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Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
1. What steps his Department is taking to increase the level of tax compliance.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced £900 million of investment in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to tackle avoidance, evasion and fraud, sending a clear signal that the spending review will be focused on both fairness and deficit reduction. It will include an increase in prosecutions and steps to tackle organised criminal excise smuggling. HMRC also recognises the importance of helping businesses to get their tax right and has launched additional education and guidance packages in order to do so.
Nia Griffith
Given the enormous importance of reducing the tax gap, and thereby reducing the deficit, what assurances can the Minister give that actually he will be taking on more tax officers and ensuring a good geographical spread to make sure we get in the maximum tax revenues possible?
Mr Gauke
As was made clear in the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s statement, the Government are determined to reduce the tax gap. It currently stands at £42 billion. It is too high, but we are determined to take measures to address it and we have already announced proposals by which we can reduce the tax gap.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
2. What representations he has received on variations between the English regions and constituent parts of the UK in respect of the effects of the measures in the June 2010 Budget.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
3. What representations he has received on variations between the English regions and constituent parts of the UK in respect of the effects of the measures in the June 2010 Budget.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
We received representations from many interested parties from all parts of the UK and at the time of the Budget we published details of the impact of the Budget on each English region and each devolved Administration.
Kevin Brennan
Does not the Government’s proposed closure of the passport office in Newport show that, far from us all being in this together, these Budget cuts will fall disproportionately on the poorest parts of the UK? Is this closure inevitable?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful for the question, and I understand the sensitivity in the community about that decision. The spending review will, of course, result in some difficult decisions having to be made all over the country. I can however say to the hon. Gentleman that we are looking very closely at the regional and national impact of particular decisions. One of the reasons why the Deputy Prime Minister announced a regional growth fund for England is to deal with those issues, and I hope very much that the Welsh Assembly Government might follow suit.
Paul Blomfield
Will the Chief Secretary acknowledge the analysis undertaken by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose head at that time now leads the Office for Budget Responsibility, that found that the measures in the emergency Budget will hit those on lowest incomes hardest and will have a disproportionate impact on constituencies in the north?
Danny Alexander
If anything demonstrates the independence of the OBR it is the appointment of the head of the IFS to be the head of the OBR, and I hope that will put an end to any such criticisms from the hon. Gentleman’s side of the House. The analysis was interesting, but the analysis we published at the time of the Budget was robust and soundly based. I have carefully studied the IFS’s additional analysis, and I think it makes some assumptions that push the boundaries. As a result it is not an analysis the Treasury would stand by. I would stand by the view that the measures we announced in the Budget were progressive and fair and hit the people on the highest incomes hardest.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Can the Chief Secretary tell the House the benefits that the regional growth fund will have for neglected regions, in particular coastal and seaside towns?
Danny Alexander
I fear that the hon. Gentleman will have to wait until a week tomorrow for the spending review announcement to hear details of that sort, but I can tell him that the purpose of the regional growth fund is precisely to ensure that areas hit hardest by public spending cuts or areas most dependent on the public sector have an opportunity to put forward proposals for measures that would support their economic growth. The regional growth fund has been established to meet those proposals.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
This builds on what the Chief Secretary has just said. Does he agree that what we need with the regional growth fund is a much more focused regional policy, rather than the waste that came from the previous Government and their one-size-fits-all regional policy?
Danny Alexander
I would agree with that, although I am not going to go over the litany of spending by regional development agencies. Having a regional growth fund that is able to respond to bids from communities, along with a much more devolved set of arrangements, through local enterprise partnerships, which require local authorities and local businesses to work together on what is best for their areas, is a much more dynamic approach, and it is likely better to meet the needs of those areas.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
What account will the Chief Secretary take of last week’s joint statement by the leaders of the devolved Administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? They said that the proposed cuts in the comprehensive spending review are
“too fast and too deep”,
that
“Front loading the cuts into the next two years is…the wrong approach”
and that a failure to promote growth will damage the private sector? Will he now listen to those voices, which do not just argue for the public sector, but argue that the cuts that he proposes will damage private sector growth and private sector industry?
Danny Alexander
First, may I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new role, congratulate him on his appointment and wish him luck with it? The question he asks is important: what is the impact on the devolved Administrations? As he knows, the budget for devolved Administrations is set by the Barnett formula, which reflects the decisions we make for Departments within the UK, and so it falls out as a consequence of the spending review decisions. Of course our decision to protect the national health service—something that the Labour party was not willing to do—will reflect well on the devolved Administrations’ settlement. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to enter credibly into this debate, he and his colleagues should make some credible proposals of their own as to how they would tackle the deficit.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
4. What recent representations he has received on steps to reduce the budget deficit.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
6. What recent representations he has received on steps to reduce the budget deficit.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The Government’s plan to tackle the record budget deficit they inherited has been supported by the CBI, the OECD and, now, the International Monetary Fund. We have received more than 60,000 representations from the public as to how to go about deficit reduction and many of their suggestions are being put into effect. To date, we have received no proposals and no suggestions from the official Opposition, who created the deficit in the first place.
Mr Jones
I thank my right hon. Friend for his response. With the country set to pay £43 billion in interest in 2010-11, I am reassured that the general public have been willing to contribute to the tough decisions required of this Government to turn our economy around. Has he received any helpful advice from the Labour party, past or present, other than that from Tony Blair?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about debt interest; this country is now paying £120 million a day in debt interest. Debt interest under the previous Government was forecast to rise to £60 billion a year, making it one of the largest items of Government expenditure. He talks about suggestions from Members of Parliament. The new leader of the Labour party said:
“I think whoever is the Labour leader will, by the time of the spending review, have to show that they have an alternative plan”.
So the clock is ticking.
Glyn Davies
The Chancellor attended the IMF conference at the weekend. Can he share with us what our international partners are saying about the coalition Government’s efforts to deal with the deficit?
Mr Osborne
As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, the IMF’s article IV study of the United Kingdom said:
“The government’s strong and credible multi-year fiscal deficit reduction plan is essential to ensure debt sustainability.”
That is in marked contrast to last year’s IMF report on the UK. At the IMF annual meetings, which I attended last weekend, it was made clear that concerns about sovereign debt issues in Europe were one of the greatest threats to the world recovery. Of course, the decisions that we have taken in this House have moved Britain out of the financial danger zone and helped to deal with that potential threat.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
On reducing the budget deficit and the issue of fairness, how does the Chancellor square the fact that his local authority has had a cut of only £600,000 to its education budget with the fact that Halton, the 30th most deprived authority, has had a cut of more than £1.2 million? How is that fair?
Mr Osborne
Decisions on local government allocations are properly a matter for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, but I make the observation that we face a series of tough decisions because of the economic mess that the Labour party left us. To date, it is living in complete denial: there is not one single suggestion from one single Labour Member on how to reduce the budget deficit, or even achieve the £44 billion of cuts on which Labour fought the last election.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Chancellor confirm or deny reports in the weekend press that he has given the Governor of the Bank of England the green light to increase quantitative easing, to deal with the policy that the Chancellor is pursuing on the deficit?
Mr Osborne
What I said at the weekend was that I would follow the exact same procedure that my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), pursued when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The fact that that is regarded as something of a surprise by the Labour party shows how far it has departed from the centre ground of British politics.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Our net contribution to the EU is, amazingly, projected to double in this Parliament from £4.7 billion to £9.5 billion a year. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me and many of my Bury St Edmunds constituents that if we are to cut the deficit, we need to cut our spending on the EU?
Mr Osborne
It is good to see my hon. Friend. I make the observation that the situation is, unfortunately, yet another legacy of the previous Government. [Interruption.] Well, Labour Members obviously do not know the history: Tony Blair gave away our Budget rebate in return for the French reforming the common agricultural policy. So far as I have noticed, that deal has not held, and our contributions are rapidly rising. We have made strong arguments at the European level for similar budget restraints in the EU to those that member states are having to impose domestically. Of course, that will be our negotiating stance as we go into the new budget review period.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Will the timing of the spending cuts that are to be announced next week be exactly as laid out in June’s emergency Budget, and will the Chancellor confirm that the aim continues to be that the deficit will be eliminated by 2015?
Mr Osborne
First, I should welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new role on behalf of all Government Members. I did the job for five years, and I hope that he does it for even longer than I did. The answer to his question is yes.
Alan Johnson
Well, the reason I ask is that there was some speculation at the weekend, when the Energy Secretary suggested, in a rather unfortunate yachting analogy, that he would not be “lashed to the mast” with a particular set of spending numbers. That is important, because from my vast experience in this job I am absolutely clear about this: the Chancellor says that the deficit was wrong and that his emergency Budget measures were unavoidable, but I believe that it is the other way round. The deficit was unavoidable if we were to avoid financial meltdown, and his Budget proposals were entirely wrong—wrong because they would, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, have two and a half times the adverse effect on the poorest as on the richest in our society, and wrong because he is seeking to cut public spending before there is any momentum for private sector spending in our economy.
Mr Osborne
Quite frankly, being in opposition involves choices, just as being in government does. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the Budget; there is a simple choice before the House today, which is whether we proceed with a graduate tax. Lord Browne’s report says that such a tax would add £3 billion to the deficit and would not produce savings until 2041. That is a real choice on the deficit before us today. The right hon. Gentleman is the shadow Chancellor and opposes a graduate tax; is he going to assert his authority over Opposition tax policy?
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
5. Whether he has assessed the merits of returning responsibility for debt management to the Bank of England.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The current institutional framework separates operational responsibility for debt and monetary policy by the establishment of a debt management agency. This properly reflects the importance that we attach to having a clear institutional divide between responsibility for setting interest rates and for issuing Government debt. The Government have no plans to return responsibility for debt management to the Bank of England.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
With the return of banking supervision to the Bank of England, I wonder whether it is worth considering giving the Bank of England its debt management responsibilities back. An active participant in markets may well prove to be a better regulator than one that approaches regulation from a more intellectual sense.
Mr Hoban
The Bank of England engages in market activities on a day-to-day basis, but before 1997 the same institutional separation existed, with the Chancellor setting interest rates and the Bank responsible for debt management. The separation of responsibilities improves transparency and confidence in debt management and helps to keep the cost of Government debt as low as possible. My hon. Friend will appreciate how important that is, given the size of the deficit that we inherited from Labour.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
But is it not clear that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) was saying, the raising of the spectre of a return to quantitative easing signalled by the Chancellor last week to the Bank of England is a clear sign that the anti-growth strategy pursued by the Government risks a major slow-down in our economy? Will the Minister take responsibility and stop playing ideological games with fiscal policy in the hope that monetary policy will miraculously pick up all the pieces?
Mr Hoban
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position. He has been out of Parliament for the past five years and he should perhaps take this opportunity to reflect on the record of his predecessors and the deficit that they racked up in Government. Is he departing from the practice that the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer followed when it came to quantitative easing?
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I am a strong supporter of quantitative easing as a form of management of the economy, but are Treasury Ministers aware that some hedge funds are making large profits by arbitraging between short and long interest rates when central banks give advance notice of their intention to intervene in foreign markets?
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
Does the Minister welcome the fact that the efforts of the Debt Management Office mean that the average duration of debt in the UK is around 13 years, several years longer than any other country in Europe? It is one of the many reasons why the UK is not in the position of Ireland or Greece.
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady, who follows these matters quite carefully, will reflect that before the election long-term yields on Government debt in the UK were moved in line with those in countries such as Portugal, Greece and Spain. After the election, the margin between UK gilts and the German Bund has narrowed rather than widened, as has been the case with other European bond rates.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to ensure the independence of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The independence of the Office for Budget Responsibility is central to its credibility. With the approval of the Treasury Committee, I have appointed Mr Robert Chote to be its new chair. Today I am also appointing the distinguished economist Stephen Nickell and the experienced forecaster Graham Parker to serve alongside Mr Chote as permanent members of the budget responsibility committee. I am also publishing new terms of reference that safeguard the independence of the OBR, and copies are available in the Vote Office. I have asked the OBR to publish its autumn forecasts on the economy and the public finances on Monday 29 November.
Henry Smith
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. I warmly welcome the creation of the OBR, at last, as an independent economic forecaster. I know that the Treasury Committee has raised a number of concerns, including the location of the OBR and whether the veto over the chairmanship of the Select Committee will be in the Bill.
Mr Osborne
The short answer to my hon. Friend’s questions is yes. The OBR will move out of the Treasury—in the period immediately after the general election, that was the quickest way to establish it—to a permanent home. The choice of location will be for the permanent chair of the OBR who, I believe, will make a statement on that later today. I think the veto given to the Treasury Committee is the first of its kind in this Parliament, and will be enshrined in legislation.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Chancellor has announced two new appointments to the budget responsibility committee today. In line with the Treasury Committee’s recommendation, will he extend its veto to those two appointments, as well as to the position of the chair? Will he invite the OBR to comment, as the Select Committee envisages, on the fiscal mandate?
Mr Osborne
My answer to the right hon. Gentleman is yes and no—yes to the first part of the question. I listened very carefully to what the Treasury Committee said about the two other members of the budget responsibility committee, and I propose that it should indeed have a veto over those two appointments, which were made on the recommendation of a panel that included Robert Chote. I made the suggested appointments, but it will be for the Treasury Committee presumably to hold hearings and hopefully give its approval.
I do not propose to follow the second path that the right hon. Gentleman suggested. If the OBR begins commenting on the fiscal mandate, it intrudes on what is a legitimate matter of debate in the House between elected representatives who have strong views on this. I want to do everything I can to preserve the independence of the OBR, not just for this Government but for future Governments as well.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Would the Chancellor just confirm that the veto on the other two members of the OBR will function in exactly the same way as it would for the chairman? Would he also confirm that, in line with our recommendations, the OBR will be permitted at the request of Opposition parties at election time to examine their fiscal policies as well?
Mr Osborne
What I would say to my hon. Friend in response to his first point is yes, the procedure that I propose is exactly the same, unless he wants to volunteer some alternative method. On his second point, this is genuinely a matter that should be debated in the House in a non-partisan way, because it does not affect just this Parliament. There is a question of whether we want the OBR to be able to cost Opposition policies at the time of a general election. I propose to have discussions with Opposition party leaders about whether that is the appropriate thing to do, and it would be a legitimate matter for the House to debate and decide.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
9. What recent representations he has received on his Department’s spending challenge.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
Many, many people have got involved with the spending challenge review, and on the spending challenge website we received more than 100,000 suggestions from members of the public, including more than 60,000 from public sector workers. We also had correspondence across government, including 10,000 e-mails and letters to the Treasury alone. I know that many other Departments received similar correspondence. Finally, Ministers have been out and about across the country, and have had meetings in their Ministries with a range of stakeholders to make sure that we make the right decisions.
Rehman Chishti
Is there still time for new members of the shadow Cabinet to contribute to the spending challenge, given that they should have £44 billion of ideas to hand?
Justine Greening
No, it is not too late for members of the shadow Cabinet to get involved with this process. They had an opportunity last night, as you remember Mr Speaker, on the Finance (No. 2) Bill, but they failed to take it. I think that that may be because they do not have the capacity or the courage to come up with their own suggestions.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Can the Minister confirm well-sourced reports that she has received Treasury advice to delay some of next year’s proposed spending cuts? How, if that is true, does it square with the harsh cuts rhetoric that we have heard from Treasury Ministers since the election? Will she take this opportunity to confirm that it is her decision, and that of the Front Benchers, to stick with the £23 billion of cuts that we know they are planning for next year?
Justine Greening
We are clear about what we need to do to sort out the last Labour Government’s terrible legacy—a Government, incidentally, who left unemployment higher than when they took office. We will stick to our economic plan, which, as we have heard, the IMF and the OECD think is the right one, and it is the plan that stands alone, because the Labour party simply has no alternative.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Among her responses to the spending challenge, will the Minister bring into line the Local Government (Early Termination of Employment) (Discretionary Compensation) Regulations 2006, which have enabled four former Wiltshire council bosses to share remuneration of almost £2 million in their final 12 months in office?
Justine Greening
We are looking at a range of ways we can ensure that we get the most value from every pound of taxpayers’ money, and we will stop at nothing to make sure that we get there in the end. We are going through a difficult process with many difficult decisions, but we aim to ensure that all of them are tough, but still fair.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree with her very good friend Sir Philip Green that one of the ways of spending money effectively would be for the Government to delay their payments to small business?
Justine Greening
Sir Philip Green is one of those people I was talking about in my first answer: somebody who has got involved trying to come up with constructive suggestions on how we can tackle the fiscal deficit left by the hon. Gentleman’s party. The bottom line is that we want to ensure that we support business. His party was against the package of corporation tax reductions that we brought forward in the Budget, which will support companies across this country. We also got rid of his party’s job tax.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
10. What recent discussions he has had with the Minister for the Cabinet Office on the cost to the public purse of the Government Whips Office and the Opposition Whips Office.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
I have had discussions with my right hon. Friend on the overall Budget for the Cabinet Office as part of the spending review. As my hon. Friends might expect, I am keen to ensure maximum value for money from the Government Whips Office. When it comes to the Opposition Whips Office, that is an area of public spending where I am prepared to tolerate inefficiency and poor leadership.
Mr Bone
My right hon. Friend will be aware that during this Parliament, the additional salaries paid to Whips will be more than £6 million. As we now have a Backbench Business Committee and will soon have a House Committee, would that not be an area for cutting? After all, we are all in it together.
Mr Osborne
Unfortunately, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the Government Chief Whip, is not here to listen to that question, but as Ministers in the Government Whips have already taken a 5% pay cut and had their salaries frozen during the Parliament, so they have already shown some restraint. If my hon. Friend wants to catch the ear of the Chief Whip in the Aye Lobby tonight, he can do so.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Has the Government Whips Office had cause to contact the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, following his comments last week? Has having the Liberal Democrats as part of the Government increased the costs of the Government Whips Office?
Mr Osborne
The presence of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition means that two parties are working together to sort out a problem that one party created.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
11. What steps his Department is taking to simplify the tax system.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Government are committed to simplifying the tax system. To help to achieve that, the Government have established the independent Office of Tax Simplification. Business and tax professionals have also consistently pointed to the way in which tax policy is developed, legislated and implemented as a contributing factor to overall complexity. We published a discussion document alongside the June Budget setting out proposals for a new approach to tax policy making.
Mike Freer
Will the Minister advise on the progress of the interim reports for the Office of Tax Simplification, specifically on IR35 and tax reliefs?
Mr Gauke
The OTS is looking at two areas. One is reliefs and exemptions, and although the timing of the publication is to be finalised and that is a matter for the OTS, there will be an interim report, I believe in November, on this area. With regard to the reform of small businesses, including IR35, the OTS intends to report in time for the Chancellor to take into account its views in preparation for the Budget.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
12. What steps he is taking to make the tax system fairer.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Government believe that the tax system should give more support to those on low to middle incomes and reward the efforts of those who choose to work. At the June Budget, we announced a £1,000 increase in the personal allowance for 2011-12, which will remove 880,000 of the lowest-income taxpayers from tax altogether. Our longer-term goal is to raise the allowance to £10,000, with real-terms steps in that direction every year.
Lorely Burt
I am grateful for that answer. May I ask my hon. Friend what the coalition Government can do for my constituent Kath Hemmings and many like her? Kath is a single mum who has raised her daughter Victoria with no support and has at the same time worked hard and built her career. She is on the higher rate of tax by just a few pounds. Many children in Victoria’s class have two parents who earn under the top rate and have kept their benefit. What can we do to make things fairer for Kath, Victoria and many like them?
Mr Gauke
I understand the concern that my hon. Friend raises. The situation that we face is that there will be difficult decisions to get the deficit down—a point that Government Members appreciate. The difficulty is that looking at the issue on a household basis would mean creating a complex and large bureaucracy. We have come up with a proposal that will ensure that the poorest households are protected and will continue to receive child benefit.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I welcome the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s weekend announcement about a rural fuel derogation, which will make the tax system infinitely fairer in the islands and is a victory for common sense. I first raised the issue a few years ago. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that time was wasted by the previous Labour Government, who sat on their hands and did nothing for the islands?
When will the fuel derogation come into being? Will the Minister acknowledge that, despite that welcome step, we in the islands will still be paying more tax per litre than those on the mainland?
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
13. What recent representations he has received on the time taken by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to provide VAT numbers to new small businesses.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Treasury Ministers receive representations on a range of subjects from organisations and individuals about aspects of service delivery.
Simon Kirby
I thank the Minister. A number of businesses in Brighton have waited a very long time to receive their VAT numbers. Does the Minister agree that the prevention of fraud is as important as providing a prompt service?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is right. There is a need to balance the desire for a quick service with ensuring that we do not allow fraudulent registrations. Between April and September this year, 57.4% of applications were processed within the target 10 calendar days. There was an improvement in the rate during August and September, when 71.4% and 79.7% of applications were processed within the 10 days.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
14. What assessment he has made of the effect on GDP of proposals to increase the level of economic growth in the June 2010 Budget.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
A key part of the emergency Budget was to make sure that we rebalanced our economy on to a more sustainable, private-led footing with economic growth taking place. As I said, we introduced a range of measures to support business, but we did not stop at that; we now have a second Finance Bill that brings forward further measures. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s analysis following the emergency Budget showed that it is forecasting a sustained recovery in economic output, with employment growing year on year and unemployment falling year on year.
Karen Lumley
What would have happened in smaller, mixed-economy areas such as my constituency of Redditch if the Government had refused to take the challenge as they have and face up to the difficult decisions?
Justine Greening
Such areas would have faced a jobs tax with higher national insurance, higher corporation tax rates, lower economic confidence and, quite possibly, higher interest rates.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
15. What representations he has received on the new arrangements for child benefit which will apply to one and two-parent families.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Chancellor has received a number of representations on the planned changes to child benefit. It is not the Government’s practice to provide details of all such representations.
Karl Turner
Does the Minister agree with my constituent Christopher Sumpton, who points out that it is grossly unfair for a single mother earning £44,000 a year and supporting three children to lose her child benefit, given that the next-door neighbours earning £80,000 will not? Will Treasury Benchers explain why the Government are attacking women in this savage way?
Mr Gauke
As I said earlier, we do not currently have the capability to examine the situation on a household basis, but we do need to make difficult decisions. If the Opposition want to oppose each and every cut, including in the child benefit that is given to some of the wealthiest in society, they can take that position, but we are prepared to take those tough decisions.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend think that the Opposition believe it would be fairer to tax the lower-paid and give the tax revenue to the higher-paid?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I am afraid that the answers that the Minister is giving are simply not good enough. Can he explain the logic behind the child benefit proposal, if there is any? Why is the assessment not being made on household income rather than just on the highest earner’s income? Will it apply to a cohabiting high earner or just to married couples, and why will there be a phenomenally high marginal deduction rate? Is it not true that this is just another “back of a fag packet” policy that the Government have not thought through at all?
Mr Gauke
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment to her shadow ministerial position, but I point out what her former colleague Alan Milburn has said:
“In times of plenty, giving child benefit to high earners is a luxury the country can afford; in times of want I don’t think it is. We would be wrong to oppose it. I can’t see it having an adverse impact on social mobility.”
I know Alan Milburn belongs to the centre ground, but the Opposition really should not abandon it.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
16. What recent estimate he has made of the proportion of the central Government tax take from residents of the east midlands which is spent on that region.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
We cannot accurately disaggregate tax revenue by individual regions, but we publish regionally disaggregated public spending tables each year. Total identifiable expenditure in the east midlands was £35.4 billion in 2009-10.
Andrew Bridgen
I thank the Minister for that answer, but as he is well aware, Leicestershire is historically one of the lowest-funded parts of the UK for education, the police and the fire services. Can he assure me that that historically low funding settlement will be taken into account in the comprehensive spending review?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until the statement on 20 October to hear the details of our spending decisions, but as I have made clear in answer to earlier questions, of course we consider it important to understand and manage the regional impact of spending cuts. We have established a regional growth fund, the details of which will be in the spending review statement, which will enable areas such as his to win support for projects that help economic growth in difficult times.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
17. What assessment he has made of the effect on GDP of proposals to increase the level of economic growth in the June 2010 Budget.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
As we discussed earlier, the emergency Budget supported businesses in a variety of ways. We know that we have to rebalance our economy by getting an unwieldy public sector back into a sustainable, private sector-led economy that generates the tax revenues needed to fund our public services sustainably. We will never go back to the profligacy of the Labour party.
Harriett Baldwin
Businesses in West Worcestershire welcome the cuts in corporation tax that were announced in the June 2010 Budget. Does the Minister agree that the most basic economics primer would say that, if they are possible, lower tax rates for business can lead to higher tax revenues from business?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right, and I know that she had wide experience in business before entering the House. Opposition Front Benchers really ought to listen to the CBI, the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce and a range of other representatives from across industry who welcome the measures that the Government have brought forward to support business. As long as the Opposition put their head in the sand they will remain what they are right now, which is incredible.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
18. How much tax revenue each enforcement and compliance officer in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs collected on average in the last financial year.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
HMRC’s enforcement and compliance officers engage in a wide range of activities, from dealing with relatively low-value errors made by small businesses and individuals to addressing significant risks among the largest corporate bodies, as well as countering criminal attacks on the tax and duty system. For that reason, HMRC does not collect statistics on the average revenue collected by an enforcement or compliance officer. Results of HMRC’s compliance activity were published in its 2009 autumn performance report.
Katy Clark
Given that we have already lost more than 9,000 enforcement and compliance officers, and I am told that each officer raises more than £600,000 after their salary, does the Exchequer Secretary not think that he should get those statistics and start recruiting people rather than sacking them?
Mr Gauke
As I said earlier, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary made an announcement a couple of weeks or so ago of about £900 million-worth of investment in HMRC over the spending review period. It is important to tackle compliance, and the Government, perhaps more than our predecessors, will be determined to do that.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
19. What assessment he has made of the effect on GDP of proposals to increase the level of economic growth in the June 2010 Budget.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
The Government are continuing to do whatever they can to support business. As I said in answer to previous questions, Richard Lambert from the Confederation of British Industry described our emergency Budget as a
“first important step on the long journey back to economic health.”
It is a step that the Labour party unfortunately does not want to take with us.
Bob Stewart
How do we ensure that everyone benefits from economic growth, particularly pensioners? With interest rates so low, many pensioners in Beckenham are rapidly eating into their life savings.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Although the emergency Budget was very much about supporting business and creating again the conditions for employment, he is right to mention pensions. That is why another key part of it, which perhaps got less attention than it otherwise would, was our managing to re-establish the earnings link with the state pension. The Labour party failed to do that in 13 years—it promised but, as ever, failed to deliver.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure economic stability, promote growth and employment, reform the banking system and restore some sanity to the public finances.
Julian Smith
What message does my right hon. Friend think the national insurance holiday and the abolition of Labour’s jobs tax sends to those thinking of setting up their own firm in God’s own county?
Mr Osborne
It will be my great good fortune to visit Yorkshire later this week to hand out the Yorkshire Post awards in Leeds. My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have introduced a regional tax cut for the first time in British history, which means that businesses that are set up outside the south-east of England will benefit from a national insurance holiday on the first few employees that they bring on board. We have also got rid of Labour’s job-destroying jobs tax, which, as we now read in the memoirs of various senior members of the Labour Government, they tried to dissuade the previous Prime Minister from introducing.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
T3. As confirmed by the OBR and Treasury officials to the Treasury Committee, the Budget is predicated on having in this Parliament an extra 700,000 EU migrants net living in this country. Where will they live and work? How will they be spread across the United Kingdom?
Mr Osborne
The Office for Budget Responsibility is using the statistics from the Office for National Statistics. Of course, one of the decisions that the previous Government made was to allow countries to join the European Union without any transitional controls whatsoever on their citizens’ movement to the United Kingdom. We are living with the consequence of that decision.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
T2. Many small businesses in Staffordshire Moorlands tell me that they have enough to deal with without the intricacies and complications of the tax system. Will the Minister provide more information to the House about how the work of the Office of Tax Simplification will help those small businesses?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
My hon. Friend is right to raise the concerns of business. We have a complicated tax system and the longest tax code in the world. The Office of Tax Simplification will make a very useful contribution to assisting the Government to identify unnecessary complexity and finding areas of reform.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
T4. Many pensioners in my constituency are concerned about the indexation of pensions changing from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. A pensioner who currently receives a pension of £10,000 will be more than £800 worse off by 2016. Does the Minister think that it is fair for pensioners to be hit in that way?
Mr Osborne
The Government have introduced a triple lock on the basic state pension, which means that it rises by earnings, or by CPI or RPI—whichever is higher. The previous Government had 13 years to do that, and they did not.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
T5. In my constituency, more than 7,000 jobs are directly linked to east midlands airport. I believe that it has been shown that there would be no environmental or fiscal gain from the introduction of a per plane tax, as flights would simply divert to other European hubs. Is the Economic Secretary willing to reconsider any plans for a per plane tax, and will she meet me as a matter of urgency to discuss that?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
I will be very happy to meet my hon. Friend. The coalition agreement mentions the desire to reform air passenger duty and move towards a per plane duty. In the intervening period, I have had a range of meetings, including with airport owners, and I would be happy to add him to my list of people with whom I have discussed that policy.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
T8. The Chancellor was a millionaire the day he was born, so he has not got a clue what it is like to try to raise a family on £40,000 a year—[Interruption.] Do you mind? He cannot hear me. People who earn that much are not the super-rich; they are hard-working people who are getting by and getting on. The cuts to child benefit will take about 10% of the income of some of them. By what definition of fairness does he think robbing 10% from hard-working people is a fair deal for such families?
Mr Osborne
I will make one observation if the hon. Gentleman wants to lay into my background: I went to the same school as the deputy leader of the Labour party.
On child benefit, we have had to take some difficult decisions. It is quite extraordinary that the Labour party finds itself opposing our decision. Yes, it was a tough decision, but it was fair in the context of the decisions that we must take. The fact that Alan Milburn today warned Labour Members not to oppose the measure—[Interruption.] Of course, the sensible part of the Labour party is no longer on the Front Bench. The fact that Alan Milburn, whom Labour appointed as its social mobility tsar, is warning them is something to which Labour Members should pay attention.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
T6. Although my constituents accept the need to tackle Labour’s legacy, many of them have large families and are concerned about the changes in child benefit. Will the Minister consider transitional arrangements to help families to adjust?
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T9. Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury welcome the backing given by Olympic champion Jessica Ennis to the U-mix centre, which is a sports and leisure facility in Sheffield designed by Urban Mixtures, an inspiring group of young people who represent the real big society at work? Funding has been allocated for the project under the myplace programme, but has been frozen pending the comprehensive spending review. Will he share my hope that that funding will be unfrozen and allocated shortly?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, and as usual he puts the case for his constituency very eloquently. Decisions on spending matters, including spending that was frozen under the project re-approvals process, will be announced on or after the date of the spending review.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
T7. In the Budget statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned the need to rebalance the economy towards export-led growth, which is particularly important for constituencies such as mine in the north-west. Will he update the House on the Government’s progress in that respect?
Mr Osborne
I have seen at BAe Warton in my hon. Friend’s constituency a very good example of high-skilled manufacturing. Everything the Government do is designed to support a private sector recovery and to rebalance our economy, so that not all the growth that takes place does so in only one corner of the country.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
After the row at the International Monetary Fund summit at the weekend, has the Chancellor concluded that the renminbi is undervalued, or that the US is under-focused on consumption-led domestic growth?
Mr Osborne
I have concluded that it is very sensible for the serving Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day not to comment on the value of currencies.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
T10. When the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary consider how to address the huge budget deficit they inherited from Labour, will they not lose sight of the importance of investing in affordable housing, specifically to ensure that homes meet the decent homes standard?
Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We will make decisions on spending and announce them on 20 October in the spending review statement. The point he makes is important, and I very much take it to heart.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
During a visit by the Deputy Prime Minister to Northern Ireland last week, he stated, “I will go away with colleagues in the coalition Government to look at the possible impact of the deficit reduction plan on capital expenditure in Northern Ireland.” Can the Chancellor confirm that that has been done and what steps will be taken in response?
Mr Osborne
As the hon. Gentleman may know, I have met the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and I am looking at the points that they raised with me. If he will forgive me, I will make an announcement on 20 October.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
Does the Minister think that we will stand a greater chance of having fairer taxation now that Finance Bills are published and properly consulted on, and will that stop appallingly unfair policies such as the abolition of the 10p tax rate ever being introduced again?
Mr Gauke
We set out in June our plans for making tax policy and ensuring greater consultation, so that there is a clearer process when we develop policies. That has been widely welcomed by business and the tax professions, and we hope to build on the progress that we have made so far.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
With all this talk of fairness, why is it that no one has mentioned VAT? A 14.5% increase in real terms in the VAT rate has been attacked by what I thought were Conservative-voting business people and families in my constituency, and will punish those at the lower end of the income spectrum. Why is such a high rate of VAT being pursued by this Government?
Mr Osborne
We are having to take decisions to close the highest budget deficit in the G20. I listened to what the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer said recently on “The Andrew Marr Show”. He was asked:
“we now read from Peter Mandelson’s book that you were quite keen on the idea of VAT going up”.
Alistair Darling replied:
“Well yeah, obviously…It would have allowed you to have done you know a lot more to take down the deficit…and would have…ameliorated some of the worst effects of reductions”.
For once, the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer had the right idea—[Interruption.] That is because he was overruled by the then Prime Minister.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
May I bring to the Minister’s attention the case of my constituent, Mr Peter Gorse? Mr Gorse ran a healthy small business until the Royal Bank of Scotland forced him into bankruptcy so that it could repossess his assets. Will the Minister agree to meet me and my constituent so that his case can be heard fairly by that taxpayer-owned bank and to ensure that cases such as his are fairly considered as we reform the banking system?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The responsibility for operational matters at RBS rests with its board. The Treasury’s engagement with RBS is through United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd, which acts as a shareholder. My hon. Friend will be aware that in July we published a Green Paper setting out some approaches to improving the access that small and other businesses have to finance, and we will make further announcements on that shortly.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
What representations have Treasury Ministers had from advice organisations such as citizens advice bureaux which fear that their budgets from local government will be cut at a time when they will be advising the most vulnerable people on their finances and welfare benefits? Will the Treasury team join me in paying tribute to the citizens advice bureaux for the work that they do, and commit to giving them extra funding for that purpose?
Danny Alexander
I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the work of the citizens advice bureaux. In constituencies across the country they play an invaluable role in advising people and helping them through difficult times. We will make spending announcements on 20 October, but I have had conversations with the citizens advice bureaux about some of the issues affecting them. Those issues will also affect other organisations in the community and voluntary sector, and the Government take that very seriously.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Does the Chancellor share my view that an economic policy that does not engage with cutting the deficit at all, and which has £30 billion of additional spending requirements, is no economic policy?
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend. As we are just a couple of minutes from the statement on higher education, it would be interesting to hear from the Opposition about whether they really will pursue this graduate tax, which the shadow Chancellor has passionately opposed, including in the open letter he wrote to his party leader just a couple of weeks ago.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
The Government failed to conduct an equality impact assessment on the June 2010 Budget. Can the Chief Secretary reassure me that they will not make the same mistake again, and will the Government ensure that they assess the—probably disproportionate—impact on women of the comprehensive spending review?
Danny Alexander
The answer is yes. Departments will be carrying out these assessments on their spending decisions, and I myself held a round-table meeting in the Treasury with a number of different organisations involved in the equalities area to ensure that we were considering all the relevant issues in the run-up to publishing the spending review.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is quite a lot of chuntering from sedentary positions, but I want to hear both the questions and the answers.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
Since the formation of a Government who are determined to deal with the deficit, market interest rates have in some cases halved. What impact does the Chancellor think that has had on both our GDP growth and the interest payments that we have to make on Government debt?
Mr Osborne
First, the fall has helped to reduce interest payments, and secondly it has helped many companies during the recovery. It is striking how our market interest rates have fallen since taking the steps that we announced in the Budget. That is not the case in some other countries in Europe that had similar market interest rates to ours at the time of the general election.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
Does the Chancellor agree that market interest rates were falling before the election? The fall is not due to the Government’s policies—they were falling before.
Mr Osborne
I advise the hon. Lady to look at the market interest rates of Spain and the United Kingdom, which were the same at the time of the general election. In Spain, they have hardly fallen at all, but they are 1% lower in the United Kingdom. That is a real boost to businesses.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Is the Chancellor aware that the Treasury is the only large Department that does not have a chief scientific adviser? Does that say anything about its interest in and understanding of science, and will he appoint a chief scientific adviser?
Mr Osborne
I assure my hon. Friend that I have received plenty of advice—public and private—from the nation’s scientists.
Petition
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The petition is from the friends and users of the Archway centre, Walsall. The petitioners object to the cutting of funds and resources to the Archway centre, which has already led to the closure of some services. The petitioners believe that the intention is to reduce the number of sessions and to send service users out into the community. The community is not qualified and does not have the facilities to deal with people who have mental problems. The petitioners have noted that the cuts to the funding of the Archway centre may lead to more people relying on the services of the mental health team in Walsall and an increase in admissions to the Dorothy Pattison hospital. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take all possible steps to ensure that the Archway centre, Walsall receives adequate funding. There are 74 signatories to the petition in similar terms.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of friends and users of the Archway Centre, Walsall,
Declares that the Petitioners object to the cutting by Re-think of funds and resources at the Archway Centre, Walsall, which has already led to the closure of food services at the centre - a vital service for many users who find it difficult to cook for themselves; notes that the Petitioners believe that the intention is to reduce the number of drop in sessions and to send service users out into the community, but the community is not qualified and does not have the facilities to deal with people who have mental health problems; and further notes that cuts to the funding of the Archway Centre may lead to more people relying on the services of the mental health team in Walsall and an increase in admissions to Dorothy Pattison Hospital.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take all possible steps to ensure that the Archway Centre, Walsall, receives adequate funding.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P000864]
Higher Education and Student Finance
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Order. There is a great deal of interest in the Secretary of State’s statement, and I appeal to Members leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly, because I want to hear the Secretary of State—[Interruption.] I am always grateful to you, Mr Pound, for your attempted assistance.
Vince Cable
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the future funding of higher education and student finance, in the light of the report published today by Lord Browne’s independent inquiry.
Lord Browne was asked to undertake his review in November last year. The review was set up by the Labour Government on a cross-party basis, and that is how we wish to proceed. I and the Minister for Universities and Science, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), thank Lord Browne and his review panel. The Government endorse the main thrust of the report, but we are open to suggestions from inside and outside the House over the next few weeks before making specific recommendations to Parliament, with a view to implementing the changes for students entering higher education in autumn 2012. More detail will be contained in next week’s spending review on the funding implications, but as a strategic direction the Government believe that the report is on the right lines.
Browne acknowledges that
“the current funding and finance systems for higher education are unsustainable and need urgent reform”.
The issue is how, and it has to be framed in terms of how the higher education sector contributes to the deficit reduction programme. There is also, I think, consensus that there should be no up-front tuition fees for students, which would seriously deter students from low and middle-income families, and this Government strongly oppose up-front tuition fees. Indeed, we share Lord Browne’s conclusion that we should extend exemption from up-front tuition fees to part-time students—currently 40% of the student population—who have been unfairly discriminated against hitherto.
The question, then, is how much the graduate contributions for tuition should be. We are considering a level of £7,000. Many universities and colleges may well decide to charge less, because there is clearly scope for greater efficiency and innovation in how universities operate—two-year ordinary degrees are one approach. Exceptionally, Lord Browne suggests that there should be circumstances under which universities can price their courses above this point, but he suggests that this would be conditional on demonstrating that funds would be invested in securing a good social mix with fair access for students from less-privileged backgrounds, and in raising the quality of teaching and learning. We will consider this proposal carefully.
We believe it essential that if the graduate contribution is to rise, it should be linked to graduates’ ability to pay. On average, graduates earn comfortably more than £100,000 over their lifetimes compared with non-graduates, but not all graduates benefit in this way. Some choose socially useful but modestly paid or unpaid work, which may include time spent bringing up a family. At present, the graduate contribution acts too much like a poll tax, and is not fair.
I therefore asked Lord Browne specifically to look at progressive solutions to the problem, and he has come up with persuasive proposals to deal with it. He suggests a £21,000 graduate income threshold before any payment is made—as against £15,000 at present—and that it be linked to average earnings. He also suggests that a real rate of interest should be paid, but only over that threshold. The effect is striking: 30% of graduates would pay less from their lifetime earnings than they do under the existing system. The top third of graduate earners would pay more than twice as much as the lowest third. That is fair and progressive. The Government broadly endorse that approach, and we will examine the details of implementation. The principle of needs-blind admission to universities must remain central.
The cost of university education to individuals and the state reflects living costs as well as tuition costs. The Browne report makes some constructive suggestions. We will make detailed proposals that will not only make it attractive for students from families of modest means to go to university, but be fair and affordable, including by exempting the poorest students from graduate contributions for some or all of their studies.
Lord Browne considers alternatives, including a graduate tax, which I believe the new leader of the Labour party favours. [Interruption.] I have consistently argued for a progressive contribution, which we are now delivering. Some key features of a progressive graduate contribution would incorporate the best features of a graduate tax. It would be collected through the pay packet at a rate of 9p in the pound above the £21,000 threshold and, combined with a real interest rate, as Browne recommends, it would be progressive and related to ability to pay. However, Browne identifies serious problems with what he calls a “pure” graduate tax. He concludes that the proposal is simply unworkable.
If there are any lingering doubts among those on the Opposition Benches, I strongly recommend that they read the open letter from the new shadow Chancellor to the new Labour leader three weeks ago, which reads:
“Oh, and for goodness’ sake, don’t pursue a graduate tax. We should be proud of our brave and correct decision to introduce tuition fees. Students don’t pay them, graduates do, when they’re earning more than £15,000 a year, at very low rates, stopped from their pay just like”—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Secretary of State, but I want to hear every word of his statement, and every Member should want to do the same.
Vince Cable
I do believe, moreover, that we need to look beyond the graduate population. Some 55% of young people do not go to university. We must not perpetuate the idea, encouraged by the pursuit of a misguided 50% participation target, that the only valued option for an 18-year-old is a three-year academic course at university. Vocational training, including apprenticeships, can be just as valuable as a degree, if not more so.
Finally, there is a challenge to us all to promote a long-term sustainable future for higher education. This has been a difficult issue for all parties in the House. Those on the Opposition Benches have ranged between early advocates of a graduate contribution, such as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and the new shadow Chancellor, through to those implacably opposed to change and to the current Labour leadership, who have apparently embraced a graduate tax. The Conservatives initially campaigned against graduate contributions, but reversed their position. My own party consistently opposed graduate contributions, but in the current economic climate we accept that the policy is simply no longer feasible. That is why I intend, on behalf of the coalition, to put specific proposals to the House to implement radical and progressive reforms of higher education along the lines of the Browne report.
Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
May I thank the Business Secretary for his statement and for giving me advance notice of it? Is it not the truth that the coalition has decided to put the responsibility for reducing the deficit on to the personal bank accounts of this country’s most ambitious and able young people, saddling them with debts that many will never pay off, when the Government should be opening doors for them to make the most of their ability?
Labour Members believe that higher education is important not just for individual graduates but for growth, prosperity, job creation and our ability to succeed in a competitive world. That is why, a few years ago, we took the tough decision to introduce fees, and it is why we invited Lord Browne to undertake his inquiry. We should thank him for his work. I welcome the raising of the threshold, the equitable treatment of part-time students and the emphasis on better guidance in schools and improved information on quality. Those were issues on which we asked Lord Browne to advise, to build on work that we had already begun. The £350 increase in the maintenance grant will of course be offset by the abolition of the £329 bursary for poorest students. In the spirit of cross-party co-operation, will the Business Secretary promise today to make available to the House and the wider public the economic models used by Lord Browne?
It is clear that Lord Browne’s report has been crucially shaped by the assumptions that he has had to make about coalition policy. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Lord Browne’s report assumes that the teaching grant for higher education will be cut by 80%? That would effectively end the public funding of most courses, and place the responsibility for paying for higher education on to students alone. Will he also confirm that some universities could lose more than 90% of their public funding? Is not the row within the coalition conveniently obscuring the biggest cuts to a publicly funded university system that we have ever seen? Tough decisions have to be made to cut the deficit, but even in its plans for reckless, deep and rapid cuts the coalition is planning cuts of only 25%, so why is it singling out higher education for such a massive and disproportionate cut? Our competitors around the world are investing in higher education because universities are a key driver of growth and new jobs. Why is the coalition turning its back on growth?
The Business Secretary says that some universities might charge less than £7,000. Does he accept that an average fee of £6,000 would cut university funding by £300 million? He says that he is considering a £7,000 basic fee. On 28 April this year, the leader of the Liberal Democrats—now the Deputy Prime Minister—said:
“If fees rise to £7,000 a year…within five years some students will be leaving university up to £44,000 in debt. That would be a disaster. If we have learnt one thing from the economic crisis, it is that you can’t build a future on debt.”
So what exactly is the difference—[Interruption.] That was the Deputy Prime Minister’s conclusion. What exactly is the difference between the £7,000 a year fees that he believed would be a disaster and the £7,000 a year fees that his Business Secretary now proposes? Promises were made by the Business Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister at the last election that should not be lightly thrown away. The trust of politicians is a matter not just for the Liberal Democrats but of the integrity of this House as a whole.
Is it not true that Lord Browne’s report makes proposals that would leave many graduates paying off their debts when their own children start university? Is it not true that, while the average graduate today pays off their loan in 11 years, under these proposals the majority of students would not throw off the burden of debt for 30 years? Is it not true that the middle-income graduates—the teachers, police officers, engineers and middle managers, who are often the same people losing their child benefit—will pay more than their fair share? They will pay longer and pay more interest than the higher earners, who can pay off their loans more quickly. Is it not true that women will be in debt longer than men and pay more interest on their loans?
Will the Business Secretary be more explicit? Does he support the ending of the fee cap? A student taking a course costing £12,000 per annum will leave with a total debt, including maintenance, of £47,250, compared with the £32,000 debt that the Business Secretary says is the basic one. Can we not all recognise that, in the real world, too many able students will turn their backs on the university and the course best suited to them and be forced to shop around for the cheapest option? Will the Secretary of State accept that the Browne proposals on access to the most selective universities lack any teeth or any strength?
The Secretary of State once advocated a graduate tax because he believed that it could produce a manifestly fair and progressive system, with those who can most afford it making the greater contribution. Now, he has been told that he does not support a graduate tax. Given the promises he and his colleagues made at the election, does he not agree that we all have the right to demand that any proposals meet the same tests of fairness that he used to support?
Vince Cable
May I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new post? He was a much respected Minister in the previous Parliament and was regarded as a man of considerable integrity, mainly because of his resigning from the Blair Government over the Iraq war. Whatever our differences, he will be respected for that decision.
I should be interested to find any quotation marks indicating that I have ever advocated a pure graduate tax. In the South Bank university speech, I advocated a progressive graduate contribution. That is what this statement is all about.
The thrust of the right hon. Gentleman’s comments related to deficit reduction—a problem on an enormous scale that we inherited from him and his colleagues. May I remind him that according to the analysis conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, my Department—the one that he shadows—was, under a Labour Government, confronting cuts of 20% to 25%. About 70% of that budget is for higher education. He and his colleagues have already said that they do not accept the cuts in regional development agencies and they do not accept cuts in science. They were therefore planning to make massive cuts in the university teaching budget. It is just sheer hypocrisy to stand up here and tell us—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Secretary of State. I know that feelings are running high on this subject—[Interruption.] Order. The more noise there is, however, the slower progress will be. Very large numbers of Members wish to participate. I want to help the House, but the House has to be prepared to help itself.
Vince Cable
I repeat that Labour Members, who landed the country in this enormous deficit problem, have to begin to spell out what it is that they would cut. It would include universities; let us be under absolutely no doubt about that.
The right hon. Gentleman had the extraordinary nerve to talk about building a future on debt. I and many Members will recall my warning the former Prime Minister five, six or seven years ago about the dangerous escalation of private debt in this country, which has led to British households having more debt in relation to their income than those in any other country in the world. This is what we inherited. He and his colleagues introduced a system of tuition fee funding that is built on debt. They introduced a system of repayment over 25 years; we are extending that, potentially, to 30 years. What is the fundamental objection in terms of personal debt? The right hon. Gentleman has given no convincing explanation of what alternative he is recommending.
I think we need to get to the bottom of this. The right hon. Gentleman did get around to talking abut the graduate tax. Is that now the policy of the Labour Opposition, or is it not? We know that the shadow Chancellor is opposed to it, and that his leader is in favour of it. The right hon. Gentleman is sitting uncomfortably in the middle. What is his position?
The right hon. Gentleman says that the policy recommended by the Browne report, which we have endorsed in outline, is hard on middle earners. Let us confront that proposition. We inherited a system that effectively amounted to a poll tax. That was the way in which the student tuition fee system operated. We required Browne to produce proposals for a progressive formulation. Such a progressive contribution would not have come about if this Government had not intervened and asked Browne to produce proposals. That is the commitment that we have made to middle earners, many of whom will not have to pay the full rate of tax.
Let me read the right hon. Gentleman a comment made by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. Opposition Members frequently quote its views, as they did in the aftermath of the Budget earlier this year. The IFS said that
“those in the bottom 30% of lifetime earnings would actually pay back less than under the current system”—
that is, the system that the right hon. Gentleman operated. Only the highest-earning 30% of graduates would pay back the full amount of their loans. That is the progressive system with which we are identified, and with which the previous Government had no intention of proceeding.
Finally, let me confront the pledge, the promise, that my colleagues and I—[Interruption.] Yes, I am confronting that issue: the issue of the pledge that my colleagues and I undertook to implement. In the current circumstances, we cannot implement it. I fully accept—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Secretary of State must be heard. Members have challenged him. He is dealing with the point according to his own lights, and the House must hear him.
Vince Cable
As I was saying, I fully accept that, but let me explain. I believe that Members in all parts of the House will share this experience. Like many of them, I was the first person in my family to stay at school beyond the age of 15. I went to university free of charge, with no fees or maintenance costs to pay. They were paid for me by the state.
Like many Members, I wanted to ensure that my children’s and my grandchildren’s generations enjoyed that free system of university education. In an ideal world, that is what we would do, but we are not in an ideal world. We are in a world in which we have inherited a massive financial mess. We have come to terms with reality, and it is time that the right hon. Gentleman and his friends did the same.
Mr Speaker
Order. First, I remind right hon. and hon. Members that questions must be about the policy of the Government: what it is, or what it should be. Secondly, in view of the very large number of Members seeking to catch my eye, I underline the importance of each Member’s asking a single short supplementary question—and, of course, I remind the Secretary of State of the merits of pithy replies.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and commend the Browne report, which is a really constructive piece of work.
We need world-class teaching in our universities and we need world-class research in our universities, so reform must come, and we accept what the Secretary of State has said. Does he agree that the quality of student experience of teaching, tutorials and careers advice needs to be improved, and that we also need more innovative part-time courses?
Vince Cable
I very much agree; indeed, one of the incentives provided by this new system will be encouraging part-time courses, and therefore part-time learners, who have been discriminated against in the past. It will also bring pressure to bear on universities to improve their teaching performance, which is highly variable. In the university system, promotion tends to be earned through research rather than teaching quality. Universities will now have to attract students, so they will have to provide quality teaching throughout the system. That is one of the big advantages of the reforms we are undertaking.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
The leader of the Liberal Democrats said on 28 April that increasing student fees to £7,000 would be “a disaster”. If it was a disaster on 28 April why is it not a disaster now?
Vince Cable
I have already explained the necessity, for economic reasons, of pressing ahead with these reforms. They have great advantages in themselves, but they also help us to address the massive deficit left by the previous Government, in which the right hon. Gentleman served throughout.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
It was a great hero, I believe, of the right hon. Gentleman who said:
“When the facts change, I change my mind.”
When the facts change, does not the new Leader of the Opposition bury his head in the sand?
Mr Speaker
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for having to deal with this matter in this way, but questions must be about the policy of the Government and, unfortunately, that one was not.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that if higher fees to attend the best universities deter poor students from going to them, the most able students will not go to the best universities and Britain will be the poorer for it?
Vince Cable
Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. There is a real issue here, and it relates to the Browne review’s proposals for variable fees, which I made very clear we are still considering. Let me set out the argument. On the one hand we have world-class universities—four of the 10 leading universities in the world are in this country and we want to keep it that way—and they are making a very strong case for variable fees. On the other hand, however, if that were to be accepted large numbers of people from modest backgrounds would be deterred by highly priced courses at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, and we see the psychological impact of that—it is very real. We need to weigh up those two factors. That is why, although I have come to the House with the firm proposal of our support for the £7,000 limit, we want to consider further how we might balance those two issues in relation to variability of fees.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
In welcoming the broad thrust of this report, may I say to my right hon. Friend that his two priorities for such public money as is available should be the protection of excellence and of the position of less well-off people who want to do courses?
Vince Cable
Indeed. Those two considerations are at the heart of the Browne report, and that is one of the reasons we have gone along with the thrust of its recommendations. There are proposals that we still have to make—and which, of course, will depend on the spending review—in relation to the maintenance package of grants and loans, which will, of course, affect the least-advantaged people in society. I cannot give details on that today, but that central point is clearly uppermost in our policy.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Conspicuously absent from the Secretary of State’s statement was any projection of the amount of increased funding for universities that would accrue from these measures. Are they designed to provide extra funding for the universities, which we need for an advanced industrial economy, or are they designed just to finance cuts in public expenditure?
Vince Cable
I am not going to announce a week ahead of the spending review the details of what it will entail, which is why I could not answer the specific questions the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) asked about percentages. Of course, as a result of the very difficult cuts we are going to have to make, there will be a replacement of Government funding for teaching with graduate contributions. That is very clear, and it was at the heart of the Browne report as well as of Government policy, but the upshot will be that there will be adequate funding for universities as a whole so that they are in a position to maintain their current standards of excellence. As the hon. Gentleman implies, they are world class and we must keep them that way.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
As my right hon. Friend listens to the responses to the Browne report and develops the Government’s final proposals in the weeks ahead, can he tell me how he will ensure that our Government do not do anything to discourage young people from estates such as the Tabard Gardens or the Four Squares in my constituency, and millions of others, from going to university because of the risk of having significant debt at the beginning of their working lives?
Vince Cable
Yes, indeed. We certainly need to be very conscious of the position of people at the bottom end of the social scale, which is why I emphasise the importance of a social mix in universities, and of course of middle earners too; this is not simply a question of the most deprived communities. Two issues affect the people about whom my hon. Friend is concerned. The first is the poverty of their own families, which is why we need to have generous support, through grant and loan provision, for maintenance. The other is the psychological impact of people being deterred by extremely high fees, which potentially some universities would charge if they were allowed unlimited permission to do so. That is why we are hesitating before accepting that recommendation and are considering carefully the very strict conditionality that would have to be attached to any movement on that score.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that our higher education sector is one of the most successful in the world and is probably our single most successful sector, and that that is so not because of the top four or top six universities, but because of the 100-plus universities that provide a fantastic service? We had this blood on the floor when we introduced top-up fees all those years ago, but after we did it we could see that the money we raised flowed into university salaries and into research. Will he guarantee me not only that this money will flow into our universities, but that he will not cut drastically the universities’ budgets in a week’s time?
Vince Cable
I can certainly guarantee the hon. Gentleman that these sets of proposals will be welcomed by the university sector; if he reads the response of Universities UK, he will find that it welcomes them.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I welcome the report’s recommendations to extend support to more part-time students and to raise the threshold to £21,000, both of which would benefit students at the university of Worcester, which I represent. However, may I urge the Secretary of State to ensure, in implementing this report, that such universities, which have a strong record of securing long-term employment for their students after graduation, are encouraged to continue to focus on employability?
Vince Cable
Yes, there is a major problem of employability, as unfortunately we have a growing pool of graduate unemployed. At the same time, there is a chronic shortage in some subjects, notably science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM subjects—which suggests that the existing system is not giving the right signals to universities. What we certainly want to see is much greater attention being given to universities’ demonstrating their record on employability, performance and teaching, so that students can make informed choices in future.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that although the Browne report’s proposals address higher education institutions in England, they will have implications for such institutions in Northern Ireland? They will certainly have implications, by way of variable fees, for students who would wish to come to courses here. Will he discuss those implications with relevant Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and in Scotland, or does he hope by default to impose the policy changes that he has just undertaken on the devolved Administrations?
Vince Cable
Of course we respect the separate position of the different nations of the UK, and I am very happy to discuss it with the hon. Gentleman.
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman asks about Scotland. I was there last week discussing this with university authorities, who told me that the existing model in Scotland is not sustainable and that they may well have to move to a model similar to that in England and Wales. So I think that in Scotland, as elsewhere in the UK, these realities will have to be faced.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
May I welcome Lord Browne’s report, the Secretary of State’s statement, and his recognition that a graduate tax would be ruinous for this country? Could the right hon. Gentleman reassure the House that under his plans, no student will be penalised for early repayment of their loan?
Vince Cable
It is certainly feasible under the existing system—and it will be in future—for people to pay their obligations early, but we need to be very clear that we cannot allow very affluent people to be able to buy their way out of their obligations under a fair graduate contribution system. Anybody who has tried to pay their mortgage back early will have discovered that there is something called a redemption fee to maintain the integrity of the system. We need to look at ways of ensuring that there is no mechanism that allows people to avoid making a fair contribution to universities.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State confirm that when we set up the Browne review, we asked Lord Browne to look at an employer contribution? The Secretary of State said nothing in his statement about the position of employers, despite the fact that they clearly benefit from higher education. Will he take this opportunity to correct that position?
Vince Cable
We will certainly look at that suggestion, but I have not heard any detailed, practical proposals from the right hon. Gentleman or anyone else on the subject. A good many courses at university, particularly apprenticeships at university level—at skill level and full level—are funded by employers, and I am sure that we would want to see that extended.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
I also thank Lord Browne for his report, and am thankful for the influence of the Secretary of State and Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government; it has made the report rather more progressive than the original commissioners might have envisaged when the remit was set. Much of the attention has been on collection arrangements once people graduate, but far more attention needs to be paid to young people much earlier in the graduate journey, when they are teenagers making their decisions in, say, the deprived parts of Sheffield or Bristol, or even in the south Wales valleys. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to ensure that much more attention is given to that stage, so that children from poorer backgrounds see that university is for them?
Vince Cable
Yes, absolutely, and that message fits in with the broader direction of Government policy on education. The simple truth is that very large numbers of people are being failed by the school system at present. They have to find a second chance, for example in further education colleges. That direction of policy—particularly with the idea of the pupil premium, which will help people through the school system—is very much part of our thinking, and we intend to carry that philosophy into the university sector.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State emphasises the importance of STEM subjects. What with today’s report, the propositions that are starting to emerge in relation to the comprehensive spending review, and the impact of changes to overseas student rules, does he not see that he is leading us headlong towards massive cuts in STEM provision? Which departments does he want to see closed, and which does he want to keep open?
Vince Cable
I certainly do not want to see that outcome; we want to see the exact opposite. We want more investment in STEM subjects. The hon. Gentleman will know that a level of, say, £7,000 would not cover the full costs of many STEM courses, and the Government will continue to support them through the teaching grant.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I was lucky enough to go from my outstanding comprehensive school to a world-leading university, and then took time out of the work force to raise my family—a decision that I have never regretted. Millions of women choose to do the same. Can the Secretary of State assure the House that there will be provision, when the proposal eventually comes to Bill stage, for women like me—and, indeed, men—who choose to take time out to raise their family and then return to the work force?
Vince Cable
Yes, indeed, and that is a very important consideration. Of course we want women to have equality. The gender gap has got to be closed, and the issue of taking time out is an important part of that. Of course, during the period that women—or men, in certain circumstances—take out of the labour force to care for their families, the real interest rate would not accrue.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Like the Secretary of State, I was the first person in my family to go to university. The key thing is that I am not sure that I would have gone if I faced the debt that is likely if the general thrust of Lord Browne’s report is followed, as the Secretary of State said it would be. What reassurance can he give young people from backgrounds like mine that they will not be unfairly disadvantaged by the reluctance of his Government to invest properly in higher education?
Vince Cable
The Government are going to invest in higher education. It will be properly funded as a result of this package. I make the point to the hon. Lady again—I made it in my statement—that the average university graduate earns cumulatively over a lifetime well over £100,000 more than someone who chooses not to go to university. That is a substantial graduate premium. We need to communicate to many people in disadvantaged communities that it is in their interests to pursue higher education. We will make sure through the careers service, a proper system of advice and the support that we give in maintenance that they have that opportunity.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will it not be a sad day for academic meritocracy if and when able students from poor backgrounds are deterred from going to top universities because those universities are allowed to charge more than other universities in fees to students?
Vince Cable
Yes, the hon. Gentleman is quite right, and for that reason he will recall my comments about the need to be careful about following through the request of the Russell group universities for unlimited fees. There are serious problems with that. Of course there are advantages in terms of world-class universities, but we need to be careful about going down that road, and we will reflect further on it.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I strongly oppose variable tuition fees and a market in higher education, and so did the Liberal Democrats. May I tell the Secretary of State today that the Lib Dem website still has a six-point timetable for scrapping tuition fees, and it is in a section entitled “What we stand for”. The coalition agreement already includes provision for Liberal Democrats to abstain on the issue and not opt out from what they stand for.
May I ask the Secretary of State this question? Today he has nailed his colours to the mast on variable tuition fees and a market in higher education, but what is it to be for other Liberal Democrat Ministers? Is it to be their manifesto and a principled orange line in the sand or betrayal of their voters and a miserable white flag of surrender?
Vince Cable
When the Government’s economic policies have produced the successful outcome that we all expect, we can return to the question of how universities can be supported in a more generous way, but at the moment we face a massive financial crisis that we inherited from the Labour party and we therefore have to make choices that he and his colleagues ducked.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Young people in my constituency have some wonderful options on their doorstep. There is Huddersfield university and the expanding Kirklees college, and some local engineering companies are offering apprenticeships. With that in mind does the Secretary of State wish to revise the target of 50% of young people going to university, or is he sticking by it?
Vince Cable
We do not believe in prescriptive targets. The 50% target was a serious mistake, not least because it sent the wrong signals to the further education sector that it was undervalued and that vocational qualifications did not have the same status as graduate degrees. We intend to change that approach fundamentally and look at post-16 and post-state education as a whole, giving vocational and academic education equal status.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that implementing Lord Browne’s review will lead to the financial collapse of 30 wide participation universities such as Bolton in my constituency, which has a number of mature students attending it? Will he ensure that the interests of students such as those attending Bolton university and others are protected?
Vince Cable
I think the hon. Lady’s central point is that it is possible that some universities will be in financial difficulty. They already are under the existing system, and we are having to consider how universities in that position will be dealt with. The analogy is with the banking system. If banks collapse, the depositors are protected—in other words, the students are protected so that they can complete their education—but the management of failed institutions has to change. We are currently working through a failure regime to deal with institutions that find themselves in difficulties. The number that the hon. Lady mentions is almost certainly implausibly high, but there will be some.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State consider carefully how we can prevent students from being deterred from undertaking longer courses such as medicine and pharmacy—very able students in particular may be put off those courses—perhaps by introducing a three-year cap on fees?
Vince Cable
The answer to that question is similar to the one that I gave on the other STEM subjects. Medicine is a costly course, which is why continuing support is needed through the teaching grant from Government to keep graduate contributions at a moderate and reasonable level, and that is what we shall aim to do.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I was one of 33 Labour Members who voted against the introduction of fees in 1998. I took that view then, and I have not changed it at all—I do not believe that it is unaffordable or unsustainable. May I suggest to the Secretary of State that the Government seriously attack the tax gap, as less than 10% of the tax gap would pay for fees or, indeed, a quarter of the amount of tax breaks for the rich on their savings?
Vince Cable
I think that the hon. Gentleman will have to apply his considerable powers of persuasion to his Front-Bench team, because they have not yet caught up with his ideological journey.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend consider a reduced graduate contribution for those subjects where we have a real need and where there is a skills gap such as maths, science and engineering?
Vince Cable
I thank the hon. Lady for her question but, again, I have answered that in different ways. We accept that one of the fundamental problems at the moment is the imbalance in the graduate population. There is a severe shortage of engineers in particular, but in STEM subjects in general. Unfortunately, there is a growing pool of graduate unemployment in other areas, so we must support the STEM subjects, and we will continue to do so through the teaching grant.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Secretary of State mentioned the advent of real interest rates, but he does not seem to understand that their introduction means that a maths teacher on a middle-income salary will ramp up a bigger debt than, for example, an economist in a multinational company. Is he trying to tell us that in reality injustice is the new fairness?
Vince Cable
I know that the hon. Lady is highly economically literate, going back over her history, but I think that on this particular issue, she has not read the report or perhaps not followed it closely enough.
The proposal for real interest rates applies only above the £21,000 threshold. Some numbers were published on the front page of The Guardian this morning that probably gave rise to the conclusion that the hon. Lady has drawn. Those figures are wrong, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which was quoted, has disowned them. It is clear from the analysis that the structure is progressive, but not in the way that she described.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
For many mature students, the most cost-effective way to pursue a university degree is to do so as close as possible to their own home. Will my right hon. Friend encourage universities to collaborate much more closely with the further education sector to use FE campuses to help them deliver higher education degrees?
Vince Cable
That is a helpful intervention, and I completely agree. We certainly wish to see the university sector evolve in that direction more flexibly, providing more genuine choice, including two-year degrees, and portable qualifications between universities. The model that the hon. Gentleman described is very much the model of the future. I used to teach in a Scottish university where that was the norm, and that is a form of good practice that we could adopt here.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
A number of Members have referred to the most regressive part of the report on variable fees, although it promotes as a positive the proposal that universities should compete on price. Will the Secretary of State give us his reassurance that he will look at that again to ensure that students choose the course best matched to their intellect and ability, not their bank balance?
Vince Cable
We already have variable fees as a result of the system that was brought in under the last Government. The difficult issue now is how far to allow variability, particularly for a small group of universities that want much larger fees, and, as I have already said, I am very conscious of the problems that that would present.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
To ensure that students do not end up with increased amounts of debt from which they then do not reap the rewards, what support does the Secretary of State intend to give pupils to ensure that they choose the right courses, and that when a course does not necessarily suit, a mechanism is in place to prevent them from being kept on it for the purpose of funding the university rather than their own education?
Vince Cable
That is a good question about one of the imperfections of the system at the moment. Many young people go to universities completely unaware of the employment possibilities that arise from their university education, and one thing that we hope to ensure through the information systems that will develop is that people will know exactly the performance of the universities and departments that they intend to go to, and the employability that would result from that. I hope that that will avoid the kind of problems that my hon. Friend describes, which are currently very serious indeed.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
Whatever the merits or demerits of the Browne review, will the Secretary of State admit that not just he or the Deputy Prime Minister but every single Liberal Democrat Member has broken a firm pledge that they made to the voters less than six months ago? Yes or no?
Vince Cable
As I think I said earlier, the roads to Westminster are covered with the skid marks of different political parties changing direction on this issue, not least those on the Opposition Benches. I would say this at the present stage: the two parties in the coalition are now very much agreed on the way forward. When we look opposite, we see two fundamentally different approaches to higher education—the existing system favoured by the shadow Chancellor, and a new system of graduate taxes favoured by their leader.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
We are all agreed on the need to ensure that the very best people go into our public services where perhaps salaries are somewhat lower. With those graduates now potentially facing largely inflated and increased debts, what assurances can we have that the very best graduates will be supported in going into our public services under these proposals?
Vince Cable
Anybody going into relatively low-paid employment, whether in a vocational approach to public service or in other ways, will be protected both by the £21,000 threshold and the system of variable interest rates. Many, many people in low-paid occupations will not be required to pay off any accumulated debt. It will be written off at the end of the period as a result of the progressive element built into the proposals.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
As has been said, every single Lib Dem MP signed the pledge—and appeared in a photograph—to vote against any fees increase. The question is: what will they choose—power or principle?
Vince Cable
The Opposition do themselves no favours simply drawing attention to the fact that they themselves are hopelessly divided on the issue and have no answer to the issue of how higher education would be funded.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that coalition politics involved compromise, and he was absolutely right. However, will the Secretary of State accept that there has been compromise by many people who now accept that in the current economic climate it is no longer possible to abolish tuition fees at their current rate? Does he also accept that increasing fees to more than twice the level that they are at is a compromise that some people simply cannot and will not accept?
Vince Cable
I know that the hon. Gentleman has strong feelings on the subject and we have debated it. The first part of his question posed the problem correctly. The idea of abolishing tuition fees or even freezing them at their present level is simply not feasible, and I think that he acknowledges that. We must work towards a level; I specified £7,000 on behalf of the Government, which we think is the only way in future in which universities can be properly funded to carry out the functions that he and all of us want to see them perform at world-class level.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The only thing that has changed since the Secretary of State and his colleagues put their skid marks on the student declaration before the general election is the scale and speed of the cuts that the Liberal Democrats have signed up to and are supporting the Tory party in carrying out. Children from many middle-income families will be turned from going to university as a result of these changes. If the changes come about, will the Secretary of State give an undertaking that any future changes will come back to the Floor of the House, as they have to now, and that they will not be able to be slipped through by some future Secretary of State who wants to increase fees even further and deter even more students?
Vince Cable
I think that the hon. Gentleman came to the House the same year that I did. Before we get any more righteous indignation from Labour Members, I should say to him that he may remember campaigning on a manifesto that promised to abolish top-up fees but did absolutely nothing of the kind when the Government were returned.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State examine the international evidence that shows that countries with higher fees and a decent loan system to support them have higher participation from the lowest-income quartile socio-economic group? I am thinking of the US, which has 50% participation from the lowest-income quartile, and Australia, which has 30%. That compares with 17% in this country under the previous Government.
Vince Cable
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and she is right to emphasise the fact that the approach that we are recommending is evidence-based. Certainly she is right about the combination of graduate contributions, which are progressive, and proper support in the form of maintenance for students from deprived backgrounds. In that way, we get high quality and social mobility as well.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
In his remarks, the Secretary of State made reference to the pledge that he and some of his colleagues apparently signed. I have not seen it. Could he tell us what it says? Will he place a copy of it in the House of Commons Library, so that hon. Members can study it more carefully and perhaps give it a wider audience?
Vince Cable
The sense of humour coming from Opposition Members is becoming a little bit tired even for those among their own ranks. If we want to play silly games, I am afraid that I will constantly have to go back to them and ask how, if they do not want a system of graduate contributions of the kind that we are recommending, they would fund the system, given the massive cuts that they would have to make if they were still in government clearing up the mess that they created.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
I particularly welcome Lord Browne’s proposals about part-time students. My constituency is home to the Open university and I am well aware that part-time students are currently at a disadvantage because they have to pay up-front fees and that the part-time sector was hit badly by the previous Government’s decision on equivalent and lower qualifications. I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to comments this morning from the vice-chancellor of the Open university. He urges the Government to seize this historic moment and, once and for all, level the playing field between full-time and part-time students.
Vince Cable
My hon. Friend is quite right. More as a result of negligence than intention, the last Government did terrible damage to the Open university and Birkbeck. We are very conscious of that problem and of the need to encourage part-timers and treat them on the same basis as full-timers. He is right to point out that this morning there was a very positive endorsement of the Browne report and its approach from the heads of those two institutions.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
The House will know that the National Union of Students will be holding a demonstration on Wednesday 10 November. Will the Business Secretary have the courage to come with me, face student leaders and explain why he has betrayed the promise that he made just a few weeks ago?
Vince Cable
I am in constant touch with the National Union of Students. We have a very good dialogue with its representatives. They have made suggestions, some of which are helpful and some of which involve very substantial reductions in the amount of student maintenance support, to keep fees down to a level that they would prefer. We are continuing the dialogue. We welcome it, and it is good natured. We disagree on this particular point.
Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the current system, in which students incur debt that they have to pay back when they finish, and do not have any advice or support in choosing the right courses or understanding their employability when they finish them, is significantly worse than what is being proposed today, which is more support and advice?
Vince Cable
We have covered this point several times, but it is worth reinforcing. Simply introducing a higher level of contributions, albeit a fairer one, will not in itself produce good outcomes unless students are properly informed about the advantages and disadvantages of going to different institutions. That is a key parallel component of the policy that we are adopting.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Has the Secretary of State given any thought at all to the impact of these policies on Wales? I am thinking in particular of Barnett consequentials.
Vince Cable
The Chancellor will announce his wider proposals on public spending, but as far as I know there is no intention to change the Barnett formula.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
In many university towns, students play an important role in the local economy. Will the Secretary of State outline his proposals for how to support student living costs?
Vince Cable
As I have indicated, student living costs and the maintenance to pay for them will be subject to a series of separate announcements. Once the spending review is announced, we will know how much it is possible to provide in the form of grants and maintenance loans. It is worth pointing out the base that we start from, which is that the current system of support for maintenance is probably the most generous in the world. As the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) pointed out a few moments ago, it is quite possible that we could move to a more sensible system whereby many students study in their home town.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Are these proposed funding arrangements based on the current number of students attending undergraduate courses or on the inevitably reduced number who will attend due to very high fees? If fewer students attend university, does the Secretary of State expect that there will be still fewer students paying even higher fees in future, with fewer universities existing to supply their courses?
Vince Cable
That question rather disregards past experience. There was a great deal of pessimism about the consequences of the system that the previous Government introduced. In the first year, there was indeed a fall in applications, but applications subsequently continued to rise. On the basis of our own historical experience and the experiences of other countries, we have no reason to believe that that pattern will not be repeated.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his courageous statement. Is not one of the great advantages of the coalition Government that Members on the Government Benches can disagree and reach a better policy? Some coalition Members might vote the other way, but the Government will continue.
Vince Cable
We can disagree, but I think that we actually agree to a remarkable extent. However, there is a coalition agreement, and under its terms my colleagues who feel that our policy does not meet their expectations can abstain.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I made a pledge to students in my area that I would vote against an increase in tuition fees, and I will stick to that pledge. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), has the Secretary of State assessed the implications for the devolved Administrations? The implication for Wales could involve a sum as great as £140 million. Has he also discussed the matter with relevant Ministers?
Vince Cable
We have certainly discussed the matter with relevant Ministers, and we can produce a formal analysis of what the policy will mean for different parts of the UK. That is a perfectly legitimate matter to pursue.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I still support the eventual abolition of all domestic tuition fees, although that is possibly more than six years off now. However, will my right hon. Friend confirm clearly whether he intends less well-off students to pay less while at university than they did under the Labour Government, and less well-off graduates to pay a smaller proportion of their wages in tuition fee repayments?
Vince Cable
That is factually correct and has been endorsed this morning by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. My statement was originally going to say that 20% of graduates would pay less than they do at the moment, but I was fortified by discovering from the IFS’s commentary that the percentage is actually 30%. Almost one in three graduates will pay less than they do at the moment under the scheme that the Labour Government introduced.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier, the Secretary of State used the term “hypocrisy”. As my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) and for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) have highlighted, it is hypocrisy that he and every single one of his Lib Dem colleagues signed the National Union of Students election pledge just five months ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has asked what was in that pledge, so it will be useful for us to remind ourselves. The pledge said:
“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament”.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that he and all his Lib Dem colleagues will break the personal promises that they made to their local constituencies?
Vince Cable
I signed that pledge with my colleagues, and I have explained the reasons why I did so. It was a stand from a commitment to try to keep universities free, which is what I enjoyed. I have explained, however, that in the current financial situation, which is truly appalling and which we inherited, all commitments and pledges will have to be re-examined from first principles.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
I commend the Secretary of State for making his statement. Does he agree that the contribution made by graduates is not only economic and that it relates to social capital? They provide positive role models in society and make a contribution back into the community. The way we will achieve that is through the Finance (No. 2) Bill.
Vince Cable
I think, if I understand the question correctly, that the hon. Gentleman is making the point that there are high social as well as private returns from higher education. That is one of the reasons why the Government continue to support it.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am keen to accommodate some more colleagues, but brevity is now of the essence.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
At the beginning of his statement, the Secretary of State commended my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) for his integrity in resigning from the previous Administration. Given that the Secretary of State has now told the House that he will not honour his pledge, will he show similar integrity?
Vince Cable
I was completely sincere, and I commend the decision that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen took. I hope that he will maintain that tradition of integrity by explaining how the Labour Opposition intend to finance higher education.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Although the Browne report was commissioned by the previous Government, it rightly received cross-party support in recognising how difficult the subject is. Is the Secretary of State as saddened as I am that, following the Labour leadership election, that cross-party consensus seems to have broken down? It is not working in the national interest.
Vince Cable
I genuinely hope, even at this late hour, that that consensus has not broken down. The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen was ambiguous in his approach to graduate tax; he referred to it, but he did not commend it. It may be that that is part of a journey—a rather short one—back to some form of consensus on higher education. There have been occasions when the parties in this House contributed greatly to long-term economic thinking. On the pension age and the age of retirement, for example, we came together on very difficult decisions. It has been a struggle to get all three parties to face up to the realities of the costs of higher education, but I have not given up on the Opposition.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said that before May he did not consider that a huge increase in tuition fees was needed or desirable for the long-term funding of our universities and students. The only thing that appears to have changed in his thinking is his belief that the deficit has to be wiped out very quickly. Why are two or three whole generations of students being asked disproportionately to pay for that deficit? Is he not mixing up the long term, which is what the Browne report was supposed to be about, and the short-term issues relating to how we overcome the deficit?
Vince Cable
I know that the hon. Lady did not mean this, but it is often believed that fees are paid by students as they study, but they are not. We are talking about a graduate contribution that extends for a considerable period and that will relate to the ability to pay. She seems to be minimising the substantial financial problem that the Government have inherited, which is severe. I hope that Opposition Members will become a little more serious about the country’s financial problems.
Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his statement and Lord Browne on his work. As the Secretary of State works on his proposals on encouraging lower-income students who might never have thought that university was for them to go, will he consider the work of organisations such as Aimhigher, which is based at the university of Winchester? It has an excellent track record in getting such students through to higher education.
Vince Cable
We definitely need to learn from that experience. Most of the things that we have discussed today are essentially about money, but getting into higher education is about not only money, but encouragement, support and mentoring. The scheme that my hon. Friend has mentioned is certainly one from which we can learn.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Is the Secretary of State telling the House that he did not understand that the United Kingdom was in dire financial straits when he signed the pledge five months ago?
Vince Cable
Of course we realised that the financial position of the country was serious. We must now make very difficult choices on the back of that, which I am sure is understood as well in Northern Ireland as it is everywhere else in the UK. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s party, which shares in government in Northern Ireland, accepts that extremely difficult decisions on higher education need to be made there as elsewhere.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
Like the Secretary of State, I signed the pledge, which, as I remember, calls for a fairer system. I therefore congratulate him on lobbying Lord Browne into producing a report that will lead to a fairer system—the system will be more progressive and part-time tuition fees will be scrapped. However, that does not mean that the system is fair enough. Will the Secretary of State put me in touch with his private office, so that we can look at the nuances of some of the modelling of the net present values?
Vince Cable
My hon. Friend asks me to share the modelling with hon. Members. I am improvising, but I do not see any problem with that. There is probably an intellectual property issue, but in the public interest, we should of course share the analysis.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
What will be the effect of the proposals on the funding of universities such as Bolton, which has widened participation by attracting poorer and part-time students, especially if they feel that they must charge less than the £7,000 that he suggests they may charge?
Vince Cable
I do not know the full details of the financial position of the university of Bolton, but I would have thought that it could draw two sources of strength from our approach. First, our approach encourages part-time students by making university more financially attractive for them. Secondly, Bolton can choose to attract students by offering a lower graduate contribution, which it may well succeed in doing.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
What steps are the Government taking to encourage the development of a greater endowment base for university funding, thus eventually reducing universities’ reliance on taxpayers and students? If the Government are about to dispose of a large number of properties and fixed assets, should not the proceeds be used for long-term investment rather than as a one-off boost to Government funds?
Vince Cable
I have not referred to endowments, but it is probably fair to mention that there is quite a substantial section on them in the Browne report, which I hope that hon. Members look at. The report says that endowments are a potential additional source of finance beyond graduates and the Government. As my hon. Friend will know, endowments are a major source of funding in the United States, and they need to be made attractive and encouraged in this country. Obviously, I cannot predict what the Chancellor of the Exchequer will do in his next Budget, but such encouragement relates in large part to tax treatment.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
The publication of the Browne report and the Government’s response this afternoon marks the point of no return in the marketisation of higher education. May I ask the Secretary of State, who I am told was once a social democrat, whether he is happy with letting the market rip in higher education?
Vince Cable
Markets are not being allowed to rip—if they were, I would not have mentioned a £7,000 level; we would have simply lifted all restrictions, and there would be no question, as Browne suggested in his report, of extensive conditionality. If the hon. Gentleman is worried about that problem, why did he participate in a Labour Government who introduced variability in fees?
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Given the Government’s determination to link graduate contributions with ability to pay, will my right hon. Friend ensure that those with the greatest ability to pay, who can afford to make payments early and therefore choose to avoid progressive interest rates, will still be required to make the greatest contribution?
Vince Cable
Yes. One of the scandals under the existing system is that affluent people can take advantage of loans at subsidised rates and invest the money. That has happened on a substantial scale, but it will no longer be attractive to people on very high incomes.
I urge Labour Members to have a careful look at the income analysis in the report. The explanation of how the interest rate relates to work is technical and complicated, but even with a system of early repayment—I am sorry to go into economics jargon—the net present value of high earners’ contributions will remain higher than for any other income group.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said many worrying things, but in particular it worried me that he said that it would be better if a higher percentage of students went to universities or colleges in their home towns. If he really expects every young person in the Rhondda to aspire only to go to a university in Glamorgan, he will be letting down future generations. I want to ensure that there is no disincentive for rich or poor kids to go on the right course for them, whether in England, Wales or wherever.
Vince Cable
Of course nobody wishes to stop people travelling to other communities in pursuit of the best course—[Interruption.] I was simply making the point that for many universities, especially those that absorb people from less privileged backgrounds, the students live locally in their home environment. That is the common practice in London, Glasgow and other big cities. It is not true for all, and we do not want a one-size-fits-all system. We merely want to have more flexibility and choice, and that is one of the models available.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Over the past 10 years, we have seen an 83% increase in the number of children from Walthamstow going on to higher education as a result of the previous Government’s work on increasing participation. If we do not see a similar trend under the new Government and these proposals, will the Secretary of State commit to coming back to the House to justify the waste of potential that that represents to our country?
Vince Cable
We certainly regard it as a reasonable challenge to ensure that the higher education system takes a larger proportion of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and I have made that very clear. On most measures, social mobility declined under the previous Government.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Is it the Government’s intention to accept the recommendation to restrict access to student finance on the basis of aptitude, and if so will the Secretary of State consider the view that UCAS points are not always the best indicator of future academic potential? What will he do to encourage young people who might show future potential, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Vince Cable
There are proposals in the Browne report on the reform of what is called the tariff system. We need to look at those carefully, as they are technically complex and may well have the unintended consequences that the hon. Lady has described. However, I am not making a recommendation on that point at the moment.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The minimum tariff entry standards, which have just been mentioned, include a system for rationing provision based on academic ability. What is the assumption of the number of points that will be needed in the Secretary of State’s current modelling of student finance?
Vince Cable
Those issues are completely unconnected. As I have just said, the Browne report includes recommendations on the reform of the tariff system, which we need to examine carefully. Admission to university is already based substantially on UCAS points and, in that sense, it is highly meritocratic.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
In the Secretary of State’s replies to several questions from my hon. Friends, he has acknowledged that if the cap on fees is lifted, we risk creating a situation in which families will have to sit down with their children and make a decision about the university of their choice on the basis not of their qualifications or ability to learn, but of their ability to incur huge levels of debt. If he acknowledges that, will he reject that free market now—or is that another Liberal Democrat principle that has been thrown out of the window?
Vince Cable
Nobody is suggesting—I have never suggested this—a free market in this area. The same points were made several years ago when we debated the fee-based system introduced by the previous Government, who accepted that on the balance of argument—the case was made initially by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who was ahead of his time on this issue, and later by the new shadow Chancellor—the system had to move in that direction. It is a highly constrained market and not a free market environment at all.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
As a college principal over the past few years, I was proud to witness the growth in aspiration and widening participation of students from all backgrounds in Scunthorpe. One analysis out today suggests that implementing the Browne proposals as they stand will result in 17,500 fewer students going on to university. Does the Secretary of State want fewer university students and fewer universities?
Vince Cable
As I explained earlier, when the previous Government put in place a substantial increase, numbers initially fell before subsequently recovering. As I said in response to earlier questions, it is not the job of the Government to be prescriptive about numbers. I return to the point that I made at the outset: there is a danger of looking at universities in isolation. There are many further education options for people post-18, including apprenticeships and vocational training. We have to treat all those on their merits and give them equal status. The number of people going to university is not, in itself, a useful measure of anything.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to the Secretary of State and colleagues for their co-operation.
Points of Order
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question of Government policy on elected mayors in 12 of our cities, including Birmingham, Coventry, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, is an important matter for those cities. I know, Mr Speaker, that you want Government policy announcements to be made first to this House, rather than to the media. Is it in order, therefore, that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has announced to the media the details of how the Government intend to put mayors in place in some of those cities? Should the Government not be making a statement on this matter to the House?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. I did not have previous notice of it, although I make no complaint about that—she is entirely within her rights. The safest thing for me to say is that I will look into the matter and revert to her and, if necessary, the House when I have completed my inquiries.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I draw your attention to a very disappointing letter that Welsh Members received this week from the Secretary of State for Wales refusing our request to hold a Welsh Grand Committee on the constitutional implications for Wales of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill? Will you please make representations to the Secretary of State to ensure that she understands how strongly Welsh Members feel about this critical issue?
Mr Speaker
I am not sure that it is for me to make representations, as the hon. Gentleman invites me to do. However, he has put his concern—indeed, his very clear dissatisfaction—on the record. I trust that it will have been heard, but whether that is the end of the matter remains to be seen. I think that we will leave it there for the time being, but I am grateful to him.
Royal Commission (London)
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the establishment of a Royal Commission to consider the future challenges facing London in housing, transport, the environment, population, equality, the City and the wider economy, and such other matters as the Royal Commission considers appropriate; and for connected purposes.
London faces a series of major economic and social challenges to its economy and environment, and through the increase in its population, that will have profound consequences for housing in London, for our transport and energy needs, for businesses, potentially for Londoners’ quality of life, and for levels of inequality in London. If those challenges and their consequences are thought through now—not just by one or two analysts, but by a wider cross section of Londoners—these challenges will also offer a series of major opportunities for our great city. However, if the long-term consequences of those challenges are ignored or left ill-considered because more short-term needs dominate, businesses, civil society and ordinary Londoners will lose out.
There are mayoral and Assembly elections coming up in London, and inevitably, during those contests, there will be a focus on the future, but the significance and scale of the challenges that London faces are unlikely to get the level of attention they merit in the heat of an election campaign. There will be those who think that London gets too much attention, and that it draws too much light and focus away from the rest of the UK. I do not share that view. I have always thought that London, as the most important gateway to wider Britain and as our premier city, warrants more attention, not less.
The Bill argues that the Government should establish a royal commission of those interested in London’s long-term future to consider over the next 18 months the challenges and policy consequences for those in this Chamber, Whitehall, City Hall and London’s local councils—challenges that those who come after our generation of politicians will still have to address.
Royal commissions have, it is true, been out of fashion in recent years, but in the past they have considered difficult and politically tricky questions, helping to build a consensus for action. Carefully chosen, royal commissions have made powerful and important contributions to debates about big issues, creating the context for a series of difficult policy choices. The long-term future of the world’s greatest capital city—the engine room of Britain’s economy, and the beating heart of our political, social and cultural life—is surely worthy of such a commission.
London’s population is expected to rise by almost 1.4 million by 2033 to about 9.2 million, which will bring not only considerable economic opportunities, but a range of challenges in terms of demand for housing, further school places, health facilities and jobs. Housing supply has not kept pace—and it is not keeping pace now—with demographic or economic trends, leading to increased overcrowding and homelessness in London. Indeed, in the next 20 years, the number of households in London is projected to increase by around 585,000, or an average of 30,000 a year between 2011 and 2031. If those trends continue unchallenged and are not properly thought through, how likely is it that a child born today in central London whose parents live within the area bounded by the Circle line will be able to afford to live in the same area 40 years from now?
A growing population will also have profound implications for our transport needs, with some forecasts predicting one third of London traffic travelling on very congested roads by 2025. Aviation demand is forecast to more than double by 2030, with a considerable increase in pressure on the capacity and performance of London’s airports. As a country, too, we are committed to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. That has considerable implications for our future energy usage and how we live our lives. In particular, it raises the challenge of dramatically increasing sustainable energy levels and making buildings across the capital vastly more energy efficient, and doing so rapidly, over a comparatively short period.
It is now a truism that one of the industries of the future lies in new green technologies. However, with investors looking with considerable interest at new green towns being built in China, Japan and the middle east, and with the global renewables market expanding too, a radical increase in the pace of sustainable living in London is not just a sensible environmental option; it is also essential economically to help to create the domestic UK and, crucially, London markets for green manufacturing, and for advanced engineering businesses and jobs to emerge. London therefore needs transforming into the world’s leading low-carbon capital. A royal commission could help to paint the policy choices to drive that transformation.
There are, too, long-term challenges to the future of London’s economy, specifically with the rise in economic and political power of the east—there are the fast-growing economies of China and India in particular, and there are also countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Indeed, rising trade between emerging economies, cross-border mergers, acquisitions by Indian and Chinese companies and moves by developing world businesses to raise capital in each other’s markets is already helping to increase the growth of financial centres in the fastest-growing economies. Frustration with London’s bankers has become almost a spectator sport in the past two years, but London’s economic future—indeed, our country’s economic future—depends in no small part on retaining our premier league status for financial services. A re-embrace of the City is essential—a reformed and properly challenged City, of course, but a re-embrace nevertheless.
Finally, London is already a very unequal city. Huge disparities in wealth exist between places within short distances of one another. The economic, environmental and population challenges that London faces will either drive London’s wealthiest and poorest further apart, or, properly thought through, help to prevent or address London’s poverty and inequality challenges. The hopes and dreams of Londoners and those who, often unknowingly, depend on London’s success require the challenges facing London to be addressed with care and long-term consistency. I hope that the proposal in my Bill, in its small way, will help to do just that.
Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I support a great deal of the thrust of the argument that the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) has advanced today. He is right to say that London faces significant challenges, but I am not sure that a royal commission, as set out in the Bill, would be the right way to achieve our goals. Our capital city has faced a significant number of challenges over many years. Indeed, we could have had this same debate some 35 years ago in the mid-1970s. No one could deny that there has also been tremendous success, because London has always traditionally been an outward-looking city.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about financial services; they were well made. We have all had concerns about elements of the banking industry, but the financial services industry is clearly a world-beating business, without which the whole of the United Kingdom—not just London—would suffer. We need to ensure that the new, transformed landscape for financial services will allow London to maintain its competitive advantage, not least because, as the hon. Gentleman has rightly said, some 25 million Indians and Chinese are being added to the ranks of the global middle class every single year. Culturally, they have a higher propensity to save, and they will be the future customers and clients for financial services in the decades to come.
In relation to the proposal for a royal commission, however, it is fair to say that we have had a mayoralty in London for the past 10 years. The hon. Gentleman might not like the colour of the current Mayor, but there has been a Labour Mayor for four fifths of that time. I want to defend Ken Livingstone, who had an eye towards the future, not least in regard to ensuring that the relationship between London and the key financial centres—not only in Asia but in Brazil and Russia—should be maintained. A lot of that work has been continued by the current Mayor, Boris Johnson. We have a structure of government that works well, although there were teething problems in the early days after the Mayor and the Greater London authority came into play. It works well now, however, and the Mayor—of whatever political colour—has an eye to the future of this great capital city, which is close not only to my heart but to that of the hon. Gentleman.
It is important to raise the profile of London. The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of inequality, but things have been that way since Dick Whittington walked down Highgate hill some 700 years ago. Indeed, since time immemorial London has been seen as a very unequal place, and it has always been polarised between some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest people. The hon. Gentleman made a good point, however, about opportunities for those who have been accustomed to living in central London, and he asked whether their children and grandchildren would be able to continue to do so.
I feel that a royal commission is not the right way forward. I think that we can achieve these goals within the current construct of governance, with the Mayor and active borough leaders playing their part in ensuring that London’s pre-eminence is maintained not only in this country but as a global capital.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr Gareth Thomas, Meg Hillier, John McDonnell, Mike Gapes, Mr Andrew Love, Heidi Alexander, Jim Dowd, Stephen Timms and Malcolm Wicks present the Bill.
Mr Gareth Thomas accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 76).
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
17:36 - The House divided: - Ayes: 323 / Noes: 256 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Day | Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
|---|---|---|
First day | Clause 1 | 11.00 pm |
Second day | Schedule 1, Clauses 2 and 3, Schedules 2 to 4, Clause 4, Schedule 5, Clauses 5 and 6 | 11.00 pm. |
Third day | Clause 7, Schedule 6, Clauses 8 and 9 | 11.00 pm. |
Fourth day | Clauses 10 to 13, Schedule 7, Clauses 14 to 17 | 9.00 pm. |
Fifth day | New Clauses, New Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill | One hour after the moment of interruption. |
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I look forward to a rigorous debate on the issues in the Bill during its Committee stage. I am grateful to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—whose Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is in his place—for the report that it published yesterday and for the considerable amount of work that it put into taking evidence from, among others, the Deputy Prime Minister and myself. Concerns were expressed about the amount of time available to the Committee, but that was clearly not a barrier to its producing a comprehensive report, and I thank all the members of the Committee for their diligence.
The motion before us allows for five days of debate on the Floor of the House. I know that some Members have expressed concern that there will not be enough time to debate the provisions in the Bill, and we have tried to keep rigid programming to a minimum. As I said on Second Reading, however, we want to ensure—we have taken steps to do so in the programme motion—that the House will be able to debate and vote on the key issues raised by the Bill. In our view, the programme motion will allow that.
For this 17-clause Bill, we have proposed five full days of Committee on the Floor of the House and two days for Report, which we think adequately recognises the importance of the issues. We have had discussions through the usual channels with the Opposition, who have not presented any objections to the timetable.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the progress he is making with this Bill, but will he explain why there is closure at 11 o’clock this evening? This is a constitutional Bill of vital importance, so why should we not be able to talk for as long as we want on the issues today?
Mr Harper
Given the previous Government’s record on this matter, I would have thought that my hon. Friend would recognise that we are allowing extra time today to take account of the fact that we have just had a rightly lengthy and well attended statement. We granted extra time so that that statement did not unduly eat into the time available for debating this Bill. As I said, I would have thought that my hon. Friend, given his concern for Parliament, would have welcomed the progress made. We may not have gone as far as he would have wished, but I think that even he would recognise that we have gone some way further than the previous Administration did. I see him nodding his assent.
Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I accept, and give credit to party managers for ensuring, that we have a certain protection of time up to 11 pm today. However, does the Minister understand our concern that later in our consideration—certainly for the third and fourth day—a significant number of amendments have been tabled, so that we may not have enough time to debate the many issues surrounding exempted constituencies, for example, simply because a guillotine will come into force at 11pm or some other specified time?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend makes a perfectly sensible point. We have allowed the number of days allotted and included some extra time, but we will clearly keep that under review. He will have noticed that on the fourth day—the same day as the comprehensive spending review—we have allowed an extra two hours for the Committee to sit. We have tried to take that into account, and it is also in the interest of Members to balance the time allotted to different parts of the Bill. As I say, however, we will keep this under review and see how the debate progresses. I have heard what my hon. Friend says, and I will review progress.
Mr Field
The Minister says that he is going to keep this under review, so would he consider changing this programme motion in order to grant extra days of debate or put back the end-point? If we vote for the motion today, will it be set in stone, as reviewing it might not satisfy those of us who are concerned that elements of the Bill will not get the full consideration they need?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend will know that on Second Reading, when the House voted by a considerable margin to support the principle of the Bill, it also supported the initial programme motion of 6 September, which set the number of days for debate. I listened very carefully to the wide-ranging debate on that day and picked out the issues that appeared to be of concern to Members on both sides of the House. That is what has driven this second programme motion—to try to ensure that the key issues are debated. Today, for example, we are to debate the date of the referendum and the question that it will put, and those issues will be debated. As I said, I listened carefully to the whole of the previous debate, so I believe we have captured the key issues. The House has already accepted that five days in Committee is the right period for consideration of the Bill.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
The Minister is being very generous, but bearing in mind that there will not be a general election until 2015, surely there is not that much of a rush to get this measure through the House.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is right that the coalition Government are strong and that there will not be an election until 7 May 2015, as set out in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. The Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear, however, that we want the referendum to take place next year in order to make progress, and we also need to kick off the boundary review, ensuring that it reports in good time before the next election. That will allow parties across the House to select their candidates. We have secured a balance between moving at a reasonable pace, while also allowing adequate time for proper parliamentary debate. I think that we have done so.
Mr Harper
We made a commitment in the coalition agreement to have the referendum, and the Government believe that we should arrange to have it at an early opportunity, putting the question to the electors so that they can decide what voting system they want to use in the next election. That is the decision that the Government have made, and that is the view with which I will ask the Committee to agree later today. The House has already agreed with it in principle.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Clause 1 covers five pages of the amendment paper, whereas clause 9 requires 12 pages. Debate on clause 9, however, will occupy only about a third of the time occupied by debate on clause 1.
Mr Harper
In my view, it is a question not just of the number of pages, but of the substance of the issues involved. My hon. Friend will note that the Bill also contains a number of schedules, and, given that I have written to him and other Members today, he will know how we propose to deal with the combination amendment. Complicated technical issues occupying many pages may not raise significant issues, while significant issues requiring considerable debate may not occupy many pages. I do not think that the Committee should take a simple page-count approach.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a great presentation. The coalition agreement, to which most of us agreed and of which most of us are very supportive, contained a commitment to a referendum on alternative voting. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the date of the referendum was not included in the agreement, and therefore need not necessarily be part of this process?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is right. I am glad that he finds my argument compelling, and I am sure that he will support the programme motion if Members feel the need to put it to a vote and test the opinion of the Committee.
It is true that the coalition agreement committed both coalition parties in the Government to supporting a referendum on the voting system, and the Government subsequently decided that 5 May next year was the right date. The House has already endorsed the principle of the Bill, and later this afternoon we will conduct a line-by-line scrutiny of it. I will be asking Members on both sides of the Committee to endorse the date, although I will expect support only from Members on this side.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous and very reasonable. In that spirit of reasonableness, will he have a word with his unreasonable colleague the Secretary of State for Wales, who is refusing to allow a Welsh Grand Committee debate on the implications for Wales of this major constitutional Bill? We have not been given any explanation for her decision. Would it not make sense to allow time for debate in a separate forum, to enable more time to be made available for debate in the Chamber?
Mr Harper
I simply do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of my right hon. Friend the rather excellent Secretary of State for Wales. He will note that I have been joined in the Chamber by her Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), who will be supporting me on the Bill. There will be adequate time in the five days that we have provided for debate on how the Bill affects Wales, in terms of both the boundary changes and the referendum, and I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman and his Welsh colleagues—including the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—will acquit themselves well in speaking up for Wales during that debate.
The motion specifies the clauses and schedules that are to be debated, and the days on which they are to be debated. Beyond that, it will be for you, Mr Speaker, and for Members themselves, to decide how best to use the time. As I have already said in response to interventions, we have provided extra time on each day to allow for statements. On the fourth day, as we know, there will be a significant statement on the spending review, and having assumed that you will allow questions on it to run for a significant period, Mr Speaker, we have provided the necessary extra time.
I believe that the programme allows the Committee adequate time. I believe that it delivers on the promise that I made on Second Reading to allow the significant issues to be both debated and voted on, and I hope that Members on both sides of the Committee will feel able to support it.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I have to say that the Minister is being remarkably blasé about this. I know that he goes blasé when he is trying to be nice, but—[Interruption.] Yes, he may be nice—he may have nice moments—but I am afraid that this is not a nice Bill so we will have to deal with him accordingly.
We are, of course, very grateful for the extended hours. However, I should say that since Mr Speaker rightly allowed the recent statement to go on for some considerable time, as it addressed a matter of importance to many people, today our deliberations on the Bill will be briefer than they would have been if there had been no statement, and it is likely that that will be the case in many further days.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman spoke for longer than I shall, so he can keep shtum for a moment.
It would be better if there were no guillotines in the days provided for debate. As the Minister’s colleague, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), asked: what is the rush? Does this Bill have to be hurried through because its measures are the glue that hold together the coalition—that is what Opposition Members suspect, and indeed I think that it is what the hon. Gentleman suspects as well—or is there some honourable, decent reason for that? We know the answer, of course.
There is clearly a rush on. The Select Committee report has already said that hasty drafting and no consultation are the hallmarks. In recent years it has been extremely unusual for any constitutional reform Bill to go through this House without any pre-legislative scrutiny. I have also scoured history to find a constitutional Bill of this magnitude and significance that went through with so few days of consultation on the Floor of the House. The Minister says it is a short Bill, and that may be the case.
Chris Bryant
The Minister has talked enough, and he wants us to get on with the business in hand. He said it is only a short Bill. However, although it may contain only a few clauses, it is 153 pages long, and it affects major and significant parts of our constitution. Also, he has crafted the motion in a way that allows us remarkably little freedom within each of the days and between the days. For instance, if we finish the business early on the second day, next Monday, we will not be able to proceed straight away with the business for the third day. We will almost certainly need to review that, because the business for the third day is clauses 7, 8 and 9 and schedule 6, which include the topic of precisely how the alternative vote would operate. We must remember that the Bill will never come back to the House if the referendum is carried—although I know that the Minister hopes it will not be carried.
The measures to be discussed on the third day also give us the new rules for the Boundary Commissions, cutting up the rules that have existed for many years. In addition, there is the cutting of the number of parliamentary seats and the decision about how we distribute them. That, too, would never come back to the House for any vote hereafter, unless the House of Lords were to change the provisions. It would be wrong to concertina debate on all that into one single day. It is quite possible that that would mean that there would be perhaps half an hour or 40 minutes to discuss the Northern Irish element of the Bill, including the distribution of seats. That would not serve Northern Ireland well.
As several Members have made clear, there is an additional point to do with the Secretary of State for Wales. I have to say that since becoming Secretary of State she has become far more sour than she was before, when she was a rather more pleasant individual. She has refused point blank to allow a Welsh Grand Committee to discuss the very significant issues that there are in relation to Wales.
Therefore, although the Minister may be blasé, we are not buying any of this.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
It is a bit rich that the hon. Gentleman should repeat the same arguments as those that he listened to and swept aside when he was in a position to affect the outcome of such a debate.
I am going to reflect on an irony. Along with every other Member, I participated in the last general election. The Deputy Prime Minister—who at the time was leader of the Liberal Democrats—repeatedly made a point about the “same old politics”. That became a mantra, and I remember that his poll rating went up when he referred to it. Yet here we are having the same old politics announced from the Front Bench under his direction; this is his Bill. This is a constitutional measure, which we all understand is of considerable importance. It affects the constituencies, their nature and the nature of representation, and the way in which a Member is elected to this place. I can think of nothing as constitutionally profound as this—leaving aside European legislation—in all the time that I have been here. In addition, it is intended not to be unwound if it is won—that is the point behind it—so why are we looking at the same old politics?
This motion is a guillotine: that is what it is, straight and simple. We need not waste time debating whether it is half an hour short here or two hours short there, or whether we lose part of the debate because of the importance of various clauses. This should have been allowed to roll in this House for as long as it took. That was the constitutional rule almost—
Mr Shepherd
Yes, it was the convention, but conventions have been swept away. Again, that was largely done by the Labour Front-Bench teams of the past 13 years, and one does not now hear the word “convention” used in the House. We have no cause, urgency or reason to accept a guillotine such as this. I must tell the Deputy Prime Minister, through my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is a very respected member of the Conservative party, that I shall not hesitate to vote against the Deputy Prime Minister’s guillotine motion.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I wish to refer specifically to the Welsh Grand Committee issue. It has met to discuss matters of much less importance than this in the past. As Welsh Members will know, the Secretary of State has caused great controversy by changing the arrangements at the drop of a hat. She seems happy to do that on matters of less importance, but not on this one.
The Welsh clause will be debated on day four—20 October—along with clauses 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17, and schedule 7. That is also the day of the comprehensive spending review, so the media in Wales will not be dominated the following day by the details of the Welsh debate here—it will of course be dominated by the CSR and other matters—and the Welsh public will remain uninformed, as they are now, about the implications of the Government’s proposals. There is a clear benefit in having a Welsh Grand Committee sitting, so that Welsh Members can have a specific day on which to debate issues specific to Wales.
The Bill has huge implications for Wales—more so than for any other part of the UK. My former constituency, Caernarfon, was the most altered by the boundary changes put in place for the previous election and my constituents are still mystified about what happened. They were completely uninformed about that. [Interruption.] I was re-elected, but for the Arfon constituency, which is substantially different. I just point out that there is therefore huge value, in terms of public debates and public information for the people of Wales, in having a Welsh Grand Committee debate, and I cannot see why we cannot have one.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I, too, will vote against this guillotine motion if the House divides, but I plead with hon. and right hon. Members not to divide the House, because we need to get on with discussing this Bill. I commend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and the Front-Bench team for giving a reasonable amount of time to this Bill, but it is important that I should make three brief observations.
First, I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that we are all steeped in hypocrisy in the way in which we protest against guillotines and then find ourselves voting for them when we sit on the Government Benches. He did that and I dare say that I too will do so from time to time. Secondly, the approach being taken is the old way of doing things. We look forward to these arrangements being governed by a business Committee of the whole House, which reflects the interests of the whole House and will ensure that these things are discussed as a broad consensus in the House would want them discussed, rather than how those on the Treasury Bench see fit.
My third observation is that this is an important matter, because as we will discover—both those of us who have been through this process before and new Members—the disadvantage of having a knife fall in the middle of detailed discussions on a Bill of this nature is that we will discover things that may not have occurred to more than one Member in this House. Yet those arguments and discussions will be cut down in their prime.
I just hope that those on the Treasury Bench have considered the consequence of there being too many such occasions: it will whet the appetite of the other place. Time saved in this House may result in time added to scrutiny of the Bill in the other place. I urge those on the Treasury Bench seriously to keep under review the possibility of extending the time for debate on the Bill. I commend the Minister for saying that he will keep the matter under review. If he really wants to save time, the best way of saving time in the other place is for us to scrutinise the Bill properly. If we feel that our discussion has been cut short, we will encourage the other place to take whatever time is necessary.
The Electoral Commission has made it clear that unless the rules of the forthcoming referendum are settled six months before the referendum date, it will not support the referendum date of 5 May 2011. There is no possibility of the Bill completing all its stages by 5 November, so it is putting itself in a position in which it has to make a judgment on whether the clauses relating to the referendum are sufficiently settled before the Bill has completed its parliamentary stages and received Royal Assent.
I remember repeatedly saying in opposition that we should not amend the constitution in haste and should not gerrymander the constitution for the convenience of the governing party, yet I fear that the guillotine motion reflects that that is exactly what is happening. For that reason, if the House divides—I hope that it will not—I will vote against the guillotine motion.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
If the House divides tonight, I shall not support the programme motion. A constitutional issue of this kind should be scrutinised in full; Members of Parliament are elected to the House to do exactly that. Whether we are on the Opposition or the Government Benches, our job is to scrutinise the Government’s Bills, and constitutional Bills need the greatest scrutiny.
I have no objection to the Government allowing five days for debate; if they had not put a limit on the time until which we could debate on those days, that would have been fine. The Government say that there is plenty of time to discuss the Bill. If that is so, they do not need to close the business at 9 o’clock or 11 o’clock in the evening. If I am right, and the House wants to carry on a bit beyond that, let it talk on. That is what this House—this mother of democracy—is about. Forget the Labour years when the House was a rubber stamp. Let us turn the House back into what it should be: it should scrutinise the Government.
This is the start of the new democracy. In Committee, Government Members will be able to vote against the party line on matters that are not in the manifesto. That is a great improvement, and it is a great enabling power that the Prime Minister has given us. However, limiting debate so that we never reach clauses, and so cannot discuss and vote on them, is pointless.
We have at the Dispatch Box a Minister of great courage and ability. If he were to say at the end of this debate, “We will remove the time limit for the last four days,” his career would blossom, and I urge him to do that.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I endorse all the remarks that have been made by my hon. Friends, and I, too, will vote against the programme motion if there is a Division. I simply add to the arguments already ably put forward that this is a constitutional Bill. One has to ask why there are conventions governing such Bills. The answer, as is well established by those who study these matters and who have learned from experience, is that there is a reason for the rule. The reason is that the Bill is important to the future of the electorate of the United Kingdom. It is seminal.
This is not just one of those occasions when one sees people get up and declaim that there is some great constitutional issue at stake and then on examination it turns out not to be anything of the kind. This is genuinely a constitutional Bill, and we deserve the opportunity to debate it properly. I shall vote against the programme motion on principle because it is in contravention of the conventions of this House. As we see the tsunami of constitutional aberrations inflicted on us in defiance of our manifesto and the wishes of the electorate, I am afraid I will have to continue to vote against the proposals because they are in defiance of the interests of the electorate of the UK.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
The Minister said some fine words about the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. We tried hard, and members from both sides of the House worked incredibly hard, to get before the House the report that is in the Vote Office, and which I personally sent to every Member of Parliament on Friday by e-mail so that they could be informed about some of the broader issues before the debate got under way.
We are complaining about the number of days on the Floor of the House, but that number exceeds the number of days that the Select Committee was given to look at this issue in detail. There is a problem with that. People may say, “Well, we can make it good on the Floor of the House.” The Floor of the House is a hothouse, and people can be controversial and take sides. If we allow effective pre-legislative scrutiny by a Select Committee made up of members of all shades of opinion, we end up with a view, and some research done on behalf of all Members of the House that, I hope, carries some weight. If the Government take away that weight and that scrutiny, if they deny Members whom the House asked to undertake that job the time to do it effectively, they delegitimise the Bill.
Other people have said that if we cannot have a proper debate in the House of Commons, the debate goes to the other place. As a House of Commons person and a parliamentarian, I do not want to see that. It is essential that the House be allowed to debate whatever issue to the fullest extent. When the issue is one that strikes at the very heart of our democracy, that raises issues of national concern, whether it is the number of Members of Parliament, the boundaries, the question on the referendum paper or our electoral system, surely it is even more necessary that this House should have the proper processes to do its job properly.
We are discussing a programme motion before we get stuck into the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. Just as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said, perhaps we need to look again very soon at the idea of the business Committee. We also need to look again at timetabling sensible scrutiny at the beginning of the legislative process, not halfway through it, as we are about to go into battle on particular clauses and fight each other and have debates and votes. I would ask the Minister to learn some lessons on this Bill, which are applicable to future democratic Bills in the pipeline. If he does not, he places us all in the difficulty that we are sending to the other place Bills that may be faulty, are not legitimate and have not had the proper debate that they deserve. Then, we should not complain if we reap the whirlwind of that decision. It lies in the hands of this House and this Chamber.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
I too want to speak about legitimacy and adequacy of consideration in my capacity as Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee. We decided that we did not wish to look at the entirety of the Bill; that it was more appropriately dealt with by another Committee. However, it was appropriate for us to discuss, following a seminar with the Electoral Commission, the impact of holding the AV referendum on the same day as the Scottish elections. It was appropriate that we should seek views from political Scotland on its observations, and we did so. I am not convinced that the House, having made that effort to consult Scotland, has left sufficient time under the proposals for those views, which I understand were circulated to Members by e-mail only yesterday, to be taken into account by the Government.
A strong view has been expressed by civic Scotland that is hostile to the proposals in the main. The Government may well decide to ignore it, which is entirely their right and responsibility, but I do not believe that they have considered it at all, which undermines the credibility of the debate in the House. Should the measures go through without due consideration it would be only right, in those circumstances, that another place should intervene to send some of them back.
Question put—
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:43 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 28 / Noes: 323 - Question accordingly negatived.
21:57 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 264 / Noes: 326 - Question accordingly negatived.
23:00 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 17 / Noes: 346 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 155, page 1, leave out line 6 and insert—
‘(2) (a) The Electoral Commission shall within two months of Royal Assent to this Act specify the date on which the referendum is to be held.
(b) The specified date must be—
(i) within 18 months of the date of Royal Assent to this Act, and
(ii) a date on which no other election to a parliament or assembly in the United Kingdom is to be held.
(c) The Minister must lay before Parliament the draft of an Order in Council to give effect to the specified date.
(d) The draft of the Order in Council under paragraph (c) above shall not be laid before Parliament until the specified date has been agreed by the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales.’.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 4, page 1, line 6, leave out
‘must be held on 5 May 2011’
and insert—
‘shall be held on a date specified in an order made by the Minister, provided that such date—
(a) shall not coincide with any poll or polls held for any parliamentary assembly or regularly held local government election; and
(b) shall be at least six months after the commencement of the referendum period (as specified in Schedule 1).’.
Amendment 126, page 1, line 6, leave out ‘on 5 May 2011’ and insert
‘within 18 months of Royal Assent on a date that shall not coincide with any poll or polls for any parliamentary assembly or regularly held local government elections, to be specified by order subject to the approval of both Houses and following a consultation undertaken by the Electoral Commission.’.
Amendment 1, page 1, line 6, leave out ‘5 May 2011’ and insert ‘8 September 2011’.
Amendment 124, page 1, line 6, leave out ‘5 May’ and insert ‘2 June’.
Amendment 225, page 1, line 6, leave out ‘5 May 2011’ and insert
‘the day of the next general election’.
Amendment 5, in schedule 1, page 14, line 7, leave out
‘day on which this Act is passed’
and insert ‘relevant date’.
Amendment 6, page 14, line 8, at end insert—
‘1A (1) For the purposes of paragraph 1(a) above the “relevant date” is a date specified in an order made by the Minister, after consultation to be held after Royal Assent to this Act with the Electoral Commission as to an appropriate period for the fair conduct of the referendum.
(2) If in the opinion of the Electoral Commission the date on which Royal Assent is given to this Act would mean that there would be an insufficient period for the fair conduct of the referendum if it were held on the date otherwise required by section 1, the Minister may by order specify such later date on which the referendum shall be held as the Electoral Commission shall approve.’.
Mr MacNeil
I am glad that I may speak to our amendment on the date of the referendum on the voting system.
The current proposed date makes the referendum a squatter in another’s house, perhaps even a parasite. It is quite unbelievable that, of all possible days, one has been chosen that means the concerns of parts of the current UK are completely overlooked and disregarded. It is almost as though the Bill were intended to find opponents, and it has been successful in that end. It has created a coalition of opponents.
The handling of the referendum’s timing has been at best insensitive and insulting and at worst high-handed and cack-handed. In Scotland, we have already moved our council elections by a year so that they do not interfere with the parliamentary elections and vice versa. We have shown respect for others and each other. I have heard about the respect agenda, and I am now seeing its substance. I have also heard about the Liberal-Tory big society, and I wonder whether that is as vacuous, but that is another debate.
The fact that the Electoral Commission has sent guidance to Scotland’s 32 local authorities informing them that the referendum will be “the senior poll” is bad news for all of us who respect what happens in the Scottish Parliament. The counting of ballots for the Scottish Parliament will come second, which could delay some Scottish parliamentarians’ results until the next day, or perhaps even later given Scottish geography or, as I can testify from the experience of the 2007 election, weather. The same could apply in Northern Ireland. Wales has already seen the problem coming and moved its elections, because there are to be two referendums, a council election and an Assembly election in 2011.
For all parties in Scotland, the question is why Scottish issues should be put on the back burner for a referendum for which there appears to be little real public appetite. There has been surprisingly honest input on that question—hostile, some might call it, although we might call it sensible. There has been sensible input from Jim Tolson, who happens to be the Liberal Democrat MSP for Dunfermline West. He has supported us, saying that he is very much against having a referendum on the same day as the Scottish election. Oh that the Liberal Democrats south of the border could show the same sense.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Jim Tolson’s submission was one of a number that were made to the Scottish Affairs Committee, which have now been circulated to the House as a whole by e-mail? I hope that all Members will study them in great detail.
Mr MacNeil
I welcome that input from the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee. We all look forward to opening that e-mail and spending many happy hours reading it.
Mr MacNeil
Maybe not happy hours, just hours.
Tom Aitchison, the convenor of the interim electoral management board for Scotland, has expressed sensible concerns about holding the UK’s alternative vote referendum on the same day as the Scottish Parliament poll. The proposal is an example of bad practice, and perhaps a slippery slope. In the United States, referendums are often used as wedge issues—some would allege that the Republican strategist Karl Rove uses them for exactly that purpose. We do not want our democracies hijacked by side issues on the day of a main vote that has been expected for years.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
If I recall the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 correctly, the Scottish Parliament has the ability to vary the date of its election. If there is concern about having the polls on the same day, surely it could move the election a few weeks either side.
Mr MacNeil
I hear the hon. Gentleman’s accent. I have heard about the respect agenda, but I smell cultural imperialism in its worst form.
The UK’s media are pretty poor at dealing with complexities across the UK, and we are concerned that the important issues that will rightly come before the Scottish people will be sidelined by an “X Factor” media dealing with the simpler issue of the referendum. It happens in the US—it is the big ticket election, which affects all viewers, listeners, readers and dare I say media consumers, that counts, regardless of the importance of the issues being debated. However, is daily health and education policy not more important than the type of electoral system that is employed every four to five years? That is not to say that the electoral system is unimportant, but surely it is further down the hierarchy of needs and importance.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a disconnect, because serious politicians in Scotland will be dealing with issues of health and education, which are so important in our Parliament? There will be no real debate about the alternative vote because, frankly, no one is interested in it. There will therefore be a double whammy.
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend’s assertion is correct. The referendum, when it arrives, will probably receive very little attention in Scotland, because those of us involved in politics will not waste any time discussing whether we are for or against. We will have greater priorities that affect Scots day in, day out—and not a voting system for Westminster that comes along every four or five years. [Interruption.] I think that I have roused some Members.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
Which is it to be: will the referendum arouse no interest whatsoever in Scotland because we have weightier matters to discuss, or will it drown out all other voices and deprive the Scottish people of the ability to consider their local elections?
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady misses the point which is the way in which the UK is constructed, the way in which finance goes into the media in the UK, and where the media broadcast from and are centralised. Everybody accepts that that issue will dominate.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
It is not clear whether the hon. Gentleman’s position is that there should be a referendum on another date, or whether he views the issue as so irrelevant that it should be held on no date. Is it no date or a different date?
Mr MacNeil
I have clearly engaged the hon. Gentleman well, because he anticipates my next point. I remind him of what I have said: it is not that the electoral system is unimportant; it is just that it is lower down the hierarchy of needs and importance.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman truly saying that the electorate lack the sophistication to understand various different issues at the same time? In other words, is he saying that the electorate cannot walk and chew gum at the same time?
Mr MacNeil
I am saying not that the electorate have any difficulties, but that the media that broadcast into people’s homes have a difficulty. If the hon. Gentleman is secure and certain of the sophistication of the electorate, he will doubtless support the inclusion of the single transferable vote, and perhaps other forms of election on the ballot paper. That would give proper cognisance to the sophistication of the electorate.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me and with Tom Aitchison, to whom he has already referred, that this is not simply a matter of the sophistication of the electorate? Mr Aitchison has identified serious practical problems, not least, as he put it in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee, the problems of sourcing enough ballot boxes, the hiring of additional venues and the expense of hiring additional staff.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady makes her point well; I will add no more, other than to thank her for that intervention.
The amendment tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends seeks to correct the huge error that has been made and to enable a day to be found, with the Electoral Commission taking the lead, so that the referendum can take place on a date on which no other election to a Parliament or Assembly in the United Kingdom is to be held. To that end, it seeks respect and consultation between the UK’s parliamentary and Assembly institutions. I have not prescribed a specific date, but have specified a time frame within which a referendum could take place. That would enable everything to occur and the process to be completed before the next UK election, which was alluded to during the programme motion debate.
My thinking in framing the amendment was to avoid being prescriptive and repeating the Deputy Prime Minister’s error of finding a date and arguing for it, regardless of what else might be happening on that date. My main motivation has been to respect already established processes and elections by finding another day, consensually and with respect for all by all. I do not, however, rule out supporting other amendments through a mechanism of mutual support.
I move the amendment because, although this issue is important—the Committee would not be discussing it if it was not—it is not as important as the range of policy choices to be made in Scotland and the re-election of an SNP Government on 5 May 2011.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I rise to move amendment 4, which was tabled in my name and those of my colleagues and which is associated with amendments 5 and 6.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. I must advise the hon. Gentleman that he cannot move his amendment. He can speak to it, but he cannot move it.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful for the correction. My mistake reflects a gross lack of experience in this place, for which I apologise. I will vote on my amendments if I get the opportunity, but I will also support the amendment that has just been moved in the name of the nationalists.
I appreciate that, following the heated discussion about this issue during the summer, we are less likely to win this vote. Early-day motion 613 attracted a large number of signatures, including those of some 40 or 45 Conservative Members, some of whom have been made Parliamentary Private Secretaries, with one being given the deputy chairmanship of the Conservative party. Other promises have no doubt been made and career-ending threats have certainly been delivered. I wonder what would happen to the date of this referendum if there was a free vote, but that is clearly not going to happen.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I express extreme disappointment that, as one of the people who signed the early-day motion, no offers have been made to me whatsoever?
Mr Jenkin
My hon. Friend should call that freedom. It is surprising that this has turned out to be a matter of such extreme importance to the coalition. The question is not whether the yes or no campaign will do better on this or that date—some people profess to know, but I confess that I do not—but why the Government think it is in the national interest or, dare I say it, in their interest to have the referendum on that particular date, and why it is so important to this Government. The only explanation that we have been given so far relates to money, but, considering the scale of the national deficit, I regard £30 million as more of an excuse than a reason. It is rather like the schoolboy whose excuse that he was late for school because he missed the bus does not exactly explain why he missed the bus.
There might be a perceived advantage for the yes campaign in having an early date before the Government incur too much disapproval from voters in relation to the difficult decisions that have to be made about the deficit. The yes campaign might perceive an advantage from a higher turnout, although the NO2AV campaign disputes that. The yes campaign might perceive an advantage in confusion and ignorance, because there is bound to be more confusion and ignorance about the substance of the issue, which I will address later in my remarks, if the polls are combined.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman stated that, if there was a free vote, his amendment would almost certainly be agreed to. Does he agree that, if there was a free vote, there would not be a referendum?
Mr Jenkin
That is outside the purview of my amendment.
There might be a perceived advantage to the yes campaign, which the Deputy Prime Minister is pursuing, or to the coalition. There is a risk of a serious collapse in Liberal Democrat support at next year’s local Scottish and Welsh elections, but it would be of advantage to the Liberal Democrats to have the enticement of the referendum on the reform of the electoral system to encourage their activists to press their voters out to vote. I might be wrong—I will stand corrected if I am—but we have not had an explanation. Either way, it is wrong in principle that the Executive should seek to use elections to influence the outcome of a referendum on an important constitutional question, or that they should use the referendum to influence the outcome of elections.
Amendment 4, which is in my name and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends, is similar to amendment 155—the Scottish National party proposal. It provides for an order whereby the Government can choose any date that does not coincide with a poll that is regularly held for parliamentary, Assembly or local government elections. In addition, it proposes—this is important—that the referendum is held
“at least six months after the commencement of the referendum period”.
As I mentioned, the Electoral Commission made it clear that it will press for a deferment of the referendum if the rules of the referendum are not clear on a six-month time frame from the proposed date. In fact, the referendum period should count, because it restricts what people can spend and what Ministers can say or announce to promote a particular viewpoint, which might distort the result. The six-month period provides the framework of discipline that provides the fairness of the referendum. Unless we have a six-month referendum period, which is not possible if we do not change the date, we are tempting providence that there will be an unfair referendum.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman any clearer on the Government’s intentions if the House of Lords makes a significant amendment on the timing of the referendum?
Mr Jenkin
I have had no indication what would happen in that situation. I assume that the Government would accept such an amendment, because they cannot afford to delay the Bill. I would point to other amendments in the group that refer to the referendum period and are consequential on it.
The real reason for avoiding the combination of polls with referendums is fairness. Whatever the merits of combining referendums with elections throughout the referendum constituency, all voters should at least be treated the same. It is obvious from the date on the table at the moment that voters are being treated differently in different parts of the country.
When the then Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was contemplating holding a referendum on the euro on the same day as Welsh and Scottish elections, Professor Larry LeDuc, one of the world’s leading referendum academics, made it clear that he could not recall one similar case of such differential treatment of a referendum electorate. I challenge anyone to find an example of a serious country putting a serious decision to its people in a referendum when there is such different treatment of electors.
Professor LeDuc thought that the UK proposal was probably unique and volunteered this opinion:
“The effects…would not be uniform across the country. It would likely produce considerable distortion with regard to turnout, the nature of the campaign, and a variety of other matters that might be difficult to determine in advance. The referendum, if it occurs, would be a different sort of political event in England than it would be in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I can’t think of a case parallel to that anywhere else.”
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
There is an obvious reason for that. In the United States, where it is common practice to combine referendums with a series of elections, there is a system by which almost all elections are held on the same day in all states. That situation does not exist here. Parts of our country have devolved Assemblies and others do not.
Mr Jenkin
We have come to a strange pass when Liberal Democrats hold the United States up as a model of democracy. Another point is that the United States has not changed its voting system. It has used the one it inherited from this place: the plain, straightforward, vanilla, winner-takes-all system. Perhaps that is why US democracy works so well. In fact, I do not know any academic authority that would hold up the US as a model of running referendums, and I will come back to that in a moment.
Mr Weir
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that politicians might discuss public spending cuts rather than the referendum? There will be a disconnect, because the BBC, for example, might broadcast news only on the referendum, but the battle on the ground will be completely different. That will also skew the result.
Mr Jenkin
If I may, I will come to the question of broadcasting balance when I have dealt with campaign confusion.
The commission stated:
“The issue surrounding different political parties campaigning together (referendum) and against each other (elections) may also cause confusion, and consequent disinterest (even hostility), among voters.”
On reflection, perhaps the yes campaign wants hostility. Let us face it: that campaign wants a plague on all our houses, and to change the system at a stroke to reflect the hostility that people feel towards this place. I am sure that the yes campaign will seek to press that button.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned the Electoral Commission. Given the commission’s role in overseeing the AV referendum, is he concerned about the fact that the chair of the commission, Jenny Watson, used to work for Charter 88, which is a pro-European lobby group?
Mr Jenkin
When my hon. Friend says “pro-European,” I think he means pro-electoral reform. I have no such concerns; I have the highest respect for Jenny Watson. I think that, because of her previous position, she will want to be seen to be as impartial as possible. It is a natural concern, but people would be wrong to draw that conclusion from her conduct in office.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the submission to the Scottish Affairs Committee from Fairer Votes, the pro-PR campaign in Scotland, which has also argued for holding the referendum on a different day. Even those in favour of AV do not support the proposed date.
Mr Jenkin
The date of 5 May 2011 is losing friends very quickly.
The Electoral Commission argues that the environment in which voters live may influence voting patterns. Voters in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales would be
“subject to more intensive and varied campaigning than the electorate in England (in a nationwide referendum)…Certain parts of the electorate may feel that they are less well informed about the referendum issue than in other parts of the country. Conversely, they may feel that they are not as well informed about the national and/or local elections.”
Those are all reasons why confusion could be generated in a referendum.
Perhaps the most important consideration is broadcasting transparency. The Electoral Commission also recognised that
“the requirement to present balanced reporting of elections and a referendum is an especially difficult issue to manage when holding combined polls. Distinguishing between election and referendum campaign activities will be extremely difficult, if not impossible in some instances…These issues may have a negative effect on voter awareness; it will also make the monitoring of broadcasting (and campaign expenses) more difficult.”
The then BBC chief political adviser said in February 2002 that she had met Helen Liddell, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, and Jack McConnell, the then First Minister, and that she had
“made my views very clear to the politicians and the BBC…it was a bad move…condescending to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland…it would put broadcasters in an impossible position”.
It is not difficult to see why. How many parties in the Scottish elections will broadly support changing the voting system? It may be two, three, four or even none. But how many will be on the other side of the argument? How can a programme that has a panel of guests to talk about the election and the referendum possibly be balanced? How can the BBC achieve balance and transparency on the referendum issue at the same time as it does so on the Scottish elections?
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
I am listening to my hon. Friend’s speech with great interest. He questions the ability of the media to construct a panel in such circumstances. We often say that we want local issues, rather than national issues, to dominate local elections, but the national perspective can be focused very much on a single issue, as in this case, and it is surely not beyond the wit of broadcasters to sort the matter out—including those in the BBC, who are paid considerable sums to do so.
Mr Jenkin
I am merely quoting the former chief political adviser to the BBC who said that it would put broadcasters in an impossible position. My hon. Friend’s argument is with her, not me.
Broadcasters are especially important in referendums and elections. Viewers may not be generally aware of the obligation for broadcasters—unlike newspapers—to provide balanced coverage, but they accord respect to broadcast programmes reflecting that obligation. Using the BBC as a proxy for the centralism of British broadcasting, it is worth reflecting that only 3% of the output across seven BBC networks broadcast to the whole of Britain comes from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where 17% of the audience live. Those figures may be out of date but that does not invalidate the substance of the point.
Viewers in Scotland will see the AV referendum on the UK news with little or no news of the Scottish election. Coverage of the Scottish elections will therefore be more in the hands of the press, who are not bound by the requirements of balance. This tension in the structure of broadcasting proved politically controversial in April 1995 when the BBC in London scheduled an extended edition of “Panorama” with an interview with the then Prime Minister John Major. Unfortunately, that was only three days before the Scottish elections. After a court action, Lord Abernethy, later backed by Lord Hope, Lord Murray and Lord McCluskey, granted an injunction banning transmission in Scotland so as to ensure fair coverage of the elections there. How would it be possible for any programme about the referendum transmitted in London to be banned in the same way if it were thought that it might distort the coverage of the elections in Scotland?
It goes without saying that the AV referendum will be heavily covered by the broadcasters in London, where there will be no elections at the time—not even local ones. The Ladbroke Grove set will therefore be obsessed with the referendum and not very interested in anything else. I cannot see how a business of the size and complexity of the BBC can balance all these issues so as to provide fair coverage.
The Electoral Commission also mentioned respect for devolved institutions. I was an opponent of devolution, but we now have a Scottish Parliament that reflects the sovereign will of the sovereign Scottish people. I am afraid that the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart)—an English Member, albeit with an impeccable Scottish lineage and a lovely Scottish accent—that we could tell the Scottish Parliament to move its elections, because we are more important, is not a very Unionist sentiment. It is bound to cause exactly the kind of resentment and mistrust between the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament that surely we want to avoid—so the Scottish nationalists would probably love it.
The Electoral Commission concluded its now famous press release from July 2002 by stating:
“Referendums on fundamental issues of national importance should be considered in isolation”.
As a coda to that account, I shall turn briefly to the arguments advanced by the commission today. It says that it has based its decision to reverse its position on the date on the available research, including from countries where combining referendums with other polls is commonplace. In the US, for example, the big concern about combined elections is that people have so many ballot papers to deal with at a time that they vote in the elections but not in the referendums. That system is therefore not necessarily a guarantee of turnout and the US is not a great model for the good conduct of referendums.
The commission cites the US, Australia, Ireland and several European countries, including Switzerland and Finland. However, the commission has ignored the fact that Australia has compulsory voting, so turnout is hardly an issue. We can therefore dismiss that argument. Finland is an interesting example. I was forwarded an e-mail from Dr Maija Setälä who is a research fellow in the political science department of the university of Turku. She says:
“The UK electoral commission is absolutely wrong; we have had two national referendums: one in 1931 on prohibition law and another one in 1994 on the EU accession. Both were initiated by the parliamentary majority. Both of these referendums were advisory. So, Finland is about as active in using referendums as the UK.”
In fact, we have more experience of using referendums than Finland. For the Electoral Commission even to mention Finland as an example that we should follow, when it has had so little experience of referendums, underlines the lack of quality in its research.
The Electoral Commission paper, which went along with what the Government wanted, reflects a distinct lack of consultation outside the commission until the date was already decided on. The people in the BBC whom I personally addressed on this question said, “Well, we don’t really want to pick a fight with the Government, because we have our own battles to fight with them.” To expect the BBC to weigh in against the Government’s date was perhaps a little optimistic of me, but I had to try. The quality of the commission’s consultation and research has been lacking, which probably reflects the fact that most of its people have changed since 1992. However, the fundamental point about the paper is that it does not address substantively any of the arguments advanced in 2002 in favour of separate polls.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Throughout your speech, you have quoted many supportive references, and made a very strong argument, but you have not mentioned what the electorate would want—
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that I have not been making a speech.
Justin Tomlinson
Would the electorate really want to come out and vote twice on an issue, when they could get it over with in one day?
Mr Jenkin
If we were really keen on reflecting what the electorate of this country want, we would not give them a referendum at all, because I do not think they want one. [Hon. Members: “Europe!”] In the interests of coalition unity, let us not go there—I think that is the expression.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend not just revealed the truth of his position, which is that he has constructed a very elegant, beautifully researched and fascinating argument for a position that I do not think he really holds? His real position is that he does not want a referendum at all, because he does not want AV and thinks that we might lose the referendum. I agree with him on AV—I do not want it either—but I think he lacks confidence in the first-past-the-post system and our party’s ability, and that of many supporters on the Labour Benches, such as the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), who made a fantastic speech in support of first past the post, to win the argument. He has therefore constructed this elaborate mechanism to make an argument that he does not really buy.
Mr Jenkin
I am rather touched—I have never been accused of lacking confidence before. I think that the NO2AV campaign will win whatever the date, and I have every confidence that AV will be trashed at the polls. However, I do not think that my hon. Friend has been listening to my point. The question is not whether the date should be moved for the convenience of the yes or no campaigns; it is an issue of principle. If we believe in direct democracy, as I do, we should want the issues addressed in a referendum to be separated and—as the Electoral Commission used to put it—elevated above the party political battle, so that the British people have a fair and uncluttered opportunity to understand those issues. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will support either the amendment in the name of the nationalists or, failing that, the amendment that I will move later.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the serious contributions made in the first few speeches. Even if things do not turn out how those hon. Members would like this evening, I am sure that colleagues in the other place will read their speeches with great interest when they come to decide on the future of this Bill.
I relish my new role and the prospect of working with the coalition Government and, in particular, with the Deputy Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, both of whom are clearly committed to an agenda of reforming the Government’s political programme and strengthening our democracy. However, I am disappointed that the Deputy Prime Minister is not here. I appreciate that he has other important things to do, but it is ironic—this draws on a point made by the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles)—that the biggest proponent and advocate of the alternative vote is not here to talk about it.
The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is right that the burden should be on those of us who want AV to prove the case to the British people, first, that they should be motivated sufficiently to turn out on a separate date and vote on AV and, secondly, that they should vote yes in the referendum. I am disappointed, therefore, that the Deputy Prime Minister is not here. He is the great reformer, and his not being here sends, I am afraid, all the wrong messages to those of us who want to join him in changing how we vote in the House of Commons.
Dr Julian Lewis
Those of us who do not want AV under any circumstances are actually rather heartened by the fact that, apart from Liberal Democrat Front-Bench Members, who perhaps have to be here, there are only two Liberal Democrat Members—albeit very distinguished ones—favouring this stage of the debate with their presence.
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman knows all about conspiracy theories, and there will be people around the country with their own conspiracy theories about why so few Liberal Democrat Members are here.
The Bill has some positive aspects. In particular, some of us think that the proposals for a referendum on the voting system are good ones, but unfortunately we have concerns, as we will discuss, that other aspects of the Bill will do much to undermine, rather than enhance, British democracy. I am afraid that those aspects appear to be the product of narrow party interests, and given how the Bill has been drafted, there is a danger that those of us who would otherwise have supported it, and who ordinarily would have been allies of those on the coalition Front Bench and the Deputy Prime Minister will be forced to oppose it. The Committee has the opportunity to iron out those flaws so that the legislation can be made to support the high ideals of constitutional reform in the national interest, to which the coalition aspired only five months ago.
The starting point for today’s debate is clause 1, which, as was explained by the previous two speakers, stipulates that a referendum on moving to the alternative vote system for parliamentary elections “must” be held on 5 May 2011. As has been said by the chuntering hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), the Committee will know that only one party—the Labour party—went into the last election with a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on moving to AV. That commitment was made after an attempt by the then Labour Government to legislate for such a referendum earlier this year through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. Unfortunately, however, those provisions were blocked by Conservative peers in the unelected House of Lords—so the conspiracy theory about why the Deputy Prime Minister is not here will continue. Furthermore, I am happy to note—and put the record right—that clauses providing for a referendum had previously been passed by a substantial majority thanks, in part, to the support of Liberal Democrat Members, one or two of whom have bothered to be here today while we discuss clause 1 of this great reforming Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill.
It is right to give the people a choice between the first-past-the-post and the alternative vote systems. AV is, like first past the post, a majoritarian system that maintains the single Member constituency link. However, it offers voters the ability to express a greater range of preferences than does first past the post, and that element has, arguably, become more salient in recent years, with the resurgence of multi-party politics in the late 20th century. AV is also more likely to secure the return of Members of Parliament with the preferences of more than 50% of electors. However, the strength of that likelihood varies depending on the form of AV used. It should be noted—I am sure that colleagues are aware of this—that the system proposed in the Bill allowing voters to express as many or as few preferences as they like would not guarantee the return of every Member with the preferences of more than 50% of electors. None the less, the voluntary model of AV on offer here could increase the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Is not even to call this a mouse of a proposal to give a mouse a bad name? It is like Mr and Mrs Mouse got together and had a huge litter of children—and this AV proposal is the runt of that litter.
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman was, I am sure, in the House when the then MP for Cambridge referred to it as a “jemmy in the door”. I am not sure what the current intentions or aspirations of the Liberal Democrats are—survival might be one of them—but it is just a nasty piece of work, because we are not sure what they stand for or what the end goal is. But that is what we have, and sometimes the best can be the enemy of the good. We are where we are.
Others, of course, favour retaining the existing, first-past-the-post system, believing it a more straightforward method of voting that is more likely to avoid hung Parliaments and unstable Governments. I respect those views. Such differences of opinion are as evident in the Labour party as they are anywhere else—I hasten to add that some of my best friends hold that view. Yet although many of my colleagues are divided on the merits of different electoral systems, we are united in our belief that we should have a public debate about whether to move to AV, and that the voters should be given the final choice in a referendum. Although we support such a referendum, we share the concerns that many have voiced about precisely what the best time to hold it is. We believe that there is a serious concern about whether it is wise to combine such a referendum with the elections on 5 May 2011, as clause 1 proposes.
If passed, the Bill will change the way we choose Members of our elected House of Commons, change the size of the House of Commons, change our boundaries and change the way we do politics for at least a generation. Let us compare and contrast the haste with which that is being done—something on which there is a genuine difference of view, and not just between political parties, but within them—with House of Lords reform. I am not being critical of the groundwork being done on House of Lords reforms. All parties and most MPs agree on the need to reform the House of Lords. However, this coalition Government have established a Joint Committee, which is currently meeting and chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, with a draft Bill to be published before the end of this year. The draft Bill will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee over several months, and a Bill will be formally presented to Parliament, with, I am sure, a lengthy Second Reading debate, followed by a Committee stage and so on. Why is House of Lords reform treated with such care, attention and detail, yet House of Commons reforms is treated with undue haste and contempt?
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is strange that a parallel piece of legislation is effectively extending the length of this Parliament to five years, yet we have an unseemly rush towards a referendum that, frankly, could be held at any time over the next three or four years of this Parliament? Does he have any clue as to the psychology of the coalition Government in rushing for a referendum next May?
Sadiq Khan
The reason there has been a push for changing the voting system and for MPs being encouraged to try to secure more than half of the electorate is that trust and confidence had been broken by expenses and all the rest of it. The irony is that this shabby deal that the coalition Government have agreed—a fixed-term Parliament, rushing through a referendum on 5 May 2011, the boundary changes, and all the other things—is breaking the trust and confidence that we have been trying to build over the past few weeks and months, yet they do so at their peril. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) referred to his theories, but nobody has yet given the reason why 5 May 2011 should be the date of the referendum. If it is the case that the next election should be fought with 600 seats rather than 650, and with different boundaries—I accept that some hon. Members on the Government Benches hold this view—that can still be achieved, but by having a referendum later than 5 May 2011. What is the reason for the rush?
Richard Fuller
Will the right hon. Gentleman admit that it is somewhat hubristic for Labour Members to talk about the timing of referendums, when we are still waiting for the referendum that they promised when they were in office on European reform? I do not know whether he is a good judge of the timing of referendums, as last time he did not put that referendum in place at all.
Sadiq Khan
I am happy to take as many interventions as possible, but the hon. Gentleman has to grow up. Just grow up: we are having a proper debate about clause 1. As the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) said, this is really the old politics. Let us debate the merits of clause 1.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I hope that we can introduce some civility into this debate. The shadow Minister really should raise the level of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) raised a valid point: it ill behoves the right hon. Gentleman to lecture us on referendums on far-reaching constitutional issues when his party not only reneged on a solemn promise made at the ballot box to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but guillotined the relevant Bill, forcing it through this House.
Sadiq Khan
I am happy to compare the record of Labour Governments on having referendums and making constitutional changes—changes with agreement and proper pre-legislative scrutiny—with that of this coalition Government or any previous Conservative Government.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the timing of the important referendum on Scottish independence, which actually occurred before the Bill had passed through this House?
Sadiq Khan
One of the important things that the hon. Gentleman has to understand and accept is that one reason why a change in the voting system has been recommended is so that we can win back the trust and confidence of the British people. It ill behoves him to try to do that by harking back to precedents that I am afraid did not win the trust and confidence of the British people, but led to bigger problems than they solved.
Mrs McGuire
I appreciate that my right hon. Friend was not in the House at that time, so perhaps I could remind him that the constitutional issue that was put before the Scottish and Welsh people arose as a result of a cross-party consensus that that referendum should be held. There was not a unilateral decision on the date; there was an agreement on how we would move things forward, so that we could ascertain the views of the Scottish and Welsh people. That case is therefore a good example of cross-party co-operation on constitutional issues.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. If we are going to have interventions, can I ask that they be a bit shorter than that? Also, I am hearing noises from hon. Members to the side of me, which is inappropriate. I would ask right hon. and hon. Members not to chunter when an hon. Member is making a speech.
Sadiq Khan
My right hon. Friend makes a good point, but there is an even better point, which is that the issue was in our manifesto, which the British people voted on, rather than in an agreement reached after five days of haggling. There is a big difference between the two. The obvious question is: why the rush for 5 May 2011? We look forward to receiving the answer from the Parliamentary Secretary.
Mr Davidson
As someone who has form on supporting referendums, not only in the case of Maastricht, but on the constitution, I am in favour of the referendum that we are discussing now. However, to answer my right hon. Friend’s question about the timing, it is because a shabby deal has been done. In return for supporting Tory cuts, the Liberals get a reward. That is what this is about. It is very much the old politics, and that is why so many people will argue that crime should not pay, that the Liberals should be punished and that everybody should vote against AV in a referendum.
Sadiq Khan
What are the reasons for the coalition Government combining the referendum with the other elections taking place next May? One reason, as described by the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) in an intervention on the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, is that voters would be too fatigued to go to the polls twice in a year. That reason is a pretty feeble justification for choosing May 2011. If the coalition Government and the Deputy Prime Minister believe, as I do, that electoral reform is a fundamental constitutional issue and that the public genuinely want the opportunity to vote for change, we should all have the confidence to believe that voters would be willing to cast a vote in more than one ballot in a year.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the House ought to pay attention to the Gould report? That report was compiled at the behest of the previous Government, after the mess of the 2007 elections in Scotland, when there were various elections on the same day. Gould concluded that one
“problem with combining these elections has to do with the confusion it creates among the electorate,”
adding that
“it is clear that some voters were confused by the combined elections”.
The Deputy Prime Minister says that that is patronising, but surely no one could suggest that only the voters of Scotland will be confused. If voters are confused, voters are confused.
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Lady makes a good point. I shall come to Ron Gould and his report in a moment, but she is right to say that he was not being patronising, but recognising a real issue.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Just to exemplify the point, will the right hon. Gentleman consider Wales and the spectre of three elections being held there? We waited a long time for our referendum date from the previous Government, but it did not come. Now, under this Government, we are finally getting it. There is a prospect of three elections in Wales—the National Assembly referendum, the Assembly elections, and the AV referendum. What effect does he believe that will have on turnout, and does it not necessitate that at least one of those elections be held on the same day?
Sadiq Khan
The best that I can do for the hon. Gentleman is to quote from the evidence that the excellent Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform received, which said:
“There should be no distraction from the national assembly election. That is why we have agreed with other parties in the Assembly that our own referendum should not be held on the same day as the Assembly elections.”
The important point is that for very good reasons the Assembly has decided not to have its referendum on the same day as the election, because it does not want to blur the issues. It would be counter-productive for there to be three, or two, elections in the early part of 2011; it would be confusing and blur the issues.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I rise to agree and to make exactly the same point. I disagree with the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams): if the fatigue argument carries any weight, the Welsh electorate will already be fatigued, as we have our own referendum on 3 March, which is a very strong argument for having the other referendum on some other date.
Sadiq Khan
Another explanation for combining the referendum with the elections on 5 May is that it would save costs, and that justification is persuasive. However, there is a problem with that argument as well. The great reformer, the Deputy Prime Minister, would sound a little more convincing on that issue if he had demonstrated some consistency in the past. Last year, when there was a clamour from electoral reformists for a referendum on AV to be held on the same day as the general election, he was passionately opposed to it. The same money that the coalition Government are keen to save next May could have been saved this May, had the referendum been held on the same day as the general election, which would have meant a potential turnout of not 84% but 100%.
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Lady makes a good point with which many colleagues agree, but I shall move on.
In my view, the Deputy Prime Minister had good reasons for opposing the combination. He worried that holding a referendum on electoral reform on the same day as the general election would cloud the debate and affect the outcome, making a yes vote less likely; he was right. He instead supported our proposals for a referendum after the election, but within approximately 18 months of the legislation gaining Royal Assent, which meant that the most likely date would have been October 2011. That course of action would not have delivered the savings that that combination with a general election would have provided, but, given the importance of the decision in question, it was a fairer and more constitutional way of proceeding. That was his view back then, but we know that it has changed.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
For clarification, will my right hon. Friend make something absolutely clear? When the Deputy Prime Minister opposed having a referendum on the alternative vote on the same day as the general election, was that before or after he was given a ministerial salary, a ministerial car, a ministerial private office and the accompanying prestige?
Sadiq Khan
My hon. Friend has made his point.
I hope that all Members, whether for or against a change from the first-past-the-post system to the alternative vote, agree that if we hold a referendum on the voting system, it is imperative that that referendum is transparent, clear and understandable to the British people and that the result is invulnerable to any charges of illegitimacy. I fear that the timetable for the referendum proposed by the Bill will fail on each of those counts. So I urge coalition Front Benchers to listen to the concerns being articulated by people of all political persuasions about the dangers of a clash between the referendum and local and national elections, which, as we must not forget, are due to take place in some places but not in others.
In Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, numerous warnings have now been given about the danger of combining the referendum with elections to the various devolved institutions. Those warnings have highlighted that holding simultaneous polls risks confusing voters and muddying political debate. That is not a patronising view from Westminster politicians; it is the view of the devolved Executives. In Scotland especially, there is, as has been said, concern about the unhappy experience of coupled elections in 2007, which gave rise to significant numbers of spoiled ballot papers, and that experience could be repeated. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) referred to Ron Gould, who recommended against combining polls.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
If there were overwhelming public pressure for a change in the voting system, one could understand the reason for holding the referendum as soon as possible. How many letters has my right hon. Friend received from constituents recommending any change?
Sadiq Khan
To be fair to the coalition Government, if one believes in reforming the constitution, the only criterion cannot be how full one’s mailbag or computer inbox is. I accept that sometimes one has to lead the debate, even if the public are not quite there. My problem is this: accepting my hon. Friend’s premise for a second, if the public are not clamouring for a change in the voting system, one would assume that the coalition Government, and the partner in that coalition that wants the change the most, would want more time to build up momentum and create a snowball effect, to provide more education on the process and to achieve a yes vote. The fact that they have not done so raises more questions than answers.
Thomas Docherty
The point was made before about spoiled ballot papers. Is my right hon. Friend aware that there were 147,000 spoiled ballot papers in the Scottish elections in 2007?
Sadiq Khan
What compounds that excellent intervention is that just today, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Dunfermline West, who was part of the committee that looked into the 2007 election, said:
“I am determined that this confusion be avoided at all costs for next year's election to the Scottish Parliament. I am therefore very much against the inclusion of a referendum on the same day as the Scottish elections!”
I have not found anyone so far—even the Deputy Prime Minister, who is not here today—who is in favour of coupling the two events. This is not about whether the British public can cope with one or two issues at a time; it is about ensuring that the issues are properly aired.
The problems do not stop there. If the referendum is combined with the other poll, there will be complications regarding the funding limits for political parties and for the referendum campaigns. To compound matters, an additional concern has been raised about the problem of differential turnout, given that some parts of the country—notably London—have no separate elections in May 2011. That makes live the issue of thresholds, which otherwise would not be an issue in the referendum.
Some argue that one of the virtues of combining the referendum with other polls is the likelihood of an increased turnout, but the logic of that argument works both ways, in that there could be lower turnouts where no elections are taking place on the same day. Do we really want to have debates on the legitimacy of the referendum after the event? I hope that hon. Members who have tabled amendments will ensure that there is a proper debate on that theme and that other hon. Members have listened to the issues that have been raised. Depending on what happens later this evening, I might decide not to press our amendment to a vote.
Concern has been expressed that 3.5 million eligible voters are not on the register. Rushing to have the referendum in less than seven months’ time reduces the chance of those people getting on the register and taking part. That is yet another reason why we say, “Decouple the referendum from 5 May, allow further time for the work to be carried out, and allow—for those of us who are progressives and want to see a change in the voting system—a real coalition, rather than the shabby deal done by this coalition Government behind closed doors over those five or six days”.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I pretty well agreed with everything that he said in his excellent speech, but I wonder whether he might have been giving a slightly different speech today if the Labour party had won 10 more seats and there had been a Lib-Lab Government. However, we will never know—the past is another country. We are where we are, and we have to look at the situation that we have. I am tempted just to adopt the arguments given by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who made a first-rate speech, but there is a danger that we might complicate matters.
There are clearly a lot of political calculations going on, and I do not really know why this is such a macho issue for the Government, or why everything is being rolled out to win the vote tonight, as the Government undoubtedly will. I am not sure why the Deputy Prime Minister is so keen for the referendum to be on the same day as other elections. I suspect that there was a political calculation in the beginning. We can dismiss the argument that the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister wants to have the referendum on the same day is that he wants to save money. We can accept that that is a canard, as it was not his primary motivation. After all, the cost of a general election is some £80 million, and there is no doubt that if an AV system were introduced, that cost would rise steeply, as enormous costs would be tied up in the whole process of redistribution and cutting the number of seats. It simply does not wash that the primary motivation for having the referendum on the same day is the cost. There must have been some political reason, and I presume that that reason was that the Deputy Prime Minister thought that he would have more chance of winning the AV referendum if it were held on the same day.
Dr Julian Lewis
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I wonder whether he noticed the curious item in yesterday’s The Times, which suggested that certain Conservative Members were no longer going to support amendments such as his, because calculations had been done by the chief executive of the NO2AV campaign that having the referendum on the same day might actually assist the no vote. I assure whoever made those calculations that I would be just as determined to vote against having the referendum on the same day if I believed that it would advantage the no campaign as I would if I thought that it would advantage the yes campaign.
Mr Leigh
Exactly.
There was a meeting yesterday—perhaps I am giving away what was discussed in a private meeting, but so what, as it adds interest to the debate—and someone from the no campaign came along and said, “Well, we have done all our calculations and we think that we are now perhaps more likely to win if the referendum is on the same day because the C2 vote is likely to be in our favour”—but who cares? Stuff these sorts of arguments. When we pressed this man, he was not able to adduce any firm evidence one way or the other. The fact is that nobody knows whether their side of the argument is more likely to win on 5 May or 2 June or whatever.
Surely what is important is that the arguments around AV are complex. I know that you would immediately rule me out of order, Mr Hood, if I started rehearsing all the arguments in favour of or against AV. I am sure that the Committee accepts, however, that at first sight the issue looks quite easy. It might be said, “Well, we have this first-past-the-post system, which is clearly not proportional and seems unfair to one party, the Liberal party, which gets many more votes nationally than can be justified by the number of seats it gets in this House, so we should have a fairer system.” At first sight, then, someone might think, “Well, I am a progressive and fair person”—actually, the Committee might not agree that I am a progressive and fair person, but I can be if I try, as I do occasionally, to behave myself—“and should accept the change.” Looking at the issue in more detail, however, it gets more difficult.
A document from the Library details how an individual election might pan out, which might lead us all to start scratching our heads. Do we all know that the Government’s favoured option is for “optional preferential voting”? How many members of the public have got their heads around “optional preferential voting”? Indeed, how many Members in their places in Committee now—apart from the lone Liberal or couple of Liberals, whom we know to be anoraks—understand it? We all know, of course, that the optional preferential voting system is an AV system that does not require the voter to give preferences for every candidate, but there are other AV systems, and those arguments have to be teased out. Would it be fairer to force people to vote for every candidate? Would it be fairer to have the system used in the London mayoral elections, where one or two candidates are voted for? Or should we vote for the system that the Government are proposing? As we can start to see, the issues are complicated. Should we not therefore have a chance to tease out these issues over three or four weeks, given that we are changing the entire way of voting for the House of Commons?
Mr Leigh
Or hopefully not changing it, as my hon. Friend has said.
It does not necessarily help the argument to question what happens in Australia, Finland or the USA. It is what happens here that is important, because we care about this place and we want to create our own system, which we want to be discussed and understood by the public. We also want to make a judgment that will be considered fair.
Thomas Docherty
I have just returned from the British-American parliamentary group visit to the US, with colleagues from all parties. [Interruption.] It is an excellent place to visit and regards were sent to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who was on last year’s trip. It might help the Committee to know that millions and millions of dollars are spent on each individual question put forward. Given that we rightly have restrictions on how much each side can spend, does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is one more reason why it should be a stand-alone vote?
Mr Leigh
That is a very good point and the hon. Gentleman referred earlier to another one about the number of spoiled ballot papers in the Scottish elections. If I were a Scottish MP, I would be angry about what is going on. We in this national Parliament are hijacking their election, when a very large amount of what is now decided for Scotland is decided by the Scottish Parliament. If I were a Scottish person, I would be angry, given that there is this concentration of media interest and writing in London, where no election at all is taking place, and the entire media will be focused on the AV issue. That would detract from the attention that should be paid to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has remembered that Northern Ireland has two elections set for the month of May—the local government elections and the Assembly elections. One Government supporter said a few moments ago, “Well, one of those can be set aside.” That is arrogance. Those elections are already set, and it is important that we can carry on with our democratic process.
Mr Leigh
There has not yet been enough debate today about Northern Ireland—or, indeed, about Wales—but the arguments are all the same. The fact is that 39 million people will vote on the first Thursday of May in the parliamentary elections, the Assembly elections and local elections. I repeat that 39 million people will be involved. Why should those important elections, which are crucial to the regions and nations of our country, be subsumed into this referendum?
It is incumbent on the Government to provide an argument. They should not try to pull the wool over our eyes about money. This is not about money; it is about something else. There are many other and better ways of doing this. The Government should listen to the arguments adduced in Committee, which are overwhelming. The overwhelming argument is that we should debate the issue calmly and sensibly, that the argument should be rolled out and that the people can make the decision. Let right be done; let us have a referendum on a different day.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to amendment 1, tabled by me and some 40 other Opposition Members representing all four nations of the United Kingdom. I am conscious that many Members wish to speak and that time is, thanks to the programming, restricted. I will therefore restrict my remarks to two aspects of the amendment: why we tabled it, and why the date of 8 September 2011 was chosen.
Mr Davidson
Is my hon. Friend aware that 8 September is my birthday? On the last such occasion the Government promised me two aircraft carriers, and I look forward to the upholding of that promise.
Thomas Docherty
I greatly appreciate my hon. Friend’s contribution. Yet again, he has managed to introduce an issue that is important to people in both our constituencies.
Let me stress that amendment 1 is not a wrecking amendment, although some members of the Government may wish to portray it as such. It is supported by Members on both sides of the argument about the alternative vote. It is not intended to, nor will it, lead to the killing of the AV referendum; it merely seeks to create a level and fair playing field for the referendum, and to demonstrate the respect that the House should have for the devolved Administrations of the United Kingdom.
As Members will know, it is rare for an issue to unite Labour and Scottish National party politicians, and rarer still for them to be joined by Welsh and Northern Irish colleagues. However, that is the feat that the Deputy Prime Minister has managed to achieve, and I am grateful for his ability to bring us all together in that spirit. The amendment seeks to address the genuine anger that is felt in the three devolved Administrations. The fact that a joint letter has been sent by the three First Ministers to the Deputy Prime Minister expressing that anger should not be forgotten.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. He clearly concedes that the electoral arrangements and voting systems which may change in future will apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Will he also concede that there is a precedent for the Government’s legislation? In 1998 there was a referendum on future constitutional arrangements and the establishment of the Greater London authority and the Mayor, at the same time as the holding of 32 separate London borough elections.
Thomas Docherty
According to my recollection, all 32 London boroughs held elections on the same day. Regrettably, on 5 May next year elections will not be held in the whole United Kingdom. I believe that there will be no elections in some 20% of England.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reinforcing my point about the level and fair playing field. Given that he has just made my argument for me, I look forward to him joining us in the Lobby.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
For the benefit of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), could my hon. Friend explain the difference between local government elections in London and elections for the National Assembly of Wales, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly? It is obvious that a definition that is fairly clear to most of us has not travelled as far as certain green Benches.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that excellent point. I cannot go into great deal in the short time available to me, but I can point out that—as I am sure my hon. Friend already knows, and as Members in all parts of the Committee have mentioned—there have been very different turnouts. Elections to the Scottish Parliament have typically attracted a turnout of about 50%. I fear that, important as local government issues are to the parts of England involved, the turnout for those elections will be nowhere near that—which, again, reinforces my argument about the level playing field.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I am happy to take lessons from the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). Having been a London borough councillor for eight years, I am sure that we can discuss our knowledge and experience of various elected bodies. However, I must disabuse the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) of his belief that I was making his point for him. The point that I was making was that the people of London were quite able to make decisions in respect of the election of London borough councillors and long-term constitutional decisions, by way of a referendum, on the same day. That is the point that the hon. Gentleman is avoiding.
Thomas Docherty
As I am sure my nationalist colleagues will remind me, I should be nervous about making the mistake of, perhaps inadvertently, comparing the Scottish Parliament to a parish council. I urge the hon. Gentleman, as part of the respect agenda, to tread carefully when making analogies between borough councils and the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that to suggest that holding elections and a referendum on the same day is confusing constitutes not a condemnation of the electorate, but simply a recognition that we need to have a debate on such an important issue? The very fact of elections to the National Assembly for Wales, or to the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly, takes us away from the central need to have an in-depth argument about the pros and cons of the AV system.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point more eloquently than I could have done. I suspect that that is why he is an important member of our Front-Bench team and I am a mere Back Bencher, languishing and fighting my corner for aircraft carriers and others.
Let me now make a small amount of progress. I do not intend to rehearse, or rehash, the arguments presented so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) or, indeed, Members on the other side of the Committee. They have already highlighted more than adequately the problems that occurred in 2007, particularly in Scotland, where 147,000 ballot papers were spoilt. I would, however, like to draw the Committee’s attention to some of the representations made by a number of individuals and organisations to the Scottish Affairs Committee—led by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson)—which, unlike the Deputy Prime Minister, actually bothered to ask for input on the date of the referendum from the people of Scotland.
Let us consider first the response of the Scottish Government, an august body to which we should all accord some respect. Scottish Ministers wrote:
“The Scottish Government believes that the lack of consultation, and the substantive decision to hold UK wide contests on the same day as devolved elections, shows a lack of respect for the devolved administrations. We also believe that it undermines the integrity of elections to the Scottish Parliament and risks voter confusion. Elections to the Scottish Parliament are important to the people of Scotland and we believe they have the right to make their electoral choices without the distraction of a parallel UK contest. Holding separate contests on one day would also create operational and practical risks for those charged with administering the elections.”
As Members have already pointed out, it is not just the SNP Scottish Government who want the date changed. My current Liberal Democrat MSP—I suspect that he may not still be my MSP after May—wrote on behalf of his party that he was
“very much against the inclusion of a referendum on the same day as the Scottish elections!”.
He put an exclamation mark at the end, which I consider particularly important.
Just in case the Deputy Prime Minister believes that the opinions of other politicians should not be given the same weight as his weighty opinion, the Minister may wish to reflect on the comments of the interim chief returning officer for Scotland, Mr Tom Aitchison, who has said:
“Combining the polls will require additional staffing at polling stations and additional ballot boxes. This appears to be a straightforward matter, but there is much scope for confusion and misallocation of ballot papers. Simply sourcing and procuring sufficient ballot boxes is also a matter that is concerning the electoral community.”
Mr Aitchison went on to say:
“with three ballot boxes from each polling station (two for the Parliamentary election and one for the referendum) there is likely to be a situation in which each box must be sifted and possibly verified before any of the three counts can commence. This will require an investment in time, space and staffing adding to the cost”—
which, apparently, so concerns those on the Front Bench—
“complexity and duration of the count. Stakeholders, including politicians and voters, need to understand that the process may take longer than they might anticipate and may certainly be more expensive. Many Returning Officers may find it necessary to hire larger venues for the count and indeed to hire them for an extended period to accommodate these additional processes.”
So much for the Deputy Prime Minister’s argument about cost.
Some Members on the other side of the Committee have suggested that the Scottish parliamentary elections could be shifted by as little as a month, but there are two serious flaws in that suggestion. First, as Members on both sides of the Committee will recall, in 1999 the European elections took place just one month after the Scottish elections. Turnout for the European elections in Scotland was a mere 26%. That, surely, is something that no one would wish to repeat. Secondly, if saving money is genuinely the argument that the Deputy Prime Minister wishes to deploy, this suggestion of shifting the election and all the associated costs fatally undermines his own logic.
Mrs Laing
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of us in this House actually have some respect for the Scottish Parliament—I did not always, Mr Hood—and, indeed, for the Welsh Assembly? That Parliament has a fixed date for an election, and the idea that it should move that in order to accommodate an ad hoc, once in a lifetime—once in a century, we hope—referendum is utterly preposterous. Those of us who have respect for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people therefore have every sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman is saying.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind words about the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly—[Interruption]—and the Northern Ireland Assembly as well; I was coming to that. Like many good things, the Parliament can take time to grow on people, but I think she will find that the Scottish Government and Parliament is an institution well worth protecting, as are those of Wales and Northern Ireland.
Hywel Williams
Clearly, the cost argument is blown out of the water in Wales as we are to have a separate referendum. We are going to spend money so that we have a separate referendum on 3 March. That gives the lie to the cost argument.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful for that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) is present and he has usefully highlighted the fact that in the last three months the Deputy Prime Minister’s own costs have risen from £80 million to £100 million—a sign of inflation going mad within the coalition.
The second reason for suggesting an alternative date is in order to ensure that there is the fairest possible ballot. As I mentioned in response to an earlier intervention, not all parts of the United Kingdom will be holding elections on 5 May 2011. Large swathes of England have no elections scheduled. Recent history shows that in such circumstances turnout in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections is significantly higher than in places in England that are holding purely local government or mayoral elections. If the referendum is held on the same day therefore, we will not be starting from a level and equal playing field in respect of participation. I and many others believe that, in effect, those who propose the referendum in this way are hoping to rig the methodology in their favour.
Mr Leigh
I think that one of the Deputy Prime Minister’s calculations was that there would be a differential turnout. He calculated that there would be a greater turnout in Scotland, as people are used to AV there, so they would be more likely to vote in favour. That argument might hit him in the back of the neck, however.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Given the current Liberal Democrat poll ratings, however, I look forward to them receiving a round thumping in May, both in my area and across Scotland. The Deputy Prime Minister is so out of touch with Scotland that he is not aware of just how unpopular he has become in the past five months. The hon. Gentleman’s point about the Deputy Prime Minister’s logic does stand, however.
There are a number of specific reasons why we have chosen 8 September 2011. First, that would allow us sufficient time to overcome the voter fatigue that I touched upon. It would also provide for several months of campaigning by those of all parties in a non-party political manner. Those colleagues who wish to campaign for a yes vote can come together without party badges and work for that, and those colleagues who wish to campaign for a no vote can also come together without the baggage of our party affiliations.
We also appreciate that there are other elections scheduled for spring 2012, spring 2013 and spring 2014, and we believe that it is important to be consistent and logical in our approach, which rules out those slots. We have therefore sought to find a date that provides sufficient breathing space between all those elections. We are also mindful of the advantages of good weather in ensuring strong voter turnout, and the clocks have not yet changed in September—although I accept that a private Member’s Bill that might deal with that is coming up in December. That issue needs to be balanced against the argument about clashing with school holidays; we have had many discussions about that in the Chamber. As the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) mentioned, having the referendum in September of next year would also provide ample opportunity for the six-month period of grace for the Electoral Commission to carry out its due diligence. Finally on the argument for September, as has been mentioned, in 1997 we held two referendums in September in Scotland and Wales, very successfully with excellent turnout and a seamless process. That followed, in particular, a constitutional convention in Scotland, in which I know you played an active role, Mr Hood.
The Deputy Prime Minister claims that the idea of fair votes is what motivates the referendum, but it now appears that, shamefully, the Liberal Democrats in government will act unfairly in order to try to achieve their ends. It is not too late for the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government to do the right thing: to listen to the united voice of Labour, nationalist and Unionist politicians across the United Kingdom and accept the rational and fair date for the referendum.
Mrs Laing
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty); he made some excellent points, and I hope the Committee will pay attention to them.
I accept that we must have a referendum. I voted for this Bill on Second Reading, and I will vote for it again on Third Reading and subsequently. A referendum is the price we pay for the coalition, and the coalition is the price we pay for economic stability, which is what the country needs most at the moment. However, it is not for this House to submit to the dictatorship of the coalition agreement and to accept every word therein as being inscribed on tablets of stone. It is for this House to exercise its duty to seek to improve the legislation before it.
I shall speak mainly in support of amendment 4, to which I have put my name, but other amendments in the group are similar in principle, so I also accept the arguments for them. I am not, however, saying I could possibly bring myself to vote with the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I congratulate him on his appointment to his new position on the Front Bench, and I look forward to our having many arguments in future. Tonight, we have been very much in agreement, but I know that he will understand that I could not bring myself to vote for his proposals. However, I have listened to his arguments and, as with those of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, the Committee ought to take heed of them, because this is all about principle, not party advantage.
There are arguments that if we have a referendum on the same day as other elections turnout will be higher and people will be more likely to vote for AV. There are other arguments that people will be more likely to vote against AV. There are arguments about why AV might be good, too—although there are not many arguments that AV would be good for anyone apart from the Liberal Democrats. There are, however, also arguments about why any particular party might be at an advantage or a disadvantage in respect of AV as a whole, but none of us can predict that. We can look at the statistics and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) so eloquently explained a short while ago, we can look at the party advantage, but this is not about party advantage: it is a simple matter of principle.
A democratic procedure that changes our country’s constitution must be fair and be seen to be fair. If the result of a referendum on changing our voting system does not command the respect it should, every subsequent general election, based on whichever system is chosen under that referendum, will be open to question and challenge. There is no doubt that holding more than one election on the same day undermines confidence in the referendum, so the issue is simple: if this referendum is held on any day but 5 May 2011—or any day when another significant election is taking place—it will command more respect than if it is held on that day with other elections.
Sadiq Khan
Does the hon. Lady think that one of the reasons the Deputy Prime Minister is not here is that Conservatives might support clause 1 if he is not here to make the argument?
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Lady might recall that earlier this year the Deputy Prime Minister told the House that this measure was not going to be a deal breaker. Any Conservatives labouring under the misapprehension that he will take his ball and sulk if he does not get his way will know that this will not bring down the coalition, however much Labour Members wish that day to come soon.
Mrs Laing
I take the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, and I recall very well, as I am sure the Committee does, what the Deputy Prime Minister said when he was answering that very question at the Dispatch Box. The Deputy Prime Minister is absolutely right to expect that there will be a referendum—there will be one—but its terms and the date on which it is held are a different matter. I wish to protect him from the position in which he finds himself, because I am sure that he would also wish this referendum to be fair and to be seen to be fair. If he were here to listen to these arguments, he might change his mind and decide that in order to have a fair referendum it would be better to hold it on a date other than 5 May 2011.
Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her speech, which is holding the attention of the Committee and, like the best speeches, comes from the heart. May I suggest, by way of gentle persuasion, that instead of saying that she might vote against her Government, she say that she will do so?
Mrs Laing
Of course the hon. Gentleman may suggest that to me, and I am examining my conscience carefully in that respect. I have a lot of respect for him and he is doing well in persuading me. I am sure that he would be the first, among most Members in the Chamber this evening, to agree with me that our first loyalty must be not to our party, but to this House, to the democratic process and to the workings of our democracy, which have made ours the strong, great and fair country that it is. Our first loyalty must be to this Parliament, which has exported its fair and decent way of doing things and spread democracy around the world.
Pete Wishart
The hon. Lady mentions democracy and her point is spot on. How dare this mouse of a measure—this splinter of a suggestion—get in the way of the clear choice of the Scottish people? Surely that is a democratic outrage. We should have a free and fair election to decide who will be the Scottish Government, not this nonsense that is in the way, muddying the water.
Mrs Laing
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As I have said, I, like most Members of this House, have every respect for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people and their right to fair democracy and fair elections. That is why I reiterate that our first loyalty has to be to the democratic process, which makes this House and our participation in it what it is, and which makes us the representatives of people who have fairly and properly elected us to this place. We do not have cut-price democracy; we do not have elections that are not properly run. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of having a referendum, which is likely to change our constitution, run in a way that is not seen to be fair. Clearly, there is an enormous number of other dates on which this referendum could be held. Therefore, in order for it to be fair and to be seen to be fair, and for it to command the respect that we need it to command in order to protect our democracy, which gives us the authority to sit in this House of Commons, it must be held on a day other than 5 May 2011.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
The Alliance party would generally support reform of the voting system, with the reservation that the Bill is about changing to AV proportionality, rather than full single transferable vote proportionality, which would be our preference. However, we have significant reservations about the date proposed for the referendum.
In Northern Ireland, 5 May 2011 is already set in legislation as the date of the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, and it is also the date for the local government elections, so two elections are already taking place on that day. The review of public administration in Northern Ireland has led to the date of the local government elections being changed once already, and the Secretary of State recently indicated to us that any question mark hanging over 5 May as the date of local government elections has pretty much been removed, so it is now almost a certainty that both elections will be held on 5 May.
I can understand the argument that some may put that having the referendum at the same time as other elections will increase voter participation, but I disagree: while turnout may be increased in parts of the country where there are other elections on the same day, participation is not the same as turnout. The question is the degree to which members of the public and voters are able to engage on the subject matter of the election, and not simply whether they are able to turn out and vote. Participation will be interfered with if three elections are run at the same time.
Having adequate time and space for a public debate about constitutional change is hugely important. Debate on the substance of the proposed changes will be interfered with if, on the same day, we run the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, which are hugely important to the people in Northern Ireland, and local government elections, which have an enormous impact on people’s daily lives.
There has been some debate about which election would overshadow which. I believe that in Northern Ireland there will be little appetite for a debate on the referendum. People and, to a greater extent, politicians will be more concerned about the substance of elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and to local government. However, even if the reverse proved true, it would not be good for democracy. The elections and the referendum should be separated, so that people can give their full attention to the substantive issues that are up for debate.
In addition to ensuring that people get the full opportunity to participate in debate, there are serious logistical issues, some of which have already been raised this evening. One that causes considerable concern is that if local government elections, regional Assembly elections and a referendum coincide, there will be not simply three different elections but potentially three different groups of valid electors turning up at polling stations to cast their votes—groups with different identification requirements.
That may cause confusion among voters and those who have to administer the system on the day. It is likely to lead to congestion at polling stations, and to fairly serious disputes. There is precedent for that: we have had Westminster and local council elections on the same day, and found that some people were eligible to vote in one election and not the other, or that the information that they received about what is valid identification for one election did not hold true for the other. Our party has made significant representations to the Electoral Commission on that matter. If we confuse that situation by adding the complexities of a referendum, we are putting too much pressure on those who administer the system.
Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
The hon. Lady will be aware that people who were born in the Republic of Ireland but who reside in Northern Ireland are eligible to vote in local and Assembly elections, but not in national parliamentary elections or a referendum. The same applies, of course, to migrant workers who come to Northern Ireland. Is that not a recipe for confusion on the day?
Naomi Long
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution, because all the evidence suggests that that is exactly the case. When we have had national and local elections on the same day, it has caused confusion about who could vote in which election. It has also caused distress when people have turned up expecting to be able to cast their vote but have found themselves unable to do so because they were not a qualified elector in that particular election. I agree with him entirely that that is an unnecessary confusion to visit on the staff who administer the elections and those who turn out to vote.
I also want to raise the issue of campaign material, and I speak as someone who has experience of elections being held on the same day. I have listened very carefully to the representations made by Royal Mail about the complexities of delivering all the campaign material. If we have not just two local elections but a referendum on the same day, the need to deliver all the relevant election material to all the relevant people will place the people at Royal Mail under particular stress. The election material will be less likely to assist voters with their choice than to simply bury them under a deluge of information. I suspect that voters will not engage as fully with any of the elections, given the amount of material that they will receive daily for all three elections.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is a logistical nightmare to have two elections and a referendum on one day? There might be three boxes when one goes to the polling station. In some polling stations, there will be 20 or 25 boxes for different electoral areas. Logistically, counting the votes will be a nightmare from beginning to end.
Naomi Long
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I would go further: the problem is not just events on the day; accounting for expenditure on each of the three elections, and managing to keep that expenditure separate enough to satisfy electoral rules, will prove challenging during the campaign.
I want to reiterate a point that has been raised about the opportunity for cross-party co-operation. Those who support electoral reform may want to form a yes campaign, and those who are opposed may want to form a no campaign. Their ability to do so is significantly inhibited if the local government and Assembly elections are on the same day as the referendum, because people will be in full party election mode in the run-up to the date. The effectiveness of any yes or no campaign in areas where there are other elections taking place at the same time will be significantly diminished.
I support the moves being made to reform the electoral system, but the date should be reconsidered. I do not believe that 5 May is an appropriate date. I do not believe that there was significant consultation with regional Administrations about how having the referendum on that day would impact on their area. The issue should be thought through again to ensure that the fullest, frankest and most open debate can take place, and to ensure that when the electorate come to the ballot box, they are fully informed of why they are there.
Dr Julian Lewis
As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) made clear, it is a very serious step to vote against the leadership of one’s party for the first time. It will not come as a surprise to those in the Whips Office to hear that I shall be doing that today, because I informed them in advance that that was the decision that I reached. In fairness to them, with their typical liberality, they have not sought to put any pressure on me to dissuade me. [Interruption.] They genuinely have not.
What I really regret is that I shall be voting in such a way when the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), is at the Dispatch Box. He smiled as he heard me mention his name. He, at least, is aware that I have had the pleasure of attending the weddings of only two hon. Members. One was Mr Speaker’s and the other was my hon. Friend’s, even before he was elected to this House. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will reach every bit as eminent a position as Mr Speaker, but I fear that it will not be on the strength of the arguments that we will hear from him today.
The shadow Secretary of State said from the Dispatch Box that he was puzzled to learn that the Government were going for the option of holding the referendum on an important constitutional issue on the same day as party political elections. I am glad to see him re-entering the Chamber in time for me to assist him by answering the question that he put. There is a simple answer: it is because the Liberal Democrats insist on it. The Conservative party would not have dreamt of putting forward this ghastly proposal to substitute the alternative vote for first past the post in any other circumstance, and it is being jerked about by its coalition partner.
Mr Davidson
What the hon. Gentleman has just said is extremely important—if it is correct. He is saying that the AV referendum and the elections are being held on the same day at the behest of the Liberal Democrats. That is immensely helpful. It would be helpful to the Committee if he would make clear what evidence he has that the referendum is to be held on the same day as the elections solely at the insistence of the forces of darkness.
Dr Lewis
I have very good circumstantial evidence. If it were left to the Conservatives, they would not wish this issue to be on the agenda at all; it is part of the price for the formation of the coalition Government. Also, once it became clear that this bad idea of a coincidence of dates was to be implemented, it was said time and again in the press without contradiction—in a way, the hon. Gentleman anticipates the remainder of my speech—that the reason was to improve the possibility of a yes vote. As the Conservatives, from the leader of our party down, have been explicit that we want a no vote, it is hardly likely that they, albeit reluctantly putting forward the idea for a referendum in the first place for the sake of the coalition, would insist on holding it on the same date for the reason that it was likely to get the result that they apparently do not want. I say “apparently” because naturally I believe implicitly everything that the leadership of my party tells me, and therefore I am sure that it does not want us to change the voting system.
Mr Davidson
That was a yes, then. The elections and the referendum are being held on the same day solely at the insistence of the Liberal Democrats.
Dr Lewis
The hon. Gentleman knows that I much admire his tenacity, his persistence and especially his devotion to the aircraft carriers, which I share, but I have to tell him that, for some strange reason, the leader of the Liberal Democrats does not tend to take me into his confidence when it comes to his reasons on issues of this sort. All I have been able to give the hon. Gentleman is my judgment of the situation as I see it. It seems to me that the only logical explanation for insisting on the coincidence of dates is that it is believed that the fact that major elections will be going on in parts of the country where people are used to electoral systems other than first past the post makes it more likely that there will be a higher turnout in those areas and the people there will be more amenable to voting yes to a change in the electoral system. I am glad to see a number of hon. Members indicating their assent.
Thomas Docherty
There has been some speculation as to the whereabouts of the Deputy Prime Minister. He was spotted just a few moments ago walking past the Chamber. We can but hope that he will shortly join us to take part in this debate.
Dr Lewis
I would not bet the farm on it. One of the depressing aspects of the debate, being a touch more serious for a moment, is that we are debating the proposal only because it is a Lib Dem self-interested obsession. Liberal Democrat Members have not even had the guts to come here in any significant numbers to speak up for those policies on which they insist. They are the originators of this mischief, and they are now doing the Cheshire cat act and letting my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary have the sticky end of the wicket trying to defend the indefensible.
Sadiq Khan
Some of us are advocates of AV and would campaign for a yes vote. Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate how let down we feel that the actions of the Deputy Prime Minister make it difficult for us to coalesce a campaign and get support for a yes vote, because on the day of the referendum candidates will be standing on the Liberal Democrat ticket? That will make it very difficult for us to canvass in the days and weeks preceding the elections. It pains me to say this, because I was looking forward to working with the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) on other issues, but our ability to do so has been hindered by the way in which the Bill has been drafted and the proceedings on it have been conducted.
Dr Lewis
I shall give a slightly pragmatic answer. Frankly, as long as hon. Members on both sides of the House work for whatever reason one way or another to defeat such an unwelcome change in our electoral system, I for one shall be extremely happy.
Liberal Democrats are not known for their consistency, and that was well illustrated by the shadow Secretary of State when he revealed something that I did not know: that the Deputy Prime Minister previously opposed in principle holding a referendum on the same day as a general election. At least there would be some sort of level playing field if a referendum were on the same day as a general election. What is so iniquitous about this proposal is that all sorts of elections will be held on the same day in different parts of the country using different systems; and in some parts of the country no elections will be held at all. That is unfair and discreditable. I believe that the idea of the differential turnout was part and parcel of the scheme for proposing the coincidence of dates because it was believed that it would help achieve a yes vote.
We had a lively exchange earlier about whether the coincidence of dates would help the yes vote or the no vote, but the most important thing is not that it might help one side or the other. The important thing is that, if an issue is vital enough to warrant a referendum, it is essential that that referendum should not be adulterated by party political cross-cutting issues on the same day.
One reason why political coalitions in peacetime generally do not have good reputations is their propensity to do dodgy deals behind closed doors. This proposal is the outcome of such a deal. It is intellectually and morally indefensible. It will not be a pleasure to vote for the first time today against my party leadership on an issue of principle. I hope that I will not be wasting my time and that people on the Government Benches will find it in their hearts to do a good deed today and put maximum pressure on the Government to abandon a thoroughly dishonourable bit of political fixing. I wish I could think of some other words to describe it, but I cannot. This is what happens when parties get together and start tinkering with the rules of the game. We may play on different sides in the game, but we ought to respect the rules. The proposal to hold the referendum on the same day as differential party political elections is an attempt to bend the rules, and we should have no part of it.
Mr Davidson
May I first make some remarks as Chairman of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs? We held a seminar with the Electoral Commission, in which the point was made very strongly by Members of Parliament representing Scottish constituencies who were also Members of the Scottish Parliament that the Scottish Parliament was absolutely and utterly outraged by the fact that there had been no consultation on the proposal to hold the AV referendum and Scottish elections on the same day. They also indicated that the Scottish Parliament had been made aware of the fact that that was the widespread political view in Scotland. The matter certainly had not been drawn to our attention quite so forcefully in other arenas as Members of the Westminster Parliament, but we decided that the best way to explore it was to test the waters by seeking a consultation. Because of the time scale, that would not involve the Committee coming to a firm conclusion one way or the other on the merits of the case, but it would allow Scottish public opinion to express its views. We would post that on and put it before Members of Parliament in the Chamber to inform their discussions. I am glad that many Members have read that evidence, and have drawn on it in their contributions.
It is regrettable that the evidence was made available only yesterday, and I apologise for that. I understand that some Members have not seen it at all. I can only hope that more attention will be given to it by the other place, which will have the opportunity to refer more clearly to the views that have been expressed to us by Scottish stakeholders and by political opinion.
It is also worth drawing Members’ attention to the fact that when the Committee met the Scottish Parliament’s Local Government and Communities Committee on an informal basis, that multi-party Committee was unanimous in wishing to see the date changed. It wanted the AV referendum to be transferred from 5 May to another date—it did not specify when. It felt, as one of the Members said, “We were here first,” as the timetable had already been set for the Scottish election, so the electoral test, which was proposed afterwards, should be shifted. I am glad to have the opportunity to draw that to hon. Members’ attention.
Julian Smith
It is important to clarify the fact that the Scottish Affairs Committee did not take any view on the proposal, and I hope that its Chairman can clarify that.
Mr Davidson
I think that the hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber, so he may have missed my saying that we agreed that we would not take a position; otherwise I would be speaking to that position. However, we took the view that it was important—indeed, vital—that political stakeholders in Scotland should be consulted by somebody, because that had not been done by the Government, so we gave people the opportunity to express their views. I am glad that in such a short time many strong views were expressed. To be fair, some people expressed one view and other people another, but there is an opportunity for all those views to inform the debate. The hon. Gentleman will agree that it is regrettable that we have not had longer to discuss those views.
Speaking as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, I was initially agnostic about AV, and in many ways I remain agnostic about the principle of AV. I oppose the single transferable vote and other forms of proportional representation, but I could live quite easily with AV. I am much more concerned about the context in which the proposal has been introduced. It was in my party’s manifesto, so it must be a good thing and should be supported. [Interruption.] It is early in the Parliament. I am in favour of the principle of a referendum, but it was never proposed in my party’s manifesto that it should be held on the same day as the Scottish elections. There has been some interesting illumination of why that is the case by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).
I want to make my views known on two points: why we are having the referendum, and why so soon. As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) made clear, the Conservatives have agreed—I am sorry if I am not quoting her exactly—that the referendum was the price they had to be pay for tackling the economic crisis. To put it in simpler language, it is the reward to the Liberals for supporting Tory cuts. That is basically why this is happening. Cuts would not go through and would not necessarily command a majority in the House if the Conservatives did not have the support of the Liberal Democrats, who have signed up to a vicious set of proposals on cuts and public expenditure to obtain the reward of a referendum on AV.
The referendum is coming soon, because the Liberals trust the Conservatives no more than the rest of us, and they want to make sure that they are getting the reward sooner rather than later, lest they are simply fobbed off and it does not arrive at all. They do not want to be taken for mugs, so they want to make sure that the opportunities for the referendum are pressed quickly before negative publicity attracts too much opprobrium. In those circumstances, the fact the AV referendum is taking place as a reward for Tory cuts means that certainly in Scotland big campaigns will be run on the basis of saying no to the Tory cuts, no to the coalition’s dirty deals, and no to AV.
The way in which that will spill over into the Scottish elections will undoubtedly be beneficial to my own party. It will be immensely damaging, thank goodness, to the Liberals. The Conservatives, who are essentially irrelevant in Scotland, will not suffer much damage, because they cannot go much further down. No one can argue in those circumstances that holding the referendum and the elections together will not contaminate the Scottish elections. Admittedly, that benefits my party—and I look forward to that—but it means that the AV referendum will not be conducted on its own merits.
Returning to the lack of consultation with stakeholders, I am genuinely shocked by the fact that the coalition Government chose, as far as I am aware, not to ask anyone in the Scottish Parliament or in civic Scotland what they thought of the idea of having the AV referendum and the Scottish parliamentary elections on the same day. That was entirely a top-down decision. We have heard a great deal about a new politics. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether that was an approving heckle, or just a heckle, but I accept that the Member concerned is demonstrating that he is still alive. The fact that there was no consultation or discussion at all very much harks back to the old politics of drive and control, and shows immense contempt for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and—[Interruption]—the Northern Irish Assembly; I knew that there was another one. To add insult to injury, it is my understanding that the AV referendum will be described as the senior poll to be given priority when decisions are made about counting, publicity and all these other things.
To hold Scottish parliamentary elections on the same day as the AV referendum is bad enough, but we have been told that those elections will be subsidiary to the referendum, which no one particularly wants. It is not the first choice of anybody, as far as I am aware. It is coming about simply because of the shabby, shoddy and disgraceful deal that I described earlier. That really is an insult—
Mr Davidson
We were never promising it on the same day.
Let me deal with the question of contamination. Many previous speakers have indicated the way in which they believe the debate will be contaminated in Scotland because of the spill-over. As time goes on, the main focus of debate will not be on the minutiae of the AV referendum; it will be on the impact when the AV referendum is lost by the Liberals. Will the coalition split? What price will they then demand as a reward, because what they got as a reward before will have come to naught? That will be a matter of immense focus, certainly in Scotland, and I am sure elsewhere. The collapse of the coalition only a year into a Government will be of considerable significance, not only in Scotland, but in Britain and across the world. That will be the main focus of attention and will overwhelm the coverage of the Scottish election.
Some of my colleagues, particularly the Alliance Member, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), spoke about the difficulties of joint campaigning on the referendum. While MPs never usually take the fact that something has been said already as an excuse not to repeat it, on this occasion she has said it perfectly adequately so I will refrain from doing so. But there will also be—a point that she did not touch on particularly—confusion about costs. There will be two elections in Scotland, one for the first-past-the-post seats and one for the list seats, and then there will be referendum. People involved in both those elections will be campaigning on behalf of their parties in both elections and on the yes and no side, and there will be cross-cutting cleavages. The process of allocating expenditure will be almost impossible, I should have thought.
Many of us in Scotland are aware—I am glad to see in his place the right hon. Member for Ettrick, Lauderdale and Tweeddale—is it?
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
indicated dissent.
Mr Davidson
Ettrick, Tweeddale and Lauderdale? No? Well, whatever seat he has, it is quite a big and complicated seat to describe, which is perhaps an excuse for why he was unable to fill in his expenses properly. One can imagine how difficult it will be in that constituency when not only are they filling in the expenses for the first-past-the-post seat and the list seat, but the referendum as well. I wish him well in resolving his difficulties, but one can imagine the problems there being replicated all over the country, with the scope for legal actions and threats. They are enormous. On those grounds alone, if there were not so many other grounds to do so, we should be supporting the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and opposing the idea of having these elections on the same day.
Nick Boles
It is with great nervousness that I rise to speak, because we have heard so many brilliant speeches—sincere, passionate, beautifully constructed speeches—from senior Members. I think in particular of my hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh)—my own particular colleague in Lincolnshire—for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). We have also heard some passionate, well argued contributions, in particular from Members who represent parties in the other great nations of the United Kingdom than the one from which I come. It is with perhaps even greater nervousness that I speak as a new Member of the House, here for only a few months, when so many distinguished people, who have sat on these Benches for five, 10, 15 or 20 years, speak against the Bill and in favour of the amendments.
It seems that I will be the lone voice on these Benches to speak in favour of the Government’s proposals and against the amendments. This debate, which we have all sat in now for more than four hours, has been a classic case of politicians talking to politicians about matters that interest only politicians and that matter not a jot to the people whom we are meant to represent. It is entirely understandable that this debate should be of such great moment to politicians, because we are discussing the process by which we apply for and interview for our jobs—the electoral system. So it is no surprise that we are all so concerned that we are willing to sit here for interminable hours discussing the finer detail of the funding of elections and of the broadcasting balance.
One would imagine, listening to the contributions from all parts of the Committee, from people of great seniority as I have said, that the process by which people determine their vote is that they empty their diaries, clear their social lives and spend a full four weeks reading every leaflet, considering every proposition, listening to every programme, weighing up the arguments and being influenced by the precise balance on every programme of the political views expressed. That is not the case. I am humble enough to know that 90% of the people who voted for me last May do not have the first clue who I am and that 90% of them will not have the first clue who I am when in five, 10 or 15 years’ time I leave this place. They will never have had the first clue who I am or any interest in that subject, and all power to them.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that our constituents elect us to use our considered judgments on the big issues of the day, and if we are to have a referendum, let us do it in a way that ensures that we get it right?
Nick Boles
I always defer to my hon. Friend, and in particular on the question whether we are right, here and now, to deliberate the issues. I cannot say that it is my idea of fun, but it is what we are here to do, and it is right that we should do it. However, does that mean that we should therefore expect the people to go through a similar process in answering a simple question about a voting system? I do not think that we should.
It is revealing when some Opposition Members talk about the lack of consultation in the other nations of the United Kingdom. They never refer to the opinions of their people. They talk about—I quote the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson)—there having been no consultation with the stakeholders and about political opinion. To me, that sounds as though we are talking about elites.
Mr MacNeil
Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the Scottish Parliament is the most democratic forum that represents the opinions of the Scottish people?
Nick Boles
I am second to no one in this place, even to the hon. Gentleman, in my respect for the Scottish Parliament. I am a Conservative who always believed that we should have had a Scottish Parliament, and I am delighted that we have one. However, I hold the Scottish Parliament in as much contempt as I do all our political elites, in that we do not necessarily reflect the interests, concerns and priorities of the people whom we represent when we discuss politics itself and how elections are conducted.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Is the hon. Gentleman’s argument that politicians are not good at deferring to the people when they argue about politics? That is not exactly a case for saying that politicians should campaign in elections on the day when the electorate are choosing the democratic process that gives them their power of choice in the future.
Nick Boles
Absolutely not. That is actually the contrary argument. The argument should be that if somebody can present me with evidence that people other than politicians, stakeholders, returning officers and anyone involved in all the other bureaucratic paraphernalia of getting ourselves these jobs would prefer—
Naomi Long
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The evidence that I presented during my contribution was that when more than one election is happening on the same day, people often turn up at polling stations with the wrong identification because they are getting conflicting bits of information through the post and are often unable to cast their votes. That issue matters to my constituents. This is not about electoral elites, but about pensioners in my constituency who trek to the polling station and cannot actually vote.
Nick Boles
I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady’s point. All I say to her is that it should be possible to iron out those issues. Why different forms of identification are necessary for different elections is beyond me. I was in the Select Committee when we interviewed the head of the Electoral Commission, and she confirmed that while those are challenges, they are manageable challenges and that there is therefore no objection.
Dr Julian Lewis
My hon. Friend is not only charming, but courteous in giving way so graciously. May I ask him to address the specific objections put forward in the debate, not least one that is completely unaffected by his point about whether people make up their minds quickly or whether they need a long period of time to decide on these issues? Will he address the matter of differential turnout caused by different types of elections being held or not held on the same day?
Even if I accepted my hon. Friend’ point that people will make up their minds in exactly the same way with a long period of consultation or a short period of consultation, the fact is that what matters is whether they will go to the polls and cast their votes. By holding the referendum on the day when there are important elections in some parts of the country, less important elections in others and no elections in still others, we will get differential, unfair and skewed results.
Nick Boles
I am surprised that my hon. Friend has made that argument, because he is a doughty defender of freedom and democratic rights. Everybody in this country—in all the countries that make up this country— will have an identical democratic right to cast their vote in the referendum or not. We should not judge whether they want to or whether the campaigns will motivate them to. We already have differential turnout across general elections. So long as people have an identical right, it is all that matters.
I have detained hon. Members for far too long—
Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making this speech, because it is illuminating. We have the new politics, and I think that we are hearing the new elitism: we do not mind how ill informed electors may be or how difficult it is for ordinary electors to hear a clear argument—it does not matter, because we know that they are not interested and that we will just do what we want. Is my hon. Friend not describing that new elitism?
Nick Boles
I defer to my hon. Friend on elitism, a subject on which he is a great expert. However, calling people “ordinary”, and saying that if they do not have four weeks of a constant barrage of information on a particular subject they will be ill informed sounds pretty elitist to me.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman’s argument now boils down to his belief that we should not be wasting three hours—he said four hours, but actually we have been going for only three, although it may feel like four—on all this, because we have not spoken to our electors and asked them what they think. I am sure that most of my electors in the Rhondda would say that they do not want any messing around with the constitution in this particular way, so the hon. Gentleman’s argument is basically against the whole Bill.
Nick Boles
I hate to have words put in my mouth by anyone, let alone the hon. Gentleman. However, he is close to my conclusion, and I will now get to it. It is that most people, if asked, would say, “Ask us once a year what we want and what we think about how we want to be run, and then just get out of our lives and get on with it.” That is why I welcome legislation that says that once a year we will have a general election, national elections or a referendum.
I take an even more radical position. I would have, as in America, a date that everybody knows. People there can say what the dates of the presidential, congressional, mayoral or gubernatorial elections will be in 40 years’ time. Everybody knows when elections are, which is when they start to look at the questions.
Nick Boles
It is every two years, actually, because there are mid-terms.
That is the time when all this should be done. It is the right way to conduct elections and to handle these matters, because it responds to how people think about the issues, rather than politicians.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I am grateful to you, Mr Hoyle, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I say “debate”, but until the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) spoke, it was not much of a debate, but more of a monologue: every speaker, apart from the Minister, had the same opinion in support of the amendments that would move the date of the referendum from the date scheduled in the legislation.
The hon. Gentleman talked eloquently about the people, and politicians, talking to each other. I have no doubt that none of this debate this afternoon and evening will get any coverage at all anywhere in the main news media. I doubt very much whether it will get any coverage in the press tomorrow. Frankly, people are not interested in the subject. That is the reality. If we were really honest about it and were following a new agenda and new politics, we would be saying that what we are discussing is not on people’s minds at all: they are far more interested in the economy, jobs and the wars going on, with soldiers dying and all the rest of it. They are not interested in our spending days upon days debating this subject, which is of interest only to certain politicians in certain parties.
Thomas Docherty
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the issue of electoral reform does not excite interest. However, I can certainly say that Scottish newspapers have followed with interest—indeed, anger—the fact that the Government will not listen to the devolved Administrations around the United Kingdom.
Mr Dodds
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. He spoke at length about his own amendment. Of course people in the devolved regions are concerned about the impact, on their elections and their issues of concern, of having this referendum question imposed on them without any consultation. The respect agenda has been mentioned over and over again, and the fact that there was no consultation with the devolved Administrations or the elected representatives of the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is an indictment of the Prime Minister’s and Deputy Prime Minister’s approach to the subject.
We are debating this matter today, and tomorrow we will debate the increase in the EU’s budget. Many people outside will say, “What on earth is going on in Parliament?” Today we are debating a subject that is of no interest to people given the current challenges, whereas tomorrow we will vote on giving the EU more money despite the 25% cuts in the budgets of mainstream Departments in the United Kingdom. People have a right to ask why there is a disconnect between the people’s priorities and the politicians’ priorities—or perhaps I should say the Government’s priorities. So far, since they came to power, the main focus of the Government’s legislative programme has been to rush ahead with fundamental constitutional changes and major changes to our political process and our democratic way of working in Parliament and in this country, without any of the normal conventions having been followed. There has been no pre-legislative scrutiny of major legislation, which is deeply disquieting when we consider the future of this place.
Jim Shannon
My right hon. Friend will be aware that this week, the question to be asked in the AV referendum was changed because of a belief that the general public did not have the capacity to understand it: it was thought important to get the question right so that people would get the answer correct. A Cabinet Office spokesman said that it was important that
“the referendum question is clear and simple to understand.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the same logic should be used when it comes to the Assembly and council elections? They should be kept separate from the referendum to make them clear and simple to understand.
Mr Dodds
I agree with my hon. Friend, and the referendum question will, I hope, be the subject of another debate later this evening.
If there is to be a change of date, it has to be to the date of the referendum. There can be absolutely no question of the elections in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland being moved. As all parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly have said—I cannot speak for other devolved legislatures—our council and Assembly elections should proceed on the designated date in May, and the referendum vote should be held at a different time. I hope that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will take that on board, because the situation is unlike the one in Scotland. A Conservative Member mentioned the Scottish Parliament’s ability to move the date of the Scottish Parliament elections, but in Northern Ireland the Assembly cannot vote to move the date of Assembly elections. It can vote by a two-thirds majority to dissolve itself, but only the Secretary of State can move the date of the Assembly elections. That is a real problem.
Dr McCrea
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is strange that not one Member has spoken up for the Bill from the party that says that the matter is of paramount importance to the UK and must be pushed through before other legislation? In fact, the one Member who spoke to support the Bill, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), said that 90% of his constituents did not even know who he was.
Mr Dodds
I am sure that the same could not be said of my hon. Friend. Doubtless at least one Liberal Democrat Member will seek to catch your eye, Mr Hoyle, at some point in the debate, and we all look forward to that contribution immensely.
Given that there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny and that the measure is being rushed through—that flies in the face of normal constitutional conventions about seeking cross-party consensus—and given that legislation will also be introduced on, for example, House of Lords reform, it is vital to take the opportunity tonight to vote down the proposal to hold the referendum on the same date as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland elections.
Mr Mark Williams
I am delighted to be called at such an opportune moment. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) spoke of the purgatory that he has endured in the past few hours. As a Liberal, sitting here has not been the most pleasurable experience for me, either.
Let me start by dispelling the myth that I am either distinguished—the accolade that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) bestowed on me; I was sitting next to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), so it was a case of mistaken identity—or an anorak, which the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) accused me of being. Indeed, I am also not an agent of the forces of darkness, as suggested by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson).
I did not intend to speak, but, like other hon. Members, my conscience has been pricked by some contributions. I say, first as a Welsh Member of Parliament and secondly as a Liberal Democrat, that the debate has been powerful—a little one-sided, but none the less powerful—and it has touched on the legitimacy of the devolved institutions.
I remain enthusiastic about the referendum. The alternative vote system is not ideal—it is not the system for which my party has spent many years campaigning; that is STV—the single transferable vote. However, it is what is on offer. I do not believe that there were great conspiratorial discussions in the Cabinet Office or anywhere else when the coalition document was drawn up. Indeed, I know that there were not.
As a Liberal, I believe in government partly by referendum. We should not lose sight of that: whatever our view of AV, we are putting the matter to the British people. I do not accept that there has been a conspiracy. We have heard different evidence from different people about the effect of differential turnout and the alleged implications of the date.
I want to focus on three issues. The first is cost. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) said that cost was a significant factor. Others dismissed that, but I would like to hear from the Minister about cost. I came here believing that it was a factor, but others have said that it is not, so I want to hear more.
Secondly, I want to acknowledge the comments of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford. I know what my voters in Ceredigion and Aberystwyth will say when faced with the prospect of three elections in a year. They said it when we held the first elections for the National Assembly in the same year as the community council and county council elections. “Not more elections!” they said. I want to deal with that specifically when we consider turnout, because it is a concern.
Thomas Docherty
On the rare occasions when the Deputy Prime Minister has taken part in any sort of debate on the issue, he claims that this is the greatest reform since the Reform Act 1832, yet the hon. Gentleman suggests that it cannot excite the good burghers of his constituency. Which is it?
Mr Williams
The hon. Gentleman is being selective. The Bill is one part of a big package. We have not even started work on reform of the second Chamber. The Government will tackle a whole range of issues over a longer period. Have I, like the hon. Gentleman, had the biggest postbag on AV? No, I have not. It is important to galvanise opinion in this country by putting the question to the people in a referendum.
Thomas Docherty
On further reforms, would it have made more sense to have a proper constitutional debate, perhaps through a constitutional convention, and to put all aspects of the reform agenda into a single Bill, rather than rushing this Bill through, as the Government are trying to do?
Mr Williams
I have been in the House for the last five years and the hon. Gentleman has been here only five months, but he is answerable for the inactivity of the Labour party on those issues. The Liberal Democrats and our Government have taken the right stance. We need to judge the package over a longer period.
As for simplicity, it resonates strongly with people that they will be able to go out and get it all done in one go when they vote on that polling day. That is the most important point. However, on consultation with stakeholders, which the hon. Member for Glasgow South West talked about—my friends in the nationalist parties will agree with me on this—I deeply regret the extent to which my Government have not always been thorough in their dialogue with the National Assembly for Wales and the other devolved Governments of this country. They need to acknowledge that. I will be interested in what the Minister says about that in the context of the extent of consultation to date. The Government need to improve on that if they are to take the National Assembly for Wales and the people of Wales with them.
Mark Durkan
All hon. Members appreciate the remarks of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). We take both the sincerity of his criticism of his Government and his defence of the proposals, but we have not heard any supporter of the Bill answer this question: what is the imperative of 5 May 2011? Why the absolute insistence on that date? I think the Deputy Prime Minister will come to regret that as a serious episode of premature calculation. He somehow decided that it suited him for internal party reasons, and perhaps for the prospects for success in the referendum, to go for that date.
I fully recognise that Liberal Democrats did not want a Bill that did not contain a guaranteed date, which is why they will be suspicious of some amendments in the group. They will say no to some proposals because they would allow too much elasticity and too many other conditions to get in the way. There was therefore an imperative to include a date.
It was probably also imperative for Liberal Democrats to have a date in 2011, and probably one before next year’s Liberal Democrats annual conference, just as Second Reading of the Bill was scheduled conveniently before this year’s conference, so that they had a trophy and could say, “Look what we’re getting already! Look what we’re putting through!”
I understand those political needs—the Liberal Democrats needed to assure themselves and their activists that the Bill was real—but amendment 1, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and to which I have put my name, addresses and accommodates such imperatives. It would guarantee a date before the Liberal Democrat conference, but it would also ensure that the date was not in conflict with other important elections, such as the long-delayed and overdue local authority elections in Northern Ireland and the Assembly elections, which other right hon. and hon. Members mentioned. We have also heard that argument from Welsh and Scottish Members in respect of elections in their countries.
Amendment 1 offers Liberal Democrats the certainty of a date without the complications and conflicts that attach to 5 May. The proposal would also ensure, as others have said, that parties could duly observe the proper six-month referendum period, and that the Electoral Commission could properly monitor it, as per its responsibilities. Members should reflect on the fact that this will be the first test of the Electoral Commission’s handling of a full-blown, cross-UK referendum. It will be the first test of how it discharges its responsibility for overseeing the proprieties imposed on it by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. To ask the commission to discharge that role in the context of so many other campaign atmospherics, with various leaflets and materials being sent out in at least three areas of the UK, is too much.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument and wondering how his constituents might feel about different types of election being held at the same time. I do not understand why he thinks that they are not capable of understanding that. Can he not give them the credit for being able to comprehend the difference?
Mark Durkan
I fully recognise that the electorate in my constituency and elsewhere in Northern Ireland can cope with having different elections on the same day. Irish people can cope with elections and referendums on the same day, as we have seen in the south of Ireland. However, the electoral body in the south learned the lessons from that and pointed out the serious issues that arose, including in relation to programmes that were meant to be about the referendum campaign, with a representative from the yes side and one from the no side. But some parties involved in the election on the same day were not included in the broadcasts, and that caused serious controversy about the balance of the coverage. The legislation that this House has previously passed about the obligations in referendums and election campaigns is already difficult to observe, but it will be even more difficult to observe it when both are held at the same time.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
If the argument is that the elections and the referendum should be held on the same day, surely we should also have the vote on extra powers for the Welsh Assembly on the same day. However, the Liberal Democrats in the Assembly are not arguing for that. They want it one way for the referendum and another for that vote.
Mark Durkan
My hon. Friend has punctured the argument and identified the inconsistency of the Liberal Democrats, and I shall not add anything further on that.
As legislators, we will have to think about these difficulties. We must look at previous legislation and at the situations that might be generated by what we do tonight. It is not about saying that the public cannot cope with different choices, but about the media and political systems and the Electoral Commission itself. Many of us have asked questions in the past about how well the commission does its job of monitoring elections and election expenditure, and the bye balls it appears to give to some people who cannot complete returns or who put in returns of very little expenditure that completely contradict their evident and expensive publicity material. So it is about ensuring that the elections are fought free from controversy and confusion about referendum campaign spending, and about ensuring that the campaign takes place in conditions that are most conducive to full and proper debate.
The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) made an important point about cross-party campaigning. One of the benefits of a referendum campaign that perhaps enables people from different parties to unite and join forces to commend or resist a reform is that it offers an almost unique opportunity in Northern Ireland for cross-party campaigning and a public debate. That will be completely eclipsed if the referendum takes place against a backdrop of Assembly and local government elections. The imperatives of party politics and the party vote will always outweigh the democratic debate about which is the better voting system.
I believe that in Northern Ireland we can have a debate about the merits of the alternative vote, and if later amendments succeed and we have a bigger choice in the referendum, so much the better. However, we could at least have a debate in Northern Ireland about the alternative vote, which would be one way of freeing us from the tragedy of the first-past-the-post system. The latter condemns us to sectarian head counts at Westminster elections, because people have to vote tactically either for the nationalist likely to beat the Unionist or the Unionist likely to beat the nationalist. People who want to vote for other reasons and express more sophisticated political preferences and endorsements find themselves trapped in that sort of sectarian head count by first past the post. If people do not want to be freed from the sectarian headcount, they can make that choice, but at least let us have that honest and open debate on a cross-party basis. We will not be able to have that debate if this referendum takes place on 5 May 2011. If that is what the Liberal Democrats want to condemn Northern Ireland to, so be it, but the rest of us want better—not just for next year, but for the future.
Some Members have raised issues about differential turnouts. I am less concerned about that. If I am concerned about anything, it is that some Conservative Members who do not have to contend with elections of party colleagues in their constituencies will turn up and have time to spare campaigning on the referendum in Northern Ireland. They could be prolific and very active in the referendum campaign, while the rest of us would be preoccupied with election campaigns. The issue of differential attendances can work more than one way, which is why hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), are right to say that we should suspend our calculations of how one day might favour the vote on one side or another. Let us just say that we want to ensure as little confusion and controversy as possible. If we go for the day proposed, there will be confusion, controversy and allegations of undue conduct and improper spending, which will only bring us back all over again to the expenses scandal and the contamination of politics by money.
Hywel Williams
We have had a very good debate, and I will not detain the Committee with repetition. However, I would like to thank the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who defended the Government’s position.
Hywel Williams
Promotion, indeed. The hon. Gentleman was heroically, magnificently incoherent—so he should go far on the Government Benches.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) distanced himself—and, to some extent, his party—from this shambles. That has a significance in Wales that some hon. Members perhaps do not quite realise.
As far as I can see, there are many, many reasons not to hold the referendum on the same date as the elections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but so far no compelling reasons have been offered for why we must have the referendum on 5 May next year, apart from the reasons alluded to earlier: that this is part of the deal between the two parties that make up the coalition. As far as I can see, that is the only reason offered.
My major concern is that the referendum is to be held on the same day as the Assembly elections in Wales. In that respect, the arguments that we have heard about political interference from one campaign to the other are pertinent. It is difficult for us to hold the Assembly elections and the referendum on the same day, not least because of the points that have already been made about the media. In Wales, English newspapers have a huge penetration. Very few people read newspapers originating in Wales. The debate is therefore dominated by UK issues, or perhaps even by English issues. That will have a significant effect on the democratic debate leading up to our Assembly elections.
The argument has been made that there is a cost element involved, but, as I said in an earlier intervention, we will now have another referendum in Wales, on 3 March—we will have one on 3 March, one on 5 May and the Assembly elections on 5 May. That blows out of the water some of the arguments about cost.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman said that there would be a referendum on 3 March. My understanding is that the Assembly has asked for that referendum to be held on 3 March, but we have not yet heard from the Secretary of State for Wales whether there will be a referendum on that date or not.
Hywel Williams
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point entirely. One of the reasons put forward for holding that referendum on 3 March is that there might be contamination between the referendum on further powers, the referendum on AV and the Assembly elections. That argument has been made by those in all parties in Wales, and it is the same argument that we are making this evening.
If we are not to have three elections on the same day in Wales, as the cost argument proposes, then why are we having two? Surely the argument against having three works against having two as well. There are a number of reasons for not holding those elections on the same day, including the difficulties of having a full and clear debate. Some hon. Members will remember the referendum that we had in 1979, when the unpopularity of the Government intruded strongly into the debate on whether devolution should have been introduced at that point. Unfortunately, the devolution question was not uppermost in many people’s minds in 1979.
There are administrative difficulties for the electoral services departments in councils. The number of ballot papers and the confusion among the general public has already been referred to, as has the ability to process electors at busy polling stations. All those reasons, which have been mentioned by other Members, are persuasive. There is also the issue of administration. Referendums have been organised in Wales on a number of previous occasions—we have even had one on Sunday opening. We are used to referendums in Wales, but they are normally organised on the basis of local government units, of which we have 22. However, on the same day as the referendum, we will be having Assembly elections organised by constituencies, 40 of which will be decided on first past the post, with a further 20 being decided on the d’Hondt 2 system. That is a recipe for potential confusion to say the least.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman mentions previous referendums, but when it comes to counting the ballot papers, is it normal practice for the ballot papers in referendums to take priority over the sovereign elections to the Welsh Assembly or local authorities?
Hywel Williams
I will refer to that point in a moment, but it is a significant one. The questions that immediately come to mind are: who will have responsibility for ensuring the correct polling cards are sent out? Who will take responsibility for ensuring that the ballot boxes are returned to the correct authority, so as to ensure that counting takes place? And, as the hon. Gentleman has said, will the UK referendum be counted first, and is that not an insult to democracy in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?
I draw the House’s attention to the election in the Vale of Glamorgan in 2007. Counting went on throughout the night, finishing at 10.30 am after five counts. Fortunately, there was no need for recounts on the regional list papers; otherwise, it would have taken even longer. We might, of course, have that sort of recount in May. There are also questions about the feasibility of holding the three votes at the same time.
Graham Stringer
This has been a long debate on clause 1 and one thing that I have learned, and which could apply also to other parties in the Chamber, is that we should all go to Grantham and Stamford and introduce 90% of the electorate to the hon. Member who represents them at the moment. If they knew the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), there would perhaps be a different result in that constituency. He did, however, point out that some of the debate that goes on here does not have a resonance outside; people are not talking about d’Hondt, the alternative vote or PR.
My position is that there should not be a referendum. On 9 February, when there was a vote in the House on the issue, I was not persuaded when the Whip said, “Vote for a referendum on AV because the Lords will overturn it.” That struck me as an inadequate justification for a major constitutional change, and I have not altered my position. I have listened to all the contributions today, and I watched with exquisite pleasure the misery on the faces of his right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) destroyed the case for a referendum on 5 May—the same day as different elections in different parts of the United Kingdom. I think that that argument was won fully. I also accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) said, which was that one reason why we are discussing the matter when people outside do not want to do so is quite simply that a deal was done between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. The Conservatives do not like it but it will keep them in power, and it will give a political advantage to the Lib Dems, who will therefore vote for cuts.
The situation is slightly worse than that, though. There is a double gerrymander in the Bill. The changes in boundaries—perpetual changes without any right to challenge them—deal only with a tiny part of the problem of more votes being needed to elect a Member from one party than from another. The Bill also cuts 11%—a Rawlings and Thrasher estimate—of the seats that the Labour party has, 11% of those that the Lib Dems have, and 4% of those of the Conservatives. In an alliance, there has to be a quid pro quo, so what is it? It is believed, with rather less statistical analysis than in the boundary review, that AV will benefit the Lib Dems. It may well do so; I suspect that there is some common sense to that.
The justification for the referendum on AV, then, has nothing to do with what the Deputy Prime Minister tells us—that it is about putting trust back into politics after last year’s horrific expenses scandal. I have yet to hear any explanation as to how AV as opposed to first past the post will make people feel better about somebody who wants to buy a Stockholm duck house at the public expense. There is no relationship whatever between the two issues.
I have come to a slightly different conclusion from that of Conservative Members to whose speeches I enjoyed listening. Fundamental constitutional change is proposed which will give advantage to the two political parties in a coalition Government. It is more common to change the rules in between elections for the party political advantage of those parties in government. This proposal has been a trait more of nearly democratic countries in eastern Europe in the past, and now more commonly occurs in Africa. If Parliament is to go through with what I consider to be an unnecessary referendum, it should be with an eye not to the next general election, where clear vested interests are at stake, but to the one after that. That is why I tabled amendment 225.
Some good general points against having referendums on the same day as other elections have been made, but the focus of a UK-wide election and a decision to change the voting system for the future takes out the rather cynical self-interest of the two parties in government. When not just 85% but 100% of the electorate are involved, such a thing is worth doing. There is thus a sound argument for proceeding on that basis, although there is not much of a sound argument for having the referendum itself.
Let me provide the three reasons why I believe it would be worth proceeding on such a basis. First, there would be a higher turnout—coherently and consistently across the whole country. Secondly, there would be no self-interest, so we would avoid the cynicism of the two parties in coalition changing the rules in between elections to their own advantage. Thirdly, although the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford thinks that everyone can understand things instantly, I do not. This is a complicated issue and most of the electorate take these things seriously. Much of the current propaganda says things that might be true but are not true. People say, “If you have AV, you get the support of 50% of the electorate.” Well, in some cases that is so; in others it is not. It is still possible to get elected on AV on less than 50%.
Some people believe that AV is more proportional. In some cases, such as the general elections of 1983 and 1997, AV would have produced a less proportional result, with more extreme victories for the Conservatives and Labour respectively. What AV probably does produce—experience of this coalition before the next general election will provide a very good argument against it—are more coalitions. For those reasons, I will support amendments that move the referendum away from 5 May, because that is the worst of the proposals before us. My preference, however, is for having a referendum that will affect not the next general election, but the one after that.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who does not appear to be present at the moment, said that he might be the only speaker for the Government. Fortunately my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) chipped in with some additional support. I can reassure him and, indeed, the Chief Whip that I too intend to speak on behalf of the Government.
All the amendments seek to delay the date on which the referendum takes place, either proposing a specific alternative or suggesting a mechanism enabling the date to be determined later. Some, including amendments 4 and 126, are intended to prevent the combination of the referendum with other polls.
I am aware of the concerns that have been expressed about the combination of the polls next May, but they ignore the fact that it is not unusual to combine elections. Many of us, either this year or in 2005, were elected at a general election, determining who would govern the country, on a day on which people were voting in other elections. I therefore do not think it reasonable to suggest that people are not capable of making decisions about various levels of government and voting on referendums on the same day.
Mr Jenkin
I am reluctant to intervene so early in my hon. Friend’s speech. However, I think that there can be a justification for combining different elections on the same day, simply because the political parties are likely to be fighting analogous campaigns in those elections. The difference between that and combining a referendum with an election is that the referendum issue is, or should be—as the Electoral Commission suggested in 2002—elevated above party politics. It is rather more difficult to elevate the debate about the referendum issue above party politics if those taking part in referendum campaigns are taking part in party political election campaigns at the same time. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made that point extremely well.
Mr Harper
I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend that parties campaign on the same issues. In 2005, when elections to Gloucestershire county council were taking place and I was also fighting a general election, we were campaigning on very different issues. We were campaigning on national issues for the purposes of the general election, but on specific local issues for the purposes of the Gloucestershire election.
Our programme for government made a commitment to the public to hold the referendum. We feel that the public have a right to expect that commitment to be delivered promptly, and we believe that holding the referendum on 5 May next year will deliver it.
I do not follow the argument about differential turnouts. Most of the country will vote next year, 84% of the electorate in the United Kingdom and 81% of the electorate in England. It is not true that everyone in England will be faced with other elections, but the vast majority will. A significant amount of money—about £30 million—can be saved for the taxpayer. Although that is not a reason for combining elections, it seems to me that if there is to be a referendum and if there is no other obvious reason why a combination does not make sense, going out of our way to spend an extra £30 million, particularly at a time when money is tight, would be perverse.
Thomas Docherty
There is a question that I hoped to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, but I am afraid that the Minister will have to answer it. Have he and the Deputy Prime Minister actually read the Gould report, and if so, when?
Mr Harper
We have indeed. I was coming to that. Let me try to find the relevant page about Mr Gould so that I can whip it out.
I can tell Members on both sides of the Committee who were keen on overnight counting in the general election—I seem to remember that it was proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), and that her proposal received tremendous cross-party support—that those who say that Ron Gould is the fount of all knowledge, and that his views on elections should be listened to unquestioningly, ought to know that he does not believe in overnight counts of ballot papers. Those who cite him as the fount of all wisdom should be a little cautious.
To be fair, Ron Gould says that he would prefer the two polls to be held on separate dates. However, he also says that he does not think that holding them on the same day would cause the problems that were experienced in 2007, because voting systems are less complex now. He points out that there will be elections based on existing systems that will not be changed, along with a simple, straightforward question. He does not foresee the problems that the hon. Gentleman seems to anticipate.
Thomas Docherty
When did the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister first read the Gould report? Was that before or after they announced the referendum date?
Mr Harper
The Deputy Prime Minister and I have looked very carefully at the submissions Mr Gould made to the Scottish Affairs Committee, and also at the other submissions. We have also looked at the relevant sections of the Gould report, and the analysis is not the same. We are not talking about multiple voting systems. We are talking about a straightforward question with a yes or no answer. I simply fail to see why that would cause an incredible amount of problems.
I think voters are perfectly able to distinguish between the polls. On Second Reading, I said to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) that he was understating the qualities of his own constituents and the Scottish people in general. I think they are perfectly capable of making judgments about who they want to represent them in the Scottish Parliament—as, indeed, are Welsh and Northern Irish voters in respect of the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies—and of making a judgment about what the voting system should be for this Parliament. I think they are perfectly capable of making that judgment, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not agree.
Mr MacNeil
I was not in any way casting aspersions on the electorate. I was casting aspersions on the capabilities of the media to deal with more than one issue. They are obsessed with programmes such as “The X Factor” and they struggle with complexity—as, I am a little surprised to discover, the Minister is too at the moment.
Mr Davidson
The comments of Ron Gould to which the Minister has referred deal, I think, with the previous Scottish and local government elections. Is the Minister aware that on 21 September Ron Gould said in a note to the Committee:
“My basic view is that it would be preferable to separate these two voting activities in order to give the voters the opportunity to focus specifically on each of them”?
To be fair, he also said that the same complexities are not present in both sorts of election. However, he went on to say that the evidence suggests that
“in this event a number of pilot projects and focus groups be carried out to identify any unforeseen problems which might arise.”
Does the Minister intend to undertake such studies before a joint AV referendum and election are proceeded with?
Mr Harper
I do not think the hon. Gentleman was listening carefully enough to what I said. I clearly stated that Ron Gould said in the evidence he submitted to the hon. Gentleman’s Committee that his first choice would be to hold the polls on separate dates but that he did not think that the same complexities as arose in the 2007 votes would arise in this instance. My officials have been working closely with electoral administrators across the UK, and with the Electoral Commission, to do exactly what Ron Gould suggests, which is to make sure that any combined polls are run smoothly and well and go ahead without problems. That has been taking place during the summer.
The rigorous testing carried out by the Electoral Commission should also reassure those worried about voter confusion—a point made from the Opposition Benches. The new draft of the question, which we will be debating shortly, enables the electorate to understand clearly the choice they are being asked to make and to express their views.
Mr Harper
Let me just make some progress so that I can deal with the points made in the debate.
I also do not accept the proposal in amendment 155 that the referendum date should be agreed by the Scottish Parliament and Northern Irish and Welsh Assemblies— despite the respect that, of course, I have for them. The dates of elections are not agreed in conjunction with them. There is no precedent for suggesting that elections or referendums can be held only with the consent of those involved in other polls. I do not think it is appropriate for devolved Administrations, effectively, to be able to veto policies of the UK Government. Although they might welcome that, neither I nor the Government think it is appropriate.
Mr Harper
I am going to make some more progress, or else I will be in danger of not answering the significant number of points made in this debate.
I am conscious of having given the Committee, through today’s programme motion, an extra hour of time, and I want to make sure that we reach our debate on the question that we will put to people in the referendum.
Amendments 6 and 126 suggest that the Electoral Commission should have a role in assessing the suitability of the poll date. Amendment 6 goes further, suggesting that the Electoral Commission should recommend the date and the length of the referendum period. I do not think it is right in principle that the Electoral Commission should have any of those roles. It is surely right that if the Government intend a referendum to be held, they should propose the date, which should then be discussed and agreed by Parliament. Proposing that the Electoral Commission should assume responsibility drags the Electoral Commission, which should be neutral, into the heart of that political debate, and that is not appropriate. That is why the Government are not able to accept those amendments.
Amendment 225, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), who spoke last, proposed to change the referendum date to that of the next general election. Clearly, that was designed to undermine the commitment to move quickly on our reform process. Delaying the referendum to 7 May 2015, which is the date of the next scheduled general election under our Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, does not make any sense. Having a referendum on the voting system for the general election on the same day that the general election is to be held does not make sense.
I shall now deal with some issues raised during the debate. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—I hope he will forgive me if I do not pronounce that quite right, because I do try—opened the debate, making clear his view that the respect agenda was not intact and referring to the counting of the results. The Government have made it clear—I know that the Electoral Commission shares this view—that counting the election results first is important, because it does matter who governs Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is the plan; the referendum result will be counted when those elections are out of the way. So I think that the respect agenda is intact.
My hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) picked up well on the contradictory nature of the debate coming from those on the Benches opposite: an argument was being put that the AV referendum would drown out the debate on national issues, yet simultaneously another argument was being made that the national issues would mean that the referendum debate would not get a proper hearing. She correctly spotted that, and I do not think that the point was adequately answered. I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) if he still wishes to intervene.
Mr Harper
The Government’s position is very clear: there is an imperative to get the results of the elections to Parliament, the Assemblies and local councils decided first, because it is important who runs those organisations. The result of the referendum is important, but given that any change will not come in until the next election, the counting of the referendum will take place after the other counts. The Government have made that position clear and it is shared by the Electoral Commission. This might be a little frustrating for those who want the referendum result to be given as early as possible, but it is important that elections are counted first. That was the very clear sense that emerged from the previous Parliament when we debated when the general election count should take place. Results of elections need to be heard first.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is in his place, referred to the Government’s view of the referendum outcome and gave all sorts of thoughts as to how we had arrived at the date. Of course the Government are neutral about the outcome of the referendum. The two coalition parties are not, but the Government do not have a view. When the Deputy Prime Minister and I were considering the Bill and its details that was the view that we jointly took.
I also do not take my hon. Friend’s view, which we debated a little following his intervention, about treating votes differently. I do not buy the argument that, because some parts of the United Kingdom are voting and some are not, that in some sense treats voters differently. Even voters in the parts of England that do not have other elections next year are perfectly capable of listening to the arguments. They have the same ability to go out to vote as anybody else, and I do not understand this argument about differential turnout that he and other hon. Friends raised.
Mr Jenkin
The Minister is dealing with the House with his customary courtesy. I quoted a leading academic on the subject of referendums, and he could not think of any previous referendum in any other democratic country that was held concurrently with other polls in some parts of the country, while in other parts of the country there were no other elections. Which example are we following? Which example is the Electoral Commission drawing on in support of the idea of concurrent elections? Can he give a single example from anywhere in the world where a referendum has been held at a time when there are elections in some parts of the country but not in others?
Mr Harper
Off the top of my head, no, I cannot, but I do not see that that point is at all valid. I do not see that there is any problem with voters being able to make the decisions sensibly. My hon. Friend underrates those whom we ask to vote for us. His point is partly answered if we consider this year’s general election. There was a combination of a general election and local elections in some parts of the United Kingdom, but not everywhere. Some voters voted in more than one election, and some did not. I do not think that that had an impact on the results of either the local elections or the general election. If Members think that the situation meant that the results were illegitimate, that rather impacts on the results of those of us who are Members of this House.
Dr Julian Lewis
Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that there will be no difference in turnout in different parts of the country, when there are Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and other comparable elections going on in some parts, local elections of some form going on in others, and no elections going on at all in others? The fact is that some people will vote in the referendum if they are at the poll, but might not have gone to the poll if it were not for those other elections. We need a level playing field to get a representative result.
Mr Harper
I simply do not accept my hon. Friend’s argument. If we look at the general election this year and turnouts across the country, we see that there were some constituencies where the turnout percentage was in the 70s or perhaps even in the 80s, and constituencies where it was in the 50s. Every voter had the same opportunity to vote, but turnout across the country varied. That will inevitably be the case in the referendum, and I do not think that there is anything sinister in that at all.
One of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), which I am glad to be able to address—that is why I did not want to keep taking interventions from him—was about the mechanics of how the elections were to be run. In evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee, Tom Aitchison, the convener of the Interim Electoral Management Board for Scotland—one of the people who runs the elections—made it clear that the electoral professionals represented by his board would work to ensure that the poll was conducted in accordance with whatever the House decides. He asked that the referendum in Scotland
“be conducted on Scottish Parliamentary Boundaries”
to make sure that there was
“an efficient, clear and cost effective process”,
and said that
“the relevant Order should be amended to allow the Scottish Parliamentary elections to be formally combined with the referendum.”
He added:
“It is our current understanding that both of these proposals have been adopted”.
He is quite right, and we have listened. On 25 October, when we debate how the elections will be combined, it will be clear that we have looked at the administrative challenges and sought to make sure that the combined elections on 5 May can be conducted in the most sensible way possible.
Mr Harper
I am just about to deal with the hon. Gentleman’s second point, which was about the cost of the count. It is perfectly clear—we acknowledge it—that some aspects of combination will require more resources than a stand-alone poll would, but that will be very much outweighed by the significant savings made by hiring polling stations and staff for one day rather than two. He is perfectly right that there are some increases in cost as a result of combining, but the overall saving is quite significant. It is about £30 million, which will be shared between the UK budget and the budgets of the devolved Administrations.
Thomas Docherty
In July, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and I tabled questions about what estimate the Government had or had not made of the costs to local authorities, and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Governments. The answers that we got back eventually were that the Government had made no estimate at all. Is the Minister now telling us that he has made estimates of the additional costs, and if so, what are they?
Mr Harper
The overall cost saving from combining the polls is £30 million. That is our best estimate looking at the details of running those elections across the country. It is a pretty good estimate and the one that we stick by, and the saving is significant. It is not the reason for combining the elections, but there is a significant benefit in doing so.
Mr Harper
The Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee made a number of points. I think that I dealt with some of them in interventions. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford made a speech with good humour. I think he was underplaying his reputation when he said that 90% of constituents did not know who he was. I am sure that if that was true and if more of them knew who he was, he would get an even more impressive result.
The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) and the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) made some serious points about the operational issues in Northern Ireland. The franchise for Northern Ireland Assembly elections and for local elections is the same. The referendum would be conducted on the Westminster franchise. So there would be two franchises operating, but that would be the same position as when local elections are combined with a general election.
As for the ID requirements, the legislation will provide that the requirements for the referendum and the Assembly elections will be the same. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends that the inconsistencies between ID requirements for voters in the Assembly and local elections will be dealt with before the polls next year.
The final point that I want to make, I am sure hon. Members will be pleased to know, is in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who talked about consultation. On Second Reading my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said that we had not introduced the provisions on combination in the Bill because we wanted to take the time through the summer to work with the Electoral Commission, others in government in the territorial offices and with electoral administrators across the United Kingdom. I have written today to members of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, Opposition spokesmen and others with an interest in the Bill, including Members who spoke on Second Reading or who have tabled amendments, and leaders of parties represented in the devolved Parliament and Assemblies, to set out when we propose to table those amendments and debate them in the House, and to give them an idea of some of the provisions. I hope that that is helpful—indeed, it was intended to be so. In conclusion, I urge right hon. and hon. Members to resist any amendments that are pressed to a Division, and I urge hon. Members thinking of pressing their amendments not to do so.
Mr MacNeil
To recap the debate, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) made a very good speech majoring on fairness. He mentioned missing the bus, and it seems to me that the Deputy Prime Minister missed the bus on fairness with his differential treatment of voters. The hon. Gentleman’s amendment cites six months; I cite 18 months as a maximum. The point of agreement is that the date must be changed to prevent the differential treatment of voters. He also made a good point about the BBC. Not understanding the voters has been a problem with the media, and with media management and presentation. Only 3% of the BBC output comes from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which constitute 17% of the UK population.
The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), an apostle of AV, naturally supports AV, but he does not support the date. I look forward to seeing him in the Lobby, and I am sure that narrow party political considerations will not prevent him from voting. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), a fair and progressive person if ever there were one, made a good speech. His arguments were on the issues, not on side calculations for party political gain. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) repeated the point that the devolved Governments were not consulted and that there will be differential treatment across the UK. He argued that the referendum should be held in September—I am not against that at all; the point of agreement is that there should be a different date from 5 May.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) made some excellent arguments. What can I say about her Gaelic pronunciation, other than that I expect to see her at the Mòd in Thurso by the end of the week, doubtless singing a Gaelic song? For Members who do not know what the Mòd is, it shows that we are more than two nations in one state. The hon. Lady said that she might need to examine her conscience. I would be more than happy to help her do so in the Lobby very shortly.
The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) illustrated our veritable rainbow coalition against 5 May. She made practical points about congestion on election day at polling stations, which were underlined by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) and by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The hon. Member for Belfast East made a cracking, quick-fire factual speech, and she also hit on the difficulties with the media and with Royal Mail. I only wish she had spoken to the absent Deputy Prime Minister before he landed the hon. Member for Epping Forest in it. [Interruption.] She wrote to him, she says from a sedentary position. She also mentioned the opportunity for cross-party co-operation that has been lost in the north of Ireland. I imagine that outside Scotland cross-party co-operation is more needed, including in Northern Ireland.
I am sure that the fire in the hon. Lady’s belly had nothing to do with the fact that the Faroe Islands have drawn with Northern Ireland. Perhaps this is a good point at which to mention that I am chairman of the all-party Faroe Islands group, which will hold a meeting before the end of the month—everyone is welcome. [Interruption.] I hope there will not be a differential turnout. Despite the Faroe result, Scotland are drawing 2-2 with Spain at the moment. [Interruption.] Not very united at the moment, eh?
The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) called for a level playing field, and he highlighted the difference between an election for a national Parliament, one for local councils, and no elections at all in the UK. He discussed his relationship with the leader of the Liberal Democrat party. The rest of us are not sure of any relationship at all, and might not even be able to pick him out in an identity parade. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), a renowned political tipster if ever there was, says that the hon. Gentleman is at the zenith of his political career—I am not sure what he means.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) told us of the reservations of Members of the Scottish Parliament; 5 May was on their timetable first, but it was ignored. My amendment allows 546 other days at least; of course there will be some days that we will wish to subtract. He supported an AV referendum, but he did not want it to be a democratic spoiler for Holyrood. He said that this was a deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Tories in support of Tory cuts. I put it to him that he prefers Tory cuts to independence for Scotland.
Eventually, after three hours we had someone supporting the Government. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) spoke about jobs, and I can relate again that the hon. Member for South Antrim was tipping him for promotion. I was expecting a Spectator award for him later in the year, but unfortunately he just kept talking and that seemed to slip from his grasp. He was given a good jolt of reality by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker).
The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) highlighted the fact that the majority of the speakers came from the devolved nations and regions of the UK. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) conceded that the referendum was not ideal, but it was what was on offer. I would ask him to stick to his principles. But to be fair to him, he was one of the few Lib Dems on the big Lib Dem issue in the Chamber. I was counting, and only 3% of the Lib Dem party turned up for the main part of the debate on their big, big issue.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) talked of the premature calculation of a political novice, namely the Deputy Prime Minister. He said that the Deputy Prime Minister was in thrall to 5 May. He pointed out that the public can cope with different elections on the same day, but it is the media, the political system and even the Electoral Commission that struggle. He worried about the Tories turning up in Northern Ireland. In Scotland, they are like the corncrake, almost a protected species.
In a great contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) said that there were many reasons against 5 May, and that is what the Chamber heard tonight. There are many reasons against 5 May, and there is nothing for 5 May other than a tawdry deal between the governing parties. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) brought humour to the debate and illuminated internal Labour party thinking: vote for a referendum because the Lords will overturn it. He is supporting a change from 5 May, and I will welcome that.
The respect agenda should be alive and if it was, 5 May would not be happening. The Minister is a reasonable man and he batted heroically on a very sticky wicket. He personifies in the Chamber the maxim that one can disagree with a person’s argument but still respect the person. This is not a veto. This is only on one issue. One must have respect for the other legislatures in the UK and they themselves will be consulted on this one issue once. If one opposes this it makes the assumption that the Members of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Irish Assembly are unreasonable people.
I should not have to press the amendment to a vote. The Government should accept the arguments of all parties on both sides about the differential treatment of electors and the unfairness of this in the UK, but unfortunately I will have to do so.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I beg to move amendment 7, page 1, leave out from line 7 to end of line 4 on page 2 and insert—
‘(3) The questions that are to appear on the ballot paper are—
“(1) Do you want to change the current “first past the post” system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?
(2) If there were a change, list your order of preference, 1, 2, 3, for the United Kingdom to adopt:
(a) The ‘alternative vote’ system,
(b) The ‘additional member’ system, or
(c) The ‘single transferable vote’ system with multi-member constituencies?”.
(4) In Wales, a Welsh version of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers.
(5) The voting for the second question in the referendum shall be in accordance with section (Counting of votes on second question of referendum).’.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 230.
Amendment 140, page 1, leave out lines 8 to 11 and insert—
‘Rank your preference for the system for electing members to the House of Commons (a) Alternative Vote (b) First Past The Post (c) The Single Transferable Vote.’.
Amendment 204, page 1, line 9, after ‘vote’, insert ‘plus’.
Government amendment 231.
Amendment 141, page 2, line leave out lines 1 to 4 and insert—
‘Graddiwch pa gyfundrefn o ethol aelodau i Ty’r Cyffredin sydd well gennych chi. (a) Pleidlais Amgen (b) Cyntaf i’r Felin (c) Pleidlais Sengl Drosglwyddadwy.’.
Amendment 205, page 2, line 2, after ‘amgen’, insert ‘plws’.
Amendment 142, page 2, line 4, at end insert—
‘(4) In Scotland, the following Gaelic version of the question is also on ballot papers—
Rangaich do roghainn a thaobh an t-siostaim taghaidh buill gu Taigh nan Cumantan? (a) Bhòt Eadar-roghnach (b) A’Chiad Bhuannaiche (c) Bhòt Mhalairteach Shingilte.’.
Amendment 14, in schedule 1, page 15, line 30 leave out
‘in favour of each answer to the question’
and insert
‘in answer to the questions’.
Amendment 15, page 19, line 24, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 16, in schedule 2, page 26, line 39, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 17, line 17, leave out ‘answer’ and insert ‘answers’.
Amendment 18, page 32, line 16, after ‘only’, insert
‘in relation to each question’.
Amendment 19, page 47, line 22, leave out ‘to the referendum question’ and insert
‘either or both of the referendum questions’.
Amendment 143, page 54, leave out lines 7 to 16 and insert
‘In England the ballot shall be as follows:
Front of ballot paper | |
Rank your preference for the system for electing members to the House of Commons Please rank in order of preference (1,2,3) You must mark at least one number on the ballot | |
Alternative Vote | |
First Past the Post | |
Single Transferable Vote |
In Wales, the ballot paper shall be as follows:
Front of ballot paper | |
Graddiwch pa gyfundrefn o ethol aelodau i Ty’r Cyffredin sydd well gennych chi Rhowch pa gynfundrefn sydd well gennych chi yn ôl trefn blaenoriaeth (1,2,3) Rhaid i chi farcio o leiaf un rhif ar y papur pleidleisio. Rank your preference for the system for electing members to the House of Commons Please Rank in order of preference (1,2,3) You must mark at least one number on the ballot. | |
Pleidlais Amgen/ Alternative Vote | |
Cyntaf i’r Felin/ First Past the Post | |
Pleidlais Sengl Drosglwyddadwy/ Single Transferable Vote |
In Scotland, the ballot paper shall be as follows:
Front of ballot paper | |
Rangaich do roghainn a thaobh an t-siostaim taghaidh buill gu Taigh nan Cumantan Rangaich iad a rèir do roghainn (1,2,3) Feumaidh tu co-dhiù aon àireamh a chomharrachadh sa bhaileat. Rank your preference for the system for electing members to the House of Commons Please Rank in order of preference (1,2,3) You must mark at least one number on the ballot. | |
Bhòt Eadar-rognach/ Alternative Vote | |
A’Chiad Bhuannaiche/ First Past the Post | |
Bhòt Mhalairteach Shinglite/ Single Transferable Vote |
Amendment 20, page 54, leave out lines 9 to 16 and insert—
Vote (X) once for question 1 | ||
1. Do you want to change the current “first past the post” system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons | Yes | |
No | ||
Then list your preference for what new system might be adopted by numbering 1, 2, 3 for question 2 | ||
2. If there was a change do you want the United Kingdom to adopt: | ||
(a) The “alternative vote” system or | ||
(b) The “additional member system” or | ||
(c) The “single transferable vote” system with three member constituencies?’. |
Government amendment 232.
Amendment 223, page 54, line 12, after ‘vote’, insert ‘plus’.
Amendment 21, page 55, leave out line 3.
Amendment 22, page 55, line 4, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 23, page 55, line 5, leave out ‘question’ and insert’ questions’.
Amendment 24, page 55, leave out line 20.
Amendment 25, page 55, line 25, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 26, page 55, line 26, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 27, page 55, line 27, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 28, page 55, line 32, leave out ‘question’ and insert ‘questions’.
Amendment 46, page 57, line 15,after ‘only’, insert
‘in relation to question 1, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 47, page 57, line 18, leave out ‘you are voting for’ and insert
‘to question 1 you are voting for, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 48, page 58, line 32, after ‘only’ insert
‘in relation to question 1, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 49, page 59, line 2, leave out ‘you are voting for’ and insert
‘to question 1 you are voting for, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 50, page 60, line 6, leave out ‘you are voting for’ and insert
‘to question 1 you are voting for, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 51, page 60, line 7 after ‘only’ insert
‘in relation to question 1, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 52, page 63, line 15, leave out ‘you are voting for’ and insert
‘to question 1 you are voting for, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 53, page 63, line 17, after ‘only’, insert
‘in relation to question 1, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 54, page 67, line 5, leave out ‘you are voting for’ and insert
‘to question 1 you are voting for, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 55, page 67, line 9, after ‘only’, insert
‘in relation to question 1, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 56, page 73, line 5, leave out ‘you are voting for’ and insert
‘to question 1 you are voting for, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 57, page 73, line 7, after ‘only’ insert
‘in relation to question 1, and indicate your preferences in relation to question 2’.
Amendment 144, in clause 6, page 4, leave out lines 27 and 28 and insert—
‘(a) the answer “alternative vote” is selected in the referendum, and’.
Amendment 8, page 4, line 28, after ‘“No”’, insert
‘to Question 1, and the alternative vote system is selected in response to question 2 in the referendum’.
Amendment 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(1A) The Minister must make an order bringing into force section (The single transferable vote system: amendments) if—
(a) the single transferable vote system is selected in response to question 2 of the referendum, and
(b) the draft of an Order in Council laid before Parliament under subsection (5A) of section 3 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (substituted by section 8(6) below) which provides for multi-member constituencies, in accordance with subsection (4) of section 3 of that Act as amended by section 8(5A) below, has been submitted to Her Majesty in Council under section 4 of that Act.
(1B) The Minister must make an order bringing into force section (The additional member system: amendments) if—
(a) the single transferable vote system is selected in response to question 2 of the referendum, and
(b) the draft of an Order in Council laid before Parliament under subsection (5A) of section 3 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (substituted by section 8(6) below) which provides for the additional member system, in accordance with subsection (4) of section 3 of that Act as amended by section 8(5A) below, has been submitted to Her Majesty in Council under section 4 of that Act.’.
Amendment 145, page 4, line 33, leave out from ‘if’ to second ‘the’ in line 34 and insert
‘the answer “alternative vote” is not selected in the referendum’.
Amendment 10, page 4, line 34, leave out from ‘“No”’ to end and insert
‘to Question 1, the Minister must make an order repealing the alternative vote provisions and section (The single transferable vote system: amendments) and section (The additional member system: amendments).’.
Amendment 11, page 4, line 39, leave out ‘subsection (1)’ and insert ‘subsections (1), (1A) or (1B)’.
Amendment 206, in clause 7, page 5, leave out lines 2 to 11 and insert—
‘How constituency votes are to be given
37A (1) A voter votes by marking a constituency ballot paper and a top-up ballot paper.
(2) A voter marks the constituency ballot paper with—
(a) the number 1 opposite the name of the candidate who is the voter’s first preference (or, as the case may be, the only candidate for whom the voter wishes to vote),
(b) if the voter wishes, the number 2 opposite the name of the candidate who is the voter’s second preference,
and so on.
(3) The voter may mark as many preferences (up to the number of candidates) as the voter wishes.
(4) A voter marks the top-up ballot paper with a mark opposite a single political party list of candidates.’.
Amendment 207, page 5, line 13, after ‘How’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 208, page 5, line 16, leave out
‘ballot papers and so to determine which candidate is elected’
and insert
‘constituency ballot papers and so determine which constituency candidate is elected, and how top-up votes are to be counted and so determine the allocation of top-up seats to political parties.’.
Amendment 209, page 5, line 34, at end insert—
‘(5A) Top-up ballots shall be counted simultaneously’.
Amendment 210, page 5, line 36, after ‘no’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 211, page 5, line 40, after ‘each’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 212, page 5, line 42, after ‘which’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 213, page 5, line 43, after ‘rejected’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 214, page 6, line 5, after ‘each’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 215, page 6, line 7, after ‘which’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 216, page 6, line 8, after ‘the’, insert ‘constituency’.
Amendment 217, page 6, line 9, at end insert—
‘(2A) After rule 50 in that Schedule there is inserted—
“50A(1) The returning officer shall give public notice of the total number of votes given for each political party together with the number of rejected ballot papers under each head shown in the statement of rejected ballot papers and return this information to the Clerk of the Crown.
(2) The Clerk of the Crown shall determine the allocation of top-up seats in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, by applying the D’Hondt formula to the total aggregated top-up votes in each of the four parts of the United Kingdom, as declared by each and every returning officer in that part.”.’.
Amendment 221, in schedule 6, page 144, line 29, at beginning insert—
‘Constituency ballot’.
Amendment 222, page 144, line 39, at end insert—
‘Top-Up ballot
Vote for one political party only. Put no other mark on the ballot paper, or your vote may note be counted’.
Amendment 12, in clause 8, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
‘(5A) In subsection (4) the words are inserted at the end—
“and each such report shall also provide for multi-member constituencies of three members, stating the name by which they recommend that each such area should be known, and for the additional member system as provided for in the Scotland Act 1998, as close as possible to 57 per cent. to be allocated for constituency representatives and the remaining seats to be allocated for closed party lists.”.’.
Amendment 13, in clause 16, page 13, line 3, at end insert—
‘(1A) Section (The single transferable vote system: amendments) comes into force in accordance with provision made by an order under section 6(1A).’.
New clause 3—The single transferable vote system: amendments—
‘(1) Within one month of the coming into force of this section, the Minister must lay before Parliament a draft of an order amending the parliamentary elections rules as set out in Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act so as to provide for a system of a single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies.
(2) An order under subsection (1) above may make any amendments to primary or secondary legislation necessary to give effect to the use of the single transferable vote in the United Kingdom parliamentary elections.
(3) An order under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.
New clause 4—The additional member system: amendments—
‘(1) Within one month of the coming into force of this section, the Minister must lay before Parliament a draft of an order amending the parliamentary elections rules as set out in Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act so as to provide for an additional member system.
(2) An order under subsection (1) above may make any amendments to primary or secondary legislation necessary to give effect to the use of the additional member system in United Kingdom parliamentary elections.
(3) An order under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.
New clause 5—Counting of votes on second question of referendum—
‘(1) A voter votes by marking the ballot paper with—
(a) the number 1 opposite the name of the option that is the voter’s first preference (or, as the case may be, the only option for whom the voter wishes to vote),
(b) if the voter wishes, the number 2 opposite the name of the option that is the voter’s second preference, and so on.
(2) The voter may mark as many preferences (up to the number of options) as the voter wishes.
(3) Votes shall be allocated to options in accordance with voters’ first preferences and, if one option has more votes than the other options put together, that option is selected.
(4) If not, the options with the fewest votes is eliminated and that option’s votes shall be dealt with as follows—
(a) each vote cast by a voter who also ranked one or more of the remaining options shall be reallocated to that remaining option or (as the case may be) to the one that the voter ranked highest;
(b) any votes not reallocated shall play no further part in the counting.
(5) If after that stage of counting one option has more votes than the other remaining options put together, that option is selected.
(6) If not, the process mentioned in subsection (4) above shall be repeated as many times as necessary until one option has more votes than the other remaining options put together, and so is selected.
(7) If no option is selected at the first stage of counting, the returning officer shall, immediately after that stage, record and make publicly available the following information—
(a) the number of first-preference votes obtained by each option;
(b) which option was eliminated;
(c) the number of rejected ballot papers.
(8) Immediately after each subsequent stage of counting, except the final stage, the returning officer shall record and make publicly available the following information—
(a) the number of votes obtained by each option at that stage;
(b) which option was eliminated at that stage;
(c) the number of votes for the option eliminated at the previous stage that were not reallocated.’.
New clause 14—Counting of votes in the referendum—
‘(1) A voter votes by marking the ballot paper with—
(a) the number 1 opposite the name of the option that is the voter’s first preference (or, as the case may be, the only option for whom the voter wishes to vote),
(b) if the voter wishes, the number 2 opposite the name of the option that is the voter’s second preference, and so on.
(2) The voter may mark as many preferences (up to the number of options) as the voter wishes.
(3) This rule sets out how votes are to be counted, in one or more stages of counting, in order to give effect to the preferences marked by voters on their ballot papers and so to determine which options are selected.
(4) Votes shall be allocated to options in accordance with voters’ first preferences and, if one option has more votes that the other options put together, that option is selected.
(5) If not, the options with the fewest votes are eliminated and that option’s votes shall be dealt with as follows—
(a) each vote cast by a voter who also ranked one or more of the remaining options shall be reallocated to that remaining option or (as the case may be) to the one that the voter ranked highest;
(b) any votes not reallocated shall play no further part in the counting.
(6) If no option is selected at the first stage of counting, the returning officer shall, immediately after that stage, record and make publicly available the following information—
(a) the number of first-preference votes obtained by each option;
(b) which option was eliminated;
(c) the number of rejected ballot papers.’.
New clause 15—Commencement or repeal of amending provisions: Single transferable vote—
‘(1) The Minister must make an order bringing into force section (Single transferable vote system: amendments), Schedule (Single transferable vote system: further amendments) and Part 1 of Schedule 7 (Single transferable vote provisions) if—
(a) the answer “Single Transferable Vote” is selected in the referendum, and
(b) the draft of an Order in Council laid before Parliament under subsection (5A) of section 3 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (substituted by section 8(6) (below) has been submitted to Her Majesty in Council under section 4 of that Act.
(2) If the answer “Single Transferable Vote” is not selected, the Minister must make an order repealing the single transferable vote provisions.
(3) An order under subsection (1) must bring the single transferable vote provisions into force on the same day as the coming into force of the Order in Council in terms of the draft referred to in paragraph (b) of that subsection.
(4) An order under subsection (1) may make transitional or saving provision.’.
New clause 16—Single transferable vote system: amendments—
‘(1) In Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act (Parliamentary elections rules), after rule 37 there is inserted—
“How votes are to be given
37A(1) A voter votes by marking the ballot paper with—
(a) the number 1 opposite the name of the candidate who is the voter’s first preference (or, as the case may be, the only candidate for whom the voter wishes to vote),
(b) if the voter wishes, the number 2 opposite the name of the candidate who is the voter’s second preference,
and so on.
(2) The voter may mark as many preferences (up to the number of candidates) as the voter wishes.”.
(2) After rule 45 in that Schedule there is to be inserted—
“How votes are to be counted
45A(1) This rule sets out how votes are to be counted, in one or more stages of counting, in order to give effect to the preferences marked by voters on their ballot papers and so to determine which candidate is elected.
First stage
45B(1)The returning officer shall sort the valid ballot papers into parcels according to the candidates for whom first preference votes are given.
(2) The returning officer shall then—
(a) count the number of ballot papers in each parcel;
(b) credit the candidate receiving the first preference vote with one vote for each ballot paper; and
(c) record those numbers.
(3) The returning officer shall also ascertain and record the total number of valid ballot papers.
The quota
45C(1)The returning officer shall divide the total number of valid ballot papers for the constituency by a number exceeding by one the number of members to be elected at the election for that constituency.
(2) The result of the division under paragraph (1) (Ignoring any decimal places), increased by one, is the number of votes needed to secure the return of a candidate as a member (in this Schedule referred to as the ‘quota’).
Return of members of House of Commons
45D(1)Where, at any stage of the count, the number of votes for a candidate equals or exceeds the quota, the candidate is deemed to be elected.
(2) A candidate is returned as a member of the House of Commons when declared to be elected in accordance with paragraph 8(1).
Transfer of ballot papers
45E(1)Where, at the end of any stage of the count, the number of votes credited to any candidate exceeds the quota and, subject to paragraphs 5 and 8, one or more vacancies remain to be filled, the returning officer shall sort the ballot papers received by that candidate into further parcels so that they are grouped—
(a) according to the next available preference given on those papers; and
(b) where no such preference is given, as a parcel of non-transferable papers.
(2) The returning officer shall, in accordance with this paragraph and paragraph 5, transfer each parcel of ballot papers referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(a) to the continuing candidate for whom the next available preference is given on those papers and shall credit such continuing candidates with an additional number of votes calculated in accordance with sub-paragraph (3).
(3) The vote on each ballot paper is transferred under sub-paragraph (2) shall have a value (‘the transfer value’) calculated as follows—
where:
A = the value which is calculated by multiplying the surplus of the transferring candidate by the value of the ballot paper when received by that candidate; and
B = the total number of votes credited to that candidate, the calculation being made to five decimal places (any remainder being ignored).
(4) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (3)—
“transferring candidate” means the candidate from whom the ballot paper is being transferred; and
“the value of the ballot paper” means—
(e) for a ballot paper on which a first preference vote is given for the transferring candidate, one; and
(f) in all other cases, the transfer value of the ballot paper when received by the transferring candidate.
Transfer of ballot papers: supplementary provisions
45F(1) If, at the end of any stage of the count, the number of votes credited to two or more candidates exceeds the quota the returning officer shall—
(a) first sort the ballot papers of the candidate with the highest surplus; and
(b) then transfer the transferable papers of that candidate.
(2) If the surpluses determined in respect of two or more candidates are equal, the transferable papers of the candidate who had the highest number of votes at the end of the most recent preceding stage at which they had unequal numbers of votes shall be transferred first.
(3) If the numbers of votes credited to two or more candidates were equal at all stages of the count, the returning officer shall decide, by lot, which candidate’s transferable papers are to be transferred first.
Exclusion of candidates
45G(1) If one or more vacancies remain to be filled and—
(a) the returning officer has transferred all ballot papers which are required by paragraph 5 or this paragraph to be transferred; or
(b) there are no ballot papers to be transferred under paragraph 5 or this paragraph, the returning officer shall exclude from the election at that stage the candidate with the then lowest number of votes.
(2) The returning officer shall sort the ballot papers for the candidate excluded under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph into parcels so that they are grouped—
(a) according to the next available preference given on those papers; and
(b) where no such preference is given, as a parcel of non-transferable papers.
(3) The returning officer shall, in accordance with this article, transfer each parcel of ballot papers referred to in sub-paragraph (2)(a) to the continuing candidate for whom the next available preference is given on those papers and shall credit such continuing candidates with an additional number of votes calculated in accordance with sub-paragraph (4).
(4) The vote on each ballot paper transferred under sub-paragraph (3) shall have a transfer value of one unless the vote was transferred to the excluded candidate in which case it will have the same transfer value as when transferred to the candidate excluded under sub-paragraph (1).
(5) This paragraph is subject to paragraph 45H.
Exclusion of candidates: supplementary provisions
45H(1) If, when a candidate has to be excluded under paragraph 6—
(a) two or more candidates each have the same number of votes; and
(b) no other candidate has fewer votes, sub-paragraph (2) applies.
(2) Where this sub-paragraph applies—
(a) regard shall be had to the total number of votes credited to those candidates at the end of the most recently preceding stage of the count at which they had an unequal number of votes and the candidate with the lowest number of votes at that stage shall be excluded; and
(b) where the number of votes credited to those candidates was equal at all stages, the returning officer shall decide, by lot, which of those candidates is to be excluded.
Filling of last vacancies
45I(1)Where the number of continuing candidates is equal to the number of vacancies remaining unfilled, the continuing candidates are deemed to be elected.
(2) Where the last vacancies can be filled under this paragraph, no further transfer shall be made.
By-elections
45J(1) Where a vacancy occurs in any constituency, paragraphs (45A) to (45H) apply to the subsequent by-election.
(2) Where more than one vacancy exists in a constituency when a writ for a by-election in that constituency is moved, only one by-election is to be held for the vacant seats and this rule applies as if the number of members to be elected is the total number of seats vacant in that constituency.”.’.
New schedule 1—The single transferable vote system: further amendments—
Part 1
Amendments of the parliamentary elections rules
1 Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act (parliamentary elections rules) is amended as follows.
2 For rule 18 (poll to be taken by ballot) there is substituted—
“18 The votes at the poll shall be given by ballot in accordance with rule 37A below, the result shall be ascertained in accordance with rule 45A below and the successful candidate shall be declared to have been elected.”.
3 In rule 29 (equipment of polling stations), in paragraph (5), for the words after “the notice” there is substituted—
“Remember—use 1, 2, 3, etc... at this election—this is an election using the Single Transferrable Vote system.
Put the number 1 next to the name of the candidate who is your first choice (or your only choice, if you want to vote for only one candidate). You can also put the number 2 next to your second choice, 3 next to your third choice, and so on. You can mark as few or as many choices (up to the number of candidates) as you wish.
Do not use the same number more than once.
Put no other mark on the ballot paper, or your vote may not be counted.”.
4 In rule 44 (attendance at counting of votes), in paragraph (5), for “the candidate for whom the vote is given” there is substituted “the candidates to whom votes are allocated under rule 45A below”.
5 (1) In rule 46 (re-count), for paragraph (1) there is substituted—
“(1) At the time when any stage of the counting or re-counting of the votes is completed, a candidate or candidate’s election agent who is then present may request the returning officer to have the votes re-counted or again re-counted in respect of any or all of the stages so far completed.
(1A) The returning officer may refuse to comply with a request under paragraph (1) above if in the officer’s opinion it is unreasonable.”.
(2) In paragraph (2) of that rule, after “on the completion of” there is inserted “any stage of”.
(3) After that paragraph there is inserted—
“(3) At any time before the declaration of the result, the returning officer may, if the officer thinks fit, have the votes re-counted or again re-counted in respect of any or all of the stages.”.
6 (1) In rule 47 (rejected ballot papers), in the heading there is inserted at the end “and invalid markings”.
(2) In paragraph (1) of that rule—
(a) for sub-paragraph (b) there is substituted—
“(aa) on which the number 1 has not been marked against the name of any of the candidates, or
(b) on which the number 1 has been marked against the name of more than one candidate, or”,
(b) in sub-paragraph (d), for “void for unertainty” there is substituted “is marked in a way that does not indicate a clear choice as to the voter’s first (or only) preference”;
(c) for the words after that sub-paragraph there is substituted “shall, subject to the following provisions, be rejected as void and not counted at any stage.”.
(3) For paragraph (2) of that rule there is substituted—
“(2) A ballot paper on which a number is marked elsewhere than in a proper place shall not be deemed to be void for that reason alone.
(2A) If a ballot paper is marked with the same number (other than the number 1) against the name of more than one candidate, that number (each time it appears) and any numbers after the repeated numbers shall be ignored for the purposes of rule 45A above.
(2B) If—
(a) one or more preferences are validly marked on a ballot paper, and
(b) other marks are made on the paper which do not indicate a clear intention as to the voter’s next preference,
those other marks shall be ignored for the purposes of rule 45A above.
(2C) A ballot paper on which the voter makes any mark which—
(a) is clearly intended to indicate a particular preference for a particular candidate, but
(b) is not a number (or is a number written otherwise than as an Arabic numeral),
(2D) In paragraph (2C) above a reference to a mark includes a reference to more than one mark.
(2E) Paragraphs (2B) and 2(C) above apply only if the way the paper is marked does not itself identify the voter and it is not shown that the voter can be identified by it.”
(4) After paragraph (3) of that rule there is inserted—
“(3A) Where—
(a) any mark on a ballot paper is ignored by reason of paragraph (2A) or (2B) above, and
(b) the vote in question is not reallocated in accordance with rule 45A above, but would have been if the mark had been treated as indicating a preference for a remaining candidate,
the returning officer shall endorse the ballot paper in question with the words “not reallocated” and an indication of the stage at which the mark was ignored.
(3B) Where the returning officer endorses a ballot paper as mentioned in paragraph (3A), the officer shall add to the endoresement the words “decision objected to” if an objection is made by a counting agent to the decision.”.
(5) In paragraph (4) of that rule—
(a) for sub-paragraph (b) there is substituted—
“(aa) not marking the number 1 against the name of any of the candidates;
(b) marking the number 1 against the name of more than one candidate;”;
(b) for sub-paragraph (d) there is substituted—
(d) unmarked or marked in a way that does not indicate a clear choice as to the voter’s first (or only) preference.”.
7 (1) For rule 49 (equality of votes), and the heading, there is substituted—
“Equality of votes: which candidate to be eliminated
49(1) This rule applies to determine which candidate is eliminated under rule 45A(3) above in a case where—
(a) there are two or more candidates with fewer votes than the others but an equal number to each other, or
(b) there are three or more candidates, or remaining candidates, and they all have an equal number of votes to each other.
The candidates with an equal nunber of votes to each other are referred to in this rule as “the tied candidates”.
(2) The candidate to be eliminated where there has been a previous elimination is—
(a) whichever of the tied candidates was allocated the fewer or fewest votes in accordance with voters’ first preferences, or
(b) if that fails to resolve the tie, whichever of them had the fewer or fewest votes after the next stage of counting (if any),
and so on.
(3) Where there has been no previous elimination, or where there has been a previous elimination but the tie is not resolved under paragraph (2) above, the returning officer shall forthwith decide by lot which of the tied candidates is to be eliminated.
Equality of votes: which candidate to be elected
49A (1) This rule applies to determine which candidate is elected under rule 45A(4) or (5) above in a case where there are only two remaining candidates and they have an equal number of votes.
(2) The candidate to be elected is—
(a) whichever of the remaining candidates was allocated the more votes in accordance with voters’ first preferences, or
(b) if that fails to resolve the tie, whichever of them had the more votes after the next stage of counting (if any),
and so on.
(3) Where the tie is not resolved under paragraph (2) above, the returning officer shall forthwith decide by lot which of the remaining candidates is to be elected.”.
8 In rule 50 (declaration of result), in paragraph (1), for sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) there is substituted—
“(a) declare the number of votes obtained by each candidate (including any reallocated in accordance with rule 45A above), starting with the candidate with the fewest and proceeding in order to the candidate with the most;
(aa) declare which is the candidate who (in accordance with that rule is) elected;
(ab) declare the stage at which each eliminated candidate was eliminated and the stage at which the elected candidate was elected;
(b) return the name of the elected candidate to the Clerk of the Crown;
(c) give public notice of the name of the elected candidate, the number of rejected ballot papers under each head shown in the statement of rejected ballot papers, the number of votes allocated to each candidate in accordance with voters’ first preferences, and for each subsequent stage of counting—
(i) the name of the eliminated candidate;
(ii) the number of votes reallocated to each of the remaining candidates, and
(iii) the number of votes of the candidate eliminated at the previous stage that were not reallocated.”.
9 In rule 53 (return of forfeiture of candidate’s deposit), in paragraph (4), for the words after “is completed,” there is substituted “the number of first preference votes obtained by the candidate is found to be not more than one twentieth of the total number of first-preference votes obtained by all the candidates.”.
10 (1) In rule 61 (deceased independent candidate wins), in paragraph (1), for “the majority of votes is given to the deceased candidate” there is substituted “the deceased candidate would have been elected (in accordance with rule 45A above) had he not died”.
(2) In paragraph (2) of that rule, for sub-paragraph (a) there is substituted—
“(a) declare the number of votes obtained by each candidate (including any reallocated in accordance with rule 45A above, starting with the candidate with the fewest and proceeding in order to the candidate with the most,
(aa) declare that the deceased candidate would have been elected had he not died,”.
(3) For sub-paragraph (c) of that paragraph there is substituted—
“(c) give public notice of the number of rejected ballot papers under each head shown in the statement of rejected ballot papers, the number of votes allocated to each candidate in accordance with voters’ first preferences, and for each subsequent stage of counting—
(i) the name of the candidate eliminated,
(ii) the number of votes reallocated to each of the remaining candidates, and
(iii) the number of votes of the candidate eliminated at the previous stage that were not reallocated.”.
11 (1) For rule 62 (deceased independent candidate with equality of votes) there is substituted—
“62(1) This rule applies in relation to an election mentioned in rule 60(1) above.
(2) The reference in rule 45A(3) above to the candidate with the fewest votes, in a case where—
(a) there are two or more candidates with fewer votes than the others but an equal number to each other, and
(b) one of them is a deceased candidate,
shall be taken as a reference to the deceased candidate.
(3) The reference in rule 45A(4) or (5) above to the candidate with more votes than the other remaining candidates put together, in a case where—
(a) there are only two remaining candidates,
(b) those two candidates have an equal number of votes, and
(c) one of them is a deceased candidate,
shall be taken as a reference to the candidate other than the deceased candidate.
(4) Where paragraph (2) or (3) above applies, it applies in place of rule 49 or 49A above.”.
12 (1) The Appendix of forms is amended as follows—
(2) In the Form of Front of Ballot Paper—
(a) for “VOTE FOR ONE CANDIDATE ONLY” there is substituted—
“Put the number 1 next to the name of the candidate who is your first choice (or your only choice, if you want to vote for only one candidate).
You can also put the number 2 next to your second choice, 3 next to your third choice, and so on.
You can mark as few or as many choices (up to the number of candidates) as you wish.
Do not use the same number more than once.”.
(b) the numbers on the left-hand side are omitted, together with the vertical rule separating them from the particulars of the candidates.
(3) In the directions as to printing the ballot paper—
(a) in paragraph 2(a), for “the direction to vote for one candidate only” there is substituted “the directions beginning “Put the number 1 next to the name of the candidate who is your first choice” and ending “Do not use the same number more than once.””;
(b) in paragraph 2(b), for the words “the vertical rules separating those particulars from the numbers on the left-hand side and the spaces on the right” there is substituted “the vertical rule separating those particulars from the spaces on the right”.
(4) In the Guidance for Voters—
(a) for paragraph 1 there is substituted—
“1 When you are given a ballot paper go to one of the compartments. Put the number 1 on the ballot paper in the box to the right of the name of the candidate who is your first choice (or your only choice, if you want to vote for only one candidate).
You can also put the number 2 in the box to the right of the name of the candidate who is your second choice, the number 3 in the box to the right of the name of the candidate who is your third choice, and so on. You can mark as few or as many choices (up to the number of candidates) as you wish. Do not use the same number more than once.”,
(b) in paragraph 2, the words “Vote for one candidate only.” are repealed.
Part 2
Amendments of other provisions of the 1983 Act
13 The 1983 Act is amended as follows.
14 (1) In section 66 (requirement of secrecy), in subsection (2)(b), for “the candidate for whom any vote is given on any particular ballot paper” there is substituted “how any particular ballot paper has been marked”.
(2) In subsection (3)(b) and (c) of that section, for “the candidate for whom” there is substituted “how”.
(3) In subsection (3)(d) of that section, for “the name of the candidate for whom he has or has not” there is substituted “how he has”.
(4) In subsection (4)(d) of that section, for “the candidate for whom any vote is given on any particular ballot paper” there is substituted “how any particular ballot paper has been marked”.
(5) In subsection (5) of that section, for “the candidate for whom” there is substituted “how”.
(6) Subsections (7) and (8) of that section are repealed.
(7) The amendments made by this paragraph do not apply to a local government election (within the meaning given by section 204(1) of the 1983 Act) in Scotland.
15 In section 113 (bribery), in subsection (7)—
(a) for “this section the expression” there is substituted “this section—
(a) the expression”;
(b) at the end there is inserted—
“(b) a reference to voting or refraining from voting, in the case of a parliamentary election, includes a reference to marking or refraining from marking preferences on the ballot paper;
(c) a reference to the vote of any voter, in the case of a parliamentary election, includes a reference to the marking of a voter’s preferences on the ballot paper.”.
16 In section 114 (treating), at the end there is inserted—
“(4) Subsection (7)(b) of section 113 above has effect for the purposes of this section as it has effect for the purposes of that one.”
17 In section 115 (undue influence), at the end there is inserted—
“(3) Subsection (7)(b) of section 113 above has effect for the purposes of this section as it has effect for the purposes of that one.”.
18 (1) In section 117 (savings as to parliamentary elections), in subsection (2)(b), for “to record his vote for any particular candidate” there is substituted “to vote in any particular way”.
(2) In subsection (2)(c) of that section, for “recording his vote for any particular candidate” there is substituted “voting in any particular way”.
19 (1) In section 139 (trial of election petition), in subsection (6) the words “the parliamentary elections rules or”, in both places, are repealed.
(2) After that subsection there is inserted—
“(6A) If the petition relates to an election conducted under the parliamentary elections rules and it appears that there is an equality of votes between any candidates (a ‘tie’)—
(a) rule 49, 49A or 62 of those rules (whichever is relevant) shall apply for the purposes of the petition;
(b) where under rule 49 or 49A the tie fails to be resolved by lot—
(i) any decision made by lot by the returning officer under that rule shall, in so far as it resolves the tie, be effective also for the purposes of the petition, and
(ii) in so far as the tie is not resolved by such a decision, the court shall resolve it by lot.”.
20 In section 165 (avoidance of election for employing corrupt agent), after subsection (3) there is inserted—
“(3A) In the case of a parliamentary election—
(a) a vote shall be deemed in accordance with subsection (3) above to be thrown away only to the extent that it indicates a preference (whether a first preference or any other) for the person who was under the incapacity, and
(b) any number on the voter’s ballot paper indicating a subsequent preference shall be treated as reduced by one.”.
21 In section 166 (votes to be struck off for corrupt or illegal practices), in subsection (1), for the words from “election there shall” to the end there is substituted “election, then on a scrutiny—
(a) there shall be disregarded any preference for the candidate (whether a first preference or any other) indicated by a voter who is proved to have been so bribed, treated or unduly influenced, and
(b) any number on the voter’s ballot paper indicating a subsequent preference shall be treated as reduced by one.”.
22 In section 199B (translations etc of certain documents), in subsection (6), for the words “in the case of a parliamentary election or” in paragraph (a) there is substituted—
“in the case of a parliamentary election, must have printed the following words both at the top and immediately below the list of candidates:
“Put the number 1 next to the name of the candidate who is your first choice (or your only choice, if you want to vote for only one candidate).
You can also put the number 2 next to your second choice, 3 next to your third choice, and so on.
You can mark as few or as many choices (up to the number of candidates) as you wish.
Do not use the same number more than once.”,
(aa) in the case of”.
Part 3
Amendments of other enactments
Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (c. 41)
23 In section 3A of the 2000 Act (four Electoral Commissioners to be persons put forward by parties), in subsection (7), for “votes cast for” there is substituted “first-preference votes obtained by”.
24 In section 1 of the 1986 Act (Parliamentary constituencies) in subsection (1), for “a single member” there is substituted “no fewer than three members except for constituencies named in Schedule 2, rule 6 of this Act”’.
Amendment 224, in title, line 3, after ‘vote’, insert ‘plus’.
Amendment 35, in title, line 3, after ‘system’, insert
‘or the single transferable vote system or the additional member system’.
Amendment 139, in title, line 3, leave out
‘if a majority of those voting in the referendum are in favour of that’
and insert
‘or the single transferable vote system if either option is selected in the referendum’. ‘
Caroline Lucas
I am pleased to move the amendment that stands in my name and those of the hon. Members for Clacton (Mr Carswell) and for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell). I welcome the fact that the Committee is at long last debating the possibility of a referendum on electoral reform, but it is crucial that the public choose the voting system, not the politicians. We do not often have referendums in this country, and now that we are planning to have one, the least that we can do is give people a real choice on their ballot papers. It is hugely disappointing that AV is the only alternative to first past the post in the Bill. As a result, the Bill fails to live up to the promise of genuine reform and of re-engaging people with the political process.
Sir Alan Beith
I have every sympathy with the hon. Lady’s amendment and the argument that she is putting forward. However, before she starts to attack the coalition, she must surely recognise that there is no possible coalition of parties that we could join in carrying through the present House of Commons a referendum that would allow people the choice of the single transferable vote, desirable though that would be, and her one-Member party in this House certainly cannot achieve that objective.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but perhaps I am more optimistic than he is. I hope that the power of argument might just wake up our fellow Members.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that what we are doing is repairing the damage done by the gutlessness of the Liberal Democrats? They did not have the guts or the integrity to include in the referendum a question on a system of proportional representation, which they always purported to believe in. We are allowing the people to speak out.
Caroline Lucas
Many millions of people in this country will be looking at what some Members do in the Committee this evening, and they will be looking with a degree of perplexity, given that what we hear many Members might do runs counter to what was in their manifestos.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very generous. If there was a groundswell of popular support for the single transferable vote, surely the Liberal Democrats, just after the election but before they entered the coalition Government, would have been able to persuade the Labour party to push through primary legislation to deliver the single transferable vote. However, that was not possible because, quite frankly, the single transferable vote is not generally supported by the voting public of this country.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but in fact there are plenty of opinion polls, conducted by the Electoral Commission and others, that show that there is a majority for electoral reform in this country. We are not saying that that necessarily means STV; we are saying that we should let the people decide. It is not right that politicians in this House should basically stitch up the question and then try to present people with a Hobson’s choice between two things, neither of which, as we know, people prefer.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Given that it is not every day of the week—indeed, it is not every year—that we send out millions of ballot papers to millions of homes asking people to decide whether they want to change the electoral system, does my hon. Friend not agree that the least that we can do is allow them a proper choice, from the full spectrum, regardless of our personal preferences? Rather than confronting them with the politicians’ choice, we should allow them a full range of options.
Caroline Lucas
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. In a way, it is pretty arrogant for Members to assume that the population do not have a view and cannot make a sensible choice. Are we really saying that first past the post is such a strong and popular system that it justifies such a narrow question? Recent history suggests that it is not. It is no accident that following the collapse of the Soviet Union, not one of the eastern or central European countries emerging from years of totalitarian rule chose the Westminster model. Similarly, is AV really the only system that we should consider if we want to change?
I acknowledge that the alternative vote system has a number of advantages over first past the post and that, in some respects, it represents a small step forward. The Electoral Reform Society has conducted a thorough analysis of AV, and I share its assessment that there are some positives. Those positives include the ability of voters to record a sincere first preference, thus reducing the need for tactical voting; the widening of the political choice available to the elector; and the disincentives that the system offers for parties to pursue core vote strategies that ignore the wishes of the majority of the electorate.
Mr MacNeil
Does the hon. Lady agree that AV, which the Liberal Democrats have accepted and which they imagine to be a halfway house between first past the post and STV, is not a halfway house at all? I contend that it does not go even a quarter of the way towards STV—probably not even a tenth or a twentieth or a fiftieth of the way. It probably does not go even 1% of the way towards STV. The Liberals have been bought off more than cheaply.
Caroline Lucas
I agree. The alternative vote represents a small step forward, but we should be very clear that it is not a proportional system. We owe it to the electorate to put before them a choice that includes a genuinely proportional system. The debate is wider than whether we should choose AV or first past the post. The relative merits of AV as against first past the post cannot be said to cover all the arguments in a modern debate about real electoral reform.
Sir Alan Beith
The hon. Lady is making a constructive contribution, but she must face the fact that, if she were successful in carrying her amendment, there would not then be a majority in the House in favour of a referendum at all. That is surely not an outcome that she would want.
Caroline Lucas
I find that incredibly disappointing and defeatist—[Interruption.] Well, it might be said that, had the terms of the coalition agreement been different, and had different priorities been at the top of the list, we might not have found ourselves in this situation. I believe that the role of politicians in this House is to do what we believe to be right, and I believe that it is right to give people this choice. That is what will be respected by the electorate.
Mr Carswell
Does my hon. Friend not agree that there is something rather bizarre about the position of the Liberal Democrats? They have been arguing for STV for as long as anyone can remember, but, in order to cook up a coalition, they have abandoned their reformist credentials and are now happy to settle for something that is not even their preferred option.
Caroline Lucas
I agree, and I very much hope that Liberal Democrat Members will follow us through the Lobby to support this amendment. Even if we do not win the vote tonight, this could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If some Members are not willing to put their bodies where their mouths are, and are not prepared to fulfil the promises in their manifesto, we cannot be surprised that people lose faith in the political process. This amendment is about restoring faith in the political process; it is about trusting the electorate and delivering on promises to treat them a bit better.
My primary concern as we consider the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is that it is the public who should choose our voting system, not the politicians. That ought to be a principle around which we can all agree. We can argue about whether to adopt AV-plus, first past the post, the single transferable vote or the additional Member system, but the principle should be that it is for the people to decide.
Mr Jackson
Does not the real-world experience of the single transferable vote system show that deals are made by politicians in smoke-filled rooms after elections, after the people have had the opportunity to make their choices? One has only to look at the anecdotal evidence from such systems across the world to see that, in reality, the ordinary voter, having cast their ballot, is shut out from the business of governance. That is the result of the STV system.
Caroline Lucas
That is an argument against STV, but I keep stressing that what we are talking about is the right of the public to choose the system. When they have that right, we can have the debate about whether STV does or does not lead to decisions being made in smoke-filled rooms. The hon. Gentleman’s assertion is rather ironic. He is concerned about what goes on in smoke-filled rooms, and perhaps he does not want the public to make any decisions on this. He does not want the fresh air of public opinion to be waved over our debate tonight, but that is exactly what should happen. That is why the public should decide.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady agree that, if we are going to spend £100,000 at a time when money is short, we should at least give the British people a full choice of options, rather than a limited one? That would represent better value for money. People have already had the opportunity to vote for a referendum on AV, when the Labour party put that proposal before them at the election. Sadly, we did not win the election, and there is no groundswell of support for a referendum on AV.
Caroline Lucas
I absolutely agree. It is also important that we do not underestimate the public. Some say that voters cannot understand the different voting systems, but that is a very patronising position and does not bear scrutiny. Voters regularly manage to make the best of first past the post, for example, despite the fact that it fails to deliver seats that reflect the votes cast.
All the systems that appear in the question we suggest should be on the ballot paper have advantages and drawbacks, but none are so mind-bending that the public cannot be trusted to debate and, crucially, choose between them. We need to inject some health and optimism back into our political system, and we can do that if we give people the chance to have a real debate and a real choice. It should not be about whether or not there is sufficient agreement in this House for putting it to the public; it should be absolutely automatic that the public have the right to choose.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
If the Tories and their allies were interested in genuine reform, would they not have produced a draft constitutional reform Bill? We could all have discussed it and consulted the public on it. Is not the reality that this is a shabby political deal between the Tories and their allies on the Government Benches to fix political advantage? The only party that knows it would benefit from an alternative vote system is the Liberal Democrat party
Caroline Lucas
Unfortunately, I think that the hon. Member is right that this was a shabby political deal done in the very smoke-filled rooms that the coalition complain about.
Our political system is sick, I argue, and getting this question right provides the only road to real recovery. The system is sick because swing voters in just a tiny number of seats effectively decide who is going to run this country. It has resulted in the targeting of funding at marginal constituencies and voters in most other parts of the country being sidelined, if not ignored.
Mr Carswell
My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way. Does she agree that if the amendment were accepted and people could vote for a single transferable vote system with multi-member constituencies, they would effectively be returning to the Disraelian idea of three-Member boroughs, which is a profoundly Conservative idea?
Caroline Lucas
Well, I thank the hon. Member, but I perhaps agree with that slightly less than with some of his other more constructive interventions.
Let me return to my final point, which is about more than what kind of voting system we select, as it is about reconnecting with the public. It is not long ago that we went through the expenses scandal and gained the sense that people were very disillusioned with this House and wanted MPs to clean up politics—whatever their preference of voting system. That is why I hope colleagues will support this amendment to depoliticise the question and give voters the option to express their real views on what electoral system we should have.
Parliament came to seen with contempt by many, because it was seen to be acting in its own interests and not those of the people whom it was supposed to serve. If this amendment is rejected, people will reach the same conclusion once again—that Parliament is acting in its own interests rather than trusting the public to make a decision. A stitched-up referendum that denies people a real choice smacks of the old politics. Tonight we have an opportunity to create a healthy system, based on respect for the electorate and the creation of a real debate on a real question. I urge hon. Members to support amendment 7.
Mr Harper
I want to speak to Government amendments 230, 231 and 232, which relate to the question, and I note that similar provisions were tabled by members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, so their names have been added to the Government amendments. For every referendum held under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to consider the wording of the proposed referendum question and to publish a statement of its views on its intelligibility. Where the question is contained in a Bill, this duty is triggered when the Bill is introduced and the report has to be submitted as soon as reasonably practicable after that. The commission completed the process for the referendum on the current voting system on 30 September.
Mr Jenkin
If my hon. Friend studies the focus group research conducted by the Electoral Commission, he will see that what voters found most confusing about the question was the term “alternative vote”. Voters have very little idea what that is. Now the Electoral Commission has told us that it will produce literature explaining what it is to voters, but would it not be better to give the alternative vote system its proper name, which is, in fact, “optional preferential voting with instant run-off”? That would explain exactly what it is, leaving no ambiguity.
Mr Harper
That may well be the case, and my hon. Friend and I might find that a very happy outcome, but when the Government drafted the original question we were very clear about the fact—which was confirmed by the Electoral Commission’s research—that it was neutral and not biased. The Government’s position is that we very much want the referendum, but are neutral about the outcome. The two coalition parties are not neutral about it, but the Government are: that is, Ministers are neutral in their capacity as Ministers. I am glad that the commission found that our question was neutral and not biased.
However, my hon. Friend has hit on a good point: the need to ensure that voters know what they are voting on. We thought it important to include in the Bill the details of the specific form of alternative vote that would be brought into effect in the event of a “yes” vote in the referendum. My hon. Friend characterised it correctly as an optional preferential system. No doubt the Electoral Commission will conduct some education in a neutral and unbiased way. The two campaigns will also explain not just the mechanics of the system, but the outcomes and potential impact of introducing it or retaining the existing system. I am convinced that by the end of the campaign, voters will be in no doubt about the consequences, and will therefore be able to make a very clear decision on 5 May next year.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I think that the Electoral Commission’s wording is a big improvement. It removes words such as “adopt”, which had biased connotations in the original. I have studied the commission’s research. According to one of its findings,
“Some people thought that the reason for changing the voting system was because the last election had resulted in a hung Parliament and that perhaps AV would avoid that.”
There is clearly a great deal of confusion about AV, which will actually lead to more rather than fewer hung Parliaments.
There is a second problem. In fact, AV is simply a second-rate version of first past the post. Let me make another suggestion about the wording. Perhaps it should refer to a “one person, one vote” system, which is what we have now, versus a multiple voting system in which some people receive more votes than others—which is basically what AV is.
Mr Harper
I think that my hon. Friend is anticipating the referendum campaign. Tempted though I am, he would not expect Ministers to be drawn into a debate about the merits of different electoral systems at the Dispatch Box. That will take place when we have the referendum. However, he made a good point about the need to engage in a good debate about the issue. The Electoral Commission did say in its research findings that some members of the public had trouble with language when it came to the use of the words “Parliament” and “House of Commons”. Thinking back to the previous debate and the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), we in this House should consider members of the public who do not take an enormous interest in, or spend a great deal of time on, these issues, important though we think they are. We need to make sure we address those people, and not just ourselves.
It is very important that the referendum question should be clear and simple to understand. The Government welcome the commission’s helpful report. I have read it carefully and, based on the evidence that the commission presented, we have decided to accept its redrafted question.
Sir Alan Beith
I must, on the grounds of language simplicity, draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the Welsh version in Government amendment 231. Although my understanding of Welsh is not as wide and deep as I would like it to be, I have not often seen the abbreviation “DU” used for “United Kingdom” in Welsh. I therefore wonder whether it would be at all familiar to most voters, and whether it would not be better to spell out “United Kingdom” in Welsh.
Mr Harper
I am very interested in my right hon. Friend’s views. Having a great deal of respect for the Welsh language, and being frank about my inability to speak it, I did not want to abuse it by reading out the Welsh version of the question. I did not intend to do that, and I am not going to do so. I have taken the precaution of talking to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales. He is a Welsh speaker, and he has consulted a number of colleagues. We do not think there is a problem with the language. The Electoral Commission did highlight one potential problem to do with the yes/no question and words such as “should” and “should not” in Welsh. It felt that there was a risk but that, on balance, this was an improvement. We have taken its analysis on board and we have accepted its drafting rather than changing it, because if we were to change it we would have to go through another process of assessing the accessibility.
The Government consider that the new version is no less neutral than the previous one. We do not think it alters in any way the choice that the question puts to the public, but we do think it is clearer and easier to understand, which is why we have accepted it. Our amendments therefore insert the new question into clause 1 in English and Welsh, and it is replicated in English only in the form of the ballot paper, which is addressed in schedule 2. This is supported by members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and I hope the House will support it as well.
Let me make a point about amendment 7, to which the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) spoke. It refers back to the point to which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) drew attention. They were both right that many Liberal Democrat colleagues support either the single transferable vote or some other form of proportional system, whereas most Conservative party colleagues do not. The nature of a coalition Government is that we have to reach a compromise, however, and the compromise we have reached is that Conservatives have agreed to put the choice to the public and Liberal Democrats have had to accept that although they have a vote on a system that they prefer to first past the post, that is not everything they would have hoped for. It has been rightly said that there is not a majority in this House in favour of putting a referendum question to the public on proportional representation, and I think Liberal Democrat colleagues have been entirely sensible in reaching a compromise—as, I think, have Conservative colleagues as well. We on the Government Benches are clear that we want to put this question to the public. I agree with the hon. Lady that the public, not politicians, should choose the voting system. We are going to give that choice to the public and see whether they want to stick with the existing system or change it.
Caroline Lucas
I do not quite understand how the Minister can say he is happy for the public to make the decision at the same time as closing down the very options that the public will make that decision on. I think that, again, we have to say that this is about trusting the public. It is not about what the Government or the Lib Dems want, or what any individual Members want. It is about giving the public the right to choose.
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady has chosen a selection of things to put in front of the public in her amendment; it is just a different choice from that proposed by the Government. It is no more or less the choice of the public, however. Unless we were to have a ballot paper that listed every single possible electoral system in the entire universe that has ever been thought of, it will always, to some extent, be a choice designed by politicians.
Mr Harper
Let me just finish responding to the previous intervention. Those on this side of the House have made a judgment, we are going to put that question to the public, and members of the coalition parties will then campaign vigorously. I think I have detected that Opposition Members too will be on both sides of the debate. We will have that battle and the public will make a decision.
Caroline Lucas
I just wish to explain that the options we have proposed for the ballot paper are not ones that we picked out of a hat at random. We were trying to create a set of questions that were most likely to be acceptable to the House by, for example, including both AV, because that was what was in the original question, and those existing electoral systems already used in some form or another in the United Kingdom. We were not proposing a random set of choices. Of course we cannot give 100 different options, but we can propose those voting systems that people in this country are more or less familiar with, perhaps because they have voted for the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament. There is a rationale behind what we are doing, and this is not a random set of options.
Mr Harper
It sounds as if the hon. Lady and those on the Government Benches are doing the same thing; we are putting to the House amendments that we think will get support. If she wishes to test hers and we test ours, we will see which of us has made the right judgment about which will get the support of the majority of Members in this House.
Mr MacNeil
Surely it is better to give the public a choice of three or perhaps four electoral systems that are commonly used throughout the United Kingdom, rather than a very narrow restricted choice of two, which seem to have been the subject of some sort of agreement in the smoke-filled rooms of this new coalition. Surely the public should be trusted and allowed to choose for themselves.
Mr Harper
Opposition Members seem awfully obsessed by smoke-filled rooms. Given that this House voted in the previous Parliament to ban smoking in public places, I have not detected a lot of smoke in any of the rooms where we have had our discussions.
As I said, choices will be put to the House this evening; if the opinion of the House is tested, the House can make a judgment about which of the questions it finds most acceptable. I hope that hon. Members will support the amendments that I have proposed, which the Government have tabled. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is perfectly free to test hers too, and we will see where the balance of opinion in the House lies. Given that we have only 18 minutes left and we are dealing with a number of amendments, I shall draw my remarks to a close and allow the debate to continue.
Chris Bryant
May I say first to the Minister that one of the things that has crept into the contributions made from that Dispatch Box of late is a differentiation of a Minister as a Minister from a Minister when he or she is not acting in a ministerial capacity in some way? That is a dangerous concept to begin to adumbrate, because Ministers have to act, to some degree, with collective responsibility. Once that starts to fall apart, government starts to fall apart.
Mr Harper
I made it clear that the coalition agreement says that there will be, and the Government’s policy is for there to be, a referendum on the voting system, offering a choice between first past the post and the alternative vote. The Government do not have a view on the outcome, and that has been made clear. The coalition agreement explicitly says that the coalition parties will campaign on different sides, so I do not think that there is any risk to collective responsibility.
Chris Bryant
I understand the Minister’s point, but I just want to help him avoid becoming too much like the Deputy Prime Minister, because we would not want him to morph into a Liberal Democrat—I am sure he would not want that either. [Interruption.] The Deputy Prime Minister started with this concept of a personal idea on the situation in Iraq, so I just gently say that to the Minister.
The one thing on which I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister is what he said about Government amendments 230, 231 and 232 on changing the precise wording of the question. I think that the Electoral Commission has done a good job. It has looked at this and given us a better question, and we wholeheartedly support that. However, that is not the real point. The real difficulty was pointed out by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who said that the bit that the Electoral Commission discovered that most people did not fully understand is what “alternative vote” means. I am not going to go down the route of supporting his amendment 244, which proposes
“optional preferential voting with instant runoff”
because I do not think that his is an unbiased question and I do not think it is intended to be helpful. It was presented with the usual finish and cheek with which he presents his arguments to the House.
Chris Bryant
Then why is the hon. Gentleman not presenting those amendments tonight? That would be the honest, decent and sensible thing to do. Instead, he is proposing a timorous beastie of a Bill—something that, in his honest heart, he knows he cannot possibly defend to his voters on the basis of his party’s manifesto.
Let me raise a few problems that I see with the proposal of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. First, there are complexities relating to how the amendment would work with regard to the spending limits set both in the Bill and in other legislation affecting referendums. That is not least because the legislation, as it stands, presumes that there will be a yes-no answer. In other words, it presumes that there will be two sides to the argument, rather than three, four or—as there might be in this case—five. Secondly, the amendment makes the assumption that one should arrive at the decision by use of AV; that is laid out in new clause 3. That gives rise to a problem. Finally, there is the problem that although the hon. Lady has presented some options, she has not presented all the options that might be available, as the starred amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) makes clear.
I believe that it is not time for this timorous beastie of a reform Bill, which was cobbled together not so much to bring about proper reform in the country as to keep people in government. It has not been properly consulted on, properly thought through, or given the proper time to allow it to be successful. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons is sitting there on the Front Bench. He is now using arguments that I used, in which I was not very confident, when I sat on the Government Benches. It is about time he stopped using the argument about hypocrisy and brass neck when he is the one, despite the fact that we cannot see the difference between his shoulders and his head, with the largest brass neck of all in the Chamber.
Let us not hear any more about new politics from the Government. This is a shoddy little Bill, not a braveheart root and branch reform—a Bill built on narrow party advantage cobbled between the two Ministers. Nasty, incongruous deals have been pushed through by tough whipping, as we have seen this afternoon—everything that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) used to condemn when he sat on the Opposition Benches. The only reason there were not any smoke-filled rooms for Ministers to sit in to cobble together their deals is that we voted for the legislation to ensure that people’s health improved in this country. He did not.
Mrs Laing
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made a sincere speech in support of her amendment 7, but it was wrong because she argued about giving more power to the people. Her amendment has nothing whatever to do with standards in the House of Commons. It would cause confusion and lead to the loss of the two most important factors that any electoral system ought to depend on—clarity and certainty. They are present in first past the post, but they certainly are not in amendment 7.
Mr Carswell
I helped draft the design of the ballot paper under this amendment. Can the hon. Lady explain which bits of it she thinks her constituents would be unable to understand?
Mrs Laing
I did not say that my constituents would not be able to understand. My constituents are very intelligent, and I am sure that they would be able to understand. I will not go into a long explanation at this point in the evening. I am merely saying, and I stick to it, that if amendment 7 were to become part of the Bill, the referendum would bring about a system—any of the systems in amendment 7—that would lack clarity and certainty. Any voting system ought to have clarity and certainty.
Clarity is what amendment 230 is all about. I am pleased to say that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, of which I am a member, looked at the report of the Electoral Commission. The commission consulted extensively on the wording of the question, as the Minister has told us this evening. The Select Committee supported the suggestions of the Electoral Commission. The wording in amendment 230 is much clearer. It brings about clarity and certainty when a question is put to the electorate, as it should be. Therefore, members of the Select Committee tabled this amendment. We were delighted to discover that the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister also supported the amendment, and I hope that the Committee will support it this evening.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
What the hon. Lady thinks about the system is largely irrelevant. Amendment 7 is designed to allow the people to speak out—to put before them the choice of a preferential system. I have to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that this was exactly the wording of the New Zealand referendum. In 1993 it was decided that people did not want the first-past-the-post system, and they were given a choice about what system they wanted to replace it. In that referendum, almost 60% of people said that they wanted the additional member system. Only 6.6% said that they wanted the alternative vote.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is right, but New Zealand is a unicameral system, and I have argued and campaigned in the House for many years in favour of a second Chamber that is elected, not appointed, on a proportional system. We should have a Bill about the whole of constitutional reform, rather than picking off bits and pieces one by one.
Austin Mitchell
Why does my hon. Friend not see that it is daft to give the second Chamber a better representative system than the first Chamber? It is important that the first Chamber has a system that gives us representation according to the way people vote. That is the essence of proportional representation; that is all we are trying to include in the referendum.
Mr MacNeil
Having just heard the words uttered by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), it is a fact that for the electors here, we effectively have a unicameral system, because they do not vote for those who enter the Chamber down the corridor.
Austin Mitchell
Exactly—that is the point. What we want to do in the amendment is quite simple. We want to give the people the choice that the Liberal Democrats did not have the strength or the guts to give them. The Liberal Democrats are in favour of a system to allow people to vote in a referendum on the alternative vote, which is largely irrelevant—it is a system that allows people to list candidates in one constituency in order of preference—because they hope to benefit from the fact that they are everyone’s second preference, but the first preference of very few people.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
As far as I recollect, in New Zealand there were two votes in sequence: one on whether people wanted to have a change, and a separate vote on which change to have. The hon. Gentleman must also recognise what my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) said: in the House, given the way in which the Labour and Tory majorities have voted, there is not likely to be a majority, whatever others think, for a wide proportional system. There is a majority for progress, but not for what we might want. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Austin Mitchell
I know that there are a thousand excuses for gutlessness, but that is just another one. The Liberal Democrats are going to have to live on a diet of their own words for the next few months. It was the leader of their party who called the alternative vote “a miserable little compromise” before the election. Now it is central to Liberal Democrat policy.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is mistaken about the referendum in New Zealand. The first referendum, which I have discussed, gave the exact alternatives that would be given in our Bill. I want to make the case for proportional representation. We are working in a system that has become a multi-party one. Fewer people are voting for the two main parties, whose share of the vote has gone down from about 90% to about 60%. A multi-party system is in the process of being born, with nationalists, including Welsh nationalists, Liberal Democrats, the UK Independence party, and all the rest of it. We are trying to fit that within the constraints of a first-past-the-post system that works well only with two parties. [Interruption.] I forgot to mention the Greens—I apologise, but that is another indication of our multi-party system.
We cannot fit the burgeoning multi-party system into a first-past-the-post system, which works only with two parties. The question is still why did the Liberal Democrats, in pushing for a referendum—I congratulate them on securing one—not give people the real choice between a preferential system, an alternative vote and first past the post, as that is the choice that they have to make? I would want them to choose the preferential system, but it is not up to us. It is not my views that are important, or those of Government Members—it is the views of the people. That is all that we are asking: let us consult the people on a system, and let them have their say. Every Member here thinks that the system that elected them must be the best system in the world, but that is not important. We are prejudiced witnesses, and we should give the people the power to speak. That is all that our amendment does.
Mr Mark Williams
May I reiterate to the Committee and to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) that the Liberal Democrat party still believes in STV, has done so for years, and will continue to do so? However, the reality is that the advances that the Bill represents will be jeopardised if we adopt the amendment on STV. The agreement before us was made on the basis of a referendum on AV. Without that, we will not secure a referendum, so there would be no referendum at all. That is the reality of the debate. We still believe in STV, and this is a staging post to something towards which our party will still work, but there is no majority in the House for STV. Without that majority, there will be no referendum.
Mr MacNeil
We have just heard the Liberal Democrats say that they still believe in STV. I wonder whether that belief stretches 5 or 10 yards to the Lobby. I would wager that it does not go very far at all.
In the moments that are left, I want to speak to an amendment that I tabled.
Business without Debate
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Archway Centre (Walsall)
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The petition is from the friends and users of the Archway centre, Walsall. The petitioners object to the cutting of funds and resources to the Archway centre, which has already led to the closure of some services. The petitioners believe that the intention is to reduce the number of sessions and to send service users out into the community. The community is not qualified and does not have the facilities to deal with people who have mental problems. The petitioners have noted that the cuts to the funding of the Archway centre may lead to more people relying on the services of the mental health team in Walsall and an increase in admissions to the Dorothy Pattison hospital. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take all possible steps to ensure that the Archway centre, Walsall receives adequate funding. There are 74 signatories to the petition in similar terms.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of friends and users of the Archway Centre, Walsall,
Declares that the Petitioners object to the cutting by Re-think of funds and resources at the Archway Centre, Walsall, which has already led to the closure of food services at the centre - a vital service for many users who find it difficult to cook for themselves; notes that the Petitioners believe that the intention is to reduce the number of drop in sessions and to send service users out into the community, but the community is not qualified and does not have the facilities to deal with people who have mental health problems; and further notes that cuts to the funding of the Archway Centre may lead to more people relying on the services of the mental health team in Walsall and an increase in admissions to Dorothy Pattison Hospital.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take all possible steps to ensure that the Archway Centre, Walsall, receives adequate funding.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P000864]
Yousaf Family
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
I secured this debate to bring to the attention of the House the murder of three of my constituents—Mohammed Yousaf, Pervez Yousaf and Tania Yousaf—who were killed in Pakistan on 20 May 2010. I will start by setting out the facts of the case, explain what the family have done in their quest for justice and then touch on some of the wider issues and where I hope that the Government can assist.
Mohammad Yousaf, aged 51, his wife Pervez, aged 49, and their 22-year-old daughter, Tania, were all British citizens living in Nelson in my constituency. Mohammad Yousaf had lived in the UK for more than 40 years, working for many years as a furniture manufacturer making beds, and for a period running a small business before retiring. He also helped his wife Pervez raise their six children—three sons and three daughters. One of those daughters was Tania. Born in Nelson on 13 September 1987, she attended Lomeshaye primary school and Walshaw high school, where she is fondly remembered.
After leaving school, Tania married and had two young boys of her own—three-year-old Arien and nine-month-old Harris. She worked for Pendle borough council and then as a clerical assistant at business solutions firm Liberata in Nelson. Back in May, her manager, Wendy Smith, was reported in The Times newspaper describing Tania as
“a hard-working and conscientious member of the team who was always happy and one of the nicest people we have ever met. She had a lovely sense of humour and was always a team player.”
The Yousaf family decided in April 2010 to make a trip to Pakistan to arrange the wedding of their 24-year-old son, Asad Yousaf. They flew to Pakistan in two groups on 22 and 27 April. Asad’s wedding took place on 5 May, and all family members returned back to the UK on 19 May, apart from Mohammed, his wife Pervez, their daughter Tania and her children. On 20 May, at approximately 12.35 pm, Mohammed, Pervez, Tania and Mohammed Anwar—another UK citizen—entered the village of Mararian Sharif, near Gujrat, Punjab. They were in this area to visit a family member—Nusrat Bibi—and also to pay respects at the grave of a deceased family member, Mohammed Zaman.
The family entered the village in two cars, one being driven by Ghulam Abbas, the family’s driver, and the other by Mohammed Anwar. After spending some time at the residence of Nusrat Bibi, they had lunch before proceeding to the graveyard. At approximately 2.20 pm, Mohammed, Pervez and Tania, along with Mohammed Anwar and Nusrat Bibi, entered the graveyard to pay their respects, along with their driver, Ghulam Abbas. It was then, while in the graveyard, praying and paying their respects, that they were ambushed by a group of armed men. The gunmen shot Mr and Mrs Yousaf and Nusrat Bibi with Kalashnikov rifles, before dragging the daughter, Tania, from the family’s car. After dragging Tania from the car, the gunmen made her call her husband for help on her mobile phone. The call connected, but before Tania could explain to her husband what was happening, she was killed with him still listening on the line.
To illustrate further the sheer brutality of these murders, I can today for the first time, and with the permission of the Yousaf family, reveal that at Tania’s post-mortem, more than 100 bullets were removed from her body. Owing to the almost indiscriminate use of automatic weapons in the incident, one of the gunmen, Khursheed Arif, was killed, along with an innocent street vendor. An aunt of the gunmen was also injured, leaving a total of six people dead and one injured, three of the dead being the Yousaf family, who were British nationals and constituents of mine.
The whole incident was witnessed by Mohammed Anwar and Ghulam Abbas, the driver, and they saw at first hand how the brutal incident unfolded. At 3 pm, a first information report was registered with the police by one of the eye witnesses, Mohammed Anwar, naming the murderers as Khursheed Arif, Sheraz Arif, Naveed Arif and Qamar Abbas, along with other unidentified people. The police attended the scene, and while they were present Qamar Abbas reappeared, and was recognised and duly arrested. Therefore, out of the four people named in the initial police report, one was dead, one was under arrest and two—Naveed and Sheraz Arif—were on the run.
At this point I would like to try and shed some light on the motive for these senseless murders. If what I have described so far is not shocking enough in itself, these cold-blooded murders were not perpetrated by a lawless gang; rather, the culprits were actually known and related to the Yousaf family. The accused—Khursheed Arif, Sheraz Arif and Naveed Arif—are all brothers. Their sister, Nabeela Mahmood, was married to Kamar Yousaf, the eldest son of Mohammed and Pervez Yousaf, in 1999. Over a period of time, Nabeela and Kamar had marital problems, which eventually led to Nabeela moving out of the marital home around 12 months before the incident took place. I understand that the two families were keen to help to save the marriage, and there was frequent dialogue, with no indications that this would or could lead to violence. However, on 20 May the Arif family brothers turned up at the graveyard with only one intention in mind—murder.
Yousaf family members have told me—I believe them—that if there had been any indication that those marital difficulties could have led to violence, their parents would not have travelled at all, or would at least have travelled with security, as is frequently the case in Pakistan. On 21 May—the day after the killings—the other members of the Yousaf family returned to Pakistan to organise and attend the funeral services for the three deceased. From the time that they arrived back in Pakistan until the time that they got home to the UK, their lives were threatened repeatedly by members of the Arif family.
On the same day, following pressure from the Yousaf family and the media, the police made moves towards arresting the two accused men, Naveed and Sheraz Arif. Unbelievably, however, given the gravity of what is alleged, they were granted bail until 26 May. The Yousaf family continually protested to the police and the relevant authorities that bail should not have been granted in such circumstances, as they believed that the accused would abscond. On 26 May, the accused failed to appear at the police station, and they remain on the run now, five months after the murders took place.
From the day of the murders until now, I have done whatever I can to assist the family in their quest for justice. In fact, I referred to the case in my maiden speech, when I committed myself to doing whatever I could to ensure that the family obtained justice through the Pakistani courts. The family have tried several different means to secure justice through the Pakistani judicial system. They have kept in constant contact with the police and relevant authorities in Pakistan. They have met Pakistani politicians and Ministers visiting the UK to highlight the case to them. The “Justice for the Yousaf Family” Facebook group has more than 2,500 members. The case has also been widely reported in both the British and Asian press, helping to raise awareness.
I was also very grateful that the Minister took the time to meet the family and me at the Foreign Office in July to discuss the details of this case and what, if anything, the British Government could do to assist. The family accept that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s powers are limited, but I would be grateful if the Minister were to refer to that meeting and tell me what, if anything, he or his Department has been able to do since.
Members will have noticed the significant number of people in the Public Gallery listening to this Adjournment debate tonight, which speaks volumes for the desire of the family and their supporters to get justice through the Pakistani legal system. Sadly, however, the killers remain at large and the family still do not have justice. Despite numerous expressions of support and warm words, there has been little progress on the ground in Pakistan. The police seem to have put numerous people in charge of the case since the murders, but the investigation appears to be going nowhere. Each new person who is appointed never seems to be given the time to look into the case before he is transferred.
The Yousaf family, who still do not feel it safe to travel to Pakistan, have now employed a barrister in that country, at considerable cost to themselves, to have the relevant cases against the accused and their family members registered and heard. However, given the troubled past of the Pakistani legal process—and corruption, which remains an issue—the family seem to have hit a brick wall, preventing any further action or focus on the case from the authorities.
The family appreciate that neither this House nor the Minister has any powers to intervene in the Pakistani judicial system. However, after five months, they have grave concerns about how seriously the Pakistani authorities are dealing with the case. The family and I hope that by setting out the case today, we will raise awareness of this incident not only here in the UK, but in Pakistan, and that, in doing so, we will bring pressure to bear on those who are in a position to help the family to achieve justice.
I do not wish to diminish the importance of this horrific incident, but it is clear that the implications of whether the Yousaf family get justice or not go well beyond this individual case. In August this year, two other UK citizens, Gul Wazir and his wife Bagum from the Alum Rock area of Birmingham, were also murdered in Pakistan, and hon. Members will remember the case of Sahil Saeed, the five-year-old boy from Oldham who was abducted for ransom while his family were on holiday.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) for bringing this matter to the House’s attention. I, too, have been involved in cases relating to justice in Pakistan, and I want briefly to mention my constituent, Mrs Saeeda Dar, whose father has been held without proper trial for more than 20 months. He is 79 years old and a diabetic, and he is being held in very basic conditions. He is a retired headmaster, and his alleged crime was to write a foreword to a pamphlet. I have read a translation of that foreword, and it is very moderate and proper. Many people in Pakistan agree with his very moderate views. Many Members on both sides of the House are very supportive of Pakistan, and I am pleased to include myself in that group as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on Pakistan. However, we feel very strongly about these cases in which justice is not being done. I thank my hon. Friend for giving me this opportunity to bring that case to light.
Andrew Stephenson
My hon. Friend brings me to my next point. More than 1 million people living in the UK can trace their roots back to Pakistan, and many of them live in the constituencies of the hon. Members to whom I am grateful for having stayed to listen to the debate tonight.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. I want to express my support for the dozens of Yousaf family members and supporters who have come to the House and stayed so late to watch the debate. That really is a testament to the importance of this issue, and I hope that they get some satisfaction and justice very soon. I represent a constituency with a rather large Pakistani community—and with many Kashmiris as well—and I understand the importance of the close links with Pakistan, particularly at a time when the British Pakistani community is doing so much for flood relief in that country. Does my hon. Friend agree that this would be a good time to get justice in this case?
Andrew Stephenson
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The crux of the matter is that many British Pakistanis hope to keep strong ties with Pakistan and visit the country for weddings, funerals and holidays. Many more who have founded successful businesses here in the UK look to Pakistan as an economy to invest in. It is worth noting that this Saturday our Foreign Secretary will join the Pakistani Foreign Secretary here in London to launch the British Pakistani Foundation, which seeks to encourage and support philanthropy among the British Pakistani diaspora.
British Pakistanis will simply not visit or invest their money in Pakistan if the law and order situation continues to deteriorate and the judicial process seems incapable of delivering justice. Such an outcome is certainly not in the interests of Pakistan. For British Pakistanis to have confidence in the future of that country, cases such as that of the Yousaf family must be dealt with in a swift and fair manner. I therefore urge the Minister to continue to do whatever he can to help get justice for the Yousaf family.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) for securing this debate. Although he arrived in Westminster only relatively recently, we all know that he has a long history of working on behalf of the local communities that now form his constituency. His persistence in following this harrowing case is a further example of how he puts their welfare at the forefront of everything he does. I also thank him for offering me the courtesy of a copy of his remarks before the debate, so that I could more properly answer the questions he put on behalf of his constituents. I would also like to thank the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan), who has a keen interest in Pakistan, for his courtesy in attending the debate. That shows the Government’s interest in and concern for these issues.
I shall not deal in detail with the two interventions of my hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Richard Harrington) and for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), but I am happy to receive any further written representations on the points that they raised, which highlight the width of the issue and the depth of concern about the matters that my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle has raised.
My hon. Friend has described a horrific crime. Mohammad, Pervez and Tania—a father, mother and daughter—gunned down, far from home and on an occasion that should have been a cause for joy and celebration. It is hard to imagine the anguish that the Yousaf family has been through and it is impossible to overstate how much they want to see those responsible brought to justice. Any one of us would feel the same. The description of the scale of the brutality that we have heard about tonight leaves one wondering how anyone who calls himself a man could machine-gun a woman to death in such circumstances. There is no cultural or traditional justification for killings of this sort. First and foremost, then, I offer my heartfelt condolences and those of the Government to the Yousaf family.
When this Government came into office, we set out three priorities for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Safeguarding national security and building prosperity were two. The third is no less important—support for British nationals around the world. People expect us to be there and to help when they are at their most vulnerable. As the Minister responsible for south Asia, I am determined that we will fulfil that duty.
The Yousaf family have been persistent in their pursuit of justice. They have, I know, seen the Punjab Minister for Law when he visited the UK, and they have spoken to the Pakistani high commissioner in London. The family came to see me, as my hon. Friend said, in July to discuss the case. These are all important efforts and I commend them.
During the course of his remarks, my hon. Friend rightly asked what we have done as a result of that meeting. Our consular staff in Islamabad have remained in touch with the Pakistani police and have sought regular updates on their investigation. These updates have been passed to the family’s police family liaison officer so that they can be given directly to the family. The fact that the police authorities in Pakistan are continually contacted underlines our continuing interest in the ongoing investigation and makes the Pakistani police aware of the continuing interest of the UK Government in the circumstances.
What can be done further to help? As my hon. Friend knows, in the days following the murders, consular staff both in London and Islamabad were in direct contact with the Yousaf family. They explained how the FCO can assist the family in terms of support and advice, but also our limitations with regard to the police investigation. Since then, the local police have been in regular contact with the family through a family liaison officer and our consular staff have passed messages to the family through that route.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Pakistani police have identified two suspects in the case, both of whom have absconded. Two other suspects have been bailed, and the case against them is now proceeding through the Pakistani justice system. At this stage, when there is an ongoing police investigation overseas, the main priority for us is to ensure that the family receive the information that they want and need as quickly as possible. Trying to gain access and to understand a foreign and unfamiliar system can be extremely distressing, but we can help to some degree. We can suggest the best ways for the family to raise any concerns with the local authorities. We can offer information about the local police system and the legal system. We can point the family in the direction of any legal aid that is available. Here in London, as soon as our consular staff obtain any new information from the Pakistani authorities, we will immediately pass it on to the family.
In any case of this kind, whether at home or abroad, the uncertainty and delay as an investigation proceeds are a source of huge frustration for the family of the victims. They want to see the killers of their loved ones caught and punished as quickly as possible. Again, none of us would feel any different. I know that the Yousaf family are deeply worried about the progress of the investigation into the murders, and want us to do all that we can to maintain pressure on the Pakistani authorities to deal with the case swiftly and decisively.
As my hon. Friend knows, our ability to act in individual cases is limited. I appreciate that he is asking—as are the family—what, if any, pressure we can put on the Pakistani authorities. The British Government cannot interfere in the judicial systems of other sovereign countries, just as we would not allow any interference in our own. Nor do the British police have jurisdiction. The investigation is the responsibility of the Pakistani police and judicial authorities. They will have their own methods of investigation, and their own local experience of similar cases. Difficult though it is for our consular staff, for all of us, and even more for the family, we cannot insist that the Pakistani police investigate this shocking crime in the same way as it might be investigated in the UK. We have no power to do so. Nor can we insist that the British police carry out a joint investigation with the local police.
In many countries, it is a fact that the judicial process takes much longer than in the United Kingdom. When that happens, we cannot insist that a case be handled more swiftly than normal; but we will make representations to the local authorities if we fear that an investigation is not being carried out in line with local procedures, or if there are justified complaints about discrimination. I undertake here and now to my hon. Friend and to the family of Mohammad, Pervez and Tania that should there be such evidence in this investigation, our high commission in Islamabad will raise it with the Pakistani authorities.
Let me also say clearly that I will remain personally engaged in this case—as will my hon. Friend—will continue to follow it closely, and will become involved as and when I can appropriately do so in a manner that might be helpful. I have set out the support I believe that we can and should offer to the family. If any of them do not think that we are providing that support, I shall be pleased to be told about it, and my hon. Friend will tell me.
As was observed by my hon. Friend and others who have spoken tonight, this tragedy is not an isolated incident. That point was made very clearly and strongly to me by the family themselves when they came to see me. Perhaps that is one of the most worrying aspects of the case. It goes without saying that the vast majority of the many visits made each year to Pakistan by British nationals are entirely trouble-free, but over the years we have seen a number of British nationals die in suspicious circumstances in Pakistan, and there have been a number of violent assaults. Since October 2009, there have been nine murders of British nationals in Pakistan of which we are aware, in addition to those of Mohammad, Pervez and Tania. Indeed, there have been two similar cases since the Yousaf family’s own tragic loss, with the deaths of four British nationals.
We cannot say for certain why these tragedies have happened, but there is some evidence to suggest that most have resulted from a family dispute about money, property or marriage. Nor, I should add, are they exclusive to Pakistan. In addition to the work on this particular case, I have asked officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to consider how we can raise awareness of those recent incidents with the Pakistani community here in the United Kingdom. I will also speak to the Pakistan high commissioner, drawing his attention to the incidents and to my worries—and the worries of colleagues who have raised the issue in the House tonight—about their implications, and seeking his views on what, if anything, we can do to prevent such tragedies from happening again and how he and we can reassure families like the Yousafs that the Pakistani authorities will do all in their power to ensure that justice is done.
I mentioned at the start of my speech the two other priorities for the FCO: safeguarding national security and building prosperity. The British Government are committed to a long-term, productive and friendly partnership with Pakistan. Events in Pakistan have a direct impact on our national security and the safety of our citizens, including those of Pakistani heritage. We therefore have a strong interest in helping Pakistan to embed economic and democratic stability. This has been particularly evident in the light of the devastating floods that have hit the country. The UK has led the international response to the flooding, encouraging our international partners to commit support to help Pakistan meet the long-term challenges it faces, and securing European Union agreement to pursue a step change in its relationship with Pakistan, including through increased trade concessions.
All of this goes to show the strength of family relationships between this country and Pakistan, relationships which many Members have experienced, and continue to experience, in our constituencies. It also shows the importance of Pakistan to so many people in the country, and it shows the need for a sense of stability and security to be there in Pakistan for those who visit.
All Members of Parliament are concerned for the welfare of our constituents wherever they may be in the world. I can assure Members that consular staff worldwide share the same concern and desire to do their best for British nationals in need of their assistance. In this case—where none of us can fail to be moved—I again commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle.
We continue to extend our deepest sympathy to the family of Mohammad, Pervez and Tania, and I hope I have made it clear that the remarks made in this debate are likely to go some distance tonight and to be heard by many people. If in any way they help to bring a sense of concern to the authorities who are dealing with the case, and if they raise awareness of the danger to some—although far from all—who visit Pakistan, my hon. Friend will have done a very good job. We will continue to do all we can to ensure that the most important outcome of the case—justice for the family and those who have been killed—is eventually achieved.
Question put and agreed to.
Short Money
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rehman Chishti
To ask the Leader of the House what formula is used for calculating Short money; when that formula was set; and what mechanism is used to monitor the usage of allocated funds.
[Official Report, 13 September 2010, Vol. 515, c. 743-44W.]
Letter of correction from Sir George Young:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) on 13 September 2010.
The full answer given was as follows:
Sir George Young
For 2010-11, the formula used to calculate each Opposition party's Short money funding is: £14,351 multiplied by the number of seats won by a party's candidates at the general election; plus £27.99 multiplied by one two hundredth of the number of votes cast at the election. The formula was set by a resolution of the House of 26 May 1999 and has been uprated by increases in the retail prices index since then.
Each Opposition party that receives Short money is required to submit a report from an independent professional auditor, after the end of each financial year, that all the expenses for which the party received financial assistance under the terms of the resolution were incurred exclusively in connection with the party's parliamentary business. The relevant criteria are set out in notes provided to the auditors.
The correct answer should have been:
Sir George Young
For 2010-11 the formula used to calculate each Opposition party's Short money funding is: £14,351 multiplied by the number of seats won by a party's candidates at the general election; plus £28.66 multiplied by one two hundredth of the number of votes cast at the election. The formula was set by a resolution of the House of 26 May 1999 and has been uprated by increases in the retail prices index since then.
Each Opposition party that receives Short money is required to submit a report from an independent professional auditor, after the end of each financial year, that all the expenses for which the party received financial assistance under the terms of the resolution were incurred exclusively in connection with the party's parliamentary business. The relevant criteria are set out in notes provided to the auditors.
Dartford Crossing
Westminster Hall
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Epilepsy Services
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Streeter. It is also a pleasure to see so many Members in Westminster Hall, which shows how important the topic is to so many people.
I am very pleased to have secured this debate at what is a crucial time for people with epilepsy—crucial because of the uncertainty about how the Government intend to deal with the condition in the future. We are going through a period of structural reform in the NHS, which I strongly believe will lead to substantial benefits for many patients, but there may well be a temptation during this period of reform for the Department of Health to concentrate more on structural reform than on individual conditions such as epilepsy. I want to use this debate to try to explain to the Minister why he should focus on particular chronic conditions and not just on the bigger picture of structural reform. In particular, I want to explain why I think that epilepsy is quite different from many other chronic conditions.
I have epilepsy myself, as well as another chronic condition, cerebral palsy. The cerebral palsy is part of my life, day in and day out; it never goes away, it is always there and I know that it is there. Epilepsy is qualitatively different. I often liken it to a thief in the night, because it creeps up unexpectedly. I have nocturnal epilepsy, so epilepsy affects me when I fall asleep and the chemicals in my brain do whatever they do such that a fit occurs. In my case, fits are triggered by alcohol, so I now have to avoid alcohol continually everywhere I go.
What is important to stress, and what many people without epilepsy may not realise, is the fear that accompanies epilepsy. I do not fear my cerebral palsy, because it is predictable; I know that it is there and I know what is occurring as a result of it. With the epilepsy, however, when I wake up the morning after a fit, I do not know who I am, or even necessarily where I am. My short-term memory has gone and I cannot quite put together what I did the day before, including where I was. Even now, when I have a fit I am not really sure where I am in the country and I fear what has happened to me overnight. Have I soiled myself? Is there a mess on the floor? Will I have to call for help and have to deal with the embarrassment that that might cause? It is therefore very important to stress to those who do not have epilepsy the fear that accompanies a fit, or rather the fear that accompanies the aftermath of a fit. It is not the fit itself that is the unpleasant experience for those of us with epilepsy, because we do not experience it; we are not there during a fit. It is the aftermath—dealing with the consequences of a fit—that is often the problem.
For many people with nocturnal epilepsy, perhaps the biggest fear is something called SUDEP. Those without much familiarity of epilepsy may not be aware of SUDEP, but it stands for sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Almost 1,000 people die from epilepsy every year, many of them in the younger age groups, and two thirds of those deaths are avoidable. As I say, SUDEP particularly affects young people, yet one survey by Epilepsy Action found that 33% of primary care trusts lack a transition plan for the transition of individuals from childhood to adult care. I think that such a plan is vital, because when an individual moves from childhood to adult care, that is their period of greatest vulnerability. Many of the tragic cases that I have received letters about—I know that many other Members here today have also received such letters—involve young people who one minute were living a happy, normal life, and then suddenly one night they went to sleep and did not wake up. To me, such cases are great tragedies. A focus on the provision of better-quality data on children’s epilepsy and transition care is needed, to see whether we can prevent such cases from occurring. If we could only match the median death rate for the 15 original EU member states, for example, we would prevent a quarter of the current deaths from SUDEP in Britain. If that number of deaths was caused by a single transport accident, we would have a public inquiry tomorrow. These days, calling for a public inquiry has become something of a cliché, but I am talking about a substantial number of deaths, and I believe that we can make progress in reducing it.
The issue is not only the human cost, but the financial cost. In particular, I want to focus on misdiagnosis. Epilepsy Action says that between 20% and 30% of cases of epilepsy are misdiagnosed, at a cost of £140 million to the NHS. I know from personal experience that misdiagnosis happens. When I first started having fits at night, when I moved down to London in my early 20s, I did not really know what was happening to me. I just thought that I was falling out of bed, but there was blood everywhere and I could not quite put two and two together. One evening, I threw myself out of bed sufficiently hard that I banged my head against my bedside table and had quite a deep cut between my eyebrow and one eye, missing taking my eye out by the narrowest of margins. My next door neighbour said, “I really think that you ought to go and get that seen to.” I did not want to get it seen to, because I could not really explain to the nurse what had happened. Nevertheless, I pootled down to the hospital, where the attitude of the nurse was to say, “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” To my mind, that is a classic example of misdiagnosis. A chance to diagnose me with epilepsy and to start me on a treatment plan was missed because there was a presumption that I had been drinking and that the cut I had suffered was caused by drunkenness.
Misdiagnosis affects the treatment of epilepsy at every stage of the process. Apparently, some 74,000 people who are diagnosed with epilepsy do not actually have it. Not only does that misdiagnosis have a cost in terms of the cost of the drugs that those people are put on, but it has a human cost in terms of the stigma that those people feel that they have to bear and the worry that they face in their daily lives. If they could only be diagnosed with what they actually have, rather than with what they do not have, that would improve their lives.
There are also 69,000 people who have the wrong type of epilepsy diagnosed. I have gone into quite some detail about the type of epileptic fits that I have. I gather that there are some 40 varieties of epileptic fit that can affect an individual and they all require slightly different treatments, so it is important that people are given the right diagnosis. That is why specialisms matter. Epilepsy is special and I want the Minister to regard it as a special type of chronic condition. That is not to say that other chronic conditions do not matter or are unimportant, but epilepsy is quite different from many other chronic conditions and it needs to be treated in a special way.
That special treatment means having special GPs to deal with epilepsy. I was fortunate that, when I was first diagnosed with epilepsy, I had a GP who was interested in the condition. When I moved house, my next GP was not quite so interested in epilepsy, so the nature and quality of my treatment and care changed. With the formation of local commissioning groups, I hope that we will have the opportunity for GPs to develop those specialisms and to build on those interests, not just in the treatment of epilepsy but in the treatment of the other special conditions that people regularly go to their GP about. I think that local commissioning groups offer an opportunity to advance that agenda and I urge the Minister to explain to us how he thinks the groups can help GPs to develop those specialisms.
It is worth highlighting a report by the all-party group on epilepsy back in 2007—three years ago now—which contained a fantastic quote from Dr Hannah Cock, a senior lecturer at St George’s hospital, who said
“Unless patients with long-term epilepsy at general practice level are in crisis, they do not get referred.”
That is a very important point. People should not have to wait for a crisis to occur before they get the treatment that they most need. I know that President Obama’s recently retired chief of staff is known for saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” but when it comes to epilepsy care, we do not want to get to that crisis point. We want to have consistency of care and that consistency of care is itself very important.
In particular, I want to raise the issue of generic substitution, which again might sound rather arcane to those who are not familiar with it. Like many other people, I take a regular dose of medicines and tablets. I go down to my pharmacy every six or eight weeks to pick up my new set of prescriptions. I have no problem with the idea of substituting generic medicines—it is important that we get value for money and effective medicine. What I am concerned about and what I ask the Minister for reassurance on is consistency of supply. Although the name on the packet might be the same, if the drug comes from a different manufacturer that uses a slightly different compound—if it is altered in ever so tiny a way—it can have a massive impact on how my brain reacts when various things occur in it that might lead to fits. Consistency of supply, not generic substitution itself, is my concern. I know that the Department has engaged in a consultation on the matter, but for the sake of the many people like me who are worried about it, I ask for some reassurance.
The other issue involving consistency on which the Minister can offer some comfort is specialist nurses. They are a wonderful idea. Epilepsy Action has been campaigning to promote their virtues, referring to them as “sapphires”, and they have an important role to play. We have about 250 at the moment, but the best estimate of how many we need is 1,100. There is clearly a gap, and those who are retiring or leaving are not being replaced, so the shortage will continue to worsen. The previous Government recognised the importance of sapphire nurses and was going to study their effectiveness. Will the Minister reassure me that the current Government will proceed with that study and recognise the importance of such nurses? Specialist nurses are a cost-effective means of providing consistent low-cost care that monitors a patient’s condition over time, ensuring that any blips on the radar are picked up early and preventing the need for costlier intervention further down the line.
That is the crucial point: better care and treatment are more cost-effective. We are all, I hope, looking for ways to save money, and that is one way to do so. We do not want inadequate care at the primary care stage to lead to more expensive tertiary care later. We do not want crises to occur. Cheaper care occurs in a primary setting and helps individuals to manage their condition, putting the patient in charge. However, to use the word “special” again, we need more specialism at the tertiary level as well. Neurological consultants are thin on the ground, but neurological consultants with an interest in epilepsy are even scarcer. They offer one way to help to prevent and correct misdiagnoses and to get it right the first time, but I gather from another Epilepsy Action survey that 90% of primary care trusts are not meeting the recommended two-week deadline for seeing a consultant.
I say that with a degree of caution, because I am no fan of two-week deadlines. They can be artificial, lack clinical sophistication and rob clinicians of their own clinical judgment. I have never been a fan of the two-week deadline. However, in my view, it has slightly more than a decorative role, if only because a lot of people present to their GP when the sort of crisis that I mentioned has occurred. Some degree of urgency in referral is needed, particularly because I hear many stories of cases where patients have died after referral but before having seen a consultant. That is an avoidable tragedy. We do not need artificial deadlines or targets, but there needs to be some way to ensure that urgent cases are referred promptly and reasonable confidence that they will see a consultant within a reasonable period.
I also ask for a bit of special treatment on the national level. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister might consider creating the post of national clinical director for epilepsy, which has been a long-term demand of many organisations in the Joint Epilepsy Council. One can commission successfully at regional level—it has been done in many parts of the country for many chronic conditions—but a degree of national oversight is needed to ensure that standards are set and adhered to. I realise that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has set clinical guidelines, but I have concerns.
In 2005, I was fortunate enough to be the parliamentary candidate for Twickenham, not far from the Minister’s constituency. I wrote a letter to the local paper during national epilepsy week because I wanted to highlight the issues, and someone wrote in the next week to say that clearly I was possessed by evil spirits. I had thought that Twickenham and south-west London were a particularly liberal, enlightened part of the world. That is what I was always told; they were so sophisticated that they had discovered liberal democracy a few years earlier than the rest of us. Blaming evil spirits was perhaps a bit unfair to me, but for many patients, NICE clinical guidelines are a bit like spirits. They have no real substance or tangible meaning, because they are not mandatory.
I know that there is always a big discussion about whether clinical guidelines should be mandatory if we do not want to take clinical power away from consultants, but clinicians are frustrated that they cannot implement the guidelines, and patients are equally disappointed that the guidelines do not mean anything in reality. There is a perhaps more philosophical question to be dealt with. If we are to have clinical guidelines for any condition, how can we deal with the fact that clinicians need to be reasonably confident that they are supposed to implement them and patients need to be confident that they will mean something? There is no point having clinical guidelines as decorative features. They are not Christmas trees; they are meant to help clinicians give better treatment.
The last Government met the Joint Epilepsy Council. I pay immense tribute to the then Opposition spokesman, Earl Howe. I know how much he has done on epilepsy and I have worked with him for many years. He is a good man, and I more than anyone am delighted to see him a Minister at last. He told the conference of NHS commissioners to go away and make a difference. How, specifically, does the present Minister think that NHS commissioners are making a difference? In particular, I make a plea to him to meet with me and representatives of the epilepsy charities—the Joint Epilepsy Council, Epilepsy Bereaved, Epilepsy Action—and senior clinicians to discuss some of the sector’s fundamental concerns. As I said, better treatment and better care will lead to bigger cost savings for the Department, but more importantly, they will improve quality of life of the 400,000 people in this country who have epilepsy.
I was surprised to read that the primary care trust for my Blackpool constituency has the highest incidence of epilepsy in the country. I had not realised that. We are talking not about a small group but of a large group of people who must deal with an immense stigma in their lives, as I know some of my hon. Friends will describe. We must deal with it day in, day out. Epilepsy is unlike any other chronic condition. I thank the Minister for listening and my colleagues for attending. Can we please hear some good, positive news about how the Minister intends to take the agenda forward?
Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on speaking in such a personal and informed way. With your indulgence, Mr Streeter, I welcome the new shadow Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), to our midst. I congratulate him on his party’s endorsement of him. Achieving such a position in the rankings can only be a reward for the competence and ability shown over a sustained period.
Flattery aside, epilepsy is one of the oldest diseases known to man. It has affected many celebrated and distinguished people—not only the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys but Julius Caesar and Dostoevsky, whose book “The Idiot” contains the best literary encapsulation of what it is like subjectively to experience the condition. However, for many people, it is a profoundly socially debilitating experience. My first encounter with it as a fact of life was when I was a child in primary school in Maghull. On my way to school, I walked past what was in those days called an epileptic home, where it was not uncommon to see the rather distressing sight of a man—he seemed quite elderly, but was presumably younger than I am now—lying on the floor while his workmates gathered around him, spoon in hand to stop him swallowing his tongue.
The presumption in those days was that epilepsy debarred people from a range of activities. Those men were obviously considered suitable only for farm labour and lived, as I said, in what was then called an epileptic home. It is now a nice flat development; care has moved on. Things have improved enormously, largely due to the intervention of drugs, better neurological understanding and the involvement of patients and patients’ groups—I think the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys alluded to the expert patient programme. People have become better at controlling the condition and, indeed, at preventing seizures within the condition. These days, many people who have epilepsy do not actually have seizures.
However, when we consider the provision available for the condition, it is manifest that we need centres of special excellence, such as the Chalfont Centre and the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery NHS. There is a high rate of misdiagnosis and epilepsy is not a subject on which even an acute hospital always has the relevant or best expertise. It is also clear that the prevalence of the condition means that specialist support has to be available locally in the acute environment and in the community. Nurses need to be able to give the patient the support that they need. That is particularly the case for children who, of course, are not expert in their condition. Such general provision is needed to improve diagnosis and treatment, to control symptoms and to provide advice. As well as doctors and specialists, nurses are clearly crucial, and that was, in fact, the theme of the hon. Gentleman’s comments.
My research on the subject so far has clearly shown that treatment is a lottery for patients across the country and that access to centres of excellence varies. Appointment times, local commissioning and support differ from primary care trust to primary care trust. Such is the variation that the Minister of Health in the previous Government suggested that strategic health authorities should be asked to review their provision because the statistics were showing that 64% of PCTs had no specialist nurses, and there was a 20% to 30% misdiagnosis element in treatment. It was also said that there were 400 avoidable deaths. I am not sure how that figure was established, but appreciable costs are obviously involved in suing—I have seen £138 million and £183 million mentioned. There are different figures given on that, but clearly the amount concerned is substantial and we need to take the issue seriously, particularly in a time of austerity when resources are perforce stretched.
I hope—the hon. Gentleman certainly shares this hope—that, as we gravitate towards GP-led commissioning, some of those ills will abate and the situation will improve. Presumably, specialist neurological services will be a matter not for local PCT commissioning, but the national commissioning body. However, it is not entirely clear how good or able such a body will be—whether it will be in a strong or weak position—to deal with the matter.
In terms of tracking parliamentary answers, many of which have been provided by the Minister or his officers, no information is collected centrally on specialist appointments or on readmission rates. There is also no information available on the destiny of specialist nurses—how much time they spend performing their specialist function and to what extent they get drafted into other work. There may be enough evidence for a national commissioning body to do a good job and produce the right kind of service across the country to the satisfaction of the hon. Gentleman and all other epilepsy sufferers, but it is not currently apparent that the data are there to allow that to be done.
In addition, it cannot be assumed that all GP commissioners would be able and willing to commission well. I was interested in what the hon. Gentleman said about his journey of moving from one doctor to another, and the expertise being available in one practice as opposed to another. There are quite good reasons why GP commissioners and GPs themselves might not be able to field every episode of epilepsy to everybody’s satisfaction—for example, they might have limited clinical experience or be new to the profession. On the basis of the statistics I have seen—I have put them to some use and come up with a figure—I calculate that most GPs probably have on average around 10 patients who suffer from an epileptic-like condition. GPs might not see many people with such a condition very often at all.
So how do we ensure that GP commissioning is, as we all hope, better and not worse than PCT commissioning? I think we all recognise—indeed, the previous Government recognised—that PCT commissioning was by no means perfect. Monitoring GP performance is particularly difficult because epilepsy sufferers are very much a minority. It is not clear who will monitor how well GPs are dealing with the matter. After all, GP performance monitoring is currently done by PCTs and, clearly, GP monitoring that is done by GPs might not be as good as GP monitoring done by others. The legislation does not make it entirely clear how big GP commissioning bodies will be, but presumably they will be on a smaller scale and have fewer resources than the PCTs that they will replace. That is an issue.
When the new regime appears, how will we get improved commissioning, so that there is not a repetition of the problem of a minority condition not being treated particularly well? The Department of Health has a mantra that goes something like this: commissioning is a matter for local decision making and the Department will not tell local commissioners how to do it. However, it will judge them against a quality framework and assess how well they are doing it. I think that the expression is that GP commissioners will be “held to account” on how well they deal with epilepsy as a condition.
That is fine by me. I am very comfortable with that being done—it certainly should be done and I think that the hon. Gentleman will be very comfortable if that is done—but what does the expression “holding to account” mean? The phrase is relatively undefined and I can think of about three different meanings I could give it. The Minister can perhaps tell me which definition is right. If a GP commissioning body fails to perform well in dealing with this chronic complaint, does “holding to account” mean that they will simply be named and shamed? Does such an expression mean GP commissioning bodies will be financially penalised, which is another way of being held to account—if someone does not do the job they are supposed to, they will lose resources as a result; or does the phrase mean—this is the third definition—that GP commissioning bodies will be overruled? The actual task of holding to account is important and it is vital we are precise about what we mean by that. Unless we get the right profile locally, talking a good game here will not make much difference.
In holding GP commissioning bodies to account, we must ask ourselves not only how the issue is examined, who examines it and what they then do, but from where the information comes for such an examination. In other words, five, six or seven years down the line, if we have to examine how one local commissioning body performs compared with another, will the only way to do that be by asking that commissioning body to mark its own papers and provide data of its own choosing? Clearly, that would not be adequate or satisfactory. Those are fair questions.
I think that the Minister and all hon. Members here want progress in dealing with this chronic condition. We do not simply want frameworks, guidance and detail here and there of what should be in place—the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys used the phrase “decorative features”—without there being a hard-edged attempt to ensure that what we believe should be in place actually is in place. I conclude by simply pressing the Minister to say what will happen when a GP commissioning body performs less than adequately. Who will do what, when and with which data? That is not a trivial question; it is important to all epilepsy sufferers.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing the debate and on speaking so eloquently, which focused our minds from the start. I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words on the impact of NHS treatment on the education of children with epilepsy. The hon. Gentleman mentioned misdiagnosis and the impact it can have on children and on adults, and he mentioned the impact of transition, with 33% of transition plans not being what they should be. That has a negative impact on not only children’s health, but, crucially, their education. I am pleased that some students have attended the debate to listen to what we have to say.
There is some very good practice in parts of the NHS, but it is not consistent across the whole health service, and schools and colleges could do much more to support children with epilepsy. I am pleased that the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), is planning to meet the Joint Epilepsy Council later this month and I hope that she will pick up the matter with the same interest as her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana R. Johnson).
The education system must learn from best practice so that it can ensure that the education of young people with epilepsy does not suffer as a result of the wrong support in schools. Children experience particular problems in mainstream schools because of the NHS’s occasional failure to get their treatment right. I urge the Minister to work with his colleagues in the Department for Education to ensure that minds are brought together on that to get the best deal for children.
As the hon. Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys and for Southport (Dr Pugh) noted, the move to GP commissioning offers opportunities, but it also offers risks. Whatever changes are made, it is crucial that young people with epilepsy do not suffer further because of increased instances of misdiagnosis and a lack of appropriate support. I hope that the Minister, with his colleagues in the Department for Education, will bring sufficient analysis to bear to ensure that that can be better dealt with in the education system.
We should look at the commitment that is in place in Wales to have a school nurse in every school and consider whether we should have something similar in England to ensure consistency of support for young people with epilepsy and other conditions so that their education is not negatively affected. There is a double disbenefit with epilepsy: there are the health issues, which were explained so excellently earlier; and there are the knock-on effects on children’s education. That is what concerns me and why I have spoken in the debate.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for securing the debate, as it is important that the matter is brought to the fore. I am lucky and privileged to be the chairman of the all-party group on epilepsy, and I am pleased that we are joined today by many young epileptic people who are taking their education forward and have a bright future ahead of them. We must ensure that we give them the same future in employment that we give other young people, and that future is about controlling a chronic condition.
Like my hon. Friend, I am epileptic, though I am lucky to have had very few seizures—I have had five in my life and no incident in the past seven years. There is a wide range of conditions—40, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Some people, like me, sometimes forget that they are epileptic, while others have seizures regularly, sometimes daily. The issue we all share is stigma. As soon as one mentions the word “epilepsy”, all sorts of extraordinary ideas come into people’s minds, and there can be an assumption that we might need constant attention.
Children with epilepsy have a particularly difficult time in school, because even if they do not have any seizures they can be wrapped in cotton wool and stopped from participating in outdoor sports. A child with epilepsy of course needs attention, and my hon. Friend is right that nurses and teachers need to understand that seizures might occur, but we must start to relax about this. We must focus on epilepsy from a medical point of view, but we must not stop young people participating and being part of a life when, with proper diagnosis and the right medication, they can make an important contribution in school and in employment.
I do not know whether other hon. Members know this, but my hon. Friend and I, as epileptics, are not allowed to walk up the stairs to the top of Big Ben. There are many things that we cannot do, such as recreational diving; epileptics cannot go diving unless they have been seizure free for five years and have not been taking medication for that time. I would have thought that it was probably quite useful to take medication, and I have done quite a bit of scuba diving without knowing about those regulations. We are creating barriers because we do not understand the variations in epilepsy. There is extreme epilepsy, mild epilepsy and seizure-free epilepsy, and we have an opportunity to ensure that more people are seizure free and making a contribution to society. I would like the Minister to join us, with the Joint Epilepsy Council, to ensure that we start to make the authorities, teachers and the medical profession understand more about the variations and the opportunities available to people with epilepsy who have been properly diagnosed and are properly medicated.
My chairmanship of the all-party group on epilepsy is concerned with stigma and with those who have severe epilepsy, but also with liberation for those who have controlled epilepsy. When I became chairman, I was contacted immediately by a local GP, who happens to be one of the best in the country specialising in epilepsy. Over the past five years, with seven GPs specialising in epilepsy, we have reduced related A and E admissions in South Thanet by 60%. That is most certainly a cost saving, but also a life liberator. We are reducing seizures for patients across the area, and I would like the Minister to look at what we have done. Patients are getting that primary attention and are not having to wait for months for appointments with consultants. They have ongoing care with specialist nurses.
What we have achieved in South Thanet is a model that could be rolled out over many other specialisms, where GPs who are passionate about a subject can make the difference and ensure that we have a more effective and responsive service. Hopefully we will reach the target for epilepsy, which is for 72% of sufferers to be seizure free. I would welcome the opportunity to meet the Minister and to discuss our services in South Thanet further.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for securing this debate, and for speaking so eloquently and passionately. I do not hope to speak with his expertise, but I do have some expertise, inasmuch as I have a close family member—a brother—who has suffered with epilepsy over the past 15 years. I have some insight into the nature of the difficulties that he has encountered, the problems in the current NHS system, and the issues that emerge in dealing with this chronic but particular condition in that system.
My brother is one of the 500,000 people in this country who have epilepsy. They are a minority, but a significant one—that is a lot of people. He is also one of the 50% of the 500,000 who are not seizure free: he has had a seizure every month, if not every week, for all of the past 15 years. That has had a dramatic impact on his life in terms of what work he is able to do, the energy he has, and the fear that he lives with, which the hon. Gentleman described so eloquently and which all people who have epilepsy have to contend with on a daily basis, of sudden unexplained death as a result of the condition.
That is my interest. It has given me an insight into issues that have already been raised today about the postcode provision, to use the vernacular, that exists across the NHS. We have a fragmented NHS, particularly in respect of epilepsy. That is the case for many other conditions, but it is particularly true for epilepsy. The phrase “Cinderella condition” is rather overused in the press these days, but epilepsy is one of those conditions. We can genuinely say that it does not have the high profile that it ought to have and therefore does not receive the concentration that it should.
There is clearly fragmented, unequal distribution of expertise in the NHS in terms of general practitioners, who, as the first point of call for anyone suffering with epilepsy, are critical, and nurse specialists. I believe that that is widely recognised. Like the previous Government, the current Government recognise that specialist nursing for epilepsy is under-resourced in this country and, equally, that it is an extremely important means of redressing the problem of insufficient provision of expert GPs.
It is clear that there are few centres of excellence for epilepsy in this country, and, therefore, that people such as my brother, who lives in Wales, have to travel long distances to hospitals or other centres of excellence for prolonged examinations to monitor brain patterns. He, too, suffers from nocturnal epilepsy, and therefore needs to be studied in clinical conditions in hospital to try to determine the nature of his condition and what resources might be brought to bear to alleviate it.
I, too, have some fears about the extent to which the creation of the new GP consortiums will exacerbate the problem of fragmentation and inequality of provision across the country. I can accept that, in areas where there are GPs with a special interest or particularly strong centres of excellence, there may be a beneficial effect in massing GPs together and spreading their expertise through a wider network. Equally, I can see significant potential for unintended dangers if we do not have GPs in those consortiums and we have a diminution of control over, and certainly insight into, their activities. It is unclear what the sources of commissioning will be, and who exactly will be commissioning specialist services. That has yet to be clarified, and I look forward to the Minister’s giving us some greater insight into that.
Another thing that I worry about in respect of consortiums is data. We have poor data on epilepsy: how many people suffer, the nature of their condition, how often they attend hospital, how often they are treated for acute episodes. Perhaps if their condition had been managed more effectively, it would not have reached that point. I have tabled numerous parliamentary questions about that recently, and all the answers confirm that we do not gather enough data.
There will be a further danger that we will not gather data if we fragment the NHS to the extent that is proposed with the creation of the consortiums. I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurance that information gathering will be a priority, whatever the structural make-up of the NHS, and that we will continue to see that critical piece of the jigsaw applied in respect of epilepsy care. In recent years, we have seen data gathering become an important tool for tackling other chronic conditions, notably cancer.
I worked in bioscience before coming to this House, and therefore have some insight into the science around epilepsy and the economics around the production of medicines. Prescribing of epilepsy medicines seems to involve a form of Russian roulette because our understanding of this neurological condition is deeply imperfect. For example, my brother has been through 11 or 12 medicines and combinations of medicines. Doctors still employ what is pretty much a hit and hope strategy. Perhaps I am being slightly unfair, but I believe that many epilepsy experts recognise that they do not really know which medicine will work, and therefore they try various drugs until they find the one that works for their patient. In my brother’s case, and in the case of 50% of sufferers, they often do not find the one that works, and we get into the more complicated issues around whether surgery is required.
Generic substitution is clearly an issue. We all understand that we need to make savings, and the importance of substituting generic medicines for the original brands when they are available.
Dr Pugh
The hon. Gentleman made a good point about data, which is worth repeating. However, there must be data on every episode dealt with through acute hospital care. His Government introduced the tariff system. Therefore, in some shape or form, the data are there—they just do not appear to be available for clinical purposes.
Owen Smith
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I have recently had answers from the Government about that. It is not simply a question of gathering the data. The NHS is a wonderful sponge, soaking up data. The critical thing is wringing it out and employing data to improve services. Epilepsy is a condition that has not been concentrated on, and therefore there is no emphasis on garnering data.
We must be careful about generic substitution of epilepsy drugs. I know that many sufferers agree with that. Another point is that genericisation of a market in medicines leads to changes in the economic incentives for research and development companies to produce them. There clearly are not incentives for companies to produce new epilepsy drugs. That is inevitable because of the large number of epilepsy medicines, many of which are effective, and many of which have been genericised.
Part of the answer in fixing markets that are not working has to be Government intervention to try to improve incentives. The previous Government were making effective inroads through the innovation fund and the innovation pass that they were negotiating with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, which would have encouraged and incentivised further R and D into more recondite diseases and the production of medicines where there is not an immediate economic incentive.
I was therefore discouraged to hear that the innovation pass is being abandoned by the Government—it will not be taken forward. I would like to hear some reassurance from the Minister that he is aware of the issue and interested in looking at how he can work with the pharmaceutical industry to incentivise further R and D into those areas where this country does not perform well. Epilepsy is one of them. We have a higher incidence of unnecessary death from epilepsy, and, bluntly, we do not prescribe terribly well for it. It is an area where we could produce more and take advantage of the great skills in the pharmaceutical industry, and where the Government could have a positive impact.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for securing this debate, and for his tremendous personal account of the condition of epilepsy, and how it has impacted on his life and his journey to Westminster and becoming a Member. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) for being frank and for providing powerful insights into the work and role of general practitioners in her constituency. Clearly, they are making a difference.
My contribution to this debate is about the structure of the NHS, especially in the light of the fact that significant and welcome Government reforms are coming soon. In Witham, the number of administrators and bureaucrats in the local primary care trust—Mid Essex PCT—has increased fourfold in the past 10 years. In this debate, we are talking about general practitioners, commissioning, the postcode lottery in terms of services, nurses, access to care, real care provision on site and the ability to deal with epilepsy. I am sure that the Minister agrees that epilepsy services could be served so much better by getting rid of a lot of the waste and bureaucracy. This is an opportunity to redirect the resources to ensure that epilepsy is given the right kind of local care provision and to ensure that GPs who are commissioning services are dedicated the right kind of resources and professional expertise that are so desperately needed out there.
One of my constituents is here listening to the debate. It is self-evident, from looking at my local PCT, that provision is hit and miss. It comes back to data, which we have heard a great deal about this morning. There is not enough data out there. I struggle with that notion when I hear locally about the bureaucracy in my PCT, which has been so vast that one wonders what it has been doing to secure data in the past decade. I plead with the Minister to ensure that all the resources out there are redirected to the right purposes to serve local epilepsy sufferers in the right way.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet mentioned stigma, but I should like to talk about quality of life and referrals to specialists. I have heard from my constituent who is here this morning about how epilepsy can prevent people from getting back into work. In respect of anybody who is up and able and wants to be an active citizen and contribute to their local economy, or even make a difference in some service, it seems self-evident that we desperately need local services and agencies working together to break down the barriers of stigma; to work constructively to enhance the quality of life of epilepsy sufferers; and to be more accommodating and understanding of the needs of people going into the workplace, without being patronising, enabling them and supporting them perhaps even to develop careers in the field or profession in which they choose to work.
The Government have an opportunity to consider generic substitution in the round, without coming to any rash conclusions. We are talking about savings, in this era of the comprehensive spending review, but this is about understanding that epilepsy is a subjective condition that affects individuals differently, not about a one-size-fits-all approach in respect of the drugs and prescribing regimes. This is a plea to the Minister to ensure that the right decision is made on behalf of sufferers.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
It is always compelling when colleagues speak from personal experience. That has certainly been the case today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on the way in which he introduced the debate. Indeed, his speech was so comprehensive that he has left little for other hon. Members to say. But being a Member of Parliament I will try to find something to add to this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend on sharing his experience with us this morning. I am certain that he is still reflecting on what the history of this country would have been like if he had been elected as MP for Twickenham.
Colleagues have spoken about their personal experiences, so perhaps I could share some of mine. A number of my family members have suffered with epilepsy, although I will not name any of them because they do not want to be the subject of any intrusion whatsoever. All I will say is that it is scary when people are not prepared for what happens when someone has a fit. When a baby suddenly stops breathing it is stressful for parents who have not been warned about such a situation.
My hon. Friend mentioned people suffering from epilepsy perhaps being thought to have had a bit too much to drink. I am ashamed to say that I am guilty of having made that misdiagnosis myself and coming to the wrong conclusion. I am glad that he mentioned that.
The Minister and I were colleagues on the Health Committee. Throughout that time it occurred to me that, although it would have been a new contribution to the debate, we never had an inquiry into epilepsy. Now that my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) is chairman of that Committee, perhaps the Minister might like to consider that matter, together with my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who is chair of the all-party group on epilepsy. That would be a good subject for a Health Committee inquiry.
Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy accounts for more than half of all epilepsy-related deaths in the United Kingdom. We know that with a clear understanding of epilepsy and good management of seizures, the risk can be minimised, as hon. Members have already said. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines recommend that information about the problem should be provided to patients following a diagnosis of epilepsy. There is clear evidence that that does not appear to be happening. Perhaps all colleagues would be diligent about this situation and inquire about what exactly is happening. People who are diagnosed with diabetes or heart problems, for example, are made aware of the risk of death if their condition is not well managed. Epilepsy should be in that category and dealt with in the same way.
There is no national monitoring of epilepsy deaths. However, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 highlighted epilepsy as one area in which standards could be developed. There continues to be an urgent need for research into the cause and prevention of the problem. Eight years on from the national sentinel audit that established the level of avoidable deaths, our understanding of sudden death in epilepsy is greater, but we still need to reduce the number of such deaths, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys said. We need more research into this neglected medical syndrome.
The White Paper reforms may offer a significant opportunity for some of the more neglected conditions in health care. It has been acknowledged that national targets, which I have deplored, ignored some conditions. Now the White Paper promises a relaxation in the use of targets and puts patient safety at the heart of the NHS.
In conclusion, if primary care practitioners are to be responsible for commissioning epilepsy services, they will need to be well informed on these issues, as my hon. Friend has made clear. They will need to move beyond the dreadful tick-box exercise for epilepsy in the GP contract and look seriously at the potential for achieving more positive outcomes for patients and a more cost-effective health service.
I ask the Minister to bring these issues to the forefront as we build on our excellent national health service.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing the debate. I particularly thank him and the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) for their brave, personal speeches, delivered with a frankness and honesty that is not always the hallmark of politics or politicians. Just by speaking about their conditions, they will have given strength and courage to thousands of people with epilepsy throughout the country. I am grateful to them for that.
Hon. Members have powerfully set out the scale of the problem and highlighted three key issues. The first is misdiagnosis: around 150,000 people are wrongly diagnosed with epilepsy or are diagnosed with the wrong sort of epilepsy. The second is poor quality treatment: patients may not see a specialist quickly enough and, because of the problems of misdiagnosis, thousands of patients take powerful drugs that are unnecessary or do not work effectively, and they must make repeated visits to their GP or go into hospital. Thirdly, because of poor diagnosis and treatment, there are unacceptably poor outcomes for individuals with epilepsy and for society as a whole. Only half of those with epilepsy live seizure-free, when the estimate is that 70% could do so. Of the almost 1,000 deaths from epilepsy every year, approximately 400 are avoidable—that is at least one unnecessary death from epilepsy every day of the year.
The estimated financial cost of that poor-quality care includes more than £20 million a year spent on incorrect drugs, and rises to more than £130 million if unnecessary GP appointments and hospital admissions are taken into account. That does not include the far greater costs to individuals and society as a whole for the thousands of people with epilepsy who cannot play a full role in their families, at work or in the community because they do not receive the care and support they need.
Following the efforts of patients and voluntary groups, many of whom are here today, understanding of epilepsy has increased in recent years. Last year, the all-party group on epilepsy met the then Health Minister, Ann Keen, for discussions, including on the findings from Epilepsy Action’s 2009 report, “Epilepsy in England: time for change” that NICE’s 2004 guidelines on epilepsy treatment are not being properly implemented in an estimated 90% of PCTs.
At a one-day conference for NHS commissioners in January, the then Minister spoke specifically about how to improve epilepsy services. She met specialist epilepsy nurses at the National Society for Epilepsy, and wrote to strategic health authorities asking them to consider how to improve services, including by increasing the number of specialist nurses. I understand that she intended to ask the Care Quality Commission to undertake a review of epilepsy services in the NHS. My first question to the Minister here today is: what plans do his Government have to increase the number of specialist epilepsy nurses and will they ask the commission to conduct that review into epilepsy services? My experience is that the commission’s reviews can make a real difference in raising awareness of such issues.
The key question today is whether the Government’s plans for the NHS will make the improvements that epilepsy patients desperately need. The key concern that we have heard about today is the future of commissioning. Clearly, PCTs have struggled to deliver high-quality care for patients with epilepsy, as they have with many less common conditions. That is and always has been a real problem in the NHS. How can the highest possible standards of care for less common conditions be delivered in every part of the country? If there have been difficulties in ensuring sufficient knowledge and expertise in 150 PCTs, that challenge will be even greater in the 500 commissioning consortiums that the Government want to establish.
The key issue that has been raised today is whether GPs have the necessary skills, awareness and interest in epilepsy services. Some do, and there are some good, expert GPs, such as those to whom the hon. Member for South Thanet referred, but many do not have the same skills and experience, and that is of great concern to patients with epilepsy. The expertise that does exist in PCTs is in grave danger of being lost. Many PCT staff who have been involved in commissioning are, understandably, looking for other jobs outside commissioning or outside the NHS. Will the Minister explain how he will ensure that GPs have the necessary skills and experience to identify and then correctly to refer patients to specialists? How will he ensure that GP commissioning consortiums have the necessary skills and expertise to commission high-quality epilepsy services?
My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) raised an important question. How will the Minister ensure that GP commissioning consortiums work with schools, local authorities and other care services? My local authority in Leicester has worked hard to build up relationships with the PCT, but that has been thrown up in the air and it must now develop relationships with individual GPs. That is a big challenge.
I want to make it clear that GPs must be more effectively involved in shaping NHS services. They are the first port of call for patients and their decisions affect 90% of spending in the NHS. Yet many GPs do not want and do not currently have the skills necessary to take on responsibility for commissioning £80 billion of NHS services. Despite claiming that they will end top-down reorganisation in the NHS, the Government continue to insist that all GPs must take on that role, and within a short time scale, but anyone who has been involved with the Government or the NHS knows that it takes a long time to change things in the NHS. PCTs are spending a huge amount of time trying to persuade GPs to become involved and to ensure that they have the right skills and expertise. Many people are worried, rightly, about whether PCT staff who are about to lose their jobs will want to put in that time and effort and, if they do, whether that time and effort would be better spent on improving patient care.
The financial costs of the Government's reforms are also significant. They have said that they will protect NHS funding in the comprehensive spending review, but the ageing population, increases in long-term conditions, and ever more expensive drugs mean that the NHS is still facing what the King's Fund and the NHS Confederation have called the biggest financial challenge of its life. Its overall budget may be protected, but it must make savings of £15 billion to £20 billion, and it has never before achieved that. Despite the Government’s claims that management will be cut by 45%, the King’s Fund estimates that the Government’s reorganisation will cost £3 billion. Will the Minister explain why his Government believe that yet another major, structural reorganisation is the best use of time and resources in the NHS, particularly in such financially challenging times?
Ultimately, what matters to patients and the public is that they get the best health care and the best value for money. The Government have said that outcomes in the NHS will be set out in the new NHS outcomes framework, and that the new national NHS commissioning board will be held to account for delivering those outcomes. The board will also take direct responsibility for commissioning some specialist services that used to be commissioned at regional level. The board will have a budget of more than £100 billion a year, but it is unclear how it will be held to account by Ministers or Parliament, who are responsible to the public for improving the NHS.
My final questions are as follows. Will the NHS outcomes framework include outcomes for epilepsy? Will the NHS commissioning board commission specialist epilepsy services, and will it draw on the expertise that was developed at regional level to do so? Will the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that the commissioning board has the necessary expertise on epilepsy services? Will patients be involved in determining outcomes and the commissioning board’s work? How will Ministers and Parliament hold the board to account? For example, if the board fails to include outcomes for services such as epilepsy, will the Government or Parliament be able to require the board to take action, or to remove individual members or the board as a whole?
Our debate today on epilepsy services will be mirrored in relation to a huge number of other conditions. People want to know how their condition will be improved by the planned changes. I am privileged that my first debate as a shadow Health Minister has been on this important subject, and I thank all hon. Members and the patients and patient groups who have come here today.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing this debate and on the remarkable way in which he outlined a compelling personal case and posed some important challenges for the Government.
Before I respond to the hon. Gentleman’s points and to contributions made by other hon. Members, I would like to correct an error that I made in a debate on diabetes on 15 September. During that debate, I mistakenly stated that the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation supports the NHS White Paper. In fact, it has not taken a position either way, and I am happy to correct the record on that point at the earliest opportunity.
In introducing the debate, the hon. Gentleman gave a powerful account of why we must do better for the 450,000 people with epilepsy in the UK. He painted a compelling picture of the fear that the condition provokes and the fear of the aftermath—the “thief in the night”, as he put it. Many hon. Members have made powerful testimonies in this debate, and that is to be commended.
I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his recent appointment as vice-chair of the all-party group on muscular dystrophy and as vice-president of Epilepsy Action, an organisation that does excellent work to support and advise people with epilepsy. He asked me if I will meet him and other colleagues from the sector, and I would be happy to do that, together with his colleague, the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who is chair of the all-party group on epilepsy. I hope that we can have further discussions about that.
I also welcome the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) to her new role. I understand that, in a previous incarnation, she worked as a special adviser to a former Secretary of State. I look forward to our exchanges in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber over the years to come. I hope that she will find the role as enjoyable and fulfilling as I do.
The debate has highlighted the many failings of the current arrangements for the design and delivery of epilepsy services. Those failings have been clearly articulated by many people, and in particular, the issue of stigma was raised by the hon. Members for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for South Thanet. I undertake to take that issue back to the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who is to meet colleagues in the sector soon, so that we can look at how to tackle that problem. It is not a matter solely for the Department of Health, but rather a wider societal issue and a challenge for the Government. We will discuss and look further at how to ensure clarity and proportionality in the regulatory burden.
Hon. Members have referred to the various statistics that make up part of the picture: 69,000 people are living with unnecessary seizures, and 74,000 people are taking drugs that they do not need. Nearly £200 million is needlessly spent each year on hospital admissions linked to poorly managed epilepsy. The 400 avoidable deaths per year—a tragic number—are largely the result of poorly controlled epilepsy.
The previous Government produced a string of policy documents designed to improve services and support patients with neurological conditions. The national service framework for long-term neurological conditions, and the NICE clinical guidelines on epilepsy, are both strong statements that the Government support. Plenty of sensible work has been done to improve support for people with all kinds of long-term conditions, such as setting out the need to have a more patient-centred approach to their care. The problem, which has been made clear in today’s debate, is that the words in those statements have often not been translated into practice. The failing is not of our shared intent, but of implementation. The previous Government’s top-down approach created a culture where only what gets measured gets done. That distorts priorities and, as the debate has demonstrated, leaves gaping holes in provision and lets people down in the ways that have been described.
The solution is not to publish more strategies or add more to the list of things that the NHS has to measure and account for. Instead, we should change the system entirely and record and value what really matters. That is what our proposed NHS reforms are about, and I welcome the opportunity to outline how those reforms will have an impact on epilepsy. We want to strip out unnecessary targets and bureaucracy and replace them with a system that recognises and rewards quality and overall patient outcomes.
We have already held a consultation on the new outcomes framework. I am pleased that a number of neurological organisations contributed to that process, including the Joint Epilepsy Council and Epilepsy Action. The framework will drive a better approach to service design and performance management across the NHS, including on issues of speed and accuracy of diagnosis. It will be the engine of change, giving us clear and coherent structures of accountability to drive radical improvements in standards from the bottom up, not the top down. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) spoke about accountability, and I will say more on that later.
I am determined that specific issues to do with neurological conditions, and epilepsy in particular, should be appropriately reflected in the composition of the outcomes framework, and I will make that point to the NHS medical director, Bruce Keogh. I encourage other hon. Members who are concerned about this matter to ensure that they also make such representations. I undertake to look at precisely what contribution the Care Quality Commission can make; clearly there are potentially many thematic reviews that it could undertake—far more than it could carry out in any one year. It is a powerful tool for levering-up quality.
In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys mentioned transition care. There must be significant improvement in that, because the transition from care in childhood to adult care is currently not good enough. We must ensure that we pick up and learn from the work carried out by the national director for children’s services, who has published guidance on improving the transition between child and adult services to ensure that everything possible is done to maintain people’s health and well-being. The subject of transition comes up more often that anything else, and we must ensure that we have a better, clearer focus on the transition between children’s services and adult services, and between primary and secondary care.
Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)
The National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy is in my constituency and it is interesting to hear the Minister mention transition care. Would he be open to considering a clinical standard for paediatric epilepsy?
Paul Burstow
The Government proposals include a national quality board that will be responsible for considering potential areas for quality standards, and NICE will take that work forward. There is already a number of standards in the national service framework, but I will certainly give further thought to the hon. Gentleman’s point.
A number of hon. Members have mentioned information, and the Government want to give patients and the public all the information that they need to make informed choices and hold the NHS to account. We will shortly be launching a new information strategy to improve radically the range and quality of information available to patients, professionals and the public, so that there is increased transparency and strengthened accountability in the system.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned information for patients, but one area of concern that has not been mentioned today is that involving women of child-bearing age. Currently, such women are meant to be counselled by their GPs, but sometimes that counselling is patchy or non-existent. One successful drug creates a significant increase in baby malformations, so a woman who finds herself pregnant must decide whether to carry on taking the drug with a risk to the baby, or stop taking the drug with a risk to herself. The risk of maternal death is almost 10 times higher for women with epilepsy. What can be done to make GPs take seriously the role they have when women are facing that terrible decision?
Paul Burstow
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. In the proposed quality and outcomes framework for 2011-12, NICE has recommended a new indicator to encourage more GPs to talk to women with epilepsy about the drug risk during pregnancy. I hope that that will focus on the point that the hon. Lady has rightly raised.
Patients should be able to check up on local services right down to the performance of individual consultant teams, so that they can, if necessary, vote with their feet. That not only gives patients more control, but it exerts pressure on different parts of the NHS to make continuous improvements. On a professional level, it is important to ensure that there is better recording and sharing of information about services.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southport and the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) talked about the lack of information about neurological services at local level. I can tell them that the Department has developed a reference data set for local commissioners to use. That will give them a standard set of information to request from local providers about the different stages of care for someone with a neurological condition. Reference has been made to a dearth of data. I can tell hon. Members that there are data relating to the primary reasons for hospital admissions, readmission rates, average lengths of stay, out-patients, first to review rates and programme spend for neurology through the payment by result rates. All that information is on NHS Comparators, which is part of the NHS website. It is an online tool that presents all that information in a way that is accessible not just to professionals, but to the third sector. One of the challenges that I pose to hon. Members and to organisations with an interest in this field is to make more use of NHS Comparators, because it is a valuable tool for challenging commissioners and holding them to account and for ensuring that there is competitive localism—a real sense of comparing one area to another to ensure that we drive up standards and learn from the best.
Priti Patel
We have heard in the debate that epilepsy is a very subjective condition—it affects people in many different ways. We have also heard about the data challenges, and the Minister has kindly given us some insight into what comparators are out there. The fact is, though, that if someone is a sufferer, is on their own and is in desperate need of care and access to information, hearing about data comparisons is not necessarily of practical help. What practical measures exist for sufferers and for organisations that can give genuine support and guidance to epilepsy sufferers?
Paul Burstow
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. I was talking about using the data to improve standards, but we also need to ensure that, through NHS information prescriptions, we provide better and more timely information to people. Further work is also necessary in that area.
A message that comes through strongly is that commissioning is key to better epilepsy care. We believe that placing decision making much closer to the patient through general practice consortiums will unlock new opportunities and lead to more sensitive and responsive decision making about care and treatment pathways. Some patient groups and some hon. Members in this debate have expressed concern about the experience and knowledge of GP commissioners in designing epilepsy services. Let me say a little more about that.
The NHS commissioning board will have a vital role to play in supporting consortiums. It will set commissioning guidelines based on clinically approved standards developed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. In addition, the long-term conditions delivery support team will work closely with new directors of commissioning, their commissioning boards and GP consortiums to build skills and awareness. For example, the team has already developed a new commissioning pack, bringing together information that commissioners will need to design good epilepsy services.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southport has asked me, within about four days of the close of consultation on the White Paper, to describe in full and complete detail every aspect of the new accountability regime for the new system. I will not do that in the debate today, because that would not do justice to the 5,000 respondents to the consultation. The Department is in the process of properly considering the responses to the consultation and we shall give a considered and proper response. What we have done so far is set out clearly the direction of travel and reform. I think that my hon. Friend has conflated two or three things in his test of accountability: professional accountability, accountability to the public and accountability to other organisations. We will make clear, when we set out the next steps to the reforms that we have proposed in the White Paper, precisely how each part of the accountability conundrum that he posed is properly addressed.
Dr Pugh
I thank the Minister for that response. He has spoken about frameworks and about commissioning standards. I hope that he will go on to speak about what happens when the frameworks are not in application and when the commissioning standards are not observed, for whatever reason. The only thing that I have heard him say so far is, “We’re going to have a competitive local environment. People can vote with their feet.” That is an awfully London-centric view, because in many areas of the country, that is not a realistic option.
Paul Burstow
I think that my hon. Friend perhaps needs to reflect a little further on the White Paper proposals and what I have said in the debate, because what we are actually talking about is not competition in terms of people always choosing to go somewhere else, but in terms of the ability to see what somewhere else looks like and make a comparison and to ask commissioners locally why they are not commissioning to the same standard. It is as much about that as about being able to move around the country, and certainly that is what we are determined to deliver.
Paul Burstow
Only one more time, because I want to ensure that I have done full justice to the debate.
Mr Gyimah
I thank the Minister for his comments on commissioning. In that context, I understand that there will be 150 clinical standards against which commissioning will be judged. It would be helpful for people who suffer from epilepsy to know what weighting and priority will be given to those clinical standards as GPs deal with commissioning.
Paul Burstow
The 150 quality standards that NICE will be responsible for producing will make up a key document that the NHS commissioning board will use to draw up the clinical standards that it will use to drive commissioning activity and hold GP consortiums to account for delivery. They will be rewarded against the outcomes that they achieve. That is an important part of the accountability mechanisms that will be in place.
Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber talked about the need for early diagnosis and correct diagnosis. Where epilepsy is suspected or where there are issues about the management of the condition, patients should be swiftly referred to specialists to confirm the diagnosis and agree treatment options. I am very sympathetic to the calls made today for more specialists and good access to appropriate diagnostic equipment.
A number of hon. Members rightly mentioned specialist epilepsy nurses, who are particularly vital to providing patients with a stable presence in their treatment and ongoing care. I pay tribute to their work in supporting and advising patients and helping them to manage their condition effectively. However, it is not for me, as a Minister, to make decisions on how local NHS organisations spend their money. I hope that I have satisfied my hon. Friend the Member for Southport, who thought that I might say that. Centralised, top-down management is the problem, not the solution. The new system is quite clear. GP consortiums and NHS trusts will have outcomes to meet for their patients. They must consider, in the light of their own circumstances, whether recruiting more specialist staff or investing in new equipment is the best way to achieve those outcomes.
However, on the question of research and whether we need to test whether the evidence is robust, the evidence is clear, and it is clear in the guidance from NICE itself, that specialist nurses are important for helping people living with epilepsy. The guidance is clear and should be taken into account by those commissioning services. The long-term conditions delivery support team has developed a guide to help commissioners to make the strong business case for the very important investment in specialist epilepsy nurses.
I want to say something about innovation and efficiency, because that is not just about how many consultants and nurses are in a hospital; it is also about how well they are used to support people in the community. The best neurology departments are adapting, evolving and improving their working practices to meet their populations’ needs in the context of financial constraints and the need to increase productivity. There is a particular role for neuroscience networks in bringing specialist teams together with general practice and wider sources of support. A lot of work is under way in relation to, for example, the QIPP—quality, innovation, productivity and prevention—programme, whereby teams of clinicians are working together to promote innovation and drive out inefficiencies.
I shall give a couple of examples of where things are changing on the ground. In Dorset, there is a county-wide service whereby a consultant neurologist and specialist epilepsy nurses work with GPs and community teams across the region to give better support. In east Kent, networks of GPs with a special interest are joining forces with specialist nurses and local neurology services to deliver community-based epilepsy care. Those are highly effective models and they are the type of models that should be followed in the rest of the country; I certainly question why they are not.
Generic substitution was raised by the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), the hon. Member for Pontypridd and others. As has been said, that is subject to consultation at the moment and I cannot pre-announce the conclusions, but I certainly share the concerns about consistency of supply that the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys expressed.
Appointing a national clinical director is certainly something that we need to consider, particularly in the context of the implications of the reforms that the White Paper proposed, and we will consider that carefully.
Our proposals for the NHS will create the building blocks for real and positive change: a new transparency and consistency of purpose, built around an outcomes framework; a more responsive approach to commissioning led by GPs and local government; and much greater influence for patients through better information and choice and control over their care. I look forward to discussing these matters further with hon. Members through the all-party group and with the various organisations that represent the interests of people with epilepsy. I also look forward to taking the White Paper proposals forward, because I genuinely believe that they will transform services from the bottom up, making a real difference to the quality of life of people with epilepsy.
Human Trafficking
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I applied for this debate as a Back Bencher, but I have since been promoted to the Front Bench. In these unusual circumstances, I will be brief to let Back-Bench colleagues have time to debate the issue properly. However, I want to set out why I called for the debate in the first place, even if I cannot do justice to my original speech.
In opening the debate, I want to applaud in particular the work of Members on both sides of House in championing the fight against human trafficking. Members from each of the main three political parties have deep concerns about that modern form of slavery and have kept the pressure on successive Governments to tackle this egregious human right abuse. Today is an opportunity to continue to do that. In particular, we should recognise the tireless work of the all-party group on human trafficking, as well as the inquiries and reports in the previous Parliament of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Select Committee on Home Affairs.
Over 200 years ago, the slave trade was abolished, but another form of slavery has taken its place, one which is more clandestine, underground and hidden, but which is still insidious and brutal. It is one of the most virulent crimes in today’s society, one of the most prevalent forms of violence against women and a grave human rights abuse. There are thousands of vulnerable people, mostly women and children, being trafficked into and within our country. They are suffering at the hands of criminal gangs and pimps and enslaved by their keepers; they are abused, raped, violently and sexually exploited, and forced into prostitution, slave labour and domestic servitude. With our country’s pitiful rate of conviction for trafficking, all too often such gangs and pimps enjoy impunity. There is still not enough being done to help and to protect the victims of trafficking and to prevent them from becoming victims in the first place.
The victims of trafficking are diverse. Some come from beyond the European Union and some from neighbouring countries at the eastern border of the EU, such as Moldova and Ukraine. Others come from countries further away, such as Nigeria and China. Victims also come from EU countries, and it is often overlooked that women and children are being trafficked within our country. There are indications that the Olympics will increase the demand for prostitution in particular, and, as a result, there will be human trafficking into London from other parts of the United Kingdom and beyond our borders.
Some victims of human trafficking are kidnapped from their families and some are sold by relatives. Tragically, some come of their own accord having been deceived into thinking that they are being helped into the UK on the promise of a better life, only to find when they get here that they are literally imprisoned, kept like slaves and forced into prostitution or forced labour. They are traded by criminal gangs or pimps who treat them like second-hand cars—the more profit, the better for their keepers. Each sex trafficker is estimated to earn, on average, £500 to £1,000 per woman per week. According to their evil and depraved view of the world, the younger the girl, the better, as their value decreases the older they get. Of the 8,000 women who work in off-street prostitution in London, it is estimated that 80% are foreign nationals and many are forced into prostitution while they are still children.
Wherever the victims of trafficking come from—whether within our country or beyond—they have one thing in common: they suffer the worst human rights abuses at the hands of their captors, keepers and pimps, and each have an unequivocal, equal and universal right to be helped and protected. I urge the Government not to be complacent in tackling this egregious human rights abuse. I am confident that colleagues will be more specific about what needs to be done and I look forward to listening to the debate. I hope to do all that I can to contribute to finding a solution to this problem in my new position on the Opposition Front Bench.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on leading this debate. Unfortunately she has almost had her hands tied; she was allowed to speak for only a short time because she has just been appointed to the shadow Cabinet. I congratulate her on that. It will be a loss to the Back Benches, but may I say in all honesty that I wish her very very many years—and I mean very very many—in the shadow Cabinet? I would also like to welcome the Minister for Immigration, because in him we have a Member of Parliament renowned for his care and humanity, and his understanding of the issue. I say that not only because it is true, but because I want him to do things. I notice that in the Chamber today Members from all parties are present, which is a sign that this is a cross-party concern.
At the outset I want to pay tribute to my predecessor, Anthony Steen, formerly MP for Totnes. As the first chairman of the all-party group against trafficking of women and children, he pioneered an approach to human trafficking, which I, as the new chairman, am happy to follow. Quite simply, he put human trafficking or modern day slavery on the parliamentary map. I pay tribute to him and to his current work to establish the human trafficking foundation, together with Clare Short and my co-chairman of the all-party group, Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.
At the end of their 13-year term, the previous Administration could be given only a B for their work on human trafficking. The acid test has to be, were there more apprehensions of traffickers year-by-year? The answer is no. Were the police filing more charges and did more convictions take place? The answer, sadly, is no. Instead, the number of victims rose and rose. However, the previous Government did take two major initiatives, which were welcome. The two operations to deal with trafficking were Pentameter 1 and 2, and they involved every police force in the land. They did not just raid brothels, massage parlours and saunas, but went into private homes—wherever they thought there were traffickers. New initiatives such as those are urgently needed, and the House would like to know what plans the Government have. The Minister may not be able to say too much about that today and may be holding back for anti- slavery day next Monday, but we would like to know if new announcements and initiatives are on the way.
New initiatives are needed because a number of operations are being disbanded, such as the UK Human Trafficking Centre, a £2 million initiative in Sheffield that was absorbed by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. In itself, that might not have been a problem but now SOCA is also being wound down. We need a Pentameter 3, so that traffickers realise that we are on their case and that this Government will be tougher than the previous one. Is that planned?
We all know that it takes several years for new projects to be effective. What will happen to human trafficking during the apparent lull in the prosecution and harassment of traffickers? It took the previous Administration two years to implement the Council of Europe convention on action against human trafficking after they signed it, and it has never been fully implemented. Operation Golf at the Met has been a remarkable and successful operation. Superintendent Bernie Gravett and Chief Inspector Colin Carswell deserve the gratitude of the whole House for their single-mindedness in tackling child trafficking.
The traffickers will be breathing a sigh of relief that the superintendent’s team will be disbanded shortly, just as the human trafficking unit in the Met was disbanded nine months ago. Therefore, although the previous Administration pressed the right buttons, the reality is now coming home to roost: by the beginning of next year there will be precious few specific operational units in the UK specifically tackling human trafficking. Here is a great opportunity for the coalition Government to make some real changes and improvements to tackle this appalling crime, which should have disappeared when slavery was abolished 200 years ago, but is flourishing worldwide.
What is needed is a more robust Crown Prosecution Service that does not make deals with defence counsels on behalf of traffickers. We secure too few convictions, and those that we do secure are the result of plea bargaining, resulting in a lesser crime being admitted and a lesser sentence being given by Crown court judges, many of whom need better training about the nature and extent of human trafficking.
Our track record on dealing with foreign children, particularly from the far east, is lamentable. We need to ensure that the hundreds of children who are discovered here each year, and who are acknowledged as trafficked by the national referral mechanism, are treated more compassionately. Such children should have a guardian, and I am told by a legal friend that we need a guardian ad litem, which, as I understand it, means someone who will act as their parent and look after them, particularly in the court situation. These children are both victims and witnesses, and it is wrong to expect them to go through the system without help when we would not necessarily expect an adult to do so. The European convention on action against trafficking in human beings proposes such a guardian and so, too, does the new European directive.
Let me briefly say something about the directive. At the last Prime Minister’s questions, there was a lot of argument between the Prime Minister and the now deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), over whether we should opt into the European directive. As someone with some reservations about the European Union, I do not really think that it is necessary to opt in, but we do need to do everything—and more—to help children, and the Prime Minister is more than open to suggestions that will help us to achieve that.
Sadly, domestic slavery exists in Britain and is another concern. Some foreign embassies and their officials, who have diplomatic immunity, are, sadly, the worst abusers, and that should worry us all. Currently, the visa for someone who comes here to work for a diplomat is very restrictive, and they can work only for the embassy. They really should come in on a normal domestic visa, which would allow them to go somewhere else if they were being abused.
The issue was well illustrated in the exhibition that the now Prime Minister visited in the Committee corridor last March. The event was sponsored by the all-party group, in conjunction with the Bromley Trust and the Tudor Trust. I pay special tribute to the work of Kalayaan in Notting Hill Gate, which supports victims and campaigns for the merger of diplomatic and ordinary domestic visas, 16,000 of which are issued each year. Such a step would allow diplomatic workers the same freedom as domestic workers with annual domestic visas.
Let me say a word about sex trafficking. We are fortunate in London to have the POPPY project, which, linked with Eaves housing, offers more than 50 units of accommodation to trafficked women. However, POPPY offers more than just accommodation; it offers social, psychological and medical support. Many girls have been viciously treated for many years and need not just a bed, but friends they can trust. That is what POPPY offers, and it does a professional, top-class job.
Although POPPY is technically allowed to accommodate women only for a 42-day period of reflection while they contemplate their future and whether they can assist the authorities, many women need a much longer period of sanctuary. In that respect, the current situation is absurd, although I do not have time to go into it today. Adults who are trafficked into this country are looked after better than children, because while adults will go into something such as the POPPY project, children will be lost in the local authority system—many of them will disappear and be re-trafficked.
POPPY not only provides a lifeline for 42 days, but forms many women’s futures, and it has developed its experience and knowledge over the past decade. There is no one quite in POPPY’s league. Other shelter projects around the country—in Bristol, Sheffield and Dover—do valuable work, but they are small, have few facilities and, sadly, no Government funding. Trafficking covers the country—not just the south-east and the cities. Caring for victims initially is important, but what happens to them afterwards? Who helps them? Who integrates them back into society? How many return to their home country and at what risk to them and their families? What is the number of deportations?
Human trafficking is the fastest growing business in the world. With increasing demand, the speed of growth is terrifying. Today, 27 million people worldwide are in slavery, with 300,000 in Haiti alone. Trafficking is the fastest growing illegal industry and, according to the United Nations, nets more than $32 billion a year—that would almost help us to overcome our deficit. Hon. Members should just think about that: criminal gangs make $32 billion out of trafficking. The punchline is that the growth of human trafficking is fuelled by the ease of access, anonymity and secrecy provided by the internet, and that is why we do not see trafficking in our daily lives. That is the difference between slavery in Wilberforce’s time, which was highly visible, and modern slavery, which is underground and hidden..
My request is that our Government should take the lead and, while establishing a national border police force, which is a welcome move, do something specific to help victims of trafficking. There should be more compassion for victims who arrive from all over the world, and that could involve a range of different means. I doubt whether things will change overnight, but I hope that compassion will increase. There are also the victims from EU countries who travel here on legal passports. How, I wonder, will the border police stop those people being trafficked?
For all those reasons, anti-slavery day is very important. On the whole, people are just not aware of modern slavery; they do not realise that it exists around the comer from where they live. They cannot see it, so they do not believe that it exists. What we do know is that the numbers overall are increasing. Sadly, people are recyclable. Unlike arms or drugs, which the criminal gang can trade only once, human beings can be recycled and sold again.
As I said, there is interest across the House in the idea that Britain should lead the way and be known throughout the world for its effective and compassionate approach. In that respect, I am glad to see three Members from Northern Ireland, who represent the political divide there. We must congratulate the Assembly on passing a resolution last week making Northern Ireland
“a hostile place for human traffickers”.
That is what we need to do in the rest of the country. If we make the United Kingdom a place traffickers do not want to come to and where they do not believe that they can make money, we will stop trafficking. Congratulations to Northern Ireland on leading the way.
We are tolerating the closure of some of the most innovative initiatives, and I wonder how that squares with the Home Secretary’s statement in the House on 22 July, when she said:
“Tackling human trafficking is a coalition priority, and the Government are currently considering how to improve our response to this terrible crime, including through the creation of a border police force.”—[Official Report, 22 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 552-53.]
Perhaps, on anti-slavery day, and in the spirit of the big society, we could involve and support non-governmental organisations such as ECPAT—End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children—POPPY, Kalayaan and the Helen Bamber Foundation, which have an enviable record, but which receive little or no Government funding. Those are exactly the organisations that the Prime Minister has in mind when he talks about the big society. The Minister may delight us all on anti-slavery day by announcing some real progress on beginning to tackle the problem of human trafficking with a vengeance.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Streeter, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) both on securing this valuable debate and on her promotion to the Front Bench.
I chair the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults and I would like to raise some issues on its behalf. The group is very concerned about what happens to vulnerable children and adults when they go missing. Many get hurt in some way. They can fall into drugs and crime or fall prey to abusive adults, and can also get caught up in trafficking and prostitution. Our aim is to try to keep young people as safe as possible.
I want to take this opportunity to highlight and praise the work of the UK Missing Persons Bureau, which is part of the National Policing Improvement Agency. The bureau does some excellent work and is the UK national and international point of contact for all “missing” and “unidentified” cases. It is also the centre for information exchange and expertise on missing children and adults. The bureau has developed substantial knowledge on the issue of missing trafficked children and missing asylum-seeking children and works closely with police forces across the country. It has a valuable database, which stores data on missing people and unidentified bodies. It is an essential tool for the monitoring of missing people as it provides a national picture.
Missing trafficked victims are part of that database. Incidents—particularly repeated incidents—of children going missing are often an indicator of other problems for the child and can be an indicator of trafficking. The nature of trafficking means that children are often moved across force boundaries and therefore may be reported missing in more than one force area. On some occasions the same child may be reported missing to numerous forces under different names. A national database of those incidents is the only way in which links between cases can be identified. Following the reported incidents of potentially trafficked children going missing from local authority care in 2009, there has been understandable concern about and interest in the measures that are being put in place to ensure that those vulnerable children are adequately safeguarded and that steps are taken to prevent them from going missing from care.
I want to draw to hon. Members’ attention two major operations that are currently going on to try to tackle the trafficking of children. The first is called Operation Paladin, which is a Metropolitan police-led operation involving immigration officers and social workers. It is based at Heathrow airport and the United Kingdom Border Agency asylum screening unit in Croydon. It also works at the St Pancras Eurostar terminal. The team specialises in identifying and safeguarding vulnerable children who are suspected of being trafficked. It also investigates specific trafficking and migration offences as well as advising other police force child abuse investigation teams on child trafficking issues.
The second operation is Operation Newbridge, under which Sussex police and West Sussex county council drew up an inter-agency protocol for managing potential child trafficking victims taken into social services care. That allows the sharing of information with a view to tracing young people from abroad who have disappeared from care. Since the operation started there has been a significant drop in the number of children suspected of having been trafficked into Gatwick airport and a reduction in the number of such children going missing from local authority care.
The two operations have two different approaches. Operation Paladin covers investigative and interview support while Newbridge focuses on multi-agency work. The bureau believes that we should now merge the two operations under one new name so that we have a co-ordinated response using both types of operation across the UK as a strong and effective example of inter-agency working to safeguard trafficking victims and prevent further trafficking. That makes perfect sense to me and to the all-party group and I urge the Minister to examine the proposal from the bureau as a way forward. I also urge the Minister to recognise, in any future organisation of police services, the valuable work that the UK Missing Persons Bureau does in a number of areas, and to safeguard that valuable resource.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this timely and important debate on the trafficking of human beings, and forced prostitution. I can see that it is an issue that she cares about deeply, and I share that with her. We need to recognise the fact that human trafficking, and, by extension, the exploitation of vulnerable women and children through prostitution, happens in the UK, and is something we should continue to fight. I am pleased that the coalition Government have agreed to tackle human trafficking as a priority.
I also want to highlight the fact that the issue could affect any of our constituencies. Early last year, as part of the nationwide Operation Pentameter, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) referred to, and which was aimed at tackling human trafficking and raising awareness of modern-day slavery, the Cheshire police—who oversee my constituency among others—arrested a woman in a constituency near mine who had trafficked human beings for sexual exploitation. That woman had managed brothels and trafficked women, and was also in possession of drugs. She was given a custodial sentence, and rightly so.
We also know that what is happening is bigger than just a couple of cases. According to research published in August for the Association of Chief Police Officers, there are at least 2,600 women in prostitution who have been trafficked into the UK, and at least 9,200 who are considered to be vulnerable, whose situation is more complicated and who might be considered to have been trafficked within the UK, or who are controlled in some other way, such as through drug dependency. Those are large and distressing numbers and they do not include victims of trafficking and forced labour.
As I have said, I am pleased that the coalition is committed to tackling human trafficking as a priority. However, without wanting to go into the reasons for the Government’s decision to opt out of the EU directive on human trafficking, I want to ask the Minister to consider a concern that was put to me in a letter, which I am sure many colleagues have received, from a social policy charity that works with non-governmental organisations on the ground to help women exit prostitution. Its concern is that victims of trafficking who have undergone some of the most severe human degradation, often having been raped or forced to take drugs, may still face the trauma of prosecution. That needs to be reviewed.
The “Human Trafficking and Smuggling” legal guidance advises prosecutors who review cases in which a trafficked victim may have committed a criminal offence while in a situation of coercion that, where there is clear evidence that the suspect has a credible defence of duress, the case should be discontinued on evidential grounds. However, there is information to suggest that that approach is not being practised as robustly as it perhaps could be. For example, a prosecutor can take such steps to discontinue a case only if they have information from the police or other sources that the suspect might be a victim of trafficking; and that is relevant only where the criminality is a direct consequence of the trafficking situation.
In another case that has been brought to my attention an unopposed appeal against conviction was brought before the court, and was granted by Mr. Justice Cox on 26 June 2008. That is admittedly some time ago, but the case was brought to me by the POPPY project, which has already been referred to with applause during the debate. On 17 March 2008 the appellant had pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown court to an offence of using a false identity card with the intention of using it as her own and was sentenced to eight months imprisonment, less 16 days spent on remand. Research by the POPPY project subsequently showed that the woman was the victim of trafficking into England for prostitution. I believe that the case may be one among many, but one is enough to require me, and the Minister, to look into the matter, and find out whether our current processes are sufficiently robust to protect such victims—for indeed they are victims, not offenders, and should be treated as such.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on initiating this important debate on human trafficking, which is a particularly brutal form of organised crime.
The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) reminds us that next Monday is anti-slavery day. Mankind has been guilty of many atrocities and crimes down the centuries, but I believe that one of the biggest travesties is slavery. Nothing is more degrading or humiliating for individuals than to have to live such lives. Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery, victims often being forced to work in the illegal sex industry.
As has been mentioned, this obscene trade was recently debated by the Northern Ireland Assembly. One thing that featured in that debate was the fact that, in many areas, people have suspicions about particular dwellings or establishments that they suspect are being used as illegal brothels. They report their suspicions to the authorities, but little action seems to be taken. That is a major concern. All parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly endorsed the proposal that Northern Ireland should be an unwelcome place for traffickers, but we need more than that. Although such matters are passed by our legislative chambers, we need to see action—and a large number of convictions.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Over the years countless initiatives have been taken by various Governments, but initiatives of themselves are not sufficient. Surely the courts should allow the sentence to fit the crime. We must have sentencing that will stop this terrible and despicable abuse.
David Simpson
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea). He is absolutely right. The judiciary has a lot to answer for. The police continually brought individuals before the Craigavon courts in my constituency, but I remember that one judge was nicknamed Father Christmas because every time those guys were brought before the courts they were let off. The onus is on the legal establishment to convict. I would be interested to know whether other hon. Members find the same situation in their constituencies as I and other Northern Ireland Members do.
This particularly vile trade often involves forced sexual slavery, predominantly of women but also of men—and, indeed, of children—into a nightmare world. There they are treated as commodities to be traded and sold in order to gratify people willing to pay so that they can prey upon them.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. When the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) mentioned the Northern Ireland Assembly initiative to make Northern Ireland a trafficking-free zone my heart leapt with joy. However, I wonder what specifically is being done. Is there a new law? Is there a law to prevent demand? Thirty years ago, Ken Livingstone declared London to be a nuclear-free zone; it is true that no nuclear bombs have fallen on London since then. Without being trite, what is the Assembly’s legal proposal?
David Simpson
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, I have made the same point. Whether the matter is being debated here or in the main Chamber or in any of the regional assemblies, it may get all-party approval but it does not necessarily achieve anything. The Northern Ireland Assembly has taken the first step to bringing the matter to a final conclusion. We need to move quickly.
People are persuaded by these unscrupulous individuals that they will be helped to obtain a better life, but we know that the reality proves to be very different. They are tortured, trapped and treated as little more than pieces of meat. The hon. Member for Wellingborough brought to our attention debates in this Chamber on domestic slavery, which is another travesty, which arises through diplomatic immunity or other loopholes. It is a disgrace and should not be allowed.
As I said earlier, this is a modern form of slavery. It happens on a large scale. The United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre reports that between April and December 2009, 527 potential victims of trafficking of 61 nationalities were referred to the national referral mechanism. However, that covers only what is known; I fear that it happens on a much larger scale than many imagine.
I am also concerned that good police work does not always lead to successful prosecutions, and I have mentioned the role of the judiciary in that respect. However, I congratulate the police on the successes that have resulted from the recent UK-wide Operation Apsis. We need many more such successes. I emphasise that although we might debate such an horrific way of life, we need to see those people brought before the courts and given the sentence that goes with the crime.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the House that wind-ups will begin at 12.10 pm. Four Members seek to catch my eye. First, I call Tom Brake.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
It is a pleasure, Mr Streeter, to see you in the Chair this morning. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this important debate.
I echo what the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said about the excellent work done on human trafficking by the now retired Member for Totnes, Sir Anthony Steen. He was, it will be agreed, a colourful figure—he was often frank and occasionally unguarded in his comments—but he deserves to be remembered for his excellent work on raising the profile of the matter and for establishing the Human Trafficking Foundation. I also support what the hon. Gentleman said about the need for better training for officers and others engaged in dealing with the problem, and the need for guardians to support children through the unpleasant and doubtless un-nerving process of going through the courts.
We know that human trafficking is a big problem, but it is fair to say that the scale of it is a little hard to determine. The United Nations estimates that 70,000 new victims arrive in Europe each year and stay a couple of years; that compares with a total population working in the sex industry of something in the order of 140,000. The market as a whole is said to be worth €2.4 billion a year. A substantial amount of money is being spent on this horrific trade—or service, if I can put it that way. The Association of Chief Police Officers estimates that an estimated 30,000 sex workers in the UK have been trafficked into the country, coming principally from China, Thailand and other parts of south-east Asia, and from eastern Europe.
That report was fairly controversial in that it extrapolated from interviews with women who were working in brothels in London a national figure of 2,600 victims of sex trafficking. All one can know for certain is that those women would have been under huge pressure not to confirm the way in which they had arrived in the UK, which makes it difficult to establish how many victims there are other than it is a very large number. What is certain, however, is the number of convictions. Since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 came into force in January 2004, 46 men and women have been convicted and jailed for transporting willing sex workers—I am sure that we could argue about what constitutes a willing sex worker and discuss the economic pressure that they may have been under to come willingly to the UK for such a purpose—and 59 people have been convicted of transporting women who were forced to work in the sex industry. What is also clear is the excellent work that the POPPY project is doing and the number of women that it has been able to help. In the past six and a half years, it has helped and supported around 500 women.
Hon. Members who have local newspapers—as Members of Parliament, we all follow our local newspapers carefully—will be aware that the newspaper group, Newsquest, has been actively trying to ensure that no local papers carry ads publicising such services, and I commend such work.
What makes this issue even harder to resolve is the conflict that exists between trying to establish whether someone has been trafficked here or whether they have come here of their own volition. Hon. Members will be familiar with the research that was published by Dr. Nick Mai of London Metropolitan university—again, we have to read between the lines of the responses that were given—in which he conducted detailed interviews with 100 migrant sex workers in the UK. He astonishingly states that for the majority of people, working in the industry was a way to avoid the exploitative working conditions that they had experienced in their previous non-sexual jobs. I take that with a pinch of salt because such people are working in an industry that is illegal and on the margins, and their status in the country is uncertain. The suggestion that they come here to work in such an industry because it provides better working conditions than the ones that they might have experienced before requires some scrutiny, but that is what his research apparently found. That makes it harder for authorities such as the UK Border Agency to err on the side of thinking that people have made a conscious choice to come to the UK for this purpose rather than erring on the side of assuming that people have been trafficked, which is what we want. Such an attitude is also adopted in relation to children who are, all too often, treated as criminals rather than people who have fallen foul of trafficking.
Members will be familiar with the concerns expressed by the anti-trafficking monitoring group about trafficked children who have gone into care and subsequently gone missing. The review into 390 cases of suspected trafficked victims handled by the UK authorities gave some quite alarming statistics about how many of those victims subsequently disappeared.
In theory, the national referral mechanism, to which other hon. Members have referred, allows the police and social workers to refer suspected cases to the appropriate authorities, but again there is legitimate concern that the people who are being referred are being treated as part of an immigration issue rather than as a crime issue, or as victims of trafficking who require support. If the police are succeeding in identifying people who are responsible for human trafficking, it is not being followed through in terms of the number of convictions. For example, only five people were convicted of human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the first six months of this year compared with a figure in the low 30s in previous years. Therefore, we are not seeing many successful prosecutions.
Will the Minister give us an update—I know that this is not his brief—on what the Crown Prosecution Service is doing to improve its prosecution policy in relation to these cases, and does he believe that it will be successful?
In conclusion, I will refer to the UK opt out of the EU directive, which was clearly a controversial decision by the coalition. The coalition has been criticised by many campaigning groups for not signing up to the directive, and I must say that I have some sympathy with the concerns that have been expressed. I know that the Government will consider the impact of the directive, and I strongly hope that if they decide that the directive will help to address the issue of human trafficking, they will not be put off adopting it simply because it is prefixed with the word “EU”. If the directive is effective at tackling the issue, it is incumbent on us as a Government to support it.
Tom Brake
I have one more sentence, so I will not give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will get another opportunity to speak. I just wanted to conclude my remarks by saying that we have an anti-slavery debate on Monday and a debate on the issue on Thursday. Regrettably, it is clear that slavery is alive and well in our society today and it is something that all parties here this morning want to address, and I certainly want to play a role in doing that.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this very important debate. There is no doubt that a modern day slavery exists in many forms. I liked most of the speech of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) but I was rather disappointed by his limited UK-centric views and ambitions. He seems to feel that we can stop human trafficking by throwing up gates around the UK. However, it is not a UK phenomenon, but a worldwide one. There is no doubt that trafficking can be for sexual exploitation. In many cases, it exists down our street. In the Falkirk and West Lothian areas of my constituency, brothels have been broken up and trafficked women have been found. At Prime Minister’s questions in September, the deputy leader of the Labour party raised a scandalous case in London in which some of the organisers were Iranian who lived in London. They were not necessarily UK citizens, but people who were habitually in the UK. If they had not been captured in the UK, we would not have been able to pursue them outside the country. Under the present law, if they had gone to any other EU country, we would not have had the right to pursue them.
Michael Connarty
I will continue for a while, but the hon. Gentleman can intervene later. That is the problem that we need to address. Many people are trafficked not just for sexual exploitation, but for domestic exploitation. They think that they are coming here for good, well-paid jobs, and they end up being handed over as domestic servants. They are paid a low wage, trapped in the house, have their passport taken off them, and told that if they go out they will be reported and sent back to wherever they have come from. There are thousands of people in this city who are living like that. We had the scandalous case of the Saudi Arabian prince who murdered a domestic slave in his household in London, and that happens in large homes in this city. It is a scandal and something that we should be worried about.
Many other people are in poverty-wage jobs. For example, someone came to see me recently who, over nine and a half years, had basically been moved from Chinese restaurant to Chinese restaurant around the UK. They were told that if they ever went to see anyone, they would be exposed and sent back home to China where, for various reasons, they do not want to return. They came to see me because I had spoken at the annual general meeting of an organisation that deals with such people in Glasgow, which of course is the only city in Scotland that takes people who are asylum seekers who have been dispersed from London. So human trafficking is a very big trade that, in fact, has sexual exploitation at one end, but, as has already been said, that sexual exploitation is not necessarily the biggest part of the trade.
Many people are trafficked with the promise of a good job or a better life. When I spoke at the AGM that I just referred to, a young man also spoke who had been here in the UK for 10 years. He was the last remaining member of his family, having escaped from a violent situation in Africa. He was told that he was going to a better life and was dumped in Glasgow. Quite frankly, being dumped in Glasgow would be a frightening experience for some English people, on the basis that they cannot always understand the language. [Laughter.] That young man was dumped in Glasgow and was totally impoverished. Thank goodness that there was an organisation in Glasgow, called Positive Action in Housing, which deals with such people. It has now been going for 15 years and I pay tribute to Robina Qureshi, its director and the person who set it up. It rescues people from exactly that kind of domestic slavery and exploitation, whereby people pay to be trafficked. Indeed, sometimes their families gather large amounts of money to pay for them to be sent through human trafficking routes run by gangs in Europe and elsewhere in order to get a better life, only for them to end up being dumped on the streets of the UK or other EU countries. So it is a much bigger issue that we are talking about. There are two parts to the issue—one is about people trafficking and the other is about enforced prostitution—and we must focus on both parts.
The reference to Anthony Steen was very timeous. He was the former MP for Totnes and a member of the European Scrutiny Committee. He did an excellent job in setting up and becoming the chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking and then in setting up and chairing the Human Trafficking Foundation.
I think that the way that Anthony Steen worked was a key to how we should go on as a Government, regardless of which party is in power. He used his travels as part of the European Scrutiny Committee to go round Europe trying to convince every Parliament in Europe to have an all-party group against human trafficking. I am sorry, but we cannot set up a ring around Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales or the UK as a whole—it cannot be done. We have to work with everyone across all the countries involved.
No doubt Anthony Steen aspires to do things beyond the EU, but when I talked to him he said that basically it was the countries that were used as transit countries, or the countries of departure, that had to be focused on. It was the countries where the criminal organisations exist; those organisations do not necessarily exist in the countries that were targeted for trafficking people into. It was not just the reception countries, such as the UK, that should be focused on. Therefore, it was important to Anthony Steen that the UK Government should sign up to and opt into the EU directive on human trafficking because that directive is necessary, so that we can have bigger and more useful powers than we have at the moment.
Mr Bone
The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech. Regarding the opt-in to the EU directive, I just wanted to say that what concerns me as chairman of the all-party group is that, if we opt in, we are saying, “That’s it”. I do not think that the EU directive goes far enough and I do not want signing up to it to be an excuse for not doing more.
Michael Connarty
That is a wonderful ambition and if that is the case then I will now give the hon. Gentleman some reasons why we should do what is necessary now and take the first step by signing up to that directive.
During Prime Minister’s questions on 15 September, when the issue of human trafficking was raised, the Prime Minister invited me to write to him and I wrote to him, to explain why the powers that we have at the moment are not good enough. What powers do we have? We have the Sexual Offences Act 2003; that is the power that we have to deal with these matters. We have heard from the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), a Liberal Member, that there have been 46 convictions under the 2003 Act of people who were willingly trafficked, which is not a great record.
Under section 57 of the 2003 Act, basically we can take action against anyone who is outside the UK and trafficking people into the UK, if they are UK citizens. Under sections 58 and 59 of the Act, anyone who is in the UK and planning to traffic people out of the UK can also be taken to court. The other actions that can be taken, regarding brothels and all the rest of it, are contained within that same Act. But those three sections—57, 58 and 59—are the sections that cover what I believe is identified as being the “outside” problem of what is happening outside the UK.
What does the EU directive bring, in terms of the powers that we require? It actually requires member states to assert jurisdiction on their own nationals. In other words, under the directive the UK could and should prosecute any UK national involved in human trafficking anywhere in the EU. It also gives the power, but not necessarily the obligation, for member states to take jurisdiction—that is, the power of prosecution—of a habitual resident in the UK who commits these crimes anywhere in the world. So, if they go anywhere in the UK, we can pursue them.
The EU directive also gives a power regarding a victim who was a UK national or a habitual resident in the UK who was trafficked anywhere in the EU. In fact, that gives the UK the power to protect a young woman who is working around the EU. There are now many young women who work around the EU, who do not necessarily live in the UK any longer, but who end up getting trafficked by, for example, a Bulgarian gang. Do we really think that the Bulgarian legal system will protect that young woman? However, the British jurisdiction given under the EU directive would give us the power to pursue that gang.
I want to end by saying that I want to hear why the Government are not signing up to the EU directive. Let me be quite frank. If Madeleine McCann had been an adult—a young woman—and had been trafficked out of Portugal to somewhere else by someone who was not a UK citizen, we would have no jurisdiction. Under the directive, we would have that jurisdiction, so why are the Government not signing up to it?
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Streeter, for calling me. I offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), both on securing this debate and on her promotion to the Front Bench.
I do not disagree with much of what has been said. I am here simply to assert that we can do something. Wilberforce should be living at this hour. We have slavery, but it is not known. Slavery in the late 18th century was not much known about; it was incorporated into people’s conservative traditional thinking. It has required strong individuals such as Sir Anthony Steen, who is no longer with us in this House, and other colleagues to take up the campaign against it.
I must place on record my immense disappointment that one specific measure that was put to the new Government shortly after the coalition was formed—namely, a very sensible and practical EU directive—has been spurned. As we honour William Wilberforce, I cannot honour his biographer, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. He made a most eloquent speech at the Upper Waiting Hall exhibition that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) mentioned, yet as the steward of our European policy he is not prepared to put his ministerial tick where his mouth was just a few months ago.
[Mrs Anne Main in the Chair]
I want to make one small point. The Government and some hon. Members have referred to a report published in August by the Association of Chief Police Officers that talked about 2,600 prostituted sex slaves. I dislike the term “sex worker”—it has an ideological loading. The vast majority of women and girls involved this area are there because of debt or drugs; they are under the coerced control of their pimps. The image of the “happy hooker” sex worker—the “Belle de Jour” sex worker—might apply to a tiny, tiny minority, but this is one of the most disgusting forms of exploitation in our society, whereby a young girl or woman is obliged to take 10 or 12 penises into her orifices each day in order to make money for her pimps and traffickers. So we should have no more nonsense about “sex workers”—these are prostituted women who are suffering horribly.
However, regarding that figure of 2,600 prostituted sex slaves that is quoted in the ACPO report, that report was shredded almost before it was published by the Eaves organisation and other investigators, who noted that it was based on police officers in full uniform going into massage parlours and other brothels and, within sight of the pimps and other controllers of these women and girls, saying, “Excuse me, love, are you trafficked?” and then coming up with that figure of 2,600. It is nonsense, given the world statistics about the level of sex slave trafficking, which are quite reliable. Even if Britain has a smaller share of that trade than other countries, we are still certainly talking about a five-figure number of prostituted sex slaves, at the very least.
There is an important mechanism to deal with this problem of sex slavery, which is tackling the demand side. I will not enter into that debate today; there is some division across the House about it. Nevertheless, until we put the responsibility on the men who pay for sex with coerced and trafficked women, I am afraid that the hope that we will find every pimp and put him behind bars is not a very realistic one.
I pray in aid the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who wrote a marvellous article in the Yorkshire Post about a month ago saying:
“Sex trafficking is nothing more than modern-day slavery. This is women being exploited, degraded and subjected to horrific risks solely for the gratification and economic greed of others. I am therefore stunned to learn that the Government are ‘opting out’ of an EU directive designed to tackle sex trafficking. Generally, I am no great supporter of European directives”
—that might incorporate the views of the hon. Members for the hon. Member for Wellingborough and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce)—
“but this seems to be a common-sense directive designed to co-ordinate European efforts to combat the trade in sex slaves.”
The Archbishop of York is right, and I deeply regret the fact that the Liberal Democrat spokesman in this debate has not been able to back him fully and wholeheartedly. On the whole, those who lie down with Eurosceptic Tories get up with opt-outs.
We will keep pressing the Government on the issue. It is simply not good enough to say, as the Prime Minister said to the then Leader of the Opposition on 15 September, that the directive
“does not go any further than the law that we have already passed. We have put everything that is in the directive in place.”—[Official Report, 15 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 873.]
I am happy to say that the Prime Minister misled the House inadvertently, but he did mislead the House, and that cannot stand. It is clear to anyone who has read the directive, as I have, that the UK is not in compliance. Article 2 deals with offences concerning trafficking in human beings. According to CARE, a Christian organisation working on the issue, the UK Government are only semi-compliant. Article 7 deals with the non-prosecution or non-application of penalties to the victim, a point made strongly by other hon. Members. Again, the UK is only semi-compliant. There is no requirement in UK law not to prosecute victims, even though the Council of Europe convention explicitly states that there should be.
As a delegate to the Council of Europe, I was part of a campaign to get the UK first to sign and then to ratify the convention. The Home Office was utterly resistant, as it is today, to the EU directive. It required the Prime Minister’s personal intervention to get the convention signed and ratified, but we are not yet applying its articles fully. We are certainly not applying the proposed articles of the EU directive.
Article 8 of the EU directive deals with investigation and prosecution. We are not compliant. No specific legislation addresses any of the requirements. The Crown Prosecution Service is currently consulting on its policy on prosecuting cases of human trafficking. Frankly, if the CPS had been around at the beginning of the 19th century, it would have taken until the 20th century to finish its consultation. Parliament itself must get to grips with the issue.
The UK is only semi-compliant with the directive’s article on assistance and support for victims of trafficking in human beings. On the general provision of support for child victims, one of the worst aspects of sex slave trafficking, the UK is, again, only semi-compliant.
Mr MacShane
I really do not have time. Forgive me; this is a short debate.
On one important measure in the directive—that there should be national rapporteurs on the issue—the UK is wholly non-compliant. The Prime Minister misled the House on 15 September. I hope that the Minister is willing to accept that and move forward.
The UK Human Trafficking Centre is being abolished. There will be no Operation Pentameter 3, which the hon. Member for Wellingborough rightly demanded. We are shutting down the initial steps taken by the last Government, who were working against “Whitehall knows best” syndrome and much of the mass media. Papers such as The Guardian and shows such as “Newsnight” have constantly downplayed the number of sex slaves and trafficked and prostituted women in our country. It is up to this House alone to persuade the Government.
I make no protest against the Minister who is replying to this debate—he is a sincere and serious Minister on this subject—but he has got it wrong. It is not just about UK law versus Brussels—the Foreign Secretary, in his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, was pandering to the latent Euroscepticism of his Back Benchers—but about sending a signal to every other EU member state that Britain is part of the joint European campaign. It is also about sending a signal elsewhere in the world that we are prepared to change our law to conform fully to the EU directives, as have all the other EU member states that have signed up, and take the campaign forward internationally.
I know that the Minister will have to read out his brief today, but I say to him that the campaign will go on until we are prepared to support the victims of sex slave trafficking instead of saying, by opting out of the EU directive, that the pimps and traffickers have one or two people on their side in Whitehall.
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Before I call the next speaker, I remind hon. Members that I will start calling the Front-Bench speakers to respond at 10 past 12.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
It is a privilege to serve under you, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this important debate and on her promotion to the Front Bench. I join other hon. Members in commending the long good work of Sir Anthony Steen, the former Member for Totnes, on this issue. I also commend his successor to the chair of the all-party group on human trafficking, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is an able and active campaigner on the issue at many levels.
Unfortunately, I differ with the hon. Member for Wellingborough on the EU directive and the question of the opt-out. I note that he said in an intervention that he did not object to the directive in principle but was concerned that if we opt in, we will say that that is enough. Reference was made earlier to the resolution recently passed in the Northern Ireland Assembly. There is a serious danger that if we opt in, we may adopt resolutions that become a badge for the system without being a shield for the citizen, so that caution was well stated. However, it applies equally to the Government, whose line is “We don’t need to opt in because we’re doing everything it requires anyway.” Surely there is a danger that people will say that they are already doing enough. As we have heard from other hon. Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), it is not the case that the UK is doing everything required in the EU directive within its various jurisdictions.
Opting into the EU directive would give us much needed greater reach against human trafficking and its perpetrators and users. More action is needed on both the control and demand sides. I know that other hon. Members do not want to go too far into that debate today, but it is one issue that featured in the recent debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
We must recognise that we need to act not only at EU and the wider international level, as hon. Members have said, but within these islands. We must recognise that there is a corrupt carousel of seedy exploitation that uses various jurisdictional anomalies within these islands. We see it happening not just between Northern Ireland and the south, where there are activities in the border areas. As was mentioned in the Assembly debate, a victim uncovered recently in Stranraer was on her way to Northern Ireland, not to be exploited there but because that was her transit route to the south. We know from talking to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and people in Women’s Aid who work on such issues in the north and south that people border-hop not just within the island of Ireland but between islands in this country.
I hope that the Minister will consider taking a strong initiative at the level of the British-Irish Council as well as in Europe. There are eight jurisdictions within these islands. Not all of them have a role in prosecution and pursuit, but many can play a role in supporting victims and those who assist them. Action at the British-Irish Council level, as well as at the EU level, would show that the various Chambers around these islands that are passing resolutions want such resolve to add up to effective action against this very cruel, criminal trade.
Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship today, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this important debate and on making a strong opening statement about why she secured it. I also congratulate her on her new role on the Front Bench; I wish her every success with it.
The contributions of hon. Members from all parties have clearly shown that there is cross-party support on the issue and that there is a resolve across all parties to tackle it. I pay tribute to all of this morning’s contributions, including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on the role she plays in the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults. She considered the issue of runaway children and how that impacts on the matter.
I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who mentioned important transnational issues, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who, as usual, made a compelling case for why we should sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) made a well informed and strong case for why the issue needs to be high up on the agenda. The hon. Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Upper Bann (David Simpson), for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) also spoke eloquently.
This is my first opportunity to speak as a member of the shadow Home Affairs team. I was delighted to be given this debate to answer for the Opposition because I am the Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull North. One of Hull’s famous sons is William Wilberforce, who played an important part in starting the debate on the slave trade so many years ago, so I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this matter today.
I also pay tribute to Anthony Steen, the former Member of Parliament for Totnes. When he contributed to debates on the issue, he would invariably pay tribute to the previous Government’s role in making sure that the matter was properly addressed. Ministers in the previous Labour Government always paid tribute to Anthony Steen and the role he played in ensuring that the issues of slavery and trafficking were considered fully and properly by the House.
I was interested to hear that it was mooted at one point that Anthony Steen should be the adviser on human trafficking to the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister. I wondered whether Anthony Steen’s advice had been sought on the EU directive and what he might say to the Prime Minister about the Government’s stated positions on the directive. I use the word “positions” because the Government’s positions are very unclear. The Home Secretary has said that signing up to a particular directive had to be in the interests of the UK and, of course, we would all agree with that. However, she went to say that the UK is already achieving much of what is contained in the draft EU directive. A Home Office statement went further and stated that signing up would make very little difference to the way in which the UK tackles the problem and that there would be no operational benefits. On the other hand, the Prime Minister offered to go away and think again about the directive and said that there would be opportunities to opt in at any time.
The Minister’s first job this afternoon is to clear up the confusion. Is the directive in or is it out? If it is a maybe, how much of a maybe is it, and what will swing the argument either way? The Government say that the UK already complies with most of what is required under the draft EU directive but, as we have heard from various hon. Members today, there are key areas with which we do not comply. For example, paragraph 5 of the explanatory memorandum extends the definition of trafficking and inherent within that is recognition that exploitation takes many forms and that one form of exploitation, such as labour exploitation, often leads to another, such as sexual exploitation.
A clearer definition would help with the following matter. The debate about human trafficking has been dogged by the absence of clear estimates of the numbers involved, and many hon. Members have raised that this morning. In 2003, the Home Office estimated the number of victims to be more than 4,000 but, in 2008-09, the Select Committee on Home Affairs claimed there were more than 5,000. The Association of Chief Police Officers came up with the figure of 2,600 for the number of trafficked victims, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has expressed strong views about that particular figure.
The absence of a clear estimate of the numbers involved was a concern of the Home Affairs Committee, and the previous Labour Government offered to do some work to get a more reliable figure. I ask the Minister whether that exercise is still under way. Do the Government recognise not only that it would be helpful to have a clear definition, but that, if we knew the numbers involved, that would allow a comparison to be made across the EU ?
Article 14 of the draft directive refers to the protection of children who are victims and calls for judicial authorities to appoint a special representative for child victims. The UK does not comply with that. The hon. Member for Wellingborough raised that issue and if we were to accept the directive and opt in, that would help his position.
Article 9 of the directive concerns extraterritorial jurisdiction. Criminals and victims may be in different countries at the time of the investigation—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk mentioned this issue—and article 9 would help British authorities to protect not only their own citizens, but other EU citizens. The position seems to be confused. Do we comply or do we not comply? Even if we reach the bar and do comply, surely the point is to work with other countries—not only to reach the bar but to go beyond it, as the hon. Member for Wellingborough mentioned.
ECPAT—End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes—rightly says
“Without international cooperation the Government will lose the battle with the traffickers. By choosing not to opt in to the directive the Government is failing in its efforts to combat this transnational crime.”
The Government say that they are working to shape the EU directive. We have experience in the United Kingdom of working on projects such as Operation Golf, where we led from the front. Having helped to shape the final document, why would we wish to step back from the directive? Is it because it is European? Is it because there is a hangover from the Lisbon treaty deliberations? Are the Government over-sensitive to criticisms on Conservative websites that they are giving away powers faster than the previous Labour Government? Is it because it would cost money? If that is the case, how much do the Home Office think it will cost? ECPAT says costs would be minimal. Is that true? Has a cost-benefit analysis been done?
The Government are in danger of getting this wrong and of compounding a catalogue of errors of poor judgment. There has been confusion over anonymity for rape victims and over domestic violence protection orders, which were designed to protect victims, not perpetrators. In addition, the multi-agency risk assessment conferences are now under review, as is the use of independent domestic violence advisers. Chillingly, there has also been the fallout that led to the resignation of Jim Gamble as chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, who I understand is giving evidence this morning to the Home Affairs Committee. I want to put on the record the appreciation that I think exists across the House for the invaluable work that he and his team did in protecting children. We support his view that to do its job even more effectively, CEOP needs more, not less independence.
When Sara Payne, Shy Keenan and Fiona Crook say that what has happened is a devastating blow for UK child protection, we ought to listen, because if we do not, the Government will be in danger of throwing away in five months progress that was built up over five years with regard to child victims. The Government need to listen to the concerns rightly raised today about the EU directive on human trafficking. I look forward to hearing the Minister clarify exactly what the Government’s position is on that directive—do we comply or do we not comply?
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) not just on securing the debate, but on having a rise so meteoric that it is faster than my excellent officials can keep up with. My brief invites me to congratulate her on her election to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and already in the few days since it was drafted she has gone on to greater things. At this rate of progress, she will be Leader of the Opposition by Christmas. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana R. Johnson) on her elevation to the Opposition Home Office team—I am sure that she will have many happy years there.
I join other Members in congratulating, and expressing their admiration for, my old friend, Anthony Steen, who helped to set up the all-party group on human trafficking. Work on tackling human trafficking is now being carried on by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), Clare Short, Baroness Butler-Sloss and many others.
The debate has raised many issues, and I will try to deal with as many as possible. I am conscious that I have only 10 minutes, but I suspect that we will reconvene in two days’ time for the debate on anti-slavery day. I will pick up first on two important contributions that were slightly out of the mainstream but seem important. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) noted that victims of trafficking are found everywhere and that it is not just an inner-city or big-city phenomenon. I think that that is right. Secondly, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) said that it is a question not just of what we do in Britain, or even in Europe—I will address the European issue shortly—but of what we can do around the world, which is a good point, and one that infuses the thinking that I propose to bring to this important matter as a Minister.
The Government take seriously our responsibility to fight human trafficking and forced prostitution. On the points made about enforcement, the UK Human Trafficking Centre and on what is happening to SOCA, our response to trafficking will be enhanced and strengthened by the establishment of the national crime agency, which, with its border policing responsibilities, will help to combat organised crime more effectively. That is our aim for the national crime agency, which will be set up by legislation in the coming months.
There is no difference between any of us on this issue: human trafficking and forced prostitution are appalling crimes in which people are treated as commodities and exploited for profit. The Government take a comprehensive approach, combining a determination to tackle the criminals behind the trade with a commitment to support victims. That approach provides the framework with which we can ensure the necessary joined-up activities, through work across Government with law enforcement agencies and in conjunction with the voluntary sector, which plays such an important role in the care of victims, as many Members have said. We need to take further strides towards tackling that menace. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) for her thoughts on Operation Paladin and Operation Newbridge. She is right that they have both been successful and useful, and I am grateful for her thoughts on what should happen on that.
On enforcement, legislation is in place that outlaws trafficking of all kinds, and relatively new legislation makes it an offence to pay for sexual services with someone who has been subject to exploitative conduct of any kind. That legislative framework needs to be helped by robust policing and a wider law enforcement response to trafficking and forced prostitution. Improving our knowledge and understanding of the situation is a key component of ensuring that we have that effective law enforcement response.
Several Members mentioned the number of victims and what might be the most credible number. I think that the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) and to some extent the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North are being unfair to the ACPO study, which provides the latest and most accurate number we have. It is sensible to proceed on the basis that, although it is obviously a difficult figure to compute with absolute accuracy, that is the best and most up-to-date information that we have, so I think that we should work on that number. That study shows that there are 2,600 victims, which shows the need for effective enforcement work. Police forces have been supported in that work by the UK Human Trafficking Centre, which deals with trafficking as a high priority under SOCA, which had trafficking as its second priority, and further work will be done under the national crime agency.
In London, the Metropolitan police service is leading on combating human trafficking gangs and on disrupting prostitution, particularly in the five Olympic boroughs during the build-up to London 2012. The Met is effective in that in many ways. I am happy to say that this morning 17 children were safeguarded as part of a major joint operation by the Metropolitan police, Redbridge council and the NHS in that borough. The children have been taken to a specially set up assessment centre. We believe that they are victims of a Romanian-based gang of child traffickers. Six people have been arrested. That is extremely welcome news and a good example of the work that is being done in London and obviously will continue to be done in the run-up to 2012.
We of course recognise the point made about the European dimension; that trafficking is essentially a cross-border crime. Accordingly, we must ensure that there is sufficient international co-operation between Government and law enforcement agencies. The Government remain committed to working with our international partners in the European Union and the wider world.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North said that she was confused about our response to the EU directive on trafficking. I will ease her confusion. I have heard from Members from both sides of the House that our decision not to opt in at the outset of the EU directive on trafficking has raised anxieties among some of them. We did not opt in at the outset, but we have the capacity to review that position once the directive is finally agreed, and that is what we will do. We have a strong record in the fight against trafficking and are compliant both in legislation and in practice with most of what is required by the draft directive. It contains no operational co-operation measures—I think this was the point that the right hon. Member for Rotherham was trying to get at—through which the UK would benefit. Although it might improve the way other EU states combat trafficking, it would make little difference to the way the UK does so. By opting out and reviewing our position when the directive is agreed, we can choose to benefit from a directive that is helpful but avoid being bound by measures that are against our interests.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk talked about extra-territorial jurisdiction. Of course, we already have extra-territorial jurisdiction in a number of serious offences, such as child sexual exploitation. We will continue to play an active role in helping to improve EU-wide efforts at combating trafficking by working constructively with our European partners. As a practical example, we have contributed to the Stockholm programme, which contains a commitment to fight trafficking as an EU priority until 2014.
We are also involved in a number of initiatives focused specifically on trafficking, such as improving data and sharing best practice. The important co-operation between British law enforcement agencies and European partners, including Europol and Frontex, will continue unaffected. Therefore, if any Opposition Members were worried that our attitude to this would be in some way infused with any kind of ideological anti-Europeanism, I can set their minds at rest; there will be none of that in this field—[Interruption.]
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. Would the right hon. Member for Rotherham please listen to the Minister?
Damian Green
I appreciate that convincing the right hon. Gentleman might be difficult, but it is nevertheless the case.
The effectiveness of the police and law enforcement agencies was mentioned. Each of the UK’s 55 police forces now has an investigator trained to deal with human trafficking operations. The hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) rightly mentioned the importance of prosecutions. There have been 140 convictions for trafficking under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and 10 convictions for labour trafficking. I agree that those are not big numbers, but some traffickers may not be charged with the specific offence of trafficking, depending on the facts of the case. I suspect that we all agree that it is better to get some sort of prosecution to get them out of their criminal businesses than to have none. Some of them have been convicted for a range of serious charges, including rape and brothel management.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough mentioned the idea of child guardians. Local authorities already have a statutory duty to ensure that they safeguard and promote the welfare of all children, and each child is allocated an independent reviewing officer who is responsible for regularly chairing reviews of their care plans. I am very aware of the problem of children going missing from local authority care and welcome the work by the London borough of Hillingdon and Hertfordshire county council, both of which have taken some practical and effective measures to try to minimise what has been a long-running problem. I have highlighted what the UK has achieved so far, but—
Tourette Syndrome
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Main. I am pleased to have this opportunity to raise the important issue of Government policy on Tourette syndrome. I believe that this is the first time it has been discussed in this Chamber.
Most people understandably have little or no knowledge of TS, and what knowledge they do have is coloured by media reports which are either simplistic or exaggerated. The charity Tourettes Action achieved its highest profile and biggest income boost in 2006, when Tourette sufferer Pete Bennett was declared the winner of the seventh series of “Big Brother”, but even that was not without controversy: some commentators accused the show’s producers of exploiting Mr Bennett’s condition to boost ratings in a voyeuristic fashion.
What are the facts about this much misunderstood condition? Put simply, it is a chronic, inherited neuro- developmental disorder characterised by uncontrollable sounds and movements which are called tics. It affects about one in 100 schoolchildren, most of whom are undiagnosed. Tourette syndrome does not affect IQ, but people with the condition do exhibit co-morbidities such as obsessive compulsive disorder, insomnia, depression and autistic spectrum disorders. There is no cure for TS, but tics wax and wane and can change in their nature and severity over time. Despite what many people believe, not all sufferers have coprolalia, which is involuntary swearing or the utterances of obscene words—90% do not have it.
People with TS face many challenges, such as the physical discomfort and aches and pains caused by their tics: 87% of people with TS who participated in a Tourettes Action survey in 2008 answered “yes” to the question, “Do your tics ever cause you pain?” and 66% of children with TS are bothered by aches and pains and physical discomfort. Repeated movements and injuries resulting from tics cause pain, and sometimes children’s impulses are dangerous to themselves.
People with TS also suffer higher rates of unemployment as adults. According to a recent academic study, unemployment rates for people with TS are two to three times higher than those for the whole UK population. A study of the health economic burden of a cohort of adult hospital patients with TS in Germany over a three-month period showed that disease severity has no influence on costs. Additional TS-specific costs totalled €3,404 per patient. The cost was based on calculating direct medical costs, out-patient care costs, drug costs, ancillary treatment costs and indirect medical costs. Direct costs constituted about 18% of the total, while indirect costs comprised 81% of the total. Drug treatments constituted approximately 7% of the total costs and 36% of the total direct costs. Using those figures for adult patients with TS in the UK would correlate to costs of some £1.5 billion a year. Obvious provisos are that health economics estimations may not transfer well from country to country and, just as importantly, the experience of patients seen in a particular clinic cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the number of adults as a whole who are believed to have TS, as many do not receive specialist medical care.
Since preventive therapies are not in sight, possibilities for direct cost reduction are improbable. Nevertheless, a better integration of patients with TS in the working environment has the potential not only to improve patients’ quality of life but substantially to reduce indirect costs, yet wide access to clinical psychology services and specialised habit reversal therapy is not available due to a lack of funding and trained professionals.
A Swedish study of juveniles sentenced for serious offences revealed that 2% had TS, which is double the 1% prevalence figure among schoolchildren up to 18 years old. That could be the tip of the iceberg, as most crimes committed by TS offenders are more likely to be minor offences. TS on its own rarely leads to criminal behaviour, but patients with TS who have behavioural co-morbidities are at risk of being involved with the legal system. Symptoms of TS such as jerking and shouting out could be thought to be antisocial or alcohol-related and waste police time, as well as being embarrassing for the individual.
Likewise, people with TS often have to bear social ostracism, which manifests itself in ridicule, bullying and social exclusion from an early age. Sixty-two per cent. of children with Tourette’s withhold themselves from taking part in social activities because of TS-related problems. Children and young people in particular suffer a generally worse quality of life than healthy young people without TS across all the following areas: psychosocial health, emotional functioning, social functioning and school functioning. Similarly, the burden for parents and carers is significantly higher than it is even for parents of children with other chronic disorders such as asthma, according to a 2003 research paper produced by the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry entitled “Psychological Morbidity and Caregiver Burden in Parents of Children With Tourette’s Disorder and Psychiatric Comorbidity”.
Above all, education is a major problem for children with TS. Attention and concentration problems are common, and tics are easily misinterpreted as deliberately naughty behaviour by untrained teachers, who are rarely aware of strategies for managing TS in the classroom, or who do not understand that tics can be suppressed and children are often more focused on that than on learning. Tics, which peak in severity at around 10 to 12 years old, can typically be worse at home than at school, and children find homework tough as they are often exhausted by the effort of disguising or suppressing their tics in company. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published an article last year which stated that 59% of children with TS have some sort of educational problem that needs support or special education.
The aim of this debate is to develop at least rudimentary cross-departmental working between the Department for Education and the Department of Health, and a commitment to work towards a strategy for Tourette syndrome focused on a few key areas. The first is increased access to services. TS crosses traditional public service boundaries such as physical health, mental health, education and social welfare. That is a challenge for local service providers, who should ensure that individuals do not fall between service gaps. In reality, however, the challenge often falls on the individual with TS or their family.
Access to psychological therapy is particularly difficult for most people with TS. For example, a member of Tourettes Action has waited more than 16 months for a decision on whether she can get habit reversal therapy. Provision of specialised services is sparse throughout the country; that is a second barrier, in addition to the stretched state of psychology services generally. She finds herself caught between various NHS bodies that are reluctant to allow resources to be used for her, and seemingly reluctant, up to chief executive level, to communicate with her in a transparent manner.
That experience is not unique, but more common is the simple lack of use of psychological treatment for TS, although there is a strong evidence base for its efficacy. Such treatments have been proven to be about as effective as drugs in reducing tic severity, but without side effects. Psychological services need to be provided on the basis of evidence in the same way that medical or surgical treatments are expected to be. This is an issue of both funding and professional awareness and training.
That brings me to the awareness of TS by those who work in primary care—the so-called gatekeepers of diagnosis. Commonly, tics will not be observed during a visit to the doctor. They are often suppressible, especially in the general practitioner’s office. Some children will substitute more apparent tics with less apparent ones in the clinical setting, or will wait until they are not being observed to release tics. Others may disguise tics as seemingly purposeful movements such as brushing hair out of the face in concert with head jerking.
Half of the people participating in the Tourettes Action survey, “Evaluation of use of Consultants’ List”, in 2009 did not receive a referral to a specialist or a consultant. Old-fashioned notions of “habits” from which a child will recover, although appropriate to commonly seen transient tic disorders, are sometimes applied inappropriately to children with full-blown Tourette’s, who need further medical attention. Although clinical expertise is not expected of general practitioners, in practice people in primary care are undoubtedly suffering from a lack of awareness.
That brings me to national recognition of the need for consistent specialist services. The Department of Health has not yet perceived Tourette syndrome as an area meriting consideration. There are no National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines or other measures commanding the attention of commissioners, which means, effectively, that they do not feel the need to recognise the condition as a distinct issue. Consequently, patients receive different support in different regions, essentially based on the interest or otherwise of local clinicians.
Tourettes Action holds a list of only 44 consultants in the whole of the United Kingdom who have a special interest in seeing people with TS. Those consultants are a mixture of child and adult psychiatrists, neurologists and paediatricians. The list is much in demand by patients and families and has been cultivated over many years. To reduce the problems of a delayed diagnosis and treatment, it would be beneficial if that expertise were spread more widely. A possible strategy would be for a NICE appraisal of treatment options, including psychological therapies, to give support to less-experienced clinicians and to exert top-down pressure on local secondary care services to provide a suitable standard of expertise and provision. Local professionals are key figures, but currently local engagement is patchy.
Better transition from child to adult services is crucial. We need to ensure that appropriate support and services are available after a child turns 18. Tourettes Action receives helpline calls from young people with TS who have become addicted to alcohol and drugs, which they use to self-medicate their symptoms. Those young people have been discharged from children’s services with no ongoing support.
TS-specific support in schools is vital. Children with TS have to live with the consequences of their education. If they are not given the right support in school to which all children are entitled, they are at high risk of ending up facing unemployment and social exclusion. Special educational needs teachers are currently not given any specific training on Tourette syndrome, even though TS prevalence in SEN classes is high. Under current legislation, including the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, schools are obliged to make reasonable adjustments, which could mean measures as simple as exit cards or extra time for examinations, or as demanding as extra staffing. Some children are fortunate to already receive a high standard of support in the education system but many, sadly, do not.
Tourette syndrome has hitherto been treated as a subject of risqué jokes and ribaldry, but for the children and young people afflicted by the condition, who are fearful of its effects on themselves and of the understandable fear and ignorance of strangers, it really is no laughing matter. They, too, deserve a hearing from our policy makers. I hope that the Minister, who has a strong record in his parliamentary career of intervening in cases involving vulnerable people, will reassure us today that there is at least a commitment to develop a policy on the condition, not least because a coherent strategy across government will not only save taxpayers’ money in the long run, but will help to relieve TS sufferers and their families of a lonely burden that they have carried for too long.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson)on securing this debate and on bringing the attention of the House to a rare and poorly understood condition. He has done a good job of outlining the scope, scale and cost of the condition and the personal impact that it has on many children and their families.
I will set out some of the changes that the Government are making in the NHS that we think will have a significant impact on and will benefit people with Tourette’s. My hon. Friend talked about education, which I will briefly mention, too, particularly in the context of the difficulties that can be faced by children suffering from the condition, which can be, as he said, misinterpreted by teachers. He is right to describe the sheer feeling of exhaustion in children who are trying to suppress and hide the condition. Socially and emotionally, Tourette’s can lead to ridicule and bullying and can often cause difficulties in forming relationships. Although some children grow out of the condition, it is a barrier in many ways, particularly to employment in later life. We need to ensure that we have a psychosocial-physical approach: we need to look at the whole person when designing services around the needs of individuals and their families.
My hon. Friend is right to mention stigma: that is a big challenge that we have to tackle. Today’s debate is a helpful starting point. I welcome his demolishing some of the myths that surround Tourettes syndrome, most notably his confirming that, despite the popular caricature, involuntarily swearing is only present in a tiny minority of cases.
I join my hon. Friend in commending the work of Tourettes Action, which is doing excellent work to build awareness and skills in health and children’s services. As he says, that work demonstrates that better awareness, timely diagnosis and good access to specialist care are critical in improving people’s quality of life. Of course, early detection makes it less likely that the child gets blamed for what might otherwise be mistaken for bad behaviour. Indeed, the condition is stress-sensitive and the relief a child can get from teachers and their classmates understanding their condition can actually improve their symptoms.
The NHS has not always got diagnosis right. My hon. Friend is right to mention the range of services that are provided and their patchiness. The Government have to grapple with that inheritance and ensure that we build on those services and improve them significantly in the coming years. It is clear that young people and children affected by Tourette’s have not always had the right support and services. We need to get better at identifying the condition, referring children to specialists and providing the long-term, integrated support needed to reduce the wider effects. I cannot promise a dedicated strategy specifically for this condition, and I do not think that that is what my hon. Friend is asking for, but I am keen to see that the issues he raised are properly fed into our future plans for the NHS, particularly into developing our thinking on child mental health. In addition to the reassurances that I hope I can give in the time left, I will ask officials to meet Tourettes Action and my hon. Friend to continue this conversation and discuss in more detail the issues he has raised. This debate is not the end of the discussion, but just the beginning of a process leading to the sort of improvements that he has been talking about.
The proposals for the NHS set out in our White Paper give us a powerful opportunity to improve the care and support received by children with Tourette’s. First, patients will have much greater power in the reformed system. We want to give people more information about services, more choice about their treatments and more influence over how health care is shaped in their community. Local health watch organisations will ensure that views and feedback from patients and carers feed into future decisions about shaping local health and social care. By devolving responsibility for commissioning to GP consortiums, decision making will be closer to patients and more responsive to their individual needs. Of course, we have to ensure that GP commissioners are ready and have the skills and awareness that they need to take these decisions. The NHS commissioning board will work with a range of expert organisations to ensure that GP leaders get the right support. There are certainly opportunities for Tourettes Action to contribute to developing family doctors’ understanding of the condition and how to commission for it effectively.
Secondly, there will be a much bigger role for local government in promoting integration and partnership working between the NHS, social care, public health and other local services and strategies. In particular, local government will take on the function of joining up the commissioning of local NHS services, social care and health improvement, and providing greater local democratic accountability for the community.
My hon. Friend mentioned identification and planning of care for children with Tourette's. Under our plans, councils will ensure that GP consortiums and their local partners work together on joint strategic needs assessments for local populations, looking not just at who is on the patient list, but at the wider needs of the population in the locality. That will mean that councils and health organisations will become much better at identifying children's needs, and putting the services in place to meet them. Our proposals for health and well-being boards will provide a place where children’s services, health services, social care and other agencies may come together to ensure that we are better at planning services and dealing with some of the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned.
The third key point is that the new NHS will focus on outcomes, not on processes. The trouble with a top-down and target-driven system is that it creates a culture in which, as my hon. Friend said, what gets measured gets done. If it is not measured, it seems to be neglected. He described perfectly what we have seen and how services have developed over several years. Our proposals will create a level playing field in the NHS between mental and physical health, and will encourage a much more constructive relationship between health and other public services. That is important, and my hon. Friend rightly said that we must ensure that we do not treat mental health services as a poor relation of the NHS. The Government are determined to ensure that that does not happen.
Health services will be judged and, increasingly, paid not just according to the number of procedures or consultations that they carry out, but on the value that they bring to patients’ health and their wider life—my hon. Friend made that point well. That will be a powerful catalyst for bringing services much closer together around the needs of the individual. A child with Tourette syndrome often has multiple and complex needs, as he said. More often than not, they will also have symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder or depression. They may be seen by a range of health care professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists and so on. An outcomes-based approach will ensure that all professionals are geared to work together to achieve the best results for the child. Our proposals will be a potent catalyst for change and improvement in this area.
Fourthly and finally, we are in the process of developing a new mental health strategy, which will be cross-governmental and will examine how to support people's emotional well-being and mental health at all ages and across all services, not just health. One of my criticisms of the “New Horizons” mental health strategy was that it did not do enough to tackle discrimination and stigma. We are determined to make sure that in a more public health-oriented mental health strategy, we begin to address those issues more effectively. That must certainly be the case for Tourette’s.
Mr Jackson
I am grateful for the Minister’s positive response. Will he undertake to share the results of the wider review of mental health and Tourette syndrome with his colleagues in the Department for Education? An holistic approach is incredibly important, as is the close working relationship between specialist psychology and mental health services. Local education authorities are particularly important in ensuring that children’s educational attainment is the best possible.
Paul Burstow
I certainly undertake to ensure that the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who has responsibilities in this area, reads this debate. We recently met the National Advisory Council for Children’s Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing, and we are discussing its thoughts on how to move forward and to ensure that child and adolescent mental health services are properly reflected in the new mental health strategy that we are developing. That is an issue for further discussion. I have made it clear that I want mental health to achieve parity with physical health in NHS thinking about care. I also want to ensure that CAMHS are not overshadowed by adult mental health services, which should help to drive up the quality of care for children with Tourette’s.
My hon. Friend talked about transitions, which are important. We so often get the transition from children’s services to adult services wrong. I agree that that continues to be a serious weakness and that child and adult mental health services do not work seamlessly together. That was identified as an area requiring improvement by an independent review in 2008 and in the report of the National Advisory Council for Children's Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing, “One Year On”, which was published in March. One difficulty is that not all child mental health services are replicated in adult mental health provision, and my hon. Friend described some of the services that are rarely available for children. The new commissioning arrangements, particularly the new role for local government, with an outcomes-based approach, give a new impetus to developing better transition services. We must get that right for children, regardless of their condition.
We are also working with the royal colleges and others to promote higher standards of education and training throughout the clinical community. My hon. Friend rightly focused on that, and I welcome the fact that a network of psychologists and other therapists is being established to work with people with Tourette’s. That is a powerful way of moving the agenda forward. I understand that the network hopes to establish a specialist training workshop, led by experts in behavioural treatment for tics, during 2011. I commend that work and look forward to hearing the results.
My hon. Friend mentioned the role of schools and the need to collaborate across Government. I do not have ministerial responsibility for this area, but I draw his attention to the Green Paper on special educational needs and disabilities that the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central, is preparing. The aim is to make the system work better for parents, so that they do not have to battle to obtain the necessary support for their children. A call for evidence was launched last month and is due to close this Friday 15 October. If it has not done so, I hope that Tourettes Action will contribute its views. I am sure that this debate will also be a useful contribution.
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing this important debate. He raised some points that are important not just for children with Tourette’s, but for children with a wide range of neurological and mental health problems. Our White Paper provides the chance to refocus the NHS on achieving better results for them all. The outcomes framework will be a central driver for improvement and will ensure that the NHS treats the person, not just the disease, but meeting people’s needs effectively depends on good partnerships with groups such as Tourettes Action to give us the expert knowledge that we need about rare conditions. I am keen to have a strong dialogue with the voluntary sector, and indeed the White Paper is all about opening doors to organisations such as Tourettes Action. I hope that the group’s first step will be to take the opportunity to meet my officials and to respond to the call for evidence by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Education. I hope that by working together in that way, we can do much better than the legacy that we inherited from the past.
Offshore Wind Infrastructure Competition
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I am delighted to conduct this debate because I think that it relates to a real and important part of our future. We are on the cusp of a revolution in our energy supplies—a green energy revolution that will surpass anything that we have seen so far by several orders of magnitude. It will primarily involve the manufacture, assembly, deployment and servicing of offshore wind energy, harvesting the wind around our coasts—and sometimes as far as 200 km away from them—so that by 2020, 20% of our electricity needs will be supplied from renewable sources.
We have passed some milestones along the way. Over the past six years, Britain’s offshore wind capacity has steadily increased, and 350 turbines have been installed offshore, collectively providing over 1 GW of installed capacity. During that period, one new turbine was installed every 11 days, and Britain is now the world leader in installed offshore wind. Over the next 10 years, that rate of installation will need to increase twentyfold. With the commitments outstanding from round 2 licensing competitions for UK coastal waters, and the recent allocation of blocks in round 3, about 6,400 turbines are projected to be installed at a rate of roughly one a day from now until 2016, with up to 2.5 a day between 2016 and 2020. As a result, there will be 30 GW of installed capacity offshore, which will come in part from deeper sea installations with larger turbines of up to 10 MW output per turbine at full capacity. Just four of those turbines, for example, could power all the homes in my constituency.
This is an enormous and ambitious challenge, but it is not just paper talk. The sites have been allocated, the companies developing them have been recruited, and the planning and finance is under way. It is not a matter of controversy between the parties; the process was started by the last Government, and it is set to continue under this one. The coalition agreement explicitly states:
“We will deliver an offshore electricity grid in order to support the development of a new generation of offshore wind power.”
If, as is widely stated, there is a determination to come out of the recession through green growth and investment, surely this programme is the epitome of such action. It will see the investment of perhaps £120 billion and the creation of over 55,000 jobs—perhaps 70,000 if substantial elements of the revolution are fabricated and sourced from the UK.
Will it really happen? In my view, it has to happen if we are to come anywhere near to keeping pace with targets on decarbonising our energy supply and, in terms of energy security, sourcing for ever and at no additional fuel cost energy that is securely delivered to the UK from the UK. It is good to see that the commitment is there and that the legal and administrative structures to guarantee deployment are in place. The renewable obligation to underpin the financing of this enormous roll-out is now guaranteed beyond the round 3 competition completion date, with the calm waters of investment security lapping around the turbines as they go up.
Unusually, the doubts come from a different angle. They are not due to politicians falling out with each other and devising contradictory schemes that destroy confidence, or because of a lack of technical know-how. They are not due to the debilitating morass of legal minefields, but are simply a question of how we as a country assemble the resources to build and maintain such an undertaking over the period in which we have to do it. In the face of international demands on resources, we will not be able to rely on others to come in and do it for us.
As has been observed, this programme will put other engineering feats such as the Thames barrier and the channel tunnel into the shade. It will require an efficient supply chain consisting of turbine blades, foundations and concrete towers, gear boxes for the turbines, 7,500 km of underwater high-voltage cable, the commissioning and use of vessels to transport, deploy and service the turbines, and the port estate that can serve to assemble, deliver and service those wind farms on which we will depend. If the supply chain is effective, it will produce jobs for the UK along its length and, if sited securely, much of the manufacturing and finishing of the supply chain components will be located in the UK.
If we do not tackle the problems and grasp the opportunities of that supply chain, and if we do not have the ambition to meet its challenges, one of two outcomes will be inevitable. We will either fail to deploy anything like the number of turbines that we need to supply the 20% of electricity from renewables to which we are committed, or we might get close to our target but find that the good offices of others step into the breach that we leave. Consider for a moment the construction of the largest present offshore wind farm in the world, the London Array. It was undertaken by overseas companies, using components for the turbines that were overwhelmingly sourced overseas, and managed and serviced not from this side of the channel but from Dunkirk.
We must get that supply chain fit for its purpose, sound and able to deliver on the ambitions that we have set for it. We have the facilities; there are some 200 ports around the coast of Britain and there is far more land and developed quayside than almost anywhere else in the world. Just as we turned around ports and port estates to assemble drilling rigs, receive and deploy pipelines, and service and supply production platforms during the last North sea energy revolution, so must we do it again in the new, green energy revolution.
Most of the investment for that enterprise will come from the private sector, but it must be primed so that the redirection of the ports that will play key roles in the supply chain gets securely under way. Once it is underway, there will be a great added-value outcome with clusters of manufacturing, servicing, component assembly and cable laying that will support the wind farms as they grow.
Industry estimates suggest that to complete the deployment of those 6,400 turbines by 2020, and to secure further development over the following decades, about five offshore wind turbine plants, five plants producing foundations and 13 cable factories need to be built in the UK, alongside and probably in the vicinity of those ports, scoping out the capacity to put all that manufacture to good use.
That was essentially the intention of the offshore wind infrastructure competition: to bring along that tremendous value-added outcome in the wake of some relatively modest pump-priming, in this instance some £60 million.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that any action by the Government to deny funding support for this industry and competition would fly in the face of the declaration made by the Prime Minister that his would be the greenest Government ever? Such an action would damage the prospects for tens of thousands of jobs in constituencies such as mine that have the expertise to execute massive contracts, and it would chase potential developers to European coastline areas where they could win big business equally well.
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend anticipates some of the comments that I am going to make shortly. It is right to say that not only do we need the Government to be the greenest ever in terms of their ambitions, but that to will the ends yet deny the means of arriving at those outcomes would be difficult to countenance.
The offshore wind infrastructure competition was first announced on 24 March this year. It was described in the following words:
“The competition will consider bids from site developers who have a viable plan for developing their site into a centre for offshore wind manufacturing and assembly. We intend to make funding available for the development of these sites...We expect that sites will need to demonstrate that they have the capability to provide: sufficient land capable of being developed into a manufacturing site for offshore wind turbines; access to facilities for the transport of large and heavy products; and heavy duty surfacing capable of bearing heavy loads. Bids will need to be supported by intent from a manufacturer(s) to locate on that site if the site is successful in the competition.”
Remarkably, on the back of that announcement, tectonic plates did begin to move. A day later, GE Energy announced that it intended to invest £90 million on turbine manufacture in the UK. Less than a week later, Siemens announced that it intended to invest more than £80 million in UK-based offshore wind turbine production. When we add to that Clipper turbines siting a 70-feet blade manufacturing plant on the Tyne, Burntisland Fabrications announcing two new factories building underwater jacket substructures in Fife, and Welcon producing 100-metre towers in Campbeltown, the surge in the direction of UK-based manufacturing and support seems to be under way if—I do not think that this is overstating matters—that priming process remains in place.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. I share his enthusiasm for wind energy—offshore renewable energy—and ensuring that we make the most of the opportunity that it has presented to us for our industry and for securing manufacturing in the UK. To my mind, we need to be adopting a three-pronged approach—
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. May I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that this is a very short debate and he is supposed to make a brief intervention?
Peter Aldous
Thank you, Mrs Main. I was referring to the green investment bank, developing the skills base and Government—does the hon. Gentleman agree that Government acting as a catalyst to attract that investment is vital?
Dr Whitehead
I agree that Government acting as a catalyst—I mentioned pump-priming—is vital, not by providing underwriting and a subsidy for ever, but by priming the process whereby, precisely as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, manufacturing brings about the added value that I am certain will be part of the process in a relatively short time.
It is important that the pump-priming process remains in place, giving the manufacturers confidence that there is a future for them in the UK and that the plans for getting the supply chain in the UK right for wind are serious. However, the announcement of the competition, archived on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website, has, subsequent to its initial appearance, had this message affixed to it:
“Current policy under review. Site will be updated as soon as we have a clearer view of the new Government’s policy”.
That is it, in a nutshell. Will the competition now proceed? My view is that for all the reasons that I have outlined, it is imperative that it does. Cancellation or even a delay of the competition would seriously hamper the development of the infrastructure necessary to make what all sides are committed to, start to work in practice.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the funding is cut, that will show that the coalition Government have little or no real understanding of the returns to the economy and the environment from maintaining investor confidence in green initiatives such as offshore wind infrastructure, and that their savage spending cuts are causing uncertainty for people living near ports such as Newhaven, just up the coast from my constituency? Does he share—
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. May I ask the hon. Lady to keep her remarks brief?
Dr Whitehead
I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for her intervention. I am trying my best to be as nice as possible today in ensuring that the points that I think are essential with regard to the future of the competition are placed squarely on the table. However, it is correct that each of the different competitions, incentives and devices all add up to the question whether the present Government are serious about a green agenda; or are they prepared to will the ends but not the means as far as that agenda is concerned? That is a very important consideration in respect of all the issues that we are discussing.
Let us say that the competition is cancelled. It takes more time to re-establish those links and that confidence, once broken, than it does to establish them in the first place; and it is fair to say that as far as North sea wind is concerned, we do not have time to throw away.
Of course, I am aware, as everyone else is in the Room, that hard decisions about the future of public money and investments await us; and I am not one who will rush to the defence of every existing commitment regardless of its intrinsic merit. However, there is a clear distinction between those investments that work within themselves and those investments that work beyond themselves, and this one, as I have shown, will, I hope, work far beyond itself in terms of value added on money invested.
However, there is another factor at work. That relates to the very nature of round 3 itself. Round 3 is one of many stages in licensing processes of various kinds that have gone on in the North sea over the years. Those licensing competitions, under the auspices of the Crown Estate—the owner of the seabed around the British isles—are not charitable auctions. They raise money permanently from the licences that are issued. In the case of the Crown Estate, the money, after investment decisions have been looked after, goes directly back to the Treasury. That is what is required of the Crown Estate by statute.
In this context, it is instructive to consider the sort of sums that we are discussing. The Crown Estate altogether has contributed some £1.8 billion to the Treasury over the past decade. Last year alone, £46 million came the Treasury’s way from the Crown Estate as a result of its overall seabed activity. In its 2010 annual report, it stated:
“Revenue delivered by the renewables sector rose sharply by 44.4% to £2.6 million. From a low base, this part of our business is experiencing exponential growth and we expect it to provide a significant source of total income in the next 10 years.”
In other words, a good proportion of the £60 million for the infrastructure competition comes back to the Treasury through the licensing arrangements on the seabed that are a sine qua non of all the rest of the activity.
This is not a trivial point: we can say with certainty that the offshore renewables industry is providing, up front and as a sign of its intent, substantial sums of money before a single watt of power has emerged from its round 3 investments. Therefore, the investment by Government of that £60 million in port infrastructure can perhaps best be seen as a contribution in kind that jointly will unleash the value added outcome of £1.2 billion in investment as the licences reach maturity. We are talking, in the offshore wind infrastructure competition, not of a quango to cull, but of a world to win. I hope that the Minister, who I know cares deeply about these matters and has stoutly supported the development of offshore wind through its many vicissitudes, will be able to confirm that that is his view also, and that the little notice on the top of the announcement of the competition is shortly due for removal.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, and to do so on the subject of renewable energy, which I know is also close to your heart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) on securing the debate and on introducing it in such a constructive and thoughtful way. I am grateful to him and other hon. Members for the way in which they have taken part in the debate, which has enabled it to be constructive and positive.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we are on the edge of a green energy revolution, and that time is not on our side. I agree also with my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) that the Government have to be a catalyst to making the green energy revolution happen. The potential is simply enormous and we are completely dedicated to making it happen.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that this would be the greenest Government ever. He said that on his second day in office and it goes to the heart of everything that we are doing as an Administration. Our ambitions are clear. We want Britain to be a global leader in the transition to a low-carbon economy and we are committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree with me that the future of the UK’s energy supply must be secure, flexible and low carbon. It is not one against the other; all three elements must be part of the way forward. We envisage a mix of low-carbon generation that will be made up of new nuclear—the hon. Gentleman and I may part company on that one—coal with carbon capture, and renewable sources. We also envisage a substantial element of energy efficiency, as the cheapest energy of all is the energy that we do not use in the first place.
However, in moving to a low-carbon energy system, I am well aware that there are serious challenges ahead. Some of them arise because this change comes at a point in the cycle when we need radically to upgrade and update our energy infrastructure in any case. Ofgem and Ernst and Young have calculated that over the next 10 to 15 years, some £200 billion of new investment is needed in new generation, transmission and distribution systems.
Renewable energy is set to be a major part of our future energy supply and will consist of a wide range of technologies, some of which are well established, such as onshore wind, and some of which are emerging still, such as wave and tidal energy. However, it is clear that there is an important role for offshore wind in the UK’s energy future, and all of us taking part in the debate are united on that. The UK is a windy place—we have 40% of Europe’s wind resource, and a lot of land and a great deal of sea bed available for generation. Wind is a low-carbon energy source, which means it will play a major role in tackling climate change. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is also a domestic energy source, which means that it will make a vital contribution to our energy security as well.
Offshore wind is quickly making the jump from being an emerging technology to being a major part of the UK’s electricity supply. I am sure that many Members welcomed the formal opening of Thanet offshore wind farm three weeks ago by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. With a hundred turbines, it is the largest operational offshore wind farm in the world, and a clear sign of the UK’s determination to develop this huge natural resource with which we are blessed. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: we are carrying forward work started under the previous Administration and seeking to build on it.
It is clear that the sector recognises how committed to deployment we are, and many companies are starting to gain access to this new and long-term market. The message is clear: if you want to be in the offshore wind market you need to move quickly, and the UK is the place to be. We will certainly learn the lessons from the past; we have seen too much supply chain activity going overseas. We do not want to look back in a few years’ time and see a most remarkable roll-out of such technologies, but with too many jobs and much of the investment having gone to other countries.
An important supply chain is already developing. Mabey Bridge in Monmouthshire and Welcon Towers in Argyll are making the towers that support the turbines. David Brown in Huddersfield is making the large gearboxes. Tees Alliance Group and Burntisland Fabrication, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, are making the foundation components. Harland and Wolff is being transformed into a centre for offshore wind and renewable technologies. Granada Material Handling in Manchester recently won a contract to supply 176 cranes for the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm. Prysmian Cables & Systems in Wrexham won a £15 million cabling contract for the Gwynt y Môr wind farm. Some key investments are coming through. We are already exporting key components—these are not just exercises for the domestic market—for example, Burntisland Fabrication has supplied foundations not only for the Greater Gabbard project off the Thames estuary, but for the German Alpha Ventus offshore wind project.
Although I note the enthusiasm of the hon. Gentleman for offshore wind manufacturing, I must be clear that I will not be announcing the outcome of the spending review. It may be tempting for me to do so but it would obviously be a bad career move to take the Chancellor’s thunder. We understand the issues that the hon. Gentleman and many others have raised, and the importance that they attach to the infrastructure project. We will be providing clarity on that and ensuring that the website message can be changed in the near future.
As the hon. Gentleman notes, the rapid deployment we need will pose a real challenge to the supply chain. The levels of deployment we are likely to see in the UK and Europe are far in excess of current production capacity, and rapid scaling up will be needed. There is no doubt that that offers potential for significant employment and economic benefits to the UK, as well as the opportunity to create a broad manufacturing base in a high-value-added sector, which really needs to be close by in Europe—partly due to the sheer size of the turbines—and I intend for it to be in the UK. Turbines used offshore are larger and have to be even more reliable than onshore ones. They have deep foundations and need undersea cabling, and their size means that they are harder to transport, and, realistically, a lot of the production has to be local to the market—and the UK is the market. We are already No. 1 in the world for offshore wind deployment, and, under all realistic scenarios, we will keep that position all the way to 2020 and beyond.
Until very recently, the production of offshore turbines was a niche market, but that is about to change. The industry is at an early stage of development, but is set for huge growth. The UK is well placed to make the most of it, and the Government intend to achieve that. We have a strong research and development capability, and some excellent engineering, technology and manufacturing opportunities. Our experience in the aerospace and engineering sectors, coupled with several decades of work developing the North sea oil and gas resource, and working in the very hazardous conditions there, means we have a pool of talent and experience to bring to this new sector. In short, we have a skilled work force and some excellent companies that are ready to diversify into this new market. It is an innovative sector, in which the technologies used are still evolving and improving, and innovative companies have the potential to be very successful in the supply chain.
I was pleased that back in July we were able to announce the first round of grants since the Budget for developing new-generation offshore wind technology, shortly after the coalition came to power. That emphasises the way in which we are keen to stimulate activity in the sector. To cite a few examples: JDR Cable Systems is working to develop high voltage export and array cables for distribution of power from next generation, multi-megawatt turbines; South Boats will look at the modular design of offshore wind farm support vessels; and Converteam will develop large-scale direct current conversion technology. The grants indicate the sheer breadth of the supply chain opportunities in the sector and the Government’s determination to move forward.
Deployment of offshore wind could require an investment of over a hundred billion pounds over the next decade. If we are to see that huge sum invested by the sector, one thing is clear: we also need to do everything we can to ensure that developers, investors and manufacturers have confidence in the market. They must see us as the most attractive place in the world to invest. We have tackled some of the barriers that have, until recently, held the industry back, for example, taking forward the work on planning and providing a stable regulatory environment to ensure swift consenting decisions. Ministers will decide major infrastructure projects within one year, in accordance with the clear policy framework provided by national policy statements. That will help to secure the confidence of investors by removing concerns about delay. There has been progress, and we are determined to move forward quickly.
The Crown Estate recently had a successful leasing round, with strong interest from developers, and it is also undertaking enabling actions, including aerial bird surveys and marine mammal research, to de-risk and accelerate development within round 3. My department has completed a strategic environmental assessment. We are ahead of the game on that aspect of marine spatial planning, and taking a proactive stance on the use of assessments as a means of striking a balance among promoting offshore energy resources, effective environmental protection and other uses of the sea.
I am aware that we need a form of financial support that works for offshore renewables. We will set out our proposals for reforming the electricity market later in the year, but we are clear that we will not change the ground rules for renewables obligations for existing investments—we are not taking a retrospective approach to that work. We are committed to securing a significant increase in investment in renewables, so that we can meet the legally binding requirement for the European Union energy target in 2020 and our other long-term decarbonisation objectives.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney said, we are also planning to create a green investment bank to deliver financial interventions that address market failures specific to green investment needs, thereby supporting growth and environmental objectives. I chair the offshore wind developers’ forum, which brings together people keen to invest in the industry. Our approach is to look systematically at all potential barriers to investment, and ensure that we address them and move them on.
We are looking at how we can put in place the regime that will be most attractive to investment in offshore transmission. We consider that it will deliver cheaper and timelier offshore grid connections, encourage innovation through competition, and enable new entrants to compete in the market. Ofgem is taking forward much of the work; the first tenders for transitional—in other words, already constructed—assets were signed in summer 2009, and full implementation of the transitional regime followed in July.
I hope that I have been able to show that, on a range of fronts, we are taking forward the measures that will make this country attractive to investors in the offshore wind sector. We are in no doubt about its potential in terms of our energy security and moving to a low-carbon economy. We are equally in no doubt about the contribution that it can make towards the development of green jobs in Britain and to revitalising some of our port infrastructure. The hon. Gentleman will have to be patient for a little longer for the details of how we intend to take that forward. I hope that I have reassured him and other hon. Members of our absolute commitment to making Britain a world leader in this area.
Rights of Victims and Families
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
I start by welcoming everybody to what I hope will be a constructive and informative debate. As the title suggests, its main purpose is to discuss the rights of victims and their families in the judicial system. I want to look at that especially, although not exclusively, in the context of violent and serious crimes such as murder and manslaughter.
Let me begin by familiarising everyone with the current support for victims, before presenting some facts and case studies to highlight the problems in the judicial system. In a written answer, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), explained that, under the current system,
“The Government ensure practical and emotional support to victims through Victim Support and other voluntary sector providers. Through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, it also provides financial compensation to blameless victims of violent and sexual crime. Bereaved relatives of homicide victims are also able to access free legal advice using a specialised helpline established in 2009. Any victim or witness can access free legal advice through the Legal Services Commission's Community Legal Advice website and helpline.”
He continued, noting that the Ministry of Justice
“currently funds Victim Support on an annual basis and they received £38.2 million in the last financial year…This year Victim Support are testing a model of working that has seen the development of enhanced support services for the most vulnerable victims of crime and in particular families bereaved by homicide. Other specialist providers of services to victims are funded by the victims’ fund, comprised of money collected through the Victims’ Surcharge which is levied on all fines and ring-fenced for spending on services to victims. In 2010-11 £2.25 million has been made available to fund third-sector services for victims of sexual violence, £270,000 to fund third-sector services for families bereaved through homicide and £250,000 has been made available to third-sector services for hate crime.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 323W.]
The National Victims Service would support the details that I have just read out. It highlights the fact that support for victims has dramatically improved in recent years and that crime levels are at their lowest since the war. The British crime survey has reported that all crime rates are falling and have been in steady decline since 2002. It also tells us that there has been an overall reduction in violent crime, and the number of violent incidents has fallen by half since 1995. Those statistics are certainly encouraging, and I welcome the recent announcement by the Ministry of Justice that it intends to get prisoners to work, with some of their earnings being set aside for victims of crime.
There are, however, two sides to every story. Jean Taylor, whose name I have mentioned before in the House of Commons in reference to victims of crime, is a courageous lady. She established the Merseyside charity Families Fighting For Justice, which is now spreading across the country at a rapid pace and becoming a national charity because her words ring true and resonate with people countrywide. This is what she has said:
“What I learnt after the murders of my sister and my son and daughter was there is nothing out there for us victims and their families. But there is plenty out there regarding support and funding for the murderers and their families, while we are left in the dark to cope with the loss of our loved ones.”
Unfortunately, those feelings are echoed elsewhere. Discussing its 2009 report “Order in the Courts: Restoring trust through local justice”, the Centre for Social Justice states:
“The courts are supposed to pursue justice, and discipline and rehabilitate law-breakers. But there is a widespread loss of faith in the sentencing process. Citizens do not believe that the courts punish appropriately. Sentences often fail to reflect the crime and appear opaque…Criminal activity and punishment are too distantly linked in the minds of many criminals because of a cumbersome and bureaucratic trials and sentencing process.”
What the facts do not illustrate are the failings of the current judicial system. The criminal justice system needs better to take into account some of the impacts that current procedures have on victims and their families. Such procedures include lenient sentencing for a guilty plea, lesser sentences for manslaughter, life not meaning life and the right to appeal, when some appeals are malicious. We should also consider some of the very real situations that I am about to explain, which demonstrate why victims’ families find themselves in a lesser position than perpetrators.
Perhaps hon. Members can imagine for a moment being a member of a victim’s family. There is a knock on the door, usually in the middle to the night, to say that their child has been murdered. The family are left dealing with the shock and grieving the sudden and tragic death of a loved one. They then have to arrange the burial while attending court.
There are stark differences between the treatment of the perpetrators and the victims and their families. The victims I have met, and who I know all too well, have to travel to court by bus, whereas the murderers are driven to and from court and are protected. Once in court, the perpetrator’s family is given a room in the court away from the media and the victim’s family. However, the victim’s family is frequently left to sit in corridors.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I know that she feels particularly strongly about this issue, and she has raised some important issues. Far too often, particularly in youth courts, which are closed courts, victims and their families are wrongly excluded from attending the public gallery to watch the proceedings. There are also issues about access to the new virtual courts. I hope that we can ensure that access to courts is improved for those victims and families who wish to watch the proceedings, as in the cases that my hon. Friend outlined.
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend raises some pertinent points, and he is very experienced in this area, having spent 20 years working in the justice system.
To continue the list of differences, the perpetrator is provided with medical and professional psychiatric help, whereas victims and their families must go on a lengthy national health service waiting list just to see a counsellor. If a murderer dies in prison, his family will get up to £3,000 to bury the body, while victims get a tiny percentage of that and have to wait many months to be paid.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate on such an important and emotive topic. Judges currently have access to victim impact statements before passing sentences. Does that adequately reflect the impact on victims and their families in the judicial system?
Esther McVey
It goes some way, but many of the thousands of victims who have linked up across the country tell me that it does not go all the way. Again, more needs to be done.
All the differences that I have outlined are plain wrong. The inequality in the system is wrong and so, too, is the message that it sends to society and the local community where many of the victims and perpetrators live side by side in adjacent streets.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
May I add to that on behalf of a constituent whose daughter was murdered? The family were forced to wait to bury their daughter while the defence team went through two post mortems over a very long period, with all the delays involved in finding legal aid. Surely it would be better in the case of murder to have two post mortems in the first place so that there could be no doubt about the cause of death.
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend raises a point that is made time and again: the pain and suffering caused to people when there must be a further autopsy on a body—once, twice or three times. In those instances it is felt that the perpetrators of the crime get a better deal, and the victims’ families are often left without adequate help and support. Such help and support are vital to enable them to come to terms with the horrific crimes, the loss of loved ones and the complicated, drawn-out and distressing process that follows.
The impact can be felt in many areas. It can be financial, as family members may need breaks from employment so that they can recover. Some need extensive medical treatment, and some have to repair damage to homes and property as well. For others the cost is emotional. Many victims suffer from anxiety, the threat of victimisation, and deteriorating mental health. For some the cost is physical. Many people in society, including me, question the leniency shown towards the perpetrators of crime, which is juxtaposed to the psychological and financial cost that the victims and families must deal with. Jean Taylor will tell you that Governments have failed to do their job of supporting victims of crime and their families.
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. May I gently remind the hon. Lady that when she says “you” she is referring to the occupant of the Chair.
Esther McVey
I apologise, Mrs Main.
It is often charities and voluntary organisations that provide help and support to victims—often with no funding.
So far I have discussed procedural inequalities that need to be addressed, but I want to move now to consider policy areas. As times change, so must laws, to reflect the society and times we live in. I fully appreciate the delicate balance of laws, and the process of cause and effect involved in every situation when changes are made to them, but I do not believe that fear of upsetting the balance is reason not to change them. To the contrary, I believe that our society, with the increase in gang culture and antisocial behaviour, needs law that reflects our times and the changes that have come about. I have three examples.
First, when the body of a murder victim is not discovered, despite a guilty plea, and the perpetrator never reveals its location, the family are deprived of a proper funeral, which leaves them unable to grieve properly; or they are left with the prospect of being confronted with the finding of the body in the future. I know that very few suspects have been convicted of murder in the absence of a body, but some have, and have never revealed where the body is. Would it be possible to charge someone with an extra offence of non-disclosure of the whereabouts of the body? Otherwise the coroner is deprived of the opportunity to do his job properly, and the family are deprived of the opportunity to mourn the loss of a loved one.
Secondly, a person who has been found guilty of a crime can be given the option to appeal against conviction or against the length of sentence, although the grounds for appeal may be arguable. I recognise that the appeal process is an important part of the judicial system, but I do not believe that victims’ rights in that situation are given enough consideration. Not only do they go through a distressing, lengthy process; they may go through a second. I wonder whether we could have a law of malicious appeal, to extend the sentence for people who have been found undeniably guilty and who raise an appeal that will fail, to focus the mind of anyone who brings such an appeal. Thus real appeals would go forward, but appeals that would not be deemed so would not.
Thirdly, there are cases when a gang has killed a person—and I want to refer to Andrew Jones, the young boy murdered by a group of teenagers, none of whom has ever been sentenced. I want law makers to think seriously about increasing the use of joint enterprise sentences, by which a group could be sentenced, rather than all walking free. The law exists, and could be extended. At the same time, there is a need for education in schools on joint enterprise, and a clear understanding that, should anyone participate in crime in a gang, with the intention to act as a gang, those involved would be sentenced as a gang and held responsible for their joint actions. I appreciate that we do not want miscarriages of justice, but the law needs to be modernised to accommodate the culture and climate in which we live.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She talked briefly about the role of education. Does she agree that there is a broader issue about how young people interact with the criminal justice system? In my previous profession I saw many young people come into contact with the system at a young age, but they ended up on a kind of rollercoaster or in a revolving door, as nothing was ever done, so their behaviour got progressively worse.
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman keep his remarks brief, as this is a half-hour debate and I am sure that the Minister wants to respond.
Andrew Percy
Of course; thank you, Mrs Main.
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need closer working between schools and the judicial process, to get the messages out to young people properly?
Esther McVey
I thank my hon. Friend and entirely believe that that is the case. There is a need for education about responsibilities and the consequences of actions. Something that is frequently highlighted is the fact that the kids of the street know their rights but do not take care of their responsibilities to themselves or their community. We need to tell them that brutal, marauding gangs will not go unpunished. A clear message needs to go out that silence and non-co-operation, so that an ultimate perpetrator cannot be found, will not preclude a conviction.
So why are we here today? I acknowledge the current support systems, but the Government can and should do more to help the victims of crime, and their families. The effect of a loved one dying can be devastating for a family. It can be worse if the person’s life is taken suddenly, by a member of the public, who might be known to the family and live close by. It can be made much worse when the convicted prisoner is released from prison early, or when they can appeal against the court’s decision, or plead guilty for a lenient sentence. Not only do victims’ families go through an ordeal in coming to terms with their bereavement; they are often let down by the judicial system, which adds further to their pain and suffering. A life has still been taken, and a sentence should reflect that, guilty plea or no guilty plea.
The British crime survey reports that provisional data show that police recorded 615 incidents of homicide in 2009-10, and 588 attempted murders, which is a 2% increase on the previous year’s figures. According to the figures I read out earlier, provided by the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon, the amount allocated to fund third sector services for families bereaved by homicide is £270,000. If that sum is divided by the number of homicides for 2009-10 it gives £439.02 for each family. If that is divided between an average family of four, it means each member would get just £109 for the loss of a loved one. That is without the extended family. That seems a very small sum of money, especially as many family members need time to come to terms with the loss. It is no wonder that the British crime survey found that only 59.4% of people thought that the criminal justice system was, as a whole, fair. Even more worrying is the fact that only 40.7% believed that the criminal justice system as a whole was effective.
The perpetrators of crime should not be allowed to get away with those procedural differences and to capitalise on policy differences. We need a law that reflects the society we live in today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing this debate. I am well aware of the valuable work that she has done on the rights of the families of victims of crime. The matter is complex and difficult to cover in debate, and my hon. Friend was extremely generous in giving way. Some interesting points were raised during those interventions, and I shall pick up on those before coming to the substance of my reply.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) made an interesting point about the families of victims in youth courts. We are looking for a much more restorative system, and it would seem rather peculiar if we were to exclude victims from the resulting court process. We shall certainly want to consider that idea. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) spoke about victim impact statements and I shall return to that point in the main part of my remarks. I note the sensible suggestion by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) about a requirement for two post-mortems immediately. It is certainly one that we will ask to be examined.
My right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice made considerable time available to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West and Families Fighting for Justice, the support group from her constituency to which she referred. Mrs Jean Taylor followed up that meeting in a letter to my right hon. Friend, which covered personal suggestions from members of that group. I do not have time to refer to all those letters, but I shall read an extract from a letter from A. Williams, who said:
“What would the government think of prisoners of murder or manslaughter paying compensation to the victims families from the wages that they earn in prison…The victims human rights were taken away the day that they were killed and the families certainly do not get justice, we live a life sentence until we go to our graves, (not just for the term of a prison sentence), it breaks up families, it makes us ill and won’t let us out of the dark place that we live in. Instead of us working and paying taxes to feed the prisoners and giving them privileges would it not be better if they worked to give us, the victims families something back. It works in other countries, why not here?”
In that suggestion, there are some important principles about restoration from offenders to victims—ones that my hon. Friend will have heard in the Justice Secretary’s speech at the Conservative party conference. We are actively exploring them, which I hope will bring some comfort to the members of Families Fighting for Justice.
Crime can have a devastating impact, not only on the victim but on the victim’s family and loved ones. Support is given to the families when the crime has been extremely serious—when a victim has died, or when the victim is young or vulnerable. I give my deepest sympathies to those who have suffered such a bereavement, or who have been through the trauma of caring for a vulnerable victim of crime. It is in such terrible cases that the families play their largest role in the criminal justice system, and it is in precisely those cases that guidance, participation, and practical and emotional support are most vital.
The Government are committed to placing victims and their families at the front and at the centre of the criminal justice system. We are committed to ensuring that criminal justice agencies work to help families through the process; we are committed to providing families with a voice in the criminal justice system; and we are committed to providing them with the support and help that they need to deal with the consequences of crime.
Mr Blunt
I shall not give way, if my hon. Friend will forgive me, as I am short of time.
To those who have never had dealings with it, the criminal justice system can seem daunting. That is especially true for victims and their families, as they are already suffering the emotional distress of crime. Dealing with the various agencies—the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts and probation—can seem confusing, but we have been working hard to ensure that the system provides the families of victims with the support that they need. A number of schemes have been designed to help guide victims and their families through the process, from the pre-charge and police investigation stage, through sentencing to the parole and release of the offender. Considerable support is available from witness care units, family liaison officers and the victim liaison scheme.
Witness care units are the result of collaboration between the police and the CPS. They provide dedicated teams in each area, and their function is to keep victims and witnesses—and in serious cases, their families—updated on the criminal proceedings. They are staffed by police and CPS officials, and work closely with both agencies. Witness care units serve as a single point of contact from the charging of the suspect to the conclusion of the trial. They are responsible for ensuring that victims know whether they must attend court; they inform victims if there are any changes in proceedings; and they are the first port of call for victims and their families if they have specific questions. Witness care units deal with the vast majority of cases that progress past the decision to charge.
In more serious cases, such as homicide or sexual violence, or if the victim is under 18, the police will often assign a specialist family liaison officer. That person is a specially trained police officer, who acts as a single point of contact for bereaved families. That officer will be on call to answer questions, to explain the process and to support the family until the trial, providing dedicated, one-to-one support.
We are well aware, however, that the needs of victims and their families do not disappear the moment that a judge hands down a sentence. Families of homicide victims or vulnerable victims often want to be kept updated with the progress of the offender’s sentence. They want to know whether the person who has caused such distress is awaiting parole, or being released on licence. The victim liaison service provides victims with a means of being kept informed as the offender's sentence progresses, and of opportunities to make representations on issues relating to their safety in the event of the prisoner being released.
The victim liaison service is the responsibility of local probation trusts, which have a statutory duty to identify and contact the victims of offenders convicted of violent or sexual offences who are sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months or more, and the victims of certain mentally disordered offenders. Victims who want to be part of the scheme are allocated a dedicated, specially trained victim liaison officer. That officer listens to victims’ concerns, and may be able to provide information on other local services. If victims take up the service, they will be told about the offender’s sentence and what it means, and updated on key developments in the sentence such as if an offender is moved to an open prison or released. When an offender is coming to the end of the sentence, the victim or the victim’s family can raise any concerns about the release; they can also request licence conditions, such as those forbidding the offender to contact them or enter the area where they live.
On giving the families a voice, it is important not only to help families through the process and keep them informed but to give them the opportunity to become involved if they wish. This country has a system of common law that pits the accused against the state. Unlike in some civil law systems, in ours victims and their families are not automatically a party to a criminal trial. Here, the state brings the charges, the state prosecutes the accused and the state ensures that the sentence is carried out. However, it does not mean a victim or the family should be excluded from the process. We should operate a system under which we do things with victims, not to them.
When courts are considering sentencing, victims and their families should be heard, and the often terrible consequences of the crime upon families should be considered. To that end, families are able to make a victim personal statement. That statement was first piloted in 1996, and has since been implemented nationally. It works like a witness statement, and is usually collected by the police. It provides the victims or, in the case of homicide, the victim’s family, with an opportunity to describe to the court the impact of the crime upon their lives. Seriousness has two components—harm and culpability—and if the personal statement shows that significant harm was caused to the victim, the sentencer can decide on a higher level of seriousness.
Esther McVey
I know that we are in the closing minutes of this debate, but may I ask that the procedural and policy changes mentioned today are considered in your review of the justice system?
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Lady that it is not my review of the criminal justice system but the Minister’s.
Mr Blunt
I am grateful, Mrs Main, for that clarification. My hon. Friend is aware that because of her generosity in taking interventions I shall not be able to finish my prepared remarks. However, I shall consider carefully what she has said. Indeed, she has repeated here the points that she made directly to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, so they are already included in the process and are being considered.
I was going to speak about Victim Support’s homicide service, an important development that began in April this year. We hope that it will provide a high-quality service that reflects the wishes and needs of the bereaved. We are reviewing the services currently available to witnesses, victims and their families in the criminal justice system. As part of our commitment to restorative justice, and to the big society, we want to ensure that victims are a focus not an afterthought.
Higher Education (Student Finance)
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
Lord Browne of Madingley today presented the Government with the findings of the independent review of higher education funding and student finance.
The review was tasked with making recommendations to Government on the future of fees policy and financial support for full and part-time undergraduate and postgraduate students in England.
The report is the culmination of months of diligent inquiry by Lord Browne and his panel of experts. They have taken evidence from a wide range of people including students, the higher education sector and business.
We will judge their recommendations against the criteria set out in the coalition agreement, including the need to:
increase social mobility;
take into account the impact on student debt;
ensure a properly funded university sector;
improve the quality of teaching;
advance scholarship; and
attract a higher proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
I am placing a copy of the report in the Libraries of both Houses. Copies will also be available from both the Vote and Printed Paper Office. Electronic copies are available on the BIS website.
I intend to respond to the report in an oral statement to the House at 3.30pm today.
Light Protected Patrol Vehicle (Preferred Bidder)
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
I am pleased to announce the successful outcome of the light protected patrol vehicle (LPPV) competition for a new vehicle to replace the existing Snatch Land Rovers and Weapons Mount Installation Kit (WMIK) vehicles on operations in Afghanistan. Following a rigorous trial and assessment phase, preferred bidder status has been awarded to Force Protection Europe for an initial tranche of 200 vehicles, subject to successful completion of contract negotiations. This initial tranche will be procured through the urgent operational requirements process, and we expect the first vehicles to be delivered for training in 2011. Further buys of LPPV will be subject to the confirmation of our wider requirement, which will be confirmed by the strategic defence and security review and defence planning round. Force Protection Europe’s vehicle represents leading edge technology and will provide an unprecedented balance of protection, weight and agility for a vehicle of its class. The vehicle is a new design developed specifically to meet the requirements of UK armed forces, and is only now possible due to the considerable investment by the Ministry of Defence and UK Industry in this technology. LPPV is a UK design, and will be manufactured in the UK, creating or sustaining over 750 UK jobs. LPPV is also ideally placed to take advantage of the export market, which the Government are fully committed to supporting.
NHS Constitution (Whistleblowing)
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
On 9 June I made a statement to the House about the failings of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, Official Report, column 333. I made clear my intention to hold a full public inquiry into how these failings have continued unchallenged and undetected for so long.
A culture of fear and secrecy had pervaded this trust, leaving its staff feeling unable to raise concerns. Therefore, I set out action needed prior to the publication of the inquiry’s findings in March 2011. Specifically, I made it clear that I intended to initiate work on whistleblowing, to improve conditions and procedures for those who wished to raise concerns.
Today, I am launching a public consultation on amendments to the NHS constitution and its handbook, which are concerned with making clear the rights and responsibilities of NHS staff and their employers in respect of whistleblowing.
The consultation proposes three key changes:
highlighting existing legal rights of all staff to raise concerns about safety, malpractice or other wrongdoing without suffering any detriment;
introduce an NHS pledge that employers will support all staff in raising such concerns, responding to and where necessary investigating the concerns raised; and
create an expectation that NHS staff will raise concerns about safety, malpractice or wrongdoing at work which may affect patients, the public, other staff or the organisation itself as early as possible.
Responses from all interested parties are welcome. The consultation and response form have been placed in the Library and copies are available to hon. Members in the Vote Office. The documents can also be found at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/index.htm.
The consultation closes on 11 January 2011.
I am pleased to say that this consultation follows significant progress already made on whistleblowing since June. On 25 June 2010 new guidance was published for the NHS, developed through the social partnership forum (SPF) with expert support and advice from the independent whistleblowing charity Public Concern at Work.
Designed to support NHS organisations who are in the process of updating or creating whistleblowing policies and procedures, the guidance promotes best practice. It suggests simple steps to help NHS organisations ensure their whistleblowing arrangements are fit for purpose. The guidance can be found on the Department’s website at:
www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4050929.
In addition, the NHS Staff Council has negotiated changes to the terms and conditions of service handbook for NHS staff covered by Agenda for Change, to include a contractual right and duty to raise concerns in the public interest. A circular to NHS organisations informing them of these changes was published on 13 September 2010 with immediate effect. Both these are available on the NHS employers website at:
www.nhsemployers.org/PayAndContracts/Pay%20circulars/Agenda-for-Change/Pages/2010.aspx.
Animal Procedures Committee Annual Report
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)
In accordance with section 20(5) of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, the Committee’s annual report for 2009 has today been laid before the House. Copies are available in the Vote Office. The report includes details of:
A Committee report and Minister’s response on appropriate methods of humane killing for fish.
A Committee report and Minister’s response to the strengths and weaknesses of the current system of severity limits as a way of prospectively assessing suffering and severity.
Committee correspondence on progress with the revision of Directive 86/609.
The Committees programme of work for 2010 onwards.
UN Millennium Development Goals Summit
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
The Deputy Prime Minister and I represented the UK at the United Nations millennium development goals summit which took place on 20-22 September 2010. World leaders, civil society organisations and prominent business leaders gathered to agree the action needed to meet the millennium development goals by 2015 and lift millions of people out of poverty.
The UK’s main objective for the summit was to secure renewed momentum in the global fight against poverty and to agree an ambitious approach to reaching the millennium development goals by 2015. It was an opportunity to reinforce the UK’s reputation as a serious and committed world leader on development. The Deputy Prime Minister reiterated the UK’s commitment to reaching 0.7% of GNI in aid from 2013 and challenged others to live up to their promises.
The UK focused its efforts on securing a major push on the most off-track millennium development goals, particularly women’s and children’s health. UN Secretary-General’s Ban Ki-moon’s Every Woman Every Child event launched a global strategy aimed at saving the lives of more than 16 million women and children. At the event the Deputy Prime Minister set out the UK’s new commitment to save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth, 250,000 newborn babies and enable 10 million couples to access modern methods of family planning over the next five years.
With the support of UK leadership, the event generated an unprecedented $40 billion in resources for maternal and child health. As important as the financial commitments was the wide range of partners that came behind the strategy. Developing countries were prominent: Afghanistan and Yemen pledged to increase access to family planning and safe births, and Nigeria committed to spend a share of oil revenues on healthcare. Significant new commitments also came from the private sector (Johnson & Johnson committed $200 million over the next five years), charities. NGOs (World Vision International committed $1.5 billion over five years) and international organisations.
The UK also co-hosted a high profile side event on malaria, which challenged leaders from both rich and poor countries to do more to save lives needlessly lost every day to this disease. The event succeeded in generating impressive new support. I announced our commitments to help halve the number of deaths caused by malaria in at least 10 African countries by 2015 by increasing access to malaria prevention, diagnostics and treatment backed by an increase in funding up to £500 million per year by 2014.
I also announced the UK’s support for the scaling up nutrition (SUN) “1,000 days” campaign at a side event co-hosted by Hilary Clinton. This initiative and the nutrition leaders group which will help drive this forward.
UK leadership was also commended for its increased focus on results and mutual accountability. The UK pressed and secured an annual review mechanism as part of the summit’s outcome document. Work is under way to record all of the policy and financial commitments, not just from Governments, made at the summit. There was a clear commitment from the Ban Ki-moon to ensure that all sides will be held accountable.
The summit ended with the formal adoption of the outcome document “Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”—a copy of which will be placed in the Library of the House of Commons. This important document sets out a path towards meeting the MDGs, giving a lifeline to millions of the world’s poorest people. The UK Government are now focused on ensuring that we and our partners around the world maximise our efforts to reach the millennium development goals in the next five years and live up to our promises to the world’s poorest people.
Pakistan Floods
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
I would like to update the House on the humanitarian situation in Pakistan following the floods and on the UK Government’s response.
It is now nearly two months since the floods hit. The situation, particularly in Southern Sindh province, continues to be extremely difficult. Some 7.3 million people there have been affected. Of this total, 2.3 million people are in need of immediate assistance. Significant shortfalls continue in the distribution of relief across all sectors and capacity to respond is stretched. The World Food Programme continues to drop food rations by air and public buildings such as schools still house tens of thousands of people. The full extent of loss and damage may not be known for several weeks as many areas remain under water.
In other areas of Pakistan, the situation is mixed. In Punjab, the majority of the 5.3 million people affected have now returned to their home areas and the focus is beginning to shift from emergency relief to early recovery. In Khyber Paktunkwha most of the 3.8 million people affected have returned home and are beginning to rebuild their lives. Approximately 1 million internally displaced persons are gradually returning to Sindh from Balochistan. The monsoon season is now drawing to a close and snow has already been reported in the northern mountainous regions reflecting the seasonal change to winter.
The scale and shifting patterns of both displacement and return means it remains a challenge to achieve the necessary pace and scale of response. The UN continues to build up its surge capacity and improve co-ordination. NGOs are beginning to improve their reach in Sindh province. The Government of Pakistan are responding through the relevant provincial disaster management authorities and are still delivering relief through the Pakistan military in Sindh province.
Meeting the remaining emergency relief and early recovery needs of the critically affected population remains our immediate priority. To date UKAid has helped approximately:
900,000 people receive health care services;
620,000 people receive clean drinking water;
425,000 people benefit from the distribution of over 60,000 hygiene kits;
1 million people receive hygiene awareness sessions;
420,000 people benefit from shelter kits; and
36,000 and 48,000 pregnant and lactating women receive nutritional supplements.
Given the changing nature of the situation support is now needed to help Pakistan recover from the floods. On 17 September, the United Nations launched a revised plan to provide a framework for remaining emergency relief needs, but also to help up to 14 million people get back on their feet and recover from the floods. The total funding requirement stands at just over US$2 billion (£1.3 billion) over the next 12 months.
The revised UN plan was discussed at a high level UN meeting on 19 September in New York. At that meeting I announced an additional £70 million of funding to help meet remaining emergency relief needs and in particular to support the people of Pakistan to rebuild their lives. UK funding will help revive agriculture, provide temporary education facilities to get children back into school and help people rebuild their communities and provide short-term employment opportunities. This brings the UK’s total contribution to £134 million, in addition to the £60 million raised through the generosity of the UK public through the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal.
I would like to emphasise to the House the Government’s commitment to ensuring transparency and value for money. Funding allocations will continue to be made on the basis of rigorous assessments of needs on the ground, and will be subject to thorough monitoring and evaluation. None of the resources pledged for relief will be channelled through the Government of Pakistan in line with standard humanitarian practice.
My Department has already begun to allocate the additional funding. In recognition of the ongoing emergency needs of flood-affected people in Southern Sindh, we are aiming to address the emergency health and water and sanitation needs of approximately 500,000 people through international and local NGOs at a cost of up to £8 million. I am also pleased to announce that we plan to help meet the immediate agriculture needs of approximately 850,000 vulnerable people in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and the critical winter rabi cropping window in late October-November, at a cost of some £7 million.
Our commitment to the people of Pakistan remains a long-term one. The UK will continue to play a leading role in encouraging others in the international community to step up to the mark. The UK was instrumental in securing a commitment at the European Council on 16 September to develop ambitious trade measures for Pakistan, including the immediate reduction of import duties and improved longer-term access to EU markets through generalised system of preferences (GSP+).
The floods require an exceptional response from the Government of Pakistan as well as from the international community. At the forthcoming Pakistan Development Forum the Government of Pakistan should set out plans for growth and economic reform as well as reconstruction. The credibility of these plans will determine how donors respond to future reconstruction and development needs.
Reform of CDC Group plc
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
I wish to inform the House of the Government’s decision to reconfigure CDC in order radically to increase its development impact.
CDC has the potential to be the jewel in the crown of the UK’s support to the private sector in developing countries. In the past, when its expertise was more developmentally than financially focused, its record of achieving investment returns was at best uneven. Subsequently, the balance has tipped too far the other way. CDC now needs to reinvigorate its development DNA and marry this together with business know-how and financial discipline. It must strive towards both development and financial gains.
As a fund of funds, CDC has in some ways been a remarkable success. In terms of financial performance, we applaud the achievement of turning £1 billion into £2.5 billion since 2004. But CDC has become less directly engaged in serving the needs of development. Using public capital CDC pursued the narrowly defined private sector goals for which it was incentivised and this meant the greatest return for the least risk. This was not consistent with concentrating its efforts in the regions of greatest development need.
We will create a revitalised CDC with a great deal more clarity and ambition over what it does and where it works.
Specifically, I shall propose that CDC reduce new commitments to future third-party funds and consider the benefits of liquidating some of its existing investments where this can be done on attractive terms. We will not end commitments to new third-party funds since they can be the most appropriate way to mobilise funding in some countries and for some investment purposes. But the fund of funds model should make up no more than part of a new, broader and more actively managed portfolio.
CDC should regain its power to make investments directly in target countries. This could be done through co-investment with other sources of capital where, by doing so, CDC would make possible desirable investments which could not otherwise be made.
In addition to regaining greater investment control, CDC should be committed to participating through a wider range of vehicles, including investment in debt instruments and the provision of guarantees. Greater flexibility will enable it to build a more diversified portfolio in terms of risk, maturity and liquidity.
I should like CDC also to develop a more active approach to portfolio management. Its purpose is to invest in the poorest countries or sectors where capital is otherwise not available—to provide patient capital to finance and kick-start private investment in the most difficult regions.
CDC also needs more financial firepower. It needs to try to find liquidity for its investments so that capital can be recycled more quickly to new targets. We are also exploring how CDC could regain its power to borrow. This would give CDC the ability to move more quickly and more effectively.
CDC must continue to show that it is improving the way in which firms in the poorest countries operate, and that it monitors and demands improvements in the conditions under which people work. CDC must also continue to demand more effective treatment of environmental issues, more transparency and a rigorous approach to corruption.
These reforms will enable CDC to become a distinctive, innovative and differentiated development finance institution, with clearly measurable development impact and additionality, and new commitments targeted throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the poorer parts of Asia. I want CDC to be more pro-poor focused than any other development finance institution, doing the hardest things in the hardest places.
Identifying the sectors on which CDC should focus in future is a complex area. The correlation between investment and poverty reduction is not straight forward.
The Government want to listen to a wide range of views before taking any decisions. CDC and DFID will commission independent studies which will be made public on the DFID website and my Department is also launching a consultation, outline details of which will be available on Wednesday 13 October.
Regaining greater power over the investment of capital needs to be staged carefully, will take time, and will need resources of human capital additional to the dedicated people working for CDC at the moment. CDC must attract people of the highest calibre, who are passionate about pro-poor investment and whose expertise is rewarded by remuneration that is fair and appropriate, but not excessive. As part of the consultation, I will consider what that remuneration structure should be.
I shall make a further announcement early next year and CDC will reflect the necessary changes in the business plan which they will publish in the spring.
Eco-driving Training
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)
The Department for Transport has today published its response to the consultation on options to increase the uptake of eco-driving training for drivers of large goods vehicles and passenger carrying vehicles.
Consistent with the Government’s deregulation agenda I have decided not to make eco-driving training a mandatory part of the driver certificate of professional competence at this time.
I will instead respond to industry assurances that they have the will to increase uptake of eco-driving training without direct Government intervention, and will encourage and support industry-led initiatives to improve fuel efficiency and tackle carbon emissions, of which a number have emerged as a result of this consultation.
In 2012 the Department will review the level of uptake of eco-driving training and fuel savings resulting both from these industry-led initiatives and from voluntary uptake as part of the driver CPC and will reconsider the case for Government intervention.
I have placed copies of the consultation response document and associated impact assessment in the Libraries of both Houses.
Right to Control Regulations
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)
On 25 February 2010 the Right to Control trailblazer sites were announced and a national consultation on the Right to Control draft regulations, “Making choice and control a reality for disabled people: consultation on the Right to Control trailblazer regulations”, was published.
We have worked closely with disabled people and their organisations to develop the Right to Control, and continue to do so. Our advisory group, chaired by Baroness Jane Campbell, has co-produced both the policy and the draft regulations.
The consultation period finished on 26 May 2010, with 34 responses received in total from trailblazer sites, disability organisations and individual disabled people. The responses received have helped us ensure that our trailblazers are supported by the most appropriate regulations possible. Today, with the publication of our Government response to coincide with the laying of our draft regulations in Parliament, we are getting closer to achieving our aim of providing disabled people with the choice and control they have told us they want.
We are phasing the introduction of the Right to Control in trailblazer areas to ensure the best possible service will be provided to disabled people. The majority of the sites will start to offer the Right to Control from 13 December, with two of the more complex trailblazers, the Sheffield city council and Barnsley metropolitan borough council joint trailblazer, and the Greater Manchester consortium, commencing on 1 March and 1 April 2011 respectively.
Since the initial announcement of the sites piloting the Right to Control, Redcar and Cleveland borough council has withdrawn from being a trailblazer site. There have recently been significant management changes within the council and they now feel the need to dedicate existing available resources to other priority areas within adult services.
The Government response to the Right to Control regulations consultation “Making choice and control a reality for disabled people: Government response to consultation on the Right to Control trailblazer regulations” can be viewed and downloaded from the Office of Disability Issues website at: www.odi.gov.uk/right-to-control. Copies of the document will also be placed in the House Libraries.
House of Lords
BBC: Licence Fee
Lord Fowler
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their plans for the future of the BBC licence fee.
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, the Government announced in a Written Ministerial Statement on 16 September that there would be no increase in the licence fee on 1 April 2011. A decision about 2012-13 will be taken as part of the next funding settlement. Discussions on the next funding settlement will begin next year. The Government will take all relevant factors into account, such as the economic climate in the country, the views of the BBC and its competitors and, of course, public opinion. We remain committed to a strong and independent BBC that forms the cornerstone of public service broadcasting. The fundamental question of what the BBC should look like and the role that it will play in the longer term will be carefully addressed at the time of the next charter review.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply and very much welcome the last part of what she had to say. In view of her Answer, do the Government believe that the licence fee is the best way of financing the BBC and of securing its independence, and are they entirely and absolutely committed to its continuance?
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, I am so pleased that my noble friend Lord Fowler has asked me this supplementary as the House knows that he is probably the most knowledgeable and experienced Peer on this subject. It is important to me and it gives me the chance to stress that the Government are fully committed to the principle of the licence fee as the primary method of funding the BBC. As the noble Lord will know more than most, with the development of technology and viewing habits we will need to keep this under review to make certain that current arrangements do not become outdated. The BBC continues to be the jewel in the crown in the UK’s media landscape and the licence fee is fundamental to supporting it.
Lord Soley
I have some sympathy with the broad comments about the licence fee but does the Minister accept that it makes it even more important that the Government take a very clear view against the takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation?
Baroness Rawlings
I am sure that we all listened to the “Today” programme this morning on which this matter was discussed. I confirm that we have received a letter from a variety of media groups asking the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to consider blocking any acquisition as regards BSkyB and News Corporation. However, it is premature to speculate as the parties have not yet announced the result.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
Does my noble friend not agree that while it is important that the BBC is realistic about its new licence fee settlement, it is equally important that the settlement is not punitive, as this will damage not only the BBC but the independent sector which contributes so much to the creative industries in which the BBC invests to a considerable degree?
Baroness Rawlings
I thank my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter for her points. How savings will be made is a matter for the BBC, but the chairman of the trust has asked the director-general to absorb the cuts without significantly reducing the quality of the service to licence-fee payers. Regarding competition, across the media landscape we want there to be scope for deregulation, new business models, sharpening competition and greater economic benefits.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale
Does the Minister share my view that the BBC licence represents possibly the best value for money in the country, given the BBC’s range of programmes and other activities—especially its consistent investment in all branches of the arts? I am sure that we have all lately enjoyed the proms again. Will she acknowledge that the range of programmes at the price at which the licence fee is set represents much better value than the rates charged by Sky for largely imported, second-rate programmes?
Baroness Rawlings
The noble Lord, Lord Corbett, strays into a slightly different area, but I agree with him that the BBC must demonstrate that it is operating efficiently and giving licence-fee payers value for money. The BBC should be prepared to defend all its expenditure decisions.
Baroness Afshar
My Lords, are the Government aware that the BBC punches way beyond its weight in foreign policy, and that the BBC Persian service is regarded by Iranians as their best source of information and actually forms the best ally that the Government have in Iran? Any cuts might well undermine Britain’s influence there.
Baroness Rawlings
The noble Baroness makes a very good point and the BBC World Service is very special. It does not come under the same funding arrangements as the rest of the BBC because it is funded by the Foreign Office. I know that the Persian service is absolutely wonderful. The Cyrus Cylinder was presented by the British Museum and is now on show in Iran. The presentation was recorded on the BBC World Service. I thank the noble Baroness very much for that question.
Lord Ryder of Wensum
Can my noble friend give me a cast-iron commitment that the absurd and complex governance arrangements at the BBC will be reformed?
Baroness Rawlings
I thank my noble friend for his question. The Government have reservations about the current governance structure and are considering the scope for change within the current charter framework. The governance structure was introduced in January 2007 when the charter came into full effect. The structure is intended to last for the duration of the charter—that is, until the end of 2016.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, is the Minister concerned that Sir Christopher Bland recently talked of the licence fee being used in a punitive and vindictive manner? What reassurances can she give that any decisions about its future will be free from political partisanship?
Baroness Rawlings
In giving those details, I think that the noble Baroness is referring to the previous Government. We have no punitive agreements. There will possibly be cuts, but those are in the hands of the BBC Trust.
Employment: Defence Expenditure
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Lee of Trafford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many jobs in the United Kingdom are sustained by defence expenditure.
Lord Lee of Trafford
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare a number of shareholdings in companies benefiting from defence spend.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)
My Lords, first, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of: Trooper James Leverett, the Royal Dragoon Guards; Private Thomas Sephton, 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment; Bombardier Samuel Robinson, 5th Regiment Royal Artillery; Marine David Hart, 40 Commando Royal Marines; Major James Bowman, 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles; Lieutenant Neal Turkington, 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles; Corporal Arjun Purja Pun, 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles; Marine Matthew Harrison, 40 Commando Royal Marines; Marine Jonathan Crookes, 40 Commando Royal Marines; Sergeant David Monkhouse, the Royal Dragoon Guards; Senior Aircraftman Kinikki Griffiths, 1 Squadron RAF Regiment; Staff Sergeant Brett Linley, 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps; Corporal Matthew Stenton, the Royal Dragoon Guards; Lance Corporal Stephen Monkhouse, 1st Battalion Scots Guards; Sapper Mark Smith, 36 Engineer Regiment; Lance Sergeant Dale McCallum, 1st Battalion Scots Guards; Marine Adam Brown, 40 Commando Royal Marines; Lieutenant John Sanderson, 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment; Rifleman Remand Kulung, 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment; Sapper Darren Foster, 21 Engineer Regiment; Sapper Ishwor Gurung, 69 Gurkha Field Squadron, 21 Engineer Regiment; Lance Corporal Jordan Bancroft, 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; Lance Corporal Joseph Pool, 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland; Captain Andrew Griffiths, 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; Kingsman Darren Deady, 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; Sergeant Andrew Jones, Royal Engineers; Trooper Andrew Howarth, Queen’s Royal Lancers; Corporal Matthew Thomas, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers; Rifleman Suraj Gurung, 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles; and Sergeant Peter Rayner, 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.
I turn to my noble friend's Question. The last available information, published in UK Defence Statistics 2009, estimated that 300,000 full-time jobs in the UK were supported by Ministry of Defence expenditure and defence exports: 155,000 directly and 145,000 indirectly. In addition, the MoD employed 177,840 service and 85,850 civilian personnel as at 1 July 2010.
Lord Lee of Trafford
My Lords, first I join these Benches in the earlier tribute, and also send the condolences of the whole House to the relatives and friends of Linda Norgrove.
I thank my noble friend for his Answer. David Cameron described the defence budget as,
“the biggest mess I've inherited as Prime Minister”.
The highly irresponsible decision of the previous Government to order the two aircraft carriers, recently and sarcastically described in the media as “HMS Unaffordable” and “HMS Impecunious”, when the MoD was effectively bust and before a defence review, has clearly skewed the current SDR, making it now even more financially rather than strategically focused. Will my noble friend tell the House whether defence contractors have been helpful in modifying or waiving their penalty clauses, given our overall national financial situation; and will he confirm the promise that we will get a defence industrial strategy by the first quarter of 2011?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the MoD's key suppliers have been working with the department on a commercial basis, looking at ways to improve innovation and cost reduction across the board in support of the SDSR. With regard to the second part of my noble friend’s supplementary question, I confirm that we are developing a new defence industrial and technology policy that is intended to replace the previous defence industrial strategy. We will launch this process on 2 November this year in an event co-hosted by ADS, the industry’s representative body, and there will be a Green Paper by the end of the year. After a formal consultation period in the new year, we will publish a White Paper next spring that will set out our industrial and technology policy for the next five years or until the next SDSR.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, from these Benches I join the Minister in paying tribute to all those who have lost their lives serving our country since the House met before the recess. For the families, there is overwhelming grief and sorrow at their loss and the pain of separation but also in each case pride at the brave and committed service given by the loved one they have lost. Our thoughts and prayers are with those bereaved families and with the colleagues and friends of all those who have died.
The Secretary of State for Defence in this self-proclaimed transparent Government appears to have written a secret letter to the Prime Minister on a matter of real public interest—namely, whether our Armed Forces will in future have the resources to continue to carry out the commitments we expect them to undertake. Does the Minister agree with his Secretary of State’s concerns that the strategic defence and security review is not really a genuine review of defence and security strategy but is instead everything to do with the Conservative Government’s spending review aimed at cutting costs, with inadequate regard for the consequences for private sector jobs in our industrial base and for our Armed Forces and their continuing ability to meet the onerous responsibilities we place upon them?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, this is not just a Conservative Government; we are in coalition with the Liberal Democrats—
Lord Astor of Hever
In my department, that is working very well. The noble Lord mentioned the leaked letter. This was a private letter between the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, and for that reason and because it was a leak, I cannot comment. Both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are acutely aware of the sensitivities of such a review—a review made necessary because of the huge deficit that we have inherited and because there has been no defence review since 1998. However, I assure the noble Lord that this is not a crude cost-cutting exercise; it is a genuinely strategic review. We will establish clearly what the defence contribution to our security posture should be and structure our Armed Forces accordingly.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, during a strategic defence review, would there not be consultation with allies, with the academic world and think-tanks, and indeed with industry? Why has that not happened? Why has there been only one meeting of the Defence Industries Council since the election? How can you possibly take account of industries’ perceptions and views of, and insights into the future of, defence technologies and so on if you hold a consultation with them only after the review is completed?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, we have consulted a number of foreign countries which, indeed, have made representations to the SDSR. I know that the noble Lord is interested in France, which has, as an example, done that. Turning to industry, we understand how dependent localised economies are on the defence industry and we have engaged very widely with industry in this review. We invited and received submissions from industry and think-tanks, as well as from colleagues from defence establishments overseas.
Lord King of Bridgwater
Will my noble friend accept that he should take no lessons from the previous two noble Lords who spoke on this subject? Anyone who is familiar with the current defence situation knows that the way that the defence budget was left was a disgrace. Given the problems that the present Government now face in bringing some order out of the unfunded chaos that was left behind, he has everyone’s reasonable support at a critical time when we are at war in Afghanistan and when our forces need every support that they can get. My noble friend will have all reasonable support from reasonable people in tackling a very difficult situation.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that support. There will be painful changes and in some cases reductions, but I am very positive about the outcome. We have wonderful men and women in our Armed Forces and I have been hugely impressed by the dedication, commitment and innovation at work in the department. I have no doubt that, when the final decision is taken by the NSC, the country will come out of the SDSR with more adaptable, efficient and affordable Armed Forces, which are configured for 2020 and beyond.
Planning: Appeals
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the last 12 months, what proportion of non-commercial local authority planning applications where there have been no significant public objections were sent to appeal; and what proportion of those appeals were successful.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the Government do not collect statistics on the volume of objections to planning applications which go to appeal. I can inform the House that, in the 12 months to the end of March 2010, some 190,000 planning applications, which could be considered non-commercial, were decided, with more than 80 per cent granted. In the same period, the Planning Inspectorate decided 7,066 householder planning appeals in England, with 35 per cent allowed.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does he agree with me that, although planning regulations are absolutely necessary, the delays and expense which are often caused by individuals—not by big companies—making applications which are delayed for up to six months, cause a lot of extra expenditure and often cause them to lose their mortgages? Would it not be more helpful to everyone concerned if an informal advice process were set up in the early stages so that the time taken on applications would not be so long or so costly and so that very important advice could be taken on board?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. At the pre-application stage, an applicant should share his proposals with the local planning authority. That would provide an early indication to applicants of any potential reasons for refusal and would offer the opportunity to amend the proposal. Applicants should also speak to their neighbours and others who may be affected by the proposal before it is submitted to the local planning authority.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, following statements made in the election campaign, it appears that the Government’s policy is that local communities should have a major say about whether there should be significant new housing developments in their backyard. Does that means that this Conservative Government would, or would not, expect local authorities to be deflected from agreeing to planning applications for new housing simply because there are significant local public objections?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, where there are local objections to a planning proposal, the local planning authority will take them into consideration. If it chooses to refuse the application, the applicant has the opportunity to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, which will take all matters into consideration.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, given that many families with children in this country experience extreme hardship, living in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, will the Government reflect again on their changes to the spatial strategy which they introduced and think again about whether they might do more to streamline planning to make new homes available to such families who need them so much? I declare my interest as a landlord.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Earl makes an important point. During election campaigns, I am always struck by the condition of our housing. It is so variable. It distresses me to see the conditions in which some people have to live. We are well aware of the problems and we are addressing them.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the problem that occurs when people go ahead and build contrary to planning permission? Very often local authorities give retrospective permission, which is very unsatisfactory for local people who would have opposed the project. Does he think that it is important to follow up on that and does he think that a proper appeals procedure to a decision is the right way, rather than having illegal building?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am well aware of the problem of retrospective planning permission, but such decisions are made by local planning authorities. As matters currently stand, it is not possible for a third party to appeal a planning decision.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, when might legislation be brought before Parliament to change the planning system? How far does the Minister think that local authorities might be expected to anticipate such legislation?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I do not think local authorities need to anticipate legislation. The localism Bill has a significant proportion of planning provisions in it and it will be appearing before Parliament very soon.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, without the complexity of planning, is this not a matter within the ambit of the governor of a prison? Can he not exercise his initiative and willing efforts?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord has asked an excellent question and I shall look into it.
Prisons: In-cell Sanitation
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the finding of the report of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards that in some prison establishments the lack of in-cell sanitation means that slopping-out, officially ended in 1996, still continues.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, slopping-out should not occur in the 21st century. However, it is simply not possible to install in-cell sanitation in all parts of the accommodation at certain prisons and electronic unlocking is the best option for the provision of sanitation.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply but, as he knows, today 20,000 prisoners may have to defecate into a bucket, which will remain with them in their cell until they are let out from that cell. The electronic system, which was used as the justification for saying that the process had ended, does not work all the time—indeed, it is switched off during the day—and too many prisoners spend all day locked up in their cells. Can the Minister assure the House that something will be done to improve this disgraceful and uncivilised situation and will he undertake to report back to the House at regular intervals as to what improvements are being made?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I do not recognise the figure of 20,000—or was it 2,000? I thought that the noble Lord said 20,000.
Lord McNally
He did; to err is human. I have read the independent monitoring board’s report, which prompted the noble Lord’s question, and it does not make easy reading, but I put it to him that, as he must have experienced during his time as inspector of prisons, this problem is in a small number of prisons—nine—that do not have these facilities and which, with just under 2,000 places, make up about 3 per cent of the total prison estate. We are looking at the situation and consulting about guidelines to governors to see how it can be improved, but in the present state of the prison estate we do not see the opportunity in the near future to supply in-cell toilets in these places and therefore the electronic system will continue.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Grendon prison, our only therapeutic prison, which deals with prisoners with particularly challenging psychiatric issues, is one of the 10—I think that it is 10, but I may be mistaken—prisons without integral sanitation? Does he not agree that, given the particular challenges in that prison, it is unacceptable to be queueing or, most of the time, stuck in your cell with a pot?
Lord McNally
It is true, as my noble friend said, that Grendon has a particular and very challenging regime—it is a therapeutic prison. It is perhaps surprising that it should be a prison that does not have in-cell facilities. However, the question is whether we keep the real benefits, which I think my noble friend would acknowledge, of what goes on there in the therapeutic approach to prison for some very difficult prisoners. The toiletry situation is a problem, but it is managed by the electronic locking system. On balance, I would prefer to keep the success of Grendon as a therapeutic prison, even with the downside of the lack of in-cell facilities.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Are women’s prisons completely free of this uncivilised practice?
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool
My Lords, I gather that in-cell sanitation is covered by Prison Service Order 1900. Whose responsibility is it to oversee the application of Prison Service orders and this one in particular? What power does the independent monitoring board have in relation to NOMS to make sure that these observations are acted on?
Lord McNally
On the latter point, it is an independent board and a very welcome independent board. As these exchanges prove, it does its job. NOMS has to respond. It is responding by reviewing at the moment the accommodation standards guidelines and updating guidance to prison governors. The overall responsibility rests with Ministers of the Ministry of Justice. We oversee, while NOMS reports to us. The dilemma that we face in 3 per cent of the prison estate is that old cells—some of them were built surprisingly recently, in the 1960s—are too small to accommodate in-cell facilities. The other side to this is that, where there are no in-cell facilities, there is only one prisoner to a cell but, where there is a toilet in the cell, there are two prisoners to a cell, which also has its downsides.
Lord Elton
My Lords, does NOMS provide additional manpower to deploy when the electronic system is not working in order to mitigate the results?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I understand that that is the process. If there is any failure or any increase in demand, the prison authorities redeploy guards so that the electronic system can be used and so that when, occasionally, the system breaks down, it can be operated manually.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale
My Lords, on the problem of providing in-cell sanitation in older prisons, I invite the Minister simply to put his foot down and say, “These cells will not be used from the end of this month”. That is the way to solve this.
Lord McNally
What we would do with the 2,000 prisoners in those cells, I am not sure.
Lord McNally
Well, I can answer a question with a question. We inherited a prison population of 83,000. That also has problems in terms of accommodation.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas
Does the Minister accept that, whenever there is an improvement in conditions in prisons, it tends to lead to a reduction in tension between prison officers and prisoners and is invariably in the public interest?
Lord McNally
Absolutely. I have read this report and followed it up. Prisoners lying back on their Dunlopillo mattresses watching colour television before taking a Jacuzzi is the image of prison life given in some of our popular press. Prison life is grim and sometimes downright unpleasant. Whether that meets with approval or not, it is the reality.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Having listened to what has been said today, I think that we cannot tolerate this situation and I hope that putting it right will be top of the agenda for prison governors, NOMS and everybody. At least as a temporary measure, if any of this is going on in prisons where prisoners are still locked up during the day, could I ask that we encourage the firms that the Government are thinking of encouraging to set up a business or factory within the prison so that at least the prisoners can be employed during the day?
Lord McNally
As we have already been doing, we will certainly consider the idea of in-prison work. The dilemma is whether you have toilets in a cell, which is not itself particularly pleasant when you also eat your meals in that cell and share it with another person, or an efficient system of release to a wash block where toilet facilities are available. That is what is used in 3 per cent of the prison estate. I am not sure that I can give the noble Baroness or any noble Lord an early solution to that dilemma.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, at a convenient point after 3.30 pm, my noble friend Lady Wilcox will repeat a Statement entitled “Lord Browne of Madingley review”.
Referendums: Constitution Committee Report
Baroness Jay of Paddington
That this House takes note of the Report of the Constitution Committee on Referendums in the United Kingdom (12th Report, Session 2009–10, HL Paper 99).
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to open this debate on the Constitution Committee’s report entitled Referendums in the United Kingdom. The report, which we published in April, was the last one produced under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, who I can just see in his place and who I am delighted will be speaking immediately after me. Perhaps I may take this opportunity to pay a warm, personal tribute to the noble Lord’s distinguished leadership of the Constitution Committee and thank him for his advice and support as I took over the chair after the general election.
The committee’s inquiry into referendums was extensive and has proved to be extremely timely. We received a great deal of political and academic evidence, both written and oral, from national and international sources. The committee is grateful to all of those whose evidence contributed to our report and particularly to our specialist adviser, Dr John Parkinson, of York University. I must also thank the Government for their response, but I note that it is rather late, having been received only last week, and perhaps a little thin. But, of course, I realise that in the interim the coalition Government have produced their own Bill proposing a UK-wide referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. That Bill has already had its Second Reading in another place and begins its Committee stage today. Perhaps some of the recommendations and observations of our committee are acknowledged in the current Bill. I leave the House to judge as I describe the detail of our report. I look forward with great interest to the Minister’s reply, which will give your Lordships a first opportunity to hear in this House the Government’s thinking on the principles and practice of referendums.
As the House will be aware, although there has been very much debate in recent Parliaments about referendums, they remain a relatively untried method of testing opinion in the United Kingdom. This is in contrast to many other modern democracies, including countries such as Australia and New Zealand which share our Westminster traditions and where referendums are a regular feature of political practice. Here, the 1975 vote on our membership of the EEC remains, 35 years later, the only example of a UK-wide referendum, although obviously the referendum method has been effectively used to determine devolved and local government systems. It was against that background that the committee set out to analyse the arguments for and against using referendums as a constitutional and democratic tool, and to make recommendations for their possible future use.
The basic questions come down to these. On the positive side, do referendums improve modern democracy by making voters more involved in decision-making so that controversial issues particularly can be firmly and, one hopes, conclusively resolved? On the negative side, does the use of referendums undermine a representative Parliament and oversimplify complex issues to no great general advantage? Perhaps equally important is the practical question: do individual referendums attract a sufficiently substantive voter turnout to give their decisions authority?
Overall, the committee’s position was more negative than positive. Having listened to all the evidence, we were not convinced by the case for using referendums as a common practice in 21st century governance. We regretted the ad hoc manner in which many referendums have been held—often to deal with political crises or as a tactical device by a government in trouble—while the evidence suggested that difficult issues were not finally settled by a referendum result.
If we look at the history of our 1975 referendum, it seems clearly to illustrate some of these drawbacks. It was, after all, primarily held to resolve internal policy disputes within the Labour Government of the time—about the EEC, of course—but the result certainly did not finally resolve that question, as subsequent Conservative Governments have found out. The Minister may not want to comment this afternoon on the relevance of those negative points to the current Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, but I have no doubt we will return to them when the Bill reaches this House.
To return to the report before us today, although the Constitution Committee was sceptical about the general values of referendums, it recognised pragmatically that they are going to be used, and therefore a large part of the report is concerned with when it is most appropriate for a referendum to be held and what are the most effective ways to organise one in order to achieve proper participation and a respected result. We were aware, of course, that enthusiasm for referendums is often politically driven by a legitimate wish to use every possible means to give greater power to the electorate. This is particularly true now, when what one might call the hostile dislocation between government and the governed has become such a major political problem. The coalition Government certainly emphasise this aspect in their response to the committee’s report, saying:
“A fundamental concept … is the transfer of power from the Executive to Parliament, and from Parliament to people. The Government believes that referendums can be a valuable means of giving people a greater say over important issues, at both the national and local level. However we recognise that national referendums cannot and should not be held on every important issue”.
For our part, the committee concluded that if referendums are to be used, they are most appropriately used in relation to fundamental constitutional issues, and that begs the question of what is a fundamental constitutional issue. The committee did not want to duck the question and was clear that it could not provide a precise definition, but has none the less agreed a list of topics for which it thinks a referendum would be appropriate: to abolish the monarchy, to leave the EU, for any of the nations of the UK to secede from the Union, to abolish either House of Parliament, to adopt a written constitution, to change the UK system of currency, and to change the electoral system for the House of Commons. The last is, of course, the subject of the current Bill.
Your Lordships will have noticed that the list does not include reform of the House of Lords as a fundamental constitutional issue. However, I was interested in the reply given last week by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to a question from his noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, when he said that that was not the Government’s plan “at the moment”. He may wish to expand on that answer. But whatever may qualify as a fundamental constitutional issue, the committee was strongly of the opinion that this should be a decision for Parliament, not government alone. Legislators, not Ministers, should decide whether to hold a referendum. However, the committee and the Government are agreed that national referendums should be exceptional events. On local referendums we are perhaps slightly further apart. The Government have already published a consultation paper on local referendums to veto council tax increases, and their response to our report notes that they are committed to giving people the power to instigate referendums on any local issue as a way of making,
“the Big Society part of everyday life”.
The committee is sceptical about this approach, and while we accept the need for greater local involvement in local decision-making, we think other ways of reinvigorating citizen participation should be explored.
We heard evidence about a distinctive type of referendum, the so-called citizens initiative, where citizens can propose statute laws or broad policy changes. These initiatives have been successfully adopted both in Switzerland and in half of the United States, but most members of the committee felt that it would be extremely difficult to adapt such initiatives to the United Kingdom. We also looked at the idea of citizens’ juries and assemblies. Personally, I am sympathetic to the possibilities that we could develop on this issue, and I was impressed by the evidence of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who had previously chaired the Power Commission.
The committee had one specific concern about local referendums of whatever type—who is to regulate and supervise them? Currently in our system, the Electoral Commission has no responsibility for local referendums, and my noble friend Lord Wills, who I believe is also speaking in the debate, gave evidence to us as a Minister on behalf of the previous Government saying that he thought it risky to extend the commission’s role to cover them. Can the Minister tell us, particularly given the new Government’s evident enthusiasm for local referendums, how they are to be regulated and whether it is intended that the Electoral Commission should extend its role in this area?
As noble Lords will recall, the Electoral Commission was set up under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act and, under this legislation, is already charged with responsibility for national referendums. The PPERA has not been tested in a national referendum. Our only experience has been the rather ill-fated local referendum on the north-east in 2004. The committee therefore thought it necessary to examine our legal and practical framework in a comparative way. The Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Mark Harper MP, has kindly written to me to say that he found the committee’s inquiry about this very valuable.
Our main recommendation—which is now particularly relevant given the proposed referendum next spring—is to require the Electoral Commission to make a thorough retrospective analysis of its first experience in a national referendum and then make proposals for change. Equally, if not more important, we propose that there should be a parliamentary post-legislative scrutiny exercise of the PPERA after that vote. The Government have responded that they agree with the need for an evaluation but have not been precise about what form that evaluation may take. Perhaps the Minister can help us further with that this afternoon.
After the 2004 north-east local referendum, the Electoral Commission asked the then Government to make changes to the legislative framework for referendums. The committee was sympathetic to many of its proposals and recommended that the Government should take steps to ensure that they were implemented. We therefore welcome the inclusion by the coalition Government of three of these proposals in the current Bill. First, the creation of a statutory regional counting officer role; secondly, the Electoral Commission being given powers to promote public awareness of the registration and voting process at a referendum; and, thirdly, aggregation of spending limits for permitted participants to bring them into line with the rules of spending by third parties in a conventional election.
The Government have also agreed in their response to the committee to give consideration to the further proposal for what we would like to see—a generic code of conduct for referendums, again under the PPERA. However, once again the Government have not been specific about what form that consideration will take.
Beyond the overall organisation and conduct of referendums, our report also discusses other important practical issues concerning the timing of referendums and how information is to be provided to voters during campaigns. Perhaps the most significant is the vital question of deciding a referendum question. At present this is entirely in the hands of the Government, who are not obliged to take account of advice from the Electoral Commission. The committee recommends that, to ensure neutrality, the Electoral Commission should in future be given statutory responsibility to formulate referendum questions, which would then be presented to Parliament for approval. The Government disagree and prefer to continue to make the final decision while taking account of comments on intelligibility from the commission. No doubt this is happening now in the light of the Electoral Commission’s recent report on the problems that it has already encountered with the proposed question on AV.
The timing of referendum campaigns and votes also, naturally, raises tricky issues. Should referendums be held on the same day as other polls? We first decided that referendums should certainly not be held on the same day as a general election and that where there was a potential clash with other elections there should be a presumption against holding referendums on the same day. We concluded that this should be judged on a case-by-case basis by the Electoral Commission. The Government share our view that it should be judged on a case-by-case basis but see no reason in principle why referendums cannot be held on the same day as other polls. The Government’s response states that where it is proposed to combine a referendum with other polls—as will be the case in the proposed referendum next May—they will work closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that any practical risks are managed.
The House and the Minister will be aware of the widespread concerns about this expressed by Members of the other place at the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, and I imagine the same issues will be raised here today. At that time, the Deputy Prime Minister, responding to the debate, seemed sympathetic to some of the points raised. I ask the Minister to tell your Lordships whether any progress has been made on this subject, whether the Government have had discussions with the Electoral Commission about the problem and whether practical risks and ways of managing them have been identified.
A proper understanding of the question being asked and clarity about the nature of the poll are essential to a successful referendum. This in turn must depend on the quality of information that voters have received. The Constitution Committee was not happy about the effectiveness of the regulation of information provision in UK referendums and has commended the system used in New Zealand in its 1992-93 electoral reform referendums. There, a totally independent body provided information and ran the public education process. The Government’s response to this is not terribly forthcoming and states in a slightly anodyne way that it is important that voters are able to make an informed choice in any referendum and that the process for achieving this will depend on the subject matter of the poll. What steps will the Government take to ensure that voters are able to make an informed and objective choice? I remain of the opinion that there is a strong case for an independent information body in any UK referendum.
Part of the concern about information ties in with concerns about funding referendum campaigns. The committee heard from several witnesses who felt that their campaigns, particularly in local referendums, had suffered through lack of money. Some complained of the unfairness of small organisations having to compete with others which were awash with private donations, although it must be said that most witnesses felt that the PPERA, if properly followed, would iron outmost inequalities. There was other evidence suggesting that the loopholes, even under the new Act, might be exploited. The committee therefore recommends that the Government adopt some of the points raised by the EC, which has decided to make its regulations on funding more transparent.
In conclusion, I shall quote directly from the Constitution Committee’s summary of its most important findings:
“Referendums are not a panacea … Referendums may become a part of the UK’s democratic and constitutional framework. There has been little consistency in their use. They have taken place on an ad hoc basis, frequently as a tactical device rather than on the basis of constitutional principle. Notwithstanding this, we acknowledge arguments that, if referendums are to be used, they are most appropriately used in relation to fundamental constitutional issues. There are difficulties in defining what constitutes a ‘fundamental constitutional issue’ … there is a grey area where the importance of issues is a matter of political judgment. To leave such judgments entirely in the hands of the government of the day is in our view inappropriate. Parliament should decide whether or not a referendum is appropriate”.
I hope that the House will accept that the committee has attempted a dispassionate and comparative review of what has now become a topical and controversial issue in UK politics. I look forward very much to the debate and to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.
Lord Goodlad
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her very kind remarks about me, which were wholly unmerited but most generous. It was a great privilege to serve on your Lordships’ Select Committee, which performs an extremely important function. I wish the noble Baroness every success in the chair, which she will adorn with great wisdom and experience. She has covered the main issues in the report comprehensively. I echo her appreciation of the contribution of the committee’s advisers and witnesses, and the evidence given to the committee will be an important quarry for many years to come for those who are interested in the subject.
I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the majority of your Lordships’ committee’s recommendations, particularly on a referendum on change in the voting system for the House of Commons, or in Wales, on further powers for the National Assembly in accordance with existing legislation and on further transfers of power to the European Union, and that Parliament should judge which issues are the subject of national referendums. I shall therefore touch briefly on where the Government’s response disagrees with the recommendations of your Lordships’ committee.
The Government say in their response to your Lordships’ committee’s report:
“Parties across Parliament will have the chance to consider legislation as it goes through Parliament”.
Quite who drafted that, I cannot imagine, but the Government may rest assured that not only parties across Parliament but individual Members of both Houses of Parliament will scrutinise any forthcoming legislation with vigour. It is puzzling that the Government reject the view of your Lordships’ committee that decisions leading to past referendums have been taken on an ad hoc basis and for political convenience—in victory, magnanimity. Perhaps that is a pointer to the future. The Government’s response agrees with your Lordships’ committee that it is difficult to determine precisely in what circumstances a referendum should be held and agree with the suggestions for those occasions when a referendum would be appropriate. While providing a useful guide, it does not and cannot represent a definitive list. Your Lordships may think that there is no ad hocery or political convenience involved there.
In evidence, Peter Kellner argued that the decision to hold the 1975 European Communities referendum was a constitutional outrage. It was wholly to do with holding the Labour Party together. Vernon Bogdanor asserted that the offer of the 1979 devolution referendums was made for tactical purposes in order to overcome Back-Bench opposition in Parliament. Michael Wills from the other place opined that the referendum in the UK had been used as a political tool, but did not see anything wrong with that. Vernon Bogdanor recommended that referendum questions should be formulated by a neutral body such as the Electoral Commission. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, reminded us that the Power commission, which she chaired, had recommended that an outside body should have control over the question.
David Butler told us that referendums in the UK are going to happen only when the Government of the day want one or when it would be too embarrassing because of past promises to get out of one. Normally, they will have a referendum if they think they are going to win it and not if they are not going to win it. It is really a matter of straight politics. Since that time, matters have changed. Homer, in the form of David Butler, has nodded and the forthcoming referendum on parliamentary voting systems will not be a caucus race in which everybody wins a prize. Ad hocery and political convenience are again matters of personal speculation. Your Lordships’ committee said that it is possible to set out in legislation specific issues that should be subject to a referendum, as has been done in the past. In their response, the Government agreed with that statement and said:
“We do not propose to set out in legislation the issues which should be subject to a referendum”.
No ad hocery or political convenience there.
The Government's response disagrees with your Lordships’ committee’s disbelief that local referendums are the most effective way of increasing citizen engagement with the local democratic process, saying that they can play an effective role in supporting local decision-making and empowering residents to make localism and the big society part of everyday life. There is a reference to excessive council tax increases. The common-sense view is that local referendums would oppose rather than support local decision-making. The Government are silent on who might pay for such referendums and what their cost might be. Perhaps there might be an opportunity for referendums on that matter.
On the subject of holding referendums on the same day as general elections, which your Lordships' committee opposed, as the noble Baroness said, the Government responded that a case-by-case approach was appropriate in that area. Again—no ad hocery or political convenience there, either.
Your Lordships’ committee recommended that the Electoral Commission should be given a statutory responsibility to formulate referendum questions, which should then be presented to Parliament for approval. The Government, in rejecting the recommendation in their response, said that when provision for a referendum was made by Order in Council rather than by legislation, the commission’s view would be taken into account in framing the question included in the order. Obviously, there is no question of ad hocery or political convenience there.
I, together with many other noble Lords of my generation, took part in the 1975 referendum on the renegotiation of terms of British membership of the European Community. I was a relatively newly elected Member of the other place and keen to support the Yes campaign. I persuaded the then Conservative agent from the Northwich division of Cheshire, the late Maglena Roberts, that we should have phone-in sessions so that I could personally respond to concerns. Despite her reservations after many years in her post about the merits of this new-fangled idea, not least on the grounds of advertising expense, she eventually went quietly—or relatively quietly.
On the first day of the phone-ins, as the clock in the Conservative Association office in Northwich ticked up to 10 o’clock, Maglena watched the telephone as if it was an anarchist’s bomb about to explode. At 11 o’clock I said, “Miss Roberts, will you please look after the telephone while I make us both a cup of coffee”. On the second day, the telephone eventually rang. The caller’s inquiry was, “Mr Goodlad, what is the position of animals in the European Community?” I glanced down at the desk on which Miss Roberts had thoughtfully spread out copious briefing on every possible subject that could be covered. There was no line to take on the position of animals in the European Community—far less a suggestion as to what I might say if pressed. Without, I hope, breaking step, I tentatively said, “Madam, I believe that in general the rules are very strict”, to which the caller said, “Thank you, Mr Goodlad, I am very glad to hear it”. That was the only inquiry. Halls were booked for public meetings—half a dozen, as I recollect, widely advertised at some expense. The maximum attendance at any meeting was two people, and the only question asked was from a lady who said, “When does the Women’s Institute meeting begin?”
As many noble Lords will recollect, the front cover of Private Eye at the beginning of the 1975 campaign featured a photograph of an elderly couple dozing in deckchairs on Blackpool beach with knotted handkerchiefs protecting their heads from the sun. The caption below the photograph was, “The Great Debate Begins”. I look forward, as I am sure do all noble Lords, to further great debates, which I trust will not be disrupted by less important matters.
Lord Hart of Chilton
My Lords, I straightaway declare an interest as a member of the Constitution Committee and it goes without saying that I agree with its conclusions and reasoning. Yet the Government do not seem to share the committee’s reservations over the use of referendums generally and say that because they are firmly committed to giving people a greater say in politics, they believe referendums are one means of doing that. I therefore wish to add a few observations about the evidence that we received.
Over recent years, almost everybody experienced in politics has been anxious about the public’s disaffection with and lack of trust in politicians and political institutions. There have of course been other periods of our history where disaffection has been just as great, if not greater, so we must always keep a sense of proportion. Nevertheless, I listened carefully to the witnesses from home and abroad who put forward arguments seeking to enhance the democratic process, not just by the use of referendums but by such things as citizen initiatives, citizens’ assemblies and deliberative processes—the latter suggested by the Power commission and its chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. In each case, practical difficulties arose when considering the proposals.
The first difficulty involved the relationship of referendums to parliamentary sovereignty and the principles of deliberative parliamentary democracy at Westminster, which include debates, pre-legislative scrutiny and Select Committees with the power to call and cross-examine witnesses—just as we have done. Of course, referendums are not incompatible with parliamentary democracy, but I believe that the latter is much to be preferred as a decision-making forum and that nothing should be done to undermine it.
Secondly, there came the “slippery slope” argument; how do you select the topics on which to give a referendum when there is no written constitution to provide guidelines? Without guidelines, there could be an enormous temptation to use referendums as a populist measure or to avoid facing difficult decisions. There is also a danger of using referendums to entrench legislation and prevent change. I accept that the Government say that the referendums which they have in mind will be exceptional events, but the suggestion that referendums should be used as part of a process of giving people a greater say in politics has a tendency to raise expectation and increase the appetite.
We must remember that the referendum process is expensive: about £120 million a shot, we were told. Except on a few issues, a referendum seems to appeal to an articulate minority, with the majority indifferent. We must also not forget the absent 10 per cent from the electoral register and that, each year, some 10 per cent of the adult population change address. We were told that, depending on the timing of a referendum, between 8 and 18 per cent of eligible voters would be unable to participate. Proportions of them would be significantly higher in metropolitan areas and non-registration would be significantly higher among young people and some ethnic minority groups.
Thirdly, there came a warning from the United States of America about citizen initiatives. The Californian experience was labelled as a device for the sad, the mad and the very rich, who could find a support organisation for anything under the sun. Demands for increased services were matched by a lack of desire to pay the taxes needed to provide them, while scattergun demands have a habit of bringing with them unintended consequences.
Fourthly, there was the deliberative democratic process which, to my mind, had considerable educational merit. Yet it was conceded at once that it was not an alternative to a referendum. It was costly and would only sample the opinion of a few. Nevertheless, it was clear that in-depth explanation and debate informed and changed minds and—interestingly, in the case of the House of Lords reform policy—changed a knee-jerk reaction in favour to fade right away as a priority. Incidentally, my own small-scale, but just as expensive, deliberative exercise sessions with taxi drivers on my way home over the past few years has confirmed that finding.
Our report sets out the evidence for all these proposals. There were widely differing views and there was no unanimity. However, because it seemed likely that referendums would remain in the parliamentary toolkit but there was no agreement on their use, we concluded that they should be used only in relation to fundamental constitutional issues. We listed some, but not on the basis of a definitive list. Even here, though, there were differences of opinion among the witnesses. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, a Minister in the previous Government, thought that a change in composition of the other place would be a fundamental change and would merit a referendum, but a change of composition in your Lordships’ House would not. Since then, of course, there seems to have been a change of heart, but the present Government believe that a referendum is necessary for a change to the voting system while a significant reduction in membership and material changes to parliamentary boundaries do not merit one.
In conclusion, after listening to and reading again the evidence that we received, I have no doubt that neither referendums nor other initiatives constitute a panacea for, or give a restoration of, trust in politics. In my view, the rush to legislate on fixed-term Parliaments and a change in the voting system, without proper consultation or scrutiny, has increased my concern that we have not learnt any lessons on how to handle constitutional reform or re-engage the public. Nor do the focus group responses to the Electoral Commission’s report on the question for the AV referendum give a great deal of hope; most of them did not understand what the first past the post system was, let alone alternative voting. Indeed, the other day I met someone who thought that AV was another form of transmittable disease.
So long as they do not undermine parliamentary democracy, initiatives to educate the public are to be encouraged, but in my view public trust will be restored only when Members in the other place re-engage with their constituents, as the best already do, and reform their own procedural practices, not least by being emboldened to hold the Executive to account. At this very moment when that re-engagement could and should take place, though, constituencies and MPs throughout the country are to be thrown into the melting pot. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, often says, sotto voce, “You couldn’t make it up”.
Higher Education: Funding
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would like to repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
“I would like to make a Statement on the future funding of higher education and student finance, in the light of the report published today of Lord Browne’s independent inquiry. Lord Browne was asked to undertake his review in November last year. The review was set up by Labour on a cross-party basis, and that is how we want to proceed.
I and my colleague, the right honourable Member for Havant, want to thank Lord Browne and his review panel. The Government endorse the main thrust of the report, but we are open to suggestions from inside and outside the House over the next few weeks before making specific recommendations to Parliament, with a view to implementing the changes for students entering higher education in autumn 2012. More detail will be contained in next week’s spending review on the funding implications, but as a strategic direction the Government believe that this report is on the right lines.
Lord Browne acknowledges that:
“The current funding and finance systems for higher education are unsustainable and need urgent reform”.
The issue is how, and that question has to be framed in terms of how the higher education sector contributes to the deficit reduction programme.
There is also, I think, consensus around the idea that there should be no up-front tuition fees for students. That would seriously deter students from low and middle-income families. This Government are strongly opposed to up-front tuition fees. Indeed, we share Lord Browne’s conclusion that we should extend exemption from up-front tuition fees to part-time students, currently 40 per cent of the student population, who have been unfairly discriminated against hitherto.
The question, then, is how much the graduate contributions for tuition should be. We are considering a level of £7,000. Many universities and colleges may well decide to charge less than this, since there is clearly scope for greater efficiency and innovation in the way that universities actually operate. Two-year ordinary degrees are one approach. Exceptionally, Lord Browne suggests there should be circumstances under which universities can price their courses above this point. But, he suggests, this would be conditional on demonstrating that funds would be invested in securing a good social mix, with fair access for students with less privileged backgrounds, and in raising the quality of teaching and learning. We will consider this carefully.
We believe it is essential that if the graduate contribution is to rise, it should be linked to graduates’ ability to pay. On average, over their lifetimes graduates earn comfortably more than £100,000 more than non-graduates. However, not all graduates benefit in this way. Some choose socially useful but modestly paid or unpaid work, which may include time spent bringing up a family. At present the graduate contribution acts like a poll tax and is not fair.
Lord Browne has come up with persuasive proposals to deal with this issue. He suggests a £21,000 graduate income threshold before any payment is made, as against £15,000 at present, and for it to be linked to average earnings. He also suggests that a real rate of interest should be paid but only over that threshold. The effect is striking. Twenty per cent of graduates could pay less than they do now. The top third of graduate earners would pay more than twice as much as the lowest third. That is fair and progressive. The Government broadly endorse this approach and will examine the details of implementation. The principle of needs-blind admission to universities must remain central.
The cost of university education to individuals and the state reflects living costs as well as tuition costs. The Browne report makes some constructive suggestions here. We shall come forward with detailed proposals that will make it attractive for students from families of modest means to go to university and will be fair and affordable, including exempting the poorest students from graduate contributions for some or all of their studies.
Lord Browne considered alternatives, including a graduate tax, as I believe the new leader of the Labour Party favours. There are some key features in the current proposal for progressive graduate contributions which incorporate the best features of a graduate tax. It would be collected through the pay packet at a rate of 9p in the pound above the £21,000 threshold; combined with a real interest rate as Browne recommends, it would be progressive and related to ability to pay. But Browne identifies serious problems with a “pure” graduate tax. The proposal is unworkable: it does not produce sufficient revenue to finance higher education until 30 years from now; it weakens university independence; and it is unfair to British graduates, as opposed to graduates living overseas.
If there are any lingering doubts on the opposition Benches I would strongly commend a letter from the new shadow Chancellor to the new Labour leader three weeks ago, which reads thus:
“Oh, and for goodness’ sake, don’t pursue a graduate tax. We should be proud of our brave and correct decision to introduce tuition fees. Students don’t pay them, graduates do, when they’re earning … at very low rates, stopped from their pay just like a graduate tax, but with the money going where it belongs: to universities rather than the Treasury”.
I do believe, moreover, that we need to look beyond the graduate population. Fifty-five per cent of young people do not go to university. We must not perpetuate the idea, encouraged by the pursuit of a misguided 50 per cent participation target, that the only valued option for an 18 year-old is a three-year academic course at a university. An apprenticeship can be just as valuable as a degree, if not more.
Finally, there is a challenge to all of us to promote a long-term sustainable future for higher education. This has been a difficult issue for all parties of this House. Those opposite have ranged between being early advocates of a graduate contribution, such as the Member for Sheffield Brightside and the new shadow Chancellor, through to those implacably opposed to change, to the current Labour leadership who remarkably have now embraced a graduate tax. The Conservatives initially campaigned against graduate contributions but reversed their position. The Liberal Democrats consistently opposed graduate contributions. But in the current economic climate that policy is simply no longer feasible. That is why I intend, on behalf of the coalition, to put specific proposals to the House to implement radical and progressive reforms to higher education based on the Browne report”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement and giving us the opportunity to ask what I hope will be constructive questions about the direction that the Government now intend to follow. I appreciate the fact that the Secretary of State included so few rhetorical flourishes about the economic climate. I do not generally accept what is said about that but, more to the point, the university finance issues have been long in the making—we have had to address them very many times—and getting them right was in our minds well before the collapse of parts of the international banking system. I acknowledge what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said in the passage quoted by the Minister about the depth and strength of the issues involved.
This is an urgent question because, in my view and that of the Opposition, investment in the United Kingdom’s higher education teaching and research is directly correlated with past prosperity, and will no doubt be correlated with future prosperity, future prospects for our country and with the ambitions of individuals and their families. If we seek growth, it is a key investment element in growth. Lord Dearing said that and, as I recall, no political party dissented from that view. He made the point that everybody should contribute to that investment—another principle from which there was no dissent on anyone’s part. We have long known what is needed to build on these achievements and to ensure that we retain our international competitiveness and the inclusive reach of our higher education.
Further to my point on the Secretary of State, I shall not dwell on the volte-face by the Lib Dems as it is sufficiently frequent as to be unexceptional. Nor will I dwell on Nick Clegg’s statement of 28 April that a £7,000 fee would be a national disaster. Let us look with care at the Browne report and ask questions about it. We will look very carefully at all the proposals. Incidentally, the issue about having a tax or other provision really concerns what the mechanism should be, whether it is progressive, appropriate, and affordable and whether having mountains of debt is a good start in life in the current environment. All those questions could be asked of any system and we will press them with regard to this and any other system. I thought that I detected in the Statement—I should be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether this is the case—an indication that a White Paper was on the way. I think that a couple of passages suggested that further work was to be put before Parliament. Any reform of student finance which relies on a significant increase in tuition fees and is based on the assumption of deep cuts in public funding to higher education also raises serious concerns. I hope in a few moments to return to some questions on that.
Our approach to the reform of student finance—a matter which I have spent a good deal of my adult life concerned with—is guided by the following principles: establishing a stable and long-term footing for higher education funding which enables our universities to fulfil the role that they must play in promoting knowledge, innovation and economic growth; no stop-start or radical and sudden changes in the unit of resource, as we saw under a previous Government; avoiding an unfair and unsustainable increase in the burden of debt on lower and middle-income graduates; and ensuring that graduate contributions are progressive, as I said a few moments ago, so that those who earn and can afford more end up paying more than those with smaller incomes.
It is those considerations that draw me to the questions that I believe the House will want to address over the next period. Can the noble Baroness tell us whether middle-income graduates will pay a fair share as compared with high-income earners? A first reading of Browne—we have had only a brief time for it—and the Statement suggests that not only do the proposals combine higher fees with the setting of a real interest rate, but graduates on middle incomes will end up paying far more than their fair share when compared with graduates who are relatively better off—those earning the highest amounts. There will potentially be significant differentiations between the two groups in cash terms because middle-income earners will take far longer to pay off their loans and will be more affected by the charging of a real rate of interest. Is this the correct reading of the proposition which has been put to us? If it is, I fear that we are in for a flawed future.
Will high earners be debt free much earlier than middle-income earners? It is likely that a larger proportion of people on lower incomes will be saddled with high debt for about 30 years. This will mean that, in most cases, they will retain their debt into their middle 50s—probably when their own children are starting to go to university and they are trying to work out how to finance that. Throughout that period, as we know from past debates, they are buying houses and starting families. I note that, on average, one has to be 37 years old before buying one’s first home. All these events come together in life and it is important that we do not make it more difficult, if we are placing more importance on families and having a home and a sustainable way of living. The Browne review estimates that on average only the top 40 per cent of earners will pay back all the charges paid up-front on their behalf by the Government. That tells me that 60 per cent will not be debt free for at least 30 years. Is that not the case?
What will be the impact on off-balance-sheet borrowing, which has always been one of the real issues with a student tax? The claims that it is too difficult to fund the cost of moving to a graduate tax ring hollow when the system that is being proposed will require the Government to borrow to fund the cost of much higher fee loans. The only difference is that the borrowing to pay universities the up-front fees is off the balance sheet. Can the noble Baroness tell us what level of off-balance-sheet borrowing the Browne review requires? What are the plans regarding the sale of the current debt book, a thorny issue which I remember well? That will impact across the whole of this area.
Will there not be a differential for, and a longer impact on, women? Many women will over their lifetimes earn less than men because of the differences in their careers. Will the Government give an undertaking today that they will undertake an equality impact assessment and give proper consideration to what might be a discriminatory difference between men and women in this regard?
The final questions are tremendously important to the university system and, I hope, to the House, because of the way in which we will all need to understand the process that we are going through not just today but over the next few weeks, which will include the comprehensive spending review. The proposals are unlikely to increase the overall funding to universities. That will almost certainly be the case if some of the cuts to university funding that have been hinted at in well sourced reports come through in the comprehensive spending review. Reports suggest that on the teaching side of university funding, the cuts will not be 25 per cent, or the sorts of figures that we have talked about in other areas, but possibly 70 to 80 per cent. Is the Browne report to be used simply as a mechanism for replenishing those cuts without producing any additional income for the universities, which they plainly need? Will it be a mechanism simply for shifting who pays the current quantum, rather than for producing an environment in which there is real growth and real competitiveness, and our universities can stand in the front rank of world universities, as they have done throughout their history and as they do today? That is vital, because some of those who are doing the sums in this sector have been telling us overnight—I have no doubt that they have told the Minister and her colleagues as well—that it will probably take a fee of something like £8,000 per year to produce any new money for universities if cuts at the level that have been prefigured come through the pipeline.
The noble Baroness may well say, “Wait for the comprehensive spending review and we will find out what all of these figures are”. Of course I understand that, but these are well sourced reports. They may be the type of report that raises the level of alarm so that when something slightly less draconian comes through one feels that only a few of one's teeth have been kicked out rather than the whole set. However, if this is a mechanism designed not to grow the income of universities so that they can complete their historic mission but to replace elements that have been cut, that is not the proposal that has run through Robbins and Dearing and, I hope, will run through Browne and into the future. No account of our national financial interest will be answered by cutting off that growth.
I ask one final question of the Minister. Will she say whether the noble Lord, Lord Browne, was privy to what is in the comprehensive spending review, so that he was able to do the sums and make sure that what he was doing would make the contribution that plainly he intended to make? If he was, I am afraid that we are in for some dire news for universities, and students are in for dire news as well. Of course, we will study and explore this, but I ask these questions because I hope that they will provide the answers that will tell us the trajectory of our universities over the coming years.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for some very helpful comments and a largely constructive reply. I suspect that he will not be pleased with much of my reply, because of course we are waiting for the comprehensive spending review. Therefore, beyond what I have already said, there is very little to add at this stage that would not be conjecture. As Her Majesty’s Opposition know, there are very hard choices to be made here, and both we and they value the high quality of our universities and want to keep standards as high as we possibly can. We are second in the world only to the United States of America. That is a fine record and one that we would like to keep. However, we are in a very difficult set of circumstances. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, and will help him by answering just one or two of his questions.
The noble Lord asked whether this is yet another squeeze on middle-income families. We are committed to ensuring that higher education is affordable for everyone. The Government will provide finance for anyone who succeeds in securing a place at university so that no one has to pay for tuition up front, as I said. We also recognise that all students need some help towards living costs. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, has put forward generous proposals for maintenance support and these need to be considered carefully as part of the spending review process. We want a system which provides adequate support for students from low and middle-income families but which is also financially sustainable.
We intend to publish an HE White Paper later this year, leading, we hope, to a higher education Bill in the autumn of 2011. I think that that was what the noble Lord meant in asking that question.
He also asked how the review of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, could affect any potential sale of the student loan book. The treatment of the existing student loan book was not included in the terms of reference for the Browne review, and the Government are currently looking at a range of options for a potential sale.
Lord Sewel
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that higher education is a devolved subject. Indeed, the financing of higher education differs somewhat in the devolved territories and in Scotland a separate review is under way. Should the Scottish Parliament come to a different solution from that advocated by the Government, will this Government ensure that, in order to fulfil its responsibilities to finance higher education, the Scottish Parliament will be granted additional powers?
Baroness Wilcox
The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, has me there. It is a wonderful question but at the moment I have no answer for him. However, I shall be only too delighted to check and come back to him. At this stage, I apologise.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I thank the Minister for making the Statement, although, as all sides of the House will know, some of its contents are not totally welcomed by those of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches. Ideally, we should have liked to see a situation in which it was proposed to have no tuition fees, with the costs being met through progressive taxation. Our second best option was a graduate tax. However, we recognise that, given the current financial situation, that is not to be, and we also recognise the very real needs of the universities for extra funding.
As I understand it—perhaps the Minister will confirm this—this is an interim Statement. As she said, we are expecting the comprehensive spending review, which will spell out the details. However, the Government have accepted two aspects in the Statement. One is that a good deal of the extra funding will come from students themselves, and they accept that this will be in the form of repayments relating to extra loans. However, I suspect that the precise mix of loans, grants and dispensations for low-income families will be presented not within the framework of the comprehensive spending review but in—I hope I am right in thinking this—a separate Statement setting out precisely how this is going to be worked out.
I have two further questions for the Minister but before asking them I should like to say two things. First, I am pleased that the proposals suggest a level playing field for part-timers and full-timers. This is an issue for which I and many other people on all sides of the House have fought for a very long time and it is very good to see it at long last. Secondly, I also welcome the simplification proposed for the higher education system—that is, having one higher education council instead of HEFCE, OFFA and the QAA. Indeed, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator is also included, although I wonder whether it is appropriate for that to be subsumed into the single council. Although I recognise that this was not in the terms of reference, I am sorry that the review did not look further and perhaps amalgamate the old Learning and Skills Council element of adult education, as it would be good to see an adult higher education council.
I have two questions. First, am I right in thinking that—although Browne is suggesting no cap on fees, allowing universities to vary fees between institutions and indeed between subjects—the Government are, in effect, suggesting a cap of £7,000? My second question picks up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman: does the Minister accept that, although raising the threshold to £21,000 is to be welcomed, the introduction of real interest rates on a loan of £30,000 will mean that, even at an income of £30,000 a year, with repayments of £68 a month or £812 a year, most of the £812 will be consumed by interest payments and that very little capital will be paid off? That means that those in that income bracket will retain that debt and probably will not have paid it off after 30 years; they will have it hanging round them, with a 9 per cent extra marginal rate of tax.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, very much for that. It is very nice to hear her speak from this side of the Chamber. I was a little confused to start with, as this is the first time I have spoken from here with our friends on this side.
I am very pleased that the noble Baroness likes the idea of the inclusion of part-time students. It is a very good idea. At times, I have been a part-time student, so I think it will be helpful. Yes, we are looking at fees simplification, but as has been pointed out, there are further discussions to be had outside the House and within it. At this stage, nothing is written in tablets of stone as regards the skills council and so on.
The noble Baroness asked what the fee cap would be and, if there is no fee cap, whether fees could be charged at £20,000. Browne makes important recommendations about the structure and level of student contributions. We need to consider the options carefully and work out the implications of implementing them. We are considering a level of £7,000. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, recommends that there may be exceptional circumstances under which universities can price their courses above that threshold, but that would be conditional on them doing more on quality and to promote access for students from less privileged backgrounds. We are considering this proposal very carefully. There are strong views both for and against and we recognise the concerns from some that student contributions over £7,000 would put off some applicants, particularly those from low-income families. Equally, some argue that universities need to be able to charge more if they are to match the highest international standards, but we shall consider the arguments before reaching final conclusions.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton
My Lords, there is much to welcome in the report and it is a very comprehensive and far reaching review. Unfortunately, it was established as a means of getting extra, long-term sustainable money into the university sector and is now being used, in essence, to replace major cuts. That said, I have one specific question, picking up on something raised by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, which, with respect, I do not think was answered: the potential differential effect on women in the review. I shall give you one example. If you take a female teacher in the lower middle-income bracket, who maybe takes time out or works part-time for several years bringing up children as she wants to spend some time at home with them, can it possibly be fair that she, in the end, pays substantially more than a full-time City worker, earning considerably more?
Baroness Wilcox
I think that there was broad mention in the Statement that I repeated of women having to be with families and having to take time out. I hope that this will all be covered after we have got rid of this awful business of the money. These are the areas that we really need to discuss and get right now. If it is possible for us to move forward on areas of discrimination, we have an opportunity to get university fees—the way that they are done and the way that they are presented—right. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, can contribute to that and ensure that I fully understand the situation of women, so that we can use all the time that we are spending on university funding and the future of universities to try to get a much better system.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement and very much welcome the prospect of finance to meet universities' growing difficulties in providing the excellent education that we all wish for in this country. I echo the welcome of my noble friend Lady Sharp for the provision for part-time students, for which many of us have argued for a long time. That is extremely welcome.
My question is about the relationship between what graduates will be repaying and the differential fees which the universities will charge. As I understand it, the proposal in the Browne report is that universities will be able to charge variable fees, quite different fees from each other and for individual courses. Is there a mechanism whereby the repayment which graduates will make will be matched to the differential amount which the universities charge; and, if so, how will that mechanism work?
Baroness Wilcox
Clearly, we are hoping to be able to fund students to do exactly what they want to, exactly when they want to do it. Therefore, given the way that these things are put together, at the end of the day we will decide just how much money they need, and we want to make sure that they get as much money as they need to do the course that they need.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, can the noble Baroness confirm that a study has been made of the possible prejudicial and deleterious effect of any adjustment of the cap in relation to higher education finances in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland? If not, can she give an assurance that such a comprehensive and rigorous study will be made before Her Majesty's Government come to any final conclusion in this matter?
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, there will be consultation with the devolved authorities, of course, to see how this all progresses.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, when the present cap was introduced, the Government of the day said strongly that it would be a cap—a limit—and that variable fees would be charged. In practice the £3,000, now indexed, has been a normal charge. Do the Government expect the £7,000 to be the normal fee, or do they genuinely expect and aim to introduce variable fees?
Lord Liddle
My Lords, does the Minister accept that, in considering the review of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, equality of access to university is an absolutely fundamental principle? This is important in two key respects. First, while we welcome the extension of help to part-time students—that is an important social reform which the noble Lord, Lord Browne, is proposing—it will be wholly negated for the universities which rely heavily on teaching income if the teaching grant element of support for universities is slashed in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. I speak with an interest here as a director of the University of Cumbria. Secondly, in terms of the principle that the brightest working-class children should be able to go to the very best universities in this country without fear of finance being a deterrent, what action is the Minister proposing to ensure that bright working-class children will be encouraged to apply for the best universities and will have bursaries and scholarships of sufficient adequacy to ensure that they do not face any deterrents?
Baroness Wilcox
This is very important to us; I support the noble Lord on it. We all agree that widening participation is very important. We are clear about the importance of promoting fair access and widening participation in higher education. We are clear that the brightest and best must have access to higher education irrespective of family income and in those universities where, as the noble Lord described, they have difficulties at the moment. We hope that as you give evidence to us, we hear these problems explained further and better and we know what we have after the spending agreement, we will then be able to start moving forward.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I declare an interest as chancellor of the University of Essex. My question is about consultation. Before asking it, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and his team for producing this report. I pity the Minister and, indeed, the Government for having to contend with what is on any reckoning the most complex set of issues and counter-issues. It is gratifying to have the sense of the House that this will not become a political football. My question is this: public confidence in consultation is very low, so will the Minister give an absolute assurance that consultation on the set of issues we have to confront here will take as long as it takes and that every single one of our 130 or so universities will be individually consulted and that they, in turn, will consult inter alia with student unions and their staffs? Without that, frankly, we will not get the best outcome and we will not assuage public anxiety as we must.
Baroness Wilcox
I thank my noble friend Lord Phillips for that question about consultation taking as long as it should take and making sure that all universities and student unions are included in all the conversations. That will be the case. We will consult with all the facts before us. This has been a slow start for us as a Government, and I know that people are getting short-tempered with the lack of progress. We feel it. We would like to move ahead further than we have been able to do so far. The comprehensive spending review will allow us, at last, to see what the news is and to move forward from that. I am part of a coalition Government, and I can tell the House that over the past six months we have learnt to do consultation. We are doing better for it. I may not be able to produce the important answers to some of the very important questions that have been asked today, but I hope that the consultation process will bring about the thing that we all want: good education and good universities for our children, to give them the best.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Perhaps the noble Baroness will return to one of the questions raised by my noble friend Lord Triesman. He asked her whether the noble Lord, Lord Browne, had been given any indication of the Government’s evolving thinking on the CSR while drawing up his report. That is an important question. Was the noble Lord, Lord Browne, kept informed about government thinking on that point?
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said that she and others in her party would have liked to have seen no raising of the cap. But it went a little further than that, did it not? Before the election, 57 Liberal Democrat MPs not only felt the same as the noble Baroness, but signed a specific pledge saying that they would oppose the raising of the cap. The Minister speaks for the coalition. Will she tell us her feelings about that and does she regret what those 57 Liberal Democrat MPs did?
Baroness Wilcox
On the first question, the noble Baroness will have to ask the noble Lord, Lord Browne. He is here today and it is lovely that he is. On the second question, all three parties here assembled have had to rethink this problem over time. Certainly, the Benches facing me have changed their mind more than once.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, made an important point. A principle was established by the Labour Government in 1998; namely, that fees represented replacement funding. All the money which came in from the first round of fees was replacement funding. But the issue is fundamental. If our universities cannot get additional resources as a result of this increase, we will not remain competitive.
What assurance can the Minister give at this stage that additional resources will come into our universities for research and teaching over and above any loss of revenue as a result of the comprehensive spending review? On a very important point, we are to have real interest on repayment of loans after £21,000 is reached. If students repay those loans in their entirety and therefore escape having to pay any interest, have the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, calculated the loss and therefore the additional revenue that would have to be taken out of the system to compensate?
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, my noble friend comes from the other place, where I believe that he chaired the Commons committee on education. This man knows his questions. I cannot answer pretty well everything that he has asked me, sadly. There is nothing more that I can say at this stage. I realise that the comprehensive spending review is hampering us with everything today, so I offer my apologies for that.
Referendums: Constitution Committee Report
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Rennard
My Lords, the Select Committee was right to see significant drawbacks to the widespread use of referendums and to note that they have been used in the past for reasons of tactics rather than principle. There are good reasons why a referendum may sometimes be appropriate in a representative democracy, but there are also dangers to democracy from increasing the use of referendums. History teaches us that referendums can be used, as Clement Attlee famously observed, as,
“devices for demagogues and dictators”.
Even sincere attempts to use referendums for democratic reasons can fall foul of various problems to which elections may be less susceptible. Several witnesses to the Select Committee drew attention to the way in which the question on a referendum ballot paper is often not the question on which people actually vote. In 2003, a national newspaper attempted to conduct a referendum on the question of whether there should be a national referendum on the proposed constitution for Europe. Using newsagents as polling stations, it sought to give people their say on this issue. But evidence suggested that as many as 90 per cent of those who voted thought that the question had been about the single currency and not about the constitution at all.
The Select Committee report quotes Dr O’Malley of Dublin City University illustrating how in Ireland the first referendum on the Lisbon treaty became one on abortion and conscription rather than on the treaty. This was, as Professor David Butler described, a result of the disproportionate influence exercised by a single very rich individual who wanted to influence the outcome of that referendum. So referendums may not always be about handing power to the people, they may be about handing disproportionate power to certain wealthy groups and individuals.
More frequently, referendums can effectively become about support or opposition to the Government of the day. The timing of the 1997 referendums in Scotland and Wales, and the nature of those campaigns, suggested that they were as much about a referendum endorsing the change of Westminster government that had just taken place as the questions on the ballot paper about the future governance of Scotland and Wales. Elected Governments across the world are advised that if they wish to make changes that are endorsed by a referendum, they should generally do so before the so-called mid-term unpopularity kicks in, making it much harder to win such a poll, which can become a protest vote against the Government themselves.
When should a referendum be right in principle as opposed to a tactic to suit the party in power that proposes it? I think that the committee has produced a good list of the most obvious potential issues that may be considered of fundamental constitutional importance and could therefore be appropriate for a national referendum. The clearest case to be made for a referendum must be on the issue of how people elect their representatives. That is because the alternative to a referendum on this issue is that those representatives effectively choose for themselves the system by which they are elected. There is much we may learn from the experience of the referendum on electoral reform that is due next May.
The committee looked in particular at the issue of thresholds in referendums. But before we get to the referendum next May, there are attempts being made in the other place today to impose a threshold that 40 per cent of the electorate be required to endorse change before it can happen. If such a threshold had been adopted in the recent general election, requiring MPs to have the support of 40 per cent of their electorates, then only three out of the 650 Members of Parliament would have been declared elected. We do not have a minimum turnout threshold for electing MPs, MEPs, councillors or other representatives, so I cannot see the general justification for one in order to deem a referendum vote valid. The committee was therefore right, in my view, to recommend a general presumption against the use of voter turnout thresholds and super-majorities.
I cannot, however, agree with the committee’s conclusion about whether or not referendums can generally be held at the same time as other ballots, and nor do the Government. The issue of turnout, and therefore of legitimacy, may be linked to whether or not referendums can be held at the same time as other elections. It seems somewhat contradictory that some of those who make democratic legitimacy arguments in support of a minimum turnout threshold, in particular for referendums, also argue for the decoupling of referendums from other elections. All those of us who have been involved in elections know that it is hard enough to get people out to vote at any time without increasing the frequency with which they have to do so.
The argument against holding a referendum at the same time as other elections is based on the idea that people could not comprehend a referendum question that otherwise would be intelligible because they are also electing representatives on the same day. This defies the experience of many countries. It also defies past experience in this country, which noble Lords opposite may well remember; that of the referendum on creating a London Assembly and a mayor of London. That referendum coincided with the London borough elections in 1998, and we know that London voters had no difficulty dealing with these separate issues on the same day. I do not expect that we will ever be asking voters to deal with the series of questions and huge range of elections that voters in the United States often cope with.
There is also an argument about the cost of staging a referendum. The marginal costs of holding a referendum on the same day as other elections are but a small fraction of what the costs would be of a separate referendum, which are equivalent to the costs of a general election.
More fundamentally, one of the potential downsides of referendums identified by the committee is the problem of people treating the vote in a referendum as a vote on the Government of the day rather than as an issue of principle. This is actually ameliorated by holding referendums on the same day as other elections. People can use their elections to have their say on the Government of the day and who their representative should be, while at the same time using the referendum to decide an issue of principle. In a number of other countries, a referendum on future changes to the voting system has coincided with a general election held under the old system, thereby binding the hands of those elected under the old system to make any change required by the voter for future elections. That is a democratically healthy principle and one that I hope we may see in future.
Lord Pannick
My Lords, I want to focus on the Government’s written response to the committee’s report. The Minister, Mr Harper, said that the Government do not share the committee’s concern that referendums in the past have been used as a tactical device in an ad hoc manner. He assured noble Lords and the committee that the Government are committed to the use of referendums as a means of giving people a greater say in politics. The evidence which the committee heard—I declare an interest as a member—clearly established that Mr Harper is simply wrong in his analysis of the past and that the current proposals the Government are putting forward strongly suggest that Mr Harper’s hopes for the future are unlikely to be met.
As to the past, some of the most striking evidence we heard is summarised at paragraphs 37 and 38 of our report. The noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, has already mentioned the evidence of Professor David Butler, of Nuffield College, Oxford, that normally referendums happen only when the Government think they are going to win. It may be that the next referendum will happen only because the Government think that they are going to lose. Steve Richards, the chief political commentator at the Independent newspaper gave similar evidence. He emphasised that the referendum is a tool used by political leaders to suggest that they are giving away powers when in fact they have carefully controlled the circumstances to ensure that they attain the desired result.
None of this should take anyone by surprise. The referendum is a powerful political mechanism and politicians will use it in the way they use all other political mechanisms—to advance their own political agendas. Referendums in the past have simply not been used to give people a greater say in politics— Mr Harper’s aspiration. Indeed, if that had been the case, important social reforms such as the abolition of capital punishment, homosexual law reform and race relations law would have been prevented or at least severely delayed.
Of course, people must be encouraged to have their say on political questions, but decisions on such matters are for Parliament. Parliament has the task not merely of informing itself but also of leading public opinion where appropriate. Its task is not simply to identify what public opinion is and then to follow it.
If we confine our attention to constitutional issues, we see that it is simply not the case that the referendum has been used consistently in the past; it has been used wholly arbitrarily. Major constitutional change has occurred in this country without a referendum: the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the decision in 1966 to give the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the removal of almost all hereditary Peers from this House in 1999. The committee’s report is surely correct, therefore, in stating at paragraph 96 that the inconsistency in the use of the referendum in this country supports the view that the referendum is at heart,
“a tactical device rather than a matter of high constitutional principle”.
That is the past. As to Mr Harper’s hopes for the future use of the referendum as a means of giving people a greater say in politics, the evidence of this Government’s record so far does not suggest any move away from the tactical use of a referendum as, when and to the degree that it suits the Government. Mr Harper’s letter includes a list of the matters on which they are considering referendums. It does not include their plan to reform this House to introduce a wholly or mainly elected upper Chamber—the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, referred to this matter in opening today’s debate. The question inevitably arises why, if the Government are so keen, as Mr Harper tells the committee and the House, on the referendum as a means of giving people a greater say on major constitutional reforms, the public are not to be given such a say on House of Lords reform.
The Government are proposing a referendum on the voting method for elections to the other place, but as your Lordships well know, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill will offer the public a choice only between the present first past the post system and the alternative vote method of election. Any objective exercise to identify the views of the public would include the choice of proportional representation as a means of electing the other place; indeed, it has long been the view of those on the Liberal Democrat Benches that such a system should be adopted.
I, like all your Lordships, have great admiration for the debating skills of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, as well as for all his other qualities, but I am doubtful that even he can persuade noble Lords today that the lack of any present intention to offer a referendum giving a wider choice of voting systems can be consistent with Mr Harper’s assertion that this Government deprecate the use of the referendum as a tactical device.
I hope that the Government will be slow to propose referendums in the future, even on constitutional issues. Complex issues of government are best decided by Parliament, taking full account of the views of all sections of society, of course. I am concerned, like the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that referendums will inevitably be strongly influenced by the drafting of the question, the power of the press to influence thinking, the popularity of the Government when the referendum occurs and the ability of people to understand the issues that are being posed. The Electoral Commission’s recent report on the proposed referendum on the alternative vote revealed an alarming state of public ignorance on the subject—a matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Hart of Chilton, has already referred.
My point is not to encourage the Government to hold more referendums: it is that the committee was undoubtedly correct to conclude that a referendum is, always has been, and will remain, a political device that a Government will inevitably seek to manipulate to advance their own objectives. When the Government propose a referendum, we should lock the doors and make sure that the political burglar alarms are working.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I have the greatest respect for the debating skills of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is an old friend. I propose to put a few points to him to test them later in the debate. First, as one of the non-members of the committee, like the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I add my sincere congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and to the members of the committee on a well considered and helpful report. I only wish that I could say the same about the Government's response to the report.
In particular, we in this House should be concerned at the apparent contempt in the Government's response to the report, and in the Bill being discussed today in the House of Commons, for the role of Parliament. The Government seem to be saying that as soon as they decide something, it will happen. What has happened to the phrase “subject to approval by Parliament”? We are told that it will be a five-year Parliament because the Deputy Prime Minister has decided that. He does not say that it is subject to the approval of Parliament, which it is.
Equally, with a referendum, whereas the Electoral Commission very cleverly and carefully says “the proposed referendum”, the Government call it the referendum that is due to take place, not which they hope will take place or is planned. The presumption is that because it has been decided by the Government it will automatically happen, without proper consideration by either House of Parliament, let alone both.
I take two points from the report. First, the committee recommends that,
“cross-party agreement should be sought as to the circumstances in which it is appropriate for referendums to be used”.
That is certainly not in the spirit of the Bill going through the other place. There does not seem to be any cross-party agreement there. The second point is that:
“We recommend that referendums should not be held on the same day as General Elections”.
Following that argument, I presume that that would apply to elections in Scotland, Wales and local government elections in England. I will concentrate on that. The Government's response to having a referendum on the same day as these elections is that it saves money. I have a better suggestion for saving money: do not have a referendum at all. That would save even more money, if that is a main constraint that concerns them.
The Government’s response is full of strange ideas. For example, I take the suggestion of local referendums on council tax increases. That is a populist notion; I do not know whether it comes from the Liberal Democrats or the Tories. It is probably from some old liberal tradition which still exists on the Benches opposite. But it begs lots of questions—and I shall give three. Why not a referendum on a council tax decrease, which has just as much effect in reducing services? That is not being suggested. Why not have referendums on other taxes? And how much will the referendum cost? Will it cost more than the tax increase that might take place? The suggestion begs so many questions that it is manifestly something put in without any great thought at all.
As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the referendum on the alternative vote offers only that one choice—the simple choice between first past the post and the alternative vote. I make no bones about it. Like many of my colleagues on this side and a great many opposite, I am in favour of first past the post. For the lower House, which produces the Government and from which the Government are decided, it normally results in stable government—although we have an exception at the moment. If we had an elected second Chamber, although that is a separate debate, there would be an argument for electing it by some form of proportional representation so that the revising House was of a different composition, in order to look at the legislation coming from the Government in the lower House. But why are we having this referendum on the alternative vote? Most of us on our side do not want it, most of the Tories do not want it and the Liberal Democrats do not really want it. They want the single transferable vote—proper PR. So why have we got it? The only thing that I can deduce is that it is a Trojan horse, the thin end of the wedge. Once 150 years of tradition in this country of electing the Commons by first past the post is thrown aside and we move to AV and there are problems with it, people could say, “Well, if we’ve done it once, let’s do it again—let’s try the single transferable vote, or the system we have in Scotland”. Once you open the Pandora’s box—I hope noble Lords will excuse me mixing metaphors—you do not know where it will stop.
Finally, I turn to the question of having a referendum on the same day as the elections in Scotland, Wales and local government elections in England. I shall take Scotland as an example and point out to noble Lords the reality of the confusion that it will cause. Of course, the electorate is not stupid—no one is suggesting that. Each person will go in and do their best to understand the system and the whole election campaign. Let us imagine, however, that the elections and a referendum are taking place in Scotland on 5 May next year. People will go in to find two ballot papers for the Scottish Parliament elections—one for first past the post, on which they have to put an X opposite the name of the person whom they want to be their constituency representative. They might see Sarah Boyack in Edinburgh Central—a little propaganda getting in here—and they put an X down next to her name. Then they have another list in which they have to put the numbers one to five against the party that they want to support for the list candidates. So that is quite a complicated thing already. In the run-up to that, there will have been campaigns for the constituency and the list, and people will need to understand that—and it takes some understanding, I assure you. Then they would have a third ballot paper on which the referendum vote would be cast. All that is quite a complicated exercise already. Then we come to the real fly in the ointment: the voting on the referendum will be carried out on a different franchise from that for the Scottish Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said in a reply to me only recently. The referendum will be held on the parliamentary franchise and the vote for the Scottish Parliament will be on the local government franchise, so people will come in and they will be told, “Oh no, you can’t vote that way”, or “Wait a minute, we’ll have to check”—you can imagine the confusion which will take place. I hope that I have illustrated enough and I look forward to the explanation from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, of how this will be dealt with, particularly with the two different franchises.
We will also have two different campaigns running at the same time. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, says that people will of course understand the different campaigns and vote differently on them, but he also said earlier that Governments carefully choose the times of referendums to get particular outcomes—they want to have it early in this period—so he has already admitted that contamination takes place; in this case, there will be cross-contamination. A referendum might be voted through or voted down not because of the value of the arguments on it as such, but because of people’s other concerns about the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or, indeed, what is happening here in Westminster in relation to the coalition Government. It is very stupid and I hope that the Government will think again.
When the Bill comes through the other place, there is an amendment to change the date which, if it does not get through there, will come here. I hope that the coalition Government will seriously consider separating the dates. I made it clear that I do not want the referendum at all and will vote against it if we have that opportunity, but if we are to have it—if that is the will of Parliament, ultimately—then I plead with the Government not to have it on the same day.
Finally, on the gerrymandering Bill—a better title for it than the long title that it has—which is now going through its committee stage in the House of Commons, perhaps I might tell my own Front Bench, and I choose my words carefully here, that if the Government continue to ride roughshod over Parliament and to propose things such as having no appeals or hearings for boundary changes, and if they bring things in which are entirely against the spirit of our democracy, we in opposition should respond in like terms.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, the committee's thorough and skilful report is most welcome, not only for the contribution which it offers to the potential use of referendums but for the way in which it implicitly opens up questions about the effective operation of our democracy, which so obviously lie in the background. For my part, while I welcome the general tenor of the report, with its caution about the use of referendums and its various health warnings along the way, here and there I think that the report is too cautions. I may be able to offer the Minister a little more pastoral care than he has received so far in the debate.
Why do I think that the report is a bit too cautions? Our aim is good government through a strong, representative democracy. One easy conclusion would be that if this aim is already achieved, there is little need for the use of referendums unless major constitutional change is proposed. Even there, there are issues to debate. This, in large measure, seems to be the underlying logic of the committee's report, and there is much to commend that, but there are two ways in which the logic needs some qualification.
The first picks up some comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, although not quite in the context in which he offered them, concerning the current balance in our constitutional arrangements between the Government, or Executive, and Parliament. It has been widely remarked in recent years that the balance has become an imbalance, with the Executive using the powers at their command to dominate Parliament. It is several decades since Lord Hailsham coined the well-known phrase “elective dictatorship” in his Dimbleby lecture to point up the dangers, but since he issued that warning the dangers have got even greater. Perhaps the advent of coalition government has not entirely helped, not least in this House where a whipped vote of the coalition partners will be much harder to defeat than has previously been the case.
The problem of an over-dominant Executive is widely before us, and it is not conducive to the flourishing of representative democracy. The natural solution, of course, would be to seek to rebalance the relationship between the Government and Parliament, but that is more easily said than done because of the pressures that the Government are under and because so much power has in practice already been transferred to the Executive.
Perhaps a somewhat greater use of referendums would be a useful tool of empowerment to the people of this country, a way of embodying and demonstrating that the power which Governments wield is exercised on behalf of all our citizens. We have to face the widespread cynicism about politics and politicians today, as we have been sharply reminded in the past two years. We should not underestimate what needs to be done in order to counteract this, and a somewhat wider use of referendums on a consultative basis may have a place in the appropriate strategy. This would not be a panacea, as the noble Lord, Lord Hart, suggested, but it may have a place in a consultative way.
If referendums were purely consultative, that would take the sting out of a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said in his powerful speech. The decision could rest with Parliament, be it about capital punishment or constitutional change, but there is a real advantage in empowering people and involving them in decisions. If we say that there is public ignorance, that is not a reason for not consulting people; it is a reason for increasing public knowledge, and properly conducted referendums could have a place in achieving that.
I shall point to a couple of examples, one where a referendum was used and one where it was not but it might have been and, I believe, should have been. Imagine for a moment that there had not been a referendum in the north-east in 2004 about regional devolution. This was a highly political subject, the government of the day at least appearing to be strongly in favour of regional devolution. It is easy to think that the government of the day would have convinced themselves of the rightness of their proposals and gone ahead, but a clear result in the referendum effectively prevented that happening—rightly so, I believe. In saying this, I am aware that any referendum will be a rough and ready tool, and the outcome will need careful interpretation. Proper questions were raised about aspects of the process and campaign in the north-east. Nevertheless, I think it is widely accepted that the wisdom of holding that consultative referendum is undeniable.
Let us look at this from another point of view in, perhaps, a more controversial area where referendums have not been held, and the committee draws attention to this—that is, over successive European treaties. I tread somewhat warily into this territory, but the lack of any referendum on at least one of the treaties since 1975 has had a bad effect on how politics is viewed in this country. There is a widespread sense—not only among London taxi drivers, although they certainly exhibit it—that too much power has been transferred without proper scrutiny and democratic consent to the European Union by successive Governments forcing the relevant legislation through by heavily whipped votes. I say this as a supporter of the European Union who is largely grateful for our membership, but the absence of any recognised test and mandate of the people of our country as a whole may yet return to haunt our political life, not least since the major parties have broadly taken the same European policies to the electorate in successive election campaigns.
I move to a more local example from my own neck of the woods in Cheshire. Several years ago, without a local referendum, there was a consultation—I put inverted commas around the word in my notes—about the future shape of local government in the county of Cheshire. There were three options, broadly: a continuance of the previous arrangements in some form of dual administration by a county council and six district councils; a single Cheshire-wide unitary; or two new unitaries, east and west Cheshire. The great weight of the responses to the consultation favoured either a revised status quo or a single unitary. However, a political decision was made by the Minister to impose two new unitaries, which seemed to most people in my community to have little local support. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who is not now in his place, said earlier that public confidence in consultation is very low; I am not surprised that that can be said.
I pay tribute to those who are making the new system of east and west Cheshire work, but there remains the widespread feeling that the community of Cheshire was subject to an executive decision in London that did not take sufficient account of what the people of Cheshire judged was best. The very fact that the new unitaries are called east Cheshire and west Cheshire rather indicates that there is an underlying social and geographical reality of Cheshire to which both belong. The exercise has been much more expensive than a single unitary would have been. The people of Cheshire as a whole deserved the chance to be consulted before a decision was taken by the Minister, just as the people of the north-east were consulted about regional devolution.
Perhaps it is implied in the coalition agreement that this should have happened, because a referendum is required for the introduction of an elected mayor. Should it not also be required for any major change in local constitutional arrangements? Amid my general support for the government response, I look forward to the Minister’s response on that specific point. It is relevant not just to elected mayors.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Can the right reverend Prelate, in a national, rather than a local government, context, take account of the fact that referenda tend to be judgments as much on the proposer as on the proposition? If the proposer is not very popular at any time, it affords the electorate an opportunity to have a go at them. That is probably the reason—more so than any other—why devolution in the north-east was rejected. In 2004 the status and popularity of the Labour Government in an area where they were normally held in high regard were somewhat lower than we would otherwise have expected them to be.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
That point was raised earlier in the debate. Of course there will be a range of factors that come into play. I lived and worked in the north-east for nearly 10 years. I was not surprised that when the people were consulted they gave the response that they did. I think that most people would now think that it would have been wrong to introduce regional government. However, to address the point more directly, the very fact that referendums are held so sporadically, in such an ad hoc way, has contributed to the fact that they can be misused or interpreted as a judgment on the proposer. That is why a slightly more organised protocol for the use of referendums, particularly, perhaps, for local issues but occasionally also for national issues, would be beneficial to our democracy. However, there is no panacea and there are dangers with whatever approach one takes.
I conclude with a more general point about the exercise of political power. The notion seems to have grown up that strong government necessarily means powerful government, with the government of the day being perceived to be in charge of events. Yes, that is understandable. However, the intolerable pressures of the modern media can push a Government too far. Is it not one of the implications of the idea of a big society, as opposed to a big state or big government, that a strong Government can display their strength by sharing their power with the people most affected by a decision? That, I believe, lies behind the proposed localism Bill. It is also the underlying reason why we should be prepared to welcome a rather wider use of consultative referendums than has been the case in recent times, and as the committee’s report recommends.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. We owe the existence of the Lords spiritual as a valuable element in your Lordships’ House to their medieval predecessors’ reluctance to serve in a court to try their fellow Peers. It is good to know that referendums can honourably enter the purview of the Lords spiritual.
On a personal note, I mourn the recent death of Lord Bingham. His maiden speech in your Lordships' House as Lord Chief Justice was on the then constitutional settlement. On principle he never spoke in this Chamber as a Law Lord, save to give judgments; but one had hoped that in retirement he might have come back to speak in this Chamber, not least on constitutional subjects—so he is already missed.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, not only on securing the chairmanship of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House but on having celebrated it so admirably today. I congratulate her, too, on the compliment paid her by the Electoral Commission at lunchtime today in providing briefing in room 13 on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and its referendum implications, which I like to think was a deliberate act.
I have myself never been a member of the Constitution Committee, so what qualifications do I have to speak? Perhaps I should declare one interest in that the local polls in Wales on the Sunday opening of pubs during the 1960s, referred to in paragraph 2 of this report, was the product of a suggestion by my noble and leaned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon—as he then was not—and was implemented by my late noble kinsman as Minister for Welsh Affairs. I have a miniature qualification in having lived in Switzerland for a year 50 years ago, and thus breathed the referendum air.
I spoke in Marlow on the yes platform on the 1975 referendum and was told engagingly afterwards by my fellow speaker, a Wing Commander Martin, that I had developed arguments he believed no one else in the hall had ever thought of before. Wing Commander Martin was, I think, the first British officer into Sarawak after the Japanese surrender and remarked to me that he thought the people of Sarawak might well have voted for the return of the Brookes as white rajas if the opportunity had been afforded them.
I lived through the 1977-79 debates on Welsh and Scottish devolution as a participant opposition Back-Bencher, and 20 years later in the 1997-1999 period I felt unease about the referendum arrangements regarding Scotland, Wales, the Greater London Authority and the Belfast agreement, which seemed to be made up as the Government went along and were regulated and finally corralled only by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 after all four of these referendums had been done and dusted. The more’s the pity given the international praise that that Act has since received. Perhaps that Act may let us draw a line under the past.
In relation to the Belfast agreement referendum, the Prime Minister—whose name had already been deployed in the Welsh referendum by a plane drawing a banner across south Wales, saying, “Vote yes, vote Blair”—was pressed to campaign on the Belfast agreement referendum by Labour MPs who had been campaigning for the yes vote, which they feared they might lose without his participation, which gave rise to one pledge or promise of his which he, of course, was later unable to fulfil. That brings me, as a new reader, to the excellent report that we are debating today. The gallimaufry of quotations assembled from relevant academics is a rich quarry even if it occasions the same discipline one has to observe in the splendid, comparatively recent biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, of constantly needing to look up the dramatis personae in the index. The cut and thrust of observations and apothegms is worthy of a Platonic dialogue, though they are, of course, to some degree taken out of context, and it leads to suspense in the process to see on which side of the argument the committee will eventually come down, which it summarises by assessing the balance of evidence. Out of context, surprise sometimes occurs.
On the issue of choice of subjects for referendums, I have on a prior occasion cited one of my late noble kinsman’s constituents, a very competent photographer named Miss Compton Collier. She lived in a flat in West Hampstead, possessed neither radio nor television and never read newspapers. She told her bank manager that it was his obligation to let her know if anything of real significance occurred. He prudently inquired what her standards of “real significance” were. She said that that was a very easy question to answer: they were the death of the sovereign or the outbreak of war. That procedure has much to recommend it, but as a resolution for the choice of subjects by one’s bank manager, it is as unpredictable and impenetrable a method as the Duckworth Lewis one is to the average spectator at a limited-overs cricket match.
Knowing, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, will have both the right and opportunity of reply, I shall follow the principle of getting your retaliation in first which is pursued by the British Lions on rugby football tours, and say that, on his point on the composition of the House of Lords being irrelevant because the people of this country have had decades to consider this change—a view which the coalition seems to share, as other speakers have said—as the right reverend Prelate said, the same might likewise have been said about regional government in the north-east, when the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was driven back to that far-off fastness because he believed that he knew the answer for sure, as in the example given by Professor David Butler to the committee that a referendum on 4 November some years back proved otherwise and earned the experiment the title of 4/11 throughout Whitehall. If I had a preference for elections to your Lordships' House, I would not bet my own house on such a result if a national referendum on the composition of your Lordships' House were held.
My own interpretation of the overall tenor of this report is that the referendum is a device not without worth but that it should not be abused by overuse. That seems to me a very British conclusion to which I have no difficulty subscribing.
Lord Liddle
My Lords, I also welcome this excellent report by my noble friend Lady Jay’s committee. I should like to add my thoughts on referenda as they apply to the European Union.
I suppose that, so far in my life, I have been involved in one real referendum and two failed referenda. I took part in the 1975 referendum on the European Union. I was one of the organisers of “Oxford says yes to Europe” and greatly enjoyed the campaign. In my period working as a Europe adviser to Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister, I was also involved in debates and discussions on two referenda on the European Union, neither of which actually happened—very regrettably, a referendum on whether we should join the euro; and, very thankfully, a possible referendum on the constitutional treaty.
In 1975, I had come to the view that a referendum was a good thing because it would settle the Europe issue for all time. Well, it did not. I think that that should be a warning to all referendum enthusiasts—it does not settle issues for all time. When I started working for Tony Blair I allowed myself to be persuaded again that a referendum on the euro would be a good thing. It was the arguments of Hugo Young that I found most persuasive. He said that this would be an existential choice for Britain, about Britain’s future direction in the world, and it was right that we should have a referendum on it. As we know now, that issue became bogged down and blocked in questions of whether the economic circumstances were right for Britain to join, and whether the five economic tests were fulfilled. In retrospect my view is that if a referendum were to have been held, it should have taken place in 1998 or 1999, on the principle of whether Britain should join the euro. Then the decision on when we did it, according to when the economic circumstances were right, should have been left to the Chancellor and to the Cabinet. That was what the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead urged on the Prime Minister at the time, and in retrospect he was right.
The constitutional treaty referendum was announced by the Prime Minister to the House of Commons in April 2004. I could never see a case for it because the constitutional treaty, despite its portentous title, was nothing more than a classic amending treaty to the basic treaties of the European Union. In its policy content it was a lot less significant in its effects than the Single European Act. I remember a meeting at which Mr Blair expressed these views very forcefully to the then Foreign Secretary, saying, “Jack, are you saying that we should have a referendum on this treaty? That would involve running up and down the streets, telling people to come out and vote in favour of a double-hatted Foreign Minister. Do you think that that is what people are going to respond to?”.
When the referendum was proposed in 2004, it was done purely for tactical reasons, not for reasons of principle. The tactical reasons were, first, a misjudgment about how this House would vote on the treaty and a feeling that a referendum clause would be added; and secondly, a fear that the issue would be very damaging to Labour in the European elections that were coming up. Those are not good reasons for having referenda, and I was extremely pleased that when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, he saw no case for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and that, once he had made the decision and explained it clearly, the passage of the Bill through the House was a complete damp squib. I remember the then Minister for Europe, Mr Jim Murphy, telling me that he had had hardly any letters about it in his postbag.
In the recess, the coalition Government announced in a Written Ministerial Statement by David Lidington on 13 September that legislation would be introduced this Session for multiple referenda on matters European, on the basic test of whether a transfer of powers would take place. According to the Statement, not just new treaties but so-called ratchet clauses which amount to the transfer of an area of competence or power from the UK to the EU will be subjected to a referendum. Well, I find it deeply objectionable. First—this is a point about referenda—the Government's language is all about transfer of powers. That is not how I see it. We are talking about a pooling of sovereignty to give us more power to act over things that are important to us. Technically we may be surrendering sovereignty to Brussels, but we are gaining real power to act. That raises real questions about how the questions would be posed in such referenda on so-called transfers of powers, because that would confuse people.
Secondly, if the Bill had been in place in 1997, we would have had referenda on every amending treaty that has passed since—not just on the treaty of Lisbon but on those of Nice and Amsterdam. That makes three referenda in all. Technically—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, may correct me—we would have had a fourth, because in 2004 it was decided under a passerelle clause to make immigration and asylum a matter of qualified majority voting, which certainly would have passed the Government's test of what would have required a referendum. So many referenda in such a short period would be ridiculous and I do not think that people would know what they were all about, but having referenda on so-called passerelle clauses is an added great confusion. Who will decide which passerelles represent a fundamental so-called transfer of power? That is very unclear. We will probably have the Supreme Court deciding which matters should be subject to referenda. Therefore, I see this as an undesirable development, and frankly I am amazed that my good friend the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the Liberal Democrats have agreed to these proposals being brought forward by the coalition Government. I find it amazing that what was the most pro-European party in Britain has agreed to them.
I do not rule out all referenda. If we in Britain are to have a referendum on Europe, let us have it on big and simple choices. Let us have a referendum on whether we are going to be fully committed members of the European Union or whether we are going to pull out. It seems that we could have a referendum on that. However, do not let us kid ourselves that, except on these very big issues, referenda are a way of dealing with the problem of legitimacy in our democracy. We do that by restoring trust in our parliamentary institutions and by having politicians and political parties that are prepared to argue and lead—not to go for the cop-out of referenda, which I believe just encourage the backstairs politics of tactical manoeuvre.
Baroness Quin
My Lords, I, too, am pleased to participate in this debate, particularly as this was the last report in which I was involved as a member of the Constitution Committee, and it is a subject that I was particularly keen to see the committee examine. I am glad to say that I strongly support the report and its recommendations.
I take this opportunity to congratulate my noble friend Lady Jay on her appointment as chair of the committee. I add my own words of thanks to the outgoing chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, who also addressed us this afternoon.
I hope that this debate is timely. It is good to see that, unlike the debates on many committee reports on the Floor of the House which are often dominated by committee members, the debate on this one has also attracted a large number of Members who were not involved in the committee’s deliberations but have obviously been very interested in the committee’s work on this subject.
I was certainly concerned about aspects of the Government’s policy on referendums, and that concern was triggered when the then leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, said on 10 June 2009 in another place:
“Is it not time to allow people the opportunity to present a proposition and have it voted on in a local referendum … Should we not give them the right to hold a referendum on massive council tax rises?—[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/09; col. 800.]
That seemed to herald a considerable change in our political system, perhaps even going so far as to introduce a California ballot initiative system of a kind which I think has caused many problems. Certainly it begged a lot of questions about how massive tax rises should be defined, and indeed perhaps, following the comments of my noble friend Lord Foulkes, whether massive reductions could also be the subject of a ballot.
I was also concerned that at the time the then leader of the Opposition and his team did not wish to give oral evidence to the committee, despite being invited to do so. I am therefore very glad that the current committee has been pressing the Government to give their opinion on these issues. I hope that the Minister who has the possibly unenviable task of responding to the debate will be able to give us more information about the Government’s precise plans.
In that connection, I have learnt—and certainly the point has been made—that the Government are proposing to transform the leaders of 12 large councils into mayors, with mayoral powers, and then to ask for this to be subsequently confirmed in a referendum at some unspecified date. That seems to be an extraordinary way of bringing in a change. If you agreed with referendums, presumably you would ask the people beforehand, but it seems very strange to bring in this change and then, at some unspecified date, to ask for it to be confirmed. Perhaps in his reply the Minister can enlighten us on that specific point.
In some ways it is difficult to argue against referendums, certainly when one hears comments such as, “Let the people decide” and “Let the people’s voice be heard”. However, I share the concerns of both the committee and many others who have spoken in this debate that, despite what the Government say, we have tended to proceed on an ad hoc basis for a variety of political reasons and for political expediency. Certainly, the precedents are not good. The 1975 referendum was essentially devised as a way of massaging divisions in the Labour Party. I think that the current Minister and I—I was a junior member of his staff in the Labour Party at the time—both remember that period very vividly. Indeed, the referendum which was unexpectedly —to me, at least—announced in April 2004 and which has been referred to in detail by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, also seemed to be an announcement for short-term political consideration rather than a decision thought out on the basis of constitutional principle.
I believe that we need to think about when we want to use referendums, and I also believe that we should try to proceed on a cross-party basis as much as possible. That might be seen as a naive belief in our party-political system; none the less, when we talk about constitutional innovations and major constitutional changes, it would be much more satisfactory if cross-party, or at least a fairly broad measure of, agreement could be achieved in those circumstances.
We need to think about how far we are a parliamentary or representative democracy and how far we want to move towards being a plebiscitary democracy. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, mentioned the debates about the Lisbon treaty and I largely agree with him. It was a long, complicated treaty and I would be the last person to say that members of the public are not capable of judging for themselves the nature of a treaty such as that. However, one part of me wonders what Parliament is about if it is not there to scrutinise in detail, line by line, treaties and then come to a decision as a result. That seems to be a fundamental element of a representative democracy and it is certainly something that we should think about very carefully before changing it. Sometimes a referendum can seem to be an abdication of responsibility in which a Government say, “Oh well, this issue is too difficult. Let’s not deal with it ourselves”, yet sometimes in politics you need the courage to make difficult political decisions.
I was not going to mention the north-east referendum at all, having been indelibly scarred by the experience. However, I was provoked into doing so by the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and those of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who I think, to my horror, said something about the north-east being a “far-off fastness”. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that if you live in the north-east, you think of the south-east of England as being a far-off fastness.
I do not think that the north-east referendum was a case of a Government very keen on the idea trying to foist it on an unwilling population. The genesis of north-east devolution is rather different. Many north-easterners—indeed, I was one of them— campaigned for years to try to promote the idea of regional devolution, and the Government, of whom I was very proud to be a part, had some members who were not very enthusiastic about it. I very much agreed with the comments made in an intervention by my noble friend Lord O’Neill, who said that of course a referendum is very much influenced by what is going on in the country at the time of that referendum.
I say to the right reverend Prelate that there had been many opinion polls before the actual referendum in the north-east which showed that people favoured the idea of regional devolution and yet the timing of the referendum must, in many ways, have delighted the No campaign almost beyond its wildest dreams. There was an anti-politician feeling around which was not helped by the fact that MPs’ expenses were published for the first time and their salaries, secretarial expenses, living in London allowances and all the rest were added up as if there were a huge inflated sum which MPs were putting in their pockets. Although I am a strong supporter of the Scottish Parliament, it was also unfortunate that at that precise time the estimates of the building in Edinburgh happened to be more than 10 times the original estimate and, therefore, if you were a No campaigner saying, “Who wants a lot of extra expensive politicians and a white elephant?” then these things were grist to the mill. I console myself by remembering that in Wales there was a very strong vote against devolution in the 1970s but, none the less, public opinion can and does change. Although I may not be around myself, I hope that this will happen in the north-east.
Quite rightly, the report looks at international examples. I wish to add one which does not appear in the report: it is interesting that Germany, a strong and decentralised democracy, is very much against national referendums because of past experience particularly in the interwar years and when the regime used them to manipulate public opinion and to engineer particular outcomes.
In conclusion, I think that the committee is right to urge caution. We need to think carefully about referendums becoming an integral part of our system. Preferably, we should proceed on a cross-party basis. In highlighting these points, this debate is very much to be welcomed. Like others, I look forward to the Minister's reply without envying him his task.
Baroness O'Loan
My Lords, this is a carefully reasoned and well evidenced report on the use of referendums. The questions addressed by the committee are very specific and address the range of key issues fundamental to this debate.
Perhaps the most compelling conclusion is that contained in paragraph 94 of the report, which states:
“Notwithstanding our views that there are significant drawbacks to the use of referendums, we acknowledge arguments that, if referendums are to be used, they are most appropriately used in relation to fundamental constitutional issues”.
The committee went on to give us an indication of what it regarded as fundamental constitutional issues. The list was not definitive, but it was strongly indicative of the boundaries which the committee considered reflect the appropriate use of referendums.
Those referendums which have taken place within the United Kingdom since 1973 fall largely within the definition of constitutional issues, although it is questionable whether they were all fundamental constitutional issues. Perhaps the most significant one for me was the Belfast agreement in 1998, in which 71.1 per cent of those polled gave community consent for the continuation of the Northern Ireland peace process on the basis of the agreement. The road to peace was long and hard, both before and after the agreement, but the referendum and the breadth of the provisions of the Good Friday agreement formed a sound basis on which the community could embrace the proposed mechanisms for peace. Although we continue to be subject to paramilitary activity, the majority of the population are focused on the economic and social development of Northern Ireland. I would argue that that is the proper use of a referendum.
The committee noted the claimed positive features of referendums, but was persuaded by the counter arguments to recommend limitations on their use. The limitations are well articulated in the report: that referendums tend to be dominated by elite groups—we have certainly seen that; that they can have a damaging effect on minority groups; that they may block progress, but they do not settle the issue anyway; that they fail to deal with complex issues; that they tend not to be about the issue in question, particularly when the issues are very complex; that voters show little desire to participate in referendums; that referendums are costly—already today several noble Lords have mentioned the £120 million cost of a national referendum; and, most importantly, that they undermine or have the potential to undermine representative democracy.
The committee concluded that there are significant drawbacks to the use of referendums. It noted that,
“we regret … the manner in which referendums have been used, often as a tactical device, by the government of the day”.
The committee recommended that, where possible, cross-party agreement should be sought on the circumstances in which it is appropriate for referendums to be used. Yet, as has been said by noble Lords today, we do not have cross-party agreement on the current proposed referendum and I am not even sure that there is coalition Government agreement on the proposed referendums.
There are many complex issues which evoke calls for referendums. For example, in response to rising crime levels there were calls for the return of birching in the 1950s and since. There are regular calls for the reintroduction of capital punishment and for the banning of immigration. There are calls also for a referendum on the issue of assisted dying. These are profound and fundamental questions. Should we have referendums on all these issues as well?
I want to use the issue of assisted dying to explore this matter through the evidence given to the committee. There are opinion polls which regularly indicate that a majority of people would favour a change in the law on assisted dying, but that is not, of itself, a sufficient reason for changing the law. Few would suggest that Parliament's role is simply to legislate in accordance with what opinion research suggests. Obviously, public opinion has to be given due weight by legislators, but like everything else it has to be examined thoughtfully and its significance assessed. When one speaks to the disabled and the terminally ill, they use one word to describe their reaction to the possibility that the state will license killing and that word is fear. They are afraid. Despite the popular calls for euthanasia or assisted dying, none of the disability organisations, and none of the organisations for sufferers from diseases such as MND or MS, has called for it.
In reality, referendums are helpful only in telling us what individuals say in response to a given question. They do not tell us much, if anything, about the respondents themselves, about how knowledgeable they are, for example, on the subject in question and how strongly their views on the subject are held.
Like so many issues, assisted dying is a highly complex issue, transcending a number of specialised areas of expertise, including law, medicine and ethics, on which few people can be expected to have any in-depth knowledge. To say that is not to argue that the opinions of people who have an incomplete understanding of any subject should be of no account. We all have opinions on subjects about which we may know little or nothing, but we cannot seriously expect our opinions to be translated into legislation simply because we hold them. Sound law-making has to be founded on solid evidence and objective assessment as well as on public opinion. It is Parliament's role to examine the evidence on any particular issue in an objective and dispassionate manner and to reach balanced conclusions.
For example, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, took evidence from more than 140 expert witnesses in four jurisdictions before reporting. We also had lengthy debate on the Joffe Bill. That is quite different from the sort of spin and media treatment that issues will receive in the media, which is the source of many people’s knowledge of any subject and which will lead, almost inevitably, to a given result in the polls.
The committee examined initiative processes which allow citizens to propose statute laws, constitutional amendments or broad policy principles or to challenge statutes and amendments passed by representatives. The committee was not convinced by the arguments in favour of those initiatives.
Reference was made in the evidence to the experience in Oregon, where assisted dying was legalised, after a lengthy and complex legal process. The Act was first passed in November 1994 by a margin of 51 per cent in favour and three years later it was implemented after extensive and multiple legal proceedings. The committee heard evidence from Dr Tolle of the Oregon Health and Science University Centre for Ethics in Health Care. She said this about the vote which introduced the Death with Dignity Act.
“The day after the vote I wrote an article … In that article I described the fact that when people voted, and remember you cannot change anything, you vote yes or you vote no on an initiative, many people were voting about a very tragic experience a loved one had had in end of life care and saying, ‘I vote for anything different’. Many would say, ‘What you have said is too narrow for me, I would include poor pain management, I would include inadequacies in the hospital, I would include poor conversations and planning, I would include much more in the basket and then say yes’. In some ways it was a vote of no confidence about some aspects of end of life care”.
There is a cautionary note there on the limitations of the use of a referendum. Those limitations are well recognised by the committee in its references to complex issues.
The complexity of the arguments in relation to assisted dying is a clear example of why the committee has drawn those conclusions. Complex issues are not amenable to decision-making by a yes/no answer to a question. I am pleased, therefore, to see the government response to the report, which indicates that they will not support the wider use of referendums, but I am a little perplexed that they are holding a referendum which appears to be presenting the people with the choice of alternative voting or first past the post, with no reference to the other options—I think that there are about a dozen options for alternative voting systems—particularly the single transferable vote, which we have in Northern Ireland. It seems to me that deciding to offer alternative voting in a referendum but not to discuss issues of the House of Lords or to offer other options is not consistent with the Government's broader response to the committee's report.
In conclusion, responsibility for decision-making on why and when we need a referendum is Parliament’s, and only those decisions which are of a fundamental constitutional nature should be put to a referendum. For the rest, Parliament should continue to exercise its historic and profoundly important functions.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I rise to welcome the report from the committee, to which I gave evidence when I was a Minister. The report is comprehensive, practical, thorough in its analysis and wise in its conclusions—which is not a surprise given the distinguished membership of the committee, many of whom we have already heard from today. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Jay on assuming the chairmanship of the committee.
It is a timely report, given the new interest in direct democracy. The reasons for that have been frequently rehearsed. There has been a well documented decline of trust in politicians and increasing disengagement from formal democratic processes, and disadvantaged groups and younger people, in particular, are increasingly unlikely to vote at elections. The weakening of old collectivist structures and historic social identities and the rise of a professional political class have all served to undermine engagement with the party politics on which our system of representative democracy depends. Those problems are real and need to be addressed. So it is not surprising that there has been growing interest among commentators and politicians in direct democracy but, as many noble Lords have already pointed out, we need to be very careful to think about improving representative democracy, not replacing it. If nothing else, the history of the 20th century reminds us of the dangers of plebiscitary democracy, and ought to remind us of the virtues of representative democracy.
In the current climate, we cannot take the virtues of representative democracy for granted, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I briefly rehearse what I think they are. Representative democracy allows, through the power of universal suffrage, for the fairest distribution of power among all citizens. It offers space for scrutiny and deliberation on complex issues, and it does so continually as such issues arise, which, in my view, inevitably makes for better policy. Crucially, it fosters the articulation of the needs and aspirations of the inarticulate and the protection of the interests of minorities, all of which are hallmarks of a decent and civilised society.
However, representative democracy can and should be augmented to adapt to new circumstances, and referendums can have their place in that. The arguments for their use are well set out in the report. I share the committee's view that there are “significant drawbacks” to their use, and not simply because of any threat to representative democracy. For example, referendums can be vulnerable to manipulation by the wealthy and the powerful, who can dominate single issue campaigns more easily than they can the complex layers of political activity that characterise the operation of parliamentary democracy.
I recognise the committee’s concerns about the use of referendums as what it describes as a,
“tactical device by the government of the day”,
and I recognise its cogent arguments for defining when referendums should be conducted, but I also read with great interest the evidence from distinguished experts, who laboured to produce such a definition of the terms. For all their wisdom and ingenuity, none of the proposals in the report would be immune from interpretation. In the end, I still believe that, in the absence of a fully codified constitution, it is difficult to avoid a central role for the judgment of politicians on the circumstances in which a referendum should be held.
That is why, incidentally, I think that the committee's approach in drawing up a practical, although not exhaustive, list of instances where a referendum should be held is more helpful than an attempt to construct a theoretical framework. However, I am not as worried as are the committee and many of its witnesses about a central role for the judgment of democratically elected politicians. Of course, politicians will often seek to use referendums for their political ends—that is not a surprise—but they are, in the end, accountable for their decisions. That includes the holding of referendums and their considerable expense—about £100 million, or up to £120 million, if some witnesses to the committee are to be believed. That democratic accountability allows for at least some protection against flagrant abuse.
As the committee concludes, referendums are not a panacea. They are also not the only way of increasing democratic engagement. Some such methods, such as citizens’ initiatives, have considerable drawbacks as we have already heard from my noble friend Lord Hart, but I would have hoped that the committee's tepid conclusion that,
“such tools as a citizens' assemblies and citizens' juries may be worthy of consideration”,
could have been a little more enthusiastic. I hope that it will consider returning to that specific issue in a future report.
New methods of engaging the public in policy formulation through deliberative democracy are potentially very important, in my view, in both engaging the public in politics between elections and improving public policy. Citizens' summits, for example, bring together between 500 and 1,000 people to deliberate on policy, exposing them to a range of opinions and policy options. Those involved are selected randomly but filtered to ensure that they are demographically broadly representative. Such exercises can enable the public to bring relevant knowledge and experience to bear on policy formation that may not be so available to cloistered Ministers and officials. Engaging the public in that way can help to legitimise and entrench policy that might otherwise be unnecessarily contentious.
In a policy paper entitled A National Framework for Greater Citizen Engagement, published two years ago, the then Government set out when they thought that national policy formulation would benefit from greater public participation in such ways. Those circumstances included: where issues will result in significant constitutional change; where individuals themselves need to act in addition to the Government to make a significant impact—for example, on behavioural issues such as obesity or smoking; where there are several policy options on which the Government have an open mind; and where there is public benefit in exploring complex and difficult trade-offs between different policy options—for example, between a personal desire to purchase cheap flights and the societal need to reduce carbon emissions. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, may infer from what I just said that, although I still stick to my view that the composition and further reform of this House is not a suitable topic for referendums, for some of the reasons that I have already given, I think that it would be wholly appropriate for that sort of deliberative engagement with the public. I will wait with great interest, as I am sure he will, for what the public may decide after due deliberation on the issue.
Any new such mechanisms to re-engage people with democratic processes and improve policy formulation will succeed only if they fulfil five conditions. First, they must register with the public, and that means that they must be regular and pervasive. Secondly, they must be credible—people must believe that they matter. So they should be open and transparent. Participants must be aware in advance how much influence they might have, with a shared understanding of when and how these mechanisms will be used. The Government must not embark on engagement for the sake of it with no discernible outcome. Thirdly, they must be systemic; otherwise people could too easily regard them as a version of the politicians' tactical device that the committee so deplores. Such deliberative assemblies should represent a permanent change to the process of policy development. Fourthly, they must be representative, as accessible as possible and include a broad spread of the population. Finally and importantly, such mechanisms must also be consistent with the primacy of representative democracy. Such new mechanisms should feed into parliamentary consideration of issues, not replace them.
Towards the end of their time in office, the previous Government conducted an exercise, unique in this country, in such popular, deliberative policy-making. It was conducted by TNS-BMRB, a well known market research company, independently of government. This project explored the potential for a written statement of values, perhaps to act as a preamble for a Bill of Rights, the merits of such a Bill and the potential for a written constitution. The results of these deliberations were not always comfortable for the Government and their stated policy and led the debate into areas that the Government had not always expected, but the deliberations were notable for their seriousness, the commitment of those taking part and the good sense of the conclusions. The Government learnt valuable lessons about the conduct of such exercises for the future. The general election intervened before the Government could build on this work, but TNS-BMRB produced a detailed and comprehensive report, and I commend it to all noble Lords with an interest in our constitutional arrangements. I hope that this Government, who in theory are committed to such innovations, will take note and continue the work of their predecessors in this area. I hope that the Minister can give me some comfort in his reply. This report on referendums makes an important contribution to a debate which will undoubtedly continue, and we all owe the committee our thanks for its work.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank
My Lords, as other speakers have said, the Constitution Committee was guided through this inquiry by my noble friend Lord Goodlad. As a member of the committee, I too pay tribute to his calm chairmanship, as on other occasions, and I enjoyed his anecdotes today. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, who spoke earlier, who persuaded the committee to look into the role of referendums. It was prescient, given the outcome of the general election, but inevitably, on the eve of the dissolution, few future Ministers kept the report by their pillow when it was published on 7 April. The Government's response appeared six months later, only 10 days ago.
In paragraph 226, the committee said—and I repeat what others have said today:
“Referendums are not a panacea”.
It continued:
“We note the arguments for their use as a way of strengthening the democratic process. The drawbacks and difficulties of their use are serious”.
Here I follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.
In his letter of 30 September covering the response, Mark Harper, the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, said:
“Referendums are an important part of our package of reforms”.
He added that the Government,
“does not share the Committee's general concerns”.
So there is a significant difference of emphasis and style between the report and the response. For my part, I stand firm to the report.
I am not easily persuaded to welcome referendums. I did not like the decision to make what became the 1975 Common Market referendum—so far, the only nationwide referendum in the United Kingdom—although once settled, I campaigned for yes. The referendum was clearly a device to hold the Labour Party together and to stay in what became the European Community and then the European Union. The report says it regrets,
“the ad hoc manner in which referendums have been used, often as a tactical device”.
The response snaps back that the Government “does not share” that description, but that was precisely what happened in 1975.
While it emphasises that there are “significant drawbacks”, the report says that if referendums are adopted, they would be,
“most appropriately used in relation to fundamental constitutional issues”.
It then names seven, although it is not a definitive list. The response is a cautious agreement.
The Government are pressing ahead for an elected or partially elected House of Lords. This is certainty a constitutional issue, as it would abolish the House as we have known it, and a referendum would be appropriate. I hope Ministers will confirm that they are considering it for the Bill we expect by the end of the year, although there was no hint of it in yesterday’s short debate. We shall listen carefully to what my noble friend says in his closing speech.
The response says that the use of any major ratchet clauses of the Lisbon treaty will be subject to a referendum, as the Foreign Secretary confirmed last week. I will not pursue further European matters—I listened very closely to what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said—except to say that in 1975 the turnout was 64.6 per cent. If the Government were faced by ratchet clauses, I would hope to choose a referendum only if the public believed that they were major issues that should override Parliament.
Let me turn to paragraphs 214 and 215 in chapter 7, “Summary of Recommendations”; and the earlier chapter 4. Despite the need to encourage greater citizen engagement, the committee was not convinced by arguments in favour of citizens' initiatives and local referendums. I think the committee tried hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, but when it came to the point, the oral witnesses were not particularly keen. The government response is disturbing. In the current fashion and language, the Government make the point that local referendums can play a role,
“empowering residents to make localism and the Big Society part of everyday life”.
They continue:
“'This is why we are committed to giving residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue”.
I repeat, “on any local issue”. In taking oral evidence, we discussed the possible outcome if there was a local referendum on whether to close a hospital. The witness, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, said that,
“where a much-loved hospital is in danger of being closed … the result will be … overwhelming”.
The committee knew, as noble Lords know, that the answer to closing would always be no.
There have been recent campaigns against the closure of A&E and maternity departments. Localism may be attractive, but I am far from happy if the future of the NHS is now to be determined by unrestrained citizen initiatives. New major trauma and stroke services have been developing in London. I am impressed by their progress as it has meant high-quality centres, rather than preserving some very average hospital departments. Inevitably there have been critics, but if the Government are to encourage local initiatives they could mean a set-back to reform.
The July White Paper on liberating the NHS is also about choice and control, sharing decision-making, democratic legitimacy, public engagement, effective dialogue and partnership, and more. But if we are to have referendums on any local issue, I am far from clear that the National Health Service would be better managed and resources more effectively employed. The White Paper states:
“We will give the NHS a coherent, stable, enduring framework for quality and service improvement”.
I hope so.
In their response to the report, the Government say that they are,
“committed to renewal of our political system”,
and that:
“A fundamental concept … is the transfer of power from the Executive to Parliament, and from Parliament to people”.
That is fine, but I am yet to be convinced that our freedoms and our security would be better protected by an endless series of referendums rather than by established elected institutions.
Lord Desai
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers. I too join everyone in congratulating my noble friend Lady Jay on having got the chairmanship of the committee and on introducing this debate. Since quite a lot has been already said, I should like to take a different tack. The argument that referendums are imperfect or that they are not a panacea is not news. Nothing is perfect and nothing is a panacea. Even the representative democracy that we have is not a panacea.
The arguments made that decisions taken at referendums are influenced by other extraneous events or variables can be said about any election. When an election takes place in a constituency, people may vote for person X or person Y on no consideration of reading the manifesto or on knowing the policy or whatever the person may have said, but on the colour of his hair or something like that.
I do not think that we can construct an ideal decision-making system and say, “Referendums are not like this; therefore we reject them”. Our difficulty is somewhere else. Not only, as the committee points out, do we not have a written constitution, but we have a particularly highly centralised decision-making system. Despite devolution we are a highly centralised system in which the primacy of the House of Commons allows the party with a majority to more or less dictate when and how it would choose to have a referendum or not. There is nothing that we can do about it.
The argument has been made that the 1975 referendum was to establish peace in the Labour Party. The ruling party had problems and, therefore, it had to have peace established within itself because it wanted to govern for the next three or four years. Things were difficult from the early days for the 1974 to 1979 Government. My noble friend Lord Foulkes said that keeping the Labour Party united was in the national interest and I agree with him.
But let us look at today: the idea that every passerelle has to be put to a referendum is not driven by logic. It is driven by the fact that the Conservative Party is deeply divided on Europe. If it is not divided, the coalition is deeply divided on Europe. When the ruling party is divided it is very convenient not to have to make the decision on the Floor of the House in a Bill, but to have a referendum and give the responsibility to someone else for getting the wrong decision. Then you are out of it, which can be very useful. I do not want to be cynical, but a system which so crucially depends on a cohesive majority in the House of Commons for running the country will need something like this if there is no cohesive majority in the House of Commons. That is not to be sneezed at.
Another point was cogently made by the committee. If we are going to use referendums we should use them for only major constitutional questions. I quite sympathise with that. The committee lists four or five major constitutional topics. During the passage of the regulatory reform Bill a few years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, added a schedule. The Bill was designed to speed up regulatory reform—cut the red tape and all that. Many noble Lords were suspicious that this way of doing regulatory reform would bypass the legislature and would make major legislative amendments. Therefore, a schedule listed every Act which should not be subject to amendment by the procedure in the Bill. I apologise for forgetting the exact title of the Bill, but I thought that if the noble Lord, Lord Norton, was here, he would tell me. The schedule to that Bill is a good guide to the many different Acts. It is not an acquis communautaire, but almost an acquis Britannique of all the very important Acts. Perhaps we should start with that list of Acts which cannot be touched except by a referendum.
The only argument for having a referendum would be that citizens feel differently from elected representatives. Therefore, citizens’ wishes should be consulted on such a question. But if that is the case we have to have some sort of threshold on participation and on the size of the majority. Some noble Lords will recall the George Cunningham amendment; my noble friend Lord Foulkes very painfully remembers it. It put down a threshold as to participation in the Scottish referendum. It would be entirely proper to do that. Unless participation is above a certain threshold, such as two-thirds of the electorate, and the final weighted average of the majority in the referendum plus the rate of participation is at least above 40 per cent, the referendum should be declared void. There is no point in having a referendum with very low participation and a majority which represents not the people’s wishes at large, but the wishes of only those who have bothered to come out and vote. That may make the wrong decision. If referendums are to be legislated on, we must insist on a threshold condition on every referendum, regardless of how major or minor the decision at stake is.
Lord Owen
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Pannick is in his place. I accept his definition that a referendum is a powerful, political mechanism to advance a politician’s own political agenda. If we are honest, that is what referendums have come to represent. But where I disagree with the tone of this report is that I do not think that it has been generous enough to that powerful mechanism producing some very important political stability. Edward Heath first suggested that there should be a referendum in Northern Ireland. I was against it at the time, but the more I reflected, the more enthusiastic I became for it. I think that it has shown itself to have been a very important element in achieving what we hope will be a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.
As to Europe, I am utterly convinced that the 1975 referendum has been of tremendous benefit for the pursuit of a reasonably consistent European policy over the years since. My noble friend Lord Rodgers and I disagreed. Even though we went through the Division Lobby against our own party in support of the EU, I felt that a referendum “prior to” could have been won, which would have given us the wholehearted consent which the then Conservative Government were never able to achieve.
Before people are too critical of Harold Wilson’s referendum in 1975, we should remember that there were two elections in 1974, on both of which occasions the promise to have a referendum was held and therefore in some respects endorsed by the British people. But I have no doubt also that, just as the referendum in 1975 was fundamental in keeping a pro-European policy, so it was a tremendous mistake on the part of the Labour Opposition in 1983 to campaign to come out of the European Community without even a referendum. It was one of the contributing factors to that long suicide note and a really massive defeat.
We come to the question of the euro. Which of us now believes that we should be in the European eurozone? The commitment made under duress by all three political parties in the 1997 election to have a referendum has been a fundamental safeguard in avoiding what would have been a huge mistake, given the precariousness of the UK economy. Sometimes a referendum can have a powerful effect without it actually being utilised, and we need to reflect on that.
No one could deny, and the report does not deny, that changing the voting system of the House of Commons is a major constitutional question. There is no argument: if this is to be done, it should be subject to a referendum. I used to think that we could do it as a party-political fix; I believed that when I was leader of the SDP. In those days, I thought it would have been perfectly legitimate. I think that now that referendums have established their authority and credibility on major constitutional questions, nobody can contemplate a change as a political fix. But, as I have said, most referendums come out of a political fix, so this is what we are discussing.
On the first part of the political fix, I shall address my remarks to my noble friend Lord McNally. First, I believe the coalition Government are making a great mistake in setting a date now when they do not have a clue what public opinion is going to be like by May of next year. Common prudence would suggest making that decision later by order and not getting themselves into this tangle at the moment. On the second part, the Government ought to address an important political question. The leader of the Liberal Democrats has already called this a “miserable compromise”, which it certainly is. He should consider when it would be most likely that the British public would agree to even this narrow choice of the alternative vote as opposed to first past the post. It would be if they had seen a coalition work effectively for four years. The natural time for this referendum would be—if we are to have fixed-term Parliaments, which I hope will pass, although it is right for people to say that it is still to be accepted and the legislation still has to go through—in 2014.
My next appeal is to the Labour Party—especially to its new leader, for whom I have high hopes as he comes from a completely different generation—to think again on this issue. I do not deny his having fought an election to have the choice of the alternative vote, and he is extremely wise as the leader of his party to say that he is going to vote for it. But there is a deeper question here, and it is basically a democratically one. Once a decision has been made for political and tactical reasons to have a referendum, it is certainly open to the rest of us who are not party to this to argue for a proper democratic basis. One of those arguments is the way the question is put, and that is quite right. I have a great deal of sympathy for the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that there should be a threshold. It was uncomfortable for me personally in 1979, and it helped to lose us the election, but there was not by any standard full-hearted consent in Scotland. I do not believe it would have been right to have gone through with it on that narrow vote and thus with less than wholehearted consent. I am not sure what the definition is, but perhaps the committee will give more thought to what “wholehearted consent” is. Winning by one vote is not enough on a referendum. You are out there to try to create a much greater democratic base for what you are doing, so while one vote may be enough to win an election—although I have my doubts about it—it certainly is not enough on a referendum and is therefore something we should look at carefully.
The deeper question I want to address to the Labour Party both in this House and in another place is that every element of democratic justice calls for at least one other option on the ballot paper, that being proportional representation. There are limits to the choices that can be put forward and I am not going to go into the different systems of proportional representation, but the alternative vote is definitively not a proportional system. It is also a fact that every time this issue has been looked at, the alternative vote has been rejected. It was rejected by the Labour Party’s own Plant commission. It was rejected by the Jenkins commission which was set up by the Labour Party, and it was rejected when the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party set up a commission to look at it. So it seems a travesty of democratic justice that the only alternative for voting in the House of Commons is to be the alternative vote. If the new leader of the Labour Party was to make this an issue, not only would he identify himself with every social democratic party in Europe—it would not be a bad start for a new generational Labour leader—he would leave the way open for the Labour Party in the future to form a coalition with a Liberal Democrat party rather than it just being tied endlessly to coalitions with the Conservative Party. Tactically, it would be a rather good position, but it would also be justified by the present situation. We would also then have more enthusiasm for this referendum.
I must say that my fear at the moment is that of nil enthusiasm. I have long wanted this change to the voting system, but I have absolutely no personal enthusiasm whatever. I am not sure that I will even be able to persuade myself to vote because it is such a miserable compromise. Put in a third option in the form of a proportional system and I certainly would man the barricades and fight for it. I believe, too, that a lot of other people would do the same, and that it would be an enthusiastic debate. Further, we do not need to coincide with the Scottish elections. When listening to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, it was the first time I understood the complexity of the ballot paper that the Scottish electorate will have to face. That is a pretty powerful case for not coinciding with the elections in Scotland.
I hope that the issues will be debated fully and I shall finish with these words. Referendums have been good for British democracy, but used too frequently or in a foolish way, they will not work. The safeguard is in the form of both Houses of Parliament; they will decide. On the question of the reform of the House of Lords, personally, I would leave this open. If the parties in the House of Commons can come to an agreement on what House of Lords reform should be, I would not wish for a referendum. The issue that those of us who are not party to the debates should hold over them is that if they come out with some cobbled-up compromise that cannot carry conviction with the three parties in the House of Commons, then the House of Lords would be fully entitled to demand a referendum.
Lord Grenfell
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Owen. He has given us much food for thought in his authoritative speech, and from the perspective of these Benches I might say some marching orders as well. I liked what he said about the coalition Government walking into what I would call a heffalump trap by naming the date for the referendum. The other reason I think they have made a mistake is that they do not know how long it will take to get the legislation through, and particularly through this House. We know that a serious lead time is needed before referendums can be held.
I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and the committee he lately chaired on yet another first-class report. I congratulate also my noble friend Lady Jay on taking over the chairmanship of this important committee and on her very impressive presentation of this report. It is a measure of the interest in it that some 13 out of the 19 participants in the debate are not members of the committee. As one of the 13, I intervene briefly to address only two matters—referendums on constitutional issues, as discussed in chapter 3, and the question of thresholds, addressed in chapter 5.
I have never been a fan of referendums, and I do not believe I am entirely alone in that among noble Lords. For instance, I noted in the published evidence that my noble friend Lady Quin—who I am happy to see in her place and whose speech I enjoyed—has a strong attachment to fully representative democracy. I take much comfort from that. However, that said, I recognise that despite the many negative features of referendums—not least the almost Napoleonic urge of Governments these days to use a direct appeal to the people for tactical advantage—we are coming to accept that referendums, if used sparingly to supplement, not replace, representative democracy, need not necessarily pose a threat to our democratic system. As the committee concluded, they may become a part of the UK’s political and constitutional practice—I rather think they have already—and that adds urgency to the committee’s rider that, where possible, cross-party agreement should be sought as to the circumstances in which it is appropriate for referendums to be held.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, gave a masterful lesson on the need to avoid resort to referendums on complex issues such as ratchet clauses and so-called transfers of power in the EU. Not long ago I was spending almost all my waking hours locked in communion with the text of the Lisbon treaty, and the nightmare thoughts of submitting it to a referendum occupied my unconscious hours.
The question that preoccupies me is whether or not referendums should be held on constitutional issues. I read with great care and interest the evidence given to the committee on this point, particularly the evidence given by the Government. The argument in the Government’s memorandum submitted to the committee that referendums should be used,
“only where fundamental change in the constitution of the country is under consideration”,
appears at first glance to be sensible. However, as many members of the committee and my noble friend Lady Jay noted, it begs two questions: what is a fundamental change and who decides that? These questions were so thoroughly examined, both in the published evidence and in the body of the report, that it would be presumptuous of me to go over that ground in the presence this afternoon of so many of those who participated in the proceedings. Instead, I intervene in the debate to express my profound satisfaction that the committee, while recognising the impossibility of defining precisely what is a fundamental constitutional issue, had no difficulty in including the abolition of either House of Parliament in its non-exhaustive list of those it felt most obviously fell within that category. This is a very important conclusion.
As my noble friend Lord Hart of Chilton recalled, my noble friend Lord Wills, in his previous incarnation—he was a thoughtful Minister in the Ministry of Justice—had stoutly defended before the committee his and the then Government’s contention that while a move to an all or mostly elected House could be considered a fundamental change in its composition, the reform as a whole could not be considered of fundamental constitutional importance as it was not intended to involve any change in its powers or functions. Many, including myself, had great difficulty in accepting this contention.
As I have said before in your Lordships’ House, the coalition Government and those on other Benches, including where I sit—but not myself—who are calling for an elected second Chamber are not calling for a simple reform; they are, whether or not they care to admit it, calling for the abolition of this House and its replacement with something entirely different. If that is not a fundamental change of far reaching constitutional importance I do not know what is.
In the debate in this Chamber yesterday, initiated by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, some of us challenged the Government’s repeated assurances that a move to an elected Chamber would not bring about a significant change in the balance of power between the two Houses. For reasons which need no airing in a take-note debate focused on a report on referendums, I remain unconvinced by this assurance and therefore welcome the committee’s conclusion that abolition of either House falls within the definition of a fundamental constitutional issue and is consequently, in my view, one where a referendum should be deemed appropriate for the envisaged so-called reform of the Chamber. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and others when they point out the glaring inconsistency in the Government’s treatment of the proposed move to AV compared to its treatment of Lords reform.
I have no doubt that the abolition of this House and its replacement by an elected Chamber should be submitted to a referendum. The warnings of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and those of my noble friend Lord Hart, are well taken, but I do not think the British electorate cannot be helped to understand what is at stake in such a significant constitutional change.
Finally, and briefly, I turn to the matter of thresholds, discussed in paragraphs 180 to 189 of the report. I note that the evidence the committee received was broadly against turnout thresholds and super-majorities; and that it led, after its careful weighing of the advantages and disadvantages, to its conclusion at paragraph 189 that there should be a general assumption against them. However, the committee recognised in that same conclusion—this is worth recalling—that,
“there may be exceptional circumstances in which they may be deemed appropriate”.
This language is obviously an accurate reflection of the committee’s sentiments, but I find it disappointingly weak. There are strong arguments for a voter turnout threshold for referendums on fundamental constitutional changes, as advanced by some of the witnesses. I accept the point made by Professor Butler and others that the no side can defeat a proposal by simply encouraging people to stay at home or to sit on Brighton beach with handkerchiefs on their heads. I accept also the difficulties posed by inaccurate, out-of-date electoral registers—which is not, however, an insoluble problem—but I am not comfortable with the idea that a major constitutional change can be either approved or disapproved on a very low turnout. I am aware of being in a minority in holding this opinion and I have no settled view on where the threshold might be set, but I remain disappointed with the conclusion’s words, “may be deemed appropriate” where I would prefer to see, “would be deemed essential”.
We will be looking again at many of these issues when the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill finally reaches this House. In the mean time we have to thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and members of the committee for the excellent report, which will inform our discussions. They have done this House and the whole of Parliament a great service.
Lord Woolf
My Lords, I, too, was a member of the Constitution Committee at the time it was considering this issue, but of course I am no longer a member. I thought the fact that the committee selected the issue of referendums, or referenda, as an appropriate subject for its consideration was indicative of the importance that the part of the Constitution Committee plays within the workings of this House. We should take satisfaction from the fact that there are committees which are prepared to tackle extraordinarily difficult topics in a way which is helpful to the consideration of important issues. It was a privilege to be a part of that committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad. It is clear from the admirable way in which the committee’s report was opened to the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, that the noble Lord’s successor meets the calibre that the Constitution Committee requires if it is to be properly chaired. We had a masterly, if I may use that term, laying before us of the contents of the report.
The thrust of the report, read as a whole, is clear. It says not that a referendum can never play a proper constitutional part in the workings of our unwritten and unentrenched constitution, but that those occasions should be strictly limited to where it can be done appropriately. If that be the situation, it is inevitable that political considerations will influence the Government of the day when they think that there should be a referendum. All that it is possible to do is develop conventions one by one which ensure that, in espousing a referendum on a particular occasion, we are not further undermining the strength of parliamentary representative democracy, the fundamental basis of which has been that the citizens of this country express their views by voting into power Members of Parliament and, through them, the Government of the day. Each time that people decide that there is a need for a referendum, they are to some extent undermining the commitment of this country to representative parliamentary democracy. For that reason alone, I suggest that we should use it only where we are satisfied that it will contribute to the proper governance of this country to do so.
What are the tests? The committee made it clear that there was no satisfactory single test. It was identified that the obvious situation where referendums may be able to play a part is where significant or fundamental constitutional change is proposed. However, as has been pointed out more than once during this debate, the definition of fundamental constitutional change is an issue on which views can differ. I do not need to remind this House, which will in due course be addressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, that Governments can make deplorable mistakes as to what is a fundamental constitutional change. The Government of which he was a Minister thought that to change the role of the Lord Chancellor was not a matter that involved a fundamental constitutional change, albeit that subsequent events have shown beyond peradventure that it involved reconsidering and redefining the relationship between the judiciary, the legislature and the Government, all three arms being critical to the proper working of the constitution.
So we should heed the message of the report. If we are to adopt the referendum as part of our constitutional practice, we should ensure that it plays no more part than it should, having regard to the circumstances when it can supplement our basic approach to the governance of this country.
Lord Inglewood
My Lords, as one of those Members of the House speaking who was not a member of the Constitution Committee which has prepared this most interesting and worthwhile report, I should explain that the reason I rise to speak is that much of my active political life was spent in the European Parliament, where I was much closer to referenda than would probably have been the case had I been engaged in domestic politics.
That experience has made me less fond of referenda. My heart says yes; my head says no. Representative parliamentary democracy and the supremacy of Parliament, however foxed they may appear, are nevertheless very important. I am concerned that the political class of which we are all part sometimes seems to assume that everybody wants permanent participatory political revolution, somehow leading to the hegemony of the politically active. A lot of empirical evidence suggests that many people who vote in referenda do not do so on the basis of what is on the ballot paper, in slightly the same way as they often do in by-elections. It was put to me rather graphically by an Irish friend, who said, “It doesn’t matter what it says on the ballot paper; they always vote about abortion”.
If the point of a referendum is to give the public a direct say on a particular issue, it is not being achieved if the electorate cast their vote for some other completely different reason or simply stay at home on a “plague on both your” basis. As we have seen in the houses past 30 years a widening in the application by the courts through judicial review of the overriding test of reasonableness in Governments’ decision-making, I become concerned that the referendum does not necessarily achieve that.
Process is important in decision-making—after all, that is what democracy is all about—but so is the essential character of the decision that is taken. Both matter, because when political decisions are taken, particularly those of the kind that are being considered in the context of this debate about referenda, it is important that the legitimacy of what is decided is accepted. That is particularly true if the outcome is one with which you personally disagree. We all become quite happy, even if we are a bit concerned about political process, if the outcome aligns with what we want to occur. One has only to look at the result of the 1975 referendum on whether we should remain in the European Community. We still find people arguing that the issue is not settled.
I am not sure how important my own personal views on this might be, other than possibly to myself, because we hear from the Government that legislation will be brought forward to bring referenda into our system under certain circumstances. However, if we do that, everybody should know what the new rules of engagement might be. If one looks back at the spectacle of the political debate that took place about whether there should be a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, one finds it pretty unedifying. In my judgment, there was massive posturing, humbug and manoeuvring, ostensibly in the interests of good governance, which, except in a few honourable cases, was basically motivated by partisan political aspirations. That did nothing other than degrade further the relationship that exists between the public and politicians. In short, it is not the way to run a country. It is a general proposition to which I think almost everybody would subscribe that there should be clarity in what the law is and what the rules are. That is important both for British citizens and for those who, in one way or another, might be affected by the result of a referendum in this country.
I was a tiny bit surprised that the committee and the Government seemed to think these should be dealt with on an ad hoc basis by Parliament because it was so difficult to write the necessary definitions into law. Other countries seem to do it perfectly well. Cannot we? Are our judges more stupid or is our law more difficult than other nations? I do not think so. The law courts and in particular the Supreme Court are set up in order to settle difficult points of law and are manned by first-class legal minds who can do it perfectly well.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has just said that he believes we should evolve a series of conventions to do this. It would be nice if that could evolve over time, but I do not think we have enough time. Anyway, one might say that Parliament is always sovereign so it can rewrite the rules as and when it wants. If we introduce clarity, we will introduce a valuable check on the way that referendums evolve in their application in this country. The most important thing is to make it as difficult as possible for the Government of the day to gerrymander the legislative process in order to implement the policies that they want to get on the statute book.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, in his scepticism about referendums. I also join the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in his concern about parliamentary democracy—a theme which has been echoed by many others in the debate. I also join the broad, overwhelming consensus for congratulating the framers and writers of this report. For me, it is like a very good textbook covering all the areas, but with the added element that it is a textbook written by practitioners who know the how of things, and how parliamentarians and the people respond.
The report covers a range of arguments for and against, some of which are contradictory. Referendums settle an issue; no, referendums do not settle an issue. The answer is that you choose your referendum. Some do, and some do not. It could be argued that the referendum on the Northern Ireland settlement was quite decisive and the extremists were unable to mobilise against it as a result. The same might be said about the recent referendum in Turkey on constitutional matters where the military, however tempted, would find it difficult to stand against such a substantial majority. However, the recent referendum in Moldova, which was boycotted by the opposition, solved absolutely nothing. Were a referendum to be held in Sudan next year, one wonders whether the results would in fact lead to closure in respect of constitutional changes within Sudan.
Obviously, if opponents do not like the result of a referendum, they can rerun it—as we saw, for example, in Denmark, where the second referendum, with rather cosmetic changes, was accepted, and also in Ireland. There must be a degree of scepticism.
I join the debate with my personal experiences. Apart from the referendum on Sunday opening in Wales, in which I played a minor part from exile in London, I played some part in the referendum in 1975 on the Common Market. It was clear—who can doubt it?—that the Cabinet wanted to avoid reaching a decision on the issue because it was deeply divided. There were heavy voices within the Cabinet speaking against the European Community, so a “god out of the machine” device—a referendum—was used in the hope of solving the issue. The status quo in 1975 was that we were already in the European Community, so there was a major premium among the populace in voting for the status quo, which was an important matter. But has it closed the issue? It had not closed it by the time Tony Benn and others said, “Let the people decide”. The people decisively decided in 1975 and there were no major changes between then and 1983, but Tony Benn and others were not reconciled to Europe. Even now, there may be 60 or 70 members of the Conservative Party in the other place who would withdraw from the European Union tomorrow if that were possible. There is not closure.
I recall speaking with Edward Heath on the yes platform in 1975 against my noble friend Lord Kinnock; and yet I was with my noble friend in a later referendum, in 1979, on devolution in Wales. We were sceptical about the motives of those in favour of devolution and we used the argument of the slippery path to independence and so forth. I confess that we pressed for a referendum and for the 40 per cent floor as a tactical device at that time. Who can doubt that in most of these issues it is tactics that prevail and dominate? The result of that 1979 devolution debate in Wales was a massive majority—four to one—against the Government’s devolution proposals. In 1997, however, broadly the same proposals, with some minor administrative changes, were put before the people of Wales and there was a vote in favour.
What had changed? The proposals had not changed. The context had changed. In 1979 there was a highly unpopular Labour Government at the fag end of their life and there was great scepticism among the people. They wanted to give the Government of the day a black eye. In 1997 there was a popular Government led by Tony Blair. All the media appeared to be in favour of the proposals in 1997. Yet, even with all the media attention, there was a 50 per cent turnout and the vote was 25 per cent for and 25 per cent against. Had it been 24 per cent in favour and 26 per cent against, would that have led to closure?
Similarly, although the vote on the Quebec question in Canada was against, it is not a dead issue. The proponents of “Québec libre” will keep seeking a referendum in the hope that one day there will be a narrow majority and then there will be closure.
Of course, the key difference in Wales was who was making the proposal in 1997 as against the position in 1979. Had there been a 40 per cent or 30 per cent turnout instead of 50 per cent, would that have changed the legitimacy of the result? There is no going back in Wales now, but it was on a very narrow majority. It was almost like the Ryder Cup, going to the last tee. It could certainly have gone the other way.
My own experience has also included campaigning for a yes vote in France on the Maastricht treaty. It was clear to me at the time that the details of the Maastricht treaty played virtually no part in the debate. The real issue was whether you liked President Mitterrand. On the platform, I was asked about immigration and various farm subsidies, which were virtually irrelevant to the subject under discussion. Compare that with the French referendum in 1968 put forward by President de Gaulle on an administrative question. The actual subject played little or no part in the result. It was a good opportunity for the people of France to reject President de Gaulle, and he resigned fairly shortly after that. Then there was the first Irish referendum on Lisbon, when the key issues for the no campaign were abortion and neutrality, which had nothing to do with the Lisbon treaty. Of course, much of the debate was dominated by one very rich individual; just as one fears that on a referendum now, Mr Murdoch, a non-citizen, will play a major role.
So what are my conclusions from these experiences? First, referendums do not necessarily settle matters. One thinks of the 1983 suicide manifesto of my own party with respect to Europe. Secondly, even if there is a yes/no question, the debate may focus on irrelevant questions. Thirdly, the referendum may be used, as the committee says, in an ad hoc manner and as a tactical device. It is absurd of the Government, in their rather slim and inadequate reply, to argue otherwise. The referendum may often be a partisan manoeuvre; the result clearly depends on the context and who asks the question and when. In Sweden, in respect of the European Union, there was a fairly fixed majority against joining, but there was one brief window of opportunity, which by chance happened when the referendum took place. So it depends when the question is asked. This is wholly relevant to the question that will be posed next May on the alternative vote; the context is likely to be one of cuts and it is very likely that the coalition parties will lose substantially, particularly the Liberal Democrat party. There will be a fairly half-hearted advocacy by the Government and, effectively, the Liberal Democrats will be taken for a ride. It is very likely that the referendum on AV, because of the timing and the cuts, will be lost and lost massively.
Do these reflections rule out referendums as an instrument for decision making? No, not necessarily. They may be justified when the rules of the game are in question. One thinks of House of Lords reform, which has been a Liberal Democrat obsession for some time. It is likely that if there were to be a referendum on House of Lords reform, there would be very little interest or participation beyond the M25—or whatever is the English expression for beltway. How does one interpret low participation? On further devolution in Wales, there is a commitment, but devolution is a process. Does one have a referendum on each of the incremental changes? The suggestion that there should be referendums on council tax increases is absurd. It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Who is going to vote for a council tax increase? As for the surrender of sovereignty argument, it was put forward as a populist gesture. The truth is that QMV has often helped this country and it has been very much in our interests, so this is rather a silly pledge to please the anti-Europeans.
Overall, I remain sceptical about the case for referendums. I would certainly hear arguments in particular cases, but they should be used in our constitution very sparingly, if at all.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, no one could possibly suggest that this debate, and the report on referendums in the UK that we are considering, are not topical and urgent. For that reason, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Constitution Committee under its two successive chairmen, the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. In this Session of Parliament, we are being asked by the coalition Government to approve two major pieces of constitutional legislation that provide for the holding of referendums—legislation on the UK method of voting and that dealing with further transfers of powers to the European Union. By the time this Session is over, we may well have taken two major steps towards embedding referendums in our constitutional practice. As this report recognises, that could have seriously negative consequences, as well as some, at least, of the advantages that their protagonists will advance. Today’s debate provides an opportunity to go in some depth into the wider arguments for and against the use of referendums, which should assist our future debates on the specific measures being put forward.
My main criticism of this otherwise excellent report is that it confines its scope to referendums in this country, although there is the odd reference to the use of referendums elsewhere—in Switzerland, for example. In this debate, many of the participants have ranged much more widely, and they have been right to do so. Limiting the report damagingly narrows the field of inquiry and excludes a number of examples that could usefully underpin the arguments deployed for and against—mainly against—the use of referendums. Is it not relevant, for example, that the German constitution makes no provision at all for holding referendums in the light of that country’s disastrous experience with plebiscitary democracy in the inter-war period? Should we not be paying some attention to France’s experience, in the referendum that General de Gaulle lost and the EU referendum of 2005 on the constitutional treaty? Both were simply votes about individuals. They were nothing whatever to do with the subject on the order paper. The loss of the constitutional treaty was merely a reaction to the unpopularity of President Chirac. Then there is the recent Turkish example mentioned by a previous speaker. All the evidence points towards the vote having been more about the AK Party’s popularity and a precursor of next year’s general election than a considered view of the actual constitutional changes being proposed. One might also cite the Greek Cypriot referendum of 2004, when the country’s president exhorted his people to vote no to emulate the heroic Greek response to Mussolini’s ultimatum in 1940. That list is not exhaustive, but it illustrates just how real are what the report calls the “significant drawbacks” to having referendums.
The main thrust of the significant drawbacks is to undermine the crucial contention by the supporters of referendums that they are in some way a superior form of democracy—a test superior to the system of representative parliamentary democracy, for which our ancestors fought and in some cases died. But how on earth can referendums seriously be considered as a superior form of democracy if fewer people turn out to vote than in general elections, if their votes are cast without fully addressing the issues at stake and if, indeed, they are cast more to register a view on the Government of the day who are asking the question than to provide an answer to the question itself? But if the superior test criterion cannot be answered convincingly, what are you left with? It is just another electoral gimmick with uncertain consequences for our constitutional evolution and, possibly, damaging side effects. That is the sort of analysis that would get any new medical prescription banned or at least substantially delayed.
So much for the significant drawback side of the ledger. How about the plus side of it? Many considerations on that side seem to teeter between the threadbare and the counterintuitive. Can it realistically be maintained that a referendum settles a contentious issue once and for all? The 1975 referendum on our European membership certainly did not do that. Within a few years of that decisive two-thirds/one-third vote, one of our two main parties was campaigning to withdraw. Did the referendum vote on Scottish devolution deter the Scottish National Party from pressing for independence? Evidently not. Should the vote in next year’s proposed referendum on our voting system produce a very low turnout, as it quite possibly may do, will that not feed the controversy rather than settle it?
Then there is the argument that frequent use of referendums and our system of representative parliamentary democracy can happily live side by side, indeed can strengthen each other. I find that totally unconvincing. Once we start to make regular use of referendums, there will be demands for more of them. More single-issue causes will demand that they, too, should have their day in court. We can already see that in the Welsh claims that their future is more important and more worthy of referendum treatment than our adjustments to EU treaty law; such demands will become steadily more difficult to resist. Little by little, the legitimacy of the system of representative parliamentary democracy will be challenged and leached away. Is that something we can happily contemplate?
I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to some of these concerns when he replies. He and I voted in the same Lobby when we resisted the demand for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, so I imagine that he is not totally insensitive to them. These concerns are, in any case at least, nothing to do with the subject matter of next year's referendum on the voting system. I will vote yes, for the alternative vote—although I would like it to be made properly proportional—but how much better if that were to be done by an Act of Parliament, just as every change to the franchise, from the Great Reform Act 1832 onwards, was carried forward.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, said. We suffer a substantial loss in not having Lord Bingham of Cornhill to debate these issues. He was probably the greatest constitutional lawyer of his generation and he died unseemly early. He would have made a great contribution to these debates and I entirely agree with the noble Lord.
I join other Members of your Lordships’ House in congratulating the committee on its report. The only criticism that I have detected throughout is the fact that there were not sufficient foreign examples. I am glad to say that the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Swansea and Lord Hannay, have now put that right with their encyclopaedic knowledge of foreign referendums, including those in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and other countries in which I know that the House has a huge interest. I believe it to be a very good report. It deals with the matter forensically, sets out the evidence and comes to conclusions that it is hard to disagree with.
In this House, we tend to be self-congratulatory; we tell ourselves how good we are on many topics. Very often, we are not that good on every topic, but on constitutional affairs we are good. We have an important role to play and the Constitutional Committee has made a major contribution, over the years that I have been in the House, in informing that debate. This report on referendums is another in that line, and its effect is to make people ask, “Well, why is it wrong”? If it is not wrong, we should be agreeing with it and acting upon it.
I have the most profound sympathy for the gentleman called Mr Mark Harper, whoever he may be. He had the misfortune to sign the Government’s response. I know, from being a Minister, that from time to time you have to sign responses on behalf of the Government. Your problem is generally that you have committed yourself to a particular course of action that the committee’s report rightly identifies to be completely wrong and based on no principles at all. You have two methods by which you can deal with this. Either you say next to nothing—in which case the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would have got up to say it is the most insulting response he has ever seen, as it was so short—or you do what Mr Mark Harper does, which essentially is to fly in the face of the evidence. For example, he says that there is absolutely no evidence whatever that these referendums are done on an ad hoc basis for political purposes when, if you read the report, there are pages and pages of that. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, set out the evidence, which was overwhelming. Poor Mr Mark Harper; I looked up his previous history and I am happy to tell your Lordships that he ran his own accountancy firm from 2002 to 2006. He cites his interests as being, inter alia: work and pensions, law and order, the USA and Israel. His three interests are: travel, walking the dog and going to the cinema—none of which equipped him for the terrible task with which he found himself.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, who has provided leadership for the committee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, who I have absolutely no doubt will continue to provide such good leadership. Our role in this House on constitutional matters is, ultimately, not to initiate major constitutional change but to scrutinise, amend, improve and, in exceptional cases where we foresee disaster or believe that our constitutional values are at risk, to block. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, referred to the major constitutional changes that I was involved in. What this House did in relation to those was to slow them down dramatically, improve them and then pass them. That is a good model for the way that this House should deal with them.
We now face a major period of constitutional change, led in practice by the Liberal Democrats. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is much liked in this House, has a critical role in it. It is none the worse for the fact that it is led by the Liberal Democrats, and I pay tribute here to the support that they provided for the constitutional changes that came through Parliament after 1997—things such as the Human Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the devolution Acts and the reforms to the Lord Chancellor. They supported those consistently throughout and we will, wherever we can, support them consistently.
It is worth pointing out, however, that those constitutional changes emerged from a long process of discussion, led by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, and the late Robin Cook, in which both parties were seeking to identify the right and the best changes. The constitutional changes that we are now faced with have not come out of a long process where we were trying to come to the right answer. They have come from five days of shambolic negotiations, in which the prize at the end of the five days was not the best constitutional changes but, in practice, ministerial cars for the Liberal Democrats.
On the changes that we are looking at, the first with which we will be dealing is an alternative vote system. On this side of the House, we supported that system and a referendum in our manifesto. Before the noble Lord, Lord McNally, gets up to point it out, we lost the election but no other party supported that particular proposal—and that proposal is the one which the public are now being asked to vote on in a referendum. That is why the timing of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, as it was, is very apposite. On this side of the House, we agree with almost everything that the committee has said. Perhaps I might highlight some of the points.
Referendums, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, candidly said in his speech, occur on an ad hoc basis for politically driven reasons. I adopt all of the reasons from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to destroy the unfortunate Mr Mark Harper’s rejection of that view. The fact that they are ad hoc and politically driven does not mean that they are wrong and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in what he said on the utility that they have produced in our country. In Northern Ireland, referendums have also had a beneficial effect. I adopt what my noble friend Lord Wills said in evidence to the committee: that the fact that they are based on politically-driven motivations does not make them bad. They are now accepted as an occasional part of our constitutional furniture and much as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, may rant away at the effect of referendums, they are here and here to stay. The right course in how to deal with them is exactly as the committee did: to seek to define the circumstances in which they should be used.
When things start, ad hockery is fine but, as time goes on, if no principles are involved then doubt creeps in and confidence in the political system is reduced. I agree with the committee’s approach that major constitutional change will sometimes, if it is not backed by referendums, lack legitimacy. If you use the referendum too much, on the other hand, its abuse and constant use will lead to losing confidence in it as well. In parenthesis, in one of his responses I understand Mr Mark Harper to be saying that it is the Government’s intention to introduce mayors in certain places and get the introduction of the mayor approved subsequently by a referendum. Is that right? Does the noble Lord, Lord McNally, think it a sensible use of the referendum power to introduce the change first, then have it approved by referendum?
We should be careful to set the bar high for the circumstances in which we use referendums. I gratefully adopt paragraph 118 of the report:
“Parliament should judge what issues will be the subject of referendums. In its first report, this Committee stated that it would ‘focus on issues of constitutional significance’ determined by whether an issue raises ‘an important question of principle about a principal part of the constitution’. We believe that this provides a useful test, first, of whether an issue is of fundamental constitutional significance, and second, of whether a referendum is therefore appropriate”.
I say that that is the correct approach. There are circumstances in which referendums are not appropriate. I completely agree with my noble friend Lord Liddle that a referendum was not appropriate either for the Nice treaty, which the Government then led by Tony Blair said would have a referendum, nor for the Lisbon treaty, which the Government led by Gordon Brown said would not. On neither occasion was a referendum appropriate, because they did not satisfy the paragraph 118 test.
On the question of fundamental change to your Lordships’ House, if the change were fundamental—in particular, if you changed the way in which you elect noble Lords—a referendum probably would be appropriate, because that would be a significant change to our constitution.
To allow referendums on a range of local issues, such as excessive council tax increases, would be a dangerous move. I agree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock that that in effect would close yet further the space for good local government, and I would be against the excessive use of referendums in local issues. I am strongly in favour, as are so many noble Lords, of the fact that there are many ways, and more should be developed, to engage the public with their politicians, but that should not include local referendums.
I shall conclude by referring to three particular issues on referendums. First, it must be right that a neutral body should formulate the question. Parliament should definitely approve it, but if we want to have faith in referendums, the question should be formulated by a neutral body such as the Electoral Commission. Why does Mr Mark Harper oppose it?
Secondly, on the timing of the referendum, paragraph 145 of the report makes the case that if the referendum is on the same day as a general election, that will mean that the referendum gets completely swamped. It says that referendums should never be held on the same day as a general election and that there should be a presumption against it being on the day of other elections. The reasoning given in the evidence is that the other elections—the Scottish and Welsh general elections, for example, which will take place on the day—swamp the issue. When there is an election on the same day, the referendum becomes a secondary issue that is inevitably the victim of those other issues. That was the evidence. Will the Minister tell us why Mr Mark Harper rejected that evidence?
Thirdly, the report is generally opposed to supermajorities or voter thresholds, though it says that there is a case for there being a supermajority or a voter threshold where you are dealing with a major constitutional issue. Does the Minister think there is any constitutional issue that is more major than how the first Chamber is elected?
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and his committee on an excellent report.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I think the whole House will want to send our sympathy to Mr Mark Harper. Not since Mark Antony outsmarted Brutus has such an orator turned his forensic skills on someone. Here we have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—a professional wordsmith, a Queen’s Counsel, a positive Cicero—turning all his powers on to an accountant. Now he is appealing for sympathy from the House. I am sure that Mark Harper will survive.
It is difficult to respond to a debate like this. I have a well written 15-minute ministerial response that would cover a number of the issues, but it would not catch the flavour of the debate. I will try to do so instead by responding to some of the questions, but I ask for the understanding of the House. In this debate we have covered Northern Ireland, the role of the Lord Chancellor, links between the judiciary and the legislature, Europe, constitutional reform, local government and elected mayors, and devolution in Scotland, Wales and England. In just some of the speeches, I think there was some rehearsing of Second Reading speeches for future legislation. I will try to respond in the context of the report.
The attitude that I have taken to constitutional reform all my political life is that I agree that one should look for consensus where possible. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer; I still count as one of the most fruitful and useful periods of my political life the time that I spent serving on the Cook/Maclennan committee before the 1997 election, when we hammered out a lot of the ideas that occupied the first period of the Labour Government after that election. We were pleased to give our support to that range of constitutional reforms.
One should look for consensus, however, only if it can be achieved. I have also said in debates in this House that if the Reform Act 1832 had had to wait for consensus, the Member for Old Sarum would probably still be sitting in the House of Commons. Sometimes constitutional reform is carried through by an individual or a Government with a clear idea of what they want to do and the guts and determination to carry their argument through both Houses.
I shall be frank about where I stand on the question of referendums. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, reminded us where she and I started on this. I was actually in the meeting of the national executive of the Labour Party when Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn proposed that the party should adopt a referendum on Europe as its policy, and he could not find a seconder for that resolution. That was because most of the parliamentarians sitting around that table expressed the view of referendums that has been expressed many times in this House and, to a certain extent, is reflected in the report—the suspicion that referendums had been used in the past by fascist dictatorships and that they undermine the essential basis of a parliamentary representative democracy. The fact that a year or so later Mr Benn carried his resolution does not negate the point. I suspect that my generation and those who are older probably share the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, that referendums are best kept for Welsh opening hours rather than for more serious matters.
On the other hand and to put it into context, a few weeks ago I expressed these views to one of the younger MPs from my parliamentary party. He fiercely, and with a gleam in his eye, denounced me for such views, saying that if we were ever going to reconnect with the people, we must keep an open mind about the use of different kinds of systems for engaging the public. He was firmly of the view that the use of referendums and some of the ideas for involving people that were outlined in the Power report—such as the new schemes for involving and consulting people via the internet—were the new politics and that we must recognise that.
I read the report with great interest but with a feeling that perhaps there is a generational difference in attitudes to such things. Down the corridor there are people who are willing to look at these issues and challenge some of our more small “c” conservative views about the use of referendums. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, pointed out, they have been used since 1975, not on a national basis, but frequently and sometimes with good benefit. I take the point that was made about the vote in Northern Ireland, which undoubtedly helped to cement the agreement.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, respectively, on the report and on securing time for this debate. It has been an excellent debate—one of those that you are fearful of when it is your job to reply, as you see all the school debating stars coming out for the game. It is a tribute to the committee that, as has been pointed out, so many of those who have spoken today were not members of it. We get used to having debates on reports where virtually all the speakers were from the committee itself. It shows the quality of this report that it has brought out such a varied range of experts in the topics under review. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, that I have not found a committee report that has been so much respected by officials and Ministers. This is not a report that has been put on the shelf and forgotten. It has been read and this is reflected in the legislation that is going through Parliament at the other end. It is difficult at the moment to give all the answers because things may be changing even as we speak.
However, I know that there have been responses to the report—for example, on the wording of the question —which would certainly not abdicate responsibility. This is the Government’s policy. Although it seems that there is a superficial attraction to saying “Hand it across to a neutral party”, it is the Government’s view that is being put to the people. However, they took notice of what the committee said. I believe that an amendment has already been tabled in the other place, reflecting the Electoral Commission’s comments on the question. I hope this will produce the desired result of a question that people find acceptable.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am very pleased by what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has said about taking account of some of the recommendations. Will he specifically address the question of holding the referendum on the same day as the Scottish, Welsh and, in England, local government elections? I think the overwhelming view of this Chamber is that that would be a bad thing. Will the Government take serious note of that?
Lord McNally
I am quite sure that the Government will take serious note. One of the things that makes a debate such as this very difficult is the fact that we are talking about legislation that is passing through both Houses. We are talking about legislation which has yet to be debated fully in this House and is at around the midway stage in the other place. I understand that Members have specific criticisms of the ideas. Sometimes they may find to their surprise that the Government are flexible. At other times, as the noble and learned Lord will know from his ministerial experience, the Government will dig in their heels and say, “No, this is the way it’s going to be”. I do not think there is any evidence that the Government are using a steamroller on this. We are listening and consulting.
I saw Mark Harper’s response to the report. To try to get the House at least half on his side, I draw attention to his point that the Government agree that national referendums should be exceptional events, although they do not share the committee’s general concern that such referendums have been used in an ad hoc manner or as a tactical device. With such things it is best to leave it to the academics and historians to take a view. I suspect that local referendums, as somebody pointed out, will be rather expensive and, after a while, irritating. Let us just see how this works out.
I will move on to some of the questions that were specifically asked of me, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. She asked whether there would be information provision in the referendum and whether some of it should be independent. Again, the Government have already tabled an amendment to the Bill that will give the Electoral Commission the explicit power to provide information on both first-past-the-post and AV electoral systems. I also think—and this was certainly my experience of the 1975 election—that the two counting systems come together quite effectively. I say to those who preach doom for the coalition after this exercise that the other lesson I learnt was that, although in 1975 the various members of the Cabinet went out to campaign fiercely for their specific points of view, they came back together as an effective Government after the referendum. So that model does work in a referendum.
I have already mentioned that the Government have taken the Electoral Commission’s advice on the wording of the referendum. To the question of who will regulate local referendums, I am given the most helpful response that this matter is being considered. You cannot have better than that. Perhaps more helpfully, on the need for a post-referendum evaluation, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, also asked, we absolutely agree. Indeed, the much maligned Mark Harper also made clear in his response that there would be a proper and full evaluation by the Electoral Commission of the lessons to be learnt from the referendum, and that the Government would take actions following any recommendations that came from that.
I am running out of time to give full responses. I was very interested in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. I shall certainly look at the work that he did before leaving office. I told him privately yesterday, and tell him now publicly, that he is a hard act to follow, not least as regards some of the work that he was doing on constitutional reform involving outside bodies and interest groups. I will certainly follow up some of that work.
The noble Lord, Lord Owen, came to the help of the pro-referendum side by illustrating how referendums have helped, if not to settle matters, at least to settle them for a time. He warned about fixing the date, but you cannot win in that regard. If you fix the date, you are considered to be opportunistic; if you do not fix the date, you are considered to be opportunistic. We have settled on the date not, as everyone has said in the debate, because those who want referendums pick only the date when they think they can win. Everybody is telling us that the relevant date will not be a very opportune time on which to hold a referendum on the voting system. We will see. As I say, once the two groups come together to put their arguments, it could be a very interesting and exciting campaign.
If I have missed any major questions, noble Lords can leap up. When I gave my list of things that had been covered in the debate, I missed out the coverage by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, of the Duckworth Lewis method of scoring at a limited-overs cricket match. I agree with him; I still do not know how it works.
The debate has shown the value of these reports. I agree with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, as regards paragraph 94, which sets out the issues for which referendums are most appropriately used. It states:
“To abolish the Monarchy; To leave the European Union; For any of the nations of the UK to secede … To abolish either House of Parliament; To change the electoral system for the House of Commons; To adopt a written constitution; and To change the UK’s system of currency”.
It is not an exhaustive list but it is not a bad one with which to start. We are all indebted to the committee. As I said in the middle of my speech, this report has been closely studied in Whitehall. It is already having an effect on the legislation that is going through the House. We are all indebted to the committee for such a formidable and useful piece of work.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, the whole House will be very grateful to the Minister for taking the trouble to give us his personal analysis and description of his reply to the debate. It is very encouraging to hear—as I asked at the outset—that some of the things which were raised in the committee’s report have already been adopted by the Government. We understand, of course, the problems of dealing with this kind of “take note” debate while legislation goes through the other House.
I welcome my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton back to the Front Bench. We look forward to his continuing involvement in constitutional issues although the now famous Mr Mark Harper may be less enthusiastic. I congratulate all noble Lords who have spoken in this very distinguished list of speakers we have heard from this afternoon. I am particularly grateful to those who have commented favourably on the quality and timing of the report. However, as I said at the outset, that praise is primarily due to the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, who I was delighted to note took part in the debate.
As so often in your Lordships' House, this type of debate has attracted an enormously authoritative group of views from people who have had various experiences in different types of referendums, which they have reported very faithfully. I hope that the House will not think it unfair of me to say that most of those contributions reflected the general scepticism about referendums conveyed in the report. I, of course, support that given the part that I took in the committee’s inquiry.
We have heard from a large number of speakers—this was also noted by the Minister in his conclusion—who did not take part in the committee proceedings as they were not members of the committee. That has enormously enriched the debate. I go so far as to say that today we have had a very powerful form of pre-legislative scrutiny of the political parties and referendums Bill, which we hope will come to us in due course. I hope that we all look forward to those deliberations. Like the Minister, I think that at Second Reading we shall hear again in one form or other some of the contributions made this afternoon. In the mean time, I hope that the House will accept the Constitution Committee’s report on referendums as a timely contribution to our further deliberations.
Digital Switchover: Communications Committee Report
Lord Fowler
That this House takes note of the Report of the Communications Committee on Digital switchover of television and radio in the United Kingdom (2nd Report, Session 2009–10, HL Paper 100).
Lord Fowler
My Lords, this is the last report of the Communications Select Committee which was under my chairmanship until the election. I take the opportunity to thank all the members of that committee for the support which they consistently gave me and for the wide experience that they put at the service of the House. I rode on the shoulders of a range of broadcasting professionals and other media professionals, including religious broadcasting professionals and irrepressible experts on the new media.
Given all the adventures we had setting up this committee —the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will remember that—I am also extremely glad that it is continuing in this Parliament as it is an important committee and has a great role to play. My only sadness is that my successor as chairman—my noble friend Lord Onslow—is unwell. We all wish him a speedy return to the House.
The case for digital switchover in television and radio is basically the following. Digital broadcast uses less space in the spectrum than the equivalent analogue broadcast, more services are possible and the space freed up on the spectrum by switching from analogue to digital television broadcasting is in demand for other services. The same does not apply as far as radio is concerned. There are many new services. That is why television switchover has gone so smoothly in this country—the public can see the benefit. New programmes are open to them. They may still sit there of an evening wondering what exactly is worth watching, but the choice is there and the process has been managed so far, I think, without substantial hitch, bar one issue: that is, the help scheme for the elderly.
The predecessor of the Communications Committee, the Select Committee on the Royal Charter—one or two members of that committee are present—was in no doubt about how the help scheme should be financed. We said that it should come out of general taxation like other social security payments such as free television licences for the elderly. The then Government rejected that advice and insisted instead that it should be financed by the licence fee—a regressive tax. Our report shows the result. Rather than a 65 per cent take-up, which was the Government’s estimate, there has been a 20 per cent take-up. This has resulted in a likely underspend of between £250 million and £300 million. In other words, licence fee payers were charged too much, the BBC was deprived of income which could have gone to other programme making, and the previous Government slightly flaffed about trying to find something else to spend the money on. I hope that if there is a help scheme for radio switchover, at least we will learn the lessons of television and not raise the money in that way.
The main problems on switchover obviously concern radio. It remains a powerful medium in this country. It has defeated all predictions of its demise. Ninety per cent of the population listen regularly to the radio and it boasts some of the best programmes. On radio, the “Today” programme each morning is politically more important than any of its television rivals. Drama on BBC radio goes much wider than anything on television. Classic radio successfully challenged the view of the old controllers of Radio 3, who seemed to believe in the wide appeal of 15th century Mongolian chants. And—how do I put this?—some of us prefer the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on radio on Thursday mornings to the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, on television on Wednesday evenings on BBC1.
Of course, the popularity of radio and FM radio is much of the problem as far as switchover is concerned. The public are well satisfied and they ask, not unreasonably, what the advantage will be of making the change. They know that they will get some new services—Radio 7 and 4 Plus come to mind—but, with the best will in the world, this is not on the scale of television. However, what they are also beginning to understand is that there will be a substantial cost to them for switchover—a financial cost and a cost in inconvenience. Of course they are absolutely right. The best estimates suggest that there are more than 100 million analogue radios in this country, all of which will become substantially useless in the new digital world. The public will get community radio, but precious little else. Thereby, families up and down the land will find that their ordinary FM radios have become redundant. Certainly, judging from my post bag and my experience, we are often talking about three or four radios in a household becoming redundant. If you have a hi-fi receiver and you want to continue listening to music on the radio—the Proms, for example—the cost of replacement is likely to be substantial.
That is not the end of the matter. There are about 33 million cars on the road. Virtually all have analogue radios and will require converters at an additional cost. As a broad rule of thumb, the position is as follows: by the time of the switchover, it should be possible for cars of less than five years old to have garage-fitted converters behind the dashboard and an external aerial. The cost to the motorist is likely to be between £75 and £100. For cars which are more than five years old, the prospect is that the converter would go into the glove compartment and, if you fit it yourself, the cost will be about £40 or £50. I emphasise that this is in addition to the costs of replacements in the home.
Therefore, there is no question that there is a substantial cost to switchover and a substantial cost to the ordinary person. That has never been made sufficiently clear to the public in the lead-up to this process. The inevitable question that arises is: should we go ahead? Is it worth it? To be honest, there are formidable disadvantages to digital switchover for the consumer. If there had been a referendum—we were debating referendums in the previous debate—I very much doubt whether we would have gone ahead. However, the previous Government decided that we should go ahead, for a variety of reasons—particularly the views of the radio industry. That is where we are and that is the position that the new Government have inherited.
The Government announced their policy on 8 July in a digital radio action plan. If I may carp to the Minister about just one point of that announcement, it was made not in Parliament and certainly not in reply to the Select Committee which had received a reply from the Government only a few weeks before. Anyone who looks at that government response will find it full of happy and pretty meaningless generalisations. It could have been written by our old friend, the noble Lord, Lord Davies. It probably was written by him and was inherited by the new Government.
The action plan was launched at an outside conference and not before the inevitable trailer in the morning, which allowed the Guardian to write that the Minister,
“will declare the government’s support for digital radio today”,
and that, in a speech in London, he “will say…”. In a previous report, the Select Committee said that it wanted to restore the influence of Parliament and that statements should be made here first, without trailers. It would be a vast pity if the policy of spin was to continue now that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, and Mr Campbell have left the scene. It would be a particular pity in this case, because the Government have had some very powerful arguments on digital switchover for continuing with the policies.
I pay tribute to the Government because they clearly took note of our report—particularly our strong advice that the public had to be taken with the process. The Minister, Mr Vaizey, said that 2015 remained the target date. However, he added:
“We will not switch over until the vast majority of listeners have voluntarily adopted digital radio over analogue. We will not switch over to digital until digital coverage matches FM”.
He believed that there would be benefit to the public in multichannel national radio in the same way as in television. To be frank, whether that is right or wrong there is one further and conclusive reason why we need to proceed. Many people have relied on the promise of the previous Government and bought new sets. More than 11 million digital receivers have already been sold, about a quarter of radio listening is already digital and, of course, the radio industry is preparing for the change. The motor industry is preparing to make digital radio standard in all cars by 2013. A U-turn in policy would run the risk of turning public confusion into an utter shambles.
Therefore, the committee agrees with the Government that we should proceed—but subject to a number of steps to help the process. Of these, by far the most important is public information—telling the public what is happening and sharing the knowledge that at present is too often confined to the radio industry and the Government. It is a matter for concern that the public are still buying analogue radio sets, not all of them necessarily cheap, when in a few years’ time the plan is to make those sets redundant. The retailers need to explain the position to their customers. It is also a matter for concern that the motor industry has not proceeded faster than it has. The standard fitting of converters by 2013 is perilously close to the 2015 target for introduction. Most new cars can have a digital radio as a fitted extra, and the advantage of that should be spelt out.
More and better information is very much of the essence, as is the development of a scrappage scheme, given that manufacturers and retailers are likely to have something of a bonanza as the switchover date comes nearer. I do not pretend that even with these steps the outlook for the future is perfect—and some will put it rather more strongly than that—but it will certainly be an improvement on what has happened up to now.
My last point is that in this area—again I pay tribute—the Government have not only listened to, but acted on, some of the recommendations in our report. That stands in contrast to what sometimes happened in the past. Earlier, I mentioned the help scheme for television. The previous Government drowned us in words of appreciation for our hard work and skill, and did precisely the opposite of what we recommended, with dire results. I will give another example. We opposed the setting up of the BBC Trust. Again, the previous Government thanked us fulsomely for our report—again, the thanks went on and on—and again they went ahead with a plan that is now almost universally condemned.
My point, as I leave this Select Committee, is that there is a great deal of practical experience on a committee such as the Select Committee on Communications. A wise Government will listen to that advice. I hope that this Government will continue on the path that they have begun, and I hope that they will give the advice the proper consideration that it deserves. I beg to move.
Lord Maxton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for initiating the debate on our report. Perhaps more importantly, I also pay a sincere tribute to his chairmanship of the Select Committee for Communications in the last Parliament. He brought a great deal of expertise to the job and was always fair and tolerant in his handling of the members of the committee, even when they were the irrepressible advocates of the new media. I am sure that there were times when I tested his patience and good will, and there were times when we disagreed on issues. However, he always treated me with both tolerance and respect and I thank him for that. Lastly, I thank him for the fact that because of this debate I will be unable to watch Scotland playing Spain on television. That is something for which I owe him serious thanks.
This is a very thorough and thoughtful report, and already many of its proposals, as the noble Lord said, have been either recognised or implemented by the Government or Ofcom. The part of the report dealing with the switchover from analogue to digital television by 2012 is basically non-controversial—with the exception of the one issue that he raised—and it rightly praises those who are dealing with it. In passing, I note that the technology, even in this area of television, is changing rapidly. Sky is now showing some 3D programmes, which one can watch if one has a 3D television, and this may become the norm, particularly if it becomes possible to watch 3D without wearing awful dark glasses. If this happens, consumers yet again will be required to purchase new television sets. More importantly, internet televisions are now on the market, allowing viewers the ability to read e-mails and surf the web on their televisions from their armchairs using a remote control very similar to their present one. This will mean that access to a range of video sites will be available, which will allow viewers to watch programmes from around the world as well as catching up on all the channels broadcast in this country.
I am in some difficulty speaking second because—as I am sure those who served on the committee might expect—I am not going to follow completely the committee line on the major part of the report. Rightly, with the switchover from analogue to digital going smoothly, it is the much more controversial switch from the FM radios to digital sets using DAB that is the major concern of the report, on which I will concentrate the rest of my remarks.
As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said, the advantages of this switch are not as obvious as those for television. The lack of digital signals in parts of the country, the quality of the sound in some areas, the large cost to the consumer of replacing existing FM radio sets that, unlike TV sets, are redundant, and the cost to smaller community radio stations of obtaining access to the DAB spectrum, even if it is available, are all reasons why the switchover will be difficult. DAB is probably already out of date. DAB+ is being introduced in other countries in Europe, making DAB sets unusable when travelling abroad. As the noble Lord said, DAB radios are not at present being installed in cars, and it may be some years before they are standard. Lastly, the cost of changing the radio transmitters to digital for the last 15 per cent of the population, mainly in rural and remote areas, who at present get FM signals, may prove prohibitive.
Is this debate relevant? Is the only choice between FM radio or digital, whether through DAB or DAB+; or is there an alternative that will be more reliable, give greater choice and in the long run be cheaper? I believe that internet radio is that alternative. I use the term internet radio as shorthand for the ability to listen to thousands of radio stations and other sound streams from around the world using whatever device, mobile or stationary, is available to the listener. After putting this suggestion at a Question Time before the Recess, I received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland. It would be easy to attack him for the ignorance shown in his letter were it not for the fact that the arguments he put were the same as those put by my noble friends who were Ministers in the previous Government.
The first point made in the letter by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, is that internet radio listening is a one-to-one delivery system and, as the number of users increases, so does the cost to the broadcaster. I do not even begin to understand that point. I have put it to several people and nobody else understands it, either. Radio stations around the world stream their programmes on the internet, and they are available to anyone who wishes to listen to them and has the correct equipment. I cannot believe that the BBC would stream all its stations, both national and local, radio and television, on the internet if every time someone listened to them—and Ofcom research indicates that that could be up to 17 million people in this country daily—it incurred more costs. It would not do it, and nor would any other radio station.
The second argument in the letter is that broadband networks do not have the capacity for everyone who listens to radio to switch from FM or DAB to listening on the internet. Certainly, if everyone who now has a radio at home went out tomorrow and bought an internet radio, threw out all their other radios and listened only to internet radio, the broadband system might not be able to cope. I say “might” because I simply do not know. However, we are not talking about switching from FM to DAB in 2010 or even 2012. The earliest date suggested for even a limited switch is 2015, and many witnesses we interviewed did not think that even that was realistic.
Broadband capacity has increased enormously, while compression technology has also improved dramatically. I remember that in 2001, in the other place, I asked the then Secretary of State for Trade, Patricia Hewitt, how she defined broadband. Eventually—and it was eventually —she suggested that broadband could be defined as anything between 400 kilobytes and 2 megabytes. Now, less than 10 years later, 20 megabytes is the standard offering of nearly all broadband companies.
BT is on target to provide 100-megabyte cable access for 40-plus per cent of households. Virgin Media is already offering its customers 50 megabytes for a small extra charge and is experimenting with 200 megabytes. Other countries, such as South Korea and Japan, provide not just radio but all their television services down cable. Even in rural areas at the moment, 10 megabytes is not unusual. By 2015, it is inconceivable that the capacity of the broadband network will not have grown by more than enough to cope with it being the main provider of domestic radio use. After all, the Government are committed to ensuring that every household has access to broadband by 2012 and that 90 per cent of households will be able to access high-speed broadband by 2017.
So what about car radios, which account for some 20-plus per cent of radio usage? I proved to myself recently that you can get internet radio on your car radio probably easier than you can get DAB radio. As the noble Lord said, DAB requires the purchase of a specific, relatively expensive device to transform, not very successfully, your car radio from FM. Getting internet radio can be done with a cable and a smart phone with 3G capacity. I have an iPad, which will surprise no one. On it I have a radio app which accesses radio stations from around the world. I plugged my AV lead into the iPad and was able to listen to Minnesota Public Radio as my wife drove me along a motorway in Scotland. Okay, who wants to listen to Minnesota Public Radio? But the point was made. I was also able to listen to BBC Radio Scotland on my iPad while on holiday in Lanzarote.
What other advantages will internet radio provide? It will provide a massive choice of stations of course, a quality of sound at least the equal of DAB—and there are those who argue that it is actually better than DAB—and, once everyone has access to broadband even in the remotest rural areas, using the internet to provide high-quality radio may be both easier and cheaper than changing all the transmitters to provide DAB radio. I am no technology expert but surely providing radio, and indeed television, down a wire—either cable or telephone—uses less radio spectrum than listening to radio or watching television by terrestrial means. Nearly all households have a telephone at the moment and the Government are committed to ensuring that they all have access to broadband by 2012.
I believe that the Government need to look again at this issue before they embark on an expensive and possibly useless programme of introducing DAB radio.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
Oh dear, my Lords, how does one follow that? I think that I shall just return to the words that I wrote earlier and not try to address the technological forest that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, has sketched out.
I rise as someone who was a member of the Communications Committee when this report was published and when it was so ably chaired by a man whom I can now publicly call my noble friend—Lord Fowler. No more secrets and no more subterfuge about our relationship—there are good things about the coalition. On a serious note, I am proud to have been a member of the committee, and proud of the many other reports that we published under his expert leadership—a hard act to follow. I also thank our clerk, Ralph Publicover, Rita Logan, the committee assistant, and Papiya Chatterjee, who was our committee specialist. I thank, too, fellow members of the committee, many of whom are here. It was a very convivial group and I hope that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester has not taken personally the exodus of the Liberal Democrats from the Benches around him.
The report that we are debating today is about the digital switchover of television and radio. Like, I suspect, most people this evening, I shall concentrate on radio.
In 1922 when the British Broadcasting Company was set up, it transmitted only radio of course and it had a staff of four people. That admirable series “A History of Modern Britain” had wonderful footage of those pioneering days, when the only choice for listeners appears to have been in the sole gift of a Captain Eckersley, who would, using the words of the presenter Andrew Marr,
“trundle his piano from his local pub to an equally local army hut from which he would perform to the nation”.
Those days when choice for listeners was confined to one man’s piano repertoire are long, long gone, and the advent of digital television and radio means change as fundamental as when Lord Reith got rid of Captain Eckersley.
The digital switchover of television is under way, running, it appears, without major problems and to time. Of course London—by far the biggest challenge in terms of numbers—does not switch until 2012, the crucial year of the Olympics. However, one of the factors to have helped with the TV switchover has been the large number of people who, one way or another, already have digital television services, and that number will no doubt be even higher by 2012.
Therefore, where television is concerned, the technology, and the expansion of choice that it has given, has been embraced by viewers. I believe—here I think that I probably differ from my noble friend Lord Fowler—that the same benefits of increased choice and new, innovative ways to enjoy content can and will be equally popular with radio listeners, and that is what the switchover to digital radio will supply.
Our report warned of the potential danger of a very different reaction to radio switchover. My noble friend Lord Fowler went so far as to say that he thought it might cause a “major row”. I do not think it is necessary for it to cause a major row. The most important thing to come out of our inquiry was the need to allay the confusion that surrounds digital radio switchover among the public and the sense of uncertainty within the industry. Witness after witness appealed for clarity of both purpose and information, and called for the Government to make the case for switchover.
In July, on launching the government/industry Digital Radio Action Plan, the Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey, made a firm commitment that the future of radio was digital and that the Government would indeed lead in the drive to overcome the remaining barriers to switchover. The Minister believes that it should be radio listeners,
“who will determine when [digital switchover] can happen through their listening habits and purchasing decisions”.
This was welcomed—not surprisingly, exuberantly—by consumer groups, and indeed the opportunity provided for consumer representatives to be actively involved in the process is absolutely right. I think more thought should be given to setting a date and I am sure there will be as we proceed. Talk about a target but not a commitment worries me. Perhaps we are trying to be all things to all pressure groups when in the action plan we say:
“the timetable for the delivery of the Action Plan supports a target switchover date of 2015 as a target which all parts of the industry can work towards ... However, there should be no conflict between the timetable and the switchover criteria. When the decision is made to set a firm date for digital switchover, it will be the criteria, not the timetable, which take precedence”.
I am not sure what that means and it is the kind of paragraph that should not be included in an action plan.
My concern is that there may be a horse and cart problem. Retailers have to be convinced that we are genuinely moving toward switchover before they will stop selling, and indeed marketing, analogue radios to people who need to be convinced before they stop doing what they are doing now, which is still buying them in their droves. Car manufacturers are still fitting analogue radios in new cars which, it is said, will stop by 2013, but will it if 2015 remains a target caught between timetable and criteria?
It is greatly to be welcomed that the BBC is increasing digital coverage from 85 per cent to 92 per cent by 2011, through the installation of 61 new national DAB transmitters. However, the fact is that uncertainty is not an incentive for investment in new technology, or for that matter in content which is so much part of the bonus that digital radio will bring.
Another big concern we encountered was about FM, and I am sure we all welcome the decision to retain FM as a platform for small, local and community radio stations. Also a precondition of switchover is the extension of digital radio multiplexes to match that of FM, which means that all existing stations that want a digital future will be able to have one. But there is no point in being able to get digital radio if most of us find it impossible to access and use. Here I agree with the Consumer Expert Group that,
“the emphasis should be placed on improving basic usability, rather that the advanced functionality of digital radio to encourage take-up”.
In other words, digital radio needs its own version of the electronic programme guide which allows the viewer to navigate their way easily among the myriad choices on offer through digital television. For the blind and partially sighted—this is not the case for television—that needs to incorporate voice recognition. Returning to the matter of FM, fears about local stations being sidelined can be allayed if the technology that allows seamless switching between analogue and digital continues to be developed.
Finally, I turn to the help scheme. Radio, perhaps even more than television, is of huge importance to the old and the vulnerable. For 91 per cent of the blind and partially sighted, listening to the radio is their favourite pastime. I think we need assurance from the Minister that the Government will implement a help scheme similar to that in place for television switchover. Although the take-up, as my noble friend Lord Fowler mentioned, for the television help scheme was much lower than anticipated, it has been crucial to those it did help.
The evidence about the implementation of the TV switchover help scheme was that it has been largely successful, but inevitably problems have been encountered, things have been learned and there are improvements that can be made. It is axiomatic that the experience of the TV switchover help scheme should be the foundation of the radio switchover help scheme.
I wish to mention a couple of specific points that emerged from evidence we took. The help scheme should be advertised nationally from the beginning, alongside the information campaign for switchover, rather than regionally as it is rolled out. In general, there is a need for greater co-ordination between the help scheme and the digital outreach programme— the latter is run by a partnership of voluntary organisations—particularly in regard to post-installation support, which it is felt needs to go on for longer than under the television scheme. Under the previous Government, the transition to digital for radio was characterised by drift and more drift, but under this Government and their Minister Ed Vaizey, I believe that there is recognition of the need for clarity and for certainty.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, despite the late hour, I am glad that your Lordships’ House has had this opportunity to review the progress made towards digital switchover, both for television and radio, since our committee’s report was published in March and in light of this Government’s or the previous Government’s reaction, which was produced in June.
Today the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, has already heaped paeans of praise on the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. The terms of office of the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and I as members of that Select Committee ran out at the same time as that of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, although I claim the right to say just how privileged and lucky we were to have him as our excellent chairman from the time we fought—and we did fight, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has already mentioned—to have such a Select Committee established in your Lordships’ House. Without any doubt, the background of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, steeped as it has been in the media world, was of immense value to us all in the work of the reports that we have undertaken. I stress that that will be sadly missed in the work that the committee will be undertaking in future.
Today, I want to spend my time on two issues—probably the same issues as the noble Lord, although my views may be slightly different. The first is the progress that has been and continues to be made as we move towards the final phase of TV switchover in 2012 and, secondly, on the longer timescale envisaged before radio digital switchover takes place. The first thing to say on television is that progress has clearly been made since our report was published and has speeded up since the Digital Economy Bill became law. One illustration of that is that our report estimated that by the end of March, about one-fifth of television viewers would have switched over, whereas Digital UK tells us that, by Christmas this year, it will be one-quarter of all UK homes, which is 7.1 million homes. It is fair to say that most TV viewers have more than accepted the added value that digital will bring to their TV watching. When buying new sets—and that is still happening a lot—and other equipment, they are certainly alert to the technical as well as the other benefits that the industry continues to place in the marketplace.
The outreach programme, albeit within the limitations outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, is, I would have thought, doing pretty well. Digital UK has now commissioned DOL with a total of £6.7 million to complete the cost of its work until the last switchover action is complete. What has been achieved in those regions which have already switched over is, I would argue, value for money. Its approach, as switchover reaches the region, is to brief and embed necessary switchover messages into the routine work of well known and trusted local, voluntary and community-sector organisations. I understand that the new culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, remarked at Digital UK's AGM, when congratulating the voluntary sector on the vital role that they were playing within the DOL scheme, on how well that reflected the Government's big society approach and that this could be a model for other major public change projects. I think it fair also to say that the outreach programme has proved effective in helping large numbers of people, including potentially vulnerable consumers and citizens.
On the digital radio front, it is generally agreed that the point of national switchover to digital will take longer to achieve and, above all, must reflect the consumer/citizen belief that digital radio has reached the stage when it would produce a greater quality as well as a greater variety of radio programmes. As we have heard, our report recommended the 2015 date, if those aims were achieved, and that continues to reflect the majority view of the organisations that have written in. However, although more action is and will be needed, we should not forget, as the Government’s Digital Radio Action Plan reminds us, that the UK is nevertheless the current world leader in take-up of digital radio. About 11 million sets have been sold to 35 per cent of UK households, with digital listening accounting for 24 per cent of total listening in the UK. Surely we do not want to lose that initiative of being a world leader.
Equally, as Ed Vaizey has said, certainty for the sector and consumers is key to unlocking potential and building confidence in a digital future for radio. Thus, we already know that switchover can be made only once 50 per cent of listening is to digital, national DAB is comparable to FM, and local DAB reaches 90 per cent of the population and all major roads. It is indeed good news that the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders expects its members to put digital radios in all new cars by 2013, and quite a number of them are doing it already. Clearly 2013 will be crucial as the target year for those—Ofcom, broadcasters, manufacturers, retailers and consumer groups—working together with Government to meet the conditions necessary if it is to be agreed that switchover will happen two years later in 2015.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some up-to-date information on how all this is progressing, what remaining funding gaps—which have been pointed out—need to be financed and, in particular, whether the funds needed for the remaining required build-out of the national, regional and local digital infrastructure have been agreed and, if so, who will provide them and pay for it. I believe there are ongoing government discussions with the BBC about funding local digital coverage. If so, can the Minister tell the House when the Government expect to be able to make an announcement on this?
One other recommendation our report made was that a help scheme with special focus on disadvantaged and special-needs groups should be set up through general taxation, as has already been noted, and that it should not be financed out of the licence fee as happened with digital TV. The potential importance of such a scheme for radio switchover must clearly remain on the agenda. We have already heard that the blind, the partially sighted and others will be disadvantaged if they are not helped with these added methods of accessing the digital future on radio in the way that they will need to be helped. Perhaps the Minister will be happy to give us some up-to-date insight on the strategy on this.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, it has been an enormous privilege to have served on the two Select Committees that have been so graciously and knowledgeably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. His ability to enable amicable agreement on a range of matters between atheist, humanist and church members has been remarkable. Without exception, the reports that he has overseen have always been enhanced by his experience and expertise and have been of a very high standard. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, about the conviviality of our meetings, although all I can say about her reference to these Benches is that tonight they are a lonely place. I join noble Lords in wishing the new Select Committee well under the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. I am very glad that my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, who cannot be in his place tonight, is a member.
As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said, the switchover to digital television has, on the whole, been successful. By contrast, the issues facing the radio industry, as the Select Committee report indicates, are much more complex. While the Government’s digital radio action plan and last month’s consumer expert group’s recommendations are welcome steps forward, the case for digital radio switchover still needs to be more compelling if listeners are to be persuaded. The BBC’s Trust’s July appeal in its strategic review for greater clarity from government in terms of overall policy and the active involvement of the BBC and the commercial sector has clearly been heard. Indeed, many of the Select Committee’s carefully argued recommendations have been reflected in the action plan, but there are still areas that require robust perseverance if all this is to be the way forward.
Even though much has been said and written about DAB, a far clearer articulation is needed to communicate effectively and widely that, as part of a multi-platform radio ecology for the future, the UK is now committed to DAB as the digital standard. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, said about DAB+ and there is a real need for clarity to help people to understand why it is, if it is to be so, we remain with DAB. I also noted with interest his points about the internet. I recall that when we first sat together on a Select Committee he told me that it would not be long before I would be listening to radio and watching television on my computer. I did not believe him. Scarcely a day goes by now when I am not doing those very things.
Another key part of the mixed ecology is, as other noble Lords have said, the continuance of FM. I welcomed the assurances by the Government on the future of FM when the action plan was launched. In the Committee stage leading to the Digital Economy Act, I made a number of interventions to stress the fact that smaller, local stations, many of which serve their communities extremely well and for which it would be economically unviable to go digital, need to have the security of knowing that the FM band will be open to them for the long term. I very much hope that the assessment, to which the plan makes a commitment by the end of 2012, of the role and character of the small, local and community stations remaining on FM will bear in mind that the FM band could continue to provide a critical platform for small stations, which not only serve geographically defined areas but identity-defined and interest-defined groups as well.
I am glad that the tripartite report from the BBC, Digital Radio UK and RadioCentre recognises that. Although some of those stations may decide to move to digital and expand their coverage, others for very good reasons will need to remain on FM. Those stations are vital to forging the togetherness of local communities, promoting local social action and encouraging democracy. They need to know that their platform is secure.
The radio sector has arguably suffered from some past political ambivalence over the best way to proceed with switchover. The action plan’s emphasis on a consumer-led process and a range of criteria, placing the onus on the sector to provide world-class digital radio programmes and woo the listener, is surely a sensible way forward. It is certainly preferable to the rigidity of the former 2015 timetable. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, quoted the Minister on this. Saying that we will support switching off analogue, but only when the vast majority of listeners have already switched over to digital, strikes me as the right approach for the Government. Therefore, the important thing would be for the radio industry to recognise that and to act on it.
If broadcasters deliver great radio content on the digital platform and let listeners know that it is there, people will buy the receivers and tune in. Making the case for switchover compelling for consumers will reduce considerably the amount of resourcing required for public information and the switchover help schemes, although not of course completely. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, there are and always will be vulnerable listeners, including the elderly and disabled, who require help and who must not be overlooked. On that, I stress the importance of the switchover help scheme and the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. It was also interesting to hear the warnings given by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in relation to the TV help scheme experience.
However, none of this emphasis on a consumer-led transition should be an excuse for delay in the Government, the BBC and commercial radio partners exploring together further arrangements for significant investment in the transmission infrastructure for national and local DAB radio. People will not tune in if there is nothing to tune into. And even with the BBC’s plans for 61 new national DAB transmitters by the middle of next year that will take coverage to just over 90 per cent of the population—almost 100 per cent within the M25—it would still require several hundred new transmitters to reach the final small percentage of the population. Radio, in particular, provides a very important sense of connection for those in the remote and isolated rural areas, and the truth is that we still do not know when some of the more inaccessible parts will be reached with a reliable digital signal. So there remains much to do on the pathway to a digital upgrade, and the matter of car radios has also been mentioned by several noble Lords as a good example of some continuing confusion.
I welcome the fact that the Government are adopting a detailed, determined and far more pragmatic approach. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was absolutely right to emphasise that better communication about the benefits of going digital is required. Perhaps the Government will produce an action plan plus that seeks genuinely to provide incentives towards and enable digitalisation without bankrolling the industry. The plus would involve investment, perhaps through long-term state loans or even—and I was present during the short debate on the licence fee at Question Time—a licence fee settlement that reflects the cost of building up the network to extend coverage at least to match that of the current FM map.
Whatever the solutions, none of the problems around the digital switchover for radio is insurmountable. Continuing contributions from the new Select Committee, concerted efforts by the broadcasters—BBC and commercial—creative responses from radio manufacturers and a convincing lead from the Government which remains sensitive to the human issues may, if properly co-ordinated, lead to a mixed radio ecology of which this nation could continue to be rightly proud.
Lord Inglewood
My Lords, I should declare that I was a member of the Communications Committee in the last Parliament and that I am chairman of the Cumbrian Newspaper Group, which has some radio stations. I cannot speak for other members of the committee, but when I left for my summer break I put the affairs of the media as far as work in this House is concerned entirely out of my mind, so that when I came back and turned my attention to writing a speech for this evening, I forgot entirely about television. The reason for that, as noble Lords will have gathered from my earlier comments, is that I live in Cumbria, which is part of the Border TV region. We have already had digital switchover up there and, as far as we are concerned, it is all history. I think it is true to say, speaking as an individual, for my neighbours and from the evidence we have received from the experts, that it has been a great success. It has happened and it has worked. What is more, it seems to have worked considerably below budget.
In 1996 and 1997 when I was Minister for Broadcasting, I recall asking one of the officials, “How are we going to do this? We have said that we are going to turn off, so what will happen?”. Everyone was rather lost, so I said, “Oh well, we will have to fill their mouths with gold”. We have done it, and it has worked even by not giving them very much gold, so it has been a considerable success.
As has been said by others, the important point for radio is that the experiences of television provide a good basic template for a similar process for radio, even though they are not entirely the same. We are right to go ahead with digital radio, even at its lowest level. The world moves on—and it is moving on into the digital era. I see the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, shaking his head and I shall come to his point in but a moment.
The question then is: how do you take it forward? We are at a point where decisions have to be made about whether or not to go ahead with digital audio broadcasting—DAB. I believe that it is right that we should go ahead with it. Some of the debate about whether it should be DAB or DAB+ was coloured by commercial considerations. However, the important thing as far as that is concerned is that the multi-standard chip becomes compulsory. This would allow the simple DAB to evolve into the DAB+ system if that is appropriate.
A number of noble Lords asked about FM and it is right that we should deal with it. There is a whole range of different radio stations—smallish and medium-sized commercial stations and community stations—which will not be able to find a place on digital as it is currently conceived. Exactly what the future for them is I do not know. I have a suspicion that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, is right and that the moment will come when the existing FM transmitters need replacement and it is likely that these stations will move directly to broadcasting on the internet.
A number of your Lordships mentioned the importance of the timetable for taking forward this process. I can corroborate that because once the television industry was given fixed timetables it then came forward with sets, and when it was done on a large scale the unit costs declined substantially.
However, unlike television, the radio industry has had a series of problems thrown up by car radios. It is right that emphasis is being placed both on ensuring that conversion kits are available at a sensible price and that services such as traffic reports, which are important to motorists, can be received via the digital systems. However, we should remember that if you can afford a car, you can afford a radio to put in it. To put the question of costs into proportion, a digital radio does not cost much more—indeed, it will shortly cost less—than a tank of petrol.
As to the role of consumer groups, one of the great developments since the end of the Second World War has been the rise of the consumer lobby. This has been to the advantage of everyone. On the other hand, one of the lessons of the TV digital switchover is that people are much more adept in the use of changing technology than the prophets of gloom might suggest. Almost by definition, one of the characteristics of the consumer lobby is that it looks for every possible difficulty because that is where it sees it should be coming from. The lesson learnt from the rollout of digital TV and, more generally, from the way in which the electronics industry has developed, is that the industry has been extremely revolutionary. It has introduced systems of controlling these magical devices—they are magical to me—which enable relatively simple people like me to deal with them. I believe that giving the manufacturers confidence will lead them, from their own perspective of self-interest, to find ways of enabling people both to afford and to use the means of locking into the new technology.
As a number of noble Lords have already said, this is the final debate on the previous Parliament’s Communications Committee. I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for the way in which he led us, respected our views and enabled us to have a convivial time. I am not sure whether anyone else has said this, but I suspect that he did so in such a way that he got his own way most of the time—and that is the highest accolade you can give a chairman.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane
My Lords, simply because the evidence has been bound into the volume with our report, it looks a more daunting read than it really is. I hope that that does not put off some of our colleagues in the House, because we are all listeners and viewers and digital switchover will affect us all. It is very important that this House at least is well informed as to the effects of digital upgrade, particularly on the radio sector, which I shall concentrate on.
It has already been pointed out that in television everything seems to be going well. In a way, it is not surprising. The digital offer in television is a distinct improvement on radio; there are more services; and the public wanted more than five digital services. The cost of conversion is about 10 per cent of the cost of a set, which is buttons. More than that, the Government made money by selling off the surplus spectrum, so everyone was happy. That should not, however, stop us from acknowledging the very good work done by Digital UK in ensuring that it has all gone quite as smoothly as it has so far. I hope that continues.
By contrast, there is absolutely no evidence that the public wanted any more radio stations—indeed, as I shall shortly indicate, we have far too many at the moment. The Government get no money from selling off the spectrum, and the cost of converting an analogue radio set—as has already been pointed out, there could be as many as 100 million of them in this country—is pretty well the same as buying a new digital radio set.
So let us examine how we got into this position, for I concede that the case for digital switchover in radio is not nearly as strong as it is in television. Let us go back to the Broadcasting Act 1990, which introduced the great concept of licences being auctioned off. Smart operators such as my noble friend Lord Macdonald, who is sitting along from me, very sensibly bid about £2,000 for STV’s licence. Other people chipped out many millions of pounds and have been feeling the pinch ever since.
There was however a public outcry at the idea of auctioning off television without a criterion of quality threshold. So a quality threshold was introduced for television but not for independent national radio. This meant that independent national radio licences went to the highest bidder. The reason that it was not a pop station was because the House, on the recommendation of the then IBA, said that it would not be. When asked how he defined “pop”, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who was then the Minister, said, “Thump, thump, thump”. It was a very apt description. Showtime won the licence, bidding over £1 million more than Classic FM. It was awarded the licence provided that it could raise the money by 16 August 1991. It failed to do so, however, so the licence went by default to Classic FM.
It is fair to say that the IBA, and subsequently the Radio Authority, was quite proud to be allowed to regulate Classic FM. It was the sort of thing you could talk to your friends about. Their wives might admit that they listened to commercial radio as distinct from saying, “I think my cleaner sometimes listens to it”. The authority was very anxious to ensure that that Classic FM would survive. Given that its licence would be up for auction in a few years, all that somebody had to do was come in with £5 more than Classic FM’s bid, whatever rubbish they were going to broadcast, and they would get the licence. So the authority came up with the wheeze of suggesting to the Government that the 1996 Act include provision for digital radio and extend the licence of any broadcaster who agreed to broadcast on digital.
I was one of those operators at the time—I regret that it is no longer an interest since my company was acquired in 2005—who, like everyone else, said, “Yes, extend our licences for 12 years and, of course, we’ll run a second digital transmission system”. We regarded it simply as a tax worth paying for the security of having one’s licence, and nobody did very much about it. It is easy to blame politicians, but the honest truth is that the radio industry did not do much about it.
If we fast forward to 2008, a report came out—a report that was unpublished until ours came along—stating that the actual benefit from digital switchover would not appear until 2023. By 2008, the situation for commercial radio had changed out of all recognition. Audience levels were down, advertising revenue was down and commercial radio’s share of listening was down. With about 130 stations, commercial radio used to enjoy a majority of listening. It had 51 per cent and the BBC was privately prepared to lose share down to 30 per cent. The Radio Authority and subsequently Ofcom licensed more and more radio stations so with three times the number of radio stations—390—commercial radio’s share dropped as it now is to 41 per cent.
A real problem faces commercial radio but at this hour I will not indicate the remedy. It involves a change in the ownership rules. The Government are signed up to that, as were the previous Government, and that will make a difference. Without that, frankly, the future is fairly bleak. We are in a difficult situation and one thing that can be said with absolute certainty is that the independent sector cannot afford two transmission systems. We heard evidence. For example, Michael Betton from Lincs FM said that supporting two transmission systems would literally be the difference between staying in business and going out of business. What do we do? Do we say that we will abandon the digital experiment and say “We’re very sorry all you people who bought digital sets when we told you it would be a good idea. We’ll just forget about it”? The general feeling in the radio industry is that radio cannot remain an analogue island in a digital world. Although the benefits are not huge, we must go ahead with switchover and make the best of it.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, was right to set a target date and say that we were pressing ahead. More has happened in the 10 months since Digital Radio UK was set up in response to the target date of 2015 than happened in the previous 10 years. At last, the radio industry has geared up and things are happening. Motor car manufacturers are guaranteeing that they will have digital sets by 2013. That would not have happened if the Government had not given a firm date. As various speakers have said, we all need certainty, particularly those who have been asked to invest large amounts in retooling plant and equipment to install digital radios.
Although I fully endorse the decision to press ahead with digital, like other members of the committee, I believe that it should be done provided certain other things happen. The first thing that I would agree on is a big expansion in coverage. I do not like phrases like 90 per cent simply because I usually end up being part of the 10 per cent. Even 92 per cent sounds great, but I will guarantee that the remaining 8 per cent of the population covers large parts of Britain geographically. Rural areas tend to do that.
Universality of provision is a key ingredient in public service broadcasting. Let us remember that we extended terrestrial television coverage at huge uneconomic expense because we thought that it was something that every citizen should have. We must have the same attitude to digital radio and, I say in deference to my noble friend Lord Maxton, with regard to broadband provision throughout the country. I am very worried about all the high talk of 20 megabytes and 100 megabytes in the city and, frankly, 2 megabytes, if you are very lucky, in rural areas. That would increase the digital divide and it will rule out living in a rural area in a few years’ time unless we really motor on this and start to provide wide broadband coverage throughout the country.
The next point we insisted on was that something was done about cars. It has already been pointed out that there will be 20 million old cars without digital radios. Having talked to the digital people yesterday evening, they think that the cost of re-equipping a car when it goes in for an MOT will be around £70 or £80. That is not cheap, but perhaps it is bearable.
The other thing is to have a sensible disposal programme for the useless analogue radio sets. To be honest, I think that we are all right on the DAB versus DAB+ argument. If the Government’s ruling is that all sets must incorporate the multichip that will adapt to all services, I think that we are covered on that.
This was my first full report on the committee. I joined part the way through the previous report on the film industry. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. I greatly valued the assistance that we had from our Clerk and his assistant, Ralph Publicover. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was an outstanding chairman. He not only guided us through the meetings, but his contribution to the writings of the report went far beyond the call of duty and the House is greatly in his debt.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, congratulations are due to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on two counts. First, I congratulate him on the production of a very impressive report by the committee that he chaired—and I can say that not having been a member at that time of the committee. Secondly, he is going out tonight with something of a bang, with his introductory speech. Certainly, when his report was published it caused quite a stir. The key quotation was:
“The Communications Committee of the House of Lords says there is ‘public confusion and industry uncertainty’”.
That was widely picked up. Then the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was quoted by the Minister at the very beginning of his speech when he launched the digital radio action plan this July. He said,
“to quote Lord Fowler from earlier this week digital radio switchover could cause a ‘major row’”.
This report has certainly made quite an impression, not only in public but also in ministerial minds. We have had a very interesting debate tonight. I took the criticisms in the report as being largely of the process, not of the concept of switchover. I was extremely interested to listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, had to say. Although a lot of scepticism and doubt was expressed, at the end of the day his and the committee’s view seemed to be that we should nevertheless go ahead with radio digital switchover. Clearly the criticisms have been taken into account by the new Minister responsible and by Digital Radio UK. I did not have the benefit of listening to the evidence that the committee took in its deliberations last year and earlier this year, but I am an unashamed enthusiast for digital radio. By that I mean that I see the problems, in the words of the right reverend Prelate, as being surmountable. Essentially, the glass is half full.
I shall not enter the lists with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, but although I listened with great attention to his extremely interesting speech I do not believe that internet radio is necessarily the means by which we shall listen to the radio. It is an extremely valuable alternative, particularly for travellers with their iPhones and iPads—and I am the proud owner of an iPad, like the noble Lord—but I believe that digital radio has many advantages beyond those of internet radio. I understand the industry technological and cost arguments, but above all I believe that quality and convenience for the consumer must be the key factors in switchover—and I think they are there, with the sound quality, the ease of switching stations, the ability to time-shift and record and with the sheer variety of stations. Here I disagree with some noble Lords, who seem to believe that we have quite enough stations already. The fact that some of our very popular regional stations can go national is a major plus for digital radio.
Consumers are becoming much more engaged in the process. Let us take the rescue of BBC 6 Music, for example. I do not know how many listeners it had before the campaign started—probably about half a million—but the campaign actually raised the number of listeners to 1 million over a period of time. I am pleased to have taken a small part in the campaign to rescue 6 Music, which shows that digital radio stations are building real loyalty among the public.
The committee, however, was right to point out some of the key flaws in the process and to seek assurance on them. Let us take a few of the major criticisms: the question of information for and communication with the consumer and the lack of public understanding; the need for help schemes to be in place by the beginning of 2012 at the latest; and the fact that the Government should make it clear that DAB should be the standard. Much of this has been met by Ed Vaizey in his announcement and by the digital radio action plan launched in July. He confirmed that the target switchover date will be before 2015; that digital will need to cover the equivalent of FM—that is, at least 90 per cent; and that more than 50 per cent of households will need to have access to digital radio. Those are crucial conditions and, as many noble Lords mentioned today, that consumer-led process is vital.
I disagree with some noble Lords—I believe that this actually builds on the policies set out in the Digital Britain White Paper. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, who mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Carter, but he needs to take some credit for having set the ground rules and for the way in which we are proceeding. I believe that this is not a discontinuity of approach but very much the continuity of it. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, will espouse the same continuity when he responds from the opposition Benches.
We now know that under the digital radio action plan there will be a strategic marketing and communications plan which meets some of the criticism about public communication, and that a study will take place on the merits of putting a help scheme into place. That is rather more mealy-mouthed than many of us would want to see. As we have heard, however, proper assurance is being given that new cars will be fitted with digital radios from 2013 and there will be affordable conversion kits. Once they are available in bulk the price of those conversion kits might even fall to £65 rather than the higher figures that some noble Lords have mentioned.
It is also now clearer how better coverage of over 90 per cent, up from the current 85 per cent, will be achieved by the installation of new transmitters. As for DAB+, it is also much clearer that DAB will remain the standard. We heard about the necessity of multistandard chips from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. Crucially—this was an important issue when we debated the Digital Economy Act—there is also a much clearer future for FM radio and a much better understanding of its role. For the foreseeable future, FM will remain as a delivery channel of choice for local and community radio. The Minister could not have been clearer when he launched the action plan and said,
“we will not switch off FM. FM will remain a platform for small local and community radio … as long as these services want it”.
Now, that was pretty unequivocal and extremely welcome.
I am very glad that UTV—which lobbied very heavily on the issues covered in the Digital Economy Act, and was sceptical about the whole principle of digital switchover—is now essentially on board with the digital switchover strategy. I believe that the commercial radio industry is very much on board with it as set out in the action plan. It is also clear that progress is being made on the single receiver and platform-neutral tuning, as the committee wanted. In summary, I am strongly supportive of the new—or perhaps I should say restated—strategy.
However, some questions remain, and they derive mainly from the consumer expert group report published in September. I very much hope the Minister can give a response to some of the ideas in that report, which suggested that a firm digital switchover date should be set only when 70 per cent of listening is done on digital. That is quite a high hurdle and I will be interested to hear what the Minister says about it. Is an independent body required as the key information provider on digital radio, as it states? Then, there was the issue that my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter raised. There must be accessibility in the development of usability features on equipment for the disadvantaged. Then, crucially, and many noble Lords have mentioned this in the course of the debate, there is the need for consumer support through a help scheme for vulnerable listeners, not an optional extra but a vital element of the whole process. Will the Government go ahead with a help scheme? Will they then commit to funding it to fairly modest levels—I think that the quotes for this have been £5 million or £6 million—and will it be provided through general taxation? Those are key issues.
Lastly, will we build on the positive experience with the voluntary sector on digital outreach, with the help scheme for digital television switchover which has proved such a great success? I very much hope that digital radio will build on the success of that. We have momentum for digital radio switchover, but there are still some important issues to resolve. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Donoughue
My Lords, in welcoming this excellent report on a highly complex subject, I wish to focus briefly on the aspect of digital radio, which has exercised others today, and on which the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, spoke so well. I also thank him for the fine work that he did as the chairman of the committee.
Here I should declare a passionate interest—a lifetime of listening to music of all kinds. As with millions of other music lovers, I listen often on the radio, and the quality of the sound matters enormously. The Proms are best heard on a good-quality FM tuner radio like my lovely old Revox tuner. Sadly, the plans of the previous Government, which I generally supported but not in this area, were hostile to the interests of myself and many others who listen to music on the radio—hostile because they proposed to abolish rapidly the existing analogue FM system, which provides excellent music reproduction, and replace it with the technologically redundant DAB system, already abandoned in most of the rest of Europe, except, I think, by Norway and Ireland. I will be corrected if noble Lords can find another country—maybe Estonia. DAB has poor music sound, and almost all music lovers and listeners will confirm that.
The plans were hostile because the Government steamrollered ahead with this perhaps ill thought-out scheme without consulting sufficiently the consumer interest of the listening public. There was, and still is, little evidence of consumer demand for digital radio broadcasting. Television is a wholly different issue; the digital switchover works, and I am very pleased about that.
This question of radio broadcasting matters, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, stated. Some 90 per cent of the population over five years old listen to the radio for an average of, as the report said, 22 hours per week. That was in 2009. Despite the massive advertising campaign for DAB, still only 21 per cent or 22 per cent of listening was on digital in 2009, and only 16 per cent is on DAB even today. I cannot understand why noble Lords say that the consumer is supporting it; the figures are contrary.
As has been said, more than 30 million cars are currently driving without DAB. Despite the well advertised threat of scrapping FM in 2015, only roughly a quarter of new radio sales were digital in 2009. Virtually all car listening is currently on FM. I often go to hi-fi shops, and the staff there say that the majority of customers are still not interested in digital; instead, they are willing to invest their money in FM tuner radio equipment, despite the threat of rapid abolition.
So, why has the propaganda campaign to impose DAB on the British listening public failed? And it has. Most of the British public do not like DAB sound and most are content with analogue FM. That is the reason. It is not a failure of communication. That is what Stalin said whenever people complained that they were starving in the Russian countryside: “It must be a failure of communication and propaganda”. No, that was a failure of food production and this is a failure of technological production.
There is not the faintest prospect of reaching the target of 50 per cent coverage by digital—in 2013, remember—which is the prelude to the 2015 switchover. Yet still some in Whitehall, the BBC and the radio industry—from which we have heard distinguished representatives this evening, not that they wish to do this—wish to impose digital sound broadcasting on British listeners, effectively by abolishing the superior FM competition. This is how the East German communist regime boosted sales of its notorious Trabant car; it excluded superior competition. DAB, though not DAB+, is in my view the Trabbie of broadcast sound. The propaganda campaign for DAB often referred to the proposed digital radio switchover as “upgrading”. I noticed that my noble friend Lord Gordon used that word, though I know he was referring to television and not radio. Perhaps in the propaganda this was a misspelling of “degrading” as far as broadcast sound is concerned. I congratulate the Communications Committee on explicitly refusing to accept that spin.
There are of course advantages to digital broadcasting that were widely canvassed and have been mentioned tonight. The main benefits are extra functions, the possibility of interaction, wider station choice and ease of tuning. Those are true, yet as the Ofcom research has shown, there is no evidence that radio listeners want these facilities. All the evidence is that radio—especially music—listeners are content with the present FM. Ofcom’s published research shows 91 per cent public satisfaction with FM. Only 3 per cent want access to the extra radio stations that DAB gives them.
Digital campaigners also argue that the existing FM infrastructure needs costly renewal, while the report says it will cost £10 million per annum for 20 years. That is peanuts compared to the cost of switching to digital. There is the cost of expensively extending the digital multiplexes and of wantonly forcing listeners to dispose of some 100 million analogue radios, costing consumers an estimated £6 billion. I say to my noble friend that these sets would resent being called useless. My Revox does not think it is useless; it is excellent but threatened with redundancy and resents that. There is the cost of abandoning the excellent FM transmission equipment, including that at Wrotham, which serves London; of spending all the money on hundreds of new digital transmitters, many in dense urban locations; and of abandoning the FM spectrum, which cannot be sold. In sum, this venture offers more stations, which the public do not want, with poor audio quality, at huge cost to the consumer, who was never consulted. Better communications and advertising for DAB will not change that.
This venture for DAB radio was launched partly at the wish of the radio industry, which saw benefits in switching off bigger FM stations. To the radio industry it offers probable savings of around £30 million. To the BBC it offers a possible way of coping with the advance of internet radio, which has been so well spoken of, though I doubt whether it will succeed. I greatly sympathise with what my noble friend said about that. To the previous Labour Government it no doubt had the image attraction of appearing modern. Nowhere was the interest of the listening consumer taken into account.
This good report and the government response seek commendably—though late in the day—to address that consumer factor, but nowhere is the mediocre quality of DAB sound addressed. The committee rightly rebukes the previous Government for not having done—or certainly not published—any cost-benefit analysis on this project. We can understand why they did not produce any analysis of the balance of costs and benefits as the costs are high and the benefits are few, at least to the public radio consumer. Certainly, there will be few benefits for some decades to come.
So what do we do now, finding ourselves in this mess on digital radio but not TV? The report is impressively coy on this basic problem. It hints correctly that, like the Irishman at the crossroads—he may have been a relative of mine—it would not start from here. But we are here and the committee gives some excellent pointers to the Government on how to clarify the future. However, to me it seems too defeatist in accepting that FM radio has no future and in accepting the unrealistic dates of 2013 and 2015 for switchover.
I believe that the new coalition Government, and their promising Minister, Ed Vaizey, should be more radical and brave. For a start, they should read and accept the recent report of their own advisory body, the Consumer Expert Group, entitled Digital Radio Switchover: What is in it for Consumers?. As I said, there is a short answer to that. It contains an attack on the digital plans and accuses the radio industry of attempting to “bully” the public into adopting DAB. It states that the only consumer benefit in the switchover would be the ultra-small stations, to which few would listen.
For the future, in addition to studying carefully what my noble friend Lord Maxton said, I suggest three conclusions which might have been in the report. First, the Government should maintain indefinitely the national—not just local—FM radio platform, which a large proportion of the public enjoy and prefer. The Consumer Expert Group states categorically that,
“there are no economic or technical barriers to FM continuing as a broadcast platform”.
Secondly, since we are down the digital radio path, the UK should switch to using the superior DAB+ technology in radio receivers as soon as possible. Finally, the switchover date for transmissions should be delayed until, say, at least three-quarters of all radio listening is by DAB+. I see no virtue in meeting a bad target date. I am encouraged by what the Government have already said in that area. Such a delay would allow a steady and measured transition to a more realistic date without steamrolling the poor consumer into rapidly throwing away his excellent FM equipment. We should allow him or her to enjoy their existing superior sound for much longer.
Lord St John of Bletso
My Lords, it was a great privilege and pleasure to be part of this extremely topical inquiry by the Communications Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Coming in as the 10th Member in the batting order, I fear that many of the points that I shall make have already been made.
However, I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, because while there is a very compelling case for digital television switchover which has progressed on time and on budget—in fact under budget, according to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood—with minimal teething problems, I have struggled to comprehend the urgency for digital radio switchover and particularly the need for it to be implemented by 2015. I want briefly in my remarks to comment on the SWOT analysis of the implementation of the plan by 2015.
Clearly, with radio playing such an important part in many households throughout the United Kingdom, it is vital that the needs and concerns of radio listeners are fully addressed. For consumers voluntarily to adopt digital radio there needs to be an independent report as well as a cost-benefit analysis giving a balanced view on the advantages and disadvantages of the switchover.
It is difficult to find a single authoritative source that explains what to look for when buying a digital radio and how to compare different products. I agree with the recommendation of Consumer Focus that there should be an easy-to-read checklist that would prompt consumers about what digital products can deliver, explain the different features and help them to make more informed decisions. However, I also believe that there should be better staff training at retail outlets and that there should be more consistent training whereby retail staff are encouraged to become “accredited digital advisers”, as have I heard them referred to.
As the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, mentioned, the commercial radio industry is clearly under considerable pressure. Advertising revenues in 2000 were in excess of £750 million and have reduced to currently around £560 million. Broadcasters which have invested in digital services have had to pay dual transmission costs. I was surprised to hear that more than two-thirds of commercial radio stations are loss-making or making less than £100,000 per annum. I appreciate that the FM spectrum is almost full at the moment and, therefore, the release of digital spectrum would give the industry more opportunity to grow and offer more services to listeners, but I would argue that consumers are more interested in the quality of content and signal, rather than an additional choice of programmes. As the chief executive of RadioCentre, Andrew Harrison, pointed out,
“with the current structural economies of the sector, it is very difficult to both maintain an analogue distribution network and invest in digital content”.
One of the catalysts to greater take-up of digital radio will be the improvement of DAB coverage. I quote from paragraph 105 of our report, which states:
“Improved coverage will encourage more digital listening, more purchases of digital receivers, greater advertising revenues generated by digital stations, and more investment in digital content”.
That is crucial. It is also essential to ensure that consumers have access to digital services and that no groups are left disfranchised should analogue services be switched off in 2015.
While Digital UK has managed the communications campaign for TV switchover in an exemplary and efficient manner, I question the effectiveness of the communications campaign for radio switchover. This is the responsibility not just of Digital Radio UK, but also of manufacturers and retail outlets.
In preparation for a digital radio switchover, I strongly support specific measures being put in place to protect vulnerable listeners such as blind and partially sighted people, who rely on their radios even more than do other listeners. The recent excellent DCMS Consumer Expert Group Report, published in mid-September, stated:
“Research shows that vulnerable listeners are the slowest to convert to new technology and as such are unlikely to be among those who voluntarily adopt digital radio before a switchover is announced”.
One of our key recommendations was that all digital radios contain a multistandard chip, giving us the option of a subsequent move to a different standard. I understand that some but not all DAB radios can be upgraded to work with DAB+. With technology advancing at such a rapid rate, it is inevitable that we will have a future of DAB+. I was tempted to speak about internet radio, but I will resist. My concern is that some cheaper DAB radios may not be upgradeable and may become obsolete. It is important that there should be an industry standard label indicating if a DAB radio is upgradeable to work with other digital radio formats.
One major concern about the digital radio switchover raised by the inquiry related to the use of in-car radios. This was the hobby-horse of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, and I will not repeat the concerns that he and others raised. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, is correct in saying that all vehicle manufacturers will install digital radios by 2013, and that there will be a reliable solution to in-vehicle conversions.
We have heard a plethora of statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, mentioned that there are at least 120 million analogue radios in circulation, and I understand that at least 90 million are in regular use. It is important that clear guidelines are given to consumers and retailers to ensure that regulations on the disposal of obsolete devices are appropriately applied and followed.
In conclusion, while I am a firm supporter of the digital age and all its benefits of choice and quality, there is not yet a compelling argument that the target date of 2015 for digital radio switchover is realistic or practical. Any target date set should be looked upon as secondary to the important consumer issues.
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston
My Lords, I declare my interest as an adviser to Macquarie Group, whose infrastructure funds have investments in the transmission business Arqiva and in the security communications service Airwave.
Like other colleagues on the Select Committee on Communications, I compliment the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on his foresight and his leadership, which produced such a timely and well received report on digital switchover. The government response in June was the most positive response to any Select Committee report to which I have been party. Of course, it came from the new coalition Government, but it tracked pretty closely the policy put in train by their Labour predecessors—such as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, who has been mentioned—in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Those Labour Ministers were far-sighted in setting up a shadow Digital UK group in 2002, and wise to ensure that when Digital UK formally came into existence in 2005, it was not a quango but an industry group made up of major players in the broadcasting and communications sector. The funding model was also generous and has underpinned the success to date of digital television switchover for 7 million homes. Although the remaining 75 per cent of UK homes are still to be switched over in 2011 and 2012, I think that there is among us tonight a growing confidence that the digital television switchover programme will continue to come in on time and, even better, well under budget.
As anticipated, there have been problems: with retuning, with regional overlaps in transmission, and with a small proportion—about 1 per cent—of elderly Freeview set-top boxes. The fact that we hear so little about all this in the newspapers, which are usually keen on stories about television, suggests that these problems are being sorted—in many cases, very effectively with the help of the voluntary sector, particularly charities looking after the elderly and those with various disabilities. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, I am impressed by the outreach programme. As she said, it was good to hear the Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, pay tribute to those charities when he launched Digital UK’s annual report in July, and it was certainly politically astute of him to praise it as a model for other community initiatives which would at last bring to life the Prime Minister’s vision of the big society.
The growing confidence in the successful completion of the ambitious programme for digital switchover is all the more remarkable when we recall some of the dire predictions that it would be a major political catastrophe for the Labour Government. Consumer rebellion was predicted at the prospect of scrapping all those tens of millions of redundant analogue TVs. In fact, consumers’ enthusiasm for digital sets and flat screens ran far ahead of all our expectations. However, our thanks should also go to Digital UK, to its chairman since 2002, Barry Cox, and his chief executive, David Scott, who is now overseeing this huge transition. I trust that we will still be praising their professionalism on completion of the television switchover programme at the end of 2012.
Your Lordships may also be reassured to know that the CEO of Digital UK in its formative years, Ford Ennals, is now the chief executive of DRUK—Digital Radio UK. Mr Ennals’s experience is particularly to be welcomed, as our Select Committee discovered, somewhat to its surprise I think, that the previously low-profile switchover of radio from analogue to digital ran a far higher risk of consumer discontent than did television.
Our report highlighted very real concerns about public confusion and industry uncertainty over radio switchover, which the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, described very persuasively and comprehensively. However, again I am pleased to note that the response of government has been positive in addressing our concerns and sensible in maintaining the trajectory of progress mapped out by the previous Government. Surely it is better now to look forward and work for positive change. As my noble friend Lord Gordon said, the commercial sector should not have to carry on with the cost of dual transmission.
The two criteria to be met before a date can be set for the switchover to digital radio are that 50 per cent of listening must be on digital and that for national radio stations digital coverage should be equivalent to existing FM coverage. On that basis, the earliest anticipated switchover date is 2015. It is a timescale that should certainly calm the nerves, and it may well allow all these issues to be properly addressed.
Like its television twin Digital UK, the radio body DRUK is an industry body, made up of broadcasters, retailers and, of course, motor manufacturers, the latter being particularly important. I share the robust view of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, that the cost of conversion in cars might not be quite as daunting as people assume. Obviously there is enthusiasm for in-car listening, with 20 per cent of radio listening being done while driving, and it is essential that digital kit is built in quickly to new models and that cheap and convenient converters can be fitted to older cars.
There are other issues, as noble Lords have outlined, but I think that the Government’s digital radio action plan, published in July, answers most of the major concerns raised by our Communications Committee. I hope that coalition Ministers can now persuade the Treasury to release the £6 million of funding required for a two-year public information campaign. The Minister has been asked to comment on that.
The previous Government got the message over for television and the challenge for the coalition Government is to ensure that radio switchover goes just as smoothly. I underline the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. The challenge for broadcasters is to talk up the attractions of digital radio, to get them over to the public and to accelerate consumer uptake. We are promised many more stations, catering for many more interests.
As ever, the BBC must lead the way. It already broadcasts services of which the wider audience is barely aware—witness the rapid rise in listeners to BBC 6 Music’s edgy programming only after a public row over its proposed closure. Tuning in to digital stations will also be easier and there will be clever features, allowing us to rewind and to record programmes. However, echoing my noble friend Lord Donoughue, for me the unique selling point would surely be better quality sound. In big, built-up markets like London, we need stronger signals and better coverage to ensure that there are no infuriating weak spots. As my noble friend argued, the sound quality must at least match that of analogue radio. You do not have to be an audiophile to expect even better quality from digital signals.
Last month, Ministers received the report of the Consumer Expert Group on digital radio switchover and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, I believe that its findings should be taken very seriously. In particular, I draw your Lordships’ attention to its concerns about sound quality. It fears that cramming more stations onto a digital multiplex will lead to poorer sound quality. Even the classical music station, BBC Radio 3, is said to deteriorate when Radio 5 Live Sports Extra joins it in the current digital output. Another complaint is that services broadcast with lower bit-rate levels, are more difficult to hear, according to the Consumer Expert Group.
Broadcasting engineers are often dismissive of such criticisms as audiophile crankery. However, I recall that after many years as a programme executive in ITV, I would repeatedly ask about viewer complaints that sound levels rose when the adverts came on and I would be told, in baffling technical detail by the staff, that it was all in the mind. Belatedly, a senior engineer admitted that although the decibel level might not go up for the adverts, the dynamic of the sound might be tweaked to make it more intense. I did not understand the technicalities, but I concluded that the viewers were right and that I had been misled. I suspect that listeners are right too on sound quality. To ensure that listeners are not misled again I support the call by consumer groups for more research into the impact of low bit-rate levels in digital signals.
If high-definition television has been a driver in the success of digital television, it seems a bit cloth-eared of broadcasters not to take seriously what some consumers are saying about better sound quality. As I recall, it was digital radio’s initial USP—unique selling proposition, as the marketers say. So I hope that the radio industry goes back to basics and gives us better digital quality. I also hope that the encouraging progress being made with the switchover to digital television can be replicated with radio and that the report of the Select Committee on Communications has made that success more likely.
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting
My Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate the committee on, and thank it for, its sterling work under the chair of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. In the few short years since its inception, the committee has chosen strong and important issues to investigate and to report on. Its work has been widely reported in the media and it has helped to raise the profile of this House and its scrutinising role.
I have listened to this debate with a great sense of personal regret. I spent my life in the media and I never had an opportunity or the privilege of joining the committee, which, from everyone’s description, has been brilliantly run in every way by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Given that we are talking about content, clearly the content of this committee has been absolutely brilliant.
The report looks at the process of digital switchover as it affects both television and radio in the UK. TV switchover from analogue to digital began in 2008, and is planned to be completed in 2012. Proposals for the delivery of digital radio upgrade were outlined by our party when in government in the White Paper, Digital Britain, published by my noble friend Lord Carter. A range of the proposals in that report form the basis of the Digital Economy Act 2009.
I will not say too much about the digital television switchover because, as the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and a number of other Peers have said, it is working well. Of course, there are problems. One of the major problems, as identified by the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Maxton, is in the help scheme, which is intended for those aged over 75, registered blind or partially sighted, and those who are entitled to disability living allowances. The take-up has been lower than expected and, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, there has been a £250 million underspend. I understand that the current Government are consulting the BBC Trust on how the underspend can be redeployed. Will the Government take up the committee's recommendation that any help scheme associated with radio switchover be funded from general taxation and be better publicised?
I turn to the thornier issue of digital radio, which rightly takes up the bulk of the committee report and has been widely discussed in our debate tonight. Labour, in government, made the case in the report, Digital Britain, that if radio is to compete with other media, it must have greater flexibility to grow, innovate and engage with its audience. In addition, the report stated that it needed to show advantage over analogue radio through the delivery of new content and functionality. While the FM spectrum was essentially full, it was our view that radio would gradually use its relevance in the digital age as people turned to other digital services that had more local content or interactivity. We have all seen how successful TV programmes—whether you like them or not—such as “The X Factor” have been in their use of interactivity, with millions of votes being cast every week. Already, there are about 10 million DAB radios in use in the UK, but the rate of take-up needs to be accelerated if we are to succeed in fulfilling digital radio’s promise for a medium that the Digital Britain report described as “portable, intimate and ambient”, and to ensure that radio competes with other formats. In our approach, we had the support of the vast majority of the radio sector.
What is the Government's approach to digital radio upgrade—a point made by several noble Lords—particularly given that the mechanisms and powers for digital radio upgrade are now in place? Do they plan to scrap it altogether, leaving those who paid good money for radios to throw them on the scrapheap? There is growing disquiet in some parts of the radio industry, with concern that switchover will result in a two-tier system—again, a worry that has been articulated tonight. Will the Government leave DAB in limbo, so that broadcasters will be left with the additional costs of broadcasting on both digital and analogue platforms?
The committee recognises that if digital radio is to be a success soon, a number of actions need to be taken by the Government, and we on these Benches are very keen to know where the new Government intend to take us. While in government, our plans had two criteria that had to be met before the next stage could be preceded with. These were, first, when 50 per cent of radio listening was to digital sources—Ofcom are monitoring that—and, secondly, when national DAB coverage was comparable to FM coverage and local DAB coverage reached 90 per cent of the population and all major roads. Is it the Government’s intention to keep these criteria or do they plan to change them? What effect will the cuts in the budgets of DCMS and BIS have on the programme of change?
When in government, our intention was that these criteria would be met by the end of 2013, paving the way for the delivery of digital radio upgrade by the end of 2015. Upgrade was not intended to mean a complete switch-off of an analogue radio service. Instead, all national and large local services were to be carried on DAB only and would no longer be broadcast on analogue, leaving ultra-local radio services to be broadcast on FM. Do the Government intend to stick with the original timetable or will they allow it to slip?
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and many other noble Lords talked about the problem of radios in cars. As we have heard, the number of DAB radios in new cars remains very small. What plans do the Government have to try to ensure that DAB radio take-up by the public is greater? Are they talking to manufacturers about fitting DAB-compatible radios as standard? What discussions are they having about retrofitting DAB radios in cars?
I shall briefly pick up some of the most important questions in the committee’s report. The committee argued that, given the importance for the plans for digital switchover of universal reception of the BBC’s national stations, it is essential that a firm and unambiguous plan and funding for the completion of the BBC’s national multiplex be put in place as soon as possible. In their response, the Government revealed that they asked Ofcom to form a coverage and spectrum planning group to cover these concerns. It will report in the spring of 2011. Can the Minister tell us whether the planned timetable for Ofcom’s report to the Government is still on track? Do the Government expect to receive any interim conclusions? The committee highlights a cost-benefit analysis of digital radio migration carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2009 that suggested that the balance of benefit would be achieved only after 2026. The committee recommended that a full impact assessment and fresh cost-benefit analysis be carried out. In their response to the committee’s report, the Government agreed and said that work would begin shortly. Can the Minister tell us whether the work on this cost-benefit analysis has begun? When do the Government expect the report?
The Committee recommended that the Government should encourage the industry to devise a sensible scrappage scheme for the disposal of analogue radios. Can the Minister outline the Government’s plan in this area? How do the Government intend to ensure that scrappage is completed in a way that does not negatively impact on the environment? How will they ensure that those on the lowest income—particularly the elderly, who depend most of all on radio—are able to get subsidised radios? Will the Government look at using some of the unspent surplus from digital TV switchover to support digital radio switchover?
Finally, can the Minister say anything about how compatible our system of digital radio will be? As one of the earliest adopters of digital radio technology and the world leader in terms of take-up, our DAB standard is now relatively out of date—a point made by my noble friend Lord Maxton. Other standards such as DAB+ and DMB—digital multimedia broadcasting—are more efficient, have additional capacities and are used in Europe. What discussions have the Government had with broadcasters and manufacturers on this issue? Do they have any plans for future transition to a higher digital standard?
I conclude by saying how fascinating I have found this debate. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, I thank and pay tribute to all members of the Communications Select Committee for their time and work in producing this report on the digital switchover of radio and television. In particular, I acknowledge the contribution of my noble friend Lord Fowler, who during his time as chairman expertly steered the committee through a period of significant change in the communications industry and has kept the subject in debate. He was obviously an inspired chairman, as we have heard from the eight members of his committee. I am pleased to say that the Government, building on the detailed work of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and the previous Government, have already sought to address many of the recommendations made in the committee’s report through the digital radio action plan.
Digital TV switchover has made huge progress so far. By the end of August this year more than 25 per cent—around 6.7 million—of UK homes had completed the digital TV switchover. A further 10.5 million homes will switch in 2011. We recognise that it is too early to be complacent as we are only a quarter of the way through the programme. There are many challenges to come. Next year there will be 21 regional switchovers and in 2012 the major conurbations of London and the north-east of England will switch. The TV switchover programme is, however, on track for near completion in 2012, is well under budget and will be in time for Her Majesty the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics.
So far, relatively few problems have been identified. They are mainly to do with difficulties over retuning and issues of regional overlap. However, the numbers reported are small. So far more than 360,000 people have been helped by the digital help scheme, while local community engagement through regional Digital UK teams, Digital Outreach Ltd and the voluntary sector has helped to provide information to an estimated 350,000 people.
On digital TV underspend, Ministers have made it clear that the ring-fenced money not needed for digital switchover should be made a priority to support broadband in the UK. In answer to my noble friend Lord Fowler, the help scheme underspend will be used for purposes consistent with the BBC’s public purposes. This money has not been diverted from programme-making. It was additional funding which was ring-fenced for this purpose.
There are lessons to be learnt from the TV switchover when considering the case for radio. However, as the Communications Committee noted, it is essential to communicate clearly the differences between the two issues. Let me clarify the Government’s position on digital radio switchover. They have not yet set a date for radio switchover. They are, however, fully committed to securing a digital future for radio and believe that a switchover is the right way to deliver a co-ordinated transition. The Government have agreed 2015 as a target date which all parts of the industry can work towards. To be clear, 2015 is only a target date, albeit one which we and the industry are supporting.
My noble friend Lord Fowler commented at the publication of the digital radio action plan and has reiterated today that,
“the public have got to be taken with the process”.
As the Minister for Communications has pointed out:
“Consumers, not government, through their listening habits and purchasing decisions will ultimately determine whether a switchover to digital can happen”,
and, in the same vein, when a switchover to digital could begin. I hope that this answers my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter’s concern.
Radio listeners are often passionate about the radio and the stations they listen to. The radio is a lifeline for many, especially the elderly and the blind. I personally feel that it would be a grave error if those who rely most heavily on the radio are left behind in any future switchover. We and the radio industry do not underestimate the scale of the task ahead of us. However, the complexity of the issue should not in itself be a barrier to change, nor does it undermine the necessity for it. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Evans, that the Government have set out their commitment to the listening and coverage criteria to be met before a date is set for radio switchover.
Digital radio offers a greater choice of programmes for listeners as well as business opportunities for broadcasters. It is already well established and over 11 million DAB sets have been sold. It offers listeners a wide range of content and possibilities, and has proved itself to have found a passionate although at times vocal audience. On the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, I doubt whether anything I say is going to address his concerns. However, if he is right, which I do not believe he is, then the listening criteria will never be met. All listeners, not the vocal few, will drive the market’s direction.
I turn now to the specific recommendations made in the committee’s report. One is on energy and waste. In July, we published independent research into the energy efficiency of digital radio which disproves the argument that digital radios consume vastly more energy than their analogue equivalents. The research shows that the difference in energy consumption between digital and analogue sets is now minimal and continues to improve. We are all aware of the need to reduce energy consumption, and I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord St John, that we are also considering the environmental factors, specifically on the sensitive issue of the disposal and recycling of analogue radios through the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive. In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, on the scrappage scheme, we have no such plans but will look closely at the recent scheme run by the BBC and Digital Radio UK.
Turning specifically to the committee report, I welcome the recommendation that a full impact assessment, including a cost-benefit analysis, should be commissioned as a matter of urgency, and I understand that work has already begun. In response to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, I can say that the first report will be completed by the end of 2011. Of course, the cost-benefit analysis will also be essential in identifying which, if any, listeners would be disproportionately disadvantaged by the switchover, and consequently if a help scheme is necessary and what its scope might be. If there is a case, we will take steps to introduce a scheme to support the most disadvantaged listeners. In response to the question of my noble friend Lord Fowler on funding the help scheme through general taxation, I can tell him that no decisions have been taken on how a scheme, if it is required, would be funded. I also agree with my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter on the importance of a help scheme for the disabled.
In respect of in-car conversion, we welcome the agreement of car manufacturers to fit DAB radios as standard in new cars by 2013 and note that in many cases this has already begun. But that is only half the story. Many people to whom I have spoken are worried rightly about their older cars with analogue radios. Devices already exist on the market which can convert these radios. We expect there will be a growing market for affordable and easy to fit converters.
I welcome, too, the importance that the committee has given to DAB coverage; it is a linchpin in this process. The Government have been clear in their view that broadcasters—particularly the BBC—need to do more to improve coverage over the next two years. To this end, we welcome the BBC’s recent commitment to increased coverage of its digital services. In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, we believe Ofcom expects to produce its report on coverage and planning early next year. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, negotiations with the BBC and commercial radio sectors on DAB coverage funding are ongoing. Unfortunately, it is too early to predict when an agreement will be reached, although we understand the urgency of the issue. As to who will pay, it will be a mixed ecology of commercial and BBC funding.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester that it is important that FM should continue until a decision on switchover is made. Even after switchover, FM will continue for small local services, community, hospital and student radio.
One theme that came through strongly in the committee’s report was the need for a public information campaign. We agree. The digital radio action plan sets out the process for this. In answer to the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Gordon, the action plan sets out plans for minimum receiver specifications. We expect the multi-standard chip to be part of this.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, about the importance of internet radio. He has demonstrated, yet again, that he is truly one of the true technological pioneers in the House. However, internet radio will not meet the needs of all listeners. Online network coverage is not universal, nor can it easily support large volumes of simultaneous radio. In addition, it is not free at the point of access and it is a very costly delivery platform for broadcasters.
In drawing the debate to a conclusion, I repeat my thanks to the committee and to those noble Lords who have spoken today, and especially to the driving force of my noble friend Lord Fowler. The debate has been built on the importance of the report and I hope that I have answered the majority of the questions raised. At this late hour, I apologise that I have not been able to answer all noble Lords’ questions; I shall write to them. Finally, we will of course give due consideration to all the points raised today as we continue with both the digital TV and digital radio switchover programmes.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her helpful response to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, is purring with content after the unaccustomed praise he has received. It has been a serious and thoughtful debate which has raised a series of important questions, such as the one raised by my noble friend—I am pleased to call her my noble friend—Lady Bonham-Carter about the dilemma of the 2015 date and whether it is a commitment or a target. The importance of making the case for switchover compelling for the consumer was raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Quality of reproduction and of DAB sound was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, in a wonderfully aggressive speech, and by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. These are all important questions which the Government would do well to study, because it is quite clear that the case is not entirely made as far as this House and—I have no doubt—the public are concerned.
I again thank all the members of the old committee, the Clerks and their staff. I am delighted that the Select Committee is to continue. There are important questions in communications for any democracy. Present events demonstrate some of the clashes that there can be. These issues deserve careful and objective analysis, which is what the Select Committee on Communications is all about.
I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who did so much to get the committee formed, is satisfied with the developments that have taken place, and happy that it is continuing. Above all, therefore, I wish the new committee all good fortune in its work.
Motion agreed.