House of Commons
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Oral Answers to Questions
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
1. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the operation of the interim cancer drugs fund; and if he will make a statement.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
12. What recent representations he has received on the operation of the interim cancer drugs fund; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
Clinically led arrangements are in place in all strategic health authorities for determining the best use of the additional funds that we have made available for cancer drugs from 1 October 2010. Information provided by SHAs shows that, as of 15 November, funding had been agreed for the treatment of more than 250 patients in England. I have received representations from hon. Members, noble Lords, and members of the public on how the interim arrangements for cancer drugs funding are operating. Many of those representations have welcomed the additional support we are giving to cancer patients in need.
Nigel Adams
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. Last week, my constituent, Trudy Cusworth, received the news that she is to be given the cancer drug Avastin, despite the panel at St James’s university hospital, Leeds initially refusing to do so. In this case, the emergency cancer drugs fund has done its job, but what can the Secretary of State say to assure other cancer patients in North Yorkshire who are also in desperate need of such life-prolonging drugs and who are currently being denied access to them?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Indeed, I want to thank him for the support he has given to Trudy Cusworth. I am very pleased that she was able to take her case, with her clinicians, to the panel and that it has been approved. There are a number of people in the York and Selby area for whom that is true. The panels are working across the country to ensure additional access to cancer drug treatments where a clinical case is made for that.
Alun Cairns
My constituents are pretty angry and disappointed that the cancer drugs fund will not apply to them because health matters have been devolved to the National Assembly for Wales. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that he will champion the merits of the policy in the hope of convincing the Welsh Assembly Government to follow the lead that he is offering?
Mr Lansley
I agree with my hon. Friend, who is obviously an advocate for his constituents to the Welsh Assembly Government. These are matters for the devolved Administrations and they must decide how to allocate their resources. In this instance we have shared with the devolved Administrations the consultation on the cancer drugs fund, which will start next April, although the policy proposed will apply in England alone.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
2. What recent representations he has received on the effect of the abolition of primary care trusts on the co-ordination of preventive health care.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
The Government have set out a number of proposals to support integrated working and preventive action, including ensuring that local councils take a key role in joining up local NHS services, social care and health improvement. There is a strong preventive focus in the NHS public health and social care outcome frameworks, and an additional £1 billion will be provided by 2014-15 for the NHS to support social care. Some of that money will be spent on preventive services. The public health White Paper sets out the Government’s plans to return the leadership of public health to local government. That proposal has been widely welcomed.
Toby Perkins
Before the Secretary of State and the Minister embarked upon the biggest reorganisation of the NHS in the past 60 years, what consideration did they give to the impact that such changes will have on the co-ordination of services? Primary care trusts are being described as in meltdown at the moment. PCT staff whom I meet are deeply worried about the co-ordination of services, as linking such services is about so much more than the work of GPs.
Paul Burstow
Let me start with the point of agreement: this is about more than just the work of GPs. That is why the Government are proposing the establishment of health and well-being boards in local authorities to drive the integration that was never delivered under the Labour party. Services were not integrated and, for many people, services did not fit around their lives as a consequence. This Government will change that. It seems that the hon. Gentleman is putting forward the campaign slogan, “Save the PCT; don’t trust your GP.” That is not a good campaign slogan.
Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
Will there be £2 billion going into two pots—one for public health and one for social care? What element of that budget will local authorities be able to use for preventive care? Some reports say that the budget is ring-fenced and some say that it is not, so some clarity would be appreciated.
Paul Burstow
In fact, there is a further pot of money, which relates to the proposals for a ring-fenced budget in respect of public health. One of the problems has been the NHS’s raiding that pot to spend on other things. We believe that public health is a priority, and we will therefore ring-fence those resources in future. The £1 billion that will go into social care directly through the local government settlement will be available for local government to support social care services. The £1 billion that will go in via the NHS will also be there to support social care, but it will particularly address issues such as reablement and preventive services.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Government are abolishing all PCTs and handing £80 billion to GP consortiums that do not yet exist for services including the co-ordination of care. Is not this reorganisation a huge gamble for patients and taxpayers, which is why No. 10 and the Treasury are so concerned, as we see today in The Independent? Will the Minister finally agree to publish details about the financial assurance regime for GP consortiums, and will he guarantee that under his plans £80 billion of public money will be accountable to Parliament in the same way that it is today?
Paul Burstow
Of course the money will be accountable to Parliament, as it is now. The hon. Lady’s comments reflect an interesting campaign that the Labour party has dreamed up, which is very much to ally itself with the interests of primary care trusts rather than those of patients and ensuring that we improve public services. This Government’s proposals will improve the way in which services are commissioned, deliver better outcomes for patients up and down the country, and deliver the integration across health and social care that the previous Government failed to deliver.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
3. What recent progress he has made on the introduction of GP-led commissioning consortiums.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
13. What recent progress he has made on the introduction of GP-led commissioning consortiums.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
On 21 October, I invited general practice-led commissioning consortiums to put themselves forward as pathfinders, and I have been absolutely delighted by the response. The pathfinder consortiums will be announced shortly. They have formed in response to the needs of local communities, and there is, sensibly, variation around the country to take account of those differing needs. Some consortiums map on to local authority boundaries; others organise themselves around catchments for hospitals or smaller populations. This bottom-up, locally determined approach is exactly in line with what we envisaged in the policy framework.
Henry Smith
Under the previous Government, Crawley hospital saw the removal of services such as accident and emergency and maternity. Can my right hon. Friend explain how, under the new GP-led consortiums, doctors will have the freedom and the flexibility to be able to refer their patients to local services if they so choose, as well as to new services?
Mr Lansley
That is exactly what our reforms will allow. We are putting not only the freedom to refer in the hands of general practices but choice in the hands of patients, and allying that to the power on the part of commissioners to commission services that meet the needs of their local community. That is precisely the change that will empower front-line clinicians and patients.
Mark Lancaster
Having consulted widely in Milton Keynes, I am pleased to say that the Government’s plans have been broadly welcomed. However, one area of concern that has been raised with me by patients, in particular, is the amount of time that they will get to spend face to face with their GP. Can the Secretary of State reassure my constituents and outline the administrative support that GPs will get in fulfilling their new functions?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In Milton Keynes, GP Healthcare MK and Premier MK consortiums are shaping their services in order to be able to deliver better and improved services for their patients. We do not intend that all GPs individually should become managers, by any means; there will be clinical leadership, but the consortiums should have commissioning support. The primary care trust in Milton Keynes has had some good commissioning support arrangements, as I know from having visited it in the past. It is open to the new commissioning consortiums to take teams from the primary care trust into their new consortium support arrangements, but they can go elsewhere. They can look to the local authority and to the independent sector to provide them with the commissioning support that they need so that clinicians provide leadership but continue to be responsible for clinical care.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
What impact does the Secretary of State think that this change and the rest of the upheaval that he is inflicting on the health service will have on hospital waiting times?
Mr Lansley
I think that the reforms will have a positive impact on performance right across the NHS, because they will enable patients who want to exercise choice to see the quality and standard of services, including waiting times. Unlike in the past, they will be able to see waiting times for individual hospitals, rather than just a single target. They will be able to make choices based on information about the quality of services.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
If the reforms are so good, why have they been criticised by the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Dr Clare Gerada? She said:
“I think it is the end of the NHS as we currently know it, which is a national, unified health service”.
The British Medical Association has expressed concerns about competition, and we hear in this morning’s edition of The Independent from an unnamed “ally” of the Secretary of State that
“There is no wobble. No 10 and the Treasury are fully behind the principle of the reforms”—
obviously a very brave ally. Why has the Prime Minister asked the Cabinet Office Minister who is in charge of Government policy to review the plans? Is it because the Secretary of State is the only one who believes in them?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman should not believe all that he reads in the newspapers. The curious thing is that the Minister with responsibility for Government policy is engaged with Government policy. That is a good and positive thing. The hon. Gentleman referred to the Royal College of General Practitioners and to Dr Gerada. In response to the White Paper, the RCGP said:
“General Practice is the central plank in our world-class healthcare system. The College thoroughly agrees that it makes a great deal of sense to give GPs, with their unique patient-centred perspective, a central role in commissioning and directing healthcare services.”
Dr Gerada said:
“I fully support placing clinicians at the centre of commissioning decisions”.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
I very much welcome the steps that my right hon. Friend is taking to encourage the early emergence of pathfinder consortiums, so that the shape of the new commissioning structure is made clear as quickly as possible. Given the nature of the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention challenge—QIPP—that the health service faces, does he agree that the process must be carried forward as quickly as possible so that the new framework is clear for all concerned as quickly as possible?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I do. I was delighted by the response of general practice to the emerging consortiums, because one of the central reasons it wants to make progress quickly is to shape clinical service redesign, which is at the heart of delivering the efficiency savings that will enable us all to improve outcomes.
David Miliband (South Shields) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said that GPs are the best people to manage the health service. Will he confirm that in the eight years of GP training, not a single hour is dedicated to the commissioning work that he has described?
Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman should understand that what I said was that GPs are the best people to commission services. Commissioning and management are not the same thing. GPs are already responsible for commissioning most services in the NHS, but they have no power over resources and contracting. I intend to ally clinical leadership and commissioning decisions with commissioning support that involves management. The people who should determine the shape of local services to meet the needs of patients are those who are already at the heart of designing services and referring patients.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
4. What recent representations he has received on management and administration costs in the NHS; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
Administration costs across the health sector will reduce by a third in real terms over the spending review period. That is a £1.4 billion cash reduction and a £1.9 billion real-terms reduction, from a baseline of £5.1 billion. Every penny of the savings will be reinvested in front-line services.
Andrew Stephenson
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Will he give me and my constituents examples of how the billions that are saved will make a difference on the front line when invested in patient care?
Mr Burns
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend and I will certainly give such examples. Every penny that is saved by cutting excessive management and bureaucracy will be spent on providing health care and drugs for his and other hon. Members’ constituents, and on ensuring that we have proper front-line services that provide the best quality care for all the people of England.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Due to the snow, many falls and fractures have been reported in my constituency and around the country in the last few days. What plans are there to cope with such winter pressures?
Mr Burns
I fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concern, because particularly at this time of the year and throughout the winter months there is both an extra duty on the NHS and an increased problem. I can assure him that for over a month now, as is the custom, the NHS has been meeting regularly to plan for the winter and ensure that we have the services in place to help those who suffer falls or illnesses due to the inclement weather.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
5. On what date he expects to make an announcement on compensation for those infected by contaminated blood products supplied by the NHS.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
In October we announced a review of a number of aspects of Lord Archer’s recommendations, including the level of ex gratia payments and the mechanism by which they are made, access to insurance, prescriptions charges and access to nursing and other care services. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), expects to report the outcomes of the review by the end of the year.
Simon Kirby
I thank the Minister for his answer. Does he believe that, after all the years of inaction, that will draw a line under the matter?
Paul Burstow
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to indicate that the matter has not been dealt with thoroughly for many years, and that is why the Government have launched the review. Obviously I cannot pre-empt its outcomes, but we will bring it to the House as soon as we can.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that no past Government have anything to be proud of in the way in which the matter was dealt with, and that Members on both sides of the House have campaigned on the issue. People hope that the Government will be able to live up to the promise in the October debate of producing a review before Christmas. Thousands of sufferers of HIV and hepatitis C, and thousands of dependants, are waiting for the announcement.
Paul Burstow
The hon. Lady makes some very important points. As she rightly says, the matter was debated in the House only recently, and the Government are determined to ensure that we are in a position to report back on the review before Christmas.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), has done a lot of work on the review and is keen to see a fair settlement. May I urge Ministers to take into account the fact that this is perhaps one of the worst tragedies to have befallen the NHS in this country? Many people have suffered terribly, and I hope that Ministers will make every effort to ensure that those sufferers can at last receive closure.
Paul Burstow
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments and will ensure that they are reported back to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for her consideration in the review.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
6. What steps he is taking to reduce energy consumption in hospitals.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
The NHS continues to improve its energy efficiency. The Department provides guidance to the NHS and supports the NHS sustainable development unit, which promotes energy awareness and carbon management across health care providers. Hospitals are working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to engage with suppliers who provide innovative solutions.
Paul Goggins
I thank the Minister for his answer and invite him to join me in congratulating all the staff at Wythenshawe hospital in my constituency, which was recently named overall winner this year in The Guardian public services award as the country’s greenest hospital and for reducing energy emissions by 26%. What further pressure is he putting on other hospitals and health service providers to ensure that they follow that fine example?
Mr Burns
I am happy to join the right hon. Gentleman in congratulating the university hospital of south Manchester on its fantastic achievement and the award that it has won. As he knows, his local hospital did that by reducing its energy consumption and carbon emissions by 26% over the past three years in ways such as the greater use of biomass fuels. It is a fantastic achievement and the staff should be justifiably proud of it. They are a beacon for other hospitals to follow to reach the same level of sustainability, and I am delighted that a number of hospitals throughout the country are striving to reach the position of the one in his area. I am confident that through greater sharing of information and work, more and more hospitals will make their contribution to reducing carbon levels.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Minister will be aware of the extreme weather conditions and extremely low temperatures of minus 17° C in and around Thirsk and in other parts of North Yorkshire where we have community hospitals and trust hospitals. Has he reviewed the impact on their funds of heating costs when low temperatures come so early in the winter and will carry on for such a long period?
Mr Burns
I can reassure my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right that the winter period and harsh weather impose extra costs, but I am pleased to tell her that partly through winter planning and partly through the experience of past years, hospitals are aware of that. They take into their planning and financial budgeting the possibility of weeks and perhaps longer—depending on the weather—when their costs will increase, and adjust to meet those demands. I am confident that bad weather will not impact on front-line services because of the work that hospitals do to account for it over the 52 weeks of the year.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
7. What assessment he has made of the Health Protection Agency’s recent report on the incidence of tuberculosis.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
I welcome the Health Protection Agency’s recent report on tuberculosis in the UK. There were 8,286 cases of TB in England in 2009, an increase of 4.3% on 2008. The rise has occurred mainly in people infected in countries where TB is common, who go on to develop active TB disease later in life.
Annette Brooke
I understand that that is a 30-year high. Evidence from New York shows that a co-ordinated approach across the city has made a real impact in controlling TB. How will the Secretary of State ensure that such co-ordination takes place, especially in cities, when GP-led commissioning is introduced?
Mr Lansley
The treatment services for individual patients will be commissioned through GP consortiums, but the identification and preventive work on TB is a public health responsibility. To that extent, I believe that we will be better placed to deal with it in future. Many local authorities—for example, in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds—will be well placed as cities to respond to any incidence or outbreaks of TB on a preventive basis, using their powers as public health authorities.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
In response to my question on the publication of the White Paper about the more than 500 TB cases in Birmingham the Secretary of State confirmed that there would be no changes to what such cities could do to control TB outbreaks. Will he elaborate on his answer? What more can Birmingham do under the new arrangements to prevent such exceedingly high numbers?
Mr Lansley
We can do a number of things. For example, the Department has funded TB Alert, which is the UK’s national TB charity, to raise awareness of TB among public and primary health care professionals, which will help. In London, we have supported a find-and-treat outreach service. In a similar vein, that could happen in cities where there is a rising prevalence of TB. TB is not general across the country, but likely to occur in particular areas. Those kind of initiatives enable us to identify TB outbreaks, and we can then structure services around that.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
8. What assessment he has made of the merits of steps to increase the standard of end-of-life care in an acute setting; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
The Government are committed to increasing choice for people at the end of life, which will result in fewer people dying in hospital. However, there will always be a need for hospital-based end-of-life care. The national end-of-life care programme has published a guide for achieving quality in acute hospitals, which includes recommendations on holistic assessment, advance care planning, training, and improved multi-disciplinary working. The guide has been widely welcomed as a blueprint for improving the quality of end-of-life care.
Penny Mordaunt
Ministers will be aware of the Queen Alexandra hospital’s withdrawal of its G5 service to create a mobile model of end-of-life care. That will extend services across the hospital, but my constituents and I have grave concerns at the number of quiet and appropriate beds that will be left. Will Ministers agree to meet me to discuss what can be done to encourage the QA to meet the public’s concerns?
Paul Burstow
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question and I know that she has campaigned on that issue. She will know that on 25 October, the Secretary of State asked the independent reconfiguration panel to consider the issue that was raised by the Portsmouth health overview and scrutiny committee regarding a referral of ward G5. The advice has now been tendered, and the Secretary of State has asked the panel to undertake a full review of the case. He expects that report by March of next year and I am sure that during that period, conversations at ministerial level will be helpful.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Most people want to die at home, but they are prevented from doing so by the lack of out-of-hours support. Also, 24/7 community nursing is popular with the National Audit Office because it saves money. Even the Government say it is crucial, so why do they not use some of the £3 billion they are wasting on top-down reorganisation to ensure that everybody gets a community nurse at the end of their life, if they want one? How can the Government guarantee care for the dying if they abolish primary care trusts?
Paul Burstow
Perhaps a little humility might have been a necessary preface to that question, including, not least, an acknowledgment that the hon. Lady’s question is based on the failings of the previous Administration to deliver the necessary improvements in end-of-life care. On GP commissioning, there is undoubtedly an opportunity to integrate health and social care to deliver more timely and appropriate community-based end-of-life care, and we intend to deliver it.
Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to improve the information provided to patients on their diagnosis and treatment.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
As part of our White Paper reforms, a wide-ranging review of the information required to empower patients is in progress. Related current initiatives include the information standard scheme, information prescriptions and quality standards produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
Jonathan Lord
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. Currently good comparative data on the individual performance of doctors and surgeons are not readily available. How does he envisage compiling that data in a way that does not create too much bureaucracy or use up too much of doctors’ valuable clinical time?
Mr Burns
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: if we are to put patients at the heart of an NHS in which it is their care and views that are important and drive the provision of health care, we must empower them by giving them information that is consistently accurate, unbiased and easily understandable. We are currently consulting on our information revolution papers, and we await a chance to study the responses. However, we are determined to empower patients by giving them far more information, so that they can exercise their right of choice to get what they deserve, which is the very best health care.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I would like to declare an interest and remind the Minister that we currently spend £1 million an hour dealing with diabetes-related illnesses. One key way of helping to reduce that cost is giving patients diabetes tests and ensuring they get as much information as possible so that they can change their lifestyles.
Mr Burns
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have to supply all patients, including those suffering from diabetes as well as other conditions, with as much information that they can understand as possible, so that they can make the choices about the health care they need. They also need to be backed up with advice from their GPs, community pharmacists and others in the health sector, because that will empower them to take decisions in their best interests to manage their medical condition.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The Government have rightly announced, in the consultation document on patient choice, that all patients with long-term conditions will be offered a care plan. May I urge the Minister to ensure that that will apply also to cancer patients?
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
10. What decisions he has reached in respect of additional funding for the purpose of the tariff applying to specialist children’s hospitals.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
Following a very constructive meeting with the specialist children’s hospitals on Friday 3 December, I am pleased to be able to tell the House that we are working on a proposal to set the top-up payment for specialised services for children at 60%, over and above tariff prices. In addition, I intend to help the trusts by extending the number of procedures that will attract the top-up payment in 2011-12. I believe that the children’s hospitals will find that entirely acceptable.
Mr Blunkett
I would like—uniquely—to thank the Secretary of State for signing off the technical agreement from last Friday, and to say that the specialist children’s hospitals will welcome his announcement this afternoon. Is it not time to take the uncertainty away from the children’s hospitals and have a system that allows them to put in place a forward plan that does not result in this annual farrago? Would it not also be nice to congratulate the staff of the children’s hospitals on their terrific work, not least the dedicated way in which they will be working with these children over Christmas?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I am very glad to do so. I have visited Sheffield children’s hospital, and I very much applaud the work that it does. I am sure that those at the hospital are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, as I am, for the way in which he has represented their interests. I entirely agree with him: the purpose of developing the payment-by-results system is to arrive at a point where it is predictable and delivers a relevant payment, related to the costs that are genuinely incurred in the provision of that treatment. We are not in that position yet. The specialist top-up was put in place to reflect that, but I hope that it is temporary rather than permanent.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
11. What progress has been made on improving the provision of specialist neuromuscular physiotherapy for people with muscular dystrophy and related neuromuscular conditions; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
Physiotherapy can help to manage the physical deterioration associated with muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular conditions. Physiotherapists have a key role to play in reducing waiting times, improving access and choice, and providing more personalised services closer to home, thereby improving the quality of life of their patients. It is for local NHS organisations to decide how best to use the funds allocated to meet health needs.
Paul Burstow
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, and I know that he plays an active part in the all-party muscular dystrophy group. He was involved in ensuring that we had a report from that body on access to specialist neuromuscular care—the Walton report, an important report that mapped out many of the deficiencies in the current service. I would be happy to meet him and his friends to discuss the matter further.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
14. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision of IVF treatment across the country.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
Many primary care trusts have made good progress towards meeting NICE guidance recommendations on the provision of IVF treatment. However, I am aware that a small number of PCTs with historical funding problems have temporarily suspended local NHS provision of IVF services. I have already expressed my concerns about that approach. I expect all PCTs to have regard to the current NICE guidance and to recognise fully the significant distress and impact that infertility has on people’s lives.
Gareth Johnson
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer. He will be aware that Robert Edwards, the British inventor of IVF treatment, is due to receive the Nobel prize this week for his work. I am sure that Professor Edwards would be dismayed that PCTs have suspended their IVF provision, so would my right hon. Friend join me in urging those PCTs that have taken that step to reconsider their decision on this important issue?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I am indeed aware of that, not least because the Bourn Hall clinic, where Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe did their groundbreaking work, is in my constituency. As a former vice-chair of the all-party infertility group, I feel strongly that the reason the NICE guidance was written as it was, way back in 2004, was to recognise both the distress and the extent of the difficulties that couples face, and the need for them to be assured not only of good-quality investigation, but of good quality follow-up provision in fertility services throughout the NHS. I urge PCTs to have regard to the NICE guidance in their commissioning decisions.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
If this unfair situation in the commissioning of infertility services continues, and if the reconfiguration goes ahead, would it be the responsibility of the national commissioning board to address it?
Mr Lansley
Beyond 2012 it would indeed. The reason we are in this position is not least because when NICE produced its guidance, my predecessor, John Reid, in effect told PCTs that they should not feel obliged to have regard to it and arbitrarily changed it. It is precisely that kind of political interference with what should be a clinically-led decision about the appropriate structure of commissioning services that I am proposing to do away with.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
15. What support his Department plans to provide for front-line services in adult social care.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
Protecting adult social care services is a clear priority for this Government. The spending review fully protects all existing grant funding for social care, and by 2014 an additional £2 billion a year will be available to support social care. Along with a programme of efficiency, those additional funds will enable councils to maintain access to social care while meeting demographic and other cost pressures and delivering new approaches to improve quality and outcomes over the next four years.
Chris White
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. In my constituency, residents of Whitnash are trying to set up a social enterprise to take over the running of a local care home. Will the Government encourage and support councils such as Warwickshire to respond positively to such initiatives, and will he meet residents of Whitnash so as to understand some of the issues that they face?
Paul Burstow
In our vision for adult social care, we very much argued the case for the greater use of social enterprises and the involvement of voluntary organisations as a way in which we can better deliver more personalised and appropriate public services of the very sort that the hon. Gentleman is talking about to our local communities.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
From April 2011, district nurses, health visitors and other specialist nurses working in the community in Stockport will be employed and managed by the Ashton, Leigh and Wigan Community Healthcare NHS Trust, and from April 2011, nurses providing community health services in Tameside will be employed and managed by the Stockport NHS Foundation Trust. Can the Minister tell me how that reorganisation will improve the delivery of front-line services to local people?
Paul Burstow
First and foremost, the hon. Lady should welcome the fact that this will provide opportunities for the greater integration of services, and that is a key way in which we can deliver better outcomes for her constituents and others up and down the country.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
16. How many patients in psychiatric care died of natural causes in the last five years.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
Information on the number of people in psychiatric care who died of natural causes is not available. However, information about patients detained under the Mental Health Act is collected by the Care Quality Commission. The most recent information, covering the period 2005 to 2008, shows that there were 1,392 deaths of detained patients, of which 1,123 were ascribed to natural causes.
Paul Maynard
I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he share my concern that, almost uniquely in psychiatric care the state has a large degree of control over an individual’s circumstances, yet, unlike in prison or police custody, deaths from natural causes do not have to be reported to the coroner or be the subject of an inquest? Does he not think that the time has now come to end that disparity and to shed some light on to the real reasons behind many of the deaths from natural causes in psychiatric care?
Paul Burstow
My hon. Friend might be interested to know that the Ministry of Justice is reviewing sections of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and how they will be implemented. That review will include the subject of how deaths are reported to coroners. In fact, the statutory requirements to report deaths of mental health patients to coroners are the same as those for other patients, and NHS providers must report deaths of service users that occur during, or as a result of, care or treatment that they are providing.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
17. What recent representations he has received on the management and administration costs of the NHS; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) earlier, administration costs across the whole health sector will reduce by a third in real terms over the spending review period. This is a £1.4 billion cash reduction and a £1.9 billion real-terms reduction, from a baseline of £5.1 billion. Every penny of the savings will be reinvested in front-line services.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. Can he reassure my constituents in Gloucester that this is broadly the degree of savings that we should expect from NHS Gloucestershire’s expenditure on management, and that those savings will be spent on the rising demand for front-line services, including in the new, soon-to-be-opened women’s centre?
Mr Burns
Yes, I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks. We have made it quite clear that we will reduce management costs throughout the NHS by more than 45% over the next four years, and establishing GP consortiums will allow us to strip out the costly top-down bureaucracy that now exists. All the money that will be saved through these initiatives will be reinvested in front-line services, which will benefit the constituents of my hon. Friend and those of every other right hon. and hon. Member throughout England.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I am concerned about the quality of services that patients and their families receive. In my constituency, 100 jobs are already going, and I am worried that the cuts in staffing will have an effect on the services that are available. Can the Minister guarantee that front-line services will be protected, because the reality is that, in constituencies such as mine, staffing is crucial to ensuring that decent services are available?
Mr Burns
I have to tell the hon. Lady that, in this very difficult financial situation, which we inherited from her Government, it is only by making efficiency savings and getting rid of excess bureaucracy that we can generate the income to reinvest to save front-line services—[Interruption.] She and the Greek chorus in front of her must understand that, if we had not been left in this mess in which £43 billion a year is being spent on the interest on the debt that we inherited, we would not have the problems that we now have—
Mr Speaker
Order. I think we understand what the Minister is trying to get at.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s responses and his firm proposals to reduce administration costs. However, it is not just a matter of management costs rising massively under the last Government, as productivity fell. The last time productivity increased in the NHS was under the last Conservative Government in the early 1990s. What plans do the Government have to ensure that productivity is increased, because only by doing can we deliver better health?
Mr Burns
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although the last Government significantly increased health spending —I do not dispute that; it is a self-evident fact—the trouble is that we did not see increases in productivity pro rata. That is the challenge that we face; that is what we are addressing; that is what we are going to achieve through QIPP—quality, innovation, productivity and prevention—by cutting out inefficiency, cutting out excess management and administration so that every single penny can be reinvested in improving front-line services and giving our constituents the finest health they—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister will resume his seat. His answers have been excessively long-winded and repetitive—and it must not happen again. I have made the position clear and I hope that the Minister will learn from that.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
18. What estimate he has made of the change in average waiting times for patients waiting for diagnostic tests since May 2010.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
Patients are continuing to receive timely access to diagnostic tests. In September 2010, the median waiting time for 15 key diagnostic tests was 1.7 weeks, compared with 1.8 weeks in May.
Mr Burns
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman studies the response given earlier by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). By concentrating resources and reforming the system to improve outcomes, we will provide enhanced health care for all our constituents in England.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
My responsibility is to lead the NHS in delivering improved health outcomes in England, to lead a public health service that improves the health of the nation and reduces health inequalities and to lead the reform of adult social care, which supports and protects vulnerable people.
Jonathan Reynolds
The Secretary of State will be aware that primary care trusts across the country are being asked to cut between 35% and 50% from their management costs. This inevitably leads to job losses, but can he confirm that he is confident that the jobs being lost as a result of this policy are purely management roles and that there are no losses of jobs that combine some management role with front-line clinical responsibilities?
Mr Lansley
We have been very clear that we are asking the whole of the NHS administration—we are applying the same discipline inside the Department, to arm’s length bodies and across the whole of government—to secure a reduction by a third of real-terms administration costs over four years. In the NHS in particular, I am looking for a reduction in management costs of 45% in cash terms. By that, I mean specifically the costs of managers and senior managers. By definition, that does not include clinical staffing.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
T3. In the light of the recent damning report by the Care Quality Commission into Redcar and Cleveland council’s adult social care services, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to improve adult social care and will he meet me to address the issues raised in the report?
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I know of his concerns, which he has raised for some time. I understand that an improvement plan has been developed by Redcar and Cleveland and that it has been shared and agreed with the Care Quality Commission. The plan has a strong focus around ensuring a rigorous approach to improving the safeguarding of vulnerable people, and a peer review process is being established with the Local Government Group and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. I would, of course, be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter further.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
May I welcome the Secretary of State’s sensible rethink and change of mind on the funding of specialist children’s hospitals after Labour Members raised concerns during the previous Health questions? During those questions he also got his NHS funding figures in a twist, so what has he got to say about the updated inflation forecasts on page 83 of last week’s Office for Budget Responsibility report? They show that for the next four years the inflation increase will be bigger than the cash increase in the NHS—in other words, the NHS will get a real cut in funding, not a real increase. Does he accept the OBR figures? Does he accept that they are hard proof that the Government are breaking their promise to protect NHS funding?
Mr Lansley
Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman that it is not a change on specialist children’s hospitals. The previous Government initiated a study by York university, which reported. I made it clear, when we discussed it last, that we were examining the results of that together with the specialist children’s hospitals. We have reached what I regard, as I hope they do, as a very acceptable outcome.
The spending review gave a real-terms increase in NHS funding. That was the commitment we gave and it was set out in the spending review, and it remains true that revenue funding for the NHS continues to rise in real terms.
John Healey
Perhaps I should have asked the Secretary of State whether he has even seen the OBR report. Let me try to help him. The OBR’s inflation figures mean that the NHS will not get the 0.4% real increase that he bragged about and that was stated in the spending review; the NHS will get a 0.25% decrease—a cut—in funding, as has been confirmed today for me by the House of Commons Library. No wonder the Prime Minister is rattled and is asking what on earth the Health Secretary is doing with the NHS. Does the Health Secretary accept that this confirms that the coalition’s pledge to guarantee that health spending rises
“in real terms in each year of the Parliament”
is being broken? How does he explain that to the Prime Minister and how does he explain it to the public?
Mr Lansley
No, I do not accept that for a minute. At the spending review we set out what met our commitment. I am very clear that, as I just told the right hon. Gentleman, revenue funding for the NHS will increase in real terms. It will do so because we did not listen to the advice of the Labour party in the run-up to the spending review, which was to cut the NHS budget. We did not do that and we were committed at the spending review to an increase in real terms. The gross domestic product deflator will move from time to time, but the commitment that we set out was clear and will continue.
Mr Speaker
Just as the answers from the Minister of State, the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, were too long, those questions were too long as well.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not require any assistance from the hon. Gentleman. We must speed up from now on. That is the situation.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
T6. Every day, ambulance service staff in my constituency and around the country deliver life-saving care to our constituents, but they are themselves occasionally put in harm’s way. What steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to ensure that the protection that our ambulance staff get in my constituency and around the country is the best that we can provide?
Mr Lansley
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the staff in ambulance service—in the current circumstances, with the winter pressures being what they are, we should especially do so. But those staff can come under particular threat from time to time and we have to prepare for all eventualities. For example, if an attack involving firearms takes place, as it did recently in Cumbria, it is possible that ambulance staff would be working alongside other emergency services in responding to it. It is only right, therefore, that they are offered as much training and equipment as possible to carry out that work.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
T2. This morning, the Justice Secretary said that he was working with the Health Secretary on plans to divert more mentally ill offenders away from prison. I broadly welcome that, but could the Health Secretary tell us how much new money will be made available for that initiative, especially given the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) about the cut in the real value of health spending?
Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman is in no position to make that point, given that his party wanted to cut the NHS budget. What my right hon. and learned Friend said this morning about our working together is indeed true. However, this is not a case of our diverting patients; it is about ensuring that people who have mental health problems are dealt with appropriately rather than there being a failure to deal with them. That applies whether they are in prison or in hospital. We are working together on that, and I know that my right hon. and learned Friend will be making a statement shortly.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
T8. Can Ministers reassure me that, given the relative health deprivation in Gloucester, the ring-fenced funding promised in the White Paper on public health will in fact benefit people there?
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
T4. The north of England cancer network has been working since 2007 to improve cancer commissioning across primary and secondary care and to improve standards of cancer care for my constituents. Can the Secretary of State confirm that it will continue to play that role after the introduction of GP commissioning?
Paul Burstow
In the not-too-distant future, we will publish the refresh of the cancer reform strategy. That will demonstrate how the Government will continue to build on past success while ensuring that we reduce and improve the survival rates for cancer. One of the real problems in this country is that we have some of the poorest survival rates for cancer. We will ensure that the networks’ expertise is incorporated into the way in which the reformed system will work.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the rally being held here in Westminster tomorrow by qualified herbalists who are coming to lobby for statutory regulation, which my right hon. Friend is obliged to provide under European law? When will he do that, please?
Mr Lansley
I am indeed aware of that, as my hon. Friend would expect. He will know that we are considering how we can give effect to the proper regulation of herbal practitioners and we will make an announcement shortly.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
T5. If a hospital service’s reconfiguration is demonstrably and overwhelmingly rejected by a local population, what notice will the Secretary of State take of the patients’ voice?
Mr Lansley
It was only under this Government, after the election, that tests were set out that such reconfigurations should meet. Those tests clearly included recognition of the voice of the public and of the local authority as well as current and prospective patient choice. To that extent, for the very first time, reconfigurations are not being dictated by an NHS administration but are responding to the views of patients and clinicians.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
The NHS Litigation Authority estimates an outstanding liability for clinical negligence claims of £15 billion, a sum that increased by £2 billion in the last year alone. How will the Minister bring that spiralling cost to the NHS to a halt?
Mr Lansley
I understand exactly my hon. Friend’s point. The increase in liabilities was, in part, an expression of the change in the discount rate rather than necessarily an increase in the number of cases coming through. It is a worrying figure and costs the NHS not far short of £1 billion a year through contributions to the clinical negligence scheme for trusts. My noble Friend Lord Young, in the course of his review of health and safety and other issues, made recommendations on dealing with conditional fee arrangements and clinical negligence. It set out that we would consider, for example, how we implement NHS redress arrangements, including whether there should be a fact-finding phase before any question of legal intervention. We will do that and report back to the House.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
T7. My local hospital, Shotley Bridge hospital in Consett, has faced a degree of certainty over its future in recent years. However, with the demise of the local PCT, which owns the hospital and the land, uncertainty has returned. Is the Minister prepared to meet me and a delegation from the hospital to consider the future?
Mr Lansley
I am sure that I or one of my hon. Friends will be happy to meet the hon. Lady. I do not know why she thinks that the abolition of the PCT will make that change. We have yet to set out how PCT assets will be dealt with when they are abolished. She must talk to her local GPs as I know that GPs in Durham have come together in a consortium and they will be well placed to give precisely the kind of assurance about the security of services in the future that she is looking for.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey clinical review has been concluded. It notes that the Secretary of State’s four tests have been passed, despite health scrutiny establishing that they have not. In addition, the majority of Enfield GPs do not support the proposals. Will the Secretary of State therefore conclude that the four tests have not been passed?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will know that all that has not yet come to me, so I will not prejudge this issue. However, I have made it clear, not least in a letter I recently sent to Baroness Margaret Wall, who is the chair of the Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust, that I expect us to examine not only the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey proposals, but any other proposals that the trust might put forward about the level of acute services provided through Chase Farm.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
T9. The Secretary of State seemed to suggest, in his answer to the shadow Secretary of State, that his definition of a real-terms increase includes changes in inflation. If he does not accept the Office for Budget Responsibility verdict that the increase in inflation means a real-terms cut in 2012, which definition of inflation is he using?
Mr Lansley
What I said to the shadow Secretary of State was entirely accurate.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the abolition of unelected quangos such as primary care trusts and strategic health authorities will bring an end to the decisions they are taking to remove services from local hospitals against the wishes of GPs and local residents?
Mr Lansley
The reforms we propose will bring far greater accountability not only through local authorities but through patient choice and through front-line clinicians being able to commission services.
Let me also tell my hon. Friend that I have today referred to the independent reconfiguration panel, for initial appraisal, the question referred to me by Lancashire county council about the children’s ward at Burnley hospital.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State join me in deprecating the outrageous behaviour of the Prime Minister’s aides who told the Financial Times that the Secretary of State, on his reorganisation, has all the answers—unfortunately to all the wrong questions?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman should not believe what he reads in the papers and when he is trying to quote from them, he should do so accurately.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Blake maternity unit in Gosport is temporarily shut and its long-term future is by no means 100% secure. In conversations with local health care bosses, I have learned that it is not because of cost but because of a national shortage of midwives. Are there any policies or plans to address this issue?
Mr Lansley
I do not know the particular circumstances in Gosport, but I shall happily write to my hon. Friend. Nationally, we have more midwives than we have ever had—[Interruption.] I am being provoked by those on the Opposition Front Bench. There was a 16% increase in the number of live births in this country, but only a 4.5% increase in the number of midwives. That is the point I was about to make. The Government of whom the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) was a member failed to invest in midwifery when there was an increase in live births. That is why hospitals across the country have too few midwives, and that is why we are putting the investment in—because we did not listen to the Labour party when it said, “Cut the NHS budget.”
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Will waiting times for in-patient treatment in hospital increase or decrease next year?
Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for agreeing to visit Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, tomorrow, recognising the strength of local opinion there about the closure of accident and emergency and maternity services temporarily over the winter period. I hope that on his return he will reassure my constituents in Orpington that the closure will not mean that the review of reconfiguration of local NHS services will be prejudged and will not put neighbouring hospitals such as those in my constituency under undue pressure.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful. Tomorrow, I hope to assure myself, among other things, that the closure is temporarily demanded by virtue of the inability to secure enough staff to maintain a safe service for the time being and that it will not and does not pre-empt the question of availability of services at Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, on which a decision has not yet been reached locally or referred to me.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
On the NHS campaign against obesity, does the Secretary of State welcome the magnificent support of the thousands of schoolchildren who have come down to demonstrate for school sports funding outside No. 10 Downing street? Will he fight in the Cabinet against the Education Secretary’s silly proposal, which will damage children’s health?
Mr Lansley
The Secretary of State for Education rightly believes in schools making decisions about how they should best use their resources, including for school sport. I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that through my Department we have supported school sports clubs under Change4Life and intend to expand them.
Rehabilitation and Sentencing
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement. On 12 May, we said in our programme for government that we would conduct a full assessment of rehabilitation and sentencing policy to pave the way for radical reforms to the criminal justice system. I have laid before Parliament today the Green Paper entitled “Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders.” This sets out our initial conclusions from this work, on which we will be consulting widely over the next 12 weeks.
Despite record spending we are not delivering what really matters. Society has a right to expect the criminal justice system to protect them. Prison will always be the right place for serious and dangerous offenders. Criminals should be properly punished. Prisons should be places of hard work and industry, and community sentences must be credible and robust. Criminals must also be reformed so that when they finish their sentence they do not simply return to their life of crime, creating more misery for victims.
The present criminal justice system falls short of what is required. Around half of offenders released from prison reoffend within a year. Reoffending rates for young offenders sentenced to custodial or community sentences are even worse. It is not acceptable that three quarters of offenders sentenced to youth custody reoffend within a year. If we do not stop offending by young people, the young offenders of today will become the prolific career criminals of tomorrow.
Solving these problems requires a radically different approach. Of course, criminals must face robust and demanding punishments. This means making them work hard both in prison and in the community. More prisoners will face the tough discipline of regular working hours. This has been lacking in most prison regimes for too long. Community sentences will be more credible, with more demanding work and greater use of tough curfew requirements. There will be greater reparation to victims through increased use of restorative justice and by implementing the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996. We will bring forward other changes to make sure that more offenders directly compensate the victims of crime.
But we will take a new approach to the reform of offenders. I regard prison first and foremost as a place of punishment where people lose their liberty as reparation for what they have done, but on top of that, prison cannot continue to be simply an expensive way of giving communities a break. We must give higher priority to ensuring that more prisoners go straight on release.
Offenders will face a tough and co-ordinated response from the police, probation and other services. It will mean that they must either address the problems that fuel their criminal activity or be caught and punished again. It will mean taking action to get offenders off drugs. It will mean reducing the abuse of alcohol. It will mean improving the treatment available to those suffering mental illness. It will mean getting more of them off benefits and into honest employment so that they can pay their own way.
We will bring forward a revolutionary shift in the way that rehabilitation is financed and delivered. We will begin by commissioning a range of providers to administer at least six new projects over the next two years. They will be paid for the results that they achieve. I intend to apply the principles of that approach across the whole system by the end of the Parliament. We will also test this payment-by-results approach with young offenders, and devolve more responsibility for preventing and tackling youth offending to local communities. We will introduce more competition across offender management services to drive up standards and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. We will increase discretion for public sector providers and front-line professionals.
The sentencing framework must provide courts with a range of options to punish and rehabilitate criminals and keep the public safe. The sentencing framework has developed in an ad hoc fashion recently, with over 20 Acts of Parliament changing sentencing in the past 10 years. This has left it overly complex, difficult to interpret and administer, and hard for the public to understand. We need to make better use of prison and community sentences to punish offenders and improve public safety, while ensuring that sentencing supports our aims of improved rehabilitation and increased reparation to victims and society. We will therefore simplify the sentencing framework in order to make it more comprehensible to the public and to enhance judicial independence. We will reform community orders to give providers more discretion, and we will encourage greater use of financial penalties and improve their collection.
We will bring forward reforms to the indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection. This sentence has been much more widely used than was ever intended by Parliament since its introduction in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Indeed the last Government had already tried to change it once since its introduction. We will reserve IPP sentences for the most serious offenders and focus indefinite punishment on those who most clearly pose a very serious risk of future harm. Of course, prisoners who in future do not receive an IPP sentence will instead receive long determinate sentences. This will enable us to restore clarity in sentencing, plan rehabilitation and target punishment more effectively to protect the public.
Let me assure the House that public safety remains our first priority. We will continue to ensure that serious and dangerous offenders are managed effectively and their risk is reduced through appropriate use of prison and then through the multi-agency public protection arrangements. Let me also assure the House that we will also ensure effective responses to knife crime. Knife crime is wholly unacceptable. It causes misery for victims and is often connected to the kind of gang violence that can wreck whole communities. The Government’s position is clear. Any adult who commits a crime using a knife can expect to be sent to prison, and serious offenders can expect a long sentence. For juveniles, imprisonment is always available and will also be appropriate for serious offenders.
The Green Paper is an important change of direction in penal policy, which will put more emphasis on reducing reoffending without reducing the punishment of offenders. By reforming criminals and turning them away from a life of crime we will break the cycle. This should mean fewer crimes, fewer victims and safer communities. The Government will make a further statement to the House when they publish their response to the consultation. I commend the statement to the House.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement on sentencing policy. The Ministry of Justice’s four-year plan on its vision page declares:
“We will provide a clear sentencing framework. It will punish those who break the law, and help reduce re-offending.”
I have no quarrel with that. It seems to me a perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy, entirely in keeping with the emphasis on punishment and reform that Labour followed in government, and which helped to cut crime by 43% between 1997 and 2010, both in times of growth and recession—the only Administration since the second world war who can boast such an enviable record.
I have a number of questions for the Secretary of State. First, will he confirm that he accepts that crime went down, as I have just said? So, on the core principle we are in agreement, and where the Government propose sensible measures to punish and reform offenders, we will support them. However, the statement that we have just heard and the Green Paper give rise to a number of questions and concerns. Will he confirm that the entirety of the Conservative party’s manifesto on law and order has been put in the bin? Before the election, the Prime Minister promised that there would be tougher sentences for knife crime. People caught in possession of a knife would face a presumption of prison. Does the Secretary of State accept that he has now made a humiliating U-turn on that policy? The Prime Minister promised that there would be “honesty in sentencing”. Judges would read out a maximum and a minimum sentence to offenders in court. Does the Secretary of State accept that there has been a U-turn on that also? The Prime Minister promised increased prison capacity—another U-turn?
Let us be absolutely clear. Every one of those pre-election promises to be tough on crime has been abandoned. They have been revealed for what they are: a bluff. A bluff on crime and a bluff on the causes of crime. Like so many of the heavily trailed announcements that we have seen in the past six months, this sentencing review is a wasted opportunity. Sentencing policy should be about dealing with offenders in the right way in order to protect the public, but this review has been about trying to reduce the prison population in order to cut costs.
When the comprehensive spending review was published recently, the Justice Secretary outlined his central aim, which was
“to reduce the total daily prison population by 3,000 by 2014.”
The prison population is about 85,000 today, so that would mean it being 82,000 in four years. In practice, however, because many people serve less than one year in prison, meeting that target would mean 10,000 fewer offenders in jail each year. That is what the sentencing review is all about.
Given the Government’s big claims about transparency, can the Secretary of State confirm that he will publish the detailed assumptions that his officials and the Home Office have made about crime trends to justify that target of 82,000? I do not subscribe to the view that there is a direct link between prisons and crime, but nor do I share the Justice Secretary’s belief that there is no link at all. Under Labour, more serious and persistent criminals went to prison for longer, and crime fell. The relationship between those two things might not have been simple and straightforward, and other factors, including an increase in police numbers, were at play, but there was a relationship.
The Justice Secretary, to justify his view that there is no link, is fond of saying that crime rates also declined internationally during that time, but that prison rates in many countries went down. Well, he is wrong. I have checked the figures for OECD countries, and prison populations rose almost everywhere. Although prison should always be the outcome for serious and persistent offenders, we believe that alternatives to custody should be used when they are a more appropriate form of punishment and reform. We accept that prison is not always the best place for offenders, and community sentences can be a better alternative in order to cut reoffending, but does he accept that, as a result of the changes that we introduced, the number of women in custody went down, and that reoffending rates for women, young men and first-time offenders also went down in recent years?
I welcome the announcement that the Government are seeking to build on important Labour innovations, such as the expansion of community payback. Further action on drug addiction is clearly welcome, and the steps outlined to deal more effectively with offenders with mental health problems, one of our society’s most pressing issues, are a vindication of the decision of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) to set up and start to implement the important Bradley review.
The current Justice Secretary aims at some of the right goals, but his total eagerness to please the Treasury by cutting the Ministry of Justice budget by 23% will make it very difficult and risky to turn those aspirations into reality. With the Home Secretary having also caved in to a 23% cut, the obvious question voters will ask is, how can the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s party ever again claim to be the party of law and order?
The Secretary of State will recall the old care in the community model for mental health in the 1990s. As a former Health Secretary, he presided over it and will be aware of some of the real problems that it created. If proper resources are not invested in dealing with offenders outside prison, we could be in for care in the community mark II—this time with criminals.
Will the Justice Secretary explain, in particular, what assessments are being made of the likelihood that prisoners on indeterminate sentences, whom he wants to release, are no longer a risk to the public? What procedures will be put in place to monitor such people in the community?
Mr Speaker
Order. I am loth to interrupt the shadow Secretary of State, but he is getting towards the point where his questioning has been longer than the Secretary of State’s pithy statement, so he really does now need to bring it to an end. He can have another sentence, but he must then bring it to an end.
Sadiq Khan
As ever, Mr Speaker, I am grateful.
When the Justice Secretary was recently asked on BBC’s “Newsnight” how he would judge the success of his penal policy, his first response was that he “hadn’t the first idea”. That was a more revealing answer than he perhaps intended, because it exposed a certain complacency that is becoming the hallmark of this Government.
In conclusion, let me offer the Lord Chancellor advice on how to judge the success of his policy. Will it make communities up and down the country more or less safe? Will it result in crime going up or down? I tell the Lord Chancellor and those who support him that it is against those criteria that we will be holding him, his proposals and his Government to account.
Mr Speaker
I do not want to be corny about it, but in this context I should surely be able to appeal from now on for shorter sentences—and preferably fewer of them.
Mr Clarke
I was about to congratulate the Opposition spokesman on his statesman-like performance in a difficult situation. He managed to go on for exactly the same length of time as I took to make my statement. I listened carefully, and he did not criticise a single proposal that I had made. He did not disagree at all. I should have realised that he would do that, because when he was asked, by Decca Aitkenhead in The Guardian of 29 November, whether Ken Clarke had said anything that he disagreed with, he said, “No, he hasn’t.” He took eight minutes to give that reply today, but the conclusion was the same.
The right hon. Gentleman said that we had abandoned our whole manifesto and pre-election commitment. We are in a coalition Government and have inherited a financial crisis. The principal argument that we had when in opposition was about the rehabilitation revolution. I commend to the right hon. Gentleman the work done by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General on a pamphlet called “Prisons with a purpose”. In the manifesto, we said:
“We will never bring our crime rate down or start to reduce the costs of crime until we properly rehabilitate ex-prisoners.”
That remains the core proposal that we are putting forward, and I am glad to be able to build on it.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the reduction in the number of people in prison. Eighty-two thousand is not a target; I asked people to produce an estimate of what the whole package—there are a lot of things in the package—was likely to do to the prison population over the next few years, and their estimate, and it is only an estimate, is that that population will reduce by about 3,000. It would be quite something to stop the explosion of the prison population that has been going on in recent years. Reducing it by 3,000 is quite modest, but that is an estimate. We are aiming to do something to ease the pressure on the system—above all, to ease the pressure on victims—by rehabilitation and by tackling the root causes of crime.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about numbers. He tried to praise—he did his best—the record of the Government of whom he was a member. The real nadir of the publicity-seeking policies of the last Government came when they had succeeded in getting so many people sentenced to prison that they could not accommodate them. Eventually, they had to release 80,000 prisoners from jail, before they had finished their sentences, under an early-release scheme. That was a debacle of a policy that we will not repeat.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about this being against a background of a 23% reduction in my budget. Half of that, of course, is going to come from administration and a great bulk of it from legal aid savings, which he supports. Much less will come from the Prison Service and the probation service.
Does that comment mean that the right hon. Gentleman would spend more? I am waiting to hear what the Labour party says about the financial background to policy. Apparently, the reduction is too much. Will he consult the shadow Chancellor and let us know how much more a new Labour Government would spend on keeping up the prison population, keeping the criminal justice system as it is and continuing the failed policies of the last Government?
Mr Speaker
Order. Thirty-seven years of service in the House should make the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) an exemplar of brevity.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I remind the Lord Chancellor that Members from all three parties on the Justice Committee unanimously recommended a shift from expanding prison places to rehabilitation, drug and alcohol treatment, mental health provision and early intervention to stop young people from getting into crime. Would he not be failing to keep the public safe if he did not follow that recommendation?
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. A lot of people in all three parties welcome this shift of policy; it is not particularly me and my colleagues who believe it; It is quite obvious that it is a direction in which we should go. I look forward to having the assistance of the Select Committee and making sure that we get the details right and keep going in the right direction.
Mr Speaker
Order. I would love to try to get everyone in, but I appeal to right hon. and hon. Members to help me to help them.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Why is the Secretary of State so unwilling even to utter the words that would acknowledge that, in the past 15 years—the last two years of his Government, from 1995, and through the 13 years of the previous Labour Government—crime fell by a record 50%? Why does he not acknowledge that and also accept that the cost-cutting led programme that he has announced today may put crime levels at risk?
Mr Clarke
Of course I acknowledge that crime fell during that period, as it did throughout most of the western world. I have always acknowledged that. Where we will not agree is on the simple cause and effect that the right hon. Gentleman puts forward. Let me quote from a source whom it would be unexpected for me to quote with total favour: Mr Newt Gingrich. A recent article he published in an American magazine about the situation in the state of South Carolina states:
“Often, in…fiscal crises, we hear that no area of state spending is exempt from budgetary review. But in reality, prison spending often is the proverbial sacred cow. That’s partly because voters…mistakenly believe reductions in the prison budget will lead to putting the ‘bad guys’ back on the street.”
This morning, I was put on Alastair Campbell’s blog. Newt Gingrich seems to agree with the direction we are taking, Alastair Campbell appears to believe that we are going in the right direction, and Members from all three parties, including the Chairman of the Select Committee, agree. The right hon. Gentleman is the representative of a failed past.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Last year, 3,000 burglars and 4,500 violent criminals with 15 or more previous convictions were not sent to jail, and people with more than 100 previous convictions who came before the courts were more likely not to be sent to jail. They reoffended not because they went to prison, but because they did not go to prison. How on earth can my right hon. and learned Friend accept the figures that his Department has issued and say that too many people are going to prison? Most people would look at those figures and conclude that too few people are going to prison.
Mr Clarke
A court has to look at the nature of the offence and the individual offender and give the right sentence. For serious criminals, that means going to prison; for recidivist offenders, that means going to prison; for others, it might be more appropriate for a strong community sentence to be made available. It is not possible to generalise in such a way. At the heart of what we are doing is ensuring that judges give the right punishment and that they give us a rest while people are in prison. The system is simply failing to prevent people reoffending. That is what the policy focus has to be and that is what will reduce crime if it is successful.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Perhaps the Secretary of State will remember that, back in 2001, there was something called the Halliday review of sentencing. In July of that year, I talked—much as the Secretary of State has done this afternoon—about avoiding reoffending. Does he acknowledge that a £40 million cut in the South Yorkshire police budget, more prisoners on the street, and more offenders reoffending because the police are not available to protect the public and the victims is not a charter for common sense? It is a charter for criminals to get on with the job that they have been doing and from which we have been trying to protect the public.
Mr Clarke
The budget for the Prison Service and the probation service in my Department increased by roughly 50% in real terms over the past seven years. The idea that the only approach to criminal justice policy—as with other policies—is simply to spend and borrow more and more is what got the previous Government into the sorry state in which they eventually collapsed. We must now do things more intelligently and sensibly, and address the problem of reoffending. I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman was unsuccessful when he turned to that in 2001.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State talk specifically about the issue of foreign offenders in the prison system and what he proposes to do to free up prison places by a change of policy in that area?
Mr Clarke
The number of foreign prisoners in our prisons roughly doubled in the past 10 years, during the period of office of the previous Government who rather went backwards and forwards at various times about whether they were releasing people who might have been deported or keeping them here because they could not be deported. It is difficult to get large numbers out, but we are determined to make an effort to do it. We are looking at ways in which, in suitable cases, conditional cautioning could get people out of the country and diverted out of our criminal justice system altogether on the basis that they never come back. We are also looking at how we can encourage other countries to take back prisoners who are eligible for deportation to ensure that this extraordinary burden, which has grown in the past few years, is eased, because there are better things we can do in the whole system with the money we are spending on foreign prisoners.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased that the Justice Secretary intends to build on the success of the youth offending teams, which I introduced in 1998. Will he ensure that the youth courts, and indeed the courts generally, follow the central recommendations of the justice reinvestment report by focusing clearly on what works in reducing reoffending and incentivising those outside the criminal justice system who can help to bring down crime?
Mr Clarke
The answer is yes. One thing on which I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman is that we have to concentrate our resources on what works. By that I mean, from the point of view of the potential victims and society at large, what gets down the level of crime committed by young offenders in particular.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I notice that my Conservative Secretary of State says: “Prison cannot continue to be simply an expensive way of giving communities a break.” I am sorry, but communities deserve a break—they deserve a break from being burgled. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that on his watch, people who cause absolute misery by thieving from people’s homes, particularly those of elderly people, can expect to go to prison, where they deserve to be?
Mr Clarke
The answer to the last part of the question is obviously yes. Burglars should usually go to prison—nobody has ever suggested that they should not. I have read extraordinary suggestions that we are letting out burglars, robbers and all kinds of people. They are the core population of a prison and should remain so. The main purpose of prison is that it is the best form of punishment: it is a way of exacting some reparation from somebody for the crime they have committed. It also, of course, gives us a break from their offences while they are in prison. However, if we concentrate on that aspect of imprisonment, it is a very expensive way of giving people temporary relief from the crimes of those incarcerated. Prison should be producing people most of whom, on release, will not go back to a life of crime. Unfortunately, over a period of years, three quarters of them have eventually committted further crime. That is the failure and weakness in the system, and that is where the concentration now has to be.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Earlier, in Health questions, the Health Secretary confirmed that he has been working with the Justice Secretary on plans to divert mentally ill offenders from prison—something that I broadly welcome. When I pressed him on how much additional funding was being made available for this, he was unable to tell me, but referred me to this statement, so can the Justice Secretary tell me how much additional money will be made available?
Mr Clarke
This is about both our budgets, so I had better not pre-empt my discussions with my right hon. Friend. I hope that he gave a helpful response to the question, because the two of us, together with our Departments and our officials, are working very seriously on trying to improve the situation for mentally ill people who ought not to be in prison or ought to be better treated in prison. It is not an easy subject. The reason we have so many people in prison who obviously ought not to be there because they are suffering from mental illness is that it is difficult to devise services that will not only help them but improve their behaviour and make them less of a risk to the community at large. At this stage, we are consulting on it. However, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is a genuine commitment on the part of my right hon. Friend and me to ensure that the Department of Health, the NHS, the National Offender Management Service and the Prison Service work together properly so that people are dealt with in a more suitable and civilised fashion. The main benefit one can give to the public regarding those whose main problem is mental illness is to help them to cope with the behavioural problems that are causing the crime.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Can the Secretary of State confirm by how much he expects the number of vulnerable women and women with babies in prison to reduce as a result of these very sensible proposals?
Mr Clarke
I will not go into another precise estimate, but we need to reduce the number of women in prison. The previous Government worked on that. It is important to realise that women who go to prison—many fewer do so than men—tend to have a particular combination of problems. Compared with men, a much higher proportion of women in prison have a history of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and a disordered life, in all kinds of ways. Focusing on that is likely to reduce the women prison population, and we will do that. Of course, as with men, there is a hard core of women who are hardened criminals or antisocial people, and they must be incarcerated for long sentences when they do something that deserves it.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I have no quarrel with the vision set out by the Secretary of State for Justice. It is in keeping with many recommendations made by the Home Affairs Committee over many years. I do have a quarrel with the detail, however. Last year, there were 4,600 hospital admissions as a result of knife crime. Will he confirm that it is still the policy of the Government that those who are caught carrying knives will be sent to jail?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman does not differ in principle. I do not think that Opposition Front Benchers do either; they certainly do not have an alternative to put forward. Knife crime is a very serious matter. We are clear that the use of a knife in crime is serious. Anybody who stabs somebody else will go to prison—they usually do and they always should. Anybody who uses a knife in a threatening way in the course of a crime should go to prison. Anybody who carries a knife in circumstances in which its imminent use is likely should go to prison.
However, we have to avoid absolute tariffs that set in statute what the punishment should be for every particular offence. That was a mistake made by the previous Government. To fill up more than 20 criminal justice Acts, they produced ever more complicated and prescriptive rules, which judges sometimes find incomprehensible and which sometimes are in danger of flying in the face of the obvious justice of an individual case or the long-term interests of society.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
The majority of the people I represented who were burglars were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Does the Secretary of State agree that residential rehabilitation is usually far more effective at stopping such people reoffending than long custodial sentences?
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She has long experience, and much more recent experience than I have, of dealing with such problems in the courts. What we must do through, among other things, the payment-by-results approach and bringing in more private, independent and not-for-profit providers, working in co-operation and partnership with statutory providers, is find better ways of achieving better results in drug rehabilitation, the ending of alcohol abuse and the treatment of mental illness.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Following on from the previous question, will the Secretary of State confirm that he will lobby for drugs funding, not just in his Department and the Home Office, but in the Department of Health? Unless drug treatment programmes are funded, we will not be able to treat drug addicts and prevent them from moving into the criminal justice system.
Mr Clarke
I will. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary takes the lead in the Government in tackling drug problems and the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), is heavily involved too. We will use payment by results widely across the piece, not just with regard to offenders, to find out what works. We will put more emphasis on genuine rehabilitation, not just keeping people dependent on methadone for as long as happens in far too many cases in prison and in the community.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I welcome the reference to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 in the Green Paper “Breaking the Cycle”, although that reference did not make it into the statement. It follows on from the excellent report by Lord Falconer, “Breaking the Circle”, which unfortunately the Labour Government did not have the courage to do anything about. Will the Secretary of State assure me that this matter will be an important priority, particularly in ensuring that cautions become spent extremely quickly?
Mr Clarke
I can confirm that we are proposing to reform that matter. We are consulting on it, so I look forward to having the hon. Gentleman’s representations on what level of offence should never be excluded from disclosure, how long it should take for cautions for other offences to be spent and what we should do about juvenile offences, which are sometimes held against people for far too long in what has become a law-abiding adult life. We will not duck the issue, we will reform the system and I look forward to hearing his views.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
HMP Brixton is in my constituency, and 80% of the prisoners there are on short-term sentences of less than four weeks. I will look at the Green Paper to see what it will do to address the fact that it is difficult to rehabilitate within that time frame. I was e-mailed last week by the prison’s independent monitoring board, which made it clear that there should be absolutely no cuts to the prison. What guarantee can the Secretary of State give me that the Green Paper will not be used to impose cuts on my local prison?
Mr Clarke
I realise the difficulties of a prison such a Brixton, with such a high proportion of its population being short-term prisoners. We cannot get rid of all short-term prison sentences. I have never believed that that was possible, because magistrates face people who have come before them frequently, and they have tried everything else. In such cases, there is absolutely no way of dealing with their recidivist behaviour other than to send them to prison, or sometimes back to prison yet again. I hope that some of the payment-by-results providers will be able to start providing rehabilitation for such people, for whom no provision is currently made once they are put out of the door.
As far as spending on the Prison Service is concerned, we are affected, as in every other service, by the financial constraints we are under. It is not true that it is not possible to make any savings in how we run the prison estate. Spending on the Prison Service will depend in large part on what burdens are imposed on the system in future years by the level of crime and sentencing patterns, because it is partly a demand-led service. I cannot simply give an undertaking that nothing will be changed. We intend to follow on from the last Government’s policy of using competition, among other things, to test costs and ensure that we have the most cost-effective way of providing the quality of service that we want to provide.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
As someone who both prosecuted and defended in criminal courts before coming to this place, I wish to mention the possession of knives. Does the Secretary of State have an assessment of the effect of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006, which increased the sentence from two years to four years? Does he agree that the best way to deal with knife crime is to deal with the gang culture that leads to the possession of knives?
Mr Clarke
Yes, I think the possession of knives is a scourge on society, particularly when it is associated with gang culture and all the other problems that it causes in many communities. I repeat, however, that judges and magistrates are in the best position to decide on the circumstances of a particular offence, the circumstances of the offender and the best way of imposing a penalty that protects the public.
We have to get away from the habit of the past few years of leaping in with a tariff that takes discretion away from the courts in each and every category of case. The tariff works in some cases but then, the next thing we know, the people who campaigned for it are campaigning like mad against some obvious injustice because it is inflexibly applied to some person who would be better dealt with in other ways.
Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
Earlier this year in my constituency, a driver who had been drinking crashed into a group of teenagers on the pavement, seriously and permanently injuring them. At the trial, the judge bitterly complained that he could give him only the maximum two-year sentence for dangerous driving. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman join me in supporting the Drive for Justice campaign to give judges more flexibility in sentencing dangerous drivers?
Mr Clarke
I shall have a word with my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, because that is a perfectly valid point that we will consider. There is, of course, a higher penalty for causing death by dangerous driving, but the hon. Gentleman describes someone who behaved equally reprehensibly but happens not to have killed any of the victims. As I am arguing for discretion, we will look at whether the constraint is too tight.
In the case of ordinary dangerous driving without any serious consequences, and although I deplore all dangerous driving, we cannot start imposing heavy prison sentences on everybody who might otherwise be a blameless citizen and then behaves in an absolutely reprehensible way when driving his car. Some cases, such as the one described, make the case for having a look at the two-year maximum.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I welcome the proposal in the Green Paper to expand the principle of restorative justice, but will my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that any moves to expand that approach will be victim-led rather than offender-led?
Mr Clarke
The answer to that is yes, I will. Restorative justice is proving to be remarkably successful, but I take my hon. Friend’s point that it does not work if victims are not in the leading role. We have ensured very high levels of victim satisfaction in most of our experience so far of steadily spreading restorative justice.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s road-to-Damascus conversion to rehabilitation. I made a note of some of the promises that he makes in the Green Paper, which include regular working hours, restorative justice, custody diversion, and drug, alcohol and mental health services. What bothers me is that if those things are to be effective, they cannot be done on the cheap. It is wrong of him to promise such investment in rehabilitation, because the 23% cut to the Ministry of Justice and cuts in probation mean that those promises are completely undeliverable.
Mr Clarke
I make the point again: the hon. Lady does not appear to disagree with any of those proposals, but they were not priorities of the Labour party when it was in office. That is not where the money went. The Labour Government spent money on a colossal scale, but it did not go into the objectives that this Government now advocate.
Otherwise, to be fair, the hon. Lady makes a valid point. The House should understand that achieving the results that we want will take time. We are dealing with difficult problems, such as mentally ill prisoners, which are incapable of instant, overnight solution—[Interruption.] It is no good her making gestures about spending money, because simply spending money on mentally ill prisoners will not get us very far. We must spend money intelligently.
We are talking about a whole Parliament, but I emphasise that payment by results does not involve putting money up front. It avoids the danger of giving grants to this or that hopeful-sounding idea or project. Sadly, some of those projects do not work. Paying by results means that we will pay for what works. The projects that succeed will spread more rapidly.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The secure training centre in my constituency protects the community when young people are locked up there, and often teaches them to read. As that costs more than £100,000 a year, what will the Secretary of State do to ensure that those benefits carry over when those young people are released?
Mr Clarke
It costs about £170,000 a year to keep somebody in a young offenders institution. Those who think that the numbers being detained are inadequate might reflect upon that. I agree strongly with my hon. Friend that what matters is the rehabilitative supervision that is in place after detention, with the support to deal with whatever the young person’s problems are in addition to his bad behaviour. In that way, we ensure that we reduce to the absolute minimum the risk of his reoffending and getting back into the system.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the questions asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), and my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), can the Secretary of State confirm whether extra cash will be made available by either the Ministry of Justice or the Department of Health to support all the rehabilitation measures that he outlined today?
Mr Clarke
I realise that the hon. Lady is a new Member of the House—[Interruption.] If the Labour party cannot move on from reacting to every social problem by saying that there must be more public expenditure and borrowing—Labour Members think that if we demonstrate that, we are tackling the problem effectively—it has no role in the government of this country for many years to come.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s announcement that those who commit a crime using a knife can expect to be sent to prison. However, will he elaborate on another part of his statement? He mentioned having a sentencing framework that is comprehensible to the public, which I hope also applies to victims. I found during the general election that a number of my constituents do not understand why, when somebody is sentenced to six years, they automatically go home after three.
Mr Clarke
I have no anecdotal recollection of anybody who has stabbed somebody not going to prison. Actually, people who do not stab someone because they are stopped in time should go to prison too. A serious knife crime justifies a prison sentence, and I think that we can rely on judges to give serious prison sentences. They do not have to be told that the use of a knife in a crime deserves a serious sentence. However, if they want to be told, I and my hon. Friends will tell them.
Public understanding of the system is important. We will consider how sentences can be expressed in terms that the public understand. People do not understand that when someone is sentenced to a certain number of years in prison, they serve the first half in prison and the other half on licence, which means that they will be recalled to prison if they start falling down in their behaviour. There are many other aspects of our incomprehensible sentencing arrangements that are difficult to get across to the public. The rules given to judges for explaining sentences are a hopeless mess and need to be simplified, and I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to make it more transparent and clearly available to the public.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I remind the Secretary of State that I am always keen to hear his answers? I know that his natural courtesy inclines his head backwards, but I would like him to look at the House.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Instead of giving prisoners the vote, why does the Secretary of State not incorporate the withdrawal of that civic right in a prison sentence? If he does not do that, will people not think that he actually wants to give prisoners the vote?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the last Government for—I think—the past five years. For five years, the last Government accepted that they had to give some prisoners the vote. They consulted on it every now and then, but they did nothing. He should have come forward with his helpful suggestions when he was in office. We are about to produce our proposals on how to comply with the relevant judgment, but that will not involve giving all prisoners the vote. We will consider some of his points and then get on with it. The Government led by the previous Prime Minister were often incapable of taking a decision and getting on with anything.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State reassure my constituents and guarantee that dangerous criminals, such as paedophiles, will receive demanding and robust punishment in prison so that our streets are kept safe for our children?
Mr Clarke
Yes. It is sometimes difficult to debate law and order in this country. Occasionally, I have to listen to a kind of looney-tunes debate about whether I am starting by releasing murderers, rapists, burglars or paedophiles. I believe that serious criminals should be in prison. I have never met a sane person who wishes to disturb that. I believe in long and severe sentences for people guilty of such a serious crime as paedophilia.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
May I suggest that the Secretary of State visit, as I did recently, the Isis centre at Belmarsh prison, which is taking some innovative steps towards rehabilitating young offenders? With that in mind, I think that young offenders sometimes need custodial sentences to turn their lives around. Will he confirm therefore that judges will not have the discretion to give anything other than a custodial sentence to someone who uses a knife in a criminal act?
Mr Clarke
I think I can, although I do not think we need to put it in statute. I would be utterly astonished if a judge did not give a custodial sentence to anybody who used a knife in a criminal act. I approve of prison sentences in such cases, but I do not think we need to legislate on it. It is the nuances of far less serious cases that will get us into difficulty. However, if a person stabs somebody, they should go to prison, and I would be quite shocked if somebody did not go to prison in such circumstances.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
In September, I met an ex-prisoner who told me that a continual stream of custodial sentences was broken only when he swapped a life of crime for a life as a conscientious father. What measures can we consider to ensure that the families of offenders, and not just the offenders in isolation, are supported on the road to rehabilitation?
Mr Clarke
We would like to give professionals every possible encouragement to follow that advice. People who are criminal for a part of their lives and then stop often do so because family responsibilities and a secure family environment have taken them back into a more sensible and decent way of life. We intend to give the professionals more discretion in how they do that. The last Government were prone to setting targets, prescribing methods and setting down rules for community sentencing.
Mr Clarke
It did not work, despite what the right hon. Gentleman says. Over and over again, the professionals complained they spent half their lives in an office ticking boxes confirming that they had taken the prescribed course, rather than being able to tackle in an individual way the kind of problems my hon. Friend heard about when he met his constituent.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Let me begin by telling the Secretary of State that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and I may be new, but we are not daft. He said that prison could not be just an expensive way of giving communities a break. For victims of domestic violence, that break can be priceless or even life-saving. What reassurances can the Secretary of State give to victims about the criteria that he will use in deciding which IPP prisoners—those sentenced to imprisonment for public protection—who have completed their minimum tariffs will be released?
Mr Clarke
We are not just going to let IPP prisoners out—any of them. Release will be by the Parole Board. The Parole Board is currently experiencing considerable difficulty in evaluating whether prisoners can prove that they are a minimal risk when they are released, because it is very difficult to demonstrate that when the prisoner is in prison. We are going to readdress IPPs, to try to make them work as they were originally intended, for a comparatively small number of very dangerous offenders who pose a continuing risk, and look at the test that the Parole Board can apply. However, no one will be released until someone has assessed whether the level of risk is acceptable. It is impossible to guarantee no risk: there is nobody in prison about whom anybody could ever say, “This person is never going to be at risk of offending again.” I am afraid that, in the real world, there is nothing we can do about human nature. Quite a number of the people in prison will inevitably commit crimes when they come out, but the number who reoffend has to be reduced, the IPP ones have to handled very carefully, and the Parole Board has to be given a proper test to apply.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Further to the reply that the Secretary of State gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), does he agree that if we are to restore the public’s trust in the criminal justice system, there must be honesty in sentencing and that convicted criminals should serve the full length of any sentence of imprisonment handed down by the court?
Mr Clarke
I agree with honesty in sentencing—I have always supported that idea—and we will certainly be addressing the way in which it is explained by a judge in court, so that it is clear and comprehensible to the public. That includes explaining the term of imprisonment and the term of licence that follows—what is currently called “serving half the sentence”. The first half is in prison; the second half is subject to recall to prison, but it is served on licence out in the community. To turn the full term into imprisonment, which no one has ever done, would merely involve doubling the sentence for every prisoner. The financial objections to that are only the first ones that I would raise.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Surely the courts must always determine when a custodial sentence is required. The public will not understand what sounds like the Secretary of State saying that he or the Treasury is setting out to constrain that decision making.
Mr Clarke
With great respect, I am obviously being particularly obscure today, because I agree with the hon. Gentleman; indeed, I was saying precisely the opposite of what he described. We have spent the last 10 years or so believing that sections of statute—some of which read rather like local government circulars—are required in order to tell the judges what to do in individual cases, and that we should prescribe exactly what they do, according to some careful analysis. The judges complain like mad about the incomprehensibility of the legislation they are supposed to be applying. I firmly agree with the hon. Gentleman that, by and large, judges are in the best position to judge the appropriate way of dealing with each case and each offender, just as juries are the right people to decide guilt or innocence in serious cases. Parliament must stop trying to second-guess and introduce rules that we believe, with the best of intentions, cover all cases but which will not cover the absolutely amazing variety of circumstances that tend to accompany any particular category of crime.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on avoiding the siren calls of populism that I have been so disappointed to hear on both sides of the House today. Will he reassure me that when a prisoner is in prison, not only does he have a duty to make reparations but the state also has a duty, to offer him the opportunity of redemption, so that when he leaves that place of incarceration he has a chance to lead a useful and meaningful life—a life that is not reduced to one of stigmatisation or described, as I heard from the Opposition Benches, as that of a prisoner on the streets?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. We should give those who have the backbone to go straight, with help, a chance to do so because that will protect the public. Those who do not, and who commit crime again, will be punished again. It is just hopeless to suggest that giving extra emphasis to reforming criminals who want to be reformed is somehow weakening in the context of law and order; it is not. It would improve the protection of the public if we did it, and, as my hon. Friend says, it is a perfectly sensible way for a civilised state to behave.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Bassetlaw has the largest drug treatment programme in the country by far. We have reduced crime further by locking up repeat offenders. The Secretary of State is trying to get rid of the courts, he is getting rid of 300 front-line police officers, and now he is conducting this social experiment. Can my community, which is totally against this idea, please have an exemption? We could then compare and contrast the results to find out what works best.
Mr Clarke
One day I will convert the hon. Gentleman. With great respect, I think that he has been a great leader in his community in tackling the problem of drugs in Bassetlaw, and it is partly down to his efforts that it has been tackled in that part of Nottinghamshire much more forcefully than ever before. We are going to send repeat offenders to prison; no one is going to stop punishing people who keep offending. It is not a key part of the legal system in north Nottinghamshire that we should keep redundant courts, although we are still consulting on the two courts in his constituency. The foresight that he has shown on the problems of drugs will not be frustrated by our attempts to improve yet further the drug rehabilitation programmes that young people get in his constituency. This is not all about money, and that has not actually been the way he has approached this issue in the past few years either.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Last year, more than 20,000 offenders with 15 or more previous convictions or cautions, and more than 2,500 offenders with more than 50 prosecutions or cautions, avoided a jail sentence. Will my right hon. and learned Friend’s proposals not simply make that matter worse?
Mr Clarke
I do not think that they will make any difference, really—[Interruption.] No, do not start misquoting me. If the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) cannot find anything that I have said to disagree with, I hope that he will not start misquoting me in order to find something. I would need to work through those 2,000 cases, and my first question would be to ask what the further offence was that they were up for. I am sure it was not parking. People who have previously committed a crime are not always sent to prison again, and the first thing we have to ask is how serious is the matter for which they are before the courts again. I hate to cast doubt on my hon. Friend’s statistics, but a lot of the statistics used across this whole field as the basis for these arguments are hopelessly unreliable. We are not reducing punishment for serious crime, and we are not letting anybody out of prison. We are using prison as a punishment, and trying to prevent the kind of people that he has described from reoffending over and over again, because that is in the public interest.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that education is key to rehabilitation in prisons. What facilities are there for young people in prisons such as the Reading young offenders institution, where big central contracts have failed and more local provision is needed under the guidance of the governor of the prison?
Mr Clarke
We will of course continue to try to improve the level of education available to people, particularly in young offenders institutions. We are reviewing the educational service, and I agree that in many cases a more localised approach is likely to produce a better standard of education services than attempts to impose some kind of centralised system.
Points of Order
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last Tuesday, the House debated the need for more information on higher education, including, crucially, on the access requirements that universities will have to meet in order to be able to charge the maximum £9,000 fee. According to press reports today, universities could be stripped of their right to charge students more than the lower level of tuition fees, yet actually, that sanction already exists, and guidance referred to in media reports suggests that there are no new changes to the legal constraints on university powers. Many people will wonder whether any university wanting to charge the full £9,000 will really be held back from doing so in practice. What steps can you take, Mr Speaker, to ensure that the House has a full and, crucially, accurate picture of the Government’s plans for higher education before Thursday’s vote on tuition fees?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman both for his point of order and for advance notice of it. The short answer to his question is that there will be an exchange on this matter on Thursday. I have every expectation that the full details of policy will be communicated, teased out, debated and made the subject of proper political argument. That, I think, is the most hopeful reassurance I can offer the hon. Gentleman. I have not received notice of any other ministerial statement, and I should not have expected to do so, but the opportunity presented later this week is one that I am sure he and others are eagerly anticipating.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you know, I am a shy and retiring Back-Bench Member of Parliament, and I am becoming increasingly distressed by the aggressive attitude of Government Members, particularly as we approach Thursday’s vote on tuition fees. I wonder whether you have received an apology, Mr Speaker, for the Chief Whip’s behaviour in the Chamber last night, as some of us feel that such an apology should be forthcoming.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The House of Commons can be an excitable place, and in his 13 years here, the hon. Gentleman has witnessed examples of that. I am satisfied, however, that in respect of the business of House motion, no procedural irregularity whatever occurred. Discourtesy in the House is to be deprecated. Defiance of the Chair is totally unacceptable, and when it takes place, I make it clear in no uncertain terms that it should not take place again. I think that any Member, no matter whether that person be the newest entrant or one of the most senior office holders, will recognise that, in the cold light of day, that is the way it has to be.
Safe Standing (Football Stadia)
Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give all football clubs the freedom to build, or maintain existing, safe standing sections in their stadia if they choose; to establish minimum safety criteria that must be met for standing sections in football stadia; and for connected purposes.
Any debate on football stadiums will inevitably, and quite rightly, raise the spectre of the tragic events at Hillsborough in 1989 and those that preceded it such as in the Heysel stadium in 1985. No debate on this topic can avoid addressing those tragedies and their repercussions, which still resonate with us even now. The events of 15 April 1989, which saw the deaths of 96 people and the injury of hundreds more, were uniquely horrific. An entire city has struggled with that day’s trauma ever since. The annual memorial services held at Anfield and elsewhere show that that day is still keenly felt and will never be forgotten, and nor should it be.
Nor should anyone believe that in raising the possibility of introducing safe standing in football grounds now, I am critical of the actions that were taken more than 20 years ago to outlaw standing at matches in the top two football leagues. I am certainly not calling for a return to the old-style terraces, which were poorly designed, overcrowded, poorly monitored and entirely unsuitable for the purposes for which they were used. A return to that world would be a retrograde and wholly unacceptable step.
Today, I propose something very different—another step forward to more modern, safe football stands that provide what fans want, but do so with maximum safety. After all, standing is not inherently unsafe. Lord Taylor’s report into Hillsborough cited many reasons why the disaster occurred, but the fact that the crowd was standing was not one of them. It happened, rather, as a result of gross overcrowding, a lack of concern for the safety and comfort of spectators, a lack of awareness of existing safety regulations and the poor design of the old-style terraces. The disaster happened because of a culture of negligence, not because standing is inherently unsafe.
Lord Taylor went on to recommend all-seater stadiums, because he argued that seats establish individual areas for individual fans and give them more space and comfort, prevent crowd surging, and make it easier to identify troublemakers in the crowds. I shall discuss how modern safe standing preserves those features in a moment, but it is worth noting that in making his recommendations Lord Taylor believed that fans would become accustomed to sitting and come to prefer it. Some 20 years later, the views of thousands of fans in the premiership and the championship demonstrate that that has not been the case.
When fans stand in all-seater stadiums today, it causes problems: it ruins the experience for those who want to sit. Equally, sitting ruins the experience for the many fans who prefer to stand. When they do stand, as many do, it is particularly unsafe. Yet, as we know, preventing large numbers of people from standing in all-seater stadiums is extremely difficult for stewards and the police. If it can be done safely, as I believe it can, it would be far better to have a mix of safe seating and safe standing areas in stadiums where clubs choose to offer such options. That way, children, families and others who want a more peaceful experience could have it, while those who want to stand could exercise that right. This can be done.
Countries such as the United States, Canada and Germany are certainly not negligent towards their citizens’ safety. They have harnessed technological developments to create standing areas that truly are safe, and such areas are a popular choice with supporters. In such areas, as with seated areas, there are designated spaces for each fan, and there are barriers between rows, preventing surging, pushing or jostling. Individual fans can be easily identified if they are causing trouble, because they are limited to their own individual spaces. Thus, the key reasons why Lord Taylor recommended seating can also all be met with safe standing. In many cases, each individual standing area comes with its own flip-down seat. That corresponds with UEFA and FIFA rules that require international and European matches to be seating only. There is absolutely no evidence that such standing areas, where properly designed, managed and maintained, are unsafe for domestic matches. As numerous polls have shown, they are overwhelmingly backed by supporters and, as they create more space for fans, clubs could then reduce the price of tickets, thus offering another benefit for fans.
The question of standing is even more pressing for fans of Scunthorpe United football club. For them, promotion has come at a very high price. After Scunthorpe United FC’s third season in the top two tiers, it will have to have converted its ground into an all-seater venue. That will reduce the ground’s capacity, which is already the lowest in the championship, from 9,000 to 8,000. Neither the club nor its supporters want that. More seats mean less space, and so fewer supporters will get to see their team. If Scunthorpe United FC is demoted in future, it will not be able to convert some of its seating back into standing areas. The conversion will have come at tremendous expense, and Scunthorpe United FC will have paid for the privilege of ruining its own ground. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), on whose constituents this change has an impact, for their support for this Bill.
I am also grateful to the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, who I see in his place, for agreeing at least to consult relevant bodies. Sadly, I suspect that he will hear, as I continue to do, some outdated criticisms. Some will raise the issue of cost but, as my Bill proposes, that should be a matter for individual clubs to decide. Some will suggest that spectators have become used to sitting and like it, but that is patently untrue, as the long-running campaigns by football fans’ organisations show. Some will argue that statistics prove that seated stadiums are safer than standing ones. For some years, the Football Licensing Authority did claim that. However, when its statistics were challenged as inaccurate, it subsequently withdrew them. As my Bill makes clear, minimum safety standards would be nationally established before any new safe standing areas are permitted.
Some might claim that seating has reduced hooliganism, but even before Hillsborough, hooliganism was declining. Inside grounds and outside, in clubs that are all seated and in clubs that are terraced, hooliganism has receded. The character of this country’s fans has changed for the better. For example, no England fans were arrested at the World cup in South Africa with the exception of the practical joker who sneaked into the England team’s dressing room. The decline in football hooliganism is not directly because of a move to all-seater stadiums. Last week’s Home Office arrest figures show no evidence of any link between grounds where standing is still allowed and the number of arrests. There is no reason to believe that a move to introduce safe standing areas would mean an increase in hooliganism.
Finally, I have no doubt some will raise the issue of the UEFA and FIFA rules, which I mentioned earlier, that games under their jurisdiction must be played in all-seater stadiums, but with the inclusion of flip-down seats in each standing area those regulations present no problem, as was demonstrated in the Veltins arena in Germany, which was used for the 2006 World cup, and the Tivoli Neu stadium in Innsbruck, Austria, which was used during Euro 2008.
I defy opponents of safe standing to demonstrate that those stadiums are unsafe and that those countries are neglecting the safety of their fans by allowing standing. Following the Hillsborough disaster, it was right to take action against the old-style standing terraces, but modern developments mean that, as other countries have shown, it is perfectly possible to introduce safe standing into the stadiums of premiership and championship clubs if the clubs want to and when stringent safety standards are met. I hope the House will support moves to allow clubs to consider such options.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr Don Foster, Andrew Percy, Nic Dakin, Greg Mulholland, Mr John Leech, Mr Mike Hancock, Bob Russell, Mr Roger Godsiff and Kate Hoey present the Bill.
Mr Don Foster accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 June, and to be printed (Bill 121).
European Union Bill
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 195 / Noes: 330 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the European Union Bill, has consented to place her prerogative, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the official Opposition.
Mr Hague
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
In the past 25 years, the EU has changed many times, each change marked by a new treaty: the Single European Act, the Maastricht treaty, the Amsterdam and Nice treaties, the failed EU constitution and its modified successor, the Lisbon treaty. As a result, the EU now has a greatly enlarged place in our national life, policy and politics. At the same time, we have seen a growing disconnection between the people who put us here in Parliament—the British people, the voters—and the EU’s institutions. There is a growing sense, shown by falling turnout in European elections and a variety of surveys, that the EU’s democratic legitimacy in this country has been weakened.
It can be said in mitigation that all but one of those treaties had its place in the manifesto of the party that won the general election, the exception—a rather important exception—being the last such treaty, the Lisbon treaty. It cannot be denied, however, that there is a problem—a severe one—that will only grow worse unless we take steps to address it, and the European Union Bill is part of the coalition Government’s answer to that problem. Indeed, the crowning argument for the Bill was the behaviour of the last Government, who opposed a referendum on the EU constitution, then promised one, then refused to hold one on its substantially similar reincarnation as the Lisbon treaty. The Bill will prevent Governments from being so deceptive and double-dealing when it comes to giving voters a say.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill, which will ensure that parties do not make a proposal on one side of an election only to conduct a U-turn on the other. Has he had any discussions with the Labour party on its position on the Bill, or will it be walking into the next election supporting a case in which the British electorate will again be denied the opportunity to conduct affairs on Europe?
Mr Hague
That is something for the Opposition to consider and they will have some time to do so before the next election. The position set out in their amendment appears to be at best uncertain in that they agree with the principle of doing such a thing but not with doing it in practice. That is rather like the position they often occupied in government of being in favour of referendums but never actually holding one on any European matter for which they were responsible.
Ms Gisela Stuart
How would the Secretary of State describe a party that promised a referendum and then, in order to avoid one, simply changed the question, as the Members who are now in coalition with his party did in the last election?
Mr Hague
I am not here to answer for the party policies of other members of the coalition but for the coalition Government as a whole. The hon. Lady can rest assured that both parties in the coalition join strongly in their support for the Bill. It is sponsored by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, and it is therefore easy for people in a third party to join us in supporting it, as the hon. Lady will no doubt want to consider doing.
Mr Cash
Given that we stood united as a party in opposing the Lisbon treaty and supporting a referendum, and given that we voted for that, will my right hon. Friend explain why we have done a U-turn on that within the coalition Government? Will he also explain why he was not prepared to come to my European Scrutiny Committee to explain the circumstances behind the Bill?
Mr Hague
On the first point, I do not think the coalition Government have done a U-turn, as the Bill implements part of the coalition agreement that was set out in the few days after the general election. It is true that the Conservative party, when the Lisbon treaty was ratified last year, said that in those circumstances we could no longer hold a referendum on the treaty. That, of course, was made clear before the general election. My hon. Friend is being a little unfair to both parties in the coalition.
On the second point, I understand that my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe gave a splendid exposition of the Government’s position to the European Scrutiny Committee. As the Minister who was most involved in drafting the Bill, he was best equipped to go before the Committee. I look forward to discussing these issues with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) on many occasions. Let there be no fear about that.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
In our manifesto we promised to amend the European Communities Act 1972, and the coalition agreement states:
“We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that treaty—a ‘referendum lock’.”
But the Bill does not amend that Act.
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend may have worked out that the Bill has exactly the same effect as amending the Act and that it therefore absolutely honours the commitment in the coalition agreement. We additionally agreed, in the coalition agreement, that we would not agree to any transfer of powers from Westminster to Brussels for the duration of this Parliament. In addition, if Parliament approves the Bill, any future treaty change that transfers powers from Britain to the EU could be agreed only subject to the consent of the British people. That will provide a referendum lock to which the British people hold the key. The Bill makes a very important and radical change to how decisions on the EU are made in this country. It is the most important change since we joined what was then called the European Economic Community. It marks a fundamental shift in power from Ministers of the Crown to Parliament and the voters themselves on the most important decisions of all: who gets to decide what.
It has been said that because the Bill will place a high democratic test before any Government can agree to participation in deeper political integration in the EU, it will marginalise Britain, but I believe that that argument is dangerously mistaken in its assumption of what progress in the EU means. The yardstick for progress in the European Union is not the depth of political integration. The lost opportunities of the past decade of institutional navel-gazing have made that plain. Progress for the European Union means its institutions’ ability and willingness to help its member states meet the challenges of today, and for us today that means our international economic competitiveness, sustainable low-carbon growth and the use of our collective weight in the world to advance our shared values and interests.
That is why, from their first day, the Government have been active and activist in European policy. That is why we have played a strong and positive role in the EU which in six months has delivered significant results—agreement on EU sanctions against the Iranian Government that are already having a material effect, and agreement on measures that will substantially aid Pakistan’s economic recovery in the aftermath of the floods. We have pushed hard at EU level on measures to further free trade, in particular with Pakistan and South Korea, thus far with success.
The UK has not taken part in every aspect of the EU’s development. The euro was created, and the decision to retain our own currency has, for example, been vindicated. Staying out of the euro and maintaining our own border controls has not weakened our influence, either. The previous Government’s successful championing of enlargement to the east, to which I pay tribute, is proof of that. In the single market—for example, on patent reform—the UK should be ready to move forward in the national interest with other like-minded partners.
As in all matters, the Government’s policy on European issues should be based on the pursuit of our enlightened national interest. Our ability to advance our goals by working with European partners is crucial to that. Ensuring that our role is based on democratic consent is equally necessary, and that is what the Bill is about.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Foreign Secretary explain why, when the Government are giving away powers to regulate the City, powers over criminal justice, powers in two regulations and a directive that will affect our economic governance, and big new powers for an expanded External Action Service, none of those qualifies for a referendum under the Bill? People want a referendum now on the powers that the current Government are giving away.
Mr Hague
That is simply because we are not giving away those powers. The European External Action Service was agreed, established and given its role by the Lisbon treaty. My right hon. Friend may regret that, and I may regret that, but it was given by the Lisbon treaty. On the City, the European Union has long had the power to legislate in this area, which has equally long been subject to qualified majority voting and co-decision with the European Parliament. On economic governance, it is clear—for instance, in the Van Rompuy report on economic governance—that the proposed sanctions do not apply to the United Kingdom and that the proposed changes will not affect the United Kingdom. I reject my right hon. Friend’s basic thesis.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Is not the argument between my right hon. Friends precisely the problem? Surely Parliament must be sovereign because the people must be sovereign. What will happen in future if there is some row about whether a referendum should take place or not once the Bill becomes law? Will not our affairs then become justiciable? Is that not an attack on the sovereignty of Parliament, which we must believe in?
Mr Hague
I shall come to that point. It requires clarity in the Bill, as far as possible, on the circumstances in which a referendum would or would not be held. That is the safeguard against what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) is complaining about in relation to rights that have been given away in the past. It would have been good to have a referendum on those. The Bill is about the future—let us be clear about that—and we have to make it as clear as possible.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has mentioned the Lisbon treaty a number of times, saying that because of it we cannot do certain things. Surely the public will think that no Government should be committed to previous Governments’ decisions, and that it would be perfectly possible—there would be huge support for it—for the coalition Government to say, “Now we are in government, we want a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.” That would sort out the whole situation, because clearly the public would vote against it.
Mr Hague
As the hon. Lady knows, since the Lisbon treaty was ratified it has been built into the treaties of the EU. It does not have a separate existence once it is ratified. A referendum on that would be the same as a referendum on taking part in all the EU’s institutions—in other words, being in the EU at all.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) mentioned criminal justice powers, and the last Conservative manifesto saw fit to promise to work to bring back key powers over legal rights and criminal justice. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government have not just not sought to repatriate these powers, but have actually given additional powers to the European Union, as they did just last Friday when they chose to opt in to a criminal justice directive over which there was an opt-out, not only without a referendum but without even a vote in this House of Commons? Will he give serious consideration to requiring a vote of the House of Commons and the House of Lords before there are any further opt-ins to significant pieces of criminal justice legislation from the EU that will give the European Court of Justice jurisdiction over our courts?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend raises a very important subject—a rather large subject, unfortunately, for those watching the length of speeches today, because I want to answer his question properly. Let us be clear that in the context of the Bill, it is any proposal to give up our freedom not to participate in justice and home affairs decisions that would be subject to a referendum. That would be from where we are starting—the extension of the power of the EU. But it is also important to be clear that the justice and home affairs ratchet clauses, as I call them, covered in the Bill amend the treaties by allowing for an expansion of what can be done within existing areas of EU competence. They are clearly passerelle clauses. We said in the coalition programme for government—that is our reference document here—that the use of any passerelle clause would require primary legislation, so that is also the case.
The opt-ins, which are a different category, are a very important subject, but they are not for this Bill. Given that there are strict time limits applying to the UK’s decision to exercise an opt-in, which is within three months of the receipt of a proposal—
Mr Hague
I am answering my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), so I had better complete the answer before I give way again.
The fact that there are also 30 to 40 proposals per annum means that it is not possible to place a primary legislative lock or parliamentary resolution requirement on the exercise of the opt-in. Therefore, it is important to be clear about the distinction of these different categories of decisions on justice and home affairs.
Mr Hague
I had better make some progress, because I will return to all those subjects in the course of my speech.
The nature of how our society relates to its politics, and the expectation of the British people’s involvement in decisions that affect them, has changed. In the years since 1997, we have had referendums in Scotland, Wales, Greater London and the north-east of England on proposals for devolution of power; in Northern Ireland we have had a referendum on the Belfast agreement; and legislation is before Parliament now to hold a referendum on a change to the parliamentary voting system. Changes that affect the powers exercised on behalf of the people by Parliament have been considered to be important enough to require the endorsement of the people in a referendum.
At the same time, there is a widespread perception that the really important decisions about the EU have been taken without real consideration for the wishes of the people, and much of that is reflected in my hon. Friends’ comments. Many in the House, including me, think that the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, without the promised referendum, was wrong, and it did a great deal of damage. That perception reinforces public alienation from the EU and decisions taken on the EU by Governments, and that is what we now have to put right. Therefore, we in the coalition Government have resolved that we need to rebuild trust and reconnect people and enhance parliamentary control over EU decisions, so, as with our proposals for elected police commissioners, our plans to enable parent groups to establish free schools in their communities and our proposals to hold a referendum on the voting system, we are giving more power from the centre to the citizens of this country.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary speaks of public alienation, but does he recall saying:
“If you believe in an independent Britain, then come with me, and I will give you back your country”?
Does he understand the disappointment felt by so many Members on the Government Benches and in the country about the European journey he has since taken?
Mr Hague
I remember well saying that. It was a very good speech, and it is recommended reading for all those who have trouble sleeping. It is even in a book somewhere, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for quoting it. He can rest assured that I would have held a referendum on many things that have happened since then, including on the Lisbon treaty. Indeed, I asked for a referendum on other European treaties that were introduced during that time. However, it is our misfortune when we start in government, whenever we start, to start from where we are, and we start from here—in a coalition Government, meeting the commitments in our coalition agreement. That is what we now have to take on.
As hon. Members who were present for the Lisbon treaty debates might remember, there are now essentially two ways in which treaty change can be agreed by the Governments of member states: the ordinary revision procedure, under which any amendment to the treaties must be agreed unanimously by member states, and, following the Lisbon treaty, the simplified revision procedure, under which the European Council can decide to amend those parts of EU treaties devoted to internal policies, such as the single market and justice and home affairs.
Under our current law, any change under the simplified procedure, defined in this Bill as an “Article 48(6) decision”, would require only a Minister of the Crown to move a motion in both Houses and for both Houses to vote positively to approve the change. It is easy now, and it was easy in 2008 when that provision was debated, to see how that level of parliamentary control for a formal treaty change is grossly inadequate. The Bill therefore ensures that any future amendment to the treaty on the European Union or to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, under either revision procedure that I have just outlined, will require parliamentary approval by Act of Parliament before the United Kingdom is able to ratify the change.
That is a significant addition to the powers of Parliament to hold Ministers to account for the decisions they take in Brussels. It was an addition that I championed in opposition and one that this Government will now put into statute to ensure that parliamentary control is enhanced further. That is the first thing that the Bill achieves.
Henry Smith
I welcome the Bill, but if it becomes law a future Parliament will be able to repeal it, so ultimately, do we not, like other European countries such as Germany, need to codify the sovereignty of this Parliament in a written constitution?
Mr Hague
That is a wider debate, and there is a legitimate argument for that. I hope that the Bill becomes part of the accepted constitutional framework of this country, for which, over time, it will have to receive widespread public support and the acceptance of parties from all parts of the House. The Opposition, as we have said, will have some time to think about it. Indeed, they might have a very long time before they return to government—I certainly hope so. I hope that the Bill becomes part of our permanent constitutional framework, but the argument for a written constitution ranges much wider than the scope of the Bill.
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman knows well that I have long opposed referendums on almost everything. I am not a fan of referendums; I believe in parliamentary democracy, but that is a different debate from today’s.
The hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) makes a good point—that the Bill does not really introduce a referendum lock. It closes the door for a while, until such time as a Government of any colour, whether Conservative, Liberal Democrat—well, that is fairly unlikely—or Labour, choose, if they want to, to derogate from the Bill in any provisions that they introduce. Is that not the danger—that the Bill might just seem like no more than political posturing?
Mr Hague
As I go through the description of what the Bill entails, the hon. Gentleman will understand that it is a lot more than that. It means a great deal for what happens in this Parliament. It means that not only do we have our commitment not to transfer more powers from this country to the European Union, but that in a vast range of circumstances we would have to hold a referendum if we contemplated doing so.
It will be very difficult for future Governments to go back on those commitments, but we will see; that is something for the Labour party to contemplate. In future elections, it can choose whether to say that it will weaken democratic accountability in this country or whether to accept the changes for the long term. That is a choice it will have to face, and there is no sign in its reasoned amendment today that it is yet making that choice. However, it will have to make that choice, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will have to make it.
Mr Hague
I shall try to space out the interventions, but I will come to my hon. Friend.
Clause 4 sets out the criteria that the Government of the day would have to apply to determine whether a transfer of competence or power would occur under a future treaty change. The Act of Parliament seeking parliamentary approval for the treaty change would also make provision for the holding of the referendum, if a referendum were required. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty, the different types of EU competence—a European legal term that really means the power to act in an area of policy—and the extent of each type of competence has been set out explicitly in the treaties. Under this legislation, any extension of competence would trigger a referendum. That would also include any extension or creation of a new objective for the European Union. That is all clear in the Bill.
Power, on the other hand, is not so clearly defined, so I want to establish here what we mean by a transfer of power as set out in clause 4. First, it means the giving up of a UK veto in a significant area of policy because that would mean that the UK would lose the ability to block a future measure made under that treaty article. There is a large number of vetoes in the treaties, and many of them are in areas that hon. Members on both sides of the House consider important and sensitive—for example, foreign policy, tax, justice and home affairs. It is right that any treaty change that would transfer from unanimity to qualified majority voting the way in which decisions were taken over those key areas of policy should require the consent of the British people before a Government agree to such a change.
We do not propose to hold a referendum over the giving up of the veto over more minor or technical measures such as any future agreement to change the numbers of Advocates-General in the Court of Justice of the European Union. In my view, giving up such a veto would be a mistake and should require primary legislation in the House, but I do not think that the British public would understand it if such a narrow and relatively minor measure were to require a national referendum.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
If the right hon. Gentleman has the power of veto, he can stop anything that he does not like. Why does he then need a referendum?
Mr Hague
We need a clear framework for referendums because Governments such as the right hon. Gentleman’s promised the people a referendum and then reneged on that commitment, and because the level of public trust has dramatically declined. This is a new framework of law for this country and I believe that it will enjoy growing support over the years. It already enjoys the strong support of two political parties in this country. That in itself is an enormous advance on where we were starting from in the last Parliament, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows.
Charlie Elphicke
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the central point of the Bill is that if a future Government came along and attempted to cheat the British people out of a referendum, as the previous Government did—as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) well knows—they would not be able to do it without explicitly repealing and amending the Act? They could not hide behind word games and semantics.
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, the Labour party will be asked before future general elections what its approach would be. It will be asked to give the commitment to maintain the referendum lock; otherwise people will know that it would propose in office to do exactly what it has done before—give away the rights and powers of the British people without the consent of the British people. If the Labour party wants to go into a general election on that basis, let it do so, but it would be wiser for it to adopt this framework for the future.
Mr Hague
I will give way, but I want to make some more progress and get through my speech, as well as taking interventions.
The second way in which power will be transferred from Britain to Brussels, as defined for the purposes of the Bill, will be by granting an EU institution or body, through treaty change, a new ability to impose further obligations or sanctions on the United Kingdom or on individuals and organisations within the United Kingdom.
That point has been the subject of some debate, although some of that has been based on scant acquaintance with the content of the Bill. It has wrongly been claimed that Ministers will be able to use a significance test on any future treaty change. That is not true. The Bill places an absolute and unqualified referendum requirement on the transfer of competence, the creation of new competence, or the removal of limits to existing competences and upon a whole raft of vetoes. The Bill also provides that the consent of the British people will be required if the Government wish to agree to certain other specific decisions—for example, joining the euro, joining a common European army, or joining the group of countries that have shared border controls.
If the only reason for a proposed treaty amendment being caught by the referendum lock is that it would, while not transferring or extending competence, confer upon the EU the ability to impose new obligations or sanctions on this country, we need to be able to distinguish between important and minor changes. We are providing a workable, sustainable solution to prevent referendums being held on matters that we could not justify to the public as having the significance to merit a referendum.
Mark Hendrick
The right hon. Gentleman is making it plain in his remarks that the Bill is not aimed at the current Government; it is aimed at a possible future Labour Government. He says that he would not trust a future Labour Government, but does he trust his current partners? He has described the Liberal Democrats as wanting to go all the way towards a united states of Europe, so what is his position? Does he trust them, or does he trust us?
Mr Hague
The Bill is aimed at all Governments, including our own, any future Governments and any combinations of Government. Yes, we have new partners in government and, on the basis of the past seven months, I trust them a great deal more than I would trust the Government we had before the election. Let the hon. Gentleman be absolutely clear about that.
On how the Bill works and ministerial accountability for decisions on whether to hold a referendum, a Minister of the Crown will be required to make a statement within two months of a treaty change being agreed by member state Governments. That ministerial statement will have to give reasons why the treaty change does or does not require a referendum, and those reasons will have to refer to the criteria set out in clause 4.
Mr Hague
I will in a moment, yes. Like any ministerial decision, it will be open to any member of the public—yes, any member of the public—who is entitled to vote in a referendum to challenge the Minister’s judgment through judicial review. The reasoned statement set out in clause 5 makes any such ministerial decision as amenable to judicial review as is possible. That provides a powerful reason for Ministers to stick to both the letter and spirit of the law, and not to seek to sidestep the requirement for a referendum. We have ensured that we are as precise as possible about what would require a referendum.
Mr Hague
I will give way again in a moment, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) next.
We have also provided further clarity on the scope of the referendum lock by setting out certain categories of treaty change that would not require a referendum: first, the accession of a new country to the EU—the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston looks surprised—would not require a referendum, although each accession treaty would still require approval by an Act of Parliament; secondly, a treaty change that, while it would have to be agreed and ratified by all member states, would not apply to this country; and, thirdly, a treaty change that merely sought to codify EU practice in relation to the previous exercise of an existing competence. The Bill does not cover any use of the EU’s existing competences as defined in the treaties, because those competences have already been transferred and the extent of the competences is set out in European law.
Mr Carswell
The Foreign Secretary has spoken of a referendum lock. Given that this Parliament cannot bind the next, that a future referendum would rest on a ministerial decision in the way that he describes, and that a new law would be required for such a referendum to be held, in what sense is it a referendum lock? It is a piece of legislative PR, perhaps, but not really a lock.
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend, perhaps deliberately, understates its importance by overstating the scope for ministerial decision and the significance test. The Bill is very clear that, on 44 specific treaty articles, the removal of the veto requires a referendum, and that the substantive use of 12 treaty articles requires a referendum. There is no scope for Ministers to decide that those things do not require a referendum. There is no scope for Ministers to decide that a decision to join the euro, to subscribe to a European army, to give up our veto on the financial framework, to give up our veto on foreign policy or to give up control of our borders does not require a referendum. Let us be absolutely clear about that.
My hon. Friend said that we cannot bind our successors in this respect, but of course that could be said about so many of the laws that we propose, and are proposed under future Governments, which we intend to have long-term effect. If we took that attitude on everything, there would be no point in doing anything or ever getting up in the morning to come to Parliament at all. We are trying to create a long-term and enduring framework, and I believe that we have a very good chance of doing so.
Graham Stringer
When the right hon. Gentleman was in opposition, I enjoyed his speeches on Europe: they were magnificent; leonine. I voted with him on the Lisbon treaty—not just on the basis of his speech, but because it was in our manifesto to vote for the Lisbon treaty. However, I wish that he was using now the arguments that he used then. The public are not interested in the details in this Bill—they think that too much money is spent on the European Union and that it has too much power. Are not the Conservative party and the Foreign Secretary going to give the people of this country an opportunity to have their say on that?
Mr Hague
The public are right, and my arguments are the same as they were on the Lisbon treaty—[Interruption.] They may not sound like it; I have to explain an 18-clause Bill, so they may not sound quite as dramatic. The hon. Gentleman may be right that the public are not interested in the details of the Bill, but Parliament needs to go through those details. My argument is exactly the same as the one that I made on the Lisbon treaty—that where a Government propose to hand over the powers of this country, there should be a referendum. There should have been a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If there is any future treaty change of the kind that I have described, there should be a referendum. It is exactly the same argument. I am grateful to him for voting with me then, and I trust that on the same basis he will be voting with me today.
I will now give way to someone else—
David Miliband
I, too, very much enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speeches when he spoke for the Opposition, and it is nice to be able to ask him some questions now.
Schedule 1 of the Bill is entitled,
“Treaty provisions where amendment removing a need for unanimity, consensus or common accord would attract referendum”,
and it lists things such as the appointment of judges and advocates-general of the European Court of Justice. Is the right hon. Gentleman really saying that we are going to have a referendum in this country if his Government, or any future Government, decide that they want to transfer competence on that issue?
Mr Hague
We welcome the right hon. Gentleman back to the House. It is traditional in these circumstances to sit on the Front Bench below the Gangway in a menacing posture towards his own party, and we notice that he has gone to sit in that particular position. There is some political significance in that.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for stressing the detail into which the Bill goes and the extent to which we are insisting that a referendum should be held, because that should be of enormous reassurance to some of my hon. Friends. On the specific subject of the advocates-general, one of the matters that I said would not be subject to a referendum is the loss of our veto on the number of advocates-general.
Mr Cash
I am extremely grateful again to my right hon. Friend. Does he recall that in the evidence that was given to my Committee and in the conclusions of the report that it produced last night, there was an assertion and a conclusion that the Bill invites litigation in the courts? He has just confirmed, with regard to the circumstances of a referendum, that he too would invite litigation. Does he not think that the time has come when this House, as the ultimate authority of the law of this land, should decide such matters, and not just buck them over to the courts?
Mr Hague
The Bill is about many matters being decided in this place or by the people. The hon. Gentleman’s point is distinct from the one that was raised in the European Scrutiny Committee report about clause 18. I made the point that an executive ministerial decision is subject to judicial review, which is always the case. The decision of the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) on the Lisbon treaty was taken to judicial review by Mr Stuart Wheeler, albeit unsuccessfully. Ministerial decisions are subject to judicial review and that is not changed by the Bill.
The right hon. Member for South Shields is still looking puzzled about the position of the advocates-general. The loss of the veto in the appointment of advocates-general and European Commissioners would be a significant loss of national—
Ms Gisela Stuart
Accession treaties are exempt from the referendum requirement. Will the Foreign Secretary explain how the accession of Turkey, which by that stage would probably have a larger population than Germany, would not amount to a considerable loss of influence for the United Kingdom, given the system of qualified majority voting? Why is it therefore exempt from a referendum? I just do not get it.
Mr Hague
That is a different argument about referendums on accession treaties. Such treaties do not extend the powers and competences of the European Union, and so are not within the terms of the Bill. If the hon. Lady wants to advocate a referendum on the accession of Turkey, there will, sadly, be time for her to do so because the process will take a while. However, that is a separate argument from the extension of powers and competences.
Mr Hague
No, I must make a bit of progress.
The Bill will give Parliament more control over whether the Government can agree to a number of other important EU decisions, sometimes referred to as the self-amending provisions of the Lisbon treaty. Those decisions, which are known as passerelles or ratchet clauses, contain built-in mechanisms that allow modifications to EU treaties or the exercise of one-way options, without recourse to either of the formal methods of treaty change.
The Government have identified three types of ratchet clause, although I hesitate to go into detail after the comments of the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). However, it is important to be clear on this matter. There are clauses that allow for a change of legislative procedure, clauses that allow for changes in voting procedure and clauses that allow for the expansion of the scope of an article allowing the European Union to act.
Given the lack of a universal definition and the Government’s aim of ensuring that our proposals are as clear as possible to Parliament and the public, we have set out explicitly which treaty articles require additional levels of control. As with future treaty changes, passerelles or ratchet clauses that entail a transfer of power or competence will require the consent of the British people in a referendum. There will be a referendum requirement on any methods in the treaties for giving up vetoes that we have deemed to be significant. Clause 6 covers the simplified revision procedure and six provisions in the treaties that allow for vetoes to be given up without formal treaty change.
Clauses 8 and 9 provide for parliamentary controls over two types of decision: the use of article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the EU—the so-called broad enabling clause—and the use of three ratchet clauses in the field of justice and home affairs. Some additional proposals that require a vote in both Houses, rather than a Bill, are listed in clause 10. They are mostly articles that modify the composition, rules of procedure or statutes of existing EU institutions or bodies.
The coalition stated in its programme for government that it would examine the case for a United Kingdom sovereignty Bill. I announced in October that, following that examination, we had decided to include a provision in this Bill to place on a statutory footing the existing common law principle of parliamentary sovereignty. The doctrine that EU law has effect here for one reason only, namely that authority has been conferred upon it by Acts of Parliament and subsists only for as long as Parliament so decides, has been upheld consistently by the courts. However, we can see considerable merit in placing that position beyond speculation on a statutory footing. That will guard against any risk that in future, common law jurisprudence might drift towards accepting a different argument. In other words, we have included a clause that underlines the fact that what a sovereign Parliament can do, a sovereign Parliament can undo.
Mr Cash
I wish to put on record the fact that, in the conclusions to the European Scrutiny Committee’s report issued last night, we unequivocally rejected the notion of a common law principle, because it would offer the courts a gateway to take over jurisdiction in areas that we regard as unacceptable in UK constitutional law.
Mr Hague
Yes, I have read the report, of course, and I note the concerns about the references to the common law in the explanatory notes. However, those references are meant simply as a contradistinction to statute, given that the principle of parliamentary sovereignty is defined nowhere in statute. They are not meant to be determinative of the origin of the principle, which is an issue that goes far beyond the scope of the Bill.
As I set out a few moments ago, under current law any proposal to amend the EU treaties using the ordinary revision procedure can be ratified by the United Kingdom only once parliamentary approval has been obtained by Act of Parliament. We have therefore made provision in the Bill for Parliament’s approval of the transitional protocol on MEPs. That will allow 18 MEPs from 12 member states, including one from the UK, to take up their seats without having to wait until the next scheduled elections in 2014. As that protocol does not transfer any power or competence from the UK to the EU, a referendum is clearly not required. As it is a treaty change, however, all member states are required to ratify it. The Bill also makes the necessary provisions to elect our new MEP, who will, based on the recommendation made by the Electoral Commission in its report last month, represent the West Midlands.
Chris Bryant
Is the Foreign Secretary satisfied that the process that the French and Italians are using to change their representation is sufficiently democratic?
Mr Hague
I am satisfied that it does not affect the rights or powers of the United Kingdom and therefore does not require a referendum in this country.
The Bill will give the British people and Parliament powers that they have not previously enjoyed in decisions about engagement with the European Union. Some have criticised the Government’s proposals, saying that they will necessarily stymie further progress or put the UK in the slow lane of Europe. The Government do not subscribe to that argument, for three reasons.
First, it is wrong to accept continuous political integration as a definition of progress. Secondly, although other European nations have different constitutional frameworks, a number of countries require a referendum of their people to be held if a treaty change proposes a further shift of powers to Brussels. Some, most notably Germany, also have provisions in place to ensure effective parliamentary control over specific key decisions taken by their Governments. There is a growing trend across Europe to give citizens and Parliaments more control over the decisions taken by their Governments on EU matters, and it is right that we should be not just part of that trend but leading it from the front.
Thirdly, if a future Government can demonstrate a compelling case as to why a further transfer of power is in the national interest, they should be able to persuade the British people of its merits. If a future Government were to take a different view from ours, they would have to convince the British people. Whatever the outcome of such an argument, our democracy would be all the healthier for the decision lying in the hands of the British people as a whole. That fulfils an important part of the Conservative manifesto, but it also draws on a line of thinking that has found its place in recent Liberal Democrat manifestos. I hope that Opposition Front Benchers will in time support it too, because when the voters cast a party out of government, it must understand why. The previous Government’s high-handedness on EU matters is one reason why Labour is no longer in government, and it should now learn from that.
The Bill can receive support from those who like the EU just as it is, those who want it to do less, and those who want it to have more power but who are prepared to argue for that. The Bill does not determine the shape of our future place in the EU, but it ensures that our position will command the voters’ consent. It will give the British people the assurance, which they are entitled to expect, that the sovereignty of Parliament and the ultimate right of the people themselves to decide which powers are the subject of collective decisions within Europe are both properly safeguarded. Those safeguards will put our participation in the EU on a sturdier and more democratic footing. That is why we present the Bill to the House.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a second reading to the European Union Bill on the grounds that, while the principle of referendums on significant constitutional and monetary changes is appropriate, the Bill is a flawed measure which would confuse the important issues at stake and make vital constitutional issues justiciable by the courts rather than resolved under the sovereignty of Parliament.”
The Foreign Secretary has been on a long and tortuous journey to get here today. The man who voted for the Maastricht treaty without a referendum and the former party leader who put Euroscepticism at the heart of his unsuccessful election campaign now finds himself in government with what he has described as
“the most fanatically federalist party in Britain.”
The Foreign Secretary’s diary engagement from last night rather sums things up for him, and I am sorry that he chose not to share it with the House. Last night, he went back to Smith square, to the old Conservative central office. From the windows where once Margaret Thatcher waved on election night now waves a blue flag with yellow stars. Where once sat Tory party researchers working on the Bruges speech, there are now French, German and Italian officials. He was invited for the opening and renaming of central office as Europe House. It cannot be easy for him. He is caught between the realities and the responsibilities of government and the rhetoric of Eurosceptic opposition. He is caught, as they say, between a rock and the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash).
Mr Hague
The record should also show that the room where I spoke last night was named the Churchill room by common agreement, and that I took the opportunity to remind all who were there of the need for EU institutions to bring down their budgetary aspirations just as the Government have had to do in this country.
Yvette Cooper
If only the Foreign Secretary’s willingness to open EU buildings extended to opening a proper debate on European issues in the House. Clause 10 purports to increase Parliament’s role before ministerial decisions are made, yet the truth is that the Government do the opposite. We have had no discussion of the European economy prior to the discussion between European Finance Ministers today, no discussion of practical measures to cut the European budget, such as reform of the common agricultural policy, and no discussion of working with Europe on human trafficking or the directive that the Government continue to opt out of.
This very morning, European Finance Ministers met to discuss the Irish support package and the European economy. In 10 days’ time, decisions will be made on the crisis resolution measures that will affect the entire European economy—not just the eurozone—for many years to come. National leaders will discuss a treaty change to introduce that package, yet when is the debate in the British Parliament? We have no idea what British Government Ministers are proposing or asking for.
We should hold pre-Council debates in this Chamber. The economic and political pressures that Europe faces are serious. European growth is slowing, unemployment has increased and markets are putting pressure on several eurozone countries, all of which matters immensely to Britain, yet we have had no pre-Council debates. At the end of this year, there will have been four European Councils, but no debate.
Mr Redwood
The right hon. Lady is raising crucial issues. Does her party support the idea of Britain being part of more EU economic governance powers to help euroland, and does she think we ought to offer more financial assistance to other euroland countries in crisis?
Yvette Cooper
I think that the Government were right to provide support for Ireland, because the prospects for growth in Ireland will have a huge impact on our economy. That is also why it is important that the House debates the precise measures proposed as part of a permanent crisis resolution mechanism. The House does not know what those proposals are or what the Government are arguing for.
Mr Ellwood
Will the right hon. Lady provide some clarification, because her amendment does not make it clear where the Labour party stands on this issue? It supports referendums in principle, but it does not say when they would be held. When would a referendum be used on Europe? Will she also clarify whether it is still Labour’s long-term ambition to introduce the euro and an EU defence force?
Yvette Cooper
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have set out our belief that there should be referendums in cases of major constitutional change or currency issues, and I hope that he supported our decision not to let Britain enter the euro for the very good economic reasons that have proved to be right in practice.
The economic issues are very serious. Markets are still putting pressure on several eurozone countries. This matters immensely for Britain, because the Government are relying on an increase in British exports of £100 billion over the next few years to keep our economy growing, and we will not get that if our largest export market has gone into reverse. The EU does not have a serious strategy for growth and jobs, just as the British Government do not. The eurozone does not yet have a strong enough response to the pressure from financial markets, and a strategy of nothing but co-ordinated fiscal austerity in every country in Europe will not deliver growth, will not ultimately satisfy the financial markets and will be bad news for Britain. That is what we should be discussing now; that is what Ministers should be debating in Europe; that is what we should be discussing as part of a pre-European Council debate in the House. It makes a complete mockery of the Bill not to have those discussions in the House, and exposes the sham of the Secretary of State’s approach to Europe.
Charlie Elphicke
The right hon. Lady has set out the many problems of euroland, so why has she committed her party to supporting further bail-outs there?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that Britain will not grow without sufficient growth in our exports, especially given the sheer scale of the cuts that his Government are introducing. Without a sufficient increase in domestic demand, we are reliant on increasing our exports. Where does he want those exports to go, if he also wants us to turn our backs on Europe and allow the Irish economy to face serious problems? That would put a drag on our own economy and prospects as well.
Ms Gisela Stuart
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the use of article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union will not require an Act of Parliament, and that the current bail-out of Ireland, which is a pretty significant activity to which we are contributing as part of our EU obligations, is being done under that article?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It raises some of the unresolved questions coming out of the Bill and the interaction between the Bill and some of the crisis resolution mechanisms and proposed treaty changes. The Government simply have not answered those questions.
Mr MacShane
I am astonished that the Foreign Secretary of all people has thrown away this pre-European Council debate. I made my maiden speech in such a debate before people such as Ted Heath and Peter Shore. They are very important debates for our House of Commons, but the Government have thrown them in the dustbin because they cannot face the discussions needed. My right hon. Friend is right to keep emphasising this point, so will she commit us, when we form the next Government, to allowing a debate in Government time on Europe?
Yvette Cooper
My right hon. Friend is right: those debates are important. We could have had a pre-European Council discussion today, at the same time as European Finance Ministers are meeting and well in advance of national leaders meeting to discuss exactly these issues. Instead of talking about vital issues for the European economy, what are we doing? According to the Foreign Secretary, we are talking about referendums that he says we will not need and sovereignty that he says we already have—that is, referendums for powers that he says he will not even transfer, and sovereignty that he says will not change at all as a result of this Bill. Unnerving as I find it to be in agreement with the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell), I am afraid to say that he is right. This Bill is just smoke and mirrors to distract us from the fact that the Government have no strategy for Europe and no way of handling their own Eurosceptics.
Instead of having a serious debate about the future of Europe, the Foreign Secretary is pandering to the Eurosceptics, and it is the worst pandering of all, because it will not even work. All that it is doing is winding them up. This Bill is a complete dog’s dinner and he knows it, yet the Eurosceptics are salivating nevertheless. The Bill tries to constrain parliamentary sovereignty on the one hand and protect parliamentary sovereignty on the other, using a referendum lock that does one thing and a sovereignty clause that does the opposite—a referendum lock that tries to bind future Parliaments and a sovereignty clause that makes it clear that the Government can do no such thing. It is all in the same Bill, which faces both ways at the same time.
The Government’s press release on the sovereignty clause says:
“The common law is already clear on this. Parliament is sovereign. EU law has effect in the UK because—and solely because—Parliament wills that it should. Parliament chose to pass the European Communities Act 1972. That was the act of a sovereign Parliament.”
There is not much room for misunderstanding there. The statement then proclaims that
“to put the matter beyond speculation,”
the Government will introduce the sovereignty clause, but whose speculation are we talking about? It is not the speculation of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), because his European Scrutiny Committee has said:
“The evidence we received suggests that the legislative supremacy of Parliament is not currently under threat from EU law.”
The Committee continued:
“Clause 18 is not a sovereignty clause in the manner claimed by the Government, and the whole premise on which it has been included in the Bill is, in our view, exaggerated.”
The only source of speculation that I could find was one speech by a barrister on behalf of a client in 2002 and a speech by the Prime Minister in 2009. The truth is that the Foreign Secretary has set up a straw man in order to shoot it down, because he will not give his party what it really wants, which is a referendum on withdrawing from the EU altogether.
Mr Jenkin
The right hon. Lady really does not know what she is talking about. Let me refer her to the Law Lords’ judgment in the case of Jackson v. Attorney-General, in which Lord Steyn said:
“The judges created this principle”—
that is, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.
“If that is so, it is not unthinkable that circumstances could arise where the courts may have to qualify a principle established on a different hypothesis of constitutionalism.”
Lord Hope said:
“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute…Step by step, gradually but surely, the English principle of the absolute legislative sovereignty of Parliament which Dicey derived from Coke and Blackstone is being qualified.”
There are therefore two Law Lords speculating about the future of parliamentary sovereignty. The right hon. Lady had better do some homework.
Yvette Cooper
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not picking a fight with me; he is picking a fight with his Government, whom I quoted, and the European Scrutiny Committee, which I quoted. His disagreement is with them, but I hope that he agrees that clause 18 does nothing at all to change sovereignty. In fact, the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), who asked about a written constitution, got further than anybody else in raising the key question about sovereignty that the hon. Gentleman’s Government are pretending to solve while, in fact, doing nothing of the sort.
Mr Cash
I simply make the point that our Committee report is utterly clear on that subject. What the right hon. Lady quoted is correct. However, her Government were as responsible as any for giving more and more judicial authority—ultimate authority—to the courts. Their main policy over many years could be characterised as handing over more and more powers to the judges at the expense of this House.
Yvette Cooper
I know that the hon. Gentleman has immense expertise on the details of the legal changes, but he and I have a long history of disagreeing over what is important in a particular case, and I suspect that we will continue to do so.
Chris Bryant
Is not one of the problems with the Bill the fact that it makes the decision on whether to hold a referendum justiciable, and therefore a matter to be decided by the courts, when it is surely a political decision for which elected Members of Parliament ought to take the rap at the ballot box if they get it wrong?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Bill will create a lawyers’ paradise because it is so confused and complex. Important issues will have to be decided by the courts as they try to interpret what the Government and Parliament meant, which could lead to decisions that override Parliament and delays to decisions that Parliament might want to make while those legal wrangles are taking place.
Charlie Elphicke
Speaking as a former lawyer, I find the Bill plain and obvious. If a future Government or bunch of politicians get together to cheat people out of a referendum, a little guy could come along and put a stop to that through the court system. That has to be right, in order to keep politicians to their promises.
Yvette Cooper
That little guy would have some serious questions about which cases could be taken to court, how long they would take to be dealt with, and what judgment the court would make.
The pledges on referendums are very confused. We agree that Europe should not be pursuing new treaties, major treaty changes or major transfers of power or competence, and we have long said that it is time for Europe to stop its institutional navel-gazing, but navel-gazing is exactly what the Bill proposes. It tries to pin down in legislation the detail of a whole series of changes that would, or would not, trigger a referendum, but it creates complete confusion as a result. It does not define the powers or competences that it wants to protect, and it does not explain what constitutes a significant change and what does not. It allows Ministers to make decisions in certain areas, but admits that that will be subject to judicial review.
As far as I could understand him, the Foreign Secretary said today that the extension of any competence—even a supporting one, and even in a very small or insignificant way—will require a referendum. However, new powers to impose requirements, obligations or sanctions on the UK, even if they would have far more impact on Britain than a small change to the competences, would not require a referendum if Ministers determined that the proposed changes failed their own significance test.
I am also completely baffled by the debate about the advocates-general, because schedule 1 clearly states that the matter would attract a referendum, but the Foreign Secretary said that it would not pass the significance test. As far as I could work out, as I fitted together what he was saying, we would not have a referendum on how many advocates-general there were to be, but we would have to have one on whom we were going to appoint.
This is a dog’s dinner of a Bill. It is completely confused. Frankly, it makes the Maastricht treaty look like light reading. The Minister for Europe has said that he does not believe a referendum should be triggered for a treaty change on the allocation of carbon credits. He says that that is not significant, and he has a point. That matter should not merit a referendum, but how can he be sure that the courts will take the same view when interpreting this legislation? What about the treaty change that is due to be proposed at the European Council next week? That change would make it possible for Europe to create permanent bail-out mechanisms to deal with future financial crises in the eurozone. We have said that we have some concerns about the overall policy approach that Europe is taking. Nevertheless, the Government have said that they support these changes, and we recognise the need to look at a treaty change in order to ensure that a permanent long-term response is in place. The Foreign Secretary seems to be hoping that this treaty change will not be covered by the Bill, but how can he be sure that the courts will take the same view? He is asking for trouble because the Bill is so contrived and complex. Lawyers will have a field day. He is contriving his Bill to avoid a treaty change that he has not yet negotiated, and contriving his treaty negotiations to avoid clashing with a Bill that he has not yet tested in Parliament or in the courts.
Furthermore, despite all the Foreign Secretary’s contortions, he will not keep his Eurosceptic party happy anyway, as we have heard in interventions today. His Government have signed up to the EU investigation order. They were right to do so, and we welcomed the move, but his Back Benchers wanted a referendum on the matter. His Government supported the Van Rompuy taskforce on economic information, but many of his Back Benchers wanted a referendum on it. They want referendums on crime, on justice co-operation on the European arrest warrant, and on pulling out altogether. He cannot keep his Eurosceptics happy, so he is desperately trying to distract them with this Bill. He promised them red meat, but he is now offering them an omelette instead.
This is a Government of chaos and confusion, with the Eurosceptics on one side and, on the other, the president of the European Movement and the Energy Secretary, who has said about Europe that the
“Tories have jumped into bed with the wackos and the weirdos”.
On this evidence, one could say the same of the Liberal Democrats. The Government can have unity without clarity, or clarity without unity, but they are clearly incapable of both. At a time when they should be working hard in Europe on the issues that matter—jobs, growth, trade, cross-border crime—they are collapsing back into navel-gazing and confusion and turning their backs on the opportunities and benefits that working in partnership can bring. This Bill is a mess, and they should go back to the drawing board and start again.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Many Back Benchers wish to contribute to the debate, and a 10-minute limit on speeches has been introduced.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
This Bill is born of a very serious mood in our country. A majority of people in Britain feel that a great amount of power has already passed to the European Union over the past 20 years, and they feel that powers are still drifting away under this new Government. They would like to see that progress arrested, and they would like to see powers brought back in certain crucial areas. They would like to feel that more of their lives were under democratic, accountable government here in Westminster than under the less accountable, less democratic government of the European Union. The Government would be wise to heed the seriousness of that view among many in this Parliament, representing many outside it.
I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s noble aim. He says that the aim of his legislation and policy is to give us all a greater sense of empowerment when it comes to matters of European governance and action. I would urge him to look again at his Bill, however. It is certainly cleverly contrived, and it is certainly contrived in a great deal of detail, but it is, in practice, the not-the-referendum Bill. On every area of competence and power that we see drifting away or being transferred from us as we have this debate, we are told, “That would not qualify for a referendum under this legislation.”
I believe that the Foreign Secretary has taken legal advice, and he wants to have a referendum on the transfer of competences rather than on the transfer of powers. I would suggest that that is a tad too clever. We all know that most of the competences have already gone. That was what Lisbon was all about. That was why he and I fought tooth and nail, together, against that treaty and in favour of a referendum on the treaty. Most of the things that the Government now wish to do are a shared competence with the European Union. What matters is not a further transfer of competence, but a further grab or transfer of power by the European authorities.
When the Conservatives were in office, we made it very clear that we wanted trading relationships and friendships, and a certain amount of common legislating in single market and related areas, but not a common Government or political union. To reflect that, the architecture that we persuaded the partners to accept had the third pillar areas of foreign affairs and home affairs, which were matters for independent sovereign states to decide, and we always preserved the veto on any common action. That has now been eroded. So, as we meet to debate the so-called referendum lock, we see powers on home affairs being surrendered, issue by issue, by this Government—as they were by the previous Government—which will result in a much more common criminal jurisdiction from the European level. The British people need a voice on that matter; they need to be asked about it. Some of them might even agree with it, but they want to be treated seriously, as grown-ups, and asked if that is how they want their country to be run in the future.
On foreign affairs, we are being told as we meet that we still have a veto on the big issues and that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary can play his part in shaping a common European action and diplomatic strategy. At the very same time as we have to cut severely the growth rate of our public spending and make some deep cuts in certain areas, which we do not like, we see the European budget going up rapidly, partly to finance a big expansion in the European diplomatic service. This is not being done in order to have holidays in the sun, as some national newspapers seem to suggest, but because the EU wishes to exercise power and authority on our behalf and on behalf of other member states.
Mr Jenkin
I do not think that the Foreign Office has fully understood the consequences of encouraging this to go ahead, which is what it did. I am afraid that a great many of us voted for it in this House. The European External Action Service is ordering much more expensive cars, is to have grander embassies and is to pay much higher salaries than our own diplomatic service. That will be to the detriment of our diplomatic service because it will attract the talent away from our service and towards the European External Action Service.
Mr Redwood
It means that when a British Foreign Secretary makes foreign visits, he or she will be kept waiting while the EU ambassador is received and considered, because the latter will speak with more authority on behalf of more people and more states.
It is the third area that we have always reserved for national veto and national competence—central economic policy making—to which I shall address the remainder of my brief remarks in this truncated debate. Literally as we meet here this afternoon, crucial and massive issues are being hammered out in secret around the Council table in Brussels. Quite likely to be on the agenda is the issue of European sovereign bonds and the effective creation of a European sovereign in financial matters that issues debt and guarantees debt on behalf of member states. Do we want that? Are we in it? Is it not a transfer of power if we go along with it? Is it not an issue on which we should be invited to express our views?
Another item on the agenda may be the future membership of the euro. The Council could be considering in secret whether all member states are able to stay in the euro and whether the strong or the weak members should leave. If they are to keep the euro area together, what will be the arrangements for the large transfer payments that need to be made if the single currency is to have some hope of a decent life in the future, as all successful single currency areas have much bigger transfers of tax revenues, subsidies and money around them than the euro area currently has?
Mr Cash
My right hon. Friend portrays so accurately the realities that lie behind this Bill, which is about the economic crisis in Europe as well as many other matters. Does he agree that one serious current problem is the financial stability mechanisms and that if we do not assert our rights in this House and make certain that the courts cannot get their hands on an interpretation that would go the other way, we could end up paying for other countries beyond Ireland—Portugal, Spain and others?
Mr Redwood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why the transfer of power, if not of competence, is such a crucial issue and why we need to engage in a public debate at this very moment about how far this should go.
I hasten to stress to the House—particularly to my critics, who like to misconstrue what I say—that I wish our partners every success and prosperity with their single currency. I know that if that is the way they choose to run their economies, it is in our interests for it to work. We want them to be happier and more prosperous, and we like to benefit from trading with them, just as they like selling us a lot of their products. My worry is that in the process of our enthusiasm for that, we will draw in Britain—with her rather stretched budgets, even after the changes that the Government have rightly and wisely made—at a time when we do not have the financial strength to go to the aid of all these other euroland countries that are in some difficulty under the euro scheme.
I am a critic of the Irish loan. Of course I do not want to see the Irish economy go down, but I do not happen to think that lending the country lots of money at that juncture, as a result of a crisis deliberately created by the European Central Bank, was a terribly good way to behave. I do not believe that if Britain had declined to make some money available, the Irish loan would not have been negotiated. It would have been negotiated quite successfully by the architects of it—the powers behind the European Central Bank, who literally decided to withdraw funds from the Irish banks at a difficult time and made that decision public, thereby precipitating the crisis. We were engaged in a refinancing package for the European Central Bank. I think we should be told the truth; we should be told why it was a good idea for a country that rightly stayed out of the euro because it did not want the financial risk and hassle, to be drawn into helping finance the consequences of an ill-judged currency without a political union.
A successful currency needs a sovereign to love it and support it. That is why the sovereign’s face traditionally appears on the coinage and why there has to be a symbol to show that the whole weight of legal and economic authority stands behind a currency. If Europe is to have a successful euro, she needs a sovereign. I do not want my country to be part of the euro, and I think that around 80% of the British people agree with me. I think that even Opposition Members temporarily agree with me on this issue; they are not rushing to say that now is a good time to join the euro. We should be open and honest with the British people and say, “We wish the euro well.” We are doing it a great favour by not trying to join it—we would have been an over-mighty subject in it, which might even had led to its toppling earlier—and we are not currently in a financial position to make all the transfer payments available that are necessary for full members of a single currency area.
The House needs to understand that while we are debating some abstruse language and pledging this and future Governments to hold a referendum on treaties unknown about competences unspecified, a potentially massive transfer of power is under way yet again from the member states to the centre. There has to be; the thing cannot work without more central power behind the banks and the economic institutions.
The British Government say that they will accept a treaty extending the centralising powers in the economic sphere because the penalties on these will not apply to the UK Government. Well, I am delighted that the penalties will not apply, but I see no reason why the requirements should apply either, because we are not part of the euro. We should offer our support for a strengthening of economic governance for the euro area alone and make it clear that all the regulations and the directives apply only to that area. I think that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary got it wrong when he said that none of those applies to Britain; several of them do, although without the ultimate penalties. There could be other penalties, incidentally, which might apply to Britain.
When we surrender our veto and allow this treaty to go through on that condition—that it applies only to euroland—we should say that we want something back. We should seek to establish that we believe the European Union already has too much power and that we want something back. Do we want our fisheries back; do we want control over our borders back; do we want control over elements of taxation that have already gone to Europe through common taxation and a series of court judgments?
Power is seeping away as we meet. A massive debate is under way. Will the Government please take this Parliament and the British people into their confidence? Will they take us seriously? Will they give us an adult debate on the reality rather than this show Bill?
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I have to say that there is little in the speech of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) with which I would disagree. That immediately places me, of course, very much in a minority in my own party. I do not think that either of us is in a minority in the country, however. Many people watching our debate today will be wondering how on earth we ever got here. They will wonder why we are trying to introduce a Bill that is literally tinkering around with the real and fundamental problems of our membership of the European Union.
It is with great regret that I have to say that my party betrayed the promise it had made on the Lisbon treaty. If it had granted the referendum on that treaty, we would not be here discussing this Bill. One reason why my party and others did not want that referendum is that they knew the result would have been a defeat. In other words, we would not have signed up to the Lisbon treaty; it would not have happened.
Kate Hoey
I was new into Parliament shortly before the Maastricht treaty and I lost my position as the shadow spokesperson on the citizen’s charter and women because I voted against that treaty. I am therefore well aware of the issues. I was obviously in a minority then in my party, even though prior to that we had been quite sceptical on Europe.
I give the coalition Government some credit, because I know that they are facing great difficulties. The Conservatives said fine words before the election about how they were going to get more powers back and not allow any more powers to go. Unfortunately, perhaps because of the coalition, but also because of other pressures, most of that has not been complied with. The Government have therefore come up with this Bill, which seeks to show the country that there is still support within the coalition for getting some powers back. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has said, the Bill is unfortunately a minefield that lawyers will absolutely love.
The Bill misses the whole point. Some people continue to say that we should not even discuss whether we should leave the European Union, whether we should have that debate in the country and whether we should have a referendum. They have yet to prove to me—I have studied this very carefully—just how having that debate, having that referendum and voting to leave the European Union would be a disaster for this country. No cost-benefit analysis has ever been carried out on that. No Government have undertaken a proper cost-benefit analysis of the benefits to this country of being in the European Union. Although other countries, such as Switzerland, have carried out such analysis, every time it has been suggested here, it has been brushed away by the elite in Europe and in this country, who say that the net gains of membership are so obvious that there is no need even to think of quantifying them. That is increasingly becoming not true and the public are beginning not to believe it.
I am not a reader of the Daily Express, but its campaign, which has shown huge support for a discussion and debate on the European Union, is very much to be welcomed. Recent developments have made all of us who have doubts about this country’s involvement in the European Union queasy, because the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU is incredibly expensive for us and the benefits are becoming increasingly difficult to see. We do not need, again, to go into the cost of our net budget contribution, the increase that is going to take place and how it will be spent. Nobody wants to let the public know just how our money is spent. They are not told about the huge costs of the European External Action Service. From now on, our ambassadors will become less important than this European Union ambassador and it is shocking that we have allowed that to go ahead. I cannot understand why the new Government have done so, apart from the fact that they are a coalition.
However, I still wonder whether a Conservative Government with a proper majority would really have done all the things that they said they would. Once someone goes to Europe and gets involved in it, they somehow start almost to be part of it. They start to make up the discussions and the arguments, and somehow their attitudes change. The Minister for Europe used to say some brilliant things about Europe that I agreed with, but now that he is on the Front Bench, his words have changed slightly and become slightly nuanced. We get the feeling that once people have been going to Brussels over and over again, they change their attitude.
I am concerned that the Bill does not go far enough. I am not going to vote for the Labour amendment, which is a cop-out and a nothing amendment—it does not say anything. It does not bring to people’s attention all the opportunities that we missed when we were in government. I still have not decided whether I will abstain or vote for a Bill that we might be able to amend. I want this Bill to be used as the opportunity for people in the country to start being listened to. I want them to start having the opportunity to engage in the debate about why they feel so strongly that our membership is not giving us anything that is worth the money that we pay in.
Charlie Elphicke
Although many of us, myself included, would like to head into reverse and one day have that wider question determined, does the hon. Lady not accept that it is a positive move that this Bill provides a brake to stop us hurtling further forward without having a say?
Kate Hoey
I would accept that, except that even since the new coalition Government took office, this country has given away some more powers and given up things. We are already going to support directives that we should not possibly be supporting. It is the drip-drip-drip nature of the European Union that really gets me.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is really closing the stable door after not only the horse has bolted, but the stable has caught fire?
Kate Hoey
That is my point, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will never get the issue that is big enough for a Minister to say, “We are going to have a referendum on this.” Ministers will find some excuse not to do so, which is why the only honest thing is to work towards having a debate in the country and a referendum on whether we want to stay in the European Union. We hear all those Members, Ministers and shadow Ministers continually saying, “Ah, but it would be desperate. We could not possibly leave. We couldn’t even think about it.” They should put their arguments to the people. Let the people decide. Let them say what they really think and let us see what that decision would be.
There is one little book that every Member in this House should buy. If the Foreign Secretary, the shadow Foreign Secretary and the shadow Ministers have not read it, I will give them a copy. It is called “Ten Years On: Britain Without The European Union”. I wish it had said “the United Kingdom”, rather than “Britain”, as that would not have left out Northern Ireland. This brilliant book actually says, “If we were to leave the European Union, this is what this country would look like 10 years on.” Let us have the confidence to say to the people that it is time that we have that real debate. Let those people who are confident that the European Union is the right thing for this country put it to the people and give them the say.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), not only because they made excellent contributions, but because they give me the opportunity to be a loyalist by contrast.
This welcome and important Bill follows last week’s award to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister from European Voice for their joint work in advancing a more progressive and European-style of Government—I know that all on the Government Benches will be celebrating that. The Bill is a fine example of a coalition product: it is a sensible compromise. For too long, the UK has allowed domestic political posturing over the European project to dominate its thinking on the EU. Such an approach has fundamentally undermined our ability to play the positive agenda-setting role on the European stage that we can and should do. It would be great to be in the driving seat of Europe, okay to be in the passenger seat and passable to be in the back seat, but for the past 20 years or so Britain has, in effect, locked itself in the boot, kicking and whingeing as if it were somebody else’s fault.
Tim Farron
That is an honest position at least, which my hon. Friend sets out from a sedentary position. It is vital that we assert our sovereignty in Europe, but it is also vital to understand that one of the reasons why we have seen our sovereignty wane is our pig-headed failure to embrace the EU and take a positive role in shaping its future. It is high time that we moved on from dismal EU constitutional wrangling and focused instead on the issues that really matter.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
How does the hon. Gentleman think we can move on from dismal constitutional wrangling if we allow judicial reviews of all such issues?
Tim Farron
Every act of legislation creates a possibility of further litigation. That is the nature of what we do. The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, and if this Bill becomes an Act it will deal with many of the uncertainties and genuine concerns raised by my hon. Friends from a different party about our position in the European Union and the legitimacy of the decisions that are taken. The power should ultimately rest in this place and—even more ultimately—with the British people.
Tim Farron
I had better be fair and give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). Then, I think, I will have no more opportunities to give way.
Mr Redwood
Will my hon. Friend explain why we had 13 years of a pro-European Government who said we were at the heart of Europe when we were still in the boot?
Tim Farron
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. The reality is that for 13 years we had a Government who said they were pro-Europe but never went on the front foot and defended that position. There are all sorts of reasons to defend our position in the European Union and say that this country’s interests are best placed if we are inside the EU. However, because of the national mood and if we were to have a referendum today on in or out, there is a very good chance that—
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tim Farron
I do not think I am permitted to take more than two interventions.
There is such Eurosceptic hostility to the European Union that the last Government took the view that to attach themselves to the EU would mean seeing their popularity sink. They should have gone on the front foot; perhaps we would be in a different position if they had.
The UK and other member states face many major challenges, such as delivering economic growth, completing the single market, delivering new free trade agreements, cracking down on cross-border crime, combating climate change and fighting global poverty. The Bill should finally place to rest the concerns about the lack of democratic safeguards over big EU decisions. It will ensure that future big decisions about Britain’s place in Europe are taken out of the hands of the governing elite of the day and placed firmly in the hands of the British public and, on their behalf, this Parliament.
The Bill is a fine example of what coalition politics produces—a document delivered by two parties, working together despite their differing traditional outlooks on the EU.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tim Farron
I will not. I am permitted to take only two interventions without losing time and I want to ensure that I give people a chance to speak.
Despite our differing traditional outlooks on the EU, the coalition has come together, found common ground and drawn a line—obviously—under the European constitutional question once and for all, we hope, by ensuring that the public and Parliament have the final say on the big questions that will determine how UK and EU relations evolve. The Bill should also give the British public a new sense of ownership, enshrined in law, over the future evolution of UK relations with the European Union.
The Liberal Democrats are unashamedly a pro-European party. We fundamentally believe that British national interests are best served by playing an active and leading role in the European Union. We are also fundamentally a democratic party and one that believes in devolving power to the lowest level possible and in reconnecting the public to politics through democratic reform. We recognise that the experience of rapid EU integration over the past two decades, although it has been necessary and ultimately beneficial to the UK, has left many members of the British people feeling sceptical about and disconnected from the decisions made in their name at an EU level, most recently with the Lisbon treaty.
This is why the Bill is so important. Its main purpose is to reconnect the British public with EU-level decisions and to reassert parliamentary controls over those key decisions. The Bill should help to give the British public a new sense of ownership over the UK’s relationship with the EU in the future and it provides the British public with the legal guarantees that they, not the Government or Parliament, will have the ultimate say in future decisions about the UK’s level of involvement in the EU.
Now is the time for the EU to focus on delivering solutions to the huge challenges that face all member states rather than looking inward. The Bill is in keeping with a number of innovations in the Lisbon treaty that seek to provide national Parliaments and European citizens with a greater say over EU decisions and the direction of the European project. I say that as a member of my party who voted with my now coalition colleagues in favour of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If we had had a referendum, I would have argued in favour of that treaty.
The UK is not alone in recognising that the pace of EU integration has left a dangerous lack of understanding about the connection between the EU institutions, national Parliaments and their citizens. In fact, that was recognised by all EU member states in the Council, by members of the Commission and by Members of the European Parliament long before the Bill was conceived. Indeed, that concern was translated into concrete measures in the Lisbon treaty. The treaty has gone a long way towards creating new connections and controls between the public and national Parliaments in the EU, which I warmly welcome. It is too early to see how they will work but the direction in which the EU—and now the UK—is moving is clear.
Let me give some examples of Lisbon treaty democratic and parliamentary control innovations. The European citizens’ initiative enables a petition of more than 1 million European citizens from across the member states to trigger a legislative proposal from the Commission and is a unique and groundbreaking innovation expressly designed to develop connections between European citizens and the often seemingly alien EU institutions. The new yellow and orange card system enables one third of national Parliaments, via the scrutiny Committees in the UK, to object to an EU proposal if they feel that it breaches the principle of subsidiarity, requiring the Commission either to reconsider the proposal or to force the Council and the European Parliament to come to a decision whether to scrap the proposal or to amend it. Also, the new emergency brake clauses in the treaty enable any single national Parliament to block a proposal if it considers the proposal in question to breach or contravene a fundamental component of the legal framework, such as criminal justice.
The Bill can in part be seen as a logical extension of the work of the Lisbon treaty in reconnecting the public and Parliament to EU decisions and its institutions, but our sincere hope and intention in supporting the Bill is that it will finally help to restore some sanity and pragmatism to the debate in UK politics about the EU and EU proposals. There is an extremely poor level of debate in the UK about the EU and the Bill should help to improve that. With a more transparent approach to our membership of the EU, some of the clouds of Eurosceptic mythology might begin to lift. For instance, the use of passerelle clauses will trigger Acts of Parliament and that will mean a rare and welcome opportunity to have an informed domestic debate about substantive EU proposals, giving Members of both Houses the chance to discuss the respective pros and cons of a particular EU measure for the UK.
For example, should the Bill become law, one passerelle that would trigger primary legislation would be that on establishing an efficient and fully functioning EU patent system. A proper patent system has been at the top of UK businesses’, innovators’ and scientists’ wish lists for decades and we believe that it is fundamentally in the interests of the UK. We look forward to discussing that groundbreaking proposal in more detail if and when primary legislation is introduced in the near future as a result of the Bill. Such issues will be discussed more often in this House and the voices of reason in this place will be forced to go on the front foot and to sell the benefits of EU membership and integration to the British public.
The Government have chosen to engage positively with Europe and to tackle the largest single block that leads to discontent about the EU among the British public, which is the sense that decisions taken at EU level are remote, unaccountable and beyond our control. Liberal Democrats believe that the UK’s national interests have been and will continue to be served best by our membership of the European Union. The major challenges that face us cannot be solved by UK action alone. They often require international action through the European Union. Our relationship with the EU, however, from the point of view of the media and much of the public, is pretty poisonous. For a sane Government who seek to advance Britain’s best interests, this is a hugely challenging position. Surely the challenge is too big for legislation alone to fix it.
There is a growing fear that unless something radical is done, the views of the British public and the politicians on the EU will continue slowly to drift on a tide of Eurosceptic media stories to a point at which this country will ultimately leave the EU altogether. I know that many of my colleagues on the Government Benches would favour that, but in my view it would be an absolute disaster for the United Kingdom. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what other plans the Government have beyond our Bill, in line with their commitment to play a strong, positive and active role in the EU, to start a new dialogue with the British public calmly and rationally to explain and sell the benefits of EU membership.
There are many questions to answer, but the Bill’s crucial task is to democratise and make transparent and trustworthy all our dealings with the European Union and to do so in a way that is pragmatic and positive for our immensely valuable relationships with our EU partners. For what it is worth, I think the coalition has succeeded in meeting those challenges and I look forward to continuing this formalised outbreak of accountability and reason towards our membership of the European Union.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who is a man of great integrity. I am sure that his integrity will see him through all the way to Thursday afternoon. He is absolutely right to say it is essential to British interests that we play a key role in the European Union, but the Bill will do nothing to assuage Euroscepticism; if anything, it is intended to enhance and inflame it. He said that the Bill is a coalition product as though that places some kind of trade mark on it. I look forward to the trade mark being planted on all coalition products, as it would automatically bring them into disrepute with most Conservative Members.
The hon. Gentleman referred to our having locked ourselves in the boot of a car with regard to Europe in recent years. It is very difficult to lock oneself in the boot of a car, but I think the Liberal Democrats feel a little as though they have managed to do that at the moment—or at least that they are being locked in the boot by the Deputy Prime Minister in relation to other Government measures.
I shall let the House into a very small secret: I am slightly pro-European. Indeed, I am almost ludicrously pro-European for the very strong reason that in my lifetime Europe has embraced countries that have lived under dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece and across the whole eastern bloc. In those countries, there was no right to freedom of association or freedom of speech, the death penalty was used ubiquitously and there was political repression. In future, we will all recognise that one of the European Union’s greatest successes is the fact that in all those countries there has been an aspiration for political freedom largely because of the EU’s success.
Charlie Elphicke
I thought that the achievements in the countries the hon. Gentleman mentions were those of Margaret Thatcher, Great Britain and the United States.
Chris Bryant
I do not think Margaret Thatcher had anything to do with the advance of freedom in Spain, Portugal or Greece. Mrs Thatcher achieved many things—in the Rhondda we are certainly aware of, and resent, many of them—but the hon. Gentleman cannot claim that the advance of freedom was because of her, except that she was pro-European; in that regard, she did do something in the interests of the whole of Europe.
My problem with the Bill is that it does not do what it says on the tin. It is not an effective referendum lock, which was the promise. Two or three hon. Members have already made the point, in questioning the Foreign Secretary, that the House has perfect freedom to amend these measures in future, so if a Minister wanted to advance legislation implementing some change in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU, and if they thought it would offend against the measures in this Bill, they would have only to add a clause saying that the measures in this Bill did not apply. Of course they would have to take that change through both Houses, so there is an element of a brake, but the Bill is in no sense a substantial referendum lock.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Is it not true of every piece of legislation that it can be repealed later? There is a political cost in repealing legislation that makes this a lock.
Chris Bryant
It is true that every piece of legislation can be repealed or sidestepped, and there may be a political cost in doing so. In a few weeks’ time, when a number of extra peers have been added, the Government will have a majority not only in this House but, uniquely since the second world war, in the other House as well, so there will be a further slowing down. The Bill provides not a lock but a brake—that is all. It does not do what hon. Members want, which is to draw a line regarding all further innovations in the relationship between the UK and the EU.
The Bill will not deal with the real problem. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) are right that my views on the EU are those of a minority. I know that partly because my father sends me an e-mail every Sunday to remind me of that fact and also to remind me that he moved to Alderney primarily so that he does not have to abide by any EU laws. He also regurgitates vast quantities of things that I hear regularly from hon. Members. I think it is a great embarrassment to him that I was not only the Minister for Europe but the Labour Minister for Europe.
The problem in Europe with those whom others have referred to as the elite and with ordinary members of the public is that there are real difficulties in advancing the European cause because there is no single European demos or political opinion. The waves of views crash upon the electoral shores in different parts of the EU at different times and it is very rare for two meetings in a row of the General Affairs and External Relations Council to include the same set of Ministers. Consequently, it is a phenomenal triumph to achieve any European co-ordination.
Some of the EU’s founding principles—indeed, the economic ones—are very powerful, such as the right to freedom of movement and to work anywhere in the EU. In the UK, Labour brought in civil partnerships—I have benefited from those changes this year—and other EU countries have introduced other ways of recognising same-sex unions. Many of us believe there ought to be a system for recognising those unions in every other country in Europe; otherwise there will clearly be discrimination against people whose partnership cannot be recognised for the purposes of taxation, benefits and the right to freedom of movement around the EU. I do not want Europe to decide the law on marriage in any European country, but I do want it to be able to enforce the basic principle of freedom of movement, and that will require a shift so that civil partnerships in this country, or same-sex marriages in Spain, can be recognised in every other country. Otherwise, married same-sex Spanish couples who move to France will have to divorce and form a new civil partnership there. The seeds that have been sown in the underlying principles of the EU will not go away. The British people who live in Spain and demand that Europe should act on property rights in Spain are arguing for an extension of the EU’s powers although many of them are profoundly Eurosceptic.
I am not a fan of referendums, because I believe in representative democracy. I believe that we are elected to come here and that the sovereignty of Parliament is the important principle on which we should act.
Henry Smith
Was the hon. Gentleman in favour of the referendum on the Welsh Assembly?
Chris Bryant
I have not been in favour of referendums at all and I have made this argument for many years. I was opposed to the suggestion that there should be one on the constitutional treaty and I said so in the House, for which The Sun and various other newspapers condemned me extensively. On the whole, I am not in favour of referendums, but there are times when the political class decides to navigate around Parliament and find some other means of implementing things. I think we were right to insist, after the second world war when we effectively rewrote the German constitution, that Germany should not be able to hold plebiscites because unfortunate circumstances can sometimes arise.
I am not a fan of referendums. Particularly in relation to treaty-making, they are unfortunate because they make it far more difficult for a Government to have the freedom to negotiate that they need. Of course there must be proper parliamentary scrutiny of that process. Notwithstanding the splendid work of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), I think the House still does European scrutiny very poorly because far too few Members want to take an active, engaged role in that process, much of which comes not from the Foreign Office but from every other Department of Government. It does not give a Government a strong hand to insist that there will regularly be referendums.
I believe the Government want to be able to repatriate some powers from the European Union to the United Kingdom. The process outlined in the Bill makes it almost impossible for them to be able to do so in the next five years. Other Governments will say, “You’ve already said you’re not going to have any treaties because you reckon that you won’t get a yes vote for any referendum.” That is why the Bill binds the hands of the Government.
On clause 18, the sovereignty clause, the European Scrutiny Committee has done a good job. It is right that, as the Committee points out, the clause adds nothing to the present situation. Lord Justice Laws, in the Thoburn case in 2002, was right when he said that
“there is nothing in the ECA”—
the European Communities Act—
“which allows the Court of Justice, or any other institutions of the EU, to touch or qualify the conditions of Parliament’s legislative supremacy in the United Kingdom. Not because the legislature chose not to allow it; because by our law it could not allow it. That being so, the legislative and judicial institutions of the EU cannot intrude upon those conditions. The British Parliament has not the authority to authorise any such thing. Being sovereign, it cannot abandon its sovereignty.”
Lord Justice Laws was absolutely right. That is why the clause is dangerous. It applies only to European law, but large numbers of the elements that affect our relationship with the EU are laws that come from other parts of Government. That is why in his evidence Professor Tomkins was right to urge the House of Commons not to proceed in this way in the Bill.
The whole Bill is, in the words of Shakespeare, “zed”, an “unnecessary letter”. It misses the need that exists out there to engage positively with Europe.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
People have fought and died over many centuries over the need to affirm parliamentary sovereignty—in the civil war and at the time of the defeat of the Stuarts in the 17th century, when the Stuarts’ absolute sovereignty was literally killed off. Since the advent of modern democracy in 1867, people have fought and died in two world wars to preserve the right to govern themselves through their own Parliament by freedom of choice in the ballot box.
The European Union claims sovereignty over our democratic Parliament, and this mouse of a Bill does little to preserve it. Given the present European crisis with the euro, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) so accurately pointed out, and given the failure of economic governance in which we are absorbed and the coalition Government’s continuing acquiescence in European integration and their refusal to repatriate powers, the Bill does little or nothing to improve the situation.
The European Scrutiny Committee reported last night, to an eerie silence from the BBC, and as we clearly indicated, the Committee’s report is essential reading for those who really want to know what is going on. There are grave objections to the principle, the methodology, the distorting and misleading explanatory notes that accompany the Bill, and clause 18 itself. Clause 18 is a judicial Trojan horse leaping out of Pandora’s box. It is not, as the Foreign Secretary claimed, an enlightened act of national self-interest.
Parliamentary sovereignty is not built on a common law principle, as the Government claim. It is built on the sturdy foundations of the freedom of choice of the voters of this country, and not the whimsy or the Euro-integrationism of some Supreme Court judges. They increasingly claim that they are upholding the rule of law, but I have to ask which rule and whose law.
Shortly before he died last year, Lord Bingham, the late Lord Chief Justice, in his book “The Rule of Law” took on three fellow members of the Supreme Court who had previously adjudicated on the Jackson case with him in the House of Lords a few years ago as to their views on parliamentary sovereignty, as set out in our report. This is an extremely unusual situation and was greatly merited. I do not impugn their motives, but I criticise their judgment.
Only a couple of months ago, Professor Drewry of London university stated in a lecture that
“one can perhaps detect in the recent pattern of House of Lords and Supreme Court decisions, an appetite on the part of the Justices—encouraged by some continuing developments in EU and human rights law—to begin to get to grips with constitutional issues that previous generations of judges would have regarded as completely off limits.”
In this context, judicial activism is on the march. It has been there for a long time and it is increasing its tempo. The judges are not toying with all this, as was suggested by one witness. I suggest that Members read not only our report, but the articles, many of them written by these judges, and the speeches, for example, of Lord Steyn and Lord Hope, and many others that are quoted in our report.
The Bill, as Professor Adam Tomkins said in evidence, and as I mentioned in an intervention on the Foreign Secretary, is an invitation to litigation and, I would say, deliberately so. It has been left in a dead letter box in the precincts of the Supreme Court across Parliament square.
Clause 18 is not a proper sovereignty clause, when it could have been what was promised in our manifesto. Last night the Minister for Europe said that the Bill
“delivers on what was in the coalition programme simply as an agreement to consider the case for a sovereignty Bill”,
and that the Bill—that is, a sovereignty Bill—
“is being introduced by the means of clause 18”.
I am bound to say that it is not that at all. It is even dangerous.
Thomas Docherty
As the hon. Gentleman says, this is a mouse of a Bill. Does he agree that what we need is genuine reform of the European Union so that it delivers what it should be concentrating on, and that sovereignty should remain in Parliament and not be passed across to shyster lawyers arguing the case in the Supreme Court?
Mr Cash
I strongly agree with that sentiment. Indeed, I go further and say that I have always argued for an association of nation states based primarily on trading and political co-operation. Above all else, we must ensure that we make those decisions in the House on behalf of the electorate. Where we find it impossible to make those decisions, it is increasingly argued that it should be done by referendum, when we abdicate the power in the House to the people as a whole.
Clause 18 defies the sovereignty clauses on which the shadow Cabinet, the Whips and Back Benchers voted on several occasions before the general election, using my “notwithstanding” formula. Our report, based on clear evidence from constitutional experts, upholds both the principle and the wording of the “notwithstanding” formula, which I proposed in amendments to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill when we were in opposition. The Whips even asked me to put in their own tellers. As I said to the Minister for Europe last night, he too voted for those provisions. Why not now, therefore, and in the Bill?
We have no hope of resolving the effect and implications of the European crisis on our country, or of reducing by deregulation the impact of European laws on our businesses, including our small businesses, and our deficit, if we do not remove the overall burden of the 50% of economic regulation now on our own statute book, according the House of Commons Library on 13 October.
Mr Jenkin
Is not the real question, which those on the Government Front Bench must answer, why they will not put a declaratory clause, notwithstanding the European Communities Act, into the Bill. Are they saying that that itself would put us in breach of the European treaties? I submit that it would not. Should not they accept that by putting a “notwithstanding” clause into clause 18, they would, notwithstanding the European Communities Act, be reaffirming the supremacy of the House, which is long overdue?
Mr Cash
I agree, and the evidence that we received indicates that the courts would have to accept that..
We are a parliamentary democracy, not a judicial autocracy. The common law principle, wrongly asserted as the basis for parliamentary sovereignty by the Government in their explanatory notes, gives the courts the interpretative means to walk through the gateway of our constitutional law into their application of EU law, including even the assertions of the European Court of Justice over our own Parliament and our own constitution, as well as our own laws.
Our report repudiates the means whereby the courts could gain, and some of them want to be the ultimate authority in the land. We were against Lisbon and for a referendum as a party. We can veto any treaty in future if we wish to do so, so why not do so? The Bill makes no provision for our current predicament, and provides only relative safeguards for the future, subject to the baleful influence of a Minister’s decision as to whether a referendum would be required or not. One issue has been described by our witnesses as both dangerous and unnecessary, namely clause 18 in the context of the Bill as a whole.
This debate is about trust—the trust that the British people for centuries have granted to their elected representatives to do what is right by them and uphold the democracy for which people fought and died. The Bill betrays that trust by doing nothing to unwind the effects of failed European integration and its impact on us, and does little or nothing to provide security for the future as Europe flounders around in ever-decreasing circles and chaos.
The Bill is an opportunity missed to stop the acquiescence in the failed European integration at every turn, as I put it to the Prime Minister a few days ago. It is also a missed opportunity to reaffirm our parliamentary sovereignty with a proper sovereignty clause. The Bill is a missed opportunity and I shall not vote for it.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) referred to clause 18 as a judicial Trojan horse. I would like to refer to the Bill as a whole as a pantomime horse. It is clear from what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said that there must have been some very interesting discussions within the coalition about exactly what would be put into the Bill and quite how it would be justified. I do not know what discussions went into the explanatory notes, but it would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall, particularly looking through the references to the justifications for the list of items in schedule 1. The notes state:
“provides that any proposal to remove the UK’s veto over the use of any of the Treaty Articles listed in Schedule 1 would require a referendum.”
The reality is that many of the issues that are being proposed as requiring a referendum are not massively significant. As the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) pointed out, the real issue for many Back Benchers—mostly on the Conservative Benches, although I accept that there are one or two on the Labour Benches too, but not—me is a referendum on the issue of in or out of the European Union.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), I have also been very much an opponent of the idea of referendums. I would agree with former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher, when she quoted the former Deputy Prime Minister and then Prime Minister Clement Attlee as saying that referendums were the devices of demagogues and dictators. There is a large element of truth in that. We must be careful if we start to move away from parliamentary sovereignty and democracy towards a referendum-based society. If we are not careful, we could end up like Italy, and the way in which Italian politics have developed over recent decades is not a model that we should follow.
I want to say clearly that there is a range of reasons why the Bill should be opposed, but one of the most important is that it does not address the real issues that face the European Union. We should be having a debate about the rise of Asia; about how the EU is effective globally; about how the External Action Service can get the resources and the competent people to be able to play a role in avoiding conflicts and tensions and building peace around the world, as well as its diplomatic role. But we are not doing that.
We will not have, as has been pointed out from the Front Bench, the pre-European Council debate that we have always had on the Floor of the House, because the Government, for their own internal reasons, have deemed it something that they do not wish to have, and today becomes a very poor substitute.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
May I remind the hon. Gentleman that since the adoption of the proposals in the Wright report, responsibility for arranging those debates on the European Union has passed from the Government to the Backbench Business Committee? It is for that Committee to make that provision from the 31 days available to it.
Mike Gapes
The Government are hiding behind the words in the Wright Committee’s report. The reality is that if the Government wished to, and they thought that it was sufficiently important, we could have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House, as we have always done, on the matters to be discussed in 10 days’ time at the European Council meeting, which comes at a crucial time for the future of this country and the EU. The issues range from the crises in Greece and Ireland, to climate change and the Cancun meeting, and what is happening with regard to China and its role in the world. Not least is what will happen over the coming decades with regard to migration policy and the impact that global changes will have on the people of north Africa and elsewhere who might wish to migrate to the EU. Those are the issues that we should be discussing.
We have had a lot of comments recently about Russia, although I will not depart from the subject of debate today. Frankly, the relationship between the EU and Russia is a complete shambles. There is no agreed approach on energy policy or on how we deal with human rights abuses and the suppression of democratic opposition in Russia. Why do we not have a debate about the role of the EU there? These are the vital questions, but instead of discussing them we are hiding behind the minutiae of a proposal, which if it is implemented will, as the hon. Member for Stone pointed out, put power not in the hands of a sovereign Parliament and Members of Parliament—elected representatives—but more and more in the hands of the judges and the judicial authorities, who will increasingly interfere in a political way. They will make the decisions about what matters are to be decided, not the elected people who represent the people of this country.
That is a fundamental matter, yet the Government are slipping this measure through, so that, with all the proposals in schedule 1, clause 18 and elsewhere, we will end up with the judicial system, not the political system, determining how this country is run. That is a fundamental decision—a fundamental matter—yet it has been slipped into the Bill as though it were a safeguard against the European Union taking away sovereignty. Actually, the proposal gives more power to the judges and to the legal system to take away parliamentary sovereignty. That is nothing to do with the European Union; Ministers themselves have determined those matters.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Listening to the debate so far, I think that we might need a referendum to decide whether we need a referendum. As we are looking at the role of the judiciary and its capacity to make decisions, however, does that not underline the sovereignty of this country? Our judiciary makes those decisions.
Mike Gapes
I am not so sure that I want our judges making political decisions. Political decisions should be made by elected politicians, because after all we can be removed and our electors can throw us out. The judges cannot be elected, unless the hon. Gentleman wants us to adopt—God help us—the American system, and we should not do that.
The Minister, in his recent written statement, said:
“The common law is already clear…Parliament is sovereign.”—[Official Report, 11 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 4WS.]
He went on to say that the Bill’s provisions do not alter the existing relationship of EU law and UK law. In which case, why do we need the Bill? If Parliament is sovereign, as he states, why have the Government come up with the proposals before us? The Bill is a fig leaf. It is a political tactic to give the impression that the Government are fulfilling the Conservatives’ obligation, in their manifesto commitment, to their Eurosceptics on a possible referendum—but not on the issue on which the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex wishes to have a referendum; it is to be on other issues.
The Bill is an absurdity. It is a bad Bill, which leaves open the potential for legal challenges and judicial reviews, takes away power from Parliament and gives it to the judiciary, and does not change the relationship, as the Minister says, between existing UK law and the European Union. Therefore, why do we need it? It is a disgrace, and it should be rejected.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
I do not always agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), but when he describes this as a mouse of a Bill he is rather closer to the truth than the rhetoric of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who slightly overstates the dangers that are attached to it.
I speak in support of the Bill. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), I am a pro-European, although, when I listen to the enthusiasts make the case for our membership of the European Union, I quite often conclude that the case is made in rather more apocalyptic terms than those that I would choose. We heard a good example of that from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who seemed to claim credit for the European Union in the collapse of the Soviet bloc and in the outbreak of democracy in Spain, Portugal and Greece. No doubt he would attribute to it the green revolution in Ukraine—
Mr Dorrell
Orange. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. We regard all those developments as steps in the right direction, but, although there is a chain of causality back to the European Union, it is a relatively modest one.
I shall try to make the case for the Bill, which should be supported, in considerably more modest—one might even say, more sceptical—terms, because people who claim for themselves the title of sceptic in the European debate often desert the basic principle of scepticism, which is to stand back from the argument and seek to assess it more coolly than sometimes is the case.
I have drawn attention to the argument from the hon. Member for Rhondda in support of the EU and our membership of it, but those who argue the case against it, and increasingly explicitly argue that we should leave it, tend to express the argument in terms of irreversible shifts of power and use the word “permanent”.
I again am a sceptic, however, because history teaches us that no human institution is permanent and there are no irreversible shifts of power. There is only a tide of human events, and the case for the European Union, which I am happy and, indeed, keen to make, is the pragmatic case whereby, in the world of 2010, the European Union, which is a dramatically different institution from that set up by the treaty of Rome in 1958, should be supported not because it is perfect, when it plainly is not, but because it serves a purpose. Imperfect as the EU is, it is part of the arrangements for the governance of Europe, and on balance it contributes more good than it inflicts harm. In human affairs, that seems to me justification enough for the institution to continue to exist.
It is often said of the European Union that there is no European demos. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary used to make that case when he argued for a more sceptical approach to the development of European institutions. It has become increasingly obvious that there is no such thing as a European demos, but the EU, as it has evolved since 1958 and partly because it now has so many more members, is increasingly obviously an intergovernmental organisation, which most people in the House and, indeed, among our constituents accept as a fact of life, not something that should be particularly resisted.
Mr Dorrell
They may have ambitions, and people within those organisations plainly do have ambitions, but that is exactly what the Bill seeks to address. It introduces not an irreversible, immovable, permanent safeguard that can never be overcome, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, a further inhibition on the development of competence within the European Union, which I would have thought my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) welcomed. Again, it is a modest step. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone dismissed it as a mouse of a Bill, but even if it is a mouse it can be a mouse on the right side of the scales, and that seems to be the case for it.
The Bill is right in principle and in practice. It is right in principle, because I do not agree with the arguments against referendums in principle when the question at stake is how the country is run. I agree with one of the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) made, when he said that part of the problem in terms of public acceptance of the European case is the perception—indeed, the reality—that competence has passed to the EU without the scrutiny that our constituents want to see. That is a correct statement of historical fact, so, in order to rebalance the argument, it is a step in the right direction and a correct principle that any further accretion of power to the European institutions should be subject to a referendum block, the terms of which are set out in the Bill. The hon. Member for Ilford South argued that a Bill introduces the opportunity for judges to interpret it—well, yes; that is the nature of an Act of Parliament. If we pass an Act of Parliament, that creates a statute, which is interpreted in the courts. There are no Acts of Parliament of which that is not true.
Against the background of what has happened in the European argument over 40 years, the Bill introduces the correct principle that further accretion of competence to the European institutions should be subject to a referendum. That is right in principle. I also think that it is right in practice, for the important reason that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary set out in his speech and which was impliedly accepted in the speeches made by both the shadow Foreign Secretary and, ironically, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham. What matters in the European argument now is the use of these competences and how this increasingly intergovernmental organisation reacts to the pressures of events.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham pressed the point that there are some fundamental threats to our economic development, tied up in particular in the current pressures on the euro. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend about the dangers that arise as a result of those developments. The case that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was making for the Bill is that it is a modest step to disarm the constitutional argument about how we are run, in order to focus the debate on where it properly needs to be—on how those competences are used by the European institutions and how that impacts on our way of life.
Mr Clappison
My right hon. Friend is making an eloquent speech. May I take him to the question of intergovernmentalism? Is that not precisely what we were told was happening at the time of the Maastricht treaty, with the construction of the pillars, which were supposed to reserve certain competences and areas of responsibility for the intergovernmental method? Since then, has not the European Union deliberately knocked down the pillars and brought those areas of intergovernmentalism into the main European treaty, which relates to the functioning of the European Union, and that in no way can be described as an intergovernmental body?
Mr Dorrell
My hon. Friend is entirely right. Like him, I would have much preferred it if the Lisbon treaty had not been introduced, so that the pillars of intergovernmentalism in the Maastricht treaty were protected. But that does not alter the fact that if we attend a Council of Ministers meeting in Europe to exercise the competences of the European Union, the process of discussion about how the power is used by the Council of Ministers, particularly in a world of 27 member states, has the feel of a negotiation between member states of an organisation. It is a negotiation between member states.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is right to say that there is a strong power of initiative in the European institutions. Like him, I do not want any further competence to be passed to them. My case for the Bill is that it reduces the risk of that process happening again; it does not make it impossible, but it reduces the risk. I hope that it will make a modest step towards rebuilding public trust in the framework of the European argument and therefore refocus that argument on where it properly needs to be—on how those competences are used, rather than on yet more discussion about the further extension of “the European project”.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
We have had a menagerie-type debate: Pandora’s boxes have been opening, Trojan horses have been jumping out of them and there have been mice of different sizes to contemplate. But there is a broad division—between Labour Members, along with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), and most of the speakers on the Government Benches. They have a rather Hobbesian view of Europe, in which there is an undeclared war of all against all.
I take the view that Immanuel Kant—or, as it should be pronounced properly in German, “Immanuel Kunt”—put forward in his perpetual peace argument. He argued that Europe needs a construct of rule of law, a Lockean Europe, in which we can live together in perpetual peace, as he thought. It has taken perhaps 200 years to get that far, but that is my version of Europe rather than the permanently negative one where it is Britain contra mundum, about which we hear so much from the Government Benches.
Austin Mitchell
As my right hon. Friend is representing his views as those on the Opposition Benches,—I do not think that they are—may I ask whether his own constituents are Kantians or Lockeans?
Mr MacShane
Perhaps I shall leave the reply to my old friend, Jim Naughtie.
We have also seen again today what surely must be an iron law of British politics—people can campaign in opposition as Eurosceptics, but they have to govern as Euro-realists. The outbreak of Euro-realism in the coalition Government was not brought about simply by the presence of the Liberal Democrats; it has happened because no Government of Britain could remotely sustain themselves in a relationship—not just to their European partners, but to partners around the world—on the basis of the hyped-up rhetoric that we heard from the Foreign Secretary when he was shadow Foreign Secretary. From that most powerful and amusing orator of the current Commons, we heard a very workaday speech. My right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary made a powerful and witty speech that reminded me of the late John Smith. But there we are—I have described what happens when people become Foreign Secretary. Realism has to break in.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I remind my right hon. Friend that one bit of Euro-realism is that the euro is in a state of collapse. Is that not realism as well?
Mr MacShane
I do not want to enter into a duologue with my hon. Friend about the euro, although I expect that it will be around a little longer than its gravediggers may imagine or hope. If we are to revert to that Hobbesian world in which every currency fights against every other, devaluing and insisting that products be traded on a different basis every month or every week, there will be no swifter invitation to the setting up of protectionist barriers such as existed before the Common Market, the European Community and the European Union.
Mr MacShane
We have only a short time. My hon. Friend will have time to make his own speech.
The Foreign Secretary’s speech was to please the party faithful, as will be the one we hear during the wind-ups. The fact that it so singularly failed to do so was reflected in the speeches made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash); perhaps we will hear that from other speakers, too, if they catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. One cannot please the Daily Mail and represent Britain faithfully and effectively.
I read through the Bill fairly carefully, as I hope we all have. It is not so much a mouse, as a mouse without definition. The key adjective—and I am nervous of legislation that is built around an adjective rather than a substantive—appears in clause 5, under which a Minister has to come to the House and say, “I think there should be a referendum because in my judgment there is a ‘significant’ transfer of powers.” But “significant” is not defined; it will be in the eye of the beholder.
I am not sure whether that will lead to references to the courts. I hope not. I see before my eyes the gradual atrophying of Parliament, as judges decide bitterly fought election campaigns. Libellous and defamatory remarks have certainly been made about me in election campaigns that I would not dream for one second of taking to the judges, who can now set aside the sovereignty of the British people and say that an election is null and void. More generally, judges want to have a much greater say in our parliamentary democracy. I will not use the Pandora’s box metaphor, but the Bill opens the door to a lot more of that.
The extraordinary shopping list in the Bill also worries me. The Library document refers to 57 items that must trigger a referendum, but I think that the list contains 56 items. Schedule 1 states that any change that involves an
“approximation of national laws affecting internal market”
must trigger a referendum. As Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher did nothing of greater service to this nation than to bring in the Single European Act, which led to the greatest approximation of national laws affecting a market of many different nation states in the history of humankind. I utterly welcome that. We need more approximation and more open markets.
It would be good to have a single patent system, but if 26 other European countries followed our route, any approximation of the internal market, such as a single patent system, could involve a referendum in Estonia, Poland or Hungary, which would begin to roll back that single market. What is sauce for the British gander will be sauce for 26 other member states’ geese. Those member states will take the message from the Government and from this House of Commons today—sorry, I am about to use the animal metaphors that I decried at the beginning of my speech—that because this wretched little dormouse or shrew of a Bill will be passed tonight, Britain is turning its back on them.
Oddly enough, the Government are not completely doing that. I was always told the adage that money is power and power is money. We are blithely giving away £7 billion of taxpayers’ money to help Ireland out of its hole without having any serious debate or discussion. This is a profoundly important point. It is not good enough for the Leader of the House on Thursday mornings or the Minister for Europe, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), whom I like and respect, to say it is up to the Backbench Business Committee to decide whether to have a debate on Europe. It is of profound importance to the House of Commons that we have a thorough debate on Europe twice a year.
Tomorrow, there will be an EU-Russia summit. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has raised profound points about Khodorkovsky, human rights, Sergei Magnitsky and other appalling cases of the treatment of people inside Russia. In addition, we have huge worries about relations with Turkey. I am a supporter of Turkish accession. What a preposterous notion it is that the accession of Turkey, which is comprised of 80 million people from completely different backgrounds, should not be submitted to a referendum, but the question of whether there will be an extra advocate-general or judge-advocate should be submitted to one. This is absolutely ridiculous and the British people—and I am afraid the people who hate democracy, such as those in the British National party and the UK Independence party—will mock us because of the issue of Turkish accession. Yes, the Foreign Secretary may say that it is some way off, but it will dismay a great number of people that we are legislating for eternal referendums on minor issues, but not on Turkish accession.
I will put my cards on the table. The Foreign Secretary said wrongly that Germany has similar provisions in its law. It does not. The German constitution was devised not by us but by the German people and it expressly forbids plebiscites for good, clear, historic reasons. Yes, there is a German constitutional court, but that is because it has a written constitution. Perhaps that is a road we need to walk down.
I hope that the Bill is opposed, because it weakens Parliament and Europe. It sends a message that, under this Government, the commitment, concern and leadership that Europe is so desperately lacking will not come from the present crop of Ministers. That is a shame. Europe needs leadership because it is going through a crisis, and the absence of that leadership from this Government is to be deplored.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
How interesting that the poor old mouse has taken such a lot of stick tonight. Several hon. Members have used the expression “mouse of a Bill.” It is a mouse that the EU cat will play with, mutilate and consume. I have heard the words, “judicial reviews,” “written constitution,” “competences,” “vetoes,” “referendums,” “advocate-generals,” and “ratchets.” That is the language of the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat loves this. Such legislation employs the bureaucrat and gives them lots of money on the gravy train in Europe.
We want our country back. That is what we want. We do not want to say goodbye to Europe; we want to trade with Europe. I like Europe. I like the French, the Germans, the Italians; they have so much to offer us. However, we should not be ruled and regulated by Europe, particularly by the unelected Commission. If we want to be more committed to Europe in the sense that Labour Members wish—to be in Europe, to trade with Europe—it needs to become more democratically accountable. That is why, at first glance, the Bill ticks all the boxes. What could be more democratic than to ask our nation to vote on new EU initiatives? As my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) pointed out—his expression has been used twice tonight—the problem is that the legislation is all smoke and mirrors.
As we have heard, we are being asked to approve a Bill that includes a referendum lock and that sets out to ensure that no future transfer of power to Brussels will take place without the approval of people in this country. That is an admirable aim that we promised in our manifesto, when we undertook to repatriate powers from the EU. The Bill does not do that. Labour—most of you—betrayed this country. You promised us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. You promised us—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The hon. Gentleman must not place burdens on the Chair that do not exist. Will he desist from using the word “you” when making accusations about other people’s behaviour?
Richard Drax
I apologise. I am happy to retract that statement.
To our Government’s credit, they have attempted to prevent the ratchet clauses with the referendum lock. That is a seemingly elegant solution that, as I said, will give power back to the people. However, if we look at the Bill more closely, we will see that there is plenty of wriggle room. I, for one—there are obviously many others—am unhappy with that. The lock is entirely bogus. A referendum will be triggered only if Ministers believe what their civil servants tell them and agree that the subject is significant. If they do not consider it to be significant, there will be no referendum and the matter will become law.
In areas where primary legislation is required but that are not considered significant enough to put to the people, we are asked to take the matter on trust. We are asked to trust that our masters will ensure that no further powers are transferred away from the UK during the next Parliament. This would be easier to swallow had we not already allowed the EU to roll us on our backs on five occasions in the past six months. We have had the European External Action Service. What action—to take our money? We have had the European arrest warrant. I have a constituent, Michael Turner, who has been in jail in Hungary for 115 days with no charge. His crime, allegedly, is that he left creditors owing about £18,000 when his business closed in 2002. There has been an endless pursuit by the Hungarian authorities to find an offence with which to charge him and a colleague. The investigation was dropped because they could not find enough evidence to get him, and now they are mounting another one—but there is still no charge. Then we had EU regulation over the City, EU oversight over our national budgets agreed to, and finally, our contribution to the EU budget increased despite our objections. May I ask what happens when we really do roll over?
The truth is that not a single one of those transfers of power would have been halted as a result of the referendum lock proposed today. Nor are the accession agreements affected, so new countries joining can do so, as the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) said, without the EU asking our citizens. I can see why they would not be asked. We already have 27 countries in the EU and hundreds of thousands of people are able to move freely within it. That was practicable when the EU was a smaller organisation, but it is not practicable any more.
There are constitutional questions hanging over this legislation that have tested far greater legal minds than mine. Suffice it to say that one five-line passage—clause 18—does not enshrine our sovereignty adequately. Professor Adam Tomkins has said that the Bill
“goes out of its way to invite litigation”.
His main concern is that it does not establish which of the two competing legal systems now operating in this country has supremacy: English law or EU law. He says that taken to its conclusion, ministerial decisions could be challenged in the courts. We have seen enough of that already, with our courts and judges overruled by European judges.
Our independence was hard-won over hundreds of years, yet we are seeing it trickle away as we are increasingly subjugated by unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats. A torrent of legislation threatens to submerge our identity. No fewer than 3,000 new laws passed in this Parliament last year were related in some way to the EU, and you can bet that none of them would have triggered a referendum. We have been giving away our right to govern ourselves, and we must take it back. Toothless legislation that gives the impression of protecting our sovereignty while doing nothing of the sort will simply hide the rot a little longer.
When I was elected, many of my constituents made it clear that the power-grabbing EU was one of their primary concerns. I would be serving them badly if I were to pretend that this Bill would do anything concrete to protect the country they love. I will not be supporting the Bill.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I am enthusiastic about speaking on this Bill, because I would not want the views of Labour Members to be taken to be the extrusion of Euro-cant that has poured in from Rotherham and the Rhondda. The views of some Labour Members are much more in tune with what our voters think. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) has given us a clear indication of those views.
The problem is whether the Bill is worth supporting. It is a sad little Bill that should really be called the “Closing of the stable doors after every horse has bolted across the countryside” Bill. I am sure that the nation wants a referendum on this issue. It wants to be consulted and wants its say on Europe, but it has not been allowed it since 1975, when it was consulted on something totally different called the Common Market—a harmless, fun place that was going to make the weather better and make everybody happy. That is the last time that people were consulted, and they now want to be consulted on the shape of the current monster that is taking more and more powers.
This Bill does not provide for that consultation. The Conservatives told us in opposition, and I think in their manifesto too, although I do not have it here to check, that they were going to repatriate criminal justice and the laws on social and employment issues, but that has all gone. The stable is empty, for practical purposes, and I see the pathetic spectacle of the Foreign Secretary stood at the stable door after he has closed it singing “Will Ye No Come Back Again?” to the horses from Europe galloping all over the United Kingdom’s countryside.
The Liberal Democrats’ approach was even more comic. They promised us a referendum on the treaty and then suddenly became aware of the fact that it would be defeated if it were put to a referendum. They therefore changed what they were asking for from a referendum on the treaty, which they said was no longer a treaty, to a referendum on “in or out”, with which they thought they might stand a better chance. However, they knew that nobody would give them such a referendum; they were trying to get a referendum that was an impossibility.
I cannot be over-critical because my own party’s position was, at best, ambiguous. We said, “Yes, we shall have a referendum”, and then we said, “Well, this isn’t really a treaty—it’s something else.” Perhaps it was a German sausage or something; I am not quite sure what it was supposed to be. Anyway, we said, “It’s not a treaty worth having a referendum on; it’s something else, and therefore we won’t give you a referendum.”
This is a history of betrayal by all three parties, and we have to make good to the people, who want a referendum. There is a need for a referendum, but this Bill does not provide for it. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, it will be a lawyer’s charter, and one that ignores much of what is going on in Europe. What is going on is the steady process of accretion of power, money and control over this country.
We should look at the increasing costs of Europe. The annual budget contribution is now £7 billion, and rising because of devaluation—it will rise to £10 billion fairly shortly. There is £2 billion for projects such as Galileo, which will build, at enormous expense, a satellite guidance system that the Americans already provide for free. There is £8 billion for the costs of the common agricultural policy, which comes from buying food on a dearer market when it is available more cheaply elsewhere. There is £2.8 billion for the costs of the common fisheries policy, with our fish being caught by foreign vessels and taken to Europe to provide jobs there. There is the cost of regulation, which has been calculated at £20 billion. Then we can add the cost of the monstrous machinery of the new foreign service, the European External Action Service, which will be more expensive than our own Foreign Office. All its ambassadors will have, at enormous cost that we are paying for, bullet-proof cars and bomb-proof embassies. If we add that lot together, we get to £40 billion—perhaps more. If we were not paying this Eurogeld every year, across the exchanges, we would not need the diet of cuts that the Chancellor and the Liberal Democrats are proposing for us.
Kelvin Hopkins
My hon. Friend has omitted to mention—I know that he knows this to be true—that we have had slower growth in the European Union than we would have had had it not existed. We had faster growth when we had stable but separate currencies, and that led to the prosperity that we knew in the post-war era. Slower growth in the European Union, which has been compounded over many years, means that we are now less well-off than we would have been had there not been a European arrangement.
Austin Mitchell
My hon. Friend is exactly right. We have suffered from slower growth, and now we have a 25% devaluation. We cannot generate the exports that we want because of the deflation in Europe that is necessary to heal the problems of the euro.
That brings me to the second problem that I want to deal with. Not only have the horses bolted from the stable, but it is on fire as the crisis of the euro continues. We warned Europe that it would not work and it has not worked. One exchange rate and one interest rate cannot cover the varied circumstances of Europe. A central Government is needed to redistribute to areas that suffer from the single currency and the single interest rate. Countries all have different rates of inflation. It is impossible for the weaker economies to get down to Germany’s low rate of inflation. The result is that their trade suffers, because they cannot get export prices down to a competitive level. Gaps have therefore emerged and those gaps have led to a crisis, and Europe’s way of dealing with that is to dole out more funds from a big bucket—a bucket to which we have contributed in the case of Ireland.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is a critic of the European Union, and he is listing many differences that he would like to see in the European arrangements. Does he not think that changes that the British Government want and that are in the national interest might be harder to achieve if this legislation is passed here and is copied across the EU?
Austin Mitchell
My argument is that the Bill does not help us to deal with, or give us a veto over, the problems of Europe as they are. Those problems are the real threat to this country. Let us say that we are doling out £100 billion to Greece and £100 billion to Ireland and if Spain is the next to collapse, the figure could be about £400 billion, so the whole fund of £750 billion could be gone in one fell swoop. Germany will not let that go on. At some point, the system must collapse.
The Bill has nothing to say on that process and the Government will not tell us what they are doing in the European negotiations. What is our point of view? Are we prepared to support that process and to commit money? The Bill will not give us a veto over any such commitments and the Government will not even tell us what those commitments are. That is a disastrous situation. There will have to be a big bail-out. This situation cannot be dealt with by Elastoplast, with a bit here and a bit there. It must be dealt with by a fundamental reorganisation of the euro. In my view, a default is the only way in which to save the situation.
The Bill does nothing about that issue and nothing about one of the other major issues facing Europe—the entry of Turkey. The Foreign Secretary said that that matter is excluded from the Bill, but it would be a fundamental change to Europe. We should think of the immigration problems—to say the least—that would occur if Turkey, which has a much bigger population than most existing member states, were allowed into the European Union.
Thomas Docherty
I struggle to understand what makes Turkey so different from Romania, Hungary or any other eastern European nation. Is there not a danger that we will be perceived, wrongly, to be singling it out because of its Muslim nature?
Austin Mitchell
That may be true, but the British Government want Turkey in. I am not unfavourable; I am just saying that its admission will be a fundamental change in Europe and that the Bill will not give the British people a say over any of these matters. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) is making a Gallic gesture or whether it is a sign for me to sit down and shut up.
Mr MacShane
On the contrary, I am completely in agreement with my hon. Friend, which is rare in a European debate. It is a preposterous Bill that does not include the question of Turkish accession. That is the fundamental change that will come about in the nature of the EU and in our relationship with it. I support Turkish accession, but not to put it in the Bill just shows what a—what is smaller than a shrew?—worm of a Bill we are debating tonight.
Austin Mitchell
The mountains will labour and a ridiculous mouse has been born. That is certainly true. I am sorry that I mistook my right hon. Friend’s gesture—he is so European that I thought he was going, “Je m’en fous.” I gather that he was not.
I agree with my right hon. Friend’s point. The Bill does not give the British people a say; it gives them a tiny squeak, and on things in which they are not particularly interested. To give them a squeak is better than to give them nothing at all. I have to consider whether I shall support the Bill on that basis, which frankly I am loth to do. Is it worth the effort? I am certainly not enthusiastic about the Opposition amendment, which really says nothing at all. Faced with that dilemma and being somewhat jetlagged, the best solution that I can think of for tonight’s vote is to go home and read a little Keynes—I wish that the Chancellor had done the same.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I want to start simply by saying that I love Europe. I have countless brothers and sisters—I have lost track of how many—dotted throughout Europe, and probably many whom I have not yet met, for whom English is a second language. I therefore have to love Europe. There are even aspects of the European Union that in my view are very important. Without a doubt, some issues and problems are best addressed through co-operation, not least climate change and other environmental concerns, which ignore national borders. Addressing those problems has never required and does not require the creation of a pan-European superstate. There is no doubt that that is where we are heading. To take just one example, 80% of the business of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is now determined at EU level.
There are two key problems with that extraordinary shift. The first is that the EU has too many conflicting styles of government for it to work effectively. An exasperated former Environment Minister complained:
“In one Member State, everything is permitted unless it’s forbidden. In another Member State everything is forbidden unless it’s permitted. And in some Member States everything is permitted—especially if it’s forbidden”.
When I think of this country’s appalling habit of gold-plating even the most awkward and damaging regulations, I occasionally wish that we formed part of the latter group.
There is a much bigger problem. Of all the major changes that have occurred in Britain’s history, the EU project is surely among the most significant. We have seen major steps towards the formation of a single European Government, who now have more powers than our own. That has happened with virtually no consultation. I ask passionate supporters of the EU, those who are absolutely wedded to continued integration, what they will do if ever the EU moves in a direction that they no longer approve of. The answer is that because EU decision makers are, on the whole, thoroughly insulated from proper democratic pressure, there is very little that they will be able to do. That point is fundamental. The ability to rid ourselves of unpopular politicians and regimes is the single most important ingredient in any democracy. On that basis, the EU is simply not democratic. How many people in this country genuinely believe that the vote they cast in a European election will make the slightest bit of difference to how Europe is governed?
We have a brilliant new fisheries Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who is determined to reform the common fisheries policy. Like any normal person, he is appalled that nearly half the fish that we catch in the North sea are thrown back dead or dying as a result of nonsensical laws on quotas. How many hon. Members believe that he will be able to change those laws, even with the support of this House, when he negotiates them later this month?
It is no wonder that the percentage of British people who believe that our membership of the EU is a good thing has, according to recent surveys, fallen to just 31%. It is no wonder that we have seen the rejection of treaties by the French, the Dutch, the Danes and the Irish, all of whom were ignored disgracefully by their Governments and the European Union. It is no wonder that we have seen a continent-wide decline in turnout in the European parliamentary elections from 62% in 1979 to 43% last year.
It is not only time for a referendum lock on the further loss of sovereignty, but for a national debate about the repatriation of key powers to this country, followed by a referendum to legitimise those reforms. I believe that without radical reform of the European Union, that institution will not survive. Passionate supporters of the EU should embrace the need for reform, for without it, the institution that they support will not exist in the future. A referendum lock alone is not enough, and if we are honest, it is not even on the cards. The judgment as to whether a treaty or treaty change meets the criteria for triggering a referendum will rely on the subjective opinion of a Minister and it will be for the Government to adjudicate whether a change represents a transfer of power and a loss of sovereignty. Is that really an adequate safeguard?
Almost every successful candidate in the 2005 election was elected on a manifesto that promised a referendum on the EU constitution, but there never was such a referendum, as we have heard from a number of hon. Members. We were denied one because, when the constitution was re-edited, repackaged and re-presented following popular rejection, it was cynically declared by a Minister to be merely an anodyne tidying-up exercise. That was a ridiculous claim that was denied even by the authors of the constitution.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, and I agree with an awful lot of what he has said. As a Member who was elected in 2005, it is that concept of anodyne tidying-up that worries the hell out of me in this Bill. It says that if something is only tidying-up, it does not need to come before Parliament. It was the tidying-up in the last treaty that the Conservative party objected to so much. I do not feel that I can support the Bill tonight. I hope that it will come back in a much better state on Third Reading, but I am not hopeful.
Zac Goldsmith
I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and I wish to quote—excuse the pronunciation—Charles, Comte de Talleyrand, who once said of an unknown acquaintance:
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
By that logic no one can ever accuse Britain of being a flirt, because we have yielded at every single opportunity, as my hon. Friend has just reminded the House. I have just one question for the Minister. What guarantee—not assurance—can he provide that this Bill will prevent such a thing from ever happening again?
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been quite dismayed by some of the contributions to the debate, from both Government Members and Opposition Members. It is well known that the Bill is supposed to be red meat for some of the Eurosceptics on the Conservative Benches, many of whom have wanted referendums in the past. I remember them asking for a referendum on the Nice treaty, then on the constitution and then on Lisbon.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Surely it should be blue meat, not red meat.
Mark Hendrick
Depends how much blood is on it, I think.
The modern Conservative party has become a surrogate for the old Referendum party. It is quite fortuitous that my speech was preceded by that of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), the son of Sir James Goldsmith, who served with me in the European Parliament. I remember the damage that the Referendum party did to the Conservative party up and down the country, and it is interesting to see that Sir James’s son now sits on the Conservative Benches.
Zac Goldsmith
The Conservative party did a lot of damage to itself in the 1997 election, because it lost the trust and confidence of the people. The Referendum party was merely trying to fill that gap, and I am very proud to be the son of the man who launched it.
Mark Hendrick
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is very proud, and I am sure that Opposition Members are very proud to have him in their ranks, but unfortunately for them, the UK Independence party has taken the Referendum party’s place and is pushing the agenda even further to the right. It is even more vehemently anti-European than the Referendum party.
Kate Hoey
Why do my hon. Friend and other Members keep referring to Euro-realists and Eurosceptics who want to see a real debate and a referendum as somehow being on the right? Does he not accept that many members of the Labour party, many Labour MPs and many Labour-supporting people in the country think that what is going on in Europe is wrong?
Mark Hendrick
I thank my hon. Friend, but in my opening remarks I referred to the opinions of some Members on my side of the House, and of course she is among them. I do not think that the mainstream of the Labour party is particularly against referendums. We offered a referendum on the euro should the five tests for entry into the single European currency have been met, and we offered a referendum on the European constitution, which, as Members know, was dropped because of the referendums in France and Holland. A new treaty came forward, for which we had committed to no referendum, which was why there was no referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
The Bill is not about democracy or a referendum. For many Conservative Members it is not about any future competences of the European Union; it is about getting out of the European Union altogether. I am sure that it was introduced to try to satisfy some of the Conservative Eurosceptics, but as we have seen from today’s debate, it goes nowhere near far enough to do that.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman consider that one of the main reasons why the Bill is before the House is that his party failed to deliver on its promise to provide a referendum on the Lisbon treaty?
Mark Hendrick
No, we failed to provide a referendum on the European constitution. As Members know, the constitution fell because of referendums in France and Holland. What came afterwards was a constitutional treaty, namely the Lisbon treaty, on which no referendum was ever promised.
Mark Hendrick
Yes, but for the last time, because everybody is taking up my time.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful. Does the hon. Gentleman think that there should have been a referendum on that constitution?
Mark Hendrick
No, I do not. The party view was that there should have been one had the constitution been put to the House, but it was not the constitution that came to the House; it was the Lisbon treaty. That is quite clear.
The referendums provided for in the Bill are not about voting on any specific competences that might go to the EU, they are cover for showing general dissatisfaction with the EU per se. They are the thin end of a very thick wedge, moving us towards withdrawal from the EU. The Bill is a sop to the Eurosceptics, in the same way as bringing the Conservatives out of the European People’s party in the European Parliament was a sop to them. The Government promised a Bill to protect sovereignty, but it does not do that. It does not change the position between this country and the EU at all.
Problems arise from the fact that this is a coalition Bill and the Liberal Democrats cannot be seen to have had no influence on it. It is noticeable that there are no Liberal Democrats in their places as I speak, whereas the Conservative and Labour Benches are quite well populated. They say that they are a more pro-European party, yet for some reason they are in with the Conservatives on this Bill and are looking more like a referendum party than a pro-European party. In Cheltenham last year, the Foreign Secretary talked about the Liberal Democrats being on a road to a united states of Europe, but it is clear from the Bill that they are on no such road.
The Conservatives do not want a sovereignty Bill, which is why the Bill has become a joke. Clause 18 does not protect sovereignty in the way that the Conservatives promised at the general election. All it does is protect the status quo, which I will discuss in more detail later. For what it is worth, the Bill is aimed at Ministers, although not Ministers of this Government, or presumably of a possible future Conservative Government. It is aimed at tying the hands of a future Government of some other political hue who may wish to accept that decisions made by an EU of at least 27 member states may be of benefit to the UK.
Irrespective of the merits of the changes to a treaty, a future Government would be forced to get legislation through both Houses of Parliament before putting it to the country as a whole in a referendum. The clear intention is that any further movement of powers to the EU is stamped on.
We already know that there are referendums to elect mayors, and that processes are being introduced for electing police commissioners. All that is happening while this country is undergoing an age of austerity and billions of pounds of cuts are to be introduced in the coming years. Incurring extra expenditure in the future on the useless referendums set out in the Bill would be ludicrous. A treaty change may make perfect sense even to a Conservative Government, but they would be forced to get legislation through both Houses and put the matter to the country.
In a fast-changing world, we need the EU to take coherent, decisive action, but the Bill will act as an impediment to, and create inertia in, decision making. The Bill should have been called the “EU Inertia Bill” or the “EU Foot-dragging Bill”—it is for Conservatives who have not forgiven the previous Conservative Government for the Maastricht treaty and those who still blame Ted Heath for Britain joining the European venture in the first place.
Before the election, the Prime Minister, who only last week described himself as the son of Thatcher, said:
“If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations”,
but of the 1975 referendum on membership, Margaret Thatcher said that referendums
“sacrifice parliamentary sovereignty to political expediency”.
He is hardly the son of Thatcher, is he?
Let me get to the nub of the issue. Traditionally, the Conservative party is not just economically and socially conservative; it also seeks to conserve existing British institutions—the monarchy, the House of Lords, the rule of law, parliamentary sovereignty, MPs as representatives rather than delegates, and no written constitution. While in government, the party of Churchill, Thatcher, Macmillan and Baldwin has never offered the public a referendum. Given this Bill and the proposed alternative vote referendum, the Conservatives seem to offer referendums only on proposals that they want the public to reject.
Instead of simply stating general principles on offering referendums, the coalition has gone through the treaties line by line and set out a mish-mash of issues on which a referendum will be called, and gives a shorter list of issues on which one will not be called. That approach is not only unnecessarily complicated, but it gives the impression that the Government cannot be trusted to exercise their judgment on whether there should be a referendum on individual decisions and treaty changes.
Under the Bill, the extension of the ordinary procedure on environment policy will require a referendum, but as other hon. Members have said, the accession of Turkey to the EU will not. Which will have the greater impact on the UK? Angela Merkel’s proposals on the eurozone would not be subject to a referendum because the provisions do not apply to the UK. That assumes that because the UK is outside the eurozone, events within it do not affect the UK. We may not be signatories to the stability and growth pact, but the pact and the stability of the eurozone doubtless have an influence on the stability of the UK economy.
The Bill is bad law and dubious politics. It is an act of posturing by the coalition. The Government are trying to satisfy Eurosceptic Tory Back Benchers, but achieve neither of the objectives that they set out to achieve. The Lib Dems are a fig leaf to hide the Conservative’s embarrassment at Britain’s membership of the EU.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
I disagree with most of what the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) said. We have today heard a wide critique of the EU and of how we got to this situation, and I agree with most of it, including much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said. I feel strongly that had we discussed referendums—or had we had passed such a Bill six, seven or eight years ago—we would not face the level of distrust in the country that we are facing because of the Lisbon treaty.
I very much support the Bill because it represents why I went to the people of South Thanet in May. I want to turn the tide away from rules and treaties being made on our behalf, and to ensure that the people have a say on what powers we concede to the EU. Like many Conservatives, I would have liked a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but we were denied one. Many urged this Government to hold a referendum in any event, but that was impossible, because the deed had already been done with no reference to the British people.
Mr MacShane
Does the hon. Lady believe that we should have held a referendum on the Single European Act treaty of 1985, which ceded massive powers to Brussels?
Laura Sandys
I know that the right hon. Gentleman followed that treaty closely, but I was a touch too young to read it line by line. I would be delighted to take a history lesson on it in future.
Mr MacShane
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady is still very young.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I think we can rule that point of order out of order.
Laura Sandys
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his very kind words.
The Lisbon treaty was a real break in trust. Big constitutional changes need to go to the public. I used to be chairman of openDemocracy. I believe that we should trust the people and that we need to ensure that the people are part of the big, fundamental decisions. I disagree with many Opposition Members—
Laura Sandys
Absolutely. There are hardly any Opposition Members in the Chamber, but I disagree with those who do not agree with referendums—[Interruption.] Is the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) still speaking? Shall I sit down?
Laura Sandys
The distrust over the Lisbon treaty has created a total and utter determination to put the people and Parliament back in control of our sovereignty, and to ensure that the public and the various views in both Houses are listened to and considered.
The Bill sets three clear triggers that will create sovereignty locks that will introduce a clear mechanism for referendums, the need for legislation or parliamentary approval. My constituency has one of the largest UKIP votes in the country—2,500 voted to get out of Europe—so I am very conscious that we need to be robust on Europe and that any further transfer of powers needs to be questioned. The Bill convinces me of our control over transfers of power, which is important.
Let us consider what will happen under the Bill. If any Government decide to propose any further power or competency transfer to Brussels, they will have to hold a referendum. If a Government decide on a transfer of responsibility to Brussels, and if they state that that is not a transfer of power or competency, they will have to justify their decision to Parliament. They will need to show that there is no change in sovereignty, and that there is no diminishment of our domestic laws. If they prove that no power or competency is transferred, they will come up against the second lock—they will require an Act of Parliament. Many hon. Members have very strong views on the EU and sovereignty, but that lock gives all of us the opportunity to vote against the proposals or to amend them, including to put them to a referendum. We therefore have the ability to call Ministers to account, and to vote on or amend legislation.
That is crucial, but I am not sure that many hon. Members see the opportunities that the Bill gives us to question the judgment of the great Ministers of State. For me that is a significant statement that makes it clear how power will be used and our relationship with the EU forged. It is important in terms of both substance and message. Unlike some of my hon. Friends, I believe that the substance is that the people will be able to sanction the transfer of power. The message is that Brussels now knows that the brakes have been put on any further power grab.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I was unable to be in the Chamber for the first part of the debate because I was detained on House business elsewhere. I came in to listen to some fine speeches—and I have certainly heard some—but I did not plan to speak myself. However, I have been provoked once again into saying a few words.
As I have said time and again in the Chamber, the European Union is not Europe. They are two separate concepts, one of which is a continent of countries that I love very much. I would wish to go nowhere else. Europe is my home—it is where my history is and where my ancestors came from. We are a group of splendid nations with wonderful histories, and we have made great contributions to the world. In contrast, the EU is a recent invention, a political construct imposed on the peoples of Europe, and not always with their consent. In recent years, there has been a drift towards a majority opposing the EU—the regular Eurobarometer test shows sinking support for the EU. The EU is not Europe; it is a political construct with which I have always had strong disagreements.
The Labour party makes the point time and again that those who oppose or are critical of the EU are of the right, and those who support it are of the left. That is strange, because it was actually the Conservatives who led us into the EU and the majority of the Labour party who opposed it in the 1975 referendum. I was the agent for the no vote in Bedfordshire, and a Conservative Member for a Bedfordshire constituency was the agent for the yes vote. I reminded him of that when I met him recently—he has passed away now—and he was horribly embarrassed because he had changed his view. I have not changed mine.
The referendums held recently in European nations have been won by my standards—lost by the standards of the Euro-enthusiasts—by people of the left, including trade unionists and working class people who did not feel that this machine would be to their benefit. That was true in France despite the leadership of the French Socialist party balloting its membership to get a yes vote. In Holland, again, it was trade unionists and people of the left who voted no; it was people who thought that some of the rights they had achieved in the post-war democratic world might be taken away by the EU. In Sweden, too, there was a referendum on the euro, and again it was the left who opposed it, because they could see that being bolted to a single currency would remove the flexibility that all economies need from time to time to be able to adjust.
I am broadly in favour of stable currency regimes, although not a complete floating currency rate. We had one after the second world war, between 1945 and 1970-ish, and it worked: we had full employment, growth, rising prosperity and greater equality than we had ever seen, and welfare states developed all over Europe. Somehow, however, we gave it all away, and now we have gone for a neo-liberal, free market view of the world with which I completely disagree and which has brought us close to disaster in recent years. I think that the social democratic world of Europe after the second world war was a good world and one that worked. That is why I so strongly oppose most of what the EU is doing. It is trying consistently to take all that away and to create a world of competition and free markets with which I do not agree. It has brought us close to disaster.
My record on opposing the single currency goes back a long way. In 1979, I worked as a research officer for a then trade union called NALGO. I wrote a brief on the “snake”. Hon. Members with long memories will remember the “snake”—the European monetary system—and whether we should join it under Denis Healey. I wrote a brief to our general secretary saying, “This will be a disaster. It’s the first step on the way to a single currency and will do us no good.” Geoffrey Drain, our then general secretary, went to the TUC, taking my brief with him, and he argued strongly against joining the “snake”.
The TUC then went to Denis Healey and again argued strongly against joining the “snake”, and he agreed not to join it. I am not sure whether it was just down to me, but we all agreed anyway. Subsequently, however, we made the great mistake of joining the exchange rate mechanism, which did the Conservative party no good, I fear. Had it not joined it and had we not suffered the depression, the negative equity, the housing market collapse and the rise in interest rates in 1992, or had it not been ejected from or left the ERM, it might not have lost the 1997 general election. That was the cause of its loss, and many Conservatives rue the day they were persuaded to support joining the ERM.
I opposed the ERM before we joined. I wrote a paper saying what would happen, and I was proved right—I said that the money markets would speculate against it and that it would break. That proved to be correct. Since then, I have opposed a European single currency. I was a founder member, with several good comrades on the Labour Benches, of a group called first “Labour against the euro” and now “Labour for a European referendum”. They consisted of the same people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who made a fine speech today.
We now have the single currency, and the elephant in the room is the crisis in the eurozone. Members only have to read the Financial Times leader every day. I am not saying that the Financial Times is all-knowing and all-wise, but it is not yet convinced that the euro will survive. Indeed, sensible people are suggesting that we should be trying to find an orderly way to deconstruct the euro using these vast funds to do it in the most pain-free way possible. It might not be very pain-free, but at least it would be better than ploughing on into a massive crisis when things get out of control. Perhaps we need a controlled deconstruction of the euro for those countries that cannot sustain membership, and a new eurozone consisting of a smaller group of member states based around Germany, or indeed two or three different currencies for countries that can afford to work with each other.
Our former Prime Minister and Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), had the great wisdom to stay out of the euro in the late 1990s. I cheered him then because he was absolutely right, and has been proved to be right. Had we not been able to depreciate by 25% or so, we would now be in the same state as Ireland—but probably worse. Separate currencies are essential shock absorbers. They should not be used lightly. I do not agree with volatile exchange rates: we need stable ones, as we had after the war, with the possibility of depreciation from time to time, and indeed appreciation if a currency is undervalued. Germany’s currency, for example, was under-valued for a long time, which gave it a tremendous competitive advantage. The eurozone is the elephant in the room.
Sovereignty is important. I would like a stronger Bill than this one in which we can re-establish support for the democratic state and our own national sovereignty, not in a nationalistic way but because that is the basis of our democracy. I want the same degree of sovereignty for other nation states as well. I think that the nation state is the natural order of things, and trying to impose arrangements that bind nation states rigidly together will be fraught with problems and lead to disaster. I use this example time and again: Argentina effectively tried to join the dollar zone, and it almost destroyed its economy. In the end, it had to recreate the peso and devalue massively. Having been the strongest economy in south America, Argentina went through terrible times and still has not quite recovered. Single currencies imposed on different economies are always mistakes, and that is what has happened in the eurozone.
Edward Heath, when in opposition, sat near to where I now sit in the Chamber. He argued strongly against enlargement—I am not suggesting I agreed or disagreed with him—because he thought that countries that were too different would not be able co-operate within the EU.He wanted to stay in a smaller group of richer, western European nations. That is what Edward Heath was in favour of; he was not in favour of the much larger organisation that is now developing, involving countries with very different economies and, indeed, different traditions. He will perhaps be looking down with interest from wherever he is now and saying, “Well, I was right after all, wasn’t I?” It does not work if we try to impose things on very different economies.
Those are the points that ought to be borne in mind, and the major problem that the European Union has at the moment.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). The sentiments that he expressed—a feeling of disconnection with the European Union, concerns about its lack of accountability, and even a feeling of crisis in the European Union—are ones that we have heard throughout this debate. That is not something that has been invented by parts of my party or got up by the press; it is a deep-seated feeling across parties and among voters of all parties.
To be fair to those of my party on the Front Bench, they tried to respond to that in the general election. It was no doubt with concern about Europe in mind that they made the following promise, which they were right to make, in the manifesto, on which I was proud to stand, just as every other Member of my party did:
“We will be positive members of the European Union but we are clear that there should be no further extension of the EU’s power over the UK without the British people’s consent…We will work to bring back key powers over legal rights, criminal justice and social and employment legislation to the UK.”
That was described in the Conservative manifesto as a liberal Conservative policy, and it is indeed in accordance with the tenets of classical liberalism. However, since then we have actually had a Liberal-Conservative policy.
I understand that, and I understand the reasons why it has come about. However, I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will understand when I say to them that although I appreciate the fact of the coalition and the way in which it is working, I still hold to what was said in the manifesto, which I supported, and that I wish to accomplish the ends of that manifesto, particularly in respect of not allowing the extension of any further power to the EU, as well as repatriating existing powers—I thought that that would be a tall order, but it was worth trying. It is certainly still in order to seek to prevent any further extension of EU power. However, I am afraid that the Bill as it stands does not fully accomplish that end, and my hon. Friends would be testing my credulity if they claimed that it did.
Indeed, clause 18 does not even seek to do that. This is a matter of academic debate, but clause 18 is a restatement of the existing position—there are different academic views on that—and it certainly does not set out to stop any further transfer of power to the European Union. Nor, I would suggest, do the other parts of the Bill fully accomplish the end of preventing a transfer of power to the European Union, however many referendum locks they contain, particularly in so far as they concern transfers of any further competences to the European Union. If one studies the list of competences that are already possessed by the European Union, as set out in the treaty of Lisbon, one can see that virtually every field of policy—indeed, every type of human activity—is covered by a competence of one type or another. Even where those competences do not give the European Union a law-making power—and in many cases they do—the European Union can still use the competences that it holds in other fields to make law and policy in those fields where it does not have a formal competence, and the European Commission, backed up by the European Court, has not been slow to do that.
The problem that we are faced with is that which the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) described earlier: the drip, drip, drip of power to the European Union, through European directives, European regulations, all the soft law that comes from the European Union, and the new objectives that are set for the European Union, which influence policy makers. All that goes on as before. As far as the European Union is concerned, it is just business as usual. Those are the problems that we need to address, and although it is difficult to take them on, I would urge Ministers to do so.
Already in the lifetime of this Government we have seen transfers of power to the European Union that—I think I am right in saying—would not have been captured by the Bill’s referendum provisions. Most people would understand a transfer of power in any ordinary sense to include giving the European Union power to set policy, or giving the European Commission the power to take initiatives or, most particularly, to make law. I am thinking in particular of the advent of the External Action Service, which has attracted so much bad publicity in this country. However, the External Action Service is bad for this country not just because it is extravagant—although it clearly is—but because it will act in such a way as to supplant British power and the exercise of independent British representations. I suspect that this is something that we will see more and more of in times to come.
We have also seen the Van Rompuy report on economic governance, which most people would see as a prospective transfer of power, in any ordinary sense of the word, to the European Union, framing, as it does, the criteria by which our economic policies are made and the guidelines that Governments must observe in their fiscal policies. The report also gives the European Union the power to impose sanctions on this country, in the form of placing it under certain procedures—not financial sanctions, but sanctions of other forms, which could be influential with policy makers. The report is certainly intended by the European Union to be an instrument of economic governance over this country, even though it is not a member of the eurozone.
We have also seen a significant transfer of power into the European so-called area of freedom, security and justice, caused by opting in to directives of the European Union in that area, even though this country had an opt-out from those policies—something that the previous Government said was the key difference between the constitutional treaty and the treaty of Lisbon. Now we are seeking to opt in. We have already opted in to six directives—two are very significant directives indeed—that give the European Union legislative authority over this country and, more importantly, give the European Court of Justice jurisdiction over our criminal procedure and criminal law. Those are all matters that are not covered by the Bill as it stands.
Mr Clappison
I am afraid that my hon. Friend is correct. We are deepening and extending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
What to do about all this? There is one improvement that can be made to the Bill—an improvement that I put to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. It would be a great improvement on the Bill, and would be in keeping with what we have been saying about parliamentary democracy, if we made the exercise of the opt-ins subject to a vote in this House—something that does not take place at the moment, however heroic and detailed our efforts at European scrutiny are, as we cannot cause this House of Commons to have a vote on something of that nature. That would be easy for Ministers to agree to, and I cannot think of a good reason against it. My right hon. Friend said, “Well, there might be too many of these things,” which rather bears out the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) just made about the extent of the penetration of the European Union’s jurisdiction. However, the fact that things might take up too much of the House’s time is not a sufficient reason not to have a vote—perish the thought!—on such matters. I remind my right hon. and hon. Friends that we specifically promised in our manifesto to allow Parliament more time to scrutinise legislation. My proposal would be in keeping with that, which would be a good thing.
It would also be appropriate for Ministers to consider amendments to the provisions dealing with the question of significance, because at the moment, whether we have a referendum under the circumstances detailed in the Bill depends on whether Ministers think they are significant enough. What a thing! Ministers are to decide whether something is significant enough, and the explanatory notes to the Bill then tell us that anyone who is aggrieved by such a decision should go off to the courts to seek a judicial review. What on earth is Parliament for? Are we not allowed to hold Ministers to account as well? Are we now going to have to subcontract that to the courts?
Kelvin Hopkins
This reminds me of when, late in the progress of the Freedom of Information Bill, a clause was suddenly introduced that stated that there could be freedom of information unless a Minister said no. It was to be left to the discretion of a Minister whether something could be covered by freedom of information legislation.
Mr Clappison
This is a test for my right hon. and hon. Friends, and I hope that they will listen to the case for certain amendments. I hope that, rather than seeking to drive the Bill through unamended, they will try to improve it. I believe that we can do that by building on what is already in it and, in so doing, restore the authority of this House. That is what this is really all about. We need to restore the authority of the House, because our right to self-governance and our parliamentary sovereignty have been systematically stripped away by the European Union over the years. So far, everything that has been described as a safeguard to prevent that from happening and a solution to the problem has turned out to be false.
First, there was the promise that we would have voting only by unanimity. That was the original promise in the literature delivered to every household when we originally went into the European Union. Then we had the pillar structure, which has long since crumbled to dust and become part of the main European structure. We then had the pledge of subsidiarity, but we do not hear so much about that these days. I remember being told, during the passage of previous Bills 10 to 15 years ago, that subsidiarity was going to be the solution to the problem, but nobody talks about it now. The only example of the exercise of subsidiarity by the European Commission has been in relation to the zoos directive, so I am pleased that at least some of our fellow creatures have benefited from the doctrine of subsidiarity.
I hope that this Bill does not go the same way as all those other failed attempts to solve the problem, in which Ministers have gone around saying, “This is the solution. We do not need to worry any more about Europe. There is no problem about the constant transfer of powers to the European Union—we have put a stop to it.” Rather than simply seeking to drive the Bill through the House of Commons, I hope that Ministers will listen to the case for improving the Bill with properly tabled amendments. We could make this a better Bill but, as things stand, we have the continuing problem of parliamentary self-governance being stripped away by the European Union. I do not want to say that we have hung up a sign that says “Business as usual” to the European Union; I hope that we can do a bit better than that. Certainly, as far as the transfer of new powers is concerned, we should put up the “Closed” sign to the European Union.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
As far as the term “business as usual” is concerned, I must ruefully reflect that it is business as usual in this House, as we are again discussing this interminable topic. It has occupied many thousands of hours of discussion since I was elected in 1992, and many thousands more before that. It is perhaps amusing and depressing to see how little some things change while the pace of European integration seems uninterrupted by whatever votes take place, whatever arguments occur and whatever crises erupt. The present crisis over the governance of the euro is a case in point. The architects of the Maastricht treaty, far from accepting that they have been proved wrong by events, are seizing on the chaos to strengthen the hold of the centre over the rest of Europe, accelerating the pace of integration as a result.
I am bound to ask, as should we all, whether the scene that we observe in the Chamber today was really what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary envisaged when he came up with the brilliant idea of a referendum lock at the Conservative conference in 2009. At that time, I think what he saw looming was the imminence of the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, and the difficulty of holding a referendum on a treaty that had already been ratified. He was looking for something to throw to the crowd, and his idea got a wonderful round of applause at the conference. Little can he have imagined, however, that that simple promise would give rise to a Bill of such byzantine complexity. It has not been universally welcomed in the Chamber, although, knowing the way in which this place works, I suspect that it will find its way into Committee. No one, with the exception of a few aficionados, can have imagined what a mess the future Government were getting themselves into by making such an apparently simple pledge. As recently as 1 November, the Prime Minister told the House:
“I would grant a referendum if there were any proposed transfer of powers from Westminster to Brussels.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 625.]
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) made an illuminating speech, pointing out that certain transfers of power are not included in the Bill. The reason why they are not included is either that the Government have already made those transfers and do not want to admit that they should have been made more accountable to this House, or that they intend to make further transfers and do not want to get caught up in the potential for litigation. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe made it clear in his summing-up speech when he expects the provisions to come into force. My understanding is that whatever is in this Bill is not intended to apply to this Parliament, but to the next one. I see the Minister nodding. It would be a bit embarrassing to legislate for the next Parliament and create a trap for a future Government that the current Government would not accept for their own behaviour. I guess that that is why these lacunas exist.
The crunch is that it all depends on what is meant by power. A child can have power over its parent, even though it does not have any sovereign or legislative authority. Power has a fluid quality to it: it cannot be held; it travels to people with influence. Power is clearly leeching away from our kingdom and this House, even though I believe that this House remains absolutely sovereign. The fact of power, where it is exercised, and the constraints that it makes people feel when it is exercised, is clearly having an effect.
Two simple tests can be applied to the Bill. The Foreign Secretary himself says that the Lisbon settlement lacks democratic legitimacy, so we should ask ourselves whether this Bill adds to the democratic legitimacy of the settlement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. The answer is that it does not affect it. It affects what might happen in future—we can argue about that, and some argue that it might have a greater effect than expected and that the courts might have to decide how much effect it will have—but it does not constitute a lock, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) pointed out, because no Parliament can bind its successor. Whatever is in the Bill can be amended or repealed by a future Parliament. It is not really a lock, but it does not affect anything that has gone before.
The sovereignty clause provides another case in point. In fact, despite the Government’s repeated reference to it as such, it is not a sovereignty cause. It does not contain the word “sovereignty” or “sovereign” and it does not use the words “supremacy” or “primacy”. It merely provides an historical account of what happened—that there was an Act of Parliament, which is how the European Union’s laws apply in this kingdom. It has no effect whatever.
Let me cite the evidence given to the European Scrutiny Committee. Professor Adam Tomkins gave advice that was accepted by the all-party Select Committee. He said:
“Neither clause 18 nor any other provision in the Bill safeguards the United Kingdom from the further development of EU law by the ECJ.”
Now the ECJ, that really is power! How is this House going to regulate the power of the European Court to expand competence and reinterpret the competences of the European Union as it has done down the ages? Well, of course, it cannot. I was touched by the faith in the Bill expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), but as Professor Tomkins also said on the limitations of clause 18:
“If this is the attempt by the UK Parliament to reassert or reclaim some kind of sovereignty in the face of the European competence creep, it ‘don’t do what it says on the tin.’”
I am afraid that the Minister has to face that.
In my last minute or two, let me move on to the second test of the Bill. Is it really in the national interest; does it address the national interest? I would regard the Bill as almost wholly irrelevant to the national interest. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) pointed out that we should be talking about the rise of China and how we are going to do business with India. We really are contemplating our navels as we discuss this Bill. As the recent Public Administration Committee report says, what we need is a reassessment of our national interest with regard to our membership of the European Union. I do not advocate an “in or out” referendum, but I think that we need to start reassessing whether our current terms of membership are in our national interest and then to start working out how we should alter them to reflect our national interest.
The problem with this Bill is that it neither addresses the democratic legitimacy—or the lack of it—in the current settlement, nor stops the flow of power to the European Union. As we are talking about democratic legitimacy, I should say that that flow takes power away from democracies and gives it to something else, because whatever the European Union is, it ain’t a democracy. The Bill fails to address our national interests and it reflects the muddle that the Government have got themselves into because, as we have heard, the prime purpose of this Bill is political; it was designed to appease sentiment in the absence of a referendum on all the treaties where we should have had referendums: the Maastricht, Nice and Amsterdam treaties, as well as the Lisbon treaty. The Bill will fail to reassure people and will fail to address the increasing disconnect that people feel, not from the European Union, but from the governance of their own country by their own democratically elected representatives. Dealing with that is the real challenge that we face, because that is about despair about us in this place.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Before I call the next speaker, may I say that I am trying to get 11 Members in and I presume that the Front-Bench spokespeople will want 15 minutes each? We can work the sums out for ourselves, but I ask for a little haste and for hon. Members not to take as much time.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I shall be as brief as possible, Mr Deputy Speaker. You will be pleased to learn that I have already crossed off my list a few points that other hon. Members have made. A short while ago, I heard a speech given by my own Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell). He and I have shared common cause in our fights against the EU over the years, and only a few weeks ago we marched through the Lobby together saying, “North-east Lincolnshire against Europe.” He opposes this Bill because he says that it does not go far enough, but I am going to support it because it goes some of the way towards what I would like to see. I am no friend of the EU.
We were given a bit of a history lesson by the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) a short while ago. He was reminiscing about his part in the 1975 referendum and I, too, am sadly old enough to have participated in that campaign. Hon. Members will recall that my party was very pro-European at that time, and I must tell the House that I was a rebellious young Conservative who drove around with “No to the Common Market”—as it was then—on my battered Austin 1100. For many years I would have described myself as “anti-European”, but I would now say that I am “a Eurosceptic”. One can go on fighting the same battles for only so long. I concluded some time ago that the only Governments likely to be elected were going to be Conservative, Labour or some combination involving one of those two and the Liberal Democrats. Being realistic, none of those were going to achieve what I would like to see, which is withdrawal from the EU. That may change and I hope it does, because I agree with the earlier comments that the nation state is the natural unit of government—long may that continue.
However, we are where we are. I speak for my constituents when I say that, in general, they are very much opposed to EU membership. Grimsby and Cleethorpes are geographically one town, although they have their own identities. The scars from the fishing negotiations run deep, and we recognise that Mr Heath’s Government sacrificed the deep-sea fishing industry in those negotiations in the early 1970s. On membership, an instant reaction among my constituents would almost certainly be, “We want out.” Perhaps the more reflective view might be, “We might just about get a majority to stay in.”
The big failing of successive Governments has been their reluctance to secure popular support—preferably, in a referendum—for the various treaties and moves towards more integration. We would probably still be in exactly the same position, although a week or two ago I discussed this matter with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and he pointed out that we might have got a “no” result in a referendum on Maastricht. We need to correct the mistakes of the past and repatriate more of our powers, and I hope we will make some moves towards that in the not-too-distant future.
The Bill talks about “significant changes”, so I acknowledge that we shall have endless dancing on a pinhead and legal decisions about what is “significant”. In an ideal world, I would go further than the Bill, but the important thing is that if in future, if Governments wriggle, duck and dive in their interpretation in order to avoid a referendum, they will suffer the same fate as the previous Government, who argued that a constitution was not a constitution and were discredited in the eyes of the public.
We should accept the fact that the EU is a political project. There is nothing wrong with that, but I do not happen to agree with the destination of the project. Ultimately, irrespective of any court decision, a decision about whether we remain in or leave the EU will be a political one.
The Bill as it stands is not perfect. I would like it to go further, but it is better than nothing and I shall certainly be in the Lobby to support the Government.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I, too, will support the Bill at this stage, although I was deeply concerned by what my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said about its not being introduced, for the main part, until after this Parliament has been completed. If that is correct—I hope the Minister will give us some comfort on that point—the whole of this exercise is entirely pointless.
Mr Lidington
May I make it clear that I nodded to indicate that I would respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) in my concluding remarks?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I would not wish to anticipate the excitement that we all hold for the Minister’s speech on that crucial point.
The Bill is important and broadly good. Let us be absolutely clear that there are many of us on the Government Benches, and on the Opposition Benches, who want powers to be brought back from the European Union. The European Union is a state in decay. It is rotten at its very core. It is corrupt. It is dishonest. It is bullying. It has a currency that is failing as I speak, a currency that is bankrupting several of its nations and putting ruinous conditions on Ireland, Portugal and Greece—and the Spanish and the Italians will follow.
The European Union has not been in British interests. It is not the common market that people expected it to be and we need root-and-branch reform. I know that we are in a coalition and that we have made concessions to our coalition partners, as they have made concessions to us. They have not yet realised how dreadful the European Union is, but as one hon. Member said to me earlier, “The more they get to know about it the worse they will know that it is.”
Let us look in detail at this Bill and at why it is welcome as far as it goes. The element on the referendum is very important and I was delighted that Vernon Bogdanor, the extremely distinguished constitutional historian, quoted John Locke in his evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee. My delight is all the greater because John Locke grew up in Belluton, which, as right hon. and hon. Members know, is a village in North East Somerset. John Locke said in his “Second Treatise of Government”:
“The Legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated power from the People, they who have it cannot pass it to others”.
That is the essence of our constitution.
People talk learnedly about the sovereignty of Parliament, but what do they really mean and where does it come from? I think this was all settled in the 17th century. There were two choices: one was that sovereignty came from God and was given to the King, and the other was that it came from the people and moved upwards and that it was borrowed by Parliament for a period. The sovereignty of Parliament is a great thing. We should bear in mind that the Supreme Court is established by Parliament, as are the very monarchy and the laws of succession. That precious sovereignty is ours not because we are the great and good of the land, or because we sit on green Benches in a fine Palace, but because the British people have given it to us for a period, and we may not bind it or give it away. We may not give it to Europe or the United Nations; only the British people can do that, and they must have a referendum lock on it.
We heard a characteristically well-phrased speech from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He was concerned that the Bill would not provide a lock because it could be repealed by subsequent Parliaments. That is true, of course, but a lock can be unlocked if one has the right key, and the key will be the considerable political capital that would be expended by any Government who wished to remove, dilute or give away the power of the sovereign British people. So, the lock is worth while. There has been an interesting development in law about constitutional Acts having a higher standing than ordinary Acts, and the European Communities Act 1972 is considered to be such an Act, as Lord Laws mentioned in the Thoburn case. If that is right, I hope we will get some guidance from Her Majesty’s Government on whether the Bill would be a constitutional Act that could not be subject simply to implied repeal but would have to be repealed directly. The referendum lock is important and beneficial even though it is not enough in terms of our relationship with the EU.
Clause 18 affirms the sovereignty of Parliament and provides that we allow European law to take effect only because of the 1972 European Communities Act. I welcome the clause, but it was a matter of great dispute among much more learned people than me during the European Scrutiny Committee’s deliberations. I welcome it because of the nature of our constitution, which evolves without things necessarily being written down. We discussed this issue during Committee deliberations on the Fixed-Term Parliaments Bill. There are things that the sovereign could do by royal prerogative that are so unlikely and improbable, because they have not been done for so long, that they have fallen into disuse and effective decay. My worry is that without this clause, the 1972 Act might be viewed as one that cannot be amended or repealed and that we might get to a stage, perhaps in 50 years’ time, when the courts hold that it is so important that it is of a different order of magnitude than any other statute.
Clause 18 turns the clock back, which is rather gratifying because we are told that the Tories never turn the clock back. Evelyn Waugh said that he voted Tory all his life expecting them to turn the clock back but that they did not put it back 10 minutes. On this occasion, we are putting it back by 38 years; we are resetting the constitutional position to where everyone would have known it was in 1972. I think that is important, even though I thoroughly accept the point made by many right hon. and hon. Members that it is not a complete statement of the whole theory of the sovereignty of Parliament. I hope that would be unnecessary because the sovereignty of Parliament comes from the British people and cannot be taken away, however much one says so.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
I am privileged to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who does justice to the House, as he does justice to the sentiments that he expressed and the cause to which he spoke. That makes it harder for me to follow him. I realise that that is usually a challenge for Members, but I will do my best.
I echo my hon. Friend’s sentiment and I will support the Bill because I regard it as the first serious attempt to stop the erosion of power from Westminster to Brussels. I say “serious” because it is legislation before the House, and I say “attempt” because I recognise that it does not go as far as I and other Members might like. EU interference has dogged us for many years. We as a sovereign nation have been bled dry of powers, which has increased the frustration of the public with an institution that is so remote yet so influential on their lives.
I support the attempt to introduce a referendum lock. For too long, the people have been sidelined as dodgy deals are done and negotiated across Europe, stealing our sovereignty. How? It has been done through treaties such as Lisbon, Amsterdam and Nice. The previous Government handed over so many of our powers during the past 13 years. When the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that he wanted to be at the heart of Europe, he was not kidding. He effected one of the most powerful transplants ever of so much power to Europe from Britain. We all sensed the betrayal that the British people felt as a result of the Lisbon treaty.
The Bill moves to give Parliament more say over Europe. The Government will have the opportunity to pass primary legislation before we have more self-amending clauses. There is good stuff in the Bill. As for sovereignty and clause 18, I know that there are many learned Members in the House and I dare not question their judgment, but when lawyers say to me that something is enshrined in common law, I am immediately concerned that common law and precedent mean that it could change over time. I have no problem with an attempt to establish clause 18, but I acknowledge, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) said, that it carries some risk with lawyers in the future.
My main concern is that the Bill may be seen as the end of a process, rather than as the beginning of a process to ensure that the present or any future Government cannot continue to transfer powers to the EU. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) spoke eloquently of wiggle room. There is wiggle room in the Bill, and that is not good because we are attempting not just to pass a Bill, but to rebuild trust between the British people and the Government by challenging the transfer of powers in our relationship with Europe.
The existence of wiggle room raises the question of who decides what is material and what is not. Ministers clearly have the right to determine what constitutes a transfer of powers, and mechanisms spelled out in the Bill make it clear in many cases what constitutes a transfer of powers, but it is the little grey areas of wiggle room that are, in effect, a Trojan horse that can be exploited and undermine the genuine attempts of the Bill to protect any transfer of power.
I tried to apply a test. Had the Bill been in place when the European arrest warrant was introduced, would we have had a referendum on a significant directive from Europe? I attempted to find out. I am grateful to the Minister’s staff, who spent some time briefing me on the Bill. I raised the question, but I have to say that I am still confused—not because of their lack of effort, but because of the potential greyness surrounding the issue.
What is more illustrative of our sovereignty than the fact that the courts in an individual’s own land cannot protect him, but could lead him to be extradited merely by ticking boxes in a process and undermining the right of a British court to pass judgment on him?
The Minister knows that, until recently, one of my constituents, Andrew Symeou, languished in jail for many months after being subjected to a European arrest warrant, and the Minister is kindly trying to make representations to the Greek Government to assist him. The family keenly await any outcome, and I thank him for that. But my constituent would believe that the sovereign power of his country had not served him well by agreeing to transfer those powers outside the jurisdiction of our courts and to Europe. I think he would say that his Government had not protected him.
Will the Minister look closely at the wiggle room in the Bill and see how we can reconcile the conflicts that no doubt will lead to other issues over transfer of power? Yes, of course, issues can come to Committee, to scrutiny and to Parliament, but ultimately a Government can get their way, and however much we may protest, a Government may get a motion through and the people will not have had their say in a referendum on a transfer of powers.
I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) when he suggests that we may be shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, but on balance that would not be a reason to oppose the Bill, because it marks a massive step forward for Britain and her relationship with Europe. It is a confidence-building measure for the British people in their relationship with what can only be described as an empire-building EU, and it is an important marker in the sand for this coalition Government to rebuild trust with the British people. We must not breach that trust.
Decisions have been remote from the British people. Yes, Parliament does have more say. I accept that the Bill only draws a line under the past, but it still leaves the future somewhat grey. It could be tightened further, and that is in the interests of constructive engagement, which I hope we will have the chance to debate at length in Committee, but I have no hesitation in supporting it, and I believe that my constituents will also seek to take advantage of engaging in future European debate if they have the opportunity to have their voice heard should the Bill be enacted.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I rise as a sinner, because I would like a referendum on Britain’s future relationship with our European partners. As I am a former member of the European Parliament, that certainly makes me a sinner in the eyes of those out there. Many of the British people are sinners also. We all entered this European garden of Eden fully clothed, and now the British people feel that their clothes have been stolen by previous Governments of both colours, with their shirt finally having been stolen from their back by the last Labour Government when they gave away a huge part of our rebate. That is why we have the Bill.
It is fairly obvious to anyone who cares to ask our voters that they are really fed up with our relationship with the EU, and do not trust the European institutions. Equally, our voters have lost a huge amount of trust in the ability of British Governments trying, or even endeavouring to try, to stand up for our country.
Mr Swayne
This House voted not to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If those of us who argued with the Minister, who continued to insist that it was merely an administrative tidying up, had only had the ability to go to judicial review, as this Bill allows, we would have been much better for it.
Chris Heaton-Harris
That is why the Bill is very important, and equally why it is dangerous to oversell what the Bill does.
Government Members have a number of qualms, as do Labour Members, about the sovereignty clause. Vernon Bogdanor, in his evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee, said:
“Although there is therefore a basic rationale for the European Union bill, it seems to me that its provisions are inconsistent with the declaratory clause insisting that Parliament is sovereign. Indeed, the purpose of the bill is unclear to me. A government will not provide for a referendum unless it wishes to support a proposal for treaty amendment or transfer of powers. If it is opposed to such a proposal, it can use its veto, since all matters to be made subject to the referendum require unanimity. The present government has indicated that it will not support any amendment or transfer of powers in this parliament. Therefore, the purpose of the bill must be to prevent a future government from supporting such an amendment or transfer without a referendum. The bill seeks, in other words, to bind a future government. That seems to me inconsistent with the declaratory proposition that Parliament is sovereign.”
I should very much appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on that piece of evidence.
The Minister kindly came to the European Scrutiny Committee yesterday and gave a tour de force on the outcomes that he expected from the Bill. He said that
“it delivers on what was in the coalition programme simply as an agreement to consider the case for a sovereignty Bill—that Bill is being introduced by the means of clause 18.”
Yesterday, at the end of his speech, that was reduced to just a few words:
“Clause 18…is declaratory in intention and in substance.”
May I suggest to the Minister that he must not oversell that clause? There is some value in clause 18 as a declaration, but it absolutely does not represent a sovereignty Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) made some salient points about justice and home affairs measures, which are a good example of what goes on in the European institutions. The Bill seemingly stops powers heading out to Europe in big chunks, but anyone experienced in such matters knows that European negotiators rarely try to swallow their prey whole. They would if they could, but to get past the public anger and angst that such huge transfers of power always cause they have long preferred to chop things up and to salami-slice: they chop away piece by piece, or sliver by sliver, until they reach their goal. Current justice and home affairs arrangements on the opt-in, opt-out basis receive little scrutiny, and the measure before us really put its finger on that.
The European public prosecutor, which is one of those proposals that triggers all the alarm bells in the Bill, simply cannot be introduced under this legislation without a referendum or the people having their say, but the European institutions desperately want it. As a member of the European Parliament, I was there at the start of the EPP debate in Brussels, and it evolved a little like this. Initially, the proposal was about introducing a common body of law in justice and home affairs, but it was not that important; it was just about protecting the Commission’s raising of its own resources. The Commission raises money in many ways, one of which involves VAT, and one role of the anti-fraud office, OLAF, was to ensure that money did not disappear through theft, fraud or VAT avoidance. OLAF was meant to police the Commission’s budget when the wise men set it up, but that story is for another day.
Let us say that OLAF did its job properly and got the authorities in Spain to arrest a British national for not paying VAT on smuggled cigarettes in Bulgaria. It is complicated to get all those authorities to investigate and co-ordinate arrests and prosecutions, so, the argument goes in Europe, we need a European arrest warrant, investigation orders and a whole lot more to make the process work. Before we know it, we have, through various justice and home affairs instruments, all the guts and the body of a European public prosecutor. Its creation would trigger a referendum under the Bill.
Can a current Minister, however, guarantee that a future Minister will not see that measure as a tidying-up exercise, or as just an insignificant power transfer with a European public prosecutor at the end? Can a current Minister guarantee what a future Minister will think is significant? Even if they are able to, will we get the British public to trust a Minister who says that? Not too long ago, a Minister for Europe suggested that the European charter on fundamental rights was of no more significance than The Beano. The Bill is for future use—not much good if no Government can bind their successors. But we are told that we do not need to worry about this Government, as under them there will not be any transfer of power to Europe.
Yesterday, when giving evidence on the Bill, the Minister for Europe told the European Scrutiny Committee—this was confirmed today by answers to questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere asked the Secretary of State—that up to 40 justice and home affairs measures might be passed through the channels of Government in any given year. That is an awful lot. The Secretary of State said that those could take time to investigate. Yesterday, the Minister told us that
“there is a strict time limit attached to our opt-in on these measures—that we have to take a decision within three months. It takes the Government, through interdepartmental consultation, some time to work out what their own assessment of a particular measure is once it is published.”
That causes a problem, because it means that there is no time in the parliamentary timetable for us to investigate those measures properly.
What does the Bill do? It might not tickle the fancy of my fellow Eurosceptics, but I am sure that, when looking at the next area of policy from which to grab power, the Commission negotiators will have at the back of their minds a worry that at one point the British people might have a say about what they are trying to do. As has been described in so many books, they knew in the past that a friendly chat with close friends at the Foreign Office could mean a little less excitement down the line.
At the beginning of my remarks, I described how the British public and British politicians had entered the European garden of Eden fully clothed, only to find that over a period of years we had been stripped. Although I appreciate that the Bill is just a fig leaf, I will happily vote for it because it covers a tiny piece of our modesty.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary’s Bill. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), I spent 10 years in the European Parliament. [Interruption.] Yes, I sinned too; tonight is a night of confession.
Seriously, over those 10 years we saw powers being transferred from the House to Brussels. I saw Tony Blair negotiate an increase in the budget of the European Union and give away part of our rebate, worth billions of pounds—and what for? A so-called reform in the common agricultural policy further down the road. Of course, when we got further down the road, there was no reform of the CAP; by then, the European Union had the money and was moving forward.
It is absolutely right that we should have this sovereignty Bill to curb the powers of the European Union. The people of this country are absolutely fed up of with a one-way street from Westminster to Brussels. That is why the Bill is so important.
Yes, the Bill probably does not go as far as many of us would like, but at least we are stopping the flow. It is no good for shadow Ministers to wind us up by saying that the Bill is just to placate the Eurosceptics. I suggest that if the Labour party had been a bit more Eurosceptic when it was in power, we would not be in this position now. The Lisbon treaty was basically the European constitution, but wrapped in different wrapping paper. However, because of that, the Labour party said that we would no longer have a referendum on it and the people of this country were denied one.
Now is the time to support the Bill and bring powers back. Provisions such as the social chapter, to which Tony Blair signed up, have brought all the working time directives and all the bureaucracy that ties up our businesses and stops us going forward as an economy. In time, after this, all those things will have to be pulled back to make sure that, in the end, this Parliament is sovereign and that we are not dictated to by Brussels.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The significance of the Bill cannot be ignored. I say that following the disgraceful way in which the previous Government and Members on the now-empty Opposition Benches denied the British public a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. I desperately hope that this Bill will reassure my constituents and the rest of the British public that that will never happen again. I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on bringing forward the Bill in the Government’s first year in office. It has been a long time coming, and it is a positive step in the right direction. However, a number areas in the Bill need to be strengthened to defend the interests of the British and truly guarantee the sovereignty of this nation. We have already heard some of the arguments on that this afternoon.
The Bill needs more clarity over exactly what transfer of powers would trigger a referendum. It needs to go further in guaranteeing our red lines and in demonstrating a full commitment to repatriating powers from Brussels. It also needs to enhance the transparency and accountability of anything that involves the EU. As it stands, there is considerable uncertainty about how the Bill will function in practice.
I would like greater clarity in the exemptions referred to in clause 2 and the significant condition mentioned in clause 3. Clearly those provisions offer a Minister what I call a get-out-of-referendum-free card. I do not believe that any Conservative Minister in the current Government would seek to pull the wool over the eyes of this Parliament and the British public by abusing that clause. However, let us not forget that it was not so long ago that this country had a pro-European Government who were blinded so much by the taxpayer-funded propaganda of the European project that they neglected the British interest.
Under the previous Government, the rebate was sacrificed and power was scandalously surrendered under the Lisbon treaty. Even with the referendum lock outlined in the Bill, it remains possible for a future Government to hand more powers over to Brussels through the back door. Clause 3 states that an Act could be passed by Parliament—thereby bypassing the need for a referendum —by stating that the transfer of powers was “not significant” in its impact on the United Kingdom. That is a highly subjective test that would be based on the recommendation of Ministers.
Some of the EU’s areas of exclusive competence and shared competence are so worryingly generic that it would be a legal minefield to assess which policies may require a referendum. We have already seen the controversy over the European investigation order. On justice and home affairs, we may be guaranteed a referendum on the establishment of the European public prosecutor, but there is no such commitment given on the actions that Eurojust could take.
What would happen if a future Government decided to give up the 12 and 6-mile fishery limits? Under the Lisbon treaty, the EU already has competence for fisheries and marine biological resources. If proposals come forward from the Commission to remove or amend the controls that Britain can currently exercise within those limits, that could be done without the British public having a vote. Our fishing communities would be left devastated if the regulation was revised to remove the limits. However, there is no guarantee that the limits would be protected by the referendum lock.
It is also possible that, over the course of a Parliament, a Government could transfer a number of powers that individually may not be perceived as being significant enough to warrant a referendum but that, taken as a whole, could be highly significant over a period of time.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and is raising a number of excellent points. I particularly agree with her on the issue of salami-slicing, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). Does she agree that it is absolutely necessary for the language to be tightened up in Committee, given that the previous Labour Government were able to come to this House and state that the Lisbon treaty was not the same as the European constitution? How much easier would it have been for them to state that something was not significant when it was significant?
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I absolutely agree. We cannot have any grey areas—areas where subjectivity can come back into the decision-making process whatever.
We should remember that it is not just a referendum or adverse, ignorant and reckless government that could further threaten the sovereignty and primacy of our Parliament. Despite the principles behind the Bill, the authority of this Parliament can still be undermined by the bureaucrats and the judges in Brussels. As we have already heard, clause 13 may well confirm that the presence of EU law in this country is dependent upon an Act of Parliament. However, as we know from case law, the text of the Lisbon treaty and on the basis of treaties, EU law holds primacy over that of the laws of member states. In other words, where there is a conflict, EU law will always prevail.
That leads me to question what would happen if the EU decided to challenge the legitimacy of this country holding a referendum on an issue, or if the Commission disagreed with the view of the UK on the extent to which an EU decision affected this country. The judges in Brussels could look at the treaties and pass a judgment that denied the British people a referendum. That would be thoroughly undemocratic. We should guarantee the supremacy of this Parliament when it comes to making laws in this country.
This Bill is a welcome step, but it could have gone much further and contained stronger measures to bring democratic control back to Britain and to safeguard against what I would call competence creep. Many Members of this House know that Europe has already gone much too far in taking powers away from Britain without the consent of the British public, and we are now at a point in our history where the overwhelming consensus among the population is that we need less EU and more Britain. Under this legislation, I would like Ministers to go further to address the situation and come forward with a list of EU laws that should be revoked or disapplied to the UK to defend our national interests and our sovereignty. I do not believe that it is beyond the ability of the parliamentary draftsman to improve the Bill and empower Ministers in this Government to go to Brussels with a mandate to repatriate powers from the EU and return them to their rightful place in this country and to this sovereign House.
The sentiment behind the Bill is right, but it needs to be improved truly to reflect the sovereignty and primacy of this Parliament and the independence of our country, and, importantly, to put Britain’s interests first.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said, this Bill comes at a very interesting time in our history, particularly the history of our relations with what is now the European Union. I was very much taken with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who described Britain’s relations with the EU as being the opposite of a flirt. I beg to differ with him on that. My view of Britain’s relations with the EU is quite simple: for years, we said no, then we said “Can we come in?”, and then we said yes.
Frankly, in treaty negotiation after treaty negotiation, we have been the thorn in the side of other member states. I think particularly of the drawn-out negotiations that took place at Maastricht and, indeed, after Maastricht, where Britain secured some important opt-outs, notably on economic and monetary union, which then became the euro, and the social chapter, into which the last Labour Government wrongly brought us. It is interesting that the Labour Benches are largely empty. That is symbolic of Labour Members’ attitude to the EU, which is a mixture of ignorance, indifference and their completely supine nature in negotiations on Europe.
I do not stand here as somebody who could be described as a dyed-in-the-wool Eurosceptic. In the tradition of my party, I would be described as pro-European Union. I make no apology for that whatsoever. It is because I am pro-European Union that I support this Bill, because I am also pro-democracy and transparency. The age in which the great and good could decide and determine the future of Europe in smoke-filled rooms—or air-conditioned rooms, as I should now call them—is, I hope, long gone. This Bill represents the beginning of the end of that sort of approach, because it brings transparency to proceedings.
I was interested in the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Witham, who spoke eloquently about clause 3. She was right to make the point about ministerial discretion, but the clause makes it a conjunctive condition that an Act of Parliament has to be passed by this House. That is important because it will bring fairly and squarely before this House the sort of details that all too often in the past would have been the subject of covert negotiation. That is no longer acceptable to the people of this country. They no longer want decisions to be imposed upon them; they want to have an active role in decisions and to ensure that their elected representatives or they themselves have a direct say in important transfers of power to Europe. I support that, because as a pro-European Conservative who has taken part in many debates within my party—I concede that I have lost more than I have won—I am a firm believer in democracy.
Any institution that seeks to impose its will on its people without consent deserves to fail and the European Union is no exception. The great divide in Europe is no longer between member states; it is between its leaders and its people. That is why the Bill represents an important step forward and I am happy to support it.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I am mindful of the time constraints on speeches, Mr Deputy Speaker, so that all hon. Members can participate.
I welcome the European Union Bill and the concept of the referendum lock. After so many years of broken promises on Europe, the Bill is essential to regain the trust of the people and to give them faith that the EU will not continue to gain powers from this country. It has always been my opinion that the sovereignty of the country belongs to the people, and that they, not politicians, should make the decision on whether it is transferred to other bodies or countries.
Should justice and home affairs not be subject to the referendum lock? Many of my constituents find justice rulings the most frustrating aspect of our EU membership. The recent ruling that gave prisoners the right to vote, after a convicted murderer appealed successfully to the European Court of Human Rights, is just the latest example of the EU overruling the will of the British Parliament and its people.
Although I support the principle and aims of the Bill, one word that concerns me greatly is “significant”. My concern can be summed up by adapting a famous Sir Humphrey Appleby statement: “Anything can be attacked as a loss of sovereignty, and almost anything can be defended as not a significant loss of sovereignty, which seems to signify that one should appreciate the significance of significant.” What impact does the term “significant” have in the Bill? It could be argued that a future Government would find it difficult to amend something that would not fall under the significance condition. They could claim that the referendum requirement was too rigid and disproportionate to a treaty change that was sought. I also believe that it would be politically courageous for a future Government to remove the referendum lock from the statute book. This should therefore be a permanent piece of legislation. What constitutes significance needs far more definition so that the Bill is not seen merely as a sop to Eurosceptic Back Benchers, of whom I count myself one, but as a genuine change in the way in which we view the sovereignty of our country.
It should not be the Executive who decide what is significant. At the very least, Parliament should dictate what is a significant transfer of power. I refer back to my maiden speech, in which I said that as MPs
“we must not consider ourselves to be the owners of sovereign powers. We are merely the custodians of power and sovereignty for future generations. Sovereignty is not ours to give away; it belongs to the people who elected us, and to their heirs and successors.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 654.]
I intend to support the Bill this evening, but I issue a warning to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I and many hon. Members will not stand idly by and witness the death of our country’s sovereignty, bled away by a thousand cuts, however small, that some may think insignificant.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak on Second Reading, and I will cut to the chase given that I know one more colleague wishes to speak before the Front Benchers.
There is a lot to commend in the Bill, and I will vote for it, but I wish to alert the Minister to some questions that I have posed previously. I hope that he can provide comfort, perhaps not tonight, but in Committee or by writing to me. After I had read the Bill, I thought it went further than I had expected from the coalition agreement. It does much of what we were told it would do by ensuring that ratchet clauses and passerelle clauses will be subject to a referendum. However, there seem to be a few exceptions, to which I wish to draw the House’s attention.
Clause 9(2)(a) to (c) covers articles 81(3), relating to family law, 82(2)(d), relating to criminal procedure, and 83(1), relating to cross-border crime, of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Subsection (2)(c) permits
“the identification of further areas of crime to which directives adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure may relate.”
The word “further” indicates to me a transfer of competence or power on which we should have a say. I shall give one example. It could be that Europol is given powers to investigate more areas of crime, for instance in fishing, which might worry my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). Such a change would not be covered by the need for a referendum. I believe that the Home Affairs Committee and the Select Committee on Justice are due to table several amendments, covering a number of the passerelle clauses that are not currently guaranteed to cause a referendum, and I urge the Government to examine them carefully.
The Foreign Secretary said earlier that we are not giving up control of borders, but the accession treaties to which he referred automatically do that, because they extend the borders within which citizens of the European Union can circulate without hindrance.
As has been said, especially by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), it is really important that we are careful about the language that we use to describe the Bill and how we sell it. We certainly do not want to oversell it, as happened in the last Parliament when all three parties said that they would vote for a referendum on the European constitutional treaty but did not. The timing of the Bill is also relevant, and I believe that the Minister is going to talk about that.
There is one other key area in which no referendum is provided for, and it is set out in clause 7(2)(d). It refers to the third paragraph of article 311 of the treaty on the functioning of the EU, which is about own resources. That article states:
“The Council, acting in accordance with a special legislative procedure, shall unanimously and after consulting the European Parliament adopt a decision laying down the provisions relating to the system of own resources of the Union. In this context it may establish new categories of own resources or abolish an existing category.”
In all the discussions about the Lisbon treaty, and about the European constitution before it, that was seen as one of the key articles that would allow the EU to levy its own taxes. When I raised the matter previously with the Minister he suggested that that would require unanimity in the Council of Ministers, and that I should not worry about it, especially under a Conservative coalition Government. However, I do worry about it, because the Bill is about trying to set up the law for the future.
Dare I say it, if the Bill had been in place under the last Government, I am sure that we would not have had a referendum even on the Lisbon treaty, given how it was sold to the UK Parliament as a mere tidying-up exercise. I will vote for the Bill tonight, but I ask the Minister to address my strong concerns about the British public. They do not want to be sold short, and they would be horrified to know that we might be voting for a Bill that would allow the EU to levy taxes, and that they would have no say.
I was three at the time of the last referendum on the EU, and ironically I do not want us to have a referendum in which the Government give away powers. However, it is important that the powers in the Bill are introduced soon to give the public confidence. Dare I put it in a way similar to my European parliamentary colleague Daniel Hannan? Pactio Europae censenda est.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
I welcome the Bill. It needs some work before I will be in a position to support it on Third Reading, but it provides a base on which to build.
In the time available, I should like to make four points on the substance. First, many hon. Members said of the significance condition that “significant” is not defined. Given how the previous Government reneged on their promised referendum on the Lisbon treaty—Opposition Members who are finally returning to their seats will have heard that—it would be wise to legislate for the maximum certainty practicable. Will the Minister briefly set out the range of practical options presented by officials for catering with that residual uncertainty?
Secondly, on the selective list of policy areas that trigger a referendum, in 2014, the UK must decide whether to cross the Rubicon on an important justice and home affairs measure. We will need to decide whether to accept European Court of Justice jurisdiction over police and justice measures that pre-date the Lisbon treaty, or to opt out entirely. That is a monumental choice. Do we retain our British justice system, or do we embark on a road that leads to a pan-European model? Under the Bill, that decision would not trigger a referendum. On anyone’s reckoning, that is a critical fork in the road, and it must be included in the list of matters that require a referendum, and the decision must be taken by the British people.
Thirdly—this is also on justice and home affairs—under the Bill, there are only a few matters on which Parliament must approve a decision to opt in. For example, the decision to opt in to the European investigation order would not require Parliament’s approval. Immigration and asylum, on which the EU is driving forward far-reaching changes that will dilute our border controls if we opt in, are also left out. Each of those policy areas is important, and each requires proper parliamentary debate and approval before further powers are handed over to Brussels.
Fourthly and finally, the intention behind the declaration of parliamentary sovereignty in clause 18 is welcome. However, has the Minister considered the warning that Professor Tomkins gave to the European Scrutiny Committee? He highlighted the risk that by legislating to safeguard sovereignty solely in the context of the EU, the courts may infer that Parliament cares less about sovereignty in respect of, for example, the expansion of human rights law and judicial legislation from the Strasbourg Court. That is one more reason for replacing, or at the very least amending, the Human Rights Act 1998. More generally, the Bill does nothing to defend the erosion of sovereignty by the European Court of Justice, and is confined to legislative transfers of power.
That said, my cup is half full. This is a point of departure, not the point of arrival, and I commend the Government and Ministers for breaking new ground with the Bill.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Before the debate, a number of colleagues told me that the debate would be like the Bill—boring and uninteresting. They were wrong, at least about the debate, which has been wide-ranging, passionate, forensic in its analysis of the Bill, and conducted, by and large, in a reasonable manner. We heard more than 20 speakers. The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), and the hon. Members for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) spoke in favour of the Bill. A handful of hon. Members spoke against the EU rather than the Bill as such, but many, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and for Preston (Mark Hendrick), the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), expressed reservations—strong and not so strong—about the Bill.
I wanted to refer specifically to only three contributions. First, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) questioned whether the Bill was crudely political—he described it as a byzantine Bill. He asked when it will come into effect. Will the Minister respond to that? He also questioned, as did the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), whether the Bill is an attempt, intentional or otherwise, to undermine the sovereignty of this and future Parliaments.
Secondly, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who by the way is a Liberal Democrat, said that the Bill is a firm example of a coalition product. I absolutely agree with him. The Bill is muddled and contradictory, and is indeed a fine example of the coalition product.
Thirdly, we heard a notable and informed contribution from the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). He referred to the misleading explanatory notes and said that the Bill shows judicial activism on the march. He also said that it was an invitation to litigation and called it a mouse of a Bill—I would say it is more like a drowned rat.
There have been a number of common themes in the debate. Members on both sides of the House have highlighted the poor drafting of the Bill. It is unclear when a referendum would be held; it is unclear about when a passarelle would require an Act of Parliament or a referendum; and it is unclear whether the sovereignty clause adds anything to British law—it probably does not. The one thing that the Bill is clear about, however, is that it is a recipe for unending confusion. The Government promised red meat to their Eurosceptic Back Benchers, but what we actually have is a rancid old bone for us all to gnaw on.
The only people who will be happy with the Bill are the lawyers, who will revel in endless judicial reviews. The Bill is fundamentally flawed. It is a ham-fisted attempt to define our relationship with the European Union, but it fails to do so. Instead, we have a botched, esoteric, convoluted, obsessively intricate collection of ill-defined, half-baked, miasmic proposals—and that is just to start. The Bill will serve only to confuse and will satisfy and placate no one: it only underlines the confusion at the heart of the Government’s European policy.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I think that the brevity of the speech by the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), is indicative of the absence of content in the Opposition’s case today. We have heard from no less than the Leader of the Opposition that he regards his policies as a blank sheet of paper, and that is what we have heard from the hon. Gentleman this evening.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I want to pay tribute to every right hon. and hon. Member who has taken part in the debate, and I am glad that so many Members, on both sides of the House, have managed to participate. I want to respond briefly to a number of specific issues, and then move on to the questions about clause 18 and the referendum lock, which have occupied most of the debate. I might be unable to cover all the ground today, but I will look forward with relish to the five days of debate on the Bill on the Floor of the House—in Committee of the whole House and on Third Reading—in the new year.
My hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) asked about the commencement of the Bill and whether it would take effect in the lifetime of this Parliament. As they know, the Government have made it clear, as a policy commitment, that we are not going to agree to any treaty change or new treaty that transfers additional powers or competences to the European Union for the duration of this Parliament. That is a policy commitment. Clause 21 provides for the commencement of the whole of part 3, including clause 18, on Royal Assent. The rest of the Bill comes
“into force on such day as the Secretary of State may…appoint.”
To avoid any misunderstanding, however, I want to make it clear that the Government intend to use the provisions of the Bill for any future treaty change. The House will know that one such change is being contemplated now. We also expect to use the provisions on increased parliamentary control during the lifetime of the Parliament, because we expect that there will be some proposals, possibly including an agreement on a new multi-annual financial framework, that will trigger the need for an Act of Parliament under the terms of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry also asked me whether it would be possible for a European prosecutor to be built up bit by bit, thereby avoiding a referendum. The Bill is very clear on that. The United Kingdom could not take part in either a European public prosecutor established under article 86.1 of the treaty or the extension of the powers of such a prosecutor, if set up, under article 86.4 without a referendum. As the treaty provides a specific treaty base for the establishment of a European public prosecutor, that action could not be taken on a different treaty base.
My hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) asked whether there would be any way for the European Union to prevent us from holding a referendum in this country. The answer to that question is no. There is nothing in the treaties that puts any constraints on the way in which the United Kingdom or any other member state decides how to cast its vote on a treaty amendment or a treaty change. The Bill sets out more stringent requirements before a British Minister can assent to something on behalf of this country at the European level. That is a matter for national law, not for European law.
Let me turn to the points made in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), but also by a number of other hon. Ladies and Gentlemen, about clause 18. I want to be absolutely plain that the Government are not attempting through clause 18 to address the wider constitutional issue of the sovereignty of Parliament in the way alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) when he referred to the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998, for example—or the sovereignty of Parliament and what that means in the context of the devolution settlements for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
What clause 18 does is more specific than that—this point was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Clause 18 deals with the way in which European law, including judgments of the European Court of Justice, is given effect in this country. The clause asserts, for the first time in statutory form, what is already the position in common law as a consequence of decisions by various judges in leading cases: that there is only one reason why European law has effect in this country, and one reason too why, where the two clash, European law is given primacy over United Kingdom law, and that is because Acts of Parliament—notably, but not exclusively, the European Communities Act 1972—provide for such effect to be given to European law.
Mr Cash
Does my hon. Friend agree that the very fact that this provision is being included in statute inevitably means that the courts will have the opportunity to apply the common law principle and that therefore he cannot, by a speech in the House of Commons, restrict the manner in which the courts subsequently interpret the provision?
Mr Lidington
What I would say to my hon. Friend is that to some extent we are repeating the exchanges that we enjoyed in his Committee yesterday. Clause 18 places firmly on the statute book a point of reference to which any future court that considers an argument about the source of authority for European law in this country must have regard. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset put it in terms of turning the clock back to 1972. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said in an intervention, it is not the case that the argument that European law derives its authority solely from Acts of Parliament has gone unchallenged. It was not only in the prosecution arguments in the metric martyrs case, but in the obiter from Lord Justices Steyn and Hope, to which he referred, that a very different case was asserted—namely that, over time, European law has acquired some kind of autonomous authority in this country. Hitherto, the United Kingdom courts have rejected that argument and upheld the doctrine that it is only through Acts of Parliament that European law has authority here. The clause will provide in statute for the first time a clear point of reference to which the courts must have regard.
Mr Jenkin
My hon. Friend is dealing carefully with the points that have been raised, but will he treat seriously the evidence given to the European Scrutiny Committee by Professor Tomkins? At the end of his written evidence, he stated:
“If Parliament is of the view that its sovereignty requires to be freshly articulated and safeguarded in legislation, it would be well advised to proceed with great care and caution, lest the consequences of its actions come to be seen as the proverbial red rag to the bull.”
I am not convinced that the clause, as drafted, would not be that red rag.
Mr Lidington
We debated this matter at great length in Committee in January. A number of the learned academics who gave evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee discussed parliamentary sovereignty in broad constitutional terms, rather than in terms of the precise objective of clause 18, which is to recapitulate in statutory form the means by which European law is given effect in the United Kingdom.
I want to make it clear from the start that we are talking about a referendum lock on future treaty changes that transfer powers or competence—in particular, powers involving the surrender of vetoes—and that we are not seeking to overturn the terms of existing treaties. I know that that will disappoint a number of Members on both sides of the House, but, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in his opening speech, we are in a legal environment established by the Lisbon treaty, even though some of us might wish that we were not, and we must start from the position that we are now in.
Mr Redwood
Will the Minister tell us whether he can conceive of any circumstances in which this Government would offer a referendum on any aspect of Europe?
Mr Lidington
I thought I had made that clear—[Interruption.] The Government—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is far too much noise from the Opposition Benches. I have heard the question; I want to hear the Minister’s answer.
Mr Lidington
The Government have made it clear that we would not assent to a transfer of competence or powers during the lifetime of this Parliament. It follows, therefore, that we do not expect a referendum in the lifetime of this Parliament, but unforeseen events might arise. The Bill, once it becomes law, will be binding on this Government as well as on any future Administration, whatever circumstances might arise.
Mr Lidington
No, I want to deal with the objections and criticisms that have been made to and of the referendum lock. Serious questions have been asked on both sides during the debate and I want to respond to them. One set of objections came from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who made it clear that he objected to all referendums as a matter of principle—
Mr Lidington
He is now saying that he does not, and I am happy to hear him qualify his earlier remarks. The problem with such an argument is that it ignores two things. First, it underestimates the depth of the mistrust and disaffection that people in this country now feel towards the way in which powers have been transferred from the United Kingdom to the European Union without the people ever being asked for their agreement. It ill becomes the Labour party in particular to offer criticism on this score when the prime reason for such disaffection over the last few years has been that party’s refusal, when in government and with a majority in this House, to agree to the people having a referendum, which had been promised at the general election. This was a promise on which Labour was happy to renege when it came into office.
The argument against referendums on principle ignores the fact that the practice has grown up in the last 13 years of holding referendums on major constitutional changes. We have had them in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Greater London and even in the north-east of England, and I think that people now have a reasonable expectation that they will be invited to have their say if their basic constitutional rights are being affected by legislation proposed by Ministers.
Mr Lidington
The second line of criticism was rather more subtle than that presented by the hon. Member for Rhondda. It was articulated by a number of colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who argued that the Bill left too much discretion to Ministers. My hon. Friends the Members for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and for Witham echoed that argument.
My response is that a number of options were available to us. One was to draft a test phrased in fairly general terms, saying that an important measure would require a referendum, but leaving it to the Government of the day to determine whether that test had been met. We took the view that that would have left far too much discretionary power in the hands of Ministers. What we have done instead is to introduce a Bill that quite deliberately limits ministerial discretion by specifying those changes that would trigger a referendum and also those limited categories of treaty change that would be exempt from the referendum requirement.
Several hon. Friends talked about the significance test, which applies only to a change brought forward under the simplified revision procedure. Within that category of treaty change, it applies only if the sole reason for its falling within the referendum lock is that it falls under clause 4(1)(i) or (j). Any proposal that is covered by clause 4(1)(a) to (h) or clause 4(1)(k) to (m) automatically attracts a referendum. In reply to a direct question put to me, yes, if this Bill had been law at the time, the Lisbon treaty negotiated under the ordinary rules of procedure would have required a referendum before it had been ratified. I only wish we had had such a provision on the statute book when the Labour party betrayed this country’s interests and reneged on the promises it had given.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) argued that the significance was subject only to judicial review and not to Parliament. Of course it is true that any Executive decision by any Minister is liable to judicial review. I dispute his argument, however. Irrespective of whether the significance test applies and whether a referendum is required, any treaty change, however minor, will require an Act of Parliament for its ratification. Such an Act will be subject to full debate and scrutiny and will be capable of amendment in whatever way Parliament wishes.
Mr Lidington
Through this Bill we are making the Government more accountable to the British people for what they do in Europe. We are ensuring that any new proposal to take powers from this place to Brussels will involve the people in having the final say. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
TABLE | |
Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
Clause 18, new Clauses relating to Clause 18, new Schedules relating to Clause 18. | The moment of interruption on the first day. |
Clauses 1 to 5, new Clauses relating to any of Clauses 1 to 5, new Schedules relating to any of Clauses 1 to 5. | The moment of interruption on the second day. |
Clause 6, Schedule 1, new Clauses relating to Clause 6 or Schedule 1,new Schedules relating to Clause 6 or Schedule 1. | 90 minutes before the moment of interruption on the third day. |
Clauses 11 to 13, new Clauses relating to any of Clauses 11 to 13, new Schedules relating to any of Clauses 11 to 13. | The moment of interruption on the third day. |
Clauses 7 to 10, new Clauses relating to any of Clauses 7 to 10, new Schedules relating to any of Clauses 7 to 10, Clause 14, new Clauses relating to Clause 14, new Schedules relating to Clause 14. | The moment of interruption on the fourth day. |
Clauses 15 to 17, Schedule 2, new Clauses relating to Part 2, new Schedules relating to Part 2, Clauses 19 to 22, remaining new Clauses, remaining new Schedules, remaining proceedings in Committee. | Two hours before the moment of interruption on the fifth day. |
Any proceedings on consideration, proceedings on Third Reading. | The moment of interruption on the fifth day. |
Business without Debate
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
We come now to the 10 o’clock motions and the business of the House motion in the name of the Prime Minister.
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (James Duddridge)
Not moved. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The House must calm itself. We will come to other matters in due course—any points of order and so on. The next motion is on Deferred Divisions, in the name of the Prime Minister.
Mr Speaker
We come to the business of the House motion in the name of the Leader of the House.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Government are clearly in a state of chaos when it comes to tuition fees. Yesterday, the Leader of the House tried to move a motion and it was objected to, much to the anger of the Chief Whip, as you know. Today, the Leader of the House tabled one motion in his own name and two motions in the name of the Prime Minister but, as we have just seen, did not have the courage to move the motion in his own name.
I am sure that you understand the deep sense of anger that there is in the House at the amount of time that the Government are proposing to give Members on Thursday to debate the biggest change in tuition fees and support for higher education that we have ever seen. Since the House is being treated with contempt by the Government, may we now have a statement from the Leader of the House to tell us what on earth is going on? Will he indicate how much time we will have on Thursday to debate the increase in tuition fees? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The concern of the Chair is always that matters should be handled in an orderly manner. [Interruption.] Order. That has happened, whatever the disquiet or consternation the right hon. Gentleman or others may feel. I know that he will understand that it would not be right for me, from the Chair, to say anything more on the matter. His concerns have, however, been forcefully registered.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I expected to be debating with the Minister for Universities and Science tonight, yet we have not had even the courtesy of an explanation why the Government have not moved their motions tonight. Have you been given an explanation? How can it be acceptable that students will be saddled with £39,000-worth of debt after just three hours of debate in the House—£13,000 of debt for each hour of debate?
Mr Speaker
My simple response to the hon. Gentleman is that it would not be right now to rehearse matters of substance relating to the tuition fees debate, which there will be an opportunity to develop on Thursday. I am sure the hon. Gentleman looks forward to that opportunity. He, too, has put his concerns explicitly on the record.
Crown Currency Exchange
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
I call Tessa Munt. [Interruption.] I note the considerable excitement in the House, and I am concerned that the hon. Lady should be able to develop her case on the regulation of foreign exchange services and the case of Crown Currency Exchange. I therefore appeal to right hon. and hon. Members leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly, and to afford the hon. Lady the same courtesy as they would wish to be extended if they themselves had the Adjournment, so I hope there will be no further animated conversations, even between very senior Members.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I particularly thank the Minister for attending this evening to reply to this debate on the failure of Crown Currency Exchange. This is a matter that particularly concerns my constituents, Nick and Larissa Fry from Axbridge, and I also speak on behalf of a retired bank manager from Holcombe in the neighbouring constituency of the Deputy Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath).
The problem as far as I understand it is that companies such as Crown Currency Exchange are registered with the Financial Services Authority, but the legislation governing its activities looks at the size of the company, not at what it is doing. Crown Currency Exchange appears to have been behaving a bit like a high street bank or foreign currency exchange, and was registered as a small payments institution. As I understand it, it was meant to operate under an average of €3 million a month, but it appears from the administrator’s report that for the last 10 months the trading average was at about €10 million a month.
The legislation appears to exclude 547 small payments institutions in particular, from all of the many thousands of companies that are registered with the FSA. I want particularly to draw the House’s attention to the FSA website, which states that the FSA’s general duties
“in so far as reasonably possible”
are that it should provide
“market confidence, public awareness, protection of consumers and a reduction of financial crime.”
It appears that in this particular case it has failed on all four counts. The FSA also says that it is
“the regulator of all providers of financial services in the UK”,
and for that reason alone it is within certainly a retired bank manager’s understanding, my original understanding and the understanding of most people that these companies are in some way controlled by the FSA.
Crown Currency Exchange displayed on its website, besides the FSA logo, that of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which was clearly for money-laundering purposes. People are therefore entitled to feel that there should have been some sort of cover for the activities that that company undertook.
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
A number of my constituents who have been involved with CCE have also contacted me. Is it not equally despicable that the company sought to suggest that the lucrative exchange rates for the US dollar that it was actively advertising were the result of orders that had been cancelled, which allowed it to offer these fabulous terms, when in actual fact it had no currency, and it simply wanted to bring cash flow in to continue trading? Is that not a major concern that should have been picked up by the FSA?
Tessa Munt
That is quite correct. It certainly seems that on several occasions a number of people brought these problems to the attention of the FSA. One of whom was Robin Haynes, the managing director of Currency Index Ltd. He raised concerns about Crown Currency Exchange with the FSA in March 2009 and September 2010. He raised his concerns with HMRC in September 2010 and with Barclays, Crown Currency Exchange’s bankers, in May 2009. None of those appears to have been acted on.
There is also the case of a whistleblower who reported his concerns to the companies investigations branch of the Insolvency Service on 20 August 2009, but again nothing appeared to happen. It seems that none of those bodies is able to investigate a company until it has done something completely awful to its customers.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate, because it has been stipulated that Barclays bank raised concerns about the company prior to its collapse but kept quiet. Does she, like me, believe that that should be further investigated?
Tessa Munt
I hope so, because so many people were taken in by the idea that they had some security, and Barclays probably should have done something. I understand that there was a meeting between one or two company directors and their bankers, Barclays, on 21 July, and that there were concerns at the time about the company’s solvency, yet for some months afterwards people still tried to put their money into the company, without any results.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree with a constituent of mine, who wrote to me to say:
“I think everyone would agree that if one is registered with the FSA it implies that that actually means something—it didn’t”?
Tessa Munt
Absolutely. Alarmingly, the FSA website states:
“We keep an up-to-date record of all FSA-regulated firms, bodies and individuals doing business in the UK. Our register is available to the public, so you can search for more information on all of our authorised firms.”
The problem is that the FSA seems to use “registered”, “regulated” and “authorised” almost conversationally, but in legal terms those definitions should not be bandied around on its website in such a way.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Throughout the whole United Kingdom, not just on the UK mainland, but in Northern Ireland, those who can least afford it have invested money in that system. I understand that a police investigation started today. Does the hon. Lady agree that, on the back of that investigation, a Government investigation should follow?
Tessa Munt
I hope so. There have been some arrests today, and I think that Devon and Cornwall police’s serious crime squad is taking part. I hope that that prefaces some action by the FSA.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
Arrests have been made, including of one of my constituents. Indeed, the company’s offices were based in Hayle in my former constituency. The case has given rise to enormous concern, and although it is not on the same scale as sub-prime casino banking it has left many people in serious circumstances. I hope that my hon. Friend will advance her case, because this situation clearly needs to be regulated in future.
Tessa Munt
One might just need to get rid of “registered”, because it seems to have absolutely no meaning and to afford no protection—nothing.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. The presence of so many Members shows the scale of the problem. My constituents believed that “registered” actually meant something in law. Does she agree that that has to be addressed urgently to ensure that no one else loses out?
Tessa Munt
I could not agree more. One problem I have discovered is that, although in the registration process the FSA takes receipt of £500, it is an overseer and not in any way, shape or form a regulator. The directors and responsible officers of a company have to declare under registration unspent criminal convictions for financial crimes, terrorist funding, money laundering and fraud, but there are two difficulties with that. First, the punishment for not doing so appears to be no more than three months in jail, and, if one is rocking along with £100 million, that is probably worth it. The other thing is that it appears that the FSA has absolutely no means of checking the information because it has no access to the Criminal Records Bureau. Registration is clearly not effective; we need to look at regulation for all these companies.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she has taken a number of interventions, although she has limited time to make her case. I congratulate her on securing the debate. Does she share my concern? I have raised constituents’ cases with the FSA, but I have not had any replies at all.
Tessa Munt
I have one quote from the FSA complaints department. It says:
“We are unable to look at your case under our complaints scheme as your complaint falls outside the scope of the scheme…However, we will deal with the complaint…It appears that registered companies are not part of the complaints scheme.”
It seems a little confused. To be honest, if the FSA does not know what falls within and without the complaints scheme, it will be difficult for any member of the public who has been brought into the situation with a false sense of security.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. On behalf of my constituent Chris Neath, who lost more than £3,000 in this scandal, I would like to ask this question. Does she agree that we must remove the confusion among the public between registration and regulation? We should make it clear in this debate that the FSA must take a much stronger line on companies of this size and this sort.
Tessa Munt
Absolutely. I hope that that will be part of the outcome. I ask the Minister in particular whether he would agree to meet members of the group Action against Crown Currency Exchange, me and other Members whose constituents have an interest, so that we can explore what might be done. It certainly seems to me that the legislation does not allow the FSA to operate in an effective way. Perhaps it is for the House to deal with that.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
What message can the hon. Lady give to my constituents, and many others across the country who have lost large sums of money, about what hope they might have of compensation?
Tessa Munt
I am an optimist, so I hope that we might be able to do something, but it would appear that the directors of the company have operated through a loophole in the scheme. I suspect that they were very savvy and knew exactly what they were doing. They have registered rather than being regulated or authorised. Some 13,000 people have lost £20 million and there is enormous distress and dismay about what has happened.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as I am conscious that time is pressing. I join colleagues in congratulating her on securing this debate. Does she have any idea about how many other companies are registered but not regulated by the FSA?
Tessa Munt
I am not aware of the numbers; I am aware only that there is a peculiarity relating to 547 small payments institutions that do not seem to be regulated as other companies are. I hope that the Minister will give some response to the questions that have been raised.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady share my concern that the business of Crown Currency Exchange was apparently regarded as low risk, when anyone with a basic grasp of economics could see the massive risk inherent in currency fluctuation up to a year in advance?
Tessa Munt
It is certainly clear that a number of people alerted various sections of the authorities. A year ago, the Financial Times and the financial pages of The Daily Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday were raising concerns, and they were right to do so.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I have had a response from the FSA. It says:
“In our judgement it would not be possible for the FSA to ban firms such as CCE from describing themselves as “registered for payment services”. Any amendment to the register requirements in the Payment Services Regulations would be a matter for HM Treasury.”
Will she ask the Minister whether he will consider that?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) on securing a debate on this important topic. The fact that there are 40 Members here tonight demonstrates the widespread interest across the House in what has happened to Crown Currency Exchange. I am glad to have the opportunity to explore the collapse of Crown Currency Exchange and touch more broadly on how foreign exchange services are regulated.
I share the hon. Lady’s concern about the impact of the failure of Crown Currency Exchange. I have enormous sympathy for the 13,000 people who have been affected by its collapse. They are honest, hard-working people who have been hit hard and, in some cases, the losses have been considerable. I welcome the work of the administrators in investigating the issues surrounding Crown’s collapse, and their efforts to recover as much money as possible for the consumers affected. The administrators have written to the creditors, and have held a creditors’ meeting to discuss their proposals. They will continue to review Crown’s trading operation, its financial position and the conduct of its directors. I look forward to receiving the administrators’ report, so that the Government can consider what lessons can be learned from it and assess what might need to be done to protect customers in future.
Crown Currency Exchange operated an online bureau de change—put simply, it bought and sold currency over the internet, which is quite normal in modern day currency exchanges. However, what separated Crown from other operators was that it was among a minority of companies whose customers paid for their foreign currency weeks or months before they were due to receive it. Some other aspects of its operations were also unusual. It offered much better rates than those on the high street and enticed customers by offering special deals purporting to be from cancelled contracts that did not exist. It did not hedge its exposure to foreign exchange rate changes, so it was at risk if sterling moved against it, and it took payment in full and in advance, for up to a year before delivery. In addition, it did not accept payments by debit or credit card. Crown’s business model was an outlier, which posed risks to the firm and, as we know, to consumers. The way in which Crown operated meant that consumers lacked protection because they were unable to pay by debit or credit card.
I do not wish to prejudge the causes of Crown’s failure. The administrators’ final report, which is expected in a few months, will go over that in detail, and look at the conduct of the company’s directors. Let me touch on the regulatory questions raised by the failure. As we have heard, Crown Currency Exchange was registered by the Financial Services Authority as a small payments institution, which means that it managed payments from one person to another. Such institutions may handle the remittances from migrant workers to be sent home to their families, or they may offer an internet service for making payments in competition with the banks.
European legislation—the payment services directive—provides for light touch regulation of small payments institutions. That was the case with Crown, which had some reporting obligations to the FSA. However, the FSA was not required to exercise any prudential regulation, such as oversight of capital requirements over Crown; it was required only to oversee its payments. Buying and selling foreign currency is not a regulated activity, so Crown’s foreign currency sales were not regulated by the FSA. The regulatory requirements relating to foreign currency sales are limited to quoting rates clearly, which the FSA oversees, and complying with money laundering legislation, which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs oversees. The money laundering rules are designed to fight terrorism and crime, not to protect customer deposits. That is why neither the FSA nor HMRC was in a position to investigate or address any problems with the business model of Crown Currency Exchange.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
A number of my constituents have also lost money in this case. I recognise the limited remit of the FSA, but should it have registered CCE when, as I understand it, one of CCE’s directors had a criminal conviction? Was that an example of maladministration, or will that be reviewed?
Mr Hoban
Often in these cases—I do not want to go into detail on this—the FSA is dependent on disclosure by directors. As the hon. Lady said, the FSA does not have the power to access criminal records to enable it to find out whether directors’ disclosures are accurate.
The question that we need to address is why foreign exchange services are not more tightly regulated. Traditionally, buying and selling currency is the same as buying and selling any other commodity, whether it is gold and silver or food and drink. With the exception of Crown, this kind of trading has been, and remains, a low-risk business. It is something that millions of us do day in, day out, whether at the post office, in banks or at bureaux de change, without a problem. But Crown’s business model was different, and what should have been straightforward transactions led to substantial losses for its customers. I accept, of course, that Crown has inflicted substantial losses on customers. The Government are anxious to learn the lessons from this failure and to take what action may be needed, including regulatory changes.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
A lot of people have lost money, including people in my constituency and loads of others. Does the Minister think that, as in the case of Equitable Life, it would be a good idea to make sure that the financial ombudsman has a look at this case?
Mr Hoban
It is not a matter for the ombudsman—it is for the administrator to decide what further actions are needed. As I said, the problem is that the nature of this business was such that it fell outside the regulatory perimeters. It is not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or the financial services compensation scheme, so there is a distinction between this case and the one to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
Mr Hoban
I should like to make some progress, as there are important points that I want to make by the time I finish in seven minutes’ time.
I want to reassure hon. Members that I am anxious to protect customers and that we should learn lessons from this. I would point out, however, that there are 1,480 businesses operating as bureaux de change in this country, the vast majority of which are retail outlets dealing with customers face to face. The majority of these firms are not taking payment in advance or entering into forward currency contracts. They do not expose their customers to the kind of risks that Crown appears to have done.
Mr Hoban
No, I am going to continue.
The regulation of these businesses, including capital requirements, would impose costs on them and on their customers, so we must be sure that the benefits of regulation outweigh the cost to consumers. I assure hon. Members that we are looking at the other companies to see if any are operating in the same way as Crown. We have not yet identified any, although the investigation is still ongoing. I undertake that the Government will seek to learn the lessons from Crown’s failure, once we have all the facts, and take whatever action is appropriate.
Mr Hoban
Let me continue for a bit longer.
I recognise that there are innocent victims at the heart of this, but because Crown’s activities are not regulated by the FSA, its customers are not covered by the financial services compensation scheme. Crown did not accept credit card or debit card payments, so its customers are not covered by the protection they offer, and I am afraid that they are therefore awaiting the outcome of the administration process. I believe that it is vital that consumers understand their rights and what products and services are covered by the FSCS. I welcome the fact that the FSCS is launching a campaign in the new year to raise consumer awareness and encourage them to seek more information on what is and is not covered by the scheme. However, I also believe that there is a responsibility on companies to be up front with their customers about the protection that is available if something goes wrong, particularly where the business is complex, as was the case with Crown.
Tessa Munt
Exactly what purpose is served by registering a small payments institution with the FSA? Given that the FSA makes it perfectly clear that it denies any regulatory involvement with small payments institutions, of which there are 547, I am not entirely sure for what one is paying £500.
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady makes an important point, but the reality is that this activity falls outside the regulatory perimeter of the FSA. The reason these businesses are registered with the FSA is that when the payments services directive was introduced, there had to be somewhere for these businesses to be registered, so the decision was taken to register them with the FSA. That decision was taken not by this Government, but by the previous Government. The hon. Lady is right that that situation leads to some confusion for consumers. The reality is that such businesses were not regulated by the FSA. The same applies to the other 1,500 bureaux de change that operate under this model.
Nick Smith
I thank the Minister for giving way. Given the scale of the issue with 13,000 people having been affected, will the Minister tell us more about the role of Barclays bank?
Mr Hoban
Barclays had a limited relationship with Crown. It did not lend money to Crown, but simply provided it with a bank account. It raised a number of questions with Crown, but the answers gave no cause for concern. It acted simply as Crown’s bank and had no engagement in the business.
Mr Russell Brown
I could ask the Minister when he believes that my constituents will receive money and how much, but I want to come back to the fact that the company was classed as a small payments institution, despite its turnover putting it in a category that meant it should have been regulated. Is he in a position to instruct the FSA to look at the more than 500 other companies that are small payments institutions to see whether they fall into a regulated category?
Mr Hoban
When the €3 million figure is exceeded, a company should be regulated, but that figure refers to the average monthly payment transaction. A company can therefore be turning over €36 million a year and still fall below the threshold for registration.
To conclude, I agree with the hon. Lady that the collapse of Crown Currency Exchange has hit 13,000 innocent victims and that, in some cases, the losses have been substantial. We all agree that that should not happen again, that we have to learn the lessons from Crown’s failure and that we must take all the steps necessary to ensure that consumers are better informed about the risks that they take and the rights that they have. We will be able to determine the action to be taken by the Government or the regulators only once we have received the report. We will look at the costs and benefits of regulation. I remind the hon. Lady that in last week’s debate on the retail distribution review, she pointed out the risk that more regulation poses to businesses.
We must ensure that there is proper regulation for consumers. We must learn the lessons from Crown to ensure that we put the right protection in place for consumers, given the risks involved. I assure hon. Members who take an interest in this matter that I will keep them up to date with what is happening with Crown. I recognise from the number of hon. Members present in the House tonight how important—
Proposed redevelopment of Rushden Hospital site (Northamptonshire)
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Gypsy and Traveller Sites
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Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
I called this debate to reflect some of the real concern in my constituency about the problem of Gypsy and Traveller sites that have been created as a result of current planning legislation. It is a real problem in South Staffordshire, and regulations introduced by the previous Labour Government caused great resentment among the settled community, as well as the Gypsy and Traveller communities. It is a problem not just in South Staffordshire but in many constituencies throughout the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) had a debate on the issue back in September, between the summer and conference recesses. It was an excellent debate, and covered many of the issues and concerns that people throughout the country have. I hope that some of the issues that were highlighted then will be aired today. More important, I want to hear the Minister’s proposals, and what progress is being made.
There is anger in the country about what is not a perceived but a real injustice. There is a view that there is one law for the settled community and another for Gypsies and Travellers.
James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on a topic in which he has taken a keen interest since coming to the House. Does he agree that it is important that it is on the record that within the travelling community there is a difference between Gypsies and showmen, and that any approach by the Government should pay heed to that difference, and the different ways of life and lifestyles?
Gavin Williamson
Indeed. My hon. Friend makes a valid point. There is a distinct difference between the Gypsy and Traveller communities and showpeople, and that was reflected in the previous Government’s planning circulars 04/07 and 01/06. It is important that the differences are reflected not in a top-down national policy but in local policies that are adopted and brought together by local authorities to make provision in their areas. There are distinct differences between those two communities, and that should be reflected in local planning and provision.
There is real anger that the current legislation provides a deeply unfair planning system. In many ways, the previous Government tried to do something about that, and introduced planning circular 01/06 and 04/07 with, I am sure, good intentions. They tried to redress the issues faced by many in the Gypsy and Traveller community—low educational attainment, and health problems—but they created a division, not one settled Gypsy and Traveller community, and the two communities are often almost at war with each other as a result of injustices.
In my constituency there is already extensive planning provision for Gypsy and Traveller sites. Since 2007, permission has been granted for an additional 30 pitches for Gypsies and Travellers. That may not be many, but there are usually three caravans on every pitch, so the development is substantial. That planning permission was granted for green belt land on which you, Mr Howarth, or I or my constituents would not obtain planning permission for a shed, let alone what is effectively a village development. I hope that the Minister appreciates the anger that imbalance in the law causes, and the inequality between the settled community and the Gypsy and Traveller community.
Thirty pitches is a lot, but the problem does not stop there. There are proposals in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) for an additional 16 sites in Penkridge in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and in Calf Heath and Wombourne in my constituency. Those 16 applications are with the planning inspectorate. Already, the 30 existing pitches that have permission and have been built have increased the amount of provision in South Staffordshire for the Gypsy and Traveller community by 50%. No one could doubt that the people of South Staffordshire are creating and providing sufficient provision for the Gypsy and Traveller community. Those 16 extra pitches will put an even greater burden on South Staffordshire and, in addition, planning approval will be sought for another 30 pitches. That is an awful lot of extra development, all of it on green belt land that is supposed to be protected for everyone in the country, and to preserve our countryside.
One of those applications, in Pool House lane, Wombourne, is with the planning inspectorate on appeal. It is for one pitch, but it exemplifies the deeply flawed nature of planning circular 01/06. It is for a pitch that is, oddly enough, also on green belt land. I am sure that if I owned the land and asked for permission to develop it, I would rightly be refused. At the planning appeal, Matthew Green, who was once a Member of this House, represented the applicants. The district council had rejected the application, but at the appeal Matthew Green was at pains to explain that there was a need for the site under planning circular 01/06 because the person who owned the land did not have anywhere to live, despite having a home and living in it just a few miles away, and despite the fact that just a few miles away, also in my constituency, Gypsy and Traveller sites in Brinsford and Featherstone have many vacancies. But the argument to the planning inspectorate was that pitches were needed, and that the people of Wombourne were bigoted because they did not want a Gypsy or Traveller site.
What the people of Wombourne do not want is one law for Gypsies and Travellers, and another for everyone else. They do not perceive that as being right, because they believe that green belt land is to protect the whole community, and that laws should be applied fairly and equitably.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument and I am sure that the Minister would not wish to micro-manage individual planning applications in such cases. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there are 4,000 families in the travelling community who are currently in need, and that in spite of the pitches that he claims have been granted in South Staffordshire, that need has not been met? In order to meet local housing need, exceptions are made for the housed community with a policy to allow affordable homes on land that would not normally be granted a development. That principle should apply equally to both the housed and travelling communities.
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) resumes his speech, it might be helpful to remind hon. Members that interventions should be sharp and to the point; they are not an occasion to make a mini-speech.
Gavin Williamson
Although my hon. Friend’s intervention was broad, it was also informative. He makes an interesting point and introduces another side to the argument. He spoke about provision, and planning circular 01/2006 was about need. In South Staffordshire—I speak with authority only about South Staffordshire; I could not talk about St Ives, for example, because I do not know about the provision there—we have a ridiculous situation. Last weekend, I took the time to visit all the sites in my constituency that had been granted permission since 2007, and many of them were vacant. Hon. Members may intervene and say that that is the nature of Gypsies and Traveller sites because people move on, but there were a high number of vacancies.
A number of months ago during a debate in this Chamber, I highlighted the ridiculous situation of planning permission granted in the village of Brinsford for a Gypsy and Traveller site on green belt land. That was granted on appeal and developed, but there are not enough Gypsies and Travellers to fill that site. The site was advertised in the local Express & Star for anyone to occupy. I have no doubt that the policy was introduced with good intentions, but I fear that it is being used as a loophole for a development that would not otherwise be allowed. In South Staffordshire there is ample provision because sites are sitting empty. The people who own those sites and plots are trying to sell them to people who are not from the Gypsy and Traveller communities, and I have had to involve my local authority to get proper enforcement action. Quite rightly, if those sites are provided for the Gypsy and Traveller communities, they should be used by those communities and not for personal gain or profit.
Andrew George
The hon. Gentleman does not deny that there is a shortage of 4,000 pitches in the country. According to Government figures, at the end of 2007, only 50% of the 217 applications for sites to be developed under planning circular 01/2006 were granted planning permission. Does he claim that many of those sites then went on to become housing developments?
Gavin Williamson
No. I am talking about certain areas where a flawed regional spatial strategy was previously in place. In my constituency, and in the wider west midlands, the University of Salford was commissioned to carry out a survey. It involved someone going with a clipboard to all existing Gypsy and Traveller sites and asking, “Do you think you might require extra accommodation?” Oddly enough, the result was, “Yes, we do.” Local authorities were then set targets that they had to meet.
The flaw in such a policy is that it did not look at changes in the population. It meant that if a constituency, district or borough council already had an existing Gypsy and Traveller population, there was an expectation for provision to increase dramatically. If there was no Gypsy or Traveller population already in an area, there was rarely an expectation for any provision to be made. Therefore, local authorities that had already made provision and looked after a Gypsy and Traveller population were penalised for that. I hope that the Minister will provide reassurances that those who make provision that, as has been said, is needed in certain areas of the country, are rewarded for doing so. However, it should not be mandatory or expected that those who have already done a lot should do ever more and more. In South Staffordshire—I speak only for South Staffordshire—such provision is there, but it is not being used; the sites are empty.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, and I reassure him that what he said about South Staffordshire also applies to Cheshire. Since I have become involved in this issue, I have noticed a lot of smoke and mirrors and red herrings. Behind the developments in my constituency—which sound very similar to those in South Staffordshire—are individual businessmen. This is a business opportunity for certain individuals to buy green belt land for cash and start developing a Gypsy and Traveller site. The moment they make it a Gypsy and Traveller site, things come into play and the issue becomes emotive. There is a lack of will by the local authorities.
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. I pointed out that interventions should be brief and to the point, not mini-speeches. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is about to draw his remarks to a conclusion.
Graham Evans
I am sorry, Mr Howarth; I am new to this game, but I appreciate what you say. I conclude by asking whether my hon. Friend agrees that much of this matter is about an opportunity for businessmen, rather than for individual Gypsies and Travellers.
Gavin Williamson
Very much so; that is precisely the case. Often, a distorting factor is created in the local agricultural market, and small pockets of land that could be purchased for about £4,000 to £6,000 per acre suddenly have an inflated value. One part of the population can increase the value of a development by turning it into a Gypsy and Traveller site. Unfortunately, in some areas that I have seen proposed for development, people seek to get planning permission to create a Gypsy and Traveller site and then, at a later stage, apply for a change of use or another potential form of development. That is a real concern. It will not happen over the next one or two years, but that is the route that people seem to be taking in the medium to long term.
What do I want to hear from the Minister? I could give him a long list of issues. There have been many positive words from the Department for Communities and Local Government about recognising localism. There have been warm words suggesting that the Department understands people’s concerns, and positive responses to show that it understands the problem in the community. I have heard a lot, but I have seen little done.
I am sure that the Minister has, in his briefing papers, news of an awful lot that is about to be done. However, in late August, just before the debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire, it was announced that planning circulars 01/2006 and 04/2007 were to be changed and new policies put in place. Unfortunately, everything seems to have gone quiet since then, although the announcement has encouraged a large number of people to make applications before there is a change in the planning circulars. In my constituency alone, there have been 13 applications, including in the villages of Hatherton and Coven Heath. Those people recognise that the loophole may be closed, but although there has been an announcement from the Department, I have not yet seen any action, and people are rushing to take the opportunity to get applications through the loophole.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I apologise because I shall have to leave the Chamber to attend a Select Committee shortly. Does my hon. Friend agree that apart from the fact that many of the developments are on green belt, one of the problems that his constituents and mine have is that often there is development before any application for planning permission? That causes great upset. People want to see the rules being followed.
Gavin Williamson
Absolutely. I know the problems that my hon. Friend has had to deal with in the village of Penkridge, where extensive development has occurred. That is truly horrifying for the people who live there, because they see the development happening and local authorities have so few real powers to stop it. A similar situation arose in the village of Coven Heath, in my constituency, just a few months ago. Thankfully, when the bulldozers and everything else went in on the Saturday morning, the planning officers were there and were able to get the legal measures in place to get that stopped. However, there is a real problem, and there is a perceived view that if people apply retrospectively, they are treated more leniently. I hope that the Minister will pick up on that point and possibly explain how that will be changed.
Andrew George
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about ensuring that planning law is enforced and that there is not more leniency for those who have flouted the law, but of course Travellers do not simply evaporate away. If there are not sufficient pitches, the alternative for them is to live illegally. Does he agree with me that it would be far better to have local authority pitches, because the £18 million a year that is being spent on enforcement could be far better spent on ensuring that adequate pitches are available for travelling folk?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point. I would never argue against the idea of providing sufficient pitches for the Gypsy and Traveller community. What I am saying is that we need to get local authorities engaged in the idea of providing those pitches. This is about encouraging them to provide pitches, not having a law that discriminates against the settled community and favours the Gypsy and Traveller community. It is about achieving a balance.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend also agree that this is not necessarily a zero-sum game? The increase in unauthorised sites is in parallel with an increase in authorised sites, so it is not necessarily the case that authorising one site means one fewer unauthorised sites.
Gavin Williamson
That is a very valid point. Let me give people an idea of what has been happening. In 1997, there were 887 unlawful encampments. There are now 2,395 unlawful encampments, and in that time the provision of private Gypsy and Traveller sites has increased. I do not have the figures for local authority Gypsy and Traveller sites, but my understanding is that both private and local authority provision has increased, and so have the unlawful encampments. That proves my hon. Friend’s point.
I want the Minister to make it clear when the Department for Communities and Local Government will take action, start delivering on its promises to repeal planning circulars 01/2006 and 04/2007, and put something that is fairer, more just, and right in their place. I hope that the Minister will also do something about the planning applications that are currently going through the appeal process. I am thinking, for example, of the case of the site in Penkridge, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), which is with the Planning Inspectorate at the moment, and the sites at Wombourne and Calf Heath in my constituency.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said in the main Chamber just the other week:
“We have certainly stated our intention to repeal circular 01/06 and we shall shortly start consultation on an alternative to it. In the meantime, given that the localism Bill will substantially change planning on these matters, I can say that our intention almost certainly is a material consideration.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 430.]
I ask the Minister to help the communities that I represent, which feel that a gross injustice is being perpetrated against them. Will he write to the Planning Inspectorate, highlighting the Secretary of State’s comments in the main Chamber and adding his voice to those comments, and will he ask it to ensure that the Secretary of State’s views, and the fact that local authorities such as mine have a policy for dealing with Gypsy and Traveller sites, are properly taken into account, so that perhaps the Planning Inspectorate will consider those factors when making decisions on current appeals?
I accept that the Minister’s very able and capable civil servants will often say that there are many reasons why he cannot move swiftly, but I urge him, on behalf of all those in South Staffordshire—and, I am sure, many people throughout the country—to have steel in his spine, make the changes happen, and deliver on the promises; we know that he wants to, and we know that that is required. I am quite sure that he will deliver and make many people in South Staffordshire much happier than they were under the previous, Labour Government.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing the debate and on his very strong words on this subject. The debate is a great opportunity for me, because I have not been able to participate in previous debates on the subject, and during the past few months, it has transpired that there have been more and more developments of unauthorised sites across my constituency. I ask for the Minister’s indulgence during my speech, because I will refer to a number of sites in my constituency. The debate presents an opportunity to discuss the important issues surrounding unauthorised developments and, significantly, the impact that they have on local communities.
As the Minister may be aware, and as ministerial colleagues in the Department know, in the Witham constituency, there are serious concerns about the robustness of planning processes and the proliferation of unauthorised sites and development by the travelling community. My constituency is a new one, and the issue is complicated by the fact that I have three local authorities, which act in quite different ways in their interpretation of policies for dealing with unauthorised developments.
For the purposes of today’s debate, I shall refer to two sites. One is in Pattiswick. I have entered into quite a bit of correspondence on the issue with the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). Pattiswick comes under Braintree district council. The other site is in the very rural location of Turkey Cock lane, which is in the borough of Colchester. Compared with Braintree, Colchester has a quite different approach to dealing with unauthorised development. However, both sites are causing particular concern and much distress to the local settled community.
As a result of today’s debate, my constituents will look to the Minister for reassurance that the problems they face will be considered as the Government develop a new and fairer approach to Gypsy and Traveller planning. Indeed, my constituents would welcome the Government going further and demonstrating that Ministers will be on the side of the law-abiding majority, rather than on the side of those who choose to flout planning laws and restrictions. That comes back to comments made in the debate about this two-tier system—a parallel track, with one side for those who play by the rules and another for those who seek to flout them.
Communities feel absolutely powerless over the site in Colchester borough— Turkey Cock lane—and feel as if there is now nowhere to turn, because the local authority refuses to act against the presence of three additional vehicles, and the site is getting bigger and bigger. Vehicles have arrived on the site, with Travellers living in them, but despite the many concerns raised by the local community and me, the council has chosen to turn a blind eye. It has tried to justify what I would describe as its inertia by claiming that the new vehicles and people are coming on to the site to look after family members who are ill. That, however, has exacerbated the concerns of the local community.
To put in a local context, if a member of the settled local community were to build some form of temporary accommodation on their own land, you can bet your bottom dollar that the council would be there immediately to take enforcement action. Rightly, residents and my constituents are asking why the council has not acted in this case and why, importantly, it has not engaged in dialogue with the local community and residents, who have genuine concerns and fears. Following endless inquiries on behalf of my constituents over the past few weeks, it is fair to say that I feel that we are now just part of an excuse culture from the local authority. It has made it clear that it is not prepared to take action until the new year. I have been informed that the council does not believe that it needs to act in the same manner as it would if a member of the settled community built an unauthorised extension on their land, which I find alarming.
Gavin Williamson
The situation that my hon. Friend outlines creates a great deal of animosity. It is not about creating one community, because the barriers immediately go up, and the perceived difference causes many problems for integration and for the communities coming together.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it comes back to the whole issue of one system for the law-abiding majority and another for people undertaking unauthorised developments.
The local situation has been exacerbated even more, because two weeks ago, I was informed that the council would not be acting due to human rights considerations. As I am sure hon. Members will appreciate, my constituents feel that that is just yet another excuse. The Minister and Members familiar with human rights, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention will appreciate the comments that I am about to make: nowhere does the Act say that it can be used as a cover for local authorities to take no action whatsoever. My constituents believe that, without a doubt, there are two parallel systems—one for Travellers and one for those who play by the rules. There is deep alarm that the local authority—Colchester borough council—is not acting, and my constituents feel that they have no powers to compel it to act.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I, too, have problems with Travellers in my constituency. There are two issues: one is enforcement—we simply have to enforce existing legislation where appropriate. The other issue, about which my hon. Friend is making a strong point, is the need for clarity over what action is available for local authorities and other authorities that act in this respect. I urge the Minister to set out the stall over what can be done and how it should be enforced.
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks, because in my constituency there are three local authorities—I will touch on the other two—and everything seems quite subjective. Laws are being applied differently, so we seek clarity.
That brings us to the forthcoming localism Bill, which will hand more powers to local communities. I hope that the Minister will consider empowering residents to force local councils and authorities, such as Colchester borough council, to act to ensure consistent enforcement of rules and regulations, because we need consistency across the country. While some local authorities have not taken sufficient action, for whatever reason, in my constituency we have the example of a local authority trying to act on behalf of residents but being hugely frustrated by protracted planning and legal considerations —something which my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire touched upon.
In Pattiswick in the district of Braintree, Travellers have been illegally developing a site since September in a location regarded as a special landscape area. Residents are deeply concerned about that development, and are being frustrated in their efforts to have illegal developments removed. A planning application has not been submitted thus far and, despite action by Braintree district council through the courts, the Travellers have used every tactic available under the law to play for time while they act in contravention of the enforcement action taken by the council. On 15 October at the High Court, the council was successful in obtaining an injunction preventing further development at the site, but the existing developments were allowed to remain pending the outcome of any appeal. That, of course, has caused a great deal of stress in the local community. That said, one of the Travellers was successfully prosecuted earlier last month for breaching a temporary stop notice.
Despite the clear breaches and the fact that the council has taken legal action, the Travellers have until 1 January 2011 before the enforcement notice takes full effect, and further appeals will absolutely come. That lengthy process is deeply unsettling to local residents. They are genuinely concerned, because local council taxpayers are footing the bill for the legal action, and Pattiswick residents are concerned to hear from the local authority that the cost implications of the case thus far may restrict the council from taking any further action.
I ask the Minister, how can this be right? It is not just a concern for the present but is an ongoing concern. I urge him to ensure that the right legislation is in place to guarantee that local communities and local councils can act quickly, efficiently and decisively to remove illegal encampments and block unauthorised developments, such as those in my constituency. I have been in correspondence about those two sites, and, although I would not say that the issue was spiralling out of control, it demonstrates the inconsistency in how local authorities deal with such matters, as we have heard.
The third local authority in my constituency is Maldon district council. Along with my constituents in Tolleshunt Knights, it opposed a planning application for a development for travelling show people, which Ministers will know about. The case went to the Planning Inspectorate, which took time to confirm that it would consider the revocation of the regional special strategies that cause a huge amount of alarm within local communities, and, I think, caused alarm in the Department when I raised the issue with Ministers. Frankly, there is far too much uncertainty. People were already concerned that planning circular 04/2007, which we have discussed, would remain in force and would compromise local opposition.
We know the intention of planning circulars 04/2007 and 01/2006, but I come back to the fact that they cause great uncertainty. I urge the Minister to reconfirm that they will be scrapped, and I hope that a timetable will be put in place sooner rather than later to allow that to happen; otherwise, there be many other such cases, not only in the constituencies of colleagues here today, but across the country.
With the localism Bill just around the corner, the fundamental message is that we absolutely must empower our local communities and councils to take effective action promptly. We must also remove any bias or discrimination in the system that works against local settled communities. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire, I urge the Minister to be incredibly robust. We have lost a lot of time, and action must be taken. There is great unease in my constituency, given the cases that I have highlighted. I would welcome significant assurances from the Minister that the law will be on the side of my constituents and that our local councils will be empowered to do the right thing.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing this important debate. It is very timely, given that we are in the run-up to the introduction of the localism Bill, to which we all very much look forward. My hon. Friend and other hon. Members present fully acknowledge the importance of having a measured and reasoned debate on a subject on which feelings, locally and elsewhere, can run high, and that is exactly what we have had.
The debate’s title is “Gypsy and Traveller Sites”, but in many ways we are not talking about Gypsies and Travellers. The issues of trespass, unauthorised development and so on are often conflated with the issue of Gypsies and Travellers. It is absolutely fair to say that my constituents and hon. Members present are talking not really about the fact of Gypsies and Travellers, but about actions and activities that get in the way of others.
We all acknowledge the challenges that members of the Gypsy and Traveller communities face, and I say “communities” in the plural, because Gypsies are different from Travellers, and both are different again from travelling show people, as hon. Members have mentioned. These groups face particular challenges in terms of educational attainment, health outcomes and so on, and much good work is done in local authorities and elsewhere to try to improve those outcomes. In all these debates, we must also remember that children are involved, and no child chooses the lifestyle into which they are born. It must be fundamental to our activities that we secure the best educational and health outcomes for such children.
I am a libertarian, as I suppose most of those present are to a greater or lesser degree, and it is not for us to dictate the lifestyle that anybody should adopt. However, it is also the fundamental principle of libertarianism that we should let people do, and encourage them to do, absolutely what they want as long as it does not harm others. It is the second part of that principle that we are more concerned about today. We have built up a massive system of laws to enshrine the basic principle of allowing people to do what they want as long as it does not harm others. It is absolutely fundamental that all people and groups abide by the same set of laws, because that is good for community cohesion. One of the great things that unites us is our system of laws, which underpins our society.
Notwithstanding my intervention on my hon. Friend, we must ensure that there is adequate provision of good, authorised sites. I therefore welcome the Government’s proposed incentives under the new homes bonus to encourage the provision of such sites. However, more needs to be done, and we look to the Minister to ensure that the localism Bill includes the measures that people want to create a level playing field.
In particular, there is the issue of retrospective planning applications, which, although not the only issue in my constituency, have been a fundamental issue. We all recognise that there must, for all sorts of reasons, be a place for retrospective planning applications. However, it cannot be beyond the wit of man, let alone politicians and civil servants, to come up with a set of principles and rules that allow genuine mistakes to be rectified while not preventing wilful abuse of the system. I look to the Minister to ensure that such provisions are included in the Bill. To conclude, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire once again on securing the debate and on the measured way in which it has been conducted.
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
The two Front-Bench speakers will take up 15 minutes apiece, so there is scope for other speeches to be made. However, those who wish to speak should signify in some way that they want to do so.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Howarth. I am new to this, so I am not quite clear about the procedure in this debating Chamber.
I want to make a brief contribution about my constituency in mid-Cheshire, which faces a lot of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) outlined so well. The fundamental issue for our constituents is fairness. Is it fair that most ordinary citizens have to go through the planning process, while others do not? I recently had to apply for a change of use of premises for a new constituency office, and it was really quite amusing to see what hoops I had to jump through just to get a change of use from a taxi office to an ordinary office.
In the six months that I have been a Member of Parliament, I have learned how people can buy a strip of green belt land and transform it. If I wanted to become a landlord, it would be quite simple. I would buy a strip of green belt land and say that I wanted to build stables, for example. I would start to build a stable block, but with no intention of putting horses in it; in fact, I would put in toilets and showers. That would be done without planning permission. I would then install utilities, including water, waste water utilities, and a septic tank. Again, I would do that without planning permission. I would then leave it a few months before inviting people to pitch up and put their caravans on my land. Again, there would be no planning permission.
That is all done in the face of the local community. When the community notifies the local authorities, the authorities seem unwilling, although I believe they are able, to take those responsible to task. In my earlier, lengthy intervention, the point I was getting at was that we are talking about business men who see an opportunity to become landlords. They can have several pitches and they can charge rent for them. These are not Gypsy and Traveller sites in the sense that members of the travelling community come, spend sometime at the site and move on; these are semi-permanent pitches. A coach and horses can be driven through green belt legislation by turning a stable block into a toilet block and putting utilities on the land. That can be done over a weekend.
When I was campaigning before the general election, a lot of residents contacted me on the Thursday evening before the Easter bank holiday to say that people were planning to move on to a site with concrete mixers and tarmac to put in hard-standing alongside the utilities—the utilities were already there, but the site was going to be turned into a permanent fixture. We notified the local authorities on the Thursday that that was going to happen. The people went on to the site on the bank holiday Friday, but no local government officers were there, despite the notification. Over the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, those involved were able to secure the pitches and make them semi-permanent.
Most ordinary people are not legal beagles, and they do not know the complexity of the legal system, but lay people like me know when something that is about to happen is wrong. Local authorities and their legal departments seem unwilling to enforce the existing law. Daresbury is a classic example from my constituency of what happens with Gypsy and Traveller sites. The people concerned see an opportunity to have a brand new Traveller site, although I use the term loosely, because the sites are semi-permanent, with all the utilities. An extensive legal process is now under way; it is taking months, which will soon turn to years. The business men in question seem able to recruit and pay the best legal advisers and barristers, who in court run rings round the local authority legal departments. I am aghast at the lack of will or ability on the part of local authority planning departments.
Gavin Williamson
Does my hon. Friend think that part of the reason for that is that there is such financial gain to be had from securing those planning permissions that an awful lot of money can be ploughed into securing them in the first place? That is why the applicants can afford such expensive legal teams.
Graham Evans
My hon. Friend makes an important point, with which I agree. We are talking about business men capitalising on a business opportunity; the matter has very little to do with the travelling community. Although those business men may be connected to the travelling community, they live in fixed abodes. The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who is no longer in his place, alluded to the travelling community, but I do not believe that this matter is totally about that community. It is about a business opportunity that is very well executed. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire said, it is so profitable that it is worth employing the best barristers to run rings round the local authority representatives.
In my constituency there are two such sites. Towers lane is an area of outstanding beauty. Ancient hedgerows were dug up on a bank holiday and the whole area has been tarmacked. There are utilities, so the people there are paying for gas and electricity, and water rates. Those sites are therefore now semi-permanent, and are legal in the sense that the bills are being paid. I presume rent is being paid to the landlord. Yet there is no planning permission, in green belt, in some of Cheshire’s most outstanding areas of beauty. It is a fantastic business model for those who can get away with it—and the people in question are getting away with it. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments, because the scam must come to an end. It is not about human rights; it is about fairness and ensuring that the constituents of many hon. Members have their voices heard.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure, indeed, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), who describes very succinctly a problem that many hon. Members present for the debate have experienced in our constituencies. It is particularly associated with bank holiday Mondays, lengthy legal disputes, and people who describe themselves as Travellers becoming, to all intents and purposes, members of the settled community.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing this important debate. I think it is the third or fourth on this subject in which I have taken part in this Chamber. I hope that what the Minister will tell us, and what will happen in the next few months, will mean that we shall not have to have constant repeats of this debate here, because the Government will take urgent steps to put right what we have been discussing. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire for missing the early part of his remarks. I shall read them with care tomorrow in the Official Report.
It seems to me that we are seeking three or four things from the Government. First, when the original local authority Traveller legislation was passed—in 1966, if my memory serves me right—there were something of the order of 2,000 Gypsy caravans illegally parked in England, because there were no local authority sites. In 1997, at the time of the repeal, there were still 4,500 illegally parked Gypsy caravans in England, despite the fact that local authorities had in the meantime built 7,000 pitches. Today there are—I think, from memory—17,500 Gypsy caravans altogether around England. That is an exponential growth in so-called Gypsy caravans. It appears that no matter how many sites one provides for them, more Gypsy caravans appear to fill them. It is a sort of Parkinson’s law. The more sites are built, the more Gypsy caravans there are.
The Government should start by defining precisely who the people in question are, and what duty society has to provide for them. My understanding is that under the law the words “Gypsy” and “Traveller” include everything, starting with bona fide Romanies, of whom we have many in Wiltshire, whom we welcome very much and who can be seen beside the road carving trinkets—good luck to them. They are great people, proper travellers, decent people—and law-abiding, by and large. The words in question also include the Irish. Some of the Irish travellers in my constituency are pretty rough, to say the least, although many are not. I take issue with the inclusion of travelling showmen. Travelling showmen are an entirely different group—mainly settled. They are mainly very decent people. There are some very nice ones in my constituency. They tend to be in a place for a very short time and then go back to their base, taking their show kit with them. Of course, hippies, junkies and all sorts of layabouts come into the category of Travellers and Gypsies, and they have the same rights, apparently, to set up their caravans in the middle of our countryside wherever they wish, under an antiquated law.
Secondly, we hope that the localism Bill, whose presentation in the House we all look forward to, will deal with local people. If someone comes into my constituency surgery saying that they come from Inverness and they want a council house, I will say to them, perfectly legitimately, “I’m extremely sorry; you must get back to Inverness. The people of Wiltshire have no responsibility to provide a council house for you. You must prove a local connection;” whereas, if a Gypsy comes to my constituency surgery and says, “I’m a Gypsy and I want to set my caravan down in your constituency,” under the current Act and under planning circulars 01/06 and 04/07, I have some legal responsibility to allow that. That seems to me to be quite wrong.
Even worse is the situation of a lady who came to my constituency surgery and said, “I have a caravan in the middle of my organic farm; it’s about 20 acres. The local authority has decided that the organic farm is no longer making money and therefore requires me to leave.” Quite why the profitability of the organic farm and her ability to live in the caravan are linked, I do not know; but apparently they are. My constituent was thrown out of her caravan. It did not have to be moved. It was in the middle of nowhere. She was allowed to put chickens in the caravan, but she was not allowed to live there. I said to her, “What I think you should try is to get in touch with the local authority and say that you are extremely sorry, but you made a mistake, because you did not declare yourself to be a Romany Gypsy. If you declare yourself a Romany Gypsy, presumably planning circular 01/06 or 04/07 will apply to you. Take it to court. Try to work out whether you could be a Gypsy. I bet you anything that the courts will not be able to sort that one out for you.”
We need localism. It is reasonable that the people of Wiltshire should welcome Wiltshire Gypsies and make proper provision for them. We should make sure that there are quite enough sites in Wiltshire. I think that there are; the county is very well provided with sites. However, what of Gypsies from elsewhere in England, or indeed elsewhere on the continent? As Romania becomes part of the European Union, we may well see more Roma Gypsies moving to this country, as happened in France. We must say to the Irish, “You must stay in Ireland.” We must say to Gypsies and Travellers from across the continent, “Wherever you came from, stay there.” We in Wiltshire—it will be the same for other hon. Members’ areas—have a moral duty to make proper provision only for our local Gypsies, and not for anyone else.
The third thing that I hope the Government will attend to is the question of the regional spatial strategy. It was an absurd document. It included the carrying out, somehow or other—we do not know how it was done—of a ridiculous survey of the number of Gypsies and Travellers in England. They were divided up between the number of areas—eight or nine, I think, covering the whole of England—and the bizarre conclusion was reached that the south-west of England should have x thousand Gypsy sites. That was divided by the number of counties, to give x hundred for Wiltshire, and that was divided by the number of district councils. That came, in my case, to about 50 or 60 Gypsy sites needed in North Wiltshire. There is no logic in that at all, particularly given that the people in question are Travellers.
The RSS has gone, but it is not clear whether the courts will pay any attention to it. I know that there was recently a very awkward court case in which it was discovered that the abolition of the RSS did not have any effect on house building. We very much hope that the Minister will make it plain this morning that the abolition of the RSS and the Secretary of State’s determination in relation to it are a material consideration in planning appeals about Gypsy sites. Alternatively, if that is not so, the Government should take urgent action to repeal the RSS, bring in the localism Bill, and repeal circulars 01/06 and 04/07. Without that, there will be, as some of my hon. Friends have said this morning, a mad rush of Gypsy encampments to get through the gap before this action is taken by the Government. Some urgent action is required by the Government; it is not just a question of being sympathetic. We need to hear from the Minister that the Government intend to take urgent action to stop what is, without question, a loophole in planning law, to require local authorities to make provision for their local Gypsies, but to allow local authorities and local people to say to Gypsies from elsewhere around England or Europe, “You may now return to wherever it was you came from.”
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) has instigated an important debate on the problems and issues that need to be addressed by Government policy in relation to Gypsy and Traveller sites and behaviour, and how all that fits with the planning process. It has been a thoughtful debate and hon. Members have avoided getting emotive on a subject that often tends to move in that direction.
I can remember as a child that my father, who was then a senior councillor on Havering council, sought to resolve the deep unhappiness that unregulated and illegal Traveller sites caused in that area. He took the view that it was important to find sites that could be properly managed and where the Gypsy and Traveller families were better able to access education for their children, health care and advice on what were and were not acceptable actions when living in the locality. That was an enlightened view at the time, but we are now some 40 years down the line, and successive Governments have failed to provide a solution that works for the settled communities, who face unacceptable levels of illegal and unauthorised sites. It also fails to deal with the needs of travelling communities and Gypsies.
We are still seeing the enormous cost that can be caused to local authorities and other organisations, and we are also still seeing the abuse that some Gypsy and Traveller families face, when they may well in fact simply be trying to remain within the law, because—let us be absolutely clear—the appalling behaviour that we have heard described today is not that of the vast majority of the travelling community.
This debate, though, is about Government policy and how it would deal with the elements that have been highlighted in the debate. How will the Department determine the level of provision needed? The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) spoke with some experience on this subject, but he, too, was unclear about the level of need. It is understood that the Department for Communities and Local Government would look at the Gypsy and Traveller accommodation assessments, and consider how local authorities would decide to review the level of provision that those assessments indicated was necessary. What is the time scale for that, and what action will the Government take if local authorities, having identified need, do not make adequate, or indeed any, provision to meet the need for suitable accommodation?
Mr Gray
The point I was making is that it is not possible to assess the need because of the European Union. There are Gypsies and Travellers from across the continent who could theoretically land up in any of our constituencies. It is not possible to assess that need and, therefore, what we should be saying is not, “Let us assess the need.” Let us say, “Only local Travellers, only Travellers who have demonstrable Wiltshire connections may stay in my constituency. The rest must push off somewhere else.”
Alison Seabeck
That is a very interesting view. It is a nimby view and, given that the nature of travelling populations is that they move around the country as part of their culture, it would be quite difficult to enforce.
How will localism deal with a complex problem, which, as has just been clearly flagged up, is mobile, does not just affect one community and can be very transitory? Hon. Members asked for clarity and coherence of policy across local authorities. Quite how that works alongside localism is an interesting subject, and one we will no doubt debate further when the Bill comes forward.
How will the Government identify those travellers who are described in the DCLG announcement made on 6 July by the Secretary of State as playing by the rules, and what are those rules? What guidance will be given to Gypsy and Traveller communities on that? What discussions has the Minister had with the Gypsy Council about the potential impact of abolishing the regional spatial strategies and of circular 01/06? Although that circular was slow to take off under the last Government, the general view, although not shared by hon. Members here today, is that it was beginning to work. I have no doubt that the Gypsy Council will have lobbied the Government on that.
Given that the statement on the RSS is still subject to court proceedings, what is the exact status of the planning policy specific to Travellers? In particular, given the concerns that he raised, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire should be aware that the courts have found against the Secretary of State on the issue of material consideration. That is somewhat in limbo at the moment.
I was interested to read that the Government intend to apply the new homes bonus scheme to authorised Traveller sites. That is interesting because, as it stands on the information that we have, the scheme already favours the building of homes on greenfield sites, because that is where there is the quickest return.
Gavin Williamson
I accept the point about greenfield sites, but there is a vast difference between greenfield and green belt. The issue that often exercises most people is that the site is on green belt land, on which no one else would get permission to develop.
Alison Seabeck
I will come back to the green belt issue later. In parts of the country—certainly in and around Plymouth—we are looking at greenfield development. There are concerns within settled communities that the speed with which developments may be able to take place and the incentive brought back in on greenfield sites could encourage local authorities to develop sites more quickly, perhaps in areas that others might think unsuitable.
Will any site that is taken out of use be considered in the same way as demolitions in the housing stock will be netted off against the bonus paid, as part of the new homes bonus? If the pitches are unoccupied for large parts of the year—let us understand that Traveller and Gypsy families do move around and will winter in one place and summer somewhere else—I am not entirely clear how the homes will be viewed. Will they be vacant or occupied? Will the empty homes proposal kick in for any reason, if the pitch is not used for six months? How will that work? Will there be exemptions?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady touched on a point when she said that she felt that the planning regulations were working, and she talks about empty, vacant pitches. Does she not agree that it is a disgrace that such pitches are getting planning permission and then people attempt to sell them on the general market? Is that not an abuse of the planning regulations?
Alison Seabeck
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, and I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response, as it is clearly a problem the hon. Gentleman has experienced in his area; it is not one I have come across. If there is an abuse there, along with the other abuses in the system, Governments of whatever colour need to look at how we block them off.
I come back to the point about whether there will be exceptions. Given the general unpopularity of such developments, if the new neighbourhood planning arrangements are introduced and the Government and local authorities expect such sites to go ahead even with the incentive, there could be considerable local unhappiness. Therefore, I am not clear how, ultimately, need will be met. We have heard from the hon. Gentleman that there seems to be over-provision in his area. We know that in other parts of the country there is a real shortage, and then we end up with illegal sites. Are we simply going to be chasing illegal site users around the country, with all the cost and damage that sometimes follow them?
I also worry about the site identification process, because I suspect most MPs will have evidence of sites being put forward as suitable for Gypsy and Traveller families, which are far from that. Indeed, when the issue was debated in July 2009, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), described a site where the sewage drained straight into a ditch, and said that a condition for planning on that site was that it should not be occupied by any group other than Gypsy and Traveller households. Why is it acceptable for those families to live in such conditions but no one else? It hardly helps to build mutual respect in a community and encourage behavioural change if people are treated with such a lack of respect.
Gypsy and Traveller families already face shorter life expectancy and higher infant mortality and have fewer children in education than any other group. That was a point touched on by the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) in his intervention.
We have to find ways to reduce the £18 million bill linked to Gypsy and Traveller communities that local authorities face annually, a subject that was highlighted by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who is no longer in his place. We also have to find ways in which those groups can be seen as part of the local community; they should be active participants and not seen as being wholly negative. A good starting point would be to use some of that local authority funding, which is linked largely to tackling the negative side of the issue, to set up better managed sites. There are positive things in some of the Government’s measures, and I would welcome improved tenancy rights for those who remain on authorised sites, if they are brought forward.
We have heard about the tensions that exist between the settled and travelling communities. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire expressed concern about the use of green belt land. I wonder whether his local authority has given any thought to the possibility of having sites closer to the centres of towns in his patch, as they may be more suitable. We tend to think of Gypsies and Travellers living in fields in the outskirts. London, however, has a number of inner city sites; they are well managed by the local authorities and they work quite well. It is all too easy to put these people at the back of beyond, and we ought to give sites nearer the centre a little more consideration.
Graham Evans
The hon. Lady mentions the back of beyond. That may be her view, but in my constituency in the county of Cheshire the back of beyond is beautiful and outstanding countryside. I am as concerned as she is about individual Traveller communities, but I was alluding to those who make business opportunities out of the local authorities’ lack of will.
Alison Seabeck
I stand corrected, and apologise for my slightly sloppy use of language. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I meant the outskirts of towns, not the centre. I was not casting aspersions on the beauty of the countryside around his constituency—nor, indeed, around mine, as Dartmoor is on the northern edge. If I may, I shall return to the question of businessmen shortly.
The hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who is no longer in her place, highlighted the need to support the law-abiding. I assume that she means in both the settled and the travelling communities, and I entirely agree with that sentiment. The hon. Member for East Hampshire made a strong case for the freedom to live one’s life as one chooses, but he made it clear that with that freedom must come responsibility. Again, I doubt if anyone here would disagree. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Evans) said how important it was for policies to be seen to be fair across communities. He spoke of businessmen who, almost by stealth, can change green belt sites into sites for Travellers, which was an extremely pertinent comment. We certainly need to consider that outrageous scam, as some people are making a lot of money from it. The hon. Gentleman was quite right to bring that to the attention of the House.
Where unauthorised sites exist, we should come down on them like a ton of bricks. Being able to move quickly is often the key. Sadly, however, we have heard that many local authorities are slow to respond when local residents draw their attention to the fact that Travellers might have moved in. They need to act as early as possible, and have the power to move them on to authorised sites or to sites out of the area, while ensuring that there are no specific welfare issues. The powers exist, but as the hon. Member for Witham flagged up, her constituency contains a number of local authority areas, and some of them use the powers well and some do not. In this localist world, it behoves local authorities to act, but they should understand that they have a responsibility to a much wider community.
Having a spread of authorities would clearly help, but I am not wholly convinced that the Government’s proposals address the question when taken in the round. The Government should avoid contradictory aims, and I am therefore most interested to hear what the Minister has to tell us.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
It is a pleasure, Mr Howarth, to serve under your chairmanship, and to take part in what is turning into a quarterly debate on Gypsies. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) was one of several Members who alluded to the previous debate in September, to which I responded.
I wish to make it clear from the outset that the Government are committed to sustainable development in every community. It is important that local authorities should plan for the future of their communities, both in economic and environmental sustainability, as well as social sustainability—something that was at the forefront of today’s debate. The tension, anger and frustration about the relationship between unauthorised developments and encampments and the communities afflicted by them came through strongly in this debate.
The Government have made it clear from the outset, as has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that they want to see fair play, with everyone being treated equally and even-handedly. We are encouraging local authorities to provide appropriate sites for Travellers. That should be done in consultation with local communities to meet local need and historic demand. As several Members pointed out, we will provide incentives for them to do so. We believe that it is important to take action against unauthorised Traveller encampments and developments, and to take note of the effect that they have on local communities.
I return to a point that many speakers readily acknowledged in this thoughtful debate: the huge majority of members of the Traveller community live peaceably on authorised sites, and have good relations with the settled community about them. It is at the fringe—the minority—where we experience the difficulties that were brought to our attention. The minority give a bad name to the Traveller community, and it has a negative effect on community cohesion. We also need to tackle discrimination to Travellers, and the poor social outcomes that they face.
Much has been said about the two-tier planning system, and it is right that such a system should be broken down. I shall say more on what the Department and the Government are doing, and will do, to deal with that. However, we must recognise the other side of the coin—a two-tier delivery of services, on one hand to the settled community, and on the other, to the Gypsy and Traveller community. We have to tackle that problem as well. Indeed, one might reflect that unless we do so, in the longer term it will ultimately prove impossible to deal satisfactorily with the side of the coin that we have been discussing this morning.
Mr Gray
I am not sure that I entirely agree with the Minister. My experience in Wiltshire is that the services provided to the travelling community are outstanding, as they are to the settled community. The schools, the health service and the other services provided by the state are provided as brilliantly to them as to everyone else. It is up to them to decide whether to make use of the schools and how long they should keep the children there, or whether to make use of the national health service. I am not certain that we should blame ourselves for making inadequate provision; rather, it is a question of whether or not they make use of it.
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Gentleman’s experience in Wiltshire sounds admirable. It is a pity that it is not reflected across the country. The life expectancy of Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers is 10 years shorter than the national average; Gypsy and Traveller mothers are 20 times more likely to experience the death of a child than the rest of the population; and the school attendance and educational attainment of Gypsy and Traveller pupils is much lower than their peers at every key stage. As a responsible society, we cannot simply wash our hands of that problem and say that it is no concern of ours. More relevant to this debate, however, is the clear disconnection between Gypsy and Traveller communities and the settled communities through which they pass and in which they reside. It is not made any better by the outcomes that result from such a disjunction.
Turning to what the Government have done so far on the matters raised in this debate, the Secretary of State has made it clear that we will abolish regional strategies, and the text for that will appear in the localism Bill, which will be published before Christmas and make its way through the Houses of Parliament over the next few months. Under the Bill, decision-making on housing and on Traveller sites will be returned to local communities, thereby giving them a new role in building up local plans, and the opportunities for retrospective planning applications will be limited. Local authorities will get stronger enforcement powers to tackle unauthorised sites.
I hope that hon. Members who have contributed to this debate will study the provisions in the Bill to satisfy themselves that what I have said is correct. I am sure that they will let me know if there are any gaps that still need to be plugged once the legislation is in place. As I previewed in September, a cross-Government, ministerial level working group has been set up to address the discrimination and poor social outcomes experienced by Traveller communities. The Secretary of State has written to local authorities to remind them to be alert and ready to take action against sites that set up over bank holiday periods, which the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) mentioned. We have not only announced our intention to revoke the circulars but set about doing so. Such action can only be taken after consultation, otherwise it would not be a lawful revocation, and that process will start early in the new year.
Gavin Williamson
I welcome my hon. Friend’s announcement. Although I appreciate that he must go through a process to make the changes, I urge him to do so with speed. He must ensure that his Department does the job thoroughly, but he must bear it in mind that time is a consideration and that these changes must be made very quickly.
Andrew Stunell
I entirely agree that we need to do the job thoroughly and quickly. To do it thoroughly, we are required, by statute, to have a 12-week consultation period, so that is as fast as we can go. None the less, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State and the ministerial team are thoroughly apprised of the problem and are working hard to ensure that we reach a solution.
We must be careful about the terminology we use, because each one has different legal implications and outcomes. Unauthorised developments, to which the hon. Member for Weaver Vale referred, are sites on land owned by the Gypsy and Traveller community, and unauthorised encampments are trespasses on other people’s land. When we talk about how we tackle each of those, we must be clear that we need a different prescription and legal process to deal with them. Existing police powers can deal with unauthorised encampments if an alternative site is available in the local authority area. It is that conditionality that means that action against unlawful encampments is often not as prompt as hon. Members and communities would like. To deal with the problem, we must have a larger number of authorised sites so that when trespass takes place it is feasible for rapid action to be taken under the existing law.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Does the Minister not agree that it makes better sense for there to be powers to remove people without any conditions about forming encampments elsewhere? Would it not be better to have two stages that are not related?
Andrew Stunell
This is an issue that has been through the courts on a number of occasions. One must recognise that everyone in society has rights, and they include the right to life. Although I take stock of what my hon. Friend says, I do not think that that is the way to proceed. We must ensure that there are lawful and appropriate places in which all the residents of the United Kingdom can live. If we have that and they choose then to trespass elsewhere, they should be dealt with quickly and promptly.
Mr Gray
The Minister, I think, is not correct. Surely if someone is trespassing, they should be removed from that site whether or not there is proper provision elsewhere in the local authority area. He is mixing up two things. He refers, I think, to circular 01/06, which specifies that someone may not be removed from an unauthorised site that they own unless there is proper provision elsewhere; and that of course is what should be repealed. I suspect that the Minister has muddled the two areas.
Andrew Stunell
I certainly welcome further advice from the hon. Gentleman, who has taken a real interest in the development of policy in this area. The Government recognise the need to provide appropriate places in which all residents of the United Kingdom can live, and that certainly includes the Gypsy and Traveller community.
Andrew Stunell
Let me move on to the new homes bonus, because that is the incentive for local communities to contribute to solving the problem. The bonus is being consulted on at the moment, with a closure date of 24 December—so there is a little bit of pre-Christmas reading for those who have taken part in this debate. A response to the Department would be very welcome.
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who speaks on behalf of the Opposition, posed a number of questions. I suggest that she take stock of the questions and the outline of the scheme in the consultation document and then let us know how she wishes to proceed. The new homes bonus will be helpful. In the coming financial year, we will resume grants to local authorities for the appropriate development of Gypsy sites.
Gavin Williamson
I appreciate that time is very short, and that the Minister is probably coming to my last request, but may I urge I him to write to the Planning Inspectorate, highlighting the words that were said in the Chamber by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State? Will he state that they should be taken into account when considering the planning applications that are under appeal?
Andrew Stunell
The Secretary of State has made it clear to the Planning Inspectorate, planning officers and the House that the decisions that the Government have announced they intend to take are material considerations that should be taken into account. We have done that in relation to the regional spatial strategies as a whole, and I will talk to my ministerial colleagues about whether it would be appropriate for the Secretary of State to write in the terms that my hon. Friend has set out.
We are in a situation that has defied policy solutions for year after year, and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View was good enough to acknowledge that. Whether we have strong central policy or a locally based policy, the answer has to be the same; we need to have more suitable legal accommodation for the Gypsy and Traveller communities. [Hon. Members: “No.”] I hear hon. Members disagreeing with that, but if we are talking about Wiltshire homes for Wiltshire people—whether they are Gypsies and Travellers or members of the settled community—that is a planning policy that has some very confining outcomes for Wiltshire. It is the case that we live in a fluid and mobile society, generation to generation, and we must recognise that in our planning system and in our policies for Gypsies and Travellers and for developing social cohesion. The anger and concern of today is real and must be addressed, but it must be done in a measured and responsible way, which is exactly what this Government plan to do.
Detention of Palestinian Children (West Bank)
(14 years ago)
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Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
I very much welcome the opportunity to have this debate today, especially as it is taking place just two weeks after members of the all-party group on Palestine visited the west bank, under the auspices of the Council for Arab-British Understanding. I would like to put on record my thanks for CAABU’s support during our trip, and for the work that it does in promoting better understanding between the middle east and Britain.
During our visit, we had meetings with various politicians and officials, including the Palestinian Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs and others. However, our main concern was to see for ourselves the conditions faced by Palestinians in the west bank. In meeting that aim, we were assisted by various non-governmental organisations, which also deserve our gratitude. We toured the area of E1 and visited Silwan, where homes are under severe threat of demolition and where a large area has been redesignated as a protected area. We also toured the northern west bank, including Nablus and the Balata refugee camp.
We saw one household that has effectively been excluded from its community because it is sandwiched between the so-called security wall and a settlement. The owner of the house has been given a key to a small metal gate in the fence, but he still cannot easily access his land, which used to take him only a few minutes to reach. We met another family on the edge of a small village whose home had been attacked more than 90 times by nearby settlers, leading to one death and the destruction of their herd of goats, and therefore of their livelihood. We visited a Bedouin herding community who are constantly being harassed, including by having their shacks destroyed, and who have tremendous difficulty accessing basic services such as health and education. They do not have access to water because they are so hemmed in, and consequently they need to buy it, although they cannot easily afford it.
I could go on. However, it was a visit to a military court, where we saw the court process involving Palestinian children, that shocked us to the core, so we decided to highlight the issue on our return. That is why I applied for this debate, and why I shall concentrate mainly on that issue during it. However, I am not losing sight of the fact that it is not only a serious issue in its own right but illustrative of some of the wider issues in play in the occupied territories involving settlements, prolonged military occupation and de facto annexation of land. The military court system plays a component part in those wider issues, and I am sure that colleagues will wish to refer to some of those other issues if they manage to catch your eye, Mr Howarth.
According to article 37(b) of the UN convention on the rights of the child,
“The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child…shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”.
Since 2000, around 6,500 Palestinian children have been detained in Israeli jails. In total, 32% of confessions made by children are taken in Hebrew, a language that is not spoken by most Palestinians.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
Could the hon. Lady just clarify where that information comes from—that specific claim that 32% of confessions are made in Hebrew?
Sandra Osborne
Certainly. As I said, a number of NGOs took us around, and they have done research on the issue. However, most of the information comes from Defence for Children International, which has taken the testimonies of many children. I refer the hon. Gentleman to its report, if he wants to see more information.
Israel operates a dual legal system for Israelis and Palestinians, with different ages of responsibility and different levels of protection for Israeli and Palestinian children. In 2009, two thirds of Palestinian children detained reported being physically abused during their time in custody. Allegations of torture remain widespread. The Palestinian section of Defence for Children International reports that more than 700 children a year are prosecuted in Israel’s two west bank military courts. Since 2000, around 6,500 Palestinian children have been detained in Israeli jails. As of 1 November 2010, 251 Palestinian children were being detained in three Israeli prisons. Two of those children are currently being held by Israel without trial or charge, under administrative detention orders.
The Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association reports that most Palestinian children are detained on the charge of throwing stones; 62% of those arrested in 2009 were detained on that charge. Children are taken away from their home, generally at night, and they are blindfolded, often humiliated, and regularly abused. While we were at the military court, we spoke to a family who had been woken during the night and told to stand outside their home because their son had been identified as a boy who was going to be arrested. He was taken off, and the parents had no idea where he was going to. Children are taken to unknown military detention centres that are generally outside the occupied territories. The family is rarely informed of the location of their child, and may only find out that information via contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross or legal NGOs.
Once in detention, a child is rarely told why they have been arrested, and they are held for up to eight days without access to their family or a lawyer. Interviews take the form of military-style interrogations, and are conducted without video recording, despite demands to end that practice. Forms of abuse that are frequently reported include sleep deprivation, beatings, slapping and kicking, denial of food and water, prolonged periods in uncomfortable conditions, exposure to extreme heat or cold, and denial of access to toilets and washing facilities. In total, 81% of Palestinian children confess during interrogation. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel reports that abuse is widespread:
“Out of a sample of 100 sworn affidavits collected by lawyers from these children in 2009, 69% of the children reported being beaten and kicked, 49% reported being threatened, 14% were held in solitary confinement, 12% were threatened with sexual abuse including rape and 32% were forced to sign confessions in Hebrew.”
At the end of our all-party group’s four-day tour of the occupied west bank, we arrived at the military court of Ofer. We were there to witness just how the Israeli military courts treated Palestinian children. The courtroom procedures were witnessed by our delegation in a tense and distressing atmosphere. There was a jangle of chains outside the door of the courtroom. All the visitors froze. Army officers led child detainees into the military courtroom. The children’s legs were shackled, they were handcuffed and they were all kitted out in brown jumpsuits. One had to wonder if the soldiers felt threatened by 13 and 14-year-old boys.
We waited in the basic concrete courtrooms, looking at the uniformed judge and prosecutors. Two parallel processes happened. The judge, the prosecuting team and the defence lawyer discussed the case in Hebrew, with an interpreter translating into Arabic. No witnesses were called and no testimony was challenged. The judge never once looked at the children or spoke to them. Some children only met their lawyers for the first time in the courtroom. Each child’s case lasted barely a few minutes. I think that I am correct in saying that there was no outcome reached in any case that we saw, although my colleagues will correct me if I am wrong. The cases were all continued. I do not know if that had anything to do with our presence, but that was the situation.
For all the children we saw that morning, the only thing that mattered was seeing their families, perhaps for the first time in months. They showed no faith in the proceedings, neither caring what the judge was saying nor expecting to be released. One child had to shout out to his parents the name of the prison inside Israel where he was being held. His parents had had no idea where he was being kept. Nearly all the children were there on stone-throwing offences. One was being tried on the basis of a confession from another minor, which was later withdrawn.
Lawyers advise children and their families to plead guilty, not because the children might be guilty, but because if they plead guilty, they might be released after three months, whereas if they plead innocent, they are likely to be detained for about a year, which for a child of that age is unthinkable. In 2006, acquittals were granted in just 0.26% of child cases, which shows a presumption of guilt, not innocence. All prosecuted children get a security record that prevents them from entering Israel or Jerusalem, which affects them, as do the other aspects of growing up under occupation.
For decades, our Government have said that Israel must adhere to international law, including the fourth Geneva convention, including by ending illegal settlements, home demolitions, collective punishments, the use of human shields and the theft of resources and artefacts. It also means addressing the treatment of Palestinian children in military courts and detention centres. Is it not time for the British Government to show that they are serious about their responsibilities to hold Israel and its leaders to account? Israel cannot remain above international law.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Much of the account that my hon. Friend is giving is first-hand and distressing. Although I know that we will hear more in her conclusion, will she also make the case that the process remains a two-way one? Israel should be held to account for its obligations under international law, but it is also important that the Palestinian Authority play their part in creating meaningful peace and security in the region.
Sandra Osborne
Of course that is true, but I point out that Defence for Children International is carrying out research on both juvenile court systems to assess their equity. The fact remains that the Israeli Government treat Palestinians and Israelis in two different ways, one involving military courts and the other civil courts, which cannot possibly be justified.
Guto Bebb
Is it not the case that that dual system recognises that the west bank, for example, is not an annexed part of Israel? There is an issue in terms of the legal systems and the Palestinian Authority being coupled with Israel. As those areas are not annexed, the legal system that Israel faces involves a different way of dealing with those children.
Sandra Osborne
The Palestinians have their own system for dealing with juvenile crime. I might add that we raised some issues about that with the Palestinian Prime Minister, who certainly acknowledged that there are problems with adult crime. The occupation has gone on for years, and the fact that Palestine is at least facing up to its difficulties and trying to improve the situation is laudable. However, it does not really matter what the legal system is. The system used by the Israelis breaks international law. That is completely unacceptable, and it is high time that something was done about it.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this enormously important debate. Further to the previous intervention, if I understood it correctly, it cannot be defensible to argue simply that because Israel is illegally occupying other territories, that justifies a dual and discriminatory legal system that contravenes international law and the human rights of Palestinians. Surely that is not what the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) was arguing, was it?
Sandra Osborne
I certainly hope not. I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend.
Will the Minister confirm that the Government accept that such treatment is a serious breach of the fourth Geneva convention, and that the Government should implore Israel to abide by its treaty obligations? Will he raise those issues personally with the Israeli Prime Minister on behalf of the UK Government? Has he made any effort to view the military courts? I know that he will visit the west bank shortly; will he consider seeing the situation for himself?
DCI has made the following recommendations based on its detailed research into the legal issues. The Israeli authorities should:
“Ensure that no child is interrogated in the absence of a lawyer of their choice and family member;
Ensure that all interrogations of children are video recorded;
Ensure that all evidence suspected of being obtained through ill-treatment or torture be rejected by the military courts;
Ensure that all credible allegations of ill-treatment and torture be thoroughly and impartially investigated”.
Those found responsible for such abuse should be brought to justice. Furthermore:
“No Palestinian child should be detained inside Israel in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention”.
Thank you, Mr Howarth, for the opportunity to have this debate. I hope that the Minister will take this serious matter on board.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on securing this important debate. I have been to the area many times and seen aspects of the occupation and its impact on the lives of Palestinians that I can only describe as Kafkaesque. Having been there so many times, I thought that the area had lost its capacity to shock me. I had read reports by Defence for Children International and other non-governmental organisations about the treatment of child prisoners in Israeli jails, and I had read United Nations reports about the use of detention, but as it is a part of the world in which facts are often the subject of dispute and counter-dispute, I thought that the chance to go to a military prison and court would be valuable, so I could see with my own eyes what happens.
When I saw the military court and what went on there, I knew that the area still had the capacity to shock me, with a vengeance. As my hon. Friend graphically described, when I saw children come into the room—it would be over-egging it to describe it as a courtroom in the way that most of us would understand the term—shuffling because their legs are shackled together, and with their hands in handcuffs, it hit me. It hit me even more to be told by an observer, a brave Israeli woman who monitors what goes on in such courtrooms week in, week out, that what we saw was better than normal. The children came in handcuffed with their hands in front of them, but all too often their hands are cuffed behind their backs.
It hit me when I saw the look on the face of a child who only wanted to see his mother, who had come to the court to see her child, probably for the first time since he was arrested in the middle of the night. There were two ranks of chairs in the spectators’ gallery, and we happened to be in the front row. There were not enough seats, and some parents sat in the row behind us. When some of my colleagues offered to give up their seats to the parents so they could be a bit closer to their children, they were told by the security guard that it was not allowed and that the Palestinian parents had to sit in the second rank. When one sees such things for oneself, one cannot ignore it and say, “Well, this is just something to do with the political situation there.” It is totally unacceptable.
Guto Bebb
The hon. Gentleman paints an extremely distressing picture. Having said that, it is important to point out that the hon. Lady told us that the vast majority of such children face charges of throwing stones, but is it not the case that much more serious accusations are made against many: for example, being involved in shootings, throwing Molotov cocktails or attacking military vehicles? Is it not the case that in a civilised society, putting somebody on trial for such behaviour is a reasonable response?
Richard Burden
I cannot envisage any situation in which a child, whatever they are alleged to have done, should be manacled, shackled and denied the right to see their parents. We cannot start discriminating against someone on the basis of the offence for which they are being tried. That does not excuse holding and treating children in ways that are contrary to the UN convention on the rights of the child and to the provisions of the Geneva convention. My views on the Israel-Palestine issue are well known—I do not claim to be impartial or always objective—but I would like to think that if I sat in a Palestinian court and saw an Israeli child being brought in shackled and manacled with their hands in front of them or behind their backs, I would not say, “Well, we have to remember that the Palestinians are actually living under occupation.” I hope that the hon. Gentleman would see that the same thing works the other way around. Whatever a child is alleged to have done, such treatment is unacceptable.
The hon. Gentleman is right that those teenagers are often charged with a range of offences, but the most common charge by far is for stone throwing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock said, DCI reported in 2009 that of the 192 cases in which it represented such children, 117 were for a charge of stone throwing, which is 61%. I do not want to go over the ground of whether the charges brought against those children are questionable—I think that many of my colleagues will speak about that in due course—but I want to say something about stone throwing and the context in which it happens.
Stone-throwing incidents frequently take place in areas close to Israeli settlements in the west bank, which are, as we have heard, illegal under international law. Palestinians living there, in a very literal sense, see those settlements as a concrete manifestation of occupation, a manifestation that is increasing in size and population. The presence and expansion of settlements and the dispossession or eviction of Palestinians to make way for them creates a tinderbox for violent confrontation. The settlements all too often bring Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied territory close to Palestinian population centres, and Israeli soldiers have sometimes shot children close to settlements and the separation barrier.
We have also seen a worrying rise in settler violence, according to UN monitors and human rights groups in the area. In 2010, there were on average 35 incidents of settler violence a month, an increase from 15 in 2006. As my hon. Friend said, we saw at first hand the evidence of some of those attacks near the town of Nablus and spoke directly with some of the Palestinian victims. Not all of the allegations stand up, but all the indications from the UN and others show that settler violence is a growing and real problem. It is a matter of concern in the context of this debate that more than 90% of cases of alleged settler violence that are investigated by the Israeli authorities are closed without any charges being filed. It is a very different picture for charges brought against Palestinians, particularly in the way in which Palestinian children are arrested, detained and sentenced.
As we have heard, there is a dual system of law based on nationality. Few Israeli settlers are charged with offences committed in the occupied west bank, but when they are, they are prosecuted in regular civilian courts within the state of Israel. Palestinians who are arrested, however, have to go to military courts and are held in military prison. That applies to children as well as adults. Palestinian children in the west bank go to military courts, but Israeli children go to civilian juvenile courts. What counts as a child in such cases depends on whether they are Palestinian or Israeli. The minimum age for criminal responsibility is the same for Israelis and Palestinians; in both cases, it is 12. However, the minimum age for a full custodial sentence in the Israeli civil system is 14, and in the Israeli military system it is 12. The age of majority for Israelis is 18, but for Palestinians it is 16. On the legal right to have a parent present during questioning, there is a partial right for Israeli children, but no such right for Palestinian children. It has to be said that in neither case is there a legal right to have a lawyer present. Is there audio-visual recording for interrogations? For Israeli children the answer is yes, but for Palestinian children it is no. The maximum period of detention before being brought before a judge is 48 hours for Israeli children, but 8 days for Palestinian children.
The maximum period of detention without access to a lawyer is 48 hours for an Israeli child, but for Palestinian children it is 90 days. The maximum period for detention without charge for an Israeli child is 40 days, for a Palestinian child it is 188 days. The maximum period of detention between being charged and the conclusion of a trial is 6 months for an Israeli child, but two years for a Palestinian child. Bail is denied in 20% of cases for Israeli children, but in 87.5% of cases for Palestinian children. Custodial sentences are imposed in 6.5% of cases for Israeli children, but in 83% of cases for Palestinian children. If that is not a form of apartheid in the legal system, I do not know how else to describe it. When victims of such apartheid are children, it become even more distasteful.
As chair of the all-party Britain-Palestine group, I do not claim to be impartial on the political situation in the west bank, but as I said to the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), I would like to think that if the boot was on the other foot I would take exactly the same view.
Mr Andrew Smith
My hon. Friend’s commitment in that area is widely recognised. I invite him to speculate on why Israel continues in that fashion, given that it does such enormous damage to its international reputation and to the case it makes for self-defence. Could it be that the culture of subservience that is being inculcated is calculated by the Israeli authorities to confer benefits that outweigh the damage to its international reputation, not least because of the pusillanimity of the international community when confronted with such blatant disregard for human rights and international law?
Richard Burden
My right hon. Friend makes a good point, and we can only speculate on that. To some extent, we have already heard the answer today. Somehow, rights that should be inviolable and indivisible are being qualified, largely because Israel feels under threat. They are being qualified in a way that I do not think Israel would accept for any other state in the world. If we are to reach a settlement in that part of the world, the need to recognise that people have rights, irrespective of whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, is fundamental. We should not say that mistreating children in court is bad and then say that we should remember why it happens. Mistreating children in court is wrong, and we should be big enough to say that without qualification.
Guto Bebb
The hon. Gentleman has stated that he is not impartial on the issue, which is a reasonable point for him to make. It is important to note that it is asked time and again why Israel behaves in that way. I do not believe for one second that Israel would behave in that way unless it was faced with an insurrection that put its citizens in danger, and that insurrection is unfortunately utilising young people in the Palestinian territories. Does he not condemn the use of young people by terrorist organisations in the Palestinian territories to attack Israeli citizens? Does he not condemn the use of young people in such an inappropriate behaviour?
Richard Burden
The hon. Gentleman again makes my point for me. I absolutely do condemn that, without qualification. However, will he condemn, without qualification, the treatment of children in Israeli prisons? I invite him to intervene on me again.
Guto Bebb
I do not think that that can be done without qualification, because the context is crucial. In this debate, we have heard various claims about stone throwing and so on, but nothing, for example, about the 54 young children who were arrested for throwing grenades. The context is important. We know that this country has also behaved inappropriately in terms of human rights when specific circumstances called for unacceptable behaviour; for example, in respect of court services in Northern Ireland. Sometimes things have to be put in context.
Richard Burden
I am afraid that I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s view that circumstances may call for unacceptable behaviour. If behaviour is unacceptable, it is unacceptable, and it is unacceptable in this case.
In conclusion, I again invite the Minister to agree with the delegation’s recommendations. We came back with some specific recommendations about what we should call on Israel to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock made these points, which bear brief repetition. First, no child should be interrogated in the absence of a lawyer of their choice or a family member. Secondly, all interrogation of children should be recorded audio-visually. That now applies to Israeli children but not to Palestinian children. Thirdly, we should call on Israel to ensure that all evidence suspected of being obtained through ill-treatment or torture is rejected by military courts. Fourthly, all credible allegations of ill-treatment and torture should be thoroughly and impartially investigated, and those responsible brought to justice. And, fifthly, no Palestinian child from the occupied territories should be detained outside the provisions of article 76 of the Geneva convention.
The UK has a particular responsibility in this situation. Not only is it a signatory to the fourth Geneva convention, it is a high contracting party to it. It is important that we do rather more than agree that such things are unacceptable; there is an obligation on us to do something about them. I hope that the Minister will give an indication not just of his views on these things—I have no doubt that he will share our abhorrence of some of the things that we saw, and that would be a good, important start, but it is important to say not just what we think about such things but what we are prepared to do about them.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, for the first time. I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on securing this important debate. As has already been indicated, I was one of four Members of Parliament from the all-party group on Palestine who visited the west bank only last week. I do not have any long-standing commitment to the Palestinian cause as such, but as a new MP, I felt that it behoved me to look at the situation with my own eyes, to make my own objective judgment on what I saw, and to share my evidence with the House.
Last Monday, I was in an Israeli military court in Ofer with my colleagues and the non-governmental organisation Defence for Children International, which was mentioned earlier. I received a briefing from the NGO’s solicitors but also had an opportunity, through an interpreter, to chat with some of the families of the children detainees. I would like to use this opportunity to record my thanks and those of the whole delegation for the excellent work that NGOs such as Defence for Children International perform. They do valuable work documenting what is actually happening, bearing witness and providing information that we in turn can bring to the attention of the Minister in the hope that some of the issues can be addressed.
The situation facing Palestinian child detainees—“Palestinian” is an important distinction to make—is serious in its own right, but as colleagues have said, it is also symptomatic of some of the other, interrelated issues in play in the occupied territories. The illegal settlements on the west bank and in East Jerusalem have already been mentioned; in many respects, they are becoming a kind of de facto annexation. Also mentioned were the seizure of water resources and Palestinian lands, which we also visited. We spoke with Palestinians, NGOs and various other organisations, including the United Nations.
The military court system plays an important part in those wider issues, and I want to concentrate my remarks on it and how it is applied to Palestinian children in detention. It is important to repeat something that has already been said: Israel’s actions represent serious breaches of the fourth Geneva convention, the UN convention against torture and the UN convention on the rights of the child.
Frankly, the experience last week of seeing the treatment of Palestinian child detainees was shocking. I am the father of a 13-year-old child, and the image of children of 12 and 13 in prison fatigues with leg irons and manacles being marched into court was appalling. I found it difficult to come to terms with it. Although that was the first time I had witnessed such violations, they are not recent. They have been happening consistently over the past 43 years of the military occupation.
Israel signed up to the UN convention on the rights of the child in 1991. Does the Minister agree with UNICEF, which only last month stated that Israel was in tangible breach of that convention? Will he not only ask but insist that Israel applies the convention to its conduct, not only in its own territories but in the occupied territories?
It seems that arrest and detention are used by the Israeli authorities as their default position. My hon. Friend referred to article 37(b) of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which states that the arrest, detention or imprisonment of children should be the last resort. However, for Palestinians, imprisonment without due process seems to be the measure of first resort. Under the convention, authorities should refrain from detaining juveniles who are undergoing trial, but Israel detains them in 87.5% of cases. Children are frequently taken into detention inside Israel, as, of course, are adults, but I want to concentrate on child detainees.
Israel has a clear obligation, and there is a clear violation of article 76 of the fourth Geneva convention. The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) asked whether there should be some dispensation because Israel is in dispute about whether occupied territories or some annexation is involved. This is occurring in occupied territory, and Israel has a clear obligation in international law under article 76. By removing adults and, indeed, children from the occupied territories to detention centres and prisons in Israel, it is in clear breach of its obligations, just as it is in breach by moving settlers into the occupied territories.
I would like to share some of the conversations that I had with the families. The standard operating procedure is as follows. Palestinian children are often arrested at checkpoints. They are not arrested in situ for throwing stones at the army—the arrests happen afterwards. Children may be taken off the street or, most commonly, from the family home. During house arrests, large numbers of Israeli soldiers typically surround the family home, often in the early hours of the morning, between 2 am and 4 am, and, once a child has been identified for arrest, he or she is often roughed up—slapped or kicked—then blindfolded, and their hands are tied behind their back with a plastic tie. The child would then be placed in the back of a military vehicle, often on the floor, and, again, they would suffer further physical and psychological abuse on the way to interrogation and detention centres.
On arrest, children and their families are seldom informed of the charges against them. Often, the evidence is confessions from other children, who have been asked to identify their friends who have been involved in stone-throwing. The evidence used is questionable. Families are not informed of where their children are taken; most often they are taken out of the west bank to detention centres or prisons in Israel. On arrival at the detention or interrogation centre, the child is either placed in a cell or taken straight for interrogation. I am told that common interrogation practices include slapping, kicking—
Grahame M. Morris
I am relating the evidence that was relayed to me. I did not see this with my own eyes. I had conversations with families of detainees and a reputable source, in so far as the NGOs that I spoke about—international lawyers—have documented these cases, and there is a common strand, in terms of the modus operandi and methods that are employed in both the arrest and interrogation of the children.
Guto Bebb
I am extremely grateful. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the MO—in other words, a pattern of behaviour. There has been a pattern of behaviour during this debate, because numerous references have been made to stone-throwing, but there has been no recognition of the fact that, for example, 217 Palestinian children were arrested between 2000 and 2009 for involvement in suicide bombings. Several references have also been made to torture; the International Committee of the Red Cross has never censured Israel for any torturous behaviour in its prisons.
Grahame M. Morris
I will come on to that in a moment, but I want to press on with what happens to the children before doing so. I am not mounting a defence of what they have done, but explaining what happens. I am certainly not defending violence or criminal acts. I am simply explaining, as the father of a teenage child, what happens, which is unacceptable and in clear breach of international obligations.
On arrival at the detention or interrogation centre, the child is either placed in a cell or taken straight for interrogation. Common interrogation practices include slapping and kicking, verbal abuse of and shouting at children, who are often threatened into confessing. Threats are made against the child’s family, including the threat of having their homes demolished or having travel documents withdrawn, which means that the family will no longer be able to work. In most cases the children confess to the allegations put to them within the first couple of hours. It is not uncommon for children to be given a confession written in Hebrew, on which their signatures are put. Hon. Members should remember that, often, these children do not understand Hebrew. Another disturbing aspect of these detentions and arrests is that the children are not visited by their families; they are not allowed visits. As has been mentioned, all bar one of the centres where the Palestinian children from the west bank are taken are inside Israel.
Israel, by wilfully depriving a protected person of their right to a fair and regular trial, is in grave breach of the fourth Geneva convention. I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to the legal duty, which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) mentioned, on all 194 high contracting parties to that convention, including the United Kingdom, to provide effective penal sanction for persons committing or ordering the commissioning of such grave breaches, and to search for and prosecute those responsible. Minister, children as young as 12 are regularly denied access to a lawyer and visits from their families.
In 2008, bail was denied in 91% of all cases involving Palestinian children. I saw evidence of that with my own eyes at first hand, having seen children who had been detained for three months without access to, or contact with, their parents or families.
The hon. Member for Aberconwy asked why there were no documented cases of complaints of torture. I asked the same question. Between 2001 and 2008, over 600 complaints were filed against Israeli Security Agency interrogators for alleged ill-treatment and torture. To date, there has not been a single criminal investigation—not one. There cannot be any prosecutions, because the Israeli authorities do not investigate complaints.
Palestinian children, including girls, have been held under administrative detention, which is detention without charge or trial, granted by administrative order rather than by judicial decree. There is also a broader denial of freedom. To put all the issues relating to detention in the context of the broader picture, Palestinian children have been denied freedom, live under military occupation and face inordinate obstacles. For example, they have to negotiate checkpoints just to get to school, to visit medical facilities and even to get to their homes.
A whole generation of Palestinian children are being denied their childhood, and not just on the west bank. I read an article in The Guardian recently about the Prime Minister having highlighted issues in Gaza, which he described as a “prison camp”. When will the Foreign Secretary call the Israel ambassador in and say that these persistent and systemic violations of international law are unacceptable and will have consequences for our relations? The Israeli Government have demanded that we change perfectly proper British legislation about the prosecution of war criminals, yet they continue to commit war crimes.
The Israelis pretend that they are adhering to their obligations under international conventions, and we in the west pretend that we believe they are adhering to these conventions. Now it is time for action to bring about justice and to relieve the suffering of Palestinian children and the Palestinian people in both Gaza and the west bank.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on securing such an important debate. I am amazed that Members of Parliament are seeking to justify Israel’s being allowed to contravene international law. I am disappointed, to say the least, that certain people believe that children can be tret in this way, because, regardless of colour or creed, children are children and we should be looking to protect them under international law.
Article 37(b) of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which has been mentioned by Opposition Members, states clearly:
“The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child…shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”.
That is not the case in Palestine or Israel. Children are taken to court, or to detention centres up and down the west bank and detained for long periods. Around 700 children are prosecuted a year, and 9,000 adult Palestinians have been prosecuted in military courts. Since 2000, around 6,500 Palestinian children have been detained. What I saw at in the military courts beggared belief. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), I am a parent, and I have children. The way children were tret in the military courts was absolutely savage, and cannot be justified. Kids as young as 12, and up to 16 were frightened out of their wits. They had not seen their parents since they were detained. They were snatched at the dead of night, bound, put in the back of an Israeli army truck, kicked and beaten, and taken to a detention centre with no parents, no lawyers and no one at all to protect them.
Most of the children—62%—were detained on stone-throwing charges, but even if every one of them were 100% guilty, no member of the public, let alone a Member of Parliament, should try to justify the treatment that they received.
Guto Bebb
Labour Members seem to treat Israel as a special case. In effect, they are saying that even if the children in question are guilty—the hon. Gentleman’s figures show that 38% were charged with issues unrelated to stone-throwing—Israel has no right to self-defence. If young people from the Palestinian territories are being used by terrorist organisations to attack the state of Israel, should the hon. Gentleman not condemn that, and be as keen to do so as he is to condemn the state of Israel?
Ian Lavery
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The simple answer is that even if children are 100% guilty, there is no justification whatever for treating them in the way they are being tret. I have seen that with my own eyes, but I will move on.
The people we are talking about are subject to all sorts of abuse, including sleep deprivation, beatings, slappings, denial of food and water, position abuse, exposure to extreme heat and cold, and denial of access to toilets and washing facilities. Some 81% of those children—81% of the Palestinian children detained—confessed during interrogation, and 32% of those confessions were, as my hon. Friends said, written in Hebrew, so how are they supposed to understand anything? It is a disgrace, and a deliberate attempt to intimidate Palestinian children in any way, shape or form.
How can that be in the best interests of children? If a child pleads guilty, they may be penalised for around three and a half months, and 81%—the vast majority—do plead guilty. They do so because if they plead not guilty it will probably be one or two months before their case is even heard in court, and the full duration of the process may take up to a year. It is common sense that if the penalty is three and a half months for pleading guilty as opposed to in excess of a year for pleading not guilty, they will plead guilty. Again, that is intimidation of the highest order. The problem following prosecution is that the children, and members of their families, have a security record, so they cannot enter Israel or parts of Jerusalem.
I shall touch briefly on some cases of mistreatment of children. The details come from the Defence for Children International. Palestinian children have been used as human shields and their lives have been put at risk. In August, a 13-year-old was reportedly used as a human shield near Nablus. In October, the Israeli military authorities opened an investigation into the use of a 16-year-old girl as a shield. In November, two Israeli soldiers who used a nine-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield received suspended sentences and were demoted after being convicted of “inappropriate conduct”. The unnamed soldiers ordered Majeh Rabah from the Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza city to check bags for explosives in January 2009 towards the end of the Israeli three-week offensive.
Will the Minister confirm that no one, let alone a nine-year-old child, should be used as a human shield? Does he agree that that is a disgrace, and a clear violation of international law? Has he made the strongest representations about the failure to hold those soldiers to account? We heard of disturbing new cases of tasers being used on children during interrogation. Will the Minister look into that as a matter of urgency?
Young people were threatened with electric shocks, and the threat alone convinced many of them to plead guilty to charges. But electric shocks are not just threatened; they are used in interrogation. We must remember that those children are on their own, have not seen their parents, and are not legally represented, yet they are blindfolded, with shackled arms and feet, and threatened with electric shocks. We heard reports from DCI that some children have had electrodes attached to their genitals with the threat of electric shocks. That is absolutely horrendous, and enough to break any reasonable person’s heart.
We heard of a child being held in solitary confinement for 65 days at Al Jalameh. In east Jerusalem there have been an increased number of cases of abuse of children following clashes near the illegal Israeli settlements at Silwan, which we visited only a few days ago. Some 380 settlers had moved into 18 homes in that overcrowded Palestinian district of 13,500 people, leading to the demolition of Palestinian homes. In 2010, more than 1,200 criminal cases had been opened against children from occupied east Jerusalem alleging involvement in stone-throwing incidents. The youngest boy to be mistreated was only seven years old.
[Mr Roger Gale in the Chair]
There are many other problems in Jerusalem. A case lasting two years involved an innocent child. In another case, eight Palestinian teenagers were held for two years on testimony from soldiers that was subsequently overturned. There have been serious breaches of the fourth Geneva convention, and of the UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the UN convention on the rights of the child, article 3 of which clearly states:
“In all actions concerning children…the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
That article is blatantly and openly violated. Those are not recent violations; they have happened consistently over 43 years of military occupation.
At some stage, we as politicians and members of the public must ask what we can do to ensure that Israel stops breaching and violating those articles, international laws and conventions. Over the past few days, UK representatives at the United Nations have agreed at committee level that such violations have taken place. Who are those representatives? What is their mandate? What are we doing about it? Is it for the UK Government to tell representatives on UN committees that action must be taken? We cannot continue to ignore such violations and the systematic abuse of children.
This is a cross-party matter; I am not here spoiling for a fight with the Government, and I hope that we can broadly agree that this matter is about children being abused at an international level. We have a duty as parents, fathers and decent people to protect children no matter what the circumstances, and regardless of their colour or creed, whether they are black or white, rich or poor, or which country they come from. I hope that the Minister will agree and explain to the House what we can do together in the simple name of moral humanity.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Gale, for the final two speeches of the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on securing this debate, and I pay tribute to her long-standing and consistent advocacy of human rights in general, and the Palestinian cause in particular, during her time in the House. The same applies to my other hon. Friends who have contributed to the debate.
Over the past hour, we have heard powerful and often shocking testimonies that demonstrate the importance to the work of the House of delegations such as that sent by the Britain-Palestine all-party group to the west bank last week. It is welcome to have such an immediate and early opportunity to address the situation viewed by those who visited last week.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
indicated assent.
Stephen Twigg
I see the Minister nodding—we have cross-party agreement on that.
This is my first opportunity to speak about the middle east since I joined the shadow Foreign Office team in October. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Foreign Secretary, visited Israel and the west bank last week, and met a range of Palestinian and Israeli leaders, including President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad. I would like to reaffirm the Labour party’s long-standing commitment to the middle east peace process and a solution based on the two states of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, and human rights at the heart of the process. Progress will require action by both sides, although in the context of this debate, particularly by Israel to end the expansion of settlements and the blockade of Gaza, as well as action by the Palestinians and other Arab states to fulfil their obligations under the principles of the Quartet.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock focused on the plight of Palestinian children and, although I am a friend of Israel, I condemn everything that we have heard about today. That should not be difficult for a friend of Israel to do. If we are serious about the peace process, those of us who have long been friends of Israel must be clear that we are also friends of the Palestinians. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) nodding; I know he believes that that can be achieved, provided that we stick with the absolute principles of human rights and democracy.
I deplore the methods that we have heard about in such detail today, primarily because they violate the universal principles of human rights, but also because they exacerbate tensions and undermine the prospects for peace. I pay tribute to the organisations mentioned during the debate and the brave NGOs that take up such causes. In particular, I mention Defence for Children International and the Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem, which does fantastic work in that field.
My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) mentioned night arrests, which are of particular concern especially if, as is alleged, they involve the use of physical violence. That cannot be right morally, but it must also worsen community tensions in what are already difficult and fragile circumstances. As a number of my hon. Friends have said, interrogation methods include the use of blindfolding and sleep deprivation to obtain confessions. Detainees are often presented with a confession written in Hebrew—a language that the vast majority of them do not understand. Several cases have been cited that suggest that people have signed confessions that they did not understand, which is not right or defensible. There is a lack of legal representation for detainees; many reports from international and Israeli human rights groups describe detainees not being permitted proper legal counsel throughout their interrogation. As we have heard, the majority of cases end in a confession.
Data from B’Tselem suggest that the number of detainees have been relatively constant over the recent period. At the end of October, just over a month ago, 251 minors were detained by Israeli security forces in the west bank, including east Jerusalem—my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock also cited that figure. That is of great concern, but I am particularly worried about those 34 detainees who are aged between 12 and 15, and the two aged between 16 and 18 who are being held under administrative detention.
Earlier, there was an exchange with the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who is no longer in his seat, about the application of human rights conventions in the occupied territories, and the security situation. I have two observations about that. First, even if Israel argues that obligations on human rights do not apply in the case of an occupied territory, international humanitarian law is clear and should be respected. I would urge Israel to apply the conventions on human rights as well. Secondly, as has been mentioned previously, according to the convention on the rights of the child—to which Israel is a welcome signatory—a child is defined as
“every human being under the age of 18 years.”
Nevertheless, we still have the inconsistencies and discriminatory practices to which reference has been made.
Mr Andrew Smith
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his inaugural speech on the middle east as a member of the shadow Foreign Office team. What additional measures does he believe the international community should take to pressurise Israel to conform with the conventions that he advocates?
Stephen Twigg
I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. It is crucial to have a consistent approach from the Government, the European Union and particularly from the United States Government—the one country to which Israel listens. The issues in question must be raised consistently, just as we would do with other countries around the world.
One specific point that relates tangentially to the debate about settlements is the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. Following her visit last week, she said that she will press for products that come from the settlements to be labelled as such, so that consumers who want to exercise consumer choice not to purchase settlement-produced goods can do so.
I am conscious of the time and I want to say a few things in conclusion. First, I pay tribute to the excellent work of a wide range of NGOs, some Palestinian, some Israeli and some international. Save the Children does very important work in the west bank. I was reading about an example of that yesterday. The post-trauma rehabilitation of Palestinian ex-detainee children programme reaches hundreds of children. It works with formerly detained children, most of whom undergo individual and group counselling sessions in addition to vocational training and assessment programmes. The post-trauma rehabilitation programme, for instance, offers opportunities for children who are often trapped in a cycle of conflict. That work is critical in addressing post-traumatic stress syndrome which, it is reported, many of the ex-detainee children experience following their ordeal.
I support a point made by one of my hon. Friends in relation to the reports of Israeli soldiers using a child as a human shield and the lenient sentences recently dealt to those soldiers. I say to Israel that we need to see a firmer stance being taken by the Israeli courts in such cases. Evidence documented by B’Tselem has shown that cases of human rights abuses such as those that we have heard about today are not isolated. Israel has a responsibility to end the culture of impunity. I argue strongly not only that that is right legally and morally, but that it is in Israel’s own best interests.
Of course, Palestinian human rights are violated not only by Israel. They are sometimes violated by the Palestinian Authority itself and by Hamas in Gaza. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) referred to that in his intervention. Human Rights Watch said earlier this year:
“The reports of torture by Palestinian security services keep rolling in. President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad are well aware of the situation. They need to reverse this rampant impunity and make sure that those responsible are prosecuted.”
A recent example is the case of 42-year-old Ahmed Salhab from Hebron—not a child; an adult. Ahmed was detained by the Palestinian Authority in the west bank in September. Following his release in October, Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into his treatment when it learned that he had sustained serious spinal injuries and suffered mental distress during his detention.
The excellent Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights publishes regular monthly reports that demonstrate human rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority in the west bank and by Hamas in Gaza. It is vital that we are consistent, so we must condemn these abuses across the board. Today’s focus, however, is on the human rights of children in the west bank. There are clearly broader human rights issues for which we must press all parties in the region take responsibility—examples are freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the media, and gender and sexuality issues—and of course there are many other countries where children’s rights are violated.
The debate is timely: it is being held during human rights week, and 10 December is world human rights day. I hope that today’s debate can contribute to increased public awareness and increase pressure on all parties to abide by international conventions and uphold human rights. In conclusion, I shall echo something that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield said: the UK has a special responsibility in this case. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this important debate. I strongly believe that a clear and consistent approach to human rights should always be at the centre of the UK’s foreign policy. I hope that the Minister will take every opportunity to press both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to uphold human rights in the west bank. I hope in particular, following what we have heard today, that he will raise the concerns that exist on both sides of the House about the treatment of Palestinian children in detention.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Chair, Mr Gale. I echo the congratulations to the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on initiating the debate. It is an object lesson in why MPs go to places—to see things at first hand and report back. A number of hon. Members mentioned that and I shall come to it later.
The human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories continues to cause concern and was high on the agenda of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs during his recent visit to Israel and the occupied territories. I hope to explain in the course of my remarks what action we are taking to raise these issues with the Israeli Government.
Before I do so, I welcome the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) to the Opposition Front Bench. It is a pleasure to see him in that position. I think that we understand each other very well and understand where we are coming from on a matter about which there is a large measure of cross-party agreement. That will be particularly useful as we work through the next few months, which will be important for the middle east peace process.
The other hon. Members who made contributions deserve to be mentioned. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) has a long-standing commitment to the region that we are discussing and spoke, as always, with both passion and knowledge. The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) made the case for an early visit by new Members of Parliament to areas of concern that have, alas, occupied the time of the House for all the years that I have been here. He spoke movingly of his own experiences. I do not necessarily support all the allegations with which he concluded his remarks, but plainly he will make a number of serious contributions on this issue in the future.
The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) spoke with understandable emotion about what he had observed. He was right to raise the issues relating to human shields, which are unacceptable. It is as unacceptable for Israeli soldiers to use them as it is for members of Hamas to use them when they position their gun emplacements and their weapons against Israel in crowded civilian areas because they know exactly what the response of the world community will be if Israel seeks to take action against them. Both are wrong, and it is correct of the Israeli authorities to recognise that and make the determination that they do, although there has been widespread concern about the punishment meted out when these injustices were overturned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who has not been able to stay for the conclusion of the debate, made a series of interventions that, while never condoning ill treatment, reminded us, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby also did, that this is far from a straightforward situation. We would be naive not to recognise some of the pressures placed on children by those who seek to use them for ulterior motives. My hon. Friend was right to raise that. His remarks and those of other hon. Members emphasised again the sharp divisions on Israel and related issues in the House. The answer to that, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby made clear, is that we have to get a solution and we have to support the middle east peace process that is under way.
The only thing that will end what we have spent so much of our time discussing over the years is a settlement that is agreed on both sides. I believe that that would be very much according to the terms that the hon. Gentleman set out. It has to be a two-state solution—a secure and recognised Israel side by side with a viable Palestine; Jerusalem as a shared capital; and answers to the issues relating to refugees and resources. We are looking for that, and we urge all parties involved in negotiations to stay at it. Ultimately, it is only the removal of the sense of injustice, which lingers because there has not been a solution, that will deal with the root issues, many of which are at the heart of what we have debated today.
The hon. Gentleman, in his measured remarks, also raised issues on the Palestinian side in relation to human rights. For completeness, I should like to mention them as well. Hon. Members should be under no illusion: I shall devote the bulk of my remarks to the issues raised by the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock and her report. However, for the sake of completeness, it is important to place these points on the record as well. The UK Government have very serious concerns about the human rights record of Hamas in Gaza. That includes arbitrary detention, repression of dissent, curtailment of free speech and the suppression of women’s rights, as well as the ongoing threat to Israel’s civilian population from indiscriminate rocket fire and the continued detention of Gilad Shalit without access to the Red Cross or contact with his family.
We continue to raise our concerns with the Palestinian Authority over allegations of the ill treatment of detainees by Palestinian security services. These rights are indivisible, and although, quite properly, we are spending the bulk of our time dealing with the matters raised by the hon. Lady, it is right to recognise that, as a Government and as a Parliament, our commitment to human rights is across the board.
Turning to the subject of the debate, it is important to set the issue of human rights in the west bank in context. As I mentioned, there is no doubt about the universality of human rights principles, but it important to recognise that Israel has real security concerns that need to be addressed. Following the second intifada of 2000, the number of terrorist attacks against civilian targets in Israel rose to unprecedented levels. Israel’s response increased accordingly: many arrests were made, thousands were remanded in administrative detention, movement and access in the west bank were severely restricted and construction of the barrier began. Israel has a right to impose security restrictions to protect its population. There is an argument that the barrier, for example, might be a reasonable way of doing so. However, restricting access to schools and work does nothing to improve the security situation. The barrier should be constructed on the Israeli side of the green line, and should not confiscate Palestinian land. Some of these measures may have helped to improve the security situation.
It is important to acknowledge the role played by the Palestinian Authority, with help from the international community, including the British support team and its work with General Dayton, to improve the overall security situation. Reform of the Palestinian security sector has gone a long way towards halting the ability of armed groups to act from the west bank. We welcome Israel’s corresponding improvements to movement and access in the west bank and the growth of the Palestinian economy, as seen by a successful investment conference a few months ago.
The number of Palestinians held in Israeli detention, including administrative detainees, has fallen, but all that contrasts with the human rights situation. More can be done to match the improved security situation, otherwise Israel risks undermining its own interests and increasingly drawing the attention of the spotlight of international concern. Perhaps this debate, at its simplest, suggests that Israel might protect itself differently in relation to children and to rather greater effect.
We continue to monitor the human rights situation in the west bank, including the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Where we have concerns, we raise them with the Israeli Government. We would encourage Israel to take those concerns seriously; too often we do not receive formal responses to our lobbying. When we do, the responses often fail to address our concerns in detail, pointing to the prevailing security situation—for example, demonstrations in the west bank that turn violent—and stressing that Israel strives to follow due process. We understand, but we still want answers.
On the specific issue of Palestinians in the Israeli court system, we have a number of concerns about the application of due process and the treatment of Palestinian detainees, in particular where Palestinian children are involved. Many of those concerns relate to the issues raised by the hon. Lady and Members who accompanied her on her recent visit. We are concerned about the widespread use of administrative detention which, according to international law, should be used only in the most exceptional security cases rather than as routine practice. Administrative detention should be used as a last-ditch preventive measure, not as a punitive measure and an alternative to due process.
We are concerned that Palestinian detainees are dealt with by the Israeli military court system, irrespective of the charges, whereas Israeli settlers who commit violence against Palestinians and their land are dealt with by Israel’s civil justice system. Cases heard before the military court system are frequently based on secret evidence not made available to detainees and their lawyers. As we have heard, many convictions are based on confessions, either from the defendants themselves seeking a shorter sentence under plea bargaining or from the evidence of minors facing detention. Access to lawyers is often restricted, with many lawyers unable to meet their clients until they see them in the courtroom. All prisoners should have access to a fair trial.
Palestinians from the west bank are routinely detained in prisons inside Israel or on the Israeli side of the separation barrier, meaning limited, if any, access for family members. The policy of holding Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israel contravenes the Geneva convention’s ban on the forcible transfer and deportation of protected civilians from the occupied territory to the territory of an occupying power. Although the Geneva convention allows the evacuation of populations in circumstances where the safety of the population is under immediate threat, or for imperative military considerations, the evacuation should, if possible, be to a different location in the occupied territory and be temporary until the danger subsides or the military operation ends. We call on Israel to hold court proceedings and use prison facilities for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories and with reasonable access for lawyers and family members.
Those concerns apply to child detainees as much as they do to Palestinian adults. Under international law and Israeli civilian law, a child is recognised as anyone under the age of 18. Under Israeli military law however, it is under 16. The figures that we have show that since September 2000, over 2,500 children have been arrested. At least 256 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, including 34 children under the age of 16. As is the case with adult prisoners, child detainees are often transferred to prisons located within Israel, and Palestinian child administrative detainees are held with adult administrative detainees. In most cases, their families are not informed of their arrest. We welcomed Israel’s announcement of a new juvenile court within its military judicial system. It is important that Israel has acknowledged that child detainees need to be treated differently from adults, and perhaps the consistent and persistent work of NGOs and parliamentarians is having some impact. We believe that it is even more important that that announcement now translates into changes on the ground in the treatment of minors.
We are aware of the recent reports by the Palestinian section of Defence for Children International documenting alleged abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli security forces. The Israeli human rights NGO, B’Tselem, has just produced a report detailing its investigations into the arrests of at least 81 minors in the Silwan area of occupied East Jerusalem over the past year. The Government pay tribute to those NGOs with whom we work in close co-operation on many issues. B’Tselem’s concerns include arresting children at night from their home; preventing parents from being present at interrogations; allegations of violent treatment; and the detention of four minors under the age of 12—many of the issues raised by hon. Members this morning. We are urgently investigating and will take whatever action we judge to be appropriate.
I am sure hon. Members will be pleased to hear that the middle east and north Africa conflict prevention pool has recently approved funding of £12,500 for a project run by Defence for Children International. That project aims to defend, promote and protect the rights of Palestinian children to reduce the number directly and indirectly affected by the conflict through focused themed advocacy initiatives, in accordance with the convention on the rights of the child.
Over the years, the House has resolutely defended Israel, and Israel’s right to security, and sought to understand the pressures on it. I began by putting that in context in relation to the issues raised today. That support will continue from this Government and, I have no doubt, from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby and his colleagues. However, Israel needs to recognise, rather more often than it does, that criticism of its activities from friends—like the hon. Gentleman, I count myself as a long-standing friend of Israel—based on observation and evidence is designed to assist Israel with security and world opinion, which has slipped alarmingly over the years.
Sandra Osborne
Before the Minister concludes, will he undertake to raise these matters personally with the Israeli Prime Minister? Will the Minister take the time to visit the juvenile military court to see for himself the injustice of the situation?
Alistair Burt
I will come on to both those points at the end of my remarks, if I may. The hon. Lady is right to raise them.
We are neither naive nor blind to the tactics of those who would cause Israel harm, but not all questioning of Israel comes from ill-intentioned motives. The treatment of children within the power of a state, whatever provocations there may have been, is an objective issue on which judgments can be made and upon which international signatures are given. I believe that the Government, in being a friend of Israel, a friend of Palestine, a friend of the middle east, and a friend of justice is doing so by asking Israel to examine its practices further and make the same progress as is evident in other parts of its activity on the west bank.
I will fully consider the specific recommendations that the hon. Lady mentioned and which her all-party group made. We are urging the Israeli authorities to respond to the matters raised, and after my visit, which I hope will take place early next year, and once I have considered all the responses and recommendations, I will write to the hon. Lady, those who took part in the visit and those who have spoken in the debate.
Rail Services (Erewash)
(14 years ago)
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Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership and chairmanship, Mr Gale. I am grateful for this opportunity to raise in Parliament the important issue of train station provision and rail travel in my constituency. The debate will focus particularly on the need to reopen a train station in the Ilkeston area. There is a proud history in Erewash of working on the railways. For generations, many engineers, construction workers and drivers have serviced the rail lines in the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire area. Indeed, my late grandfather, who lived nearby in Nottingham, spent his entire working life as an engineer and fitter on the steam trains. In his later years, he was one of the few remaining experts on steam trains, and was able to offer advice on them well into his 90s.
There is a well-utilised train station service in Erewash. The station at Long Eaton provides regular local and national train services; indeed, the fast train to London now takes only one and a half hours. However, Long Eaton station is right in the south of the constituency, and there is a gap in provision in the north. Ilkeston is one of the largest towns in the UK without a train station. There used to be three stations in Ilkeston, but there has been no provision since Ilkeston Junction station closed in January 1967 as a result of the Dr Beeching report. The stations in Erewash were part of the Erewash valley line running from Trent junction up to Clay Cross and Chesterfield.
Any new station would in all likelihood have to attract the support of a train company running services north to Sheffield, which would also stop at Ilkeston. At the appropriate time, I will gladly make any necessary representations to train companies to highlight the benefits of stopping at Ilkeston. There is a gap in the provision of local services, and I seek progress from all the relevant authorities in making this much-needed service a reality.
Although I have been a supporter of this cause for the past three years, a campaign to reopen a train station in Ilkeston was up and running long before I was elected as the area’s MP earlier this year. Indeed, local residents need to take credit for their persistence over the years. There is a hugely popular Facebook campaign, which lists many supporters. This year, the local newspaper, the Ilkeston Advertiser, also launched an excellent campaign backing the reopening of the train station, and supporters can write to the paper to express their support.
Although additional train services would in themselves assist in Erewash, the benefits to Ilkeston of a reopened train station go well beyond rail provision. Ilkeston town centre and market need as much support as possible to bring in shoppers and visitors. We have suffered the loss of a number of shops in the town in recent years, and the ability to draw people back to the area would be a real help.
From a social and economic point of view, the recent recession has had a disproportionate effect on Erewash. Residents experience relative geographical isolation from work opportunities, and that is compounded by significantly lower car ownership levels than elsewhere. Bus services are also a little limited. The decline in the manufacturing sector over the past 10 years and factory closures are also part of the background.
A recent report produced by Experian and commissioned by the BBC provides further evidence to demonstrate that Erewash is perhaps more vulnerable than other areas to economic pressures. Out of the 324 boroughs considered, Erewash was down at No. 251, although such statistics are a reflection not on the spirit and enthusiasm of the people of Erewash, but on the history of the local economy and, therefore, its ability to withstand an economic downturn.
I turn now to the unemployment figures for September 2010. Erewash borough has the highest rates of unemployment of the districts in Derbyshire. We need support and investment in our area. A train station would be just one element in bringing about that investment, but it would be a successful element and one from which the whole community would benefit.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
I hope that my hon. Friend recognises, as I do, that a train station linking Ilkeston to Nottingham would not only relieve the congestion on the A610, but bring employment opportunities, allowing people from former coalfields in Erewash—there are similar areas in my constituency—to access employment in the city of Nottingham.
Jessica Lee
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I agree. The possibility of enjoying the benefits of employment and the ability to travel to work would be much improved. As my hon. Friend suggested, that would revitalise the whole of the east midlands up to Sherwood.
Any proposal for a train station would be backed by the local business community in Erewash. Our excellent local business group, the Erewash Partnership, certainly supports the campaign. I had better declare now that the local MP is always asked to sit on the partnership’s board, and it is a real privilege and honour to do that. The partnership would assist wherever needed to help the plan come to fruition.
Turning to the approach taken by the coalition Government, I have been encouraged by the observations made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his Budget speech in June, and by the Secretary of State for Transport, on the importance of rail travel. In his recent statement of 25 November, the Secretary of State set out the Government’s plans for investment in rail infrastructure and rolling stock.
I have undertaken meetings in recent weeks and months with the borough councils and the county council in Derbyshire. I have written to the leader of Derbyshire county council, and I am encouraged by the reply that I have received. That letter, from Councillor Andrew Lewer, dated 25 November, confirms that the station proposal, the estimated cost of which is £5 million to £6 million, is one of the major transport infrastructure proposals in the local transport plan, and that it is deliverable within the time scale of the current Parliament. Further, he accepts that the plan offers good value for money.
I am further encouraged by the fact that, following my letter, the leader of the council accepts that serious discussions will take place next year and, importantly, that a bid for funding from the regional growth fund will be made in January 2011. Of course, I support that bid, which will be made through the newly formed local enterprise partnership. That is good news, and I am grateful that the county council is making the application in the short period before the January deadline.
Having addressed the social and economic case for a station in Ilkeston and put it in its historical setting, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will agree that there is a powerful case for a station to be reopened in Erewash, particularly in the Ilkeston area. I will do all I can to support any proposals to make this project a reality.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
I congratulate my neighbour and hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I praise her long-standing commitment to this cause. As she knows, some of her constituents are likely to use Langley Mill station in my constituency. Will she join me in calling on East Midlands Trains to sort out access to the platforms there at long last? Southbound passengers arriving at Langley Mill have to go down a steep and slippery flight of steps. There is also no disabled access, and the only option for disabled people is to get a train into Nottingham and back out again so that they can use the other platform. There have been many promises over the years that the situation will be sorted out. Most recently, we were promised some sort of chairlift, and it would help rail passengers in both our constituencies if progress could be made on that.
Jessica Lee
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a good point. Of course, there must be suitable disabled access at Langley Mill. I would similarly campaign for such access at any new station at Ilkeston, although I am sure that there would be appropriate access for those who are less able. With those remarks, I will conclude.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gale. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) on securing the debate. She is clearly an able advocate for her constituents. She set out with great clarity the benefits that a new station at Ilkeston or in the Ilkeston area could bring them. She has made an attractive case for taking the project forward.
I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s view of the proposal. As we have heard from my hon. Friend this afternoon, the provision of a new station has the full support of Derbyshire county council; I understand that Nottinghamshire is also very supportive. My hon. Friend also outlined strong support in the local area, among the population and the business community. That is pivotal; the benefits of the proposed new station would accrue almost exclusively to a localised area. In such cases, the Government look for strong local support if progress is to be made. It is for local authorities rather than Whitehall to determine whether a new station is the best way to meet the transport needs of the community.
I am encouraged to learn that Derbyshire county council has taken a very active role in taking this scheme forward, alongside my hon. Friend. The county council has engaged well with Network Rail and with Northern Rail, the local train operator. My understanding is that in 2009 Derbyshire commissioned a feasibility study, building on work on the proposal that was carried out in 1999 and 2000. That study concluded that a new station would be deliverable in practical terms and indicated that the project had the potential to yield good value for money. The study indicated that income from generated travel—passengers using the station who previously would not have travelled by train—could more than cover the on-going costs of running the station.
The study is significant. The pressing need to address the deficit that we inherited from our Labour predecessors means that we have to take more care than ever to safeguard taxpayers’ money and keep spending under control. It is therefore very difficult for local rail schemes to get the green light if it is expected that they will require an additional ongoing subsidy from the taxpayer. While the studies that have been carried out do not provide us yet with a definitive answer on value for money or commercial viability, they give us some credible evidence that calls at a new station could be deliverable without an additional subsidy.
Assuming that that issue is potentially resolvable, there are three further questions that it would be useful for us to consider this afternoon. First, how could the capital costs of building a new station be funded? Secondly, is it possible to accommodate calls at the new station within existing schedules? Thirdly, will the existing and future franchisee be prepared to call at a new station?
As to the first question, it is for Derbyshire county council as the promoter of the new station to identify funding for the capital costs of building it. It would be open to the county council to prioritise the project for support from the integrated transport block. However the crisis in the public finances means that all councils face difficult choices on how they use limited capital budgets. ITB budget cuts certainly make it more difficult for that funding stream to provide the answer in this case. However, the Government have announced two new sources of money, which could be relevant to the project, and which are well worth considering.
As my hon. Friend has mentioned, one of those sources is the regional growth fund, which is expected to be worth £1.4 billion over three years and is now open for its first round of bids. I am pleased to hear that Derbyshire has been quick off the mark, and expects to be able to put in a bid soon. The fund is designed to stimulate enterprise, encourage growth and create jobs in the private sector. It can be used for investment in transport, because tackling congestion and improving connections between cities and towns to link people to job opportunities can maximise agglomeration benefits; those can be two of the best ways to boost economic growth. I was interested to hear what my hon. Friend had to say about the difficult economic climate for her constituents. No doubt those factors will be relevant in the consideration of the bid for funding from the regional growth fund. I also take on the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) and for Erewash about the economic benefit that a new station could generate in the local area.
If an RGF bid is to have a realistic chance of success, the supporters of the scheme, such as the county council, are important. My hon. Friend has worked with private sector partners in the business community; I am delighted to hear that that is what is happening. It is good to hear of support from the Erewash Partnership and others in the business community there. I understand that a local enterprise partnership is being set up in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. No doubt its involvement in the project will be very useful in helping to identify private sector support and, potentially, contributions.
A second potential source of support for such a project is the local sustainable transport fund. The coalition has established that fund to deliver local transport projects that stimulate growth and reduce carbon emissions. We expect the fund to contain £530 million over the CSR period—so it is a substantial amount of money—and we will provide more details shortly on how it will operate and how local authorities may be able to bid for and get access to the funding. That funding stream may be relevant and worth considering in this case. Thus there are various options, which the county council and the others who support the scheme may want to explore. I emphasise that my officials are happy to discuss those possibilities further with the county council and the promoters of the scheme.
I now move on to my second question—whether a stop at Ilkeston can practically be accommodated within the existing service pattern. Two regular passenger services pass through the proposed site: the Liverpool-Norwich service run by East Midlands Trains and the Leeds-Nottingham service run by Northern Rail. Following early discussions with the train operators, I understand that the county council concluded that stopping the Leeds-Nottingham service would be the more feasible of the alternatives, although that would not necessarily preclude other services from calling in the future, if it proved to be commercially viable.
The good news is that Network Rail is funded to re-signal the Erewash Valley line and the western approaches to Nottingham station. The work is due to finish by 2013. I am advised that that upgrade could potentially create the additional time in the schedule needed to enable services to call at a new station at Ilkeston. However, services would have to be fairly tightly timed, and that would put some additional pressure on the timetable. It is important to consider the effect of that pressure on reliability and the overall impact of a new station on longer distance passengers. The market for travel between Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds is growing. There is strong support among local authorities for journey time reductions between Leeds and Nottingham. Making a call at an additional station would run counter to that ambition. Journey times would be about three minutes slower than otherwise.
In essence, as is so often the case with the configuring of rail services, there is a balance to be struck between the local interests of my hon. Friend’s constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, and the economic benefits that could accrue across a wider area with shorter long-distance journey times. Careful thought would need to go into getting that balance right. However, the evidence that I have seen does not lead me to conclude that the issue would give rise to an insurmountable barrier to the project going ahead: so that is not a show-stopper either.
Mr Spencer
It is worth putting on record our thanks to the Minister’s Department for the amount of money that is being spent not only in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire but in the whole of the east midlands. That will, I hope, push forward the east midlands, generate more jobs and drive us out of the disastrous economic position that the Government found when they came to power. Does my hon. Friend recognise how important it is to make transport links—not just new train stations like the one that is wanted at Ilkeston but links to cycle routes and other public transport hubs—so that people can get from their place of residence to their employment, to generate their own income and drive the economy forward?
Mrs Villiers
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. A striking aspect of the comprehensive spending review was the Chancellor’s commitment to continued investment in our transport infrastructure. Past spending squeezes often meant that the axe was taken to a whole range of transport upgrade projects. We have decided not to do that, because those projects can play an important role in generating the growth we need to get out of the economic mess left by the previous Government. Integrating different modes of transport can, of course, yield important benefits for passengers and, similarly, valuable economic benefits, if people have better access to different modes of transport and we try to co-ordinate them.
Nigel Mills
I concur with the Minister’s assessment. The Liverpool-to-Norwich train was taken off from stopping at Langley Mill, and was effectively replaced by the Leeds-to-Nottingham service, which stops twice in my constituency, at Alfreton and Langley Mill. That service has proved very popular, according to the number of people I have seen on that train when I have used it.
I would strongly oppose any timetable changes that removed that service from stopping at either of those two stations in my constituency. This proposal should be an incremental addition to that service, not a replacement. There have been rumours of a threat to Langley Mill station if Ilkeston were reopened. I would urge the Minister not to go down that route.
Mrs Villiers
I am not aware of any intended subtractions of services. As my hon. Friend says, we are discussing today whether it is realistic and practical to add a service and a station at Ilkeston, but he makes a good point.
The third of the questions that I posed at the start of my speech was whether commercial incentives alone would motivate train operators to call at a new station at Ilkeston. That is another important issue that we need to address. Before going ahead, the Department would expect the county council to confirm with Northern Rail whether it would be prepared to stop at a new station. However, its franchise is coming to an end relatively shortly, and it is not easy to predict what approach a future franchisee might take. Although the studies undertaken for the county council indicate that revenue from the station calls would outweigh the costs of its operation, train operators might take a different view of the impact of journey-time changes on longer distance passenger numbers, and hence on ticket revenues.
The Department for Transport is certainly prepared to consider whether it would be justifiable and appropriate to include obligations in relation to the new station in the future franchise contract. As the House will be aware, the Government have been assessing how to reform the franchising process, and we made a further announcement on that today. We want to see a move away from the specification of highly detailed inputs that leave little flexibility for train operators to innovate and respond to the changing needs of passengers. That said, franchise contracts under the new system will continue to contain obligations on service levels. We could consider whether that should include obligations in relation to a new station at Ilkeston.
The issues raised by the third question that I posed look as if they also could be resolvable. However, I would emphasise the word “resolvable”, not “resolved”. It is important to ensure that the commercial case for the station is rigorously assessed, so that the Department, the county council and train operators can be as confident as we can that the new services would be commercially viable. That is pivotal. Without that confidence, it is difficult to see how the project can get off the ground.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash for the opportunity to give an indication of the Government’s approach. In conclusion, it is clear that the coalition will face difficult decisions if we are to address the crisis in the public finances that we have inherited and get our economy back on track.
Jessica Lee
I am very encouraged by the Minister’s response, in particular the view that, although there are hurdles and complexities to this project, all have the potential to be resolved. That encouragement will be received well in Erewash.
Mrs Villiers
I am grateful. In these difficult times, there will be issues to resolve about whether funding can be secured, but this is a worthwhile project, and I and my officials at the Department of Transport are happy to continue to work with my hon. Friend and Derbyshire council to see if there is a way forward. The crisis in the public finances puts significant constraints on the funding available but, as I said earlier, the Chancellor has clearly accepted that transport infrastructure projects can often yield high value for money for taxpayers. They can provide economic benefits many times their cost. That is why rail has emerged from the spending review in a far stronger position than most people expected, albeit with some necessary tough decisions on fares. We have broken the recurrent pattern of spending squeezes of years past, which was to take the axe to a wide range of capital infrastructure projects, with rail and roads often the first to suffer.
While proposals for a new station at Ilkeston need to be taken forward locally—rather than through the national rail budget—a number of funding streams might be a source of support, as we have been able to consider this afternoon. Along with my hon. Friends the Members for Erewash and for Sherwood, and others who have taken part today, I feel that this is a worthwhile project. My officials at the Department for Transport remain happy to work with the county council to see if a way can be found to take it forward. I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash for giving the House the opportunity to consider this important issue for her constituents and others in the area.
Social Housing (Nottingham)
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Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate. I want to speak on behalf of the Meadows community in my constituency, and to explain to the Minister the real dismay that many local people feel about the news that the housing private finance initiative scheme to transform their neighbourhood will not now go ahead.
The Meadows has enormous potential. It lies just south of the city centre and is close to the railway station, which is undergoing a major redevelopment as part of the Nottingham hub. Two new tramlines that have just been given the green light will pass through the Meadows. The area is bordered by main roads linking it to the city’s ring road and key routes in and out of the city, so it has excellent transport links.
The Meadows sits on a bend in the River Trent. The Victoria embankment is a beautiful green space alongside the river, with an avenue of mature trees, the city’s war memorial, formal gardens, bandstands, sports pitches and a children’s play area. The Meadows has three excellent primary schools, a well-used library and a wealth of active community organisations, including the Arkwright Meadows community gardens, three tenants and residents groups, and the Meadows Partnership Trust, which provides advice and support on a wide range of issues, including training and employment opportunities.
The Meadows also suffers from serious deprivation, a poor reputation, crime and the fear of crime, and high unemployment. That is not to talk the area down—as I said, the Meadows has much to be proud of—but serious problems need to be tackled. According to the Office for National Statistics, all four of the super output areas that cover the New Meadows area are in the 20% most deprived nationally, and two are in the 10% most deprived. There are particularly high levels of deprivation in relation to crime, with higher than average levels of drug-related crime, and in relation to health, with just over a fifth of the population facing limiting long-term illness or disability, and with high levels of chronic heart disease. Many residents have no qualifications and low skills, and therefore have a reduced readiness for paid work and higher than average unemployment.
The Meadows is home to a diverse population of around 9,000 people living in 4,500 households. Housing in the Old Meadows is predominantly Victorian or Edwardian terraces. Although primarily owner-occupied, there are many privately-rented properties, including houses in multiple occupation, and considerable levels of disrepair.
The New Meadows has predominantly social housing, with most of the properties built in a Radburn-style layout, following slum clearance in the 1970s. That layout causes particular problems. Gardens back onto public spaces, making them vulnerable to burglary; there are many enclosed spaces, such as alleyways and tunnels, that feel unsafe; and the separation of pedestrians and car users makes it difficult for people to find their way around. Particularly unsuitable and unpopular are the Q blocks—two and three-bedroom family-sized properties accessed via stairwells and walkways. They are vulnerable to antisocial behaviour, which leaves residents worried about crime and personal security. They certainly are not places where one would choose to bring up one’s family.
There is an over-supply of flats and maisonettes. Many of the sheltered schemes are unsuitable, as they have small, first-floor flats with narrow staircases that mean that it is impossible to make them accessible. Overall, there is a need for significant investment to bring these homes up to decent standards and to ensure that they are secure, warm and modern.
More than three years ago, the city council’s regeneration team began working with local people and community groups to devise a neighbourhood plan to identify the problems facing the Meadows and come up with a shared vision of what was needed. More than 30 community events took place, and about 500 people participated in the process, including children, young people and local businesses. The neighbourhood plan provided a framework to make the Meadows a more sustainable community, with better access, greater housing choice and improved community assets; it would be more of a low-carbon neighbourhood, with less worklessness, lower crime, and reduced antisocial behaviour.
The housing PFI proposals were a vital part of the shared vision that emerged, and 90% of residents supported the remodelling proposals. As a result, the Labour Government gave the proposals a PFI credit of up to £200 million, subject to a satisfactory outline business case. The PFI housing contract would have transformed the area by demolishing unsuitable and unpopular properties; building new council homes—predominantly two to five-bedroom houses—to meet existing and future need; building 100 ExtraCare properties for elderly tenants; remodelling many properties to improve the layout and living environment; turning properties around to face the street; converting some flats to houses; removing enclosed spaces and alleyways; and improving and refurbishing existing council homes to meet modern standards.
A complementary development agreement for non-PFI housing would have delivered new homes for outright sale, and new homes for shared ownership that would have provided a foothold on the property ladder for people with limited financial means. Alongside those plans to improve the housing stock, the city council was securing a separate development agreement to create a new district centre to provide new commercial, retail and community facilities. That would have supported the area’s needs, and increased the attractiveness of the Meadows to potential residents and developers.
Together, those changes would have transformed the estate. Better housing would have meant that families would choose to live and work in the Meadows and be able to move to a larger or smaller home, with a choice of renting or buying as their needs and circumstances changed. That would have helped to create a more sustainable and balanced community, and residents would have had a real long-term interest in its future. The ExtraCare scheme would have offered high-quality sheltered accommodation for elderly people, with homes for life for local residents. It would have contributed to reducing health inequalities, and it would have created new employment in the area, including positions for carers.
The improved layout of the estate, with “Secured by Design” housing, would have made the Meadows more welcoming for visitors and residents, made the area feel safer and reduced the opportunities for crime and antisocial behaviour. It would have encouraged more people from across the city to visit the Victoria embankment and the green-flag Queen’s Walk park for leisure activities, further enhancing the Meadows’ reputation.
The new housing would have been designed and built to high environmental standards, helping the area to move nearer its aim of becoming a low-carbon community, using alternative energy sources and tackling fuel poverty. Of course, many new training and job opportunities would have been created in the heart of the community, particularly in construction and retail.
The Government's decision to remove funding for the Meadows PFI project means that a unique opportunity to transform the area will have been lost. That short-sighted decision will place a heavy burden on other publicly funded bodies, which will have to pay the price of poor educational attainment, high unemployment, benefit dependency, crime, antisocial behaviour, poor housing and fuel poverty.
Unfortunately, things will not just stand still; they could get worse. The 1,300 social homes that would have been refurbished under the PFI scheme now need funding from the already overstretched decent homes budget. An extra £10 million will be required to bring those properties up to standard. It is no wonder that Meadows residents are dismayed. While people in other parts of the city were getting their new doors and windows, boilers and insulation, kitchens and bathrooms, Meadows residents waited patiently for the opportunity to have something even better. They now know that even a secure, warm home may be out of reach.
What other options are open to residents of the Meadows to tackle these problems? The so-called big society offers no answers. The Meadows already has a thriving network of volunteers and community activists, but every voluntary sector group knows that its funding is under threat from the budget cuts.
The local neighbourhood policing team is working hard to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, and crime in the city has reduced significantly in recent years. However, funding cuts of 20% over the next four years will make it extremely hard to maintain that trend, and the potential reduction in the visible police presence in the area will leave residents feeling more fearful of crime. Meanwhile, Nottingham city council faces cuts of 28% over the same period, so its ability to explore alternatives, let alone provide the necessary financial support, will be severely restricted.
The Government claim that we are all in this together, but I cannot imagine Mrs Cameron or Mrs Clegg struggling with a buggy up three flights of stairs and along a walkway to get home with their shopping bags. I do not suppose that they have to worry about walking down dark alleyways and through tunnels on their way home at night. I do not imagine that they have to worry that their windows do not fit properly, that their flat is cold and damp and that their kitchen is falling to pieces. I ask the Minister to think again. This opportunity to transform the Meadows through a 25-year investment is good value for money; not only is it socially just, but it makes real economic sense. We are talking about not just numbers on a balance sheet but people’s homes and life chances; such things are too important to throw away.
If the Minister will not review the decision, will he tell us how we can ensure that every home is brought up to a decent standard when the decent homes budget is being cut nationally by £900 million? How can we make the Meadows safer when police numbers are being cut and we are in danger of losing our local police station? How is it fair that an area such as the Meadows faces deeper cuts than much less deprived council areas that never received additional budgets through area-based grants? Furthermore, how can this Government, which claim to be the greenest ever, support the Meadows in becoming a low-carbon community, free from fuel poverty, when we are burdened with cold, damp and hard-to-insulate properties?
If the Minister tells me that there is no money left, I will tell him what people in the Meadows always ask me. They say, “How can there be no money when the banks that we own are still paying out massive bonuses?” If it is true that there is no money, how can it be that there is funding for new free schools, and that £2 billion is found for a reorganisation of the health service that nobody voted for? Rather than undertaking a survey that costs millions of pounds about how happy people feel, why do the Government not do something practical to make lives better?
If the Minister is not convinced by what he has heard this afternoon and will not rethink this cruel cut, I urge him to meet me, the regeneration team and all the local people who worked so hard to devise the neighbourhood plan to help us find new ways in which to meet the hopes and aspirations of an area that deserves so much better.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
As ever, it is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mr Gale. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for raising these matters and I congratulate her on securing the debate. She raises a number of understandable concerns, which reflect, I suspect, the inevitable difficulties that result from our predecessors breaking the bank. Unfortunately, the consequence is that the current Government have to pick up the tab, and that involves some very tough decisions; I do not pretend otherwise.
I take on board the specific points that the hon. Lady has made in relation to particular concerns of her constituents and the situation in Nottingham. I know from personal experience in my constituency of Bromley and Chislehurst of the importance of a well-funded and well-managed social housing sector. I understand why the hon. Lady is disappointed that funding for the Meadows estate private finance initiative scheme will not now be available; I do not complain at all that she has raised it as a concern. However, I make no apology for repeating what Ministers have consistently said to the House. Since coming to office, our most urgent priority has been to tackle this country’s record deficit. Our clear message is that we need to restore confidence in our economy and support the recovery. Failure to do so will prejudice investment in housing of all kinds in the longer term.
We are living in difficult times and we need to take difficult decisions about how we reduce our national debt; I am afraid that that cannot be shrugged off. We need to be honest with people about the hard choices that we face. We must live within our means and deliver value for money for the taxpayer in all our investments. Simply put, my Department does not have the resources available to fund every private finance initiative scheme. It was quite clear when the previous Government were in office that there would have to be considerable cuts; the previous Chancellor indicated that there would have to be cuts. Cuts in regeneration funding worth some £300 million were announced before the general election. There was no guarantee that any scheme would continue whichever party came to power.
Given that we were not able to support every PFI scheme, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government and fellow Ministers concluded that our priority had to be to support projects that were in procurement. Those projects were more advanced; some had got to the contractual stage and others had undergone considerable preparation work. That means that we cannot support projects which, although undoubtedly worthwhile, are only in the pipeline and have not progressed to the procurement phase. Such projects include the Meadows in Nottingham. Councils, including Nottingham, were notified that funding would not be available on 22 November.
None the less, it would not be right to assume that that means there is no commitment on the part of the Government to fund housing, including social housing, and improvements in housing. That may not help in the hon. Lady’s case, but it is important to set this decision in a broader context. Over the same period of the spending round, my Department will make available £721 million for PFI projects that were in contract. We are making available a further £372 million for other projects that were more advanced in the procurement stage. Therefore, it is the procurement and the contract that have the priority. That demonstrates very clearly that we are by no means washing our hands of this issue. We have a clear commitment to continue funding social housing and decent homes, but when the money runs out and one inherits an empty set of coffers, a line has to be drawn somewhere. As well as funding housing PFI, we will assist fire PFIs if they are in contract and procurement as well.
I know that that is a disappointment for Nottingham. It is a thriving city—I have visited it in the past, but not since the general election—but like any city, it faces challenges. However, I am confident that Nottingham and its social housing sector can weather the current financial storm and build a sustainable and prosperous future. Let me highlight a good example of an organisation in the city that has turned its fortunes around. Nottingham City Homes is the arm’s length management organisation that manages the council housing stock on behalf of the city council. A couple of years ago, it faced some real challenges, but it is now delivering a successful decent homes investment programme. That large capital programme has already invested £74 million to upgrade the housing stock in the city, which is helping to make homes safer, more secure and more fuel efficient. The sadness is that our economic inheritance constrains our ability to help everyone in the same way.
Lilian Greenwood
Recognising that Nottingham City Homes works incredibly hard to achieve its two-star rating, and so has been able to access central Government funding for decent homes money, is it fair that it should now be told that it has to rebid for that money and that it may not get the full funding that is required to bring all Nottingham homes up to standard? How can that be reasonable and fair, and how can Nottingham City Homes respond to that when it will be short by a significant measure of the funds that it needs to carry on with work that it has already set in train?
Robert Neill
Because fairness requires that we have to recognise that we must cut our cloth according to the cloth that is now available to us. Unfortunately, because of the economic policies that were pursued previously, there is less money available, so we must say to organisations, including good organisations—and Nottingham City Homes is not unique in that regard—that they have to rebid. That is at least keeping a door open, given the limited pot that we have available.
In relation to PFI projects that we cannot fund, such as the Meadows, it is worth saying that the Homes and Communities Agency is in discussion with all the authorities in that situation to see if there are some parts of those projects—not the whole, but some parts—that it might be possible to advance through some other means. I cannot hold out promises; I would not seek to do so. However, those discussions are taking place and I am sure that the hon. Lady and her city council will be in touch with the HCA swiftly about that matter, if they are not already in touch with it; I suspect that they already are.
Work is therefore being done and there is investment going in. The ALMO in Nottingham—Nottingham City Homes—is engaged with wider agendas, to which the hon. Lady fairly referred, such as community empowerment and tenant engagement. It is also working with partners to tackle joblessness and welfare dependency. We are committed, too, to continuing funding for the decent homes programme. The coalition Government are committed to reducing the £3.2 billion capital investment backlog in council housing that we inherited from the previous Administration. This year alone, we are investing about £1 billion in decent homes funding to improve the social housing stock, despite the difficult financial envelope that we have to live with. I think that, again, that clearly demonstrates our continued commitment to invest in communities and support neighbourhoods, including those inhabited by some of the most vulnerable people.
In the spending round, we fought hard to secure a good settlement for the decent homes programme. At the time, there were people who said that the Government might abandon the programme altogether, but that has proved not to be the case, thanks to the work of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government, and his colleagues. In fact, we have secured more than £2 billion of capital funding during the next four years, which is sufficient to halve the remaining capital investment backlog. That means that about £1.6 billion will be available for local authority housing, which could deliver more than 150,000 refurbished council homes by 2014-15.
Furthermore, we have not stood still on the allocation of future decent homes funding. On 11 November, together with the HCA, we published proposals for allocating funding, on which local authorities will be consulted. In future, decent homes funding will be available for all local authorities, including Nottingham city council, that have a significant investment backlog. We expect bids for funding shortly from such authorities, and I am sure that Nottingham city council will be among them. We are also moving to tackle some issues underlying the way in which our council housing finance system is organised, because it has been recognised for too long that it is unduly complex and overcomplicated. We are therefore using the localism Bill, which we hope to introduce in the House very shortly—I think that that is the appropriate phrase—as a vehicle to provide much-needed reform of social and council housing finance.
Under the proposed arrangements, which I hope will gain broad cross-party support, councils would keep their rental incomes under a much fairer and decentralised system. That is relevant to Nottingham, as the reforms will provide new opportunities and incentives for all councils to plan for the longer term, and to put in place effective asset management strategies. Nottingham, like many of our substantial cities, has considerable assets that fall within that category.
We have also indicated that we intend to press ahead with tenure reform. On 22 November, we published a paper that set out our intention to reform the way in which social housing is used, because we have to look at getting the best use out of the existing social housing stock. I think that the case for reform in that sector is strong and it is one that I have heard articulated by Members from all parts of the House, because it is an issue that is often raised in their constituency surgeries. It is not right that some people—I am sure that there are some in Nottingham—spend years on housing lists but never seem to get anywhere near an allocation. Ensuring that there is enough housing for those in real need is an important part of the housing mix too.
We also want to look at creating more flexible tenancies, which has been referred to by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government. We are looking at flexible tenancies for a minimum of two years, but I emphasise that we will protect existing tenants, such as those on the Meadows estate; they will not see their situation change. This issue is about tenancies for the future, which may be appropriate for some of the new build that I hope in due course it will be possible to bring forward.
Finally, it is worth remembering that the new homes bonus will apply to social housing as much as to private housing. That bonus is a powerful, simple, transparent and permanent incentive for local authorities and communities to increase their aspirations for housing growth. At the moment, there is not much of an incentive for local authorities to welcome the creation of new homes. Beginning in April 2011, the new homes bonus will match-fund the additional council tax raised for new homes and properties that are brought back into use with an additional amount for affordable housing, so there is positive additional support for social affordable housing for the following six years. My Department has set aside nearly £1 billion during the comprehensive spending review period for that scheme, including nearly £200 million in the first year. We have made it clear that funding beyond those levels will be continued via the formula grant. That should mean that, by the sixth year of the scheme, about £1.2 billion will be made available as an incentive for councils that wish to build homes.
Against that background, despite the disappointment that I am sure the hon. Lady and her constituents feel, along with others who are in a similar position, I think that it is fair to say that the coalition Government have demonstrated a commitment to social housing. We want to see a flourishing social housing sector; we want to encourage talent working in that sector, and we want to encourage tenants and occupiers of social housing to become much more proactively involved in the management and improvement of their estates and homes. That is why we are decentralising power directly to local authorities such as Nottingham, so that they can decide how best to deliver their services. As I have said, against that background I am sure that councils such as Nottingham, which had PFI schemes in the pipeline, are already considering other options about how to deliver the outcomes that the PFI funding would have supported. As I have also said, the HCA will liaise with them and advise them on that issue.
We are determined to ensure that social housing continues to be relevant and available in a changing world. The underpinning rationale of the Government’s approach is clear and consistent: future investment is very tightly focused; it must deliver value for money; and we seek to provide access and provision to those in greatest need. Of course, we must do all of that in the context of our economic inheritance.
Although I accept that the hon. Lady will not be happy about the outcome in the case of her constituency, I have been honest with her about the position, and the Government’s overall commitment to social housing remains very firm despite the awkwardness of the economic inheritance that we have to live with.
Energy Industry (East Anglia)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
If we can catch the wind, the economy of the east of England can take off. When the first gas was brought ashore more than 40 years ago, it was the east of England that fuelled the North sea boom. Today, we are at the forefront of what could be a second energy-led economic boom—the drive for more renewables. The first major offshore wind farm installations, the largest in Europe, are in our region at Scroby Sands, which is now a prominent landmark, just off the coast of my constituency. It has given a further economic boost to tourism: the wind farm’s information centre is hugely popular, with about 30,000 visitors a year who bring even more economic benefits to Great Yarmouth. The new Greater Gabbard wind farm, off the Suffolk coast, will dwarf first-generation wind farms; it is due to go online with 140 turbines.
The UK’s ambitious target is to increase offshore wind power from 1 GW to 33 GW over the next decade, and the eastern seaboard will have a major role to play. Although planning agreement for the round 3 wind farms will not be completed before 2012, an area stretching from the Humber to the Wash and the Thames estuary will contain the world’s largest market for offshore wind energy. The Carbon Trust estimates that as that market develops, more than 70,000 jobs could be created or supported in the UK. Areas such as Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft desperately need those jobs. Great Yarmouth has some of the most deprived wards and highest unemployment figures in the country.
The UK has enormous potential not only to dominate the domestic market but to export expertise, technology and energy around the world. Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and surrounding areas in east Anglia have done well in the past 40 years exporting and understanding the expertise and technology of the North sea oil and gas industry. It is vital that we seize this opportunity, especially as our area has been excluded from the Government’s recent announcement of £60 million in funding aimed at the industry because we are not part of the assisted areas scheme. We understand that, but we are determined to highlight what our area has to offer. For example, environmental studies have already been approved for the outer harbour of Great Yarmouth, saving a potential £50 million by some estimates.
Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft have pockets of high deprivation and unemployment. Energy could boost and regenerate local economies and give economic impetus across Norfolk and Suffolk. Outside the tourist season, some wards in Great Yarmouth have unemployment rates of 16% and occasionally 18%. It is important for our area that we develop and regenerate our economy to improve employment and economic growth all year round. Energy could supply that opportunity.
We appreciate that we will have to work even harder to compete against the north-east and Scotland. Partnership working is the key to bringing success to the region. Already, a consortium of businesses, public sector organisations, politicians and universities and colleges have come together with a common aim, focused through an organisation called the East of England Energy Group. The group fulfils a fabulous role in bringing together all those bodies to develop and outline innovative ways to attract investment to the area.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend on securing this debate. East Anglia has great potential to create new jobs in the energy sector, but does he agree that in order to realise that potential, it is vital to invest in skills and training to attract new businesses to the area?
Brandon Lewis
Absolutely. I agree. If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I will come to that in a few moments.
The EEEG’s strategy is to use the region’s enthusiasm for wind energy to encourage other opportunities and energy-saving activities, including the decommissioning of North sea platforms and the use of empty gas wells for carbon capture and storage. Decommissioning alone could be a huge industry for the east of England. We could become an area of leading expertise. We are perfectly placed in terms of proximity, expertise and history to do so.
It would boost the market and longer-term North sea oil and gas production if we moved forward with tax relief on security fund payments for the industry and reconsidered the currently high levels of financial security required for those platforms. At the moment, those and other issues are restricting the amount of investment and production, and the Treasury is arguably losing out as well.
Along with councils in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, 1st East is specifically directing a marketing campaign at companies involved in the first two rounds for wind turbines. The campaign is already generating visits to east coast ports, where companies are seeing that the area is superbly equipped for servicing the industry and cannot be beaten on proximity. The new deep-water port facilities in the outer harbour of Great Yarmouth, which can handle the largest offshore wind vessels, also make us more accessible, and the existing multi-energy supply chain is particularly attractive to companies entering the area.
We have also been boosted by the Government’s announcement of the A11 upgrade, which our area desperately needed. Without it, the region’s economic expansion would have been hampered. All those things have shown the industry that if it is willing to invest in Norfolk and Suffolk, we are willing too. Our Government have put their cards on the table by investing in the A11. It is a fantastic announcement that could boost the economy across a range of industries. However, securing investment and developing infrastructure alone will not be enough. We must similarly expand the skills base. Our colleges and world-class universities are providing skills for a new generation of apprentices and engineering graduates.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the bid prepared by City college Norwich and the university of East Anglia for a university technical college in Norfolk? It would help develop energy skills and advanced manufacturing and engineering in the sector. Does he also agree that for the reasons he has given, Norfolk is an obvious location for such an institution?
Brandon Lewis
I support everything that my hon. Friend says. We are perfectly placed. At the moment, we face a skills gap, as not enough people are coming through schools and into universities with the right graduate skills to serve the energy, engineering and high-tech industries in our region, let alone the rest of the country. The work going on now is perfectly placed to encourage more students into those fields. The industry is working with colleges to develop courses to ensure that the skills base is built up properly.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that we have such a wide range of energy platforms, whether offshore, nuclear, biogas or similar, that the skills could be transferable? We need not be single-minded about skills in specific offshore or onshore renewable energies. East Anglia is the epicentre of the green coast, as I said in my maiden speech. The case for a technical college covering both Norfolk and Suffolk is compelling, ideally with the help of the new local enterprise partnership.
Brandon Lewis
I endorse everything that my hon. Friend says. The new LEP, which will hopefully be the new Anglia partnership—a strong bid has been submitted, and we are hoping for approval any day now—has shown Norfolk and Suffolk councils and businesses coming together to do something for the best interests of our entire region. It is fully endorsed by the energy industry and those who represent it, and could be a hugely important vehicle for moving the industry forward. She is absolutely right to highlight the opportunity offered by our region, which I touched on briefly, because we already have multi-energy use, something that hardly anywhere else in the world can match.
This morning I met representatives of a company called Perenco, one of the largest independent oil and gas companies in the world, and certainly in our country and in the region, which already looks after and owns platforms in the North sea. It has shown exactly the kind of skill base that we have in the region. For example, there is a company based in Great Yarmouth that has taken on platforms that were due to be decommissioned. I remember reading articles more than 10 years ago that stated that decommission was imminent, but we are still talking about that being imminent, and one of the reasons why it is taking so much longer than was originally outlined is that companies such as Perenco are playing their part to maintain that time lag, and for good reasons. Their expertise, knowledge and ability to get more production out of those platforms in order to increase energy capacity cost-effectively are making a vital contribution to our energy security and energy supply chain. Companies such as Perenco could do more, but they are slightly hampered in their work, particularly with some of the platforms that they could develop and invest in, by some of the restraints imposed by the way in which decommissioning is structured and the regulations around security for that. I hope that the Minister will take those comments forward.
As hon. Friends have mentioned, there is a skills centre planned that will act as a hub, working directly with existing training providers and industry to bridge the gap created by current skills shortages. Some energy companies are already sending staff to meet pupils in schools and colleges, for which they should be commended. I hope that we can find a way in which the Government can encourage and motivate more of that and make it more worthwhile for those companies. They are doing that out of their own good sense and because they understand that they need to do it now to secure the skill base for the future.
No matter how much we ask our teachers, careers advisers and educationists across the education spectrum to talk to students about the opportunities available and the right courses to study, it is always different when a member of the industry who has been there, seen it, done it, lived it, experienced it and benefited from it can go into schools and motivate the children. It is a more positive way to motivate them, with real experiences that children will understand. It is exciting that some of those companies, certainly in Great Yarmouth, are already going into secondary schools to talk to students at quite a young age, sometimes before GCSEs, to tell them what they can aspire to and what they can achieve if they choose the right courses early on. Those companies are planning even now for 10 or 15 years down the line, and they should be commended for that.
There is also the participation of the Forces 4 Energy initiative, which helps attract to the industry much-needed and highly-skilled engineers leaving the armed forces. They are ideal candidates to be retrained for key roles in the energy sector, and they can play an important part in closing the skills gap. The companies going into schools now are planning for the next 10 to 15 years, but we must also bridge the gap for the next two to five years, and engineers leaving the armed forces can play an important part in that.
We are not asking for a Government handout, much as we might like one—we would welcome it if it is offered at any stage. We are happy to work hard, show why East Anglia is the place for companies to invest in, and do our part to develop our economy. As I hope I have outlined, we are doing that already. We are asking for an even playing field and for the Government to acknowledge our skills base, the offer we can make to our economy and the wider national economy and to recognise the excellent work that the private and public partnerships coming together are providing for our region.
With Great Yarmouth borough council, Waveney council, Suffolk Coastal district council, Norfolk county council, Suffolk county council, 1st East and private companies right across the region coming together, there is a long list of organisations in the private and public sector working hard to deliver for our region and our country. That, I argue, is the perfect example of the big society. The extensive network of companies, councils and training providers, some of which I have noted, in the Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and East Anglia region generally will be one of the key driving forces in our region and in the UK for a green, secure and thriving economy.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)
It is a pleasure and a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gale. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) on securing the debate and on the vision, realism and determination that came through in every aspect of his speech. He has already shown himself to be a strong champion for his constituency and his whole community, and today’s speech adds to his track record. I was also delighted to hear the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous), for Norwich South (Simon Wright) and for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), which focused so directly on the skills issue and on what more should be done, and is being done, to ensure that people in East Anglia, particularly the young, can take advantage of the huge array of energy opportunities that will be available to them in the future.
I will begin by explaining the national background against which the opportunities in East Anglia need to be seen. I particularly want to pick up on the energy security aspect to which my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth referred. In the past week, we have had two of the three days of highest gas demand that we have had in our history. All three of them have been this year, and we should be in no doubt about the contribution made by the interconnectors coming into East Anglia, which make a critical contribution to our gas and energy security. I have been pleased to give a licence to Eni, an Italian company, to develop what will be the largest gas storage facility off the East Anglian coast. It still requires final approval, but it will be a significant addition to the contribution that East Anglia makes towards our energy security.
The Government have a key role in ensuring that we can make the transition to a low-carbon economy, but it is not up to the Government alone. The business world also has a critically important contribution to make, and the Government believe that it is our job to try to facilitate that transition and investment. We are introducing a range of measures that we believe will take that forward. First, electricity market reform will totally transform the attractiveness of investing in the low-carbon energy sector in this country, and will be the biggest reform of that market for 30 years. We believe that it is critical if we are to secure the essential investment— £200 billion—that will be required over the next 10 to 15 years. That will include issues such as setting the carbon price and moving on from the climate change levy, as announced in the June Budget, to give people long-term security about the market in which they will be investing.
We have given real meaning to the concept of a green investment bank, as £1 billion has already been committed to that, with a commitment for additional funds to come through from asset sales in due course. In looking at exactly how that should be structured, we can look at other examples, such as the green investment bank in the Netherlands, which has a market capitalisation of €2 billion, but which has brought in capitalisation leveraged from private investors of €100 billion. That can play a critical role in encouraging investment in low-carbon technologies.
We are reforming the planning system for major infrastructure projects. We had a debate in the main Chamber last week on the national policy statements, and we hope that they will go through the parliamentary process by next spring. We are also tackling barriers to investment in energy efficiency by launching the green deal, which will be the centrepiece of the energy Bill that will be introduced in the next few weeks. We will also ensure that we roll out smart meters with greater determination and drive than has previously been the case. We are putting in place the right framework to encourage people to invest in the low-carbon economy and in our energy security.
I want to focus in particular on the unique contributions and benefits that East Anglia can make in that respect. In almost every aspect of the energy equation, East Anglia has a role to play: in nuclear and the role of new nuclear; potentially as part of the process of carbon capture and storage; as a major centre in the roll-out of renewables; and clearly as a key centre for gas security. My hon. Friend opened his speech by discussing the renewables aspect of the debate. That relates both to onshore and to offshore wind energy. We should recognise the contribution that East Anglia is making in relation to onshore wind, as it provides 15% of England’s onshore wind capacity. Growth is expected to continue over the coming years, as there are 10 projects in planning and 10 projects that have come through planning and are awaiting construction. There are 18 projects already operating and we are aware of a further eight projects in the pre-planning stage. We should certainly recognise, therefore, the contribution that East Anglia can make in that area.
We want a different relationship between wind farms and the communities that host them. That is why, in the localism Bill, to be published shortly, we will discuss how local communities can derive much greater direct benefit from the facilities that they host, both financially, for local business rates for a number of years, and through community ownership. Examples throughout the country include Westmill community wind farm in Oxfordshire, which is 100% community owned. The people living near such facilities can truly see the benefits that they get from them.
We also recognise the massive potential offshore. Without doubt, offshore wind technologies will be critical in meeting the challenging renewable targets faced by this country. My hon. Friend mentioned Scroby Sands. I am pleased that he highlighted the effect that that has had on tourism—30,000 visitors a year view the facility there—because that shows that there is great public interest in the opportunities that this technology presents. Public support and interest will be immensely important to us as the technology advances.
The Crown Estate has awarded development rights for the East Anglia offshore wind farm zone, under the third round of offshore wind development. Initial studies have identified a target capacity of more than 7 GW, which would be enough to provide clean, green energy for 5 million homes. I am delighted that the first project in the zone has already been identified with a scoping application recently submitted. Known as the East Anglia ONE Offshore Windfarm, covering an area of about 300 sq km, it could support up to 1.23 GW.
East Anglia is well placed to exploit the opportunities provided by the expansion of offshore wind manufacturing and I want it to demonstrate the positive impacts of this emerging industry, not only on the local economy, but for our country’s energy security, growth and environment. However, we want to do that based on realism rather than grand plans, which is why next spring we will publish a robust delivery plan for renewables to ensure that people are clear about what we want delivered, and understand the role of Government in making that happen and what we believe will be the role of others in delivering that.
My hon. Friend is concerned about the ports competition. I understand that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney are frustrated about the competition focusing on assisted areas, which is necessary because of European funding rules, but I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth that that will not preclude investment in areas that are not assisted. We are pleased with the work done by the Crown Estate, and we have agreed a statement of intent to work together to support the development of the UK’s offshore wind manufacturing capacity. That is intended to ensure that port infrastructure requirements do not delay offshore wind development. Opportunities around the country will be considered, with the focus not purely on assisted areas, but on the potential in many parts of the country. Through conversations that I have had with both my hon. Friends, I understand their determination and drive to bring investment to their areas, and I commend their personal work to draw attention to the opportunities in that regard, which are some of the greatest in port infrastructure anywhere in the country.
Other issues need to be addressed, to reassure my hon. Friends’ constituents, in relation to the grid connections and how those will be joined to the national grid. There is growing concern about the need to upgrade the national grid, which will have to be substantially rebuilt in the coming years to respond to the way in which our energy supply will change. We have already made changes to the offshore market to try to encourage investment in that sector, with businesses confident that they will be able to get their power to market when it can be generated, but that gives rise to two issues that we must focus on. There is the national interest in trying to ensure that we contain the number of substations that will be required—the junctions where the cables land—and how those tie into the national grid, because they are substantial and will cause local concern.
We are trying to ensure that a strategic overview is taken in considering such matters and that, in looking at the most appropriate place for the power to come on land, we consider the existing onshore grid infrastructure. I understand the concerns of my hon. Friends in East Anglia—as in other parts of the country—about the new pylon infrastructure. We will take a strategic view to see how best that can be taken forward.
My hon. Friend rightly focused on oil and gas decommissioning. The oil and gas industry has been extraordinarily successful for this country; it supports 450,000 jobs and has capital investment worth some £5 billion a year and is still one of our most extraordinary successes. As we know, however, the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas platforms and infrastructure will start to speed up, with some 260 fields in the UK continental shelf having to be wholly or partially removed from UK waters in the next 30 years. It is estimated that there will be around £25 billion of work in the decommissioning market in the UKCS in the next 30 years, which presents a huge business opportunity for the UK supply chain and the East Anglia region in particular, given that roughly one third of the installations are on its doorstep. The work that Perenco, Shell and EDF and others are doing has been important both for the region and in respect of this vital task for our nation.
There is significant engagement with contractor companies, including AF Decom, Aker Solutions and Smulders, the Dutch company. We want to encourage more companies around the world to look at the opportunities here. Equally, we see fantastic opportunities for the companies that are already based here to use that expertise to find international opportunities. As a Government, we will work with them to try to secure such opportunities. My hon. Friend mentioned tax, and we will ensure that the Treasury hears his comments. He will understand why I am not able to make any personal commitment on those matters today, but we understand that our friends in the Treasury will consider these issues carefully.
We have heard about opportunities for new nuclear. We are taking that work forward with great energy. We have taken through the House the process of regulatory justification—a key legal stage—with one of the biggest majorities in this House on a significant issue in recent times. Sizewell B is our most recent power station in the nuclear fleet, generating 3% of the UK’s entire electricity needs, and it is EDF’s favoured site for a new reactor. EDF has identified sites at Hinkley Point, near Bridgwater in Somerset and Sizewell for their new reactors, which would potentially amount to 6.4 GW of new power.
As has been said in this debate, much depends on skills. To take advantage of the opportunities in the power sector, we have been working with Cogent and others to help ensure that young people and others have the relevant skills to take part in this process. Cogent has estimated that in the nuclear sector alone, in the manufacture, construction and operation of a station with twin reactor units, there will be 21,200 person years of work over a six-year period, which equates to 3,400 full-time equivalent personnel per year. That shows the scale of the opportunities for new employment in this area.
There is a massive opportunity in new nuclear for British business and for businesses that are already established in East Anglia. The role of business is to secure the low-carbon economy and the low-carbon future that we want. There is no doubt that business needs Government support and co-operation to make that happen. At the same time as introducing those changes, which will help to transform the attractiveness of the energy sector in this country to international investors, we will work to reduce the regulatory burdens on business.
My colleague, Lord Marland, has been in contact with 250 organisations to explore the scope for reducing and simplifying the burden of red tape imposed by my Department. The ideas generated by his contact with organisations and what the Department of Energy and Climate Change plans to do as a result has already been put on our website. I give an absolute assurance that, if there are barriers to investment that should not be there which Government can remove, we will focus on those.
We have had a valuable debate about an issue that is critical to the whole East Anglian area. I congratulate my hon. Friend and my other hon. Friends for their contributions to this debate, but more importantly for the contributions that they are making to the sustainable energy future of their counties.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
A meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council was held on 18 and 19 November. The UK was represented by the Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU, Andy Lebrecht, for the culture and audiovisual section of the Council. The Minister for Sport and the Olympics represented the UK for the sports section.
Culture and Audiovisual section
The presidency presented a progress report on the Commission proposal for a European heritage label. The presidency updated the Council on the negotiations of the proposal. The majority of the main points of discussion raised during the negotiations have been resolved. The scheme will be open to all member states on a voluntary basis; third countries will be allowed to participate in the scheme only as part of transnational sites; the selection of sites will take place every two years; and sites awarded the label under the current intergovernmental scheme will need to reapply and be subject to the same criteria and procedures as new sites being proposed. Two points, however, remain at issue: where the funds allocated to the action for 2013 are to come from and which institution is to be competent to award, and if necessary withdraw, the label. On the first point, the Commission proposal states that the 2013 budget would come from the margins of the EU budget and the majority of delegations have supported this view.
The Government, however, oppose this view and believe that the 2013 budget should come from existing programmes. On the second point, the Commission proposes that it would be the institution with the authority to decide which sites are to be awarded the label, or if necessary have it withdrawn. Some delegations would prefer the decision to be taken by the Council. The presidency has suggested that the decision to award or withdraw the label be taken by the Commission following an advisory committee procedure to allow member states to have a say before the Commission reaches a decision. These two points will continue to be negotiated under the Hungarian presidency.
The Council designated Mons in Belgium as one of the two European capitals of culture 2015. The second capital for 2015 in the Czech Republic, Pilsen, will be designated at the next Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council in May 2011.
The Council adopted conclusions setting out the EU work plan for culture for the years 2011 to 2014. The plan addresses the following priorities: cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and accessible and inclusive culture; cultural and creative industries; skills and mobility; cultural heritage, including mobility of collections; culture in external relations; and culture statistics. These priorities will be implemented through the open method of co-ordination, working groups with member states’ experts, and a reinforced dialogue with civil society.
The Council adopted conclusions on the role of culture in combating poverty and social exclusion. The conclusions argue that it is important for a cultural dimension to be incorporated into policies against poverty and social exclusion. Participation in cultural life and arts education can play a significant role in the fight against poverty by encouraging social inclusion of isolated groups and promoting cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue.
The Council adopted conclusions on European film heritage, including on challenges of the digital era. The text addresses two issues: the transition from the analogue to the digital era and the link between film funding policies and film heritage.
The Council adopted conclusions on the opportunities and challenges for European cinema in the digital era. The conclusions underline that the transition to digital cinema is urgent and that it should be supported by public policies. The conclusions also welcome Commission plans to provide funding through the media programme before the end of 2010 to support digitisation. The four sets of conclusions were adopted without further debate.
The Council then discussed the cultural and audiovisual aspects of the digital agenda, the first so-called flagship initiative under the “Europe 2020” strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The digital agenda, endorsed by the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council of 31 May, aims to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market based on fast and ultra-fast internet and interoperable applications. Delegations underscored that the cultural and audiovisual dimensions of the digital agenda are crucial if it is to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market. As priority actions, Ministers singled out the digitisation of cultural heritage and of cinema as well as the development and sustainable financing of Europeana, the European digital library. In addition, delegations stressed the importance of increasing legal access to cultural and creative content online and of intellectual property rights in this respect. Finally, many highlighted that media literacy levels need to be improved so as to enable citizens to fully benefit from a digital single market. All Ministers underlined that the cross-cutting nature of the digital agenda requires an integrated, rather than a compartmentalised approach and horizontal co-ordination between institutions concerned at EU and at national level.
Sports Section
The Council adopted a resolution establishing a high-level structured dialogue with sport stakeholders. Such a dialogue will allow an ongoing exchange of views on priorities, implementation and follow-up to EU co-operation in the field of sport. It will take the form of a regular informal meeting of leading representatives of the EU public authorities and the sports movement to discuss sporting issues in the EU. The first such meeting is scheduled for early December. The UK’s views on the importance of ensuring that national sport voices are part of this group were taken into account.
The Council adopted conclusions on the role of the EU in the international fight against doping.
The conclusions reiterate the need to co-ordinate EU and member state positions ahead of meetings of the World Anti-Doping Agency, in particular in relation to the EU acquis, for example on the free movement of athletes and the protection of privacy and personal data. Such EU co-ordination should take place in close co-operation with the Council of Europe.
The Council adopted conclusions on the role of sport as a source of and a driver for active social inclusion. The conclusions identify three common priorities for promoting social inclusion through sport: the accessibility of sport activity for all citizens (“sport for all” principle), better use of the potential of sport as a contribution to community building, social cohesion and growth, and transnational exchanges of strategies and methodologies.
The Council held a policy debate on social inclusion in and through sport. Ministers underlined that sport is an activity that can bring people together and be a powerful tool to strengthen cohesion in European societies, with professional athletes being role models for society. They mentioned that relevant activities in their countries were targeted at youth, elderly, those with disabilities and those from disadvantaged and migrant communities. Delegations specially requested that exchanges of experience and of best practices be among the priorities of EU action in the field of sport. Several delegations advocated that a future EU programme in the area of sports should support volunteering, especially of those with a migrant background, as well as improvements in sports infrastructures. The UK intervened to ask that future work at EU level demonstrates clear value over national responsibilities, specifically building better evidence on how major international sporting events can be translated into lasting participation and further encouragement for professional sports to play their part in boosting participation.
Under any other business, the Hungarian delegation outlined the priorities for their forthcoming presidency. Under culture and audiovisual, priorities would be the adoption of the European Heritage Label, the cultural dimension of the EU2020 strategy, the mobility of artists and creative content online. For sport their presidency focus would be on the framework for EU activity in sport, and also the EU sports programme.
Myplace Programme
(14 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
I am today announcing confirmation of capital funding for youth facilities planned under the myplace programme. I will be looking to projects funded through myplace to make the very most of the resources they are receiving.
I expect projects to use this investment to drive reform of local youth provision and take every opportunity to promote young people’s positive and active role in society. I would like to see civil society organisations delivering more local publicly funded services, and once construction is complete I would expect local authority-led projects to transfer or share ownership and management with the local community and with young people. In line with our plans for the early intervention grant, I will also expect projects to focus strongly on evidence-based early interventions for the most vulnerable young people.
I want to see Government capital investment working harder to leverage ongoing additional investment including from the private sector. I have seen the extent to which the local business community and volunteers have engaged with some projects. I believe that many others could use the opportunity of a new high-quality youth facility to develop strong relationships that mean their long-term viability is rooted far more within their communities, rather than projects relying exclusively on public funds. I have instructed the Big Lottery Fund, who manage the programme on the Department’s behalf, to ensure that each project has reviewed its revenue funding plans to assure sustainability, before final approval is given.
Student Immigration System
(14 years ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The Government have committed to making changes across the immigration system to achieve their overall aim of reducing net migration. The student route accounts for two thirds of migrants entering the UK each year which makes it a key focus for reform.
Therefore, the Government are today launching a consultation on the reform of the student immigration system.
The UK’s education system is world renowned, and we remain the global destination of choice for the many thousands of higher education students who choose to study abroad each year. We want to encourage all those genuine students coming here to study at our world class academic institutions.
At the same time the Government want to ensure that those who enter on a student visa genuinely come here to study. The Government are committed to minimising abuse of the student route by those whose primary motivation is not to study but to work and settle in the UK.
By minimising abuse, we shall also take a further step towards our aim of reducing net migration to the UK to sustainable levels. The majority of non-EU migrants are students. They, and their dependants, accounted for around two thirds of visas issued last year under the points-based system. It is clear that the Government’s aim to reduce net migration will not be achieved without careful consideration and action on the non-economic routes including students.
The proposals in our consultation aim to build on recent changes to the points-based system, which we believe offers a transparent and flexible framework but which needs further strengthening. They are grouped under the following broad aims which we expect our reforms to achieve:
raising the level of courses students can study, with only highly trusted sponsors able to offer courses to adult students below degree level;
introducing tougher entry criteria for adult students;
ensuring students return overseas after their course;
limiting the entitlements to work and to sponsor dependants;
simpler procedures for checking low-risk applications; and
stricter accreditation procedures for education providers in the private sector.
We want to hear views on our proposals from a wide range of people. The consultation will run for eight weeks until 31 January. This is shorter than a standard 12-week consultation so that the policy can be announced in advance of the next academic year.
The consultation document will be available on the UK Border Agency website and copies will also be available in the Libraries of both Houses.
Public Guardian Board (Annual Report)
(14 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
The Public Guardian Board has provided me with a copy of their annual report on the public guardian for the year 2010. A copy of the report is available in the Libraries of both Houses, the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office.
Copies of the report are also available on the intranet: http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/about/statutory-documents.htm.
Rail Industry Review
(14 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)
This Government are determined to secure a sustainable and efficient railway. The spending review settlement has demonstrated our commitment to rail transport. The sustained financial support we have offered now needs to be matched by a relentless drive for efficiency on the part of the industry.
Sir Roy McNulty’s value for money review has reached some important interim conclusions. In his interim report being published today and being made available in the Library of the House he finds that:
the railway is costing more than it used to and more than it ought to. Greater efficiency would realise savings of £600 million—£1,000 million per annum by 2018-19 without cutting services or lowering quality;
the key to securing these efficiencies is a cross-industry focus on reducing costs and improving value for money;
that in turn demands closer working and alignment of incentives between train operators and Network Rail and strong leadership across the industry. Inevitably, such alignment, if it is to be effective, will involve Network Rail working more closely at a local level with train operators.
The most pressing need is to ensure that incentives across the industry are aligned, so that all parties strive to improve the quality of services and to provide value for money for taxpayers and passengers. Train operators are too narrowly focused on franchise specifications (which are often over-detailed). Network Rail has concentrated on network performance and safety targets. These are important objectives. But there is no cross-industry focus on the fundamental purpose of the railway—moving people and goods efficiently across a network while securing the best long-term value for money for farepayers and taxpayers.
The second phase of the value for money study will focus on identifying opportunities for greater alignment and changes that will secure greater efficiency and better value for money. Sir Roy’s final report is due to be published in April 2011. These initial conclusions, however, are so important that it would be wrong to wait until then before starting to respond.
Today, I am announcing the establishment of a high-level group, which I will chair, that will examine the options for getting those responsible for track and train to work together to drive down the cost of the railway for the benefit of passengers and taxpayers, while improving the quality of services. Sir Roy McNulty’s final report will inform the group’s work.
This group will consider options for structural reform in the industry. My presumption is that, at an operational level, there are some network-wide planning and technical functions which can only be discharged by a single national body, acting as custodian of the network. That should not preclude reforms which allow route or area-based alliances to be established, focused on aligning specific track and train operations where this best serves the needs of customers.
I am clear, however, that no changes should be made that would jeopardise the impressive improvements in safety and punctuality achieved across the industry in recent years. There is a spectrum of options which could contribute to achieving a better alignment of incentives. We expect that the optimal solution will vary for different parts of the network, reflecting the diversity of our railways and differing local needs. A one-size-fits-all model is unlikely to be the right solution. I am also clear that the changes we are proposing must protect the interests of freight operators on the network.
I envisage that this work will lead to the publication of proposals for industry reform by November 2011—as set out in my Department’s business plan.
In parallel with the value for money review, my Department has been consulting on possible changes to the franchising system. We have invited views on moving to longer franchises with less detailed specifications and greater incentives for operators to act efficiently and invest in the improvements passengers want. These principles have been widely welcomed and they will form part of our plans for making the railway more efficient and more responsive to passengers’ needs.
However, franchising reform needs to be co-ordinated with Network Rail reform: they are two sides of the same coin. We also need to co-ordinate the programme of franchise renewals to take account of major planned railway projects which will inevitably disrupt operations in certain franchises.
A number of franchises will fall due for re-tendering over the next couple of years. Because we intend, typically, to let longer franchises of at least 15 years duration it is important that the reforms we wish to make following the McNulty review, the franchise consultation and the work of the high-level group are incorporated into the terms of these franchises.
I therefore propose to use a short contract, openly competed during 2011, to run and improve services in the Greater Anglia franchise while we carry out this work. I then expect to award a new long-term franchise for the operation of services in East Anglia to commence in 2013. In 2012, I propose to award a franchise to operate InterCity west coast until the planned opening of HS2 in 2026. Then, in late 2012, I propose to award a franchise of 15 years to operate the east coast main line services.
The rest of the retendering programme for 2012 and 2013 will depend partly on decisions by my Department and existing operators on the termination dates of current franchises. We also need to avoid overloading the industry by inviting too many tenders at the same time. The trans-Pennine express franchise could contractually be extended by up to five years beyond 2012: my Department is discussing a proposal for an extension with the current operator. Alternatively, this franchise could be retendered for at least 15 years, possibly in 2013 alongside the northern franchise. The Essex Thameside franchise will also be retendered by 2013 for at least 15 years. The Greater Western franchise will be retendered in either 2013 or 2016, again for at least 15 years, upon expiry of the existing franchise agreement in accordance with its terms. In the case of Thameslink and South Eastern it is not currently appropriate to let long-term franchises, since both will be heavily affected by Thameslink work at London Bridge station. So these franchises will be retendered on a short-term interim basis as they fall due. My Department will then let long-term franchises to cover the operation of Thameslink and South Eastern services, once the London Bridge station reconstruction is complete.
House of Lords
Bankruptcy
(14 years ago)
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Lord Barnett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their definition of “bankruptcy”, as the term was used by Lord Sassoon on 1 November (HL Deb, col. 1552).
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, public sector net borrowing in 2009-10 was £156 billion or 11.1 per cent of GDP—the highest level in UK post-war history. The Government were borrowing £1 for every £4 they spent. That was the brink of bankruptcy.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, I should declare a professional interest; perhaps I should also declare that I have had free tuition in economics from my noble friend Professor Lord Peston.
Despite the Minister’s Answer, does he not agree that on any definition this country never has been, and is not, anywhere near bankrupt? The plain fact is—and the ONS confirms this—that the net asset position of this country at the end of last year, just before the noble Lord took office, was £6.7 trillion. On top of that, there is no problem in paying debts, because the average length of debt repayment is 14.2 years. We recently lost the services of a distinguished noble Lord in this House. I would not like to see another one go so soon from the Prime Minister’s service. Will the Minister withdraw the word “bankrupt” and apologise to the House for using it?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, is a man who likes precision, so I thought that I would do a little research and see how he has used the term “bankrupt” in this and another place. The first time that the noble Lord used that word in another place was very interesting. It was on 8 April 1965 in the Budget debate. The then Member for Heywood and Royton was defending the then Labour Government’s cuts to our Armed Forces east of Suez. He asked:
“Have we discussed this with our Commonwealth friends in the area and told them … that … it would not help them or us if we bankrupted ourselves by having a force in the area of a size which we could not afford?”.—[Official Report, Commons 8/4/1965; col. 737.]
That was in 1965 when public sector net borrowing was 1.6 per cent of GDP. On that basis, does the noble Lord think that I was a little moderate in my language when I talked about the brink of bankruptcy?
Lord Peston
My Lords, as the Minister does not, under any circumstances, believe in answering questions put to him, can I ask him whether he has looked at the latest report of the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose forecasts for the next five years—which is how long this Government are insisting that they are going to stay—state that the balance of payments will be in deficit for every one of those five years? That means that our net assets will decline overseas by the amount we have to borrow to finance that deficit. What a nerve the Minister has to talk about bankruptcy in connection with the previous Government, when the balance of payments forecasts show that if anyone is making us head for bankruptcy—although I do not actually believe that we are—it is the present Government?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, when the Government came into office, we had been put on negative credit watch by one of the main rating agencies, unprecedented for the UK, and were paying interest of £120 million a day. The first or second largest holder of bonds in the world had talked of the UK as a “must to avoid” and described the UK’s gilts as,
“resting on a bed of nitroglycerine”.
The Government have restored confidence in our public finances by setting out a clear plan to restore the budget to balance and that is what enables us to borrow what we need to borrow on the international markets on reasonable terms.
Lord Naseby
Has my noble friend had a chance to read the statement from the shadow Chancellor in which he said that the problem for the Labour Party was that it had built up a reputation for 13 years of overspending and debt? Is that not near-bankruptcy?
Lord Sassoon
I completely agree with my noble friend. That is indeed it. I was looking at the Oxford English Dictionary this morning and I saw that one definition of “bankrupt” is,
“one who has brought himself into debt by reckless expenditure or riotous living”.
I would not presume to accuse the previous Government of riotous living.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, the successive attempts by the noble Lord to define bankruptcy have looked quite pathetic.
Lord Davies of Oldham
Well, his latest definition would indicate that every mortgage holder in Britain was bankrupt because they have substantial debts. The issue is whether these debts can be managed. He must draw a distinction between the situation of Ireland at the present time, or of Greece in recent times, and that of the United Kingdom, where, as has been indicated, our debt repayment is over a 14-year period.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, leaving aside the fact that the mortgage payers of this country would be somewhat upset to be thought of as having brought it upon themselves by reckless expenditure, the point is, as the IMF succinctly put it in its report of 27 September 2010:
“The consolidation plan and implementation of early measures to tackle the deficit—one of the highest in the world in 2010—greatly reduces the risk of a costly loss of confidence in fiscal sustainability and will help rebalance the economy”.
That was what the IMF had to say.
Baroness Seccombe
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, if we had not taken action so quickly, we would have been a further £100 billion in debt by 2015?
Lord Sassoon
Indeed. I am grateful to my noble friend and I think that points out how close to bankruptcy we were.
Sinn Fein: Parliamentary Oath of Allegiance
(14 years ago)
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Baroness Boothroyd
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the statement by the Northern Ireland Secretary to the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on 8 September, that he was “open to suggestions” from Sinn Fein on ways to vary the parliamentary oath of allegiance to enable its MPs to take their seats at Westminster, reflects government policy.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, the Government have no plans to change the text of the existing oath. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have made clear their belief that Sinn Fein Members should take their seats in Parliament. If the oath is a barrier to them doing so, it is up to Sinn Fein to suggest an alternative. It will then be for Parliament to consider any changes.
Baroness Boothroyd
My Lords, that is reassuring news. Perhaps I may remind the Minister of the judgment of the European Court, made when I was Speaker of the Commons, that the oath of allegiance is part of our constitutional arrangements and that the refusal of Sinn Fein Members to take it legitimately debars them from taking their seats. Will the Minister confirm that Parliament's allegiance to our constitutional monarchy will not be meddled with for the convenience of any party or Government, and will he bring his answer to the attention of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I do not know whether I can add much, other than to state the belief that the Good Friday agreement means that the constitutional settlement is a settlement, and that there is no reason why Sinn Fein Members should not come to the other place. We are not aware, one way or the other, whether that is a major problem for them, or whether they would abstain from coming to the other place in any event. The Secretary of State has said that if Sinn Fein Members have a problem with the oath, they must raise it and see whether there is a way in which it might be solved. That is the position.
Lord Morris of Aberavon
My Lords, it is a mystery to some of us how Sinn Fein Members were able to claim the privileges of being Members of Parliament without taking the oath. Will the Government take on board that there would be wide repercussions in both Houses, and in public life generally, if there was a further dilution of long-established practices?
Lord Shutt of Greetland
I understand what the noble and learned Lord is saying. The position at the moment is that the Sinn Fein Members do not come here and do not claim a salary. They cannot have a salary because they do not come here. They can claim expenses because they still do constituency work: the other place agreed that that should be the case. They cannot claim £500,000: their expenses amount to somewhere in the region of £800,000.
Baroness Harris of Richmond
My Lords, what happened at Stormont? Did Sinn Fein Members take an oath?
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, part and parcel of the Belfast agreement is the agreement to behave in a peaceful way, with all that that means. As far as concerns allegiance, everybody who is elected to Stormont signs the roll of membership. They then designate their identity as nationalist, unionist or other: that is it. However, Ministers are required to take a pledge of office. There is a great deal more to that. It covers good faith, non-violence, peaceful and democratic means, and serving the people of Northern Ireland equally. Ministers sign up to a catalogue of things, but there is nothing that equates to an oath for Members of the Assembly.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that something along the lines of a pledge of office might meet the case of the elected Sinn Fein Members of another place?
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I do not know. The Secretary of State has put it to them: if they have a problem in coming, they must say what it is and let the other place as a whole decide whether that is something that it can deal with. The offer is open to them if they wish to come, but we do not know whether they do wish to come.
Earl Ferrers
My Lords, given what my noble friend has just said, will he give an assurance that the oath taken by Members of the House of Commons will not change?
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I cannot be absolute about this. The Secretary of State, supported by others, has said, “If there is a problem, come and put something to us and we will give it our consideration”. I cannot say what the Members of the House of Commons will say en masse if something is put to them. It may be that something with which they can agree is put to them; or it may be that they do not entertain it. I cannot answer that question.
Lord Trimble
My Lords, surely the Minister can tell us the Government’s position and policy on this. It is all very well to say that the Members in another House might or might not take a view but I trust that Her Majesty’s Government have a view and advice to give the House.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, at the outset, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have made clear their belief that Sinn Fein Members should take their seats. If the oath is a barrier to them doing so, it is up to Sinn Fein to suggest an alternative, and it is then for Parliament to consider changes.
Lord Soley
Perhaps I may suggest that we are making very heavy weather of this, and I am with the Minister in the sense that I do not think we should be doing that. However, I recognise that there is a problem for those who do not sign up to royalism, as they see it, and that goes back to the Civil War in all parts of the kingdom, not just England. When people take the oath, as we do here, they take it to the monarch but with the crucial words “under the law”. The law is made by Parliament and the monarch is part of Parliament. There is a case for looking at whether we should emphasise the rule of law and Parliament rather more but, as long as we are a constitutional monarchy, the oath will inevitably involve the monarch.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
The noble Lord is right. I repeat: the Government have no plans to change the text of the oath. It may be interesting for noble Lords to know that in Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Members take the oath, just as it is taken in this place, by either swearing or making an affirmation.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
I shall give up. The clock is now showing 15 minutes.
Autism
(14 years ago)
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Lord Touhig
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the forthcoming Autism Act 2009 statutory guidance will be effective in delivering the vision set out in the strategy document Implementing “Fulfilling and Rewarding Lives”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, yes, I believe that the planning guidance will be effective in delivering the strategy for adults with autism. This guidance has been developed with advice from health and social care professionals, people with autism and their carers and the voluntary groups representing them. Only by such a transparent, mutual approach can we achieve the vision that the Government have set out for adults with autism: fulfilling and rewarding lives within a society that accepts and understands them.
Lord Touhig
I thank the Minister for that reply. I am sure he agrees that, when planning services, it is important to know what services are needed and how many people need them. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the National Audit Office report which has revealed that 80 per cent of councils have no idea how many people with autistic spectrum disorders live in their areas. Will the Minister therefore agree to meet our colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, myself and members of the National Autistic Society to discuss ways in which we can ensure that local authorities meet their statutory duties towards people with autism?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I should be very happy to meet the noble Lord to discuss those issues. Although we do not have definitive figures for the number of people with autism in England, we have commissioned a study into the prevalence of autism among adults to inform strategic planning at central and local levels to benefit adults with autism as they access public services. We have commissioned that study from the University of Leicester and it is due to report by March 2011.
Baroness Browning
Can my noble friend confirm that part of the strategy will entitle people on the autistic spectrum to an assessment if they have an IQ of over 70? For many years, Department of Health circulars have given them this entitlement but they have been ignored in most parts of the country by social services departments. How will my noble friend ensure that this new strategy is properly implemented and that people with IQs of over 70 get the assessment to which they are entitled?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising that issue. I can reassure her that under Section 47(1) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 local authorities have a duty to assess a person who may be in need of community care services. This duty applies to people with autism. The revised Fair Access to Care Services guidance already makes it clear that an assessment of eligibility for care services cannot be denied on the grounds of a person’s IQ. We intend to reiterate this very clearly in the autism statutory guidance.
Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, does the Minister agree that delivering the vision for people with autism and their families is, in many cases, dependent on local authority resources? Has he any anxiety about that, especially as many of the services are delivered in the voluntary and community sector, which is already reporting major cuts to its grants?
Earl Howe
My Lords, clearly, local government grants will come under pressure over the coming years. To my mind, that makes it even more important that decisions about priorities are taken at a local level and the joint strategic needs assessment is, of course, the tool which will enable local authorities to decide on their priorities locally.
Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, training for awareness of autistic spectrum disorder among frontline professionals is key to improving services. Following the publication of the guidance, when does the Minister expect that all lead professionals involved in commissioning community care assessments and GPs will have received autism training?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the statutory guidance that already exists—it has been revised in light of the response to the consultation—makes it explicitly clear that in addition to general autism awareness-raising training for staff, local areas should develop or provide specialist training for those in key roles who have a direct impact on access to services for adults with autism, such as GPs, community care assessors and commissioners and service planners.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on continuing to make progress in this matter. As he will know, commissioning for autism services requires expert knowledge and, as my noble friend said, a recent National Audit Office survey found that 80 per cent of GPs said that they needed more training in autism awareness. Can the Minister outline whether any progress is being made to change that situation because, if it applies to GPs, it probably applies to other health workers? Is the Minister also supportive of the call from the National Autistic Society for NICE guidelines and for the inclusion of autism as one of the future quality standards currently under consideration by the National Quality Board?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we cannot mandate to NICE what quality standards are produced. However, the case for developing a quality standard for autism will be considered as part of work to commission a comprehensive library of such standards from NICE in line with our plans in the White Paper. NICE is already developing clinical guidelines on diagnostic pathways for autism, including one for children and young people with autism. That is scheduled to be published in September next year. On training, I cannot really add much to what I have already said to the noble Lord, Lord Low, but it is very high on the agenda.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, in respect of the training of medical students to be able to provide, in their future careers, adequate and reasonable adjustments for people with autism, what does the Minister think can be done to develop sufficiently existing equality and diversity training so that there will be adequate understanding and adequate adjustments will be made?
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, how will the Minister ensure that the guidance ties in with the reforms to the NHS, for example, ensuring that the NHS bodies have due regard to any quality standards on autism that will be produced by NICE?
Earl Howe
My Lords, when the National Health Service commissioning board is established, it will have a duty to promote quality in the NHS. One way of doing that will be to utilise the quality standards produced by NICE, to produce commissioning guidance based on those quality standards and, in that way, to promote consistency of commissioning across the health and social care sector.
Banking: Liability.
(14 years ago)
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Lord Haskel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the report published on 2 December by the Financial Services Authority regarding the Royal Bank of Scotland finalises the matter of liability.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, on 2 December the Financial Services Authority closed a supervisory investigation into the Royal Bank of Scotland group. The review confirmed that RBS had made a series of bad decisions in the years leading up to the financial crisis, but concluded that enforcement action was not warranted.
Lord Haskel
I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that this report fails to respond to the widespread concerns expressed by many people, some of them on his own Benches, that the report deals with the letter, but not the spirit, of the law? Will he tell us how the restructured FSA under the remit of the Bank of England will function more appropriately and take this into account?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we do not know what the report says because we have not seen it. We cannot say what the report deals with, but it is clear that it concludes that enforcement action is not warranted in this case. The FSA cannot publish the content of the RBS review because information gathered from the bank during the course of the review contains confidential material. The report remains confidential under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. I am grateful to the noble Lord for drawing attention to the fact that we are embarked on a process completely to redraw the financial regulatory architecture. I expect that under the new architecture, the new prudential regulatory authority will be able to exercise powers under the tools we give it to minimise the risk of another case like RBS coming up in future.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes
My Lords, would my noble friend agree with the view that has been expressed by some people from time to time that the FSA and the Royal Bank of Scotland are covering for each other?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I would not say in any way that the FSA and the Royal Bank of Scotland are covering up for each other. The FSA has conducted a lengthy report. It is clearly unfortunate that under the Financial Services and Markets Act, it is not possible at the moment to make the report public. On the other hand, when enforcement action is taken, it is usually made public and, indeed, in May this year, the FSA announced the conclusion of an enforcement investigation into one of the executive directors of RBS.
Lord Gilbert
My Lords, no small part of the public fury over the Royal Bank of Scotland affair related to the pension arrangements for Sir Fred Goodwin. Were they not the responsibility of the remuneration committee of the Royal Bank of Scotland? Should those names not be made public? Is it not the case that one of the people on that remuneration committee was a senior officer of Goldman Sachs, the same firm that helped the Greek Government fiddle their statistics and behaved disgracefully over the Wells letter? Will the Minister ask his colleagues to investigate whether that firm should continue to advise successive Governments and about its suitability to be an adviser to Her Majesty’s Government?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I cannot comment on the pension arrangements. I believe they took place before the previous election, and I am no position to comment on the pension arrangements for former directors of RBS. As regards the other matters, if there are any complaints about any regulated firm, I am sure the FSA will be, as it always is, open to looking into any complaints that are made.
Lord Newby
My Lords, does the Minister agree with the FSA and the report that RBS under Sir Fred Goodwin was properly governed? If he does, will he explain what he thinks a failure of corporate governance might look like?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I have not conducted an investigation into RBS. The FSA has, and it published a summary note on 2 December. It is clearly regrettable that we do not see the full report, but I should point out that the really important consequences of this are the change in the regulatory landscape that was brought to our attention by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and the fact that the Independent Commission on Banking is looking at the structure of banking in this country, so there are important ongoing inquiries that the RBS saga bears on.
Lord Myners
My Lords, it stretches credulity that the FSA could conclude that there was no sign of governance failure in the Royal Bank of Scotland. From my perspective as a Minister, there was a lamentable failure of leadership, proper inquiry and proper governance in the Royal Bank of Scotland. Does the Minister agree that the FSA should publish its own report on the lessons to be learnt from the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland and that it should seriously consider whether it should no longer use accounting firms to conduct Section 166 inquiries of the sort carried out here?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am sure that the FSA will take note of the noble Lord’s suggestions about how it goes about its business. But I can only, as he does, read the conclusion of a report by the FSA that follows an investigation that began in May 2009 and out of which has come one enforcement case.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, does the Minister agree that this might be a case for a WikiLeak? Will he also assure the House that, in looking at the proposals that are emerging with regard to the regulation of banking, a heavy emphasis will be put on transparency and openness in future?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am happy to confirm that in everything the Government do, we put a major store on openness and transparency. Indeed, we will bear that in mind in our approach to financial regulation in future.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, does the Minister not recognise the great anxiety about this situation? He says that “we”—I presume that he therefore speaks on behalf of the Government—have no knowledge of the report either. This is a totally unsatisfactory situation when lessons need to be learnt about such an important development. Will he not therefore look at the extent to which Her Majesty’s Government can emphasise to the FSA the desirability of making more public the position it has taken up?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, that is what we are doing, but we are acting within the constraints of the Financial Services and Markets Act, which was brought in by the previous Government in 2000.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, immediately after the proceedings on the Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill, my noble friend Lord McNally will repeat a Statement on the Green Paper, Rehabilitation and Sentencing.
Intelligence and Security Committee
(14 years ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
That this House approves the nomination of the Marquess of Lothian as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, before we consider the Motion in the name of the Leader of the House, as I understand it the Prime Minister makes these appointments having considered nominations from Parliament. Is this a nomination from Parliament? Does this mean that there will now be two Members of the House of Lords sitting on this committee? Is it not normally the case that under circumstances where there were two such nominations, one would come from the Opposition and one from the government side?
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, no, it is not a nomination from Parliament. The Prime Minister wrote to the acting leader of the Opposition in the summer. It was her proposal that there should not be a Labour Member of the House of Lords sitting on this committee.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, will the Minister clarify whether this is a nomination from Parliament? The Order Paper reads,
“to move that this House approves the nomination”.
As I understand it, the legislation says that the Prime Minister makes these appointments, having considered nominations from Parliament and after consultation with the leader of the Opposition. Where are we in that process?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, this is the final agreement of the process in your Lordships’ House because my noble friend Lord Lothian is a Member of this House. The Prime Minister consults with Parliament by writing to the leader of the Opposition, which is what he did.
Superannuation Bill
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass, and in so doing it may help the House if I briefly rehearse the evolution of this Bill as it passed through this House. I am aware of concern on all sides of the House at maintaining the central function of the Lords as a revising Chamber under the novel conditions of coalition between two of the four broad groups that constitute this House. I therefore wish to reassure the House that this Bill has been carefully considered, in its Committee and on Report, and that the Government have listened to the reasoned criticisms that were made and have revised the Bill in response to those criticisms.
There was, it is true, only one Division on Report, and that was won by the coalition Government, but, as noble Lords well know from the treatment of many other Bills under successive Governments, the calculus of victory versus defeat in contested votes provides only a crude measure of the process of legislative revision. Probing amendments in Committee explore the rationale and justification for detailed elements of government proposals. Committee reports—in this case from both the Delegated Powers Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights—add their critical opinions. This Government, like their predecessors, respond appropriately. I have written to the chairman of the Delegated Powers Committee today to respond to its report and to provide detail on the adjustments that we have made in response.
The Government moved several amendments on Report to accommodate criticisms made in Grand Committee. We accepted an amendment proposed by the opposition Front Bench, repeated from Committee, on which we had recognised the force of the arguments put forward. One amendment was jointly signed by both Front Benches. The Government offered assurances in debate on other issues of concern to noble Lords from around the House. The Minister for the Cabinet Office is writing to the Labour Front Bench to reinforce the assurances offered on Report in this House.
The goal of this Bill is to put in place a reformed Civil Service Compensation Scheme that is affordable, sustainable for the long term, and fair not only to civil servants but to other taxpayers. It is in no way an attack on collective bargaining with the Civil Service trade unions. Indeed, the Bill has now been amended to emphasise that future changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme would require consultation with the Civil Service trade unions,
“with a view to reaching agreement”.
The Cabinet Office sent the draft rules for the new compensation scheme to the Council of Civil Service Unions yesterday, seeking its views. These rules will form the basis of the new compensation scheme that will be laid before Parliament. Our target remains to do so before the House rises for the Christmas Recess.
The Bill before noble Lords has thus been modified in a number of significant respects from the form in which it entered the House. I recognise, of course, that there remain clauses and subsections which noble Lords on the opposition Benches would have liked to modify further; that is always the case with the process of consultation and compromise that constitutes legislative politics. However, I re-emphasise that this Bill has been revised as it moved from Second Reading through Grand Committee and Report to its Third Reading. The record of the Superannuation Bill supports the view that this House retains its proper role as a revising Chamber.
I thank all those who have taken part in the several stages of scrutiny. The Labour Front Bench provided constructive and well-argued opposition. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, made some characteristically vigorous contributions to Second Reading and Committee. We were sorry that illness prevented her from moving her own amendment on Report, and I am very glad to see her back in her place today. I was blessed with the support of a particularly skilled and effective Bill team of the Cabinet Office. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I shall take a brief moment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Brett and myself to thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for the constructive manner in which he has engaged with the opposition Benches on this Bill, and indeed to thank the Bill team. We agree on the need for the compensation scheme to be amended—indeed, we thought we had achieved that ourselves earlier in the year—and very much support what the Minister has said about processes of collective bargaining. We would share in the disappointment at the end of the day if it was not possible to reach total agreement between those who are engaged in that process.
The noble Lord is right to say that the Bill is not entirely as we would like it, but we are grateful for the reassurance that he put on the record on Report, and certainly grateful for the wider dissemination of that on the caps. That will reassure the Civil Service at a particularly difficult time for it. I thank the Minister again.
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for his kind remarks. I am very sorry that I was not able to be here to move my amendment. On the other hand, I know that my noble friend Lady Donaghy made a good job of it. I should like to thank her for the able way in which she handled it. Of course it is disappointing that the very firm assurances to the unions do not appear in the Bill. On the other hand, as the Minister has indicated this afternoon, amendments were moved during the passage of the Bill through this House and assurances have been given by the Minister. I am very grateful for that, and very happy that at least we made some impression. Certainly, the civil servants who have written to us will know that the arguments they put to us in their many letters have received endorsements from some of us on this side of the House, and we did our best to advance their arguments. In the mean time, I thank those who participated in the debates and who said some very nice things about me.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, I join in expressing appreciation for the consultative approach taken by the Government to this matter. The objectives were broadly shared on both sides of the House, and it is highly desirable in an area of potential conflict that there is as near consensual an outcome as we have seen.
I invite the Minister to indicate, if he can, where the unions stand, particularly those that conducted ballots of their members about this. I assume that it is the intention to allow those unions to conclude their ballots before seeking Royal Assent for this measure. One union, the PCS, unfortunately seems to stand out in that it is not making its alternative position at all clear, which of course undermines its argument very seriously. However, I conclude by thanking the Minister for his responsiveness.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, can the Minister comment on whether staff employed by the government offices in the regions and the regional development agencies will be able to apply for severance payments on a similar basis to that which has been previously afforded to people in comparable positions, or will they be involved in the new scheme that is about to be announced?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am conscious that the House is waiting to debate the Second Reading of another Bill. I am well aware, from Yorkshire, of the issue which the noble Lord raises. On union ballots, I am aware that some of the Civil Service unions are currently balloting their members, and I understand that they will close their ballots and count on 16 December. Some other unions will ballot over Christmas and into January.
Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill
(14 years ago)
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The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, the Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill does three things: it ends eligibility for child trust funds for children born from January 2011 onwards; it repeals the Saving Gateway Accounts Act 2009, following the Government’s decision not to introduce the saving gateway scheme; and it abolishes the health in pregnancy grant, again from January 2011. I will come on to the detail of these measures, but let me begin by explaining their purpose, and the purpose of this Bill.
As noble Lords will be aware, Britain is facing an extraordinary fiscal challenge. Last year, we had the largest peacetime deficit in our history, and we were borrowing one pound in every four that we spent. That challenge required the Government to take quick and decisive action to respond, and we have done so. In May, we set out over £6 billion of savings that we would make in this financial year, including £320 million from the child trust fund. At the Budget we then set out a clear plan to tackle the deficit over the coming years, and at the spending review we set out how we would put that plan into action. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the Statement that I repeated in your Lordships’ House last Monday, that plan is working; it has taken Britain out of the financial danger zone. The forecasts made by the Office for Budget Responsibility last week show the economy growing in each of the next six years, and growing faster this year than had been expected in June. Employment is also forecast to grow in every year of this Parliament, with total employment expected to rise from 29 million to 30.1 million.
As my right honourable friend the Chancellor said last week, the decisive plan that the Government have set out is working and we will not abandon it.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
My Lords, has the Minister seen the report from the Fawcett Society which identifies how discriminatory the Budget and the spending review have been against women and women with children? As this Bill is all about that issue, what is the Minister’s response to the Fawcett Society report?
Lord Sassoon
As I understand it, the Fawcett Society is currently involved in judicial review proceedings in relation to this matter. I am sure that we will come on later, as we should, to talk about the specific impact of the Bill. However, I am not sure that now is the right time to talk about the wider impacts. A Question has been tabled for answer next week about the wider impact of the Government’s measures. We should stick to the effect of the current measures, which I will come on to.
As I say, the Bill is an important part of the Government’s consolidation plan. Together, the ending of eligibility for child trust funds, the decision not to introduce the saving gateway and the abolition of the health in pregnancy grant will save £370 million this year and around £800 million in each year in future. While I realise that some noble Lords will find these changes disappointing, I believe that they are necessary and are the right savings to make. The child trust fund, for example, would have cost over half a billion pounds this year. That money would have been locked up for up to 18 years instead of supporting people now, and that is a luxury that we simply cannot afford.
As noble Lords will know, we therefore announced in May that government payments to child trust funds would be reduced and then stopped altogether. In July, we made regulations to reduce payments at birth and to stop payments at age seven altogether. Those regulations will also end the additional payments that are made to disabled children from 2011-12 onwards, although we will recycle the money that would have been spent on those payments to provide additional respite breaks.
Clause 1 now completes the process by ending eligibility for child trust funds for all children born from January 2011 onwards, meaning that the remaining government payments will stop altogether. However, we remain committed to encouraging saving for children within our limited resources. At Second Reading in another place, my right honourable friend the Financial Secretary announced that the Government will introduce a new tax-free account for saving for children, likely to be known as a junior ISA. We are now working closely with stakeholders to design these accounts but we have already set out that they will allow parents to invest in either cash or stocks and shares for their children, with the money locked up for the child until they reach adulthood. These accounts will offer parents a clear and simple way to save for their children, tax-free, but to do so while saving the half a billion pounds a year that continuing with child trust funds would have cost us.
That would have been unaffordable. We also believe that it would have been unaffordable to introduce the saving gateway, which is dealt with in Clause 2. That would have been a cash savings scheme for people on lower incomes, based on the idea of matching a government contribution for each pound saved. The scheme was due to be introduced in July 2010.
There was some evidence from the pilots for the saving gateway that matching was a popular and easily understood incentive to save, but the Bill Committee in the other place also heard from Carl Emmerson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that,
“there was not any really strong evidence from the saving gateway that it led to more overall saving from lower-income households”.
When we looked at this ahead of the Budget, it was clear that the summer of 2010, just as we were starting to tackle the deficit, would have been exactly the wrong time to bring in a new scheme that would have cost £300 million over the next five years. We also had concerns that the previous Government had failed to sign up enough account providers to operate the scheme effectively. The RBS Group and Lloyds Banking Group had said they would offer the accounts, but none of the other big high street banks was planning to do so, nor was a single building society. The Post Office had agreed to offer the accounts only if it received a subsidy from the Government to cover its costs.
For these reasons, we announced at the Budget that the saving gateway would not be introduced. We therefore stopped the Saving Gateway Accounts Act 2009 coming into force, and this Bill repeals it altogether. As we have no plans to introduce the scheme, it is right to remove the legislation from the statute book.
Finally, Clause 3 would abolish the health in pregnancy grant, which is a one-off cash payment of £190 to pregnant women. The previous Government said that it was being introduced in recognition of the importance of a healthy diet during pregnancy. However, there is no requirement for the grant to be spent on better health and well-being; women can spend the money on whatever they want. The grant is not paid until the mother has reached the 25th week of pregnancy, but the evidence shows that, to quote the National Childbirth Trust,
“if dietary intervention is to have an impact on birth weight and outcomes for the baby in later life, it should be started as early as possible”.
The grant is unfocused. It is also untargeted: it is paid to all pregnant women regardless of their income.
This Government recognise the importance of maternal health, but it should be supported through focused and targeted policies such as the Healthy Start scheme. This scheme is effectively focused on supporting health and well-being because it pays support in the form of vouchers rather than cash. It is targeted at pregnant women and children living in low-income households. We will therefore continue the Healthy Start scheme, but the health in pregnancy grant will be abolished for all women who reach the 25th week of pregnancy from January 2011. That will save us £40 million this year and £150 million each year thereafter.
The savings that we are making from the child trust fund, the saving gateway and the health in pregnancy grant allow us to focus our limited resources on our priorities. We are delivering on our commitment that health spending will increase in real terms in each year of this Parliament. We are prioritising fairness and social mobility, including by transforming the prospects of the poorest children through the schools pupil premium, which will be worth £2.5 billion by 2014-15. We have ensured that the spending review will have no measurable impact on child poverty in the next two years.
At the same time, we are tackling Britain’s unprecedented deficit. As I said earlier, we have a clear plan to do that. It involves difficult choices such as those included in this Bill. It was clear from the brief debate last Monday that some noble Lords have strong feelings on these issues, so I look forward to a full debate on them today.
I restate that I believe that these are the right choices. We cannot afford the luxury of spending half a billion pounds a year on the child trust fund for 18 years when the money is not available; we could not have afforded to introduce a new scheme such as the saving gateway; and we cannot afford to keep spending £150 million per year on the untargeted, unfocused health in pregnancy grant.
The savings that we have made through these policies will amount to £370 million this year and around £800 million each year from then on. That means £800 million less in other spending cuts, in tax rises or in even higher borrowing. This Bill puts those choices into action. I beg to move.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this somewhat pick and mix abolition Bill, containing as it does future plans for three quite separate pieces of primary legislation. The Bill, like so much of the cuts programme of this Government, will hit children, women and the poorest families hardest. It is almost as if Nick Clegg and David Cameron, like a pair of playground bullies, said, “Let's push around those least able to defend themselves”. This Bill will hit the poorest in society hardest and it will undo positive measures introduced by the Labour Government; wholesale and without any consideration of mitigation.
As the Minister said, the Bill removes eligibility for child trust funds, abandons the saving gateway and abolishes the health in pregnancy grant—a measure that I was responsible for steering through your Lordships' House at the time we enacted it. All of those acts were progressive measures and we need to be clear that their abolition is in fact a matter of dogma. That this is dogma is borne out by the fact that the Government could not even be bothered to undertake a proper impact assessment on their proposals, from which I take the lesson that they do not really care what the effects will be.
I know that we are becoming more and more familiar with broken promises from both parties in this Government, but it is worth noting that the Conservatives are breaking their manifesto commitment, which said:
“We will … cut government contributions to Child trust funds for all but the poorest third of families and families with disabled children”.
Another commitment bites the dust. It is true that the Liberal Democrats had in their manifesto an end to the child trust funds. I am not sure why, because there was no explanation. I looked in vain to see whether the funding might be redirected to some other support for the most impoverished and for anything at all about looked-after children. It may be there, but if so it is very well hidden. I looked in vain for anything that suggested that the Liberal Democrats had thought about how to create and nurture the savings habit.
The child trust fund is a savings and investment account for children born on or after 1 September 2002. The Bill ends new child trust funds from January 2011, worth £500 to all children over their lifetimes and £1,000 to the poorest children. Children who were due to receive the £250 top-up—£500 for the poorest—on their seventh birthday will not now do so. I hope that the Government intend to write to them all.
Last year, the Labour Government announced that they would contribute an extra £100 each year into the accounts of all disabled children, with severely disabled children getting £200 a year. I am bound to remind the House and perhaps the Minister, who was not about during that time, that David Cameron's Conservative Party did not oppose the measure when it was passed earlier this year before the general election. Perhaps that timing has something to do with this particular decision. I do not think that a respite scheme, welcome though it might be, is a substitute for those disabled children.
The child trust fund is a hugely successful scheme. In a recent survey by Mum’s Views, polling more than 1,000 current or expectant mothers, a staggering 91 per cent of expectant mothers interviewed had no idea that the Government were planning to replace the much loved child trust fund, and nearly half said that the Government should work harder to keep parents informed. Perhaps more worryingly, 18 per cent of those surveyed claimed that the changes meant that they were less likely to save for their children's future. That is a considerable proportion of the very people that the scheme was designed to reach.
Wherever you may sit on the political spectrum, everyone can agree that fostering a long-term savings culture is something that the UK badly needs. I am aware that the Government want to bring forward a junior ISA. However, it will not be ready until the autumn of next year. In the mean time, did the Government consider leaving the child trust fund in place so that families do not fall through the gap in the first half of 2011? Why did they not do so? For children born between January and the introduction of a new scheme, there will be no government-endorsed, universal tax-free scheme into which their parents will be able to save. Contrary to the Government's assurances that the retrospective nature of a replacement scheme will address the issue of a savings black hole, I remain profoundly concerned that, at this incredibly busy and emotional time, when new parents’ minds are far from focused on savings products, the lack of a government-endorsed product will result in a lost generation of children with no savings provision.
I turn to the case for looked-after children. As it currently stands, the new junior ISA would rely on voluntary contributions from parents and family members and there would be no provision at all for contributions to an account for looked-after children. The House is not permitted to discuss amendments to this Bill, but I am certain that this issue in particular is one that many noble Lords would have wished to address. I am now, with respect, addressing the Minister on behalf of looked-after children and their champions, notably Action for Children and Barnardo's. Will the Government consider picking up the amendment in the interests of looked-after children, or something like it, that my honourable friend Paul Goggins put down in another place? If not, why not? The Government have had time to reflect on this issue since 22 November, which was the Third Reading in another place, and I hope that they will have taken on board the powerful and compassionate arguments in favour of either maintaining the child trust fund for looked-after children or coming forward with a suitable replacement.
My understanding is that Action for Children, Barnardo's and Paul Goggins MP met the Financial Secretary Mark Hoban MP at the Treasury to discuss the proposal during the Report stage of the Bill in another place, and the Minister agreed that the proposal was worthy of proper consideration. He said:
“I have a lot of sympathy with what he”—
Paul Goggins—
“is trying to achieve, and I want to consider the matter more closely”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/10; col. 78.]
Have the Minister and his colleagues done so? Have they looked at the impact that the abolition of the child trust fund will have on looked-after children? What is the conclusion of their deliberations?
Some 6,000 children go into care each year. Over previous years, the Government have opened 33,158 child trust funds for children in foster care, residential care or children who are being looked after by the state. If the Government refuse to allow the child trust fund to continue, what exactly are they, as the corporate parent, going to say to the children who will not have that nest egg at 18? What about the situation of siblings, one of whom may qualify because they went into care last year, and a brother or sister who will not qualify because they go into care in the coming year? What responsibility does the Minister believe the state has in these circumstances, as the corporate parent of some of the most disadvantaged children in society?
At the moment we have no details for the implementation of the child ISA, and we do not know what will happen to the most disadvantaged children. We know that there will be a gap, and I invite the Minister to address these important issues before the Bill passes from your Lordships' House.
This Bill repeals the legislation providing for the establishment of a saving gateway scheme. As noble Lords will be aware, in 2009 the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill was introduced to pave the way for a national scheme. The purpose of the scheme was to promote a saving habit among working people on lower incomes by providing an incentive to save through a government contribution for each pound saved. We would all agree that savings are important in providing people with independence throughout their lives and security if things go wrong. While we on these Benches disagree with the decision not to establish the saving gateway next year, I would put in a plea to mitigate this decision, in the knowledge that the Conservative Opposition supported this scheme only last year. Would it not make sense to delay the implementation rather than repealing the Act? Will the Minister explain this change in policy to the House? Do this Government now not want to encourage low-income people to save, or was this yet another casualty of the coalition agreement—and, if so, which part of it exactly?
The last part of the Bill removes the entitlement to the health in pregnancy grant when a woman reaches the 25th week of her pregnancy. I regard this as a health issue, not a money matter, and I would have much preferred the kind of well informed debate that the House had when we established that grant. The health in pregnancy grant is a one-off tax repayment of £190 from HMRC for mothers-to-be who are at least 25 weeks pregnant to help them prepare for the birth of their baby. The payment is not means-tested and does not depend on national insurance contributions. It is estimated that there are around 750,000 qualifying pregnancies each year, based on the national statistics projections for birth. I am very sad that the Government have decided to remove this grant. It can make a crucial difference at a time when family finances become tight. It may not be a significant amount to the Minister but £190 is a substantial amount to a low-income family and, whatever the grant’s imperfections, it must be a matter of enormous regret that the Government propose to reduce the investment in women as they conceive, bear and give birth to children. I invite the House to join me and these Benches in regretting anything that has a detrimental impact on maternal health and well-being.
We know that women need to approach giving birth in a calm and confident frame of mind. We also know that very low-income families can and do run out of money for food from time to time, so this grant can be, could be and is of enormous importance. The Royal College of Midwives said that it was,
“disappointed at the decision to abolish the Health in Pregnancy Grant, which, apart from providing pregnant women with much needed financial support, provided an opportunity for midwives to communicate health advice to women and their families”.
As we are quoting the National Childbirth Trust, its chief executive said:
“At a time when families are trying to make ends meet, the Coalition Government has hit parents particularly hard. Cutting pregnancy and maternity grants, as well as child benefit and tax credits, will make it even more difficult for new parents or those wanting to start a family. We’re worried that parents, and parents-to-be, have been singled out unfairly, and that the Government should stick to its commitment to making the UK more family friendly”.
When this legislation was introduced in your Lordships’ House, many noble Lords who come from a medical background and are knowledgeable about pregnancy and childbirth were very much in support of this grant. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and my noble friend Lord Winston have spoken to me about this and I am very grateful for their wise counsel on this matter. My noble friend Lord Winston is unable to be here today, so I shall reflect his views, as they were expressed to me, to the House. He pointed out to me that there is growing evidence that health and the feeling of well-being are not only important for pregnant women but for their offspring. The modern field of epigenetics suggests that environmental influences on the pregnant mother may alter the way that the DNA of her child functions and that this may have long-term consequences for the health of the baby, even as an adult.
The epigenetic effects are likely to be heritable: that is to say, not only the baby to be born but his or her offspring may suffer from the inherited deleterious effects from the circumstances of their grandmother’s, or even their great grandmother’s, pregnancy. My noble friend Lord Winston provided me with five examples of research from Australia, New York, Canada, Southampton and Imperial College in the UK, which I am more than happy to make available to the Minister.
I am not claiming more for this grant than that it is a contributing factor to the well-being of the pregnant mother and that the Government should have a better justification for its abolition than simply money-saving. I thought that one of the most powerful arguments for this grant was the fact that it is not given unless the mother has attended an interview with a medical professional, a health visitor or a midwife, and discussed her pregnancy, care and diet. There are some women—I am thinking particularly of very young, vulnerable or teenage women—for whom this visit may be their first contact with a health professional. The grant has two benefits: first, it provides a lump sum to assist a pregnant woman with either diet or something else that she might need towards the end of her pregnancy; and, secondly, it helps to ensure that she is in the system and stands a better chance of receiving care and support throughout the rest of her pregnancy and the birth of her baby.
Would the Minister care to address the issues of the benefit that pregnant women receive from this grant and how the Government intend to replace it—if not, why not?—and of how the Government intend to address the issue of women who receive extra support as a result of this grant? I very much look forward to this Second Reading debate and to the Minister’s response to the questions that I have raised and that other noble Lords will raise during the course of the debate.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear introduction to this debate. I would have more sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, if the Labour Party had been able to explain how it was going to save so much as £1 of the £44 billion that it legally committed itself to cutting under the legislation to halve the budget deficit, which it passed in the previous Parliament. Every time a measure that involves a cut of any sort to public expenditure comes before your Lordships’ House, the Labour Party opposes it. Today has been no different. The noble Baroness accuses those of us on these Benches of many heinous crimes—of being heartless and uncaring. I reject those allegations, which are completely unfair on her part and simply untrue.
As regards the child trust fund, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, accused the coalition Benches of broken promises. This is a Liberal Democrat promise that the coalition has kept. She says she has never heard any arguments in favour of that stance. She has been spared the many speeches that I have made on the subject in your Lordships’ House. We opposed the introduction of the child trust fund, we have opposed it consistently ever since and we do not now mourn its passing. There are several reasons for that; I will give just two.
First, it is hopelessly untargeted. Only 73 per cent of parents take up the offer of doing something with the voucher that they get when they are allocated their child trust fund. Incidentally, this figure has remained absolutely static since the child trust fund was introduced in 2002. Around that figure, in the constituencies that are predominantly middle-class—Buckinghamshire, for example—the percentage goes up to 84 per cent. In the constituencies that are poor—Belfast West, for example —it goes down to 48 per cent. The people who take up their options under the child trust fund to insert additional savings for their children are predominantly those who need no extra incentive from the state to do so. That is our first major criticism of it.
Secondly, one of the purposes of the child trust fund was to instil the saving habit in young people. The saving habit involves forgoing expenditure now to gain greater benefit later. That is what thrift is all about; that is what the saving habit is all about. This measure does nothing to encourage thrift among young people. It is simply a windfall gain at the age of 18. That is, again, an argument that I have made many times in your Lordships’ House. Looking to the future, for many parents, the ISA—particularly a child ISA—is a tax-efficient way of saving for their children. That is the way in which we should look for parents to gain a benefit in saving for their children. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, shakes her head but I believe it to be the truth, however hard she shakes it.
Looked-after children are clearly in a different situation from everybody else because they do not have parents. Like the noble Baroness, I hope the Government can do something for them. However, doing something for looked-after children is very different from doing something for every child. Looked-after children are a very small proportion of the population. Doing something for them in a whole raft of ways is hugely important. We do quite a lot for looked-after children and no doubt much more can be done. It would be a very positive move if Mark Hoban and his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, could enable something to happen in this specific area for looked-after children. However, that is very different from saying that every child, however affluent, should benefit from this scheme. Therefore, I do not change my view that, on balance, abolishing this scheme is a more sensible way of saving public money.
It was difficult to oppose the principle of the saving gateway and we did not. However, we had major questions about it. One was that unlike middle-class tax incentives for saving which apply, for example, to pensions all the way through, the saving gateway applied only to two years of savings. Thereby, the amount by which you could benefit was relatively small. The saving habit for people—having got them into it and having given them the incentive—was removed after two years. You could not get another one, whatever happened to you. So if the scheme would kick-start a saving habit within two years, great; but if not, I am afraid that it was unlikely to have been successful.
The other question that I would very much have liked to have been answered was: what proportion of the potential beneficiaries of the saving gateway would actually have taken it up? One of the obvious problems about poor people is that they do not have a surplus. Therefore, while we would ideally wish them, like everyone else, to save, in reality that is crying for the moon for many of those individuals and families. They require every penny that they have to make ends meet.
The Minister also mentioned that virtually no financial institution was prepared to touch the saving gateway because it was not worth their while. Not even the Post Office, which one would have hoped would administer this scheme, was prepared to do so because it could not make it pay. One wonders whether, in reality, once the measure had been introduced, RBS and Lloyds would have continued with it. As we have seen with basic bank accounts, it is very difficult to get the banks enthusiastically to support things that they do not make any money from. Given our approach to the largely nationalised banks, which unfortunately is almost totally hands-off, I would not put any faith in them implementing the saving gateway.
It would be like being in favour of sin to say that the saving gateway was a terrible idea, but it was badly flawed and, frankly, if we are going to make any cuts, this seems to be a reasonably high-priority and low-cost—in social terms—way of doing it.
The health in pregnancy grant is another untargeted grant. In times of stress and financial stringency one should look at targeting the public money we have available for this kind of thing, rather than making a blanket payment. I note that the grant was introduced in April 2009, and important though it may be, it was not exactly the top priority for a Labour Government, who at that point had been in office for 12 years.
Again, in an ideal world, would it not be nice if we kept this grant? We are not in an ideal world. Under Labour, we were not going to be in an ideal world. The Labour Party was committed to making cuts worth tens of billions of pounds; it still has not identified where they should be made. If you have to make cuts, these are sensible. Reluctantly, on that basis, I support the Bill.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I voted last week with Her Majesty’s Government on the Motion on the Bill, because, on balance, I believed that the Speaker’s ruling that it was a money Bill should be respected. However, in doing so I was certainly not in favour of the Bill’s aim to remove the child trust fund payments for all looked-after children born after January 2011. That would serve further to disadvantage some of our most disadvantaged children. That is why I am speaking today, and I will address only that aspect of the Bill.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, it appears that during the Bill’s passage in the other place, Paul Goggins, working with Barnardo’s and Action for Children, and after a sympathetic discussion with the Treasury Minister Mark Hoban, proposed an amendment based on the new junior ISA that the Government themselves proposed to introduce in 2011. The scheme, which I am certainly not against in principle, will apparently allow parents to contribute limited tax-free sums each year for their children’s use when they became adults. Thus the amendment that Paul Goggins proposed would, as your Lordships have heard, ensure a yearly government grant, guaranteed for each looked-after child after she or he had been in care for more than three months. The cost would certainly be a reduction of, I think, £6.6 million from the saving of £500 million a year achieved by the abolition of the child trust fund, but it would at least ensure that these highly vulnerable children, too, have some help at that difficult time when they leave care and begin adult life.
That is the point at which the situation becomes obscure. There was, apparently, no prior indication that the Bill would be deemed a money Bill during Report in the other place. I understand that Paul Goggins therefore withdrew his amendment on the basis that, if the Government did not come up with their own satisfactory scheme for looked-after children, it could be tabled in your Lordships’ House—I would certainly have been very happy to table it. However, as we now know, due to the Speaker’s decision at that late stage of the Bill, the opportunity to amend the Bill in your Lordships’ House is no longer available.
My concern, and that of other noble Lords, is that by making the Bill a money Bill late in the process, we are not given the opportunity to amend and thereby ensure that there is an equivalent scheme for looked-after children. The result is that the Government risk being seen—I am sorry to say this, but it is true—as neglecting their responsibility to our country’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
At Second Reading in the other place, the Government promised:
“To make sure parents have a clear, simple and accessible option to save for their children”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/10/10; col. 212.]
However, without government contributions, how will the Government ensure that looked-after children have the same opportunity to begin life with a similarly adequate nest egg?
I dare say it will be argued that the junior ISA gives local authorities discretion to pay into savings accounts for looked-after children. However, considering that their budgets have been cut by 26 per cent over the next four years—I am not complaining about that, because I know savings have got to be made and we have to face that situation—how realistic an expectation is this, unless a sum from Government is ring-fenced for this specific purpose?
The evidence to support the value of financial assets for children in care is plentiful. As it stands, 90 per cent of 19 year-old care leavers were NEET—not in employment, education or training—in 2009, compared with 17 per cent of 18 year-olds in the general population. Financial assets through savings accounts can be vital for children as they make the transition from care to independence, not least if they are going to continue in education or training of some kind, as we hope they will.
As the Prime Minister explained at Question Time on 30 June, only 0.6 per cent of children are in care, but 23 per cent of adult prisoners in our prison system were in care. With limited resources, when these children in care grew up, they often had nowhere else to turn. More financial resources, not less, as well, of course, as other forms of community help, are certainly needed to support vulnerable children.
Frank Field's recent report, The Foundation Years: Preventing poor children becoming poor adults, which the Prime Minister apparently welcomed enthusiastically, further strengthened the case for providing the utmost support to children in their early years. The report found overwhelming evidence that life chances are most heavily predicated on their development in those vital first five years of life. All of us, especially the Government, have a responsibility to protect and support our country's most vulnerable children. I hope that the Minister will give noble Lords some indication that an appropriate government scheme for looked-after children will be produced, and tell us when.
I will end with a concern that I believe other noble Lords share. What is the Government's definition of a money Bill? We need to know when a Bill is a money Bill and when it is not. The procedure in the case of this Bill is particularly worrying. What was the justification for making the announcement so late in the Bill's passage through the other place? Any new Government face challenges. A coalition partnership may have more problems than most Governments in getting its legislation accepted. However, noble Lords need to be reassured that this kind of procedure is not going to be used as a way of easing a difficult issue through the parliamentary process.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, raised the issue of a money Bill. I remind her that money Bills are established conclusively by the certificate of the Speaker. This is not a question of government policy and, much as we might like to delve further into it, this is not something that your Lordships' House can do.
I support the Bill. When I was sitting on the Front Bench opposite, I had the privilege to speak for Her Majesty’s Official Opposition on both the Child Trust Funds Bill and the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill, and so I know a little about the schemes. As the Opposition, we did not oppose either the Child Trust Funds Bill or the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill, although we did improve both during their passage here. However, our lack of opposition was not based on a belief that either Bill represented a good use of public money. Rather, as I made plain at the time, we supported them because we were in favour of supporting savings.
We should remember that the savings ratio was a healthy 10 per cent in 1997, when the previous Government took office. It fell disastrously after that. In 2008, the savings ratio went negative: overall, people reduced their savings rather than made additional savings. The ratio has gained ground since then, as is normal in recessionary times, but it is still not at the healthy levels that we experienced in the early 1990s and earlier.
I will start with the Child Trust Fund. The timing of the fund was pure politics. It was designed so that lots of £250 vouchers would drop on the doormats of parents just at the time of the 2005 general election. It was also pure new Labour. It had been described at a seminar organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research—at the time the think tank of choice for new Labour—as “the third way within the third way”. I did not understand at the time what that meant, and the years since 2004 have provided no further enlightenment. I suspect that third-way theology has now been consigned to history by the Benches opposite and so we may never find out.
There was no proper research underpinning the Child Trust Fund proposals. No one knew what the impact would be on savings during the accumulation period, and no one knew whether the acquisition of a financial asset at 18 would make any difference to the savings behaviour of young adults. The Government asserted that a financial asset would increase the life chances of young adults, but, as the acting director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in giving evidence to the Public Bill Committee in another place, that analysis relied on correlation, not causation. Furthermore, no one had any idea what young people would do with their windfall of several hundred pounds when they gained access to it aged 18. There were pious hopes about education and other worthy expenditures, but many of us thought that the purveyors of drink and drugs might well be the beneficiaries, because no constraints were placed on how the money could be spent. The Government had done no modelling on likely outcomes; nor were they prepared to set any targets against which the success of the scheme could be judged. This was evidence-free, outcome-indifferent policymaking at its worst.
We have some evidence of the impact of the policy from the regular statistics that are produced by HMRC, but these require some interpretation. The previous Government typically claimed that these statistics showed the success of the scheme. Some of the child trust fund providers, mainly financial mutuals, also claimed that. I am not going to unpick all the statistics today—the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has referred to some of them—but one thing they showed was that only 24 per cent of accounts attracted additional savings beyond the Government’s contributions, and only a tiny number contributed the maximum allowed.
The 2009-10 distributional analysis figures have mysteriously disappeared from HMRC’s website today but in 2008-09 extra savings amounted to £290 million. However, no one knows whether these savings were genuinely additional or whether they were simply diverted from other savings mechanisms to which parents and others would have contributed. The previous Government did not want to know the answer to that question and never asked it.
In order to appease the critics of the abolition of child trust funds, who are largely the providers of child trust funds, the Government have announced junior ISAs to provide a specific tax-incentivised savings vehicle from next year. I am not sure that this was wholly necessary other than to provide a marketing peg for children’s savings product providers. However, if the tax cost is modest, something which promotes savings without the £500 million-plus price tag which came with the child trust fund is to be welcomed.
There is just one area which deserves further consideration, and other noble Lords have spoken about it already—namely, the position of looked-after children. These children do not have families who will save for them. They will start adult life with all the disadvantages that children in care have. When child trust funds disappear, they will have no financial assets either. As has already been stated, my honourable friend Mr Mark Hoban said in another place that he would look at what could be done to get local authorities to provide equivalent savings, and I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to say more about that when he responds to this debate.
The child trust fund is also an untargeted, universal benefit, which is usually a good indicator of poor value for money. The savings gateway was a little different in that it was specifically targeted at low-income households. This project was piloted twice and so it was not a wholly evidence-free project. That did not, however, mean that it would be a success in creating an enduring savings habit among recipients of the benefit.
The pilot studies suggested that some savers were simply diverting their money from other forms of saving—often informal methods—and the pilots did not go on long enough to indicate whether there was persistence of savings at the end of the minimum saving period which led to the acquisition of the savings bonus. As my noble friend Lord Sassoon pointed out, the saving gateway scheme was not popular with providers. All building societies and most of the banks shunned it. The Post Office, which was keen, would get involved only with a public subsidy. The economics of the saving gateway scheme simply did not add up. Therefore, it was far from clear that the savings gateway would have flown even if it had got off the ground on implementation.
I have to say, however, that I have concerns about how to encourage those on low incomes to save. The evidence shows that 43 per cent of those on very low incomes, of less than £100 per week, have no savings whatever, and therefore they are very exposed when things go wrong in their lives. I completely support the judgment of the Government that over £100 million a year is too high a price to pay for the saving gateway scheme, which might not have done much to increase long-term savings. However, I hope that the issue of longer-term savings among the poor does not disappear off the Government’s agenda, although I am sure that gimmicks such as the savings gateway are not needed.
I know next to nothing about health and pregnancy grants other than that they are untargeted, universal benefits and, despite their names, are not related to health in any meaningful way. They could have been, and were, spent on whatever pregnant women chose. For me, that is good enough reason for abolition.
The Government have brought this Bill forward against the background of the disastrous economic circumstances which they inherited when taking office this year. It is absolutely right that we take steps to eliminate the deficit, as my right honourable friend the Chancellor has set out. In that light, the schemes being abolished by this Bill are obvious candidates. However, I believe that a respectable case can be made for repealing these schemes even if we had a firmer financial footing. It is unlikely that my party would ever have introduced them as a matter of choice and, with the small exceptions to which I have referred, I shall not regret their demise. I support the Bill, not with the reluctance of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, but with complete enthusiasm.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, this Bill will impact hardest on the poorest in society and on disabled children who at some time between the ages of 14 and 24 move from better funded children's services to more Spartan adult services and who might have used this premium, this sum of money, either to go to college or to buy equipment for their disability. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, it will impact on children coming out of care who often have no family support. The £8,000 a year might have been used, for example, to take driving lessons to improve their work prospects. Ministers talk blandly about corporate parents—local authorities—at the very same time as Mr Pickles is cutting local authority money by 30 per cent and local authorities cannot even protect statutory services. It is complacency gone mad.
The Saving Gateway would especially have benefited women and people from BME communities, most of whom have negligible assets and no ability to aid their children. Also, the Government said—and this was repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—that the health and pregnancy grants were unfocused, rather like the winter fuel payments to pensioners, perhaps. Why do so many people believe that pregnant women cannot be trusted to spend a grant wisely, but there is no attempt to supervise pensioners in southern Spain enjoying the winter fuel allowance?
As Katherine Rake said in her expert evidence, for low-income women pregnancy is the route into poverty, yet the Government are removing a useful resource. Why does the Bill and so much of the Government’s strategy fall on the weakest and the poorest rather than on those who have broader shoulders? The Government have abandoned their manifesto promise to target these policies on the more vulnerable and have provided no equality impact analysis, no doubt because it would make deeply uncomfortable reading. Why exactly do the Government need to incentivise the better-off like me with 40 per cent tax relief on savings, worth up to £11,000 a year, even under the current regime? Why do I need incentivising, yet the poorest among us do not, even though the sums expended will be modest by comparison and their incomes infinitely lower?
I think the junior ISA is remarkably silly. All the evidence shows that people are putting more money into ISAs and pensions at the moment because of ease of access, yet the junior ISA will lock money away for 18 years with limited tax relief because it is designed to help the poorest. So it will combine the worst effects of ISAs with the worst effects of pensions. If there is any spare money, it should go into an adult ISA instead. As I say, it is a remarkably foolish idea.
In debates in the other place, the committee on the Bill took several days of expert evidence—a practice followed in the Commons since 2006 and much to be welcomed—from the IFS, the IPPR, the Family and Parenting Institute, credit unions, Scope, 4Children, the Royal College of Midwives, the National Childbirth Trust and so on. They and the committee discussed, for example, the need for more health visitors, the high risk of miscarriage in the first trimester, which is why the health in pregnancy grant did not come early enough, Gypsies, credit unions, the cost of second-hand buggies, disability needs, the Child Support Agency, folic acid, free prescriptions, financial education, Sure Start, the collapse of Farepak, tuition fees and the pupil premium. All this expert policy discussion was around a so-called money Bill. If it was a money Bill, why on earth take evidence from expert witnesses on its policy implications? No previous money Bill has.
No one at any stage, including the Minister in his evidence, suggested that this was a money matter. Indeed, reference was made to further consideration and report back from the Lords in the normal way. As my right honourable friend Mr Hanson said, this is a deeply political Bill. Committee members fully understood the policy significance of these measures. It was treated throughout as a social policy Bill as, indeed, I believe it to be. If so, why is this social policy Bill coming to us as a money Bill, which means today that we are all in effect wasting our time?
I went back to the 1910 debates to seek to understand how the Speaker on advice could have made the ruling he did. The Lords in 1909 had rejected the Lloyd George Budget and the Commons discussed whether it was entitled to do so. A route out was suggested by Mr Asquith, leader of the Liberals, that the Speaker should rule on what was a money Bill. Balfour, the Conservative leader, had some prescient words to say. He argued that the Liberals were making,
“Mr. Speaker into an arbiter … it will rest with the Speaker of one House of Parliament not merely to say what the duties of that House are, but to say whether a particular Bill shall become law or shall not become law. He becomes not merely the guardian of our rights, but, in a certain sense, the author of our legislation. He is to say whether or not a certain Bill is one that this House can pass over the heads of another place. I do not know whether that is a wise addition to Mr. Speaker's powers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/3/1910; col. 1189.].
Why did Mr Balfour hesitate? He hesitated because of the fears expressed all around the Commons of what was then called “tacking”: that is, adding on to Finance Bills or money Bills matters of policy extraneous to them in order to bypass the Lords. As Balfour put it,
“bringing forward Bills which are in form purely Money Bills for objects which are not purely money objects”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/3/1910; col. 1190.].
That concern was shared by the Liberal Herbert Gladstone.
From reading those debates and the Parliament Act, either this Bill is not a money Bill or almost all Bills, from social security to defence, are money Bills. I have taken two Tax Credits Bills through your Lordships' House and was much aided by opposition contributions and some of their amendments. In my view, those Bills had as much or as little claim to be regarded as money Bills as this Bill.
Speaker Lowther in 1914 seemed to put the matter to rest when he said:
“It is desirable ... to keep the Bill which imposes taxes upon the people separate from the Bill which proposes to expend the money derived from the imposition of those taxes”.
His assumption was that the first was a money Bill, but the second was not. Finance Bills he went on, should be confined,
“to the imposition of taxes, and arrangements for dealing with the National Debt, and so forth”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/1914; col. 1509.]
I turned to Erskine May to see how the debate had moved on. It had not. Essentially it follows Speaker Lowther's ruling. It states:
“No serious practical difficulty normally arises in deciding whether a particular bill is or is not a ‘money bill’”,
and that,
“even if the main object of a bill is to create a new charge on the Consolidated Fund or on money provided by Parliament, the bill will not be certified if it is apparent that the primary concern of the charge is not purely financial”—
a point that was established by my noble friend Lady Thornton.
Over the years, fewer and fewer Bills have been designated as money Bills. All the constitutional experts I have consulted in the past week or two do not believe this to be a money Bill. We are not talking about papal infallibility; we are talking about judgment, and I believe that a wrong call was made. During the past three years, three Bills have been certified as money Bills by the Speaker, over and beyond conventional Finance Bills: that is, the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill 2010, the Fiscal Responsibility Bill 2009 and the Industry and Exports (Financial Support) Bill 2008-09.
There was some debate as to whether today’s Superannuation Bill was a money Bill. It, too, took witnesses, and the Commons and the Speaker decided that it was not. We had its Third Reading just minutes ago. I believe that all those decisions were correct. They followed Speaker Lowther and Erskine May. I do not believe that this Bill does. Surely no one would argue that setting up, say, a child trust fund is not a money Bill when it is introduced, but is a money Bill when it is altered or scrapped. If there is social policy behind its introduction, there are social policy consequences for its abolition.
Why does it matter? Let us take child and maternal welfare, disability, foetal health and nutrition, mental health and depression, and debt and credit unions. Almost all those topics, which were explored in the Commons committee on this Bill, have been debated by your Lordships in the past. I hope that the other House would agree that this House, especially its Cross-Benchers, has expertise, experience, knowledge and practice that are unrivalled in the other place. Why is that? Because in the other place, Members represent communities of locality: their constituencies. We do not, but most of us have come from, or represent or speak for, communities of interest: that is, disabled people, pensioners, asylum seekers or perhaps, as today, children in care.
Most of us are presidents, patrons or chairs of major voluntary organisations and charities, which look to us, in a way that no MP properly can, to speak for communities of interest that are based not on place but on people perhaps scattered across the land and often barely visible or heard. That, together with the careful way in which we revise and suggest amendments, seems to me to be why this House is so valuable. Yet your Lordships have no power whatever to amend this Bill or to influence its outcome in any way. In no way can we ask the Commons to think again about the impact of this Bill on communities of interest, of which many of us may have considerable knowledge.
Of course the Commons has the final word, but surely it should not exclude from consideration our words and views on matters of such social policy. I repeat; if this ruling becomes a precedent, some of us might as well go home. If in this House we cannot affect policy on social welfare, poverty, child and maternal health, tax credits and benefits, and ask the Commons to think again, what exactly are we here for? We are redundant. We will not need Lords reform. Our purpose will have been severely curtailed ahead even of possible reforms to our membership. Surely that is not wise—that is, if we believe in a two-Chamber Parliament. More importantly, perhaps, surely it is not decent that our ability in this House to speak out for—and, I hope, to defend— some of the most voiceless and powerless in the land should be curtailed in this way. It is wrong, profoundly wrong.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
My Lords, I need not detain your Lordships long. Since entering your Lordships’ House, it has been my principle to promise myself never to repeat points that have been made adequately before I get up to speak. I wish, indeed, that other Members of the House would share with me the same idea and ideal. But I am not going to apologise on this occasion for repeating precisely some of the things that have been said, and said very eloquently.
First, I need to say that last week’s debate was the most frustrating that I have sat through since coming here. I am not a politician; I am just a Methodist minister. I deal with people on the ground, their pastoral needs and their everyday concerns. But I wish that the two opening speakers last week had spoken the other way around. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, guessing what his opponents’ arguments would be, chose all the wrong targets. He did not itemise anything that was actually going to be said by my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, who did not argue that we should ignore, or want to repeal, or object to the implementation of the Parliament Act 1911—not at all—but that using the Act, and the conventions that arise from it, we should seek, within the month that is available to us, to find some way of amending in small ways the provisions of the Bill that is now before us. I just feel that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, chose the wrong targets and, in doing so, poured scorn on those who had not yet spoken; accusing them of opportunism, of wheezes, of procedural ploys, of games and the like. In my book—and mine is only a small book—that is an unworthy way of conducting an argument.
In the course of last week’s debate, it was said, more than once, that since 1997 64 money Bills had been introduced to this House, with all the rules and regulations that go with that. No one said—indeed, my noble friend Lady Royall asked the question directly of the noble Lord the Leader of the House—how many of those 64 Bills had been declared to be money Bills at the conclusion of their treatment in another place. I ask the Minister—his advisers are there—whether he can answer that question in summing up this debate. How many of the 64 Bills, 40 per cent of which came before this House in the previous Parliament, were declared money Bills at the end of their treatment in another place? That is a very important thing because there were people in another place who wanted to amend the Bill, who confidently expected the opportunity would arise for us to do it here, and who were denied that opportunity because at the conclusion of the Third Reading it was declared to be a money Bill. That is a very important question for us to know the answer to.
I ask the Minister, who of course is a finance Minister, not a social policy Minister, whether the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is correct as against a statement I have had in some briefing material I have received. I want to know the answer to this. The Bill’s passage through Parliament is described for another place. It says that the Bill completed its Commons stages on 22 November, and following the end of the Third Reading in the Commons, it was designated a money Bill by the Speaker—so far so good—at the request of the Government. That is against what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, seems to me to have said and I want to know which version is correct.
Having laid out my stall, as it were, I want to speak to a very narrow point. It is the plight of looked-after children. On all sides of the House, we are agreed that this represents a most needy part of our population. A small percentage, 0.6 per cent, of children are in care: 23 per cent of people in prison have been in care. We have to address this as a matter of urgency and it does not belong to one party or another, or to a coalition Government, or Opposition, or the Cross Benches to say “It’s our bag this one”. It belongs to all of us. It belongs to our society as a whole.
This abolition of the child trust funds is going to affect looked-after children in a big way. I know that Paul Goggins, in another place, had formulated, after consultation with Ministers, a possible amendment to the provisions of the Bill that would have benefited looked-after children. Because of the procedural way in which this Bill is now before us, that has been denied him, that has been denied us, and that has been denied looked-after children. Is it a waste of time? It is not for me. If I can put on the record of the proceedings of this House my concern that these children should be dealt with in a less cavalier fashion than the Bill provides for, I will be satisfied. But I will also be satisfied because as a member of the human race I can speak on behalf of vulnerable people in this way and urge the Minister that, if he cannot allow us to amend the Bill—which he cannot—he will at least promise us that the concerns of looked-after children will be taken forward by him with his fellow Ministers so that we can have greater satisfaction on this issue.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as vice chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, and as a patron of the Who Cares? Trust, an advocacy group working for the interests of young people in care, championing in particular their education over the years. I begin by expressing my gratitude to noble Lords for their concern about young people in care, which has been expressed on all sides of the House in the debate.
I want also to make an apology. I am sorry for giving a Second Reading speech in the procedural debate relating to this Bill last week. I recognise that I was trespassing on the conventions of the House. I ask the forgiveness of noble Lords, but as is often the case, there is little time to prepare for our debates and I was responding as best I could to the strong concerns of agencies working in this area.
I thank the Minister for his opening speech, but I was reminded that he is something of a purveyor of bad news and that it might be tempting for him to shut his ears to the criticisms being levelled at him. Recently I spoke to a man from Ireland who was over here to make money for a few weeks before returning to spend time with his family. He was doing this because there is simply no employment for him over there. So we cannot be complacent about the current extraordinary fiscal deficit. It was also good to be reminded of the positive indicators for employment growth produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility. A saving of £500 million will be made as a result of the abolition measures set out in this Bill, and I will come back to that in a moment. First, I ask the Minister whether he considers it likely, in the current circumstances, that local authorities will be able to fund the proposed ISA funds. Has he taken soundings to this effect?
I welcome the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, on the need to focus particularly on this group of children. My noble friend Lady Howe spoke eloquently on their behalf, and highlighted the difficult period of transition for these children as they leave care. A quarter leave care at the age of 16, but despite the pilot schemes that have been set up to enable children to remain with their foster carers until the age of 18, many of them feel that they are being pushed out into the adult world prematurely. These children often have chaotic childhood histories, not only in their own families but all too often within the care system itself. They can be passed from foster carer to foster carer, to children’s home and then back again. So it is important to bear in mind that they may be beginning to put their lives together at some point between the ages of 18 and 21, and that this nest egg may be an important means by which they can change the direction of their lives during this time. The Minister may say that the £500 million has already been accounted for in the budgetary plans. I hope that he will consider whether there may be some scope for rebudgeting in this area.
I want to set out in some detail the proposal made by the honourable Paul Goggins. I know that this is a Second Reading debate, but since we will not have the opportunity to discuss any details in Committee or on Report, I hope it may be helpful to outline the key features of his proposal.
Any child who enters local authority care under Sections 20 or 31 of the Children Act 1989, or the equivalent legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and remains in care for a minimum of 13 weeks, would be eligible for a junior ISA. After 13 weeks the responsible local authority must send the child’s details to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which will then open an account. HMRC will make an initial payment of £250. The responsible local authority must notify HMRC if the child spends more than 26 weeks in the next year in care. HMRC will then make a further contribution of £100. The same applies in any subsequent year that the child spends in care until he reaches his 18th birthday. Local authorities, which are the benefactors, can contribute additional amounts to the account subject to the general conditions laid down in relation to a junior ISA. No child who has a child trust fund would qualify for a junior ISA under this scheme, which applies equally to children in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I shall not go into too much detail but the overall annual cost of the scheme is estimated to be £6.6 million—however, this has to be an approximate figure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, raised an important point generally about how the child trust funds might be misused at the age of 18 or whenever the child benefits from them. This may apply particularly to looked-after children when they come of age and we will need to look carefully at how the money is administered to ensure that it is used in their best interests and not to their detriment.
I hope to short circuit much of what I had planned to say. Will the Minister meet with interested Members of your Lordships’ House early in the new year so that we can discuss what provisions might be put in place to secure the interests of children in care? Given that there will be no opportunity for further deliberation and the many concerns which have arisen, it is important that this issue is not lost. I hope the Minister will consider that.
I pay tribute to the work of the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith and the Centre for Social Justice and to their recognition of the needs of these children and the way in which we have let them down in the past. I also pay tribute to the previous Government for the many measures they took to improve outcomes for children. I know it sometimes seemed that they were investing huge sums of money and were making little progress, but it is encouraging to learn from the latest research that 10 years ago only 1 per cent of children in our care system went on to university; now it is 8 or 9 per cent—a 800 per cent increase or more. It is still poor, but it is a vast improvement on the past. We need to sustain that momentum; we must not fall back when it comes to keeping our eye on these children. It is not that we do not care about them but, if we do not prioritise them, they will simply fall back again because their needs are so complex and so difficult to meet.
I pay tribute also to the Frank Buttle Trust and its chief executive, Gerri McAndrew. The trust has played an important role in this improvement with its kitemark universities, ensuring that care leavers are given the support they need at university. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
My Lords, my early training was as a social worker and I have continued throughout my career to maintain an interest in looked-after children, as we now call them. I find that a difficult phrase because too often we complain that they have not been sufficiently well looked after. I have also had a lifelong relationship with Action for Children and currently carry out the role of an ambassador for it, which is a bit strange, but there you go. I want to ensure that no one thinks I have interests that I am not talking about.
One of my greatest privileges in my previous job as Minister for the Cabinet Office was being given responsibility for social exclusion. I was challenged by the Prime Minister to take a new look at children in care. That has informed many of my views and concerns about the some of the actions that the Government are now taking.
I was tempted to raise the Fawcett Society report, because the Minister has once again justified everything on the basis of reducing the deficit. Everybody accepts that there is a deficit, but it is claimed that it is our fault. Yet the Minister acknowledges that it was important to bail out Northern Rock; indeed, the Government now feel able to bail out Ireland with £6 billion. I agree with that, but the Minister should temper the way in which he raises the issue. Whatever our view of how the deficit should be tackled, it is absolutely clear that the people who will suffer most from the Bill and the manner in which the Government are imposing their deficit reduction programme are women and children. I do not think that that was the Government’s intention, but it is the effect of their not adopting the approaches to budget assessment that they have been implored to adopt. We were implored to take the same approach. Gender budgeting is not new. Many organisations have urged Governments to take it more seriously. I attended with the Chief Whip in 2007 a United Nations conference in New York which looked exclusively at gender budgeting. The ideas have been around for a long time. It saddens me that the Government forgot about them when looking at how they would cut the deficit.
There is now a lot of debate about how child poverty can be reduced and how children can grow up in a way that enables them to take advantage of their potential. The importance of assets is also recognised. They are more important than they ever were when I was born. Then, very few people could benefit from their parents being able to sell their house, for example; now, it is the expectation among the vast majority of people in this country that they will benefit from some sort of asset transfer. For looked-after children and children from the poorest neighbourhoods, that prospect is still a long way away. That was not the sole reason for introducing child trust funds, but I assure the Minister that it was none the less debated and discussed in think tanks, voluntary organisations and in government when they were being set up.
I know very well the views of the Liberal Democrats—I have listened to them on many occasions in the other place—but I simply disagree. We have to find a way in which our poorest children can have the same rights of expectation as other children take for granted. Building up an asset that they can take advantage of is an important part of giving them the same opportunities that others take for granted. I am prepared to have the debate about whether that was the most effective way, but I none the less will continue to argue that it was a noble aspiration and one that we should not lose. I mainly wanted to intervene because of my concern for looked-after children.
We cannot afford to be complacent. The work done by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, over many years is to be commended. Many other people in this House have also continued to talk about the needs of looked-after children. But we have such a long way to go. I had the opportunity to go to other countries to look at what was happening. One of the interesting things is that we say that the local authority or the state becomes the corporate parent. Many other countries refuse to do that. I was concerned about something in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Newby. He said that looked-after children do not have parents. They mainly do, but the parents simply do not know how to parent or look after their responsibilities.
In many other countries they say, “We are not the substitute parents. We are there to form a bridge between what went wrong with those children when they had to leave home and what is happening to them now”. That is probably a healthier position to be in. We should recognise that it does not matter how damaged the background, the children themselves want to be part of the family and want to know about the parents, even if in many people's judgment that is the worst place they could be.
We take responsibility in this country for the state being the corporate parent. Yet, as I have heard from young person after young person, they leave care with something like £30. That is it. They leave care with virtually nothing. Many of them leave care without the personal resources to be able to cope. I suspect that there is not a parent in this House who would kick their kids out when they were 16 or 18. We have tried to extend the responsibility for leaving care beyond 18, but it does not happen everywhere and it does not always happen. No one in this House who had parental responsibilities would say, “That’s it: you're on your own. You get nothing”. It is a shame on us that we are the corporate parent and yet we are not prepared to take any of the measures that we as individuals would expect to take in respect of our own children.
We are in real difficulty with this Bill because of the money Bill issue. I do not want to run around the technicalities, but the expectation in the other place was that this Bill could be amended here and then returned to the Commons for consideration. Now that cannot happen. Therefore, I want to go further than other Members. It is not good enough to say that the Government will continue to discuss this issue. We have the right to expect today from the Minister an absolute commitment that the Government will legislate to make sure that an equivalent of the child trust fund is made available to children and young people who are in care. It needs to be a statutory provision. If it is not, the Government will be able to say that it is up to local authorities. I agree with the principle of loosening ring-fencing, but the problem is that there is no ring-fencing around the needs of disadvantaged children or for child protection.
When local authorities get their settlement, in the announcement that I expect in the next week, many will have a 30 per cent or even greater reduction in their budget. We are told to expect an average of 28 per cent. Having been responsible for the local government settlement for more years than I care to remember, I know that that means that some will get worse than a 30 per cent reduction and some will have a smaller reduction than that. I predict that the ones that do worse will already be the poorest, given other decisions made by the Government, whereby special grants to local authorities for looking after the most deprived have disappeared. It is almost inevitable that when the settlement comes out it will affect very harshly many of the already most deprived neighbourhoods. In those circumstances, we cannot do this on a wish and a prayer. We have to be convinced that there will be legislation that will defend the interests of looked-after children and make sure that, however small it is, we none the less recognise the importance of their being able to have an asset that they can take with them when they become 18 and leave care.
I understand that the Government are drafting legislation quickly, and I am even prepared to grant that they may not have realised that they would not have the chance to amend the Bill again, but they do not have that opportunity. We need to know that legislation will be brought forward in good time to make sure that looked-after children are looked after by this Government.
Baroness Ritchie of Brompton
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and, in particular, I would like to speak about those children for whom the state is the corporate parent, as many noble Lords have done.
In my own local authority, I am a corporate parent to these children in our care, and I regularly meet with them to hear about their achievements and successes, of which there are many, and their concerns and problems. The issue of money and managing their finances is a common concern, which was highlighted in the recent report by Demos for Barnardo’s, In Loco Parentis. I welcome the Government’s proposal to introduce a new junior ISA in 2011, which will enable some children to build up funds for the future. But children looked after will always find it difficult to save due to their circumstances. Some 48 per cent of children and young people in care are in care for more than three months; this amounts to some 19,000 children remaining in care for longer. These are the children who often do not have access to parents, grandparents or family to help them save for the future or to top up a junior ISA. I believe that we need to find a way of providing for these children in the future.
I declare an interest as lead member for children in Kensington and Chelsea, where we have already been contributing funds for our looked-after children who predate the establishment of the child trust fund by building up savings account for them, and we intend to continue to contribute to junior ISAs. We give them a statement twice a year so they know how much money they are saving; they enjoy receiving this statement, and it is a positive encouragement for them to continue to save throughout their lives. We are also looking at matching any pocket money that they contribute and are hoping that our foster carers will also either contribute or encourage their charges to save.
I think we can all understand that, for a young person, the knowledge that they have a capital asset, however small, can give them a positive view about their future and, as I have indicated, help them to learn about the management of money. As president of the National Children’s Bureau, I know that it runs a project which engages young people as money advisers to other young people. Anything that we can do to encourage young people leaving care to help and plan for their financial future should be encouraged.
As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned earlier in the debate, only 8 to 9 per cent of young people who have been looked after are accessing higher education—albeit it is a great improvement, as he indicated, on the past. They will have access to grants and help with fees but some measure of financial independence would help them to buy the extras which are needed to fit into student life. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, around 90 per cent of 19 year-old care leavers were not in employment, education or training in 2009. There are many reasons why this may be the case, but it is not helped by the lack of financial support. Although care leavers receive a grant, it is, as has been mentioned, up to the discretion of local authorities, and it can range from £500 to £2,000. At a time when local authorities have to make substantial savings to help this country’s budget deficit, these payments could be under threat.
For young people leaving care, knowing that they have a fund which they own and can rely on, without any strings attached, would help to give them confidence to start out and the flexibility which many other young people already have. It would give them a measure of independence, perhaps to put down a deposit for a flat or enable them to buy clothes for interviews, or perhaps to travel in order to widen their horizons—all of which are things that many parents will provide for their own children. It would help young people who go into apprenticeships and internships where they receive little pay, or voluntary work when they are looking for jobs. Internships can be a good way for young people to find out what sort of career they want to go into, but often it is the young people who are supported by their families who can afford to explore these opportunities.
We hear that the abolition of the children’s trust fund will save £500 million. If the state were able to contribute to a looked-after child’s junior ISA, the cost, as we have also heard, would be around £6.6 million a year, which would include the £250 initial contribution and subsequent annual payments of £100. I believe that we need to send a message to our looked-after young people—that we value them and feel that they are responsible enough to own savings accounts; that we recognise that many of them feel that they face an uncertain future; and that we are trying in a very real way to mitigate some of the disadvantages that they have had to face in their lives. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister if he will seek to find a way to give the children in our care a more secure financial future.
Baroness Drake
My Lords, fairness dictates that the savings gateway and the children’s trust fund are worthy of greater consideration than straightforward abolition. Issues of affordability could be addressed by greater targeting and deferment. Policies focused on improving benefits and policies directed at asset-building for lower-income groups should not be seen as alternatives. It is not a matter of choosing either/or but of recognising that addressing inequality is a complex challenge.
I always fear what I call the “rational” paternalism that argues that those on lower incomes should not aspire to save and accumulate assets, should not expect government policies that allow them to do so, should have to accept that the market will not cater for them and must forgo the greater control which assets can bring over household debt. Meanwhile, the systemic inequalities in asset distribution simply get worse. I wonder how rigorous the impact assessment of this Bill has been, because while income inequality attracts greater attention, assets are far more unevenly distributed. Financial inclusion policy persistently fails to take adequate account of asset fund-building policies, despite the fact that assets directly affect financial inclusion.
As has been said, more than 60 per cent of black and Asian people in the UK have no savings at all. Women have 40 per cent less than men. Lack of assets is a problem for people who run into financial difficulties—lack of control takes over. Poor people who lack rainy-day savings are exposed to subprime and even illegal lending practices. Savings provide an alternative to high-cost credit and have the potential to change the long-term flow of money within a family. Those without savings are exposed to high charges for other products, such as insurance. Owning assets has an impact on confidence, sense of control and willingness to engage.
There is a difference between recognising the public spending challenge, and so moving to targeting, and deconstructing the complete edifice, which is what the Bill does. The child trust fund gave a real kick-start to the savings accounts of children of people on lower incomes. It overcame inertia, combining auto-enrolment with a strong and simple incentive. It made the provision of such a savings product for lower-income families more attractive to the financial markets. It allowed providers to do some cross-subsidy between their richer and poorer clients. It increased accessibility to a savings product for low-income groups. The product was taken to them; they did not have to search the market. The momentum that has built up in this product—75 per cent take-up is pretty high, compared with a lot of products—could have been sustained over the longer term.
Particularly regrettable, as so many noble Lords have said, is the abolition of the trust fund for children in care—some of the most vulnerable and least well placed in terms of assets. Who will look after the asset accumulation of our vulnerable children in care now? In response to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is it so wrong for children in care to get a windfall asset? They certainly will not get the windfall asset of a tax-free inheritance, up to about £325,000. I ask the Minister to seek from the Government a commitment to continue such payments and, if the vehicle is a junior ISA, to require payments to be made into that account. An annual payment of the order of, for example, £100 would be small in the scheme of things, but it would make a real difference to those individual children.
I also ask the Minister whether the Government will commit to addressing this issue in another piece of legislation if it is not possible to amend the Bill. I refer to the comment of the Prime Minister at Question Time on 30 June 2010, when he said:
“We really do need to do better as a country”,
for care leavers. He went on to say that,
“children leaving care aged 18 have … no one to help them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/6/10; col. 857.]
Here is a chance for the Government to help those children in care and to meet the aspiration that the Prime Minister himself articulated.
Child trust funds for disabled children worked alongside the benefits system. Although the Government have said that they will redirect some of the abolished payments for short-break provision, does such provision and asset-building for disabled children truly have to be mutually exclusive? Is it not possible for the brains of the Treasury to find a more worthy set of candidates who could bear the marginal contribution to the public debt of making those modest payments to disabled children? Could the Minister not give an assurance that they will consider maintaining even a modest payment for those children and, when more benign economic circumstances allow, making those payments more generous?
What about the impact on ethnic minority children? The BME age profile is much younger than the national average. Proportionately more of them would be able to receive a trust fund. That is important because the low level of assets held by black and minority ethnic parents means that they will be less able to benefit from familial redistribution.
Notwithstanding what has been said, I fear that the Government are dismantling the child trust fund and replacing it with a savings vehicle which will widen inequality and undermine the behavioural momentum that was being built up for low-income groups. Junior ISAs will provide tax-free returns, but there is a public cost to extending that tax-free element. It is revenue forgone, and it is affluent parents who will secure the greatest benefit on behalf of their children. It is much less likely that junior ISAs will be as effective in increasing the level of new savings. If that is the concern, then these junior ISAs will probably deliver less, because many low and moderate earners simply will not engage with such mainstream products. The trust fund worked because the product was taken to them. It took away the inhibitions and the complexities of engagement that many financial products involved.
Let us again consider BME people. Not only do they have lower amounts of savings; they utilise mainstream financial products even less, in particular ISAs. If junior ISAs are to substitute for the child trust fund, do the Government intend to consider this deficit of engagement with mainstream financial products particularly among low-income and BME families?
There is another important difference. An ISA is run on an annual renewal basis, whereas a child trust fund is run as a trust over a much longer period. This is an important distinction. The financial services industry often takes advantage of inertia. Customers are frequently defaulted into ISA products with extremely low interest rates, and even interest rates on fixed-term cash ISAs are frequently below the returns available on non-tax-exempt products, thereby undermining the public policy intention of introducing the ISAs in the first place. If the Government are to introduce ISAs for children, will they take action in designing them to hold the markets to account for the practices I have described? ISAs are not trusts.
Statistics reveal that lower-income families’ contributions to their children’s trust funds formed a greater percentage of their income: 1.14 per cent, compared with 0.76 per cent for more wealthy families. Who says that poor people do not want to care for their children? Those who do contribute give up, on average, a higher percentage of their family income. Families earning £16,000 or less have on average been saving £15 a month into the funds. That momentum might well have been maintained but now we will never know. If we are to help poor people to build assets, we are going to have to start again with that momentum and engagement. Seventy-five per cent was a jolly good start compared with some products. I wish that one could get that level of engagement in free contributions from employers to occupational pension schemes. It would be so much better if the Government targeted even a modest amount of money on the most disadvantaged children.
Similarly with the abolition of the saving gateway, the effect of the Bill means that although we will have a relatively generous pension and inheritance tax system, the two incentivised savings products for low-income households and their children will be scrapped. The issue of affordability will not be addressed by targeting. Providing low-cost products for low-income savers will always be a challenge for the financial services industry. Put at its simplest, such products do not provide an attractive profit. That is precisely why government support for initiatives such as the savings gateway is so important for meeting a market gap. By withdrawing so absolutely from the savings gateway, the Government have simply heightened the political risk for financial services organisations of investing in savings products for lower-income groups. Who is going to do that now? When people have built up such savings, they have been downed and no one knows what the future might hold.
The Government admit to the possibility of returning to the issue because they know, as everyone else does, that interfacing with the financial services industry is a persistent problem for low-income people. Why cannot the savings gateway be deferred, or its introduction phased in, so that the positive gains from the project can be banked, so that those parts of the financial services industry that have engaged can remain engaged and so that the cost could be minimised in the short term and highly targeted in the long term? Why scrap? You could make a huge contribution to the issue of affordability without downing the edifice and abolishing in the way proposed.
I recognise that a financial advice service is to be rolled out and that that is a real positive. Citizens have a right to enjoy financial advice and to be given guidance on how to exercise their financial interests and responsibilities. However, there are reams and reams and books of evidence to show that advice often does not lead to active decisions to save, particularly among low-to-moderate earners. The DWP has trialled schemes with employers but advice has not translated into action, which is why nudging, powerfully incentivised and well designed default products are so important to increasing saving. Instead of targeting and keeping the remnants—keeping some of that edifice alive—all the work is being abolished.
Finally, financial education for children is likely to have much more impact if all children, the poor as well as the affluent, have a sum of money in an account with their name on it. That would have much more meaning.
Baroness Blood
My Lords, speaking towards the end of the list, everybody has said what I wanted to say, so I shall be brief. I do not support the broad thrust of the Bill or the focus of many of its provisions. I do not think that it is my task here today to discuss that, but I wish to state my concern that doing away with the child trust fund, the health in pregnancy grant and the Government’s contribution to them will disadvantage some of the poorest children and families in our society. My purpose in speaking in the debate today is rather to support a scheme that was proposed in the other place and which, I understand, the Prime Minister may be willing to consider.
The scheme focuses on one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of children and young people. They very often do not have anyone to speak for them and make their interests heard. I speak, of course, about children and young people who are looked-after, or in care, and here I must declare an interest. I am the chair of Barnardo’s in Northern Ireland and a trustee of Barnardo’s in the UK.
Some 86,000 children are in care across the UK. In Northern Ireland, more than 2,400 children are in care. The vast majority of these children and young people will be in foster care and most will have had a very traumatic experience in their life which has brought them down this route. Many will have experienced neglect or abuse and the trauma of no longer being able to live with their birth families. In Northern Ireland, the single biggest reason that children move into the care system is neglect, often linked to parental alcohol and drug misuse. Yet it is rarely given the attention and focus it requires and children and young people leaving care are the group who do least well.
In Northern Ireland, 83 per cent of all children tested in key stage 3 achieve level 5 in English, but for children in care, it is 27 per cent. Similarly, 81 per cent of all children achieve level 5 in maths, but for children in care, it is also 27 per cent. While 99 per cent of the Northern Irish school population attain at least one GCSE, for children in the care system, this is down to 61 per cent. Looked-after children are four times more likely to be suspended from school than those in the general population. In 2008-09, 8 per cent of all looked-after children were suspended or excluded from school, compared with 2 per cent of all other children. In 2009 in Northern Ireland, almost one in 10 of all children in care was cautioned or convicted of an offence. Similarly, young people leaving care are much more likely to be unemployed and not in education or training. This pattern reflects the situation of children in care not only in Northern Ireland: the same pattern of poor families and lost opportunity extends across the United Kingdom. This is why we should support the call for the Government to introduce and fund a junior ISA for children in care. While the Government's intention in the Bill is to encourage parents to save and to buy junior ISAs for their children, when a child is taken into care, the state becomes the parent, so it is beholden on the state to act as a good parent and to save and provide a nest egg for the children for whom it has responsibility.
The scheme is relatively straightforward. It will apply to any child who enters care after January 2011 and remains there for a minimum of three months. The Government will open a junior ISA for each child who meets this criterion, with an opening deposit of £250. There would be a top-up of £100 for each subsequent year that the child remains in care. Of course, it would also be possible for others to contribute to the child's ISA: extended family, local authorities, trusts or other benefactors could also make contributions. This would also give young people—who at 16 or 17 could be working part-time—the opportunity to contribute. Children and young people in or leaving care have to be more resilient than most young people, and it would be good for them to learn the importance of saving and planning ahead, knowing that they have a nest egg to which they can contribute.
I understand that the total cost of the scheme would be around £7 million. It would be a very effective use of public money to support very vulnerable children over the long term. Of course, I am keen to ensure that if the scheme goes ahead, it will apply to Northern Ireland—but the whole of the UK should be involved. I look forward to hearing the views of the Minister, and urge him to make a firm commitment to provide appropriate funding for saving accounts for looked-after children, who after all are some of the most disadvantaged people in our society.
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with some of the views that have been expressed by the Opposition, particularly in the context of disadvantaged children. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on her amazingly powerful speech about the inappropriate muzzling of this House.
I will be brief and simply challenge the Minister on one extraordinary statement that the Government have made. The Explanatory Notes state:
“The Government does not believe any significant impact on equality arises from these proposals”.
I believe—and I dare say a number of my colleagues agree—that that might be wrong. I say respectfully to the Minister that the only circumstance under which the Government could justify making that statement would be if they were proposing immediately to make other arrangements to ensure, so far as is possible, that pregnant mothers do not suffer from malnutrition. I was looking only at the health in pregnancy grant, but the same would apply to many other parts of the Bill.
One of the most important forms of inequality in our society today is the gap between the poor and the very rich. In recent years—and, I regret to say, under a Labour Government—that gap widened. It is quite clear that the status quo is not an option, but the Bill will make matters worse.
Let us look for a moment at why malnutrition in pregnancy matters so much. Maternal malnutrition during pregnancy is statistically and causally linked to low birth-weight and to a lower probability of breast-feeding. Low birth-weight and the absence of breast-feeding have been shown by good and reliable research to relate to the child’s performance in school and to disadvantage in later life. A report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation earlier this year, which confirms much earlier research, shows that one of the most important factors contributing to poor outcomes for a child in school and in later life is low birth-weight. It is surprising but it is a fact.
My noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff had hoped to speak this afternoon but regrets that she cannot be here. However, I met her in the Lobby yesterday and she asked me to stress on her behalf that maternal nutrition during pregnancy influences the long-term life prospects of the child. Further evidence comes from the 2008 public health guidance report of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence:
“The importance of ensuring mothers and their babies are well-nourished is widely recognised. A pregnant woman’s nutritional status influences the growth and development of her fetus and forms the foundations for her child’s later health … The mother’s own health, both in the short and long term, also depends on how well-nourished she is before, during and after pregnancy”.
Of course, the mother’s health can have a substantial influence on the well-being of the child as he or she grows up.
We must not think that poor outcomes at school for disadvantaged children do not matter. They matter very much not only because such children are condemned to a lifetime of disappointment and failure but also because, when disadvantaged children grow up and become parents themselves—often too soon—they are likely to pass down this disadvantage from one generation to the next. This happens all too often in our society today and it should be more widely recognised as a major social problem.
I recognise that, by ending the health in pregnancy grant, this Government will make a significant contribution to the very necessary task of reducing government expenditure. However, we must ask ourselves: at what cost to our society as a whole? That depends on whether the Government intend to put some scheme in its place to address the real problem of malnutrition in pregnancy. It is possible to envisage schemes that would be far less expensive and more effective than the health in pregnancy grant, and I hope the Minister will say that that is what the Government intend to introduce. One way in which this could be done is by targeting help only to those who need it and by ensuring that money is used only to buy nutritious food to be consumed by the mother. It is possible to envisage a scheme linked to antenatal services involving appropriate food entitlements for mothers either through direct distribution or through some kind of voucher scheme, with which the major supermarket chains might well be proud to co-operate.
I conclude by asking the noble Lord two questions. First, do the Government recognise that there is an important problem of malnutrition among pregnant mothers in some parts of our society today, and do they believe that this matters? Secondly, in the light of that problem and their decision to bring to an end the health in pregnancy grant, will they undertake urgently to explore ways of addressing the problem of malnutrition among pregnant women and to take necessary action to address it?
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, we have had enormously powerful and very knowledgeable contributions this afternoon on the substance of the Bill before us and I shall not repeat them. I wish to make some brief comments on the process in which we find ourselves and on the substance of the Bill.
I should like to reflect on two broad issues. The contributions that we have heard from some Members opposite illustrate for me how deeply contradictory the approach adopted by the Government is to explaining the way in which they are conducting their deficit reduction strategy. The Minister has told us that, on the one hand, there was no alternative to measures such as these to abolish very important social policy measures but, on the other hand—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne—he asks us to believe that this will have no negative impact on inequality and child poverty in particular. That is simply inconceivable and deeply contradictory. In all of these debates about how to reduce the deficit, I can see no evidence of any clear criteria to explain which measures the Government have decided to abolish and which they have not. I should have thought that any important set of criteria should include something that attempts to retain, at least in part, measures such as these that will make a long-term positive difference to some of the most disadvantaged people in our community.
I take up a point raised by my noble friend Lady Drake. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that in principle they are very uncomfortable with universal measures, such as the child trust fund and the health in pregnancy grant. On that basis, and to take it to its logical conclusion, they may well be opposed to free schooling and the National Health Service. However, if they are so concerned that, at least in the present climate, a universal measure such as the child trust fund cannot be sustained, it is open to them to argue for the targeting that they say they support. Yet we have heard no such argument for targeting; instead we have a wholesale dismantling of these measures. These abolitions will affect the poorest people the most.
The second issue on which I wish to reflect is why these measures were introduced in the first place. All, in their way, are preventive measures. They are designed to help people avoid falling further into poverty or disadvantage. The child trust fund, in particular, and the saving gateway formed a radical new approach alongside the measures which the previous Government brought in to try to improve people's prospects in the here and now through the working tax credit, for example, and the national minimum wage. They were farsighted measures to try to help people to get into the habit of saving and to accumulate assets which they could use when they needed them. Long-term universal benefits help to achieve those long-term aims and they help people who, otherwise, would not have the opportunity to get the benefit of long-term savings, which many of us take for granted. It was also a very strategic approach to try to sustain, over the long-term, the improvements that we saw in the reduction of the number of children living in poverty over the lifetime of the previous Government: 600,000 fewer children living in poverty by the end.
It is worth reflecting on those issues because that brings me to the conclusion that, even in the current climate, the child trust fund, in particular, should be retained for those specific groups of children who are least likely to acquire long-term assets through their own families. While children in care are an obvious group for whom I support such a measure, there are others, such as disabled children, whose families find the cost of their disability an enormous burden on family resources. There is a very strong case for continuing the child trust fund for them and for children living in poor families, where there is no hope of such children acquiring the kind of back-up of a pot of capital assets that most parents want for their children. It is out of reach for children in those specific groups.
I shall focus briefly on the process that was clarified for us by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. The Speaker has made a decision, although we do not know whether it was at the request of the Government or simply on advice, but the Minister knows the position and sees the concern of Members in both Houses of Parliament who would wish for an opportunity to amend this legislation. The Minister cannot hide behind the Speaker’s decision because, while he cannot challenge that decision, and nor do we, there are other routes open to him to bring forward other measures as outlined by my noble friend Lady Armstrong. He can give a commitment to the House today that he will do so.
On the merits of the argument, there is an overwhelming case for continuing the child trust fund, not some other measure. The child trust fund has many advantages over the junior ISA being proposed. We should continue it, at least for children in care. We have heard in great detail, which I shall not rehearse, the arguments relating to the still poor, although improving, outcomes for children in care. As Minister of State, I was responsible for developing the Green Paper Care Matters. Many Members of this House helped me with that and were very energetic in trying to take the boundaries of the policy as far as we could, and I was very grateful for their support. Through that process, I talked directly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, does in her current position, to many children in care. I can say to your Lordships without any sentimentality that many of them constantly surprised me with their talent, ability and resilience in terms of what they had been through and the enormous hurdles that they had overcome.
Particularly at the point of transition out of care, whether at 16, 17 or 18, they have virtually no resources to fall back on. I talked to a number of young people who were in higher education, and many Members of this House will know from their experiences with their own children of the things that you have to buy for them when they go away to university or college or when they move into their own flat. There is an enormous bill for most parents. Young people who have been through the care system simply do not have the wherewithal to cope with that, so I think there is an unassailable case for continuing with a long-term savings mechanism, such as the trust fund, for children in care because we, the state, are the parents. I think there is also an equally strong case in terms of need for families with disabled children and for children in poor families. What we need from the Government today is not more warm words or promises but a firm promise from the Minister to bring forward in another Bill proposals to ensure that the child trust fund is either continued or replaced with a similar measure, at least for all children in care, and with a process that will enable Members of both Houses to amend those proposals.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, as the final Back-Bench speaker, I wonder whether there is anything left for me to say. I hope your Lordships will allow me to touch on two issues, and I hope I will not repeat a lot of what others have already said, much of which I agreed with.
First, I say to the Minister that I support the Bill. However, as others have said, he would do a great service to the people concerned if he would share the information that has been expressed in today’s debate, particularly with Ministers in other government departments, because one of the weaknesses of government in its generic form is that it tends to think in silos and, if I may respectfully say so to my noble friend, none more so than the Treasury. If Ministers would just take concerns away from debates and share them with other Ministers, we might have what often is referred to as joined-up thinking in government. That would definitely be to the benefit of the way in which we legislate and its effect on the recipients of legislation that comes through this House.
I totally support the points that have been made on child trust funds. We also have had excellent briefing from Action for Children and Barnardo’s about the special case that is needed for looked-after children. I do not want to repeat too much of what has been said, much of which I support. I was particularly taken by the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the 18 year-old threshold. If you make a will, however much or little you have to leave to your descendants, solicitors will always advise you to write in the age of 25 and not 18. They say that for very good reasons—and I hope that my own children are not listening to this. I am the mother of two middle-aged men, so it is a long time since they were 18 years old, but I would have been very nervous even for small sums of money to have been at their disposal at the age of 18, with them having total discretion as to what they spent it on. It is not that I am a bit of a killjoy of a mother.
There is a need to look, as I hope my noble friend will, at the case made for looked-after children and to take into account how any such money might be discharged. I hope that my noble friend will know that I am speaking in a very positive way about how money “will” be discharged. I feel that there is an imperative here today to make sure that that message goes from this House and that the case for the looked-after children is made.
When I was a Member of Parliament—I am sure that others in your Lordships' House will have shared this experience—I often had to intervene in the transition period for looked-after children when they came out of care and transferred into employment, education or sometimes absolutely nothing at all. It is a salutary experience to see not just the financial challenges that those young people face, but, if I have interpreted correctly a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, there is still an ongoing need for emotional and welfare support, over and above the finances. If we as a nation are to be in loco parentis—goodness knows, if those in this Chamber and in the Chamber in another place think about where the buck stops when decisions are made on just how that is delivered, surely the buck stops with us—we have to take this seriously.
Again I say to my noble friend that these are the sorts of issues that, if policy is changed in a Bill that comes through the Treasury, read across other government departments. I hope that he will not just take from this House the message about looked-after children to those with responsibility for local government finance, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, and others, but that he will take it with enthusiasm to ensure that the message that has clearly gone from all sides of this House today is translated into something of which we can all be proud.
In January 2008, I had the great privilege to serve on the Health and Social Care Bill Public Bill Committee in another place, which led to the legislation that brought the health in pregnancy grant into being. When we came to the vote then, I opposed it and I support the Government’s decision to abolish it for the following reason. There was a lot of confusion around this legislation. When the previous Government started to talk about the purpose of introducing this grant, it had a focus.
As a reminder, I should like to share with your Lordships information that we took in evidence on this Bill before we started Committee—something which I would commend to almost all Bill committees. We took evidence from Rosemary Dodds from the National Childbirth Trust. Her first question was about this one-off payment of £190. She said:
“The important thing is the intention of the payment. Originally, there was a lot of discussion about impact on birth weight and prematurity, but the intention of the payment has not been made clear. In order to answer the question about what the impact would be, we need to know the intention of the grant”.
Right at the beginning, even in Committee, there was confusion about what the Government had said prior to printing the Bill and what actually happened when we got to Committee. She went on:
“If the impact is desired on birth weight and on prematurity”—
which quite clearly it was when the Government first started to talk about it—
“my understanding is that even 25 weeks is too late, from the evidence base, to have much impact”.—[Official Report, Commons, Health and Social Care Bill Committee, 10/1/08; col. 85.]
The Government’s intentions right at the beginning were extremely noble. They wanted to have an impact on prematurity and low birth-weights, which many of us could have supported, but they then discovered that if you do not set a higher threshold you bring into grants people who subsequently either elect to have an abortion or who unfortunately have a miscarriage. The threshold was therefore set much higher, so high in fact that the impact of early nutrition—both before conception and in the very early months of pregnancy, which were deemed to be the critical time if you were to avoid low birth-weights and premature babies—went out of the window. The alternative suggestion—of well-being and a general fund to help mothers in pregnancy—was therefore substituted for the original intention. I hope that my noble friend—again, this is not a Treasury matter—will convey this issue to the Department of Health.
I support the Government’s announcement of more health visitors, because clearly more health visitors on the ground could have an impact here. So, too, could more training in nutrition. Many years ago—a lifetime ago now—I trained as a home economist. I studied nutrition. Many people who are involved in the welfare and care of pregnant mothers, including some midwives, have very little real knowledge of nutrition; very few actually know the importance of the correlation between calcium and phosphorus in the early laying-down in pregnancy of healthy bones and teeth et cetera.
My noble friend is right to get rid of this fund, but I hope he will talk to the Department of Health about how we can help in other ways to mitigate the problem that we have in this country: the tragic problem for many individual people of low birth-weights and premature babies.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this has been a very powerful debate, with some excellent, if not brilliant, contributions, but I express again disappointment that the designation of this Bill as a money Bill precludes us a proper Committee stage. Indeed this issue has clearly exercised a number of speakers this afternoon. To the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who was obviously unable to support us on the Motion last week, I say that that was not a challenge to the certification by the Speaker; it was simply to get a Committee stage within the existing rules. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is right; we do not and cannot challenge the certification by the Speaker, although if I had the benefit of the incisive research, as ever, of my noble friend Lady Hollis, I might have been a little bolder.
My noble friend Lord Griffiths raised an interesting point about whether this certification was pressed on the Speaker by the Government; it was a new point to me, but something which we ought to understand. Certification comes at the end of the House of Commons process, but that is not to say that somebody might be preparing the arguments for, and be privy to, the prospect of that certification in due course. I think that that is a specific issue that we need to understand in relation to this Bill. If nothing else comes from the debate we have had around this issue, I hope that it will bring a process of some greater clarity to when a money Bill is a money Bill and some greater clarity on the process and timing of that. Notwithstanding that, my noble friend Lady Hughes urged the Minister not to stand behind that certification and to bring forward legislation which clearly has strong support right around the House.
As we heard from the Minister, the Bill implements the second stage of cancelling government contributions to child trust funds, withdraws funding for the health in pregnancy grant and repeals the prospect of rolling out saving gateway accounts, which have been the subject of successful pilots. Each of these measures has resource implications, of course, but they have profound policy implications as well. But given the Government’s focus on deficit reduction, any consideration of the Bill is inextricably linked to consideration of their approach to tackling the deficit, an approach we consider to be flawed.
We have heard the usual party line from the Minister about the deficit, but no objective analysis of our economic position. Over the past two years, the UK has faced the biggest economic challenge for generations as the global financial crisis hit our banks here and our export markets around the world. At the start of the crisis, the UK had the second lowest debt in the G7, below that which we inherited from the Conservative Government in 1997. Borrowing rose not because of our spending before 2007, but because tax receipts fell and spending was allowed to rise to provide extra support for the economy when it was at its weakest. The fiscal stimulus co-ordinated with the rest of the world, with only the Conservatives in the UK a lone voice in opposing it.
The consequences of that—an increasing deficit and an increase in public sector debt—would have to be dealt with by any Government and tough choices would be necessary, but we consider that the coalition Government have made the wrong choices. We reject the Osborne prescription which says the faster, the harder and the earlier you cut, the better for our economy. Indeed, is that not the advice that Ireland was given? We argue for an approach that would bring the deficit down, but in a balanced way that gives the private sector a more realistic chance of taking up the slack. Indeed, last week’s OBR forecast shows lower growth than expected over the next two years, a relatively slow recovery from recession by historical standards, and that the scale of the fiscal consolidation, yet to have its full effect on the economy, has weakened the prospects for growth.
So there is an alternative approach, and there are different choices about how the fiscal consolidation should be borne. But by locking into an imprudent consolidation plan, the Government have restricted policy choices and made a joke of the Chancellor’s declaration that he will not balance the budget off the backs of the poor. That is precisely what is happening in this Bill. There are consequences that arise from the deficit reduction plan, as my noble friend Lady Hughes pointed out.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, rightly challenged us not to accept that poor outcomes for some children do not matter. Of course, it is the pattern of what has gone before. We know that the combined effects of the June emergency Budget and the comprehensive spending review are deeply regressive, and what is fair about measures that have cut almost £7 billion from direct support for children and where women are hit twice as hard as men by changes to tax credits and benefits? My noble friend Lady Armstrong pressed on this, although I think it is right to say that the Conservatives were not originally in support of our action on Northern Rock.
My noble friend Lady Thornton made it clear that there can be little doubt that child trust funds have been a success in terms of encouraging people to save. Evidence submitted in another place showed that there was a 72 per cent take-up of the scheme by parents, with obviously all children being enrolled after 12 months. Some 31 per cent of accounts were being topped up, rather than the 24 per cent suggested. This was across the board, although regularity and amounts varied. Evidence provided in another place variously described child trust funds as the,
“single most successful savings policy to date”,
or a,
“very successful nudge for people with regard to the inertia over savings”.
It is like auto-enrolment for pensions, as my noble friend Lady Drake argued. Depending on the rates of return, it was suggested that accounts could accumulate to as much as £9,000 or £10,000 by the age of 18.
There are obvious benefits of the child trust fund in helping to develop and reinforce a savings culture, encouraging asset accumulation, seeing the benefits of young people having a tangible stake in society, having to make choices, hopefully responsible choices, about resources, and becoming more financially literate. These are opportunities that many young people from better off families have at the moment. Child trust funds opened up these prospects for children from poorer families, and they are now to be denied.
There are a number of options the Government could pursue to retain the prospect of some of the benefits of the child trust funds—certainly the prospect of concentrating the saving instrument on the poorest one-third of families, those on DLA and looked-after children, which was a commitment of the noble Lord’s party at the last election. What has happened to this pledge and what would it cost now to fulfil it? They could reduce the government contribution for a period or defer the abolition for a period, but they have chosen to stop these arrangements entirely. That is to be regretted.
We acknowledge, though, that the national financial advice service, with its limitations, as my noble friend pointed out, and the annual financial health check will help build financial literacy and is to be welcomed. We are told that this service is to be rolled-out next spring. Given its proximity, perhaps the Minister will tell us a little more about its scope and reach and the nature of the levy on the financial services sector, which is to provide the financing.
It has been announced—we heard it again today from the Minister—that the Government are to introduce a junior ISA, but that some of the detail is still unknown, as, indeed, is its final timing. Clearly such a savings product would not benefit from a government initial or interim contribution but would obtain the benefit of a tax-free build up and would be, presumably, tax free on exit. The benefit of the tax-free build up would, presumably, effectively accrue to contributors, whose income would be sheltered. In comparison to the child trust fund, this would be less advantageous to those families on the lowest income, who are not wholly within the charge for tax, and who would miss out on the extra government contribution—the poor missing out again, with higher rate taxpayers benefiting most. So much for Conservative and Lib Dem values.
Evidence given to the Public Bill Committee in another place suggested that providers of child trust funds would need time to get their systems, including distribution systems, in place for the new product—unless, that is, the junior ISA is the CTF without the government contribution. Given this seemingly inevitable gap between the proposed demise of the child trust funds and the introduction of junior ISAs, could there not be some process to bridge the gap by extending the child trust funds or backdating junior ISA arrangements? What attention are the Government giving to the practical implications of introducing a new product? What reassurance can be given to those who, according to Save Child Savings, have invested millions of pounds in the systems, infrastructure and marketing required to ensure consumers have access to a vibrant competitor provider community? What assessment has been undertaken concerning the likely take up of junior ISAs—the cost does not appear in the Red Book, so far as I can tell—and the distributional affect of the benefits?
Nearly every noble Lord who has spoken has focused on the issue of looked-after children, including my noble friends Lady Thornton, Lady Armstrong, Lady Blood and Lord Griffiths of Burry Port; the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe, Lady Noakes and Lady Ritchie; and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who has always strongly supported the cause of looked-after children. It has been rightly the subject of debate both today and in another place, but we should acknowledge that, despite progress, we do not have a strong record on providing good outcomes for looked-after children, who enter adult life poorly provided for.
As Barnardo’s and Action for Children state, the transition from care to independence is a critical period for young people and having adequate financial support is a key factor if they are to succeed as they enter adulthood. Child trust funds would have been one way of helping to rectify the problem. The proposed replacement by a junior ISA, which is presumably predicated on parental contributions, does not help without special arrangements.
The budgets of local authorities, who are the corporate parents of looked-after children, have been particularly savaged by the CSR, as my noble friend Lady Armstrong explained. We are aware of the discussions that have taken place with Mark Hoban, Paul Goggins MP, Barnardo’s and Action for Children, and warm words have, indeed, been spoken. What specific proposal is coming forward from the Government? We cannot pass an amendment today, but we hope in the circumstances that the Government can give us the clearest commitment, on the record, to bring forward legislation on this matter.
The Bill before us repeals the primary legislation for the savings gateway, which was to be a tax-free cash saving account available to people in receipt of qualifying social security or tax credit awards. The purpose of this was clear: to promote a saving habit among those of working age on low incomes by way of a government contribution for each pound saved. It was acknowledged by the Minister that the evidence from the pilot studies showed that matching was a popular and easily understood incentive to save. Given that the first accounts were due to be opened in July this year and that the government contribution were to come after two years, no cost would have arisen until 2012-13. It cannot be argued that this was not a targeted programme. Its scrapping will only disadvantage the poor. Why repeal the primary legislation? If the Government insist that the gateway is unaffordable but they recognise its merit, why not defer for a period? The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, hinted at support for some arrangement to incentivise saving for low-income families.
There is another dimension to this. How does the Minister respond to the submission from the Runnymede Trust that the withdrawal of the savings gateway would disadvantage BME communities in particular, who tend to have lower levels of savings? What detailed assessment of the equality implications of the proposals has been undertaken? I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, expressed incredulity at the Government’s claim that the Bill has little impact on equality.
My noble friend Lady Thornton spoke of the health in pregnancy grant with knowledge and passion, as did others. The evidence presented to the Public Bill Committee in another place set out the benefits of the grant and its potential to improve a mother’s diet during pregnancy, as well as providing the wherewithal to help with necessary purchases of equipment. Indeed, the evidence described how the onset of motherhood is a defining moment in a parent’s life but how it can also be a step towards poverty. It is a time when the support of services and financial means should be sustained and not withdrawn.
There may be issues about the timing of the grant, and whether earlier payments would be more appropriate, but withdrawal of this support at the same time as families are facing an array of other cuts is unacceptable and flies in the face of the Government’s expressed objectives of reducing inequalities and improving social mobility and outcomes for children. The Minister spoke about the benefit of a voucher system. I wonder quite how that sits with issues of individual responsibility.
As was pointed out, it is not just universal but means-tested benefits which are being attacked. The Sure Start maternity grant for other than the first child is to go. Yesterday’s announcement that Social Fund budgeting loans will be available to help families to buy maternity items will be of little comfort. What additional resources are being made available to the Social Fund for this?
Our opposition to the Bill is on two levels. It is set in the concrete of a deficit reduction approach which drives conflicts with stated government policy around fairness, social mobility and better outcomes for children. Even within the practical confines of these constraints, it fails to take opportunities to retain and build on that which the Government have acknowledged to be worth while. All in all, it is another measure which will hit the poor the most.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to it. We have covered a range of topics. I shall start with one or two of the wider points raised and then move on to some of the important questions of detail in the Bill.
I start where I started in opening this debate; that is, by saying that this action is necessary. We have had to make some tough choices. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Noakes for pointing that out and to my noble friend Lord Newby who pointed out that the Opposition had come forward with no alternative policies for cutting the deficit. I had rather hoped from the build-up from the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, that we would get some ideas, but there was nothing. We then had a very long build-up and an economic essay on the story of the previous Government seen from one perspective—that of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton. Even though he and I would disagree about the path that got us to the present predicament, he seemed to acknowledge the need for dealing with the economic situation. I hoped that we would get some alternative ideas, but sadly not. Of the other speeches that touched on this point, the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, put the context of this Bill in a sensitive and well considered way. I did not get any of that from the Opposition Benches. We need to acknowledge that the deficit has to be reduced and that that requires difficult choices.
I stress again that in the overall process of deficit reduction we are, as a Government, prioritising groups that need the most support. Disadvantaged children will benefit from our pupil premium and in the spending review we made sure that there will be no measurable impact on child poverty in the next two years. At the other end of income and wealth distribution, we are making sure that everybody makes a fair contribution. Those on the highest incomes will contribute more towards the entire fiscal consolidation. We are making sure that we get more tax revenue in. We are providing additional resources to combat tax avoidance to raise an estimated additional £7 billion of revenue annually by 2014. Of course, we have also introduced a bank levy that will generate £2.5 billion a year. We are making sure that we raise revenue from every source and that the pain is shared equitably.
Before I turn to some specific points on the Bill, I should say something about the question of the money Bill status of this Bill. I was somewhat surprised not by the relatively measured terms in which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about this, but by one or two of his colleagues who surprised me very much, particularly former Ministers both here and in another place. They probably know the processes for money Bills: they would certainly know them better than I do. First of all, it is a certification of the Speaker that cannot be challenged. Even if football managers are getting into the habit of questioning the judgments of referees, which is not entirely a desirable thing, there are limits. I am not sure that it is appropriate for noble Lords to challenge the judgment of Mr Speaker. He is under a statutory duty to certify a Bill as a money Bill if in his view it falls within Section 1 of the Parliament Act 1911. In answer to these extraordinary suggestions that he might have been given advice or been leant on—I do not know what the suggestion is—by the Government, he takes advice from the Clerks in another place and not from the Government. The Government do not offer him any advice.
In respect of mischievous suggestions that somehow the process was different on this Bill from previous money Bills, all of the previous money Bills were certified at the end of their Commons stages. Certification cannot happen until the Bill has completed all of its stages in another place.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
To go back to the process on the money Bill, chapter 33 of Erskine May does not refer to the Clerks but says that the Speaker should call on the advice of at least two chairmen from the panel of committee chairmen in the House of Commons, and that on their advice also he should respond. There is no reference to the Clerks in Erskine May. Was that procedure followed in this case?
Lord Sassoon
I can give noble Lords my understanding of what the procedure is, but I certainly cannot and would not presume in any way to go into what process Mr Speaker went through. That is a matter entirely for Mr Speaker and not a matter for us in this House to question.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
I speak with all the neutrality that one can from these Benches. Is not the situation that there is a very substantial grey area? Section 1 of the 1911 Act gives many possibilities so that, if a rigid application of that provision had been applied since 1911, hundreds of Bills could have been called money Bills that were not called money Bills. There is a very substantial area of dispute, which will remain unless and until there is some curtailment of that discretion vested in those who advise the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I do not think that we should stray into a constitutional debate this afternoon. The point that I wanted to make was that this Bill was certified by Mr Speaker and that it was not a certification that we should be challenging. As far as I am aware, the Bill was dealt with in another place exactly as other money Bills have been, and the suggestion that there has been some improper behaviour by the Government on this matter, or that somehow there was something different—
Lord Reid of Cardowan
I do not think that anyone is suggesting that there has been improper conduct. We did not stray into this territory—the Minister led us there by describing in some detail the process. If he is now saying that he does not know what the process was, will he indicate to us whether his original statement was accurate or an assumption on his part?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, as I said before, I have given a description of the process and indicated that there was no question that the Government in any way behaved in some out of the ordinary way with this Bill, as has been hinted at. I really think that—
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
As it was probably my suggestion that has led to this response, I should like to speak just for a moment. I was given very clear advice from those who prepared a briefing paper, which many of us read—I heard it being quoted all round the House—that it was done at the request of the Government. I am not hinting that improper stuff has happened; I was merely asking whether that was true.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. He is right to say that some of these points were raised by him, which is why I thought it was right to address them. This is an important point. I can confirm what he asked me to confirm, but I think that I should move on to address some of the many other points that were made on this money Bill.
The point that attracted the most interventions—and it is an important point—was on junior ISAs for looked-after children. That point was raised at the opening of the debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who reminded us that proposals were raised in another place in that area, and a number of my noble friends and the noble Earl have touched on the point. I start by reiterating what my honourable friend the Financial Secretary said in another place—that we would need to think about this carefully and that we will think about it carefully. He has had conversations and we need to recognise the limitation of resources that are available. There is certainly no unallocated funding in the Department for Education budget that could be used for it, but we are considering the issue. My honourable friend is going to work with the Minister for Children. He made it clear that if we wanted to do something in this area, it would be possible to do it outside the scope of this Bill—a point which I think was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. It does not require the Bill to be in place. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, also touched on that point.
I assure my noble friend Lady Browning that I do indeed talk to my colleagues. I was talking to the Financial Secretary only this morning and I shall relay these messages back in. Yes, the Treasury is a siloed place. My proposal that Ministers in the Treasury should all sit in an open-plan office has not yet found favour but my noble friend encourages me onward in that objective. The noble Earl also made a practical suggestion on whether an additional meeting involving noble Lords would be helpful. As I have said, my honourable friend the Financial Secretary is having meetings. I am not sure which additional meetings would be helpful but I certainly accept his offer.
The Earl of Listowel
If it might help the Minister, it might be particularly useful to meet the Minister to discuss this with his honourable friend and with Mr Tim Loughton early in the new year. That might be welcomed by your Lordships—as I look around the House, perhaps not—but that was certainly the sort of thing that I had in mind.
Lord Sassoon
I will relay the message back and discuss it with the Financial Secretary. There were also questions on the capacity of local authorities. My noble friend Lady Ritchie of Brompton gave the most considered view from a local authority perspective, as she should. She talked about local authorities being under pressure. Certainly, I did not hear her say that it would be impossible for local authorities to find funding in these areas, but of course they have to make difficult choices—ones which, going forward, will not be constrained by so much ring-fencing in their budgets, as has been recognised.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
If it is the Government’s proposition that local authorities should pick up the obligation to support junior ISAs for looked-after children, given that the Government have signed up to the principle that they would keep local authorities whole for new burdens, will the Minister give a commitment that if that is the way that it goes, the Government will provide that extra funding?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I cannot promise today that all looked-after children will have a junior ISA opened for them and I certainly cannot provide any assurance about government funding. I have said that my honourable friend is looking into all this and, if and when there are proposals, the Government will indeed come forward with them.
I turn to some other important points on child trust funds and their effects on savings. A number of points were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton. Have child trust funds had a positive effect on savings? There is currently no robust evidence about whether the child trust fund has increased savings for children. While some parents are using child trust funds, not all are. I have it that 22 per cent of child trust funds received contributions in 2009-10, marginally down on the 24 per cent in the previous year. In any case, we do not yet know whether any of that saving is additional or would have happened anyway. For lower-income families, only 12 per cent of CTF accounts received contributions. I take my noble friend Lord Newby’s points to heart about the untargeted and, certainly, the unproven nature of the effect of child trust funds.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, raised the question of the gap before the introduction of junior ISAs. I must go back to the need for us to move quickly to tackle the budget deficit. I realise that this will leave a gap before the junior ISAs are available. However, we are working hard with the industry and other stakeholders to make sure that the gap is as short as possible. We intend to publish draft secondary legislation, setting out full details of the new accounts, in the spring and for them to be up and running in the second half of 2011. We will ensure that eligibility for the new account is backdated to ensure that no child born after the end of the CTF will miss out on the chance of having one of these accounts.
Concerns were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, and others about the suitability of junior ISAs for children from families on lower incomes, and whether they would benefit only the rich. I certainly do not believe that this will be the case. These accounts are not just about offering people a tax-free option for children’s savings; they will also offer a clear and simple way of saving for children and of ensuring that the money is locked up until the child reaches adulthood. This will prove attractive to many families on lower incomes. Of course, saving issues are difficult for us all, particularly those on lower incomes, but I remind the noble Baroness and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, that already more than 12 million people with incomes below £20,000 have an ISA. It is penetrating lower-income groups.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, for drawing attention to the annual financial health check. That was also welcomed by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. There are questions about advice turning into action but we should start somewhere. I am grateful to noble Lords for drawing attention to that important initiative.
On the question of the Bill’s equality impacts, an initial assessment of these was published on 15 September, when the Bill was introduced. Although we do not say that there are no impacts, the impact assessment shows that those that have been identified are proportionate, given the need to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.
I should say a little about the health in pregnancy grant, which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised first. I assure him that we have another scheme, the Healthy Start scheme, which targets and supports pregnant women on lower incomes, providing vouchers for fruit, vegetables and milk from the 10th week of pregnancy. This very much goes to the heart of the point that my noble friend Lady Browning made from an expert perspective. It did not look as though the health in pregnancy grant was achieving its original target of reducing the incidence of low birth weights. The Healthy Start scheme is much better targeted towards that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Does the Minister agree that the Healthy Start scheme gives something like £3 a week for, at best, around 30 weeks, which is a smaller sum than is being lost?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, it comes back to where we need the scarce resources available to be targeted. In answer to the questions that were raised about the underlying purpose of the pregnancy grant—namely, to deal with the problem of underweight children and nutrition—the Healthy Start scheme is far better targeted to that end.
I am conscious of the time. In my final minute I come back to the wider point of the Bill. Without the changes that we are making, we would have had to spend more than £3 billion in the four years of the spending review period on the child trust fund, the saving gateway and the health in pregnancy grant. That would simply have been unaffordable. The Opposition have not come up with any ideas of how we could have made alternative cuts.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, if the noble Lord is tempting me, I have a whole string of things that I could raise, but does he think that we might do without the £2 billion to £3 billion that we are spending on an unnecessary, unproven and top-down reorganisation of the NHS?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, out of this Bill we are saving £3 billion of spending which we believe could be better targeted. We therefore believe that that is actually concentrating our scarce resources on disadvantaged children and child poverty—that is where the resources should go—as well as enhancing growth in our economy through spending on infrastructure, low-carbon investments and science.
I realise that the measures in the Bill are disappointing to some noble Lords. I believe that they are necessary. Notwithstanding the fact that this is a money Bill, we have had a good debate. Some follow-up points in one important area have been made from all sides of the House. I believe that the Bill is necessary and I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.
Bill read a second time. Committee negatived. Standing Order 46 having been dispensed with, the Bill was read a third time and passed.
Business: Oral Statements
Baroness Northover
My Lords, at its meeting yesterday the Procedure Committee discussed the conduct of Oral Statements, during which it was suggested that it might be helpful to remind the House of the relevant guidance in the Companion to the Standing Orders. I therefore remind the House of that guidance. It states:
“Ministerial statements are made for the information of the House … and should not be made the occasion for immediate debate”.
The 20 minutes for Back-Bench questions and answers should therefore take the form of brief comments and questions. Brief interventions from Back-Bench Members will of course allow more Members to participate in the discussion overall.
Rehabilitation and Sentencing
(14 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. The Statement is as follows.
“On 12 May, we said in our programme for Government that we would conduct a full assessment of rehabilitation and sentencing policy to pave the way for a radical reform to the criminal justice system. I have laid before Parliament the Green Paper entitled Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders. This sets out our initial conclusions from this work on which we will be consulting widely over the next 12 weeks.
Despite record spending we are not delivering what really matters. Society has a right to expect the criminal justice system to protect it. Prison will always be the right place for serious and dangerous offenders. Criminals should be properly punished. Prisons should be places of hard work and industry, and community sentences must be credible and robust. Criminals must also be reformed so that when they finish their sentence they do not simply return to their life of crime, creating more misery for victims. The criminal justice system falls short of what is required. Around half of offenders released from prison reoffend within a year. Reoffending rates for young offenders sentenced to custodial or community sentences are even worse. It is not acceptable that three-quarters of offenders sentenced to youth custody reoffend within a year. If we do not stop offending by young people, these young offenders of today will become the prolific career criminals of tomorrow.
We cannot let this continue. Solving these problems requires a radically different approach. Criminals must face robust and demanding punishments. This means making them work hard, both in prison and in the community. More prisoners will face the tough discipline of regular working hours. This has been lacking in prison regimes for too long. Community sentences will be more credible, with more demanding work and greater use of tough curfew requirements. There will be greater reparation to victims through increased use of restorative justice and by implementing the Prisoners’ Earnings Act. We will bring forward other changes to make sure that more offenders directly compensate the victims of crime.
However, we will take a new approach to the reform of offenders. I regard prison, first and foremost, as a place of punishment where people lose their liberty as reparation for what they have done. On top of that, prison cannot continue to be simply an expensive way of giving communities a break. We must give higher priority to getting more prisoners to go straight on release. Offenders will face a tough and co-ordinated response from the police, probation and other services. It will mean that they must either address the problems that fuel their criminal activity or be caught and punished. It will mean taking action to get offenders off drugs. It will mean reducing the abuse of alcohol. It will mean improving the treatment available to those suffering mental illness. It will mean getting more of them off benefits and into honest employment so that they pay their own way.
We will be bringing forward a revolutionary shift in the way rehabilitation is financed and delivered. We will begin by commissioning a range of providers to administer at least six new projects over the next two years. They will be paid for the results they achieve. I intend to apply the principles of that approach across the whole system by the end of this Parliament. We will also test this payment-by-results approach with young offenders and devolve more responsibility for preventing and tackling youth offending to local communities. We will introduce more competition across offender management services to drive up standards and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. We will increase discretion for public sector providers and front-line professionals.
The sentencing framework must provide courts with a range of options to punish and rehabilitate criminals and keep the public safe. The sentencing framework has developed in an ad hoc fashion with more than 20 Acts of Parliament changing sentencing in the last 10 years. This has left it overly complex, difficult to interpret and administer, and hard for the public to understand. We need to make better use of prison and community sentences to punish offenders and improve public safety, while ensuring that sentencing supports our aims of improved rehabilitation and increased reparation to victims and society. We will simplify the sentencing framework in order to make it more comprehensible to the public and to enhance judicial independence. We will reform community orders to give providers more discretion. We will encourage greater use of financial penalties and improve their collection.
We will bring forward reforms to the indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection—the IPP. This sentence has been much more widely used than was intended since its introduction in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Indeed, the last Government had already changed it since its introduction. We will reserve IPP sentences for the most serious offenders and focus indefinite punishment on those who most clearly pose a very serious risk of future harm. Of course, prisoners who in future do not receive an IPP sentence will instead receive long determinate sentences. This will enable us to restore clarity in sentencing, plan rehabilitation and target punishment more effectively to protect the public.
Let me assure the House that public safety remains our first priority. We will continue to ensure that serious and dangerous offenders are managed effectively and that their risk is reduced through appropriate use of prison and through multiagency public protection arrangements. Let me also assure the House that we will also ensure effective responses to knife crime. Knife crime is wholly unacceptable. It causes misery for victims and is often connected to the kind of gang violence that can wreck whole communities. The government position is clear. Any adult who commits a crime using a knife can expect to be sent to prison, and serious offenders can expect a long sentence. For juveniles, imprisonment is always available and will also be appropriate for serious offenders.
The Green Paper is an important change of direction in penal policy which will put more emphasis on reducing reoffending without reducing the punishment of offenders. By reforming criminals and turning them away from a life of crime, we will break the cycle. This will mean fewer crimes, fewer victims and safer communities. The Government will make a further Statement to the House when they publish their response to the consultation. In the mean time, I commend this Statement to the House”.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister for repeating the Statement of his right honourable friend. In its four-year plan, the Ministry of Justice states:
“We will provide a clear sentencing framework. It will punish those who break the law, and help reduce re-offending”.
We do not disagree with that. It is a reasonable vision for sentencing policy, entirely in keeping with the emphasis on punishment and reform that we followed in government, which helped to cut crime by 43 per cent between 1997 and 2010, in times both of growth and recession. We were the only Administration since the Second World War who could boast such an enviable record. I will first ask the Minister to confirm that the crime rate significantly declined under the Labour Administration.
On the core principles we are in agreement. Where the Government propose sensible measures to punish and reform offenders, we will support them. However, the Statement that we have just heard gives rise to a number of questions and concerns. The Minister is probably quietly pleased that the entirety of the Conservative Party's manifesto on law and order at the last election has been abandoned. Some of the people who were persuaded to vote Conservative on that basis may be less pleased. Perhaps manifesto commitments do not matter much when the noble Lord's party is prepared to tear up personal pledges. Both on knife crime and increasing prison capacity, the Conservatives have dumped their previous policies.
Like so many heavily trailed announcements in the past six months, the sentencing review could be a wasted opportunity. Sentencing policy should be about dealing with offenders in the right way, in order to protect the public and, in particular, the victims of crime. However, this review has been about trying to reduce the prison population in order to cut costs. The Lord Chancellor outlined his principal aim in the comprehensive spending review, which was to reduce the total daily prison population by 3,000 by 2014. It is about 85,000 today, so that would mean it would be 82,000 in four years’ time. However, in practice, because many people serve less than a year in prison, meeting the target would mean sending 10,000 fewer offenders to jail each year than we do now. Unfortunately, this is what the sentencing review is all about: not protecting the public or victims, but saving money. Will the Minister confirm that his department will publish the detailed assumptions that his officials and the Home Office have made about crime trends to justify the target of 82,000?
We do not subscribe to the view that there is a direct link between prison and crime, but we do not share the Government’s view that there is no link at all. Of course there is a link; it is entirely irrational to think otherwise. During the past couple of years of the previous Conservative Government and under the Labour Government, more serious and persistent criminals went to prison for longer, and—guess what—crime fell. The relationship between those two things may not have been simple or straightforward; other factors were at play, including of course—something that the Government may want to take notice of—an increase in police numbers, but there was a relationship. To justify the view that there is no link, the Government say that crime rates also declined internationally in that time but that prison rates in many countries went down. That view is wrong. The figures for OECD countries show that prison populations rose almost everywhere.
We accept, of course, that prison is not always the best place for offenders and that community sentences can be a better alternative in cutting reoffending. Does the Minister accept that, as a result of changes that we introduced following the Corston report, the number of women in custody has gone down? Furthermore, does he accept that reoffending rates for women, young men and first-time offenders have gone down too in recent years?
Of course, further action on drug addiction is clearly to be welcomed, and I do welcome it. The steps outlined to deal more effectively with offenders with mental health problems are also to be welcomed. That is one of our society’s most pressing issues and it is a vindication of the decision to set up and begin to implement the important Bradley review. However, what assurances can the Minister give the House that those with mental health problems who are liable to commit offences—particularly violent offences—will be treated in secure establishments?
In our view, the Justice Secretary’s eagerness to please the Treasury by cutting the Ministry of Justice’s budget by 23 per cent is going to make it both difficult and risky to turn these fine aspirations into reality. In particular, I ask the Minister to explain to the House what assessments are being made of the likelihood that prisoners on indeterminate sentences, whom the Justice Secretary wants to release, will no longer be a risk to the public. What procedures will be put in place to monitor such people in the community? We would also like the Minister to confirm whether it is intended to relax the rules on the recall of offenders. If that is the intention, I ask why, and how will he ensure that it will not result in higher rates of reoffending?
Our probation service does a good job. Cutting the service so deeply, as the Government intend to do, seems like a massive gamble. Why are the Government doing this if they truly believe in rehabilitation? Every time the Justice Secretary is asked about resources, he falls back on the payment-by-results model being piloted in Peterborough and started by the previous Government in March this year. It is an interesting model, which we agree should be expanded.
Finally, the Justice Secretary was recently asked on “Newsnight” how he would judge the success of his penal policy. His first response was that he “hadn’t the first idea”. That really is not good enough. Let us offer him a better idea for judging the success of his policy: will it make communities up and down the country more or less safe, and will it result in crime going up or down? That is what matters to people who live in the real world.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for his questions and for his response. I hope that we can address this Green Paper in the way in which it has been presented to the country: as a really good, constructive, national debate about our criminal justice system. Therefore, I do not deny that many reforms were carried through by the previous Government that we have learnt from and which we shall try to develop. I am not really worried about the little bit of party politics on manifesto commitments. I know they play that game much more at the other end. This is a real attempt, in the six months in which we have been in office, to look at prison numbers. We need to look at the fact that they have doubled over the past 15 years.
Central to this paper is reoffending. More than half the people going through the system reoffend—75 per cent of young people reoffend—which makes us think that it is worth taking a serious look at what has been termed a rehabilitation revolution. In looking at offending and reoffending, it does not take rocket science to work out that issues come up time and time again. When I went to a secure training centre at Medway, one of the guys who showed me around said that one of the tragedies is that most of these boys have had only passing contact with education throughout their lives. We all know the evidence of illiteracy, innumeracy, homelessness, drug addiction, alcohol dependency, long-term unemployment and social disruption at home. They are all there and we are looking to see whether we can make dents into that.
I know that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice is sometimes unorthodox in his replies, but I look around at some of those who have experience of trying to run the system and anyone who bets the House on the success of any strategy is reckless indeed. We are bringing forward for public debate and public consultation an invitation for people to look at the central issue of reoffending, which goes right through the system, and to address it in a way that maintains and increases public confidence. I entirely accept that the crime rate fell during the Labour Government. We have not denied—and it is made out in the paper—that prison works in certain circumstances, but the reoffending rate also suggests that in other circumstances it does not. We are not trying to deny the experience of the past 15 years, but we are trying to learn from some of the downsides as well as the upsides.
Equally, I pay tribute to the work of two landmark reports produced during the previous Administration by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradley. Certainly the advice in the report by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, will be very much reflected in the Statement on drugs and drug treatment that I expect to be made imminently, as will the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, on the treatment of women offenders. Throughout the Green Paper, I think you will find a genuine attempt to reflect some of the recommendations that she made, along with a central commitment to continue to try to drive down the still unacceptably high number of women in our prison system.
The noble Lord asked whether I would publish assumptions. Our initial assumptions have been published in the impact assessment accompanying the Green Paper. As the policy proposals are firmed up following consultation, we will update and publish those impact assessments. He also asked for assurances that offenders with particular mental health problems will be treated in secure settings. Our proposals offer liaison and diversion schemes that will assess offenders for mental illness as well as their risk to the public. We will make sure that any treatment is in suitably secure settings. One of the good things that we are carrying through in trying to deal with the report by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, is close liaison with the Department of Health in taking forward that policy. There will be no mass releases of the 6,000-plus people now held on IPPs. Any decisions about release will be taken on a close assessment of the existing danger to the community and very close management of those released.
The noble Lord also mentioned the Probation Service. Some of what we are doing will be a challenge to it, but I hope that the flexibility will also give it an opportunity to exercise its own judgment and to participate in the wider scheme. It is certainly true that my right honourable friend puts a great deal of emphasis on payments by results, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, indicated. That was piloted in Peterborough, and we are now going to pilot it further. I do not think we should rubbish it in advance. It could be a very interesting way of making sure that rehabilitation is expanded in the way in which the Government hope. There is an opportunity for the Probation Service to improve its performance and to participate in a wider—and, we hope, very interesting— approach to rehabilitation, with an opportunity to work on a genuine multi-agency basis to address these problems.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
My Lords, from these Benches, I welcome wholeheartedly the change in emphasis from warehousing prisoners to rehabilitation. I am grateful to my noble friend for putting forward these proposals in the way that he has. I am disappointed that the indeterminate sentence is not to be abolished completely, but I am encouraged by seeing that it is to be restricted. It has been used far too greatly without the proper resources behind it to enable the 6,000 people currently held on these sentences to earn their release.
There is one matter that I shall raise with the Minister to have his response. Has he considered veterans’ courts? They have been set up in the United States for a period of two years to deal with the specific problems of those who have served their country but have found themselves in prison because of the experiences that they have undergone. Proportionately fewer veterans go to prison, but of those a greater proportion are in prison for sex and violence offences. Their needs must be addressed in a special way, as they have been in the United States. Perhaps I may commend to my noble friend the report of the Howard League, Leave No Veteran Behind, which was published last month, to make sure that those who have served their country are properly attended to by the system.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I take on board what my noble friend said about IPP. It is true that there has been an increasing focus and an increasing public concern about the number of our veterans who seem to end up in our criminal justice system. I have not looked at the American example to which he referred, but that is exactly the kind of constructive suggestion that we hope this Green Paper will bring forward. My department is in contact with the Ministry of Defence and the Royal British Legion about these issues. I hope that we can take forward measures to help veterans who find themselves on the wrong side of the law or in prison. The Royal British Legion already has a system of visiting, advising and counselling for veterans who find themselves in this situation. We have got to give this priority and I assure my noble friend that we will.
Lord Reid of Cardowan
My Lords, I declare two interests; first, my interest as registered in security matters; and, secondly, as Home Secretary, having introduced a number of measures to try to bring diversity to probation services and the treatment of prisoners, where the opposite Benches voted against my proposals. So I welcome elements of what has been suggested today.
Perhaps I may also suggest to the Minister that the premise on which the new direction is based is flawed in two essential areas. The first is the assumption that the increase in prison numbers, which has doubled, and the reduction in crime, which has almost halved, is merely a chronological coincidence. It is not. It is a causal relationship between the two. Secondly, prison is not just about punishment, rehabilitation or reform. It is also about the protection of society.
Let me make a prediction, without judging how these consultations will end. If they end on the premise on which they started—perhaps thousands fewer police on the streets; 10,000 more felons not sent to prison; potential softer sentencing on community sentences, which will be optional; and the dropping of more serious sentences for knife crime—tragically, I believe that we will see a proportionate increase in crime over the next few years. I predict that will be the case rather than what I am sure the Government and everyone in the House are seeking, which is a continued reduction in crime, following on from the past 15 years.
Lord McNally
I acknowledge the experience of the noble Lord in these areas, but his little catalogue at the end was just the kind of fear and alarm about these issues that we have heard. We have to ask whether if what he said is so, perhaps we should double the prison numbers again. I think that I have mentioned previously in the House that I once went to a talk given by Ronald Reagan’s former prison adviser, which I think was at about the same time as the noble Lord was Home Secretary. He estimated that the proper size of Britain’s prison population should be about 170,000, because that would, as the noble Lord suggests, get all the offenders out of harm’s way. But it does not seem to remove public concern about crime. It does not seem to address this issue of re-offending. We are not going to deal lightly with knife crime, as the Statement makes clear, but neither are we going to put every juvenile who is found to be carrying a knife into prison. That would be absurd. There are other things in his litany that would go.
To listen to some, one would think that next Friday, Ken Clarke is going to throw open the gates of the prison and usher out the first 3,000 who want to leave. If anyone reads the Green Paper, they will see a measured response that does not ignore the fact that there will be other things that will come into play quite often. As the noble Lord and others with experience know, addressing this is often like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube; when you get one bit of it right, you look round the other side to see that that has gone wrong. Within the paper there are some innovative, and, I hope, optimistic views of the way we can approach this situation which may make some of the noble Lord’s pessimistic predictions wrong. As always, we will have to wait and see.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on a reappraisal of what might be termed the classic Conservative attitude towards penal policy over the past decades. I exculpate completely, of course, the noble Lord and his party in respect of that, but that is another matter.
On the question of indeterminate public protection sentences, does the noble Lord recollect that when the 2003 Act was passed, it was estimated by Ministers that the prison population would increase by 900 in respect of that piece of legislation? By this year it had increased, as the noble Lord has already said, by 6,000. The most tragic aspect of that is that 2,500 of those are persons who have already served more than the recommended period of imprisonment that was mentioned by the sentencing judge. That is a denial of justice. It is a totally impossible and unacceptable situation. What are the Government going to do about that? Are they going to increase the size of the Parole Board, which is the sieve through which these cases must pass? Are they going to relax the rules? Or are they going to act in some other way? Those, I respectfully suggest, are indeed fundamental questions that the Government have to answer at this stage if this issue is to have any credibility. As I say, I congratulate the Government on doing the right thing, but for all the wrong reasons.
Lord McNally
I am sorry there was that sting in the tail from the noble Lord. I have to remind him that what he termed a classic Conservative approach to penal policy over the past 20 years was being carried out for at least 13 of them by the party opposite. I notice the noble Lord, Lord Reid, nodding vigorously. Yes, it is a change of approach; it is an attempt to see if some new measures, new thinking, and new ideas can come.
On the noble Lord’s point about IPP, he has put his finger on exactly why we want to consider the measures. As he said, when it was introduced it was going to apply to a very limited number of prisoners. His figures are quite right because we now have more than 6,000 prisoners on IPP sentences, 40 per cent of whom are now well beyond their tariffs. We are in consultation with the Parole Board and others about how to deal with this. But we are where we are, and what we obviously cannot do is simply release people who may still be a threat to the public. This has to be handled carefully—with full consultation but with a determination that we do not find ourselves with 10,000 people in this situation in five years’ time. We are going to address the problem we have inherited and change the guidance for future sentencing.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, it is the turn of the right reverend Prelate and then the Conservatives.
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield
I thank the Minister for the Statement and his helpful answers to the questions put to him so far. We on these Benches broadly welcome the Statement and the proposals set out in the Green Paper. The Christian churches are bound by our belief in the possibility of redemption, so we welcome a renewed commitment to rehabilitation, which is one of the marks of a decent society. I want to salute the work of chaplains and their colleagues, most particularly initiatives such as Alpha for Prisons and so on. I acknowledge too all the volunteers who work in prisons. We see genuine conversions and changes of life in what are sometimes the most unpropitious of circumstances. However, prisons that are overcrowded and filled with people who ought to be elsewhere to be treated for mental health and addiction problems are limited in what they can achieve. It is to be hoped that the diversion of offenders with severe mental illness into suitable treatment will be pursued vigorously, as was recommended in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, which has already been mentioned.
I also welcome the use of community sentences where appropriate, and the recognition that such sentences must carry the confidence of the judiciary and the police. There is obviously a need both for well designed programmes and for publicity aimed at local communities about what they involve. I applaud the commitment to promote co-ordinated support for the resettlement of offenders in society, which leads to my main question at this point. If this is to succeed, it will require adequate funding arrangements and appropriate performance indicators. It is a standing joke in my part of the world that one of the growth industries in Staffordshire is that of providing new accommodation for young offenders. Nevertheless, we have in my own diocese the wonderful North Staffordshire Community Chaplaincy, which provides housing and other services for ex-offenders. It has an excellent record. I am told that the reoffending rate is only 10 to 12 per cent, even though the most vulnerable and likely to reoffend prisoners are chosen. I hope that the Minister will be willing to look again at the funding for these schemes because we have been told that there is no money for this kind of investment.
Lord McNally
I pay tribute to the chaplaincy service of all faiths in our prisons as well as to those who take on volunteering and mentoring work. It is often the faith-based organisations that help so much in our prisons.
On the challenge of resettlement, resources are in short supply. The payment by results initiative may be one way of providing them. I reaffirm what the right reverend Prelate said. In the six months that I have been in this job, I have been impressed by the fact that where there are interventions the reoffending rate falls. So there is an immediate come-back and pay-back if we can get such schemes working.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden
My Lords, I apologise to the right reverend Prelate and to the House for being a little previous. Does not equipping prisoners to live a useful life when they are released remain the overriding objective at the head and forefront of the prison rules? If it be the case that today nearly 50 per cent of people who are in prison reoffend within one year of their being released, is it not disappointing to hear asserted—as it was by the noble Lord, Lord Bach—that this review is only about saving money?
Lord McNally
Once we move from the parliamentary knockabout stage to a proper examination of this issue, we will try to identify schemes that have the real impact to which my noble and learned friend has just referred. As I said at the beginning, illiteracy, homelessness and lack of a job are common factors. Another common factor, which fills me with shame, is that 24 per cent, I think, of offenders have been in our care at some stage or another. If we can address that basic lack of skills, we can also tackle the reoffending rate.
Lord Warner
The Minister has not so far mentioned youth justice so perhaps I may ask him some questions about that issue. I welcome much in the Statement about rehabilitation and reoffending, but is he aware that many of the issues of concern expressed in the Green Paper—such as young people’s first entry into the criminal justice system, restorative justice, reducing custody, improving the rates of reoffending when they have been sentenced and giving the courts more options on sentences—have been pioneered by the Youth Justice Board and the changes in the Crime and Disorder Act? Can the Minister explain why the Government want to abolish a body that has done the very kind of things that are in the Green Paper?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I pay genuine tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, as the chairman of the Youth Justice Board, and, as I have done before at the Dispatch Box, I put on record my admiration for its work. The decision to bring it in-house within the MoJ and to include it in the list of arm’s-length bodies to be abolished is a matter that is still before the House, but we of course hope that it will accept our recommendation. The general feeling is that the YJB had been a successful operation over the past 10 years. There were some criticisms of it here and there but, on the whole, it had been a success. However, that success now allows us to move to a stage where youth justice is much more a local and community responsibility undertaken by the successful operation of youth offending teams. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Warner, does not see the decision to abolish the YJB as a condemnation of it; it was a stage in the progression to what we hope will be a successful youth justice operation.