some Bills. For example, in the context of the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill, I raised it as an issue because I represent the adjoining borough and I was concerned about the knock-on effect of banning pedlars in one town and what would happen in an adjoining town. It has been discussed, but I am bound to say that the promoters of the Bills denied that there was ever going to be a problem. In that respect, there was general denial.
On the point about entrepreneurial spirit, I can remember—with a bit of help from the Official Report for 14 January, when we last discussed the Canterbury City Council Bill—drawing the attention of my hon. Friend who was then on the Front Bench to the paper produced by Paul Braidford of St Chad’s college at Durham university, which was all about selling in the street and pedlary as a entry route to entrepreneurship. That was an important paper and my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who was then dealing with such matters from the Front Bench, said that he had seen the paper—because I had only just given it to him—and that he was going through it.
I hope that the Minister has looked at that paper, too. He has obviously mastered it, because he seems to have got the message that although pedlary might be based on ancient statute, it is still a unique activity in our country. It is a national means by which people who want to get out and try their hand at enterprise can do so.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, when considering whether the Bills should be revived, we should also take into account the fact that the report on street trading and pedlary that he mentioned was produced after the Bills were initially introduced? Would it not make sense for any legislation on this matter to take note of the report by Durham university, which these Bills do not, because they were introduced before its publication?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. So much has changed, in regard not just to the national economy but to the information available on the role of pedlars and pedlary, since the Bills were first introduced in late 2007. Two and a half years have passed, and we must now consider whether we want them to be discussed for a further year or 18 months in the other place, or whether it would be better to have a fresh start. Obviously, some of us are asking whether the Bills are really worth reviving. That is the consideration that we must keep at the forefront of our minds.
Mr Bone
Does my hon. Friend agree that a new aspect has come to light, and that we ought to consider it before making a decision on whether to revive the Bills? It relates to whether these local Bills would interfere with the right to the free movement of labour granted by the European Union.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend will recall that there was quite a lively debate in the previous Parliament about the interaction of the services directive and the provisions of the Bills. In the end, it was resolved by the then Minister saying that, as far as he was concerned, the legislation would not make any difference and that pedlars would still be able to carry on their pedlary irrespective of the interaction with the services directive. However, my hon. Friend is right to suggest that the matter might not be quite so clear cut.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
There might well be an issue relating to the services directive that we need to take into account, and I will say a little more about that in my speech. European legislation is actually ahead of the game in this regard, in that it encourages this House to protect ancient rights and ensures that we legislate properly and thoughtfully.
Mr Chope
I am most grateful to the Minister for that intervention. I shall not refer back to exactly what was said in that previous debate, but what he says is a revelation. He is obviously in charge of what is happening in his Department in relation to European legislation, and I look forward to hearing more from him later about the interaction between the Bills and the services directive.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you above all others will know that the issue before us is quite a narrow one. It is a question of whether these two Bills should be revived.
Philip Davies
I hope that my hon. Friend will give some thought as to whether he will take different approaches to the Bills relating to Canterbury and to Nottingham. I know that he was disappointed by an earlier intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), but I would suggest that Canterbury has at least made an effort to deal with some of the issues that have been raised, and he will remember that, in the previous Parliament, the former Member for Nottingham East was very unhelpful when it came to telling the House why the Bill was necessary. We now have a far more genial and constructive Member for that constituency, but my hon. Friend will remember that we were never given much of an idea of why the legislation was needed in the first place. Will he take a different approach to each of the two Bills?
Mr Chope
If there were a batting order of unpopularity, Nottingham city council would be top of the league as the most unpopular council promoting a Bill on pedlary. I am not saying that for reasons of prejudice; I am basing it on the lack of co-operation that was received in the previous Parliament. Not only was there a lack of co-operation, but a sullen silence. The former Member for Nottingham East did not wish to engage. He was so arrogant that he felt he did not need to address the arguments.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
As a proud Member for Nottingham East, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am very much in favour of the proposals. Moreover, I can assure him that Nottingham city council and the sponsors of the Bill, whether in this place or the other place, will be more than happy to listen, out of the spirit of consensus, to the carefully crafted points that he is making. We are all keen to make progress on this important issue and to tackle the serious difficulties that exist.
Mr Chope
That is wonderful—a revelation. It has taken two and a half years and a general election, but we now have constructive engagement from the city of Nottingham. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. I hope he will encourage his city council to engage with the other place in the same spirit, if we grant the Bills a revival tonight. His contribution to the debate—I do not know whether he intends to make a more extensive one later—may be an effective softening-up exercise among some of my colleagues, who may have been taking a rather hard line, encouraged by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is generous. Before I make up my mind whether to support the revival of either Bill, I need to hear about the Bills. Last time we heard nothing about Nottingham. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has been a powerful advocate and has made his point, but we will need to hear from Nottingham before deciding whether to divide the House.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury went into enormous detail about the situation in Canterbury, so much so that one almost felt that one had been living in the environs of Canterbury cathedral, among the street traders, the pedlars, the tourists and others. We have never had any similar word picture from Nottingham. We had a very effective word picture from Members from Leeds, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) did a similar job in relation to Reading. I hope we will have the benefit of a contribution this evening from the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) so that he can put on the record—
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I will be more than happy to provide a few words of explanation about why Nottingham city believes that the legislation is needed, if the hon. Gentleman will allow us time to do so.
Mr Chope
Fortunately, we have until 11 pm, so there should be plenty of time for the hon. Lady to contribute to the debate. When there are so many Members eager to participate in the debate, there is no need for anyone to speak for longer than is appropriate. I have just set out my stall briefly, but the issues before the House are whether the case has been made for reviving the Bills, taking into account the point about the number of new Members and the fact that new Members—
Mr Nuttall
There is another point, apart from the number of new Members. I understand that in the previous Parliament, some of the Bills reached the statute book. It would be interesting to know whether my hon. Friend has had any representations about the effect, if any, that those Bills that were enacted have had on pedlary in the towns and cities that were so affected.
Mr Chope
That is another good question. I am put on the spot by my hon. Friend. I am not sure whether the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill, which got through in the end, has made any difference at all on the ground in Bournemouth. During the general election I met pedlars from my constituency and from Bournemouth who were having a go at Bournemouth borough council for having wasted so much money on trying to prevent them from carrying on their activities in Bournemouth. If Bournemouth borough council succeeds in stopping lawful pedlars trading in the town, the council and the people of Bournemouth will be the losers, because pedlars bring colour and entrepreneurial activity to the area. Now that we do not have the Member for Bournemouth West from the previous Parliament, and as his successor is not in the Chamber this evening, I can say that the problems in Bournemouth were wholly exaggerated, and it is for the people of Bournemouth to assess whether the amount of money spent on the process was proportionate. I do not know the impact on the city of Manchester and have not done any research into it, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) might wish to initiate some. Indeed, a Select Committee visit to a major city might be helpful.
There are some important issues, and I hope that he will have the chance to hear from the Minister.
Ben Gummer
I am sorry to ask a question that might have been dealt with in detail in the previous Parliament, but for my benefit will my hon. Friend explain whether the Bills offend against any ancient charters of the towns and cities that we are discussing? In Nottingham, there are freedoms given to citizens of the city, on which the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) will no doubt be able to enlighten us, and in Canterbury there are freedoms under the original monastic charter, which no doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) will tell us about. I wonder whether the Bills might offend and go against those ancient liberties, which have been granted for so many hundreds of years, and whether the issue has been discussed.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend has a charming way of making me feel totally inadequate, because, despite detailed scrutiny of the Bills over many hours during the previous Parliament, we never got around to discussing the points that he has raised. Perhaps that was because of a lack of time, or because we did not have the presence of mind to discuss them. However, I look forward to my hon. Friend’s contribution to these ongoing debates, because prima facie his points are important and pertinent.
The jury is out on whether we should allow the Bills to be revived, and I look forward to hearing other contributors to the debate.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I support the Nottingham City Council Bill, primarily because illegal street trading is a considerable problem in our city centre. The Bill is designed not in any way to prevent legitimate pedlars, but to deal with the problem of illegal street trading.
To provide a flavour of the situation, I should say that in Nottingham city centre there are suitable places for legitimate street trading and legitimate street traders pay fees for the location of their stands. They pay between £1,775 and £7,657 per year, depending on the pitch size, the location and the range of goods. Rightly, those people want to ensure that they do not pay such fees only to find that people who are not legitimate street traders, and have not paid for licences, are taking over their pitches or significantly obstructing the streets and taking trade away from them and from the shops in our marvellous retail area.
Pedlars, by nature, are pedlars: they are meant to be on the move, not sited on stalls that are fixed or fixed for periods. Their phrase should be, “Stop me and buy one,” and they should stop only when they sell their goods. In contrast with the amount that street traders pay, which is in the thousands, the cost of obtaining a pedlar’s certificate is just £12.25. Many Government Members have talked about the importance of encouraging entrepreneurialism, and pedlary is an opportunity for people who want to make money or get back into work. We do not want to detract from that opportunity to become a pedlar and travel either door to door or around the streets; we want to give people the opportunity to stop and trade, but not in a fixed position.
Mr Nuttall
Has the hon. Lady done any sort of research among people who have street trading licences to see how many of them started off as pedlars and have now moved up the ladder? Pedlars are essentially the seed corn. People who started off as pedlars may well move on to become street traders, and perhaps their next step will be to have their own shop.
Lilian Greenwood
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I can speak only anecdotally in saying that that is not necessarily the case judging by the types of people who are involved in peddling, who often come from outside, including from abroad, in order to sell their goods. This legislation is not intended to prevent people from legitimate peddling—it merely makes a clear distinction between that and illegal street trading.
Lilian Greenwood
As I have said, I do not wish to prevent peddling. Obviously, it is great news to hear that people can go from such humble starts to building up great retail establishments.
This is a procedural motion, so I do not want to debate the merits of these Bills, which have already been examined in some detail. I have been looking at the history of the Nottingham City Council Bill since it was introduced in 2007—it obviously precedes my being in this House—and it is clear that there has already been considerable debate on these matters. I understand that it has been through First, Second and Third Readings in this place and was awaiting its Second Reading in the Lords. As there has been considerable cross-party support for these Bills at each stage in the Commons, and as there has been considerable debate on these matters over the past two and a half years, there is a strong case for their being revived and allowed to complete the parliamentary process.
Lilian Greenwood
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question. Unfortunately, I do not have the full details, but I know that it has been debated over many hours, and I am sure that that information was placed before the House at those times. I will be happy to go back and look at that, but I do not have it to hand at this moment.
There is a strong case for looking at this legislation again. It has clearly been subject to a lot of debate, and surely its revival should be allowed in order for it to complete the parliamentary process, with the opportunity for further debate and consideration in the other place.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on her speech; several Members across the House will be reassured by what she said. I was born and bred in Nottingham, so I know its streets—the narrow ones and the broader ones. I do not know whether she and the promoters of the Bill are particularly worried about the lace market or the wonderful market square in Nottingham. Perhaps the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) may wish to enlighten us later on.
I am grateful for this opportunity to respond to the debate. This is the second time that the House has debated reviving the Canterbury City Council Bill and the Nottingham City Council Bill, and I am grateful for the fact that hon. Members have made such lively contributions. During the previous debate, several Members took the opportunity to air their concerns about the national position on the regulation of street trading and pedlars, but they also set out their growing support for these Bills.
Of course, it is fair to say that there have been voices of concern, and hon. Members who have raised those concerns are focusing on at least some elements of the Bills, which they wish to ensure are not unfair to the genuine trader. I have a huge amount of sympathy with that. However, we have heard that there may nevertheless be a case for providing local authorities in general with additional powers for when they experience problems with traders in the streets and feel that they cannot properly deal with them under existing powers. I will of course reflect further on all the views expressed tonight, and all those that we have heard in the consultation, before we come to any final decisions on the need for changes to national legislation.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
I am conscious that this question really requires the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), but is the Minister aware of the pedlar of Swaffham, an ancient and renowned historical figure in the county of Norfolk? I am not aware of his being in my constituency and there are no tales of him—I assume it was a him—coming into Mid Norfolk.
My question, however, is about the regulation of pedlars and whether the Minister would like to mention any issues about the regulation of peddling in modern times. Are there particular issues that we ought to raise with local authorities?
Mr Davey
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was not aware of the pedlar of Swaffham, but I was aware of some people who believe that Robin Hood was a pedlar in one of his many guises. No doubt stories abound around the House of pedlars from olden days. Perhaps members of the public following the debate will be more familiar with Del Boy and “Only Fools and Horses”, and perhaps they are the people whose needs we should be thinking about—the people today who are trying to earn an honest crust.
We have a balance to strike, as always in legislation. The current national legislation contains powers for local authorities to regulate street trading in their area, a point that is key to the debate. Let us be clear, though, that they are not required to do so; they have only an option to do so. That is the enabling approach that the House has taken to the matter in the past. Of course, there is also legislation dealing with the itinerant traders who can be certified as pedlars. Certification through their local police enables those traders to trade throughout the country.
In considering the legislation on street trading and pedlars that we have been bequeathed there are a number of matters to balance, and they have been aired widely in these debates. The first is the effect of unlawful trading on the livelihoods of licensed street traders and others entitled to trade in the streets, and arguably of static traders in the shops by the streets. We have to consider whether there is scope for the creation of further powers to penalise unlawful traders, which might aid local authorities and their partners in their enforcement role.
I wish to emphasise that we also have to consider the creation and dissemination of guidance on legitimate trading methods for certified pedlars, and clarification for local authorities as they go about their enforcement role under the current regime. I am concerned that some local authorities are perhaps not as clear as they might be about how they can deal with the issue. Perhaps rather than a lot of new legislation, we need to create and disseminate guidance. We will consider that in the consultation.
Claire Perry
On that point, can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that whatever the outcome of tonight’s debate and the further debate in the other place, we will strive to put no new laws on the statute book in dealing with this or any other problem, but rather to work within the existing regime and legislation so that we can start to roll back some of the legislative burden of the state?
Mr Davey
I am sympathetic to what my hon. Friend has said, although I should say that hon. Members have called in these debates for a national framework—not to increase the role of the state or impose extra burdens, but to clarify things so that local authorities do not need to come to Parliament to get yet more legislation. That can save them costs. Such a framework would also ensure that there was clarification for pedlars and legal street traders. I assure my hon. Friend that if the consultation and other processes require legislation and we believe that it is necessary, we will not put the heavy hand of the state into the statute book.
Mr Brazier
Is not the problem that all markets are ultimately based on property laws? There is a finite number of pitches. If a council is selling the number of pitches that can be reasonably accommodated in a high street at what is effectively the market clearing price, and others come in who have not paid that price, that effectively undermines what the legitimate street traders have paid.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend has made a valid point. I have sought in my remarks to make a distinction between street trading, which has a certain definition in legislation, and peddling. There has been confusion, in some areas at least, about how those two activities, which are regulated separately, interact. Through the consultation and what follows thereafter, I hope to give greater clarity on that issue. That will help.
The Pedlars Act 1871 could also be updated. The certification of pedlars, which is currently undertaken by the police service, could become a local authority function. The consultation looked at that issue and we are considering it in detail. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), I mentioned that we must look at how we ensure that any future authorisation of pedlars as providers of retail services complies with the rule set down in the services directive. In case my hon. Friends are concerned that that will import an extra burden from Europe, I should reassure them that doing so will help us ensure that British pedlars can provide their services anywhere in the European Union.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned British pedlars, but I would like him to consider the question of European pedlars. Tamworth has a vibrant farmers market; people from Spain, Germany and France go there to sell their wares. The Bill is
“for the better control of street trading in the city of Nottingham.”
That reminds me of the quotation from T.S. Eliot:
“Between the idea
And the reality…
Falls the Shadow”.
An idea can be great, but ensuring that it works properly in reality can be very difficult. If we pass this legislation, I want to make sure that it does not impinge on those who rightly come to Britain from Paris, Madrid and Munich—
Mr Speaker
Order. On the subject of reality, I should say that the reality is that the erudition of that intervention was equalled only by its length.
Mr Davey
In a former life, you would have enjoyed such an intervention, Mr Speaker, as you were renowned for your erudition. I represent the royal and ancient borough of Kingston-upon-Thames. In a revived marketplace, we enjoy not just farmers markets but a German market; Italian and Spanish traders also come. One of the many advantages of such activity is that it can create a vibrancy in our marketplaces. It is important that local authorities consider my next point, which I wish to emphasise. The fact that additional traders come to sell their goods and services can help the traders already there. If those additional traders improve the vibrancy and vitality of a town centre, it becomes more attractive to shoppers and visitors. It is not at all a zero-sum game.
Mr Davey
We will give some detail on that when we publish our consultation. I do not wish to prejudge the final analysis, but I say simply that we know that we need carefully to consider the services directive, and I believe we can respond without undermining the centuries-long tradition of pedlary. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman the reassurance he needs.
Mr Davey
Many hon. Members have come to the Chamber tonight to listen to the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Christchurch, who are now renowned experts on such matters. They will have many followers and admirers in the honourable profession of pedlary for their efforts.
I was explaining how the new Government wish to pull off the different balancing acts. One issue raised by the Bills that we will consider as we respond to the consultation is the balance between ensuring healthy competition, whether among pedlars, street traders, static traders or ordinary retailers, and safety in congested, narrow streets. I have not heard anyone deny that those are genuine issues, but those who have valiantly defended the rights of pedlars are concerned that too much can be made of safety. They are worried that safety leads to protection by the back door and that it can be used to hinder genuine competition. We need to reflect carefully on that. We want to be sensitive to the different natures of our ancient towns and our more modern towns. We shall seek to strike that delicate balance as we respond to the views that we receive, for which we are grateful.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Is not there always an argument for more regulation and laws, and for taking away the liberty of the British subject? Is it about time that we had a deregulating Government, which I hope the coalition is, who stop piling law upon law upon us? A great and noble Liberal, Lord Palmerston, said that we would run out of things to legislate about, and sadly, that day has not yet come.
Mr Davey
Let me reassure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and I, and many right hon. and hon. Friends across the coalition, do not seek to burden the statute book with unnecessary legislation. As I said in response to a previous intervention, if we are careful in how we shape our response to the consultation and those genuine issues, we might see some deregulation and actually make it easier for local authorities to manage existing regulation. There are some difficult judgments to make and some of the issues are clearly not as well understood as they might be, so it is the Government’s job to give a lead and greater clarification.
The consultation deals with many practical issues. For example, is it sensible that pedlar certificates are available from individual police stations and that it falls to the police to manage the system? If not, then perhaps as discussed in the consultation document the local authorities are better placed, as many of them already license static street traders. Bringing together the systems might assist in reducing some of the burden. Not all local authorities take up the option to regulate street trading, so is it fair on local authorities that have no desire to regulate street trading that we should ask them to certify pedlars, given that we would not want to limit the availability of pedlars certificates geographically? These are the issues with which we are struggling.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I was taken aback by the point that the Minister made about the services directive. I was a Member of the European Parliament when that went through, and we had hours of debate on it. It is one of the bizarre European examples of the law of unforeseen consequences that it should have some bearing on what local authorities do when it comes to allowing pedlars to trade on their streets. When the European Scrutiny Committee looked at the services directive—it wrote a long report on it—did it consider that point? What other unforeseen consequences might flow from that directive?
Mr Davey
My hunch is that those who considered that legislation did not have the issue of pedlars at the forefront of their minds. There has been debate about whether the services directive applies in this area, and I have given my view that it probably does. However, in a way, given the itinerant nature of pedlary, it may be one of the more happy unforeseen consequences, because the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in British pedlary may make them one of our new exports to the continent. I do not see a particular problem. I suspect—although I have done no study—that in French, German, Spanish and Italian towns street trading and pedlary are more heavily regulated, and the services directive may give some extra freedoms where there were none before.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I assure the Minister that in the European Parliament there was no debate on whether pedlars fell within the scope of the services directive, although we discussed many issues and there were battles left, right and centre. The wonderful former Labour MEP for the East Midlands, Phillip Whitehead, who was an assiduous follower of such matters, always used to say that the problem with every European law was not what was at issue, but the unforeseen consequences that flowed from it. This is another prime example of the problem with well-meaning European legislation that works in many areas, but may not do so in this one. In any case, it was not debated in the chamber of the European Parliament.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend does not surprise me. His point however shows the need for careful scrutiny of the legislation and it is fair to say that the Bills we are considering have had a degree of scrutiny.
I hope that I have been able to illustrate that the Government are sensitive to the different perspectives of the stakeholders involved in these matters and their differing views on how to achieve a fair trading environment on our streets that will ensure that they are joyful places to shop and prosperous places for traders. I hope that I have been able to convey to the House that, while in many respects talk of pedlars and street traders might seem quaint, the issues under consideration are very serious, because they affect the livelihoods of small business people and speak to the type of society and trading environments that we want to promote and to see flourish.
Ben Gummer
In answer to an earlier intervention about the pedlar of Swaffham, my hon. Friend referred to Robin Hood, the most famous son of one of the cities that we are discussing. I wonder whether the over-zealous interpretation of the legislation by councils might take away the vibrancy that the Minister is seeking to promote. What protections in the Bill might the Government wish to bring to bear to ensure that councils do not apply it with such harshness that that vibrancy is denied, thereby preventing any future Robin Hoods from emerging?
Mr Davey
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reference to my home town and for the point that he has made. I hope that I have done enough to reassure him and other right hon. and hon. Friends that we are mindful of the possibility of over-regulating—and thereby killing—what ought to be a legal, prosperous and vibrant livelihood. When we respond to the consultation, we will be extremely mindful of the need to ensure that we do not just maintain the status quo, but ideally encourage such entrepreneurialism. My Department is taking note of what people have said in response to the consultation.
Mr Nuttall
There has been a lot of debate about the merits of the Bills, but this evening we are considering whether they should be reintroduced in this Parliament. However, it seems to me that the most important point is the fact that more than 240 Members of the House have had no opportunity, other than in this short debate on a technicality, to consider this important legislation, which strikes at the very heart of free enterprise in this country. I wonder whether the Minister would like to comment on that.
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman will know that the procedures for private Bills are unique and somewhat different from those for many other types of legislation. That is why the Government do not normally comment on either the content or the process of private Bills; equally, as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said, it is why special provision is made for private Bills to continue from one Parliament to the next. I do not know how long that has been the position in our Standing Orders, but it is relatively traditional—it might not be as long a tradition as pedlary, but nevertheless it is not something that we should discard with undue haste.
I want to thank the House for this opportunity to outline the Government’s position on these important matters, and I look forward to future debates.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I do not wish to delay proceedings, so I will be very brief. The Canterbury and Nottingham Bills were subject to extensive scrutiny by the House. A number of Members of this House used the parliamentary process very effectively indeed to challenge the need for the Bills and to question their content and their likely impact on pedlary and street trading. Similarly, the promoters put a great deal of time and effort into setting out to the House the need for the Bills. The Bills passed all their Commons stages, and it is surely only fair to allow them to complete their parliamentary process, bearing in mind that there are opportunities to subject them to further examination during their remaining stages—a point excellently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood).
The Minister is correct that this has been a lively debate, but I hope that we will be able to agree to the revival motion this evening. While I am on my feet, I would like also to thank the Minister for the comments that he made about the Government responding to the BIS consultation and publishing the outcome. I hope—I would like to press him on this point—that that will be a precursor to proposals for a national framework in due course.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
In the previous debate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) said that I knew his constituency better than he knew mine. That certainly cannot be said for the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), who knows my constituency far better than I know his. I certainly would not want to challenge his knowledge of Nottingham. As you know, Mr Speaker, he was a distinguished predecessor of mine—far more distinguished than I am—and I am sure that most of my constituents would rather he were still representing them than to have the misfortune of having me represent them. The people of Nottingham East are very fortunate to have him on their side in Parliament, and I am delighted to see him in his place this evening.
On the motion of whether we should revive these particular Bills, the main issue revolves around what has changed since they were first introduced. That is what lies behind this debate. It seems to me that three things have changed since these Bills were first proposed. The first, as we have heard in some detail, is the existence of the EU directive, which was never envisaged by the Bills’ promoters. It seems bizarre to revive a Bill when it might make absolutely no difference to the cities and towns trying to promote it. That would be the result of it being completely overridden by EU legislation. As I say, that was not envisaged when the Bills were first proposed. It seems absolutely bizarre to me that local authorities would want to continue spending taxpayers’ money in their local areas pursuing something that might be a complete and utter waste of time.
The second thing that has changed since the Bills were first proposed is the excellent report on pedlary and street trading produced by Durham university. It was a very weighty document, which I certainly commend to any hon. Member in this House. It makes the point that pedlars encompass the entrepreneurial spirit that we want to promote. Those who might have thought when the Bills were first proposed that pedlars were a nuisance will, on reading this report, find that their original prejudice was completely and utterly wrong.
The fact that Durham university makes the point so well in its report brings me on to the third thing that has changed since the Bills were first proposed, as I think was touched on by my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Devizes (Claire Perry). They said that since these Bills were proposed, we have suffered a very deep recession, which was not envisaged at the time. Encouraging pedlars and encouraging people to go down the route of peddling is something that this House should encourage people to do in response to the fact that some people are finding it difficult to get a job.
George Freeman
While my hon. Friend is on the subject of things that have changed, does he agree that one of them is that we on these Benches are all in this together? As we pursue a programme to develop and promote the big society, does he agree that each day of the week we find ourselves promoting a different part of society? We have national weeks and days for various things, so should we consider having a national pedlary day to promote the benefits of pedlary, particularly to some of our youngsters and school leavers, as a way of getting into entrepreneurship and small business?
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend makes an excellent suggestion, as he often does. I certainly would not want to challenge him if he wanted to pursue introducing a national pedlars day. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I would be one of the first to support it. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are all in this together, which is something I tell my Whips on a regular basis.
I would like to make some distinction between the two Bills under consideration in respect of their merits for revival. I certainly share the misgivings of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch about some elements of the Canterbury City Council Bill, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) knows. We must make it clear, however, that the latter has made a valiant effort on behalf of his constituents to highlight to people in this place why this Bill is so important to his area. Although we may not agree on every particular detail of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury has gone out of his way to do that; he has engaged in the debate, probably more than any other Member sponsoring their particular Bill. I am particularly grateful that he respected the point I made about touting with respect to the original Bill and struck that out in the proposed Bill. I am extremely grateful for the way in which he has dealt so constructively with all these points. On that basis, I am much more minded to support the merits of the Canterbury City Council Bill.
Mr Brazier
May I say that I am indebted to my hon. Friend for pointing out that particular defect? When I explained to the promoters the wide fashion in which those powers could have been used by a successor council of a very different political complexion, they were very concerned indeed. I am delighted to have been able to help on that matter.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. His contribution emphasises how constructive he has been throughout the process. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is equally thankful. Personally, I would be more minded to allow the Canterbury City Council Bill to be revived.
However, such a constructive approach has been in stark contrast to that deployed in the previous Parliament by the then hon. Member for Nottingham East, who spent barely a minute explaining why the Nottingham City Council Bill was necessary. I am delighted to see the new blood representing Nottingham on the Opposition Benches, and I commend the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on setting out in far greater detail why the Bill is important for Nottingham. The new hon. Member for Nottingham East also made an intervention that was more revealing than the entire speech made by his predecessor.
Despite that, I am still not sure why the Bill is so necessary to Nottingham that it must be revived this evening. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made clear earlier, the revival of Bills should be seen not as a right, but as an exception and a privilege. The duty is on the sponsors of such Bills to explain why they are so important before we should consider whether they deserve to be revived. I still have not heard that from Nottingham. Serious consideration should be given to taking a different approach in relation to the Bill for Canterbury from that for Nottingham. Should the House divide on the issue of Nottingham, I would be minded to vote against that Bill.
Chris Leslie
Clearly, I look forward to the private Bills for Shipley and Bradford in due course, and I will be more than happy to contribute on any issues that the hon. Gentleman wants to raise at that point. I assure him that the Nottingham City Council Bill is virtuous. On a revival motion, it would not be appropriate to go through all the details, but it is important to revive the Bill. There are already difficulties in Clumber street in Nottingham because of the tensions between peddling and the activity of legitimate street traders who are already there. The hon. Member for Christchurch has made important points, as has the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). I hope that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will be satisfied as to the merits of the Bill for Nottingham.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not doubt that people in Nottingham view the issue as important, and nor do I doubt his sincerity. Were any private business to be debated for Bradford and Shipley, I am sure that he would decide on the basis of its merits. I hope that he was not suggesting that if I scratch his back, he will scratch mine at a later date. I am sure that I would be wrong in inferring that—he is a fair-minded man and would treat private business for any other place on its merits, irrespective of what happens this evening.
I merely express my frustration that we have not heard a real reason why the Bill is necessary for Nottingham. The Bill will be considered no further in this place, and I am concerned that we have not got to the bottom of why it is needed in the first place.
Lilian Greenwood
I would like to say a little more about why the Bill is necessary in Nottingham city—not all Members will be as familiar with it as the Minister is. Nottingham has a strong retail sector—it is one of the best cities in the country for shopping. One part of the city, Clumber street, between the Old Market square and a large shopping centre called the Victoria centre, is, I believe, one of the busiest pedestrianised shopping streets in the whole of Europe. On a Saturday when one is trying to get from one place to another it is incredibly crowded.
One of the problems is an activity which, although Members might want to call it peddling, is actually illegal street trading. People set up small stalls—they are not pedlars walking from place to place waiting for people to stop them and buy—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am learning quite a lot about the geography and high streets of south Nottingham, and that is a matter of considerable interest, but it had been my impression that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was still making his speech and was giving way to an intervention. I think we will now let him respond to it.
Philip Davies
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously I accept your ruling, but the hon. Member for Nottingham South was being extremely helpful in at least setting out the case for why we need the legislation, and I think we are all grateful for that. It is just a shame that this is the first occasion on which we have heard any of these matters discussed.
I do not wish to cover ground that was covered during the debate on the City of Westminster Bill, but I must return to one point. The Minister made a second very helpful speech earlier, and I commend his comments and the approach that he has taken. He is still indicating that the Government wish to introduce a national framework by some means, and I still do not see any point in reviving private business for particular towns and cities when it seems that the Government, in good faith, are going to make some provision in that regard anyway.
I ask the sponsors of the Bills whether what the Minister has said today—which was much more proactive than anything that we heard from the last Government—has made them change their minds. I entirely understand why, during the last Parliament, people were keen for these private Bills to proceed, because the Government kept saying that they were going to do something and then never did. I have much more confidence in this Minister. I think it far more likely that he will proceed with something much more sensible in a much more timely way, and I think that in the light of what he has said, we should question whether we need to revive the Bills.
I do not wish to detain the House, which has debated these matters for some time, but the issues are important. Again, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, who has made a fantastic contribution. Without him, we should not have seen any concessions. I shall leave this with him. I shall be happy to follow his lead, and I shall give some thought to whether these Bills should be treated differently. However, I hope that when they go to the other place—if that happens—they will receive the scrutiny that they deserve, and that we will celebrate pedlars who are trying to make something of their lives rather than attempting to do them down.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether any Education Minister has approached you following our discussion on the statement made earlier today about the future of the Building Schools for the Future programme. You were in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, and you may recall that there was considerable discussion about the propriety of what the former Secretary of State for Education had done with respect to capital expenditure, about whether the previous Government’s proposals had been affordable and, indeed, about whether the former Secretary of State had acted in a way that was consistent with Treasury rules.
If you remember, Mr. Speaker, the former Secretary of State asked the Secretary of State if we could have a letter from the accounting officer—in other words, the permanent secretary to the Department for Education—stating whether the former Secretary of State had acted appropriately with respect to capital expenditure, and whether he had received a ministerial direction. As you know, Mr. Speaker, he would have had to receive such a direction had the former Secretary of State acted in a way that was inappropriate with respect to that money.
We now have that letter, which I shared with you, Mr. Speaker. I will not read all of it, but it describes the ways in which end-of-year flexibility and decisions on capital expenditure were handled, all of them appropriately. The last paragraph states,
“If any actions on this, or any matter, were in breach of the requirements of propriety or regularity, I would have sought a ministerial direction. I can confirm that I made no such requests during your time as Secretary of State.”
The issue is extremely serious, Mr. Speaker, and I wonder whether you have had any request from an Education Minister to explain it to the House.
Mr Speaker
The short answer to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) is that I have had no request from a Minister to make a statement on the matter. The second point I would make is that he has clarified the position in terms of his understanding and in defence of the former Secretary of State, and as he will know as he is an experienced Member who has been in the House for 13 years, his views are now clearly on the record.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but after that rather long point of order I wonder whether we should reprise what we have covered so far, perhaps for half an hour or so, to get us back into the swing of our debate about pedlars. Time is short, however, and we want to reach a conclusion tonight.
I want to put on the record that if it were not for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), we would not be here tonight. His forceful and persistent standing up for the right of a minority of people in this country is to be welcomed.
The decision the House has to make tonight is whether to support the revival of these Bills. In principle, I am against reviving Bills. I start from that basis, because if a Bill’s promoters have not been able to get it through since 2007, perhaps there is something wrong with it.
That is where I start from, therefore, but there are other issues. First, I believe we should listen to the Members who represent the constituencies where the Bills are being promoted. I commend in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) because he has attended every debate I have been at on the pedlar issue, and he has always represented his constituents with great zeal. I appreciate that, and I note that he has made it clear to the House that the promoters have listened and will remove clause 11 from the Canterbury Bill. Although I have some concerns about clause 5, at least there has been some movement, and I understand that the Bill still has to be discussed in the other place. I am therefore inclined to say we should support the Canterbury Bill because of the local input and that movement. That is the way things should happen, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has done.
I cannot, however, say the same about the Nottingham Bill. The two new Members, the hon. Members for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), have done their best tonight, but in the previous Parliament I sat through many hours of silence from Nottingham Members, and I am not entirely convinced that I know enough to say that the people of Nottingham want this Bill. I intervened on the hon. Member for Nottingham South when she was making her speech to ask what the feeling is in the city. Is there great demand for this in Nottingham? Which organisations want it? Does the council want it? Are people marching in the street demanding that pedlars be removed? I was also a little concerned that it sounded slightly as if this was a money-making exercise for the council, with huge fees for sites.
There is another issue that worries me about the revival of these Bills. My hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear that there may well be a national framework in a number of months, and it seems that if we stop the Nottingham Bill no more money will be spent by that council—no more taxpayers’ money will be wasted. Also, if the European Union, that wonderful organisation for which I only have praise on so many occasions, is actually ahead of the game, then that is good. We have to weigh these issues up in our minds in deciding on these matters.
Chris Leslie
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman cannot be distinguishing between the Nottingham and Canterbury Bills on the basis of the different political complexion of the Members concerned. I am sure that that would be entirely wrong and inappropriate. However, I assure him that, as elucidated in previous debates, there are strong reasons in favour of the Nottingham Bill, so I refer the hon. Gentleman to the previous debates.
Mr Bone
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. Had he been a Member of this House for a little longer, he would know that I am just as critical of my own side on many occasions.
The other issue we must take into account is whether the new Parliament has a right to discuss this Bill.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend think that Nottingham city council has indicated tonight through its Members of Parliament a willingness in any way to compromise on the Bill’s content? If there is such a willingness, it might cause people not to want to vote against its revival.
Lilian Greenwood
I am sure that those in Nottingham would be very happy to have further discussion and to approach the issue in a spirit of compromise. This is an important Bill for our city, and I would be happy to talk at length another time about the many reasons why we need it.
Philip Davies
I hope my hon. Friend agrees that we might allow Nottingham the same benefit as that given to Canterbury, in the light of the hon. Lady’s extremely helpful intervention, of the constructive nature of the comments of both Nottingham Members, and of the willingness to negotiate and discuss this issue in more detail.
Mr Bone
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention; I was actually coming round to that view myself. The interventions have been most helpful, and it does show that argument in this House can win the day.
I have to commend the Liberal Democrat Minister; I think he is almost now a Tory Minister, given the way he is performing. He is doing exceptionally well. I point out, just so the House knows, that it is a credit to this coalition Government that there is no whipping on this side of the House. We are entirely free to do what we wish—on almost everything, but certainly on tonight’s business. That is in contrast with what happened in the last Parliament, on occasion, when private business was discussed here, when I felt that the heavy hand of the Government Whips was behind some of the things that happened.
Mr Brazier
We have had a most interesting and entertaining debate; it has been a remarkable evening. To hear my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) praising the EU is something I never thought I would hear in my whole political career. We have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) being brief, which is tremendous, and we have heard the Minister set out clearly that this is an area in which there is a case for a national framework and for local variation. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that Opposition Front Benchers broadly took the same position.
The practical fact is that there is a split on two very simple issues: first, on whether this is a question of unfairly regulating a struggling group of business men, or of protecting property—the finite number of slots on overcrowded high streets—for which another group has actually paid; and secondly, on enforcement.
We have taken some 14 hours in total on these two Bills. I am most grateful to all my hon. Friends who have spoken tonight for indicating that they intend to let the Canterbury Bill go forward—and, I hope, the Nottingham Bill, which has the same merits. I am grateful to the House for an interesting exchange, and I am profoundly relieved that these Bills will now go to another place and hopefully not re-emerge here—with the solitary exception of the one Lords amendment on which I made a commitment to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That the promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill, which was originally introduced in this House in Session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008, may have leave to proceed with the Bill in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).
Nottingham City Council Bill
Lords message (10 June) considered.
Ordered,
That the promoters of the Nottingham City Council Bill, which was originally introduced in this House in Session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008, may have leave to proceed with the Bill in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to speak on this subject this evening in my first Adjournment debate. I am only sorry that it must focus on such a seriously worrying subject. I had hoped to have more time for this debate, but my learning about this place has taken a huge leap forward. I have learned tonight that Conservative Members appear to have more interest and certainly more expertise in the activities of pedlars and Robin Hood than they do in the health of the nation.
I called for this debate in the light of the statement made to the House by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 17 June that the new hospital to replace the North Tees and Hartlepool university hospitals will no longer receive Treasury funding. As a former non-executive director of the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, I was closely involved in the planning of future health care for the area over some considerable time. This was not a project rushed through to beat a deadline, but one that was carefully planned over years. I will address that in more detail this evening.
This hospital would have served local people from a number of constituencies, not just my own but others including Stockton South, Hartlepool, Easington and Sedgefield, and I am pleased to see colleagues from those areas in the Chamber tonight. I know from speaking to other Members, at least those on this side of the House, that there is huge disappointment, but little surprise, that the coalition has already begun slashing spending on front-line services. It is already abundantly clear that this programme of deep cuts will have a serious impact on people in Teesside and the north-east.
I wish, first, to set out the background to the decision to build a new state-of-the-art hospital to serve our communities, which was planned to open in 2015. Although the Chief Secretary was correct in saying that final approval for this £464 million project was granted in March, the project has been on the drawing board for more than five years. It dates back to a 2005 report by eminent clinician Professor Sir Ara Darzi on acute services in Hartlepool and Teesside. In 2006, an independent reconfiguration panel report stated that
“a modern hospital to replace the existing out of date hospital buildings should be provided on a new site in a well situated location accessible to the people of Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees, Easington and Sedgefield.”
I had cause to visit one such modern hospital this weekend, and I wish to place on record my personal thanks—I hope that the Minister will join me in this—to the plastic surgeons and the staff of ward 35 at James Cook university hospital for their care and expertise, and for saving my finger.
Let us be clear that the two hospitals that currently serve our communities operate to the best of their abilities and have excellent staff. However, the hospitals are showing their age and must be replaced if we are to maintain and improve health services in our area. I want my area to have the same modern facilities that I benefited from over the past couple of days.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is very important to a large number of hon. Members. Will he confirm that the whole driver for this reconfiguration has been a clinically led approach—led by eminent doctors and surgeons—and that the decision made by the Chief Secretary takes us back to square one, with no plan B?
Alex Cunningham
I certainly agree with that. I know that it is the view of clinicians and other health professionals that it will be impossible to sustain two hospitals with the full range of services and facilities needed to serve our communities. Indeed, patients in our areas have to access different services at the two different sites, which are 14 miles apart.
The new hospital was to be a vital element of wider health care reform in our region and would have delivered clinically sustainable hospital services in the single hospital while delivering a much wider range of services in the community much closer to people’s homes, including three new integrated care centres in Billingham, Hartlepool and Stockton. There is no doubt that there has been some controversy about the plan to build one “super hospital” to replace the two outdated ones, as well as unease among some in the community about the location chosen. I firmly believe, however, that the plan would have provided improved services for local people and that it is ultimately the right plan for the NHS trust to pursue.
James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I also note with interest that he is perhaps the first hon. Member in the history of this House to brandish his middle finger at Mr Speaker and to receive no reprimand for it.
The hon. Gentleman has acknowledged that the hospital’s location between two communities is somewhat controversial locally. The representations that I have received from my constituents have, almost without exception, praised the Government’s decision and criticised the proposals for the hospital at Wynyard. Let me read him one short example of an e-mail that I received only the other day:
“The decision is a sensible one. Leaving aside the reckless economic folly of committing funding the country does not possess and blatant politicking by Labour in promising such funding in marginal constituencies the truth is that this hospital was vehemently opposed by a significant number of local people on grounds that it was geographically in the ‘wrong’ place for both communities, had no public transport links and would seriously affect A19 and A689 traffic flows”.
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the views of his constituents and mine are mixed, at best?
Alex Cunningham
These issues were extensively explored with the public. There was detailed and extensive formal and informal consultation involving public meetings, leaflet drops to households and a radio campaign. The Government had promised additional funding to tackle some of the transport issues and communities across the place were in favour of the hospital.
I must outline why the new hospital should remain a priority for the new Government.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South— [Interruption.] I am sorry—we will get that one next time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing this debate. People in my constituency and the five others that were to have been served by this new hospital need to know why this project was cancelled when three other schemes elsewhere in the country were approved. The Minister is being coy in his written answers to questions, but we really need answers. The need remains. Issues of health inequality need to be addressed. I want to place it on record that south Easington, which would be served by this new hospital, is one of the most deprived communities in the United Kingdom, as identified by the indices of multiple deprivation. Health inequalities still play a significant role in determining life expectancy and quality of life. Health inequalities remain a big issue: they are inequalities not just in terms of outcomes but in access to health care resources—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I say very gently to new Members, whose passion for this subject I respect, that although the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) is showing great forbearance there is a difference between a speech and a short intervention?
Alex Cunningham
Mr Speaker, I agree with the long intervention and the facts laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris).
In Stockton-on-Tees, just over a quarter of residents live in some of the most deprived areas of England. Early deaths from heart disease and stroke and from cancer are higher than the England average. Inequalities are starkly demonstrated by the fact that a man living in one of the least deprived areas of Stockton can expect to live just over 10 years longer than a man living in one of the most deprived areas.
Since 1997, however, early death rates from heart disease and stroke have fallen markedly and early death rates from cancer have also fallen, albeit more slowly. We have also seen a narrowing in the gap between our area and the rest of the country. Things are improving for my constituents, and my concern is that the coalition’s decision will see a halt to and possibly even a reversal in these positive outcomes. The NHS is too important to be turned into a party political football, however. Those listening to this debate back in the north-east this evening do not want to hear us point scoring. I have heard you say yourself, Mr Speaker, that that is the sort of behaviour that turns people off politics and politicians.
I wholeheartedly welcome the commitment shown by the Prime Minister and his party to the NHS, and I would like to draw the attention of hon. Members to a statement that he made during the election campaign. He said:
“The test of a good society is you look after the elderly, the frail, the vulnerable, the poorest in our society. And that test is even more important in difficult times, when difficult decisions have to be taken, than it is in better times.”
I could not agree more with the Prime Minister’s statement, but I fear that his words are not being followed by his actions. As we all know, it is all too easy to make promises in politics. The real test is whether we stand by our word once the votes have been counted.
During the election campaign, the Conservative party claimed that it was now the party of the NHS. I doubt very much that people who went to the ballot box on 6 May and put a cross next to the name of their Conservative candidate thought that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) would be authorising the cancellation of a long-awaited new hospital just weeks later. We all acknowledge that cuts have to be made to reduce the deficit, but this is a much needed front-line service, and I will not stand by and let this project disappear without a fight.
Of course, 6 May gave us not a Conservative Government but a Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition, so I urge Members to refer to the document “The Coalition: our programme for government”, which states:
“We are committed to the continuous improvement of the quality of services to patients.”
Again, I warmly welcome that statement, but I fear that when push comes to shove, it will mean very little to my constituents and those in neighbouring areas. This coalition seems intent on cutting spending without fully realising the human cost of the cuts. This decision is a backward step for the communities that would have been served by the new hospital, and it does not tally with the Prime Minister’s claim that the Conservatives are now the party of the NHS or with the coalition’s document.
Since the announcement on 17 June, I and other Labour Members have met the chair and chief executive of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. They are understandably extremely disappointed that, after the many years of hard work creating and fine-tuning the plans for the future of health services in our region, those plans have been sent back to the drawing board. It is not only the foundation trust that is unhappy with the decision: on Saturday 26 June, other Members and I attended a rally in Hartlepool to highlight local opposition to the decision, which grows by the day.
I have also received encouraging support for early-day motion 273, which asks for a review of the coalition’s decision. To date, it has received 42 signatures—regrettably, only from Members on this side of the House. I hope that it will not only be Labour Members arguing this evening that their constituents should not lose out after waiting so long for an agreement on the future of health care in our area.
One of the key questions that I hope the Minister will answer this evening is why this particular project has been scrapped. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in his statement to the House that his decision to cut £2 billion of public spending, including on our new hospital, was guided by a principle of fairness. At the moment, we feel as though we have been subject to an arbitrary decision. I have yet to hear any persuasive argument as to why people in the north-east have had their new hospital withdrawn while schemes such as the Royal Liverpool hospital, the Pennine acute hospital and the Epsom and St Helier hospital are going ahead. What advice did the Minister receive from his Department that led to the conclusion that the North Tees and Hartlepool project did not represent value for money, compared with the other projects?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury told the House on 17 June that our new hospital was
“assessed against a number of other major build projects that were at the same stage of development; those schemes are more urgent.”—[Official Report, 17 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 1051.]
I would appreciate a little more clarity from the Minister about what was meant by that statement, and I request that he publish the criteria used and the detailed comparisons carried out against the project. The North Tees and Hartlepool project was, according to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the top priority for the NHS. We would like to know why it has slipped down and out of the queue.
In answer to my question on 29 June about the strategy developed by the foundation trust, the Secretary of State for Health did not rule out other ways of making our new hospital happen. I noted that he said it needed to fit his new criteria and that the trust should not ask the Department of Health to meet the whole capital cost of whatever it proposes. Does that mean that some funding could be made available and the balance raised by the trust using its existing powers?
I urge the coalition to work with Members on the Opposition Benches as well as with the foundation trust to look at new and innovative ways of funding the project and ensuring that local people are not left behind. Will the Minister confirm that more time invested in developing a new solution to fund the new hospital will not be a waste of time, and that he and his coalition partners have not set themselves against any new hospital in our part of the country?
If we do not find a solution and build a new hospital, what will happen? The chief executive of the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust has publicly acknowledged that there is a chance that Hartlepool hospital could close, whether or not a new hospital goes ahead. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright)is extremely anxious about that. We could end up with one hospital. I want it to be a new one.
There is much more at stake than just health care and a new hospital. The location for the hospital was Wynyard park, a 700 acre high-end mixed-use development accommodating residential and business properties.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on achieving the Adjournment debate. I shall be brief. I expect the point that he intends to make is about added value arising from the project. The business park would have attracted high-value private sector jobs in medical research in an area that needs them. They would have reached the site as a result of the £10 million that would have been introduced into the transport system.
Alex Cunningham
Exactly. The new hospital would have kick-started development in the area, creating many thousands of jobs. The owners of Wynyard park believe that the new hospital would have been a considerable incentive for investment by others to develop the type of industries mentioned by my hon. Friend. Most important of all, the coalition’s decision to scrap the new hospital will have a major detrimental effect on continuing the work to close the gap between the unhealthiest and healthiest in our communities.
I am therefore grateful to the Minister, who has agreed to a request from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) for a meeting to discuss how we can keep our hospital project alive. I look forward to the meeting to discuss the way forward and will listen intently to his response this evening, in the hope that the door to funding is not already firmly closed. At present there are many more questions than answers about the future of acute services in our region. What is the future of health care, of our strategy for a new hospital, and of the organisations, such as the foundation trust, that plan care? There is so much doubt.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that that meeting is an important opportunity for the coalition Government to demonstrate some commitment to reducing health inequalities in the north-east, tackling deprivation and supporting a new hospital?
Alex Cunningham
Most certainly. The project is also about jobs and tackling deprivation. Tremendous progress has been made on health inequalities in our area, and I want to see that work continue. The good people of Stockton, Hartlepool and the surrounding areas deserve better than this, and I can assure the Minister that my hon. Friends and I will fight passionately to ensure that they are not left behind.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing the debate on the future of the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and its hospitals. I join him, with the greatest pleasure, in congratulating clinicians, GPs, ancillary workers and all those who work so hard on Teesside, in the north-east and in the rest of the country to provide a first-class quality health care service for the people of this nation.
The decision to cancel the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust proposal has to be seen within the context of the wider economic climate. This year’s budget deficit of £155 billion—inherited, I gently remind Opposition Members, from the previous Government—illustrates the scale of the economic challenge facing this Government. As part of this Government’s determination to face that challenge head on, the Treasury and other Departments have reviewed every significant spending decision made between 1 January and the general election on 6 May. As the proposed new hospital scheme at the foundation trust received the previous Government’s approval only in March, the North Tees decision formed part of that review.
In these tough economic times, it is essential that all major hospital building schemes be affordable. On 17 June, as the hon. Member for Stockton North rightly said, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced to this House the decisions of the Government’s review of spending commitments. The review cancelled 12 projects throughout Government and considered four major NHS capital investment schemes with a total capital value of more than £1.2 billion.
The size and funding of the schemes were considered in relation to the nature of the organisations concerned. The aim of granting foundation trust status is to give such bodies greater financial independence. As well as being able to keep any internally generated resources, foundation trusts have greater freedom to borrow from either the public or the private sectors, and, by requiring an allocation of public dividend capital from the Department of Health of more than £400 million, the proposals were not consistent with that financial independence.
Mr Iain Wright
What local clinical advice did the Minister and his ministerial team take prior to the decision to scrap the new hospital?
Mr Burns
If the hon. Gentleman waits, as I develop my argument I shall continue to explain the reasons for cancelling the scheme within the public spending review.
Treasury and Department of Health Ministers, myself included, decided that, overall, these factors—affordability within the changed economic climate and the foundation trust status—weighed more against the scheme for North Tees and Hartlepool than against the other three schemes for the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust and the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital. For those reasons, the Government withdrew their support for the scheme.
If I may, I shall just answer one question that was mentioned in an intervention on the hon. Member for Stockton North. The question was, “Why North Tees and Hartlepool and not the three other schemes?” After looking into the situation, we found that, for example, the Royal Liverpool university hospital building is not compliant with fire safety regulations, and that its mechanical and engineering services are more than 30 years old and at increasing risk of failure. Some 94% of St Helier hospital’s buildings are more than 50 years old, and the 2007-08 data show that the total maintenance backlog for the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital is £53.8 million; for Epsom and St Helier it is £23.8 million; for the Royal Liverpool it is £16.3 million; and for North Tees and Hartlepool it is £3.5 million.
Grahame M. Morris
On the point about affordability and the Minister’s suggestion that the foundation trust look towards PFI, how would such a proposal be more affordable when the evidence suggests that PFIs are 14 to 20% more expensive to deliver? The need certainly exists, and we need to deliver quality health care, but affordability suggests that the public purse is the best way to do it.
Mr Burns
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Earlier today, his right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) made the point that it would be cheaper to have a new hospital than to maintain the existing two ageing hospitals. I do not believe that that is accurate. The business case actually showed that the whole-life costs of continuing to operate and provide services from the two hospitals were very similar, but slightly lower than the whole-life of costs of operating and providing services from the proposed new facility. Over the appraisal period of 35 years, the total net present cost—that is, the whole-life cost—of building, maintaining and operating the new facility was £5.033 billion, but the cost of repairing defects, maintaining, operating and providing services from the two existing buildings was £5.024 billion.
However, the North East strategic health authority, Hartlepool primary care trust and Stockton-on-Tees primary care trust have pledged to continue working closely with North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust to plan and develop the best possible health services for the local population of Hartlepool and North Tees. I understand that the chief executive of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust is currently reappraising the available options. As I have said, NHS foundation trusts have greater financial independence, which includes consideration of the private finance initiative. I am advised that the chief executive of the trust has already said that the PFI is one of the options that he is looking at, but any new proposals must be realistic, affordable and provide value for money. I cannot in any way give any guarantees that such a scheme would or would not be approved. Like all schemes, any proposals that might come forward would have to be considered on its merits and in the light of the economic climate at that time.
The local health economy is also ensuring that the wider momentum project, which involves bringing health care services closer to communities, will continue. I am delighted that on 10 May this year, the new integrated care centre known as One Life Hartlepool, located in Hartlepool town centre, opened its doors to patients. Hartlepool primary care trust has transferred a range of community services into this new £20 million facility. The PCT is working with North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust to agree a programme for moving a range of out-patient services into the building. In addition, work is continuing on the outline business cases for integrated care centres in Billingham and Stockton.
In conclusion, any new proposals to develop—
Alex Cunningham
I have just one question. Will the funding for those two centres in Stockton and Billingham be guaranteed?
Mr Burns
As I understand it, the finance is in place, and I assume that the measures will proceed on that basis.
Any new proposals to develop local NHS services must be affordable, but they must also now take into account the further criteria on service reconfiguration recently set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I believe that it is vital that any proposals focus on improving patient outcomes, are based on sound clinical evidence, increase choice for patients, and have the backing of GP commissioners. I, like the hon. Gentleman, his hon. Friends and everyone else in this country, want a high-quality NHS that is accountable to patients and led and controlled locally. This Government have been elected on a platform of real-terms increases in the NHS budget for every year of this five-year Parliament. But hand in hand with that, we must have an NHS that puts patients at the centre of high-quality care and delivers care that is efficient, productive and, importantly, affordable. This must be the case nationally; it must also be the case locally, including for the people of Stockton North and Teesside.
Question put and agreed to.