House of Commons

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

Thursday 4 November 2010

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

1. What steps she is taking to reform Natural England; and if she will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

First, I welcome the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and her new team to the Front Bench. I enjoyed cordial relations with her predecessors in the short time we were opposite each other and I hope that cordiality will continue.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been working closely with Natural England on substantial reforms to transform it into a leaner, more efficient front-line delivery body that is focused strongly on the Government’s ambitions for the environment.

[Julian Smith]

I thank the Secretary of State for that response. Will she give a little more detail regarding the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the two stewardship schemes that are run by Natural England and how she sees that impact progressing in coming years?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that as a result of the comprehensive spending review, both types of stewardship scheme will be maintained. There will be new entrants to both the entry-level and the higher-level stewardship schemes. We have ambitions to increase by about 80% the number of farmers in the higher-level stewardship scheme and to increase qualitatively the environmental benefits provided under the entry-level scheme.

[Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester South) (Lab)]

Natural England is the nation’s principle conservation agency and our champion of biodiversity. In the name of reform, the Government are leaving it with no choice but to hand over 140 national nature reserves to anyone who will take them on, to put our network of national trails up for grabs and to cut back on the expert support that is vital to delivering the environmental stewardship schemes. We are talking about the nation’s front line in protecting our environment. The Government claim to be the greenest ever, but is not the reality that the Secretary of State is prepared to sacrifice Natural England and our precious environment in a bid to win friends and credit at the Treasury?

[Mrs Spelman]

I should like to countermand those suggestions. Natural England, in common with all the arm’s-length bodies in the DEFRA delivery network, is taking a pro rata reduction. It is required to make efficiency savings in the same way as the core Department has to. None the less, there will be no changes in Natural England’s statutory functions. It will cease to undertake some activities, such as lobbying and policy making, which should rightly be the domain of the Department at the centre. Consideration is being given to options for improving the management of our national nature reserves because that is consistent with a big society approach.

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

2. What plans her Department has to maintain levels of biodiversity.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

Tackling biodiversity loss is one of my Department’s top priorities. I have just returned from international negotiations in Nagoya where the UK played a pivotal role in securing agreement on the ambitious new framework to halt biodiversity loss. The challenge now is to implement this domestically. In the spring, I intend to publish a White Paper outlining the Government’s vision for the natural environment, backed up with practical action to deliver that ambition.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. Given the Government’s intention to sell off a substantial part of the forest estate, what measures will be in place to ensure the biodiversity potential of this land and to ensure that the commitments in the Forestry Commission’s forest design plans will be fully implemented?

[Mrs Spelman]

I can give the hon. Lady clear assurances on this point, but we need to start with a little myth-busting on the back of press speculation. Only 18% of forests and woodland in England are owned by the state and it is wrong to confuse ownership with any suggestion of a reduction in biodiversity. It is quite right, and in the spirit of the coalition agreement, to consider giving the community who live nearest to the forest the opportunity to own it, as that community and civil society are most likely to give it the best protection. Finally, I should like to reassure her by clarifying that not one tree can be felled without a licence being issued by my Department. In the last analysis, we are committed to forest biodiversity and to enhancing biodiversity. Our forests are among the richest of our genetic resources and we have every intention of protecting them.

[Mr Speaker]

We need to be pithier from now on. That should be pretty clear.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

May I begin by thanking the Secretary of State for welcoming me to my new role and for the briefing that she gave me on Nagoya? I am sure that the whole House will join me in welcoming the new fund that the Government have pledged in order to deliver international biodiversity benefits through international forestry.

On Government plans to maintain biodiversity at home, however, we have seen a series of deeply worrying moves from the right hon. Lady over the past three months. The Government plan to sell off or simply give away 140 national nature reserves; our national parks, which a Labour Government began in 1949, will suffer a catastrophic 30% cut to their budgets, leaving park workers unemployed, our national trails abandoned and precious habitats neglected; and her Department has announced a review of England’s forests, seeing them sold to the highest bidder—asset stripping our natural heritage. Is it not the case that she preaches environmental evangelism around the world and practices environmental vandalism at home?

[Mrs Spelman]

That is a disappointing opener from the hon. Lady. She appears not to understand that her own party when in government would have had to make cuts, and there will be no credibility to her accusations unless she tells the House where she would have made savings. In any event, however, there is no suggestion that we are poised to sell off nature reserves. Can she not see that it is not necessarily for the state to do everything? The Wildlife Trusts welcome the opportunity to be more involved in the management of our nature reserves.

[Mary Creagh]

indicated dissent.

[Mrs Spelman]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I suggest that she ask them. As for selling off the forests, she just heard my explanation that it is wrong to confuse ownership with the quality of environmental protection, and I believe that the communities and charities that would like to be more involved in protecting and enhancing our forest biodiversity welcome our suggestions.

[Mary Creagh]

The truth is that the Government have reserved their most vicious spending cut for a 30% cut in environmental spending. We know that in the spending review, the right hon. Lady caved in early to the Chancellor’s pressure, and that she gave away too much too quickly. Why did she sell out the country’s environment to the Chancellor?

[Mrs Spelman]

The hon. Lady has to answer the question about where she would have made the cuts.

[Mary Creagh]

indicated dissent.

[Mrs Spelman]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but her Government were committed to a 50% reduction in capital. Perhaps she would like to identify in the Department’s budget what she would have done. What I can tell the House is that, going into those negotiations with the Treasury, we took a strategic approach, because it was important for us to protect as much of the capital as possible. Her party, had it been in government, would have cut the capital budget by 50%, but we succeeded in reducing that to a 34% reduction, meaning that the bulk of our flood defence capital has been protected.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

3. What recent estimate she has made of the monetary value of the land managed by the Forestry Commission.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

10. What plans she has to sell or lease part of the Forestry Commission estate.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

There is an ongoing programme of sales run by the Forestry Commission, year on year, to achieve operational efficiency. In the 2009-10 accounts, the public forest estate in England was valued at £700 million. That is the net book value; it does not necessarily reflect the true market value. I intend to consult on proposals for new ownership options for the public forest estate in England, and on how to secure the important public benefits that they provide.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think that for once, given the answers that we have heard today, The Daily Telegraph might be right, because it says that the Government cannot see the forest for the fees. However, can the Minister give a categorical assurance that, contrary to other press reports, if Government-owned forest is sold off, it will not be sold off to developers to be turned into things such as Center Parcs and golf courses?

[Mr Paice]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to debunk that absurd notion. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, before trees can be felled, one requires a felling licence from the Forestry Commission. The Forestry Commission will continue to have that role, even through those disposals, if that is what happens; and, of course, planning consent would be required to undertake any of those things, such as golf courses or Center Parcs. We have no intention of seeing our forest damaged; we want to maintain the public benefits that we already have.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister make a commitment that all land transferred from the Forestry Commission’s control will be covered by legally binding commitments on new owners to maintain current policies for environmentally and socially beneficial use, especially those on the restoration of planted ancient woodland and on public access? Can he also put on the record what will happen to the funds raised from the proposed new programme to sell off those woodlands?

[Mr Paice]

There would be no point in having a consultation if I were to announce the results of it now, so I am not going to do so. However, I can tell the hon. Lady, as my right hon. Friend has said and I have just said, that we have absolutely no intention of allowing any public benefit of our woodland, be it access, biodiversity or carbon storage, to be damaged by whatever action we take on public ownership.

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

Is the Minister aware of the Forestry Commission’s involvement in a pilot flood protection project to protect Pickering from future floods by planting a great number of trees to soak up the excess water and prevent it from entering Pickering? Will he give me an assurance today that that project will not be at risk from any future cutbacks and that the Government will continue with their tree planting programme?

[Mr Paice]

It is worth making the point to my hon. Friend that under the previous Government the amount of trees and new woodland planted in this country fell dramatically. The Opposition, as they now are, need to account for that. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; trees have a vital role in flood prevention and alleviation, and although I do not know the detail of the scheme to which she refers, I have no doubt that it will continue in some guise.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

ConFor, the Confederation of Forest Industries, represents sawmills and other processing businesses, and it values the supply of timber that it receives from the Forestry Commission estate because of its quality and consistency. As he considers the sale of some of that estate, will the Minister consult ConFor and the timber industries to ensure that their interests are taken into consideration?

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I assure him that I have already had consultations and discussions with ConFor. I have discussed various options with its representatives, who, obviously, will submit a response to the consultation when we launch it. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that a number of the timber trade businesses rely on a constant supply of timber from the Forestry Commission, and I am very much aware that that factor will have to be taken into account to ensure that our important timber industry gets continuity of supply.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his letter of last week about the future of Forestry Commission land, even if it is regrettable that it has not been accompanied by a full statement to the House.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Woodland Trust have said that the sale price for that ancient forest land does not match its environmental or social value and that they lack the resources to purchase the land. Why has the Minister failed to give the House any assurance that the money raised from this fire sale of English woodland will be reinvested in environmental protection or green jobs, rather than simply ending up in the Treasury’s coffers? Is not the reality that big business, not the big society, will benefit from this land grab?

[Mr Paice]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position—and long may he hold it, if that is the best that he can do. I had hoped that we could have a rational debate about the future of our forests. Much of what the hon. Gentleman said is absolute nonsense. As I have repeatedly said, we are determined to protect our forests and increase the rate of new planting in this country, beyond the failure of his Government, whom he supported. That is what has to be done. Working towards new ownership does not in any way countermand the important value of our British forests, which we intend to maintain.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to assist the farming industry to become more competitive.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

13. What steps her Department is taking to assist the farming industry to become more competitive.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

The Government are determined to help our farming industry play its full role in the food supply chain by clawing back markets lost to imports and by increasing exports. We are therefore changing the whole culture of regulation to one of trust rather than one of threat. We provide investment assistance under the rural development programme and we are working with the industry on knowledge transfer, skills development and sustainability issues.

[Simon Hart]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Will he reassure members of the Farmers Union of Wales, whom I met earlier this week, that he is making progress on the creation of a supermarket ombudsman?

[Mr Paice]

As my hon. Friend knows, the legislative aspects of that issue relate to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but I assure him that I am in close contact with my colleagues. We are determined to press ahead with the supermarket adjudicator, as recommended by the Competition Commission a year or so ago.

[Anne Marie Morris]

Animal disease is costly to the Government and farmers, both financially and emotionally. In 2009-10, the Government spent £330 million on animal health and welfare, and the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, which devastated the local farming economy in Devon, is believed to have cost the UK £8 billion. I recently had a meeting with farmers in Newton Abbot, and they are very concerned that the Government will not listen to them about shaping plans, going forward, for cost and risk sharing—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know that the hon. Lady is a new Member and I appreciate her commitment to the House, but far too many questions are prefaced with substantial descriptive statements. That must not happen. I ask her for a quick sentence, and then we will move on.

[Anne Marie Morris]

Will the Minister meet me and some of my local farmers to discuss their ideas on how to reduce cost and risk sharing?

[Mr Paice]

Yes, I will happily meet my hon. Friend. If you will allow me one more sentence, Mr Speaker, under the cost and responsibility discussions I am absolutely determined, and I will reassure my hon. Friend’s farmers on this, that they will have a major role in formulating disease control policy.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister how the Government will use their new buying standards for food in the public sector to support British farmers in the 88% of public sector food purchases not covered by the new Government standards? My private Member’s Bill next week is the ideal opportunity for a detailed debate in Committee where we can discuss how we can support farmers.

[Mr Paice]

I can tell the hon. Lady that I am certainly looking forward to next week’s debate on her private Member’s Bill and I congratulate her on introducing it to enable us to have that debate. We will consult on the Government’s buying standards in the next few weeks and we will be launching them early next year. They will apply compulsorily to central Government—we have determined that we should drive these standards forward—and they will include the need to ensure that food procured by the Government is produced to the standards that we expect of our own farmers. That is the best way to ensure fair competition in public procurement.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept, in the interests of what he has said about competitiveness, that the decision to abolish the national Agricultural Wages Board will not contribute to competitiveness but will simply reduce the living standards and wages of our agricultural workers?

[Mr Paice]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Lady. That legislation has been in place for 60 years and industrial relations and wages negotiations have changed dramatically over those years. It is worth pointing out that the previous Government, in office for 13 years, did not bring back any of the other wages boards that we had abolished. The present wages board does not allow salaries, it does not allow proper piecework rates and it does not allow annualised rates. Those are all measures that modern labour relations require. That is why it needs to go and all workers will be protected by the national minimum wage regulations, which apply to every other worker in this country.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

5. For what reasons her Department has instructed the under-10-metre fishing fleet to maintain log books.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

The Marine Management Organisation has introduced a requirement for masters of under-10-metre fishing vessels fishing in, or transiting, either International Council for the Exploration of the Sea areas IVc and VIId, or ICES areas VIId and VIIe in the same fishing trip, to complete and submit an EU logbook. The new requirement has been introduced to provide greater assurance over the accuracy of catch information for fish stocks in those areas, following concerns expressed about potential misdeclaration of catch areas.

[Laura Sandys]

As a great supporter of the under-10-metre fishing fleet, I hope that the Minister will point out to the MMO that this is a highly bureaucratic, quite impractical approach for some of the smaller boats. Will he urge the MMO to consider working much more closely with the local patrol fleets, which know these local fisheries much better than anybody else?

[Richard Benyon]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point. I know her local fishing community and how much she stands up for them. I am happy to meet them and discuss this. As we go forward with our negotiations with the Commission on catch quotas for next year, we have to do so on the basis of knowledge of what is there and on the basis of science. That sometimes requires us to ask fishermen to take actions that can add to their working day. I do not want to burden people with regulation—that is not the direction that the Government are going in—and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and the MMO to see whether we can find another way forward, but we need an accurate declaration of stocks in those areas.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

6. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on the likely effects of the outcome of the comprehensive spending review on the funding available to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

We have worked closely with the Department for Communities and Local Government to understand cost pressures on local authority waste management over the spending review period and have taken these into account in the overall local government settlement. Significantly increased financial flexibility will free local authorities to allocate resources to meet their priorities and make continued efficiency savings while continuing to deliver our overall environmental goals for waste management.

[Dr Whitehead]

Has the Secretary of State looked at last year’s estimate by the Waste and Resources Action Programme suggesting that there will be an additional 3 million tonnes of dried municipal recyclates circulating by 2015, while all-materials recycling facilities would be used up and 60% of local authority areas would have insufficient capacity? What has changed in this analysis since May 2010 other than her Department’s withdrawal of seven private finance initiative waste projects and the cutting of local authority budgets by 28%?

[Mrs Spelman]

I invite the hon. Gentleman, who has a great interest in this subject, to look at some municipal waste statistics that have just been published this morning. The more recent data show three things: first, that we are producing less waste; secondly, that we are recycling more waste; and thirdly, therefore, that we are sending less to landfill. That is what makes us confident that the 2020 targets can be met with fewer publicly funded projects.

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

7. When she plans to respond to the recent consultation conducted by her Department on dangerous dogs; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

The consultation closed on 1 June and received 4,250 responses. The Government will be publishing a summary of those responses and will make an announcement on the way forward very shortly.

[Luciana Berger]

In 2008, almost 6,000 people needed hospital treatment for injuries sustained by dangerous dogs. The Communication Workers Union reports that every year between 5,000 and 6,000 of its members suffer injuries by dogs. Every month, three guide dogs are attacked. In the past three years, five children have been killed by dangerous dogs, including John Paul Massey in my constituency. Will the Minister seriously consider the draft legislation proposed by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the RSPCA and the National Dog Warden Association in order adequately to deal with this problem?

[Mr Paice]

I do not think anybody in this House can be unaware of the increasing problems of dangerous dogs to which the hon. Lady refers, and the tragedy of John Paul Massey and other children who have been killed by dogs in recent years. Clearly, we do have to act. I can assure her that my noble Friend Lord Henley, who leads on these matters, will be taking account of the proposals to which she refers. We should understand that we need to find a way forward that addresses the real problem of people who are already, in many cases, disobeying the law by holding dogs which are classified as dangerous dogs. It is those people we need to attack rather than the much larger number whose dogs are perfectly harmless.

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

We do not let a criminal or unsuitable person have lawful possession of a firearm or a weapon. Given the known temperament of certain breeds of dog, could we not insist on a fit and proper person test as a precondition of owning a dangerous dog? After all, criminals seem to have a proclivity for precisely these breeds.

[Mr Paice]

As I have said, that proposition and many others are being considered by my noble Friend, and he will make his announcement shortly. My hon. Friend needs to recognise that to take that approach would require an immense amount of regulation and control about who was able to purchase dogs, which would then feed back through the whole supply chain of puppies and become quite a mammoth undertaking. Nevertheless, it is worth considering, as with all other propositions.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

8. What recent discussions she has had with her EU counterparts on reform of the common agricultural policy.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

I, along with other DEFRA Ministers, regularly meet our EU counterparts to discuss reform of the common agricultural policy. The Minister of State and I attended the Informal Agriculture Council, where CAP reform was discussed, and most recently I hosted the German Agriculture Minister to discuss a range of issues of common interest, including reform of the CAP.

[Mr Cunningham]

Can the Minister tell me what impact the latest increase in the EU budget will have on the common agricultural policy?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the EU budget needs to reflect the straitened economic circumstances that all European member states are experiencing. Last weekend, the Prime Minister met the German Chancellor, Frau Merkel, and earlier this week he met President Sarkozy from France, to have important discussions about the realities of the size of the EU budget. Part of those considerations will be the allocation that goes to the common agricultural policy.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

We all know that a successful outcome to the common agricultural policy negotiations is vital for Britain’s rural communities. In an interview on “Farming Today”, the right hon. Lady said that the Treasury had conducted a regional impact assessment of the CSR, and that her Department had considered its rural impact. I asked her Department for a copy of that rural impact assessment, and the reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), stated:

“DEFRA has not carried out a formal assessment of the impact of the spending review on rural matters.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 606W.]

Once and for all, can the Secretary of State tell the House whether the rural impact assessment exists?

[Mrs Spelman]

As I am sure the hon. Lady will appreciate, it is not just the decisions made at DEFRA that have implications for rural communities. As the Government’s rural champion, DEFRA is therefore undertaking an assessment of the implications of other Departments’ elements of the spending review across rural areas. For example, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has made some positive decisions arising from the spending review, including the roll-out of superfast broadband in rural areas, that will have a positive effect on rural areas. The matter needs to be regarded in the round, and that work has been undertaken since the announcement of the decisions affecting all Departments was made on 20 October.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

9. If she will discuss with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government proposals to extend the power of communities to protect local rural environments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

The Government are committed to reforming the current top-down planning system to give communities far greater powers to shape their neighbourhoods and share in the benefits of growth. In particular, neighbourhood plans will give communities the freedom to bring forward more development than is set out in the local authority plan, or to introduce more localised rural environmental protection policies. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will work closely with the Department for Communities and Local Government in taking that forward.

[Matthew Hancock]

I thank the Minister. To ensure that there is public support for important renewable energy programmes, does the Minister agree that it is crucial that such projects are put in the right place, and that projects such as onshore wind farms are not put in spectacularly beautiful parts of the country where there is no local support? Will he visit my spectacular part of the country in Suffolk, to see just how beautiful it is?

[Richard Benyon]

I am happy to inform my hon. Friend that I will be spending Christmas in his constituency, because my in-laws live there.

The importance of renewables is known and agreed upon throughout the House, and the Government recognise the value of increasing the amount of electricity that we produce from renewable energy. However, we also recognise the genuine local concerns, which have to be included in the planning process. We are reforming the planning system so that it will give local communities more of a say. We want to get that balance right, because it has become skewed in recent years.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

As part of his discussions with the DCLG, will the Minister consider transferring responsibility for the management of the rural development programme for England to local enterprise partnerships where they wish to take on that role?

[Richard Benyon]

The Department is currently considering the best way of handling the RDPE budget in future years, and we will certainly keep hon. Members informed.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

11. What recent discussions she and officials of her Department have had with Covanta on its planned projects in Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I can confirm that there have been no recent discussions between DEFRA Ministers and Covanta about its planned projects in my hon. Friend’s constituency. DEFRA officials have attended meetings between Covanta and local authorities about Covanta’s planned projects there, as part of the standard procedure of supporting local authorities in their waste management procurement processes.

[Nadine Dorries]

The Infrastructure Planning Commission has begun an online registration process for Mid Bedfordshire constituents to register their intent to object to the Covanta proposals. That process depends upon constituents having read a 7,000-page document. Will the Secretary of State and the Minister support me in a call to halt the online registration process today, so that the irregularities of it can be examined, and possibly so that it can be aborted and revisited at a later stage?

[Richard Benyon]

I am interested in that process, which fulfils part of the greater democratic accountability that the Government are talking about for decisions such as the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency, about which I know she feels strongly. That is why we are abolishing the IPC and replacing it with an organisation within the Planning Inspectorate that will have much more democratic accountability. I hope that as many of her constituents as possible can contribute to the consultation before 19 November, but I will discuss her views with colleagues elsewhere in government.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

12. What assessment she has made of the likely effects of the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board on wages and working conditions in the farming and food production sectors.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

Abolition of the board will allow modern employment practices within the agricultural and food packaging industry, which will help the industry develop and provide more job opportunities. Workers will retain any existing contractual rights in place at the time of abolition. New workers will be protected by general employment legislation, including the national minimum wage, as with workers in all other sectors of the economy. A full impact assessment and equality impact assessment will be made available during the legislative process.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

How does abolishing an organisation that ensures that workers get 2p above the national minimum wage support growth in rural communities such as mine in east Cleveland and in the rural economy?

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on the nonsense. What is the point of having the whole superstructure of the Agricultural Wages Board simply to provide a 2p-an-hour premium over the minimum wage? That is part of the justification for saying that the board is not necessary. I stand with the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members in wanting to see all farm and agricultural workers treated properly and receive a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but we need to bring agricultural wages regulations into the present day so that the modern, efficient businesses in my constituency and his can grow, expand and provide more job opportunities, not fewer.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

14. What recent representations she has received on the proposed cull of badgers to reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

A public consultation is currently under way on a badger control policy to tackle bovine tuberculosis. As of yesterday evening, we have received 1,613 responses from a variety of individuals and organisations. I would encourage anyone with a view to respond to the consultation, which closes on 8 December. We will be making a decision on the Government’s approach early next year.

[Mrs Glindon]

What public order advice has the Minister received on badger cull licences?

[Mr Paice]

We have been consulting the Home Office and police forces in areas where we think culls might occur, and we will obviously take their advice forward. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the consultation or, indeed, our consideration of it, but the hon. Lady puts her finger on a very important point, which has to be addressed in the overall approach that we adopt. I can assure her that we are talking with the relevant bodies and authorities.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to support the sugar beet industry.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

As my hon. Friend knows, supporting the farming sector is fundamental to my Department’s business. The sugar beet sector remains heavily regulated by the common agricultural policy, and it is expected that it will be considered during the forthcoming round of CAP reforms in response to the European Union budget review. The UK Government will seek an outcome where our sugar beet industry can thrive in a more competitive and sustainable environment.

[Mr Ruffley]

The Minister will understand that the greater use of biofuels in this country will not only cut CO₂ emissions, but give a vital boost to East Anglian sugar beet growers. British Sugar would like to know what the Government are doing to provide incentives to companies such as itself to invest in future biofuel production. Can the Minister tell us?

[Mr Paice]

Incentives for biofuel production are primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we fully recognise the pioneering work that British Sugar has done at the Wissington factory in Norfolk, where it produces biofuels and uses the heat generated as a by-product to grow tomatoes in glasshouses. I can also assure him that we are determined to encourage and enable our sugar industry to contribute just as much to biofuels as to our sugar supply. However, in terms of the detail, he needs to address himself to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

16. What discussions she has had with ministerial colleagues on progress by the Government towards its performance objectives on environmental sustainability.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

This Government are committed to showing leadership on sustainability through our own decisions and policies. I am discussing ways to mainstream sustainable development across Government, specifically focusing on Cabinet-level working, policy making and the Government’s own operations and procurement with Cabinet colleagues. I have also spoken to the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee to discuss how Government can be held to account for our performance against our commitments.

[Duncan Hames]

In the Secretary of State’s role of leading mainstream sustainability across the Government, will she continue to meet the designated green Ministers from each Department to ensure that sustainability is the organising principle behind all that they do?

[Mrs Spelman]

I give my hon. Friend that assurance. Sustainable development cannot be delivered by one Government Department alone. In fact, the Cabinet Office has a cross-cutting role and will report on pan-Government progress against the targets for the sustainable operations of the Government estate. The latest performance data will be published by the end of the year.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

One key performance objective on environmental sustainability is protection from flooding. The Association of British Insurers has expressed disappointment at the Government’s cuts to flood defence spending, and the Institute of Civil Engineers estimates that the cuts could cost us £4.8 billion in future. How will those cuts affect the insurance premiums and excesses of those 5.5 million British properties that are currently at risk from flooding? Can she give a guarantee that the cuts will not lead to any properties becoming either uninsurable or unmortgageable?

[Mrs Spelman]

I can assure the House that the Government are working very closely with the ABI on the question of insurance. Its statement of principles is up for renegotiation in 2013. My impression of the situation is different from the hon. Gentleman’s, because actually the ABI welcomed the fact that much of the capital for flood defences was protected, so the Government can spend £2.1 billion on flood defences within the spending review period. There will be an 8% reduction per annum, but a lot of that can be absorbed in efficiencies, as the Environment Agency demonstrated this year by building more than its target of flood defences notwithstanding a 5.5% reduction in its resources.

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

17. What recent discussions she has had with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority on the use of child labour in the farming and food industry sectors.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority licenses labour providers in the agriculture, food processing and shellfish-gathering sectors, and also enforces the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. It does not have responsibility for enforcing legislation on child labour—that falls to the police, who work alongside local authorities’ children’s services departments. Nevertheless, the GLA played an important role in liaising with the relevant authorities in the recent very shocking case of Romanian children found picking spring onions in Worcestershire.

[Gordon Banks]

The Minister is right that we are all shocked at the news of those Romanian children. I take on board what he said about the GLA, but does he feel that, given the remoteness of some locations where people are expected to work in the agricultural sector, managing the possibility of child exploitation is difficult?

[Mr Paice]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, children below the age of 13 are not permitted to work other than in certain parts of the entertainment industry. He will also know that restrictions apply to the number of hours that 13 to 16-year-olds can work and that a licence must be obtained from the local authority before such employment begins. Let us therefore be under no doubt that if children are employed in agriculture, they are employed illegally, unless they are licensed in the way I described.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the remoteness of much agricultural activity. I entirely understand his point, but I do not think that we should allow that incident—I cannot comment on the detail—to make us think that such practices are rife all over the country. The vast majority of farmers and fruit and vegetable growers behave properly towards their work force and ensure that they comply with employment legislation. We need to ensure that breaches in the law, as might have happened in that case, are dealt with appropriately.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Romanian children were found working in my constituency. Many of the local farmers use migrant labourers. Has the Minister any general advice for those farmers on the employment of migrant labour?

[Mr Paice]

I can say to my hon. Friend quite clearly that the most important thing that anybody who wants to employ migrant labour—or, indeed, any non-local labour—should do is ensure that they are dealing with a licensed gangmaster. They should ask to see the certificate or licence of the gangmaster proposing to bring the labour on to the farm. That way they can all be reassured they are doing the right thing.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

18. What steps her Department is taking to assist the farming industry to become more competitive.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave a few moments ago.

[Neil Parish]

This country has a highly competitive pig and poultry industry that is completely unsubsidised and relies heavily on imported feed. Will the Minister assure us that we can get a greater threshold when allowing imports of non-genetically modified feed into the country, otherwise we will export our industry abroad?

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Discussions are taking place in Europe about the threshold for the import of GM soya, predominantly, which is what he is talking about, and I can assure him that we will be taking a constructive view to those negotiations. Quite clearly it would be pointless to deprive our livestock sector of something in a way that simply means we import more livestock products that have been fed on GM food.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Farmers clearly cannot be competitive if supermarkets have got them in an arm lock. In response to the question from the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), the Minister rightly supported the Government policy of enforcing the grocery code supply practice. However, will he acknowledge that there is anxiety in the farming community about the fact that the Government may not be introducing this legislation soon enough. Can he reassure us that they will take the earliest opportunity to bring it forward?

[Mr Paice]

May I recognise and pay tribute to the sterling work that my hon. Friend has done on this matter over a number of years in bringing forward this proposition, which is now Government policy? I can reassure him that I am constantly talking to my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and urging them to bring this forward, because I fully recognise its importance to the whole of the agriculture industry.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will want to welcome the agreement secured in Nagoya, not least because, as Members will know, the previous Government, and many before them, sought over a long period to secure agreement on a protocol on access to, and benefit sharing of, genetic resources, putting in place the tools to help countries halt the loss of biodiversity. It is right for us all to pay tribute to the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who have worked so hard for so long to achieve this agreement.

On my way back, I represented the UK at the closing ceremony of Expo 2010 in Shanghai, and I am delighted to be able to tell the House that the UK won the top award for a pavilion part-funded by DEFRA on the theme of biodiversity, and that the Chinese premier himself recognised its excellence. I would like to thank the Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff who delivered this considerable achievement—Simon Featherstone, who rescued the project, and Carma Elliot and her team, who spent four years driving the project to its successful conclusion.

[Kerry McCarthy]

In June, the Secretary of State said that the Hunting Act 2004 had not been a demonstrable success and was difficult to enforce, but figures published by the Department last year showed 57 prosecutions in 2009—an average of one every week—and more convictions than any other piece of wildlife legislation. How do Ministers square that with her belief that it has not been a demonstrable success?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

If the hon. Lady examines those figures more deeply, she will find that most of them are to do with what is known as illegal hare coursing on land where the owner has not given permission for that to take place—let alone the fact that the process is currently illegal under the 2004 Act. The Government have said that they will bring forward legislation. It will be a free vote in the House, and she will have an opportunity to make her statements and to vote accordingly when the Government introduce that legislation.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T3. May I thank the Secretary of State for having announced today that she will give permission for the £14.25 million Banbury flood alleviation scheme? It will be really welcomed in Banbury. It is being funded partially by the Environment Agency, partially by others such as Cherwell district council, and will enable the Banbury canal side regeneration scheme to go ahead, which will be very welcome. May I simply thank her and Ministers for doing the right thing?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Banbury scheme is a prime example of bringing together business, organisations such as Railtrack, the local authority and the Environment Agency. That is a really important partnership, and a model for schemes elsewhere in the country. I am delighted that it is going ahead. My hon. Friend can take credit for frequently cornering me in the Lobby to show his support for the scheme.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

T2. The European Food Safety Authority has concluded that the major factor causing poor welfare in dairy cows is genetic selection to produce high yields. Given proposals to intensify milk production for higher yields, such as those planned at Nocton, will the Secretary of State agree urgently to review the welfare code for dairy cows in the UK, and to meet a delegation of cross-party MPs and non-governmental organisations to discuss how her Department can ensure that its code takes into account the latest scientific advice and ensures that any new dairies do not compromise cow welfare?

[Mr Paice]

I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and others to discuss the matter, but I assure him that the Department puts welfare at the top of our agenda, as I hope our record to date shows. However, we must be guided by science, which is why I am looking forward to the results of the three-year study being carried out in Scotland on intensive dairy farming, and the work at Harper Adams university college on the same issue. After that, we will be in a better position to know the precise answers. I remind him that the Farm Animal Welfare Council, which the Department normally listens to, has said clearly that welfare is a function more of management than of scale.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T4. Given that the Department would like all animals to be stunned before slaughter, may we please have some food labelling regulations to mark halal and kosher products as such, so that those of us who object to ritual slaughter do not inadvertently buy such products in shops and restaurants?

[Mr Paice]

As my hon. Friend is aware and as the House fully understands, this is a highly emotive issue, and I understand the demand for labelling. As he rightly says, the Government would like all animals to be properly stunned before they are bled to slaughter. There is a discussion at European level about food information regulations, but we do not believe that that is the right vehicle. Next year, we will consult on implementation of the European animal welfare regulations, and the labelling issue will certainly be examined as part of that. I recognise the strength of feeling to which my hon. Friend refers.

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

I am sure that Ministers share my disappointment that last week’s talks aimed at resolving the mackerel dispute between Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway and the EU ended without resolution. The ongoing uncertainty is causing great distress to the pelagic fleet and parts of the processing sector in my constituency, where much of the industry is based. Those people have much to lose and little to gain in the negotiations. Will the Minister update the House on the outcome of those negotiations, and assure us that the Government will take a robust line in those talks to defend our historic fishing rights and to ensure that the EU does not acquiesce to the unreasonable and environmentally destructive demands being made by Iceland and the Faroes?

[Richard Benyon]

I am well aware of the issue’s importance to the hon. Lady’s constituents and many others. The UK has been robust in its attitude to the Icelandic and Faroese proposal to damage a sustainable stock. We fear the risk that it may have on the Marine Stewardship Council’s accreditation for the stock, and its impact on her constituents and many others. I assure her that we have been robust, we are being robust, and we will continue to be robust, as I believe is the Commission.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

T5. Will the Minister tell me what impact the comprehensive spending review has had on flood defences, and particularly the Folkestone to Cliff End erosion and flood strategy, which is important for maintaining the sea defences along the Romney marsh coast, and to my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd)?

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend will be pleased that we managed to protect the flood budget in the comprehensive spending review. The amount is reducing—[Interruption.] At 8% a year it is considerably lower than the 50% capital cuts the Labour Government proposed. An 8% cut across the piece is a considerable advantage.

I have seen the schemes in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I have met the excellent Defend our Coast community group. That is exactly the sort of arrangement whereby we deliver more by working in a partnership, and deliver a better result at the end of the day. I hope that many of his constituents will—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Bill Esterson.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State accept the findings of the independent scientific group on bovine TB, in particular when it says:

“Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone”?

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that that study ended several years ago. We now have more science, which has superseded those conclusions reached by the independent study group. I have laid out the new scientific evidence from ongoing studies in the consultation document, and that is the reason for the proposal that we have put forward.

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

T6. The Prime Minister responded to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) on 15 September about the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s report on a bottle deposit and return scheme, and gave an indication that the Government would be looking at it. Given the potential to increase recycling and reduce litter, will the Minister give some views on the report and say what action might be taken?

[Richard Benyon]

We welcome the report, which we think is a good addition to the review of waste being carried out by my noble Friend Lord Henley, and we will certainly consider it as part of that process.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Investment in anaerobic digestion not only helps farmers to become more competitive, but helps small rural communities such as those in North East Derbyshire both to process waste and to make energy. What is the Department doing to ensure that farmers can diversify in this way?

[Mrs Spelman]

Anaerobic digestion has great potential in helping the farming industry reduce its overall carbon emissions and will be an important part of the Government’s aim, as part of being the greenest Government ever, of achieving those reductions. Anaerobic digestion is something that we welcome, but the important thing is to have constant feedstocks. Anaerobic digestion has a wider application in the communities that we all live in, but for farming it is definitely an interesting option.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

T7. Can my hon. Friend advise the House on whether he has had any discussions with independent animal welfare organisations about the prospects for intensive dairy farming of the sort proposed by a planning application in Lincolnshire?

[Mr Paice]

I have had no specific discussions or meetings on the matter, nor have I received any specific representations, but it has arisen in other discussions that I have had with animal welfare lobbies, which have all put their views forward. I should point out that, as I understand it, a planning application has not even been made yet. That will be a planning issue, and I cannot comment on the detail.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that the Minister will share my disquiet at the reported comments by the Icelandic negotiator last week. Will he do everything in his power to ensure that next week’s meeting of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission is used as another vehicle to try to find a solution to the dispute about the mackerel quota in the North sea, which is vital to many communities in Scotland?

[Richard Benyon]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will use any means possible to resolve the issue, which has wider implications. Iceland is going through a process of accession to the Europe Union, and it seems a strange way to behave to tear up the rule book before joining the club. We are using a variety of mechanisms to try to put pressure on Iceland to operate in a sustainable way and protect a sustainable stock.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Does the Minister share the concerns of a number of farming organisations—in particular smaller farming organisations, such as the Small Farms Association and the Family Farmers Association—that plans to build a mega-dairy in Nocton will fatally undermine the viability of a great number of small and family farms?

[Mr Paice]

Obviously I understand those concerns, and as my hon. Friend knows, I have been in the industry for most of my working life. Two points need to be made. First, it is good news that somebody thinks that the dairy industry is worth investing in, given that so many dairy farmers have given up over the past few years. Secondly, I genuinely believe that there is huge scope for reclaiming much of our domestic market, which has been lost to imported dairy products. If through expansion and greater efficiencies we can do that, there will be room in the industry for both large and small producers.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Given the reference made to the Environmental Audit Committee, I hope we can return to the issue of resources in due course. On a constituency matter, I met the Staffordshire wildlife trust last week and it is looking to make a submission to the EU LIFE+ programme to enhance biodiversity in Stoke-on-Trent. Will the Secretary of State commit DEFRA officers to give support to any proposal that comes out of that?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am delighted to be able to offer that support. The wildlife trusts do an excellent job, which is why we see great scope in the concept of the big society for more work of this kind.

I might have made an error, Mr Speaker, in not responding myself to the question put by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I apologise, as I should have taken it—but, of course, I agree with everything that the Minister of State had to say.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Lady, whom I have known for 15 years, is unfailingly courteous, and I think that will be very much appreciated by the House.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

The heart of the new national forest lies in my beautiful constituency of North West Leicestershire. Will the Minister assure the House that any sale of Forestry Commission assets will not reduce public access or enjoyment of our woods and forests?

[Mr Paice]

I am happy to give yet again the assurance that if any disposal of Forestry Commission land takes place—it is a matter for consultation—it will not be at the expense of any existing public benefit. I make the point that the National Forest Company, to which my hon. Friend rightly refers, has done a superb job. The discussion does not include the national forest, much of which is, of course, already in private hands.

Business of the House

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

11:31

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 8 November will be:

Monday 8 November—Remaining stages of the Finance (No.2) Bill.

Tuesday 9 November—Opposition day [5th allotted day]. There will be a full day’s debate on the impact of proposed changes to housing benefits. This debate will arise on an Opposition motion.

Wednesday 10 November—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill, followed by a motion to approve European documents relating to economic policy co-ordination.

Thursday 11 November—General debate on policy on growth. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 12 November—Private Members’ Bills.



The provisional business for the week commencing 15 November will include:

Monday 15 November—Second Reading of the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 16 November—Consideration in Committee of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill (Day 1).

Wednesday 17 November—Opposition day [6th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve the Draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2010 and the Draft Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2010.

Thursday 18 November—A debate on immigration. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 19 November—Private Members’ Bills.

Colleagues will also wish to know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement on 23 March 2011.



I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 11 and 18 November will be:

Thursday 11 November—Impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department of Health.

Thursday 18 November—Debate on the 2010 UN climate change conference, Cancun, for up to two hours, followed by a debate on houses in multiple occupation.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement.

This week, Mr Speaker, you have granted two urgent questions because the Government did not see fit to come and tell the House what they were doing. The first concerned the fact that the Justice Secretary appears keener to put convicted prisoners on to the electoral register than he is the 3.5 million missing voters. The second was because the Prime Minister thought that the French President, the media, civil servants and just about everybody else should be told first about two very significant treaties affecting our nation’s security, whereas the House of Commons got to hear about them only as a reluctant afterthought. Does the Leader of the House think that this is a satisfactory way in which to treat Members? Because I do not.

Turning now to broken pledges, will the Leader of the House assure us that enough time will be provided on the Floor of the House to debate the huge increase in tuition fees now facing students and the huge cut in funding for university teaching—a cut described in The Guardian today as “insane”? The House will require a lot of time. First, it will require time so that the Prime Minister can come to the House and apologise for breaking his firm pledge to keep education maintenance allowances, which, as every Member knows, have played a really important part in helping students from low-income backgrounds to get to higher education. Secondly, it will require time so that Ministers can be clear about what will actually happen to funding for undergraduate teaching of non-STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects.

The Minister for Universities and Science, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), told the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee that band C and D institutions

“would essentially lose their teaching grant support”.

The House will wonder how places such as the School of Oriental and African Studies, Goldsmiths college, Leeds Trinity and All Saints college, the Royal Academy of Music and Leeds College of Music will manage when every single pound of their public funding for undergraduate teaching disappears. Yesterday, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), said in Westminster Hall that

“We will continue to support the arts through the subsidy for teaching in universities."—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 315WH.]

Which of those statements is actually correct? It looks to me like another shambles.

Thirdly, we will need time so that Liberal Democrats—whether they are currently Ministers or thinking about resigning as Ministers—can explain to thousands and thousands of angry and disillusioned students what exactly they were thinking of when they made their solemn pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees. It could not have been clearer. Was it just a ploy to win votes? Was it a mistake? Or was it that the Liberal Democrats had no idea what they were doing? Whichever it was, I do not think that they will be getting those votes again.

Has the Leader of the House read the powerful speech made on Monday in the other place by Baroness Campbell of Surbiton about the proposal to take away the mobility component of disability living allowance from people who are in residential care? She cited the case of a couple, both disabled, who say that if that goes ahead they will no longer be able to visit the doctor, the dentist, the bank, the church, the library or shops, let alone their friends and relatives. Why is that the case? It is because they will lose respectively 45% and 69% of their allowances. Lady Campbell said that the plan

“makes neither moral nor financial sense.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 November 2010; Vol. 721, c. 1468.]

I agree. May we have a debate on why the Government seem so determined to take away those disabled people’s mobility, whether it is their use of taxis, electric scooters or electric wheelchairs so that they can actually get about? May we also have a statement on whether that harsh proposal was considered by the Government’s own office for disability issues before it was announced in the comprehensive spending review?

Finally, can the Leader of the House confirm that there will be a statement following the G20 summit next week? Will photographs of the occasion by the Prime Minister’s personal photographer and newest civil servant be placed in the Library of the House ?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions.

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), made it quite clear that the Government had made no decision on prisoner voting rights. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in its 16th report of the Session, published in 2007, the Joint Committee on Human Rights criticised the then Government on the issue, stating that the time taken to produce the second consultation paper was “disproportionate”, and that the Government’s failure to enfranchise “at least part” of the prisoner community was “unlawful”. That was three years ago, and during those three years the Government did absolutely nothing. The right hon. Gentleman will have heard what the Prime Minister said about that yesterday. It is another example of the coalition Government clearing up a mess that we inherited from the outgoing Labour Government.

The Prime Minister made an oral statement in the House on Monday, during which he said that the treaty to which the right hon. Gentleman referred would be signed the following day and

“laid before Parliament in the usual way.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 615.]

There is no secrecy about that. The Prime Minister’s statement was followed by a written ministerial statement on Tuesday morning. The Command Papers and explanatory memorandums will accompany each treaty when it is presented to Parliament for scrutiny in the usual manner in the next few days.

On tuition fees, the right hon. Gentleman—and his colleague, the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), yesterday—gave no indication at all of the Labour party’s reaction to Lord Browne’s report, which Labour itself commissioned. We are determined to have a fair system: a system that is free at the point of access, that enables more students from low-income backgrounds to participate, that offers generous student support and that is progressive by expecting only those who have completed their learning and are earning more to pay more.

On disability living allowance, the right hon. Gentleman raised the serious issue of whether one should align those in residential care funded by the NHS who lose the mobility component with those who are funded by social services who do not. There is an issue of equity between two people in identical circumstances living in the same home who at the moment receive differential treatment, and of course there should be adequate opportunity to debate it.

Finally, on the issue of photographs, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture. The right hon. Gentleman will have seen the statement by my noble Friend the Minister without Portfolio. The previous Prime Minister spent £40,000 a year on an image consultant and Labour spent over half a million pounds on photographs and videos in its last three years in office alone, so I honestly do not think it is fitting for the right hon. Gentleman to criticise this Government for misuse of the media.

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

My right hon. Friend will know that Horn lane in Acton is one of the most polluted roads in London, largely, it seems, because a group of industrial units still operate there. Local residents have now set up a campaign to try to deal with the problem, but they have discovered that it is virtually impossible to get anything done because they must prove that an individual unit is responsible. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a debate would help in identifying some new measures that might assist in tackling the problem?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend may know, I lived in Horn lane when I was the Member of Parliament for Ealing, Acton, and I apologise to her for not resolving this problem during my 23 years representing that constituency. She raises an important issue that might be an appropriate subject for an Adjournment debate, at which one of my colleagues from the Department for Communities and Local Government would be able to respond.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will have seen this week’s reports arguing that alcohol is by far the most damaging drug in our society. Will he make time for a long and serious debate on alcohol in which we can look at the links between alcohol and high levels of teenage pregnancy and domestic violence, the incidence of foetal alcohol syndrome, levels of addiction, the impact on the economy and every other aspect of the alcohol problem, and in which we can also examine the possibility of unit pricing for alcohol across the whole country and of raising the legal age for alcohol consumption and purchase?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman raises a series of serious subjects which of course the House should debate. We will be bringing forward tough action to deal with problem drinking, such as stopping supermarkets selling alcohol below cost price. We are going to introduce a much tougher licensing regime. We are also going to review alcohol taxation and pricing. Related to that, we will publish a drugs strategy in the coming months, and we will set out a radical new approach to public health in a White Paper, which will also focus on drinking issues.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I wonder whether the Leader of the House can find time for a debate on local enterprise partnerships. Quangos are being culled and that is resulting in Essex being twinned with Kent and East Sussex, which are not local. In fact, Holland is almost as close to Colchester as Brighton. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it makes sense for Colchester and north Essex to be allied with Suffolk and Norfolk, rather than Brighton?

[Sir George Young]

Decisions about who is to be part of a local enterprise partnership should, essentially, be taken at local level, not by Whitehall. The thrust of our policy in abolishing regional development agencies is to let local people, local businesses and local authorities decide on the best formula for taking forward LEPs. The hon. Gentleman should therefore contact his local authorities and pursue the case with them, because it is they who will be deciding the framework for the future LEP.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Despite what the Leader of the House said, would it not be useful to have a statement next week on the fact that the Government now have not only an official photographer but a film maker? Is it true that Mr Parsons, the photographer, intends to display photographs of the Prime Minister all around Portcullis House so that the younger generation, particularly school parties, can pay tribute to the dear leader, North Korean-style?

[Sir George Young]

What this Government are seeking to do on the publicity front will, I believe, cost the taxpayer far less than the previous Government spent in achieving similar objectives and will do it far more effectively.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend consider the difficulties that many of us find with the process of consultation? Will he review this with his colleagues and see whether it might be possible to have a debate in order to find a better way for consultations to take place, in which people really feel that they have had their day in court and that their views have been listened to?

[Sir George Young]

I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. We will be producing a localism Bill, the thrust of which will be to push decision making down to the local level and to engage people more effectively in decisions that affect their own community. He will know that a code of practice on consultation has been put out by the Cabinet Office and, in the light of his question, I will raise with my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office the issue of whether this consultation paper might be revisited.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House grant a debate on the accuracy of Government statements, particularly the use of the phrase, “We are all in this together”? On 14 May, Downing street proclaimed that ministerial pay would be cut by 5%, but I have been told by the Treasury that that has not happened. Were a civil servant to be overpaid by £3,500 his boss would make him pay it back. Will the Leader of the House tell the Prime Minister that he has to pay it back?

[Sir George Young]

Speaking from experience, I am pretty certain that my own pay is 5% less than my predecessor received for performing exactly the same duties. I will, of course, make some inquiries and confirm that the Government’s policy to reduce ministerial pay by 5% has indeed been effected.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I appreciate the comments that the Leader of the House made a few minutes ago about prisoners’ voting rights. Notwithstanding that, may I tell him that my constituents have been quick off the mark in letting me know their total opposition to any prospect of prisoners voting? It may be helpful to the Government to have an early debate, so that all Members are given an opportunity to express their views before the Government produce details. Could we please have such an early debate?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. Any change of the law would, of course, require a debate in the House of Commons. Ministers are considering how to implement the judgment—which the previous Government failed to do. When the Government have made a decision, the House will be the first to know.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Is the Leader of the House aware that Members who are unsuccessful in securing Adjournment debates can make representations to the Backbench Business Committee for debates in Westminster Hall of anything up to three hours? Will he therefore join me in encouraging Back Benchers to make representations to the Committee on Monday at 4 pm—and every following Monday at 4 pm? We have put in a regular slot, so that Members can make representations and bids for time, both in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that, and I would encourage hon. Members who have an issue that they think ought to be ventilated, either here or in Westminster Hall, to attend her salon on a Monday at 4 pm. May I also remind the House that the Backbench Business Committee has assumed responsibility for what were the set-piece debates in the previous Parliament? Debates such as the day on Welsh affairs and the one for international women’s day will take place under the new regime only if Members go to her Committee and effectively make the case for their repetition.

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

May I visit the Leader of the House’s salon to request, on behalf of all colleagues who have been affected by recent ward closures, an early debate on the approach of primary care trusts and hospital trusts across the country to closing wards by stealth? That is causing great concern and would justify an early debate.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. There will be a debate in Westminster Hall next Thursday on the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department of Health. That might be a good opportunity for her to raise her concerns.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

May we have an early debate ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit to China on the case of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel peace prize winner? In a shameful conspiracy of silence, there is no reference to him on either the No. 10 or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website. When Andrei Sakharov won the same prize there was no greater champion of him than Mrs Thatcher. I am all for good trade with China, but it is shameful that neither of our two top spokespersons on foreign affairs has mentioned that great and noble man’s name. Will the Prime Minister do it next week in China?

[Sir George Young]

Let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman that when the Prime Minister is in China he will raise the serious issue of China’s human rights record. That issue will not go by default.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend encourage the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on his visit to Israel and the occupied territories when he returns next week? Many of us are beginning to doubt whether we will live to see a two-state solution and it would be good to hear the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of what is happening in Israel and Palestine.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this serious issue. If my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is not able to make a statement, there are Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions next Tuesday, which would be an appropriate time for my hon. Friend to press him on that matter.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents have relatives in Pakistan who suffered in the floods and now feel largely forgotten. May we have an urgent debate on the current level of aid and support for those beleaguered people?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this important issue. Again, there will be Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions next Tuesday, when there might be an opportunity for her to raise these issues with the Foreign Secretary.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Many of my constituents are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency and accountability of the Yorkshire Dales national park authority. Will my right hon. Friend grant a debate on the future of Britain’s national parks?

[Sir George Young]

We have just had questions to the relevant Department and I understand that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), will launch a public consultation next week on the governance arrangements of the nine English national park authorities and the Broads authority, thereby delivering one of the commitments in the coalition agreement and in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs draft structural reform plan.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

May we have an early debate on Public Bill Committee evidence sessions? This is an issue about which I also intend to write to you, Mr Speaker. I am a member of a Public Bill Committee that has had three evidence sessions, none of which the Minister has attended to hear the evidence, to contribute to the debate or to listen to Members’ contributions. Whatever has happened in the past on this matter, is it not important that Ministers attend evidence sessions in Bill Committees?

[Sir George Young]

I shall make inquiries about that. I assume that the Minister in question is a member of the Committee and that there will therefore be adequate opportunities to press him in person on his performance during the Committee. I suggest that that is the appropriate forum in which to raise this matter.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The Government’s policy to introduce a supermarket adjudicator enjoys wide support in the country and has all-party support in the House. However, those who are enthusiastic about it cannot believe that the Government have no plans to introduce legislation to enforce the code of practice before the end of this very extended Session. What can the Leader of the House do to ensure that this matter is brought forward as quickly as possible?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious issue. The coalition Government intend to introduce, during this Session, a draft Bill to address that matter.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House is held in high regard on both sides of the House and by all parties. As someone who holds the rights of the House in high esteem, does he share my eagerness to see information that has been given to the House corrected by the Secretary of State for Health? In Tuesday’s Health questions, the Secretary of State said that spending on the national health service will increase in real terms even if the social care budget given to local authorities is removed, but the Library and the Nuffield Trust have both stated that that is incorrect. Can the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State to return to the House to correct that misinformation?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the kind words that prefaced his question. I shall raise with the Secretary of State for Health the point that the hon. Gentleman has made, implying that information was incorrectly given to the House, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will take appropriate action when he has read this morning’s Hansard.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

My 14-year-old constituent, Bethanie Thorn from Silver End, was a healthy teenager until last month when she was left bedridden by an illness. Despite her constant agony and blood tests that reveal cancer markers, the Mid-Essex Hospital Services trust is denying her the MRI scan that her doctor has urgently requested. Will the Leader of the House use his good offices to investigate the reason for the appalling delays at the trust and may we have a debate on why the trust has been able to spend £10 million employing 109 managers but cannot arrange this urgent scan for my constituent?

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry to hear of Bethanie’s illness and I understand how important it is for her to have the MRI scan. As my hon. Friend will know, we are increasing in real terms the budget available to the NHS and we are introducing reforms so that more resources go to the front line. I shall raise this specific issue with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health to see whether there is any action he might take.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Yesterday, the tug boat Anglian Prince was again involved in serious work as it towed a ship with engine trouble into Stornoway. Luckily, this time the ship was not full of oil and was not a nuclear submarine. May we have a debate on the possible environmental damage of the cuts and the removal of the maritime insurance policy in north-west Scotland, thereby highlighting the fact that the UK cannot or is unwilling to afford it, whereas an independent Scotland would and could?

[Sir George Young]

If the independent Scotland had the resources that it currently gets from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue which I suggest is an appropriate subject for an Adjournment debate.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Prior to the spending review, it was accepted that Scotland receives approximately 20% more per head than a needs-based analysis would result in, particularly when compared with the English regions. That is due to an anomaly in the Barnett formula, but I understand that the Government do not intend to review the formula. The spending review cuts deeper in England than in Scotland; is it not time for a debate on this subject?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend has said, the Government do not intend to revisit the Barnett formula, but we have no objection to a debate on the issue if he applies for one in the usual way.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

More than six months ago, candidates in all political parties signed a series of pledges, including the sanctuary pledge, in which candidates who are now Members of Parliament pledged to remove children from immigration detention. Why then, six months after the general election, has the coalition not yet carried out that pledge, which also appears in the coalition agreement?

[Sir George Young]

This is another issue that we inherited from the outgoing Labour Government, as they failed to address it. It is addressed in the coalition agreement, as the hon. Gentleman will see, and the coalition Government will take action to deliver that commitment.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Talking of issues that were inherited from the previous Government, we found out this week—six months after the general election—that as a result of the European Court of Human Rights ruling about prisoners having the right to vote, the UK faces a bill in excess of £100 million. May we have a statement on what other hidden and contingent liabilities were left behind by the Labour Government for us to deal with?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will know, having listened to statements by Treasury Ministers, that we have had to deal with a large number of commitments by the outgoing Government for which the resources were not made available. On the specific issue, as he knows, Ministers are considering how to implement the judgment and, indeed, how to avoid the fines to which he refers. When the Government have made a decision, the House will be the first to know.

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

May I press the Leader of the House? My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) mentioned that the Minister for Universities and Science has said that non-STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects will lose their teaching grant. Yet in a Westminster Hall debate that I took part in yesterday, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning said:

“We will continue to support the arts through the subsidy for teaching in universities.” —[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 315WH.]

Please may we have an urgent statement on when universities will learn of their funding settlements in order to alleviate the uncertainty that so many universities, teaching staff, students and prospective students are suffering?

[Sir George Young]

Of course I understand the concern that the hon. Lady expresses. She will have heard my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science say yesterday in his statement that there would be a debate quite soon, after which there would be a vote on the order to raise the caps. That would be an appropriate point for the hon. Lady to raise her concerns again.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend and every MP will be aware of the burdens and, more importantly, the excessive costs of the systems that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has introduced. Do the Government have the confidence to allow the House the time to bring forward and to debate measures that would deal with those excessive costs?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend has a private Member’s Bill on that subject. The Government have no plans to have an earlier debate on IPSA, but he will know that IPSA is about to announce a review, and I hope that that will provide an opportunity for all hon. Members to submit their views. My view is absolutely clear: IPSA is there to sustain Members and to enable them to discharge their duties, and any barriers that get in the way should be removed.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Speaking of salons, is it true that No. 10 has also employed a hair stylist? Perhaps that is what the Government mean by cuts. But seriously, may we have a debate on civil service recruitment? It is not just the Prime Minister’s vanity snapper and film-maker that is at issue; I have had a letter outstanding to the Cabinet Secretary since September on the issue of the Culture Secretary bringing in people from outside the civil service at a time when civil servants are being sacked. We need a serious debate on the matter, and I need an answer to my letter.

[Sir George Young]

I have no knowledge of any hair stylist being employed at No. 10, and as the hon. Gentleman can see I would have no need of such a service. On the specific issue, he is entitled to a response to his letter. Any recruitment to No. 10 or, indeed, elsewhere in the public sector has to follow the due procedures.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

When can we expect the much awaited localism Bill to begin its passage through Parliament? I am particularly keen to see our planning system reforms introduced quickly. In my constituency and, I believe, those of many other hon. Members, developers are quite keen to exploit what they perceive as the grey area of planning before the Bill is introduced. When will we have settlement on the matter?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. The localism Bill was announced in the Queen’s Speech on 25 May, and it contains a wide range of measures to devolve more powers to councils. In answer to his specific question, the Bill will be introduced to Parliament shortly.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Two weeks ago, the Leader of the House announced a review of House sitting hours. Can he confirm that it will include a review of September sittings? Once it has taken place, will all matters, including September sittings, return to the House for a decision on a free vote? If so, will he provide to Members full information about the financial and other consequences for the long-term maintenance of the House of a shorter recess and less time to carry out maintenance during the summer?

[Sir George Young]

The Procedure Committee is indeed carrying out a review of the sitting hours of the House. It will include whether we should sit in September, as well as the actual hours that we sit during the day. That has always been a House of Commons matter on which Members have had a free vote. There will also be an opportunity for the House authorities to raise the issue of the cost to the House if they do not have a long run during the summer recess to carry out certain capital work—although whether that should be decisive in determining whether the House sits in September is something on which I should like to reflect.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will be aware of the huge consequences of trebling fees to £9,000 for students, and of the decision to withdraw funding from arts and humanities teaching throughout our universities. He will forgive me, because I have an arts degree, but surely it is right that we debate not just the fee levels, but the implications for widening participation and the decision to withdraw from the arts and humanities. The debate must be about the entire matter, not solely the fee level.

[Sir George Young]

Yesterday we had an extensive debate on the issue when my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science made a statement to the House. There will be another full day’s debate on the whole issue, as I said in response to an earlier question. On the specific issue of arts and humanities, which a number of colleagues have raised, I will of course pass on to the Secretary of State their deep concerns about the funding of those faculties.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Given that the Government’s economic policy seems to be based on sacking up to 1 million public sector workers and replacing them with private sector employees, and that nobody bar the Government believes that that is workable, may we have a debate in which the Government have an opportunity to spell out how they will achieve that miracle?

[Sir George Young]

I remind the hon. Gentleman of what the Office for Budget Responsibility has said on the matter. It expects whole economy employment to rise during every year of its forecast, from 28.89 million people in 2010-11 to 30.23 million in 2015-16. Employment has also risen very sharply in recent months. In the three months to July 2010, total employment rose by 286,000, and while public sector employment, to which he refers, fell by 22,000 in the second quarter, private sector employment rose by 308,000. That puts the issue in perspective.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I assume that the hon. Lady was here at the start of the business statement?

[Laura Sandys]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

No. Okay, we move on.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I wish to return to the education maintenance allowance, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) mentioned. As recently as June, the Minister with responsibility for schools reiterated the coalition Government’s commitment to the EMA, but we now see that that commitment was as hollow as a Liberal Democrat pledge. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement on the equalities impact assessment of the withdrawal of the EMA?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that in the comprehensive spending review announcement, there was a clear statement on the future of the EMA, which will be transferred to a more targeted, local and discretionary system. We had a debate on the CSR last Thursday, when there was an opportunity to raise the EMA and other issues, so I am not sure that I can find time for another debate in the very near future.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

When we have the debate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has requested, may we also have a debate on Lib-Dem manifesto commitments, so that Ministers can hear the comments of students in my constituency, who have told me that they have decided either to change courses, based on which careers pay most, or not to go to university at all?

[Sir George Young]

As I have said, there will be an opportunity to debate the statement that we heard yesterday. It would be helpful if, during that debate, we just had some idea of where the Labour party stands on the matter.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will know that we are five months on from the shootings in my constituency, so there is no notion whatever of a knee-jerk response to those events. The Association of Chief Police Officers has recommended changes to the gun laws, and Home Office Ministers have promised Members a debate on such changes. When may we have that debate, and may we have it sooner rather than later please?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He will know that the Home Affairs Committee is undertaking an inquiry into firearms legislation, and we await the outcome of the inquiry into the tragic incidents in Cumbria earlier this year. Once we have had that, we will honour our commitment to a debate on our gun laws, which are already among the toughest in the world.

Mr Speaker, may I make it clear that the Budget statement is expected on Wednesday 23 March, and that private Members’ Bills will be before the House on Friday 19 November?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was expecting to move on to the main business. [Interruption.] I emphasise that I had been expecting to move on to the main business. Suddenly, there are points of order. We will observe just how genuine they are. I feel sure that they will be.

Points of Order

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

12:09

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope that this is a very important matter on which you can offer some guidance. It seems to me that in this Parliament over the last 100 years, Governments and Prime Ministers have often dictated the terms and conditions for Members of Parliament, when in fact Parliament should be dictating the—[Interruption.] The point of order is this: is it right that the Government should be able to block Private Members’ Bills that relate to the terms and conditions for Members? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is absolutely legitimate for Members of the House, including members of the Government, to take a view about a particular Bill. That is the short answer to the attempted point of order from the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to bring to your attention the huge difference in the time that it takes to get letters from various Ministers. Should we introduce a maximum time for responses to legitimate questions from Back-Bench MPs?

[Mr Speaker]

A number of Departments have target response times. The hon. Gentleman says that he is raising a point of order with me, but it is not a matter specifically and directly for the Chair. He has, however, raised his concerns in front of the Leader of the House, who will have heard them. I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman will attach importance to ensuring that those concerns are heeded.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It seems to me that, certainly for new Members, there is uncertainty about when it is appropriate for points of order to be made—and, indeed, about what actually constitutes a point of order.

[Mr Speaker]

There is no uncertainty in my mind. [Interruption.] Order. I am genuinely sorry for the hon. Gentleman if he is suffering from uncertainty. I am not suffering from any uncertainty on this matter, although I pay tribute to him for his efforts.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will know that I have raised with the House authorities the delays there have been as I have tried to secure certain school tours. This week, I had a group cancellation—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady was actively discouraged from pursuing that matter as a point of order. I fully understand her sense of grievance about it, but it is not, I am afraid, a matter of order. For her, it is a matter of real and understandable frustration, which is not quite the same thing.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. Earlier this week, there was a meeting, for the first time in 15 years, of the Welsh parliamentary party. I am not sure what the status of the Welsh parliamentary party is, but my question—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is not a point of order; the hon. Gentleman will resume his seat.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Last go. I call Mr Stewart Jackson.

[Mr Jackson]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Do you, like me, deprecate the practice, too common among Departments under the previous Government, of referring, in written answers to parliamentary questions, to website addresses rather than giving substantive answers? Will you intercede?

[Mr Speaker]

I am happy to comment on that point of order. The hon. Gentleman draws the attention of the House to what is becoming a common practice. Responses from Ministers to questions should be as helpful and clear as possible. Simply referring an hon. Member to a website is, frankly, not good enough. [Interruption.]

We come now to the main business. To move the motion, I call the Secretary of State, Dr Liam Fox.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

12:13

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Last month, the Government published the strategic—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Secretary of State should resume his seat. Given that he was manifestly late for the debate, I thought that, as a matter of straightforward courtesy, he would begin his remarks with a fulsome apology to the House. That is what he will now do.

[Dr Fox]

Mr Speaker, I completely apologise for any inconvenience to you or the House as a result of my late attendance.

Last month, the Government published the strategic defence and security review. This was a thorough, cross-Government strategic effort, overseen by the National Security Council, looking at all aspects of security and defence. It describes the adaptable posture that we have chosen to meet the threats and exploit the opportunities that we identified in the national security strategy.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I intervene to assist the Secretary of State. He should pour a cup of water and catch his breath, so that he can be fully refreshed as he makes his statement. I hope that my intervention has been helpful.

[Dr Fox]

There always had to be very good reasons for the coalition; my hon. Friend shows how collegiate we have become in the past few months.

I pay tribute, after a long and complex process, to Lord Stirrup and Sir Bill Jeffrey, the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff and the permanent secretary at the MOD. I would like to thank them for all their hard work on behalf of the Department and the armed forces over many years.

The fiscal environment that we inherited from the previous Government has required us to make some very difficult and complex decisions in the SDSR. That should not come as a surprise to the Labour party. In his Green Paper, my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), who is in his place today, wrote with characteristic understatement that defence faced

“challenging financial pressures…which will constrain Government resources.”

His Green Paper, a cross-party effort, said:

“We cannot proceed with all the activities and programmes we currently aspire to, while simultaneously supporting our current operations and investing in the new capabilities we need. We will need to make tough decisions”.

We have had 12 years without a fundamental rethink and we are in the midst of the biggest financial crisis in a generation, with an inherited defence budget that is in overdraft to the tune of some £38 billion and is tied up by a byzantine system of contractual obligations. There was a record in-year increase of £3.3 billion in the equipment programme during Labour’s last year in government alone. All that has come at a time when our armed forces are fighting at a high tempo in Afghanistan. It has fallen to this Government to take the tough decisions required without undermining serious capabilities, the military covenant or the UK industrial capacity.

If we had a clean sheet of paper without the financial pressures that face all Government Departments as a result of the inherited fiscal deficit, and if we were unencumbered by existing contractual obligations and in different operational circumstances, the results would undoubtedly have been different. Nevertheless, although difficult, the decisions that we have made are coherent and consistent, and will provide us with the capabilities that we require for the future.

We now know that, as the former Chief of the Defence Staff has said, Labour Ministers were offered advice on which cuts to make to get the defence budget back into balance, but that advice was rejected owing to the lack of political will in the run-up to the general election. Only the coalition Government have had the political courage to do what was financially and militarily right with defence. We have had to implement the cuts that Labour Ministers lacked the courage to make.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State said that if he had had a clean sheet of paper, he would have made different decisions. Does that mean that the agreement with the French that was signed this week would not have happened?

[Dr Fox]

Quite the reverse. In opposition, we spent considerable time discussing with the French what we would want to do in terms of greater co-operation were we to win the general election. What we saw this week were the fruits of considerable labour on both sides for a considerable time.

It is rational and reasonable simply to want greater co-operation with our biggest military ally in continental Europe. What has been amazing in the last few days is the level of agreement, which seems to have occurred across the political spectrum, that this is not a drastic threat to UK sovereignty, but a common-sense use of both our nations’ resources.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

As the Defence Secretary for the last year of the Labour Government, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in that year we took £900 million out of the defence budget, rather than increase the deficit by £3 billion, and that that was met with howls from the then Opposition. Without wanting to fall out with the then Chief of the Defence Staff, I have to say that I cannot remember his ever having said anything to me about defence cuts that I was not prepared to make. I say that on the record.

[Dr Fox]

The right hon. Gentleman has made his point very clearly. Obviously, I am unable to say what discussions might have taken place. However, the point is that, as the National Audit Office said, there was an added overspend of £3.3 billion in the final year alone in the projects budgets. That is very clear.

As the Prime Minister has said, the SDSR was about taking the right decisions to protect national security in the years ahead, not simply a cost-saving exercise to get to grips with the biggest budget deficit in post-war history. However, let us be absolutely clear that those are not two separate things. Proper strategic thought encompasses ends, ways and means, matching ambition and policy to commitments and resources. A strategy that does not take account of fiscal or budgetary measures is no strategy at all; it is simply wishful thinking.

As Lord Ashdown recently put it, we cannot defend a country on flights of fancy. Furthermore, history has clearly shown how fundamental a strong economy is for effective national security and defence over the long term. We were left an economically toxic legacy by the previous Government. They doubled the national debt and left us with the biggest budget deficit in the G20. We are spending £120 million every single day just to pay off the interest on Labour’s debt. The interest we will pay next year on the debt is some £46 billion, significantly more than the entire annual defence budget, and we will get nothing for that money. Without regaining economic strength, we will be unable to sustain in the long term the capabilities required, including military capabilities, to keep our citizens safe and maintain our influence on the world stage.

If we learned anything from the cold war, it is that a strong economy equals strong defence. The economic legacy of the previous Government is a national security liability. We were left with a situation in which the country’s finances were wrecked while the world is a more dangerous place than at any time in recent memory.

Every Department must make its own contribution to deficit reduction and the MOD is no exception, but because of the priority we place on security, the defence budget is making a more modest contribution to deficit reduction relative to almost all other Government Departments.

The SDSR meets twin priorities of protecting front-line capability for Afghanistan and beginning the process of transforming our armed forces to meet the challenges of the future, setting the path to a coherent and affordable defence capability in 2020 and beyond.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, decisions still have to be made on the future of the joint combat aircraft and RAF Lossiemouth, which the MOD recently concluded to be the ideal JCA base because it provides excellent access to training areas and modern facilities and is the most cost-effective. The Secretary of State is in Oslo next week meeting Nordic partners. Will he discuss the opportunities for air defence co-operation with the Norwegians, who will have the same aircraft and will station them closest to RAF Lossiemouth?

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Gentleman makes a useful point. We will be discussing a wide range of future issues, including air defences and the common threats that we face. The hon. Gentleman’s point is important but, as he recognises, it will have to be balanced against a number of other interests. We fully recognise the problems and anxieties that the uncertainties will create until the decisions are taken, but we will try to expedite them as best we can while fully understanding the issues involved.

As I said, the SDSR dealt with Afghanistan and the future 2020 force so, if I may, I shall take them in turn. Our armed forces are in Afghanistan first and foremost to protect our national security by ensuring that transnational terrorists cannot find safe and unhindered sanctuary there, as they did before 9/11. There is no difference across this House and those who seek to do ill to British forces or British interests should understand that there is a united House of Commons behind our armed forces.

Under the leadership of, first, General McChrystal and now General Petraeus, we have the right strategy in place to succeed. We now have the right number of troops in theatre with the right equipment and we will soon agree a plan for the transition of key responsibilities to the Afghan Government at the NATO summit in Lisbon in a couple of weeks’ time. We now have to be patient and let the strategy run its course.

The Foreign Secretary set out to Parliament last week the steady progress that is being made in the security mission. Afghanistan is the top foreign policy priority for the Government and the main effort for defence and we will do all that is necessary to achieve operational success and ensure that our forces have the tools they require to do the job. I am grateful to the shadow Defence Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary for showing such an interest in detailed briefing on the subject so early in their time in office.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Of course the Opposition support what the Government are doing in Afghanistan but, as we saw from the events of this week, as al-Qaeda is displaced from Afghanistan, it ends up in places such as Yemen. May I urge the Secretary of State to recognise that when we take action in one country, it affects another, and can we please also pursue a strategy to ensure that Yemen is as stable as possible?

[Dr Fox]

I am not sure that I accept the basic premise that it is an either/or situation. We have to deal with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even if we deal with them effectively, that does not mean that there will not be a terrorist threat from elsewhere. We need to be ever vigilant and to recognise that the problem of dealing with an ideology is that it can occur in any part of the globe. We also need to be aware that it is most likely to be present and to have effect where there are failed states.

I believe that proper joined-up government that is willing to consider how we support failing states and how we get improved governance, resources and development into those countries is one of the best ways of ensuring that the ideology never takes root. It is true in whatever dispute we are talking about that people who have nothing to lose may gamble with it, whereas people who have a stake are far more likely to be circumspect about what happens. That is one of the best ways to deny territory to those with that sort of fanatical ideology.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I agree with the Secretary of State’s assessment of Afghanistan and that there is a united House. However, could he enlighten the House by telling us at what stage the Prime Minister consulted him on the withdrawal date of 2015?

[Dr Fox]

We have so many ongoing discussions, not just inside the Government but, as the hon. Lady knows, with our NATO partners and with our American partners. It is essential that when we set these dates we are also cognisant of what the Afghan Government want. The Afghan Government have for some time—as the previous Government fully understood—had the ambition to manage entirely their own security apparatus by the end of 2014. The approach that has been taken by this Government and more widely in NATO has been to ask how we tie our timetables in with the ambitions of the Afghans. It is perfectly reasonable. As the NATO summit in a couple of weeks’ time will show, it is increasingly the view of NATO that we should transition out of a combat role and allow the Afghan Government to have control by the end of 2014, but that we should maintain the resources required to give them support. For example, whether the Afghans will be able to develop any sort of meaningful air wing according to their timetable of 2014 is something that we must consider.

[Bob Russell]

May I take the Secretary of State back to his comments on last week’s statement by the Foreign Secretary? So far, his speech has concentrated, quite rightly, on the military, but may I press him on the importance of joined-up government across Departments here so that in Afghanistan the political and economic sides—the other two sides of the triangle—get equal weight? Does joined-up thinking happen in Government here?

[Dr Fox]

It is increasingly happening, not only here but on the ground. To be fair, I must say that it is increasingly happening within NATO. The planning to co-ordinate military activity with the civilian reconstruction element is increasingly successful. There remains a gap which is what people talk about as “hot” construction, “hot” intervention or “hot” reconstruction, however we want to define it, which is at the initial period when we have military success, how do we begin the reconstruction process early enough and maximise the benefits from our own actions there? There are many people who would look at the example of Afghanistan in recent years and say that between 2003 and 2006 we perhaps did not ensure that we had in the optimal way joined the different elements that my hon. Friend mentions. However, we are seeing regular improvements in that regard, both nationally and internationally.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State is probably aware, the Foreign Affairs Committee visited Afghanistan last week, when we had an opportunity to see the components of the settlement that he has described put in place. We welcome the indications of cautious optimism that are coming out of that country. As for 2015, does he accept that when that pledge was made, it related to a period that was almost the length of the second world war? Does he agree that that provides an ample opportunity for a solution and a settlement to be realised?

[Dr Fox]

My hon. Friend makes a very constructive point. I think that the time scales are realistic.

Where proposed changes in the SDSR had implications for operations in Afghanistan, we have ensured that the success of the mission was given priority. Consequently we have made no changes to combat units involved in Afghan operations and have postponed changes in other key capabilities such as the RAF’s Sentinel ground surveillance aircraft for as long as they are required there. This is in addition to the enhancements planned in capabilities such as counter-IED, protected vehicle surveillance and remotely piloted aircraft. And of course we have doubled the operational allowance, as we promised.

The men and women of our armed forces risk an awful lot to keep us safe. In Afghanistan, their sacrifice has been significant, and it will continue to be a dangerous place in which to operate. All of us in this House owe them our respect and gratitude, but most of all we owe them our support. This Government will not let them down.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says about the debt of gratitude that we owe to our armed forces; that will be endorsed on both sides of this House. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to their families. When the Prime Minister brought the defence and security decisions before this House, he said that there were decisions to be made about the allowances made to the armed forces and their families. When will we have that information? Can we have an assurance that those families will not be worse off as a result of the ongoing sacrifice of their family members on the front line?

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. Indeed, when we recently met a number of our armed forces coming home from Afghanistan, we both pointed out that without the support of families it would be infinitely more difficult for our service personnel to be engaged in Afghanistan. It is important that when we look at allowances, we strike a balance between what will enable our personnel and their families to get an adequate standard of living, particularly when they face the unique difficulties of postings abroad or extended periods away from family, and ensuring, in the very difficult financial climate we inherited, that we get value for money. We will carry out the review as quickly as we can, but I have to say to the hon. Lady that I would much rather get it right than get it quickly. We need properly to understand the implications for changes to the allowance, and any changes that are made must be phased in in a way that makes it possible for families to adjust to and absorb any of the financial changes that we are forced to undertake.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has rightly won admiration for the very difficult settlement that he has had to reach in this review. He is clear from his remarks that the Afghan campaign, which may be costing the British taxpayer up to £8 billion a year, has significantly skewed the shape of the core defence programme. Can this be quantified? Should not those distortions to the core defence programme also be funded from the reserve so that defence policy in the long term is not affected by what we are doing in Afghanistan?

[Dr Fox]

If my hon. Friend is saying that defence should permanently have more money than it gets in any one year, neither I, nor—I suspect, as I look at him—the shadow Defence Secretary would disagree with that. We have to live within the financial constraints that we have. When we say that there were inevitable distortions because of Afghanistan, that is merely to state the blindingly obvious. We need to have a regular period of review so that we are able to take account, on a constant basis, of changing circumstances. That is why we want to have a five-yearly defence review that is able to do that, so that we are not having to wait for disproportionately long periods before making any adjustments that we might need. The 2015 review will be a very useful point at which to try to assess what the legacy of Afghanistan may be on our armed forces and what adjustments are required in the light of that.

Let me now turn to the detail of the SDSR in relation to defence. The new national security strategy set out the policy framework that was the force driver of the SDSR. The adaptive posture demands that our armed forces become a more flexible and agile force with global reach, capable of providing nuclear and conventional deterrence, containment, coercion and intervention.

The Government are committed to the maintenance of the UK’s minimum effective nuclear deterrent. We will proceed with the renewal of Trident and the submarine replacement programme, incorporating the changes set out in the value-for-money study published in the SDSR. The decision to extend the life of the current Vanguard class submarines and changes in the profile of the replacement programme mean that initial gate will be approved in the next few weeks. The next phase of the project will commence, and the main gate decision will take place in 2016. This programme does not in any way alter the continuous nature and credibility of the nuclear deterrent.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

There has been a lot of discussion about the renewal of Trident. Irrespective of the decisions about gates, can my right hon. Friend confirm the absolute centrality in his thinking of the fact that we need to maintain a continuous at-sea deterrent?

[Dr Fox]

I have absolutely no problem in agreeing with my hon. Friend about the importance of continuous at-sea deterrence. Let me make two simple points about that. First, having a continuous at-sea deterrent has a diplomatic utility. It means that because it is a background and consistent deterrent, we do not have the problem of choosing when to deploy it at a time of rising tension, which could exacerbate a difficult situation. Secondly, if we do not have continuous at-sea deterrence, we have to decide at what point we are physically going to put the deterrent to sea. That may require our having additional military assets effectively to fight it out to sea if required. Those who think that taking risks with continuous at-sea deterrence because it is a cheap option economically might need to think again in the light of what I have said.

The adaptable posture required by the NSC also means that we will be investing in new technology and capabilities more suited to the likely character of future conflict, such as cyber-security, while reducing our stockholdings and capabilities that have less utility in the post-cold war world, such as heavy armour and non-precision artillery. We will, however, maintain the ability to regenerate capabilities that are not needed now if threats change. Capabilities that we have the option of regenerating include increased amphibious capability as well as heavy armour and artillery in the event that more is required. We have taken less risk against those capabilities that are more difficult to regenerate, such as submarines, to take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris).

Alliances and partnerships remain a fundamental part of our approach. In taking decisions in the SDSR, we have given significant weight to the fact that we and our NATO allies consciously rely on each other for particular capabilities. Sometimes even our biggest allies do that. I think, for example, of the United States and the British mine-hunting capabilities in the Gulf.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Our biggest ally always retains certain sovereign capabilities. What would be the Secretary of State’s thinking and planning on which of our sovereign capabilities we need to maintain as opposed to where we just share?

[Dr Fox]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I shall deal later with our thinking about what the United Kingdom needs to be able to do itself and in what circumstances.

We rely on our allies, and we will deepen our multilateral and bilateral defence relationships. This week, we set out our deepened relationship with France. On Wednesday, as I intimated to the House the other day, I will have a meeting with the new British-Scandinavian NATO group. That is very important for a number of reasons. We want a closer bilateral relationship with Norway, which is one of our key strategic partners. We want to create a NATO framework that makes it easier for Sweden and Finland to have a closer relationship, and as a nuclear power we want to give even greater reassurance to the Baltic states about the reality of article 5 of the NATO treaty. We also want to create regional structures to make it easier to engage with Russia, where we can, on regional problem solving. It is a useful lesson for the UK that in a world in which there is a multi-polar power base, we need more different levers to act in the interests of our national security.

The UK has unique national interests, however, and we cannot always expect to depend on our partners when Britain’s direct national interests are threatened. I wish to make it clear that we will maintain an autonomous capability to sustain a considerable and capable military force on an enduring basis, if required, for both intervention and stabilisation operations. That means, at best effort, a one-off intervention force of some 30,000, including maritime and air support, or a force of some 6,500 plus enablers for enduring operations. That is not hugely dissimilar to the level of effort in Afghanistan today.

As delivering effective defence capability in the 21st century becomes more expensive at a time when budgets are under growing pressure, we should exploit economies of scale and increase co-operation where national security allows it and sovereign capability is not jeopardised. That means exploring deeper co-operation with NATO members, as demonstrated with France this week, and with partners further afield in key regions around the world.

I wish to set out the future shape of our armed forces and the process by which we have made our decisions. I will then deal with specific issues, particularly those on which we have taken calculated risks with capability.

The SDSR is a point of departure, not the end of the line. We have set a path to 2020 and beyond, with regular reviews every five years. The first period, from 2010 to 2015, is necessarily a period of rebalancing our strategic direction, in the light of the factors that I outlined earlier. That is required to tackle the unfunded liability in the defence programme, to live within our means as the deficit is addressed and to focus our efforts on Afghanistan. Overall, the resources allocated for the spending review period will allow us to pursue today’s operations and prepare for tomorrow, but that means scaling back the overall size of the armed forces.

To make those judgments, we have contrasted cost savings and capability implications with the risks that we face in the real global security environment and our ability to reconstitute or regenerate capabilities that we might need in future. We have taken the tough decisions that the previous Government ducked. The Prime Minister has set out to Parliament in his statement and in the White Paper the implications for the structure and establishment of the armed forces, and I will not tax the patience of the House or yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, by repeating each of them here. I will, though, address specific issues later.

There are still difficult decisions to be taken for the coming period as we implement the SDSR, including the basing decisions mentioned by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who is no longer in his place, and the rationalisation of the defence estate. As the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said, we will also have the issue of allowances to deal with in the coming months. I can assure the House that we will take those decisions as quickly as possible, to minimise uncertainty, but in a way that is sensitive to economic and social pressures and the needs of our people and their families. In addition, three further reviews are being undertaken to bring other areas of defence into line with the new force structure.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give us a little more colour about how shocked he was by Labour’s legacy?

[Dr Fox]

In the interests of brevity, I will say that I knew it was going to be bad, and it was much worse.

[Bob Russell]

Will the rationalisation of the MOD estate include such things as the scandal in 1995 of the sale of the married housing stock to Annington Homes, and the ongoing revenue rip-off that Annington Homes is enjoying at the expense of the public purse?

[Dr Fox]

There is no doubt that we need to deal with armed forces accommodation. We will want to do so as quickly as possible and in a way that produces the best and quickest improvement, at the best deal for the taxpayer. We will learn all the lessons from the previous Government, and even from times before them.

The three further reviews that I mentioned are the six-month study of the future role and structure of reserve forces; a review of force generation and sustainability by the service chiefs and the defence reform unit; and the remodelling of the MOD itself, which is overseen by Lord Levene’s defence reform unit. Let me be very clear: I entirely agree with Lord Levene’s view about the staff in the MOD, who are among the most able people I have worked with. I am sure that former Ministers would concur. However, I wish to be equally clear that the Department must be restructured to serve the interests of the new national security posture, and smaller armed forces will require a smaller system of civilian support.

I am acutely aware that behind the bare numbers of the reductions that we plan are loyal people, with livelihoods and families, who face an uncertain future through no fault of their own. We will do everything we can to manage the process sensitively and with care and support, but manage it we must if we are to meet our vision of the future force structure. The Government are determined to reinvigorate and respect an enduring military covenant. We cannot shield the armed forces from the consequences of the economic circumstances that we face, but we will make progress wherever we can. I look forward to receiving soon the report of the independent armed forces covenant taskforce that we set up earlier this year.

The second period, from 2015 to 2020, will be about regrowing capability and achieving our overall vision. That will include the reintroduction of a carrier strike capability, with the joint strike fighter carrier variant aircraft manned by a joint Royal Navy and RAF force, and an escort fleet including the Type 45 destroyer and, soon after 2020, the Type 26 global combat ship, which used to be called the future surface combatant—the names keep changing. We will also reconfigure the RAF fast jet fleet around the JSF and the Typhoon, and consolidate the multi-role brigade structure in the Army.

One of my goals as part of the SDSR was to reduce the number of types of equipment used to provide the same capability. Achieving that by 2020 will mean less duplication and less expense overall, when we take into account the complex training and support requirements of each piece of kit. That will include reducing the number of types of equipment in the air transport and helicopter fleets, and of destroyers and frigates.

Nevertheless, my very strong belief, which the Prime Minister shares, is that the structure that we have agreed for 2020 will require year-on-year real-terms growth in the defence budget beyond 2015. It would be nice to do more sooner, but as the great hero of the Labour party, Tony Benn, once said, albeit in different circumstances,

“the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we’ve already eaten.”

How well he understood his own party.

There is a hard road ahead, but at the end of the process Britain will have the capabilities that it needs to keep our people safe and live up to its responsibilities to our allies and friends, and our national interests will be more secure.

I turn to some specific issues. The carrier strike capability that we plan will give the UK the ability to project military power over land as well as sea, from anywhere in the world, without reliance on land bases in other countries. Britain will require the strategic choice and flexibility in force projection that carrier strike offers. I also believe that that capability should be as interoperable as possible with the allies with whom we are most likely to work in future. The inherited design of the carriers would not have achieved that.

The House and the country must understand that any decisions regarding the carriers must be taken in the context of their extended service life of 50 years. The final captain of a Queen Elizabeth carrier has not even been born yet. When they go out of service, I will be 109 years old and the shadow Defence Secretary a sprightly 103. We are taking decisions now on what will be best for us as a country in the middle of the century. That is why we have taken three decisions. First, we have decided to take a capability gap in carrier strike, because we assess that the risk of not having access to basing and overflight for our fast jet force in the next decade is low. However, the same cannot be said looking further ahead.

Secondly, we have decided to install catapult and arrester gear, which will allow greater interoperability, particularly with US and French carriers and jets, and maximise the through-life utility of our carrier strike capability. Thirdly, we have decided to acquire the carrier variant of the joint strike fighter. Adding the “cats and traps” will allow us to use the carrier variant of the JSF, which has a bigger payload and a longer range than the STOVL variant planned by the previous Government. Overall, the carrier variant will be significantly cheaper, reducing the through-life cost compared with the STOVL version.

Contrary to popular belief, there will not be a new Queen Elizabeth class carrier in service without the planes to go on it, apart from in the period required by law for us to have the carrier properly crewed up and ready to accept the planes. The idea I have come across in some parts of the media—that we can get brand-new carriers and the brand-new planes to fly off them almost on the same day—simply defies the complexity of the operation involved.

When the carrier enters service towards the end of the decade, the JSF will be ready to embark on it. Yes, there will be a delay to the programme as a consequence of the decisions I have mentioned, but unlike the previous Government’s delay to the carrier programme in 2008, which added £1.6 billion to the overall cost—more than the whole Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget next year—and gave us nothing in return, our delay will give us a carrier that is best configured for the next 50 years.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I am seriously concerned about the decision that the Government have taken. They have not only scrapped the Harrier, but retreated from STOVL, going back to what is basically today’s and yesterday’s technology of “cats and traps”. They have left themselves potentially reliant on two aircraft that do fundamentally the same thing, giving up the ability to use short-take-off and vertical-landing aircraft. This is about more than the capability of the carrier. We are giving up—not temporarily, but permanently—the capability that the Harrier has given us. We will have two fleets of aircraft that fundamentally do the same thing.

[Dr Fox]

First, “cats and traps” are not yesterday’s technology. In fact, considerable expense is going into ensuring that there are more modern, more effective “cat and trap” systems. The United States is spending a great deal of research and development money on that at present. Secondly, if we are to have genuine interoperability, it makes sense to have carriers that the American navy or the French can land on and, in the case of the French, use when their carrier is in refit and they require ongoing training. It is perfectly rational to buy the plane with the longer range and bigger payload, which is in fact cheaper. In the past, it was decided, for whatever reasons, to build 65,000-tonne carriers without a “cat and trap” system, and that decision was augmented by the STOVL decision. That would have been the most expensive variant, with the shortest range and the smallest payload. We are bringing those greater capabilities into better alignment with the carrier itself.

The right hon. Member for Coventry North East mentioned the Harrier. We had to face up to the difficult choices that the previous Government put off. Regrettably, we have decided to retire HMS Ark Royal three years early and to retire the Harrier force—both in 2011. Of course, that is not unprecedented. The UK’s carrier strike capability was gapped during the late 1970s, as we transitioned from Buccaneer to Harrier itself. While Harrier was operating in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009, our ability to generate carrier strike was at best severely curtailed.

Over the next five years, life-saving combat air support to operations in Afghanistan has to be the overriding priority. In Afghanistan, the Joint Force Harrier did wonderful work, and I pay tribute to the Harrier aircraft, the crews that have serviced them and the pilots who have flown them since they entered service. During its deployment to Afghanistan, the Joint Force Harrier flew in excess of 22,000 hours on more than 8,500 sorties, more than 2,000 of which were close air support missions. It is my understanding that every Harrier pilot from every Harrier squadron took part at some point during the Harrier’s deployment to Afghanistan.

Tough and unsentimental choices had to be made, however, and the military advice was that Tornado was the more capable aircraft to retain, due to its wider capabilities and force size, for not only Afghanistan but other significant contingent capabilities. Operations in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009 took their toll on the Harrier force. By the time the aircraft was withdrawn from theatre, the force’s ability to recuperate and regenerate a fully operational carrier strike capability—notwithstanding the strenuous efforts to do so by Joint Force Harrier—had understandably been affected.

The decision taken by the previous Government in 2009 drastically to salami-slice the number of Harriers meant that, even if we had wanted to, we could not sustain our current fast-jet requirement in Afghanistan using Harriers alone. The decision in 2009 reduced the number of Harriers from 18 force elements at readiness to 10, but the military advice is that we require 40 force elements at readiness of Harriers to maintain our fast-jet contribution in Afghanistan on an enduring basis and without breaching harmony guidelines.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

What steps does my right hon. Friend intend to take to retain the critical mass of flying skills of the absolutely admirable and remarkable Fleet Air Arm?

[Dr Fox]

The Fleet Air Arm will require something of a transitioning with the new joint strike fighter when we get towards the end of the decade. I have had discussions with my American counterparts, who have made it clear that, should we require help to maintain skills in any way in the run-up to that period, the United States will make the facilities available to us, and we fully understand that. Let me make it clear, as I did earlier, that the joint strike fighter will be flown from our carriers by both Royal Navy and Air Force pilots. We will maintain a joint force, which is an important message to both services at a time of uncertainty.

Some of the things we have read about Harrier have been hugely over-simplistic. As a result of decisions taken in recent years, I am afraid that the previous Government loaded the dice against Harrier a long time before the last election. I fully understand the consequences of retiring Harrier for livelihoods and basing, and the emotiveness of this beautiful and iconic aircraft, particularly in relation to the Falklands conflict of 1982, as everyone in the House will appreciate. However, I believe that we have made the right decision, based on unsentimental military logic.

The Falklands have been the subject of some comment in recent days. The Government are unequivocally committed to the defence of our overseas territories and dependencies, but the situation now is far removed from that of the early 1980s. First, we maintain a far more robust and capable force in the Falklands to act as a deterrent and to secure our interests there, and that force is able to be reinforced as the need arises. Secondly, and more importantly, Argentina is no longer ruled by a military junta that is repressive at home and aggressive abroad. Argentina is now a vibrant, multi-party democracy, constructive on the world stage and pledged to peaceful resolution of the issues that undoubtedly remain between us. Of course, we maintain robust contingency plans for times of crisis, and there is no questioning our resolve to defend the Falklands whenever required and from whatever quarter.

The decision to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 programme was extremely difficult due to the nature of the military tasks to which the aircraft was designed to contribute, the amount of public money that had been spent on it and the impact of such a decision on the people who have dedicated their careers to delivering this capability or who depend on it for their livelihoods. However, the severe financial pressures faced by the Government and the urgent need to bring the defence programme into balance meant that we could not retain all our existing programmes, as recognised by the previous Government in their Green Paper.

I recognise that this decision means taking some risks on the capability that Nimrod was to provide. Since the withdrawal of the Nimrod MR2 in March—a decision taken by the previous Government—the Ministry of Defence has sought to mitigate the gap in capability through the use, on a case-by-case basis, of other military assets, including Type 23 frigates, Merlin anti-submarine warfare helicopters and Hercules C-130 aircraft, and by relying on assistance from allies and partners. In view of the sensitive and classified nature of some of those military tasks and the implications for the protection of our armed forces, including the nuclear deterrent, it is not possible for me to comment on those measures in detail, but as the previous Government did, I am happy to make the Opposition spokesman fully aware, as far as the classification allows, of our decisions and the military advice upon which we take them.

As Defence Secretary, I have concentrated today on issues within my remit, but the guiding principle of the SDSR has been to join national security efforts across the Government, flowing from the direction that the new National Security Council now delivers. The SDSR covers far more ground—from conflict prevention to counter-terrorism, energy security, cyber-security and border security, and resilience at home and overseas—and I hope that hon. Members will take the opportunity to raise those wider issues today.

The Government had to take some difficult decisions, and the transformation will be painful, but we will emerge with a robust national security structure and a coherent set of capabilities that supports our foreign policy goals of rebuilding our prosperity and safeguarding our security both overseas and at home, but I should like to end by restating my commitment to sustaining operations in Afghanistan. We must succeed there—that must be our main effort. At the heart of those operations are the men and women of our armed forces, the civilians and families who support them, the intelligence and security agencies, and all those who stand between us and those who would do us harm. The whole House will agree that they are the best of the best and thank them for their dedication, professionalism and selfless commitment. All of us in this country owe them a very deep debt of gratitude.

13:01

[Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond in today’s debate and I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments. At the beginning at least, his was a rather breathless speech. He spoke of being 109 years of age when the new Queen Elizabeth type aircraft carriers go out of service, but I hope he leaves more time to get to the Chamber from the Ministry of Defence when he is 109. He certainly will not be able to get here at the speed he did today.

Earlier in the week, the Secretary of State had to be summoned to the House to explain in detail the treaties with France, and today the House was treated to a quite remarkable filibuster to accommodate his diary and those of his fellow Ministers. I was tempted to reflect that perhaps they were on French time, but that would have brought them here in time for business questions rather than making them late for this debate. I welcome the ministerial team, who took the approach of arriving in shifts for their boss’s speech this afternoon.

Despite that, it is with a sense of honour that today I am making my first speech at the Dispatch Box as the shadow Secretary of State for Defence. My sense of pride is only slightly diminished by having the word “shadow” in my job title.

[Dr Fox]

You had better get used to it.

[Mr Murphy]

I hope it will not be for too long. Even in opposition, it is an honour to work to support our armed forces and their families, and the defence of our nation and all our interests. The most important responsibility of the Government is the safety and security of our country. All MPs of all parties also carry that responsibility. I want the House to know that this Opposition will always act in the interests of what we believe to be right for our country, and not any narrow party interest.

Although the Secretary of State and I may disagree across the Dispatch Box, I want to tell him that I will never question his personal commitment to the defence of our nation. All Conservatives are patriots, but the Secretary of State must be aware that all patriots are not Conservatives. Therefore, I look forward to working with the Government to ensure that our forces, who are the best of Britain, operate with the right equipment. I also want to ensure that their service to their country is properly rewarded and valued, and where possible, that even more is done to value their dedication and patriotism. In addition, we should also recognise the crucial role played by so many MOD civilian staff, as the Secretary of State did. I should like to put on record the House’s gratitude for the unheralded work of our security services.

I thought that the Secretary of State, in what was in large part a thoughtful speech, struck a better tone on the issue of MOD redundancies than has been struck before. Hitherto, there was almost a sense of celebration at the reduction in head count. It will be reassuring for MOD officials, who are perhaps watching this debate or will read Hansard, that there was no waving of Order Papers today at the announcement of potential future redundancies.

As the Prime Minister has rightly said in recent times, our power and influence is enhanced by our integration with political, social and economic global networks. However, I sense that the unprecedented scale and pace of global change will, if anything, increase ever more sharply in future. Although our openness increases the threats that we face, conversely it assists us, in part, in overcoming those contemporary challenges. Today’s threats are more complex and difficult to map, and they are harder to repel. Terrorism, cyber-attack, natural resource shortages, large-scale disaster or unconventional attacks from chemical or biological weapons all threaten our shores, our interests and our values. Although we might face fewer conventional threats, our defences at home remain subject to frequent aerial and maritime probing and challenges.

The strategic defence and security review was an opportunity to reshape the UK’s military force in that changing global security landscape. Unfortunately, according to the Royal United Services Institute, 68% of the defence and security community felt that it was a

“lost opportunity for a more radical reassessment of the UK’s role in the world”.

It seems that the security review did not clearly define Britain’s place in the world, nor did it alter the balance of Britain’s armed forces to meet existing and emerging threats. The review leaves unanswered many questions about Britain’s place in this ever-changing world.

[Dr Fox]

In that case, can the right hon. Gentleman enlighten the House on what he and his party believe is Britain’s proper role in the world, and say how it differs from that set out by the National Security Council and the Government in the White Paper?

[Mr Murphy]

I will come to that later in my comments, but it is clear that Britain must make a pragmatic assessment of our global ambition. As the Secretary of State has acknowledged—tersely in his letter and, I am sure, in private conversations with others in government—the review process has been driven largely by the cuts that the Government have been determined to make. Some people say that the 38-page document to which the Secretary of State referred looks like a decent executive summary, but no fewer than 10 pages in it are entirely blank. In parts, it lacks historical accuracy. On page 23, we read:

“For 800 years, the UK has been at the forefront of shaping the relationship between the rights of individuals and powers and obligations of the state”.

The document predicts future threats, which cannot be an exact science—we know that—but it lacks historical accuracy. The fact is that the UK did not exist in its current form 800 years ago. A document that aims to set out a process and to predict the nature of future threats does not even get its history right. Its assessment of our nation’s past lacks real intellectual vigour—[Interruption.] One of the Ministers who arrived a little late for the Secretary of State’s speech says that that is a pedantic point, but I do not think that it is. To say that they do not understand the nature or the history of this collection of nations of the United Kingdom when it comes to an assessment of our role in the world is not pedantic.

There are major challenges facing our national security, as the Secretary of State has said, and as was emphasised only last weekend, with the bomb plots to bring down cargo planes. The defence review rightly makes it clear that primary among the myriad defence and security issues we face is Afghanistan.

I, my shadow Defence team and the shadow Foreign Secretary appreciated the first of what I hope will be many regular briefings on Afghanistan held yesterday in the Ministry of Defence. I also look forward to the opportunity to visit Afghanistan, and of course I, along with others on the Opposition Front Bench, will liaise with the MOD about such visits. I want to make it clear that we will work with the Government in a spirit of co-operation to help to bring the conflict to an end, and to ensure peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. Our forces—and, indeed, our enemies—should continually be reminded of that unity of purpose. Our military aim must be to ensure that never again can al-Qaeda use Afghanistan as an incubator for terrorism, and we must use our military forces to weaken the Taliban to such an extent that the Afghan people can determine their own future.

[Mike Gapes]

May I join others who will no doubt welcome my right hon. Friend to his new role? His was an excellent appointment. I was in Afghanistan last week with the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we also went to Pakistan. Does he agree that although the international community—or some of it, at least—has set deadlines, there should be conditions-based activity in Afghanistan, and that the international community might need to think again about what will be needed in the future, if the proposed increase in the capabilities of the Afghan forces are not sufficient by 2015?

[Mr Murphy]

I have spoken to my hon. Friend and others who were on that visit to Afghanistan, and they commented on what they believed to be the significant progress made there in recent years. No doubt he would like to put that on the record as well. It is significant and important for the Government to continue to offer clarity about the conditions-based approach to the 2015 timeline; I am sure that the Secretary of State will have heard those comments and will seek to reassure the House and the nation on that matter.

The international strategy, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) saw on his visit, has been focusing on building up key pillars of the state and delivering better lives for the Afghan people. There is a real record of sometimes fragile achievement being carefully built upon in Afghanistan, and it is the bravery of our forces, which is renowned across the globe—we all celebrate that again today—and their professionalism, which we must also recognise, that has helped to make that progress achievable.

[Mrs Moon]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that when the British press write about the Afghan campaign, one of the problems is that we conflate Afghanistan and Helmand, although the severe problems that Britain is facing in Helmand are often not the same in the rest of the country? We must make it clear to the British public that outside Helmand there are positive conditions prevailing, good signs of development and huge progress being made. We are at the front line of the most difficult task, but we must not neglect the fact that huge successes have also been achieved.

[Mr Murphy]

My hon. Friend, who has paid close attention to these matters over a long time, is right. Those of us who supported the decision to take military action in Iraq and who supported the action in Afghanistan appreciate that those two conflicts have been conflated in public perception, which has not helped the debate about Afghanistan. She raised an important point about the misunderstanding and misapprehension about Helmand province. We heard from the MOD yesterday that Helmand province accounts for 1% of Afghanistan’s population. The UK’s forces are engaged in some of the heaviest fighting, and in some of the most difficult and most complex areas of the insurgency, but there has been remarkable progress, in Helmand and in other parts of Afghanistan. It is right that she has put that on the record, and that we celebrate it here.

The work that is going on in justice, law and order, civil administration, economic activity and freedom of movement in Helmand and Afghanistan, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) will have seen and read about, is a cornerstone of a lasting political settlement, as are efforts to eradicate institutionalised corruption. Part of such a settlement relies on meaningful engagement with former insurgents. As a precondition for engagement, those who want a political stake in their country’s future must permanently sever ties with violence and accept the Afghan constitutional framework. In doing so, their interests will be recognised but constrained by the laws of the land and balanced by the interests and views of others. As the Government take that important work forward, they will continue to have the Opposition’s full support.

I want to address a number of the points that the Secretary of State has made about Afghanistan recently. The first concerns the role of women in Afghan society. Many now rightly assess that women’s role in Afghanistan has improved markedly beyond the pre-Taliban days in Afghanistan. Things continue to improve more slowly than we might wish. Nevertheless they have improved significantly, and I urge the Government to remain vigilant and ensure that, as former Taliban fighters are reintegrated, the welcome progress made in guaranteeing freedom and equal rights for women is not compromised in accommodating those with harder-line opinions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South said, the Government have set 2015 as a target for the conclusion of our forces’ combat role. We all wish to see our forces home as soon as possible. When I, along with my right hon. Friends the leader of the Labour party and the shadow Foreign Secretary, met General Petraeus recently, we talked about the conditions-based progress towards full withdrawal. It is essential that the UK Government are clear in private and public about the stages and conditions in advance of our withdrawal.

Crucial to Afghan and international ambition is the capacity of home-grown security forces to take on greater responsibility. It is important for the Government to make it clear whether they have undertaken an assessment of the capacity of Afghan forces to meet the 2015 timeline. Although the immediate concern about the quantity of recruits has abated—with 305,000 now in service—there remain genuine worries about the quality of some of those undoubtedly brave recruits. There is clearly a shortage of trainers for the Afghan forces, and although the UK is doing its bit, it is essential for that fundamental issue to be resolved quickly if the Afghan security forces are to be able to perform the functions that the Afghan Government wish them to. I urge the Government, therefore, to continue to monitor not just the quantity but the quality of the Afghan security forces. There is also, of course, a wider societal issue in Afghanistan concerning levels of literacy, which impact on the ability of the Afghan armed forces—but that is a longer term societal challenge.

Finally, on Afghanistan, we welcome the commitments that the Secretary of State and Prime Minister have given in assuring the House that the impact of the defence review is not intended to affect the front line in Afghanistan. However, Opposition Members—and, I am certain, many Government Members—will be seeking a constant assurance that nothing in the small print of the defence review or those flowing from it will affect our efforts in Afghanistan right up until the end of combat operations.

More widely, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) asked about Yemen. The Leader of the Opposition rightly asked the Prime Minister about that at Prime Minister’s questions this week, and we were reassured by the Prime Minister’s response. It is important that Yemen does not become a safe haven for terrorist recruitment, training and operations. It is also important that the country’s economic decline and instability do not threaten regional security and economic interests. Continued conflict and loss of livelihoods could result in increasing poverty and a humanitarian crisis, and mass migration within the country and beyond. It is crucial, therefore, that we work with the Yemeni Government to counter the terror threat, including through our support in helping them to disrupt al-Qaeda.

Terrorism, however, is not the only threat facing Yemen. Al-Qaeda looks to exploit instability where it can, and it is of strategic importance for the UK to remain engaged in Yemen.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State on his appointment, and welcome his wise words today. Let us get the language on Yemen right. It is not a failed state, as some have said, but it has the capacity to fail if we do not assist it. We must follow up the promises made to the Yemeni Government in London in January to provide basic help, such as security scanners, which I understand have still not been delivered. Let us help Yemen and engage with it, rather than criticising it.

[Mr Murphy]

My right hon. Friend is experienced in such matters, and he is right to raise that point. So far today we have not heard anyone speaking of Yemen as a failed state, but it has the capacity to become so, with all that that means. I am sure that the Government heard my right hon. Friend’s plea for scanners. The Prime Minister was asked about that at Question Time on Wednesday, and gave a categoric commitment to continue to be engaged in Yemen. In addition to the scanners being delivered, I look forward to the Government making it clear that ministerial engagement will continue, with visits to Yemen in the near future. It is important for that political public commitment to be there for all to see.

There are points in the review that I and many others welcome: the commitment to hold reviews every five years, taking forward the previous Government's work on cyber-crime to prevent organised crime, terrorism and other states from making malign attacks on our infrastructure, the 25% reduction in warheads, and the continued commitment to increase funding for our special forces. However, among all the talk of fiscal deficits, I want now to turn to the strategic deficit at the heart of the Government’s plans.

There are strategic contradictions between the Government’s assessment of future threats, as laid out in the security strategy, and the tangible action to prepare for them, as laid out in the defence review. Those two documents were separated by just one day in their publication, but face in different directions in important ways. The security strategy rightly says that it will prioritise flexibility and adaptability across the armed forces, but the defence review surrenders some of that capacity in the Royal Navy. The Government said that they wanted to take tough long-term decisions, but have put off Trident—to appease their coalition partners, I think .

[Mike Gapes]

Where are they?

[Mr Murphy]

There are no coalition party Back-Bench Members here to disagree, so I hope that the one belated arrival on the Front Bench does not take offence.

Some people believe that the decision on Trident owes more to defence of the coalition than to defence of the realm. The security strategy marks a significant shift with an emphasis on mitigating risk, the ability to deter, and the attributes of soft power. All that is rightly contained in the security strategy. However, the defence review lacks emphasis on cultural and diplomatic power in complementing traditional hard power. Indeed, the comprehensive spending review may have set back the cause of cultural diplomacy by many years. Moving the World Service, which has been so important to so many people in so many ways, from the Foreign Office may signify a serious scaling down of cultural diplomacy.

I grew up—or at least, spent all my teenage years—in South Africa, where people had to be bilingual in English and Afrikaans. I remember watching the news on television and listening to South African radio, and even as youngsters we knew instinctively that we could not trust what we were hearing, regardless of what language it was in. Whether it was in English or Afrikaans, we knew that it was state propaganda. The only place to turn to, which my family did, was the BBC’s World Service. It was the one source of accurate and reliable information that people throughout the world regularly turned to at times of difficulty or when seeking the truth. Labour Members will continue to take a keen interest in what moving the World Service from the Foreign Office will mean to quality and reach in different languages throughout the globe.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the role that the World Service could play in a country like Pakistan, where obviously we cannot and would not wish to send troops, is vital to the stability of the region, and would help our effort in Afghanistan?

[Mr Murphy]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct, and we can compete in our admiration of the BBC’s World Service and all that it does, including the launch of the Arabic service relatively recently, the broadcasting in Pashtun, and the fact that President Obama used the medium of the World Service to broadcast. We are occasionally frustrated with some things that the BBC does, but in principle, as an institution, the World Service is something that everyone in this country who feels a sense of pride and patriotism should be remarkably proud of.

[Mr Dai Havard]

(Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney): As someone who lives in Wales, I regularly listen to the World Service, for reasons similar to those that my right hon. Friend gave for listening to it in South Africa: we have a colonial Government these days. I echo the point made by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, that in Helmand province particularly, and other parts of Afghanistan, the really important medium of information is the radio. It is not the television, or Fox News, as it is in America. The power of what the right hon. Gentleman said is palpable to anyone who visits the place.

[Mr Murphy]

We seem to be entering an Adjournment debate on the importance of the BBC World Service.

[Mike Gapes]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Murphy]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, in the expectation that both interventions are on a similar subject, and then respond to them both.

[Mike Gapes]

Reference has been made to Pakistan. My right hon. Friend may not be aware that the BBC World Service gave evidence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and said that because of financial restrictions, it could not go ahead with an Urdu language television service that it had hoped to establish. Does he agree that that is highly regrettable, and that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, while it has responsibility for funding the World Service for the next two years, should reconsider?

Mr Murphy: My hon. Friend raises the crucial issue of funding support, and the World Service’s reach and ability to do remarkable things, and to be a presence and a trusted friend of people across the globe who have few other sources of reliable and objective information in their own language. The Minister will have heard the comments that have been made, and it would be extraordinarily worrying if the sort of cuts that my hon. Friend has mentioned came to pass.

When I was in the Negev desert, I met Bedouin tribesmen who talked about the power of the BBC World Service, which again is the one source of reliable and objective information in that part of the world. I do not want to labour the point, but I am certain that we will return to it, as it has arisen in the comprehensive spending review.

The Government said in the defence review that they wanted to combat emerging threats, but we have heard little, in the review or since, about concrete plans to address threats to energy, food or water security. Thanks to the review, the Secretary of State’s to-do list has grown. I do not doubt his ability, but he will have a packed day. Rather than announcing details in the review, the Government have delayed decisions until another day. A review has been set up to consider plans for procurement. Rather than coming up with a strategy for integrating, a review has been set up; rather than setting out efficiency savings in detail, a review has been set up; force generation, counter-terrorism and preparedness for civil emergencies are all subject to review. Add to that the fact that the plethora of parliamentary questions suggest that the Government have not done their homework, and that they must do better. Their strategy has been rushed, they did not ask many of the right questions, and they still have not come up with many answers.

I look forward to playing a full part in many of the reviews, but the sheer number is further proof that the entire process has been rushed. At the heart of the strategic incoherence is the back-to-front decision making leading to the review. For all the claims of cross-Government co-operation, the defence review has become a spending review—cutting what could be cut to meet fiscal priorities, not doing what could be done to reshape Britain’s armed forces around strategic security goals. To answer the strategic questions, we needed a thorough examination of foreign policy flexibility, defence needs and how to make defence more efficient in the longer term, not simply a drive for immediate savings now.

Let me turn to some of the other points that the Secretary of State mentioned. On Nimrod, I welcome his commitment to share what he can with the shadow Foreign Secretary and me. However, there is a sense of disquiet in the country about the impact on the deterrent, and there are particular worries in parts of Scotland about the impact on air force bases.

Let me turn to the aircraft carriers, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), the former Defence Secretary, has spoken of. We already know that for a decade or more, the UK will have no carrier strike capability of its own. The Government have entered into two 50-year defence treaties with France, and although we welcome them in principle, there are still many unanswered questions. In opposition, the Conservatives played fast and loose with Euroscepticism when the Labour Government mooted defence co-operation. By contrast, we welcome a bilateral approach with our European neighbours. We will continue to support those efforts and ask the important questions. We are not clear whether those treaties, which have now been deposited in the Library, will contain legally binding guarantees. Last week in response to questions, the Prime Minister told the House:

“It is not easy to see in the short term the need for that sort of carrier strike”.—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 808.]

Given the nature of those documents and the nature of the threat, the fact is that there is enormous uncertainty. Despite what the Prime Minister has said, and despite the fact that the title of the Government’s own strategy document refers to an “age of uncertainty”, they have not been able to persuade the country that they feel certain that we will not need carrier strike capability over the next decade. As the Chair of the Select Committee on Defence has asked, if the Government feel sure that we can do without that ability for a decade, why are they equally sure that we will not need a strike capability once that decade has passed? Our approach has led to our friends passing polite comment, while others snigger up their sleeves about a maritime nation building the two greatest ships in our history while the country is devoid of carrier strike capability for a decade.

In conclusion, I share the worry of many in this House and beyond the Commons—a worry echoed in the Defence Committee’s report. The process has been rushed. Mistakes may have been made, and some of them may be serious. With respect, I hope that the Defence Committee is wrong, but I fear that it may be right. I want to finish my comments in the same tone in which I started. Nine years into a military commitment in Afghanistan, and with up to five more in a combat role ahead for our country and our forces, it is essential that we again commit ourselves to a bipartisan approach to Afghanistan. For all our disagreements on so many other issues facing our country, we are at one in supporting our forces as they face up to our enemies, and their families as they start to think of another Christmas separated from their loved ones. As our country comes together this week to commemorate the lives of those who have been lost in conflict through the ages, it is also right that today we celebrate the enormous contribution and immeasurable bravery of our men and women in uniform.

13:33

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

In the week before Armistice day, I, along with every other Member of this House, salute the memory of the fallen and extend my thoughts and sympathies to their families, as well as to those who have been wounded, to wish them a speedy recovery. I further pay a heartfelt tribute to the men and women of the British armed forces, wherever they are serving—sea, land or air—and most especially to those in Afghanistan; to the service families, who just by keeping the home fires burning do invaluable work for the nation; and to the civilian staff in the Ministry of Defence and elsewhere, who support our armed forces extremely well.

I welcome the new shadow Secretary of State. I am delighted to tell him that I had the privilege of working on the Green Paper of his right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), the former Secretary of State, which was valuable pre-thinking for some of the work that went into the SDSR. It was not the right hon. Gentleman’s fault, but looking back, perhaps the only mistake was that none of the aspirations that we discussed was in any way linked to financial considerations. They were really linked more to the question of capability. To that extent, the Green Paper did an important job, even though its conclusion at the end of the day was held to be rather unrealistic.

I declare an interest, as the honorary colonel of the Bristol university officer training corps. One of their distinguished former officers, the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), now sits on the Front Bench, while the daughter of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, is one of their most glittering alumnettes. I want the Secretary of State to be particularly aware of the exceptional work of the OTC this summer, when they deployed to Canada at full unit strength to take part in Exercise Prairie Thunder, an extremely important training operation that, as I am sure the House is aware, put formed battle groups through their paces before operational deployments, most particularly to Afghanistan. The cadets were attached to the opposition force, which is much the most interesting and fun thing to do, and they performed magnificently.

I raise that because I want the Secretary of State to congratulate the cadets on their efforts. They were extremely professional and did very well. I also want to thank the Ministry of Defence and all those responsible for helping, and to congratulate Lieutenant-Colonel Petersen and all those who arranged the exercise. I want the Secretary of State to understand that there is a wider utility to the university officer training corps, in supporting the regular Army. The exercise presented a tremendous opportunity for officer cadets to work with regular Army units, to everyone’s advantage. I hope very much that he will remember that point when important decisions are taken about the OTCs, who make an important contribution to the military life of this country and provide an invaluable footprint at universities.

When the Prime Minister announced the review, I welcomed especially the careful analysis done to support it, and I welcome most of the conclusions that have been reached. However, as the Prime Minister agreed on the day that the review was announced and as the Secretary of State said this afternoon, this is just the starting point for a much more fundamental transformation of defence in this country, so that in 10 years’ time we will have a defence posture and capability capable of securing our national interests at home and abroad. An enormous body of much more detailed work now needs to be done on strategy, capability and all the rest.

Let me take this opportunity also to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) on the excellent report that the Select Committee on Public Administration has produced on strategy. He has made an invaluable contribution, and the Government need to pay careful attention to the points that he has made.

The purpose of the 2010 strategy review—and presumably that of all other reviews—is to achieve a strategy that matches ends, ways and means. The most immediate signal to come out of the SDSR is that the financial realities confronting the coalition Government—and the country—have forced them to make cuts that they would clearly much rather not have had to make. It is important to recognise that the SDSR has inevitably resulted in a real reduction in Britain’s ability to undertake strategic power projection. The jarring gong of reality has sounded, and the truly dismal lessons of the past 13 years have had to be learned in a very brief period.

As for the individual services, I would say this. First, I am afraid that I simply do not understand the stance of the Royal Navy, which would leave it unable to have anything but an absolutely minimal presence across the globe. That seems to be an appalling decision by the naval planners, and they will—mark my words—come always to regret it. Secondly, I simply believe that the Royal Air Force has got it wrong, while the Army has come up with a sensible, pragmatic and workable solution. However, will the Secretary of State tell me how he sees the development of the use of drone aircraft and who will be responsible for using them? What will be the configuration of the armoured regiments after the loss of the Challenger tanks? He is absolutely right to take those steps to retire—or, at least, to mothball—some of the Challenger tanks. What will the armoured regiments look like and what will their task be?

I warmly welcome the treaty signed between the French and British Governments. In truth, this has been 40 or 50 years in the making, and only now have the Prime Minister and the President of the French Republic managed to bring to harbour a very difficult and extremely important step for this country and for France. I am quite clear that it was the right thing to do. The most important step and the real game changer is with regard to the nuclear issues. I strongly and warmly welcome the treaty—although I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex has some reservations—and I think it will be but a precursor to further and greater co-operation.

I have three big points to make: first, on the reserves; secondly, on the need to maintain momentum around transformation; thirdly, on the Ministry of Defence headquarters.

I ask the Secretary of State to continue to examine how better to use our reserves. We in the UK are out of kilter with all our major allies. About 40% of US combat capability is generated by reserves. For example, the US deploys the National Guard brigades to Afghanistan where, after training, they perform on par with regular forces. The National Guard flies fast jets, including the 5th generation F-22 Raptor. The UK has demolished the capability of reserves to deploy as combat units. They are now used as trickle reinforcements to regulars. This may work well in Afghanistan—part of our main effort, as the Secretary of State said—and may help to allay regular overstretch. It is, however, a completely unimaginative approach to defence as a whole and a gross waste of a magnificent potential asset.

Much of our war-fighting capability is required at low readiness. As the House knows, this country faces no major external existential threat, and the opportunity to man much of it with expanded reservist capability and capacity clearly exists. Do we really need 300-plus fast jets at high readiness? No, we do not. Huge savings could be made, perhaps by placing two thirds of the force in reserve and building over the next 10 years the reserve capability to operate them. The Royal Air Force has a large alumni of brilliant fast-jet pilots, who would love to be better used. RAF regular pilots are reportedly restricted to 10 flying hours a month—fewer than US National Guard pilots.

Do we really need to man the tanks and artillery required for general war fighting with expensive regulars who are needed for operations on other equipment in Afghanistan? No, we do not. It is a gross waste of money, and they should have got on and done that a long time ago. Again, those could be stored with small quantities of equipment used for training competent reserve brigades to be held at low readiness. The same could go for much of our amphibious shipping.

The leadership of the UK armed forces, as I know the Secretary of State understands, has always shown a disappointing disregard for the real potential of a transformed Territorial Army, Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Air Force voluntary reserve. They need to be ordered to go away and undertake a root-and-branch review to re-balance armed forces to take proper benefit from this cost-effective and potentially powerful asset. I warmly welcome the steps taken for a review of our reserve forces, headed by General Houghton, and I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who has down the years championed the TA in this House with great vigour, power and energy.

My second theme is the need to continue to build momentum for transformation. As many have said, the strategic defence and security review is a beginning, not an end, but how can defence build momentum around the need to transform our armed forces without the catalyst of the SDSR? I was truly disappointed to hear the new permanent secretary in her first pronouncement on Monday say that the SDSR would be taken forward through the defence planning process. I have to tell the House that this is the same broken defence planning process that got the Ministry of Defence into the appalling mess that it is in now. This is about horse-trading, delaying, single-service rowing and general fudging of issues. What we need is real transformation. That game has definitely been started by the Secretary of State and it is clear that he has the will to see it through. I very much hope that he will do so, and get his way.

That leads me to my third point about the MOD. The best four years of my life were spent as Minister of State for the Armed Forces. I loved every single minute of it; I worked with the most wonderful people. They are marvellous people, but the MOD has become a vast and cumbersome beast. It centralises all power and freezes all decision making. Absolutely no one is accountable and no one is ever held to account. Difficult decisions are nearly always avoided, and vested interests always prevail. For a start, the single services plans organisation needs to be turned upside down and a far more purple approach is required. There are more three-star officers and officials in the headquarters now than there were 20 years ago when our armed forces were two thirds larger.

I would like to remind the House of what I said on 15 October 2009 in a debate on defence policy:

“How can anyone seriously justify the creation last year of the post of director general of strategy to serve in addition to the director general of policy, who did the job perfectly well when I was a Minister? How can anyone justify creating a commercial director general, a chief of defence materiel, a deputy chief of defence staff personnel and a director general of human resources? It is a crazy, absurd, overblown bureaucracy.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2009; Vol. 713, c. 503.]

That must be dealt with. The Secretary of State will have to move very quickly on this if he is to get his way on other matters.

[Mr Jenkin]

My hon. Friend is making some extremely powerful points. Does he agree that the emphasis now seems to have become a competition not between the three services, but between military personnel and civilian personnel? The fact that civilian personnel have given themselves equivalent ranks to military personnel has put them more in direct competition, so that they double up the functions of the armed forces.

[Nicholas Soames]

My hon. Friend is right. The problem is that there are overlaps at every level of decision taking in the Ministry of Defence. Two separate audiences are competing with each other. It is extraordinary that an institution that understands the ethos of command is so bad at doing it itself. Some of the most dreadful things were brought to me when I was a Minister. There might have been a terrible military cock-up and it would be taken away to be examined. The issue would come back six months later, but everyone would have had their fingers over it and Ministers would end up being told that it had been a great military triumph. It is true that no one is ever held accountable. The decision making is very lame and very long-winded.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

May I give a practical example to illustrate my hon. Friend’s point? I learned to my horror that the vice-chief of the defence staff had recruited a civilian medical adviser, to parallel the function of the three-star surgeon-general who is doing a very good job—and, of course, at great expense. Perhaps that provides an example of a post the could be cut.

[Nicholas Soames]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely vivid and important point. We can bet our bottom dollar that there would have been a frightfully good reason for doing it—it should have been blown out of the water on day one.

All this has created the mess we are in, with a £38 billion overspend. One of the most important jobs of the Secretary of State and the Administration is to build an agile strategic military headquarters and Department of State which are able to respond effectively to the rapidly changing environment of the 21st century. That does not exist in the Ministry of Defence at present, and it must be created, which will mean considerable decentralisation. The front-line commanders-in-chief need to be given the tools and the space that they need to do the job. As has been said, they need to be allowed to get on with it, and to stop being micro-managed by civil servants in Whitehall.

I am very pleased that the Secretary of State has engaged Lord Levene and a team of admirable and extremely experienced experts from the private sector to assist in this task, but if they are to drive the huge changes that are needed, senior officers and officials must recognise that what they have built has failed catastrophically, and must change. They must understand the need to transform. The senior military and officials need to own the change themselves, and they need to drive it forward. It will be a complete and fundamental change of culture, but it must be achieved.

Let me end by reading out a quotation that I have read out during almost every speech on defence that I have made in the House for years and years. It is a remarkable speech made by Lord Wavell, which the House should bear in mind as all these changes are being made, and as they think about the men and women at the sharp end—the people who end up having to deal with decisions, sometimes very bad decisions, made in the Ministry of Defence.

Lord Wavell said:

“in the last resort, the end of all military training, the settling of all policy, the ordering of all weaponry and all that goes into the makings of the armed forces is that the deciding factor in battle will always be this. That sooner or later, Private so-and-so will, of his own free will and in the face of great danger, uncertainty and chaos, have to advance to his front in the face of the enemy. If all that goes wrong, after all the training, the intensive preparation and the provision of equipment and expenditure, the system has failed.”

Despite everything, the system has not failed.

The House needs to remember, in the midst of the sometimes idiotic and petty political arguments that separate us in all parts of this House of Commons, that these young men and women are doing something really extraordinary, and doing it at great personal danger and risk to themselves. Ministers must never forget, in this great talk of strategy, this plethora of change and all that will go on at the top, with headquarters being got rid of and people being shuffled around, that they must be able to continue to deliver the really remarkable people who are able to do the job for which all this money is spent. That must be kept at all times in the forefront of the minds of the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State.

13:53

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). I echo his tribute to our armed forces—not just the fallen, but all of them. I spent two years as Minister for the Armed Forces and one as Secretary of State for Defence during a period when we were not only suffering the greatest losses of modern times, but fighting at the highest level of capability that we have had to achieve recently, and showing what our armed forces were capable of. That impressed on me what amazing people they are: they are worthy of our wholehearted support.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Sussex for many other reasons. As he said, he was very helpful when I was producing a Green Paper while I was a Minister, and his commitment to the armed forces is recognised by nearly everyone. I do not think it was entirely recognised by the sergeant-major who was responsible for his training at Sandhurst, if all the stories that he has told me are true, but everyone else recognises it—and, of course, his ancestry rivals my own. [Laughter.]

My admiration for the current Secretary of State is growing by the minute. I have to say that he has displayed huge capability in the political field, both in the House today and elsewhere. In the political arena, he is emulating some of the skills displayed by the Duke of Wellington, who used to hide his horses on reverse slopes and show his strength where he felt weakest. The Secretary of State has done the same this afternoon: he has lectured us about strategy—he has used the phrases of the lecture circuit—because he knows jolly well that what has been presented to the nation in the last few weeks is far from a strategy. What we have is an SPSR, or “seriously pretend spending review”, not a strategic security review. I think the Secretary of State knows that, but he does his very best to hide it, and he will do his very best to work within it. He has fought his corner hard in Government, and he is to be respected for that.

However, we never quite received an answer from the Secretary of State to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). He talked a great deal about how we were joining our commitment to Afghanistan with the growing capability of the Afghan national security forces. The right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Select Committee, tried to help him by telling us again what we all know—how long we have been in Afghanistan—but the question was very simple: did the Prime Minister consult the Secretary of State before he announced the 2015 withdrawal date for our combat mission in Afghanistan?

Answer came there none, but we know what the answer is. The Prime Minister did not consult the Secretary of State. He did not consult his Defence Secretary, he did not consult his Foreign Secretary, and he did not consult his Chief of the Defence Staff. We know whom the Prime Minister consulted before he made that decision: he consulted the Deputy Prime Minister. This was a political decision, made for political reasons. We have more than 9,000 troops in theatre in Afghanistan, facing an enemy whose main tactic is to wait until we tire and then to inherit a victory, but for political reasons, and no others, the Prime Minister of this country announced an end date for our combat mission, playing into the hands of the enemy by transferring the pressure from the Taliban to the Afghan Government.

I am not saying that there is not a huge need for pressure on the Afghan Government. The single weakest point of the campaign of the international security assistance force in Afghanistan lies in the weaknesses and corruption of its Government, and if we fail to put that right, the mission will most certainly fail. But the decision to remove the pressure on the main enemy for domestic political reasons without even consulting the Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary or the Chief of the Defence Staff was astonishing.

[Mr Jenkin]

I have great respect for the way in which the right hon. Gentleman conducted himself as Defence Secretary in very difficult circumstances, but I really do think that he is talking complete rubbish about this. When I last visited Afghanistan, the Americans had already indicated that they were minded to withdraw, and the effect of that was to galvanise the Afghan political process. The stalemate in the Afghan political process has been the main obstacle to progress in Afghanistan. I believe that the Prime Minister made the right announcement, and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence was properly consulted.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman as well. I know that he follows these issues, and takes them very seriously. As I have said, there is a need for pressure on the Afghan Government—I do not doubt that—but let us not pretend that the British Government only went as far as the American Government had gone. What the American President said in autumn 2009—albeit unfortunately taking a long time to say it—was that by 2011 there would be a draw-down of the additional troops put into Afghanistan. He did not say there would be a withdrawal and an end to the combat mission. It was the British Prime Minister who said that, and as he is the leader of the nation providing the second largest troop contribution, that announcement was by no means insignificant in respect of the ISAF contingent.

The British Prime Minister named a date for the total end of the combat mission for party political reasons. We can establish that by considering the people he consulted as against those he failed to consult. If the reasons for the announcement had been to do with the operational mission, he would have consulted the Defence and Foreign Secretaries and the Chief of the Defence Staff, but as both the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and I know, the person he consulted was the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Mrs Moon]

At the beginning of today’s debate the Defence Secretary was asked whether or not he was consulted on the withdrawal of British troops, and he said by way of reply that the 2015 date was arrived at because the Afghan President had stated that he wanted to have strategic control over the defence of Afghanistan by 2014. Does it not therefore follow that if the Afghan President decides by 2014 that he is not ready to take over that strategic command and control, we will have to stay longer? Perhaps the Prime Minister should discuss and consult on that matter with the Defence Secretary.

[Mr Ainsworth]

Well, the decision has been taken, and it has been repeatedly reiterated. It is not going to be reversed, so we can ponder it as much as we like, but our armed forces and others will have to plan within the parameters that have been set for them. All I would say to my hon. Friend is that if the reason she has advanced for the 2015 decision is correct, President Karzai would have been consulted before the announcement was made, but as the Defence Secretary was not consulted, I do not believe that President Karzai was consulted either. The person who was consulted was the Deputy Prime Minister, and that is what gives us the key insight into the motivation for this announcement.

[Dr Murrison]

I think the right hon. Gentleman is getting distracted over this consultation issue. The central question is whether the Afghan national army is going to be in a fit state in five years to guarantee the country internally and externally. Does he seriously think that if it is not ready in five years, it will ever be ready?

[Mr Ainsworth]

Plans are in place, and the argument the hon. Gentleman puts is part of the cover for the 2015 decision, but I know that, privately if not publicly, he has no doubts about the real reasons that decision was taken, and he knows that what I am saying is true. Many other people know it to be true, too.

On the strategic defence review, I do not deny the problems the Government were facing, although they are doing their very best to exaggerate the difficulties we left them. They keep on mentioning the figure of £38 billion, and if they persist in doing so eventually somebody will apply their common sense and realise that it is a bit of an exaggeration. There was overheating in the defence budget, but the only way we can get even close to £38 billion is by assuming a flat cash settlement for more than 10 years and no trimming of defence aspirations. That is not what the Government did and it is not what any alternative Government would do.

However, I do not blame the Government for exaggerating the difficulties they inherited because they did have some very difficult decisions to take. They faced an extremely acute financial situation and they had to try to conduct a strategic defence review with the Army in the field. I congratulate them on their efforts to do that, although I think they could have tried harder. They could have consulted more and therefore not rushed, and they need not have been totally dominated by the financial considerations, but they did their best in very difficult circumstances.

I also congratulate the Government on their decision to invest in cyber-security. That is a genuine area of weakness that needs to be addressed, but is the investment they are making in cyber-capability being counted towards our 2% NATO target for defence spending? What else are they putting into that in order to get to the 2% figure and thereby shield themselves from the fact that there are considerable defence cuts here that could—it depends on how we count this—take us below that target figure?

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I join others in thanking the right hon. Gentleman for the work he did as Secretary of State. We all know that he inherited a very difficult situation and he did the best he could in the circumstances. He is also my constituency neighbour of course, and we work together on other issues.

The right hon. Gentleman has alluded several times to the fact that the review was a spending review rather than a strategic defence review. Does he honestly believe that if Labour had won the last election, defence would have had a better financial settlement than has been achieved under this Government?

[Mr Ainsworth]

I have to say that the answer is, “Not necessarily.” I think we would have taken more time and consulted more broadly, however. I think we would have got industry on board and carried more people with us, but I am not sure how well we would have done. I will come on to that issue later, however, as I want to make one further point about the level of settlement that has been achieved.

I am genuinely worried about the decision the Government took on the joint strike fighter. The Prime Minister’s announcement on the strategic defence review revealed that we have not only not funded the carriers, but we have bought the wrong aircraft. The Government have, effectively, done away with our short take-off and vertical landing capability not for 10 years because of the early demise of the Harrier, but for ever. We will therefore end up with the JSF and the Typhoons. They will be two separate fleets, and small fleets too, because there will not be the money to expand either of them. We will be faced with the running costs of those two separate fleets as well, when they have fundamentally the same capability.

I know that the JSF has stealth whereas the Typhoon does not, but the Typhoon is a pretty impressive beast, and we are going to wind up paying for two separate sets of maintenance for two separate fleets of fast jets that do fundamentally the same thing, but having given up short take-off and vertical landing capability. That capability is not only required for flying off carriers; it is required for other scenarios too—day-one warfare involving failed states, for example. A Harrier can take off in a big car park, but the JSF basically needs a full-size runway in order to be able to operate. That capability would be greatly valued by the US Marine Corps if the programme had been maintained, but now that the British Government have pulled out it will not be available to us. I am not at all sure that the Government have not made a significant mistake in that regard.

Let me return to how well the Government did. The Defence Secretary fought his corner and the headline cut in the defence budget is 8%, but in reality it is 13%. That is because the Treasury has won and it has transferred the costs of the deterrent to the core budget. That is getting very little attention, but it is equivalent to another 5% cut in the defence budget. The Government put off the decision on the renewal of the deterrent and the Prime Minister told the House in a fantastic piece of salesmanship that he had actually managed to save money while doing so. Well, he managed to save money by the normal process of the initial gate assessment that is going on: by cutting the number of warheads and of tubes. That would have been done, irrespective of who the Government were, as part of the assessment phase of the deterrent, because both parties are committed to the maintenance of a minimum credible nuclear deterrent.

But again the decision to delay the deterrent was one made for political reasons—for coalition reasons—not for industrial reasons or for reasons of capability. No matter what the Prime Minister tries to say to the House, that decision, on its own, costs this country billions of pounds—it certainly costs in excess of £1 billion and I would say the figure is probably £2 billion. So for the purposes of keeping peace in the coalition for the next five years, we have thrown away between £1 billion and £2 billion on the deterrent. The Prime Minister accused us, with a degree of justification, of shirking hard decisions and pushing things to the right, but while he was saying that—while those words were falling from his mouth—he was doing exactly the same thing. That is one reason why this is not a strategic defence review but a political fix and a spending review, and most certainly with regard to Trident.

As a result of that, my party—I know that the Liberal Democrats will have to do this—may well have to consider whether or not we maintain our position on Trident. We set the position in 2006 and we held to it. We did not try, as the Liberal Democrats did, some short-term political fix to pretend that we had another way. But if no decision is to be taken for another five years and if the cost of a like-for-like replacement of Trident will fall wholly and solely on the defence budget, at the cost of other military capability, we will have to think seriously about whether there is another way. We will also have to use the time, the expertise that exists in think-tanks and some of the information that will come from the armed forces themselves, now that the pressure is on and they are paying for the deterrent in alternative capability, to see whether there is some other way of maintaining Britain’s deterrent without the huge cost that will come at the expense of the rest of our armed forces.

[Dr Fox]

If, as the previous Government said in their own study, the current Trident replacement was the most efficient and cost-effective way of defending Britain against a unique existential threat, and if the reason for having the deterrent in 2006, as set out in the previous Government’s White Paper, was that we could not predict the threats in the next 50 years, what has changed since the election?

[Mr Ainsworth]

The answer is a treaty that the right hon. Gentleman has just signed with France; technological capability going forward; another five years; and a need to analyse the cost-benefit as against the other defence benefit that will be lost. It is all very well for the Foreign Secretary to say there will be no strategic shrinkage, but the Government have embarked on a fairly substantial degeneration of the military capability in this country that underpins our strategic position in the world. It may well be that Trident remains the most effective option and that a continuous at-sea deterrent is still essential, but with another five years we will have to examine that. Other people will examine it and if we do not, we will be seen to be putting our heads in the sand and not prepared to undertake a proper analysis of the choices that we face.

I have one further point to make, and it relates to force generation. The Secretary of State will know that his personnel costs are rising every bit as much as his equipment costs. The equipment costs catch the headlines, and people talk about them and the press get excited about them, but the personnel costs are rising every bit as fast. The Commandant General of the Royal Marines addressed a meeting in the House of Commons just a week or so ago, when he was able to say that the Royal Marines could generate deployable capability more cheaply than the infantry. If he can stand on his feet while he says that, something needs to be examined in the way the Army force- generates. The Royal Marines’ training is much longer and is therefore a lot more expensive. In addition, the Royal Marines’ capability is arguably considerably higher, so if it is cheaper as well, something is wrong and this needs to be examined.

One important job that the Secretary of State needs to do, and one that I started to get into, is to deal with how the Army force-generates, although he will be hugely resisted if he does so. If he is going to keep that minimum ongoing deployable capability force of 6,000—or whatever he said is the figure he is trying to maintain—he is going to need a 90,000-strong Army, so that corner needs considerable examination. I urge him to do this job, because it is necessary if we are going to get value for money and motivate the very fine people who make up our armed forces.

14:16

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

So far, this has been the best informed and best defence debate I have attended in this House. As the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) knows, I had a very high opinion of his tenure of office as Secretary of State for Defence, and it is a pleasure to follow him. He spoke with his habitual integrity and persuasiveness. I also wish to welcome the shadow Secretary of State for Defence to his position. As he knows, I also have a very high opinion of him, to the extent that I was a bit surprised that he did not stand for the leadership of his party. [Interruption.] I have ruined his chances now. I hope that, contrary to his own wishes, he will be in that position for rather longer than his predecessor was, because we should not have too many changes of position in these very important places.

The first and most important thing that the Ministry of Defence did was to start a strategic defence and security review, so the first and most important thing that the Select Committee on Defence did was to begin an interim report on that review. After we have done more work on our current inquiry into Afghanistan, we will be resuming our inquiry into that review. We have not yet done that, so what follows are my own views, rather than those of the Committee.

The 1997-98 review took place in a benign economic climate, whereas this year’s review happened against bank meltdown and the simply dreadful economic consequences. That is why the Government decided that the defence and security review had to coincide with the comprehensive spending review. As a result, it became primarily a spending review and, secondly, a defence and security review. Is that a bad thing? It is absolutely essential to get the country’s economy right. What won the second world war was the United States’ economy, and the same applies to the cold war. The greatest weapon that a country can have for its defence is a strong economy, and any business man knows that the key to having a sound business is keeping one’s costs under control. If the Government had done nothing, instead of paying £43 billion a year in debt interest alone, by the end of the Parliament we would have been paying nearer £50 billion a year. As the former Chief Secretary, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), said, there is no money left.

The Defence Committee recognised all that, but we also wanted to look at the process of the review and we concluded that it was, pretty much, rubbish. This review took five months, whereas the highly regarded 1997-98 review took 13 months. The haste of this review meant that an opportunity to consult the wider public, defence academics, the defence industry and Parliament was missed.

[Nicholas Soames]

I know my right hon. Friend’s views on this matter, but does he accept that the review was the first stage of a process that will require a great deal more work? Both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence have made that point. It is merely the architecture behind the transformation of defence that will take place, so an ongoing defence review will be needed all the time; indeed, there is to be one every five years.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I accept what my hon. Friend says and I listened with great admiration to his earlier comments. There is a lot of work to be done, as the Secretary of State has made plain, and I hope that my hon. Friend will play as valuable a part in it as he played before the election.

My greatest concern about defence is that the British, and perhaps the European, public believe that defence is a job done and that the end of the cold war meant the end of the need to spend serious amounts of money on defending our interests. They think we can rely on the Americans to protect us, but they are wrong: the Americans will protect us only for as long as it is in their interests to do so. Until our constituents demand that we spend more on defence, no Chancellor of the Exchequer will wish to do so, but that will not happen until the public are properly engaged in talking about defence or until they understand its importance and purpose. If one conducts a defence review behind closed doors, while everyone is away on holiday and at a pace that would startle Michael Schumacher, no such understanding will arise. Let us hope that the next one comes across better.

Given all my criticisms of the process, the result was far better than I expected. First, the Secretary of State for Defence did an absolutely valiant job of fighting his corner and I doubt that he alienated the Prime Minister or the Chancellor in the process—he was doing his job. Secondly, given that the Secretary of State started with a defence posture and budget that were both utterly incoherent and unsustainable there was a surprisingly strategic feel to the outcome, the thrust of which seems to be that we shall be gambling our security in the short term in exchange for its enhancement in the longer term. That is preferable to the reverse, provided that we always have at the front of our minds the need not to fail in Afghanistan.

Thirdly, despite the tightness of the settlement, there was a recognition of the changing and unpredictable nature of the threats we face. There was extra money for cyber-security and a recognition by the Secretary of State personally regarding the threat from electromagnetic pulses. I expect also that there will be extra money for space security. Those are some of the new threats.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I think that is superb. The real problem that having smaller armed forces will bring is an absolute requirement to get our intelligence tip-top. We have been utterly surprised so many times in history. We have to make our intelligence much better, so that we reduce the chance of being surprised again. For example, why do we have so many intelligence agencies? I would bet my bottom dollar that we will be surprised again, but we have to reduce the risks as much as we can. That is as much a part of the review as anything else; indeed, it is probably one of the most important factors.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I agree. My hon. Friend talks about the number of intelligence agencies we have, but he might like to look at the United States, which has such a plethora of intelligence agencies that it gives one a headache simply to look at a wiring diagram. Nevertheless, he is quite right: some of the threats we face are unpredictable. We are useless at predicting where threats will come from, or where we may need to be deployed, and for that reason we have to be adaptable.

My overall view of the review is that it is 80% common sense, pragmatic and broadly agreed upon, and 20% controversial, risky and able to generate headlines in the media. The success in pulling together the 80% that is agreed upon should not be overshadowed by discussion and argument over the 20% that is not, but that is what sells newspapers.

Let me give one example in relation to the French-UK treaties that were signed this week. I am in no doubt that they are a good thing, and that we are moving in the right direction. I have a reservation relating to the aircraft carriers, but I repeat that the treaties are a good thing. Actually, I believe that we should go further and give reality to the treaties, so that the warm words that they contain might be translated into tangible progress in training, doctrine, equipment-sharing, acquisition and research with our good friends and allies, the French. My reservation about the aircraft carriers, however, has been wrongly depicted as some great showdown between myself and the Secretary of State. I shall explain my reservation.

When the SDSR was announced last month, the Prime Minister said of the aircraft carriers:

“We will build both carriers, but hold one in extended readiness.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 801.]

And we all know that “extended readiness” in Ministry of Defence-speak means exactly the reverse. But, in the press conference after the signing of the treaties this week, my right hon. Friend referred to our “carrier”. As I understand it, we have not yet decided to sell one of the two carriers, and I hope that we do not. To talk of our “carrier” might be to build an expectation that we shall definitely mothball and almost certainly sell the other one. It is pre-empting a discussion that needs to take place much later, when we can see the economic circumstances of this country and, more importantly, the threats against us.

Two carriers would be a good idea, and no carriers would be a fairly good idea, but one carrier? Surely not. Every time it went into refit would we not prove to the Treasury that we were able to struggle on without it? Furthermore, are we really yet close enough to the French position that we can utterly rely on being allowed to use theirs? The answer is no, not yet. Our deployment to Iraq took place in the last decade. I do not say that we never will be close enough to the French, because I hope and expect that at some stage in the reasonably near future we shall, but it will come about only after a decent length of time operating alongside them, and after the treaties have been given detail, teeth and funding, none of which has yet happened.

How about another idea? How about deciding between the two of our countries that the French will contribute to the cost of the second carrier and, in return, have the right to use it when their carrier is in refit? That would mean that the two countries had three operational carriers between them, which should surely be acceptable. Having said all that, let me repeat that the French treaties are, in the words of “1066 and All That”, a “Good Thing”.

Of course, it is easy to mock the SDSR: “If only it had not been necessary to scrap the Ark Royal! If only we could have kept on the Harriers! Perhaps we could get by with some inflatable Harriers”—all that sort of jolly joking. However, the consequence of having to find money is that the alternative is to salami-slice all that is left and destroy the fundamental effectiveness of our armed forces in the process.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has had the courage to take some very difficult decisions. My guess is that in the decision between the Tornadoes and the Harriers, the fact that the Tornadoes have an air-to-ground strike capability was what saved them; we might well need that capability sooner than the Typhoon can provide it, and there must be questions about why that has been delayed for so long. Why did we need to scrap one or the other, the Harrier or Tornado? The cost of the logistics of keeping another type in the air is huge—billions of pounds; a billion here and a billion there, and soon we are talking about real money.

The noble Lord West described the decision to scrap the Harrier as “bonkers”. That would be easier to accept if, when he was in a position to do something about the bonkers economics of the Ministry of Defence, he had tried to do something to put it right. Instead, he drove forward the carrier decision, which he must have known was unaffordable.

How did all this come about? First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) set out so convincingly and with such great knowledge in his speech, there is the awful system of perverse incentives inside the Ministry of Defence. I congratulate the noble Lord Hutton on commissioning the Bernard Gray report. Those perverse incentives did not begin under a Labour Government; they have been around for decades, and I must bear some part of the blame for them myself.

Secondly, there is the disgraceful command from No. 10 that before the election there was to be no more money, but also no bad news about base closures or programme cancellations. The former Secretary of State for Defence did his valiant best to try to take some real, hard decisions, but he was thwarted at every step of the way by the Prime Minister of the time and some of his Ministers. In the private words of one of his Ministers at the time, the problems were to be chucked over the fence, into the responsibility of the next Government. I have been Chief Whip, and I am not often shocked. But I was certainly shocked when that remark was reported to me.

I still have considerable concerns about the strategic and defence review. I am very concerned about the gap in vital capability if the Nimrod aircraft go. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex, I am very concerned about the overall size of the fleet, which will be tiny in future; the unquantifiable influence exerted by the Royal Navy when a smart ship sails into a foreign port will be rarer and rarer. For the next 10 years, the strategic defence and security review will rely heavily on our enemies giving us advance warning of an impending attack. The enemy have a vote in all this; let us hope that they are polite enough to do that.

There will be other concerns. Service families watching this debate will fear redundancies, uncertainties and upheaval, having given themselves and made such sacrifice for their country. The same will apply to civil servants, who have also given outstanding service, and to the defence industry, which has done so much to support our defence efforts. All this will have substantial effects on whole communities—for example, in Scotland. We must do our best to mitigate those effects.

Whatever the concerns, one thing is absolutely clear. We have now had the defence review and we must now make it work. In my view, there is only a limited amount to be achieved by blaming the Labour party for the ghastly mess that it left us or the coalition for the hasty and secretive review that it has brought in to put it right. We now have a plan and we must scrutinise it, but we must leave defence on a stronger footing at the end of the process than it is on now. We must make it work for the good of the country.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Hon. Members will have noticed that no time limit has yet been set in this debate. I ask the 14 Members who still wish to participate to show some restraint and consideration for those who will try to catch my eye after they have spoken. We will do our best to ensure that everybody who wants to speak can, but it will not be possible at this rate unless there is some restraint.

14:35

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I welcome the opportunity to participate in today’s debate. Following the precedent set by the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), I pay tribute to those who have paid the supreme sacrifice in our armed forces and who laid down their lives so that today we can have this debate and enjoy the relative degree of freedom that we do. In particular, I am thinking of the soldiers who served in Northern Ireland over a number of decades, and those who lost their lives protecting the community there.

We had a debate yesterday in the House on the Saville inquiry, and there was much criticism of the actions of the Army in Londonderry in 1972—but that must not become the mark of the Army’s contribution to Northern Ireland and to the relative degree of peace that we enjoy today. The Army did many valiant things in Northern Ireland, and many people are alive today because of its contribution. I would also say that the Army has learned much from its experience in Northern Ireland. I hope that, whether in Afghanistan or in the other parts of the globe, it can put that experience to good use.

It is a matter of concern that recently the head of MI5 warned that the threat from dissident terrorist groups in Northern Ireland is on the increase. We are discussing today a strategic review not only of defence but of security, and I want to highlight the continuing threat, because not only is it posed in the cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland but it has the capacity to extend to other parts of the United Kingdom.

Yesterday in the Belfast Telegraph there was an interesting interview with some of the so-called leadership of a new dissident group that described itself as Oglaigh na hEireann, which is Irish for the army of Ireland. It is the latest version of the Irish Republican Army, and it draws together disaffected elements from the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. Significantly, among the new recruits are bomb makers who have developed a capacity to explode bombs in a way that is very dangerous. It concerns me that although, of course, our focus at times is on our role in Afghanistan and on the threat from al-Qaeda and other militant groups, there remains here at home in the United Kingdom a potent threat from such groups. It is estimated that the new group has about 600 members, some of them new but many of them with experience of involvement in terrorism over a number of years.

We should not underestimate that threat. I do not want to give the group a status that it does not deserve, but the reality is that the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been reduced from 14,000 officers at its peak during the troubles to the current level of just 7,000, who alone have to deal with that terrorist threat, supported by the security services but without the support of the Army.

[Bob Stewart]

I am worried by the right hon. Gentleman’s comment that there might be 600 people in a new terrorist organisation in Northern Ireland. That is a significantly large terrorist group, particularly if substantial numbers are active. That worries me a great deal. Is he absolutely certain that it is anything like as large as that? If it is, that is a big worry.

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and for the contribution that he made while serving in the Army in Northern Ireland. I know that he experienced some terrible events that occurred during his time there. The figures that I quote come from the security services and from the Police Service of Northern Ireland; they are not something that politicians have dreamed up for the purposes of scaremongering. I do not share these remarks with the House to scaremonger, but merely to say that, in the context of our strategic review, we must keep an eye on a growing internal threat in the United Kingdom that may have consequences for the capacity of the PSNI to cope with it alone without the support at least of specialist assistance from our armed forces. We still have that capacity based in Northern Ireland, and it may be more needed than was envisaged when Operation Banner drew to an end just a few short years ago.

At the end of Operation Banner—as the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), will recall—commitments were given at a political level that a significant garrison would be retained in Northern Ireland. It therefore concerns me that there is talk of 19 Light Brigade, who are headquartered in Thiepval barracks in Lisburn in my constituency, being transferred back to the mainland. Similarly, there is talk of 2 Rifles, who are part of 19 Light Brigade and based at Ballykinler in County Down, and who recently served with distinction and great loss in Afghanistan, being transferred back to the mainland, with Ballykinler no longer being used as part of the garrison establishment in Northern Ireland, although its ranges and specialist training facilities would still be available to the Army.

This causes concern to us in Northern Ireland, as we very much value the presence of the Army in our part of the United Kingdom. Although we still have 38 (Irish) Brigade headquartered at Thiepval barracks, the presence of 19 Light Brigade has been important; they have done some valuable work with the local community. I would be worried if there were a move to transfer the brigade headquarters away from Lisburn back to the mainland. When the Prime Minister made his statement to the House on the SDSR, I sought an assurance from him that the cuts in troop numbers would not result in a reduction in the size of our front-line infantry units, and he gave that assurance. At the moment, 1 Royal Irish and the Irish Guards are deployed in Afghanistan, currently on operational duty in Helmand.

We in Northern Ireland are very proud of our long and historical tradition. It may not go back 800 years, but it certainly goes back over many hundreds of years. There is a tradition of Northern Irish men and women serving in our armed forces. Someone mentioned the Duke of Wellington, who is only one of many I could mention. Montgomery, and others of Northern Irish extraction, have made major contributions to our armed forces. We want to ensure that that tradition will continue and be respected. If I may be so bold as to speak for absent Members from Scotland and Wales, the regional contribution of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to our armed forces at all levels is to be valued. That is true not just of the units that originate from those regions but of members of all units at every level of our armed forces. They are members of the British Army and proud of the British tradition as well as of their regional identity. I hope that those identities will be respected as the SDSR is taken forward.

I support the remarks of the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) about the review of the reserves. I hope that the thrust of that review will be to strengthen the role of the reserve forces within our armed forces. He made some valuable comments in support of that move, which would bring the UK into line with other countries where the reserve forces play a greater role.

For the record, some 24,000 reservists have been mobilised on or in support of military operations since 2003, which is quite a remarkable contribution. To make the greatest contribution to our armed forces, the reserves need to be properly structured for future conflicts. That will make the best use of their skills, experience and capabilities, while at the same time moving us towards a more efficient structure. I understand that as we are having this debate, some 929 reservist personnel are on current operational duties. We wish each of them well. Their contribution is valued, and we want it to be strengthened because they have skills and specialisms that can provide valuable input into what our armed forces are doing.

The concept of conflict prevention, which is mentioned in the national security documents that have been published, is important in the context of the SDSR. If we are to have a smaller military capacity in future, we want to ensure, with our international partners, that the prospect of conflict developing is diminished as best it can be. In recent years, in the light of our experience in Northern Ireland, I have had the honour of working with people in many parts of the globe who are facing conflict. We have sought to use the benefit of our experience to help them avoid conflict or resolve it where it occurs. Just two weeks ago I spent some time in Cyprus talking to people from the north and south of the island about the situation there and the need for a political settlement. We have worked with people from the Iraqi Parliament, from Moldova, from Kosovo, from the Basque region in Spain and so on.

The UK has an important role to play in conflict prevention. Despite all that has happened in the past, it is still very much respected, and in many respects we can give a lead to the international community by working with others to prevent conflict where possible. I received an invitation recently to attend an event here in Parliament on the situation that is developing in Burundi, and I have discussed other countries where there are early warning signs of the risk of conflict.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Does he agree that the UK is playing a key role in bringing stability and infrastructure through the Friends of Yemen group and the Democratic Friends of Pakistan?

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. I also support what has been said about the BBC World Service, which is another valuable contribution made by the UK. Addressing conflict issues is about much more than just our military capacity; it is about what we can do to help people who find themselves in conflict or potential conflict situations, and the BBC World Service is an important component in that.

The UK can make a valuable contribution to conflict prevention, and I hope that we will be able to draw on our experiences around the globe, including in Northern Ireland. I hope that we will be able to draw on our experience of conflict to make a contribution to conflict prevention.

My colleagues and I welcome the publication of the SDSR. I am not one of those who criticises the fact that it contains a number of other reviews that need to be taken forward. I support what the Defence Committee Chairman, whom I am privileged to serve under, said about moving in haste. It was right that we took a little more time in the SDSR to look in more detail at reserve forces and other key elements, to have a more focused review and to make proposals. I welcome this debate, and my colleagues and I will continue to make a contribution as the debate goes forward.

14:51

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) made an important point about the potential threat in Northern Ireland. He underlined much of what I will say, in that we simply cannot rely on events panning out in a certain way. In Northern Ireland in the mid-1960s, for instance, we could never have foreseen that events would start deteriorating very quickly in the late 1960s.

In a way, I feel that I am going full circle. Forty years ago, when I first got involved in politics, one of the things that propelled me into politics and away from the Royal Navy university cadetship that I had at the time was the debate about the Royal Navy, the then Labour Government cutting the number of aircraft carriers and the resignation of the Navy Minister. In the early 1980s, I started working with my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who, by the way, would have liked to have taken part in the debate but for attending a funeral. He is one of our foremost thinkers on defence, and we set up the Coalition for Peace through Security.

At the time, a fierce debate was raging about the Royal Navy. Keith Speed resigned as Navy Minister because he felt that the Navy was under threat. At the time, it had 66 destroyers and frigates. Within a year of his resigning, the utterly unexpected happened—the Falklands were invaded and we needed no fewer than 23 frigates and destroyers to retake them. By the way, this very day, Cristina Kirchner, the President of Argentina, has pledged an “eternal fight” for the Malvinas. It is extremely dangerous, therefore, to assume that we will see a particular scenario over the next 10 years.

I very much admire my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), who is the Father of the House. He gave an important speech to the 1922 committee last week. Such speeches are supposed to be private, and I will not, of course repeat it. However, I want to repeat just one interesting point that he made—it is so good, I cannot resist the temptation. He said that when he left the employment of Anthony Eden many years ago, Eden gave him a framed copy of the Locarno treaty. The treaty represented the high point of the belief between the wars that peace was assured. Of course, we all know that it was not.

There was a disastrous tendency between the two world wars to believe in what was called the 10-year rule, which assumed that there would be no war for another 10 years. In the 1930s, Lord Hankey criticised the 10-year rule, to which we are apparently returning. He asked who could have foreseen in the spring of 1914 that the world would be convulsed by a world war within a couple of months. If we look back at history, it is clear that any 10-year rule or academic scenario that suggests that we do not need the aircraft carriers for 10 years is extremely dangerous. I am therefore very dubious of any confident statements on how the world will look in five, seven, eight or 10 years’ time.

We are, after all, a maritime nation. I agree that for many periods in our history, the Army has been neglected, but never the Royal Navy. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and in the early part of the 20th century, it was considered essential as a maritime nation dependent entirely on trade—as we still are—to maintain a significant Royal Navy. I echo some of the comments that have been made on Royal Navy planning. We will be left with just 19 serious major ships, and we are hugely dependent on them. We will need to deploy large numbers of them to protect the aircraft carrier—or carriers—and we should be extremely concerned about that situation.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the great worries in Asia? Japan has 4,000 islands, many of which are vulnerable, especially to China. There are concerns elsewhere about the fact that China, which has said it is interested only in territorial self-defence, is now building three aircraft carriers, and fourth and fifth generation aircraft-based attack vehicles, and looking for naval bases in the Indian ocean. Britain and Europe disarming themselves and leaving everything to the United States sends a very worrying message in relation to possible future nationalist adventurism in that part of the world.

[Mr Leigh]

I entirely agree with that.

Again, we should look to history. Had Spain declared war on us in 1940, we probably would have lost Gibraltar and the second world war. It did not declare war because it was deterred by the existence of the Royal Navy—Franco knew that it would immediately take the Canary Islands. Of course, Spain is now a friend and a member of the European Union, and there is no likelihood that the Spanish will ever declare war on us or seek to take Gibraltar by force.

Incidentally, following directly on from that, Spain now has two carriers with Harriers, as does Italy; the USA has 11 carriers; and India, Thailand and Brazil each have one carrier with Harriers. With this review, we have unilaterally destroyed our carrier capability for 10 years. That is unilateral disarmament, and I am extremely concerned about it.

I am also concerned about the decision on Nimrod. There has been a lot of talk about the cost, but very little about how we will maintain that capability, although the Secretary of State referred to that today. I was under the impression that we needed Nimrod as an early-warning surveillance system, particularly to protect our nuclear submarines, and particularly as they are returning to base. Some assurances were given to us today. I know that the Secretary of State cannot go into any great details because such matters are sensitive, but the House is entitled to ask why Nimrod was developed for all those years. Why is it suddenly considered necessary to cancel it just because of its cost?

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I accept the sensitivities regarding what we use Nimrod for, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we take any capability out, we must either bin it altogether and not task it, or replace it?

[Mr Leigh]

Exactly. I know that parliamentary questions have been asked, but the House must tease out more information on maintaining early-warning capability. I know that this is not an exact historical comparison, but if someone had said in 1938, “Oh, this radar programme that we are deploying on the south coast is terribly expensive. We’ve wasted enormous sums of money on it and there are all sorts of pressures on our budget, so we should get rid of it,” we simply would have lost the second world war. I know that that is not an exact comparison, but we should always be aware of the lessons of history. In defence, whether we are talking about Northern Ireland or piracy, we simply cannot rely on the same situation existing in eight or nine years as exists now.

I am also extremely worried about the decision on Trident. The decision not to push through the main gate on Trident before the next general election is very dangerous indeed, because I believe that it was taken for fundamental political, not military, reasons, and because of the possible result of the next general election. What happens if the Labour and Conservative parties are level pegging, and there is a bargaining situation, as we had this year? I am confident that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would not be prepared to enter into a coalition with the Liberals if the price was getting rid of Trident, but can we be so confident about the Labour party? The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), whom we all greatly admire for his time in office, made a significant intervention when he said, “Well, now that Trident’s been put on the backburner, perhaps we should reconsider; perhaps there are cheaper options. It will be five years in advance.” So the political decision to delay Trident is worrying and dangerous.

I do not say that as someone who is fanatically in favour of Trident. I managed to blot my copy book with the Conservative parliamentary party as soon as I arrived in the House—I have succeeded in doing it again and again ever since—when I and my hon. Friend the then Member for Wells tabled an early-day motion questioning whether there were not cheaper alternatives to a ballistic missile system, and suggesting that we could consider cruise missiles off nuclear-powered submarines. My right hon. Friend the then Prime Minister was none too pleased with both of us. So I have always been sceptical about maintaining ballistic missile systems in a post-cold war age, and more and more people like that will be coming out of the woodwork the longer we delay main gate.

Some have said, “If a future Labour Government wanted to cancel Trident, they would cancel it anyway, whether it had been through main gate or not”, but why have we not cancelled the carriers? It is because the admirals were determined to force them through main gate before the election, knowing that after it, there would be enormous political and financial pressure to cancel them. If, therefore, Trident has not gone through main gate before the next general election, it will be thrown immediately into the political mix and it will be much easier to cancel it. I have noticed that the president of the Liberal Democrats, who has been quoted in the Evening Standard, has been crowing that they have achieved a major political victory in delaying Trident. So as much as I love my coalition partners, we should be aware of what could happen in the future.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) has done a wonderful job as Chair of the Defence Committee—he is shaping up to be a superb Chair—in questioning the decision on the future shape of the carrier fleet. I am not a Francosceptic; I am a huge Francophile. Both my parents were brought up in France, I went to a French school, and I speak French, so I am all in favour of every kind of co-operation with the French—

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

But?

[Mr Leigh]

But, indeed. Hon. Members and the public are right to be wary about such co-operation. The public do not really understand—and why should they?—a lot of these details about joint strike fighters, Typhoons and Tornadoes. However, they can visualise aircraft carriers without aircraft, and they can visualise sharing an aircraft carrier with the French, and they do not like it—and they are wise not to like it. We all know what would have happened had we been sharing an aircraft carrier with the French during the Falklands war or the Iraq war. We simply cannot foresee—

[Mr MacShane]

rose—

[Mr Leigh]

Oh dear! I am sorry. Perhaps I should not have been saying this, because I have forced the right hon. Gentleman to his feet.

[Mr MacShane]

I want only to make the point that when the Falklands were invaded, the then US ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, supported Argentina to begin with, but the first call that Mrs Thatcher got that Saturday morning was from Francois Mitterand, pledging support and revealing all the secrets of the Exocet and the Super Etendard. There are many differences between us and the French, but on the Falkland Islands, they were with us, and to begin with the United States was not. That should be put on the record.

[Mr Leigh]

Fine, but we must remember, I am afraid, that it was a French Exocet that sank HMS Sheffield. I do not doubt for a moment that it is a wonderful idea to have increased co-operation with the French on procurement and to work together more closely, but on this basis it is an extremely dangerous decision. My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire was right. There is no way in this debate that we can change the decision on the Ark Royal, the Harriers or Nimrod, and I do not think that I will still be in this Chamber when the two aircraft carriers retire, because I will be about 120. However, for the next 10 years, we can together mount a campaign. Its nature must be clear: that we would make ourselves ridiculous, as one of the world’s greatest maritime nations, if we built the greatest and most powerful ships we have ever constructed and then sold one of them to India, Brazil or elsewhere.

As my right hon. Friend said, extended readiness is not good enough. Our commitment, as with Trident, must be that at all times an aircraft carrier will be available. That means that we must keep our two aircraft carriers and ensure that when one goes in for a refit, the other is available. We remember how long the refit of Ark Royal took and its cost. The refits of the new class of aircraft carriers will take even longer and be even more costly.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

The Deputy Speaker said that many Members want to speak, and the hon. Gentleman has been rabbiting on for about 15 minutes. Can he please wrap it up so that others may get in?

[Mr Leigh]

That intervention was extremely discourteous, especially as Liberal Democrat Members have not attended most of the debate, and I was coming to the end of my remarks.

[Mr MacShane]

Keep going.

[Mr Leigh]

No, I will not keep going, because others want to speak, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who no doubt has an important speech to make.

We are entitled to speak up about our concerns for the future of the Royal Navy, bearing in mind that we are a maritime and trading nation, and we must continue the campaign for the future to ensure that we have a strong and viable Royal Navy that can protect this nation, as it has done for centuries.

15:07

[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

The word “strategic” is in the title of the document, but we have heard several examples of how it is not a clearly formed strategy at the moment. At the end of his thoughtful speech, the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), explained where we are now and said we needed to form a clear, strategic view of where we will be in future, and that is a job that we must all do.

The debate has been a little deficient—this is understandable because we are considering the matter from the point of view of defence—for the reason that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) gave. The review is supposed to be about defence and security—that is what the annunciator screens say—but the security part is clearly deficient. The document on the national strategy from the National Security Council is all very well as far as it goes, but it is not clear to me where our foreign policy is in this debate; nor do I think it is clear where the home services stand in terms of the Home Office, policing and so on.

Some of the points made by the hon. Gentleman are telling. The only way to deal with the problems is not with large toys and pieces of kit, but with good old-fashioned police work and intelligence. There must be correct mixture of capability, including people as well as machinery. The cross-governmental aspect of the review was encouraging. In the Defence Committee during the last Parliament, I said that we were in effect already having a defence review, but in an ad hoc and unguided way that was not very helpful or useful. It should have been put into a proper structure much earlier. That is the missed opportunity because the review does not cover the whole of the subject in the title—strategic defence, including security.

There are many parts to the review. I echo some of the points that have been made about Trident. As I said back in July, we cannot take Trident out; well, we could formally, descriptively and all of that, but in reality we cannot, so it was all nonsense. Whether that was said for political reasons to do with the coalition partners is for history to show. There is probably a lot of power in those arguments, but the reality is that it was nonsense to try to proceed in that way.

The other thing that disturbs me is that some parts of the review have not been mentioned today. The lack of clarity about a defence industrial strategy is hugely important. I know that there will be a Green Paper, apparently by the end of this year. It is now November the something-or-other, so I do not know what is meant by the end of this year. I must tell the Minister that I hope we see the Green Paper before the recess comes; otherwise we will have no opportunity to consider it. Apparently there will be a White Paper some time next year, and then something beyond that. What key capabilities are we going to focus on? What direction are we giving to industry? Where is the strategy? Where is the plan? It is not there. We have to form it, and it is to the benefit of us all that we do so.

There is also the reform group—or whatever it is called—that has been set up to transform the Ministry of Defence. We had the reform acquisition strategy before the election. I wrote all this down so that I would not get it wrong, but at that time the Ministry of Defence said, “Well, don’t worry about it, because we’re transforming ourselves. We have the PACE programme”—performance, agility, confidence and efficiency—“the defence acquisition ‘Terms of business agreement’ process, the equipment and support plan, the acquisition operating framework, and the capability delivery practitioners guide.” We were told that the MOD had lots of other things, doubtless all recommended by a legion of consultants of various sorts—not medical consultants, but business consultants—about internal process. That methodology will clearly be part of the MOD’s review.

A number of reviews have been mentioned in other respects. The points that have been made today about force generation are important. I attended part of the presentation by the Marines about how they do things. They give clear costings, and they were not shy about saying what things cost them or how much time they took. The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) made an excellent contribution to the debate about what needs to happen with MOD processes. However, as all that unfolds and we do the work, my concern is where we are in that process. Who even is this “we”? What I have seen so far is a process that went forward over the summer, but which did not really involve the public or Parliament, as the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire said. In fact, there was a very narrow discussion among a narrow group of people, and it was therefore not as well informed as it should have been.

Scrutiny and involvement in the process are important, as is transparency. There was a review of Trident. Apparently something came out of the end of that review, but I have no real idea what process was used or what the results were. We need to understand better what is going to happen in that process if we are to end up with a better strategic review, which can serve as the overarching architecture, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex put it. The review may well be the framework for that debate, but it is not the debate itself, nor is it the end product, and to that degree it is deficient.

I shall finish now, because I know that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who is carrying the entire weight of the Liberal party today, needs to speak.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

He makes the same speech every time.

[Mr Havard]

Yes, but he is the only one here to make it.

There are issues to do with particular aspects of the review. I have concerns, partly because my local economy is affected, but the decision on St Athan and the training there is worrying. It is particularly worrying because, as the Chancellor and others have said, one way or another we have to find different ways of paying. We are talking about a private finance initiative. I have to say that I am not the greatest supporter of private finance initiatives in general, but what has happened prompts the question: why, having gone through a due diligence process pretty recently, was the facility not thought to be good enough? We now have a decision that that is not going to happen, but what is going to happen? All we have now is a vague declaration that something else will happen. The big question is about the training. It is about the people, and it is important that this aspect should not be lost in the review, with all the discussions about large pieces of equipment.

I could say a few words about the carriers, which we discussed on a number of occasions in the Defence Committee during the last Parliament. At one point, there was talk about having three carriers—my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) would like to hear this, but he is not in his place—but that was on the basis of having two British carriers, with the French perhaps buying one off us and our making it for them with their Slingshot deck on it. All these discussions were going on, so this is not an entirely new argument, although it is new in some respects.

I thought a remark in yesterday’s edition of the Financial Times was prescient. It pointed out that if the Ministry of Defence gains the savings it declares it is going to get, it would be a good thing if they went back to the MOD, and did not just get lost in the coffers. If there is a dividend, the MOD should have it, not the Treasury.

[Mr Jones]

One issue raised by the treaty is whether markets, including the French defence market, would be opened up to British companies. Given my hon. Friend’s long membership of the Defence Committee and his close interest in defence matters, does he recollect whether the French have ever bought anything that does not have a main French component to it?

[Mr Havard]

I may be old, but no—that is the short answer, and it might go back longer than me. The French have a particular view about their sovereign capability, so my hon. Friend raises an interesting issue. The Defence Committee was asked to consider the trade treaty with the United States, and did some pre-work before it was agreed. The Americans have only just agreed to the treaty—it took them three years to ratify it. Included in it was important stuff related to technology transfer and the joint strike fighter. Yes, some other nations take a very parochial view: they claim to be free traders, but they often behave in a very—how can I put this? —protectionist fashion. That balance is always there. What comes out of it, I do not know. It will be interesting to find out what lies behind some of the declarations and whether it will change that form of acquisition.

I have a few small questions for the Minister. One is about helicopters and search and rescue. This may be a small aspect of defence, but it is very important, particularly in Wales, because we have to spend a lot of time calling people from Culdrose to come and rescue mostly English people off Welsh hills. In that sense, people in England have an interest in what happens in Wales as much as Welsh people do. It gives rise to a question about particular capabilities within the review. This service is under review and there are lots of individual programmes on which we need more clarity.

Some of the decisions are about timing. It is all very well saying we will have a defence review every five years. Let me tell Government Members that they will have an iteration in 2012 and another in 2014—whether they like it or not. That is because there will be political change in Afghanistan, and there is already political change going on in America. They should not try to pretend that this will work on some prescribed artificial timetable that might seem desirable today, because it will not. Events, dear boy, events—and some of those events are largely predictable because of watersheds in the political timetable set for us elsewhere as well as here. I hope that whatever the review going forward will be—in all its different component parts—it will be open. I hope that Parliament will be directly involved in the process.

15:19

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Let me first declare my interest, which is set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard), and I am really pleased that he has rejoined the Defence Select Committee, which, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), has an extremely impressive membership. I know that the Committee will do a great job in holding the Government to account, which is indeed its function.

The first duty of the state is to defend national security and the national interest. Even in today’s defence debate, we have to admit that the chief threat to this country is not military at all, but economic. It is, of course, against that backdrop that we have had the strategic defence and security review.

I might be accused of being sycophantic, but I will say this nevertheless. I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done a first-rate job in marrying our need to ensure that the country returns to an even keel economically with the ongoing need to ensure that we prepare for all foreseeable threats to the country, particularly in a world that is ever-changing.

Much has been said about aircraft carriers, which are close to my heart. I spent 18 years in the Navy, and developed a healthy respect for them during that time. During most of my career, the Harrier jump jet took off and landed on aircraft carriers. It must be said that they were rather short. I think we should bear in mind that, while STOVL—short take-off and vertical landing—has many virtues, its chief virtue is as an expedient for countries that have short aircraft carriers. I listened with interest to the remarks of the former Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), and noted his concern that we should be able to land on small plots of land. Nevertheless, the chief virtue of the aircraft carriers is connected with the fact that for several years—indeed, for decades—we had to make do with carriers that were smaller and more economical than we might have liked.

We are now to have two impressive aircraft carriers, which will be larger than the Charles de Gaulle. Their size will approach that of some of the largest ships in the American fleet that we admire so much. It is absolutely right for us to have craft that are fitted out to accommodate the naval forces of our two greatest allies, the United States and France, and I welcome the fitting of the “cats and traps”, which will provide us with that interoperability.

It strikes me as bizarre that the previous Government should have ignored the obvious desire and need for aircraft from those two nations to use our aircraft carriers, whether or not there is a formal arrangement with France to share one of them, and I am exceptionally pleased that we will now be able to do that. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary on the important work he has done, both in opposition and in government, to strengthen the links with France. It is quite wrong to say that that has happened since May. As one who was on the Defence Front Bench until recently, I know that it was a recurring theme throughout my three years there. We have a great deal in common with our neighbour, and it is not just about our willingness to pay for a defence umbrella under which others in Europe are content to shelter. Both countries, while slipping down the league table of global significance as others rise, have residual interests overseas, although France, of course, has rather more than the United Kingdom.

I congratulate the Government on resisting the temptation to close some of our remaining overseas assets. In particular, our removal from the sovereign base areas in Cyprus would have been most unwise, given the strategic situation. Akrotiri and Dhekelia offer a combination of barracks, training areas, an airfield and a seaport that is peerless, not to mention other assets in the Troodos mountains that are beyond the scope of the debate. Those of us who have had the pleasure of serving in Cyprus will attest to its importance, and to the totemic significance of any east-of-Nicosia moment that the Defence Secretary may have been forced at least to contemplate.

Inevitably, much has been said today about bombs and bullets, but I must confess that my interest is now, and has always been, in our military software, by which I mean the men and women of our armed forces. Tempting though it is for policy makers to become obsessed with equipment, not least when there are jobs and constituency interests to be considered, we must always bear in mind the greatest single factor: the bloke with the gun or, increasingly, the metal detector on the front line. I think that the SDSR has done that.

Importantly, the White Paper makes it clear that an armed forces covenant will be formalised, and I imagine that that codification will feature prominently in the Armed Forces Bill. The military covenant made its debut in April 2000 in a rather dusty Army publication, “Army Doctrine Publication Volume 5”—a snappy title! We can, however, find examples of such a covenant going back to ancient Greece. It was certainly considered in Roman Britain too, with the distribution of bits of land to those who had served in the Roman army, and it continued to the reign of Elizabeth I, who formally codified a system of pensions for those who had been disabled in action. Ironically, it rather fell apart during Cromwell’s military Protectorate, but it has been an unspoken theme of service throughout our history.

Whether or not the author of the military covenant knew it, it was at the extreme end of the spectrum of psychological contracts identified by Harry Levinson in 1962, following his study of the Midlands Utilities Company in the American midwest. The point about such contracts is that they are unspoken and unwritten. In an age of lawyers, that has a certain appeal. We are now considering codifying the military covenant and putting it in writing so that people will be able to rely on it as of right, and potentially, of course, in a court of law.

If we are rather reluctant to go down that route, we must consider the developments of the early 1990s. Many of us will recall NMS—the new management strategy—and the new managerialism introduced into the Ministry of Defence, and the impact that had on the relationship between leaders and led. Commanding officers morphed into budget holders and military units into cost centres. The relationship between commanding officers and those they commanded was subtly changed. In that context, it is right and proper that we should look at articulating the psychological contract of the military covenant in statute. I look forward to seeing the form in which it is introduced in the forthcoming armed forces Bill.

The insurgents in Afghanistan have proved capable of being flexible in their tactics. The Taliban lost, as they were bound to, in the head-to-head early conflict in Helmand and Kandahar. They then shifted to the use of IEDs, and that proved very successful, as all of us will know who have spent time in Birmingham and at Headley Court and who represent constituencies with a military element. The Taliban’s tactics are now changing once again. They are developing their own brand of Sharpe’s Rifles, chosen men who are rather less appealing even than the men of the South Essex.

It is worth bearing in mind the threat that still exists, and is likely to continue to exist, from IEDs. They are a mortal threat to our men and women and a bitter fact of life for the civilian population. I know that the Government have taken a real interest in this and that the Prime Minister has taken the trouble to familiarise himself with the workings of the Vallon metal detector that is currently used by our troops.

I am pleased to note that a contract has now been let to improve the collective counter-IED training of our troops, especially as it has been let to a firm in my constituency. We have a digital record of aptitude and performance in training, and it has been shown to be extremely variable. Will the Minister ensure that the value of that highly granular information is exploited further so as to allow us to assess post-deployment how effective the new training has been, and perhaps refine it further? Will the Minister also say what further personal protective equipment our troops are to have to reduce the toll taken by IEDs?

For servicemen with children there are few issues of greater concern than education, and that is rightly cited in the White Paper. The Department for Education has been consulting on a pupil premium for service children. There is no doubt that schools with substantial numbers of service children are at a distinct disadvantage because of the extra costs involved in their education. I would cite the New Close primary school and the Avenue school in Warminster as prime examples of that. If we are serious about the concept of “no disadvantage” from military service, we must ensure that the extra costs relating to service children are properly reflected in the funding formula.

I have an abiding interest in military health care, so I am very pleased to see a substantial reflection in the White Paper of the importance of doing more. I am particularly keen to see improvements in military mental health care, and I very much welcome the fact that that is cited specifically in the White Paper. However, it is important that we bear in mind that it is not just about combat stress and post-traumatic stress disorder, and that we need to look more widely at mental health issues, including those relating to service families and issues such as alcoholism and the overuse of alcohol, depression and so on.

It is important that we are far more proactive in dealing with combat stress, because most people, including the general public, would accept that of all those conditions the ones that the military has a direct hand in causing need to be addressed as a priority. Although, numerically, the incidence of PTSD—combat stress—might not be vast in the great scheme of things, men and women experience it by virtue of their exposure on the front line, so if we are serious about the military covenant, we must do our utmost to reduce the chances of it occurring in the first place and to manage it when it does. The key to that is being proactive and ensuring that we look for people with problems before they wait, often for many years, before seeking out medical attention. It is important to go where young men and women are if we want to find out whether they are having problems and to signpost services where they are available—and that means going online.

I very much welcome the extra mental health professionals whom the Government have announced they will recruit to improve mental health care for this community. I also welcome the prospect of a veterans’ information service, by which we will inform veterans, after they have left, of the services available to them, and not simply cut them free and let them go, as we have done in the past.

[Mr Havard]

I know of the hon. Gentleman’s particular interest in medical services and mental health. He will be aware that the British Medical Association has made suggestions on improving general practitioners’ understanding about the medical treatment of those who have served. Does he have a view about that?

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, I do. I commend the BMA for its efforts, as I do the Royal College of General Practitioners, which has recently put out a leaflet trying to apprise GPs of the problems that may be faced by patients who have served in the military. That is not an easy task. Most GPs are faced daily with a whole pile of stuff and will jettison most of it, so getting the message across to them is extremely difficult, given that a relatively small number of their patients will have served and may have a problem as a result of their service. That is not to say that we must not do what we can to raise the prominence of this issue.

In conclusion, may I say how much I welcome the emphasis in the White Paper on the military covenant? It is essential that we try to codify it in some way, and I look forward to it becoming a far more prominent part of the way in which we think about the service community and veterans in the future.

15:33

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

As we approach the defence and security review and discuss how we are going to ensure our future defence and security, one thing that we must be very conscious of is the fact that this is not just the responsibility of our military. My father was in the merchant navy in the last war and was on a merchant vessel going to Russia. His ship was sunk by German submarines and he then spent considerable time in Russia, suffering extreme privations as a result of that sinking. That might be one reason why I am interested in maritime security.

Another reason might be my coastal constituency, and the fact that my friends and neighbours are involved in search and rescue operations on a daily basis. Seeing how the mood of the sea changes is part of our daily life. I do not have any military bases in my constituency, but there are hopes that it will play a key part in the future development of RAF St Athan and the joint training college that was to be established there. My local authority spent a considerable amount of money preparing for that, and still hopes that something positive will come of it. As a member of the Defence Committee, I am aware of the central strategic role of the Royal Air Force in intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capability. My colleague on the Committee, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), has mentioned the importance of intelligence in any future war, and the RAF and ISTAR are certainly critical to that.

I want to focus on the unbelievable, short-sighted and downright dangerous decision to cut the Nimrod aircraft. I cannot believe that the decision came from the Ministry of Defence: it must have been a Treasury-led decision, because only a bean counter could have made it. I honestly cannot see why else it would have been made.

Last Sunday I was at Rest bay in my constituency, where people had come from across south Wales, as well as from north Somerset and north Devon, because of the proposed loss of the search and rescue capability at Chivenor, which rescues people across those areas. We do not know what is happening in that regard and I urge that we should consider seriously our search and rescue capability, particularly on our coasts and for our mountains. That Sunday gathering was attended by experts in the field. I spoke to Phil Missen from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Ian Coles from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, both of whom expressed concern about Nimrod being cut.

Back in my office, when I was preparing this speech, I had my own little personal cyber-attack. As I was typing away, I received an e-mail in my inbox from Michael Hiscocks in my constituency. It said:

“With the cancellation of the Nimrod, how does the RAF intend to conduct long range surveillance of the sea, not only against the submarine and surface threat, but also long range search and rescue that the Nimrods and her crews so ably carried out over the years?”

That one paragraph written by a member of the public in an e-mail to a member of the Defence Committee, who happens to be their constituency MP, asks the major question that must be dealt with in today’s debate.

In his leaked letter to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Defence made it clear that the primary objective of the strategic defence and security review is to set direction, and that decisions should be based on the risks and threats to the security of our country now and in future. He made it clear that the review should not merely be a cost-cutting exercise, and said that the primary duty of the Government and the SDSR was not to undermine the UK’s ability to defend itself. He also said—I am sorry that he is not here now—that the Government’s words would be “thrown back” at them. Well, I am going to throw some words back at him today for getting things wrong. I do so despite the huge respect I have for him, as he has done an excellent job so far. However, we in the House must support him in getting the decision about the Nimrod MRA4 changed.

The Nimrod MRA4 has several key functions. It forms part of military operations, is an advanced reconnaissance tool, helps to ensure the safety of civil national infrastructure, assists in maritime search and rescue operations, and assists in the defence of our dependent territories. The Secretary of State also said:

“Deletion of the Nimrod MR4 will limit our ability to deploy maritime forces rapidly into high-threat areas, increase the risk to the Deterrent, compromise maritime CT (counter terrorism), remove long range search and rescue, and delete one element of our Falklands reinforcement plan.”

So, we all agree: the cancellation of the Nimrod has left the UK with a grave gap in its maritime patrol capability.

As a maritime nation—and we do remain a maritime nation—monitoring and defending our sea is a critical element in the maintenance of our security. The Nimrod’s maritime reconnaissance capability was to have protected our nuclear deterrent, our nation’s ultimate defence, and supported royal naval vessels and submarines in our waters and way beyond. The Nimrods were to have fulfilled a hugely important civil role, providing 24/7 search and rescue services for seafarers, as well as defending vital national infrastructure. Our nuclear power stations and our North sea oil rigs would have all been defended thanks to the Nimrod.

We have talked about working closely with our allies to ensure that we have access to the equipment, training and personnel that we need as a necessary part of our defence, but we cannot rely on our allies to pick up on the capabilities that we will lose by not bringing the Nimrod aircraft into service. The Nimrod MRA4 has far greater capabilities than the aircraft that our allies either use now or have planned for the near future. It has world-leading anti-submarine warfare technology—a particular strength in the UK. We have that strength because of our history, and because submarines carry a vital part of our national security. So there we are: submarines carry the most vital part of our national security, and we are going to scrap the means of protecting them.

[Mr Havard]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the press reports that Ministers are trying to sell on the Nimrod’s capability to someone else? Does she have any comments to make about that prospect?

[Mrs Moon]

It worries me that our defence capability is up for sale. We are selling off some of our defence industry’s crown jewels, and selling on to potential enemies—we do not know where they will be—those capabilities at a time when we are in desperate need. I totally object to that, because anti-submarine warfare is not a relic of the cold war. If we are to protect our aircraft carriers when they are deployed in high-risk areas, who will provide the air cover? We recently lost track of a Russian submarine in the Atlantic for three weeks. We cannot rely on allies who are comparatively poorly resourced, or hope that they will buy the Nimrods, save us the money and provide us with the security.

The Nimrod’s civil use must be emphasised, too. Let us look at the history of its search and rescue capability. When the Fastnet yacht race was hit by storms in 1979, and when the Alexander Kielland oil rig overturned in the North sea, Nimrods provided vital cover. They also did so during the Piper Alpha disaster and, just recently, for the Athena fishing vessel, which needed the Nimrod’s capability because Sea King helicopters could spend only 20 minutes hovering above the vessel. We must remember that we have an international obligation to provide long-range search and rescue missions. We will not be able to adhere to the international convention on maritime search and rescue, which we signed in 1979, if we cancel the new Nimrod.

Let us also remember the use of maritime surveillance capabilities against drug smuggling, human trafficking and piracy. The new maritime patrol aircraft, of which the Nimrod was the mainstay, had the capacity to counter drug-running operations in the Caribbean, fight pirate activity in the gulf of Arabia and form a crucial part of maritime counter-terrorism operations.

It has been a long time since the Conservative Government needed to reinforce the Falkland Islands. I pay particular tribute to the speech made by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who recognised the vulnerability of the Falkland Islands, particularly given the growing demand for energy. The UK’s claim to energy resources in the south Atlantic, which are being explored as we speak, must be safeguarded. The Nimrod provides the only capability that could deploy to the Falklands within 48 hours. It can provide early indicators and warnings for forces that follow. The Royal Navy would take three weeks to deploy there. That is 48 hours for a Nimrod, but three weeks for the Royal Navy.

The Nimrod MRA4 has not been cleared for overland operations, but it does have a tremendously sophisticated suite of new sensors that would make a good surveillance and support asset for land operations. I fail to see why our security and defence capability has been reduced by the removal of this asset. It has the capacity to provide maritime eyes and ears at long range—up to 4,000 miles. Where else do we have a 4,000-mile capability for intelligence? It can move very rapidly—within two hours—and with persistence it can fly for 12 hours without refuelling. No other asset has that capability.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady is making a compelling case, but will she say what elements of the defence programme she would scratch, given our unfunded liabilities, to make good the spending commitment that she is apparently making?

[Mrs Moon]

That is not a matter for me. As a member of the Defence Committee, my objective is to look at what the Government propose and ask whether they are providing the best defence and security for the UK. Removing this platform is not in the best interests of Britain’s defence and security. I defy any Member to contradict me—and the Secretary of State for Defence, who said exactly that in his letter to the Prime Minister.

I acknowledge that the procurement history of the Nimrod MRA4 has been difficult. But past problems bear no relation to the decision not to bring it to service. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), made it clear that the decision to cancel the project was based on the future support costs of the aircraft—not the past spend, but the future costs. Considering what we have spent on research and development, the capability that we have put in place and the versatility of the aircraft, saving the modest future running costs is short-sighted.

If we really cannot find the pocket money that we need for those running costs, why do we not at least consider mothballing rather than selling off? Let us mothball, so that when the Treasury wakes up to the enormous capabilities that we would have, it can bring the Nimrod back into operational service. In the meantime, we must make sure that we do not lose the skills of the Nimrod aviators; there must be ongoing training and skills development to make sure that the capability is retained.

The Under-Secretary also said that the Ministry of Defence had

“sought to mitigate the gap in capability”

produced by the early retirement of the Nimrod MR2, through the use of a range of other assets:

“Type 23 Frigates, Merlin Anti Submarine Warfare helicopters and Hercules C-130 aircraft, and by relying, where appropriate, on assistance from allies and partners.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 451W.]

This was meant to be a short-term solution while the new Nimrods were developed, and we now need to know what longer-term plan will be put in place. How long are we going to rely on a patchwork of aircraft to fill the gap left by the Nimrod?

The decision not to cancel the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent has demonstrated a belief in the need for us to maintain a constant and secure independent nuclear deterrent, yet we cannot provide the reconnaissance to ensure the safety of those submarines and of our nuclear deterrent.

We are going to get rid of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers as well, it seems, and we are cancelling the aircraft that would defend the carriers. It does not make sense. We have talked about asymmetrical warfare and the threat to our nation from individuals and groups rather than nation states, yet we are going to reduce our capability to protect national infrastructure and essential offshore assets, particularly our energy capabilities.

The Secretary of State concluded his letter to the Prime Minister by saying:

“Cuts, there will have to be. Coherence, we cannot do without”.

Not bringing the Nimrod into service does not represent a coherent approach to the defence of our country. I hope that the Treasury will listen and that the Ministry of Defence will yet again argue for this piece of equipment so vital for our defence and security.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. A number of colleagues would still like to speak in this important debate, so in order to facilitate the wishes of all Members I am introducing a 10-minute limit on speeches.

15:51

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on alighting on a vital capability. There was one thing that she did not say about it: if it were deployed, it would be the envy of the Americans, such is the sophistication of the capability. It is also a valued asset of many of our European NATO allies and I hope that even now, at this eleventh hour, there might be ways to explore how we can share the burden of the capability so that it can be retained. I fear that that underlines how the defence review was done in a rush and that, whatever the thinking in advance, it ended in the inevitable collision between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury which, as the letter from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the Prime Minister advertised, threatened to be even more destructive than it was.

I would further underline, as the Secretary of State admitted, that the review has been distorted by our activities and the burden of operations in Afghanistan. To that extent, the review is raiding future capability to sustain current operations, which is an unstrategic approach. I fully accept—I think we have to understand the predicament faced by those on the Treasury Bench—that the Government have inherited a very difficult situation and not just in the Ministry of Defence. Of course the national deficit has to be addressed, but there is a deeper malaise at the heart of the dysfunctional relationship between the Ministry of Defence and the rest of Government and, indeed, in dysfunctional relationships at the MOD.

As shadow Secretary of State for two years and a member for four years of the Select Committee on Defence, I watched with increasing perplexity post-9/11 our first Afghan deployment, the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deployment to Helmand, as chaos grew due to policy that was increasingly reactive to events and less and less in control of them. There was increasingly an apparent lack of strategic thinking behind what we were doing. As we started calling for NATO to develop a new strategic concept, I began to ask myself who held the UK’s strategic concept and whether there was one. That was the starting point for the Public Administration Committee’s inquiry once I was elected its Chairman in this Parliament. Our report entitled, “Who does UK National Strategy?” is on the Table and tagged for this debate. The evidence, I am afraid, was more disturbing than I had imagined.

The word “strategy” itself has become corrupted. It has become a tool of management-speak for consultancies and people who do not really know what they are doing when they use it. We heard evidence from Sir Rob Fry and Commodore Stephen Jermy, who were both involved in decisions in the Ministry of Defence about the deployment to Helmand. They said that it was driven primarily by military concerns, without any strategic thinking going on in Whitehall about the reasons for it or its consequences.

In one rather telling piece of evidence, Peter Hennessy, shortly to be ennobled as Lord Hennessy, says that politicians too often reach for the word “vision”, and that we should be ready to excise that word with our red buzzer, because it is an excuse for a politician to disconnect his aspirations and the sunlit uplands that he dreams of from the reality of the world in which he, and the civil servants who have to deliver the policy that he is seeking to deliver, have to live.

We found that Whitehall Departments each have their own version of strategy, with their own strategy units, but none of them knows what they are meant to contribute to national strategy, if they even knew what that was. That applies to the Treasury in particular. There is no doubt that the main strategic effort of this Government has to be deficit reduction, but I think that, as far as the Treasury is concerned, it is the Government’s sole strategic effort. To have a sole strategic effort is strategic blindness, not strategy. It may be a necessity to have that imperative driving the whole Government at this time, but other strategic priorities have to be recognised.

Strategy is not just about reconciling ends, ways and means. It is not about having a document that is published as a Command Paper and stacked on a shelf afterwards—job done. Strategy is a state of mind. It is a process of thinking that has to be ongoing, has to be done continuously, and has to be continually adapted. A grand strategy, or a national strategy, is about reconciling all the instruments of statecraft to the main ends of promoting the security, peace and prosperity of the people of these islands. It is evident that both the national security strategy and the defence and security review lack strategic thinking—the consistency of analysis and assessment that is necessary to give them strategic coherence.

The problem is that the work simply has not been done, because Whitehall lacks the capacity to do it. There are no people working for the National Security Council or the strategy units of different Departments who are tasked with doing or trained to do such work. Some people say, “Strategists are not trained, they are born”, but that is like saying that a great gymnast is born a gymnast. Of course, someone has to have talent to be a great gymnast or a great concert pianist, but they also have to put in the work and the training in order to be successful before they give that first recital. There used to be a six-month civil service course on strategic thinking; at the moment, it consists of one module of one week’s training.

That lack of strategy is evident in all the contradictions in the documents. The national security strategy says that it is the first duty of Government to protect our people. Well, that is clearly not so. The first priority of Government is not defence. Health, pensions, schools, the Department for International Development, and even the European Union budget have taken priority over the defence of these islands in the comprehensive spending review.

The words “national interest” are sprinkled liberally throughout the documents. They are mentioned 26 times in the national security strategy and six times in the SDSR, and were even mentioned once by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his comprehensive spending review statement—but that was only in connection with justifying the increase in spending on overseas aid. In all those mentions, there is very little definition of what our national interests actually are. When I tabled a parliamentary question to the Prime Minister to ask him, he referred me to paragraph 2.12 of the national security strategy:

“Our security, prosperity and freedom are interconnected and mutually supportive. They constitute our national interest.”

That is really sub-GCSE stuff. If that is the depth of thinking that has gone into an assessment of our national interests, we can hardly expect much coherence from the Government’s documents.

The real inconsistency at the heart of all three of the Government’s reviews is the attempt to reconcile what the Foreign Secretary has said about having no strategic shrinkage and expanding our influence on the world stage with the savage defence cuts that will lead to a reduction of one third in our deployable capability. That is what the defence planning assumptions actually show. There has been an attempt to connect the Foreign Secretary’s vision of our foreign policy with the reality of the deficit reduction programme, but it has not been achieved.

Our Committee concluded that political strategic leadership is essential if we are to have a coherent national strategy. Strategic thinking is vital, and we need to examine all the threats, possibilities and opportunities, not just certain threats and contingencies. Within Whitehall we need challenge, with alternatives coming up through the system and people conducting thorough analysis. Ideally, we want a national centre of strategic assessment, protected for secrecy in a similar way to the intelligence services and able to provide a permanent resource to Ministers.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, given the time limit—perhaps I have bought him a little more time. Would he like to define for the House what he believes national strategy should be?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful for the question, but I will continue. [Interruption.] With respect, that was not the purpose of the Committee’s report. We were not trying to write a national strategy; we were simply trying to advertise the fact that the capacity for developing a coherent national strategy does not exist.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is on to something, and I know that a number of people are examining his report. Why does he think that we as a political class have shrunk to pragmatic reactions, rather than daring ones? Does he think politicians would be rewarded or punished if they dared to be strategic?

[Mr Jenkin]

The right hon. Gentleman asks an interesting question, which has been raised with me before. There are two reasons why politicians fear such a challenge. The first is that politicians who are busy running their Departments do not like people running into their offices with contrary ideas and imperatives. The other reason is that if they ask for alternatives to be developed, they say, “Whatever you do, don’t put it on to a piece of paper and don’t e-mail it to anybody, in case it leaks out.”

We are embarked on a deficit reduction programme that depends on a certain economic out-turn. I just hope that the Treasury has run through the alternative plans B, C and D, in case things do not turn out as we expect. The problem is that we have got into the habit of thinking in closed systems. Economists in particular work in mathematical equations and like tame, predictable problems. Economics is all about prediction and certainty, with the intention of being vindicated by what happens. We live in a world in which problems are not tame but wicked and unpredictable. As we face greater and greater global challenges, we must be more prepared for the unpredictability of the global security, economic and geopolitical environments. We therefore need the capacity for strategy.

I shall give a brief example. I gather that after the global banking crisis started, Her Majesty the Queen asked how nobody had seen that it would happen, given that it was so big. The answer is that one body did foresee a global banking collapse being a major security threat to the UK. It was the advanced research and assessment group, based at Shrivenham, and I am afraid that in March the right hon. Member for Coventry North East as Defence Secretary closed it down, to save £1 million. [Interruption.] It was such a small cut, he did not even realise it was being made. I have no doubt it did not cross his desk. It was shut down because it had made enemies by telling truth to power, and that is the capacity that needs to exist in Whitehall.

16:04

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in the debate. As a new Member, I have to say that there have been a number of distinguished and knowledgeable contributions from both sides of the House.

Along with every other Member, I would like to place on record my admiration for the work of our armed forces and for those who work for the Ministry of Defence, particularly at this time. Since being elected in May, I have had the privilege of meeting constituents who have served, or are serving, in the armed forces. A number of constituents work for the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces in a civilian capacity. Too often—although not this afternoon, I am pleased to say—they are dismissed with pejorative labels, when the reality is that they often do important work of great value to the armed forces, and some do so in dangerous circumstances.

As the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said, the previous Government announced the first ever strategic defence review within a month of taking office in 1997 to determine the future of the UK’s defence policy. At the time, the then Defence Secretary, now Lord Robertson, who is one of my predecessors in the Hamilton part of my constituency, said:

“Hundreds of experts from within the MOD, the Armed Forces and elsewhere have given a great deal of time over the past year to produce the most significant reshaping of our Armed Forces in a generation…It is absolutely right that we should have consulted so widely”.

As the right hon. Gentleman noted earlier, that review took 13 months. It was comprehensive in its scope, forensic in its detail and rooted in the needs and priorities of our defence. It would obviously be foolhardy to measure such exercises by such shallow criteria alone, but the strategic defence review in 1998 ran to 390 pages. Given the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) at the start of the debate, I should say that I am not sure how many of those pages were blank, but I am sure there were a lot fewer of them, proportionately, than in the recent strategic defence and security review.

There is a real contrast between the two exercises, not only in the time taken and the depth of content in the reports, but in the detail and the consultation undertaken, which leads many of us to express real concerns about aspects of the current review and the consequences that we will all have to face as a result.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I would like to point out one contrast between the review then and the review now. We now have the National Security Council, which is bringing in a lot of information from various Departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that improvement on the process that the Labour Government followed between 1997 and 1998?

[Tom Greatrex]

I was just going on to say that there are differences in the circumstances in 1997 and now. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has talked about some of the security aspects of the review, and I am sure that he will go into that further if he catches the Deputy Speaker’s eye.

Obviously, the economic circumstances were more benign in 1997 than they have been recently. Reviewing defence requirements in 2010 is not an unnecessary exercise, but as the Secretary of State’s own words in his correspondence with the Prime Minister exposed, perhaps brutally:

“this process is looking less and less defensible as a proper SDSR and more like a ‘super CSR’”.

The strength of the link between the defence and security review and the comprehensive spending review has been widely acknowledged as a deficiency in the strategic nature of the defence and security review. Given the explicit link to cost, it is even more important that the SDSR approach should have been thorough.

That brings me to a specific concern, which has been raised by a number of constituents. Perhaps the Minister will have time to address it at least in passing in his closing remarks. The decision to rebase our forces from Germany is in principle welcome. The presence of UK armed forces on mainland Europe was at one time necessary, but perhaps the need is no longer so pressing. The aim to return half our personnel from Germany to the UK by 2015 and the remainder by 2020, as page 32 of the review states, is laudable, and I am sure there will be very little opposition. However, the lack of detail on how that will be achieved undermines the nature of the review and its thoroughness. In response to a number of parliamentary questions, the MOD said that more detailed work will be required and that it is too early to say what the financial impact will be. It troubles me that the Government have taken such a decision in the context of a cost-influenced—if not cost-driven—review exercise without considering the cost.

One estimate is that the eventual cost could be many millions, and I believe that the Minister is on record as saying that there will be a long-term saving, but there is little detail on when that saving will be achieved or on the figures on which any projection of savings is based.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I had responsibility for this matter as a Minister and we looked at rebasing from Germany. The estimate back in 1994 when we brought most of the RAF back was something like £5 billion. Under the treaty, there is a responsibility to write to the German Government to inform them that we want to withdraw. I made some inquiries this week and found out that that has not yet happened.

[Tom Greatrex]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which I think brings to bear an important aspect of the matter that has not been addressed—I look to the Minister to do so in his closing remarks.

I am raising the issue of rebasing not to devalue the point that defence and security interests should be paramount, but to illustrate that even when it appears that costs have been prioritised, as in the review, there is insufficient detail. That leads to concerns that other matters have not been considered in sufficient detail. Specifically on rebasing, it is unfair on returning personnel and their families to announce their return to the UK without providing detail to allow them to prepare. What does the Minister say to a family who have lived and worked in Germany for the past 20 years and who now face the prospect of a return to the UK in five or 10 years? On what criteria will decisions on when to return troops be made? What assessment has been made of the suitability of using RAF bases that are no longer used as such for housing Army personnel? There are a series of unanswered questions and we need answers—if not this afternoon, soon.

The detailed work of which the Minister spoke in his parliamentary answer—it was a vague but not necessarily unhelpful or unrevealing answer—should have been carried out before, or at least parallel to, work on the strategic review. An SDSR that takes no account of the cost of rebasing troops from Germany to the UK and no account of where service personnel and their families will be housed, and that gives no detail on exactly how the draw-down of personnel from 20,000 to zero in 10 years will happen, has a gaping hole in the middle of it. I hope the Minister will respond to at least some of those points in his remarks.

16:13

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I should first like to associate myself with the tribute paid to our armed services and their families by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames)—a family member of ours is on a second tour of duty in Afghanistan. I am also delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), because among the key terms in the review are “strategy” and “strategic thinking”. Although I am not an expert in every aspect of the armed forces, nor on every aspect of procurement, I have been involved, through the centre for defence studies, in the international framework and landscape in which our country must operate in future.

Some would say that the last century was dominated by the politics of ideas, whether communism, terrorist ideology or issues of nationhood, including in the Balkans. I believe that this century will be dominated by the politics of economics. The ability to satisfy the demands of domestic audiences will shape international politics, and may well make international engagement more vicious and less high-minded than previously. Even in countries where democracy is not exactly the byword, such as China and Russia, the economic needs of domestic populations will determine international policies and strategies. Britain will be no different.

This more competitive and aggressive economic climate will be based around access to resources and global trade. We are particularly vulnerable to threats to globalised trade: we import 50% of our food, the prices of which are expected to rise by 40% over the next 10 years; we will be importing by sea more than 35% of our gas supplies, while energy costs will rise and be subject to greater politicisation; and imported minerals such as chromium, cobalt and manganese are crucial to the future of our electronics businesses. These minerals are a finite resource, and we will no longer be competing for these resources just with our natural allies. We and the rest of the world are totally interdependent, and the rest of the world is getting a whole lot more acquisitive and competitive.

What are the threats that our defence capacity must address in this economic paradigm? Piracy is one. The Somalis are merely adopters of an old entrepreneurial business. With food price spikes, the increase in energy costs and limited mineral resources, it is calculated that the impact of piracy has only just begun. Last year alone, 217 merchant ships were abducted by pirates, and this was not just confined to the horn of Africa. The British Chamber of Shipping has stated:

“Climate change and scarcity of resources will bring unknown and destabilising influences at sea – as we all fight for vanishing resources.”

However, it is not only sea routes that could be disrupted. I believe that there will be an increase in land piracy. I was involved in the Caucasus and worked on the pipeline policy across central Asia, and I believe that there will be an increase in land piracy, such as energy pipeline hijacking and the illegal sequestration of essential mineral resources, which could fundamentally disrupt our domestic economy.

The MOD has an important role to play, in relation to special forces with specialist knowledge, logistical assistance to support countries whose mineral resources are at risk or vulnerable to criminal or state-sponsored sequestration, the global reach from our aircraft carriers, our frigates playing their part in keeping trade routes open, and minesweepers securing key pinch points across the globe. Neither can we underestimate the diplomatic value of our military when it supports other military forces around the world. It is respected by the world and can secure our trade routes and aid the capacity of other countries to secure theirs.

That is how our constituents will judge the defence of this country. Will there be affordable food on our supermarket shelves? Will we be able to keep the lights on across Britain?

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the defence budget is unique in the way we must view it? It is a form of insurance policy. That being so, we must accept that when the risks increase, so must the premium.

[Laura Sandys]

Most certainly. However, my point is also about how we look at those risks. We must start looking at them from a domestic perspective. We are part of the globalised trade environment, and if globalised trading is threatened, our domestic economic capability, our recovery and everything about our growth is threatened. When we talk to our constituents about the strategic defence review, and the budget that defence requires, we must make the case that it is about ensuring that we do not get into an inflationary cycle of rocketing food prices, that energy arrives in this country safely and without the increased cost of convoys and supply from unstable countries, and that our high-tech businesses can access the critical resources that will keep Britain open for business.

The free movement of global resources will be the prize, and must form part of the strategy. I am encouraged by the strategic defence review, and the fact that at the heart of the illustration of how we take the defence review forward, strategy and policy are guiding us. I hope that we will all take note of the recent report on strategy and on thoughtful planning that has just been published. I believe that we have got the framework right; we must now get the texture right, as well as the context in which this country will have to survive in future.

16:21

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). She rightly widened the debate beyond the defence part of the defence and security review to include other aspects of global policy that affect the security of our country. That is what I intend to do in the brief time available, and I shall try to follow her example in not taking up all my allocation.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) correctly predicted that I am here not to increase my knowledge of defence, although if I had wanted to spend four hours listening to the country’s experts on defence, this would be the place to be. It has been a fascinating debate. As the Chairman of the Defence Committee said, we have in this House people who know a huge amount about the subject.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) on his appointment as shadow Secretary of State, and all the Front Bench team.

In the time available, I want to raise three aspects of the review, the first of which is security and the importance of recognising the counter-terrorism agenda within the wider defence and security strategy. I shall probably make a loyalist speech as far as the Government are concerned, certainly compared with some of the speeches from Conservative Members, because I fully support the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy in the security review.

The third and fourth parts of the review document deal with counter-terrorism and acknowledge this country’s success over several years in joining up various aspects of government. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) is here, because he was co-author of the Home Affairs Committee report that strongly recommended the establishment of the National Security Council, which the previous Government strongly resisted, although I never discovered why. As soon as the new Government took office, they accepted the Committee’s recommendation, and we now have a Committee that spans all Departments and all the experts who sit under the chairmanship of the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister and can draw all the strands together to look at the security of the country as a whole.

My second point is about the counter-terrorism budget, and I believe that the review document preserves that budget. From what I have read of it, there is a commitment to ensuring that the previous Government’s initiatives and the new initiatives proposed in the strategy are pursued. That means—I hope—that the fears of people such as John Yates, the head of counter-terrorism in the Metropolitan police, will not be realised. The House will recall that in a closed session of the Association of Chief Police Officers conference earlier this year, Mr Yates raised the possibility that the counter-terrorism budget would be cut. I think that the review preserves that budget. Indeed, from the opportunities that I and others have had to probe the Government on the issue, I think that that aspect of the home affairs budget is to be preserved, although perhaps the Minister will confirm that when he replies to this debate.

My final point concerns Yemen. I should declare my interest: I was born in Yemen and I spent the first 11 years of my life there. I have led parliamentary delegations to Yemen over my 23 years in this House, and the only reason we have not visited this year is the security situation. However, I plan to go in the next few months with other Members of Parliament, and if anyone would like to come—including you, Mr Deputy Speaker—we would be delighted to take them. My concern is that people outside this House have talked about Yemen as though it were a failed state. It is not a failed state; in fact, it is probably the most democratic of all the states in the middle east, with the exception of Israel. It is, however, a country that is capable of failing, which is why we need to give it enormous support. We need to engage with the Yemeni Government and the Yemeni people. We need to ensure that our international development budget is increased, and not kept to its current levels, because even though Yemen is one of the most beautiful countries on earth, it is also one of the poorest. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—as the branch of al-Qaeda in Yemen is called—is determined to feed on the poverty of the Yemeni people and make the case to them that nobody is interested in what happens in Yemen.

The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) paid tribute to the security services and the authorities at East Midlands airport when the Home Secretary made her statement on Monday. As the constituency MP for the airport, he will know of the concern—indeed, the shock—of local people that a package that started off in Yemen should have gone through Germany and ended up at East Midlands airport. While we have been sitting here over the past four hours of this debate—I am not saying that I have been sitting here for that time; rather, the House itself has been sitting—the French Interior Minister has made a statement. He has said that it is thought that one of the bombs—we do not know whether it was the one on its way to Dubai or the one going to East Midlands airport—was going to be detonated within 17 minutes of its being found.

There is a serious problem, but what do we do to help Yemen? We do not cut off all its freight, and we certainly do not want to stop people coming here from Yemen. Instead, we need to give Yemen the security equipment that we promised at the London conference in January. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a conference of the Friends of Yemen, who were given certain assurances, one of which was that equipment would be sent to San’a and Aden. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head, but the answer is yes, and other Ministers have confirmed that to me. There was an assurance that security equipment would be given to Yemen, so that it could perform the task that is being performed at our airports in this country, thereby preventing packages of that kind and any passengers carrying such devices from leaving Yemen.

My message to the Government is that if we are talking about the security of our country, we have to remember that security does not stop at our borders. The hon. Member for South Thanet talked about piracy off Somalia, another country that is in great difficulties. What do we do? We do not leave those countries on their own; we engage with them and ensure that they have support. As part of the review, I hope that we will understand that issue. If we do, not only will the people of Yemen and the world be safer; more importantly, the people of our country will be, too.

16:30

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this extremely important debate.

I thank the Secretary of State and his colleagues for the work they have done on the strategic defence and security review in extremely difficult circumstances. It has been said on many occasions that the state of the public finances, together with under-investment in defence over a considerable period, has put this Administration in a near-impossible position, yet the outcomes of the SDSR are tough and realistic but forward-looking. The SDSR and the national security strategy have, by and large, been well received. I think that their common theme is flexibility and adaptability.

My hon. Friends the Members for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) and for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said that, after this debate and its due consideration, it ultimately comes down to the individuals who are on the front line. That being the case, I want to talk about defence training.

Naturally, I was disappointed that the Metrix consortium plan for a single tri-service defence training establishment in St Athan in my constituency was not viable. I am pleased, however, that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have said that St Athan remains the preferred location for the defence training solution. Decisions such as this cannot be taken in isolation, and the communities surrounding St Athan recognise that fact.

I have had the opportunity to question in private and in more detail the Secretary of State and some of his colleagues, and I am grateful for their responses, some of which it would be inappropriate to share here. I have gained a better understanding of the reasons for the failure of the Metrix consortium. I look forward to further meetings with the Secretary of State and his colleagues to try to establish what St Athan can do to put itself in a strong position as we go forward with the defence review. As a strong supporter of the plan, I am disappointed that Metrix could not deliver a commercially robust proposal within the desired time scale. Clearly, I would have welcomed a £14 billion investment in my constituency, but it must also be right for the nation and for the nation’s security needs.

Questions have been raised by constituents about the appropriateness of providing training through a private finance initiative scheme under a 30-year contract. This raises and highlights two key points, the first of which is whether defence training should be conducted by a private firm. I am a fan of PFI in general. The transfer of risk is a key benefit of PFI, but in defence terms the public purse will always have to carry the risk and bail out any failure. That raises questions about whether PFI is appropriate for defence.

The second issue is the term of the contract. The public purse will be hit hard unless all details are specified and agreed at the signing of the agreement. It is difficult to know what will be all the requirements over a 30-year contract; our technical training requirements 30 years ago were very different from what we need now. That demonstrates the difficulty of planning over a 30-year period in a PFI contract, especially as the nature of the risks we face these days changes at a much quicker pace. It would be useful to have the Secretary of State’s and the Minister’s views on the timing and particularly on the use of PFI for defence projects and, most specifically, for defence training.

The training needs of the forces still need to be addressed. The reasons for the previous Government’s defence training review remain. We need to offer our forces the best training possible to protect themselves and our nation when fighting in the line of duty and to equip them with transferable skills when they leave the services. To my mind, that is an essential element of the military covenant. The principle and benefits behind the tri-service training model are still true, and the run-down state of training establishments, as inherited from the previous Administration, is still a matter of concern and needs to be addressed.

The social and economic demands of today’s trainees are far greater than they were in the past, and we need to match their expectations. The positive influence over the different cultures of each individual service that a tri-service facility would bring can only be beneficial. It was interesting to note from the UK-French security co-operation data that there is a plan to develop a joint expeditionary force involving all three services. When I refer to a joint force, I mean that it would involve all three services; it would not necessarily involve the French. Training will be provided. The proposal underlines the importance of co-operation between the services. We also need to offer transferable skills that members of the forces can use when they leave Her Majesty’s service.

It was alarming to read that even in 1999, when the previous Government launched the defence training review—incidentally, the fact that the process began 11 years ago highlights the delays created by that Government—site running costs represented between 40% and 50% of the total costs of the training establishment. That is clearly not efficient spending. Training is currently delivered at nine key locations. A considerable amount of technical training is common to all services, and it obviously does not make sense for identical functions to be delivered over several locations.

[Mr Havard]

I was going to ask the hon. Gentleman earlier what he had been told by Ministers, in secret or otherwise, about why the St Athan plan would not go ahead, but as his speech has unfolded it has become clear what the excuses are. Given that he agrees that St Athan should still be the preferred site and given that PFI is not the right way of financing it, has he received any undertaking that it will be financed by general spend from the Ministry of Defence?

[Alun Cairns]

The Secretary of State made clear in his written statement that there would be a statement about defence training by the spring, and that written statement specified St Athan as the preferred location for the defence training solution. We could not ask for a clearer statement than that. However, I also benefited from meetings with Ministers, including the Secretary of State. One of those meetings, incidentally, was offered on an all-party basis, but unfortunately Labour Members chose not to turn up. Obviously, information would have been shared with the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues if he was unable to attend himself.

[Mr Havard]

The hon. Gentleman may be satisfied with that, but I think that the position is still very unclear. It is also unclear where St Athan will fit in with the training that is required elsewhere in the country. It seems that the hon. Gentleman has been handed a Confederate dollar. A better explanation is needed.

[Alun Cairns]

If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) had not left after a bit of a spat because there was a mix-up over the room changes, that information would have been shared with him. It is not necessarily appropriate to share such information in public, although I have been reassured that more information will be given in public as time goes on.

There are also significant opportunities to introduce modern training methods involving the latest technologies, thus enhancing the capabilities of our forces. I would, however, caution against centralising technical training on a single site, as Metrix proposed. I believe that that would pose a security risk that could be managed better on a small number of sites than in a single location. We need a defence capacity that involves not only appropriate equipment, but the training flexibility that makes it possible to respond to an ever-changing environment.

Let me return to the subject of St Athan. As the Secretary of State has pointed out on several occasions, its infrastructure, facilities and location won through during the last consideration. Preliminary site works have been conducted, and planning permissions are in place. Those factors remain, as do the needs of the forces. I look forward to the spring, when the Secretary of State will outline the next steps—within the financial envelope, of course.

There was no problem with the site. It was Metrix, the developer, that failed. However, I hope that the Secretary of State and the Ministry of Defence will recognise the support that the communities in and around St Athan were prepared to give, and the compromises that they were prepared to make. That good will remains, on the basis that the St Athan facility will be used to its full potential.

16:39

[Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The debate has been excellent, but I do not believe that it has addressed the aircraft carriers issue in as much detail as it deserves, and I hope to remedy that.

When the Secretary of State and others discuss the nuclear deterrent, great emphasis is placed on the need for a continuous at-sea presence, yet in respect of Britain’s global reach by aircraft carrier we are apparently happy to settle for a presence every now and again. We are building two aircraft carriers but one is to be mothballed, so the second will not be available when it is in refit—or, indeed, when the French are seeking to use it. Therefore, we will have only occasional use of our own aircraft carriers: for us to end up with part-use of one when we are building two does not seem to me to represent the best use of money.

There is no guarantee that we will ever have much access to the French carriers. We will be able to use them only when the French are not using them, or when they agree. There will, of course, also be times when a carrier is being refitted. Therefore, although we are going to the expense of building two carriers, we cannot receive a guarantee that we will have a continuous at-sea global presence by aircraft carrier.

In defending the implementation of the “cats and traps” policy, the Defence Secretary has mentioned that we want to have interoperability with the United States. However, it is unclear whether any agreement has been struck with the United States about our being able to borrow one of its carriers or use its decks, or whether the United States will want to use our carriers if it ends up one short. There is no point in arguing that we want to have “cats and traps” for the sake of interoperability with the United States unless some deal has been done whereby that will be a benefit—but no mention has been made of that so far.

When the Minister sums up, will he tell us whether catapults are to be fitted to both aircraft carriers? If not, we will have aircraft designed for catapults and traps but only one aircraft carrier they can fly off. On the other hand, if we fit catapults to both carriers, we will end up spending half a billion pounds fitting them to mothballed aircraft carriers. Neither of those options seems to me to represent an effective use of money. It would be helpful if the Minister were to tell us whether the French or the United States had asked us in any way, shape or form to fit catapults and traps to our aircraft carriers, or did this situation arise simply as a consequence of the Air Force’s obsession with fast jets?

The Government seem to have an unhealthy obsession with fast jets, and to have inadequately appreciated the additional capability provided to us by vertical and short take-off and landing aircraft. Yes, it is true that they carry lighter weights and can fly less far, but they are also much more effective in providing close air support, as our troops who have served in the Falklands and Afghanistan can testify. As the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), said, we are giving up this capability not just in the short term but permanently; if we scrap the Harriers or do not upgrade them in future, we will lose that entire capability. To base our entire fast jet defence structure on the concept that we must have generation five because at some point in the future somebody else might have it is to focus too much on one element of need. It would be useful if the Minister told us how much each of the “cats and traps” will cost, because if he does not have that figure to hand, this would appear to be a leap in the dark.

The lack of political balance in how the British media treat the various parties is nowhere more glaringly obvious than in the discussion about aircraft carriers without aircraft. Can we imagine the meal the press and television would have made if a Labour Government had for one moment proposed that we should have aircraft carriers without aircraft? I am not necessarily the brightest, but I recognise that the secret is in the name: the concept of an “aircraft carrier” means something that carries aircraft. The fact that we will have aircraft carriers without aircraft—and that the Government have got away almost scot-free with it—represents something of an imbalance. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister announce that he has devised a new system of guns without bullets, rockets without explosives and so on. Those are equally ludicrous suggestions.

The Government have been insufficiently radical in examining structures. I understand that under their proposals the joint strike fighter will be flown off the carriers by joint RAF/Fleet Air Arm groups, crews, pilots and so on. In those circumstances, why do we need a Fleet Air Arm? Why do we need to have RAF pilots flying off aircraft carriers? That is an example of the sort of culture of defence in the forces. I served on the Public Accounts Committee for many years and we constantly got the feeling that the service personnel at the top were all far too cosy, that it was all too much of an old pals act, that they were drawn from too narrow a social base and that they were all scratching each other’s backs. Only 7% of children go to a private school, yet 90% of top generals did—so it is difficult to accept that the forces represent the society that they seek to defend.

Thinking back to my days in the borders, I recall that in some towns the reaction to any proposed change was “Aye been”, on the basis that things had aye been like that, so must not change. Although we must be proud of traditions, we should not be prisoners of tradition. There is an unwillingness on the part of the Government to challenge some of the existing structures, be it the Fleet Air Arm or the need to maintain an RAF. There is no evidence that some of those more drastic options have been fully discussed or thought through.

I wish to touch on the defence industrial strategy, because there has been a lot of discussion about the terms of business agreement—TOBA—between British Aerospace and the Ministry of Defence. That is an ideal example of good practice, rather than bad practice. People could haggle about the detail of the deal, but the concept of the Government making a plan with a firm in the private sector that gives it a guarantee of work for a period that will allow it to invest, in both capital resources and personnel, in return for that flow of work is sensible. We cannot go on with a system of simply buying off the shelf—one here, one there and one somewhere else. Without question if we had not built aircraft carriers we would never have had the capacity to build Type 45 destroyers. That capacity would simply have been lost, because the work force would have been dispersed.

I hope that when the Government come to examine the defence industrial strategy, or whatever their equivalent of that is, they will overcome their tendency simply to buy the cheapest on all occasions, but will look forward and identify what industrial and commercial capacities we want to retain for the long term.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the points that he has been making about the skills base. That is particularly important in Plymouth, where proposed changes in base porting and the removal of frigates mean that Babcock will have a huge trough in its work load, which will cause us real problems. Does he share my concern, and my belief that those factors should have been considered before the SDSR, not after it?

[Mr Davidson]

Yes, I do share that view. The Government, rightly in many ways, have said—the previous Government said this too—that defence is not simply a job creator for people on the home front, so to speak. The question of jobs and, more importantly, continuing capabilities is a valid part of this whole discussion and negotiation. We could probably always buy almost any individual item more cheaply somewhere else, but if we do that we will end up beholden to someone else for everything. We must identify the capacities we want to retain, as Lord Drayson’s defence industrial strategy did, and then be prepared to enter long-term agreements with suppliers for them. That will involve manpower and personnel planning to avoid peaks and troughs.

In the minute that remains, I want to ask the Minister about base closures. The Government must start making commitments fairly quickly, not only to individual locations but about what they are prepared to do when bases are shut. Will they promise Kinloss or Lossiemouth that they will clean up the land sites and spend money on infrastructure and making those sites available for firms to move in, or are they simply going to pull up sticks and move away? Many of those communities have served the country well for some substantial time, and I hope that we will reward them appropriately, or at least that we will not leave them swinging in the wind.

My final point is about our agreement with the French. I hope that we are going to be as hard-headed about it as they are, and that it will not mean that they take over our industrial capacity rather than our being able to contribute to joint developments.

16:51

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I thank you for imposing a time limit, Mr Deputy Speaker. That is the first cut of this Parliament that I welcome, because it means that everyone who wishes to speak will have the opportunity to do so.

Let me start by paying tribute to the soldiers of 16 Air Assault Brigade from the Colchester garrison, who are currently deployed for the third time in Helmand province along with others from Wattisham, Woodbridge and various other bases around the UK who are part of the brigade. I also pay tribute to the people back at the garrison, including the families and all the support units. It is fantastic to see the Army welfare provisions and safety nets come into play when 3,000 men and women, but predominantly male soldiers, are deployed overseas—previously in Iraq and now in Afghanistan.

Given the events of the past 48 hours in the United States of America, we should bear in mind that in two years’ time there will be another presidential election, which will be three years before 2015 and the proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan. I have a real fear that the next President of the United States will be not so much a Republican as a Tea Party headbanger Republican. That is a serious issue for the United Kingdom in relation to our joint defence activities.

I welcome the fact that the coalition Government have increased the number of helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles going to Afghanistan. I urged the previous Government to do that, because UAVs are a very important part of the efforts to identify insurgents.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is a bit rich to suggest that the Government have increased the number of helicopters, given that the order that had been placed for 22 new Chinooks has been reduced to 10—and I must add that the answer I got this week on that subject was wrong.

[Bob Russell]

I am delighted with whichever Government provides additional resources to 16 Air Assault Brigade. If the previous Government gave additional resources, I say well done to them, and if the coalition Government have given them, I say well done to them. What our troops need are more resources to help them. In that regard, I was delighted to spend some time with 16 Air Assault Brigade, before some of them went to Afghanistan on their third deployment, on their improvised explosive device training. That was a very worthwhile exercise.

The last aspect of domestic military policy that I want to address is the Army housing modernisation programme. This is an issue that I have been raising with the previous Government for the past 13 years. I sincerely hope that matters will be resolved during the lifetime of this coalition Government. We cannot expect to send our brave men and women to serve overseas when their families back at home live in accommodation that is not up to an acceptable standard. I praise the previous Government for Merville barracks, even though, like others, I do not approve of the private finance initiative. None the less, the barracks is of the standard that we should expect for all our military personnel, and its married quarters—an area in which we are lacking—are also of the quality that we would wish to see.

I shall conclude with the Falklands and related matters in the south Atlantic. The only air bridge between the UK and the Falklands is Ascension Island, but there is another island in the south Atlantic to which this country owes a debt of gratitude, and which has the same strategic importance in the 21st century as it did in the 19th and 20th centuries. I refer to the island of St Helena. There are plans for an airport on the island, and it would be of strategic as well as domestic and economic importance, because it would provide an alternative air bridge between the UK and the Falklands.

As we have heard today, the Argentines still cast covetous eyes on the Falkland Islands, and there is an economic case for placing all the islands of the south Atlantic in one economic and military federation. They are all British overseas territories, with British citizens, and just as successive Governments have protected the Falkland Islands, we should realise that there are other islands in the south Atlantic, too. Ascension Island is a crucial element in Britain’s interests in the area, and it comes under the jurisdiction of St Helena, so I urge the Government to give every support to an airport on St Helena, because of its strategic defence importance.

16:57

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

As a new member of the Defence Committee and, indeed, a relatively new Member of this House, I do not approach these matters as an expert. However, having listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), I contribute with some trepidation as a former strategy consultant. He seemed to say that, essentially, there is a lack of strategic thinking throughout government. I suspect that the real problem is the interaction with strategic thinkers and politicians. That is what has bedevilled the process.

I shall make four observations and then some brief concluding comments. Overall, the conclusions of the strategic defence and security review were the best that could have been achieved in the time available and in the circumstances that existed. Legacy issues were the first instrumental factor in defining the outcome of the SDSR, and I make that point broadly, without any intention of launching into a partisan attack. It is absolutely clear that over the period from 1997 to 2007, spending on defence stayed at broadly the same level—2.5% of GDP. However, the number of commitments grew massively, and in that context it was going to be difficult not to delay some decisions or over-spend. The right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), the former Defence Secretary, this afternoon disputed the idea of over-spend, but in reality, with that commitment and with the unintended expenditure that emerged, there was bound to be a problem.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am interested that the hon. Gentleman should be using 1997 as his starting point. Does he agree that some of the cost pressures on the procurement budget were down to the incompetence of previous Conservative Governments? I am thinking particularly of how Nimrod was procured and of programmes such as HMS Astute, to name but one other.

[John Glen]

Quite possibly, but we can make cheap points or look at the fundamental problems that go back more than 20 years.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) was looking at the respective contexts for the reviews—the one in 1997-98 and the one this year. The fundamental difference is the economic context. As the chief economic adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair said, the Government had a golden economic legacy. That was not the case this time, and that is a reality. We talk about strategic reviews, but they are within the context of the reality of the spending environment. There was no way in which the spending review could have been completed at a time scale different from that of the SDSR. That is just the reality, it seems to me.

There seems to be a legacy, going back to ’97 and beyond, in which decisions were delayed. The decision last year to slow the rate of the QE class carriers was absolutely the right thing to have done in the context of the bigger pressures to release money for Afghanistan, but that will mean that £600 million in extra spending will be required later. The top 15 equipment programmes are £8.8 billion over budget, with a 32-year cumulative delay. These are real challenges.

As a layperson, I look at the situation of Nimrod. I look at how the number of aircraft ordered was reduced from 21 to nine and the cost per aircraft was increased by 200%. When I also consider that it was eight years late, I see that there are fundamental problems in the whole system of government.

The second factor is making Afghanistan the No. 1 priority in the review. We can say with some confidence that the decisions made in the SDSR were completely necessary and absolutely right in respect of our commitments—more than 9,000 troops in the theatre of war. That costs a lot of money. The problem of all defence reviews is that they seek to address the long-term strategic issues. That, however, can never be done in isolation; it has to deal with current realities.

There will be some positive consequences. Those listening to the debate who have family members in Afghanistan can be assured that the full range of training and equipment is now available. Support for families is as it should be and the previous Government took good steps in that direction during their last year in power. The doubling of the operational allowance is also to be welcomed.

I am trying to be as quick as I can. The third issue that I would like to touch on is procurement. Procurement issues are systemic; there is no clear balance of power—or the balance is not right—between the MOD and the defence industry. The relationship is probably flawed. I hope that, as we see the defence industrial strategy emerge—after the SDSR, unhelpfully—we will have a serious examination of what is going on and what is required. I fear that sometimes the political pressures that obviously influence the MOD’s decision making have led it to prop up industry ahead of making the best decisions in defence terms.

I acknowledge the contribution made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson); of course there needs to be an understanding of what long-term capabilities we need to invest in, but that must not always be as a substitute for making the right defence decisions for our country’s long-term interests. Often, we do not have the same person managing the procurement process. There is a change of scope and a lack of ownership. The MOD suffers and the taxpayer suffers, too. That is a critical issue that needs to be addressed.

My fourth point is about the capacity to change, which does not exist across the services in sufficient quantity. One commentator over the summer referred to the SDSR debate—or discussion, or negotiations—as a knife fight in a phone box, which is a pretty horrible analogy but one borne out by an assessment in the immediate aftermath of the SDSR announcements of which services won. I do not think that that is helpful in edifying the consequences and impact on the defence of this nation.

Let us consider some of the specifics. We have heard a lot this afternoon about the decision on the Harriers, but my concern would be about the extent of that gap in capability and how long it will take us to get the capability in place to fill that gap. Will the Tornadoes be viable for the length of time that they will potentially need to fill the gap and how much money will be required to fill some of the gaps? There is a great deal of supposition about how some of these things might work out. That might be from necessity—it is absolutely right to say that the financial pressures have been dominant in the entire decision making process—but some real concerns about capabilities that might be lacking in the near term need to be addressed.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) said, by 2020 more than a third of our energy will be delivered by water-borne means, particularly liquefied gas. We have seen the emergence of piracy on our seas. Such things might proliferate and it is difficult to determine the risk that will face our country. I am concerned that there will be a delay in the readiness of capabilities.

It is absolutely clear that there needs to be greater capacity among the services to harmonise—for example, to harmonise the frequency of deployment, particularly as the Navy and the RAF will be working more closely together. As significant reforms of allowances will need to take place, it is important that that is done with care and fairness. I was talking to a constituent just a few weeks ago who has moved with his family nine times in the past 11 years. I hope that when decisions are made about the continuation of the CEA—the continuity of education allowance—they will be made fairly so that people can have continuity in their education. That seems to me an appropriate need, not a perk.

The SDSR could never have achieved all that it set out to achieve, because of the legacy, the challenges of procurement and the real issues to do with managing a budget that was pretty restricted. It was always going to be difficult, but I think there are grounds for optimism. I commend the Secretary of State for fighting hard and doing the best he could in extremely difficult circumstances.

17:08

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

I have found this a very interesting debate, and I was particularly interested in the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) on the subject of the Tornado. One thing that the defence review got right was the retention of the Tornado fleet, not least because of the role that that aircraft is performing in Afghanistan. I know that there is a discussion going on about the future base of the Tornado, and I want to suggest—[Hon. Members: “That it stays at Marham.”] The right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) have the right idea about where my speech is going.

I understand that there will have to be a reduction in the number of squadrons, and it is right that we look at the future basing of the Tornado. However, it would be a grave mistake, both financially and militarily, for that capacity to move away from RAF Marham. The brave men and women of 2, 9, 13 and 31 Squadrons have all been fighting in Afghanistan. Recently, 2 Squadron returned to much fanfare in the streets of Swaffham. Although Air Force personnel are very popular locally, nationally the role that they have played in Afghanistan is not well known. Quite a lot of it comprises covert operations that are not necessarily publicised. They also give support to our ground forces through close air support, shows of presence and shows of force, which the Tornado is capable of doing at any time of day and in any weather conditions, unlike any other aircraft. In addition, they do vital intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance work. I was privileged to be shown around the air base, where I saw the tactical imagery intelligence wing and the raptors that are installed on the Tornado fleet, which are very high-tech and innovative. These images are used not only by our forces but by our allies, and they are forming a very important part of the combat striking that is going on in Afghanistan.

I want to pay particular attention to the engineering and maintenance work that takes place at RAF Marham. That work used to take place at eight different bases but has been centralised at Marham. I understand that it is a third more efficient than the US equivalent because of all the work that has gone into ensuring that it is more cost-effective. I have heard—this is just an estimate—that it would cost £50 million to move that engineering capacity to an alternative location. Given the deficit situation that we face, it would be a grave mistake to move it for political reasons when it makes economic sense to base it at Marham.

RAF Marham is also in an excellent strategic position in relation to the conflict in Afghanistan. Unlike other bases, there is no need for in-flight refuelling in order to get to the forward operating base in Cyprus, because Marham has a very long airstrip that is suitable for all varieties of aircraft, and it is near to Lakenheath and Mildenhall—key bases for our allies.

The maintenance and engineering functions are very important for our local skills base in west Norfolk. I recently visited Swaffham Hamond’s high school, where several pupils are talking about joining the RAF and getting involved in that engineering work. This is an area with relatively high unemployment, where there is not a great variety of highly skilled jobs, and RAF Marham contributes greatly in that respect. If it were to be closed and moved elsewhere, that would remove a key source of aspiration from the local economy. The employment figures for King’s Lynn and west Norfolk unfortunately show that the area has 7.4% unemployment. The other base that is being suggested for the Tornado is Moray in Scotland. That area has 4.8% unemployment, so there is much higher unemployment in the Marham area than in its Scottish equivalent. I want to add that to the debate.

It is not only right economically and militarily for the Tornado to be based at Marham; it makes more sense in terms of employment and the long-term impact that removing such a base could have on the constituency. There has been much discussion about the potential impact of closing two bases in Scotland—Kinloss and Lossiemouth. However, bases in the area surrounding Marham have also been heavily hit. Cottesmore and Wittering are under threat because of what is happening with the Harrier. Coltishall was closed in 2006, and that had a very considerable impact on Norfolk. East Anglia has not been immune from cuts over this period and is, as I say, an area of higher deprivation than the equivalent part of Scotland. Instead of looking to relocate the engineering facilities that I have mentioned from RAF Marham, which has a very good cost base, we should look to its being a future base for fast jets such as the joint strike fighter. I am very keen to discuss that further with the Ministry of Defence.

17:14

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

The long-awaited and long-overdue SDSR has been an extremely difficult task, and I place on record my thanks to the Secretary of State, his team and all those who have worked on the review. Portsmouth base alone considered 900 options over the summer, and I pay tribute to the Navy and civilian staff for doing an incredible job in a very short time.

I am delighted that the review has not been sea-blind and has shown an appreciation of the role that the Navy plays and its contribution to other Departments such as the Foreign Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury. That contribution is not just about our country’s security but about our entire way of life—our ability to trade, our hydrographical and meteorological services, tackling crime and providing help in times of crisis. However, the breadth of its role should never detract from the depth of its contribution to the defence of the realm.

To see the scale of the challenge that the SDSR presented, one just has to examine the disparity between what the 1998 strategic review suggested for the Navy and the current number of ships in service. For example, it suggested 12 Type 45 destroyers, and we are building only six. In future, to close the gap between need and affordability and to preserve the development and maintenance capabilities that we want in our bases and dockyards, we need a planned but flexible approach to procurement and to maximise every opportunity to increase UK exports. We must get away from small orders built at lightning speed, which short-change the Navy and the yard and place stress on the defence budget. I am delighted that we will focus more on industrial strategy and defence diplomacy, and I look forward to the opportunity that the Type 26 will bring to improve procurement practices and increase exports.

We should remember that we have not sold a new Navy-designed ship abroad since the 1970s, but it is achievable. We are already selling standard kit to the US navy, and British gas turbines will power the DDG-1000 destroyer and are already powering the USS Freedom. I urge the defence team to focus on trade deals where they are viable and strategically advantageous.

During the course of the review there has been much discussion of the inflexibility of the carrier contracts, as well as costly delays to the programme. Many Members have formed the view that that is why we are to have the carriers. I wish to use this opportunity to set the record straight. There are considerable running, docking and maintenance costs attached to having the carriers, and I do not believe we would have them if we had not concluded that they were absolutely necessary. I echo the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), who said that we needed two carriers if we were to have them available every day of the year. However, that can be no excuse for poor procurement and inflexible contracts, even for vital items.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is absent from our Benches today. Sadly, he is attending the funeral of the late Councillor Alan Shotter, his friend and election agent. If he were here, he might well be arguing that we should lock ourselves into a contract for Trident’s replacement, such is his concern about the matter. I know that he would be pressing the Secretary of State on that matter and joining in the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East wrote in a recent article that

“time and again, we hear the facile refrain that complex modern weapons systems are ‘legacy programmes, irrelevant to the threats we face now’.”

We have heard that said about the carriers and about Trident during the review. I know that my hon. Friend will continue to make the case for early sign-up to Trident and remind the House why continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence is so important, and I will continue to remind the House of the importance of carrier strike.

The arguments that we heard over the summer that carriers would be deployed only in the event of a world war are plain wrong, and ignore the fact that we have deployed carrier strike force in every humanitarian and conflict situation that we care to mention—the Falklands, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. It has extended Britain’s reach into land-locked countries across the globe. Even when the carrier fleet has not been pressed into action, its constant presence has served as a deterrent to those who would harm us and our interests. I urge the defence team to do all they can to plug the gap in the carrier strike force, which some defence analysts have said has existed since 2005.

I want the House to be excited about the new carriers. I am disappointed about the retirement of the Harrier, and I note the Secretary of State’s comments on the matter. The decommissioning of the Ark Royal is also sad. Her battle honours are many, most notably in Iraq in 1993, and they will never be forgotten. However, the QE class carriers will continue her legacy. For those not familiar with those amazing ships, the Ark Royal can fit comfortably on one of their flight decks. They are amazing, and I urge all Members of the House to take every opportunity to see them being built—built with great skill in British yards. They are well able to meet the challenges of this unpredictable world. They are multi-use, they provide value for money and they will last 50 years. We will use them, they will prevent conflict and they will lead our response if and when the most dread circumstances arise.

The green light for both carriers to be built gives Portsmouth base the stability to develop further as the home of the surface fleet. The SDSR and countless other studies have always concluded that Portsmouth should be the home port. Hon. Members who take The Times will be familiar with my favourite political sketch writer’s column. In her coverage of Monday night’s well-attended Adjournment debate, she confused the names of the base port, Faslane, and the maintenance dock, Rosyth, to produce Forsyth. Whether that was by design or error, it was very apt, because for many years we have had Scottish Members of Parliament and Portsmouth Members of Parliament yelling “Higher, higher” or “Lower, lower” at successive Secretaries of State in debates about where the carriers’ home base should be. Although I am a fan of Brucie, I am glad that we can draw a line underneath that and that Portsmouth will be the carriers’ home port.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Did my hon. Friend share my alarm when she saw the headlines about two weeks ago saying that Portsmouth might close down? Did she think that basing the carriers there would make that much less likely, until she decided that the story was something to do with a football club?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Over the summer, there have been headlines about Portsmouth and many other bases, which has caused great stress for people working in the industries affected, and I am glad that they now have a clear path and reassurance. I never worry about such headlines about Portsmouth, because I know the excellent partnership that exists there between the private sector and the Royal Navy. However, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the carriers now give us the green light to develop services further.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not also recognise that Plymouth has a significant role to play in the defence of our country? Making sure that we have an amphibious fleet will be important.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Absolutely. One great outcome of the defence review is that all three of our Navy bases—Faslane, included—will have a role in servicing the Royal Navy as we go forward.

In Portsmouth, we have the work force, the suppliers, the accommodation, the training and the supply chain facilities. It should not be forgotten that we also have the correct weather conditions to enable safe transit to and from the open sea. As we go forward to discuss the maintenance of the carriers, I very much wish Rosyth the best of luck in securing maintenance work, but a lot will have to be done in Portsmouth because of the opportunistic nature of the refit work, which results from the operational pressures on carriers. It also means that we can now progress in generating our own power and enhance our refit and maintenance services. The excellence of that unique partnership between the Royal Navy and the private sector means not only that Portsmouth will remain the home of the Royal Navy, but that it is fast becoming the port of choice for navies around the world. The city should be incredibly proud of that achievement. It has nothing to fear from an off-the-shelf approach to procurement, such is its excellence in build, refit and training.

I shall end with an appeal to all hon. Members. Now the SDSR is over, we should continue to keep defence high on our agenda. This is the starting point. Much is yet to be decided and we must ensure that as this Government put the country back on a financial even keel, we continue to make the case for excellence in procurement and maintaining defence budgets, for the benefit of servicemen and servicewomen and our country. Although we will not reopen the SDSR, we must ensure that we fully understand the reasons for the decisions that have been taken, such as on the Harrier, better to understand what future decisions might be. As we do so, as I am sure all colleagues will, we would do well to remember the Ark Royal’s motto: “Zeal Does Not Rest”.

17:25

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

We have had a good debate, including 15 contributions from Back Benchers. As one of them said earlier, the debate has been well informed.

May I begin by paying tribute to the men and women of our armed forces and their families? It was a privilege to work with them as a Minister. May I also say a big thanks to the civil servants with whom I worked? They have been unfairly targeted as the problem, when in fact they are dedicated individuals without whose work we could not project the operations and power that we have in support of our armed forces. May I also put on record the thanks of Labour Members to Sir Jock Stirrup and Bill Jeffrey at the MOD? It was ironic that the Defence Secretary congratulated those two individuals when he was the one who basically announced their departure in the Sunday newspapers the week before the official announcement. Those two people were committed to the defence of this country, and I put on record my thanks to them.

The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) raised the issue of cadets and the university training squadrons. As a Minister, I had responsibility for those, and I met some fantastic individuals who greatly benefited from those organisations. I put on record my thanks to the volunteers who work hard—unpaid—in the cadet force throughout the country. They are a large volunteer army who work to support young people. Those young people not only experience military life, but take that discipline and structure into their lives.

The hon. Gentleman referred to reserves. I am a little disappointed that there will be yet another review of reserves. The previous Government reviewed reserves, and it would have been interesting to see the implementation of that work. I am also disappointed that there are as yet no terms of reference for the next review. It will be interesting to see how reserve forces fit into the restructure of the Army.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his call for the Government to take a more purple approach. However, in my experience—perhaps he shares it—the biggest problem on occasions for Defence Ministers is inter-service rivalry at chief level on different programmes. He also reiterated and repeated the point about a £38 billion black hole. As on many things, this Government believe that if they repeat something often enough, it will become fact, but I have now tabled a question to ask where that figure comes from. It has been a convenient cover for the spending cuts review.

If we look at last year’s National Audit Office report, we see that the figure on the procurement side could only be between £6 billion and £36 billion. The only way to get to the figure of £38 billion is to apply a cash freeze over the next 10 years. In addition, the figure of £38 billion would apply only if we had to pay for equipment tomorrow, which people know we do not. That figure has been a convenient cover for some of the things that the MOD is implementing.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) made a good contribution. I thank him for the support he gave me when he was Defence Secretary. It is interesting and strange to hear Government Members now thanking and praising him for being such a good Defence Secretary, given that last summer he was being pilloried by every national newspaper and Conservative Members. However, he has been rightly rehabilitated. He raised issues concerning Afghanistan, including the date of 2015, which was plucked out of thin air by the Prime Minister. It is important that we have a conditions-based draw-down from Afghanistan, and it is clear that if, come 2015, we need to retain that combat role for longer, that ought to be our position. It would be a huge mistake if the hard work, dedication and sacrifice put in so far in order to make progress in Afghanistan were to be jeopardised for purely political purposes. That would be wrong.

My right hon. Friend made an interesting and important point about the withdrawal of Harrier and short take-off and vertical landing capacity, which leads to another issue raised by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson). I am glad that today the latter did not call for a third, fourth or fifth carrier, as he normally does. However, he summed up the matter quite well: they are called “aircraft carriers”. It is in the name! They should have aircraft on them.

Over the past few weeks, the Government have tried again to throw mud and confuse the issue by saying that the contract entered into for the carriers was a wicked plot by the last Labour Government, and that it was a bad deal. That continued yesterday with this nonsense from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when he said to the Treasury Select Committee that this was an “unusual contract”. It was not an unusual contract at all; it was a complex contract. It was exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West talked about: it was about restructuring the shipbuilding industry in this country to ensure our continuing sovereign capacity. However, it is now convenient to demonise the contract for political reasons.

The contract is also supported by BAE Systems. By chance, I have a letter sent by Mr Ian King to the Prime Minister when the review was ongoing, pointing out that the contract represented a long-term restructuring of the maritime manufacturing capacity in the UK and that BAE Systems had already invested about £500 million of its own shareholder money in it. Clearly, he sent the letter because he was worried about the Government cancelling the contract for the second carrier. The final paragraph of the letter reiterates the problem with the Government’s approach to the review. Instead of having an all-encompassing review involving the industry, it tended to excluded people. He wrote:

“But I fully stand behind it and would welcome the opportunity, which we have not had, to present this to you”

to explain the reasoning. That has been the problem with the review, unlike our approach, which was about involving industry, Opposition parties, academia and others. Instead, we have had a cuts review, which has been Treasury-led and has led to some very short-term and dangerous decisions.

[Mr Davidson]

Does my hon. Friend accept that had the second carrier been cancelled, the results would have been the closure of the shipyards and a permanent loss of capacity, and Britain would no longer have had the ability to build the Type 26?

[Mr Jones]

That is an interesting intervention. I would have to refer to Mr King’s letter, which states that if the second carrier had been cancelled, the shipbuilding yards would have closed by 2012, removing all capability for future naval shipbuilding in this country. We have to stop the spin and excuse-making, and the Government have to start explaining and justifying some of their decisions.

In his usual robust way, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire, who is Chair of the Defence Committee—I was privileged to serve under him—said that the process of the review was rubbish, which is obviously a technical term. It was rushed, and the Committee made it clear that mistakes will be made, and that they will be at the cost of our security and defence.

The right hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Gainsborough and the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) referred to the deterrent and Nimrod. The revision of history, which is remarkable, is that somehow we can take capacity such as Nimrod out without an explanation of what will replace it to protect our nuclear deterrent. That worried the Secretary of State when he wrote to the Prime Minister stating that cancelling Nimrod would seriously affect the deterrent. I would like to know what will replace it, and at what cost. The parliamentary answers that I have received so far have been uninspiring.

The Trident issue is important. It is clearly a political fudge to help the coalition Government stay together, and it is interesting that the Liberal Democrats are going around trumpeting the fact that they have won the argument. The fact is that we were accused of moving the main gate on the run-up costs for the carriers, but that is exactly what the Government have done with Trident. The only difference is that when we considered the matter, there was a question mark about whether the first boat that goes out of service in 2024 could continue until the new in-service date of 2028. It would be interesting to know what has changed in terms of the engineering capability to be able to do that. It is clear that the Labour party has been, and is, committed to the nuclear deterrent. It is important that decisions are taken, not just for the country’s security, but for the skill base and confidence that that skill base needs in procuring that vital piece of equipment for our defence needs.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) paid tribute to the armed forces in Northern Ireland, and I add my thanks to them. When I made visits as a Minister, I paid tribute to the work of 19 Light Brigade in Afghanistan. The right hon. Gentleman made serious points about the rise of terrorism, which shows the wide spectrum of the defence and security issues facing us. I also pay tribute to a member of his family whom I met on several occasions. His brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Kingsley Donaldson, makes a great contribution to the armed forces. He is proud of his brother, although when I first met him he asked me whether I knew his brother, and I said that I had met him once or twice.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) made an interesting point about defence industrial strategy. We have been told that it will come out in a few weeks, post the review that we have had. It will be interesting to see whether it gels together, having set the framework already.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) talked about St Athan. Again, the Government are revising and rewriting history. A savings measure in the defence review suggests that extra savings will be made by centralising training and with greater use of electronics. That is exactly is what St Athan is about, so I do not know how they will achieve that without St Athan.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) rightly paid tribute to the Paras in his constituency. I was pleased to visit Colchester on several occasions. On one occasion, I threw him out of a plane—unfortunately, with a parachute attached. However, he is a great supporter of the Colchester garrison, and I pay tribute to its sacrifice and its work.

The hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) was also trying to rewrite history, when he talked about strategic thinking—he was trying not to get in trouble with his Whips. It seems that year zero is now 1997 and that nothing happened before. There is a clear point to be made—a point that was also made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin)—about strategic thinking, which is important across Government. However, I have been at the coal face on occasions, and with the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, day-to-day decision making can interfere with the process. Sometimes it is important to step back, but it is difficult to do that when having to make clear decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) apologised for unfortunately being unable to attend this part of the debate. He made important points about Yemen and congratulated the Government on establishing the new National Security Committee. A promise was made in opposition that the NSC would have Opposition Members on it, but that promise seems to have been ditched. It has also been said that the previous Government did not have something like that, but we did, with the NCIS committee—the committee of the National Criminal Intelligence Service—which met weekly under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. Its key issue most weeks was the contributions being made in Afghanistan. That was important.

One issue that was mentioned by the hon. Member for Colchester, and which needs to be raised again, is helicopter capacity in Afghanistan. It is interesting that since the coalition Government have come into being, all the equipment problems that we had in Afghanistan seem to have ended and everyone is now happy. We were criticised heavily by both the hon. Gentleman and the Conservatives when they were in opposition about helicopter capacity. I tabled a question last week to find out why the order for 22 Chinook helicopters had been reduced to 12. I consulted my former colleagues last night, because the reply that I received in a written answer says that 22 helicopters were never ordered. That is not true. We ordered 12 helicopters, and then there was a letter of understanding with Boeing for a further 10. I am sure that that is standard practice, so as to improve price controls and ensure that the specifications are up to date, so it will be interesting to know what has changed since, and also whether the unit cost of the 12 helicopters being purchased will increase, now that the overall number has been reduced.

In his best-selling book, “Cameron on Cameron”, the Prime Minister said that we need

“a defence review based on our national security, not on Treasury guidelines”.

How hollow that sounds today. In government, we were keen to ensure the widest possible participation in the debate about the future defence needs of our country. We included academics, industry and Opposition parties, in full consultation, to try to reach a consensus on defence, thereby not only ensuring the right posture for our future defence needs, but performing the important role of supporting our armed forces. Unfortunately, that was binned in May. What we have seen since is a Treasury-led cost-cutting review. Industry has been excluded from most of the work streams. The Conservative Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire, has said that

“mistakes will be made and some of them may be serious.”

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) said earlier, let us hope that that is not true, even though it sounds as if it will be.

The SDSR was an opportunity to step back for a moment—to learn the lessons of the past decade and put in place a sustainable posture for our armed forces and defence. Sadly, that opportunity has been missed. As the Defence Secretary himself said, in his unexplainably leaked letter, the process is looking less like a proper SDSR and more like a “super CSR”. The Conservatives in opposition offered a great deal for our armed forces at the election. They promised a larger Army, but they have cut it. They promised to look at after-hours service personnel, but one of the first things they did was to freeze pay and reduce pensions. They promised a strategic defence review, but they have given us a cuts package and a review. Even today, we have heard the Defence Secretary say that some of these Treasury-led proposals will present us with what he called “calculated risks”—I would say “dangers”—for the future of our country’s defence and security.

In conclusion, my fear is that the dangerous short-term decision making in this review will be a repeat of the 1990s, when short-term savings were the mantra rather than long-term strategy.

17:45

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

This has been an excellent debate—interesting and wide-ranging—which is no surprise, as the House contains many Members who are well informed, interested and passionate about defence and national security; while many Members’ constituents will be affected by the decisions in the strategic defence and security review.

The SDSR is underpinned by the new national security strategy, which presents a picture of Britain’s place in the world and a full assessment of the challenges we face and the opportunities available to us. It is the first-ever national security strategy that really decides priorities for action and feeds directly into decisions about resources. It was the force driver for the decisions we have made.

Let me echo the Secretary of State by reinforcing the idea of how difficult this has been, particularly in the Ministry of Defence. We have been acutely aware of the human impact of the decisions we are making—not only on jobs and livelihoods, but on the emotional attachment that people have to certain aspects of defence. Our decisions have had to be objective and unsentimental, and based on the military advice we have received. We simply have not had the luxury of self-indulgence or populism. The fiscal deficit is an issue of national security. Without regaining economic strength, we will be unable to sustain in the long term the capabilities required, including military capabilities, to keep our citizens safe and maintain our influence on the world stage. Every Department has had to make a contribution to deficit reduction, and the Ministry of Defence has been no exception.

We still have to live within our means as the deficit is addressed, which means also tackling the unfunded liability in the Defence budget. So the decisions we have had to make have been necessarily tough and finely balanced, and it means smaller armed forces as we make the transition to the future force structure set out for 2020 and beyond.

Before I turn to the specific issues raised in the debate today, let me say this: the decisions we have made are coherent and consistent and will provide us with the capabilities we require for the future. The campaign in Afghanistan has been protected; nothing has been done to compromise success there.

It was a pleasure to welcome the new shadow Defence Secretary to his Front-Bench role. I thought he made a very fair speech. He welcomed the five-yearly SDSRs for the future and he specifically acknowledged the up arrows on certain capabilities for the future, including in cyber-security. He referred, as did some other right hon. and hon. Members, to written parliamentary questions, showing that many of the details that will flow from the strategic defence and security review have yet to be worked out. I make no apology for that. It is essential that the House should understand the difference between a strategic review and a detailed plan. The SDSR has established a strategic aim-point and it is absolutely right to take more time working out, bit by bit, the details of what this will mean for each and every different aspect of defence.

We heard an excellent speech from the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). He was quite right to say—I am grateful to him for doing so—that we have had to make cuts that we would not have wished to make. That, unfortunately, is the true scale not only of the financial backcloth to the SDSR, but of the legacy left by the last Government. He made some interesting points about reserves, calling for a fundamental reappraisal of the way in which we use them. He rightly pointed to the much wider use of reservists made in the United States. The US certainly uses them on a far greater scale, and as a consequence they are much cheaper than the regular forces there. One of the difficulties that we must tackle is that our current model for reservists makes them extraordinarily expensive. We will have to find a better and more effective way of using them in the future.

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that the SDSR was just the start of transformation. He mentioned the permanent secretary’s inaugural speech. I am sure that when she spoke of the next planning round, she was expecting it to be not the sole means by which reform would be pushed forward, but simply one among many. I also had a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the Ministry of Defence being centralised, and about problems with accountability and vested interests. I entirely agree with his view that we need a more purple approach.

The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), very fairly acknowledged the financial backcloth, and said that he thought the review amounted to a fair stab. However, I entirely disagree with his suggestion that the 2015 timeline for exit from Afghanistan was somehow party political, or had something to do with the dynamics of the coalition. It was an entirely sensible and rational end point to specify, in the light not of only President Obama’s stated plans but of President Karzai’s intention to achieve full transition of security powers by the next presidential election.

There are many different audiences when remarks of that kind are made. It is essential for public opinion in ISAF countries to understand, to some extent, the length of the engagement, for the armed forces to understand it, and for the people of Afghanistan to know how long those forces intend to be there. They do not want foreigners in their country for ever. If the political process that Members in all parts of the House want to see in Afghanistan, along with the military effort, is ever to gain any momentum or reach any conclusion, it is vital for President Karzai and others to understand some sort of time scale as well. It seems to me that to state, as the Prime Minister did, that by 2015 our troops would no longer be involved in a combat role on the ground was eminently sensible. It does not mean that all our troops will be out by then, or that there will not be an ongoing role for them; it simply means that the combat role will not continue beyond that point.

[Mr Ainsworth]

May I ask the Minister whether the Prime Minister consulted either him or the Defence Secretary before he made that statement? If those were the reasons, he would have done so.

[Nick Harvey]

I cannot say that I had any conversations with the Prime Minister, but discussions between the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are the confidential discussions that they would be expected to have. We are not going to be drawn into that sort of discussion at the Dispatch Box. The Prime Minister made a statement with which we are comfortable, and which we are making every effort to enact.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the 2% NATO figure. Let me make it absolutely clear to him that throughout the spending period that we have outlined today, we will remain above NATO’s 2% figure without resorting to the sort of things that NATO includes in its figure, such as military pensions. The defence contribution towards cyber will certainly count towards that, but the efforts on cyber are cross-governmental. In that sense, I am including only the defence contribution. The right hon. Gentleman made some good points about force generation; those issues will be examined in depth in the coming months.

We also heard from the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), who made criticisms of the process that we had heard before, but thought that the outcome was OK. He asked what “extended readiness” meant when applied to the second carrier. Let me make it perfectly clear to him that no decision has been made to sell it. Further decisions on what we will do with it can be made several years from now, and will depend on what the security considerations are at the time.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson), who speaks for the Democratic Unionists, rightly paid tribute to the work of the armed forces in Northern Ireland over a period of years. He also warned us of the increasing security threat. I do not want to get drawn into saying anything more about that, but let me simply say that it is fully acknowledged. He also made points about the regional footprint of our armed forces throughout the United Kingdom. For military purposes, we are very keen for the footprint of defence to be felt throughout the UK.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said that the Navy was being left very thin—I forget the precise word that he used. We understand that we are undertaking risk now, but we hope very much that that will enable us to make our way to having a bigger and stronger Navy in the future. We are also retaining the ability to reconstitute, if that will be significant or helpful.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) wanted to know more about the future details. Detail will emerge in the next few months as we work through the key points. He and a couple of other Members asked about St Athan. The Metrix project for St Athan failed. Unfortunately, it did not come up with a viable business plan within the deadlines that had been laid down and the finance could not be found, although a fair stab had been made. I entirely accept that the financial markets are very different now from what they looked like when Metrix made its bid and embarked on the programme; the world is different today. However, we have to face the unfortunate reality that it failed.

The hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) rightly said that the military covenant needs formalising. That will happen in the next few months. He also spoke about mental health—a topic about which he has acquired considerable knowledge. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and several other Members raised the Nimrod issue. The Secretary of State has offered to hold further discussions with the Opposition Front-Bench team on how we intend to bridge that capability gap.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) spoke of the need for a national strategic assessment centre. That is an interesting idea worthy of further consideration. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) asked about the troops coming home from Germany. I simply cannot agree that that should have been worked out in every last particular before the intention to do it was ever declared, but he did make the good point that people will want to understand what is going to happen, when it will happen and in what order. We will do our best to address that in the coming months. An Opposition Front-Bench Member made the specific claim that we had not discussed that with the German Government, so let me make this perfectly clear: the Federal Government have supported the British military presence in Germany for more than 50 years—it has been a symbol of our steadfast friendship with Germany—and the Prime Minister discussed this matter with Chancellor Merkel during the course of the SDSR.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Nick Harvey]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as time is running out and he left me rather short. On the issue of the troops in Germany, proper letters will be written when we come to make specific moves.

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) asked about Yemen. The equipment he inquired about is being procured at the moment, and we are working closely with the Yemeni Government with the aim of providing that equipment by the end of the year.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) wanted to know whether we had had discussions with the French or the Americans about their potential use of a carrier fitted with “cats and traps”. Yes, of course we have; we have had lengthy discussions with both of them. He also asked whether the second carrier would have “cats and traps” fitted. We can decide that at any point in the future; we have left ourselves the flexibility to do that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) rightly spoke up for the brave men and women from the Colchester garrison who are going to Afghanistan. He champions their cause well, and we all wish them well in their endeavours. Other Members made constituency points on behalf of Marham and Portsmouth, and I will do my best to keep in touch with them about the developments in their areas.

The SDSR has been a difficult process, but I think people that will recognise that it is the start of the transformation of our defence, not the last word. I look forward to many further debates in the House as the details of what it will mean for every different aspect of defence is worked out in the coming months.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Simon Robertson

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Stephen Crabb.)

18:00

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

This relatively simple debate has been complicated by the fact that it has spread across the world, as it involves an international airline. I am raising this issue as someone who has for more than 30 years acted as a representative for people in many forms of conflict and dispute, many times doing so in times of direct conflict. What I have found during those years is that there are always at least two sides to every story. I am here tonight to present one side of this story—that of my constituent, Mr Simon Robertson. He is a 38-year-old young man who had visited Japan five times before he went there in February. I wish that I could make part of the case for the Japanese immigration service and for KLM, the airline involved, but because they have not given me the relevant information I am hard-pushed to do that.

The case refers to a journey that Mr Robertson made in February. I shall read from a letter that he sent to both the Japanese embassy and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He stated:

“This…should be considered both as an official protest at the unacceptable and unlawful treatment to which I was the victim of, as well as an official report of criminal offences, committed against myself, by those at the Narita Airport Border Agency… The incidents to which I refer are as follows:

Recently, I arranged to make a long trip to Japan. I was to stay in your country for 89 days and while I was there, I was to have meetings with numerous individuals as well as seeing some friends of mine. The trip was to last from 4 February…until 4 May 2010. Arrangements had been made to hold meetings during that period, and these meetings were over various topics, but the main business reason was to make preliminary investigations as to expanding my business operations.”

He included the details of his trip in the letter to the immigration service. He continued:

“I accurately filled out an immigration form, while on the aircraft and I arrived at Narita on 5 February….I presented this form along with my passport to the Narita Border Agency. For unknown reasons, the official queried this information and then took my airline tickets and my passport from me and I was taken to a separate room.

While I was there, I was interviewed by another official, who despite being told by me on numerous occasions in both English and in Japanese, that my Japanese was poor, insisted in conducting this interview solely in Japanese.

After a while, I was led into another room, where I was investigated by a different inspector. He wished to know my purpose of my visit. I explained very clearly what the purpose was…I pointed to the address of Mr. Junji Abu and his family, who I was to visit. They were aware that I was coming and they would confirm this to the investigator. He telephoned Mr. Abu and returned. At this point, his entire tone and manner became extremely hostile. He demanded to know about the relationship between myself and Mr. Abu’s daughter called Yuuko. I correctly stated that I had known…Yuuko…for 17 months, we speak everyday and are close. At this point, the questioning became even more outrageous. The investigator demanded and shouted over and over: ‘Are you going to marry Yuuko?’ He repeated this question six times and on the first five occasions I stated that we had not decided that at that time. On the sixth occasion, I said that this decision was a matter between myself and Yuuko. At this answer, the investigator got angry and stated that he would oppose my entry to Japan.

I consider this to be an outrage. My relationship with Yuuko is a matter solely between myself and the Abu family. It is not a visa requirement of any country that visitors must marry one of their citizens, in order to be granted a visa.

Subsequently to this, I was taken into another room where the same investigator spoke in Japanese, but a translator was used. At the beginning of the interview, I was told that the investigator was the judge and his decision was final. I answered all the questions accurately and truthfully, but I noticed on the investigator’s desk that the decision to refuse my entry had already been written out.

I was told that my request for entry was denied and I was to be removed from the country.

I was then marched to a bureau de change where it was demanded that I give the inspector 40,000 Yen. A copy of this transaction is included within this letter as proof of this. I was forced to hand over this money and I was marched into a car and then to a cell. I was held in this cell for 24 hours where I was denied food and access to a telephone to call a lawyer or one of my friends. The guards also deliberately deprived me of sleep by continually hitting the metal door of the cell and then laughing about it, for one entire night.

The following morning, again no food was provided to me and at 12:15, I was marched into a car and to Narita Airport. I was not told where I was going, nor was I permitted to call my friends who were extremely worried about me, nor was I allowed to call my family. I was forced to wait at the gate with the guard standing right over me for over an hour. I found this to be extremely humiliating.”

Mr Robertson then explains what happened when he got on the plane. His letter continues:

“The KLM Captain had been told by the Narita Border Agency that the reason that I had been refused entry to Japan was because I had arrived in Japan with the wrong documents. This was a blatant lie. I produced a copy of my travel arrangements and a photocopy of my passport to show the captain and the purser who both confirmed that my documents were all correct and in order. They said that my treatment was ‘an outrage’ and that I should make a formal complaint. I am sure that the KLM staff will confirm this.

Sadly, the guard did not return my passport to the purser of the KLM aircraft and instead had kept hold of it…When I landed at Amsterdam, I sought the purser to ask her to return my passport, so that I could clear Dutch customs and fly on to Newcastle. The purser stated that she did not have my passport and she sought the captain. The captain did not have my passport either and he and the purser confirmed that they had never received it at Narita.

A copy of that letter went to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Japanese embassy.

On 9 March, Mr Robertson received a letter from the FCO saying that it did not have the power to investigate the matter but that it had written to Tokyo requesting that an investigation should take place. I also wrote to the Japanese embassy on 12 February asking it to investigate and on 13 April—10 weeks after the original letter—I received a letter of reply from the embassy saying that

“we have already reported this case to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, and are currently waiting for the result”.

On 25 May, I forwarded an e-mail from Mr Robertson to the new Prime Minister and the new Foreign Secretary asking them to look into his case and also to try to progress it. In the period between the original letter and 25 May, Mr Robertson had been in regular contact with the FCO, asking what was happening. The e-mail made it clear that a Foreign Office official who had been working with Mr Robertson had originally agreed to report the incident as a crime.

In the interim, Mr Robertson tried to help the FCO and the Japanese immigration service because he had been able to find out the identity of the officer who he believed had abused him in Japan. He reported that information to the new duty officer with whom he was dealing, but he was devastated when she told him that she was dismissing that information. She refused to pass it to the Japanese authorities and said that she was not prepared to report the matter as a crime. Surely, when someone makes a very serious allegation and is able to tell an official in the FCO specifically who was responsible, it is reasonable for that person to ask the official to pass that information to the Japanese authorities and ask them to investigate. Mr Robertson could not believe that the official refused to do that.

On 4 June, I received an e-mail from Mr Robertson advising me that, sadly, his girlfriend in Japan had died. He said:

“She took her own life, but she was killed by the outrageous intransigence of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our own Foreign Office”.

On 24 June, I received a letter from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), who now has responsibility for the far east. On whether the FCO should have reported the matter as a crime, he said that he was

“sorry for the misunderstanding”

about whether it had agreed to report a crime, but added:

“we do not agree that we have a duty to report alleged crimes to the local authorities”.

I find that amazing. If someone says to a representative or an official body of this Government, “We believe a crime has taken place against a British citizen,” it is just good manners, if nothing else, to say to people with whom we have a strong relationship such as Japan, which is one of our best allies, “Look, this has been said about you in your nation. We believe that this man believes that it is a crime.” It may well not have been a crime, and I shall come on to that, but if Mr Robertson believed that it was, why would the Foreign Office not want to alert the Japanese to that?

The Minister also said on 24 June that the Japanese authorities had informed him that they believed that

“Mr Robertson was treated in line with their regulations and international human rights standards.”

The Minister also suggested that Mr Robertson seek legal advice. So, on 24 June, with reference to a case going back to 6 February, the Foreign Office decided, “We have been told by the Japanese that everything is okay. Therefore, you should forget about it or take advice from a lawyer.” To me, that is effectively the Foreign Office trying to wash its hands of the matter and move on.

Interestingly, the Foreign Office knew that information before Mr Robertson did, because he did not receive the letter until a day later, when the Japanese confirmed what we had learned from the Foreign Office—that they believed that he was treated properly. I asked the embassy to show me exactly what happened, and in the paperwork it included a flowchart of what should have happened. There was also a document on why he was refused entry. I shall read it out very slowly, because it states:

“Your statement concerning activities to be engaged in Japan in your application is not found not to be false.”

There were no details of what that meant, what he had said or what they had said. Obviously, the embassy was saying, “We’re not quite sure that you’re telling lies, but we’re not quite sure that you’re telling the truth, either.” It was very confusing.

In the letter, the embassy made it very clear that,

“since the individual remains the responsibility of the carrier, the immigration bureau has no involvement in the process…Mr Robertson’s allegation that he was forced to hand over money by immigration officials has no basis in reality.”

That is despite the fact that Mr Robertson sent on to the Japanese immigration service a copy of a receipt that had been taken while he was in Narita airport. The letter continued, stating that

“Mr Robertson’s treatment…prior to removal was entirely the responsibility of the airline, any inquiries regarding this treatment, the allegation that money was forcibly taken from him or the location of his passport should be made directly to the airline.”

I find that incredible. The Japanese Government are saying that it is all the airline’s fault, but the airline was on Japanese soil. If it did what Mr Robertson said it did, surely the Japanese authorities should go to KLM and say, “What on earth are you doing in our country behaving like that?” Perhaps it did not behave like that, but it was the Japanese Government’s responsibility, not the responsibility of someone who could not get back into the country to pursue the matter.

On 8 July, I wrote back to the Japanese embassy explaining that Mr Robertson challenged both its interpretation of the events and the role played by KLM, with which he had been in constant dialogue. I asked the embassy for a meeting with KLM in order to sit around a table like adults and talk things through in order to see exactly where we were. I expected my suggestion to be put forward, and thought it a reasonable thing to do. On 2 August, I got a letter back from the Japanese embassy, basically reiterating that Japan had acted fairly, that the “sole responsibility” for the matter lay with KLM and that my request for a meeting was refused. Again, that was less than helpful.

On 19 August—a date that I should like the House to remember because I shall come back to it—I wrote to KLM asking it for specific details about its role in Mr Robertson’s detention and removal, because some very serious things had been said about an airline with a reputation. Apart from the fact that I wanted to clear up the matter on behalf of Mr Robertson, I also wanted to give the airline a chance to stop a Government saying some pretty disparaging things about it. I made the airline aware that, ultimately, if I could not get a satisfactory response, I would raise the matter, as I am doing, on the Floor of the House.

I asked KLM specifically how long Mr Robertson’s passport was in its possession; exactly what happened to it; whether the airline was told why he was being refused admission to the country; whether his passport was handed over; and when. On the same date, I again wrote to the Japanese embassy asking for specific details that would expand on the denial of entry letter and on what went on, including the timing of events. I also asked about its statement,

“your application is not found not to be false.”

What did that mean? What was said? What was done? What went on in that room? We wanted to gain a view of events.

I again asked to have a meeting, because that would have been a sensible thing to do. On the same day, I wrote to the Foreign Office expressing the concerns and uncertainties about the whereabouts of Mr Robertson’s passport; nobody seemed to know where it was. On 3 September, I received a letter from the embassy saying, “We are unable”—and, I believe, unwilling—

“to provide any further information…we are unable to respond to any further request for a meeting or any further questions concerning his removal.”

The Japanese embassy was saying to me that it did not want to talk anymore and it believed that it had gone far enough. It was refusing to talk to a Member of the House. How it has treated Mr Robertson is not right, and it is also not right to have treated me in that way—not as an individual, but as somebody trying to work on behalf of my constituents. I would suggest that the same would apply to the other 649 Members.

In October, I again wrote to the Japanese asking them please to consider the position and try to give more specifics. I wanted to avoid bringing this debate to the House if at all possible; I wanted to resolve the matter in a sensible, adult way. I also advised them in the interim that I had been told by Mr Robertson that he had been approached by Amnesty International, which had said that his case was not unique. In 2002, it produced a report that pointed out that this sort of behaviour had been going on in Japan for some time. I have no proof that that is the case, but Amnesty International tells me and Mr Robertson that that is exactly what is happening.

On the same day, I wrote to the Foreign Office to ask it to ask the Japanese to meet me and, if possible, Mr Robertson. On 16 September, I received a letter from the Foreign Office explaining its view of where the passport had been. On 19 August I had written to KLM; on 14 October I got a letter from the company explaining where it thought the passport had been. To put it mildly, the two letters show a degree of confusion. The final paragraph of the KLM letter reads:

“Mr. Robertson’s passport was incorrectly added to a special envelope dedicated to storing copies of travel documentation…This envelope should normally not contain original passports and unfortunately it was not examined until a later date.”

I had asked the company for specific time scales, and the letter said:

“Mr. Robertson’s passport was then handed over to the UK Immigration…who advised it would be sent to the UK.”

No time scales were given and there was no record of exactly what happened. There was massive confusion from all concerned.

The case has made me face a number of possibilities. First, Mr Robertson is telling the complete truth and someone in Japan or at KLM is refusing to address these matters, which include allegations of physical abuse, imprisonment, verbal abuse, racism, extortion, deliberately or accidentally withholding a passport, and possibly—at least, partly—some responsibility for the suicide of a young woman.

On the other hand, Simon’s claims could be completely or partially untrue. I have to consider that possibility because, as I said, I have only his side of the story—I have never had the chance to sit down with the authorities and KLM and ask why they believed that this man was making it up. Because they refused to meet me, I have no choice but to carry on believing that what I am being told is the truth.

As I said, Simon has been in touch with Amnesty International, which has produced a report. I am also led to believe that both the United Nations and the US State Department have expressed concerns about some of the things that have happened to their citizens at the hands of the Japanese immigration authorities.

Is this all in the mind of a young man who is clearly suffering physically and mentally from the ordeal? I do not believe so, but presumably the Japanese and KLM do. The Foreign Office said that the Japanese have said that they acted properly. Unless the Minister tells me something different tonight, I will have to accept the fact that it believes the same thing.

The Foreign Office has a duty of care to Mr Robertson and a duty of loyalty to our relationship with Japan. I have had a strong relationship with the country for a number of years. In the north-east of England, we are happy that Japanese industry has come into our part of the world and played a tremendous role in manufacturing. I want us to continue to have a good relationship with Japan and I believe that the Japanese Government would not be happy if such behaviour was going on without their cognisance.

I hope that between us we can get to the bottom of this situation. I hope that in his response the Minister will agree to meet me and, if possible, to get people from the Japanese embassy to come and speak to me and him—or his colleague—and to get KLM involved. Let us sit around the table like adults and try to resolve this matter. At the end of the day, I am trying to represent my constituent in the best way I can. I should not have had to do this tonight; the matter should have been resolved much earlier.

18:20

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) on securing this debate. His persistence in following this complex and difficult case is an example of how he puts the welfare of his constituents at the forefront of everything he does.

It is clear that his constituent, Mr Robertson, is both angry and frustrated at the way he has been treated and is not satisfied with the explanations that have been subsequently offered. I thought it would be worth setting out what the FCO has done so far to assist Mr Robertson in bringing some form of closure to this difficult situation. I hope it gives some assurances to the hon. Gentleman that the FCO has done all it can in this case.

There are two separate but related issues. The first is the treatment Mr Robertson received from immigration officials at Narita airport and the second is the difficulty he encountered in locating his passport following his deportation. Let me deal with each in turn, explaining the action that consular officials have taken in each instance.

The first issue concerns what happened at Narita. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, Mr Robertson has been in regular contact with consular staff in the FCO following his deportation from Japan in February. He requested that we raise with the Japanese authorities his mistreatment by immigration officials at Narita. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the FCO takes allegations of mistreatment of British nationals very seriously and will always raise them with the appropriate authorities when asked to do so. Our embassy in Japan wrote to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March requesting that an investigation be carried out into the treatment that Mr Robertson was subjected to.

A response was received on 2 May stating that Mr Robertson was treated in line with procedures set out in Japan’s immigration and refugee recognition law. I must say that the two-month delay seems unacceptable and was inordinately long. The response also advised that Mr Robertson was treated in accordance with international human rights standards. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also explained that when a foreign national is refused entry to Japan, the airline, as carrier, is responsible for deporting that person. I understand that a notice of deportation order was passed to KLM officials confirming that Mr Robertson was under their custody and that they were responsible for ensuring that he left the country.

I can appreciate Mr Robertson’s frustrations about the length of time it took for us to receive a response from the Japanese authorities and his concerns that the information received did not explain the reasons behind his deportation. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, consular staff raised Mr Robertson’s case within three days of his bringing it to our attention and they pressed the Japanese authorities for a response on four separate occasions after our initial letter in March.

I am aware that Mr Robertson was unhappy with the response received from the Japanese authorities and asked that the FCO carry out an independent investigation. At Mr Robertson’s request, consular staff approached the Japanese authorities for further information on the reasons why he was refused entry. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would not divulge specific details of individual cases to our consular staff on the grounds that they are a third party.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the FCO cannot force a foreign Government to respond to our requests, nor is there any legal obligation for them to share information with us. The FCO does not have any jurisdiction to carry out investigations overseas, nor can we insist that the Japanese authorities look into the matter more thoroughly.

I am confident that we explored all possible avenues to obtain this information on Mr Robertson’s behalf and I am sorry to say there is nothing the FCO can do to put pressure on the Japanese authorities to provide the information to us. Should Mr Robertson wish to continue to pursue this matter with the Japanese authorities, he should do so with the assistance of a lawyer. I understand that the hon. Gentleman and Mr Robertson have been given the contact details of the Japanese immigration bureau with which the hon. Gentleman can pursue this matter.

I am aware that Mr Robertson has expressed his dissatisfaction about the level of assistance he has received from consular staff both in London and in Japan, and his concerns that the assistance he was given differs from that provided to other British nationals. I am sorry he feels that way. However, I am confident that our consular staff did all they could to assist and support him in this matter. Consular staff strive to provide a consistent, professional service to all British nationals in accordance with our policies.

[Mr Anderson]

May I refer the Minister to the specific point about Mr Robertson identifying the person he believed was responsible for the abuse, and the decision by the Foreign Office member of staff not to report that to the Japanese? Surely that should have happened.

[Mr Bellingham]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. We will certainly pursue anything that he has raised in this debate that is new and of relevance. I will write to him on that specific point.

The second issue is the retrieval of the passport. I can understand Mr Robertson’s additional concerns in this regard. I understand that when the notice of deportation order was passed to KLM officials confirming that Mr Robertson was under their custody, his passport was handed over to KLM officials, and the Japanese immigration authorities’ involvement ceased at that point. As the hon. Gentleman knows, consular staff in Tokyo raised this with Japanese immigration officials and with KLM airlines in Amsterdam. On 25 May, Mr Robertson’s passport was found at KLM offices in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, and it was subsequently returned to the Identity and Passport Service in the UK.

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, Mr Robertson’s passport was cancelled on 8 February. The UK Border Agency and Interpol were subsequently notified that his passport was no longer a valid travel document and that all appropriate steps were taken to ensure that his missing passport was not misused. Although the KLM flight captain and crew on the return flight were incredibly courteous and helpful to Mr Robertson, I am not impressed with the follow-up action they took, and there are certainly some points that need addressing.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing Mr Robertson’s situation to the attention of the House. Having introduced a number of Adjournment debates on behalf of constituents over the years, I know first-hand that a Back Bencher’s highlighting of such cases, thus ensuring that their constituents’ concerns are raised and recorded, is incredibly important.

I have tried to spell out what the FCO has done to assist Mr Robertson with his case, although I can appreciate his frustrations at being told there is nothing further we, as an Office, can do to assist him with this matter. I am confident that consular staff have done all they could to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. Obviously I would not presume to tell Mr Robertson what to do, but if there are outstanding issues that he wishes to pursue, then I really would encourage him to consider seeking the assistance of a local independent lawyer.

The hon. Gentleman said a moment ago that he was keen to have a meeting with me. I have never yet turned down a request from a parliamentarian to have a meeting. Parliamentarians obviously have the right to raise issues on behalf of constituents, and other matters, in the House on the Adjournment. When a parliamentarian contacts a Minister to say that he would like to have a meeting, that is certainly something that we consider very seriously. If the hon. Gentleman would like to come and have a chat with me, or indeed with the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), who is responsible for consular services, then of course we will accede to that request; we are more than happy to do so. I know only too well the hon. Gentleman’s determination and commitment to his constituents—not just this one particular constituent but all of them. He is a fine example of an MP who is taking up the case of a constituent and raising it in the House, and I applaud him for doing that.

The hon. Gentleman said that he would like us to facilitate a meeting with the Japanese embassy and with KLM. I cannot do that. However, as I said, when a parliamentarian contacts a Minister to request a particular meeting, we will certainly accede to that—these are, after all, requests from parliamentarians in the British House of Commons. I hope that his request for a meeting with KLM and the Japanese embassy will be taken very seriously.

Once again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter. If there are any outstanding or additional points that I have not covered, I would be more than happy to write to him in the very near future.

Question put and agreed to.

18:29

House adjourned.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 4th November 2010 Westminster Hall

Thursday 4 November 2010

[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]

backbench business

Thursday 4th November 2010 Westminster Hall

Work and Pensions (CSR)

Thursday 4th November 2010 Westminster Hall

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Miss Chloe Smith.)

14:29

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I am delighted to have been given the opportunity, as Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, to open the debate, but I should thank the Backbench Business Committee, because this is one of the first Westminster Hall debates whose subjects have been chosen by that Committee. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). They did not quite suggest the subject of this afternoon’s debate, but they put in suggestions relating to this subject, and I think that the Backbench Business Committee decided that the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department for Work and Pensions would be a worthy subject for debate. I agree, because that Department is to suffer some of the largest cuts of all the Departments, in terms of both the percentage of its budget to be cut and the money to be saved.

The Department is to face a budget cut of £18 billion per annum by 2014-15. That is made up of the £11 billion announced in the Budget and a further £7 billion announced as part of the CSR proposals. However, the Department for Work and Pensions is different from other Departments, as most of its budget is in the form of money paid straight to people who qualify for one benefit or another. It is not managing budgets or delivering services as other Departments are. Much of its money ends up in the hands of real people, who spend it in their communities. The Department’s annually managed expenditure depends on how much money is paid out in benefits, which is where the large cuts are to be made.

It is quite easy, if we say it quickly, to cut benefits. We just do not give people any money. That can be a tempting thing for Governments to do, but of course the people do not go away; they still need the money to live. By my reckoning, there are four ways in which it is possible for the Department to cut the annually managed expenditure. It can reduce the amount that is paid out for certain benefits. It can change the criteria to narrow the number of people who qualify for a particular benefit. It can time-limit how long a person can qualify for a benefit. It can abolish a benefit completely. If we look at the proposals in the Budget and in the CSR, we see that the Government are doing a bit of all four of those things.

It is worth remembering that the cuts are being made against a backdrop of rising unemployment as other cuts in the numbers of people employed in the public sector take effect, and it is during times of high unemployment that the Department for Work and Pensions spending goes up, as more people qualify for benefits—benefits that many feel they have already paid for through national insurance contributions.

More than half the benefit spending of the Department goes to people who are over retirement age. The basic state pension and pension credit, for instance, account for 50% or slightly more of the Department’s budget. Generally, the benefits received by retired people are not being cut, although there will be some cuts in the benefits that they receive, because of the proposed changes in housing benefit and the mobility element of disability living allowance for people in residential care, and possibly the changes in relation to council tax. Perhaps the Minister can explain what those mean in reality, because I have found that quite difficult to grasp.

While I am talking about the council tax proposals, I want to point out that they seem to fly in the face of other things that the Government are doing. I am referring to their plans for a universal credit to make the benefits system much simpler and more straightforward, which I would certainly welcome. To devolve payments in relation to council tax down to local authorities, which will all have their own criteria, seems to go against the principle that I understand the Government are trying to create for the benefits system.

Of course, I never let a chance go by to get in my own gripe with regard to people over 65. Someone who happens to be my age and is a woman may have started her working life assuming that she would receive her basic state pension at 60. Until a few weeks ago, I thought that I would receive my basic state pension at 65. That has now gone up to 66, and I cannot be alone in wondering whether, by the time I approach 66, the age will be 67 or higher and I will never get the chance to retire at all. However, my constituents might make the decision for me sooner than that.

The result of protecting the elderly from the worst of the spending cuts is that the vast bulk of the cuts will fall on those of working age, on families and on people who are disabled or ill. For those groups, the cuts are much harsher and deeper. Where are the Government planning to make those cuts? I said that they could consider four areas, so I shall go through those one by one. First, they could reduce the amount paid out for certain benefits. The clearest example of that is the proposed cap on housing benefit payments. However, all benefits that are currently uprated according to the retail prices index will be cut over time, because they are soon to be linked to the consumer prices index, which is usually below the RPI level. That means that the value of almost all benefits will diminish.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is interesting research in that regard? Conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it suggests that linking benefits to CPI will reduce by £1 a year the value of the incomes of families on safety-net benefits. For a person on jobseeker’s allowance, for example, that will mean a loss of £10 over 10 years, representing between 15 and 20% of their income.

[Miss Begg]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Certainly I recognise the 15% figure. We are not talking only about benefits for those of working age. I was briefed this morning that if occupational pensions—both private and public pensions—are to be linked to CPI, the figure of 15% is not unrealistic. In fact, people on an average occupational pension could lose the equivalent of three years’ worth of their pension if they were to live for the average time from retirement, which is 24 years.

The switch from RPI to CPI will, in the long term, mean that the amount of money that people on benefits receive is reduced. Let me explain what I find particularly perverse about the housing benefit changes. The difference between RPI and CPI is that CPI does not take account of housing costs. Again, perhaps the Minister can explain the rationale for why the CPI measure is being used for housing benefit when it does not take into account housing inflation, which runs at a higher level than consumer inflation.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston suggested, the change in uprating will also affect levels of child benefit, income support, jobseeker’s allowance and incapacity benefit, as well as the employment and support allowance and the carer’s allowance. The value of all the benefits in payment will diminish with the changing of the linking rules or the indexation to which they are subject.

There will also be reductions in what can be claimed in such things as the child care element of the working tax credits, as well as changes to the eligibility rules for the working tax credits. Some of those changes would also appear to fly in the face of the perfectly correct cause being espoused by the Government—to ensure that those who can work do work. However, some of the changes might put barriers in the way of getting people into work.

The second way that the Department can reduce spending on benefits is by changing the criteria, to prevent many people who would have previously qualified for the benefit from qualifying in future. We shall see people who have been on jobseeker’s allowance for a year losing 10% of their housing benefit, or people in residential homes no longer qualifying for the mobility component of the disability living allowance. I am glad that it is the Minister responsible for disabled people who will be winding up for the Government, because of a phrase in the CSR attached to the announcement about the mobility component of the DLA for people in residential homes being cut:

“where such costs are already met from public funds”.

Can the Minister explain what that means?

Does that phrase mean that some people in residential homes will keep the mobility DLA, if their costs of travel and transport, presumably, are not being met from public funds? However, I am not aware of any residential homes that have a travel budget. I am not aware that public funds are available. Some people in residential homes might get a taxi card, for instance, but like, I suspect, many others, my local authority is tightening its criteria: Aberdeen has decided that someone on the upper rate mobility DLA does not get a taxi card. Anything that I can think of that might be the provision of travel from public funds does not, I think, apply to people in residential care.

On the issue of residential care, it is worth remembering that, generally, people in residential care who are on the mobility DLA will be a younger cohort, because people do not qualify for a DLA once they are over 65. Many of them might be in work—their care needs might require them to be in a residential home, but they might have work or go out daily to day centres or whatever. Without the DLA, they would not be able to get out of the confines of the residential home. Sometimes there is a perception that someone who lives in a residential home is elderly and not able to lead a fulfilling life, but nothing could be further from the truth. I would welcome some clarification from the Minister on that point.

Probably the best example of the Government’s changing the criteria to exclude previous claimants is the move from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance. This migration was always on the cards—it was introduced by the previous Government—but I get a sense that some of it is being accelerated. The other thing that is different is the numbers involved. The number of those whom the previous Government thought might lose out as a result of the migration appears to be quite different in reality, certainly in regard to the new benefits. At the moment, we do not know the actual figures for the number of people currently receiving IB who will no longer qualify for the new employment and support allowance. The first trials of the migration are taking place in Aberdeen and Burnley, and it will be at least a couple of months before we have any robust figures and find out how many people are not getting through the new gateway.

The Government expect somewhere between 30% and 40% of IB claimants will not qualify and will therefore end up on jobseeker’s allowance. For those individuals, that is a loss of £20 a week. What makes me doubt whether that is the final figure is that we know that the number of new claimants qualifying for employment and support allowance is much less than the previous Government were projecting. While they thought that 20% might end up on the support element of the ESA, the figure is much lower, at around 4 to 6%, and it looks as though around 60% will not be getting ESA at all, because either they have dropped out of the system or they have been awarded jobseeker’s allowance. As many as 60% of those who are currently on incapacity benefit might not qualify for the new ESA, therefore, but, as I said, the trials are going on in Aberdeen and Burnley, and we will have the figures in a couple of months’ time.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady think that the change in those numbers is as a result of a change of Government or of the experience of having run the pilots?

[Miss Begg]

The original numbers I gave were those projected by the previous Government for new claimants, but they did not work out in practice—even for the previous Government. In other words, the work capability assessment, which is the test acting as the gateway to getting the benefit, is turning out to be much tighter than either the previous Government or, I suspect, this Government were expecting.

The figures are quite different from what the previous Government expected. I do not have any evidence to suggest that the new Government were expecting anything different. However, the reality is that many fewer people than expected are getting through the gateway of the work capability assessment, and they are accessing either the support element or the work-related element of the ESA.

There has been a lot of criticism of, and a lot of research has been done by organisations such as Citizens Advice—nationally and in Scotland—about the operation of the work capability assessment. At the moment, I am not sure that it, as an assessment tool intended to look at employability, is very effective in determining who is fit for work and who is not.

I was not going to go into the issue, because it is probably a debate for another day, but part of the problem is that illness and disability are being mixed up. So, people who are ill at the moment are being declared fully fit for work when, clearly, they cannot work—but that is not to say that they would not be able to work in the future. The assessment also does not take into account the employability of an individual—because the end of the whole process is to get people into work, if they are not employable and employers will not employ them, then the process will have failed.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

rose—

[Kate Green]

rose—

[Miss Begg]

I give way to the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael).

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you. Will the hon. Lady welcome, when it comes, the report of Professor Malcolm Harrington on the work capability assessment? He was appointed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the summer, and he will be reporting shortly. She might find some good news in the report, in the context of what she is saying.

[Miss Begg]

I certainly hope so. I was not intending to go into the WCA and its faults, but the hon. Gentleman tempts me. I am looking forward to seeing the report by Professor Harrington. However, there is concern that by the time he reports, whether at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, the trial in Aberdeen and Burnley will be coming to an end, and there will not be a lot of time to change things. There might be time to change the procedure, but not to put in place any major changes in how the work capability assessments are carried out before the full roll-out begins in March or April next year. The volumes will be quite large and it will be interesting to find out, in Aberdeen in particular, whether Atos Healthcare can manage the volumes that will be coming through. It is a big process, but there are still some fundamental flaws in how the work capability assessment is in operation.

Does my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston want to intervene?

[Kate Green]

No—the hon. Gentleman for Stroud asked the same question.

[Miss Begg]

That leads me to the third way in which the Government are planning to cut the benefits bill: limiting how long a person can be on a particular benefit. Even if a person is successful in being assessed as only partially fit for work, and qualifies for the work-related activity part of the employment support allowance or ESA—it gets no easier to say, but I do not know another way of doing it but to use acronyms or to give the full title—the CSR proposes that they will qualify for the contributory element for only a year. That means that people who have worked all their lives, and paid their national insurance contributions in the hope that they will act as an insurance against ill health, will get the benefit for only one year unless their household income is below the qualifying level for income support.

That poses the question of how much the Government want to continue with the contributory principle. Already, people receive unemployment benefit, or jobseeker’s allowance, for only six months, and the contributory element of ESA is to last only for a year, yet they will have worked all their lives thinking that was why they were paying national insurance.

Lone parents will qualify for income support only if they have a child under the age of five. After that, they will be moved to JSA. If they do not get a job within a year, they will lose 10% of their housing benefit. I have been told by several Ministers that the Work programme will result in people being helped back into work. However, the lone parent whose youngest child has turned five will not go into the Work programme for a year. That is when lone parents are to lose part of their housing benefit.

Here we have an individual who has done everything that the Government have asked of her, or him. Such people will have turned up to all the work-related activities and may have moved house to find somewhere cheaper so that they are at the 30th percentile in the housing benefit changes. They will have done everything that the Government have asked of them, but in these economic times they simply cannot find a job. It is not that they have not tried. They will have been to lots of interviews, but not managed to find a job. Even then, they will still lose their benefits.

That is a fundamental change to our welfare system. Sanctions and taking benefits from people has always been linked to negative behaviour—the individual not doing what the Government ask of them. The worrying message that the Government may be sending out is that even if people do the right thing they could still be in danger of losing part of their benefit.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct to say that there is confusion, with people doing the right thing but still facing sanctions. Does she agree that it is illogical to sanction one benefit in respect of behaviours that are desired in connection with participation in the labour market but that are covered by other benefits—in this case, the jobseeker’s allowance—and with no suggestion that the individual will necessarily be facing a sanction?

[Miss Begg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the issue seems to arise particularly with sanctions on housing benefit. When giving evidence to the Select Committee yesterday, Lord Freud suggested that sanctions on housing benefit would follow people wherever they went. The only way for them to get rid of the sanction would be to find a job, but some might simply not be able to do so. It could depend on where people live, as in some areas it is difficult to find a job.

[Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to hear that the hon. Lady will not be retiring. It is good news for our Select Committee, as she is an excellent Chairman. What is her take on the fact that, for the first time, we are to have a really focused Work programme and a universal credit? That will remove many of the problems with withdrawal rates that the Committee highlighted in the past. Of course it is an expensive thing to do, but it is the right thing to do. Is it not right to praise the Government for doing that rather than concentrating on the cost savings that need to be made to make it affordable?

[Miss Begg]

I shall call the hon. Gentleman my hon. Friend, as he is a member of the Select Committee. I shall deal with the universal credit in a moment. However, my hon. Friend is right about the Work programme.

The point is that the Work programme does not kick in until people have been out of work for a year, unless they have come through the incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance route or unless they are young and unemployed, when they will come into the Work programme after six months. The sanction will kick in before the individual has had the very expensive help that we hope the Work programme will rightly provide. It is a combination of there possibly not being a job and there not being any specialist help. Even if the youngest child has just turned five, lone parents might have been out of the workplace for 20 years looking after the older children. They will need extra help, but they will not get it because the Work programme does not kick in until the year is up.

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

All Liberal Democrats support the Work programme—it is focused on the need to do things—and everyone understands incentives to get people into work and out of the benefit trap. However, I and many of my colleagues share the hon. Lady’s concern about there being an absolute rule that when people have been out of work for a certain time they will lose a certain part of their income, through no fault of their own and irrespective of the job market in their area. It is too absolute, too draconian and too firm. I hope that the hon. Lady’s measured argument about how it will have more impact on some than on others, together with the arguments put by my colleagues and me, will persuade the Government that this is one area that should be revisited in order to find a different answer.

[Miss Begg]

I echo that point. In many cases, we are not arguing about the principle but the detail.

The last way in which the Government can save money is to do away with some benefits. This aspect has both positives and negatives, as we heard from my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald). Extra money has been identified in the CSR, and £2 billion will be set aside over the next four years for the introduction of a universal credit. That will get rid of many benefits, and probably almost all working-age benefits, which will be subsumed into the universal credit. That is the right thing to do, and it certainly takes us in the right direction of travel, but as with all these matters the devil is in the detail. I look forward to the White Paper, which I hope will give more detail on how things should work. I hope that, within the next couple of weeks, the Minister will give us some indication of when it will be published. We are all waiting with bated breath, as it will make sense of some of the other things that the Government have been doing.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Given the hon. Lady’s approach to the difficult question of restructuring benefits at a time of economic depression, from which we are slowly emerging, does she accept that for some of us the concept that benefits can only ever increase is philosophically difficult? For instance, in my constituency of Gloucester 10,000 jobs in the private sector were lost during the five or six years between 2004 and 2009, wages went down in many companies and people often worked fewer hours and fewer days to enable companies not to cut jobs. Charities prefer to see housing benefit linked to RPI rather than CPI, but RPI went down sharply in 2008-09. Does the hon. Lady not agree that, in that situation, benefits paid from taxpayer revenue have to be tailored according to how much is available—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be relatively brief.

[Richard Graham]

I apologise, Mr Turner. Does the hon. Lady agree that in this situation, whichever party was in power, it would be incumbent on the Government to find ways of reducing the ever-increasing benefits bill?

[Miss Begg]

There is no dispute about the fact that we would like to see the benefit bill reduced. The best way of doing that is to get those who can work into jobs so that they do not need benefits on which to live. As for pensioners, the Government, with their triple lock, have taken the decision that they do not want to see them getting less benefit. That is partly why the cuts have fallen so heavily on working-age people. The Government have protected benefits and increases in benefits for those who are on the basic state pension and other related benefits. They have made a value judgment and decided that some people deserve increases in their benefits while others do not.

Let us not forget the bigger economic argument. Poor people will spend their benefits in the local community. Problems can arise if benefits are cut: the money going into the local economy drops, jobs are lost and shops close. Cuts will cause problems in the local economy. Very often it is the benefits’ pound that keeps many things working in some of the poorer communities. There is not an absolute answer as to whether benefits should go up or down depending on the economic wealth of the country, but there is an absolute measure of poverty in which we should not expect people to live. Sometimes, some of our benefits are at a level that keeps an individual living in poverty.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

The hon. Lady said that when benefits are paid to individuals, the money is used in the local economy, and that that can somehow be helpful. I have heard such comments quite often and they are based, I believe, on an economic fallacy. If the Government did not make payments—benefits or otherwise—the money would not be borrowed by them in the first place, and those who had lent the money would have spent it in the economy anyway. Such a point is worth making because we should base our discussions on the known facts.

[Miss Begg]

We live in a welfare state and a civilised society, and we have benefits that are paid to people who are in work as well as to those who are out of work. One reason why we take such decisions is that we believe that it is bad for a society to have an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. That is partly why we have our tax and benefit system.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is quoting a system that she appears to support, but is it not the case that over the past 13 years of the Labour Government, in which this type of policy was actively encouraged and pursued, the gap between rich and poor widened?

[Miss Begg]

The rich have got richer, which I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would welcome. The poor have also got richer, but the gap is wider because of what has happened at the top end. There is no doubt that those who live in poverty have a relatively higher income than they would have done without the measures that the previous Government put in place.

[Richard Graham]

rose—

[Miss Begg]

I had better make some progress. I was going to read out a list of other organisations, but I need to make some progress. I am sure that other Members have lots of concerns to voice from organisations such as Mencap, the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion and so on. However, I have spoken for longer than I meant to. I thought that I had a 10-minute speech, Mr Turner, so I apologise.

In conclusion, the cuts in the DWP budget are not just to bureaucracy. They are far more profound than that. It is the benefits themselves that have been cut. The running costs of the Department are small in comparison to the costs of benefits paid. The DWP has already stripped £2 billion from its daily expenditure, so it is already quite efficiently run, which is why the big cuts have to come from the money paid out to individuals. None the less, behind the figures that I have mentioned are real people leading real lives. Finding £6 a week to make up the shortfall between the amount received in housing benefit and rent costs might not seem a lot to us, but it is a huge amount for someone who only receives £65 on JSA. That £65 has to cover all other living expenses, utilities and food.

Most people would feel the loss of £50 a week towards their transport costs. How much more acute is that loss for people who live in residential homes? Such people are to lose the mobility element of their disability living allowance. When their total income is only £22 a week as a personal allowance, how will they get out and about at all? I have given just two examples of people who will be directly affected by the cuts, but there are many more individuals who will be hit. Whatever Members believe philosophically about what the Government are doing, such individuals will have less income as a result of these decisions. It is beholden on all of us as politicians to recognise that for some of our constituents, life will be very hard as a result of the decisions in the comprehensive spending review. Even if Members believe that the Government are doing everything right, they should please remember that some of their constituents will have a really hard time in the years to come.

14:59

[Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The Chairman of the Select Committee has set out many of the arguments that are regularly deployed about the sort of cutbacks that are having to be made given the economic situation that this coalition Government inherited—the largest deficit in the G20 and a doubled national debt. However, she misunderstands, I think, what the Government’s ambition is. The Government have a grand ambition to help people into work and to provide incentives for that and the necessary help.

If we think back over the Labour years, one of the things that was most disappointing about them was that, at the end of the period, we had 3 million households in which nobody worked. Adults of working age may have lived there, but nobody worked. Many of the people concerned had never been approached about working. They had been on benefits for years and had not really had any help to try to get back into work. That is what this ambition and plan is about. The Work programme provides something that the Select Committee has been talking about for years—I am glad that the Chairman has welcomed it—which is a personalised service to help people back into work. I agree that there are some people who would benefit from having that help earlier in their job search than is currently proposed. The worry is that if we start the system at six months, we will not get any of the benefits of deflection. The fact is that many people find work in the second six months of job search.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend have any ideas for jobcentres? They could take some practical and easy measures before the Work programme kicks in to help people get back into work.

[Mr Heald]

I do have some suggestions. If one talks to providers—the big companies that provide these employment services—young people who are looking for work and employers, the one thing that they all say is that young people are bad at applying for jobs. When the future jobs fund was in operation, the employers’ reaction to it was generally quite favourable, but the one point that they almost all made was that the applications were poor. If one talks to job providers they will say that young people who have been out of work for six months will still not have a CV that they can leave with an employer. That is a classic thing that everybody knows about, and yet young people are not good at it.

The time has come for the Government to work the way that young people work: to put online simple information about writing a CV and how to get into work. Somehow, we are still missing that vital information. A lot of research shows that helping a young person with a job search early on, with simple information of that sort, is extremely helpful. It can be done through jobs clubs, a fantastic big society initiative happening in many parts of the country. That is just one idea on that subject.

It is refreshing to read Save the Children’s briefing for this debate. Although I do not agree with everything in it, it does something that is a model for an organisation. Save the Children, a marvellous organisation, at least starts its briefing with the good news, saying that the Government are doing some things that it strongly supports. If other organisations that send briefings to MPs were more realistic and acknowledged the good—the intent—and then went on to say what they did not like, they might find that they are more persuasive. I notice that the hon. Ladies do not agree. It is important to be realistic in this debate and not to over-state one’s case or make dramatic claims that are not borne out by the facts.

I want to ask the Minister whether universal credit is a big bang initiative, where we will have a sudden launch—with the new system explained to people—or whether it is proposed to have a transition, where a portfolio of benefits gradually moves in that direction, with the withdrawal rates being lowered and the earnings disregards increased. What is the conception behind that process?

Turning to the Work programme, I want to make three points. The first is that at the moment there is a patchwork of schemes continuing. We have got half the country covered by the flexible new deal; we have many cities with employment zones; we have the new deal for disabled people in some places—contracts are just finishing on that; the future jobs fund is running for a bit longer, and so on. It seems that there is a ragged gap in time between the ending of a lot of these programmes and the start of the Work programme. I wonder whether there is any scope for running on some of those schemes, or finding ways of employing the people who work for the big provider companies in that gap. It will obviously be very disruptive if the Work programme starts with quite a lot of people who have not had the help that they would normally have had. Contractors will have to wind down their staffing levels and then crank them back up again over a two or three-month period. I am interested to know if the Minister is at least looking at the gap.

The second point I wanted to make is about the work capability assessment, which the Chair of the Select Committee mentioned. It is concerning that 40% of people affected are now appealing. That may be expected with a system that is starting anew. I think the review is very welcome and I hope that it will deal with some of the problems that have been identified. It is excellent that there is a panel now, with Paul Farmer from Mind on it, which is a very good idea. I wonder whether there is not another problem. I understand that research shows that in some parts of the country, the system works reasonably well and there are not too many problems, but in London there are a lot of appeals and a lot of concern is expressed about the way that it works. Part of the problem may be that adequate attention has not been paid to the needs of minority communities.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point. I think there are regional disparities in how some of these measures have been brought in, although there are underlying national problems. Certainly, in Plymouth I have met women with terminal cancer who have been sent for interviews in Bristol. Surely, the hon. Gentleman would agree that that is not right. There is a significant problem outside London, and it is not specific to minority communities.

[Mr Heald]

Yes. These are the two worst examples I have heard. One person had terminal cancer, and the other attended a provider for a work discussion session with a drip. I think those problems have been ironed out to some extent. I hope that the review and the panel will help. There is possibly an issue about communication between the assessors and the people being assessed. Certainly in London, there are quite large minority communities, and I have been told by providers that one of the problems can be that Atos will have an assessor for whom English is not his or her first language, and the person being assessed may not have English as a first language. Apparently there have been quite a lot of problems as a result. Will the Minister consider whether there is a need to look at the question of communication, in London particularly?

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Although I do not dispute the point raised by the hon. Gentleman, I do dispute the disparities around the country. In the Adjournment debate I had last week, we heard that organisations that had taken people to tribunal to appeal against assessments in Oxford had had over 90% of them overturned. In Derbyshire, people supported by welfare organisations have a 75% success rate. That goes to show that the issue is the involvement of welfare rights organisations rather than a question of minority groups.

[Mr Heald]

The hon. Lady makes her point. There is some research, which I do not think has been published yet, that looks at the eastern region and London. It comes to the conclusion that the work capability assessments are working far better in the eastern region than in London. Talking to providers about why that might be, they raise the point that about a third of the population in London comes from minority communities. I thought the Minister might want to look at that issue.

My next point is one I mentioned before about getting CVs and help to young people early on. I made the point about going online. I hope that that is something that the Government will look at.

With regard to the movement from incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance on to jobseeker’s allowance, one issue that needs to be looked at is the fitness of our work force and the people who are moving from one benefit to the other. There is no doubt that there are a lot of people who start off with a back condition or possibly stress, and it is not treated quickly enough and becomes a chronic condition. I have made that point in debates such as this for years, and I think it is time that the Department of Health and the DWP looked more carefully at the issue of fitness. About two years ago, Dame Carol Black produced an excellent report about fitness and the work force. I know that she is still involved and I hope that it will be possible to build on her work and try to do more in this area, so that we end up with a work force who are fitter.

[Miss Begg]

Another problem is where employers employ occupational health professionals to assess people, and assess them as not being fit for work, when Atos has assessed them as fit for work for the work capability assessment. That is acting as a barrier very often for employers to accept people into the work force.

[Mr Heald]

That is right. Another point to make is that the Department of Health has a major group working on the issue of fitness, including aspects of fitness at work. I think that is something that the DWP should also be involved in. It should be a joint exercise, and Carol Black’s work should be continued.

I want to make a point about the consumer price index, and then a few general remarks. The consumer prices index is the European measure of inflation. There is no doubt that the retail price index distorts the measure, by including mortgage costs, which are erratic. I believe that in the longer term CPI is the better measure, and I understand that in Europe there are discussions about how to include housing costs in it. Over time CPI will be improved, whereas RPI has been rather erratic over the years, and has often led to poor results.

The overall effect of the changes is to give value for money to the taxpayer. It is an issue of fairness. I know that people say, “Housing and other benefits are being cut, and that is unfair on individuals who may have to move or who will have to negotiate with their landlords for a lower rent.” I understand that argument, but how can we explain to someone who takes home the average wage of £374 a week net that in difficult economic times, when they are hard pressed, it is right to spend more than £20,000 a year housing someone in a better house than they can afford? It is a hard argument to make.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

One can explain it by pointing out to them that the majority of housing benefit claimants are not living in properties of four bedrooms or more, and that the amount that the Government are presenting as the mean average for housing benefit claimants is wildly exaggerated, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows.

[Mr Heald]

The hon. Lady will have seen the briefings from certain organisations; I know she has read them. She will see in there the examples that are given—a family paying £400 a week in rent is a classic example. To someone who takes home £374 a week net, £400 sounds an awful lot of rent. That, of course, is the maximum.

[Alison Seabeck]

A number of the people who currently pay those higher rates moved into the areas where they live and into that type of accommodation 20 or 30 years ago; they have worked in low-paid work. The areas have gentrified over time and housing rents have gone up. That is not their fault. Their roots are there, and the expectation from the changes is that those people will be moved out of those areas, which is deeply unfair.

[Mr Heald]

I would contest what the hon. Lady says. Of course, it is true—I see the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) in his place, and I have a long connection with his constituency—that there are areas in London that have gentrified and changed over time; I agree. However, the sector of the market that we are discussing—the private rented sector—is not the one that the hon. Lady is really talking about. The private rented sector is the area of the market where people do not stay for 27 years. They move, regularly. It is a sector of the market in which people stay for a year or two. Something like 40 per cent. of that market is people who have been in their homes for less than three years.

[Simon Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman is right; he knows Southwark as I do. However, the pattern is not uniform, and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) has a good case. To give one example, just over the bridge is a square called West square, where former Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers have lived. However, some of the houses, which are all privately owned, have been lived in by working-class families, who lived there all their lives. They are privately owned and rented, and have continued with private tenants. Scattered throughout my constituency, as well as Westminster and every London borough, are considerable numbers of people who have been for between 10 and 50 years in private sector rented accommodation, and who do not want to move.

[Mr Heald]

The hon. Gentleman knows Southwark like the back of his hand, and I accept that there are people who have been in the private rented sector for many years, but that is not the overall picture of that sector of the market, which is one of shorter-term lets. Of course, the nature of the contracts on those properties is short term.

Of course there should not be undue hardship. I agree with the hon. Members for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) and for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), and with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, about that. That is why there is a fund to deal with cases of hardship. The Government have not gone into it saying, “This will be a harsh regime, with no possible exceptions.” They have set aside £140 million to deal with those problems.

I think that it is wrong to overstate the problems against the background of the very difficult economic position that the country is in and the need to make cuts—any Government would have had to make cuts. There is a third point, which is that there must be fairness. We are all in it together, and I think that the balance that the Government have achieved is fair. It is wrong to view what is being done as though the overall ambition were to cut back the size of the state. The overall ambition is to get people into work. If we do that, that is how we will cut the welfare bills. I think that, with the economy and the measures that are being taken, things are looking quite encouraging.

15:25

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on a continuing series of important debates. I congratulate, too, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on their role in securing it, as well as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) on laying out the issues as she did. As she said, behind the statistics are real people and real lives, and there are concerns about many of the issues. Many hon. Members will have had correspondence about, for example, the mobility component of disability living allowance. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s comments, and I hope we shall receive reassurance about some of those things.

Although the debate is about the effect of the CSR on the Department for Work and Pensions, I suggest that, given the bold programme of reform that is being undertaken, it is not practical fully to separate the impact of the spending review and the deficit from what I accept is theoretically a different question—that of reforming benefits for the long term. There is also a distinction to be drawn between the direct and indirect impacts of the CSR on the DWP.

Among the things that strike those of us who are new to the public sector are the crazy names that get bandied about. One is “annually managed expenditure”. It is crazy because that is precisely the expenditure that cannot be managed on an annual basis—at least not from within Departments. The key focus of the CSR, ultimately, is to build a sustainable recovery, and then steady growth, keeping interest rates low, which encourages investment and in turn creates the right atmosphere for job creation. That focus on growth could ultimately deliver the biggest single impact of the CSR on the bills that the DWP must foot; because as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South said, the best way to bring welfare bills down is for fewer people to be out of work.

The deficit that the new Government inherited requires economies. I know that the Opposition would like the running up of the deficit to be yesterday’s story, and the debate to move on to the cuts and how terrible they are; but they are not different stories. They are two sides of the same coin. If the Opposition do not like the cuts that must be made, fine, but they should tell us the alternative—not “Oh, maybe we could do it a little more slowly, or the bankers could pay a bit more” or talk of 10 or 20%. Let us see the 100%. Where are their £44 billion of cuts?

That is the last party political thing I intend to say. From now on I want to strike a more consensual tone. There are four key issues on which the Conservatives and Liberals in the coalition, and Labour—or at least new Labour—find considerable common cause. First, with an ageing population, and relatively low levels of retirement savings, too many citizens in our country have been facing old age without the security that they should be able to look forward to. Secondly, certain working age benefits have gone out of control—particularly housing benefit, the cost of which has risen from £14 billion to £21 billion in a decade.

Thirdly, a lazy approach from the state has abandoned too many people, who get reclassified as being unable to work and therefore—coincidentally, of course—are removed from the headline unemployment statistics, leaving them without practical help, support or encouragement.

Finally in my list of four factors, as a nation we have allowed a benefits system to build up that overall simply does not do enough to incentivise work. Along with other factors, that leads to pockets of multigenerational unemployment and homes where children grow up never seeing an adult go out to do a day’s work. Too easily, of course, those children can then slip into what we used to call “youth unemployment” but now, thanks to another fantastic rebranding exercise, they are called NEETS—those “not in education, employment or training”.

All of that is happening at a time when policy makers and business men bemoan their inability to find people to fill their existing vacancies, not only at the highly skilled end but at the low-skilled end. Instead, they have been looking and continue to look for people from abroad to fill those vacancies.

These issues are truly pressing because they are long-term structural issues which are quite apart from the structural deficit, although they have of course contributed to that deficit.

I am pleased to say that there is less of a partisan divide on these issues than one might imagine from reading The Guardian’s Society section since May. As I said earlier, I want to strike a bipartisan note in this debate and I am sure that Opposition Members will want to follow that approach. I know that they will want to join me in paying tribute to the spiritual fathers of these welfare reforms. Of course, I refer to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), alongside the Opposition Members’ own erstwhile colleagues, Mr John Hutton and Mr James Purnell.

On pensions, it was the Turner report, which was commissioned by Labour, that was indeed the turning point in the debate. Automatic enrolment, increasing the rate of growth of the state pension and raising the retirement age are all changes whose origins came on the watch of the last Government and, of course, enjoyed support across the House. The new Government are moving faster and I welcome that.

Then there is the case of the retirement age. Sadly but necessarily, given that there is still increasing life expectancy—to be clear, increasing life expectancy is itself a good thing, of course—and the triple hurdle for the formula for the uprating of the state pension, the coalition is now finally starting us on what will be a long road to providing a basic state pension, with less reliance on means-testing.

On housing benefit, the 2010 Labour manifesto read:

“Housing benefit will be reformed so we do not subsidise people to live in private sector accommodation on rents that working families could not afford.”

As I do not think that I can improve on that sentence, I will not try to do so.

Of course, there will be some hard cases and that fact is recognised; indeed, it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. No one welcomes the difficult situations that some families will find themselves in, and I am also glad the Government have made extra money available in discretionary housing payments.

However, we must also recognise—even if the most extreme projections about what will happen fail to materialise —that with a change to housing benefit as extensive as this one, all the economic logic suggests that there will be downward pressure on rents.

[Alison Seabeck]

I just want to know exactly where the hon. Gentleman gets his evidence from, because the National Landlords Association, residential landlords and London Councils, which is not a Labour body, all say that there is no evidence of such a downward pressure, partly because the private rented sector is already being squeezed on account of would-be young home owners who would like to own homes but who cannot afford them moving into that sector. There is not the evidence that the Government would hope for.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention and for the opportunity to comment on it. I did not talk about evidence from various bodies or organisations. I said that “all the economic logic” suggests that with a change this extensive, there will be downward pressure on rents—it does suggest that.

[Mr Heald]

According to evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee from the landlords’ bodies about 30% of landlords would reduce their rents; London Councils said that about 40% of landlords would reduce rents, and, in discussions in the Select Committee, members of the Committee were doing their arithmetic on the basis that 50% of landlords would reduce rents. So there is a body of evidence that a very significant number of landlords will negotiate lower rents.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clarifying that matter for us.

I want to turn to the coalition’s reforms of incapacity benefit. Of course, the genesis of those reforms also began in the last Government’s time in office, when Tony Blair managed to tempt Sir David Freud out of retirement and Sir David found a kindred spirit in James Purnell. In May 2009, Mr Purnell said:

“It is very important tor us to provide people with help to get back into work, and to improve the incentives for getting back into work. That is why we are re-testing everybody on incapacity benefit to make sure that they are on the right benefit. That is why we have tightened the gateway, to make sure that only the right people get on to the benefit, and that is why we will require everybody for whom it is appropriate to have back-to-work support.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 531.]

Again, I am not sure that that description of what needs to be done can be bettered and so, once again, I will not try to do so.

It is right that no targets have been set for the numbers of people who will go into the three different groups, because the programme has to be about identifying what is right for each individual, whether that is helping them directly into work, helping them to prepare for the world of work or offering them long-term and unconditional financial support at a rate that will be, of course, higher than the one that pertains today.

Clearly, there are some issues related to the early workings of the work capability assessment, as has been outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and others, including issues about intermittent conditions and certain mental health conditions. Of course, it is good that there was a pilot phase, so that these issues can be studied and tackled. I know that Ministers are conscious of the need to tackle them and I welcome the Harrington review, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), and the consultation with mental health charities.

The biggest issue of all is ensuring that work pays for everybody. It is not a new issue; it has been around for an awful long time. There is a difficult trade-off between, on the one hand, having a decent living standard for those who cannot find work and, on the other, incentives for those who can find work, and if there were a “third hand” it would be about avoiding the sort of sky-high marginal withdrawal rates, which are effectively tax rates, that create cliff-edges in terms of certain numbers of hours of work in a week or that completely discourage people from taking on some form of work. Of course, we must also try to keep the whole system simple and low-cost to administer. So it is an enormous challenge.

Twenty years ago, when I was an undergraduate and we were talking about these issues, people used to talk about the 97% effective marginal tax rates at their peak and sometimes, in extreme cases, rates that were effectively more than 100%, once the additional costs of going to work and so on had been factored in. Of course, that situation existed under a Conservative Government, so I am not making a party political point. However, not enough has changed since then.

The problem is that if we want to change that state of affairs, mathematically we either have to reduce benefits to levels that just would not be acceptable or withdraw benefits more slowly as people’s incomes rise. That second route is, of course, much more attractive but it is also extremely expensive, at least in the short term. So I am delighted that the Government, despite what has been a very difficult trade-off for them over the summer, have managed to find the £2 billion that is necessary to fund the universal credit. As hon. Members know, that new integrated benefit seeks to simplify the system, improve incentives, smooth transitions into work, reduce in-work poverty and cut back on fraud and error. I believe that that £2 billion is money very well spent.

Taken together, the reforms to incapacity arrangements and the plans to make work pay are, of course, complemented by the Work programme, which was also referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire. That programme will treat everyone as an individual in a very practical way, while continuing the “Purnellian” principle of using non-state institutions to help people into the world of work and indeed into lasting jobs.

Collectively these measures, enabled by the comprehensive spending review and some of the difficult trade-offs that have to be made, can have an enormous impact on the DWP. That is because, as we have said already, the single biggest variable factor is the number of people who are in work compared with the number of people who are not in work. With these measures, we can encourage and help many more of our fellow citizens into work and in so doing we can create a more fulfilling future for them, a more cohesive future for our society and a much more sustainable future for our economy.

15:39

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) for securing this important debate. I will begin by discussing the comprehensive spending review in order to highlight some of the key issues that we are confronting. The first is economic growth. Improving economic growth is one function of the CSR, in terms of overall macro-economic policy. The second is unemployment; we cannot be satisfied with so many people being unemployed for such a long time. Some 1.4 million people have been unemployed for approximately nine out of the past 10 years. At the same time, we have been sucking in labour from other countries. There are some big issues for us to confront.

The overall question about the CSR is this. If the Labour party thinks that cuts should be made, it would be handy—from our point of view, at least—to have some indication where they might fall. All the ding-dong about cuts does not distract anyone from the fact that there would have been cuts whether or not the Labour party won the last general election. Discussing only the CSR’s impact on the Department for Work and Pensions is slightly misleading, because we must reform benefits anyway.

As I said, too many people have been unemployed for too long, and we need to tackle that. As a decent society, we must encourage people to think about how to get back to work. A decent society looks after people properly if they need to be looked after and focuses on those who need more help rather than those who need less, if any.

[Mr Heald]

I am following the points that the hon. Gentleman is making about the most vulnerable people and not concentrating only on DWP. One great strength of the CSR that is not really about DWP is that tax credits have been increased to help the poorest children and ensure that we do not increase child poverty. That is part of the big picture.

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend the Member for—

[Mr Heald]

North East Hertfordshire.

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is much more about the overall impact of the CSR.

The changes that this Government are introducing were anticipated in some respects by the last Government. It is misleading to say that we are suddenly coming in with a wild charge to cut expenditure simply because we want to, or even because we need to, although we certainly do. There is a general feeling that changes in the pension benefits arrangements are necessary. A good example is moving incapacity benefit on to employment and support allowance. That was not our idea from just a few months ago; it was already the direction of travel of the last Government. I will discuss that in a bit, but I have four points to make.

The first is that the CSR has certainly propelled changes in the ESA; quite right, too, for the reasons that I have given. Secondly—it is important that we make, understand and keep repeating this point—people who really need help will not go without help. Severely disabled people will get appropriate support. It is critical to make that point, because we do not want anybody to be unnecessarily alarmed.

[Natascha Engel]

I was not going to intervene; I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. That is the big problem. The number of errors being made in the reassessment of people who are on ESA—and now, also, incapacity benefit—is so high that our worry is that exactly the opposite of what he is describing will happen. People are being left destitute who are already vulnerable and poor. That is exactly what we are worried about.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Member for—I will have to learn a few more constituencies.

[Natascha Engel]

North East Derbyshire.

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you. The fact of the matter is that we are reviewing those processes. I have mentioned Professor Harrington and said that our processes must be fair and decent, and that is what the Government are working to ensure.

The saving from the changes to the ESA will be approximately £2 billion, which makes a difference to our target of saving money through the CSR. However, what is critical is helping people to get to work by introducing a Work programme that delivers and encouraging the voluntary sector to help with CVs and so forth. It matters that we help people fulfil their lives by getting work if they want it and can do it; we must recognise that.

The key tool for transferring from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance is the work capability assessment, which was introduced in 2008. It has some imperfections that we will improve, but it was introduced by the Labour Government for precisely the purpose that we are discussing. That is another important point to make.

The assessment process, as I understand it, takes account of medical conditions, mental problems and so forth and considers carefully how health policy, initiatives and solutions are being advanced. It is a fair and relatively flexible tool—

[Miss Begg]

That is part of the problem; it is not flexible or sensitive to different conditions. It is very mechanistic. Some of the employability criteria from previous assessments for incapacity benefits have been removed, when those are the very issues that need to be assessed. Those of us who have examined it feel that that is a problem. It does not always assess the right things. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) pointed out, the wrong decisions are being made. People who are clearly not fit to work are being found fit to work and vice versa. That is a problem.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Lady. This might get a bit boring, but I will simply repeat that we look forward to Professor Malcolm Harrington’s report, which I gather is coming soon.

To end on a political point, I note that the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for— [Hon. Members: “Paisley and Renfrewshire South.”] Thank you. He said on “The Andrew Marr Show” that he recognised that the changes were necessary, that the Labour Government would have been interested in that direction of travel and that he did not reject all our proposals out of hand but welcomed a lot of them. That is the point that we should rest on. Labour’s Front-Bench Members recognise the problems that we are dealing with, understand that people should be encouraged and helped to work and recognise the impact that that will undoubtedly have on the CSR. However, as I have stressed throughout my speech, we must give people a fair and decent chance to fulfil their lives. That is our view and, I hope, increasingly the view of the Labour party.

15:39

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) for securing this debate on an important and emotive subject. I speak as a constituency Member who brings to the table constituency observations, not experience from the Work and Pensions Committee or in-depth knowledge of the subject. However, I welcome the fact that the Government seem more and more willing to take difficult decisions that the previous Government unfortunately would not take. The comprehensive spending review is a vital part of starting to clear up the economic car crash—those are the only words I can find to describe the situation—that the new Government have inherited.

Today we have seen that when it comes to tackling the difficult issues, Opposition Members prevaricate and oppose. They come out with the odd titbit to give us a little taster of what they might think is the right thing to do, but they never seem to have a plan, or ever look like putting a plan forward. That is getting rather tedious.

Overall, the issue is that we have had a steep and astounding increase in the cost of benefits over the past five years. There has been a 45% increase in the cost of benefits over that time, which means that for every £3 that the Government spend, £1 is spent on welfare benefits. We as a country cannot sustain such a situation. Again, that shows how out of control the welfare situation was under the previous Government—just like the situation with the Budget deficit, immigration and a number of other issues that they failed to tackle.

As I have mentioned, thankfully, we have a coalition that might not always be perfect in its approach, but is willing to take the necessary decisions to put the country back on the right course. I think all hon. Members would acknowledge that we need to make it very clear that, as a civilised society, we must provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. I do not think anyone would advocate that as a country, as a Government and as politicians, we should not support those people in our society.

However, we should also strive to reform and arrest a situation in which many genuine people are trapped in the system. Such people want to contribute to society, to go out to work and make their own way, but unfortunately they are stifled by the current system. We also need to bear in mind—I do not think this has been mentioned in the debate—that for a very small minority of people benefits are a lifestyle choice. A number of colleagues have put it to me—I have heard this comment in my constituency—that some people consider that going to claim their benefits is tantamount to turning up for their wages. That is not acceptable in a civilised society. We must look after the people who should be looked after, but we cannot afford to allow people to choose not to contribute—unless, of course, they are willing to contribute to society in a financial sense for themselves.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald) pointed out eloquently that many young people are growing up in households where they have never seen anybody work. That is not a new phenomenon. There are second and third generations of people who have never worked, and young people are growing up in those households with no role models. They have no one to look up to, copy in life or attach their thoughts to. I understand that there are now around 3 million such households. Again, that situation is totally unsustainable.

There are people who are genuine losers in our benefit system. I am aware of many constituents with physical and mental disabilities, and learning disabilities and difficulties who have little chance of ever working. I would like the Minister to make it clear that those people will definitely be protected under the changes to the benefit system. We must make sure that we protect them if we are to be considered a civilised Government.

We also need to ensure that we make every effort to try to help people on incapacity benefit and ESA, who are rightly being asked to take work capability assessments. We must consider the fact that when people go to the assessment their condition might not be taken into account on the particular day they attend. People with multiple sclerosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis, rheumatoid arthritis or conditions that can be quite different on a given day could experience such a situation. What does the Minister propose we do to try to make sure that assessments are fair for those people?

I would also like to make hon. Members aware that I have constituents who are in what I would call the middle ground. They are between being able and unable to work, and are on the edge of being able to enter the workplace. The current system deters those people from going into the workplace because they do not seem to have the necessary support to enable them to get a taster for work, which would encourage them and give them the necessary opportunities.

I welcome the back to Work programme and the package of support that will be offered, particularly the help for people to get back to the workplace. I am encouraged by the personalised nature of that programme. We need to ensure that such packages are personal because, as Members from all parties have said, this is not a one-size-fits-all situation. It is extremely important that we put more of the onus on the back to work providers and that we ensure they are doing the job properly and in a sustainable way. We can help to do that through payment by results.

I have been made aware of a particular case from my surgery; it involves a very genuine woman who has been through a horrendous experience. She is currently receiving ESA and wants to go back to work but, in the words of her specialist, she is not yet in a position to do so. At the moment, there seems to be no middle ground between ESA or jobseeker’s allowance. I think she has just been told that she must choose the JSA route, which means she will receive pretty poor and confusing support to get back into work.

I welcome the announcements made by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), which will, indeed, start getting people back into work. However, I have concerns, particularly for my constituent, who feels as though she is wading through treacle trying to get the skills, support and confidence to go back to the workplace. I fear that the reforms that will come in next year will not be expeditious enough for my constituent. What is the Minister doing to advise and direct various organisations—Jobcentre Plus and other agencies—on what can be done to help such people now, rather than waiting until next year? I expect that most Members would rather we helped people as expeditiously as we can as a Government, than waited for legislation to come into force.

I now turn to the limits that are being put on benefits. I understand why hon. Members, particularly those in London, have concerns about the cap that will be put on benefits. Many hardworking people in my constituency have said that they would be absolutely overjoyed to earn £25,000 after tax and spend £20,000 a year on housing. However, unfortunately, they are not in a position to do so. The decision to put caps on the amount of benefit that people can claim has been greeted with some enthusiasm in my constituency. In many ways, such an approach is progressive; although I take into account the difficulties that some Members may have, particularly those with London constituencies.

Although my constituents have welcomed the announcements, they are not mercenaries, and I do not think anyone here would profess to be so. My constituents want to support people to get back into the workplace, but they also want to ensure that, as a Government, we do not allow the situation to get out of control. My constituents welcome the discretionary housing payments that will be allowed to go to the poorest in our society.

Some Opposition Members have used the politics of fear around the issue and have talked about social engineering. My theory is that trapping families in a financial position where they are totally dependent, and beholden to politicians who are edging ever closer to taking complete control of individual lives, is social engineering of the worst form.

We must encourage an economy in which we bring the necessary training, jobs and employment to sustain the people who have become dependent on benefits. The Government are on the right lines in making sincere proposals for getting people back into work. It will sometimes be difficult to put those things into practice, and there will be some anomalies, but I am sure the Minister will tell us how they can be ironed out. I welcome the moves that have been proposed and sincerely hope that they will help people in constituencies such as mine to move forward from the difficult and prescriptive place where many have found themselves trapped, particularly those who have been unable to source work for many years.

16:00

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I start by thanking you, Mr Turner, and hon. Members present for your tolerance in allowing me to resume my participation in the debate. I have been attending a Public Bill Committee sitting for the past hour. I am sorry to have missed the contributions of other Members and encourage them to intervene to repeat points that might already have been made that relate to my remarks.

I am pleased that the Backbench Business Committee selected the subject for debate this afternoon, not only because it was partly in response to representations I made to the Committee, but because this set of policy announcements is one of the most significant that the coalition Government have made. It will have far-reaching implications, not only financially for families now, but for the philosophy surrounding welfare provision. It is beginning to take us into new territory and challenges some of the assumptions and positions that have pertained for the past 60 or 70 years. The debate is an important opportunity to start to talk about that.

It is notable that we have had several debates in this Chamber and on the Floor of the House that speak to concerns right across the House about the implications of some of the Government’s proposals, particularly in relation to housing benefit reform. I want to address some of those points again this afternoon and, inevitably, speak much more widely about the broad range of financial support for families that is provided by the welfare system and by the benefits and support programmes that are the responsibility of the DWP.

One of the great difficulties when looking at financial support for households is that it is provided by a number of Departments. It is difficult to disentangle the implications of one benefit change in one Department’s area of responsibility and look at it in isolation when assessing the overall impact on low-income households. I hope that we will have some leeway this afternoon to look beyond the rigid parameters of the DWP. That was certainly already the case when I had to leave the debate earlier.

[Mr Heald]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the increase in child tax credit is a vital part of the overall picture?

[Kate Green]

That is the kind of point that it is important we recognise in debate. I recognise that the increase in child tax credit is one of a tiny number of measures, if not the only one, that we have seen so far from the Government that try to redress some of the reduction in or withdrawal of financial support elsewhere. Ministers have highlighted the fact that the increase is significant in ensuring that there is no rise in child poverty as a result of the measures that have been proposed overall. I regret such paucity of ambition, as the intention is simply not to see child poverty increase. Previous Labour Governments were criticised—rightly, I guess—for not achieving as much as they had set out to do. The proposed increase seems a poor and rather limited attempt to move forward, which I very much regret. I would welcome hearing from the Minister how the Government expect to catch up on the target to eradicate child poverty by 2020 when they expect to make no progress at all between now and 2012-13.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I want to build on the hon. Lady’s point that the issues of child poverty that the Government are addressing go well beyond DWP and remind her of the £7 billion investment we have made in the fairness premium, which is being delivered through measures introduced by my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Education. At the risk of incurring your wrath, Mr Turner, I remind the hon. Lady that when the Government came into office the figures on child poverty were deteriorating. What we have done in the emergency Budget and the initial spending review measures is to stop that deterioration and stabilise the situation. In March, we will be setting out a strategy to show how we will take things forward.

[Kate Green]

First, let us be absolutely clear about the alleged deterioration in child poverty performance. It deteriorated in two years, 2005-06 and 2006-07, and the measures that were introduced in the 2008 and 2009 Budgets were already turning that position around. It is welcome that the Government have not decided to reverse those measures. I am pleased that they have retained the progressive announcements made by the previous Chancellor, but it is a pity that the new measures that they have announced will tend to work against that progressiveness.

Secondly, I absolutely take the Minister’s point about the importance of the spending measures being rolled out by the Department for Education. I regret that some of that is moving money around, rather than bringing additional money into educational institutions and settings. None the less, there is considerable evidence, as she is well aware because we have discussed it on many occasions, that any spending on education, health or a range of other outcomes for children is hampered if they grow up in households with inadequate income. Income is a prerequisite of the success of other social programmes. That is why I am concerned about the long-term implications of some of the Government’s measures in relation to household income.

Let me list some of the Government measures that will reduce incomes across the piece. We have the freeze on child benefit, and its removal in cases where an individual in the household is in the higher tax band. We have the freezing of working tax credit. We have an increase in the number of hours that a couple are required to work in order to claim working tax credit. We have a reduction in the child care element of the tax credit. We have the linking of benefits to the consumer prices index. We have the time-limiting of contributory employment and support allowance to a period of 12 months.

We have the removal of the mobility element of disability living allowance for those in residential care. We have the promise of more testing before disability living allowance can be accessed.

We have many changes to rules for eligibility for housing benefit, including the room cap, the reduction to the 30th percentile, the removal of the £15 excess, the cut in housing benefit for those on jobseeker’s allowance for more than 12 months, changes to non-dependent deductions, which are now to be uprated in line with the CPI, and there will be an increase in the age at which people are able to come off the single room rent rate. We have changes to council tax benefit. We have the removal of the health and pregnancy grant, child trust funds and the saving gateway. We have the reduction in funds available for social housing and an overall cap on benefits.

I hope that I have not forgotten anything, because that sounds bad enough. Not all of those policies will have an impact on every household, but none the less together they will put many low-income households under great financial pressure, and I am very concerned about that.

[Maria Miller]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

No, I will not. I also want to highlight the fact that when we look at which households will particularly feel the brunt of those changes, we see that women will bear much of the pain. Women are hit twice as hard as men as a result of the reduction in income that will result from those changes.

Women receive 70% of tax credits, 60% of housing benefit and 94% of child benefit—perhaps unsurprisingly, because that payment is particularly well targeted at mothers—and 65% will be affected by the changes in the rules for savings credit as part of pension credit.

The disabled are suffering several reductions to their benefits: the removal of higher rate disability living allowance for those in residential care; the changes to eligibility for employment and support allowance, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) highlighted earlier; the impact of the work capability assessment, which seems to be proving harsher than was acknowledged earlier and harsher than the previous or present Governments might have expected; and the loss of contributory ESA after a year.

Families with children in every income decile are being hit hard by the changes—harder than households without kids. I am concerned about the differential impact of the changes on different kinds of household structures, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that.

Another area that I would like to open up for debate and would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on is how the measures will work against the Government’s absolutely correct wish to incentivise people to move into increased hours of paid work. The first prerequisite of being able to look for work is a stable income. It is hard for people to motivate themselves to go out and look for a job if they are struggling to hold things together day to day, and worrying about creditors banging on the door, or whether they can afford to pay the bills, keep healthy food in the fridge, keep the house in a decent state of repair and keep their clothes clean and laundered. With all those basic needs proving a barrier, it is difficult to think about going out to look for work.

The second thing that is crucial for people looking for paid employment—we hear this again and again from homeless charities—is a stable address. Many of us are concerned that the impact of the housing benefit changes will be to force people to move, perhaps more than once or twice, as the changes are introduced in waves. In some cases, lack of a stable address is likely to prove a barrier to moving into paid work. Clearly, a third important prerequisite for parents being able to move into paid work is having child care in place.

Changes to housing benefit will not only disrupt the stability of a family’s accommodation but may move them further from areas where jobs can actually be found, and from the support networks on which they rely. I am concerned that reducing the element of working tax credit support that is available to help meet child care costs will make it more difficult for parents to afford those costs.

A number of the measures that the Government have already announced will actually worsen marginal deduction rates. The cuts to working tax credit will worsen the return that people get from paid employment, and the loss of free school meals for some families who were expecting to receive them from this September, and the increases in VAT and travel costs, will make the decision to return to work much more economically unattractive than the Government might wish. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that.

Another thing I would like to consider is the support the Government will put in place to enable people to move into paid work. We look forward to receiving details about the single Work programme, which I believe Members across the House are keen to welcome. Labour Members in particular see many elements of the single Work programme, in so far as we know about it, drawing on the new deal and the recent flexible new deal. In fact, I have been struggling to identify the philosophical differences between the single Work programme and the flexible new deal. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that.

There is potential for more risk being put on providers, who will be required to perform over the longer term. That may make it more difficult for some smaller providers and, in particular, voluntary sector providers to join in with provision of the single Work programme. I know that Ministers are concerned about that, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on it.

There is perhaps even more alliance than we saw with the flexible new deal on the so-called black box approach. My worry about such an approach is whether the most vulnerable will transparently receive appropriate support and be properly advocated for in a system where there are conditions, requirements and obligations on them. Who will negotiate for them if the requirements that are imposed are unreasonably onerous? The black box approach has some merits, obviously, in that it offers flexibility to good providers, but how we will ensure that the actions of providers who may put inappropriate pressure on clients to take up unsuitable employment, or to take up unsuitable programmes to prepare them for employment, will be transparent and exposed in the single Work programme that Ministers intend to introduce?

My final point is about the universal credit, which I think many Members on the Government Benches have suggested will provide a solution to concerns about the measures that are being introduced more immediately. First, even if the universal credit proves to be the panacea that we are assured it will be, I am concerned about the hardship that will be experienced by households now, before it is actually in place. I am not setting out today to oppose the universal credit by any means, but it might be helpful, as we are clearly at an early stage in the Government’s thinking on what it might look like, if I highlight some concerns about where care will need to be taken in its design.

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

I apologise for being here for only part of the debate. On the universal credit, does my hon. Friend have any insight into the logic of how the Government’s announcement on, for example, the localisation of council tax benefit—and, by the way, the 10% cut—fits with the DWP’s approach of trying to design a universal credit, but apparently without that element in it?

[Kate Green]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Points raised in favour of the universal credit were that it would remove administrative complexity and clarify people’s entitlements in and out of work. Clearly, where there is variance across the country in terms of entitlement to help with council tax, we have lost all the advantage of administrative simplicity, and transparency and clarity. That is one of the anomalies that I would be interested in hearing the Minister address.

I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on some of the risks of putting all our eggs in one basket. That may have the virtue of simplicity, but as we know, administrative systems and Government are not famous for smooth running in favour of low-income claimants. If the universal credit should happen to fall over, perhaps because of IT difficulty or for other reasons, there will be absolutely nothing else coming into households to carry them through. I very much hope that the IT will perform smoothly and that there will be no such administrative difficulties, but there are risks. It is important that we hear from Ministers what the contingency plan is, because both DWP and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have been quite slow to compensate for difficulties in getting payments through quickly; for example, emergency payments and social fund payments have not been particularly easy to access when things have gone wrong.

From the point of view of low-income households, there is some merit in having payments coming in at different times through the month. It assists household budgeting if people know that another chunk of money will be arriving in the next few days.

I hope that the design of the universal credit will recognise that there is an issue not just of distribution of income to poorer households but of its distribution within those households. I want to be sure that we design a credit that does not disadvantage women in the household in particular by assessing and paying a credit at household level that in practice may not reach her and, therefore, may not be particularly effective in reaching her children.

The intention to introduce real-time calculation of entitlement to the universal credit will also mean real-time clawing back of benefit overpayments. It would be exceptionally difficult for low-income families to plan for that, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments.

In conclusion, the Secretary of State and the Department have an ambitious vision, and an extensive range of changes will be introduced in the near term in somewhat indecent haste, without the implications being clearly thought through. I am grateful that we have had an opportunity to raise some of our concerns. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South said earlier, there are real concerns about the devastating impact that the loss of even a few pounds can have on low-income households, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

16:19

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) for starting our debate today. She has talked about retiring, and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald) has mentioned the contribution that she has made on the Select Committee—a contribution that I heartily admire. I hope that she does not mind my saying that I hope that she does not need to retire, because across the country she is a role model for and an inspiration to disabled people. If, however, she does feel the need, I am sure that I could find an excellent Conservative candidate in Aberdeen to fill her spot. The Conservatives do, of course, need more Members of Parliament from Scotland.

I welcome the proposals in the comprehensive spending review for the Department for Work and Pensions and, in particular, I welcome the Secretary of State’s radical and strategic look at the support that is given to 20 million customers, including those who receive benefits and state pensions, those who need help to get work, and disabled and older people. The CSR is courageous in what it has presented, and it is transformational because it is about giving people who can work a way to transform their lives, build their confidence, feel worth while and contribute to their family and to society as a whole. It is about giving them hope for the future, because the reality is stark. After I deal with this point, I shall move on to a more positive note. Britain today has 5 million people claiming out-of-work benefits, one in five households entirely dependent on benefits, with no one working, and nearly 1 million people who have never worked. We cannot leave people to languish on benefits with no opportunities to change their lives for the better, and I believe that all of us in this House, no matter which side we are on, are trying to change lives for the better.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen South talked about the gap between rich and poor, and I sometimes feel frustrated by how we approach that. We have to help the people at the lower end of the spectrum to get back into work, and to support the people who cannot work. However, it is not about penalising people who have achieved something in life. There is something about the British culture that means that when we talk about people who have achieved something we have to try to find fault. To anyone who has gone out there, worked hard, tried to find work and achieved something for themselves and their family, I say, “Well done,” and I hope that everyone else does too.

I would particularly like to focus on the issue of getting people back to work and on how the Work programme can support that. There is no doubt that we need to improve the way in which we help people get back into work. According to International Labour Organisation figures, we have nearly 2.5 million people unemployed, which is 7.7% of the economically active population. That is below the G7 unemployment rate of 8.3%, but some of those 2.5 million people are not contributing economically to our society and are being held back from reaching their full potential. In a YouGov poll in July this year, 43% of people who had visited a jobcentre in the previous 12 months said that they were treated as a statistic, with no focus on their individual needs. That figure rises to 59% for those in the 55-plus category, and that is something that we must change.

In my constituency of Brentford and Isleworth in west London, the latest figures from September showed that 2,315 people were claiming jobseeker’s allowance. That figure was down 10% on the previous year’s, but the number of people who have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year had increased by 47%. Being out of work long term is damaging for all concerned. It is damaging for the taxpayer, because we lose out on the potential economic contribution of that individual and, more importantly, it is damaging for that individual themselves because of what it does to them and to their families.

Some 60% of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in my constituency are aged between 25 and 49, and it is that age group that particularly needs help to get back into work. Currently, there is a confusing array of programmes out there. People who have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance for 12 months must take part in the flexible new deal, which is delivered through Jobcentre Plus by private providers. Some people who do not receive a job through the FND will possibly move back on to jobseeker’s allowance. Recent figures provided by the Department for Work and Pensions show that since the scheme was implemented in 2001, more than 500,000 of the 2.7 million people leaving the scheme have returned to jobseeker’s allowance. We need to simplify things, to improve the accountability and to focus on results, and I really believe that the Work programme can do that.

The Work programme is one of the biggest employment and back-to-work programmes in the world, and will offer targeted, personalised help for people who need it most, sooner rather than later. The programme will be delivered by experienced organisations in the private and voluntary sectors, which will be given the freedom to design the right programmes for claimants. However, those organisations will be paid by results, and the Government will pay them only when they get welfare claimants back into work, and keep them there. Are there people out there who can deliver that? I believe that the answer is yes, and I want to give a couple of examples of how things are currently working, and can work in the future.

The first example is Reed in Partnership, which I recently visited in Hounslow. The organisation states that it seeks to

“break down barriers to work by giving people the confidence, skills, and experience they need to find lasting employment; using the most creative and innovative methods in our sector.”

Since 1998, Reed in Partnership has helped 100,000 people move from welfare into employment, and has focused not only on building the skills and confidence of individuals to get back into work, but also on building partnerships with local businesses that offer the work opportunities. The organisation has many strong partnerships across the business sector. The view of the chief executive, Chris Melvin, is that the

“development of a single, integrated Work Programme represents a dramatic shift in policy and an opportunity for everyone working in the employment and skills sector.”

I met the Hounslow branch manager, Shirley Allen, who talked to me about the organisation’s work with people on health-related benefits, and about some of the opportunities it sees for the future. I also talked to some of the individuals who were going though its programme and who really did want to find work. They felt that organisations such as Reed were helping them to build their confidence so that they could go out there and change their lives for the better.

The second example is in the voluntary sector. I recently met an organisation called Helxx5, which is committed to building a mechanism that brings together business and the community for the benefit of all. The Bridge UK is the charitable arm of Helxx5, and that is the part of the organisation that I visited. The Bridge UK has so far focused on using a cross-section of unemployed people to renovate disused buildings and transform them into a multi-media hub that will bring business to the area. It has employed locally, in Brentford, some 100 unemployed people, who have cleared yards and decorated buildings, learning a whole host of skills along the way. Some of those people come from second and third-generation benefit households. It was pretty hard initially to persuade some of them that there was a good reason to get out of bed in the morning, but The Bridge UK has done that successfully, and real results are being achieved.

The ultimate goal for The Bridge UK is to continue to work with unemployed people from Jobcentre Plus, taking them through training modules with a view to them finding a way to stabilise their life, and providing the skills base that will allow them to secure future work. In effect, it is helping people to cross the bridge from welfare dependency to future employability. What makes this work are the leaders of the organisations—in this case Cain Gerrod. He brings knowledge of coaching, business experience and local contacts, and his former tough-guy ex-Chicago life probably enables him to communicate with the individuals in the programme. When I visited it last week, I found a group with energy and creativity in abundance. Its approach works and, in my view, totally fits with what we are looking for as a successful part of the Work programme. I also visited National Grid’s programme with offenders in prisons. It works with more than 100 organisations and businesses to create opportunities for offenders and support them to find work. It gets them into work, then supports and mentors them for two years.

The common theme running through the coalition Government’s proposals is that they cannot do all this on their own. Getting people back to work is an example of that; we need businesses, charities, the Government, neighbourhoods, families and individuals all to play a part in helping people to get back to work.

There are two areas that I would like to mention: work experience and mentoring. Gaining employment in this country is dependent on having experience, which many people who have been unemployed for some time do not necessarily have. Without experience, they cannot get a job and, without a job, they cannot get experience. We need to break that cycle by persuading more companies to give people work experience.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Lady is right about the importance of workplace experience. Employers look for it, and it is important in giving confidence to individuals in applying for jobs. Therefore, is it not regrettable that the future jobs fund, which gave people a sensible amount of work experience—a minimum of six months—and, crucially, paid them a wage, which is one of the most important features of feeling that it is a genuine work experience, has been abandoned by the coalition Government?

[Mary Macleod]

We need to find people sustainable, long-term employment that they can do in future and will support them. We can work with businesses in our local areas. I will be encouraging all the businesses in my constituency to give more people the work experience that will help them to gain future employment. All Members can do that in their constituencies.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that the future jobs fund has been successful in placing young people in permanent work? Only last week, I spoke to several employers and young people in my constituency, and due to being on placements through the future jobs fund, those young people now have permanent work.

[Mary Macleod]

There will be examples of people gaining experience and managing to find work, but the problem is that there have been so many different schemes, not one coherent strategic approach to getting those people into long-term and sustainable work. People have not had the individual support to make that happen, which the Work programme will allow.

Work experience is a win-win situation for all concerned; the company gets support from individuals for their business and the individuals gain vital work skills. One barrier that has stood in the way of that in the past is that people feared losing their jobseeker’s allowance if they undertook any volunteering work. I received a letter from a constituent on that. I am pleased that that issue has been addressed and that unemployed people are now encouraged to take on work experience voluntarily, without fear of losing their jobseeker’s allowance—as long as they are still actively available for and seeking employment at the same time. Therefore, a part-time work experience assignment will not prevent them from continuing to claim benefits in the short term, but may, I hope, help them not claim them in the longer term by finding suitable long-term work.

As MPs, we can all persuade businesses and individuals in our communities to create and develop mentoring schemes to support those people who have been long-term unemployed to get back into work. I hope that we can create something good and sustainable with a mentoring scheme in my constituency.

In summary, I believe that the Government have taken bold and radical steps in addressing welfare reforms that were long overdue. We will replace a confusing array of support programmes with the Work programme, which will provide personalised support to get people back to work. The priority will be to ensure that the Work programme is delivered in a way that encourages the active involvement of strategic companies and third sector organisations, without introducing red tape and bureaucracy. Beyond the Work programme, we can encourage the building of vital skills by providing more opportunities for people to volunteer in workplaces to gain vital experience to get back into work. I look forward to working with businesses in my constituency to do just that, and to get more people from welfare into work, so that we change their lives for the better and they can go on to create a strong and sustainable future for themselves and their families.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

I will call the Front-Benchers from 4.57. I can see three Members standing up; I call Richard Graham.

16:35

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Turner, I shall try to be brief and build on the points made by other hon. Members, including, most recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod). I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) for securing the debate on a topic that is crucial to dealing with our old, weak and vulnerable, and for all of us who work. The debate is on a subject responsible for a third of all Government spending and, therefore, crucial in that sense as well.

We have been debating the impact of the CSR on the work of the Department for Work and Pensions. What the CSR did, above all, was endorse a radical change of direction in that most crucial of Departments. We have effectively seen a signal to the end of accepting ever more people with very little motivation to work, people who are not working living in properties that they would not be able to afford if they did work, Britain’s ever-increasing number of people on incapacity benefits—there are 2.9 million people on a category of benefit that does not exist anywhere else in Europe—and an ever-increasing proliferation of an array of benefits that no one, not even the distinguished hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), can understand.

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Graham]

I regret that there is no time to give way.

It will also mean an end to the continuation of the trend for increasing numbers of young people with illnesses and disabilities who do not wish to follow the stirring examples of the hon. Member for Aberdeen South and my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who set strong examples. I do not believe that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South wishes us to continue to accept those things.

The radical new approach endorsed by the CSR is a philosophy for a 21st-century welfare state and a complete restructure of benefits, which I describe as getting “back to Beveridge”, under a single universal benefit, a single larger basic state pension, which should have been introduced by the previous Government years ago, and the principle that work always pays and benefits should not exceed the average salary. That amounts to an ambitious programme that many of us endorse; indeed, all the voluntary organisations that gave evidence to the Select Committee explicitly embraced the goals, if not the details, of the implementation. As Opposition Members have said, we are close to consensus on the aims—whatever the shadow Secretary of State may have said on television recently—which is appropriate given the sector with which we are dealing.

What differentiates us is simply how much money should go to whom, when and where. Those who believe, as some hon. Members have indicated today they do, that no benefit should ever change, let alone decrease, are missing the point. If we accept the principle behind the goals of the direction of the Department for Work and Pensions, we much also accept that, to get rid of the disincentives to work and to make work worth while, the principle means significant changes to how benefits are delivered.

The natural corollary to the strategy that we all—or most of us—accept is the plan for implementation. We now have the plans for changes to housing benefit, testing people on incapacity benefit, new ways of handling people on jobseeker’s allowance, the introduction of the Work programme and the introduction of the single universal benefit, which, in a sense, is the most important. Those changes are under way. The Minister and her colleagues are aware of the sensitivity of individual issues that will come up as this great programme is put into place, and I believe that they will respond with contingency plans and funding if difficulties come up. We must trust the Minister to do that.

Let me give an example of what can be inspiring from a new approach to work. In Parliament, I employ a woman who is a registered epileptic. She does a fantastic job, and there is no reason why many others like her should not be able to do the same thing. As the programme unfolds, I believe that we will see many inspiring examples coming forth. Therefore, I urge hon. Members from all parties to embrace the strategy and work to make it a success.

There is much that we can do as individual MPs. For example, I will be doing three things. First, I will hold a seminar so that disabled jobseekers can meet employers, and employers can hear from those who work successfully, such as my friends the blind receptionist and the deaf warehouseman. Secondly, I will continue to encourage my jobcentre to experiment with new ways of helping people on jobseeker’s allowance to find jobs. One new experiment in Gloucestershire has halved the number of people on the waiting list over the past few weeks. Thirdly, I am holding an apprenticeship fair for young people, and a seminar on engineering for women.

I would like to hear other ideas from hon. Members from all parties, so that we can go out and do our bit in our constituencies to help people into work. There is an alternative approach, which I would summarise as that of continuing to snipe from the sidelines, saying that things cannot work, complaining that funding has decreased, and effectively letting down young and working-age people in our constituencies. I believe that we should embrace the strategy, hold the Department to account on the scheme’s implementation as it unravels, and make it a success so that we get our country working again.

16:41

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

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I am present almost by accident, because my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) would normally have been the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. In many ways, she is a greater expert than me. I am afraid that I have broken the spell—there would have been women leading for all three main parties, together with the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) and the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). We men would have had to muscle our way in. I apologise for that, but I hope that in spite of my lack of technical expertise, I can none the less share something from my experience. Like the hon. Member for Aberdeen South and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald), I am one of the old hands in such a debate.

I welcome the Minister to her post, and I endorse what was said earlier. The approach taken by the Secretary of State and the Minister responsible for pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb) has shown encouraging, progressive and challenging new thinking that looks to restructure an important Department. I welcome the opportunity to look at how that will be done.

I speak not only as an old-school Liberal, with Beveridge and Lloyd George as my political forebears, but as someone who has lived and represented the inner city for all of my time in this place, and half of my life. I know how important it is to have a strong welfare state, but that we must always encourage those who can to find and stay in good-quality work.

A friend of mine, the deputy head of a primary school in Leeds, once showed me how they were taking 10-year-olds to do work experience in their final year of primary school. More than half the youngsters in that school had nobody at home who went to work, so a role model who worked was missing in their lives. I hope that at the end of the five-year coalition programme, difficult though it will be in some areas because of our financial position, we will have a more equal society, a greater percentage of people in work and a higher skill base, but that we will still always protect the poor and the vulnerable from falling through the safety net.

I commend the single Work programme. I have long felt the need to pull together the ways in which people are assisted into work. From my constituency experience, I have to say that the system has not been working. As the Government implement the single Work programme, I ask them to take heed of what is stated in the coalition agreement:

“We will realign contracts with welfare to work service providers to reflect more closely the results they achieve in getting people back into work.”

The disparate contract system has not worked, and there have been some poor providers. It has been a mixed scene, and we need a more reliable network of ways in which people can go into the system.

I also commend the ambitious plan for a system of universal credit. That is what we should aim for. The system has seemed complicated, and if it is complicated for us and the Department, it will be doubly complicated for people who have to navigate themselves through it as users, often during other pressures in their lives as well.

From my experience, the “tell us once” initiative, is beginning to work. That is when someone reports a death—a bereavement—and all the systems of government are notified. That approach needs to be expanded at central and local government level so that people can feed into the system.

I am not in the Chamber to give a eulogy or a set of plaudits, because there are one or two things that the Government should take on board and improve. However, some things are really encouraging, as was the speech by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).

The first point in the relevant part of the Liberal Democrat manifesto is immediately to restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings:

“We will uprate the state pension annually by whichever is the higher of growth in earnings, growth in prices or 2.5 per cent.”

One of the first announcements made in the Budget and reflected in the comprehensive spending review—proving that the coalition is a partnership and that both parties contribute—was that pensions will be linked to earnings again. That is welcome because it is an important subject and one of the biggest issues that pensioners have raised with me in Parliament ever since the link was broken under Mrs Thatcher’s Government.

It is important that we are moving towards equality in pension age, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, but it is right for that limit to be set at a higher level. Frighteningly, I heard the other day that average life expectancy for men is now 88. That is extremely disturbing in many respects, although of course we welcome people of that age and beyond. If life expectancy is 88 for men, it will be older for women because women are more resilient and better able to survive, do well and keep working than men.

I welcome the fact that winter fuel payments have been maintained, which was a manifesto pledge made during the election. I know that the issue is controversial and debatable, but in the end that pledge was honoured. All those initiatives are welcome, especially those relating to pensions and elderly people.

The announcement on child tax credit was good, as that will help families with children to have the funding they need. It is good that we have not backed away from our ambitions on child poverty. In her intervention, the Minister rightly said that we must start by saying how we will ensure that things do not get worse. The Labour Government were disappointing in many social ambitions, such as those on fuel poverty, child poverty and so on. They let the gap between the rich and poor widen. It is important that we hold on to our ambitions and, as the Minister said, seek to build on them and take our youngsters out of poverty.

I thought it was understandable and right to try to deal with the child benefit issue, although I know that it is controversial, particularly in the Conservative party. I understand the difficulties and I do not pretend that there is a perfect cut-off in terms of the wage level at which the benefit is set, or the choice between a one-wage or two-wage family. We can come to different conclusions about that, but there is a good case for saying that people on high incomes should not get the same level of universal benefits as everybody else. I understand the logic behind the argument for universal benefits, but when hard choices have to be made and budgets saved, everybody must share the responsibility.

I am glad that we will have permanent cold weather payments, rather than the rabbit-out-of-a-hat payments that we had under the Labour Government, when if we were lucky one year, there was an announcement. That change is positive.

I am pleased that there will be additional money for youngsters as part of the pupil premium. That scheme crosses Departments in relevance, and means that poor and disadvantaged youngsters will be better supported when they are under five, as well as when they go to primary school.

I have a couple of concerns, which I flagged up with the Deputy Prime Minister and this morning in the Department with my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate and Lord Freud. As I pointed out in an intervention on the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, I want the Department to look again at future legislation relating to the 10% automatic cut in jobseeker’s allowance after one year of unemployment. That decision is not sustainable for some people. I understand the incentive argument, but there are some areas—they may be very different from my constituency—where there are few jobs and people have to travel a long way to find them. There are no opportunities, however hard people try. To say that there should be a reduction in the benefit seems harsh, and I hope that the Government will revisit that.

I shall make one other substantive point before leaving the Minister with a final thought or two. There may be a moment for another colleague to intervene. For me, the real issue of the moment is the housing benefit debate. I am conscious that coming down the track are regulations that will change housing benefit for next year. I shall concentrate on one of the proposals, in respect of which I hope that there is some scope for modification without breaking the superstructure of the plan and which is of more national, UK-wide significance than the capping issue. That is of more significance in central London, where of course I have an interest. I am referring to the proposal to reduce the housing benefit payment from the 50th percentile of the rents in the broad rental market area to the 30th percentile next year.

I hope that the Government will reconsider the proposal, because there are all sorts of reasons why it may not deliver the ability for people to find housing in the community they come from, and communities are important. As the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire knows, there are communities just as much in Southwark, Westminster, Chelsea and Hounslow as there are in any other part of the country. To expect someone to move from a place that they are renting—I could cite West square, just over the bridge in Southwark, or it could be Covent Garden—and where they have lived all their life to somewhere four boroughs away, where they have no relatives, no friends, no links, no community and no history, is unreasonable.

I understand some of the issues, but there are ways in which the Government could be positive in dealing with them. As I understand it, 70% of the housing benefit claims in Blackpool are in the private sector, so by definition if the level is lowered, that has a huge effect on the market. Of course there is a difference between a place such as Blackpool and a place at the bottom of the league table such as Southwark, which is 31st out of the 33 London authorities and where only 13% of housing benefit claims are in the private sector. There, a Government change does not automatically change the culture of landlords and the market. I hope that the Government will bear that in mind.

Where demand exceeds supply, by definition there will not be available supply in a place around the corner for someone to move to. In addition, there are people whom we should not be asking to move when there are significant reductions in their benefits. I have seen the figures in the Government’s own impact study, which they produced in July. It states that the estimated percentage of losers varies from 71% in London to 90% in Yorkshire and the Humber, and the average loss per loser varies from £7 a week at the bottom end to £17 a week in the London region. Those are significant changes. Suddenly to have to find £17 extra a week in London, for example, may just not be possible, however careful people are with their household budget.

My suggestion is that the Government should consider, first, phasing any change, rather than going from the 50th percentile to the 30th. I know that it is not happening on one day, because it happens over a year on the date of the anniversary of the renewal of the claim. Secondly, they could consider treating people who are already in housing and recipients of benefit differently from new claimants. I am happy to continue to engage in debate with Ministers, as are other colleagues, to try to find a way forward. I am trying to be non-partisan; I am not making party political points, but I think that there must be a new way of being able to deal with what is an impending problem.

There are concerns among colleagues from around the country about the age for the shared room rate being put up from 25 to 35 in areas where accommodation is very difficult to find. I just pass that on, so that it can be on the agenda. There are also concerns about the transfer of council tax benefit administration to local authorities in due course, with a reduction in the amount available. That will be on the agenda of the Minister and her colleagues and the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The one thing we need to do as we implement some very radical but very good policies is to ensure that as people may be losing jobs in the public sector for a while and we are trying to create jobs in the private sector, we have in place organisations and people to assist them in moving from one form of employment to another in a very organised local and regional way. I have started to talk to colleagues about that. There is willingness on the part of the Government to consider it. If we are really to ensure that people do not feel frightened and insecure but feel encouraged and supported, we need not just changes in structure, but support systems to help people to make the life transitions from one form of work to another, or from no work to work, which are very important.

[Mr Heald]

On the idea of phasing, is the hon. Gentleman thinking that we would go to the 40th percentile? What is his idea?

[Simon Hughes]

I am seeking to explore ideas. It may be possible to move in the first place to the 40th percentile and later to the 30th. I am conscious that we do not want to force people to move twice. I do not think that would happen if there were much smaller reductions in the benefit and therefore people’s budgets were less hugely affected. I do not pretend that there is only one answer, but I am keen that we ensure that we are not uprooting people and assuming that they can find somewhere. This is all about predictive markets and how the market will respond. It is very difficult to know what the outcomes will be. Whatever the experts say, I do not think that we can predict things with surety. Therefore we need to err on the side of caution rather than risk, because we are dealing with people’s lives and homes, and for people with insecure lives and insecure incomes, having secure homes is very important.

16:56

[Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), I am a new Member and might struggle with constituency names, so any help will be gratefully received—please feel free to help me out.

I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on securing this terribly important debate about the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department for Work and Pensions. Of course, the changes announced will shape the levels of poverty and employment in this country for years to come and it is right that we have the opportunity today to examine them in detail and to understand the impact that they will have on our welfare system and, as has been said, on communities throughout the country.

This has been an interesting debate and later I will rise to the challenge of some of the political temptations put before me, but first I want to say that welfare reform and the work undertaken in this area in the DWP has been centre-stage in the work of the new Government, so the debate on how we reform welfare and get more people into work will continue for the immediate and foreseeable future. I am sure that we shall have many discussions. Of course, that is as it should be, as the proposals announced so far will impact on the lives of so many people in great need. What may appear to be a technical point in our consideration represents in many cases a major shift in the living circumstances of a family or an individual. That should always be at the forefront of our minds and any of our discussions.

Whatever our disagreements—I will come to them—there are some starting points, as the hon. Member for Stroud said, on which we can agree. On behalf of the Opposition, I make that clear. It has been said before that we are prepared to work alongside the Government to consider the challenge of welfare reform, because we do need to reform the welfare state to face the challenges of the 21st century: an ageing population, more people in need of care and the need for a stronger work force, less dependent on benefits. As the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said, if we could create a more equal society, of course we would all be up for that.

The Secretary of State has made strong commitments and promised to deliver a welfare system that will make work pay. He has acknowledged, in doing so, that he is continuing the work of the previous, Labour Government—some hon. Members referred to that—particularly by moving people from incapacity benefit to the new employment and support allowance, but there have been many other dimensions to that, too. As I understand it, there is a history of our working together when we have recognised challenges in the past. I think that the previous Government worked closely with the Opposition on pensions reform. I hope we can build on that.

The Secretary of State is familiar with Easterhouse, in my constituency. I think that visits to that area persuaded him of the need for reform. He is on record as saying that his aim in the reform is to improve the lives of others and not to reduce standards of living—that test will be centre stage as we progress with our discussions.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg), the distinguished Chair of the Select Committee. I have known my hon. Friend for many years and pay tribute to her authority in this field and the respect that she commands. In her contribution, she gave a strategic outline of some of the challenges that we are facing. Unfortunately, I cannot cover all the points made in the debate, but I will refer to a few of them in my brief contribution.

One point highlighted by my hon. Friend was the depth of concern about the change in the rating, which will take place when we shift from RPI to CPI. I listened to the arguments in favour, but it is incumbent on us to understand the real impact that the change will have on the standards of living of the people that we seem to care most about. I am not terribly sure that the impact is appreciated yet, but the shift does not rest easily with a commitment to let no one’s living standards change as a result of the acts of the Government and to protect everyone. If we look at the evidence from a number of organisations, they would say, “Actually, this reflects an effective and a real cut in benefits.”

Not surprisingly, the universal credit has been mentioned by just about everyone contributing to the debate—my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made some telling reflections. It is important that we recognise that of course there is a move to support universal credit and to simplify the benefits system, and we would support anything possible that would make work pay and encourage and incentivise people to work. However, the theme that seems to be emerging in the debate is that, while the Government genuinely seem to be driving reform in that way—I have to say that of the Minister and her colleagues—that is undercut by their other actions. I ask the Government to think about that seriously.

The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned the changes in the council tax benefit—apart from reducing it by 10%, which alone could cause some difficulty, the very nature of devolving its decision making immediately cuts across the drive to simplicity. The change will have an impact on housing benefit, income support and jobseeker’s allowance. I am told by those involved that it is, by all definitions, very complicated—on the one hand, we have a drive to simplicity, on the other an action that complicates it.

Not surprisingly, housing benefit has concentrated a lot of minds this afternoon. There are many detailed discussions to be had. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston, with a notable and highly acclaimed record on child poverty, as she amply demonstrated this afternoon, spoke about some of those complications, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), when she was present.

We can have our debates about the impact on different parts of the country—I willingly acknowledge that the impact might be slightly different in my part of the country from what it would be in London—but we have to listen to the outside organisations, such as Shelter and Crisis, which are telling us that we need to think about it in great depth. Perhaps most tellingly, they are asking, “Do we need to rush at this?” There might be a principle that we need to discuss and grapple with, but let us not do it with undue haste—there might be implications that the Government do not intend. Thinking about that is important.

I wish to highlight one issue that has particular resonance for me and my constituency, to which reference has been made—the intention to reduce housing benefit by 10% for those on jobseeker’s allowance for more than one year. The Government need to acknowledge that this is one of the most contentious proposals, and one that is causing deep concern throughout the country.

Anyone with a knowledge of Easterhouse or an understanding of the regeneration within such communities will realise that housing associations are often the drivers of change. If we reduce the benefit for many people who, genuinely, cannot find work because it is not readily available, we give the housing agencies two choices—to give just one example of the problems with the proposal. Either the housing agencies can evict people, which would cause enormous difficulties and create cost in other ways, or their business plans are undercut because they cannot reap the necessary benefits, so undermining our efforts.

That illustrates, again, that what I think are genuine attempts by the Government to reform welfare are being undercut by other actions—actions by the Treasury, undercutting actions by the DWP.

I do not have much time to go into the reform of disability benefits, but I make one request of the Minister. She has indicated that she will work with disability organisations on the disability living allowance and other changes. Will she acknowledge that it is vital that we engage with the disability movement in tackling any such changes?

I want to refer to child poverty, which was mentioned by a number of hon. Members in the debate. I am so tempted to roll up my sleeves and fight for the record of the previous Labour Government, but we could continue like that for some time. Let me just say that, according to the statistics and briefings mentioned, from Barnardo’s and Save the Children, the Labour Government lifted 600,000 children out of relative poverty and made substantial progress on absolute poverty. Those organisations recognised that as a substantial achievement, which made significant progress in improving the lives of so many people.

There are real challenges in what the Government are doing across the board to tackle child poverty—that was well articulated in the debate—in particular when looking at the child care element of the working tax credit, which will now only cover 70% of child care costs rather than the previous 80%. We know that child care presents an important barrier to people returning to work, so the change again seems to contradict efforts to reform and improve the move to get people back to work.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies report, produced after the Budget, outlined how many of the measures disproportionately affected the poorest families. A number of organisations are now saying to the Government, “When you look at the impact you are having on the poorest families and at the timing of when some of your commitments will come through, particularly two, three or four years down the line, how can you possibly say that child poverty figures will be protected?”

Added to that is recent research by the House of Commons Library on the impact of the Budget on women—to which, again, reference has been made. The fact is that the cuts announced in the comprehensive spending review will hit women twice as hard as they hit men. There are big cuts in support paid directly to mothers, including cuts in child care, child benefit and tax credits. Also, the significant cuts to the public sector will, disproportionately, hit women hard—in employment and in the services they need to support families, which are vital in tackling poverty. There is much concern about that.

The Minister has already put on the record that her Department will issue an equality impact assessment of the cuts on women and, indeed, disabled people. Can she indicate when we might get that report?

That brings me to the fundamental concern about the Government’s approach. Not only will they undermine their own efforts to reform welfare, but they will destabilise growth and increase unemployment across the country. The extent of the cuts to the welfare budget announced in the June Budget and in last month’s CSR seems to reflect the political ambitions of the Chancellor rather more than those of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. In both those announcements, we have heard too much about cuts and not enough about reform—I acknowledge that reform was the tenor of the debate today, but it is not always like that with the Government.

I have said that we will work with the Government as they intend to progress with reform, but there is a fundamental flaw in their approach so far. Their welfare reform is based on the premise that it is best to get people back to work and that work pays—so far, so good. However, it falls down with what happens when there is no work to go to.

It cannot make sense to have people on the dole. We all know that longer dole queues mean a higher benefits bill, which cuts across the very principles of what the Government are doing. So, the Government are only continuing in part what we were doing. There are significant differences. Yes, we introduced conditionality, but the sanctions were backed up by guarantees, the youth guarantee and the future jobs fund. Yet one of the first actions of the Government in power was to abolish them. That is a colossal error for anyone committed to welfare reform. As I said earlier, it would appear that the Secretary of State is persuaded of the case for meaningful reform. However, it seems that he has not persuaded his Cabinet colleagues that such reform needs to be supported more systematically.

We were told earlier this afternoon—I am sure that I shall be told again in a moment—that the level of unemployment is unavoidable, and that what is happening in the economy is the result of our actions. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South, I am old enough to remember the last Tory Government. They said then that unemployment was unavoidable, but they were wrong then and I believe that they are wrong now.

For the record, between 2007 and 2009, and before the global crisis, the UK had the second lowest level of debt among the G7 countries at 36.5%. Labour reduced the debt that we inherited from the previous Tory Government, when it stood at 42.5%. It was the global economic crisis of 2008 and the resultant need to bail out the banks that caused the deficit that we have today.

[Damian Hinds]

Does the hon. Lady accept the existence of a structural deficit, quite separate from the cyclical part, and will she accept some responsibility on behalf of her party for that?

[Margaret Curran]

When looking back at the Budgets of Labour Governments, the hon. Gentleman’s own Prime Minister said that we were not bold enough with our spending plans. The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with his argument, and I hope not to hear it again. It was a global crisis that created the problems that we faced, and we had to respond to it.

[Damian Hinds]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Margaret Curran]

No. I hope that the Minister does not repeat that argument, because in tackling the crisis we decided not to do what had been done during previous recessions, when the unemployed paid the price. We kept people in their homes and in jobs. That was the right thing to do. If we were still in Government, we would not be making our children and our families pay more than we would make the banks pay. Even the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility declares that there will be substantial job losses as a direct result of the Government’s decision to slash the deficit as quickly and as steeply as they can. I repeat—this goes to the core of what we are trying to tackle—that we all know that high unemployment will mean a higher welfare bill and a bigger deficit in the long run, and will defeat genuine and well-meant efforts at reform.

I am sure that the debate may change emphasis with the publication of the White Paper. However, the benchmarks of fairness, proportionality and effectiveness in getting people back to work will be the test that we use. When the Government meet that test, we will happily work with them.

17:12

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner; it is the first time that I have done so, and you helped to ensure a most productive debate. I also thank the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who is absent, and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for enabling the debate to take place.

The quality of debate showed how important these matters are, and how important it is for them to be discussed. To a certain extent, it has allowed us to put some facts on the table. With the exception of the most economically illiterate, or a few ostriches that might still exist, few serious commentators doubt the urgent need to tackle the financial mess left by the previous Administration.

I have a slight divergence of opinion with the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), who spoke for the Opposition. She cannot ignore the fact that we are dealing with a major structural deficit, and unless we get that under control, we will continue to have to pay the most astronomical levels of interest and run the risk of seeing rates rise and the consequent economic chaos that we have seen in some European countries.

We should not forget that we are paying £43 billion in interest payments; that is £120 million a day. To put it another way, it is the equivalent of the annual budget for the Department for Education. These are not small amounts of money. It is a structural problem. We have to deal with the fiscal mess that we inherited from the previous Government. After years of throwing public money at a bloated welfare system, the previous Administration also left us with a legacy of dependency, which was mentioned in many contributions to the debate.

The facts tell their own story. Nearly 5 million people live in households in which someone is on an out-of-work benefit, despite record levels of spending; it was £35 billion in 2008-09. We still have 2.8 million children living in poverty.

[Kate Green]

Will the Minister give way?

[Maria Miller]

I cannot accept interventions, Mr Turner, as we are short of time and I know that you want a short wind-up at the end of the debate. I want as much time as possible to answer the points raised during the debate, including by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston.

We still have 1.9 million children living in workless households. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, which has been the approach of too many Opposition Members, and potentially leaving our children to pick up the bill—that is the legacy of this huge debt—the Government are taking action now, and making tough choices. We are tackling the root causes of poverty, not just treating the symptoms.

The failure of the last Government is the reason why we need the toughest round of spending since 1976. Inevitably, the Department for Work and Pensions will have to shoulder its share of the burden, along with other Departments. I believe that we successfully secured the third best settlement in Whitehall. As a result the Department will see a modest rise in spending in real terms, although we do not underestimate the challenge that lies ahead.

The Government will not cheese-pare or salami-slice the budgets that we have in place; we are taking the opportunity to rethink not only what we do but how we do it. That is why we are introducing universal credit. It will beat the benefit trap, and it will make work pay for the poorest. We are launching the new Work programme to help those who can to escape a life on long-term benefit. That is why we are working hard to support families, especially children, with an above-indexation increase for the child element of tax credits; launching the £7 billion fairness premium, which will give some of the poorest children a better start at school; and giving most disadvantaged two-year-olds access to 15 hours a week of pre-school education. Those and many other support measures will make a real difference to families and to poverty levels.

In my role as Minister for disabled people, I shall ensure that we have in place more support than ever for disabled people to help them get back into employment, and continuing, unconditional support for those who are unable to work.

Many important points were made this afternoon, and I shall try to answer them all. Those that I am unable to answer today I shall answer in writing; I shall write to hon. Members individually.

I welcome the tone of the contribution of the hon. Member for Glasgow East; it was important, and I welcome her emphasis on working together and her understanding of our desire to put in place real and genuine reforms. I reassure her that we are working closely with disabled people and disabled people’s charities in reforming those programmes. The hon. Lady mentioned equality impact assessments. I assure her that all the measures in the Budget and the spending review will have equality impact assessments in place; they will be published at the same time as the welfare reform Bill, and will accompany any uprating order.

Thoughtful contributions were made by my hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). They included comments about housing. I might roll together my responses, given the time constraint. Changes to do with people’s homes will obviously cause a great deal of concern.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark rightly said that it is about ensuring that we have secure and stable communities. We believe that the local housing rates in place at the moment are simply too high, and not sustainable. We have seen them outstrip earnings since local housing measures were put in place in 2008, and we want to phase in the overall package of measures to give people the time to adjust to a different regime and a different way of dealing with matters. However, we still need to legislate for the changes through secondary legislation, so there will be an opportunity to debate the measures further. Indeed, I am sure that we shall do so.

What is important is that the Government have an important role in the private rental sector. Some 40% of people in that sector are in receipt of housing benefits, so we are part of the market-making, and we must recognise that. We cannot stand back and let the market control the sector, as the Opposition did when they were in government. We must take action and, at the same time, protect the sort of people in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) who he mentioned. That is why we have put in place £140 million transitional relief to ensure that the support is there if it is needed. That problem was anticipated by the previous Government and it was in Labour’s manifesto. I find it astonishing that Labour—at least some Members of its Back Bench—now seem to be trying to row back from that. I sense that the hon. Member for Glasgow East has a deeper understanding of the need for reform in this area, and I hope that we can work together on this matter.

My other hon. Friends made some stirring contributions, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), and I welcome his support for the Government’s policy. He is right to say that this is a radical and ambitious new approach. We cannot simply stand back and let the welfare system continue to fail so many thousands of people, as it has done for the past 10 years.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) talked eloquently about the work that is going on in her constituency. Helping people fulfil their potential is exactly what we want to do with the Work programme. People are not statistics; they are individuals and need individual programmes of support. Her idea of encouraging local organisations to be involved in such work is absolutely right.

All hon. Members will agree that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald) made an extremely important contribution. As for the timing of universal credit, we will have a White Paper coming out shortly, and the transition to universal credit will start in 18 months’ time. Such a move will happen soon and not way into the future. Some 50% of people will be transferred on to universal credit by the end of the spending review period. We will give priority to the people who need the help the most and ensure that there will be no losers when the transfer takes place, which reflects the importance of making this change.

My hon. Friend is right to say that in the past, employment programmes have been fragmented. We will use Jobcentre Plus as a lynchpin to ensure that we smooth out the transition process between old programmes and the new Work programme.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) provided us with a great insight into the matter today, particularly by raising the issue of the Harrington report. He made it clear that there will be annual reviews of the work capability assessment for the next five years.

Let me clear up the point about the appeals processes. The ESA has a 5% appeal rate, so 5% of the total number of applications have had their decision overturned on appeal. That is not a massive problem and it does not indicate that there is an unacceptable level of inaccuracy, so we must keep such things in proportion. Of course all of us want to see a 0% appeal rate, but that would be difficult to achieve.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton was very much the voice of reason in this debate. I cannot agree with him more that it did feel like we were inheriting an economic car crash when we came into Government in May. He talked about those who spend prolonged periods on benefits, the negative effect that that can have and inter-generational worklessness.

Picking up on the point about variable conditions, let me say that that is exactly the sort of thing that Professor Harrington will be considering, and concern over the matter has been voiced to us.

The Chairman of the Select Committee raised a number of points today. I am sure that I will not do justice to the questions that she asked, but I will have a quick go in the two minutes that I have left. We have made the changes to the council tax because the present system is complex, and it has rigid rules in place. The changes that we have proposed are in line with the overall theme of this Government, which is of localism and of giving local people more flexibility to react to the circumstances in their community. It is that local flexibility that will help us to deliver more value for the amount of money that we are investing in measures such as the council tax and council tax relief.

The hon. Lady asked why we are raising housing benefits by the consumer prices index. Let me remind her that housing awards have grown faster than earnings since 2008 when the new measures were introduced to support those on private rentals. We want to take control of the amount of money that is going into housing benefits, which is in line with out strategy to integrate housing support with the rest of the benefit system that will also be uprated by CPI.

The hon. Lady raised some issues about care homes. In particular, she mentioned the measure that we are taking with regards to mobility. Just to be clear, local authority contracts with care homes mean that care homes are providing services to meet all the needs of their residents, and that includes those with mobility needs. Our commitment to increase the uptake of personal benefits through personalisation will give people more choice and more control over the money that is available to them. The local authority duty exists to meet the needs of people who are living in residential homes and to provide the services. We have removed an overlapping benefit and tried to ensure that the money can be used effectively elsewhere.

The hon. Lady also raised another matter with regard to lone parents, but time will escape me, so I will have to write to her on that. The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) asked about the success of the future jobs fund. I want to make it clear that that fund is one of the most expensive employment programmes in place at the moment. We have honoured the offers of places on the future jobs fund that were made before we came into Government, but it is not good value for money and it does not provide the long-term employment that we know that people need. That is why we are not rolling that forward, and it is a really good and valid reason for not doing so.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston raised a number of issues, but I will pick up on just one of them—the benefit cap. I do not accept that such a measure will increase child poverty. Putting in place a cap will effectively stop anybody receiving benefits that would translate into a salary of £35,000 a year. That will not increase child poverty. What it will do is ensure that work will pay for more families. We know that enabling families to get into work by, for example, not creating a disincentive is one of the most important things that we can do to alleviate poverty in the long term.

I draw to a close now, and apologise if I have not addressed all the points that hon. Members have raised. I will try to do so later.

17:28

[Miss Begg]

Let me thank the Backbench Business Committee. I have sat in your seat, Mr Turner, on many Thursday afternoons with only three people in the Chamber. Today, however, we have had many contributions from a large number of people, which reflects the importance of this excellent debate. The subject transcends party politics, because the issues discussed today will affect thousands and thousands of our own constituents. I hope that the Government see those of us on the Opposition Benches as critical friends. We want the Government to get this right because it is our constituents who will suffer if they do not. I hope that this debate has been constructive and helpful.

There has been a problem with housing benefit. The debate was skewed by concentrating on the cap. Serious concerns were raised about the 30th percentile and the JSA sanction. I hope that the Minister understands that transitional arrangements will be required on a range of issues. I refer in particular to those issues on which the new Government’s policy is not yet in place and those policies introduced under the previous Government that have already stopped. There is a clear need for transitional arrangements.

All in all, this has been an excellent debate. I look forward to the White Paper, which is to be published shortly. We may be back here having another debate on these issues in a couple of months’ time. If today’s debate is anything to go by, it will also be a good and well-humoured debate. I thank everyone who has turned up this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

17:29

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

Thursday 4 November 2010

Local Growth White Paper (Correction)

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

I announced the publication of the Local Growth White Paper on Thursday 28 October. It has now come to my attention that the White Paper contains an error.

Paragraph 3.23 of the White Paper reads:

“That is why, for example, nationally important infrastructure projects (such as large scale wind farms and power plants), the supply of aggregate minerals and planning for waste will become the responsibility of the Planning Inspectorate’s recently announced Major Infrastructure Planning Unit”.

The Major Infrastructure Planning Unit will not, however, be responsible for examining applications for aggregate mineral extraction. Nor will it be responsible for examining applications on those waste management facilities which fall below the thresholds set out in the Planning Act 2008. Therefore, paragraph 3.23 should read:

“That is why, for example, nationally important infrastructure projects (such as large scale wind farms and power plants) will become the responsibility of the Planning Inspectorate’s recently announced Major Infrastructure Planning Unit”.

A correction slip to this effect has been added to the copies of the White Paper laid in the Journal Office and deposited in the Vote and other offices.

Planning Circulars (HMOs)

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

I am today publishing a replacement to Department for Communities and Local Government Circular 5/10 (on planning controls for houses in multiple occupation), and a replacement appendix D of Department of the Environment Circular 9/95 (on the article 4 direction process, that allows local planning authorities to withdraw permitted development rights in certain circumstances). Copies have been placed in the Library of the House.

A replacement to Department for Communities and Local Government “Circular 5/10: Changes to Planning Regulations for Dwelling Houses and Houses in Multiple Occupation” will cover changes to planning legislation introduced in October this year, which make changes of use from family houses to small HMOs permitted development (i.e. there is no need to obtain planning consent for this from the local planning authority).

Appendix D of Department of the Environment “Circular 9/95: General Development Consolidation 1995” relates to article 4 directions, which allow local planning authorities to withdraw permitted development rights. The updated appendix D being published today reflects amendments to the article 4 direction procedures introduced in April 2010. The main effect of these changes is to grant local planning authorities the ability to confirm article 4 directions themselves rather than to have to apply to the Secretary of State (as was formerly required for certain directions), require that all article 4 directions are subject to local consultation, and to require that all article 4 directions are publicised by site notice in addition to local advertisement.

The replacement appendix D also reflects amendments to the compensation provisions related to article 4 directions introduced in October 2010, which limit the period during which local authorities may be liable for such claims.

Taken together, the replacement to Circular 5/10 and the updated appendix to Circular 9/95 will ensure that up-to-date and accessible information exists in relation to planning controls over HMOs and the making of article 4 directions. No further impact assessment has been produced for these publications as changes to planning legislation of houses in multiple occupation and article 4 directions have previously been assessed.

Justice and Home Affairs (Pre-Council Statement)

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Secretary for Justice, and I will attend the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 8 and 9 November in Brussels.

The Council will begin with a Mixed Committee with Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland (non-EU Schengen States). Due to the standing commitment to update Council on the progress of the second generation of the Schengen Information System II (SIS II) the Commission will provide an update on developments.

Next there will be a discussion on the proposal to move Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina to the positive annex of Regulation 539/2001 which would exclude their nationals from the EU visa requirement when travelling to the Schengen area. The United Kingdom does not participate in the border and visa aspects of the Schengen Acquis as they build on elements of the Schengen Acquis in which we do not participate. The UK will not be affected by changes to the regulation of the Common Visa List, but will maintain an interest in all visa issues notably issues relating to full reciprocity for third-country nationals.

The Council will note progress towards an amending regulation on Frontex, the EU external borders agency. The new regulation is intended to increase the capacity of Frontex to strengthen the security and surveillance of the external Schengen borders, to develop relationships with third countries, and better to assist member states to return those with no right to remain in the EU. The UK is not directly affected as the amending regulation relates to those elements of the Schengen Acquis in which we do not participate. However, the UK does provide support to the operational and other activities of Frontex and we have been actively engaged in the drafting process for the amendment. The UK is particularly keen to see that the remit of Frontex is extended to allow it to handle the personal data of those suspected of involvement in criminality at the border. We believe that being able to gather and share these data with other agencies such as Europol is vital to Frontex’s contribution to the fight against human trafficking and smuggling.

The Council will be updated on a draft regulation updating the establishment of a network of immigration liaison officers, with a view to reaching agreement between Council and Parliament before the end of the Belgian presidency. The amended regulation is intended to strengthen the EU’s capacity to address illegal migration, and seeks to achieve greater benefit from Immigration Liaison Officer (ILO) networks for Frontex and the Commission. The UK supports the content of this proposal, and welcomes its aims to strengthen Frontex and to enhance partnership working within the EU (and with other international partners) to tackle illegal migration. However, we do not agree with the current interpretation of the UK’s legal participation and will look to protect the UK’s right to opt in.

Next the Council will discuss the sixth report of the Commission on the maintenance of visa requirements. Regulation 539/2001 as amended (the Common Visa List) aims to establish reciprocity with non-EU countries which continue to impose a visa requirement on the nationals of some EU member states for stays of under 90 days (although those member states do not impose the visa requirement on nationals of those non-EU countries). The UK will not be affected by changes to the regulation of the Common Visa List however; will maintain an interest in all visa issues, and notably issues relating to full reciprocity for third-country nationals.

Following Mixed Committee, the Council will receive a progress report on those dossiers being prioritised by the Belgian presidency under the Common European Asylum System: the extension of the long-term residents directive to beneficiaries of international protection, the qualification directive, Eurodac, Dublin and the establishment of the European Asylum Support Office. The UK Government believe that the challenges that Europe faces in the asylum field are better addressed by practical co-operation than by further legislation. We need to work with those member states that are under pressure to help them improve their asylum systems and deal with the claims they receive. In particular, the EU needs to provide properly co-ordinated support to help Greece implement reforms to its asylum system. We see the new European Asylum Support Office as playing a crucial role in this work and will play an active role in the office’s development.

Over lunch Interior Ministers will receive an update from the Belgian Minister for Immigration on recent visits to Cyprus, Malta and Greece and have a discussion on solidarity in the field of immigration and asylum.

After lunch the Council will have a discussion on the creation and implementation of an EU policy cycle on organised crime (Project Harmony), which presents a pragmatic, intelligence-led approach to prioritising and tackling agreed threats caused by serious organised crime. The UK, having been a project partner in this initiative since its creation, supports these conclusions as we believe key benefits to the UK include greater opportunity to influence the EU agenda on organised crime; the potential alignment of EU funds to support operational delivery; and as a result greater commitment of member states to work collaboratively to tackle the agreed prioritised threats.

The presidency will seek a firm political steer on the way forward for implementation of the Prum Council Decisions. The Council will acknowledge that obstacles are not only technical in nature but also political and linked to financial and human resources. The Council will also consider recommendations for practical solutions, through the provision of technical assistance, the use of EU funding, and a streamlined evaluation process.

The Commission will present their annual report on the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) which is due to be published on 10 November.

Under AOB the Commission will present their initiative for a regulation on the marketing and use of explosives. The regulation proposes to limit access by the general public to specific chemicals that can be used to manufacture home-made explosives by restricting their use and possession above set concentration thresholds. The UK will seek to negotiate changes to the text and it is expected that the proposal will go for Council approval in the middle of 2011.

The presidency has also placed the Prague process-building migration partnerships as an AOB item at the request of Hungary. The intention of the process is to implement strengthened practical and operational co-operation with main countries of transit and origin based on the global approach to migration—specifically the Eastern migration route, which includes Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. We support the Prague process and welcome the valuable results it has achieved, it is a good example of how we can turn our policies into practical action.

The Justice day will commence with a Commission presentation on a proposal for a directive regarding measures against new forms of cybercrime, including large-scale cyber-attacks. The UK takes the issue of cybercrime very seriously and recognises that it is an international problem. The UK is keen to work with other member states to ensure that there can be an effective response to cybercrime in the EU. We are considering whether to opt in.

There will be an orientation debate on the European Investigation Order (EIO) which is a draft directive aimed at streamlining the system of mutual legal assistance between participating EU member states to discuss broad issues relating to the EIO including grounds on which an EIO could be refused. In particular, the Council will be asked to give a steer on the grounds for refusal which should apply; the UK will argue strongly that proportionality must be a consideration. Detailed work will then continue at working group level.

There will be an information point on the letter of rights to information in criminal proceedings. This is the second measure in the road map to strengthen procedural rights in criminal proceedings and it aims to set common minimum standards and improve the rights of suspects and accused persons by ensuring that they receive information about their rights. The UK has opted in to this measure.

During lunch Justice Ministers will discuss judicial co-operation in cross-border regions in the light of responses to a questionnaire submitted to member states. The questionnaire and the debate are aimed at improving the knowledge about the different forms of international co-operation between borders. The UK’s experience of co-operation in cross-border regions is limited to that between the borders of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I am pleased to announce the appointment of four new Commissioners to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. Fidelma Carolan, Milton Kerr, Stephen McIlveen and Liam Maskey will take up office on 8 November 2010.

The Equality Commission is a key institution of the Belfast agreement and plays a vital role in protecting and promoting equality for all members of the diverse society in Northern Ireland. The Commission is now facing new challenges, not least in fulfilling its remit in a testing economic environment.

I am confident that the four new Commissioners bring a wealth of knowledge, skills and understanding, helping the Commission to meet the challenges ahead and build on its considerable achievements over the last 11 years.

Billy Wright Inquiry

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Owen Paterson)]

On 14 September 2010 I made a statement to this House, publishing the report of the Billy Wright inquiry. The report made three specific recommendations that should be applied to the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS).

In my statement of 14 September, I informed the House that I intended to meet with the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, David Ford, in the week following the publication of the inquiry’s report to discuss the recommendations made by Lord MacLean and his panel. In addition to this meeting I have also discussed the matter with the Justice Minister more recently. Although prisons issues are now, in the main, a devolved matter, it is right that I keep the House informed of progress in regard to the report’s recommendations.

I have now received correspondence from the Justice Minister updating me on progress made in relation to the recommendations and providing me with documentation relating to NIPS’ response to the recommendations made in the inquiry’s report. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.

To summarise, in response to the first recommendation relating to the retention of records by NIPS, I am advised that steps have been taken in recent years to provide assurances regarding the retention and disposal of hard copy and electronic files. Details can be found in annex B of the documentation placed in the Library of the House. I am content that this recommendation has been satisfactorily complied with, as I believe is the Justice Minister.

In response to the second recommendation requiring NIPS to satisfy themselves that any relevant lessons from HMP Maze have been learned for HMP Maghaberry, the summary of a recent audit undertaken by the NIPS, and the steps being taken as a result, can be found at annex C of the documentation placed in the Library of the House. Remedial activities will include both physical infrastructure, where it is operationally required, and updating of certain policies and guidance.

The third recommendation invites the Justice Minister to consider whether a process similar to the Patten Commission on policing for Northern Ireland might pave the way for radical change in the way NIPS is managed and how its industrial relations are conducted. I am informed by the Justice Minister that his statement to the Assembly on 21 June 2010—the text of which can be found at annex D of the documentation placed in the Library of the House—relating to a fundamental review of the conditions of detention, management and oversight of all prisons, carried out by an independent team, fulfils the panel’s third recommendation. The Justice Minister also advises me that a strategic efficiency and effectiveness programme is being taken forward by the senior management of NIPS in consultation with the three staff associations. Annex E of the documentation placed in the Library of the House summarises the remit of this programme.

I am grateful to the Justice Minister and the Northern Ireland Prison Service for providing me with this information and I commend their promptness in addressing these important recommendations.

Independent Monitoring Commission Report

Thursday 4th November 2010 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I have received the 25th report of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), on levels of paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland. The IMC conclude that dissident groups continue to pose a substantial and potentially lethal threat, particularly against members of the security forces. I am today laying the report before Parliament.

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) was established jointly by the British and Irish Governments in 2004 to help in the process of making the transition in Northern Ireland to a peaceful society and stable and inclusive devolved Government in Northern Ireland. In paragraph 1.5 of their 25th report the Commission refer to comments in previous reports on the

“implications for the continuation of the IMC of the peace process drawing to a close and more normal arrangements for security and the administration of justice taking over, since when we have had the devolution of policing and justice”.

Since they were formally established in 2004 they have prepared 20 reports on paramilitary activity and five reports on security normalisation in Northern Ireland. Over that period there have been significant changes in the political and security landscape in Northern Ireland.

In July 2005 the Provisional IRA announced an end to their armed campaign and in September 2005 the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) reported that the Provisional IRA had decommissioned all the arms within its control. In May 2007 the Ulster Volunteer Force made a statement renouncing violence and in June 2009 the Ulster Defence Association also issued a statement announcing that the struggle had ended. On 25 February 2010 the IICD reported to the British and Irish Governments that it had overseen the decommissioning of all the arms within the control of the UDA, UVF, Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army.

The Government’s security normalisation programme, including the conclusion of the military’s Operation Banner, was completed and reported on in the IMC’s 16th report.

In parallel with this programme of security normalisation, we have seen the political process firmly embedded in Northern Ireland. Devolution was restored on 8 May 2007 and devolved Government has now been up and running for the longest continuous period since 1972. Locally elected politicians from Northern Ireland are now responsible for making decisions about the issues that really matter to the people of Northern Ireland—jobs, health, education and the environment—and since 12 April 2010, policing and justice. In their last several reports the IMC have consistently assessed that, with the exception of some residual terrorist groups, the leaderships of paramilitary groups remain committed to the political process and to transforming their organisations.

The IMC have played a crucial part in supporting and enabling the historic changes that we have seen in Northern Ireland over the last 12 years. Although there remain those who have rejected peace and politics and who actively work to undermine it, Northern Ireland has made the transition to stable, local democracy and the job of the IMC is nearing completion. The two Governments have, therefore, asked the IMC to prepare one more final report on their work, including lessons learned. After that, we will bring the IMC arrangements to an end. I would like to place on record my thanks to the IMC for their work and their contribution to the developments that have taken place over the last six years.

There is a continuing public interest in ensuring that the public are informed about the threat from Northern Ireland-related terrorism. Once we have received and considered the IMC’s final report, the British and Irish Governments will do what is necessary to ensure that need is met.

House of Lords

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Thursday, 4 November 2010.

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester.

Police: Elected Commissioners

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

11:06

Asked By

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have received to their proposals for elected Police Commissioners.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Formal consultation on the proposals to introduce directly elected police and crime commissioners ended on 20 September. We have received around 900 responses from a broad range of policing partners and these are now being considered ahead of the publication of the Government’s response, which will be shortly.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am not surprised that the noble Lord did not give details about the responses because neither the police nor the public show much appetite for this foolish reform which will politicise police forces. The Association of Police Authorities estimates that directly elected commissioners will cost an additional £100 million over the next five years. Will the Minister tell the House how many police officers will be made redundant to pay for this very dangerous policy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a remarkably partisan response. The system of police authorities set up in the 19th century is no longer entirely satisfactory. We discovered that only 8 per cent of the public are aware that police authorities exist and the amalgamation of police forces has led to increasing remoteness. Under the Labour Government, there was democratic centralism in which police accountability went up to the Secretary of State; our proposals aim to bring accountability and visibility back down from Whitehall to communities around the country.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, will my noble friend say how the Government will assure us that directly elected police commissioners will not all turn out to be white, male and middle class?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I know that my noble friend is a former chair of a policy authority. One of the problems with democracy is that one cannot entirely control the results; I understand that some on the Benches opposite are not entirely happy about the outcome of the recent general election. Police commissioners will be balanced by police and crime panels, which will be made up of representatives of local authorities who in turn will be responsible for keeping police commissioners accountable in consulting on what they do.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate]

My Lords, if the noble Lord Googles the term “corrupt sheriffs in the USA”, he will find thousands of hits and good examples of corruption. It is not without coincidence that all those people are directly elected. Is it really the right time to drag an impartial police service into the political arena?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, issues of policing cannot be entirely non-political. I am conscious that local government has had elements of corruption, which is one of the problems of a democratic system. Perhaps the noble Lord would prefer an appointed system as well as an appointed House of Lords.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that we should welcome any attempt to ensure that public concerns are better addressed by chief police officers and that this proposal should be considered carefully, while at the same time recognising the wide-ranging sensitivities that exist. At this admittedly early stage, I ask the Minister to reassure me on two points: first, that the operational independence of chief police officers will be protected absolutely; and secondly that, given that an elected commissioner might not be able to operate without support, consideration will be given to examining the case for having other elected persons in place to support the PCC.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the process of consultation is intended to ensure that we hear all the voices on the proposals; the noble Lord may be aware that the Home Secretary met the chief constables yesterday. There is no intention to undermine the operational independence of chief constables. The proposals in the policing White Paper, which I am sure many noble Lords have read, are that there will be consultative police and crime panels made up of magistrates and representatives of the local authorities alongside the directly elected police commissioners.

[Lord Tomlinson]

After the consultation, is it the Government’s intention to extend that franchise to prisoners, as was announced would be the case for other elections earlier this week?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a little bit outside the Question, but the noble Lord enjoys asking naughty questions. We are attempting to shift power from Whitehall back down to the regions and communities of Britain. We appreciate that new Labour preferred everything to be decided in Whitehall and had a sense that accountability was upwards to the Secretary of State. This is an attempt to reverse that process.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, has my noble friend worked out the implications for bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers if commissioners are to be elected?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is active consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers on precisely these points. Indeed, ACPO was one of the many bodies that responded to this consultation. The others include the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the Local Government Association, the Association of Police Authorities chief executives et cetera—900 submissions is not a bad response. The submissions are currently being absorbed and further proposals will come out of the Home Office shortly.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

In his response to my noble friend Lord Hunt, the Minister said that he wants to create greater awareness of police authorities. Is he aware of a report out today that North Wales and Strathclyde police will be compulsorily retiring police offices because of the cuts? Which does he think the public will prefer: an awareness of police authorities or an awareness of extra police on the beat?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one would clearly prefer both. Part of the problem of distrust of the police is that people do not know how the police are held accountable. We do not intend that this new system will be an additional cost, but police authorities themselves are not without a degree of cost. The problems of police costing as a whole is a matter separate from this Question.

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, following on from that question to the Minister, will the report carry an objective assessment of the cost of the present arrangements compared with what the new arrangements might amount to?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government will be setting out a range of proposals in the police performance and social responsibility Bill. Questions such as that will certainly be dealt with in the Explanatory Notes and other accompanying briefings.

Roads: Drink-drive Limit

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

11:13

Asked By

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to review the drink-drive limit.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the Government are committed to improving road safety and reducing the number of drink-related road casualties. As the House knows, the previous Government commissioned Sir Peter North to undertake an independent review of measures to combat drink and drug driving in Great Britain. We are considering the report’s recommendations. We have reached no conclusions yet, but we aim to respond to the report by the end of the year.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is the Minister able to give an assurance that the Government will seriously consider the North committee’s proposal to reduce alcohol limits to 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood, in line with the prescription pursued by the Governments of Germany, France, Holland, Spain and Italy. Why should we be the sole exception? Would he acknowledge that, if the North committee’s report was followed, hundreds of lives would be saved?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we will consider the report very carefully indeed. On the noble Lord’s point about other countries, they have lower limits, but they also have much lower penalties for low blood alcohol concentrations.

There are thought to be two groups of drinkers. There are regulated drinkers who drink at home and who, if they drink out, arrange their affairs so that they do not need to drink and drive. Such drinkers know how much they have drunk and, if they do offend, it is a terrible mistake for them. It is relatively easy for the police to detect such people if they drink and drive, and they are terrified of being caught because of the consequences. There are also unregulated drinkers who do not control how much they drink, are clinically or socially dependent upon alcohol, will drive with a BAC far in excess of the legal limit and have no intention of adhering to the drink-drive legislation.

[Lord Waddington]

Another problem in addition to that which the noble Lord seeks to identify is the prevalence of driving under the influence of drugs. What progress is being made towards the development of a device that could be used at the roadside to prove that a person has been affected by taking drugs?

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes an extremely important point. We are making good progress with drink-driving, but drug-driving is increasing. The noble Lord referred to roadside testing. It is important to have a Home Office-approved roadside testing device in order to be able to move on to the invasive procedure of taking a blood sample without the need for a doctor.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I first declare an interest as a member of the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving. My mother was killed by a drunk driver—our neighbour at that stage—who was not a long-standing overdrinker in the way that the noble Earl said but a normal drinker. When the Minister looks at the North report, I ask him to remember that we could reduce drink-driving deaths by about 150 a year from its present level of perhaps 400 a year. That would save 150 families what I and my family went through. Will he resist the blandishments that he will undoubtedly receive from the drinks industry and take this important step forward?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, first, I have had no blandishments from the drinks industry and am actually quite surprised by how little effort it is putting into lobbying the Government. Clearly, it is lobbying, but not as much as it could.

Going back to my point about regulated and unregulated drinkers, I think that it is not clear how lowering the BAC, which would have a significant impact on regulated drinkers, would have any beneficial effect on unregulated drinkers who have no intention whatever of meeting their moral or legal obligations.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, in 2009, drink-drivers caused 390 deaths and almost 23,000 serious injuries at a cost to the taxpayer of £15.6 billion. How many of these casualties could have been avoided and how much of this expenditure could have been saved if we had reduced the legal limit to 20 milligrams, as is the case in Sweden? What other measures in the report that has been referred to, such as making persistent offenders pass a test before they can resume driving after a ban, are now being considered?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we need to consider carefully the effect of lowering the blood alcohol limit. Suppose that we lowered the BAC to 50 milligrams and a traffic patrol detected a motorist driving with a BAC of 65 milligrams. It would take the patrol at least an hour to process the suspect, during which time it would be unable to detect the unregulated drinker to whom I referred, who might be driving with a BAC far in excess of the current limits.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to raise awareness of the potentially serious problems of using prescription drugs when driving, alongside their measures to prevent the use of illegal drugs when driving?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the North report covers this issue in some detail, and we are considering it as part of our deliberations on the North report.

[Lord Geddes]

Is my noble friend aware of the 1998 report of European Union Sub-Committee B? I doubt whether much has changed in this context in 12 years. The report concluded that the benefits of reducing the limit from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams were at best highly marginal. Would he advise the House of his opinion of the benefits of random testing over the present system?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the police already have wide powers to stop vehicles and to test for alcohol, and many forces carry out intelligence-led, targeted breath testing where drinking is known to take place. Sir Peter has recommended a specific power to sanction random testing, and we have to consider whether this is necessary and cost-effective, bearing in mind that most drivers are regulated drinkers or teetotal.

Israel and Palestine: Deportations

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

11:21

Tabled by

[Baroness Tonge]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Israel concerning the four Palestinian Members of Parliament being deported from East Jerusalem.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, east Jerusalem is occupied territory and its Palestinian population has rights under the Geneva conventions. Forcibly transferring people out of the city on the basis of political affiliation is illegal. This comes against a backdrop of other developments that appear designed to consolidate the annexation of east Jerusalem. Such actions erode trust between the parties at a crucial time in negotiations. The EU has raised the matter with the Israeli Government, while Her Majesty’s ambassador to Tel Aviv has raised it with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. I should mention that I was one of three Members of your Lordships’ House who visited three out of the four Palestinian elected Members when they had taken refuge with the International Committee of the Red Cross in east Jerusalem in July. The noble Lord referred to international law. If the expulsions take place, will the Government ensure that Israel suffers an appropriate penalty?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question of what an appropriate penalty is is a matter for delicate negotiations. We wish the current negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to succeed and we wish to do nothing that will disrupt the chances of them succeeding, but it might be helpful to the House if I read a short part of Article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention, which states:

“Individual … transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory … are prohibited, regardless of their motive”.

It adds:

“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

[Lord Ahmed]

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Israeli Government are planning to demolish in Jerusalem the entire area of Silwan, a Palestinian area near the holy places? Is he also aware that anyone who opposes this illegal act is labelled extremist and anti-state? Does he agree that breaching Geneva conventions and international law includes throwing people out of their homes and expelling them from their cities? The Israelis cannot expect respect from the United Kingdom when they do not respect international law.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are extremely concerned about some of the developments in east Jerusalem at present.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, are the British Government concerned that—ironically, given that the Israeli Government are worried about the possible detention of Israeli military officers in the UK if they visit here—literally thousands of Palestinian detainees are still held in Israeli jails, including many from east Jerusalem, most of them without due, proper or thorough legal process? That detention is equivalent pro rata to twice our prison population. This scandal has gone on for many years. Most people do not bother to take an interest in it. Will the British Government now deal with this urgently with the Israeli Government and make the strongest representations about early releases?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises the question of universal jurisdiction, on which the Government will bring forward proposals early in the new year. This is not simply a matter that relates to Israel. Members will remember occasions when attempts were made to secure private arrest warrants against Henry Kissinger and the Chinese Trade Minister. On the number of people in Israeli jails, when we are attempting to build agreement for a two-state solution it does not help to have elected representatives of the Palestinian Authority in Israeli jails.

[Lord Janner of Braunstone]

Does the noble Lord acknowledge that both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority have serious and legitimate security concerns over the presence of Hamas leaders in east Jerusalem?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we recognise that both sides have a range of legitimate security concerns. We also recognise that Hamas is a problem. On the other hand—I know that the noble Lord has said on occasions that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East—these were elected representatives of the Palestinian Authority. If we wish to encourage the growth of two democratic states alongside each other, sometimes we may have to accept elected representatives who are not exactly the sort of people we would like.

[Baroness Deech]

Will the Minister acknowledge that the influence of the British Government over Israel has diminished to a very low point, in part because of the apparent hostility attaching to the fact that Israeli officials are unlikely to be able to visit this country without fear of arrest, as well as because there appears to be a lack of comprehension of the existential threat that Israel faces, of which, possibly, these four MPs may be a part, as members of Hamas, which is still dedicated to the destruction of Israel?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government are fully aware of the security needs of the Israelis and their neighbours, but we differ with some members of the current Israeli coalition on how best to develop a long-term secure Israeli state in a secure and peaceful Middle East.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, is the Minister of my mind in thinking that it is difficult to reconcile the existential threat, as the noble Baroness just called it, that Israel fears with a continued policy of rampant colonisation of the West Bank, which is not just illegal but is as provocative of extremism within Palestine and the Middle East as it conceivably could be?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps I might say that in previous Questions the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, has suggested that 62 per cent of the West Bank is now controlled by settlements. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has suggested that the figure is actually 5 per cent. The Government’s best estimate, based on local NGOs, is that some 42 per cent of the West Bank is currently controlled by Israeli settlements.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, we on these Benches recognise the security threats posed to the state of Israel, as the noble Lord has acknowledged on behalf of the Government, but, as he said in his Answer, the deportations of these four Members are illegal under international law. He said that representations have been made by the EU and by our ambassador. Was the Foreign Secretary able to raise this issue directly during his recent visit and has the Israeli ambassador been invited to the Foreign Office to discuss the matter?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have not heard from the Foreign Secretary exactly what he has been saying while he has been there, but before he left he assured us that human rights issues would be a major element in all his discussions in the region.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

Will the noble Lord write specifically on that point?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Yes.

Iraq: Religious Minorities

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

11:29

Asked By

[Baroness Cox]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent deaths of Christians following the attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, what action they propose that the international community should take to prevent the dissolution of Christian communities and other religious minorities in Iraq.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government utterly condemn the attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad on 31 October 2010. Both Alistair Burt, the Minister for the Middle East, and our ambassador in Baghdad released statements on the following day to that effect. The Iraqi authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, which we strongly support.

[Baroness Cox]

I thank the noble Lord for that comprehensive reply. Given that the recent attack on the Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad was just the latest in a series of attacks on Christian communities and other religious minorities that have caused enormous suffering, many deaths, the widespread destruction of holy places and a mass exodus of religious believers from Iraq, will Her Majesty’s Government use their current presidency of the UN Security Council to press for effective protection for all Iraqi citizens in order to prevent the complete dissolution of religious minorities?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the House will be aware of similar attacks on the Shia community in Baghdad over the past few days—we do not have the full information, but there have been somewhere between eight and 15 attacks—so the noble Baroness is quite right to say that these are attacks on all minorities, not just on the long-established and ancient Christian minority in Iraq. We are working with the United Nations, the EU and all other authorities to bring as much pressure as we can to bear on the provisional Iraqi Government to do what they can to resolve and prevent any further attacks.

[Lord Clarke of Hampstead]

My Lords, the Question and the reply we have received from the Government today show clearly that there is concern and fear within the Christian and other minorities in Iraq. Are there any programmes in place to assist those Christians who have been displaced from Iraq into neighbouring territories? In particular, if no programmes are already in place, will the Government consider allowing talented and skilled people who are currently incarcerated in these camps in Lebanon, Jordan and other places to be accommodated in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, a number of Iraqi Christians are already in this country—indeed, I have canvassed some of them in Yorkshire—so I am conscious that that accommodation has already been taking place over recent years. There is a substantial internally displaced population within Iraq as well as refugees in neighbouring countries. Some progress has been made in returning those people to Iraq, but a full return will depend on the establishment of real security within the country. We are doing everything that we can to help in that regard.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, my noble friend will recognise that, since our intervention in Iraq, ethnic cleansing by Saddam has been replaced with religious cleansing by Islam. Does this not reflect an aspect of Islam about which both Christian and secular states need to be urgently aware and, I suggest, collectively proactive? Furthermore, does not recent history suggest that force is by no means the best way of achieving progress?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a complex question. I would caution the noble Lord against talking about attacks by Islam. It appears that these are attacks by Sunni extremist groups, and there have been attacks on both Shia and secular Iraqis as well as on Christian and other minorities. The safety of all minority groups is at stake. We need to work in so far as we can to maintain a dialogue with moderate Muslims in order to ensure that these extremist groups do not attract more support.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, perhaps I may take that point a little further. I should like to ask the noble Lord what the Government’s view is on interfaith groups. Such groups manage to reach out to what are possibly the extremes of some faith groups. I am thinking particularly of the work of the noble and right reverend Lords, Lord Carey and Lord Harries of Pentregarth, that of the right reverend Prelates the Bishops of London and Coventry, as well as the wonderful work done by Canon Andrew White, of which the noble Lord will be well aware. Do the Government feel that these interfaith groups have an important role to play in trying to reach into those parts of faith communities in the Middle East that are perhaps operating in a way that many of us find repellent?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I understand that Canon Andrew White has been in London and that Alistair Burt spoke to him yesterday. He is now returning to Baghdad. Of course we have to promote interfaith dialogue as actively as we can, but it is not always easy to get through to the more extreme groups. However, I trust that this is something with which many of us in this place and others outside are actively engaged.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the killings in Baghdad were followed by a chilling statement on Tuesday by al-Qaeda in Iraq that Christians are legitimate targets and that,

“the killing sword will not be lifted”

from their necks? Will the Government now urgently review their policy in respect of Christian Iraqi refugees and inform the House when they have done so?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is a situation in which all of us are liberals and opposed to fundamentalism of any religion—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or any other. As to the situation of Christian Iraqis, the Government will take this into account. I will write to the right reverend Prelate about the current policy.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

Does the Minister agree that, as Christians and Jews are defined in the Holy Koran as people of the book, and as the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, declared that Christians would be the best friends of his followers the Muslims, such interpretations of Islam are another misuse of the term “Islam” to cover up violence throughout the globe? Is the Minister prepared to co-operate with Prime Minister Malaki’s special committee to oppose discrimination on religious grounds, which Prime Minister Malaki set up no less than two years ago and which actively needs support?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are extremely happy to co-operate with the Government of Iraq. As the noble Baroness will know, they are still currently a provisional Government. There are reports that some progress might be made towards the formation of a more stable, permanent Government within the next week, and we hope that that is the case. As soon as there is a more stable Government, we will co-operate with them as well.

Business of the House

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Timing of Debates

11:37

Moved by

[Lord McNally]

That the debates on the Motions in the names of Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Lord Puttnam set down for today shall each be limited to two and a half hours.

Motion agreed.

Apportionment of Money in the National Lottery Distribution Fund Order 2010

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Official Statistics Order 2010

Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2010

Offshore Chemicals (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Offshore Petroleum Activities (Oil Pollution Prevention and Control) (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Motions to refer to Grand Committee

11:37

Moved by

[Lord McNally]

That the draft orders and regulations be referred to a Grand Committee.

Motions agreed.

Housing: Spending Review

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Debate

11:38

Moved by

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

To call attention to the impact on housing need and provision of the Budget and the spending review 2010; and to move for Papers.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Broadland Housing Association and I thank organisations, from the Chartered Institute of Housing to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, led by Michael Newey, for their helpful briefings.

Effective markets depend on a rough balance between supply and demand. The prosperous have a housing market; for others, like dominoes, the pressures at the lower end of owner occupation cascade down through the private rented sector and collapse onto social housing—each displaces the vulnerable on to the tenure below. It is going to be carnage and it is utterly indecent.

I start with owner occupation. Given unemployment fears, muted wage growth, the increasing fiscal squeeze and deteriorating consumer confidence, Ernst & Young expects a double dip housing recession. Why? Most lending bodies now require a 25 per cent deposit—£40,000 on an average home—which people with university debts as well will find impossible to obtain. In 2006 there were 245,000 mortgages with a 10 per cent deposit; there are now 28,000. Without parental assistance, the first time buyer will now be 38 and will have lingered 10 to 15 years longer in the private rented sector.

He will be joined by a second group—owners who have become unemployed. Why? Because now, of all times, the Government are effectively halving the mortgage support they give to families on benefit; halving the interest rate from 6 per cent down to 3.65 per cent; halving the capital covered; and doubling the wait before support kicks in. Many families will face arrears and repossession and be forced back into the private rented sector without the hope of ever rejoining owner-occupation.

As a result, the private rented sector stops being a transitional tenure for young people and becomes a decade-or-three stay for them and for hundreds of thousands of poorly paid professionals who cannot buy, joining the many hundreds of thousands of the low-paid who may be on housing benefit but who cannot access social housing. How will private landlords respond? Rents in the private sector will probably rise, according to the National Landlords Association. Yet housing benefit will fall, not just capped at the top end but also, far worse, capped to cover not, as now, the average rent of 50 per cent but only rent of 30 per cent. So 70 per cent of rents will be higher than that and unaffordable in the market.

It gets worse. Let us project that forward. For the decade 1997 to 2007, rents increased by 70 per cent and CPI, the new inflationary index for benefit, by around 20 per cent. By 2020, housing benefit based on CPI will have fallen so far behind private rents that it may cover only 10 per cent of available property. In Manchester, it will cover only 5 per cent of available two-bedroom flats. In Ashford and Winchester, not a single two-bed home could be affordable on HB within 10 or 12 years. Yet, say government, reduced housing benefit will press down on landlords’ rents. That is key to their case. But it will not, because landlords have so many alternative tenants that they can raise rents. Most landlords do not have to let to private tenants on HB at whatever the price.

Only some 20 per cent of those in the private rented sector are on HB. It is not enough to have market leverage—not when surveyors report some five or six applicants for every rented property. The DWP’s own recent research quotes a major landlord in Bradford, saying, “Seriously, the next people I get in won’t be from DSS. I can’t do this any more”. The NLA says that in future 54 per cent of landlords will not rent to benefit claimants, half will not reduce their rents and nine in 10 will avoid taking anyone on HB. The result? Alex Fenton’s Cambridge research shows that if tenants try to meet that shortfall not covered by HB, perhaps 60,000 families with some 40,000 dependent children will be in severe poverty, below the poverty line. Instead, he expects around 200,000 families to face eviction, including 31,000 pensioners and 72,000 families with children. It is indecent.

Yet the Government say that the cuts to HB are essential to cap a soaring HB bill. Let us unpick that, because it is a myth. HB is not being pushed up by a few high claims but because more and poorer people are claiming. There are a few large families—refugee families, reconstituted families—who may need homes with more than four bedrooms. In Hackney, the Guardian reports that, of those 32 families in five-bed properties who will lose on average £1,200 per month, 31 are from a long-established Orthodox Jewish community. Will they become severely overcrowded in a smaller home? Will they instead be rehoused in two four-bedroom houses at higher HB bills? Or will they be scattered? It is indecent.

However, despite the grandstanding of senior Ministers, the DWP’s own stats show that, since 2000, over half of the increase in the HB bill—it is 54 per cent—comes not from the few high claims but from more private, poorer tenants claiming. They are in low-paid work, disabled or elderly. The 52,000 of them who are on pension credit stand to lose £11 a week, or four years’ worth of future pension increase. That is not decent. So, over half the increase in HB is coming from more people claiming. A sixth, or 18 per cent, comes from the rise in private sector rents, although that is by far less than house prices. Another 18 per cent comes from the Government pushing up, by policy choice, social housing target rents and the last 10 per cent comes from more social tenants claiming as the job market tightens.

There may be greedy landlords but the key driver behind increased HB has been more, poorer people coming into the private rented sector together with the Government's own demand that RSLs raise rents—full stop. Scare stories about vast bills make headlines; they should not make policy. Shelter estimates that 82,000 families may have to move. As families arrive in a spiral of debt and distress, the receiving authorities do not have the jobs, services, health or school places for them. Camden may lose 800 families, some to Enfield, which consequently expects an increase in overcrowding in its private rented sector. Slough says that there is no point in families going there when it has 6,000 on its waiting list. They would,

“push up costs and cause massive distortion to local prices”.

The truth is that homes are cheap only where there are no jobs, so I would ask the question that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, asks: should the jobless from Middlesbrough move to London where there may be jobs but no homes, or should the homeless from London move to Middlesbrough where there are homes but no jobs?

Added to this is the pressure for those people allowed only the shared room rent until they reach 35, not 25 as at present. Even before the cuts, Shelter had shown that, in much of the country, there was no such accommodation. Half of it explicitly bars DSS and 87 per cent of people already in a shared-rent room have a deficit on their HB bill of £35 a week. In future, if you are in a one-bedroom flat and lose your job, you lose your home. If you share a flat with an abusive partner and get him out, if you are on HB you lose your home—think of the power that gives him. Now you have to find a shared room, if you can, with strangers who you fear may threaten or abuse you, or thieve. It is indecent. Private rents will rise, HB will fall and evictions and homelessness will soar, while the safety net of social rented housing tears apart. All of the downward pressure—the falling domino effect of owner occupation going to private renting with private renters facing eviction—has made the need for social housing even greater. I now turn to that.

For decades, social housing has broken the link between poverty and poor housing—and I have been so proud of it. Inside Housing, the trade magazine, headlined on its front cover of 29 October, in huge capitals:

“The End of Social Housing, 1945-2010”.

How? First, the Government are savagely reducing by over 60 per cent the new build programme—at the cost, incidentally, of thousands of construction jobs. Half of the allocated £4 billion will go to the 60,000 to 70,000 houses already in the pipeline, with £1.9 billion going to new build at 80 per cent of market rent to provide insecure, intermediate tenancies. A billion quid builds 10,000 houses, plus land, so in all that is 80,000 or 90,000 new build. The Government say that we will have 150,000. Where is that coming from? It is coming from the increased rents of new, insecure and intermediate tenants who, nationally, will see their rent for a three-bed house treble from £83 a week to £249 a week. Only those with well above-average earnings can pay an unassisted intermediate rent, and they will be expected to move on and out quite quickly from that tenure because it is insecure.

There will be some; but virtually every tenant going into my housing association is on benefit. So the DCLG’s capital programme is paid for by the rents of a few transient non-HB tenants, alongside the increased HB bills for the DWP churned through the rent book. It is smoke and mirrors.

To add to the folly, the higher the new rent—and, therefore, the higher the housing benefit—the harder it is for any tenant to re-enter work. Cheap rents help people back into work. If, however, housing benefit is deliberately reduced by tying it to CPI while rents rise with the market, then arrears mount. Where will people be evicted to? More expensive bed and breakfasts? Vandalised cars? Street doorways? It is indecent, and it gets worse.

The non-dependent adult deduction rate will double up to £90 a week, netted off parents’ housing benefit and their council tax benefit because a low-paid adult son lives at home. If he leaves, his parents will underoccupy and be required to move. If he stays, he may be better off not working. Stable estates? Stable families? Nye Bevan’s “living tapestry of a mixed community”?

Even more vicious is the proposed 10 per cent cut in housing benefit for anyone on JSA for 12 months or more. Why? If people refuse work preparation now, let alone a job, their JSA is already sanctioned. If unemployed claimants are respecting the JSA rules, you cannot sanction them, and that does not suit the Government. So instead the Government are attacking an unconnected benefit, housing benefit, to give the longer-term unemployed a further whipping even though their lack of a job may be none of their making. It is horrifying.

Just over one-third of those on JSA are also on housing benefit—the rest either are owner-occupiers or live at home. Let me unpick the stats for two places. Wolverhampton has six claimants for every job, and if they were to be sanctioned tomorrow on housing benefit, 1,116 families would lose 10 per cent of their benefit. In Norfolk the figures are 5,000 jobs, mainly casual, and 15,600 claimants, and under these rules 1,254 families would be sanctioned tomorrow.

What does my housing association do? Evict them in due course? Into what? Severe overcrowding? Squatting? Cardboard boxes, perhaps? Or we could let the arrears mount and instead balance our books by cutting out retrofitting to lift pensioners out of fuel poverty. Evictions or increased fuel poverty—that is not a decent choice.

To conclude, we are looking at mortgage lending being at its lowest in 10 years, house-building and the construction industry in crisis, private rents rising as the sector gets swamped, housing benefit cut to 30 per cent, then 20 per cent and then 10 per cent of private rents, social housing as we know it ending—all the dominoes falling over as misery cascades down the tenures. And what really matters is that thousands and thousands of families in just a few months will face debt, stress, eviction and homelessness. Weeping children, desperate mothers, defeated fathers—how dare we do this? It is carnage among our own people, and we should be ashamed.

11:52

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as an elected member of Pendle Borough Council and thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for introducing this extremely important debate at this time. I do not want to talk about the issues that she mainly talked about, although other members of the Liberal Democrat party will do so later. However, I have considerable sympathy with many of the things that she said. We are in the middle of a consultation debate on these matters and I hope that the Government may amend some of the proposals before they are finally put to Parliament for agreement.

I will talk about local regeneration, particularly housing regeneration, and the prospect facing many local authorities—particularly shire districts in more deprived and disadvantaged areas—of the removal of virtually all their capital investment resources. This will mean that they will find it extremely difficult to carry out housing regeneration work. The RDAs, which have provided considerable investment in regeneration, are going. The so-called regional housing pots, which replaced the capital allocations to councils, are disappearing. Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, has announced that the housing market renewal programme is being done away with. I want to talk specifically about the housing market renewal programme because this is where the problems will be most acute. I speak from five years’ experience—to last May—as the executive cabinet member of Pendle Borough Council for our housing market renewal projects.

The scheme was introduced in 2003 in nine main areas, including Hull and the East Riding, NewcastleGateshead, Oldham and Rochdale, and East Lancashire, where I live. It has resulted in a substantial investment in the regeneration of areas of old housing and low-priced housing. The amount of money that has been spent in the areas this year is some £364 million. The scheme, if one believes the circular that Grant Shapps has sent round, appears to be closing down, although it is not clear whether there will be transitional arrangements next year. That is the first question that I want to ask.

It is being suggested, as it was in the White Paper Local Growth: Realising Every Place’s Potential, that there will be some funding available via the regional growth fund, but this is only £1.4 billion over three years and the amount of money that is available to the housing market renewal areas to wind up their schemes is not known. That is my second question: to what extent will that fund be available? It is suggested that the Homes and Communities Agency may help to contribute to these schemes but, again, it is all very vague.

The housing market renewal schemes were set up as 15-year programmes. They are just over halfway through; I think we are in year eight now. They were based on local master plans—programmes for neighbourhoods, working closely with residents. There is much of what some people might call the big society going on in those areas, which it appears will all be closed down. As somebody who has been closely involved in them, I am the first to admit—in fact, I am the first to criticise—that they have been bureaucratic in how they have carried out their work. They have wasted a lot of money: in East Lancashire £3 million a year has been spent simply on administration, research and schemes by the so-called partnership Elevate, which was set up to co-ordinate and run the schemes, rather than this being done directly through local authorities that knew what they were doing. The way in which it happened was a typical new Labour way, which wasted a lot of money. Nevertheless, there are schemes taking place now that are halfway through. The Government say they will honour committed schemes. My third question is: what are committed schemes? Are they those that have contracts at the moment, or are they the schemes for neighbourhoods that might have been partly bought up by the council, partly pulled down and partly boarded up? Are such neighbourhoods simply to be abandoned now?

There are regeneration schemes under HMR in all the areas, where derelict factories and mills have been bought. They may have been cleared. Remedial work is needed on the land before private developers will come in and find it profitable. Because these are, by definition, areas of low housing prices, gap funding is often needed to make the schemes profitable. The private sector will come in and build but it will not do so if it is not going to make a profit, so all these things require funding from the public purse—there is no other way in which they can be done. They have been done, and promised, through the housing market renewal programme. If this is coming to an end, are we to be left, as I said, with streets which are half boarded up and half purchased by the council, where the council no longer has the money to buy the rest of the houses—there is such a street in my own ward, and there are much bigger similar areas in other places—or are brownfield sites which have been bought up for redevelopment to regenerate and create new life in these areas now to be abandoned as the remediation cannot be afforded because the gap funding is not there? These are the kind of problems we are dealing with.

The Whip is looking at me to indicate that my time is up, and he is quite right, but I will say one more thing. Are we to be able to complete the schemes in a satisfactory way or are they to be abandoned and all we are going to be able to do is to fulfil existing contracts? This is a very serious matter. I do not expect the Minister to have all the answers to it today but perhaps she can provide them to me and the House in writing.

[Baroness Greengross]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I want to make four points, two of which are of particular concern to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, of which I am a member.

First, I am aware that Her Majesty’s Government are committed to ensuring a high level of employment in this country but I have particular concerns regarding the impact of housing benefit reform on many people’s ability to engage in paid employment. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, went into this in great detail, but it is important for us to take into account that only about 12 per cent of all housing benefit claimants are unemployed. I hope that the Minister will clarify this.

Secondly, will the Minister say why the Government feel that it is necessary to cut the capital investment in housing by 63 per cent in real terms—more than in any other part of the economy—at a time of record housing need, chronic lack of supply and increasing numbers on the waiting lists?

Thirdly, as regards people who are no longer working, will the Minister say how many older people will have to use their pensions to make up the difference in their rent if housing benefit is cut? I remind the House that pension rates specifically take no account of housing costs because these are supported by housing benefit paid by local authorities and that certain housing costs may be awarded only if you are eligible for pension credit.

Fourthly, the changes announced to housing benefit in the spending review, the emergency Budget and prior to that are complex. Will the Minister explain whether the whole package of reforms has been, and is being, considered as a package? Will she advise me whether an analysis of the cumulative impact of these measures on the protected groups for whom the Equality and Human Rights Commission is responsible will be undertaken?

12:02

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, there is a story of a man being audited by a tax inspector. “How have you managed to buy such a luxurious villa when your declared income is so low?”, asks the inspector. “It’s like this”, replies the man, “While I was fishing last summer I caught a large golden fish. When I took it off the hook, the fish opened its mouth and said, ‘I am a magical fish. Throw me back into the sea and I’ll give you the most luxurious villa you have ever seen’. So I threw the fish back into the sea, and got the villa”. The tax inspector was not impressed. “How do you expect to prove such a ludicrous story?”, he asked. “Well”, the man replied, “you can see the villa, can’t you?”.

In the light of the comprehensive spending review and its implications for social and affordable housing in both urban and rural contexts, many would wish for a magical fish. Sadly, this is unlikely to be the case. The proposals before us will affect not just housing supply, but the whole culture of housing provision.

It is likely that cuts to the national affordable housing programme are likely to be more than 60 per cent, while new tenants will be paying higher rents. In addition, these cuts will be accompanied by changes to the social housing culture, as tenants will be assessed on need—no more “council houses for life”.

Having lived in London for more than 20 years, I am well aware of the fact that most people do not live in expensive properties or luxurious, five-star accommodation. It is easy to achieve a soundbite with exceptions—less so with the reality of the vast majority of people living in ordinary houses. Equally, many such people have lived in a locality all their lives. Besides such people upon whom the proposed cuts will fall are those suffering a temporary blip in their fortunes, others who have fled from violent partners, or refugees dealing with the trauma of war or real ethnic cleansing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said powerfully in her address. Above all, such cuts will come upon people with little or no savings—now one of the requirements of eligibility for benefits. Undoubtedly, this will affect tens of thousands of people in London and other major cities.

However, my diocese is rural and, as my good friend, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans commented in his address this week to the Faith in the Countryside conference, the 50 per cent cut in capital investment for affordable homes announced last week could leave nearly half a million rural households without housing in the next quarter century. It is with regret that I note in a report from Shelter that none of the councils in Somerset, where my diocese is located, has met any of the affordable housing targets. The highest in the Shelter ranking met 28 per cent of the target, while the lowest met a mere 9 per cent. Viewers of BBC television this morning will have seen the savage cuts made by Somerset County Council in so many areas of public and corporate life.

The decision to end the “council house for life” will be a real problem in rural areas, where there is simply not the flexibility and availability of housing for people to move on in a way that they can in urban areas. The continuing unregulated purchase of second homes in rural communities raises questions as to where the skilled trades people—plumbers, carpenters, builders and farm workers upon whom we rely—will buy or rent a house. All this leads to the ebbing away of community, with the closure of schools, village shops and pubs, and much else besides. Fishing for the magical golden fish is not a serious option. Families who may be key players in local communities will lose their long-term security, and individuals will lose their social networks and relationships of mutual support and care if they have to move. Where will they move to? It is these very communities and networks that provide the relationships for a civic society, whether “big” or not.

The New Homes Bonus scheme will not give any priority to affordable housing, or particular provision for encouraging affordable homes in rural areas. At best, some provision for the edges of towns and cities will be made. Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, has argued that rural housing development can go ahead, providing that in locally held mini-referendums, 75 per cent of those voting agree. Many believe, and I include myself among them, that this will be difficult to achieve. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said in his speech yesterday, this is not so much nimbyism as bananaism—“build absolutely nothing anywhere never again”.

Finally, much has been made of the role of churches and voluntary organisations in the big society. Readers of the Tablet, that notable Roman Catholic journal, were asked last week whether they had spare rooms that they could let to single homeless or young people. Is this really to be role of churches and other voluntary bodies?

In 2008, Iain Duncan Smith, attending a Salvation Army conference, observed a growing undercurrent of “chaotic and dysfunctional” people who are unable to play an active part in society, and he went on to attack social housing policy as “ghettoising dysfunction and poverty”. Is not the coalition’s policy on housing benefit and the insecurity of council house tenure likely to work against the idea of mixed living, and create exactly the kind of ghettoisation that he spoke of in opposition?

If ever we needed a big-society solution to affordable housing, given the unavailability of the golden magical fish, this is the time.

12:10

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who always makes thoughtful and well informed speeches, enhanced on occasion by an Ulster flavour. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, on having secured the debate and on her predictably expert speech. In an act of political chivalry, I congratulate her, too, on her timing in inserting the speech into the parliamentary diary before the forthcoming White Paper. Clearly, her speech will deserve close study.

My late noble kinsman was for four years in the late 1950s Minister for Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs. I do not think that it was because he took the trouble to learn the Welsh national anthem in Welsh that Nye Bevan, in the Attlee Government, asked him, although he was a political opponent, to chair departmental working parties on aspects of housing policy. I do not know as much as 1 per cent of what my late noble kinsman knew about housing; but I do know that, while the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has chosen her moment well, it would be wrong for my noble friend the Minister to be left naked of Conservative support behind her today, even though our coalition colleagues have turned out in force and, although it is a Labour debate, exceed in number the Labour speakers.

I am grateful for the comprehensive briefing afforded to speakers in this debate by the National Housing Federation. I shall tick off the relevant questions that it believes need asking as opposition speaker follows opposition speaker, so I shall not spend my six minutes asking them myself. Nor shall I spend my time hypothesising about what a Labour Government might have done in the present circumstances. “What if” questions are fun as a social game—for example, asking, at this moment in American history, what would have happened if Wolfe had not taken Quebec—but they are not a good use of time when the Labour Government are no longer in power, for reasons associated with their recent policies, and when another Government are proposing a massively important welfare programme that embraces housing but goes far beyond it. I shall rest on a paragraph from Labour’s 2010 manifesto, which was drafted by the present leader of the party and which states:

“Our goal is to make responsibility the cornerstone of our welfare state. Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford”.

I could not put it better myself.

The programme that the coalition Government are pursuing is a wholesale reform of 21st-century welfare from the foundations that Beveridge laid two-thirds of a century ago when Nye Bevan was Minister of Health. It is not a policy that the Opposition would have adopted, for they drove my noble friend Lord Freud—as he then was not—from their ranks when he sought to persuade them to adopt it. Of course, I realise that they believed that tax credits would resolve the dilemma, in an era when they also believed that they had banished boom and bust from economic history. The difference today is that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, Mr Brown, is by instinct a complicator, whereas my noble friend Lord Freud is a simplifier. I am pretty sure that DWP and HMRC, despite their loyalty to any Government, would prefer the latter instinct to the former.

I have personal experience of the complexity of tax credits. A member of my family was given, no doubt in good faith, appalling tax advice by the HMRC hotline. My relative brought it to me and I brought it first to my own tax accountant and later to a relevant Lords Minister, who, coincidentally, will speak for the Government later in the debate. The Minister very generously and kindly researched it with the Treasury. Both the latter consultees agreed that the hotline advice was wholly ill founded. However, think of what effect, in all senses, the advice of the hotline would have had on many other inquirers. I say that because of the complexity of the matter.

It is worth saying a word about housing provision. The words appear on the Order Paper, although I appreciate that they are in their context ambiguous. Housing costs are a function of the amount of provision, and I will not go into why the previous Government failed to reach their own targets. However, I will remark that twice in Grand Committee in the second half of the last Parliament—once on a planning Bill and once on a housing Bill—I asked why the Government believed, as an underlying premise for their legislation, that the economy would go on behaving as it had in the preceding 10 years. On the second occasion, I quoted the then very recent first comment by the Governor of the Bank of England that the possibility of a recession could not be ruled out. On both occasions, the Minister expressed confidence in the economy, noting that there was not a recession in progress. I also remark that the growth in housing targets over the period 1996 to 2006, with the interim projections of 2002 and the final Kate Barker report of 2004, was most recently not in the south-east—a key arena for the issue that we are debating—but in the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside, and the west and east Midlands.

Much of my own housing experience comes from representing for a quarter of a century an inner-city seat with considerable street homelessness. I do not associate myself with the emotive language of the Mayor of London, whom I generally and genuinely admire, but I am conscious that I was representing what was not only in part a rich seat, although not as rich a seat as the EU statistics imply, but also in significant part a poor seat. When I left the other place, it was the 48th poorest seat in the country by British statistical criteria. That remarkable social balance is necessary to the way that London works. There has to be low-income housing at the centre to serve the practical needs of a great city, and I shall watch the outcome with what is currently confidence that for pragmatic reasons that balance will remain.

12:16

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for bringing this vital subject before the House today and for the characteristically knowledgeable and caring way in which she spoke to it. I do not have anything remotely like her depth of knowledge about these matters, and my purpose in speaking today is simply to draw the attention of the Minister and the Government to examples of people whom I know about personally whose lives are likely to be severely, even devastatingly, affected by these measures. Both the cases that I shall be referring to are of single people who, in the difficult economic situation of north-east England, have been repeatedly trying for jobs for a considerable time. Both could well fall foul of the new rule that full housing benefit will be cut by 10 per cent after a person has been on jobseeker’s allowance for 12 months.

My noble friend made a compelling case the other day in the debate on the comprehensive spending review about the perversity of such a rule. In the cases that I know of, because the persons concerned have repeatedly tried to obtain work, surely, rather than be penalised for their efforts, the system should recognise the efforts that they have made. If the Government are trying to differentiate between genuine claimants and others, why not recognise those who are known to jobcentres for having done everything they possibly can to gain employment? Underlying the Government’s proposal is obviously a belief that, if you are out of work for more than 12 months, it is always your own fault and therefore you should be penalised. However, even a cursory glance at the history of areas such as my own in the north-east of England must reveal that this is far from being the reality.

I say to the Minister that, from my knowledge of these cases, it can be very dispiriting applying for jobs, particularly when you have to use scarce resources to telephone or visit employers and send off applications. It is even more dispiriting when so few employers even acknowledge the applications. I am beginning to think that it should be a legal obligation both to acknowledge applications and to communicate to applicants when a final decision has been made.

One of the cases to which I refer is a young person who lives in a modest one-bedroomed flat but risks losing this by falling foul of the change being introduced whereby the age threshold for the single room rate is to be raised from 25 to 35. Therefore, in addition to losing a percentage of the jobseeker’s allowance, despite having done everything to gain employment, that person now risks losing their home, and I find it almost incredible that we should treat people like that.

One of the two people I am referring to came to Britain as a genuine asylum seeker and has now obtained British citizenship. In the course of this process, he has enthusiastically immersed himself in British history, learning about our society and culture and adapting to it, including by dramatically improving his language skills. Although he has had work, it has been very difficult to find permanent employment, despite all his efforts to do so. If his efforts continue to be unsuccessful, he, too, could fall foul of the harsh and indiscriminate changes to the housing benefit system to which I referred. It would indeed be cruel if the Government of the country of which he is now so proud to belong decide to blight his prospects in this way.

Not surprisingly, the situation in London has been referred to because of the high cost of accommodation in the capital. However, all parts of the country and all categories of jobseekers will be affected by these proposals.

We know that the whole area of benefits is a difficult one. Ever since the beginning of the welfare state, it has been difficult to devise rules that help those who genuinely need it and make sure that there is no unfair exploitation of the system. No doubt the Minister in replying will try to defend what is happening by citing excessive claims, but my examples are also real. These are people whose lives will be cruelly affected by what is proposed. Therefore, I implore the Minister and the Government to listen and learn from such examples and change course as a result.

12:20

[Lord German]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on the timing of this debate, and also the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, on answering the question “what now”, rather than “what if”. That is the question that faces us all. Unlike the right reverend Prelate, I shall not use a golden fish as my metaphor; I shall use simultaneous equations—the need to bring into balance a number of competing factors, each of which has a set of variables and a number of unknowns. That describes the situation with housing; both sides of the equation need to be understood. At its heart is the need to balance the degree of support which the state can provide to individuals and families to meet their housing needs and the need to provide adequate numbers of homes at affordable levels. One side of this equation is the responsibility of the DWP, with its reach right across the United Kingdom, and the other is a department, the DCLG, with responsibility for England only. As the accompanying documents to the CSR helpfully point out, the responsibility for housing for large parts of our country—Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—does not lie with this Government or Parliament. In this new era of joined-up government, it is important that the DWP particularly takes note of that firmly when trying to bring the matters we are debating today into balance.

Is the present system in balance? Does the state's support funding for individuals and families match the stock of affordable housing? Clearly not, because between 1996 and 2010 the stock of affordable homes fell by a net 45,000. Meanwhile, the bill for supporting individuals and their families has ballooned to £5 billion extra in the past five years alone. As the number of affordable homes available has dwindled, so the cost to the country has risen. Using my equation metaphor, the factors on one side of the equals sign have grown more as the other side has diminished. This Government, and any Government in the current financial circumstances, are therefore constrained to do more for less, making available more housing at prices which people can afford, replenishing and building more homes so that the net stock grows, with a smaller public resource available to achieve that growth. Neither can it be in the public interest to see housing benefit costs balloon in the way that they have, yet our society should expect and demand that we can support those in need who need a proper and decent home.

This complex equation needs planned resolution, avoiding the dangers of perverse outcomes. The complexity of the equation has in the past driven changes which have made the system more, not less, complex—more difficult to understand and more susceptible to those perverse outcomes. The challenge for government is, first, to build more homes and, secondly, to create a benefits structure which is simpler and fit for purpose. I welcome the Government's ambition to deal with these very large-scale issues. Of course, there are a number of icebergs in the water around which they have to steer.

I am a recent rented-property searcher in London, working within the parameters of your Lordships’ expenses regime. It is quite clear to me that the London housing equation has a quite distinct set of factors. It is a market with prices attached which, in most parts of our country—where I come from, for example—would make people stagger with amazement. I have to admit that I have been priced out of Kensington and Chelsea. Do I find that strange? Indeed I do not. There are many parts of the country where I, like many others, would like to live but find it impossible to do so. I also find it strange that some politicians in London are surprised that the rents in some areas price many people out of them. But that is the reality. Fundamentally, can it be right that some claimants for housing support can claim more than £100,000 a year to live in large houses in expensive areas when many hardworking taxpayers would find it impossible to do so? Indeed, they are subsidising those who receive those high rates of benefit.

London is not the whole of the United Kingdom and it would be wrong to see the vision of change through the prism of the capital city. Admittedly there are some other hotspots, some of which have been mentioned already—some university towns, for example—where prices in the private rented sector have been driven up by the demand. However, the rental cap is appropriate for many parts of our country and, with appropriate provision, could work for London and those other hotspots. But there are other, localised problems of a different kind, one of which has already been alluded to—the demand for affordable housing in our rural areas in order to retain local families in their communities. That is a massive problem which again requires a tailored solution. The Government will face a major challenge on that matter, particularly on the 30 percentile figure that they are introducing.

There is not a uniform picture across the country, and a uniform solution may not always be appropriate because that may lead increasingly to further market distortion. That is why a more discrete definition of housing areas—in fact, a much more clear map—would perhaps make solutions more appropriate. After all, market rents, as I have discovered, can vary considerably within a couple of miles and even within a couple of streets. However, the universal benefit changes will make a significant difference and improvement to the current arrangements on housing. But the timing of these housing allowance changes means they will be put in place before the universal benefit changes begin to bite. I therefore think that, at all levels, this set of equations will be more tricky to resolve than the simultaneous ones that I did at school. A large number of changes all coming down the tracks together requires greater co-ordination and planning. I hope that the Government will have success and, more than anything else, certainty of action.

12:27

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for securing this debate and for her very important speech. In my few minutes I shall concentrate on the key issue of housing benefit. I have been able to draw, with gratitude, on the invaluable guidance of experts from the Chartered Institute of Housing, Shelter, Citizens Advice, Crisis, the National Housing Federation and the Local Government Association, with input from the Residential Landlords Association and individual private sector landlords as well as the top academics in the field: Professor Peter Kemp from Oxford and Professor Steve Wilcox from York. I declare my housing interests as in the register, and shall pick up one or two of the issues that have not been fully covered so far.

My first question is whether these cuts will achieve the desired savings in public expenditure. First, if there are a lot of evictions—which I feel sure, regrettably, there will be, and which will produce costs for landlords—the resulting homelessness will lead to huge cost increases for the state. Secondly, and related, if there is a return to putting people in bed and breakfast hotels—and in one London borough it has been announced that 20 such places have just been taken, the first time those hotels have been used for some years for this purpose, because a major private landlord has pulled out of catering for those who are on the local housing allowance—then the cost of B&B in place of private rented sector flats will produce additional expenditure for the state.

Thirdly, an influx of new tenants from high-value localities into lower-value areas could cause rents for all local housing allowance tenants to rise, not just for the new tenants moving in. Those rent increases could wipe out savings from the movers. Fourthly, if people move from higher-value areas where jobs are plentiful to low-value areas where they are not, it may be more difficult for the movers to find employment, and costs to the state may well be higher. This is to say nothing about the ill effects on aspirations and life chances of concentrating poorer households in the same place, rather than having a mix of income levels and tenures in all areas.

It is worth noting that the power of cuts to galvanise recipients into taking up employment may be quite limited. Only one in eight housing benefit claimants of working age is unemployed. The others include pensioners, the 26 per cent who are in low-paid jobs, single parents and disabled people. Finally, if there is withdrawal and disinvestment by private sector landlords in homes that might have been occupied by those on housing benefit, a corresponding increase in government funding will become even more necessary for the social housing to which those people will have to go.

What can be done to ease the potential hardships that these reductions in housing benefit seem destined to create? First, surely we cannot hit households next spring with a new cap based on the number of bedrooms in high-value areas and then again in the autumn when the change from the 50 to the 30 percentile maximum kicks in. One October start date for both these changes would surely be far less disruptive and far less expensive to administer. Secondly, the new caps expressed in cash—for example, £290 a week for two-bedroom flats—need to be uprated annually or they will gradually cover more and more tenants.

Thirdly, the enforced move out of central London for several thousand families could be eased through concerted efforts by the local authorities involved. Advice and guidance, help with moving costs and deposits, negotiating with landlords in the recipient areas to ensure that the rents and conditions are satisfactory, which could achieve better rent levels in return for security of income for those landlords—all this effort by councils could make moves more bearable and will be well worth funding.

Fifthly, through use of much enhanced levels of discretionary housing payments, those administering benefit, local housing allowance, should enable households with a clear local claim to stay put for the time being. I refer, for instance, to a family with a child regularly attending a central London hospital; to a working mother in a low-paid, local job who could not cover lengthy travel costs and extra child care if moved well away from the area, and so on.

Sixthly, I want to echo the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, that 10 per cent cuts in benefit for those who do not find a job within 12 months should be moderated to exclude those for whom the jobcentre declares that the claimant has done everything in their power to get a job.

Seventhly, some people up to the age of 35 who lose their job will have to move from their flat where they may have lived for many years to a place they can share with others. Bearing in mind the total absence of such accommodation in large parts of the UK, and also that 87 per cent of those currently in single rooms of this kind—that is, single tenants under 25—already have to find an average of £27 per week from their microscopic incomes because the local housing allowance fails to cover their rent, surely the overarching reduction in the maximum from the 50 to the 30 percentile rule should not be applied in those cases.

I hope the Government will give some indication of whether they can accept these and perhaps other ways of reducing the burden of these fierce cuts so that they can be explained, phased, moderated and mitigated. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

12:33

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I fear that there will be a certain amount of repetition about housing benefit, especially after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I, too, shall focus on that point. Never has this subject hit the headlines so much as it has in the past month.

As soon as the changes were made known in the summer, many of us on these Benches felt uneasy, particularly at the haste with which they were announced. As far as I know, there has been no consultation with stakeholders and precious little real evidence of the impact that the changes will have. The Government simply seized on the increase of £5 billion in the housing benefit budget over the past five years as the rationale behind the whole policy. I am sorry to say that the resulting attempt to start to bring down the cost of housing benefit so quickly—starting next April with the cap—has the hallmarks of a panicky, Treasury-driven exercise done on the back of an envelope rather than a well thought-through DWP exercise, looking at a much wider picture of the impact of the changes.

As my noble friend Lord German said, it is all too easy to point to housing benefit claimants in central London and say that it is unfair on working people that those who are out of work can, only thanks to housing benefit, afford to live in a big house well out of the reach of hard-working families. Everyone is guaranteed to feel outraged about this, and I fear it is used almost as a proxy for the more widespread but far less colourful changes that will affect the whole country. I echo the paradox that others have mentioned that if all unemployed people are forced to move further away from our city centres, they are moving further away from areas with good employment prospects and may thus stay on benefit for longer. However, of course we must never forget that housing benefit is an in-work as well as an out-of-work benefit.

Staying with the private rented sector and the regulations soon to be tabled—they affect only the private rented sector—perhaps the most worrying of the imminent changes is the switch from rents being calculated as the 50th percentile of rents in a broad rental market area to the 30th percentile, which could result in a quite significant drop in local housing allowance; on average about £9 a week. This change will begin in October next year, and from then tenants will be affected at the date at which their tenancy agreement comes up for renewal. I hope that they will have the maximum time possible for this change, because in housing hotspots the drop could be a lot more than £9 a week. The worst-case scenario would be a huge increase in homelessness. Here I declare an interest as a patron of the Winchester Churches Nightshelter.

Of course, there are strict rules about who the local authorities can classify as homeless for rehousing purposes, and a tenant without children on local housing allowance whose income suddenly drops may not qualify. I gather that not all local authorities interpret the intentionality guidance in the same way, and I urge the Government to clarify the position. The welcome fourfold increase in the discretionary housing allowance budget surely will not stretch very far around all the country’s housing hotspots to help keep many tenants in their homes, particularly if unemployment rises significantly. Before leaving that point, I see no good reason why the cap on the four-bedroom rate and the upper limit for all property sizes should not be aligned with the change to the 30th percentile rate, so that the families who are affected by all three changes do not have their lives disrupted twice over.

The growth in the private rented sector is, of course, the result of the severe shortage in the provision of social housing over very many years, so it is little wonder that the housing benefit bill has been rising inexorably. I know that the Government believe that housing benefit has inflated rents, and that dropping the percentile should have the effect of lowering rents, but this is a terrible gamble with people’s homes, particularly when potential house buyers are continuing to rent because they cannot find the high deposits now demanded. What may happen is that many landlords simply will not let to LHA claimants if they can find richer tenants.

One change that the Government could make that would improve the situation straightaway would be either to give tenants the choice to go back to the system of direct payments so that landlords are guaranteed their rent, or for direct payments to landlords after the tenant had defaulted on their rent for just one month rather than two. We hear that 68 per cent of landlords in one survey said that this would make a huge difference to the decision whether to let to LHA tenants. We must also remember that not all buy-to-let landlords can themselves afford tenants to default. I gather that there are many repossessions in that sector.

What is needed more than anything else is a clear-headed look behind the ballooning housing benefit figure. I urge the Government to set up a short commission into the whole subject of housing benefit that would report back in no more than six, or even three, months. In spite of the increase in the discretionary housing allowance and the welcome news of an extra room for a non-resident carer, I have no confidence that the housing benefit changes announced will do anything more than increase homelessness and cause many vulnerable families to fall into poverty. I hope I am wrong.

12:40

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Hollis for securing this debate today and congratulate her on the not at all unexpected forensic way that she approached this subject with her wide knowledge and experience. I declare an interest in this debate as a former chairman of the Housing Corporation and a current member of the board of Taylor Wimpey housing developers. We are talking about housing benefit and how it impacts on people, but what we are really talking about is people’s lives in the round. It is a fact clearly established by academic research and natural observation that the kind of housing you are brought up in helps dictate your life chances because of the profound impact that the kind of housing they live in has on people’s health and, particularly, on children. That spins off into their ability to learn at school and to be able to do their homework at home and their future life expectation, so we are not talking about housing just as accommodation.

Over the past three decades, we have seen our population increase as a result of demographic changes and family breakdown and an increased demand for housing in our country. It was not a failure of either Government’s housing policy, but we just could not keep up with the demand. As a result of family breakdown and living longer, the demands are higher. That brings us to the situation that we have today with insufficient supply for what is needed in the country and in the middle of that issue, we have this financial crisis.

That long-term demand was recognised by the Conservative Government in the 1970s. They recognised that the state would not be able totally to fund affordable housing for those who could not buy on the private market. They enabled housing associations to raise money from the private sector to match, quite often, the grant given by government so that today private investment in the housing association sector is well in excess of £50 billion. When elected in 1997, the Labour Government recognised that that would still not support the housing need and doubled state investment in housing with huge benefits and effect. The decent homes policy and the supporting people policy were both Labour Government policies, and I am delighted that this Government’s changes are not going to affect them substantially.

The core issue of housing shortage is a dilemma for any Government. My question is therefore, if housing has such a profound effect on people and the lives of our citizens, why have this Government, in a situation where we recognise that we have to have public expenditure cuts, cut CLG back probably the most of any of the cutbacks of any government department? Capital expenditure in housing will go from £6.8 billion this year, as defined by the previous Government, to around £2 billion in 2014 against a background of ongoing demand. That must have a profound effect on people who cannot afford to buy their own homes.

Against that background of reduced capital expenditure by the state, can the Minister explain to me, if not today at the end of this debate perhaps afterwards in writing, what financial model has been used to try to justify the outcome of the reduced capital expenditure? How will the increased rents that are being talked about fund the gap that will deliver 150,000 houses in the Government’s target over the next four years, linked with their other measures? I cannot find any evidence anywhere that supports that argument. Whether you are looking at the vested interest of the housing associations and the National Housing Federation or at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, anyone who has looked at this has said that they have substantial doubts that the target of 150,000 will be met.

The abolition of housing targets has been put forward as liberating local authorities. We have had this before. The reason we had local targets was because some local authorities were appalling at providing housing for their local community. We know what can happen and what probably will happen: a good local authority will build, a bad one will not but will send its homeless over the border to the next town to provide housing for them.

We are talking about money, investment and people’s lives. What is this Government’s vision for housing in the future for this country? I do not understand it any longer. Housing issues have always been top of the postbag for MPs. I suggest that this Government’s policy will increase that. We have talk of the big society. I suggest that this perverse and almost vandalistic approach to housing for people will not bring about a big society; it will bring about a more divided society and under the policy for housing we will see a rerun of the “Cathy Come Home” film which had such an impact on all of us.

12:46

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, I shall make a brief comment on intermediate housing. I must declare an interest because I have a son-in-law who is active in a company that provides low-cost housing in the private sector.

There is a very large gap between the provision of social housing and private housing in the open market. There is a very large cohort of people who do not qualify for housing benefit but who cannot buy. In London, for example, in October 2009, the average cost for a first-time buyer was £248,000. An LSE study shows that the main reason why teachers in London schools leave is housing. Overall, 35 per cent of working households aged 20 to 39 find themselves in this category. One of the results is that there are some 3 million people aged 20 to 34 who now live with their parents and in addition some 2 million people aged over 18 live rent-free with their families or friends, a figure that is four times higher than 10 years ago.

One of the needs is houses to buy for those on modest incomes who cannot afford market prices and who do not qualify for housing benefit. In London, it has been possible to persuade a number of councils to sell plots for development at below market prices since they provide a start on the ladder of owning a house for key workers such as teachers, nurses and the police, and for those on modest incomes in the private sector. There is a limit on the earnings of those who qualify under this scheme. In London, as a result of this attitude by councils, it has been possible to provide one-bedroom flats in Camden, Hounslow and Ealing to be sold for £190,000 compared with the market cost in Camden of £305,000. Who are the beneficiaries? Their average income is some £30,000 per year. The average deposit they pay is some £20,500 and their average age is 31. It seems clear that where this has been achieved, it is of considerable benefit to society. The Government could help here. One obstacle is the planning process. At present, there is no focus on intermediate housing as a use class in its own right, so I hope the Minister will take note and initiate the appropriate action.

12:50

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hollis on securing this timely debate and on her excellent and devastating speech. I declare my interest as a patron of the Foundation for Lifetime Homes and Neighbourhoods.

Good housing that meets the needs of all sections of society is not only the answer to many of the social, health and employment problems, but it can prevent many of them occurring in the first place. Lord William Beveridge summed it up best when he said, in 1944:

“The greatest opportunity open in this country for raising the general standard of living lies in housing”.

I therefore welcome this opportunity to debate housing policy.

What I do not welcome are the Government’s housing policy proposals, which, as we have heard from around the House, will profoundly damage the delivery of housing, particularly social housing, in this country for many years to come. The drastic changes to the housing benefit system will have a particularly negative impact on the lives of disabled people—and the effect on disabled people is the focus of my contribution.

I accept that the previous Labour Government, and many Governments before them, did not give sufficient priority to housing, as I am sure the Minister will note in her reply. The previous Government certainly did not build enough houses, particularly accessible ones, but the current proposals will just make things much, much worse, and if the housing situation is bleak for the general population, it is doubly so for disabled people, who are disproportionately dependent on social housing and housing benefit. Disabled people are twice as likely to live in social housing because of their poorer economic position, and they are more likely than any other sector of the British population to live in a dwelling that does not meet decent home standards.

As we have heard, the Government have stated that between 2011 and 2015 there will be a real-terms cut of 63 per cent to the national affordable housing programme compared with the 2008-11 period, and that this is a far greater cut than the cuts imposed on many other parts of the economy. The Government will no doubt trumpet the 150,000 new homes that they estimate will be built using public subsidy in the next four years, but I invite noble Lords to look behind this figure; to achieve this heroic build, the Government are relying on all the new social housing that is funded by the Government’s housing programme, and on one in four re-lets in the social housing sector being let at 80 per cent of market rent, making them unaffordable and driving people into poverty. My noble friend Lady Dean has just thrown considerable doubt on the Government’s plans.

Will the Minister say what the outcome was of the equality impact assessment that was conducted on this new rental policy with respect to disabled people, who, as I said, are twice as likely to live in social housing as non-disabled people? How will new supported housing for vulnerable people be funded under this regime? Do the Government expect tenants living in supported housing to pay 80 per cent of local market rents? Is this realistic in central London, or will people be driven to live somewhere cheaper, far from their existing social networks?

I welcome the news that disabled people claiming disability benefits will be exempt from the housing benefit cap due to the extra costs that they face. However, DLA reforms mean that many disabled people with lower-level needs will not receive the benefit by 2013 and so will not be protected by this exemption. Their needs will not disappear, so the cap will simply deepen inequality, as commentators have noted, creating yet more poverty among disabled people. The funding for an extra bedroom for a non-resident carer from next year is welcome, but will the Minister outline a few more details about how this new scheme will work? Will it just be for paid carers or will unpaid family carers also count?

The Government plan to limit housing benefit for working-age claimants in social housing to the size of accommodation they are deemed to need. How will the size of a property be calculated for people like me who are wheelchair users, and for disabled people who may have to have medical equipment due to their disability? Will a child's disability be taken into account, and the fact that his or her space needs may change over time?

This huge rise in rents and cutting of financial support will force disabled people to move from their accessible homes, but where to? There is a dearth of accessible accommodation, as this House has been reminded many times. Landlords do not routinely keep records of their accessible or adapted property, so finding cheaper accommodation will be hard, if not impossible. What of the resulting cost to the state? There will be far more demand on the health and social services, because, as repeated surveys show, living in non-accessible housing makes disabled people more dependent on other people and less able to take advantage of employment, training or other opportunities. What if the disabled person has a care package? The lack of portability means that they cannot look outside their borough for housing without incurring all the personal and social service costs of re-assessment all over again. If it is impossible to move, the result will be progressively to cut financial support and drive the disabled person further into debt and utter misery.

Housing let at a subsidised social rent is one of the central pillars of the welfare state. It offers people who are unable to enter the private housing market a way out of squalid housing, overcrowding, slums and grinding poverty. Lord Beveridge would be weeping in disbelief that a Government—any Government, let alone one supported by his Liberal Democrat successors—are putting forward a package of reforms that spell the end of social housing as part of the welfare state that he helped to create. I urge Ministers to reconsider.

12:57

[Baroness Neuberger]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on securing this debate at such a good time. Despite sitting opposite her, I must say that I agree with much, if not all, of what she had to say. I also declare an interest as the chairman for just under two years of One Housing Group, which provides housing, supported housing and general housing for poorer people, largely in London and Berkshire.

I have three short points to make. First, how in the new regime that has just been announced can we ensure that spending on housing the most vulnerable people is protected? Could we, for instance, exempt from the caps on housing benefit families and formerly homeless single people in London or elsewhere when they need to remain in their home because of their need for support? That support might come either informally, from family and friends, or indeed from statutory services. When it comes to support, what will central government do to help ensure that local authorities do not raid the local Supporting People settlement to pay for other programmes. Many local authorities suggest that their members and executives will disregard the national settlement for Supporting People and reduce spending in this area by anything up to 25 per cent; it is not ring-fenced.

We need to ensure that access to care and support for the most vulnerable does not become a postcode lottery. If we do not succeed, the costs will be borne, as many speakers have already said, by Justice, the National Health Service and social services. I have for many years been a keen advocate of supported housing, and we know that it can save many of those services considerable amounts of money. This proposed new system will make supported housing much more difficult to fund. Take the example of young people leaving care. If the local housing benefit cap is applied, many housing associations will have to reduce their rents and will never be able to build another scheme for very vulnerable young people without additional subsidy. It cannot make sense to apply the LHA route to supported housing for vulnerable young people and others in need of support. These are just the young people whom we are trying to support to stand on their own two feet and get into work. This is hard enough for young people anyway, and these particular young people will have had a very rough ride. We want to help them to be independent, yet cutting support from them now will make that more unlikely.

There is a strong argument for all supported housing to be exempt from the caps on LHA. Residential care or health alternatives are hugely more expensive than any form of supported housing. It seems to me that the Government should welcome the opportunity to make radical efficiencies in care by having a significant building programme aiming towards the new 150,000 target, if that is reachable, which also allows services to come out of the more expensive health and care sector into supported housing.

Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, said, we need affordable homes in London. I learnt at the knee of my father, who used to work for his noble kinsman in housing and local government, about housing issues when I was living in a flat under controlled rent as a child. He is absolutely right about that need. People working unsocial hours, including many who work in your Lordships' House, and those who work shifts, or whatever, need to live nearer to their workplace. Will the Minister assure the House that there will be a serious second look at the situation in London and that, at the very minimum, some transitional arrangements will be put in place? What has been proposed thus far just will not work.

Thirdly, I do not think that anyone else has made this point about the banks, but I know that others will have experienced it. Many registered social landlords are collapsing their structures to save money so that they can spend more on housing for vulnerable people. This requires renegotiating bank loans at no real extra cost to the banks, other than administrative. Yet, time and again, I have heard from other RSL chairs and chief executives that the banks, often largely owned by the nation, are trying to charge large amounts of money for rescheduling loans. My own RSL has no longer got such an issue, but many others have.

Banks are also being reluctant to fund mortgages on shared ownership schemes, which is one way of getting people who do not have much money into home ownership. These are clearly of less risk to the banks than most standard mortgages. However, anecdotally I am told, they are regarding them as sub-prime, when the mortgage is on the whole property and the RSL owns 60 or 70 per cent of it. This means that a lot of people who could otherwise get into owning their own property cannot do so. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will take a close interest in this area?

I believe that supported housing is the way to support the most vulnerable people in this country. I hope that the Minister will assure us that the Government will look again at what these financial arrangements will mean for the most vulnerable and at what the consequences will be for costs for health and social care.

13:02

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I too applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for her outstanding contribution and for bringing the attention of the House to these profound changes and their social consequences.

In view of the valuable contributions made by many noble Lords, I will focus most of my remarks on a specific client group; that is, some of the most mentally and physically disabled people with fluctuating disorders, such as uncontrolled schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder and, in the physical field, latter-stage multiple sclerosis. It would be thought that such clients would be in the support group and thus, to some extent, protected from some of the ravages of these cuts—but that is not so.

I want to make three points, one of which is general and two of which are specific to these groups. First, right from the start of these changes, tenants will need to know what the full impact will be, since we know that these changes will be introduced in stages across a number of years. The first change, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others, is the introduction of the caps in April 2011, followed by the introduction of the 30th percentile rule in October 2011.

Imagine a tenant moving into a smaller flat in April, only to find that they have to move again in the autumn. If they have not been told about the linking of LHA to the consumer prices index, which will come in in 2013-14, they will have to move perhaps every year as the rent becomes further and further removed from the housing benefit or LHA to which they are entitled. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that Ministers will revisit the timing of the introduction of the caps scheduled for April 2011? Is there any reason why those changes should not be rescheduled for the autumn to come in at the same time as the 30th percentile rule?

Secondly, these housing benefit cuts need to be related to other changes going on in the benefits system. There are lots of points that one could make, but there is very little time. I want to refer specifically to the revised medical assessment process. That process and the form together are resulting in large numbers of severely unwell, mentally ill and physically ill people being placed on jobseeker’s allowance. We know that the medical assessment takes no account of diagnosis and fails to make allowance for fluctuating conditions. To make that point, I will give two examples, because this relates to housing benefit. St Mungo’s claims that 90 per cent of its hostel tenants have been excluded from ESA and have been put on JSA. These people are so unwell that they cannot cope with independent living. The result is that those hostels may have to close. The next stop could be street sleeping.

An even more extraordinary example is a psychiatric patient on an in-patient ward who was in error invited to a medical assessment. Not realising that this was an error, the patient turned up for the assessment. This patient was given no points for their mental health condition. I repeat, they were given no points. Therefore, that patient was placed on jobseeker’s allowance. I should like to present an invitation to the Minister and her colleagues to come to one of my units—I was on one this morning talking to patients—to meet some of my in-patients, which could be very helpful. It would make the point that something is terribly wrong with this assessment process if one of those patients could be assessed as fit for work and required to take a job. What job, I cannot imagine. We have that rather major problem.

The related point is that jobseeker’s allowance will, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others have mentioned, be reduced by 10 per cent after 12 months. If one thinks about the types of people now claiming jobseeker’s allowance, the reality is that none will be able to be placed in jobs within 12 months. Of course, with the employment situation, many non-disabled people will be in a similar situation. I would be grateful if the Minister could give the House her assurance that she will revisit the planned reduction in JSA by 10 per cent after 12 months. I also ask her if she will seriously consider with her officials the morality of the totality of these benefit changes given their impact on just one individual very severely disabled person.

13:08

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for giving us the opportunity for this debate. It is reasonable that the amount that the taxpayer pays on housing benefit is controlled, given that it has risen by an average of £1 billion a year for the past five years and could carry on growing by a similar amount in the next five years. It is also reasonable to try to reduce the level of rents, which have risen strongly in the private sector, partly as a consequence of the failure of the previous Government to build enough social housing. Furthermore, it is reasonable in principle to impose a cap on the amount that taxpayers, many of whom are low paid, should contribute for a single household receiving housing benefit. This latter principle has broad political support, given the commitment in the Labour Party’s general election manifesto earlier this year.

However, none of this absolves us from the responsibility to examine the proposals for housing benefit changes carefully to establish whether the policies will deliver the outcomes forecast and whether those outcomes are ones that we should support. The private rented sector has been a cornerstone in stopping the use of bed and breakfast, as people have been provided with private rented housing as an alternative to waiting in B&B accommodation. In Newcastle, and here I declare an interest as a member of the city council, we have not used bed and breakfast accommodation since 2006, and I do not wish to return to the days when we did. In the past year, 205 households have been supported by the council to access private rented accommodation who might otherwise have been homeless. That gives a dimension of the scale we are talking about.

My concern is that the local housing allowance changes may restrict access to private rented accommodation and therefore limit the capacity of councils generally to resolve future housing need. It is also likely that the changes will increase the number of people who present themselves to councils as they lose private rented accommodation because of the reduction in the local housing allowance. Councils will still have a duty to accommodate households in priority need, mainly those with children under 18, those aged over 60, those fleeing a disaster such as a fire, the severely ill and the vulnerable. Meeting these duties may result either in an increase in gatekeeping barriers, leaving people in unsatisfactory conditions, or increased costs to councils in the form of subsidised access to the private rented market or through people waiting in bed and breakfast accommodation.

There is therefore uncertainty about the net value of the savings to the public purse by reducing the local housing allowance. Further, there is a real risk of cost shunting from the Department for Work and Pensions to councils, which will have to pick up the cost of assessing more people at risk of homelessness and then housing those accepted as being in need. Has the DWP conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the overall impact of housing allowance changes on the public purse? Has it estimated the gross cost to the public purse based on how many households will become homeless as a result of the changes, and deducted this from any savings made by reducing the local housing allowance? Also, what consideration has been given to the indirect impact of the local allowance changes? I cite, for example, the likely room blocking in supported housing as it becomes more difficult for people to secure independent accommodation in the public and private rented sectors. This may increase the risk of institutionalisation of those who cannot move on and increased rough sleeping for those who cannot access supported housing.

In conclusion, why did the DWP impact assessment not address the central question of how many people need to become homeless, with all the additional costs to the state that homelessness entails, before the projected savings to the DWP are eliminated by rising costs elsewhere in the public sector?

13:11

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, we have heard some powerful speeches about the predictably harsh effects of the Government’s planned cuts to housing benefit, so I hope that when she comes to reply, the Minister will at least be able to tell us that the Government will think deeply about the advice and the warnings they have received. I will not dwell on housing benefit in my speech because I would prefer to talk about two other strategic issues: the need for a better balance of housing tenure in this country and the need for good design in housing of all sorts.

Owner occupation is a natural and decent aspiration. Through it, huge numbers of people have seen their personal opportunities, well-being and wealth increase. However, there are also disadvantages for the economy and society in a housing system as biased as ours is towards owner occupation. We should certainly not regard those who rent rather than buy as, in effect, failures, which I suspect they feel we do. We have lurched repeatedly from binge to hangover in the housing market. It is wrong to encourage people to climb on to the housing ladder who are liable to fall off it. Aside from the hurt to them, unsustainable mortgages wrecked the banking system and have well nigh wrecked our economy. By reducing mortgage interest support for vulnerable borrowers, the Government now risk not only causing them to lose their homes but further weakening of bank balance sheets. Better regulation of the housing finance market is needed. The moneylenders must not resume normal service if it means lending against unrealistic multiples of income, “liar loans” and seductive discounts before borrowers go on to variable rates. In every decade, we have seen another rake’s progress. Would it not be better not to repeat this history again?

The tax privileges of owner occupation have vastly distorted investment within our economy. If people can foresee a tax-free gain on the sale of their home, they are less likely to invest in productive industry. If they see their home as their piggy bank, they are less likely to save for a pension. If the banks can have the security of a charge on bricks and mortar, they are less likely to lend to entrepreneurs. Let us compare Switzerland with the United Kingdom. In Switzerland, there is no preferential tax treatment of housing. Two-thirds of the Swiss live in rented housing, and Switzerland has the highest wealth per capita in the western world.

Higher home ownership correlates with higher unemployment, as figures in both the United States and the United Kingdom show. In the UK, stamp duty is an additional obstacle to labour mobility. Productivity is impaired in an inflexible economy. Our VAT regime makes things worse, with new building zero-rated while the repair and rehabilitation of existing housing is taxed at 17.5 per cent—soon to be 20 per cent. That increases the tendency to urban sprawl and destruction of the countryside, which makes it impossible to provide an adequate public transport infrastructure and leads to more congestion and pollution. Suitable land for new building is running out.

Policy should promote diversity of tenure, but the Government’s decisions in the spending review will not do that. They plan to cut housing benefit while massively reducing investment in social housing. In the end, the only way to reverse the rise in the housing benefit bill will be to increase the supply of homes for rent; reducing supply will intensify the existing pressures for rent increases. Additionally to cut housing benefit in these circumstances will both increase hardship and make it unviable in many places for private landlords to provide homes for rent. We need new strategic policies to promote varied and mixed housing tenure instead of short-term improvisations in the face of an exaggerated fiscal crisis.

We also need to promote better housing design. Good design is not about taste, fashion or style but about fitness for purpose: functionality, sustainability and attractiveness. These are simple principles that were well understood, for example, by the designers of Georgian and Victorian terraces. They were lost sight of by too many designers of the high-rise blocks to which so many people were consigned from the 1950s onwards, and they are ignored by too many volume house-builders who flog poorly and badly built homes. There is no excuse for bad design, and the costs of bad design are enormous. There is a correlation between badly designed estates and low educational attainment, ill health, crime and poverty. We cannot afford not to invest in good design. The role of the Government here is to provide leadership in proclaiming the necessity of good design and in supporting decision-makers to achieve it.

Planning and regulation—not popular with this Government—represent the legitimate claims of the whole community for a high-quality built environment. Just as our children should not be burdened with debts improvidently run up in our generation, so we should not bequeath to them a heritage of shoddy and unfit building. The Government need to act to correct important market failures in housing. The market is not providing enough homes or the right kind of homes. Land in Britain being scarce, in normal times demand will exceed supply. That means that it is too easy for developers, trading on the price of land in a market fuelled by easy credit, to build and sell rubbish—and too many of them do so.

A survey by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment found that 29 per cent of new estates were so bad that they should never had had planning permission, while another 53 per cent had serious shortcomings. We need to strengthen the hand of planners. By all means streamline current planning guidance and improve it, as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, suggested, but do not weaken it. Help the profession to improve its skills in design matters. Encourage local authority leaders to set out strong, clear visions for the built environment in their communities, and support them in insisting on quality and standards. Establish space standards for new housing. England and Wales are the only countries in Europe with no minimum space standards, and so we have the smallest average room sizes and new homes. Ensure that existing as well as new homes are as near carbon free as possible. Why are the Government withdrawing their funding from CABE? That £12 million provides superb value for money in averting the costs of bad design and gaining the benefits of good design through, for example, the Building for Life standard which CABE has developed as a tool to evaluate the quality of proposed new housing projects.

Will the Government, through the new homes bonus and community-led building, ensure that design quality is safeguarded, or will their philosophy of deregulation and decentralisation mean that they wash their hands of this responsibility?

13:20

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

My Lords, I share with others my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for introducing this timely and important debate. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation.

I shall speak from a slightly different angle to previous speakers because I shall concentrate not on housing benefit in its own right but on the impacts that the proposed changes may have on the Government’s ability to deliver their targets for affordable housing. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, the National Housing Federation’s briefing to its members states that it believes that the numbers can be delivered by a shift to a revenue-based system—that is, higher rents—from a capital grant system. Fundamentally, such a shift seems to underlie the Government’s decision to move away from the previous practice of a grant-based system to one in which higher rents are paid and more affordable housing is delivered.

However, that moves us immediately to the questions surrounding housing benefit. The truth of the equation is that previous Governments shied away from such a shift because of what they believed about how the long-term revenue support costs through housing benefit weighed against the short-run capital benefits. One reason for that was that the different way in which capital was accounted for made it more attractive for them to go down a capital route for reasons that might not have had a bearing on the real cost to Governments and individuals—not least because of the way in which that limited the likely number of affordable homes that could be delivered.

The core to understanding what is now happening is the conversations that took place—I certainly hope that they took place—between CLG and the Department for Work and Pensions on the underlying guarantee that housing benefit would be available to those who go into these new homes at 80 per cent of market rent. In the review of affordable rural housing that I conducted for the Government a couple of years ago, one of my recommendations was that the Government should examine the opportunities to deliver more intermediate housing because that would come at less cost in grant and meet the needs of many working people in rural communities. Such people cannot afford homes on the open market because of the very high prices but do not necessarily need social housing at low rentals. Intermediate housing to rent or to buy would perfectly address many of those needs and more housing could be delivered for less money. That recommendation received a broad welcome but no action. This Government have taken up the notion but, instead of trialling it or running it alongside a social housing programme, they have put all their eggs in the one basket in deciding to go down that route.

This begs the question whether this is intended for the people that I envisaged it for—working people who need little or no housing benefit support but who would be underpinned by the guarantee of housing benefit if they need it. Do the Government intend to introduce a nominations process that will target these new homes to those who can at least expect to afford them, or will there be an open nominations process in which many people on housing benefit who are likely to struggle to get work, or likely never to get work, will go into housing where they will have to retain access to housing benefit? That would then lead to the question about whether housing benefit will be available. The nominations process is key. Who is this housing intended for?

On the backstop of housing benefit, I would not encourage someone in my part of the world to go into a home on 80 per cent of rent if they are in a low-income job but can just about afford it. Many of those people would be at risk because they are in temporary employment, such as in tourism-based employment or in small businesses, and cannot be sure that in a year or two they will be able to afford such rents. Many of those people—perhaps with young children—could not be sure that housing benefit would protect them.

I chair the rural coalition—the position is unpaid but is another interest—and I have carried out work on the rental position in rural communities, where I hope the Government will conduct rural proofing. We have heard a great deal about London and the known issues around high rents, but what about rural communities? Local housing rental assessments take into account urban communities, where there is quite a lot of relatively cheap rented accommodation. However, rent is much more expensive in rural villages. How will working people be able to find a rented property in rural villages if restricting housing benefit to 30 per cent of median rent levels means 30 per cent or even 40 per cent in urban communities but nothing at all in rural communities where there is work to be done and people need to live close to their work on the farm and so on?

There also appears to have been no proofing of the impact in northern areas, where social rents are already 80 per cent or more of private sector rents. No money will be released to housing associations through this mechanism of higher rental incomes, so no housing is likely to be delivered by housing associations operating in these areas. There appears to have been a move to embrace only an intermediate affordable housing programme—which I always envisaged running alongside a social rented programme—and no work seems to have been done on the specific localised impacts on rural communities, London and the north.

Therein lies my hope that there may be an opportunity for the Government to respond to the concerns expressed today, some which are not about the principle. I believe that the proposed move can deliver the housing numbers. For my review I worked with Shelter, which also shared the point of view that more intermediate housing would reduce pressure on the social housing already in place and would be a good thing to deliver. I hope the Government can respond to the concerns expressed in the debate. If they do not, the high hopes for this housing scheme that they have—even if they are not shared around the Chamber—cannot be delivered.

13:27

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I shall follow the now well established practice and thank my noble friend Lady Hollis for introducing the debate. I also thank her for her devastating critique of government housing policies and for exposing the awful hardship—“indecent”, she called it—that the Government will visit on many of our fellow citizens.

We have also heard many other knowledgeable and wide-ranging contributions. From the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, we heard about regeneration issues and the importance of being able to carry forward the regeneration that has happened in the past. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, about pensioners and the need for a cumulative impact assessment. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells talked about rural housing, as did the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. The right reverend Prelate also reminded us that, by definition, with housing benefit we are dealing with people who do not have lots of savings because, if they did, they would not qualify for the benefit in the first place.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, reminded us that a welfare reform programme was under way. Indeed, we broadly supported the thrust of the universal credit; we can claim to have initiated it, in part, in government. He divided the world between simplifiers and complicators, but for me it is not whether it is simple or complicated but whether it is fair—that is the important issue.

My noble friend Lady Wilkins referred to the particular impact of housing on disabled people, who are disproportionately dependent on social housing and housing benefit, and talked about how devastating these issues can be for them. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, took a rather broader view about the need for a better balance of tenure and the need for better design. I agree with him on the second point in particular. The fact that, somehow, poor people should have to make do with rotten design is simply not acceptable.

The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, made a very interesting contribution about the funding arrangements, how the revenue would work and how housing benefit would impact on it. One of the consequences of intermediate rents is that people able to access housing benefit are likely to be closer to the overall £500 benefit cap, with all the dangers associated with that.

Ensuring that people can access decent, secure, affordable housing should be the business of government. The availability of housing, especially affordable housing, is integral to tackling poverty and promoting well-being. Where and how it is provided influences the shape, cohesion and sustainability of our communities. My noble friend Lady Dean developed this point, as did my noble friend Lady Wilkins.

The need to protect Supporting People was touched on by some noble Lords. I wholeheartedly agree with that. It is a sign of the times that we see that budget as being reasonably well protected when in fact there is a 12 per cent real-terms cut over the period.

The noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord German, made reference to the previous Government’s record. Progress has been made: 2 million more homes being built in England since 1997, half a million of which were affordable; and 1.5 million social homes being brought up to a decent standard. But with the number of households increasing by 1.3 million, this was simply not enough—I acknowledge that. Waiting lists for affordable housing are rising. There is an acknowledged requirement to build in the order of 240,000 to 250,000 new homes every year to deal with the existing shortfall and the continuing growth in households.

As we have heard, part of the strain of coping with this has been taken up by a dramatic increase in the number of private-renting households—an extra 1.1 million in the past decade. This has put pressure on rent levels and consequently on levels of housing benefit—my noble friend Lady Hollis stressed this point. It is an issue that, as we should acknowledge, any Government would have to address. Long-term rising house prices and more restrictive mortgage finance, making home ownership more difficult, have added to the pressure. The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, gave us some interesting insights about the need for those who do not access social housing but cannot afford to buy on the open market to have some intermediate arrangements for doing so. There have been shared ownership and shared equity schemes, but an interesting point was raised about whether planning classes could improve matters.

It is against this backdrop that we should examine the Government’s approach. With the focus very much on the private rented sector, the Government were unwise to scrap our proposals for a national register of landlords and for regulation of letting and management agents, designed to give more protection to tenants. My noble friend has examined how the Government’s approach to housing and housing benefit sits with the wider welfare reform agenda and has explained how it undermines incentives to work.

What about the supply side? We have heard of the dramatic cut in resources for the affordable housing programme over the CSR period—63 per cent in real terms. To deliver their planned new 150,000 homes, the Government are relying in part on the availability of an additional source of finance, the so-called “affordable”, but perhaps better named “intermediate”, rents, which are up to 80 per cent of market rents. My noble friend Lady Dean spoke about the need to understand better the model that drives the conclusion that that is deliverable. Can the Minister confirm—I ask her specifically—that, across the four-year spending review period, the funds generated by intermediate rents will be allowed to be used only for more new homes subject to such rents? If so, it would imply that, apart from the programme that the Government inherited from us, there will be no further construction of social homes until at least 2015. How could that be justified?

The signalling of the revocation of regional spatial strategies, together with the delay in producing clarity around new planning arrangements and how the new homes bonus will work, is causing the cancellation of planned homes this year and next. What is being done to address that issue?

Many noble Lords have concentrated their remarks today on proposed changes to housing benefit and the local housing allowance. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, spoke about the unseemly haste with which they were promulgated, challenging whether there was sufficient analysis underpinning some of the proposals. Eight savings measures, totalling £2.3 billion by 2014-15, have been signalled in either the emergency Budget or the CSR, with two small reliefs—which I am sure we welcome. Time does not permit me to comment further on all of them. My noble friend has shown how they do not support work incentives and, in the case of the increase in non-dependant deductions and the restrictions on property size for working-age claimants, how they create impossible dilemmas. The uprating of LHA by CPI will over time, as we have heard, open up huge disparities between real rent levels and what will be paid, driving many into poverty. Proposals to reduce JSA claimants’ support by 10 per cent after 12 months are unprincipled and cruel. I hope that they never see the light of day. We heard from my noble friend Lady Quin how perverse the proposals could be in practice.

What has been good about most of today’s debate is that it has shone a spotlight on the realities around housing benefit and the local housing allowance. Too often, the debate is characterised by a small minority of cases of very high levels of payment, generally around London. The reality is that there are about 1 million LHA claimants, nearly half of whom face a shortfall in their rent. Contrary to what one would assume from listening to the justification for these measures, only one in eight housing benefit claimants is unemployed—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, focused particularly on those with mental health and fluctuating conditions and the impact that the 10 per cent reduction in JSA would have on people being migrated from ESA and IB to JSA. It is a source of real worries.

Uncertainties remain about many points of detail. I ask the Minister to deal specifically with just some of them. Part of the thinking of the Government is that housing benefit has fuelled private sector rent increases. What evidence can be adduced to support this contention? On what basis do the Government repudiate evidence from, for example, London Councils, which points to landlords not reducing rents? If the one thing that might encourage some landlords to reduce rent is the reinstatement of direct payment, what is the Government’s view of this? How could it possibly work if housing support is to be included as part of the universal credit? Indeed, how could it work with the proposed overall cap on benefits?

The noble Lord, Lord Best, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others—and I agree with them—focused on timing. Why is it necessary to introduce the cap on rent levels with effect from April next year and the change to the 30th percentile in October? There is a real risk that some households will be displaced twice within a short space of time, with all the costs and individual traumas that this will entail. The reality is that many households will be making their housing arrangements now, not in full knowledge of what these proposals will mean. They may be making arrangements for their children to go to a local school, to sign up for childcare support, to get a job or to buy a season ticket for travel. It must be right to give individuals the opportunity and enough notice to work out what this first tranche of measures will mean for them and to ascertain whether they will be able to avail themselves of the discretionary housing payments. If nothing else is achieved by this debate, we hope that the Government will give very clear commitments today to aligning the two measures to be introduced in October next year.

Even though the caps may affect only 2 per cent of claimants, estimates show that some 15,000 tenants could lose their home in London. The effect of the 30th-percentile restriction will be much wider, affecting some 83 per cent of LHA claimants. Inevitably, thousands of households will be uprooted from their homes and communities. Families moving out of higher-cost to lower-cost areas are likely to place unplanned calls on local services—children’s services, social services and school places. What assessment of the costs involved has been made by the Government? That point was pressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. What is their estimate of the increased homelessness that will ensue from these measures? As the Government have signed up to compensating local government for additional burdens placed on it, what discussions have taken place with local authorities on how that is to be evaluated? Indeed, how are these issues to be factored into the local government settlement for individual authorities?

There are many more questions. We are embarking on profound changes to a system that will affect the well-being of thousands, driving many into poverty. What definition of “fair” justifies this?

13:40

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has spoken today and I accept that this has perhaps been a difficult debate on an important subject. I really have to start my response to it by looking at the other end of the telescope from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and some others. The reason the changes have to be made, both to the capital programme and to housing benefit, is precisely that the Government have been left with a huge deficit. There is no point in people sighing and looking at the ceiling; this is a fact. It is also a fact that even if the now Opposition had come back into government, they would have had to face up to the fact that there was a deficit which was going to have to be dealt with. Indeed, Alistair Darling, the former Chancellor, has said that they would have had to introduce very serious measures which would, as I understand it, have been very much along the lines that we have to deal with it—first, to bring the deficit under control and, secondly, to try and put the economy back on a proper basis.

We have had many very detailed questions today and, inevitably, I cannot answer all of them. However, we need to look at what has been happening and why the Government have to take enormously tough decisions to reduce the public deficit. The Budget and the spending review have brought reductions across the piece, not only in the Department for Communities and Local Government. While it is fair to say that our department has had a quite substantial reduction in capital which will affect the programme for the future, we want to try to ensure that local authorities themselves can do as much as possible with the money available without too much direction from the centre. Some of the individual questions that your Lordships have raised will, indeed, be dealt with in due course by local government itself. Localism—the bringing down to a more local level—will in fact answer some of the questions raised.

It is clear that if we do not tackle the deficit, mortgage rates will rise, making housing even less affordable than it is now. The interest payments on £1 trillion of debt would also suck money away from front-line services and future investment. There was mention, too, of first-time buyers. They depend above all on the return to economic and financial stability, which the Government are seeking to achieve through debt reduction and a commitment to abolish the structural deficit. We hope that this will keep interest rates low and improve credit availability.

Despite the fiscal constraints—and despite what was said today in what I thought was a slightly apocryphal and apocalyptic introduction by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for whom I have a great regard, because she produced a forensic speech, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, although it was far more apocalyptic than is necessary—there will still be £6.5 billion of taxpayers’ money put into housing. That includes £2 billion for decent homes. That program will continue and we will therefore have more accommodation coming through which that money has made decent. There will also be £4.5 billion to fund new-build homes over the spending review period. It has been estimated that that will amount to 150,000 homes. That will of course include—I think there was a question about this—the programme instigated by the previous Government. Those properties, amounting to about 60,000, will be part of that. It will also include empty homes which are being brought back into use by this money.

We are also prioritising services to the vulnerable. We had two or three speeches today on the disabled and their difficulties with accommodation. We will still be supporting the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable with £6.5 billion in the Supporting People programme. That problem is already de-ring-fenced and local government already has access to it. We expect that it will be used for the programme already outlined. There will also be the homeless grant, which is maintained over the spending review period at a total of £400 million, while the disabled facilities grant is being protected over the same period. We are backing local growth and will introduce the new homes bonus, which we have not discussed much today. It will be a powerful fiscal incentive for local government to be able to build and generate the building of new houses.

Today’s speeches have focused mostly on the effects of housing benefit and the likely effects in the future. There is too much experience around this House for me to say that none of the case studies is likely to come about, and I would not dream of doing so. The reduction in benefit will have some impact. However, I am afraid that it will need to have some impact if the deficit is to be reduced, as it has to be. It would be fair to point out that we are currently paying more in housing benefit in one year than we spend on the whole of the police and universities. I think that the amount has actually doubled over the past five years. It was suggested that it has doubled not only because of the increase in property prices but because of the increased number of people in poverty. We will have to control it with the amount being spent on it and bring it back to a level that can be afforded.

We expect about 17,000 households to be affected by the cap in London, while 32 per cent of cases will experience no shortfall at all between their benefit and rent. A third of the properties in London—it will be better elsewhere—will still be affordable to people on the local housing allocation. I agree that housing benefit levels could mean that some tenants may need to move from the most expensive areas, but that is no different for working people who have to move if they cannot afford to live where they want. There are many people of working age who are living out of London and coming into it every day of the week, spending a fortune on travel, because they cannot afford the rents in London. I am sure that it is an extreme example—it is from my own previous local authority, which I represented—but the sum of £2,000 a week on housing benefit is far more than investment bankers earn in a year, and it is coming from taxpayers’ money. There is an equation here which we have to look at as regards the equitability of somebody working and paying rent or a mortgage subsidising to such an extent others who are not in jobs and are on housing benefit. There has to be a rationalisation of that, and some of that will come about as a result of the reductions in housing benefit that we have talked about today.

We are, however, putting transition money in place to support this where it happens. We have provided a substantial increase in the discretionary housing payments budget to allow local authorities to provide additional support where it is needed. Along with the additional £10 million that my honourable friend Grant Shapps announced last week, the Government have committed £140 million of additional funding for local authorities to provide support where they need to manage these changes. The suggestion that people are going to be left on their own to manage for themselves under these circumstances is not correct.

People worried about the changes or who are likely to be impacted by them will be able to get help from their local authorities to renegotiate their rents with their landlords. There is more than a suspicion that rents have risen quite substantially on the back of knowing that housing benefit will be paid. Rents are now very high; they rose substantially during the previous Government’s reign, and that is where we are now with the level that they are at.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister. Is she suggesting that the policy was built around a suspicion about the impact of housing benefit on rents, or was there evidence that supported that suspicion?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, there is a suggestion. I think I will put it like that. There will be help for these people to move to a new property, with the potential for relocation grants for more vulnerable households.

We are also protecting the vulnerable; we have had quite a few speeches about that. We are protecting the homelessness grant with over £400 million. We have also committed £6.5 billion of investment to the Supporting People programme, which will help also with tackling homelessness. This reflects the Government’s commitment to tackling homelessness and to protecting the most vulnerable groups in society.

We intend to support the mortgage rescue scheme so that it can remain open to support vulnerable homeowners. We are also talking to the Council of Mortgage Lenders about the question that was raised on intermediate housing and shared ownership to see whether we can free that up.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells raised the question of rural housing and what can happen there. We hope that rural housing will be picked up by the community right to build, where the neighbourhood will be able to decide what it wants and where it is. That will also help to keep young people and local people in their own home area. We are also keen to see that the decent home programme is maintained; as I say, there is £2 billion of capital to support that.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked particularly about the former pathfinders and the areas where that programme has been carried out. Our expectation is that the current contracts, where there are any, will be honoured and carried out. Other than that, as he also suggested, access to the money will be from the £1.4 billion regional growth.

I have a few moments to go through some of the questions that I was asked. If I cannot provide the answers as quickly as I should within the next six minutes, I will ensure that I write to all noble Lords who asked them.

With regard to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, people should not be found intentionally homeless if they are genuinely unable to afford the rent and no other reason is attributable. We intend to keep this practice under review and to reissue guidance if necessary, but the intention is that the support should be available so that people are not made unintentionally homeless.

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, asked about the key priorities, including the affordable housing programmes and the regional growth fund. In many areas we are focusing on delivering existing commitments; as I said earlier, 60,000 of the 150,000 homes will be those that are already in the programme, and the figure of 150,000 also includes bringing empty homes back into use.

Regarding the equalities impact on affordable rent, which is the other measure of housing that we will be looking at in future, we will be publishing the equalities impact assessment as part of the overall impact assessment, which comes out shortly. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, asked about affordable rent. It is a tenure that will offer people stability where it is needed. There will be affordable rent where there are flexible tenancies, where some people will need life tenancies but others will need only a short time before they move off into other areas. We think that that would be a valuable contribution.

On the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the Department for Work and Pensions, which I represent, will publish a full impact assessment alongside the regulations in November. Much of the impact will depend on how landlords and tenants respond to the changes, so I cannot predict entirely how many households will need to move.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, as I had expected, raised many salient points. I just underline the fact that the claimants of housing benefit of working age are 20 per cent working and 80 per cent not working—I think that those figures were said the other way round.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was concerned about the assessments for people moving from ESA to JSA. Clearly we cannot comment on individual cases, but the JSA will support people in hostels, often suffering from drug or alcohol addiction, to adjust to new circumstances, and they will be protected by the £400 million homeless grant.

I cannot tell the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, how much I agree with him, for once, on the need to have well designed housing. Perhaps one of the things that we have suffered from most from the 1960s and 1970s has been the delivery of unimaginably awful housing, and I accept that it is important that we see that any housing that is built now is built to a standard that we would all recognise as being for the future.

I think that I have answered the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. If I have not answered all the points now, I will ensure that I do so in writing. I thank everyone who has taken part for their informed speeches, and I look forward to continuing this debate in due course.

13:59

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in today’s debate. It has been distinguished, illuminating and powerful, although so many questions remain to be answered that I am sure that the debate will have to continue over the months ahead.

It was quite striking that the Minister had little support from her own Benches. What there was was heavily qualified, even in the gallant efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. What came out of today’s debate for me was, first, the request from all around the House to slow down. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and my noble friend Lord McKenzie said, let us take our time and defer the proposals—which are possibly due in April—to ensure that we reduce the misery of continuous hassle and movement for the families who will be on the receiving end of these changes. Let us slow down.

The second message for the Minister is to reflect, review and research. My noble friend Lord McKenzie asked the key question. The core of the Government’s policy is their belief that by cutting or capping housing benefit, they will reduce the level of rents in the private sector and thus reduce the deficit. When asked on what evidence that was based, the Minister said, “It is a suggestion”. A suggestion, my Lords! We are going to inflict carnage and misery on thousands of families on the basis of a suggestion. It is not acceptable for any Government to behave in this way.

Finally, the Minister must be aware from the temperature of today’s debate of the very serious reservations all around the House that these policies will need to be modified. I hope that the Government will modify them. If they do, they should have a much better evidence base from the relevant departments. If they do not, I hope that the House of Commons will modify them. I say to the Minister that if these policies come unmodified to your Lordships’ House, I very much believe—if today’s debate is anything to go by—that this House will insist that the Minister modifies her positions. We shall see. I hope it does not come to that. I hope that the Government will take today’s debate seriously. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Media: Ownership

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Debate

14:02

Moved By

[Lord Puttnam]

To call attention to the case for maintaining a broad plurality of media ownership in the United Kingdom; and to move for papers.

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I declare an interest as deputy chairman of Channel 4 and of Profero, a digital advertising agency. I had the honour of entering your Lordships’ House 13 years ago tomorrow. Since then, there have been three or four big issues with which I have consistently tried to engage, in part because they relate to experiences gained in my former life, but also because I believe they represent the type of issues upon which rests the future of the sort of society most of us would wish to live in. The subject of today’s debate is one of them. Another has been the issue of environmental sustainability. I mention this because in preparing for this afternoon’s debate it occurred to me that the issue at hand, media plurality, in some respects resembles that of climate change. Both concern our capacity to find a sustainable balance in a delicate ecosystem—one in which the true scale of the problem only becomes apparent when you sift through the evidence and consider what might be the ramifications of failing to act in a timely manner.

Why does media plurality matter? Here are a few wise words:

“A free and diverse media are an indispensable part of the democratic process. They provide the multiplicity of voices and opinions that informs the public, influences opinion, and engenders political debate. They promote the culture of dissent which any healthy democracy must have. If one voice becomes too powerful, this process is placed in jeopardy and democracy is damaged”.

Those wise words came from the Conservative Party in a 1995 report on media ownership. The report was endorsed by the Communications Committee of this House just two years ago under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who helpfully offers continuity by contributing to today’s debate.

As some in the Chamber will recall—it is helpful for me to see the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who steered me through the shoals of this issue, in his place—what we now term media plurality first surfaced as an issue of concern during the deliberations of the joint pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the draft Communications Bill in 2002. At that time it was made clear by the Front Bench on both sides of the House that our proposed amendments around media plurality were, unsurprisingly, vehemently opposed by both the broadcasters and the newspapers. Rather more surprisingly, they were believed, in the words of the late Lord McIntosh, answering for the Government, to be based on a “profound misconception”. By that time the official Conservative line was, I am sad to say, somewhat similar.

In truth, the only party that has consistently taken a thoughtfully independent position on this issue has been the Liberal Democrats. In this context, when I use the word “independent”, I am referring to the Lib Dem leadership having felt itself free of prejudicial outside influences. Earlier still, in an important debate on the predatory pricing of newspapers in 1998—an issue I will return to a little later—the noble Lord, Lord McNally, now the Justice Minister, reminded us that with regard to the media,

“concentration of power, married with the advance in technologies, offers a challenge to democratic governments and free societies which we have scarcely begun to address”.—[Official Report, 20/10/98; col. 1348.]

I am certain that his personal views have not changed. Many of us in the Chamber will hold our collective breath in the hope that the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, will confirm that his party has not found the pressures of coalition sufficient to force a change of heart. This morning’s announcement would indicate that we are in safe, or at least decisive, hands.

In proposing the original amendments on media plurality we sought to ensure that there was proper recognition on the statute book that diversity in the media is not reducible to a set of arguable facts regarding the relativity of market share; that the issue was too important to be expressed simply in the language of competition policy. In reality, what is at stake is far more than an issue of consumer interests within an equitably functioning marketplace. It concerns the overriding interest of the citizen, as that earlier quote from the Conservatives’ 1995 report made clear.

The purpose of this afternoon’s debate is to draw attention to the possibility that we are on the edge of a very slippery slope—one that could find us falling further and further under the influence of a single US-based owner with a highly questionable interest in the benefits of a diverse and flourishing plural media here in the United Kingdom. So why this debate and why now? The primary reason is that News Corporation yesterday notified the European Commission of its intention to purchase the 61 per cent of BSkyB that it does not presently own. As I have already mentioned, this morning we heard the welcome news that this proposal had been referred by the Secretary of State to Ofcom. It is my most sincere hope that the coalition’s proposed trimming of Ofcom’s powers will not result in any diminution of its capacity to exercise those powers in respect of important matters such as this.

There are of course several aspects to media plurality, notably the Government’s proposals to repeal the local cross-media ownership laws, but this afternoon I have time to focus only on the really big issue resulting from News Corporation’s power, reach and influence. It is my contention that if regulators and legislators in Europe and the UK remain supine and simply wave this proposed acquisition through, the consequences for the citizens as well as the political class in this country could become deeply troubling. The purchase of these shares would give News Corporation an unprecedented level of control over the UK media—one that to my mind has the potential to be extremely damaging, not just in respect of media plurality, but to informed democratic debate as a whole.

To put all this in perspective, I point out that the media research company Enders Analysis has predicted that, assuming no material changes to the newspaper market, News Corporation’s share of national press circulation alone will steadily increase to more than 40 per cent by 2014. That figure is worrying enough but it becomes a source of even greater concern when the corporation’s ambitions to take full control of BSkyB are brought into play, given Sky’s growing share of the total television market. It is something of a commonplace to assert that the Murdoch-owned press is obsessed with what it believes to be the outrageous size of the BBC and its apparent capacity for unchecked growth and influence. “Chilling” is how BSkyB’s chairman, James Murdoch, has described the scale and reach of the rival corporation. If he is right, it seems worth comparing the relative size of BSkyB and the BBC, not just now but by peering a little into the future—to 2016, the point at which the current licence fee comes up for renewal.

When I entered your Lordships’ House in 1997, Sky had revenues of £1.27 billion—just 63 per cent of the BBC’s then income from the licence fee when combined with the net benefit it receives from BBC Worldwide. BSkyB’s turnover in its last financial year to June 2010 was £5.9 billion, or 163 per cent of the BBC’s current income. Assuming a modest 5 per cent growth in 2016, when the BBC's current charter expires, BSkyB will have reached a turnover of a little over £8 billion, or around 220 per cent of the then projected total income of the BBC.

Sticking with James Murdoch’s description, I suggest that this truly is a chilling prospect leading to a disparity of scale in which all competition, not just the BBC, is frozen to death. The level of media dominance that would result from News Corporation’s ownership of 100 per cent of BSkyB, along with four national newspapers and a variety of other media assets, is one that would simply not be tolerated in almost any other developed democracy, certainly not in the United States where anti-trust laws and tough restrictions on foreign ownership render such levels of control utterly unthinkable. In fact, there appears to be no developed country in which one individual has such control, certainly when measured by market share of the newspaper and TV industries.

Prime Minister Berlusconi controls a proportion of the broadcasting sector in Italy and, for example, Bild has a very big share of newspaper sales in Germany, but nowhere is there the same degree of cross-media dominance as is already the case with News Corporation in the UK. There are, of course, those who will say that, in the age of the internet, such fears are less well grounded and that in the digital era the cornucopia of news, views and comment which are to be found on the web, reaching far beyond the established media outlets, render my concerns about a slippery slope increasingly irrelevant. But many others disagree, arguing that this is to overestimate the power of the blogosphere. As none other than Rupert Murdoch himself said in his recent Margaret Thatcher lecture:

“Bloggers can have a social role—but that role is very different to that of the professional seeking to uncover facts, however uncomfortable”.

So, deep pockets and the benefits of scale remain very significant advantages, even in the digital world. Equally, it is my belief that the opportunities to bundle together News Corporation’s media assets, such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun, the News of the World, Sky subscriptions, online movies from Fox, along with mobile access to all of them, are far, far greater than anything dreamt of when the plurality test was first introduced. Sky already has a billing relationship with almost 10 million customers—a fantastic competitive advantage in an online world in which making people pay for content is one of the biggest challenges of all.

Where once it was his newspapers that subsidised Mr Murdoch's foray into television, it could soon be the other way around, with television underwriting both his newspapers and his somewhat belated attempt to come to terms with the internet. This raises one of the key challenges in this area of legislation as in my opinion competition authorities do not, or should not, make or shape public policy—they simply implement what is already on the statute book. That is why, as legislators, we need the power and flexibility to respond to events that may have been undreamt of when the statutes were originally framed. This is one of the reasons I have consistently argued in favour of post-legislative scrutiny.

During the passage of the 2003 Bill, I failed to get across to the Government the transformative power of cross-media promotion. I also failed to convince them of the need for an economic impact study into cross-media ownership—the very issue that makes the prospect of ever greater bundling such a very dangerous road to go down. Let me offer one recent example. According to the Independent, since Richard Desmond bought Channel 5 in July, the Daily Star and the Daily Express have mentioned that broadcaster 1,073 times. That compares to the year before the deal in which there were just 92 mentions. Now, of course, that could be a coincidence, but I simply ask: where should we in this country seek to draw the line between information and influence? The scope for ensuring that news in particular can be manipulated to reflect a prejudicial viewpoint across different media is considerable, especially since, if the other shareholders were driven out, News Corporation would have all but untrammelled control of Sky News. The potential for such bundling to become a means of reducing competition, most particularly through aggressive pricing strategies, should be all too clear. We should remember that a predatory pricing amendment was successfully passed by your Lordships’ House in 1998 only to be lobbied against and, to my way of thinking, inexplicably turned down in another place.

Of course, there are those who remain profoundly sceptical, doubtless including some in my own party, as well as one or two on the Benches opposite, arguing that once again the liberal chattering class is getting itself in a lather over its favourite straw man, and that in reality there is not that much to worry about. If this really is simply a conspiracy by the chattering class to stoke fear and trembling across the nation, why is it that a recent letter to the Secretary of State opposing the BSkyB takeover was signed by, among others, senior executives from the Telegraph Media Group, Associated Newspapers and British Telecom? This time it is not simply a question of the usual suspects.

I am aware that I am running out of time, so I will finish with this thought. If Mr Murdoch's intentions are entirely even handed and non-political, why is it that he was only the second person to visit our new Prime Minister, entering by the back stairs for what is reported to have been an unminuted meeting, while Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, went through the front door for that meeting, every detail of which will doubtless be available through the Freedom of Information Act? There are those who will argue that media magnates have always used the power of their holdings to influence Governments of every hue. However, it is my belief that the situation we are now dealing with is unprecedented and if unchecked offers a genuine threat to plural, consensus-based democracy in this country. As earlier generations in this place might reasonably have put it, there is a point,

“at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue”.

Speaking last week on the telephone to the altogether admirable Peter Hennessy—soon to be a welcome addition to your Lordships’ House—we discussed the constitutional ramifications of this afternoon’s debate. He finished the conversation by reminding me that it would be a mistake to regard this simply as a media issue. “David”, he said, “this is about nothing less than the nature of 21st-century sovereignty”. I believe that he is right. The United Kingdom is not a banana republic and we do ourselves no favours whatever by appearing to behave like one.

14:15

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on the topicality of this debate, his excellent speech and the work that he has done in this area, not least on the Communications Act 2003. Because of his initiative we are able to debate media ownership today and if there are any outstanding questions, they can be cleared up in the Question I will ask next Thursday.

We learnt this morning that Dr Vince Cable has decided to refer to Ofcom the News Corporation bid for full control of BSkyB. It is suggested that a number of Conservatives are unhappy with that decision. I do not know who these unnamed people are but I think that this is an excellent decision, made even better by the fact that it was taken so speedily. I congratulate the Secretary of State on that. It means that in this debate we can get down to the question of where the public interest lies in this and similar cases. I should like to make three points. First, I believe that the news media have a vital role in a democracy. They report news from home and overseas and can expose injustice and challenge officialdom and any Government. Healthy media set out a whole range of views. It follows that a media concentrated in too few hands can have the effect of limiting freedom of expression and diversity of view—the hallmark of a democratic state—and can give too much power to a company or individual.

I add a warning to those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. We need to treat with caution rivals who make the public interest case. In this case, News Corporation is opposed by a coalition of newspapers and the BBC. I suspect that some of the newspapers would dearly like to have the market position of Mr Murdoch while the BBC is not perhaps in the strongest position to talk about market dominance given its political influence and the enormously strong position of radio news. Above all, we should remember the special interests of the political parties, which are not so much concerned about excessive power as that that power should support them. In this case, there is a nice choice for the political managers between backing News Corporation or one of the prominent members of the coalition opposing it—the Daily Mail. All this means that there is an overwhelming need for independent judgment to be exercised on these issues, which underlines the importance of the Communications Select Committee. Its justification must be its independence, which it needs to be fearless in exerting. I therefore welcome this case being put to the independent judgment of Ofcom.

My second point is that we do not need to speculate about the views of Mr Murdoch. He set them out frankly to the Communications Select Committee. We were well ahead on this issue a couple of years ago, when we interviewed him in New York. On the position of Sky News, he said it would be more popular if, in style, it were more like the Fox News channel in the United States. Why was that not the case, we asked? According to Mr Murdoch:

“Nobody at Sky listens to me”.

That presumably would not be a problem when full control is taken.

On the control over his newspapers, he was again frank. On the Sun and the News of the World, he said he was what he called the traditional proprietor, exercising control on major issues such as which party to back in a general election. As for the control of ownership, he was entirely scathing; he believed that Britain was 10 years out of date, given that there were so many news outlets for the public to choose from.

That brings me to my third and last point. Does the growth of the internet mean that ownership in this area can be left to the market? I do not believe that it does, for the following reason. All surveys show that the main source of news in the United Kingdom is television —74 per cent of the population rely on it—behind that are newspapers, the radio, and finally the internet, at 6 per cent. That may well change, but that is how things stand. Nor do I buy the argument that because News Corporation owns almost 40 per cent of the shares of BSkyB, nothing will change if it takes full control. Self-evidently, full control means just that.

The issue here is that Mr Murdoch’s company already owns newspapers which account for 37 per cent of national newspaper sales in this country. The company now wants to take full control of BSkyB, whose revenue is greater than that of the BBC. The case for this being brought in and reviewed independently is overwhelming, and I am one of those who believes that the public interest is not served by this bid going ahead.

14:21

[Lord Gavron]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Puttnam on initiating this debate at the most appropriate time. I must declare an interest as a former chairman of the Guardian Media Group which, as we have heard, is part of a consortium opposing the acquisition by News Corp Ltd of the shares it does not already own in Sky.

The media business is going through a period of rapid and unprecedented change. Newspaper circulations are dropping at an increasing speed. Profits are falling and many newspapers are making large and growing losses. It is unlikely that newspapers will exist in their present form in 10 or, at most, 15 years from now. We will be getting our news from our screens, which will be cheaper, lighter, thinner, more easily readable, and more user friendly than today. They will be in our pockets or handbags, probably unfolding to a larger format, and on our desks and walls. We will be charged for what we use, rather as we are charged for our credit cards; and I suspect we will pay overall roughly what we pay for our newspapers today. The editorial and news content will be much the same and of course there will be advertising.

Some of this, I confess, is prediction and, as Sam Goldwyn said, never make predictions, especially about the future. However, we have to deal with the situation as it exists and that is not a good situation. Rupert Murdoch was described the other day by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, as the most powerful man on the planet. I have known Rupert Murdoch for a great many years. I have found him to be straight, loyal and honourable. He is a man of his word. Although I have frequently, if not usually, disagreed with him, his record as a media proprietor in the UK will stand up comparatively well to analysis by future historians.

However, I am against his plan to acquire the rest of Sky. People have said, “He already controls Sky, so buying the rest will make no difference”. We can all talk about the difference, but Rupert Murdoch is not the sort of man who would spend £7.8 billion buying shares which make no difference. Sky, as the Economist of 16 October said, is Britain’s leading media company. It has almost 10 million subscribers and almost £6 billion of annual revenue—already almost double that of the BBC. Apparently, we spend more on Sky than we spend on bread. In addition to its 39 per cent of Sky, News Corporation’s four newspapers already have 37 per cent of our total national newspaper circulation—a share that is as much as the next two biggest newspaper groups combined.

Next March, Rupert Murdoch will be 80. He enters what I heard rather unattractively defined last week as “the drop zone”. He has said that when his health gives out he will get out of the way. He has made plans for succession. However, history tells us that when a great tycoon goes, his assets tend to change hands. Rupert Murdoch has not maximised his corporation’s profits. He is sentimental about newspapers. There are media experts who think that News Corporation, valued in the market at some $38 billion, is undervalued by almost 30 per cent. So it is an attractive takeover prospect in financial terms alone. In addition, the possibility of becoming the most powerful man on the planet is irresistibly beguiling to many rich men. Quite a few of them have access to, or can raise, the means to acquire the company. We could end up with a Russian oligarch, an Arab prince, or a hedge fund billionaire. Whoever it is might be honourable and principled—or they might not be.

We have the power to prevent a media baron from extending his empire. We have tended not to use that power. I hope that this time we will. Even if we do, my major concern remains. It is very difficult to stop someone who has the money from buying a public company. It is very difficult to say, “We let Rupert Murdoch have it, but we like you less, so we are going to stop you from buying it”. The potential influence of News Corporation in the United Kingdom is enormous. The damage that could be done if it fell into the wrong hands is incalculable. We should be extremely worried.

14:27

[Lord Razzall]

My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for introducing this extremely important debate, let me give him the undertaking he asked for. There has been no diminution whatever in the Liberal Democrats’ commitment on this issue; indeed, various colleagues of mine regard this as a significant marker for our involvement in the coalition. I can certainly reassure the noble Lord on that point.

The Liberal Democrat position is not based simply on Murdoch bashing, which has become quite fashionable. Mr Murdoch ought to be congratulated on at least two major achievements since he became involved in our media. First, although I do not know whether everyone on the Labour side agrees, his destruction of militant trade unionism on Fleet Street resulted in the much cheaper production of newspapers. Secondly, he bet his personal financial house on the creation of satellite TV. Everyone thought he was mad when he started that, and his significant financial commitment has resulted in the multiplicity of channels that we see today.

However, the Secretary of State’s decision to ask Ofcom to investigate the public interest consideration of media plurality arising from the proposed bid is clearly right. One of the problems with this issue is that defining media plurality can be “somewhat nebulous”, as the department is on record as saying. So I will, in the time available, give four or five reasons why we think this proposal goes too far.

The first is BSkyB’s strength in broadcast news. Sky News is now one of only three television news providers in the UK, supplying its own channels and Channel 5. It is virtually the only commercial news supplier for radio. We have seen what it has done to ITV news. When it bid in 2001 to provide ITV’s news, ITN was forced to reduce its bid by 25 per cent, which many of us believe resulted in a significant diminution in value, and a dumbing down, of ITV news.

Secondly, BSkyB has a stranglehold over the pay-TV market. It has an unchallengeable dominance in prime sporting rights, it dominates the market in pay-TV rights for films and it has just secured exclusive access to all HBO programming. BSkyB restricts access by other platforms to its premium channels and controls non-public sector broadcast access to satellite and content. That in itself should be a reason to look at this proposal with care.

Thirdly, as a number of noble Lords have said, News Corporation has a dominant position in the national press. One speaker quoted Enders predicting that News Corp’s market share would rise to more than 40 per cent by 2014. The reason is that the Murdoch-owned press, which can absorb losses, will gain market share while smaller and more vulnerable companies will be forced to make significant cost savings to survive.

Fourthly, full control of BSkyB will entrench a dominant economic and editorial position, providing News Corp with the financial resources to sustain its newspapers for the long term. Once in that position, it can do all sorts of things, ranging from cover price discounting, bundling in a much broader manner, or offering print and digital editions of the Sun or Times to Sky subscribers. It does not require a fertile imagination to think about what other things could happen with this exercise of media power.

The defence coming from News Corp will be that we should not worry about the dominance of Sky News because of the partiality or impartiality rules that apply, and that when Mr Murdoch says that he wishes Sky News could be like Fox, we do not need to worry because of those rules. However, the rules offer adequate protection only against systematic and blatant promotion of a one-sided political view. They are incapable of dealing with stories that are simply excluded, or with more subtle examples of editorial influence, so I do not believe that they can deal with this potential problem.

Finally, media plurality is still an issue for our democracy. Although some suggest that plurality considerations are vitiated by the proliferation of online social networking and other news sources, these arguments fail to understand the nature of news gathering and the continuing pivotal role of the press and television in setting the agenda. This story has a long way to run.

14:31

[Baroness D'Souza]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for securing this very timely debate. Two incontestable truths lie at the heart of it. First, freedom of expression and access to information, as defined by international and regional treaties, require that there be a diversity of media channels, and correspondingly an absence of concentration of media ownership, most especially of cross-media ownership.

Secondly, the proposed purchase by News Corporation of the remaining BSkyB shares undoubtedly reduces plurality and advances concentration of media ownership. This morning’s announcement that the Business Secretary has referred News Corporation’s bid to Ofcom is welcome, but it may be prudent to rehearse for the record why media plurality matters.

The European Commission and Court of Human Rights have ruled that positive action will be imposed on any member state that fails in its duty to protect against excessive press concentration. The European Council Parliamentary Assembly in 1982 called for national laws restricting press monopolies and concentration. The European Convention on Transfrontier Television affirmed the importance of broadcasting in conditions that safeguard pluralism and equality of opportunity among all democratic groups and political parties. However, it is only the American constitution that expressly prohibits indirect methods of restricting expression, such as unfair allocation of newsprint or broadcasting frequencies, and forbids such practices by private persons as well as by government.

Freedom of expression jurisprudence around the world is sprinkled with cases in which judgments have been given to ensure media plurality as a necessary basis for free speech and its attendant purposes. In countries judged by almost any international standard as achieving a high degree of democracy, for example Norway, so important is the plurality of ideas and opinions thought to be that the Government provide all kinds of subsidies to ensure a wide variety of opinions and local perspectives. Those media that fail to plough back any profits into the business lose their subsidies. Despite this, there is a growing tendency towards concentration of ownership, and huge news corporations appear to be gobbling up the media in all directions.

The counter to this is of course the growth in more informal channels of electronic communication. However, it has yet to be demonstrated that these channels are anywhere near as influential as the major daily and weekly press and broadcast outlets; consequently, their ability to hold government to account is also weak. The increase in cross-media concentration of ownership, always regarded as a potential threat, is today doubly dangerous due to the proliferation of broadband and the constant interplay between print and electronic media. One observer has seen politics and media engaged in a dangerous dance, each dependent on the other. To borrow a quote—Orwellian threats come less from the state these days and more from dense concentrations of private power.

Some have argued that major corporations can play a diversity role by having the financial resources to set up new media initiatives or to bolster financially strapped ones. This is to impute a pluralistic vision to these corporations which is not so far borne out by the evidence. For example, in Australia in the 1950s, there were 15 metropolitan dailies and 10 owners. By 1987, the number of major proprietors had been reduced to three, and this was followed by the successful takeover by News Limited—the Murdoch empire at the time—of all the groups. Since then, more than 20 daily and Sunday newspapers have closed. By the 1990s, with the exception of Sydney and Melbourne, no capital city had more than one daily newspaper.

It does indeed matter that News Corporation is proposing to engulf a further broadcast channel. One would hope that referral of the bid to Ofcom will result in its eventual further referral to the Competition Commission.

14:37

[Lord Lloyd-Webber]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on introducing this important debate. I am sure we all heartily agree that a plurality of media is important not only in the UK but globally to ensure that citizens have access to a variety of information sources. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I speak about the area of television rather than that of politics.

One of the few areas on which I can offer limited expertise to your Lordships' House is Saturday night reality TV. I will concentrate on TV's contribution to popular entertainment, and therefore to plurality. First, I do not know whether I have to declare an interest: for the past five years I have been on Saturday night TV, on the BBC, and one of the programmes won an International Emmy. I say that I do not know whether to declare an interest because I am not in any discussions with the BBC about a future series and indeed am involved with two programmes for ITV next year. However, because I have appeared on five BBC entertainment shows, I have a little expertise now of the BBC, and I will use this opportunity to say “stop bashing it”.

We all know of the superb quality of the BBC's serious output. For instance, anyone who attended this season's prom concerts will attest to the incredible depth and range of music that no other broadcasting organisation could get near. I remind noble Lords of Lord Reith's description of the purpose of the BBC as to “inform, educate and entertain”. I realise that this debate is prompted very much by concerns over News Corporation's hope to buy the rest of BSkyB that it does not own. However, having heard the founder of News Corporation speak in London recently, I am sure that he would be the first to encourage new entrepreneurs to enter all areas of the media and create a cauldron of competition, particularly in the area of popular entertainment. Surely, we have to be fair. Sky News has relatively few viewers compared with the BBC and ITV, although I completely agree with noble Lords that its future impartiality has to be secured.

To return to the BBC, I suggest that the best way to ensure plurality in the entertainment sector, which along with sport is the main revenue-earning area for TV, is to allow the Beeb to compete unfettered in the popular market. I remind your Lordships of Lord Reith’s line: to inform, educate and entertain.

When the BBC commissioned the first show that I was involved with, I had a meeting with the producers—all of whom have, by the way, sadly left the BBC for the private sector—at which they kept mentioning the letters PPU. “The PPU won’t allow this”. “The PPU would object”. “That idea is far too difficult for us to take on television; it’s too commercial”. Being a complete new boy, I wondered whether to keep schtum about the fact that I had no clue what the letters stood for. Eventually I thought that I would own up and ask what the PPU was. I was told that it was the “Programme Prevention Unit”—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, laughs—which is what the BBC calls editorial policy.

In the context of Lord Reith’s remarks, I should like to use the same quotation that Peter Fincham used when he was appointed Director of Programmes at ITV in 2008. It comes from a then recent Ofcom report on the BBC. As he remarked, Lord Reith’s three words had grown to 118. Here goes:

“Informing our understanding of the world—To inform ourselves and others and to increase our understanding of the world through news, information and analysis of current events and ideas.

Stimulating knowledge and learning—To stimulate our interest in and knowledge of arts, science, history and other topics through content that is accessible and can encourage informal learning.

Reflecting UK cultural identity—To reflect and strengthen our cultural identity through original programming at UK, national and regional level, on occasion bringing audiences together for shared experiences.

Representing diversity and alternative viewpoints—To make us aware of different cultures and alternative viewpoints, through programmes that reflect the lives of other people and other communities, both within the UK and elsewhere”.

Wow, I wonder how those guys would take on “X Factor”.

I suggest that there is a very strong argument to free the BBC from this gobbledegook that does not even mention the word entertainment. If the BBC were allowed to be free in this area, there is a strong possibility that the licence fee could be sustained at a very low level, perhaps even eliminated, while safeguarding competition in an area where Britain has often led the way. Instead of bashing the BBC, we should be looking at how we can breathe new life into it and how to set it free.

I suggest that an immediate way to ensure plurality in entertainment broadcasting is to allow the organisation that gave us “The Goon Show”, “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” and “Dad’s Army” off the leash.

14:42

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, both for his brilliant speech and for initiating this debate. There is literally no one better qualified to have done so, given his outstanding contribution to both film and television, and the immensely important role that he played in your Lordships’ House during the debates on what became the Communications Act 2003.

The proposed purchase by News Corporation of the remaining 61 per cent of BSkyB certainly constitutes a “relevant merger situation” under the Enterprise Act, as amended by the Communications Act 2003. For many of your Lordships here today who took part in those debates, such a move is exactly the kind of media merger proposal that we had in mind, involving, as it does, potentially adverse effects on the plurality of UK TV and radio news, and current affairs broadcasts and newspapers. Thus, the welcome decision by the Minister to issue an intervention notice and trigger Ofcom’s role will be especially important, as will any subsequent stages involving other ministries that may follow.

Since 2003, there have of course been considerable changes for us all—and not just the appalling economic and financial problems that the world faces today. In the media world, there have been huge changes—not least the arrival of the digital world and, particularly, the growth in the use of the internet for product and other forms of advertising, with all the adverse effect that that has had on British domestic television advertising. Equally, at the consumer/citizen end, there is an increasing ability, wherever people are in the world, to access on various forms of mobile machines whatever they want or need to see, hear or react to.

It is against that background that this threat to the British news’s cross-media plurality and independence is so important. As we have heard, television remains the main and most trusted source of news for 74 per cent of the British population. It is also because of the international respect and reputation that British television programmes enjoy—particularly the news and current affairs programmes—that this represents a national financial, as well as cultural, value which must be protected. It is, of course, the BBC, and to some extent the other PSB broadcasters, that Britain has to thank, and does, for this immensely valuable reputation that has been earned and built up over the years.

When our Select Committee, under the brilliant chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, took evidence for its Ownership of the News report, three things became abundantly clear and convinced me that News Corporation’s proposed takeover of BSkyB should be subject to such an intervention notice.

First, although newspaper proprietors believed that they did not interfere with their editors’ independence on the news material covered or the line to be taken, nevertheless, when choosing such an editor, both the proprietor and the would-be editor would be perfectly aware of the line that they were expected to take.

Secondly, the control issue was made even clearer by the evidence that Murdoch himself gave to the Lords Select Committee while some of our members were on a visit to the United States. Here, he admitted that the Sun and the News of the World were, indeed, both subject to his more direct editorial influence.

The third point, illustrating perfectly how vital sufficient plurality in ownership is if content, quality and independence are to be maintained, was the concession made by the former editor of the Sunday Times, Andrew Neil. After having described, in his evidence to the Select Committee, the circumstances of his own fall-out with Murdoch, he went on to say,

“no newspaper group … none, covers its own affairs well”.

For those reasons and the many others already given by other noble Lords, I fully support the Government’s decision announced today for there to be an intervention notice in this case. My only hope is that the final decision will not take as long, nor be subjected to such costly legal appeals, as the only other use of this procedure, which again—surprise, surprise—involved a takeover by the Murdoch empire.

14:47

[Lord Borrie]

My Lords, like many noble Lords who have already spoken and no doubt others yet to come, I welcome the announcement today by the Secretary of State, Mr Vince Cable. Good on Puttnam! Even before speaking a single word in the debate, he has won the basic argument. I wonder why we are sitting here this afternoon but perhaps it is because we would like to give some advice to Ofcom, the Competition Commission and whoever else is going to determine these matters in due course. If that sounds a bit vague, it is deliberate, because on Tuesday next we will be debating the Public Bodies Bill, which threatens either to abolish Ofcom or to merge it with other bodies. By the time an inquiry is finished, goodness knows who will be doing what. The Constitution Committee of the House of Lords has this very day published a most powerful criticism of the Government’s non-constitutional approach in introducing that Bill.

One phrase that has already cropped up several times is “plurality of ownership”. What does it mean? I should think that it means a plentitude or plentifulness, if not a profusion, of different suppliers of news and views. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was correct in all the three points that he emphasised, in particular when he said that to develop from a percentage to 100 per cent ownership of BSkyB makes a world of difference. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that it makes a difference legally, too. Moving from a position of so-called material influence into one of real control is bound to make a difference. Another closely related point that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, made is that, after all these many decades of knowing about Rupert Murdoch and his methods, we need not query or discuss further whether Rupert Murdoch interferes with editors’ independence. One value of this investigation by Ofcom is that it can probe again—this was not properly probed in the past—what that editorial independence amounts to. That is especially the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, mentioned, when you want to know whether to support this or that party at a general election. The assertions by News Corporation about the high degree of independence of its editors need once more to be questioned.

One leading text on the subject of media regulation, by Mr Feintuck, and Mr Varney, rightly focuses on the law on,

“whether the proposed new company would have too powerful a presence across the media as a whole”.

That is what we want Ofcom and the Competition Commission to get at, and in due course what we want the Government to accept—that in this field there is an unduly powerful presence in the media by the News Corporation.

Some people have worried that a lot depends on the discretion of the Secretary of State. In so far as he has discretion, which I believe he does, he is exercising it in a sensible way today. It is a political decision. In other respects, one could perhaps argue that it has been done according to some party-political bias or influence, which some of us do not like. However, in this case, the discretion has certainly worked in a sensible way, in the direction of an inquiry. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on bringing this about by his subtle methods before the actual debate began.

14:51

[Lord Myners]

I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Puttnam on securing this timely and important debate. I declare a past interest, as I was a journalist for the Daily Telegraph and chairman of the Guardian for nearly 10 years.

I have eight points, which I shall make briefly. First, I commend Dr Cable’s swift action today in initiating an intervention notice. This is one case in which Liberal members of the coalition have been able to moderate the views of the other party by the expression of a separate viewpoint. I should like to have listened in to some of the phone calls to Mr Coulson over the past 24 hours, but of course that would have been illegal.

Secondly, I have had some business dealings with Mr Murdoch and members of his family and have always found him a very impressive businessman. He is very focused and driven, and he has been very successful, because he has delivered what the customer wanted. I do not think, however, that we should form our judgment on the issues in hand today on the basis of Mr Rupert Murdoch alone because, as my noble friend Lord Gavron said, ownership can change. We need to recognise that we are coming to a conclusion in our debate that relates not to one person or one point in time but rather to a broader set of principles that should shape the cartography of media ownership in the United Kingdom.

As Dr Cable said at the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool, there is a natural tendency for business folk to seek to dominate markets and to extract some monopolistic rent as a consequence. We have Parliament to ensure that we do not have a situation in which there is abusive economic dominance—of customers or suppliers—in any particular sector. It is therefore an important role for Ministers and Parliament to be vigilant in connection with any area where there is a risk of excessive concentration.

However, particular issues are raised by media ownership, because the media are the source of information and they inspire and inform intelligent debate that should shape our behaviours and the society in which we live. Clearly, the intention behind pluralism and diversity of ownership is to encourage the blossoming of many flowers rather than the presence of dominant voices that could outshout others in the market. My noble friend Lord Borrie talked about pluralism being associated with a profusion of participants in the market. It is clear that it is difficult to argue that that is the case in major and identifiable parts of the media at the moment, in television, radio and newspapers. At the same time, we must be mindful of the fact that the media landscape is changing rapidly, with new forms of communication based around digital formats.

If we are concerned about dominance, I would not want to limit my comments to News International and Mr Rupert Murdoch. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, said that it was time to stop bashing the BBC, and in the areas to which he referred I would be sympathetic with his view. However, the BBC is a very dominant institution, and we must ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with that. In particular, we must ask ourselves whether we can be comfortable with a BBC that seems to have a remarkably inept BBC Trust, a management that has no clarity about what the BBC should be doing and that allowed itself to be bullied 10 days ago by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport over issues relating to the licence. Frankly, if the chairman of the trust had more principle and backbone, he would simply have said to Mr Jeremy Hunt, “This is not acceptable, we will not agree to this—and if you insist on it, you will have to appoint a new trust”. As it was, the trust acquiesced like sheep, which reflects very badly on the BBC. Given its dominance, the failure of strong and principled leadership should be a matter of considerable concern to us at the moment.

I hope that when the BBC licence is next reviewed we start from a presumption that the BBC should not be doing certain things. The BBC should have to prove why it should continue to operate Radio 1 or Radio 2, for instance. It is extraordinarily difficult to explain to a foreign visitor why Radio 1, a popular music station, is a nationalised industry, and why it is necessary for it to be provided by a public service as opposed to a competitive one. I have certainly witnessed the BBC inhibit, intimidate and effectively snuff out competition in regional news and broadcasting. There are some core questions that we need to ask about the BBC.

In closing, I come back to News International. The tests of plurality must be a matter for the experts in Ofcom, and that will clearly be a difficult judgment. There is also a parallel issue for the Competition Commission around the issues of economic concentration —that is to say, even if this was not a media industry, would the concentration proposed as a result of the acquisition of the outstanding shares in BSkyB represent an unacceptable degree of concentration? From the perspective of the media, I would ask what the advantages are of News International buying BSkyB. Clearly the primary advantages are economic—in profit and access to cash flow.

However, I find it much more difficult to see the social advantages of such concentration. In fact, it would clearly lead to a further elimination of choice. I suggest to Ofcom that it starts from the premise that, if it cannot find convincing arguments to agree to the acquisition, it should disagree. The risks here are not symmetrical. The consequences of making the wrong decision could be deeply harmful and we would have to live with them for several decades.

14:59

[Lord Birt]

My Lords, I hope that this House on another day will have a full opportunity to discuss the important recent events at the BBC. Today I congratulate, as others have done, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on his immaculate timing, and focus my remarks on the immediate issue of News Corp.

News Corp and its antecedent manifestations have had both a benign, as others have suggested, and an adverse impact on the UK’s media environment. Echoing the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, we should not forget that News Corp bravely and boldly eliminated pernicious and indefensible restrictive practices in the newspaper print shops—and, in doing so, not only paved the way for the improvement of the financial health of all UK newspapers, but facilitated lower-cost entrants and thereby fostered diversity. Again echoing the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, we should remember that Sky itself was an extraordinarily high-risk, pioneering and groundbreaking venture, with then unproven technology. Sky has blossomed, and in the process it has vastly extended viewer choice, especially for sports lovers and movie buffs.

News Corp’s newspapers, like them or not, are—like their ultimate proprietor—vigorously and energetically journalistic in outlook. The Sunday Times maintains a long and honourable tradition of investigative journalism in the public interest. I think that the Times is currently an exceptional newspaper. It is cool, rational and analytical. It carries a diversity of stories and offers, for instance, excellent coverage of science. It offers a politically diverse but particularly astute and entertaining mix of columnists. So I, for one, cannot but admire the bold buccaneering spirit and journalistic pedigree of Rupert Murdoch, the pater familias. But I recall, too, that challenging journalism for him does not always come first.

I recall, when I was at the BBC, how Mr Murdoch responded to the Chinese Government’s extreme hostility and agitation in respect of BBC World and its forthright journalism about human rights in China. When Mr Murdoch took ownership of the Star satellite, which beamed BBC World into China, to our very great distress indeed he immediately dropped BBC World from the satellite, explaining with characteristic candour to the New York Times:

“The BBC was driving them”—

that is, the Chinese—

“nuts. It just wasn’t worth it”.

Other parts of News Corp’s newspaper empire hold less appeal than the Times. At best they are rumbustious and amusing. At worst, they have contributed to the coarsening of our national culture. We now know that some of News Corp’s newspapers appear to have utilised tactics which have grievously, unlawfully and unjustifiably breached privacy—possibly in a systemic way.

While Sky has brought more choice, it is a financial behemoth, now dwarfing other players, including the BBC, financially. Yet despite its awesome revenues, only a tiny fraction translates into original UK production, if we exclude sport and news. So I hope that government and regulators will resist News Corp’s desire wholly to own Sky. The opportunities that sole ownership would bring News Corp to drive synergies between old media and new media, between newspapers and—not much mentioned today—publishing and broadcasting, would be enormous.

News Corp, as others have mentioned, already has 35 per cent of newspaper circulation in the UK, and even on current trends its share is likely to rise. With the opportunities that cross-subsidy, cross-promotion and the bundling of services would bring, we could easily see News Corp’s dominance in newspapers increase far beyond its present share. It is not in the interest of a plural society for a singular mindset or entity of any kind to hold that degree of influence, political patronage or commercial power.

When the Conservatives were last in power, governing alone and unaided, I dined with a Minister who the very next day was to have breakfast with Rupert Murdoch—and this at a time when there was a similarly important regulatory issue to be considered. I do not exaggerate—the Minister was actually shaking at the prospect. So I, too, applaud Dr Cable’s decision today to refer this matter to Ofcom. It was the right first step.

15:05

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for his brilliant timing. I have sat on two media boards with him and can testify that his robust pursuit of plurality of opinion extends not only to this Chamber but to the boardroom. I declare an interest. I am a director and shareholder in ProSieben, a Munich-based broadcasting business with 30 channels throughout Europe. In our home market of Germany, we by turn co-operate and compete vigorously with Sky, which is not such a dominant player in the German market.

As the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said, one test of plurality is to take a snapshot at a moment in time by reviewing the number and independence of media outlets, such as TV news and newspapers. Another and I believe more important test is to examine the sustainability of that plurality over time. That needs to be considered in the context of what is likely to, or may, happen to the dynamics of the general media sector—in this case, if News Corp owns 100 per cent of Sky. While past behaviour is not always a good guide to the future of a sector that is undergoing unprecedented and disruptive technological change, as many noble Lords have said, it can give a clue to the likely consequences of the proposed merger.

I first met Rupert Murdoch in 1969 when I was a junior member of a team advising him on the purchase of the News of the World. I recall being struck by the strength of his determination and resolve, his bold vision for the paper, his grasp of what the reader wanted and his outsider’s disregard for convention—but, above all, by his gambler’s instinct. These traits were in greater evidence as he successfully launched the Sun, revitalised the Times and the Sunday Times, killed off Fleet Street’s antiquated work practices, took effective control of a failing satellite business on which he basically bet the bank, and, more recently, has breathed new life into the Wall Street Journal. At every turn he—and I have to say from my experience of dealing with this organisation that his DNA runs right the way through it—is totally focused on radical measures to improve the product, increase market share and, as a consequence, make life much more difficult for the competition. The breadth and scale of News enables it to take big bets and to be unafraid of failure. I can testify to the fact that News is a very tough competitor indeed, to be respected and often copied.

So how will this consistent approach to business work if News acquires 100 per cent of Sky? The enlarged group will enjoy market-leading positions in pay TV and newspapers and a strongly growing share of the broadband market. Sky itself is at the end of a significant capital expenditure programme and will provide the enlarged group with an unfettered access to a very substantial cash flow. The group will have the opportunity to fund cross-promotion of all of its products across all of its platforms, to bundle its products to subscribers, to acquire the best content and to market its products more extensively through advertising on non-owned media. When in 2000 I attempted to merge United and Carlton—which together would have owned 50 per cent of ITV and the Express newspaper group and a host of production businesses and websites—the ability to implement cross-promotion, to cross-subsidise and ultimately to bundle products and to develop content which could be deployed on all platforms was the key strategic and economic benefit. That merger was squashed by the Competition Commission as being too large a concentration, particularly in commercial television. The full integration of Sky and News Corp would create a combined business broader in scale and with far greater market power and financial resources.

So how will News Corporation’s competitors in the UK respond to this cuddly new 800-pound gorilla? The competitive set is fragmented and relatively undercapitalised with no great record of concerted action. The BBC provides a powerful countervailing force and is now assured of funding until 2016—albeit on meagre rations. Commercial television is coming out of a deep advertising recession and continues to suffer from the punitive effect of CRR, which has reduced ITV’s revenue by between £75 million and £100 million a year. That of course seriously compromises its investment in programming, which is the very lifeblood of TV and an important part of the British production sector. The newspaper groups are doing a remarkable job in staying afloat in fast-declining markets, often thanks to profitable non-newspaper businesses, but they do not have the financial clout to tackle News Corp.

The launch next year of You View will provide a significant opportunity for broadcasters and publishers in the UK. You View will bring video, still images and texts over the broadband network to the computer and, crucially, the domestic TV set and mobile devices. It is likely to become the most important distribution platform for media. It will deliver both free and paid-for content, will be open to all content providers and will provide a programme guide to rival Sky’s. It is a most welcome competition to Sky—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I reluctantly remind the noble Lord that he has already reached the fifth minute and has now exceeded the time allocated to him.

[Lord Hollick]

I have nearly finished. As Ofcom now ponders the proposed acquisition, it must take into account sustainability; otherwise, looking at the marketplace as it now is—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords—

15:10

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority. In terms of media policy, it seems to me that there are four key ingredients for a civilised society. The first is access for all citizens to full, fair, informative knowledge about the workings of society, government and current affairs, as well as to the full riches of their history, culture and scientific traditions. The second is free and untrammelled expression of opinion across the whole range of books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and the internet. The third is the widest possible range of views and voice available to the widest possible range of people and by a wide range of routes. The fourth is enjoyment and engagement for the citizen and consumer, alongside and integral to the provision of education and information.

Some of those objectives will intermingle and overlap, and some may at times come into conflict with each other. But getting the balance right between them and keeping them constantly in view, and seeing them as the key necessities for the public interest, is what we need to be doing. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has done us great service not just in seeking this debate today, but through his actions in this House ensuring that we have a public interest test to apply to media ownership and media policy.

In my view, three crucial elements of policy are needed to secure the public interest. First, we must maintain firmly in place the requirement for impartiality in broadcast news provision. Heaven forefend that we create a Fox News here in the UK. There must of course be robust partisanship in the press, but broadcast is different. Let no one claim that the internet removes the requirement for impartiality because one-to-many broadcasting will remain very firmly part of all our lives for many years to come.

Secondly, we must maintain and sustain the BBC as the benchmark and guarantor of quality in broadcasting. It must be adequately funded and properly regulated. Over both these provisions, there are question marks. The BBC Trust is an imperfect model, and it would be much better to have a clear separation of management and regulation in relation to the BBC. But the BBC remains the best in the world, and the best bulwark we have for ensuring that the generality of our broadcasting continues to enhance our lives.

Thirdly, we must ensure the plurality of media ownership, and therefore of media voice. There are serious doubts about whether the ownership of four major national newspapers and the entirety of the major national privately owned television network fits that test. Like, notably, every single speaker in this debate, I welcome the decision of the Secretary of State to refer to Ofcom the bid for the remaining shares of BSkyB. How important it is that we have an independent regulator to refer it to. Let the Government be careful what they wish for when they embark on a bonfire of quangos.

Finally, let me give a word of advice from hard-won experience to the Minister and her colleagues at both the DCMS and BIS. They will be lobbied—they will be lobbied heavily and vociferously by News Corporation. I remember when, as Secretary of State, I gave the authority for the BBC to embark on News 24, and to supply it to regional and local news channels. Mr Sam Chisholm, who then ran BSkyB, telephoned me in somewhat acerbic terms. Indeed, I held the telephone at arm’s length and could still hear what he was saying. The Government will be lobbied, but they must resist. They must be impartial and must assess everything against those important tests of principle, and they must hold fast at all times to the genuine public interest.

15:15

[Baroness McDonagh]

I want to join in heaping praise on my noble friend Lord Puttnam. He has continuously brought to our attention the importance of our creative industry. It is what defines us as a nation and gives a shared identity. It glues us together as a society and as citizens, for which of us here has not heard people talk about Ann Widdecombe’s paso doble on Saturday night—or at least that’s what I thought it was?

Our creative industries define us around the world, and the most important of these creative industries in the UK is television. TV is what we do well, and it is what makes the UK that little bit special. We do it so well we even make money out of it. The UK is the second-largest exporter of television programmes and television formats in the world. This position has not been reached by accident. It has happened by design because successive Governments of all political persuasions have ensured a plurality of ownership across public and private sectors, which means the UK is now one of the few countries in Europe that makes the majority of its own TV programmes.

In this mix of broadcast is our jewel in the crown: the BBC. If I had more time, I would be happy to explain to my noble friend Lord Myners why it is important that it runs Radio 1, but I agree with him that the BBC needs to start speaking up for itself with a stronger voice. It must not be cowed, and it must not allow a small minority to push its programming and technology back into the 20th century. I am proud of the BBC website and the fact it is the UK’s window on the world. It does our economy and our standing so much good. As an aside, I was recently talking to a senior Sky executive, and I asked him whether he was ever worried that he would not have the capacity to cover breaking news. In a flash, he said, “No. We just do what everyone else does; we look at the BBC website”.

The BBC is not a brake on creativity and enterprise; it is the engine room. The BBC trains and puts talented actors, presenters, programme makers, sound engineers, cameramen and entrepreneurs into other broadcasters and independent production companies. That is what gives us the profitable and vibrant sector that we have at home and abroad. We should praise the plurality of our current media ownership and do all we can to protect it.

Much of this debate so far has featured loss of plurality, but the Communications Act 2003 also requires us to maintain a wide range of TV and newspaper companies as well as high-quality broadcasting standards. The latter can mean only a degree of choice that needs to be made and not just brought in. Equally, other legislation requires us to ensure fair competition. If we allow Sky to be bought by News Corp, we will meet none of these conditions. We will create a situation of unfair competition, kill off the plurality that makes us the world’s best television maker and leave the UK with one massive TV and newspaper company.

We have discussed the figures on a gross scale, but Sky is currently a giant, and it does not come cheaply for its customers. The cheapest Sky package at the moment is £284. The BBC licence fee is £140. Sky is not a company that invests much in non-sport UK programming. Last year, it spent more money on marketing than on entertainment and drama.

So let us be realistic about what will happen to our stand-alone publishers, telecommunication companies, broadcasters and newspapers. If we allow the amalgamation of the largest publisher, subscription services TV company and newspaper company, does anyone here think that we will get better TV and better newspapers that will be cheaper for customers? The new giant company will be impossible to regulate. Let us not even pretend we can put in Chinese walls and that everything will be fine. News Corp will be beyond regulation. This is not because News Corp is bad but because it will lead to unfair competition. It would drown out the market. No one would be able to compete against it. Of course, I completely understand why News Corp wants to buy Sky. If I were in its shoes, I am sure I would want to do the same, but it is because these things are not always in the public interest that we have public ownership rules in the first place. It is because some companies are impossible to regulate that we refuse to allow some companies to buy others. Who of us here would allow the BBC to start to publish daily newspapers? We would refuse to allow it, and we should refuse this.

Most of us got involved in politics to be active and to change the world, but sometimes the role of government is to step in to protect and preserve what we have and to prevent something happening. Now is just one of these times. I wholeheartedly welcome today’s decision to refer the matter to Ofcom, but it will look only at plurality, which is a small part of this complex issue. I agree with what Vince Cable said in January, four months before the general election:

“It is time to restore some of the old checks and balances whereby takeovers can be referred to the competition authorities to establish whether they serve the public interest. The Kraft takeover would almost certainly have failed that test”.

I hope his will prevails.

15:24

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, like others, I deeply appreciate my noble friend Lord Puttnam having introduced this debate today. It is particularly important that he has done so, because his whole life has borne witness to his deep commitment to the quality of civilisation and the indispensability of democracy. He approaches this subject in that context.

We live in a globalised society, and we need to remember that the importance of plurality and the quality of our media are important not only to us in Britain but to the world as a whole. In too many places in the world, oppression, tyranny and the absence of human rights are still the reality, and access to what we generate in our own media is vital to those who struggle for a better society. That is why the BBC is so crucial, and why nothing must ever be done to undermine the quality, integrity and reputation of the Overseas Service. This is true not just of the BBC but of our whole media, and we need to be able to show the world a healthy, thriving, plural media in our own society.

This is not simply about plurality; it is also about the ethics, quality and commitment of journalism itself. Journalism, to be effective, needs courageous people, and plurality is important because it is important for journalists to know that they are not dependent for their communication on the person who happens to employ them at the moment. It is also important that alternatives are available. Indeed, it is an essential element of the characteristics of journalism that people can confidently be themselves and say what they believe, because there are various channels through which they can speak. That is not true in the world as a whole.

In my own work, I have been deeply moved by, and profoundly fortunate to have met, two of the most courageous women in recent history, Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova: two women who were absolutely dedicated to truth and integrity and determined that the Russian people and the world should know what was happening in the North Caucasus. What always impressed me about them was that they had absolutely no doubts about what their fate might be, but they remained totally committed to the high calling of journalism as they saw it. That sets terrific challenges to the profession elsewhere in the world, not least here.

We need the structure of plurality, but we also need the ethic and the principles of what journalism is about. We need that courage. That, of course, relates to editors and proprietors. What was important for Anna and Natalya was that they had a courageous editor and proprietors who were prepared, in the reality of Russian society, to support them. Let us remember, incidentally, that they are not the only two; too many journalists in Russia have been assassinated.

I totally share others’ conviction that journalism and the media are the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. There are, of course, immense complexities, and we have heard about them tellingly today: the tensions of power, profit and the newspaper as a commodity against the historic indispensability of journalism to the effectiveness of democracy itself. Plurality is a huge challenge, but it will not be furthered unless we are dedicated to the principle within it.

15:27

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, when you think about it, I am afraid that Vince Cable has shot our fox—whether from high principle or from funk at the thought of the ferocity of the assault that he should expect from the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, I do not know. Seriously, however, we should not for one minute underestimate the importance of the decision that was taken this morning. Just think of the counterfactual of no reference being made. Whatever arguments Mr Cable’s department could have cobbled together for that, the message would have been absolutely clear—that Rupert Murdoch stood above any British Government and their powers. By making that reference today, that myth is destroyed. Power, as a famous American columnist once said, is being believed to have power, and today the complete belief that Mr Murdoch had total power has been set back—a great moment for our democracy.

I think that I am in a unique position among those who have spoken in this debate: I have worked for Rupert Murdoch. I was economics editor after he took over the Sunday Times and Simon Jenkins’s deputy at the Times. I am glad that this debate has not demonised the man. I can report frankly on Mr Murdoch’s interventions. I remember only one instruction that came down from the chairman; namely, Simon and I were told that whatever we might think of the column written by the late Lord Wyatt, he was under the chairman’s protection and could not be removed. We sometimes had difficulty in explaining that to our critics who were not as enamoured as the chair of the content of that column.

What happened by way of self-censorship is another matter. These things are much more complex than they are believed to be. But the idea that a crudity of power is exercised is badly overdone. The fact of ownership conveys quite a lot of power in itself. We have heard a lot about news today, which is important. We are protected in news to some extent by the impartiality rules, which is a great thing, although those rules are always under siege, including from the great chairman himself. We cannot take it for granted that they will always by there.

I worry slightly more about a different kind of plurality—cultural plurality. If you think of a News International of the size that is contemplated—two BBCs—imagine the effect that that would have on the marketplace for the cultural product that is television; for example, for the balance on our screens between American productions, European productions and British productions. I do not think that you will find Mr Murdoch, an American, saying, “Oh, we must keep up the European and British content”. That will affect what is made and what is shown. There are many other ways in which ownership, in effect, affects culture. Although I yield to no one in my admiration for American culture, I would like plurality of culture as well as plurality of media.

Following the sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, although not perhaps the content of his recipe for it, my final point is that the single biggest protection we as a nation have of plurality of provision and of variety of what we consume is the BBC, especially so in a week when ITV has admitted that its object is to achieve the lowest common denominator.

[Lord Fowler]

You certainly succeeded in that.

[Lord Lipsey]

I defer of course to the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in that matter.

A strong BBC is absolutely at the centre of a varied and plural media in this country, which is why the brutal beating administered to the corporation last week by the Government is one which we will repent of at leisure.

15:33

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Puttnam for securing this debate and, like many other noble Lords, I congratulate him on his exquisite timing. This has been a fantastic debate with many fine speeches. I particularly welcome and enjoyed the speeches made by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and my noble friend Lord Myners. The problem for people speaking late in this debate is that the hard work that we have done in preparing our speeches has rather gone to waste, so all the finely crafted phrases and wonderful lapidary comments I was going to drop in to the stunned attention of the House have been used by others rather better than I may have done.

I am left with a couple of thoughts which I hope to share with noble Lords. First, why on earth is there so much agreement? It is not just that the fox has been shot because there is still a long way to go for this particular fox. But there is a sense around the House that the agreement across the two sides—although there is quite a lot of disagreement on this side; we probably would not want to go too far into that, particularly about the BBC—reflects a wider concern about the way in which we have arrived at a twin track for regulating our media. We are at one in saying that the media are too important to be left on their own and that a free market will not be sufficient in that it will not satisfy our culture or deal with our democracy. But we have come up with a rather ugly compromise both in terms of the BBC, where the trust has to do the impossible job of cheerleading and regulating and, as others have said, in terms of Ofcom, which faces the possibility of having its wings clipped. In the wings, we also have the Competition Commission with its different focus on the economic outcomes of many of the issues before us.

Let us look back at the way in which we developed television and many of our media outlets in this country. We have done a sensible and interesting thing by trying to separate over time the delivery of the various channels from the money. In that sense, we have brought out the best in them by creating competition for quality. BBC1 was followed by ITV, and BBC2 by Channel 4 and Channel 5. But, of course, that all changes in the multimedia world, and the differences have been mentioned by many noble Lords. However, it is worth bearing in mind the essence here, that of trying to make sure that what we are separating out are the economics from the quality, which is still terribly important.

We need to think again as we go forward. I hope that one of the things that will come out of this incident is that we look once more at how this country regulates its media. Film and television in particular, but the published and electronic press as well, reflect the nation to itself. I am sure we can all recall the case of the primary school in the south-west of England where the pupils were asked to say what the number for our emergency services is. Rather than answering with the number 999, they said 911 because that is what they hear in the American television programmes and films they watch. There is nothing wrong with that because in some sense we want a plurality of cultures, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, but we have to be careful that we do not lose what we have in the rush to try and ensure that everyone is heard.

My final point is this. Given the centralised nature of broadcasting and the media in the UK, with the majority of our key decision-makers based in London—pace the BBC and its move—it is surely a concern in the English regions and the nations of Scotland and Wales that, while we should have excellent UK-wide services, there must be a fundamental requirement for high-quality content that addresses the distinctive cultural and democratic needs of audiences outwith the south-east.

We are on common ground that media content which purports to be for the public good and in the public interest can survive, grow and flourish, but this will not happen through market forces alone. There is a wider question about how we regulate properly for that, and this is a good opportunity for us all to reflect on it.

15:36

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I say that speaking at this stage of the debate runs the risk of repetition. But that is a happy outcome for it appears that not just a narrow consensus on a narrow point has been expressed in this distinguished discussion, but there has been a broad acceptance of the thesis so ably and crisply expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, in opening the debate as he did. It is important to put on the record at this stage that we have had contributions from people who have a direct financial interest in broadcasting, from people who have run the BBC, from a Secretary of State with a distinguished record in his position, from those who have been paid to consider the standards of broadcasting, and from journalists. That is a spectrum of opinion that should not be ignored when this matter is further considered, which it will be as the result of the wise decision of the Secretary of State today to refer the matter to Ofcom. In my opinion, the debate has demonstrated the House of Lords at its most authoritative and persuasive.

A consequence of that is that there have been relatively few questions. In fact, I do not believe that the Minister has actually been asked a single question so far, which is an unusually happy position for her. It is also the case that the intention of News Corp to buy the remaining 61 per cent of shares in BSkyB has been referred to the European Union’s regulatory procedure. I underline, and hope the Minister will accept, that that process can be conducted in parallel. It is allowed, as I understand it, by the European Union’s regulations. There may be criteria of competition law in that inquiry which are somewhat different from those which will be considered by Ofcom and, if it is proposed, the Competition Commission. It is appropriate that the national inquiry should be carried through and I hope Ofcom will so recommend.

The issue that this is simply the acquisition of what is left of BSkyB should not defeat the arguments that plurality is threatened. It is evident that the change of management which will be brought about could favour not only the fortunes of BSkyB and its shareholders, which have to be considered by that company at present, but also the wider interests of the newspapers that are owned by News Corp. That could narrow the perspective of a successor owner in a most unfortunate way.

As far as I can see, editorial control has not been exercised heavily with BSkyB, but that it could be is quite clear. From what we have seen, it can be compared to Fox in the United States. Despite what was referred to by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Gavron, as a sentimental attachment to newspapers, Mr Rupert Murdoch is not averse to influencing television in the United States in an extremely debilitating and counterproductive manner.

I am happy that the Government have taken the decision they have and I am delighted that this House has shown its unanimity in backing it.

15:43

[Lord St John of Fawsley]

I apologise for my late arrival at the debate. This was due to trying to get across the death track that masquerades as a road outside this House. And, while I mention that fact, why is it, when there are more Members in this House than there are in the House of Commons, we have only eight minutes to get to a Division whereas they have 10? Perhaps the Minister will answer that even though it is marginally wide of the issue.

I declare an interest as an adviser to Sky Broadcasting on arts and religion. As the anti-British BBC has now abandoned its interest in both subjects, we should be grateful that Sky is doing so much.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I respectfully point out to the noble Lord that there are speaking times.

[Lord St John of Fawsley]

I have made my point. I am quite content to leave it to distil into the minds of Members who have heard only one point of view so far apparently.

15:44

[Lord Parekh]

My Lords, I am sorry for that prelude to my speech. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on securing the debate and I thank him for introducing it with the clarity, wisdom and eloquence that we have come to expect of him.

In the UK, the national newspaper industry is run by eight companies, one of which—namely, News Corporation—has 35 per cent of the national newspaper market. This is likely to rise to about 43 per cent in the next three or four years. It now wants to buy the 61 per cent of BSkyB which it does not currently control. I am glad that this has been referred to Ofcom and that we will be able to see what the outcome is, but I am a little worried that the criteria to be used by the Secretary of State may not be conducive to the outcome that we have in mind. That simply goes to show how important it is that we are clear about the criteria that the Secretary of State or Ofcom should employ in deciding whether to sanction a particular merger or venture. One sees an even more marked concentration of ownership in the regional and local press. Four publishers control almost 70 per cent of the market share.

This raises two questions. Why does media ownership matter and is it enough? Media ownership matters because, as the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Gavron, pointed out, it affects the quality and range of views available to the public and the health of our democracy. Owners shape news, and they decide what becomes news and why it is important. They also shape views—how to interpret that news and how to respond to it. They do so directly by intervention as well as by appointing like-minded editors, and rewarding and promoting journalists who hold the right kind of view. They might also use newspapers to settle personal scores or to discourage certain types of investigative journalism. Even if their control is benign, profit is the sole consideration and public interest becomes a casualty. For all these reasons, media ownership is important and there has to be a strict regulatory framework.

But my question goes deeper than this. How plural should media be? Let us suppose that, instead of three, we had 25 people owning media, or 100 or 200. Would that necessarily achieve the objectives that we have in mind; namely, plurality of views and dissent, and the health of our democracy?

In a free-market economy, you cannot control the ownership of the media beyond a certain point. Having many owners does not necessarily guarantee quality journalism or an impartial press, because competition will tend to push people to the lowest common denominator. It can also take the form of informal alliances. There is also the danger that this various, multiple ownership might share a common cultural perspective and, therefore, not allow differences of view to emerge. Newsgathering can be poor because of competition. It can also limit investigative or specialist journalism.

In order to ensure that we meet those objectives, therefore, we must obviously control media ownership. But that is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. What else do we need to achieve those objectives? I end by suggesting three. First, we must strengthen public service broadcasting. In this context, the BBC becomes critical, and it must be defended against subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to undermine its credibility. Secondly, we need greater media openness and transparency. The media rightly demand that politicians should be honest and transparent. They should be subject to the same standards. After all, although privately owned, they are a public institution and therefore publicly accountable. I suggest with some humility that there is no reason why the salaries of journalists or their political affiliations should not be disclosed or conflicts of interest when they write on certain issues. I see no reason why there should not be speedy redress for injured members of the public or a public explanation by editors and proprietors of how certain events have been covered.

Secondly, there must be public support for citizen or community journalism. This can be secured in a variety of ways, of which an industry levy is one. The IPPR has shown, for example, that a 1 per cent levy on pay TV operators such as Sky and Virgin Media would bring in £70 million. Those sums could be used to make sure that local newspapers do not close and to allow media start-ups by individuals and community groups.

Thirdly, we must encourage philanthropy. The Potter Foundation awarded a grant of £2 million to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to promote investigative, not-for-profit journalism in the public interest. Charity law should be organised in such a way that the media are seen not simply as a political activity but as a charitable one, and tax relief should be given.

15:50

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, I, too, express gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. He has been immensely knowledgeable and tirelessly persistent in pursuing this nexus of issues raised by the plurality of media ownership, in and beyond your Lordships’ House.

At the heart of the debate lie the importance of press freedom and the role of the media in democratic societies. It is because we are committed to a free press that there are rather few ways of ensuring that the media, taken together, serve the public interest by offering diverse and thorough coverage of issues of public concern. Anti-monopoly provisions matter here, as nowhere else, because we need not only competition that protects the interests of consumers but diversity that protects the interests of citizens. That is one reason why most democracies conclude that anti-monopoly provisions are particularly important in the case of the media. Many have additionally been concerned to prevent overseas control of their media, or large sections of them.

Parliament recognised these issues in the basic sections of the Communications Act 2003. Section 3 reads:

“It shall be the principal duty of OFCOM, in carrying out their functions—

(a) to further the interests of citizens in relation to communications matters; and

(b) to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition”.

Noble Lords who remember the debates surrounding this part of the legislation will remember that the priority given to Ofcom’s duty to protect the interests of citizens was very hard fought. There will be those who think that Ofcom has not always accorded the interests of citizens that required priority. Now is the time for Ofcom to demonstrate that it takes both of its general duties and the priority which the Act assigns to its duty to citizens seriously, as it adjudicates the matter referred to it.

I take it that in a democracy we want not merely media that are free to publish but media that, taken together, cover a wide range of information, positions and arguments in depth for a range of audiences. This is particularly but not only important in the matter of covering news, where we hope that citizens will have opportunities to read, hear and view news and current affairs produced by a plurality of organisations, but also that they read, hear and view news and current affairs representing a diversity of voices, which will help them to judge matters of public interest.

Until a few years ago, we might have been reasonably confident that if we could secure plurality, diversity would be its natural consequence. I do not believe that is now so easy. We have plurality as never before, not only in the fact that new technologies enable us to access the media via multiple routes but in the fact that some of those whose voices were never heard by their fellow citizens can now make themselves heard via the internet. Yet these forms of plurality do not always support diversity of content and presentation for citizens. There are two fundamental reasons why the link between plurality and diversity has become weaker. One, which I think the lesser problem, is that some of the new voices that use blogs, Twitter, or specialist websites reach very small audiences. We indeed have more originators of content, but citizens may not thereby gain access to greater diversity. Bluntly, plurality is not now by itself enough to secure diversity but it is one of the weapons that we have, so we should prize it and use it.

We have to face the reality that media organisations are prone to repeat, recirculate and restate what is already public. No doubt some, on blogs and Twitter, surprise us by adding grace notes—or disgrace notes—to current debates but all too often they simply echo more powerful voices. What matters is not just concentration of ownership or its ramification through cross-promotion, cross-subsidy and bundling but concentration of editorial control. If we have no ways of ensuring a plurality of editorial views and approaches directly, we need to use these measures to prevent concentration of control, including editorial control.

15:55

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I echo the thanks from all around the House to my noble friend Lord Puttnam. He has both the knowledge and the wisdom on this issue that withstand the utmost scrutiny and a respected history for building Cross-Bench consensus on what is undoubtedly a sensitive and complex issue. His contribution today has further enhanced his fine reputation.

This has been a powerful and well informed debate with an impressive degree of consensus. Many of the contributors have experience that I cannot hope to match, so I hope that I can be forgiven for approaching the issue as an active citizen and as a democrat who seeks a strong, independent media to help promote healthy and informed political debate. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, persuasively argued, plurality is also a great bonus for entertainment and the BBC’s strong record in the field is not given enough credit. On that subject, I support the many noble Lords who have spoken up passionately today in defence of the BBC.

I have been conscious during the debate of a temptation to narrow the focus of the discussion to News Corporation’s application to take over BSkyB. On that issue, Labour has made it clear that we welcome Vince Cable’s decision to intervene. As the shadow Secretary of State for DCMS has said, we will stand up for the public interest without fear or favour, and if the Government do likewise and fulfil their obligation to transparency at every stage with due process, they will have our support. As many noble Lords have rightly identified, though, the issue goes much further, to the heart of a free market versus interventionist philosophy and it raises fundamental questions about the role of the regulator, on which I hope we can find some agreement.

It is worth trying to put the debate in some context. Already, the internet has a penetration rate in the UK of around 82 per cent and growing. Diverse news sources are expanding in both predictable and less predictable ways. As we have heard, networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube and blogs are becoming increasingly valuable alternative sources of news information and will no doubt multiply and innovate further. Where traditional media sources are not trusted or are slow to inform, the new media will fill that breach and consumers will happily scan multimedia outlets until they find what they are looking for. At the same time, traditional newspaper readership rates are falling.

That is the media world today, but its future will continue to be fast-flowing and unpredictable. It is this challenge that large and small operators are focused on addressing. In fact, this very unpredictability has been used as an argument for allowing market forces to intervene flexibly and unfettered. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that the domination of TV over the internet as a source of news means that these are not sufficient grounds to duck the plurality test.

Against that backdrop, we are pursuing what I hope is a common goal of a free, well informed, diverse media—or, as my noble friend Lord Myners rather nicely described it, “the blossoming of many flowers”. What does that mean in practice and how can it be delivered? I am grateful to Martin Wolf, writing in the FT, for setting out the issue rather succinctly. He asked:

“Should we view the media market as similar to the market for baked beans? Or should we view it, instead, as being unique?”.

I would hope that his answer is non-contentious when he argued that,

“the media do not just provide information; they mould opinion and so shape the public debate. They are the engine of democracy”—

and as such, of course,

“The ownership of media is a source of power”.

That is the crux of the debate and the heart of the concerns expressed by those who hold the concept of plurality dear.

So far, however, we have failed to engage debate with the key players on this territory. For example, the News Corporation leadership and its supporters are positioning its current BSkyB bid as an everyday commercial decision driven by market forces—although, as my noble friend Lord Gavron made clear, BSkyB would not buy the extra shares if it did not identify a broader advantage to doing so. Its supporters are less keen to acknowledge the enhanced political influence that could flow from the takeover or to promote solutions that could uphold the principles of plurality. My Lords, I would go further. Obviously, we cannot compel global media leaders to admit their influence and power over people’s beliefs and behaviour, but I hope that they will take a more active role in promoting an open debate about responsible media ownership, its capacity and its limitations.

Several important challenges arise from this debate. First, what are the implications of cross-media owners being able to bundle their assets by using, as we have heard, strength in television revenues to prop up failing print revenues in a way that would not be open to competitor newspaper groups? Is this inherently unfair and anti-competitive? Is this, therefore, something in which the Government or the regulator should intervene? I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s views.

Secondly, the key to applying the plurality rule effectively is a strong and independent regulator. Ofcom has earned a widely respected reputation in the industry but, as we have heard from my noble friends Lord Borrie and Lord Smith, the Government continue to talk of reducing its functions to technical and enforcement responsibilities. I hope that this debate has helped to underline the crucial role that Ofcom can play in the future, and I hope that the Minister is able to give some reassurance on that point. What is more, although I am a strong advocate of the European Union, I would have thought it in our interest to have a clear lead from within the UK on the type of free press that we demand within our own territory rather than rely on a ruling from Europe.

Thirdly, one of the current safeguards regarding the quality of TV news broadcasting is the requirement to maintain impartiality. In practice, as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, identified, this has proved to be rather a slippery concept, particularly in the commercial sector, where the choice of stories and their prominence has led to allegations of bias. Can the Minister reassure your Lordships’ House that the concept of impartiality in news broadcasting will be held sacrosanct and its interpretation and application kept under review?

Finally, and most importantly, surely the main worry about any proposed reduction in plurality is that it is a one-way street. There is no reverse gear. If, in the course of a takeover or merger application, commitments are made or reassurances given that persuade the Secretary of State that the public interest is protected, what recourse is there if subsequent evidence shows that this is not so?

For these reasons, we on these Benches argue that extreme caution should be applied to any application that could threaten the principle of plurality. That is why we have been active in calling for Vince Cable to intervene in the specific application from News Corporation to take over control of BSkyB, and why we are concerned about rumours that the Cabinet might be split on today’s announcement. Perhaps the Minister could shed some light on this. Without Vince Cable’s intervention, News Corporation would stand to control up to half of Britain’s television revenues and half its newspaper revenues. Arguably, that would be the single largest concentration of media power in any large democracy and, as my noble friend Lord Puttnam has highlighted, that would certainly be more than would be allowed in Germany, France, Italy or even the great free-market states of the US and Australia.

There are important democratic issues at the heart of this debate. They relate to the kind of society that we want to be, the access to diverse opinions that we demand, how we want to hold our key institutions to account and how we want to balance power among those who seek to shape our society for the future. This country rightly has a reputation for a free and fair press. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure this House that the Conservative Government will take all necessary steps to uphold that.

16:03

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on securing today’s debate. I am most grateful, too, to all noble Lords for their excellent speeches that were filled with so much experience on the importance of plurality in the media. I genuinely believe that this House is at its best in these debates.

The noble Lord has been over many years a strong and vocal advocate for the media in this House, particularly during the passage of the Communications Bill when he was instrumental in extending the power to intervene in mergers on public interest grounds to media mergers.

As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, this debate is particularly timely, with the Business Secretary announcing his intervention in News Corporation’s purchase of BSkyB. I will speak in more detail on this shortly, but I believe it is important to do this even-handedly against the backdrop of the media plurality regime.

Last month I had the pleasure of closing an excellent debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Fowler on the Lords Communications Committee’s report into digital TV and radio switchover. That debate focused on the changing nature of the media in a digital age, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, stressed, and I shall return to it. The media landscape is constantly changing. Its ability to influence the democratic debate and to inform citizens has grown considerably since the old days of Obadiah Slope. Therefore, the principles of plurality and impartiality in TV and radio remain very important. This is reflected in the rules and regulations with which the media ownership is governed. However, noble Lords would agree that there is a balance to be struck between protecting consumers and the democratic debate while promoting competition and supporting innovation. Media ownership rules, while providing a safety net for plurality, are by their definition inflexible. Indeed, it is this inflexibility which can sometimes even result in a reduction in plurality. This has arguably been the situation in local media, where markets have struggled for some time. Indeed, Ofcom’s 2009 review of all media ownership rules concluded that a number of the local and local cross-media ownership rules were no longer necessary and were constraining the local market. We agree with Ofcom’s recommendations and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport recently announced that we shall shortly be bringing forward an order that proposes the removal of a number of local rules. We believe that these changes will have a positive impact on the plurality and diversity of news and information at the local level, which, as I have already said, is an essential part of a democratic society and a healthy media sector.

In addition to the statutory media ownership rules, there is a merger control regime which serves to make certain that mergers do not result in a loss of effective competition in markets. This protects the interests of consumers and promotes business competitiveness and growth. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, that News Corporation will be subject to all regulation, as will anybody else. Responsibility for regulating mergers rests with the independent competition authorities. For UK mergers, that is the Office of Fair Trading and Competition Commission. For larger mergers falling under European merger law, it is the European Commission under DG4. Many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked about bundling. This comes under all these aforesaid institutions.

Merger control is concerned with protecting competition. However, European law also recognises that Governments may take appropriate measures to protect certain other public interests that may arise from a merger. Any such exceptional action is tightly constrained in law and must be justifiable and proportionate. It is not a broad power enabling Governments to interfere as they wish and determine what mergers and acquisitions may or may not be allowed to proceed. Use of the power necessarily involves exercising a degree of discretion and judgment—a role that rightly falls to the Secretary of State rather than a regulator. All decisions are open to legal challenge and must be founded solely on the impact the specific merger might have on a specified public interest consideration. Extraneous factors may not be taken into account.

For mergers involving media enterprises, the public interest must be protected by there being no reduction in standards and quality, and sufficient range of different voices and owners. This complements the separate statutory ownership rules that impose absolute restrictions to prevent unacceptable concentration of media ownership. There is published guidance setting out how the power to intervene in media mergers will be used, and this must be given due regard in reaching decisions on whether to intervene.

As of today, there have been two interventions made in respect of media mergers. The first was made when Sky bought a 17.9 per cent stake in ITV plc. That merger was referred to the Competition Commission on competition grounds and on grounds of a potential impact on the plurality of persons with control of media enterprises. In the event, no action was taken on public interest grounds. However, the Competition Commission found that the transaction resulted in a substantial lessening of competition in the market and required Sky to reduce its shareholding in ITV to below 7.5 per cent.

The second intervention has been made today by the Secretary of State, who has now decided to intervene in respect of News Corporation’s plan to acquire the remaining shares of the BSkyB group. This will give it 100 per cent ownership. This means that Ofcom will provide an initial report by 31 December, examining whether there are substantive reasons to believe the merger may result in outcomes detrimental to the public interest as it relates to ensuring sufficient plurality of media ownership. On receipt of Ofcom’s report, the Secretary of State must then decide whether to refer the merger to the Competition Commission for a more in-depth investigation of the merger’s likely impact on the public interest. Many noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, mentioned that complaints, if any, should be on plurality, which is what we are debating today. The European Commission will examine separately whether the merger raises competition concerns, and take action as appropriate.

I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, that the plurality review will take place concurrently with the competition review. The two are, however, separate. It is possible for one to conclude that no action is required, while the other could conclude that some remedy was necessary.

Although I am sure all noble Lords already know them—as my noble friend Lord Fowler said—I should remind the House of the share of viewing figures on news audiences in multichannel homes. My noble friend Lord Lloyd-Webber referred to this in his entertaining speech. According to Ofcom, in 2009, the BBC news broadcasts averaged 19.6 per cent of the viewing audience, ITV took 14.5 per cent, and Sky News took 0.5 per cent.

I turn to questions from several other noble Lords. The noble Lords, Lord Gavron and Lord Myners, asked about future protection should News Corporation be successful with the merger but subsequently be taken over by an undesirable owner. I reassure noble Lords that the broadcasting Acts contain “fit and proper” tests: Ofcom may not grant a licence to someone unless they are a fit and proper person, and will do all it can to ensure that they do not retain their licence if it ceases to be satisfied that they are a fit and proper person. In addition, there are impartiality requirements that safeguard the information needs of citizens.

The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, was worried about Ofcom. He need not be. Ofcom, with all its responsibilities, will stay.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, and several other noble Lords stressed the importance of the BBC. I agree with their comments that a strong and independent BBC is an essential part of the UK's media industry that is admired around the world. I will report back on his views of the BBC.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister would be kind enough to give the House an assurance that there can be no continuing suspicion that the independence of the BBC will be placed at risk by the Government threatening to put further financial burdens on it, forcing it to bear the costs of services and of the provision of other broadcast-related activities that are currently paid for through government expenditure. A reassurance from the Minister on that point would do a great deal to buttress her defence of the independence of the BBC.

[Baroness Rawlings]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for that question. In fact, I addressed it a couple of weeks ago. He can be totally reassured that the independence of the BBC will be untouched.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made a moving intervention on the importance of plurality, especially in Russia. I very much agree with him.

I turn to the requests for assurances on impartiality made by the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Smith, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. The Government acknowledge the importance of impartiality requirements, especially for PSBs, and consider them an essential part of the regulatory framework, safeguarding the information needs of citizens. There are statutory impartiality obligations in the Communications Act which are supported by Ofcom’s standards code.

Finally, the media sector remains a very fast-moving market—ever more so with digital broadcasting and the internet. We are aware that the sector is in need of a review and intend to start this in the short-to-medium term, with a view to making changes in a new communications Bill. Any new legislation will have to be flexible in order to take account of the fast-changing market. I am sure that we will be watching with keen interest the developments on the News Corporation purchase of BSkyB.

This has been a fascinating debate. I repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and to all noble Lords who have given of their wisdom. In my position, it is right that I have listened very carefully and with great interest. Noble Lords know that I am here to clarify procedure: I am not in a position to take decisions.

I hope that I have spoken clearly and I repeat: all these decisions will be taken in time by the Secretary of State, the Competition Commission, Ofcom and the EU, and I trust that all noble Lords who have spoken respect those bodies.

We will no doubt be debating this issue again but, in the short time available to me today, I hope that I have answered the few questions or points raised. However, where I have been unable to respond directly to the noble Lords, Lord Birt, Lord Hollick, Lord Stevenson and Lord Parekh, I will of course write to them.

16:20

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I know that at this point it is entirely traditional to thank all noble Lords who have spoken, but it is hard for me to express the depth of my gratitude not just for the prescience and clarity of what has been said but for the extraordinary unanimity with which the views of this House have been expressed. It is invidious to pick out one particular person but my heart leapt with joy when the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, used the phrase “significant marker”. The coalition is an interesting experiment in government, and those of us who want it to be seen as a true coalition must be hugely encouraged by what he had to say this afternoon.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. He has been assiduous and utterly consistent in the furrow that he has ploughed. It cannot always have been entirely easy and I take my hat off to him for his consistency and depth of knowledge.

Lastly, in my judgment the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, was typically brilliant. If I may, I would like to take and extend something she said, because it is very important. She mentioned that during the passage of the Communications Bill in 2002 and 2003, we argued long and hard over Ofcom’s principal duties and the order in which they should appear. At the time, the noble Lord, Lord Currie, the chairman-designate of Ofcom, found the notion of juggling the duties towards the consumer and the citizen extremely difficult. Many pages of Hansard were devoted to this discussion and, in the end, it came out just as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said—with the interests of the citizen in first position and the interests of the consumer second.

However, if noble Lords scour those pages, they will find a number of references to something else. It is to the effect that, when these two duties are in conflict, the rights of the citizen shall be paramount. One problem that Ofcom, and indeed the Secretary of State, will face is that there is an inherent conflict and it will not be easy to disentangle. If officials go back and look at those debates, they will see that, despite the discomfort of some, it was made very clear that the rights of the citizen shall be paramount. Under any constitution, written or unwritten, that really should not have been cause for much of an argument. Noble Lords should note also the use of the words “where appropriate” and ask themselves the following question. In what circumstances is the prospect of an ever more dominant media player either desirable or appropriate? I think that this afternoon your Lordships have offered a pretty clear and unequivocal answer to that.

Again, I thank all those who have taken part in the debate and I am sure that we shall be hearing more on this subject.

Motion withdrawn.

Health: Diabetes

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

16:23

Tabled By

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Diabetes UK report Putting Feet First and its implications for the treatment of diabetes.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, as a serial killer, diabetes is getting bolder, accounting over the past year for some 150,000 newly diagnosed diabetics, adding to the 2.8 million known diabetics in the country, with perhaps another half a million undiagnosed. It also absorbs 10 per cent of the NHS budget—that is, some £9 billion a year—as well as immiserating the lives of many of our fellow citizens, often needlessly, for with speedy diagnosis and treatment, the sickening complications of blindness, renal failure and amputation can be forestalled. Diabetics can lead long, healthy and productive lives. Dynamic public health programmes concerned with diet, obesity and exercise are crucial in preventing or staunching the rising incidence of diabetes. More recently, type 2 diabetes among schoolchildren, allied to the rising tide of obesity, places yet another challenge on the scarce resources provided in this direction. Indeed, these are desperate times of pressure on the NHS and of financial retrenchment and cuts.

Some additional spending now on upgrading diabetes therapy will save lives later and money and resources for the NHS in the long run. An example of the success of the long decade of Labour’s investment in the NHS and diabetes care is the increased incidence of retinopathy screening, saving the eyesight of many a diabetic. I hope that that is retained. The recent reform and investment in diabetes management, principally designed to help us to manage our condition, has transformed the lives of diabetics.

I come to some questions for the Minister. There are two discretionary areas at the moment with respect to diabetes care. One area is that of insulin pumps and the allied use of insulin inhalation, which is currently not paid for. I wonder whether he has any comments to make on those points. Something that I have raised in this House before is the essential need for the availability of blood glucose testing strips for diabetics as part of caring for themselves, to ensure that they have good blood sugar levels. Does the Minister recognise that there can be a postcode lottery in the distribution of blood glucose testing strips, with four different health services and different practices throughout the nations and authorities dealing with diabetes?

I ask the Minister, too, about NICE, which recently concluded a consultation on diabetic foot care. I do not know whether he can give us any indication there. He was rather unclear, and I hope he can clear it up today, about the role of NICE, especially as diabetic drugs now form the second largest call on the NHS budget. Good innovations that are cost-benefit assessed must be made available. Would he comment, too, on the flanking policies of the Government? I give the example of sport for young people, which will help to set back the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. We need more of the self-management programmes that I referred to and more education of diabetics and diabetic professionals to ensure that they are helpful. Would he say more, too, about whether the focus of the previous Government will be retained on children, obesity in women—typically in pregnancy, when they are diabetic—but also the immigrant population, where there is a higher incidence?

Can the Minister reflect on our colleagues in the European Union? The Federation of European Nurses tells us that the incidence of diabetes in the United Kingdom is, surprisingly, recorded at 4 per cent, while in Germany it is 13 per cent and in most other countries typically 9 per cent. I do not know whether the data are collected inaccurately, and perhaps he would look into that, but we need better information in that area. Would he also note that we have had no pan-European research since 1999 on the cost of diabetes? There is so much that we should be doing with our European colleagues to do something about that.

My superb NHS diabetes care by outstanding healthcare professionals in Chester and Liverpool has kept me active and on my feet as a type 1 diabetic of some 41 years’ standing, and it is to that I now return. Diabetic foot care deserves the same focus as actions on diabetic retinopathy. It may not be very sexy but we need health professionals to come into this area. The 2010 DoH review, Six Years On: Delivering the Diabetes National Service Framework, says that in the key area of feet we still have poor clinical outcomes, resulting in amputations, extended lengths of stay in hospitals and concludes that we need effective management of diabetic foot care to reduce expenditure and amputations.

Last year, Diabetes UK published an excellent document, Putting feet first, summarising the optimal management of available resources to minimise the manifold complications associated with the diabetic foot. Diabetic foot problems are the most common cause of non-traumatic limb amputation in the United Kingdom. Some 100 are performed each week. Neuropathy, peripheral arterial disease, foot deformity, infections, ulcers and gangrene are just some of the nasty complications of diabetes.

In addition to the financial implications of the NHS—out-patient costs, increased bed occupancy and prolonged stays in hospital—diabetic foot problems adversely affect patients’ quality of life, reduce mobility which in turn leads to loss of employment and depression among other social and health consequences.

As outlined in Putting feet first, pivotal to diabetic foot care is, first, fast action within four hours of diagnosis. Then the second period, the following four to 48 hours, is crucial to saving the threatened foot. Delay in diagnosis and management increases the risk of amputation, morbidity and mortality. The third period is the continuing foot surveillance which is so vital for keeping us on our feet.

However, catastrophic trauma need not happen. Let us take peripheral arterial disease where some 100,000 people are diagnosed each year. Vascular specialists need to be swiftly available and treatment by appropriate technologies—the use of balloons or stents to widen or relieve arteries—can prevent the devastation of foot amputation. Unfortunately, the UK has one of the poorest rates of lower limb revascularisation in Europe. To avoid this, we need to encourage the proliferation of local vascular networks and I ask the Minister whether he has anything to say on that. Will the Government implement Putting feet first, emphasising the vital need to create active local networks of key health specialists working with others to ensure speed of response and quality follow-up?

I highlight one of the many useful suggestions in the pamphlet which has been put to me by my own hospital orthotist expert. She tells me that huge benefits are to be derived from examining all new in-patients’ feet. Such inspections typically uncover hidden foot problems, as well as undiagnosed diabetics whose problems may thereby be quickly treated. Helpful, too, are the regular ankle/brachial pressure index tests as a predictor of future PAD. Resources are of course the nub of the problem. I ask the Minister whether he will provide the resources and trained staff to enact the strategy outlined in Putting feet first. How many practice nurses are trained in diabetes management—the orthotists, chiropodists, specialist shoemakers, diabetologists and vascular cardiologists as well as specialist lower limb surgeons?

I want to say a final word on the continuing care of diabetics with foot problems. As I speak to you, I am wearing fashionable orthopaedic shoes made for me by experts who form part of the clinical team at Liverpool’s Broad Green Hospital foot unit. These shoes offer vital protection for my feet, moulded as they are to the ever-changing shape of my feet to preclude the onset of ulcers as a result of my diabetes-associated neuropathy—that is, I have no feeling in the nerves of my feet which warn me of a loose stone doing untold damage to my foot tissue. However, these shoes are expensive—perhaps £500 a pair—and unsurprisingly rationed on the NHS. But these shoes keep me and thousands of other diabetics protected and active in the community. They are an economic investment of the kind with which the Government must wrestle. The Government should heed George Bernard Shaw’s wise aphorism and great foresight:

“I marvel that society would pay a surgeon a large sum of money to remove a person’s leg—but nothing to save it”.

Finally, I welcome to the debate not only the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who has recently taken over as chief executive of Diabetes UK, but also the Minister, who I know will give us a sympathetic reply.

16:34

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for securing this debate on a very important health issue, and I also pay tribute to him for the eloquent way in which he has shared his extensive experience and knowledge.

We all know of someone affected by diabetes. Those alarmingly high numbers of people who are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes are over three times more likely to go on to develop serious complications of diabetes which include stroke, kidney damage and heart disease. People living in deprived areas who are socially disadvantaged are two and a half times more likely to develop diabetes. They are more likely to have problems with late diagnosis and have poor lifestyles and poor care, which often compound the difficulties in managing their condition. That, of course, includes poor foot care.

The overwhelming evidence demonstrates that reducing health inequalities in deprived areas and for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those with mental illness, would almost certainly lead to more prevention and better management of diabetes. I want to talk about how this condition disproportionately affects people from black and minority ethnic communities, which was mentioned earlier.

Diabetes is increasingly recognised as a public health problem of potentially enormous proportions. This poses significant clinical and economic challenges for the NHS. According to UK studies, the prevalence of diabetes is significantly higher in some minority ethnic groups, which are six times more likely to develop diabetes. Figures suggest that up to 20 per cent of people from south Asian backgrounds and 17 per cent of people who are black African-Caribbean are living with type 2 diabetes, compared with some 3 per cent of the general population. I know from my own background that people from the Turkish community are also at greater risk of developing diabetes. Both my parents developed type 2 diabetes in later years and I confess that that has given me greater first-hand experience in caring for someone with diabetes and the importance, which I never realised before, of good foot care and healthcare generally.

Whereas within the general population type 2 diabetes usually occurs over the age of 40, people from black and minority ethnic communities can get it from the age of around 25. Getting treatment early can reduce the risk of developing complications such as stroke, blindness, heart disease and amputations. There are a number of factors why it impacts disproportionately on black and minority ethnic communities, which include genetic differences in how the body processes fat, but poor knowledge of services, poor housing and social deprivation are huge factors. I was pleased to read how in some parts of the UK with significant numbers of ethnic minority communities, the health services are responding and proactively working with organisations such as Diabetes UK to address some of these unmet needs.

For example, in the past few months NHS Haringey, in partnership with Diabetes UK, has developed the community champions training courses. People from minority ethnic communities, health trainers and religious and community leaders attend sessions about what type 2 diabetes is, who is at risk, signs and symptoms, myths and misconceptions—of which there are many—complications and the NHS services that are available. After qualifying, the community champions then spread the word about diabetes in their local communities by organising stands, talks and healthy-living days. To date, more than 30 community leaders, nutritionists and NHS health trainers in Haringey have qualified as diabetes community champions and they are keen to raise awareness at community events^. Several more training projects are planned in other parts of London. When I was working in the NHS in north London in the 1990s, projects on simple foot care such as nail clipping for older people were done at daycare and health centres. They were simple and cost-effective, and helped many vulnerable people with their foot care.

We know that prevention is often better than cure. That is why we need a more consistent public health strategy across areas with the greatest need and risk. Early diagnosis of those at greatest risk and better management would prevent the acute conditions that far too many people go on to develop, which result in greater risk to the individual and their families, the need for more intensive health services and hospital admission.

The problems are often not just about diagnosis, but about continuing care and managing the condition after diagnosis. Unfortunately, people from deprived backgrounds, including people from ethnic minorities, are less likely to have annual or regular health checks for blood pressure and cholesterol, for example, and, worryingly, many primary care trusts have not had strategies in place to deal with this.

I would like to see more consistent work to raise the profile of diabetes care within minority ethnic groups; strengthen leadership at national and local levels, particularly with GPs; improve practices and change general attitudes through the delivery and uptake of effective and appropriate training; and support a wider community development approach by going out into communities to listen to and involve people in the pathways of their diabetes care. The level and type of services should not necessarily rely on where you live or how involved your GP may be. There should be consistency and equal access to support and services regardless of your background or where you live.

16:41

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for putting down this Question for debate today. He is well known in this House and elsewhere for his campaigning for greater understanding of and improved care for people with diabetes. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on her appointment as chief executive of Diabetes UK and I look forward to her contribution later today. I should like to declare an interest: I have type 2 diabetes. I am a member of the charity Diabetes UK. I support its activities and the campaigns it undertakes.

As my noble friend Lord Harrison said, more than 2.8 million people in the UK have diabetes, of whom 300,000 have type 1 diabetes and 2.5 million have type 2 diabetes. That equates to almost one in 20 of the UK population being diagnosed with this condition. Add to that the estimated 500,000 people who have undiagnosed diabetes and you see the truly worrying numbers we have to deal with.

The report that my noble friend Lord Harrison refers to specifically looks at the commissioning of specialist services for the management and prevention of diabetic foot disease in hospital. It is an excellent piece of work and the authors and the working group are to be congratulated on its production. Diabetic foot complications leading to nerve damage, foot ulcers and amputations are, in the majority of cases, avoidable with good care and proper management. That is obviously better for the patient and for the NHS. Amputations clearly have a major impact on a person's quality of life, and there is also the cost to the NHS of the amputation and the ongoing aftercare. Noble Lords who have read the report will have seen in the appendix the poster setting out best practice in integrated healthcare in hospital and the information card for people with the condition.

Noble Lords will also be aware that foot disease is not the only complication that people with diabetes have to tackle. Other long-term complications include how diabetes affects your eyes, heart, kidneys and nerves. I am very lucky. My care at the Morden Hill surgery in Lewisham, led by my GP, Dr Gostling, is excellent. But all too often the reports are that it is a bit of a lottery out there and care varies tremendously from place to place. This is a truly serious condition for patients, the NHS and the country. Parliament and government working with health professionals and patients have to make significant strides in the coming years to deal with this growing problem. The cost to the patients and their families, the NHS and the whole country is far too great.

As I said before, with good care, this is a wholly manageable and controllable condition. People with the condition of course have to take responsibility for their own diabetes control. Noble Lords may find it hard to believe, but I like the odd chocolate bar or Jaffa Cake at home watching the TV, and that is fine, but I am working to bring my condition under control and to improve my own health. Patients need ongoing support to help them to take control of the condition, as well as access to cutting-edge treatments, as they are developed, to deal with the many complications that they have to face: the regular visits to the practice nurse, the annual eye screening, and the advice from the dietician about what to eat and what to eat a little bit less of.

In his response, I hope the Minister can give the House a commitment to continuing a regular series of meetings and regular dialogue with Diabetes UK and other diabetes charities such as Silver Star, of which my right honourable friend Mr Keith Vaz, the Member of Parliament for Leicester East, is the founding patron. Such a commitment cannot just be between the department and professionals, however; it must include Ministers engaging in the discussion and the full involvement of people with diabetes.

In conclusion, I again thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for tabling this Question for debate.

16:45

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on securing this debate on a topic that is so important to so many people. Like many noble Lords present, I am a diabetic, so I begin by thanking the diabetic team at St Thomas's Hospital, who have done so much to help me and from whom I have learnt a great deal about diabetic management.

Whenever I talk to some of my American friends about how our NHS has supported me in this regard, they agree that we have a wonderful and cost-effective system of providing healthcare to all our citizens, and they share my amazement at the hostility shown by some in the United States this week to the principle of universal healthcare and the option of the public provision of health services. These are things that we are right to regard as hallmarks of a civilised society, so we are rightly very proud of the NHS in the United Kingdom.

I want to use this debate to raise a number of points about the current NHS reorganisation that may be of concern to the millions of people in this country who know that they have diabetes, the millions who either have it but for whom it has not yet been diagnosed or who may develop it in the future, many people who have experience of diabetes in their families, and the health professionals who support them all.

The stark fact that Diabetes UK has drawn to our attention in its report Putting Feet First is that 100 people a week in the UK have a limb amputated as a result of diabetes. The costs of these amputations, which can be measured in very many ways, are very large. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, referred to the total costs of treating people with diabetes, which amount to approximately 10 per cent of the NHS budget. And the prevalence of diabetes is growing rapidly, so all issues concerned with it must be addressed very seriously.

On the planned NHS reorganisation, I recently spoke to many NHS professionals who say that the advent of GP commissioning in particular both provides opportunities for and threatens better provision of support for people with diabetes. To promote best practice, when there could be a greater number of GP consortia than the current number of PCTs, will make information-sharing between consortia absolutely essential. We know that there is already a problem in that knowledge of the issues about diabetes and best practice vary significantly between GP practices. It will therefore be very important in future that all GP consortia are properly aware of the sort of issues raised in the Diabetes UK report if best practice is to be spread and every GP practice is able to respond appropriately.

The new consortia may need to work together along the lines on which many good primary care trusts work now, otherwise knowledge and efficiencies may be lost. I should be particularly grateful if the Minister could comment on how relevant information and best practice will be shared among the GP consortia in future. In the new arrangements, there may need to be incentives and guidance for GPs who are not experts in diabetic care to involve other health professionals in this aspect of the care of their patients. This is something that a GP recognised in my own practice when I was fortunate enough to be referred to St Thomas's. We need to ensure that the new arrangements do not provide disincentives for such referrals when they are desirable. In funding arrangements, there needs to be recognition that diabetes is significantly more prevalent in certain communities—often those that tend to be most unhealthy generally—and in many ethnic minority populations, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, has just referred.

The provision of insulin pumps varies greatly across the country and the United Kingdom lags behind many other countries in such provision. I believe that funding arrangements should recognise that there may be a much greater need for such provision in some areas. There may be significant long-term savings overall to be looked at because of the cost of poor control and diabetic complications, such as amputations and blindness.

We need to make sure that all the consortia recognise the value of diabetic specialist nurses. A specialist team can be the catalyst and driver for improved services and for involving patients properly. The consortia need to be informed about what specialist diabetes services and expertise are available to them. They need to make sure that diagnosis remains a key area for improvement. As Diabetes UK states:

“The delivery of high quality specialist foot care is an essential component of every local diabetes service”.

The human and financial costs of failing to do these things will be very great.

16:51

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I am lucky in the sense that, out of the blue, two friends wanted to see me. They provided me with information which I believe, when I read it into the record, will be helpful. In declaring an interest, I am a type 2 diabetic and my son is type 1, so we are familiar with the problems. Looking at the speakers list for today’s debate—I congratulate sincerely the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on securing it—and noting all the bodies which contributed to the report, I think that some may ask how the Government will respond. I know how the Government will respond. They will say, “We welcome the report”. That is because it is all good news.

The front page of the report lists the many organisations with sympathy for and knowledge of this matter. They have combined, which in itself is quite a feat. Today, the Minister, who I know is sympathetic on all issues which affect people, has been given an opportunity to put his case, but he will have problems. I will concentrate my comments on obesity which clearly is stark among the younger generation. There are the issues of money and will, as well as the question of how can we deal with it.

Camden is used as an illustration. It is seeking to invite bids for weight management programmes for children between the ages of two and 18. That is laudable. In its publicity, its target groups include:

“Young carers; Homeless children: Children who are not in education; People from low socioeconomic groups; People living in the 4 priority wards: Kilburn, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, and St Pancras and Summers Town; People of Irish, Black African, Black Caribbean and South East Asian backgrounds”.

From our knowledge, we know that all those groups are in danger of contracting certain aspects of diabetes. The document I have states:

“The maximum value of the contract is stated to be just in excess of £2m”.

We are not talking about small beer because £2 million is a large sum, but it is what the PCT in Camden is willing to put forward for this.

The worry is this. In children there is a weight measurement nexus, which is to the good. It starts when they are in the infant class and goes on until the changes are reported on in year six, which is the last year that they are in primary school. The problem is that, unless I am misinformed, the parent and child as the result of this weight measurement plan are meant to attend guidance meetings outside the school day. The document from Camden I have seen states that the programme will be delivered in community halls and other places. Single parents and others in the categories I have mentioned will be invited to give up their time, to bring their child along, to listen to advice and try to do things to improve the situation. But they have not got the time because they have other pressures on them. One might say that surely the greatest pressure is the future benefit of their child, but this would be much easier to deliver in the school day. If what we are after is value for money, we ought to have a programme of that kind.

I also have some information on a story that all noble Lords will have heard about, that of the mother of the five year-old child who appeared on BBC television news having received a letter saying that her child was overweight. The point to be made here is that she said that it would have been much better for her to have been given advice through a direct chat with a nurse than through a letter from a faceless central trust. There is a great deal more that we could say about that, and I am delighted to see my noble friend Lady Young. I wish her well and she will be heartened by the number of friends she will find in this House as she pursues her new interests.

This is not a knocking debate, but one for the Government to tell us what they are doing and listen to the problems as we see them. That will assist the Minister in delivering what has been in the national programme for years and years. The experience of many people, both in this Chamber and outside, can be tapped. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the case that has been made.

16:56

[Viscount Falkland]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for the chance to speak on what is really a very important health matter. I am a type 2 diabetic of 10 years’ standing. Like many men, I hid my head in the sand for a while, although I knew that something was wrong. Curiously enough—it was actually 11 years ago—the condition would manifest itself most strongly when I was speaking in your Lordships’ House: I could not see as well, I used to feel that my voice was failing and I would feel an enormous thirst come upon me. Eventually another Peer asked me whether I was all right. He turned out to be another diabetic—he is still with us today, alive and kicking—and, having spoken to me at lunchtime, he made an appointment for me to see his doctor at 4 o’clock that afternoon. I went to that appointment and I was in a clinic by the next day, where the principal doctor dealing with me said, “It’s a good thing you have come, because things aren’t very good and you are about one Coca-Cola away from a coma”. Diabetes is an insidious disease because generally you feel perfectly well, apart from under certain stressful conditions. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his actions, although I have not been able to repay him other than by suggesting that he might like to move to France because he was unhappy with his rubbish collections. Apparently, in France his rubbish is collected on six days out of seven. I feel that that is a poor exchange, but I was glad to be able to do something for him.

I was on ordinary medication for half the time before it became necessary for me to depend on insulin and, during that time, I was lucky enough to receive expert advice from health professionals on how to deal with my condition. I have become increasingly aware from people to whom I have spoken that diabetics are in a kind of a club. For instance, the man who collects my rubbish that will not be collected by the local council has diabetes. He is an ex-cruiserweight boxer, whom I like very much, but even though he has been a man of physical action he does not understand how the body works. His doctor has not told him why his metabolism has changed—why he cannot metabolise carbohydrates and so on—even though he is an intelligent man. Broadly, in a population in which diabetes is becoming an increasing problem, far too little information is given by the authorities on the basics of how the body works and why the body might not be working normally. It is one of the wonders of the human body that it can do all the things that we know that it has to do. With diabetes, it is rather like moving from an automatic car to having to do everything manually. The control of diabetes is extremely difficult, so people need education and training to deal with it. I know that the National Health Service does not have the time—I am a great supporter of the NHS, which is second to none in dealing with serious conditions—but, where a serious illness is some way off but it is known that a present condition could lead to such illness, I think that there are serious deficiencies in the NHS.

Happily, over the 10 years in which I have had diabetes there have been a number of developments, many of them from the United States. I know that the United States has problems with healthcare, but most of the developments in technology—pumps, monitors and so on—come from there. Much of the development is costly but it is extremely effective. For example, the pumps that are now available for children with diabetes 1 are minute, and they do not have to inject. There has been an absolutely transformation of that scene.

I have managed to keep reasonable, but not perfect, control of my diabetes. The condition can lead to issues with your feet, nerve endings, eyes and so on, but if you do not control it and you do not have regular check-ups to make sure that what is called technically your HbA1c, which is inescapable, is under control—any doctor can tell from a blood test whether it is or not—you will be in serious trouble. The problem with the National Health Service is in part due to the short-termism that exists in Britain in many other respects. I have spoken about this before. Quite naturally, the NHS is concerned about costs, but the expense of dealing with diabetes is all about cost-benefit analysis. For example, to give a pump to a person with an HbA1c in excess of 9 per cent or 10 per cent, which is very dangerous but can easily be dealt with by some of the new technologies, costs about £5,000—the price will probably fall—but for someone who is almost bound one morning to wake up with a red mist in front of his eyes, or his feet not working, or a pain in his chest that is then diagnosed as heart disease, a proper cost-benefit analysis would show that, if the NHS paid for the pump, it would save money in the long run by preventing the person from developing these serious conditions. That is the serious point that I wish to make. It is curious how you can get the serious point over quite quickly when you have nine minutes, whereas it is very difficult when you have only three.

Diabetes is generally a self-treating condition, on which you know more than your doctor—although not all doctors. I asked a question in the House as a result of a disagreement that I had had with one of the doctors in my practice. It was answered by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I was very grateful to her, because she gave me the answer that I wanted to hear, which was not in accordance with what the doctor had said. He had said in sum that people’s HbA1c was generally more satisfactory when they never tested themselves, to which I had said, “That’s nonsense. You’re talking from a cost point of view, because you think the National Health Service shouldn’t pay for the strips and so on”. The answer from the noble Baroness and from NICE was in my favour. It was published, quite wisely, in the specialist diabetes press. There is a lot of difference between relying on your doctor in the normal way—doctors always do their best—and learning about the thing yourself, dealing with it, getting expert advice and going for tests at the right intervals and so on. I hope that the noble Earl will be able tell us when he replies to this debate that the Government have it in mind to approve that.

Not coming from an ethnic community, I did not realise that only 3 per cent of the general population have my condition, but I am proud that I share it with all kinds of people from the different ethnic communities in our country. I know that Indian friends of mine have it, particularly in the feet—I do not know why that should be so. Diet is a very important factor. I can assure the noble Lord opposite that chocolate—as long it is 85 per cent cocoa and he has only three or four squares—is very good for him and he can have it every day. However, he should not have a piece of white bread every day, which is much worse than a bar of chocolate. Having had to spend money on some of the new technology, I have a gadget that measures my blood sugar and shows it on a graph. One piece of toast has a dramatic effect; four squares of chocolate is negligible. One can learn from the new technologies.

I have come to the end of my time, although I could go on for ever. I hope that the noble Lord will introduce a debate on this subject again, because there is much more to say about it. More education and more awareness on the part of the Government and the National Health Service of the cost of not dealing with the disease in its early stages will have immense benefits, not just for individuals but for the state and the economy.

17:06

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

My Lords, I add to the thanks expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for giving us this opportunity to talk about a subject as important as diabetes and foot care. I also thank other noble Lords for the broad sweep of diabetic issues that they have raised today. I did not quite expect chocolate to come into it, but the sweep was wide. I should declare an interest as the new chief executive of Diabetes UK. This is day four, so noble Lords should not expect too much of me at the moment.

When I was swotting for the interview for the job, one of the heart-stopping statistics that I learnt was that, every week, 100 people have a foot amputated as a result of diabetic complications. Even worse, 85 of those amputations are entirely preventable. The report and the issue that we are debating today are therefore extremely important for a variety of reasons.

Rather than go through the report’s recommendations, I shall highlight some of the principles. It is clear that early detection of potential foot complications, not only in patients with diabetes but in other patients where diabetes may as yet be undiagnosed, is vital on admission to hospital and throughout a hospital stay. It needs a proper history to be taken and a proper examination.

We also need to make sure that the threat of diseases of the foot is recognised by some of the key, non-specialist healthcare professionals. As the rise in the number of people with diabetes or potential diabetes is truly epidemic, we need to make sure that health professionals across the piece, not just the specialists, are capable of recognising complications before they get active. Once there is active foot disease, there needs to be a referral to a specialist team or to a professional with specialist skills. Last but not least, the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, rightly said that this is a disease where the patient needs to be in the driving seat. People need to be at the centre of their own care and to have access to information and support from specialist teams. One in three people with diabetes is currently unaware of the potential problems that they could have with foot complications, which is a poor performance figure.

Those are the sorts of things we need to bear in mind, but I will talk about that particular complication of diabetes as just one of those indicative of a much wider issue in the care and management of diabetic problems in this country. As many noble Lords have said, diabetes is a big problem. It consumes 10 per cent of the National Health Service budget; that is, £9 billion. It is also a growing problem, as we have 2.8 million people with diabetes and a large number of people as yet undiagnosed. There is the potential for it to rise very shortly to 4 million people with diabetes in this country. Foot problems and amputations are only some of the complications. Others, which have been referred to, are blindness, stroke and heart disease. Those represent a huge cost, not just to the NHS but to the economy, because people with severe complications may be less able to work and more dependent on benefits and social care, apart from the huge human cost and misery that we are talking about.

We need to ensure that we somehow enable that 10 per cent of the NHS budget, which might have to become more, to be spent at an early stage in the pathway for diabetes—at a point where the prevention of type 2 diabetes and of complications in all types of diabetes can take place, avoiding the complications further down the line that are such a huge cost economically, socially and in terms of heartache. That needs collaboration between the commissioners of services, the providers of services and patients and their families but there is lots of guidance around; we are not short of guidance on what good practice might look like.

There is, for example, NICE guidance on the prevention of foot complications. Their subsequent management is currently being consulted on. NICE is going to work on quality standards for diabetes as one of the 150 quality standards that the coalition Government have asked it to develop. I gather that the diabetes standard will be an early one among those. Guidance for commissioners already exists, which Diabetes UK worked on some years ago. We are currently working on a kind of checklist for what an integrated quality diabetic service would look like. There is plenty of advice around and nobody is in any doubt about what the standard of the service should be. The problem is that its implementation is very patchy.

Diabetes UK, in the context of the NHS reforms, is very much going to put its shoulder to the wheel, as it were. Many things which the charity currently does will fit well with the principles of the health service reforms. There is considerable information and support for patients and their families and guidance for commissioners, as I said—we will be inputting very actively to the national standard-setting process. There is also our volunteer network, which will be active locally in fora where advice and decision-making about diabetes is taking place, both at the commissioner and provider level. We will very much want to work locally with the commissioners as the GP consortia emerge. I share the views of other noble Lords; we need to have larger commissioning consortia rather than smaller. I hope that we can learn from history, as the primary care trusts had to be clumped up and merged because they were too small to do a decent job. Let us not forget that lesson by having consortia that are too small. Another job that Diabetes UK will willingly turn to is monitoring the quality of services being received locally and their implementation nationally. We are very much there to play our part.

I want to ask the Minister two questions. First, how can the Government ensure that there is a change in the pattern of investment in diabetes care, to make sure that the services for early detection and for preventing complications are up front, as it were, and that the huge downstream costs of complications are not using up the NHS budget for diabetes inappropriately as well as generating the social costs and the personal heartache of complications?

Secondly—this reiterates the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—can the Minister let us know how the new arrangements with GP commissioning consortia will be able to ensure that people across the country with diabetes get the recommended standard of care, irrespective of where they live? We hear about localism and less central direction being very much a principle of the reformed NHS. I will not talk about the postcode lottery as a risk, although I have heard the phrase “postcode democracy”. We ought to hold the Minister’s feet to the fire to explain that before long.

I look forward very much to my new role and to hearing what the Minister has to say about this topic, which is hugely important not just for people with diabetes and their families but for the national economy.

17:16

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Harrison on initiating this debate and on his tireless work on behalf of those with diabetes. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on her new post. She is indeed a multi-purpose Baroness. When I first got to know her she was working on behalf of birds. Then she seemed to cover the whole environment, with a quick diversion into health regulation. I am sure that she will now hold the Minister’s feet to the fire on behalf of those with diabetes. We can indeed look forward to that.

By the time we get to the point where someone with diabetes has had a limb amputated or is in serious trouble with their feet, we have failed them at several levels. In two-thirds of the 2.5 million people with type 2 diabetes, the disease was preventable, which means that prevention still has a long way to go in terms of smoking, diet, alcohol consumption and lack of exercise. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, said, prevention is vital. My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton was right to look to the future in terms of tackling obesity in children. It seems crucial that any new regime which the Government introduce should have at its heart prevention and the levers that will make prevention work.

Let us consider, for example, the issue of smoking. We know that things such as the smoking regulatory regime are often—pardon the pun—slow burning. However, over time smoking must become something that people simply will not and do not do. In this regard, can the Minister confirm that the tobacco regulations on vending machines and points of sale are still on track? I keep hearing rumours that the decision is being reopened by the Minister’s colleagues in BIS. Perhaps the Minister could take the opportunity to inform the House of the situation, because smoking is a major contributory factor in diabetes.

We know, and it has been said today, that foot problems are one of the many complications associated with diabetes and the most common cause of non-traumatic limb amputation in the UK. As many noble Lords have said, it is a shocking statistic that 100 people a week have limbs amputated as a result of these complications with their disease. I am also shocked—although I suppose I should have known this, having been a health Minister—that the tariff system pays for a limb to be amputated but not for it to be saved. I ask the Minister to explore that and what can be done about it.

As with many chronic conditions, there are several co-morbidities that often accompany diabetes. If people who have diabetes and those associated with them do not have access to accurate information about the management of the condition, support in managing it and knowledge about what to look out for, the NHS will have failed them in both the provision of information and the management of their condition from the outset. It is very important that the Minister gives us an idea of how the proposed information initiatives involved in the reorganisation of the NHS will deliver this important aspect of diabetes care.

We should emphasise the importance of the need to invest in prevention and the earlier stages of diabetes management in order to prevent a deterioration of health that leads to devastating complications such as ulcers, limb amputation and blindness. If it is the case that 10 per cent of NHS funding is spent on diabetes care and that this is set to rise because of ever-increasing numbers of people with diabetes in our ageing population, it seems absolutely self-evident—as many noble Lords have said—that preventing people developing diabetes and providing quality care and support for those with diabetes are essential to reducing the far-reaching emotional and physical consequences of foot disease, amputation and other issues.

I was also startled to learn about the cost of the specialist shoes—to be absolutely honest, I wondered whether you could not buy a pair of Jimmy Choo’s for that. I have never bought a pair myself, but it seems to me that that sort of comparison illustrates the absurd world in which we live.

We also know that the presence of specialist nurses and tailored care for diabetics is very cost effective. I agree with the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, on the cost-benefit analysis of this. There is anxiety regarding the proposed reorganisation of the NHS vis-à-vis the community of specialists and the expertise that goes with them. Therefore, like other noble Lords, I seek comfort that, as with many other long-term conditions, we will not lose the growing expertise in this field. We do not want to have to reinvent that expertise when the dust settles around the new arrangements in the NHS.

We have to ask whether people who find themselves in danger of losing a limb or part of one will inevitably do so. Indeed, Professor Cliff Shearman, president of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland, said:

“Amputation is a devastating occurrence. It is estimated that in some groups of patients, 85% of amputations can be avoided. Early recognition of the patient together with early involvement of a multidisciplinary team can reduce amputation”.

Those comments make the fact that 100 people a week are losing a limb very shocking.

The issue is not a lack of available treatment, as my noble friend Lord Harrison said, because the appropriate technologies are available now. These technologies are used in the NHS but patients would benefit from having access to a multidisciplinary team to make timely decisions on the best course of action to prevent amputation, or minimise the extent of amputation if it is necessary. We fail if those multidisciplinary teams are not activated and available.

Therefore, I conclude by asking the Minister how the Government can ensure that both the teams and the technology are available and funded. It must surely be more cost effective to deliver prevention in order to minimise the number of people who present with diabetes, to deliver information so that they can manage their condition, to provide properly resourced clinical management of their condition and to make a serious effort to avoid the final and horrible fate of the loss of a limb.

17:23

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, very much indeed for tabling this Question, and indeed other noble Lords for their contributions on such a very important aspect of care for people with diabetes.

As we have heard, the latest figures suggest that 3 million people—about 7 per cent of the adult population—now live with the disease. Many experience severe complications, most notably heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, loss of sight and limb problems. The growing numbers with the disease are a prelude to many more suffering the worst ravages of the condition. Already the human cost is truly awful. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, whom I warmly congratulate on her appointment, gave us the figures on amputations resulting from complications in diabetes, making it the single most common cause of non-traumatic limb amputation. As she reminded us, this will inevitably have a major impact on a patient’s life. They may lose their job, their income and status, have reduced mobility and suffer from depression. However, as the noble Baroness rightly said, with the right care, it is estimated that four out of five amputations could be prevented. Eighty-four per cent of all major amputations in diabetes are preceded by ulceration, with at least 49,000 people developing foot ulcers every year.

Regular foot reviews with advice on prevention and prompt treatment of ulcers are essential. If identified early enough, foot complications can be treated effectively. Therefore, it is vital that every person with diabetes has access to a multidisciplinary specialist diabetes foot team as soon as they need it. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was right in all she said in that connection. Dr Rowan Hillson, National Clinical Director for Diabetes, considers diabetic foot care services and the prevention of amputations as a major priority.

The Department of Health welcomes the publication of Putting Feet First, produced in partnership between our service improvement team, NHS Diabetes, and Diabetes UK. The report highlights the importance of proper management of diabetic foot disease. The evidence shows that the introduction of multidisciplinary specialist diabetes foot teams has led to a significant reduction in the number of amputations.

In addition to the consequences to a patient’s quality of life, there is a significant financial impact on the NHS. This gets to the heart of the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about how we can afford this. Diabetic foot care is part of the QIPP long-term conditions programme, which is the department’s programme to improve the quality of NHS care, while making substantial savings which can be ploughed back into the NHS. By reducing unnecessary amputations, money is saved—the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, was absolutely right—not only on the clinical procedure, but on the longer term rehabilitation and social care costs.

Reducing the amputation rate by half would save the NHS more than £10 million a year. The prevention and good management of foot ulcers could save considerably more. NHS Diabetes is working on the economic case for improving foot care services. It is currently facilitating 10 local projects specifically focused on improving foot care services. In addition and in partnership with several other organisations, NHS Diabetes has published a commissioning guide for diabetic foot care services. This responds to the need for nationally recognised minimum skills for the commissioning of diabetes foot care services. This will stand the GPs in good stead when they come to commission services for diabetes.

A number of Peers spoke about prevention. The NHS is starting to focus on preventing foot complications. In some parts of England, the amputation rate has been drastically reduced by establishing integrated multidisciplinary specialist foot care teams. In particular, Ipswich and the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust now have amputation rates among the lowest in Europe. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, was right to say that the NHS must do more to embed this approach across the country.

The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked about NICE. I am pleased to tell him that NICE is finalising guidelines, to be published in March next year, on the in-patient management of people with diabetic foot ulcers and infection. I can reassure the noble Lord on a more general level about diabetic medication. Prior to the introduction of value-based pricing, which is what we wish to move to, we will continue to ensure that the NHS funds drugs that have been positively appraised by NICE. I assure the House that NICE will continue to play an important role in advising on quality standards of treatment in the NHS—including after the introduction of value-based pricing.

Last year, the National Diabetes Inpatient Audit revealed that one-in-30 patients with diabetes in hospital developed a preventable foot ulcer. NHS Diabetes is making vigorous efforts to ensure that every in-patient with diabetes has a foot check and appropriate preventive care. We will repeat this audit of diabetes care in hospitals next week. More than 90 per cent of acute trusts in England will participate. The audit includes questions on foot checks, the management of complications, prescribing and patient experience. The results will help us to identify the places that need to improve and drive forward change in those areas. NICE clinical guidelines recommend annual foot screening for all people with diabetes and the targeting of prevention and treatment to those at high risk. We will continue to work to ensure that these guidelines are reflected by PCTs when they commission diabetes services.

As many noble Lords pointed out, patients have a role to play. They must learn to manage their condition effectively, and there is strong evidence that a healthy lifestyle—maintaining a healthy weight and so on—along with good treatment can prevent disability and reduce mortality. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, was right again when he said that education is key to empowering patients to be partners in their own care. NICE has highlighted the importance of structured education in supporting people with diabetes to manage their condition. However, education across the country is patchy, so we are working with NHS Diabetes to see how we can spread these education programmes more widely across the NHS.

The noble Lord also mentioned diabetic retinopathy, which is another serious, preventable complication that can cause blindness. Screening is the responsibility of the national screening committee. Ninety-five per cent of people with diabetes were offered screening in the 12 months to June this year. The department is supporting the minority of primary care trusts that have not offered screening to all people with diabetes, to ensure that they do so as quickly as possible.

I could speak for some time about the importance of early diagnosis. The best way to avoid the complications of diabetes is to prevent people from getting it in the first place. We are committed to doing far more to prevent diabetes wherever possible. Here, I refer to type 2 diabetes, which often is related to obesity and lack of exercise. Around 80 per cent of cases could have been prevented if the person had led a healthier life. Much of that has to do with improving the general health of the population and educating people about good and healthy ways of living.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, spoke about the need to pick up undiagnosed cases of diabetes. She is of course correct. The NHS health check programme will play a significant role in the early detection of diabetes. As noble Lords will know, the health check is a risk assessment and management programme for everyone between the ages of 40 and 74. It will assess an individual's risk of a variety of conditions, including diabetes, and will support them to reduce their risk. This could prevent more than 4,000 people per year from developing diabetes, and detect at least 20,000 cases of diabetes and kidney disease earlier, in order to allow better management of the condition. Most of the care for people with diabetes is delivered in the community and through primary care. The relationship between primary and specialist services is central to the management of complications and the prevention of admission for amputations.

I have a little time to answer questions. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked about the number of specialist diabetes nurses and diabetologists. We do not collect these data, but we know from the 2009 Diabetes UK survey that 1,278 specialist diabetes nurses were working in the UK in 2007. The noble Lord also pointed to a number of international comparisons. It is often difficult to make international comparisons of prevalence because of the way in which data are collected. The Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Observatory published a recent estimate of the prevalence of diabetes in England that suggests that there are 800,000 people with diabetes who do not yet know it.

The noble Lord spoke about sport in schools and about targeting those who are most at risk from diabetes. The noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, also spoke in this vein. The key here is for Governments to work with local commissioners to promote the benefits of investing in physical activity and to ensure that local investment in that area is based on an assessment of need. We will set out a strong business case for investment in physical activity, which evidence shows is one of the best buys in public health.

I think that generally decisions taken locally are the way forward. In particular, local commissioners are best placed to target groups that are most at risk from inactivity. The Let’s Get Moving model, which implements brief interventions in primary care, is a good example of that approach.

Similar considerations apply when we reflect on the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, about the postcode lottery of services. Healthcare organisations, with their knowledge of the healthcare needs of the population around them, are best placed to determine the services required to deliver safe and effective care.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, as I mentioned, talked about high-risk groups. We are committed to reducing mortality rates from diabetes. Dr Rowan Hillson, the National Clinical Director for Diabetes, chairs the working group, Good Diabetes Care for All, which has brought together leading stakeholders and providers of diabetes services who are concerned with inequalities. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that to support NHS organisations to design services that reflect the whole diabetes community, NHS Diabetes has produced a comprehensive diabetes commissioning toolkit to provide advice and support for commissioners.

Time prevents me from answering all the other questions, to my great regret, as I have copious answers in front of me. However, I shall just say that I believe that the principles that we have set out in the White Paper of pushing power downwards, paying for quality and strengthening the voice of the patient will bring fresh impetus to improving outcomes for diabetes. This is not an issue that the NHS can ignore. We need to strengthen both preventive action and treatment for diabetes. By doing that, we can have a huge impact on the quality of people’s lives.

House adjourned at 5.36 pm.