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Oral Answers to Questions
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Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
1. What estimate he has made of the potential effects on the level of demand and output in the manufacturing sector of the outcomes of the comprehensive spending review.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
I am happy to report today that annual growth in manufacturing output is the fastest in 16 years, and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply reported the strongest manufacturing employment balance on record last month. This is a crucial contribution to rebalancing the British economy away from its dependence on debt. The Budget and the spending review will help to sustain that by cutting tax rates for manufacturers, investing in transport infrastructure and skilled apprenticeships, and providing the economic stability that our deficit reduction plan has delivered in an unstable world.
Mr Bain
I thank the Chancellor for that reply, and I wish him and his fellow Ministers on the Treasury Bench, and all right hon. and hon. Members, including you, Mr Speaker, a happy and peaceful Christmas. Does the Chancellor agree that the best Christmas present he can give manufacturers in my constituency and throughout the country is a proper White Paper on growth? He has often promised to publish one. When exactly will he be bringing it before this Chamber for debate?
Mr Osborne
We have a specific review of advanced manufacturing to see what more we can do to help it, and I intend the Budget on 23 March to focus very much on supporting economic growth and removing the barriers to the expansion of manufacturing businesses and others. We are looking both at specific sectors, such as advanced manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, and at cross-government issues, such as planning and employment law, so that we provide not only the economic stability that we have delivered in recent months, but the platform for economic growth.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Further to that question and that reply, the Government’s efforts so far in that regard consist of “The path to strong, sustainable and balanced growth”. Frankly, it is an insubstantial document—well short of a strategy. The Chancellor has given us a firm lead on fiscal policy. Will he now commit to cutting through what appear to have been a large number of interdepartmental arguments about this, and give us a clear strategy for growth in his next Budget?
Mr Osborne
The first thing that I would say is that, of course, deficit reduction is an essential platform for economic growth. The fact that this Parliament, almost alone in Europe, is not having to discuss the sovereign debt crisis is in itself testament to the success that we have had. But we need now to turn around many Departments that have not really thought for years about this question: how do we stimulate private enterprise and private sector growth? We have inherited government machinery that is not equipped to deal with that. We are turning that around, and the Budget in March is the focus point that I expect all Departments to work towards.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Responsibility for our manufacturing sector rests, of course, with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who had some interesting things to say this morning about the “Maoist” nature of this Government. [Interruption.] Does the Great Leader—or rather, the Chancellor—recognise himself in the Business Secretary’s description of “cack-handed” Tories? Strictly speaking, does the Chancellor believe that the reason we have waited so long for any sign of a strategy on jobs and growth is that he is out of step with his Cabinet colleague?
Mr Osborne
The Business Secretary is a powerful ally in the Government in promoting growth—and, frankly, he has forgotten more about economics than the shadow Chancellor ever knew. I refer the shadow Chancellor to the statement that he gave recently about his own party:
“On economic credibility, we are in a really worrying position.”
Alan Johnson
We see this morning record borrowing for November, unemployment higher than expected and inflation well above where it should be. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, we are about to destroy £5 billion of economy activity through the increase in VAT on 4 January. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that absolute poverty—not relative poverty—will rise for children and working age adults, with 900,000 more slipping below the breadline over the next three years. If the Chancellor has not got a plan B yet, is he hoping to get one for Christmas?
Mr Osborne
I am glad that the shadow Chancellor reminds the House of the terrible economic inheritance that we are struggling with—and overcoming. He talks about the public borrowing figures today, and I am glad that he has brought them up, because they are a reminder of the fact that we have a record budget deficit. He is—if he wants to do Christmas analogies—the incredible no-man: every time we have put forward any proposal for deficit reduction, he has said no. He is running out of time to come forward with sensible credible contributions to the economic debate about how we get Britain growing again, because at the moment the Christmas lights are on but there’s no one at home.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the record borrowing figures announced today simply serve to underline the seriousness of the situation to which the spending review was addressed, as well as the importance of sticking to the fiscal plan that has been agreed and not deviating from it in the slightest?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This country has a record budget deficit; that is the situation we have inherited. We have made some in-year reductions, which have made it slightly less worse this year than it otherwise would have been, and then we have measures next year to try to bring the budget deficit down. Every one of those measures has been opposed by Opposition Front Benchers. They have put forward not a single plan, not a single proposal, to reduce the budget deficit, but our proposals have provided this country with economic stability, in a very unstable European continent.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Following on from the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), what does the Chancellor have to say about the Institute for Fiscal Studies report, which says that almost 1 million people will be below the breadline by 2014? That is an extra million people. Does the Chancellor not feel any shame about what will happen to so many of our constituents—certainly mine—as a result of the policies that he is pursuing? I would have thought that it was a matter over which the Business Secretary might wish to consider resigning.
Mr Osborne
As usual, the hon. Gentleman’s question is totally over the top. I would make this observation: we have inherited this economic situation—a record budget deficit—and we are taking the action to deal with it. We are also promoting social mobility by funding a pupil premium and giving new nursery entitlements to disadvantaged two-year-olds. Child poverty rose in the last years of the Labour Government. They set a child poverty target and entrenched it in law, knowing full well that they did not have the policies to meet that target in any way. We are putting in place the policies that will deliver greater social mobility and deal with entrenched poverty in our country.
Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)
3. What estimate he made of the effect on public finances of the introduction of a graduate tax.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
6. What estimate he made of the effect on public finances of the introduction of a graduate tax.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
14. What estimate he made of the effect on public finances of the introduction of a graduate tax.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
A graduate tax would add billions of pounds to the budget deficit. That is just one reason why anyone in government, Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, who has ever looked at the facts has concluded that a graduate tax is unworkable, unfair and unaffordable.
Mr Speaker
Before I call the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), I remind him and the rest of the House that the supplementary question must be about the policy of the Government.
Mike Weatherley
A graduate tax would be less progressive and less fair than the proposals that the Government have brought forward. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we scrapped our proposals and introduced a graduate tax, it would be a costly disaster for those entering higher education in the future?
Mr Osborne
I absolutely do agree with that. Interestingly, as I said in my opening reply, anyone who has ever looked at the issue in government, as we did over the summer and as the shadow Chancellor did when he was the Minister responsible for higher education, has concluded that it is unworkable. It destroys the independence of universities, and it is unfair, because some students would pay much more than the cost of their education, others would avoid it altogether by moving abroad, and millions of students on lower incomes than those specified by our proposals would be hit by a tax rise. It is also unaffordable, and as Lord Browne pointed out in the report that the previous Government commissioned, it would take until 2041 for the system to start paying for itself.
Mike Freer
Has the Chancellor, in developing our policy on a graduate tax, been able to bear in mind the policies of the Opposition?
Mr Speaker
Order. The Chancellor does not need to bear that in mind. He has explained his position very clearly, and we are grateful to him. I now call Tobias Ellwood, as his question is also in this group. He is not here. Oh, dear. I call Mr David Hanson.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Will the Chancellor confirm that in adopting his policy on tuition fees he has raised the Government borrowing requirement to £10.7 billion by 2015—a rise of £5.6 billion—in addition to cutting at least £800 million from the university budget and tripling fees, which will deter poorer students? Will he now for once confirm to the House that his choice on tuition fees is about ideology, not deficit reduction?
Mr Osborne
What we are doing is taking the report commissioned by the Labour Government and improving on it so that it is more progressive. [Interruption.] Yes, we are increasing borrowing to help students; that is part of what we are doing to fund our higher education institutions.
The truth is this, and the shadow Chancellor said it this month: it would
“be very difficult to make a graduate tax a workable proposition.”
That was the shadow Chancellor, who is now advocating as an official policy of the Labour party something that he says would be difficult to make a workable proposition. We have come forward with workable propositions on higher education, which the Opposition used to agree with when they were in government. They have now mistaken opportunism for opportunity.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
4. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
5. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
13. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.
Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)
15. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
In the spending review the Government abolished the private finance initiative credit system, which provided Departments with a ring-fenced budget that could be used only to support local authority PFI projects. The change levelled the playing field between PFI and other forms of procurement.
Rehman Chishti
What does the Chief Secretary think of the comments made by the former Paymaster General, who said that PFI contracts were far too generous and too expensive?
Danny Alexander
That has a striking comment, coming from a Minister who was in the Department responsible for those things, and it reflects the general attitude towards public money that was prevalent under the previous Administration. There is a great deal of work that we can do as a Government to ensure that in future PFI is used only where it is absolutely necessary, and that we get best value for public money. That is how we should approach these things.
Dr Coffey
One of my constituents thinks that the PFI contracts that have been negotiated are one of the greatest scandals ever, if only because one of his relatives has made millions out of one. Apart from the potential £875 cost of a Christmas tree, which PFIs have caused the Minister the most angst?
Danny Alexander
I am not sure that it would be appropriate for me at this stage to pick out individual examples. The important thing to say is that, in common with the work that we are doing to ensure that we get better value from our suppliers across Government and that those suppliers are making a contribution to reducing the deficit, we are working on examining the future costs of PFI, so that where we can we reduce those costs. That is very important for ensuring that we reduce the deficit effectively and have the maximum amount of money left for front-line services.
Tony Baldry
A reduction of just 0.05% in contractors’ fees could save some £500 million a year. What can we do to help the Chief Secretary and the Chancellor bring pressure to bear on equity holders and key industry PFI players to persuade them to cut voluntarily their annual charges for rentals and services?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his festive offer of assistance with these matters. I urge him and other colleagues on both sides of the House to draw the Government’s attention to areas where they see PFI schemes being wasteful, or to examples that they would like to bring to our attention. I would be only too delighted to pick those up if he drew them to my attention.
Joseph Johnson
Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to read the Public Accounts Committee’s recent report on PFI in the credit crunch? It suggested that many projects are locked into very high financing costs for periods of up to 30 years. I wonder what scope there is to claw back some of the gains in the event of any refinancing.
Danny Alexander
The Treasury will respond in the normal way to that report, and it would not be proper for me to comment on it until we have published the relevant Treasury minute. The Treasury and the Cabinet Office are working closely together to ensure that the PFI industry contributes its fair share of savings from operational projects.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
PFI was, of course, invented by the Tories; I may be in a small minority in having consistently opposed PFI and urged that we should have public investment instead. In making an assessment of PFI, will the Government make comparisons with superb public investment projects such as Luton sixth-form college, which has been rebuilt at far less cost than it would have been under PFI?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful for that comment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the decision that we took in the spending review to end the PFI credit system. Departments now have to look at the best way of funding projects within their own budgets; effectively, the PFI credit system meant that they could top-slice local government funding for local authority projects. The change that we have made means that Departments will have to make a proper comparison between PFI costs and the sorts of costs that the hon. Gentleman has described. I am sure that the House will have heard what he has said.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, PFI was an invention of the previous Tory Government, who were having difficulties building new hospitals. Is it beyond the wit of the Chief Secretary, who knows that most of those PFIs were local negotiations and have break clauses in them, to use his imagination and look into the break clauses?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As for the politics of the matter, it was, of course, the previous Government who oversaw a massive expansion of PFI. It does not come well from the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members to be criticising an approach that ballooned under the previous Government.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
My constituent Jeanette May wrote to me recently about the cancellation of the PFI at Maghull prison in my constituency to say that cutting the prison will affect the local economy, especially the immediate population. Does the Chief Secretary understand the impact that cuts such as the cancellation of Maghull prison will have, and how they will hit jobs and growth in communities across the country?
Danny Alexander
I am bound to say that that is yet another example of a saving that is necessary to tackle the terrible inheritance left by the previous Government, which Opposition Members now seem to be opposing. They also oppose every single cut, yet do not recognise that the consequence of such an approach would be to put this country back in the economic mess that they caused.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
7. What recent steps he has taken to reduce bonuses paid by banks to their staff.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government have taken decisive action to tackle unacceptable bank bonuses. The Financial Services Authority has revised its remuneration code and new rules will be in place by 1 January 2011. In addition, the Government have introduced a levy that incentivises less risky banking activities, and we will continue to investigate the cost and benefits of a financial activities tax. In combination, those and other measures will ensure that remuneration is consistent with effective risk management.
Phil Wilson
The Minister will be aware that the Business Secretary has said that a big argument is going on in Government about the banks. He says that he wants a very tough approach but
“our Conservative friends don’t want to do that”.
Is the Business Secretary right?
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
May I remind the House that no hospital PFI contract was signed under the—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman is to resume his seat. He has come in on the wrong question I am afraid; we are talking about bank bonuses.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
While the Minister reviews the undoubtedly well-stuffed stockings of certain bankers to determine whether they have been naughty or nice, will he acknowledge the significant amount of tax that they pay, and the institutions that choose London as their domain? Will he recognise that, as far as their choice of domain is concerned, the airports of this country will not always be closed?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point. At the time of the spending review the Chancellor made it very clear that we want banks to pay the maximum sustainable tax. That is why on 1 January we will introduce a bank levy, which the Opposition rejected when they were in government. That levy will raise £2.5 billion more than the net amount raised by their bonus tax.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Minister now admit that the more noise the Government make about this issue, the less action they appear willing to take? Will he confirm today that amidst all the PR and bluster, the Chancellor has decided not to go ahead with Labour’s requirement that all bankers’ bonuses over £1 million be published? He may be willing to ignore the Business Secretary’s nuclear option, but the millions of Britons who are paying the real price of his austerity measures will never forgive him if he lets his friends in the banks off scot-free.
Mr Hoban
I am not going to be lectured by the hon. Lady about attitudes towards banks. Labour is the party that gave Fred Goodwin his knighthood, so I will not take any lessons from Labour politicians. They talk tough, but they did nothing when they were in government. This Government are taking real concrete measures to tackle bankers’ pay and to introduce the bank levy, which they refused to introduce. In Europe there will be a most stringent application of the Financial Stability Board principles on bankers’ remuneration.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
8. What recent discussions he has had on the introduction of a Government-backed sovereign sukuk.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
As chairman of the all-party group on Islamic finance and diversity in financial markets, my hon. Friend is well known for his close interest in Islamic finance. The Government believe that sovereign sukuk issuance would not offer value for money at the present time, but the situation remains under review.
Roger Williams
I thank the Minister for that reply. A sovereign sukuk issued by the Government might lead to two benefits: first, providing funding for the Government’s borrowing requirement, and secondly, giving readier access to liquidity for the growing number of Islamic banks that operate in this country. Will he agree to meet a small group from the all-party group on Islamic finance and diversity in financial markets to discuss this matter in more detail?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We recognise the benefits that a sovereign sukuk could bring to improving liquidity in the sector, but significant costs would arise from sovereign sukuk issuance. However, I am sure that my noble Friend Lord Sassoon, who leads on this matter, will happily meet him and his colleagues.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
9. What assessment his Department has made of the effects of the outcome of the comprehensive spending review on the provision of local services in deprived areas.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
It is for Departments to decide how best to prioritise resources within their departmental expenditure limits. The consequences in particular locations will become apparent only once these decisions have been made. However, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced the provisional local government finance settlement on Monday, and the balance of the settlement is more heavily weighted towards councils that are more dependent on central Government grants and have greater relative needs.
Barbara Keeley
Salford is ranked 15th in average scores for the 50 most deprived districts in England. The front-loaded grant cuts announced in the spending review mean that next year Salford council is faced with making budget cuts of 15%, or £40 million, which will have an impact on services such as social care for frail older or disabled people. How does the Minister square that reality with the Government’s pledge in the spending review to limit the impact of spending reductions on the most vulnerable in our society?
Mr Gauke
Had we proceeded with the spending formula that existed under the previous Government, some of the deprived areas that are most dependent on central Government grant would have faced a greater cut than the one in the proposals announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Minister agree with me, and my constituents in Dover and Deal, that the council tax freeze is very welcome, and stands in sharp contrast to the massive rises that have hit the poor, elderly and vulnerable in recent years?
Mr Gauke
With reference to the comprehensive spending review, the council tax freeze and the other measures that we have announced demonstrate that we are making every effort to ensure that the difficult decisions that we have to make because of the deficit are reached in a way that is fair.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
But will the Minister now acknowledge that the spending review was in fact brutally regressive and hit the poorest hardest, especially when we see how the figures announced last week will affect individual councils and communities? For example, how can he justify the percentage changes announced last week to the local authority specific grants for learning disabilities, Sure Start and One to One tuition? The most deprived 10th of local authorities will see a drop—minus 12%—whereas the wealthiest decile will see an increase of more than 24%. How is that fair or progressive?
Mr Gauke
When we look at 2011 and onwards, we see that this is a Government who are bringing in the pupil premium and funding social care. Labour Members, when they were in government, were planning to make cuts in 2011-12. Where would they have made their cuts? We have done everything we can to protect the poorest in the very difficult circumstances left us by the Opposition.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the pupil premium in the comprehensive spending review will have a transformative effect on helping the poorest in Brentford and Isleworth, and elsewhere?
Mr Gauke
Within the comprehensive spending review we have given priority to school funding. The pupil premium will help the poorest, which is indicative of the Government’s values in looking to the long term, looking at fairness, and ensuring that young people have an opportunity that they did not necessarily get under the previous Government.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
10. What recent discussions he has had with his Irish counterpart on measures to reduce budget deficits.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Government welcome Ireland’s effort to bring its fiscal deficit under control, and support the international assistance package currently being agreed to deliver stability.
Stephen Timms
The Chancellor used to speak of the Irish miracle as a shining example of economic policy making. Are there not, though, important lessons to learn from the misery that we are seeing in Ireland today? Is it not clear that simply increasing VAT, making large-scale public sector redundancies and cutting welfare does not add up to a successful path out of the global crisis?
Mr Hoban
Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman what he said about Ireland on 8 May 2007:
“The Irish economy has enjoyed a good deal of success over the past few years. The corporation tax regime has contributed to that, but there have been a number of other factors”.––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 8 May 2007; c. 19.]
The truth is that the Irish economy, like our economy under the previous Government, had a banking sector that was poorly regulated and out of control. It is because we have tackled the legacy of the Labour Government that we are in a position to help Ireland.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Given the misery that economies on the periphery of Europe, such as Ireland, are suffering from the imposition of a single currency throughout Europe, will my hon. Friend advise his European partners that any future plan should be motivated by what the markets demand, and not what grandiose politicians want?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point. He may have read the shadow Chancellor’s remarkable statement last week, that the euro had had no impact on the problems in Ireland. It is important that the right mechanisms are in place to tackle the problems in the eurozone, and that those solutions are owned by the eurozone. That is why the permanent mechanism that will replace the financial stability facility will be a eurozone-only body.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
11. What recent representations he has received on the overview of the impact of the spending review 2010 on equalities; and if he will make a statement.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
Throughout the spending review process, the Treasury looked closely at the impact that decisions might have on different groups. We published “Overview of the impact of Spending Review 2010 on equalities” on 20 October, alongside the spending review document. Departments will consider the impact on equalities of decisions that are made as a result of the spending review, in the light of their legal obligations. On the day of the spending review, the decision to publish that document was welcomed by, among others, the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Fiona Mactaggart
The Chief Secretary will recall that the document said that it
“would not…be meaningful to assess the impact”
on gender of the reductions in employment “at this stage”. Given that women’s unemployment exceeds 1 million and is at its highest level since 1988, when will the Government apologise to women for making them bear the brunt of their economic policies?
Danny Alexander
I do not accept that analysis. For the sake of completeness, the hon. Lady should recognise that the Government are cleaning up a mess left by the previous Government. If she is interested in the impact on women, she should consider the pay freeze that we have imposed in the public sector, which will protect jobs, and women’s jobs in particular. It is also of benefit to women that we are allowing pay rises for people earning less than £21,000, a disproportionate number of whom are female. For the sake of completeness, she should consider those facts.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will the Chief Secretary join me in explaining to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that the Government’s policies will reduce inequalities between men and women, particularly given our more flexible approach for part-time workers? Will he reduce other inequalities, such as in spending in rural and urban areas, and ensure that the balance is restored in favour of rural constituencies, such as his and mine?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Lady has made some important points. Throughout this process we will have regard to the impact that spending decisions have on different groups, including people who live in rural areas, and in particular the most disadvantaged. Our investment in early years education and the pupil premium are important to ensure that the most disadvantaged have the better life chances that we all want them to have.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Does the Chief Secretary accept the independent analysis that the poorest 10% of people will suffer 15 times more than the richest as a result of the Government’s spending decisions? With women and children being hit the hardest, support for people with disabilities being cut, and the Business Secretary suggesting that the winter fuel allowance is being lined up for the axe, no wonder there is growing public anger about big corporations and wealthy individuals seeming to be able to get away without paying tax altogether. What will he do to restore a sense of fairness and justice to the economic system?
Danny Alexander
I think that the hon. Lady was trying to get every subject into one question before Christmas. I do not accept the analysis that she offers. She should study more carefully the analysis in the spending review, which took into account the impact of taxation, spending reductions and welfare changes. It showed that as a share of people’s income, and taking account of benefits in kind from the state, people in the wealthiest quintile make a greater contribution to deficit reduction than the poorest. That is in keeping with the Government’s stated ambition of carrying through the unavoidable deficit reduction plan, which is necessary because of the mess that the previous Government left, in a way that is fair and supports economic growth.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
12. What plans he has to implement the recommendations of the Dyson report on new technology.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The coalition’s programme for government made a commitment to consider implementation of the Dyson review. The Government’s growth review will be one of the main mechanisms for taking forward the Dyson review’s aim of making the UK the leading high-tech exporter in Europe. The Treasury is currently consulting on the support that research and development tax credits provide for innovation, as part of wider corporate tax reforms.
Mr Raab
I welcome that response. The Dyson report recommended tax credits for high-tech start-ups, including businesses such as Chelsea Technologies and TR Control Solutions in my constituency, which create new jobs by pioneering green technology. Can the Minister be encouraged to go one step further and introduce tax breaks to stimulate that niche area of the UK economy, which is good for jobs, revenue and the environment?
Mr Gauke
I take on board my hon. Friend’s comment, and we are determined to ensure that we do everything we can to help jobs and revenue. That is why we have been able to reduce the corporation tax rate from 28 to 24% over four years, and we are putting in place a stable and predictable tax system. I note his comments, and as I said, there is a review of the matter.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Dyson report followed the work done by Hermann Hauser, and one of their recommendations is the creation of technology innovation centres, for which the Government correctly set aside some money in the comprehensive spending review. However, all the commentators who have passed judgment on the matter have said that the £200 million allocated, although welcome, will not go terribly far. What assessment has the Minister made of the long-term need to keep that funding stream alive, and is there a long-term plan to increase it substantially?
Mr Gauke
We continue to look at technology and innovation centres, and we need to do so in the context of what we already have in the UK, such as our science capabilities and industries. We need to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that they provide. I note my hon. Friend’s comments, and we continue to consider the matter.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
16. What assessment he has made of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report on the likely effect of the outcome of the comprehensive spending review on the budget deficit.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The spending review set out more than £80 billion of spending reductions by 2014-15, and in its latest forecast, published on 29 November, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility judged that the Government’s overall plan had a greater than 50% chance of balancing the structural current deficit in 2014-15, a year ahead of our mandate. Of course, I welcome that judgment.
Chris Skidmore
This year, the country faces a deficit of about £148.5 billion. Action taken by this Government will, according to the OBR, reduce that to £18 billion by 2015-16, yet there are those who reject that action and would prefer to do next to nothing. Does the Chief Secretary agree that to do nothing would cripple future generations with unbearable amounts of debt for which they were not responsible?
Danny Alexander
I agree completely, and it is worth adding that if the Government did not have a plan to reduce the deficit, as the previous Government did not, and we lost control of our public finances, the poorest in society would suffer most from that failure to take decisive action.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
We read this morning that the Business Secretary has said that the Conservatives wanted to cut the winter fuel allowance in the comprehensive spending review. Will the Chief Secretary put it on the record today that there will be no cut to the winter fuel allowance and no change in the eligibility criteria during this Parliament?
Danny Alexander
We are sticking to the winter fuel allowance. We announced that in the spending review, and we have not changed our position. In addition, we have made permanent the £25 a week level of the cold weather payment. The previous Government had planned to return it to £8.50 a week. Imagine what that would be doing now to the millions of families who are suffering in the cold.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
What assessment has the Chief Secretary made of the impact of the CSR on business confidence, and especially the ability to take on new people? For instance, the Dalton’s peanut factory in my constituency is taking on more people because of the confidence in the stability plans set out by the Government.
Danny Alexander
I am glad to hear about the companies in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which share the confidence of many businesses that we have a Government who have got to grips with the public finances. That gives companies the confidence to invest, which is an important part of ensuring the private sector-led recovery that we need.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
17. What plans his Department has to ensure greater transparency in remuneration in the financial services sector.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Financial Services Authority has revised its remuneration code for disclosure rules to incorporate provisions in the EU capital requirements directive, CRD3, which comes into force on 1 January 2011. The directive requires firms to make narrative and quantitative disclosures on pay policy and practices. Those requirements are at the forefront of global practice and will help ensure greater transparency in remuneration in the financial services sector.
Gregg McClymont
In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), the Financial Secretary suggested that the Government were united in their approach to banking reform. Am I to conclude from that that the Business Secretary speaks for the Government when he says that the Conservative party is a roadblock to banking reform?
Mr Hoban
I hardly think that a Government who have embarked on a programme of radical regulatory reform of the financial services sector, introduced the bank levy, and set up the independent banking commission to consider the structure of banking in the UK could be viewed by anybody other than the Labour party as a roadblock to reform.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
18. What estimate he made of the effect on public finances of the introduction of a graduate tax.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I agree with the assessment of the graduate tax that the Chancellor gave in answer to earlier questions. I add that, under a graduate tax, those on the lowest incomes after leaving university would pay more than they do under our proposals. From a progressive point of view, there is an important argument against a graduate tax.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that a graduate tax is neither fair nor progressive and that it would do nothing to help the 17% of my constituents who go on to higher education?
Danny Alexander
I agree. Our proposals, which the House has agreed, ensure that no one will make a payment up front when they go to university, or start repaying until they earn more than £21,000 after leaving university. I note that some hon. Members now advocate a graduate tax. They have said that they will produce their detailed plans by the end of the year, and we greatly look forward to seeing them.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
19. What steps his Department is taking to stimulate economic growth.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
As the Chancellor said earlier, the Government have launched a growth review—a fundamental assessment of how each part of government can contribute to private sector success by addressing the barriers to growth that industry faces. That will report at the time of the Budget.
Hugh Bayley
When a private business wants to grow, it invests, yet the Government are slashing not just current expenditure but investment. What are they planning to do to increase private sector investment? In particular, what are they doing to get banks to lend to small and medium-sized businesses?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the previous Government’s plans for capital investment, but the plans that we set out in the spending review put slightly more into capital investment than the previous Government planned. In particular, we are expending more on capital investment in transport infrastructure—the sort of investment that is most valuable to many businesses—in the next four years than was spent in the past four years. He should give the Government some serious credit for that.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
As all the indicators are beginning to show that the Government’s deficit programme encourages private sector investment and growth, would my right hon. Friend like to comment on the rumours in this morning’s financial pages following the recent summit with the President of the United States that the Americans are beginning to view us a model of how to promote growth by tackling deficits?
Danny Alexander
I am happy to restrict my comments to this country’s plans rather than remarking on those of other countries. However, our approach to reducing the deficit has been firm and clear. It has established confidence and is putting in place a firm platform—a precondition—for economic growth in future. It is therefore vital to stick to and deliver the plans that we set out in the spending review.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
20. What discussions he has had with his international counterparts since the G20 Seoul summit on co-ordination of efforts to reduce Government deficits.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
At the G20 summit in Seoul in November, advanced countries committed to developing plans, which reflected their situations, to tackle their deficits and promote growth. The Chancellor has been actively involved in discussions with international and European counterparts since the Seoul summit. As was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Government’s practice to provide details of all such discussions.
Stuart Andrew
Has my hon. Friend discussed with his counterparts the fact that the key to securing low interests rates for the long term is to take effective and decisive action on Government deficits?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are very fortunate in this country. Because the Government took difficult decisions to tackle the deficit when we came into office, we are in a much stronger place now—consider the turbulence in the eurozone. The difficult decisions that we took ensured that we stepped back from the brink of bankruptcy.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Global action on regulating the financial services sector through groups such as the G20 is vital. The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee recommended a pre-funded deposit insurance scheme. It said:
“The Government should move towards pre-funding of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme as soon as”
possible. Why has the Treasury turned its back on that important measure?
Mr Hoban
If the hon. Lady speaks to building societies, which are finding it difficult to lend at the moment, she will hear their concern about the amount that they pay towards the financial services compensation scheme. Contributing to a pre-funded scheme would add to that burden and reduce the ability of banks and building societies to lend to support the recovery.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Government Members, including me, believe that the Chancellor and his team are doing an exceptionally good job for the country. May I suggest another policy to reduce the deficit in this country? A freeze on our contributions to the EU would save us £22 billion over the next five years, which should be given back in tax cuts.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
22. What his estimate is of the number of single-income families which will be affected by the decision to end child benefit for households with a higher-rate taxpayer.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The withdrawal of child benefit from families containing a higher-rate taxpayer in 2013 will affect around 200,000 single-income households.
Kate Green
The Minister will be aware that receipt of child benefit by full-time mothers with no other income triggers national insurance caring credits, which count towards those women’s pensions. Will he explain how the full-time mothers who will lose child benefit under the Government’s proposals can retain their link to the national insurance system and their pension contributions?
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability of the economy, promote growth and employment, reform banking and ensure that Britain lives within her means.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
Is the Chancellor embarrassed that independent analysis by the House of Commons Library shows that the provisional local government settlement will result in the most deprived areas bearing far bigger cuts than more affluent parts of the country? The two councils in his constituency of Tatton will see their spending reduced by less than 2 and 3%, compared with more than 8% cuts in deprived constituencies. Will he therefore stop saying that his austerity measures are fair, and admit that we are not all in it together after all?
Mr Osborne
The Prime Minister explained from this Dispatch Box that the cuts in his constituency are considerably greater than the cuts in the Leader of the Opposition’s constituency. Our reforms give local government greater control over budgets, but let me make another observation. Local government is responsible for a quarter of all Government spending. Labour proposed £44 billion of expenditure cuts. If Opposition Members are saying that they would not include local government in those proposals, they are less credible than I thought they were.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
T2. The anticipated provident societies and credit unions legislative reform order will bring great advantages to credit unions, including the ability to pay fixed interest on savings and to offer services to community groups, social enterprises and companies, but it has been rather a long time in coming. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the expected arrival date of that LRO?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
My hon. Friend takes a close interest in that matter as chairman of the all-party group on credit unions, a position he took over from the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). He is right that that LRO will bring significant benefits to credit unions. Following comments by the relevant parliamentary Committees that scrutinised the draft laid by the previous Government, amendments need to be made, and I hope to lay the amended regulations in late January or early February.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
T4. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to take a particular delight in playing the role of Baron Hardup. May I say to him, in the nicest, most Christmassy way possible, that all his austerity talk provokes real anxiety in many of my constituents, who worry about their winter fuel allowance, the VAT increases in January and the major losses in construction jobs in the new year? May I encourage him to play, just sometimes, Prince Charming instead?
Mr Osborne
At least I am not the pantomime dame. The measures we are taking are dealing with the economic inheritance that the previous Government, of whom the hon. Gentleman was a Minister, left this country. As we go into the new year, we are one of the few European economies not facing concerns about their sovereign debt issues, and we are providing a platform for economic growth next year. That is why people are looking at the UK and saying, “There is a country that is dealing with the problems.”
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
T3. Treasury Ministers rightly assert that the vulnerable should be protected and that those with broader shoulders should bear the greatest burden. With that in mind, will Ministers report on the effectiveness of the initiative announced in September to bear down on the estimated £42 billion of tax that the wealthy do not pay each year?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight this issue. We announced that £900 million would be spent over the spending review period on reducing the tax gap, and that will begin in 2011. Earlier this month, we announced plans to tackle tax avoidance with several detailed proposals on issues that had been left for many years. We have taken a firm line on those and we hope that that will raise considerable revenue from people who should be paying more in tax.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
T5. Will the Chancellor tell the House whether the Treasury has made any plans for the possible collapse of the euro?
Mr Osborne
We monitor the European situation closely. I do not think that a collapse of the euro is remotely on the cards, but obviously stability in the eurozone is in our interests. We want to see a comprehensive solution early in the new year to some of the fundamental issues on having a currency union while not having a fiscal or political union, and we know that eurozone member states are working on those. It is also up to individual member states to do what they can to put their own economic house in order, and we would urge them to do that as well.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
T8. Does the Chancellor agree with the chief executive of a FTSE 250 engineering company, with whom I recently met, that the single most important decision by the coalition Government to date was to cut corporation taxes and thereby signal that Britain is open to business? What further plans does he have to reduce and simplify the burden of taxation on our businesses?
Mr Osborne
The reduction in corporation tax from 28% to 24% keeps the UK as an incredibly competitive place to do business and, over the next few years, will help to ensure that Britain gets its fair share of the growing global economic cake. The Office of Tax Simplification, which we have created, is specifically looking at the burden of tax on smaller businesses so that we can also bring benefits to them, although we have been able to avoid Labour’s increase in the small companies tax rate.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
T6. The recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) shows clearly that both relative and absolute poverty will increase in every year up to 2014. Is not that the final nail in the coffin of the Government’s claim to be both progressive and fair in their policies?
Mr Osborne
The hon. Gentleman seems to forget that child poverty was rising under the last Labour Government and we have put forward policies to increase social mobility and tackle the causes as well as the symptoms of poverty.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
T9. As the Chancellor knows, I have written to the Treasury with details provided to me by a Staffordshire resident of an extraordinary tax avoidance scheme inherited from the last Government. I hope that it will not last long. In the spirit of Christmas, will the Chancellor invite his predecessors around for a dram so that they can explain why they found tax avoidance such a hard nut to crack?
Mr Gauke
As we have heard, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ assessment of the tax gap was £42 billion, but we are taking measures to address that. It is right that we do so, and we showed our determination this month when we announced a series of measures to reduce tax avoidance.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I would like to get some clarity on the taxation of the banking sector. The Business Secretary made it clear over the weekend that if the financial services sector did not exercise restraint in bonus payouts during the current round of bonuses, which goes on until April next year, the Government would consider imposing further taxes above and beyond existing taxation arrangements and the banking levy. Will the Chancellor, who adopted quite a different tone in New York, please confirm whether the Government are considering imposing extra taxation, over and above the existing arrangements and the banking levy, on the banks if they do not exercise restraint?
Mr Osborne
We said in the Budget that we were looking at the case for a financial activities tax, which is one of the two taxes that the International Monetary Fund—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) says it has nothing to do with bonuses. I suggest that she goes and considers what a financial activities tax is. The IMF has set out some of the principles behind it, but we have followed the principles behind the other IMF proposal, which is the bank levy. In the past couple of weeks, we have demonstrated that we are prepared to increase the rate of the bank levy to sustain the revenue.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
While travelling on a gap year in New Zealand, one of my constituents had a nightmare experience when she was left with no access to money after her bank cancelled her card, despite her having informed it that she would be abroad. In an increasingly globalised world, will the Government consider whether banks can be made to offer a better service for UK customers living, working or studying abroad to avoid problems such as that faced by my constituent?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady makes an important point, and I am sorry to hear about the situation that her constituent experienced. It is important that banks ensure a good service for those travelling abroad, and I would encourage her to suggest to her constituent that she writes to the Financial Ombudsman Service to raise a complaint. However, I am sure that the banks will have heard what she said and take heed of her comments.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
What specific equality impact assessment did the Treasury carry out on the potential effects on women of the two-thirds reduction in Warm Front scheme funding next year announced in the comprehensive spending review?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
As I said in answer to questions earlier, we carried out an impact assessment, which we published, of the spending review. Individual impact assessments were also carried out. The matter to which the hon. Lady refers was decided by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and it is the responsibility of that Department to carry out a specific impact assessment. The Treasury undertook its responsibilities fully in relation to the spending review as a whole.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
What progress is the Chancellor making on the Government’s review of the complex rules surrounding foreign earnings inherited from the Labour party, given that those rules are encouraging a number of companies to leave these shores? Those companies include WPP, Wolseley and United Business Media. That means a loss of revenue to the UK Exchequer.
Mr Osborne
That was another of the problems in the in-tray. We have announced reforms to the controlled foreign companies regime, on which we published a consultation paper a couple of weeks ago, and I expect to return to the matter in the Budget.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The Chancellor has said that he will be tough but fair in his cuts to Britain’s public services. Is it fair that West Midlands police service, serving an area of high need, will be hit twice as hard as Surrey, and as a consequence lose 1,200 police officers, 270 of whom will be compulsorily retired by next April?
Mr Osborne
The police settlement is fair. Here is yet another example of the Labour party’s position. In the past hour, we have heard Opposition Members oppose all the welfare reforms, the local government reductions, and the reductions in the Ministry of Justice and Home Office budgets. Their position is completely non-credible.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
The Prime Minister of Luxembourg recently proposed that the EU should start issuing common EU bonds, jointly and severally guaranteed by all member states. Although the eurozone countries can do what they want on bond issuance, will the Chancellor reassure the House that Britain will play no role in an EU common bond?
Mr Osborne
I can indeed give my hon. Friend that assurance. This is an issue that the eurozone is publicly considering, as well as other potential routes forward for the eurozone. My efforts are concentrated on getting our gilt auctions away, and I can reassure him that, thanks to the measures we have taken, that is going well at the moment.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
I see on my copy of the Liberal Democrat “Whip” for this week that all Lib Dem Ministers have been instructed to visit Oldham East and Saddleworth three times before 13 January. Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury tell me on what days he intends to visit, and will he take the Business Secretary with him, so that they can outline their “Maoist revolution”?
Mr Speaker
Order. I assume that the hon. Gentleman is requesting a visit in which the Minister will talk about the policies of the Government.
Danny Alexander
I am certainly not going to let the hon. Gentleman know of my intentions in advance, but it is characteristic of the attitude on his side of the House that Opposition Members do not have a single question to ask that offers a proposal for dealing with the economic problems that they caused. It is economic common sense on the Government side of the House; just nonsense on the Opposition side.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Many jobs today require a university degree, yet compared with the position on funding employees’ vocational training, there is no equivalent tax shield for employer contributions to higher education. Will the Chancellor explore changes to tax rules to encourage voluntary contributions from employers towards their graduate recruits’ higher education?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend raises a good point. That is something on which we are seeking official advice, and I will keep him informed of any progress that we make on it.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Now that the Chancellor has adopted a more belligerent tone in the last few minutes, will he open up and tell us what he really thinks about the WikiLeaks cable?
Mr Speaker
With relevance to Treasury matters, Chancellor—that is, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to respond. He is not under an obligation.
Mr Osborne
I am not sure that there is anything that I can say to the hon. Gentleman, except that I wish him a happy Christmas and I hope that he approaches retirement soon.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am afraid that, as usual, demand has exceeded supply, and there are points of order sprouting up all over the place.
Petition
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I present this petition after receiving a similar petition with more than 2,500 signatories.
The petition states:
The Petition of Liverpool Community College students and staff,
Declares that the petitioners oppose the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA); that the petitioners believe that the EMA helps thousands of young people to reach their full potential; that the petitioners believe that the loss of EMA will damage the country’s economic future and impact on social justice by making it harder for disadvantaged young people to access education; and that the petitioners believe that the abolition of the EMA will lead to cuts in local provision as colleges respond to reductions in learner numbers.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government not to abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance and to continue supporting adult learners through the Adult Learning Grant.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P000873]
Points of Order
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order that the promise made by the Under-Secretary of State for Health to publish a review on contaminated blood products before the end of the year has not been fulfilled? My constituent Mr Glen Wilkinson has contacted me in the last hour. He is extremely angry that a group who have suffered so much have been let down again. May I ask you, Mr Speaker, whether you would look into this matter?
Mr Speaker
Nothing disorderly has occurred. The hon. Lady is dissatisfied, but that is a different matter. She has registered that dissatisfaction, which will have been heard.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In respect of David Quarmby’s report “The Resilience of England’s Transport Systems in Winter”, during Transport topical questions on 2 December the Secretary of State for Transport told the House:
“The findings and recommendations of the review have been implemented, and I have asked David Quarmby to come back and audit their implementation”.—[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 519, c. 955.]
Yesterday, during his statement on severe winter weather, the Transport Secretary told the House:
“Many of those recommendations have already been implemented, although some will necessarily take longer.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 1216.]
Those statements cannot both be accurate. Have you received any request from the Secretary of State to correct the record, given that Ministers have an absolute obligation to tell the truth to the House? If not, would now be a timely moment for you once again to reinforce the point to Ministers that they must correct the record when they get things wrong, even if they do so inadvertently?
Mr Speaker
I have received no such request from a Minister to make a statement. What has just been said about the importance of accurate statements to the House is true. If there is any inaccuracy, it should be corrected. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I am unsighted on the matter and not in a position to act as adjudicator. The point has been made; the point has been heard.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Those of us who have been worried about the future of the nuclear deterrent in the light of some Government decisions will have been heartened by today’s report in The Daily Telegraph that at least one Cabinet Minister has access to nuclear weapons. Have you received any notice, from any member of the Government, of a statement to be made in this House about this welcome augmentation of British military capability?
Mr Speaker
No, I have received no such indication. I shall take this as a pre-Christmas point of order of the New Forest East genre, and we will leave it at that for today.
With reference to a point that has already been made, let me just say—I am grateful to the Leader of the House for this—that I should perhaps have reminded the House that a written ministerial statement is being made today on the subject of contaminated blood. I simply put that on the record.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. That same Cabinet Minister has also said that the Prime Minister is seeking to abolish the winter fuel allowance. Have you had a request for an emergency debate so that the position can be clarified, in order to prevent millions of pensioners from living in fear this winter?
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 2 December, I asked the Secretary of State for Transport about winter tyres. In his response, he told me:
“We have looked at the issue, and in fact David Quarmby addressed it.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 519, c. 973.]
He went on to say that the use of winter tyres here was “not appropriate”. When I raised the issue with him yesterday, however, I told him that I could find no reference to winter tyres in the Quarmby report and that his response had been inaccurate, in that the Highways Agency actually recommends them. He replied:
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to clear something up—I clearly mangled my words in my reply to her.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 1226.]
Is it appropriate to use the phrase “mangled my words” to describe something that was clearly misleading the House, when he should have put the record right? The facts were wrong.
Mr Speaker
I am not sure that there is a misleading of the House involved, but the point has been made and the Leader of the House is on the Treasury Bench; he will have heard what has been said. If any message needs to be conveyed to the relevant right hon. Member, I feel confident that, as a result of the hon. Lady’s efforts, it will be.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 2 November, in replying to an urgent question on the right of prisoners to vote, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) said that no decision had yet been made. He went on to say that once a decision had been made, it would be announced in the usual manner and, in his words, “at the Dispatch Box”. In fact, it was announced last Friday, not even by a leak but by a press release. Before it had been announced to Parliament, a written ministerial statement was issued yesterday, but the announcement was not made at the Dispatch Box. Is there any means of making a Minister honour a commitment that he has made to the House?
Mr Speaker
There is no means by which to compel or oblige a Minister to follow through on the precise words or commitment previously uttered or given. How a statement is made or a decision is announced by a Minister is a matter for the Minister. However, the hon. Gentleman, who is a perspicacious parliamentarian, has drawn attention to what I would call the disparity between what was said on one occasion and what happened on another.
Diana Johnson
Further to my previous point of order, Mr Speaker. I note the comment that you went on to make about today’s written ministerial statement. May I just confirm that that written ministerial statement is merely a holding response, and that it is not actually the statement that was promised by the Minister?
Mr Speaker
I am unsighted on that point, but my additional observation about the written ministerial statement was intended to be helpful. It was not intended to spark a further debate on this occasion.
Mr Speaker
“Ah!”, says the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I am glad that, even in the approach to Christmas, we can rely on his running commentary, which is richly enjoyed.
Television and Radio Advertising (Credit and Debt Management Services)
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to regulate the advertising on television and radio of credit and debt management services; and for connected purposes.
In other words, the Bill is designed to get legal loan sharks off our screens. Credit is something that few of us are able to live without. Whether we want to buy a car or a house, go to university or get married, most of us use loans of one form or another to enable us to do it. Debt in itself is not a bad thing. The problems start when debt becomes unmanageable—when loans are taken to repay other loans, and when the percentage of our income spent on debt creeps up and up until we are unable to service our debts.
Loans are often taken out following a change in circumstances, such as a relationship breakdown or the loss of a job, or to tide us over while times are tough. Loans are frequently taken out in response to emergencies such as a broken washing machine, the need to travel to a funeral, or unexpectedly high bills for facilities such as heating. The idea that people in unmanageable debt are always simply spendthrifts who should have known better is not correct. All but the very wealthiest have debt. Most of us either escape it or manage it reasonably successfully, but being in unmanageable debt is a problem that eclipses all others.
We know that owing money that cannot be repaid leads people to depression, suicide, domestic violence, alcohol misuse and deeper debt. Loan companies know that as well, and go to great lengths to make their products appear easy, everyday, and the perfect solution to an all-encompassing problem. Darlington citizens advice bureau tells me that the number of people applying for payday loans in Darlington has been increasing, and that television advertising is responsible. Such loans come with interest rates of about 2,500% for Wonga and 5,000% for Payday First. There is little disagreement about the expensive nature of that type of borrowing. The total cost of credit is well over 20% of the value of the loan. A consumer survey run by MoneySavingExpert. com suggests that a 20% cap on the cost of credit would be welcome.
The Bill does not seek to ban high-interest loans, although I think that that would be a very good thing. It seeks to prevent such loans from being advertised on television and radio. Television and radio advertising are the most effective forms of advertising available. Campaigns that use them consistently out-perform those that do not. Ads are now cheaper in real terms than they were in the 1980s and, on the whole, more successful. Advertising works. That is why restrictions are placed on the advertising of alcohol, and why the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio is not allowed.
We know that advertising generates demand, and that that is why companies pay large sums to advertise. We also know that other countries are getting serious about trimming the worst excesses of the credit and debt management industry, with maximum interest rates being introduced in the United States and parts of Europe. That is leading to an increase in high-interest lending in this country, with many US firms looking to the under-regulated UK market for their next growth opportunity.
By preventing the advertising on television and radio of loans that cost more than 20% of their value, we will remove the main means by which lenders target people on low incomes or on benefits, convincing them that a high-interest loan is appropriate, desirable and easy. In such ads, expensive lending is given the appearance of something that everyone is doing. That is classic nudge theory: make us believe that everyone is at it, and we are more likely to join in ourselves. That is fine when applied to recycling or exercise, but not so fine when we are talking about exploitative loans.
The Bill also proposes restrictions on debt management services. We all know the ones I am talking about. Even those of us who do not admit to watching Jeremy Kyle have seen them: “Repackage all your debt into one easy monthly payment.” Again, the ads make it look so easy. What they do not mention is the high cost of the debt restructure, or the fact that the same service is available from free Government and charitable sector organisations which are not in a position to pay for expensive television advertising. The eventual result is a spiral in which hefty charges are imposed on consumers who are in a desperate position. Those charges produce profits and pay for further advertising, enticing more people into using the service.
Statutory regulation, over and above the very basic licensing and supervisory regime presided over by the Office of Fair Trading, is vital. Over-indebted vulnerable consumers are acting under stressful conditions, without the time or inclination to shop around. There should be adequate protection from rogue providers of debt advice, so that huge numbers of already indebted consumers are prevented from falling into even greater financial difficulties. Estimates suggest that in 2010, fee-charging providers of debt management will cost heavily indebted consumers between £207 million and £275 million in fees alone.
At the end of September, the OFT published the results of a review of compliance with its debt management guidance, which providers are meant to abide by. The OFT found that non-compliance was widespread and had reached an unacceptable level. Misleading advertising was the most significant area of non-compliance—in particular, failure to disclose that a fee is retained by the business, and misrepresenting debt management services as being free when they were not.
My Bill proposes that adverts for debt management services should have to make their charges properly clear in all their advertising, and further that they should make it clear that alternative sources of free advice are also available, such as Payplan and Citizens Advice.
The Government have confirmed that Jobcentre staff will soon start issuing vouchers for people to exchange for emergency food supplies. The scheme will begin next month and roll out nationally in April. It is surely wrong that those same people who are being assisted by the state in this way are allowed to be deliberately targeted, misled and exploited.
By preventing high cost lenders from advertising on television and radio and by changing the way in which debt management advisers promote their services, we can start to make this sector less ordinary. We have given high cost lenders and debt management services an easy ride in this country. By curbing the worse excesses in their marketing, we reduce their ability to mislead increasing numbers of people into thinking that what they have to offer is good value, easy and commonplace.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mrs Jenny Chapman, Yvonne Fovargue, Nic Dakin, Justin Tomlinson, Heidi Alexander, Valerie Vaz, Tom Blenkinsop, Dr Stella Creasy, Sheila Gilmore, Dr Thérèse Coffey, Mr Robert Buckland and Tracey Crouch present the Bill.
Mrs Jenny Chapman accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 March 2011, and to be printed (Bill 129).
Backbench Business
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Christmas Adjournment
(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before I call a member of the Backbench Business Committee to move the motion, I should inform the House that a six-minute time limit will apply to Back-Bench speeches, and Ministers will be expected to wind up the debates on each occasion in 10 minutes. The list of Members and subjects has been published, but the order in which Members are called will depend upon the discretion of the Chair. As usual, the occupant of the Chair will seek to alternate in calling Members to speak from both sides of the House and will take into account how often each Member has spoken previously in this Session.
This is an experiment and we may need to be flexible to accommodate as many Members as possible and get ministerial replies to their speeches. Members are expected to remain in the House for the whole of the debate in which they are taking part. The annunciator will give notice of the likely start time for the next debate.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment.
I move this motion on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee. On behalf of Back-Bench Members I should like to thank the staff of the House for the splendid work that they do in supporting us through the whole year. In particular, on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee I thank the Clerk and staff of that Committee. I extend to you, Mr Speaker, my thanks for putting Parliament first and putting the rights of Back-Benchers firmly on the map. Through your direct and indirect actions, you have helped to restore confidence in Parliament.
The Backbench Business Committee wanted to try an experiment on the last day of term. The idea of the debate is that Ministers should have an opportunity to hear what Members say, that Ministers will give a substantive response to Members, and that Members will know the timing of the debate through the various chapters that have been used. If the experiment is successful, we will consider repeating it in future.
Cabinet Office
(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I am very grateful for this opportunity to make a few introductory comments on the 2011 census, in which I am supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field). He has sent his apologies for being unable to be here today, but he and I had a conversation about this issue this morning and he supports the comments I will be making, not least because they have been informed in part by an excellent briefing from Westminster city council. That is a comfort, because the council and I spend six days a week fighting like ferrets in a sack, so it is a pleasure when we are able to find areas of common agreement.
Ten years ago there was massive under-enumeration of the population in my constituency and my borough of Westminster, as well as in Manchester, many parts of east London, Cambridge, Oxford and many other areas of the country. One million fewer younger people than anticipated were counted at the end of the census process in 2001, leading the then director of the Office for National Statistics to comment that he thought they were probably all in Ibiza. That was a very good joke but, unfortunately, it hid a serious truth, because the reality was that the under-counting of the population in 2001 was almost entirely among harder-to-reach communities—poorer communities, black and minority ethnic communities and the more mobile communities—and that mattered. It mattered both in terms of the purity of the data and in terms of the grant allocations to local authorities.
In my borough of Westminster, 63,000 fewer people than anticipated were found by the census, and the contact rate was just 71%, which was the fourth lowest in the country. It took the local authority—I know because I was working with it—at least three years to convince the Government and the ONS that the census had been wrong. It was wrong in part because the contact rate was so poor, but it was also wrong at a most staggering level in that census forms were simply not delivered to entire estates. It was an extraordinarily incompetently managed exercise.
The four sweetest words in the English language are “I told you so.” Before the 2001 census, I told the local authority, the Government and the ONS what would happen. The glow of self-righteousness lasted for longer than the census period itself, but it has given me no real satisfaction because this took so much time and did so much damage, and because the imputing of statistics after the process cannot capture the complexity of the population at a small-area level. The fact that the ethnic make-up of populations has not been thoroughly identified has meant that ever since we have not had sufficiently accurate data to be able to administrate health and local government services properly.
The 2001 census was subject to scrutiny by the Public Administration Committee and the London Regional Select Committee, which I briefly chaired, and I pay tribute to the officers who organised that scrutiny process. A number of evidence sessions were held, and by the end of the process I was convinced that some lessons had been learned from the errors of 2001. A proper address register is being compiled for the first time, although I suspect it will not be maintained, and investment has been put into the scanning and tracking of census forms to ensure that there is real-terms accuracy in their return.
Set against that, however, is the fact that we now know from Government statements that the 2011 census will be the last one. That sends out a powerful psychological message. It is likely that this census will not attract as much support as previous ones. Also, local authorities and voluntary organisations, who are important partners, are distracted by cuts. The funding for administration is under pressure, and the Government have stated that they would like to see reduced funding. Above all, despite the ONS’s commitment to a partnership with local authorities, it maintains a one-size-fits-all approach to management. The Westminster council briefing states:
“the ONS has placed a great deal of emphasis on the idea that the 2011 census is to be delivered in partnership with local authorities but the lack of local flexibility means that, for example, Capita’s recruitment is so complicated and restrictive that the ONS have been unable recruit even half the staff needed locally.”
Is the Minister content that staff will be recruited and trained properly?
There continues to be a serious risk that the ethnic minority populations will be the most significantly under-counted. Westminster’s own survey found that the response was low, particularly in the high-churn districts, where it was as low as 4%. Without additional assistance and the Government giving a higher priority to this, and without the ONS now rapidly adjusting its response to the lessons being implemented by Westminster and others to improve the quality of the census process, we are in danger of not only repeating the failures of 2001 but possibly producing an even worse outcome in some areas. That will be bad news for local government and bad news for the health service. It will also reflect badly on the Government, and I ask them to make sure that, in the 20 remaining weeks, these errors are corrected.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
When I was thinking about this debate and my speech, I was conscious that the term “big society” has only recently been added to the political lexicon. In my opinion, it is not a new concept, however. One might almost call it an age-old human value. Here is a quotation that I believe begins to explain what the big society is:
“To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind.”
That was said by a man called Edmund Burke, who was the MP for Bristol in 1774.
Edmund Burke was one of the first writers to realise the importance of the spontaneous social groupings that people create for themselves. Social scientists have increasingly recognised that Burke’s little platoons are the glue that holds society together and makes it tolerable. The point I am trying to make is that big society initiatives and volunteering empower people, and I think the big society could be one of the biggest social mobilisers we have had for generations.
It is not just poverty and difficult family circumstances that hold young people back; it is also the poverty of aspiration and a lack of good role models. By being part of a community group—whether in politics, sport or the arts—inclusion gives young people a sense of purpose and aspiration. It gives them a sense of community and active citizenship, and it can provide them with successful role models who can lead the way.
I know how difficult it is to escape from the constraints of our individual circumstances. I would not be a Member of Parliament if it were not for the fact that I was once a volunteer. At the age of 18 I wanted to engage in the political process locally and get involved in campaigning for a political party. It was only when I met other like-minded individuals, albeit from very different backgrounds to my own, and when I was inspired by role models, that I started to think that, perhaps, even I, who had left school at 15 with no qualifications, could one day be a Conservative Member of Parliament. People see others who are doing it, and they start to think, “Why not me?”
There are many examples in my own constituency of volunteer groups that inspire young people to mobilise and be part of the community. I think of the volunteers who run my youngest son’s Army cadet detachment in Patchway—unpaid, passionate individuals who give up a lot of their time to keep the detachment going and to give the youngsters the chance to broaden their horizons by learning how to live and work with people from all walks of life, and who teach the cadets real life skills and provide great role models. I was also lucky enough to be invited to meet, at one of their weekly meetings, the St John Ambulance cadets in Bradley Stoke. I met some wonderful young people, some of whom are so passionate about their cause that they want to go on to become doctors and paramedics and take up other roles in the medical profession. I am in the process of arranging a trip for them to the House of Commons.
The big society is about overcoming the problems Britain faces by pulling together and working together. In this vein, real change does not come from Government alone, but, more importantly, when the people are inspired and mobilised. This is the underlying ethos behind the big society programme, and it is the approach we should take to improve social mobility.
In practical terms, the big society is a vision that can partly be described as championing local people at grass-roots level so that they can empower themselves and their communities, and partly as encouraging the private sector to help us to tackle social problems and to contribute to society as a whole. As the Prime Minister states:
“all the Acts of Parliament, all the new measures, all the new policy initiatives, are just politicians’ words without”
the empowerment of people at a local level.
Nat Wei, the highly successful social entrepreneur who, as executive chair, has been instrumental in setting up the Big Society Network, has said that in groups people
“learn what society fundamentally is”.
He has also said that that
“grouping at the local level is arguably a public good”.
The big society is intertwined with the improvement of people’s lives and circumstances. The big society initiatives and the mission to improve social mobility pave the road on the journey back towards a healthy civil society—towards a 21st century-friendly society, in which all are invited to be active members.
I also wish to pay tribute to some of the organisations in my constituency, which are most prominent in my mind, for what they do to improve social mobility through big society programmes. I am thinking of the council for voluntary service in south Gloucestershire, which gives the voluntary and community sector in that area effective and accountable representation. By sitting on various strategic bodies and supporting other voluntary sector representatives, it ensures that volunteers are represented in local government. The guidance and assistance provided by south Gloucestershire CVS is invaluable to the voluntary sector locally. I also pay tribute to the Southern Brooks Community Partnership, which has done so much to promote the big society agenda in Filton, Bradley Stoke and elsewhere.
The Government’s vision for a big society with more diverse providers of public services and greater power for communities to make local decisions brings huge opportunities to charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises. I am pleased that as well as providing these new opportunities and rights, the Government will assist new providers by improving access to the resources they need and providing funds to pilot the national citizen service. The big society bank will bring in private sector funding, in addition to receiving all the funding available to England from dormant accounts. I know that that, in particular, will help to transform the lives of many of our young people. I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I am deeply encouraged by the commitments that the Government have already made to the big society agenda and to improving social mobility in our country hugely.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in the all-new, super-duper, pre-recess Christmas Adjournment debate. I wish to discuss the plans for a city status competition in Her Majesty the Queen’s diamond jubilee year and the arrangements for that contest. If I get the opportunity to do so, I might just make the compelling, excellent and fantastic case for the beautiful city of Perth.
We in Perth were delighted when it was announced that there was to be a city competition in 2012 and we look forward to putting our compelling, excellent and fantastic case, alongside like-minded towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom. We naturally presumed that, once again, the Cabinet Office and the relevant Minister would attempt to ensure that a wide range of cities from throughout the United Kingdom would be rewarded with official city status, in recognition of the different civic traditions, arrangements and cultures in our diverse component parts of the United Kingdom. We therefore cannot begin to say how disappointed we were with the plans that we saw and how puny they were. Instead of encouraging a good competition, one that would match the commitment, energy, enthusiasm and ambitions of a range of candidate towns and cities across the United Kingdom, this time the Government have, for some reason, sought to award this status to only one city throughout the United Kingdom. After the efforts that we have made in our city, that has come as a crushing disappointment to Perth, as I am sure it has to other small applicant towns and cities the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
Perth first approached the Ministry of Justice a couple of years ago to see whether it could secure official city status in advance of its 800-year anniversary: it is 800 years since Perth was awarded a city charter and became a royal burgh. We were encouraged to drop that plan and bid in the 2012 competition, which is what we have decided to do. Perth sees itself as a different aspirant city because it was an official city; it had its lord provostship. That goes back to what I was saying about the differences in tradition and culture between Scotland and the rest of the UK. We do not have mayors; we have provosts. It is bizarre to ask us to compete with towns and cities that have mayors, given that we have provosts. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that.
Perth was an official city—in fact, it was the capital of Scotland and was where the Kings of Scotland were crowned. Until the 1970s, when the town was so callously stripped of its official city status, it was considered to be the second city of Scotland. So for us this campaign is not about securing city status; it is about restoring that status and it is a matter of justice. Even in 2010, Perth is still very much considered a city: it is the “Fair City” of Sir Walter Scott’s book; it is the gateway to the highlands; it is the legal, administrative, commercial and educational centre of one of the largest areas in the United Kingdom, with one of the fastest growing populations in the country; and it even has a far-reaching international footprint, as we see when watching the English cricket team struggling to preserve the Ashes out in Western Australia.
When considering this competition, we must ask how we have done it before. In 2002, we had the Rolls-Royce version of a city status competition, when each of the nations of the UK had its own internal competition. That year, the city of Stirling was lucky enough to be awarded official city status. The millennium competition was not quite the same—with different competitions throughout the UK—but the equivalent of the Ministry of Justice at the time put real effort and energy into awarding this status to a range of cities from across the United Kingdom. Brighton and Hove, Wolverhampton and Inverness all won, so there was one winner from the south of England, one from the midlands of England and one representing the rest of the nations of the UK. That was a fantastic example of how a city competition throughout the UK could be organised and it was far more generous than what is on offer the next time around.
Such is the concern that, in a rare gesture of political unity, all the political leaders in the Scottish Parliament have come together to express their concern that Scotland will be overlooked. We in Perth are confident that we can see off all comers, because we believe that our case is fantastic, excellent and compelling, and that the beautiful city of Perth will be a real contender. However, what we presume will happen, given that there is to be only one winner, is that this competition will be lazy and sloppy. We presume that it will tend to favour the largest and those with greater access to the centre of power and—dare I say this?—it may favour applicant towns with one Conservative Member of Parliament or with several Conservative MPs.
We know that 11 towns from England are bidding to be official cities this time around, the smallest of which is twice the size of Perth and the largest of which is five times as populous, so they will have greater resources to deploy. If I were representing an English applicant town, I would expect to win this one. I would not expect the winner to be from the Celtic fringe. Given that England is the largest constituent part of the UK, I would expect one of its towns to win. All I am asking the Whip to pass on to the Minister is a request to review slightly what the Government have in mind for this city status competition and to do what was done last time around. The Government should reward a series of applicant cities from across the UK and make this fair. Let like compete with like. The Minister can still do that, because the plans can still be altered. Let us have a proper, genuine city competition that can meet and match the ambitions of communities the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
May I, too, associate myself with the kind remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) in passing on good wishes to everyone at this time of year?
I wish to discuss the West Lothian question, which, as I am sure all hon. Members appreciate, is the nickname given to the situation post-devolution in which MPs here at Westminster who represent Welsh, Northern Irish or Scottish constituencies may find themselves able to vote on matters that do not affect their own constituents.
In West Worcestershire, which I think of as being the heart of the heart of England, this issue is being raised increasingly frequently with me. Recently, I took part in a television debate, where the reporter had been to the border between Shropshire and Powys. Located on the border is a village called Chirk, which is divided. On one side of the town prescriptions are free and on the other side they cost £7.20. The differences do not end there, because the village might also be divided over matters such as university tuition fees and other services where the Welsh Assembly Government might treat their residents differently. Do not get me wrong, I am a big supporter of devolution and the process of localism that we are going through. It represents enormous progress. I am also a big supporter of the Union, but it does not mean that the West Lothian question can be swept under the carpet for ever.
The manifesto on which I was elected said:
“Labour have refused to address the so-called ‘West Lothian Question’: the unfair situation”
of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs voting on matters that do not necessarily affect their constituents. It continued by saying that we
“will introduce new rules so that legislation referring specifically to England, or to England and Wales, cannot be enacted without the consent of MPs representing constituencies of those countries.”
I completely acknowledge that during the five days in May, when the coalition’s programme for government was put together, the pledge was somewhat changed, and a commission has been called for to look into the question.
On 26 October, I was able to ask the Deputy Prime Minister in the Chamber for an update on when the commission might be established, and he replied:
“My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, who has responsibility for constitutional affairs, will lead on that and he will announce our intention to set up a commission on the long-standing knotty problem of the West Lothian question by the end of the year.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 154.]
Last week, however, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) received a written answer from the same Parliamentary Secretary, to the effect that the Government are
“continuing to give careful consideration to the timing, composition, scope and remit of the commission. Its work will need to take account of our proposals to reform the House of Lords to create a wholly or mainly elected second chamber, the changes being made to the way this House does business and amendments to the devolution regimes, for example in the Scotland Bill presently before the House. We will make an announcement in the new year.”—[Official Report, 15 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 822W.]
So my first question for the Department is: will the Government clarify which part of the new year that is likely to be, and confirm that the new year referred to is, indeed, 2011?
I should like to use this opportunity to preview my private Member’s Bill. I was lucky enough to be placed seventh in the ballot, and the Bill has its Second Reading on Friday 11 February. It has the innocuous title of the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill, and from my research into the West Lothian question I have found that the challenge is to get around parliamentary privilege. We are all elected to this place equally, and we can all have an equal say and vote on all issues, and we certainly do not want to have two categories of MP.
Many much more distinguished brains than mine have wrestled with that knotty problem. In 2000, Lord Norton of Louth looked into the matter and came up with some proposals; in 2006, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) had a private Member’s Bill on the issue; and Lord Baker of Dorking had a Bill in the Lords in 2005. The current Prime Minister then asked the now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), to look into the issue.
It might be possible to use Standing Orders and Speaker certification to identify which Bills affect which parts of the UK. My private Member’s Bill simply calls on draft legislation to identify and outline which parts of the UK it affects. It is a simple piece of preparatory, enabling legislation, and I urge all hon. Members who share an interest in the matter to come to me with their ideas. My second question is: will the Government be able to support my private Member’s Bill?
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Christmas Adjournment debate is a good opportunity for the Government, 2010 years after a botched census led to a baby being born in a stable, to get the 2011 census right. Slough has for a long time been a victim of the failures of the previous census, and as a result we have been underfunded for a significant period. I am concerned that worse problems might occur in the 2011 census, and they will arise from a combination of inadequate resourcing and flawed methodology.
The first flaw in the methodology is the emphasis, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out, on using the post. That is a deterrent to people in my constituency, many of whom have poor literacy skills. Moving as a primary school teacher from Peckham to Slough, I was shocked by the poor literacy in the constituency that I now have the privilege to represent.
Slough’s “hard-to-count” score is assessed as a three, which puts it in the top 20%, but that is another error. It should be assessed as a four, and in the top 10%, to account for our transient and diverse population. One indication of the rapid change in Slough between 2008-09 and 2009-10 is that schools in my small borough recorded 531 recently arrived pupils from 53 different countries.
The score also does not take proper account of the impact of houses in multiple occupation. Slough can provide the Office for National Statistics with information about 1,500 HMOs of which the authorities are aware. For the remaining 2,000 HMOs, which are implied by census and survey data, only one questionnaire will be posted, however. If the questionnaire is posted back or completed online, no follow-up visit by a census collector will take place. Only if a questionnaire is not posted back or not completed online will there be any opportunity for accurate counting through a follow-up visit, and those houses in multiple occupation are just ordinary terraced houses.
Additionally in Slough, a number of people live in sheds and other hidden households for which we have no address, so there will be serious problems in dealing with that. I should like to suggest five remedies to which I hope the Minister will respond.
First, the Minister should ensure that the people responsible for collecting census forms have the requisite language skills. Slough borough council is concerned that none of the census posts being advertised has language as an essential requirement. The recruitment and selection process that Capita is delivering on behalf of the ONS means that there are no face-to-face interviews, and that selection decisions are based on performance in online testing and questioning. Although language skills are listed as desirable for all roles, they are not part of the recruitment and selection process, but they should be.
Secondly, will the Minister ensure that the operational elements of the 2011 census include dedicated and adequately resourced events at which people can complete census questionnaires? Currently, the planned completion centres will not have sufficient personnel who are able to re-issue household questionnaires. Only ONS staff can do that, and in my borough only seven and a quarter people will be able to do so.
As a result, in a very verbal town, the events in the centres, which could be a good way of ensuring that people are able to complete their questionnaire, will not take place frequently enough or in enough places. Are the ONS staff trained in questionnaire filling? Will they have the language skills that my constituents require? The ONS says that local authorities can set up alternative completion centres, but local authority staff cannot issue new forms; only the ONS staff can do that.
Thirdly, a national marketing campaign must take place. It has been deferred because of the Government moratorium on advertising, and that is pretty stupid, frankly. Will the Minister ensure that materials are available and clear? Slough has volunteered to translate certain materials, but the ONS has not agreed, so may I have an assurance that the publicity campaign will be agreed to?
Fourthly, we must improve the arrangements for large households. Currently, the head of household will have to request an additional form if there are more than six residents in their household. They will have to do so using a phone line, and in Slough the head of household is likely to be someone for whom English is not their first language, so such requests will be hard to make. May we therefore have better arrangements for people who need supplementary forms?
Fifthly, Slough is under-represented. I am familiar with the London borough of Wandsworth, which is about twice as big as Slough.
Fiona Mactaggart
The hon. Gentleman is right to make that point, and sampling will take place after the 2011 census, because that will be the last one. Sampling techniques are theoretically great, but I spent 10 years trying to persuade the ONS that its sampling techniques and statistical methods were inadequate, so I know that they are not perfect.
To return to resources, the London borough of Wandsworth is about twice the size of Slough and has a similar ethnic mix, yet Wandsworth has two area managers, whereas Slough has one quarter of an area manager. Wandsworth has two community advisers, the same number as Slough, and 23 co-ordinators compared with Slough’s five. I do not begrudge Wandsworth that; indeed I live in Wandsworth as well as in Slough, but the ONS has shown since 2001 that it does not get Slough and continues not to get Slough. Unless it gets Slough and puts the resources in we will—once again—be under-counted in the 2011 census.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
The third sector makes a huge contribution to the quality of life of everyone in my constituency, and given the opportunity it could do even more. In Portsmouth, we are particularly indebted to Community First, which has done so much to support charities and community organisations.
However, there are some very real threats to the sector’s capacity to expand, and even maintain, its current work in the community. Local authorities are faced with reduced grants from central Government. In the economic circumstances, it would be a naive council that thought that it would be protected from the consequences of a massive deficit, but it would be a lazy council that responded to the challenge of a reduced budget by cutting funding to third sector organisations.
If local authorities use this spending round as a cover for a retreat to the comfort of central provision, they will not be thanked and nor will they be acting responsibly. I am sure that everyone in the House understands, and can give many examples from their own constituencies, of how the third sector delivers better value for money and the most client-focused services, raises additional funds and inspires more good will than its public and private sector counterparts. It is said that the people do not know what the big society is, but people do know that and the third sector has been laying the foundations for years. It is big state local authorities that are refusing planning permission for the next stage.
I have identified four key concerns in Portsmouth. First, local authorities must harness the power of the third sector rather than stifling it and running it down. There is a lacuna in service commissioners’ understanding of what the sector can offer and an unwillingness to fill it. The Government have done and are doing much to level up the playing field, but unless commitment is continued at a local level where powers are being pushed, we will not succeed in empowering charities and community groups to become providers or set up sustainable services.
Take a service such as Motiv8, for young people in Portsmouth. The enormous amount of money that it saves the public purse in the long term is well documented and there is no doubt that such services are required. Yet unless it can be sure of transition funding, some of its activities might have to stop. There is no doubt that the ill effects of its absence will be keenly felt and, in time, the council will need to re-establish similar provision—but this time, probably council-provided. That is a complete waste of money and the same could be said for other services such as Pompey Stars, Off The Record and Enable Ability, which already deliver very good returns on investment.
To shut such services in spring purely to reinvent them in the summer, following the loss of staff, premises and good will, seems a crazy thing to do, especially as these services are often able to attract considerable additional funding if they are given enough time to do so.
This small-mindedness is further represented by the lack of a commissioning framework in Portsmouth. That makes it extremely difficult for organisations such as the Alzheimer’s Society to plug into the service needs of the population. Work is under way to streamline and standardise commissioning in Portsmouth, but I am very sceptical about whether that will create a level playing field for small voluntary organisations.
There is much to be done on the demand side of commissioning, too. If we are really to tackle the considerable unmet need that exists in Alzheimer’s and dementia care, we must be focused on that need and find ways to meet it. Portsmouth city council must cut its backroom costs and find ways of making every pound spent on these services lever in more funding and volunteers. It should be increasing provision, not shutting services in the north of the city such as those provided at the Patey centre.
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend; I am sure that everyone can give examples of such things happening on their own patch.
Another example of how the sector could support the commissioning and design of services can be seen in the work of the wonderful Beneficial Foundation, which provides not only training and life skills teaching for people with learning disabilities, but a fantastic business recycling scheme that provides arts and crafts materials for so many organisations. At a time when the council is seeking to introduce a business recycling scheme, would a conversation with the Beneficial Foundation not be worth while?
Thirdly, there is a refusal to maximise our community assets. The Stamshaw and Tipner leisure centre, which has been threatened with closure and demolition on more than one occasion, is due to be made structurally sound next year, but there is no funding to bring the interior up to a standard that would guarantee a sustainable number of bookings from community groups. In response, members of the community have stepped forward to do it themselves—time, tools, materials and donations have been offered. But it has been very difficult to engage with the local authority on simple matters such as the building schedule and getting approval for the work to be done. How much good will is lost when the local authority is not responsive to such offers?
In my patch, many community assets have been neglected for years, and—one suspects—earmarked for demolition, to be replaced by housing. In Cosham, for example, there is the Moat club and the amazing Wymering manor, which is even mentioned in the Domesday Book. I am delighted that at long last the Hilsea lido has been transferred as a community asset. The Pool for the People group is legendary for its hard work and dedication to restoring this wonderful community facility to its former glory. I have every confidence that we will be able to retain these assets and that in the not-too-distant future, generations of Portsmouthians will be able to enjoy the manor and the lido again. However, we have to make it as easy as possible for communities to help themselves.
The final obstacle that I have identified in Portsmouth is the lack of financial transparency at Portsmouth city council. If you go to the council’s website and look for information related to its expenditure, you will find this statement:
“We believe transparency is a key condition and driver for the delivery of our services. As a publicly funded organisation, we have a duty to our residents to be transparent in our business operations and outcomes.”
Unfortunately, that is it. There is no information about what it does spend the money on, and it is one of the only councils in the country not to have published its expenditure online. The north of the city has been scandalously underfunded for decades. The council must move to publish all its expenditure online, so that people in my constituency can see what they are owed and what has been spent—exactly what has been spent on Alzheimer’s and dementia care, for example, and what is going into our community assets.
I also want my local authority to set up a modest transition fund—of tens of thousands of pounds, not hundreds of thousands—to ensure that services whose external funding is not secure by the time of the Budget can continue until the end of summer, when statutory or other funding will be in place. The Cabinet Office needs to work closely with the Department of Communities and Local Government—and, I would argue, directly with Portsmouth city council.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I start by echoing the thanks of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), a member of the Backbench Business Committee, to all the members of his Committee and the staff who support its work. We have had an interesting first chapter to this debate and I shall try to provide substantive responses to each contribution.
First, I turn to the speeches made by my hon. Friends the Members for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) and for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who both spoke passionately about social mobility and the contribution that community organisations make to delivering the big society. Unlocking social mobility is at the heart of the coalition Government’s agenda. We believe that a fair society is one in which opportunities are detached from origins and everyone has the chance to do well regardless of their background. If everyone can fulfil their potential and people’s talents are unlocked, our economy will also benefit.
However, we should recognise that social mobility trends in the UK are not encouraging. There is evidence that social mobility declined for people born in 1970 in comparison with those born in 1958. Data from the OECD show that, relative to other countries, the earnings of individuals in the UK are strongly related to the earnings of their parents.
We want to reduce the degree to which patterns of advantage and disadvantage are carried across from one generation to the next. The Deputy Prime Minister is championing social mobility within the Government and is chairing a social mobility ministerial group to ensure cross-Government action. A social mobility strategy will be published early next year and several reforms that aim to improve social mobility are already in process. Alan Milburn has been appointed as the independent reviewer of social mobility, to keep us on our toes.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke, who said that the Government cannot improve social mobility by working alone. That is true. Individuals, civil society organisations, employers, community groups and other non-governmental organisations play a critical role in helping people to do well, regardless of their backgrounds. The three pillars of the big society—social action, community empowerment and reforming and opening up public services—will empower people to take control of their lives, and the rest of society, not just the state, will help them to do that.
The Government are committed to supporting the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to take up opportunities and play its part in the big society. We want to recast the sector’s relationship with the state and give it a huge range of new opportunities to shape and provide innovative, bottom-up services and solutions where state provision has failed. We recognise that those opportunities will not emerge overnight and that, furthermore, spending reductions will also have an impact. We are making £100 million of transition grant funding available to front-line organisations over this and the next financial year to support the sector through this difficult period. That will give such organisations the breathing space that they need.
Ministers have also made three clear commitments to support the sector over the longer term. First, we will make it easier to run voluntary and community groups and social enterprises; secondly, we will put more resources into the sector; and, thirdly, we will make it easier for the sector to work with the state. Examples of our work in that area include the Lord Hodgson review into cutting red tape, and the big society bank, which will help to grow the social investment market and broaden the finance options open to the sector. We are consulting on proposals to improve infrastructure support for front-line civil society organisations in order to ensure that the Government’s investment in improving the capability of the sector in the future is appropriate and effective. That consultation closes on 6 January.
Mr Bone
When the Backbench Business Committee produced this pilot form of business, I did not know that we would have the novel experience of hearing a Whip at the Dispatch Box. I think it is my hon. Friend’s first time at the Dispatch Box, but he is doing a good job. I wonder whether we will be hearing from more Whips at the end of term. In many regards, he is doing much better than the normal Ministers.
Stephen Crabb
I think there was a compliment in there somewhere. I remind my hon. Friend that it is not an entirely novel experience. In the previous Parliament and in this Parliament, Whips have been deployed in a variety of ways, including at the Dispatch Box.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) raised the “knotty” issue of the West Lothian question. The Government have announced that they will establish a commission to consider that issue as part of their wider political reform. She referred to the answer to a question asked last week by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who has responsibility for political and constitutional reform, in which he said that the Government will make an announcement on the commission in the new year. I am happy to confirm that we do indeed mean 2011. That is very much part of our programme for next year. The issue has been around for at least 150 years, so I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire to bear with us and show patience, because it is important that we get the right solution to some difficult issues.
We are continuing to give careful consideration to the timing, composition, scope and remit of the commission. Its work will need to take account of our proposals to reform the House of Lords to create a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber. There are changes being made to how this House does its business and there are developments in devolution, not least through the Scotland Bill before the House. As I have said, we will be making an announcement on that in the new year.
Two hon. Members addressed the issue of the 2011 census. We had powerful speeches from the hon. Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). All hon. Members will be aware that the census takes place on 27 March. Accuracy of the census is very important, because it is used to allocate billions of pounds of public spending every year. The Office for National Statistics takes the census extremely seriously and is working very hard to ensure that the problems of undercounting experienced in 15 local authority areas in 2011, including in Westminster, are not repeated. The ONS is actively engaging with every authority to ensure that there is a successful census next year, and it has a partnership plan in place with each local authority. A plan for London as a whole has also been developed with the Greater London authority and the London boroughs.
Fiona Mactaggart
There is a partnership plan, but the problem is that it is a bit one-way. If it were a genuine partnership, local authorities that are trying to help improve the accuracy of the census would have more ability to contribute to the partnership. If the hon. Gentleman would tell the ONS that, we might have a better partnership.
Stephen Crabb
I assure the hon. Lady that the ONS will receive a full transcript of this debate. I am surprised by her remarks, because only last week, I think, the chief executive of Slough met the ONS to discuss the census. The leader of Westminster city council has also had meetings this year with the ONS on the topic.
On specific improvements to the census process, 35,000 field staff are allocated to areas where it has been hard to obtain responses in the past, particularly inner-city areas and areas of high migration and population change. There will also be a three-times greater effort by field staff to collect outstanding questionnaires than in 2001 and a four-times greater effort in London and some other urban areas, including Slough. Some 200 staff are working within their local communities to engage local residents and community groups, promote the census, encourage local people to apply for census jobs and arrange support and assistance for census completion where needed. Collecting details of second addresses in the census will improve the population counts in local authority areas, such as Westminster. Additional questions about national identity, the intention of migrants to stay and citizenship will support a more detailed understanding of migration and population in areas including Slough and Westminster.
Ms Buck
I am not seeking to challenge the hon. Gentleman’s in-depth knowledge on the census, but would he do me the great favour of asking the relevant Minister to write to me on the specific issue of recruitment? We have a genuine problem, and Westminster council’s briefing substantiates that. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) would also like to pursue the matter further with the relevant Minister.
Stephen Crabb
We will write to both hon. Members on a number of the questions they asked about the census. Recruitment is, overall, going very well. Recruitment of 4,000 special enumerator and census collector jobs began in September and is nearing completion; 67,000 applications have already been received. Recruitment of collectors began in November and is also progressing well, with 82,000 applications received so far for around 30,000 roles. Efforts are targeted in the small number of areas where allocations have been slower.
On the subject of the Queen’s diamond jubilee competition for city status, I pay tribute to the work, energy and commitment of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) in supporting his local community’s bid. The last occasion to have been marked by granting city status was Her Majesty’s golden jubilee in 2002, when separate competitions were held in the devolved nations. That resulted in the granting of city status to one town.
Mr Speaker
As usual, the hon. Gentleman is correct. The time limit was an expectation that I stated at the outset, but the Chair will exercise judgment about when the debate should be concluded. The hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) is seeking to respond to points, and he may briefly continue to do so.
Stephen Crabb
I am grateful for your generosity and clarification, Mr Speaker. All previous competitions up to 2002 had been organised on a UK-wide basis. The golden jubilee competition was the only time when separate competitions were held for the devolved nations and for England. We regard the bestowing of city status as a signal honour and a rare mark of distinction. Something special will be lost if too many places are granted city status. The Government’s expectation is that only one new city will be created as a result of the diamond jubilee competition and, similarly, that only one existing city will be granted a lord mayoralty or lord provostship.
Pete Wishart
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is very difficult for Scottish cities to compete with English cities, given our different civic traditions and cultures? Does he also accept that if we are trying to ensure that a range of places across the United Kingdom are involved, there has to be more than one winner? Surely, if there is to be only one winner, the largest will naturally be the favourite.
Stephen Crabb
I am not sure that I accept the hon. Gentleman’s analysis at all on that. Every bid will be judged fairly on its merits. There are some strict criteria in place, the details of which are available on the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website. I hope that those criteria will allay some of his concerns.
I am sure that the tradition of referring to Perth as the fair city will continue, whatever the outcome of the competition. However, there is only one way to become recognised as a city in the UK: by having the honour conferred by the sovereign. That is the prize that awaits the successful entrant to the competition. I wish all potential entrants, including the fair city of Perth, the very best of luck.
Health
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I want to talk about support for the 6 million unpaid carers who provide social care to a family member or friend. More people are having to step in to provide high levels of care to family members. The 2001 census, about which we have heard so much today, found that 10% of all carers in the UK were caring for more than 50 hours per week, but figures published more recently by the NHS information centre show that that has now more than doubled to 22%. In Salford, the proportion has been much higher for some time: 24% of Salford carers cared for more than 50 hours per week in 2001, which was more than twice the national figure.
Carers are key partners in care for the NHS, but full-time care takes a toll on the carer’s own health, and their health needs should be recognised. Carers who care for more than 50 hours a week are twice as likely to suffer ill health as the general population, and those caring for a person suffering from dementia or stroke disease are also more at risk. Importantly, carers who do not receive a break from caring are much more likely to suffer mental health problems—that is, 36% of carers compared with 17% who do get a break.
The Government have announced £400 million of funding for carers’ breaks over four years, to be delivered through primary care trusts initially, but there are problems with this because the funding is not ring-fenced. The Labour Government allocated £150 million over three years to primary care trusts for carers’ breaks, but a survey by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers in 2009 found that less than a quarter of the first tranche of that funding had been used as intended to support carers. Given the financial pressures that are now facing primary care trusts, and their impending abolition in the NHS reorganisation, it is hard to see them doing a better job for carers now than they did last year when they did not have those pressures. There is great concern among carers and carers’ organisations about the impact of the NHS reorganisation and cuts to local authority budgets. Carers UK says that carers are worried that when commissioning is handed over to GPs they will lose services on which they rely. Many carers have negative experiences of dealing with GPs who do not have a good understanding of social care or of the specialist conditions that are giving rise to the care.
There is also much concern about cuts to social care that councils are making in response to the 27% cuts in their budgets over the next four years. The cuts are front-loaded, so together with the loss of area-based grants that were targeted at deprived areas, councils such as those in my area of Salford will have to make cuts of £40 million next year alone. The Government are putting £2 billion into councils’ social care budgets over four years, but that is only half of the £4 billion that the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has estimated is needed to meet increasing levels of need. In addition, social care is one of the biggest areas of each council’s budget, yet the new money is not ring-fenced either, so councils are facing budget cuts of £5.6 billion over the same period. It is hard to imagine that social care will not be part of that.
We have already seen councils cutting funding to social care. Even before the comprehensive spending review, five councils with a “moderate” threshold were proposing to tighten their eligibility criteria to “substantial”. Birmingham council and the Isle of Wight have now proposed to raise their thresholds to meet critical needs only, and other councils are considering that. North Yorkshire county council plans to reduce its number of residential care homes by two thirds, and others are taking similar action. Councils are increasing their hourly rates for care and removing maximum weekly caps, which can mean charges doubling. For very many people, that will mean that the care is not available or they cannot afford it.
In Salford, we are very fortunate to have an excellent carers centre run by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, with Dawn O’Rooke as the manager and Julia Ellis doing a fantastic job as the primary care project worker. Staff there are concerned about what they see as a marginalisation of carers support services owing to the twin changes of GP commissioning and council budget cuts. Salford carers centre has worked with GP practices to enable GPs to identify many carers and refer them on for advice and support. That identification and referral can make a significant difference for carers in their getting benefits, using personal budgets and getting checks on their own health. However, with GPs handling commissioning, there will be significant extra pressures of time. One reads day in, day out about GPs being very concerned about that. There is a real fear that GPs in Salford will no longer prioritise the development of support for carers.
Given our record in Salford, I hope that our GP consortiums and the city council will continue to support carers’ services so that the excellent work can continue. However, with GPs handling commissioning, there will be significant extra pressures, and it is hard to see councils and GP consortiums up and down the country prioritising carer support when they have so many other calls on their time and resources. Many people rely on unpaid carers, and more will have to do so over time. It is projected that that figure will reach 9 million in 25 years’ time. I therefore urge Health Ministers to put their support for carers high on their agenda and to keep it there throughout 2011.
It is an unusual experience for me to speak in this pre-recess Adjournment debate rather than answer it, which is what I used to do. I think that the Deputy Leader of the House has opted out a little bit by cutting his work load. However, I would like to wish everybody a very happy Christmas.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
It is an absolute pleasure to be speaking in this pre-Christmas Adjournment debate—my first. I offer season’s greetings to everybody.
When I was elected to this House, I promised that I would continue to fight to bring full maternity care back to Huddersfield Royal infirmary. I have already raised the issue in this House several times, and I welcome the opportunity to do so once again. The issue of maternity services in Huddersfield has been a very emotional and controversial topic in my constituency. Huddersfield Royal infirmary’s consultant-led maternity services closed in August 2008, and mums now have to be transferred to Calderdale Royal hospital if there are complications during birth. Many mums, though, are not taking any risks at all and opting to go to Halifax for all the birthing process. There is a new midwife-led unit at Huddersfield Royal infirmary, but mums want specialist and emergency care to be available there too. Many have got in touch with me through a Facebook group that I have set up. I have more than 7,000 members, and cases are being messaged through to me all the time from mums who have had bad experiences.
In an emergency, the time it takes to travel to Halifax from Huddersfield and my constituency can be the difference between life and death for mother and baby. I joined two of my constituents to set up a campaign group in memory of their little girl who died at just two days old. Following the closure of Huddersfield’s specialist maternity services, the mum had to be transferred to Calderdale for an emergency delivery. During that time, the baby suffered a lack of oxygen to her brain which resulted in severe brain damage. The young parents then had to make the heart-breaking decision to turn off her life support system after just two days. We do not know for definite that things would have been different if Huddersfield had had specialist care available, but the little girl would surely have had a better chance if that emergency care had been available closer to where the parents live. I pay tribute to the parents, Alanna and Glynn, who set up the campaign group, MOMS—Move Our Maternity Services back to Huddersfield—with me.
I welcome the opportunity to raise once again the issue of getting specialist maternity care back at Huddersfield Royal infirmary, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I am very pleased to take part in this debate. I applaud the new arrangements that will allow a Health Minister to respond to contributions on health.
Public health policy aims to help people live longer and healthier lives, so it is a matter of key concern to me and my constituents in Blaenau Gwent, where average life expectancy is still too low. In the July pre-recess Adjournment debate, I raised my worries about the Conservative-led Government’s reluctance to take forward Labour’s measures to curb smoking, their collapse in the face of food industry’s lobbying on food labelling and their hasty dismissal of minimum pricing for a unit of alcohol.
Sadly, the recent public health White Paper does not address my deep concerns. It sets out the scale of several significant problems. Britain has the highest rates of obesity in Europe. Smoking causes 80,000 deaths a year. A recent Alcohol Concern report showed that more than 92,000 children and young people under 18 were admitted to hospital for alcohol misuse between 2002 and 2009. Girls are more likely to need hospital treatment than boys. Diet-related disease costs the NHS £6 billion a year, alcohol abuse costs it £2.7 billion, and lack of exercise costs it £1.8 billion: a total of £10.5 billion.
Do we have a new, bold public health strategy to match that analysis? Apparently, there is a shift from nannying to nudging people to improve their health. It seems that commercial interests will dominate the partnership of those who will help us to be healthier. That is not good enough. The Independent reported recently that multinational companies dominate the Government’s public health policy. It discovered that 18 representatives of Mars, Diageo and other commercial interests attended the first public health responsibility deal meeting in September, dwarfing the representation of health and consumer groups. I do not trust commercial interests to nudge me or anyone else towards a healthier lifestyle.
I take issue with the pompous put-down that Labour opted for a nanny state. Labour recognised that the Government have a duty of care to keep the nation as healthy as possible. That duty is particularly important for our young people, and particularly for the young women who lie comatose on the streets on Friday nights, after binge-drinking sessions. Alcohol was described as the most dangerous drug in the UK in a paper published by The Lancet in November. The Government have a responsibility to take further measures to prevent alcohol abuse.
The brewer, Greene King, wrote to MPs recently:
“It is our long held view that a great deal of the UK’s antisocial behaviour stems from excessive drinking by a small minority of people, fuelled by the easy availability of alcohol from retail outlets, at very cheap prices. The solution must be proportionate to the problem and not penalise the majority of responsible drinkers.”
I concur with that statement and agree with the solution of a minimum price for alcohol. The British Medical Association supports that proposal, as does the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The Government have said that they support a ban on below-cost selling. However, if cost was defined as duty plus VAT, it would be too low to tackle irresponsible discounts in supermarkets. No measures have been put before Parliament to end below-cost selling. I believe a range of measures is necessary to tackle alcohol abuse. There may have to be restrictions on promotions. Alcohol Concern stated:
“As long as alcohol remains as heavily promoted as it currently is, young drinkers will continue to consume far more than they might otherwise, leading to inevitable health harms, wasting ambulance and police time.”
It is time we scrutinised the promotion of alcohol at cinemas, for example, where it is too easy for young people to be influenced.
I will talk briefly about measures to combat smoking. I was pleased that the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health called on the Government to prohibit the point-of-sale display of tobacco products, and the sale of tobacco from vending machines. Those measures have widespread support. As my local director of public health at the Aneurin Bevan health board wrote to me:
“Nearly one quarter of the population in Wales are smokers and most of them started to smoke as children. The average age at which young people in Wales start smoking is between 11 and 12 years.”
She ended her letter with a plea:
“please help to protect our children and future generations from a deadly addiction by ensuring that the government implements these laws”.
Finally, I will comment on the problem of obesity. Obesity cannot be tackled by weakening the Food Standards Agency and by cutting the Change4Life anti-obesity programme. Statistics on obesity show the need for more exercise. I am therefore glad that the Government have changed their policy on school sports provision in recent days, but more needs to be done. We must ensure that all children exercise regularly at school, not just those who are gifted enough to take part in competitive sport.
Nudging and soft partnerships, although helpful, are not sufficient. Self-regulation by supermarkets and tobacco companies will not deliver the better health and extra years that we hope for. Bluntly, if we do not act, the financial consequences for the NHS alone—the £10.5 billion that I referred to earlier—will be immense. Ministers must accept that meaningful regulation and taxation have a role—to rule them out is irresponsible and doctrinaire. The Government’s recent White Paper on health is not good enough for my constituents in Blaenau Gwent, nor for people across our country. We must do better than this.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great privilege to speak in this pre-Christmas debate. I have already exchanged seasonal greetings with your good self, Mr Speaker, and other colleagues.
I rise to speak about the integrated drug treatment system, which is the drug treatment system for people in prison. The issue came to my attention when I visited my local prison, Hollesley Bay. I do not want to get into the rights and wrongs of drugs today; that issue has been debated in Westminster Hall. I am more concerned about value for money and the diversion of funds from primary care trusts to the continuation of prisoners taking heroin substitutes, at the taxpayer’s expense.
In a recent Question Time, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice spoke of how important it is to get prisoners off drugs and to remove drugs from our prison estate. I fully endorse that view. Everybody was depressed in the mid-’90s when a judge ruled that it was against somebody’s human rights not to be allowed drugs when in prison. A number of hon. Members, including you, Mr Speaker, have raised questions on this topic. This is yet another example, dare I say it, of a conflict between the judiciary and the common sense of the general public.
The cost of the IDTS to the taxpayer for the last three years has been £23.8 million, £39.7 million and £44.4 million. I am sure that my local residents would love an increase in health spending of such an amount. Such funding for the three prisons in the Suffolk district area and the one in the Great Yarmouth borough and Waveney district area has risen from £400,000 to £555,000. In Hollesley Bay prison in my constituency, £190,000 is allocated to just one prisoner. It is astonishing that under this system, one prisoner can continue to have a heroin substitute every day, at the expense to other people of just less than £200,000. The figures show no sign of decreasing.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it cannot be right that we have inherited a system under which approximately 300 of the 1,000 prisoners in my major local prison of Durham are on methadone? The reality is that either we give them drugs on a prescribed basis, or they will obtain drugs illegally. What does she think we should do about that?
Dr Coffey
That is an extraordinary situation, and I am sure that the people of Hexham and Northumberland would be astonished to hear that the taxpayer is continuing to fund it.
I understand that Subutex, one methadone substitute, is highly valued and is traded in our prisons. Although I do not condone the policy of continuing to give methadone to prisoners, perhaps we should switch to liquid-only substitutes and remove the element of drug trading.
I cannot pretend that Suffolk is the most expensive part of the country for treatment costs. In Suffolk, the average cost per treatment is about £800. I am sure that the people of Cambridgeshire will be delighted to know that Whitemoor prison has been given a budget of about £312,000 from the PCT to pay for nine expected treatments, at a cost of £34,708 per treatment. That is scandalous in this day and age, and something has to be done. I hate it when politicians say that, but I genuinely believe that this issue is within our control and that we can do something about it.
When people come into prison, we should be trying not to continue their habits, but to get them off their habits. I understand that the primary reason we have switched increasingly to methadone prescription in drug treatment is that if people leave prison having been off drugs, they are more likely to have a bad reaction when they get their first fix. Perhaps I am a bit traditional, but my response to that is, “Tough!” I would rather that our precious NHS money was used on health care. I know that we are increasing the funds, but health care costs are also increasing. I dare say that the constituents of Suffolk Coastal would rather the money was spent on improving health care at Ipswich hospital. Despite the review by Professor Boyle, constituents in places on the coast such as Aldeburgh and Orford are still being put at risk, because if they have a heart attack the expected treatment time from when an ambulance is called to when it arrives is beyond the national guidelines. That is because there is not enough money to serve everybody.
I am not saying that we should not treat people to try to help them with their drug problem when they go into prison. In fact, I think it was the father of a famous pop star, whom I will not publicise, who said that one reason people commit offences is so that they can go into prison and get off drugs. I endorse that, and we should provide such help. Drugs are a scourge on the country because of the misery and crime that they generate.
I will conclude, because plenty of other Members want to speak about health. I could have addressed my points to the Ministry of Justice, but I believe that the Department of Health can move us forward and ask whether the situation that I have described is the best way to use our precious resources in the NHS.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
A merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House.
I was born in Wallsend in the 1960s, and my mother was born in Newcastle in the ’20s. What we had in common, which we share with any child of the north, was the impact of geography on our life chances. A child born in Newcastle today is expected to die five years before one born in South Cambridgeshire, the constituency of the Secretary of State for Health.
Of my mother’s six brothers and sisters, only one survived into adulthood. We have certainly made great strides since those dark days, but health is still a critical political, social and personal issue. Newcastle has world-beating hospitals—the Royal Victoria infirmary, the Freeman and the General hospital. We also have the Campus for Ageing and Vitality, the Centre for Life, the Great North children’s hospital and the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, but what we do not have is health equality.
The people of Newcastle are more likely to die early from cancer, heart disease or stroke. We tend to die younger, are more obese as children, and are more likely to die from the cold as pensioners. We suffer more from the diseases of our industrial legacy, such as asbestosis, and we are more likely to be born into poverty, experience mental illness and commit suicide. One in 25 adults in Newcastle claims incapacity benefit for mental illness, four times the rate in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Education.
I will be frank and say that I do not believe the last Government did enough to tackle the issue of mental health. It is the responsibility not only of health care providers but of social services, educators, the police and prison officers. The lack of co-ordination and support was tragically highlighted by the case of Raoul Moat earlier this year.
As a Newcastle MP, I consider my primary duty to be to work for the health and well-being of my constituents, so the existing inequalities concern me and I am worried that they will widen under the current Government. I hope that the Minister can offer me some reassurance. The previous Government doubled health funding in real terms, reduced waiting times and improved health outcomes. Deaths from heart disease and stroke went down by 40%. They also worked hard to tackle poverty and its associated evils, such as poor housing, low aspiration and unemployment, which all have an impact on health.
Improvements in those areas benefited the mental and physical health and well-being of all our constituents, but in Newcastle, inequalities have been maintained or even increased. In 1998, early death rates from heart disease and stroke were 19% higher in Newcastle than the national average. In 2007, they were 26% above a much reduced national average.
The last Government prioritised tackling health inequalities in 2006—too late, certainly, but as a result the North East strategic health authority, primary care trusts and hospitals are all working to address the problem. However, that is all set to change. The Government’s reforms to the NHS are estimated to cost £3 billion, without counting the cost of disruption and the loss of skills. Our strategic health authority and primary care trust are being abolished and funding will be in the hands of GP consortiums, of which Newcastle will host one of the first. The Government do not like targets, but will the Minister confirm that she expects the key measures of health inequality to reduce as a consequence of those changes? Will she also confirm that Newcastle will not have to pay anything for those reforms from its health allocation?
The Secretary of State recently wrote to me to say that the 2011-12 allocation for Newcastle represented a growth of 2.8%, including a change to the funding formula. Despite written questions, however, I have been unable to clarify how the changes will address health inequalities. The Government’s changes to formulas have tended to work against us in the north-east, so will the Minister confirm that more will be invested in health services for every man, woman and child in Newcastle in every year of the comprehensive spending review period?
Guy Opperman
Does the hon. Lady agree that the health service in Newcastle now covers not just her constituents in Newcastle but mine in Hexham, both because they are run by the same trusts and because the services are now so interdependent?
Chi Onwurah
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Health services in Newcastle are accessed by a wide range of people from across the north-east.
Finally, the Minister will know that health depends on many factors. The Government’s wide-ranging cuts will have a negative impact on people’s health, especially the health of the most deprived. Cuts to fuel poverty reduction programmes such as Warm Front will leave pensioners in Newcastle cold, and therefore more vulnerable to illness. Cuts to area-based grants such as Supporting People mean that there will be less investment in support services for those with mental health problems, and cuts to the working neighbourhood fund mean that my constituents will have less help to get back into work, with all the health advantages that work brings.
I shall give the Minister a specific example. In Newcastle, about £10 million a year goes to charities to help deliver services for the vulnerable. The Government’s cuts mean that that figure will go down by 75%, which will have many consequences. One charity to which I have spoken estimates that it will have to close hostels, leading to the number of rough sleepers in the city rising by up to 500%. Rough sleeping obviously has terrible consequences for the health of the individual concerned, but Newcastle as a whole will also pay the cost. The police, health services, social services and the third sector will all have to focus more resources on those sleeping in the streets, reducing the help available to others—help that supports the health of the city.
There are many similar examples. Will the Minister assure me that she has assessed the impact of the cuts on Newcastle in the broadest sense, and that she is confident that the health inequalities between Newcastle and the rest of the country will be reduced over the term of this Government?
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
May I convey my compliments of the season to all Members, and indeed to the staff of the House, who work so hard for all of us?
The reason for my contribution today is my long-standing commitment to the cause of raising the profile and interests of all children and adults who suffer from the lifelong conditions of autism, autism spectrum disorders and Asperger’s syndrome. I speak as a parent of a child on the spectrum, and as treasurer of the all-party group on autism.
I wish to urge the Government to refer autism to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence as a key topic for a NICE quality standard, which would cover diagnosis, post-diagnostic support and support for those with co-occurring mental health problems. It is vital that at the stage when commissioning is handed over to GP consortiums, a national quality standard applies to help local commissioners act appropriately.
The National Autistic Society’s recent “You need to know” campaign revealed some startling statistics about children with autism and about child and adolescent mental health services, which are known as CAMHS. Some 71% of children with autism have a co-occurring mental health problem, and last year one in 10 children who used CAMHS had autism—that is more than 10,000 children. However, only one in three parents of children with autism who were surveyed thought that CAMHS had helped them. The problem is that professionals, no matter how dedicated they may be, often do not have enough information and understanding when it comes to meeting the needs of children and young people with autism. It places those people at a disadvantage for treatment in the health service.
There was some excellent news last week in the publication of statutory guidance for adults with autism as a result of the Autism Act 2009, and I welcome the carefully set out guidelines, which have been the subject of proper consultation. They have been strengthened and improved through lobbying by hon. Members and other organisations with a key interest. For example, particular emphasis is placed on the need for local child and adolescent mental health services to develop agreements with adult mental health services about the transition of children with autism who use those services into adult mental health care. We hear a lot about the problems of transition, and I am glad that concrete action is being taken. That will be welcome news for many children and young adults in Swindon and elsewhere.
A further enhancement of those guidelines in the form of a quality standard, together with commissioning guidelines, will increase and improve that provision even more. It has worked elsewhere. For example, for services for children with a learning disability, the introduction of a national indicator, a vital signs indicator and an annual health check all required self-reporting on training needs by the staff in child and adolescent mental health services. By last year, that resulted in almost all CAMHS services—98%; a remarkably good statistic—reporting that they provided specialist learning disability support. However, in sad contrast, only 10% of child and adolescent mental health services reported that they provided targeted autism support.
I accept that NICE is autonomous, but the National Quality Board’s prioritisation committee selects the topics for discussion and adoption as NICE quality standards, with referral by Ministers. The Government therefore have a role in being able to refer a topic for the adoption of a quality standard, which is more than a guideline because it builds on the guidelines to provide a framework for professionals. It will also help patients find their way around the system. Further, it will help NHS bodies to assess the quality of the service that they provide. That information, with evidence of best practice, will help commissioners to plan better services for the future.
I am extremely keen for those measures to be adopted at the earliest opportunity. I will revert to them as often as I have to in the new year if the message has not yet got through. I urge the Government to refer the proposals to NICE to help chart a brighter future for the treatment of children and young adults with autism in the health service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)
I welcome all the contributions. We have had an excellent run-around of some hon. Members’ interests and specific issues relating to their constituencies.
I start with the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). As she rightly pointed out, the Government have recently announced that they will provide additional funding of £400 million to the NHS in the next four years to enable more carers to take breaks from their caring responsibilities. I commend her for her continued interest in the subject. I trained as a nurse and worked in the NHS for 25 years, and the question is now, as it always has been: who cares for the carers? The hon. Lady is right to highlight the problems that carers suffer—the impact on their physical and mental health and well-being, as well as the immense emotional burden that many bear.
The spending review has made available additional funding in primary care trust baselines to support the provision of breaks for carers. The new moneys will go into PCT budgets from April 2011 and into GP consortium budgets from 2013. The 2011 NHS operating framework, which was published on 15 December, makes it clear that PCTs should pool budgets with local authorities to provide carers with breaks as far as possible via direct payments or personal health budgets, which will doubtless ensure some progress.
The new funding is part of a package of measures that we announced in the recently published update to the carers strategy. The next steps set out the priorities for action in the next four years, focusing on what will make the biggest impact on carers’ lives. It is important to recognise that the subject is of interest to hon. Members of all parties. I do not think there is division along party lines. The hon. Lady’s insight into and knowledge of what is happening on the ground will be important to ensure that future policy and direction is well informed.
Barbara Keeley
Will the Under-Secretary say more about what will happen if PCTs do not spend the money on carers’ breaks? The Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), who is responsible for social care, campaigned in the House when the Labour Government had a similar problem. As I said earlier, the problem is that, according to a survey, only a quarter of the money had been spent on carers’ breaks. It is fine to allocate it, but the trouble is getting the PCTs to spend it.
Anne Milton
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She is right to suggest that there can be an intention at Westminster, but the point is ensuring that it is effected on the ground. I will say a little more about that shortly.
We do not believe that a legislative approach is always the way to proceed when requiring health bodies and GPs to identify patients who are carers or have a carer and refer them to sources of help and support. Indeed, often it is not. We feel more comfortable with that as a weapon, but it does not necessarily produce the result that the hon. Lady wants.
It will be for PCTs and subsequently the GP consortiums to decide their priorities in the light of their local circumstances. However, we believe that GPs and their staff will play a vital role in identifying carers; many carers have not yet been identified. That is why we are investing £6 million from April 2011 in GP training, which will mean that more GPs and their practice teams gain a better understanding of carers and the support that they may need. That is important.
I believe that GPs are much better placed truly to understand the value and needs of carers. I do not need to tell the hon. Lady that the considerable social, human and, indeed, financial value that carers offer cannot be overestimated—she is aware of that. However, centrally driven methods are not always the best way forward. I welcome her continued feedback to ensure that we get the money spent where it is needed most.
Let me deal now with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney). I take the opportunity to pay tribute not only to midwives but to all the staff who will be working to deliver babies safely into the world, while we are enjoying our turkey or whatever we choose to eat on Christmas day.
The Government are committed to devolving power to local communities—to people, patients, GPs and councils—which are best placed to determine the nature of their local NHS services. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for raising the matter previously and for continuing to raise his constituents’ concerns.
The Government have said that, in future, clinicians and patients must lead all service changes, which should not be driven from the top down. To that end, the Secretary of State has outlined new, strengthened criteria that he expects decisions on NHS changes to meet. They must focus on improving patient outcomes, consider patient choice, have support from GP commissioners and be based on sound clinical evidence. I think that that was what my hon. Friend was getting at.
The Department has asked local health services to consider how continuing schemes meet the new criteria. Some will be subject to further review. That does not necessarily extend to reopening previously concluded processes, as in Huddersfield—I would not like to lead my hon. Friend down an alley—or halting those that have passed the point of no return, with contracts signed and building work started. However, NHS Yorkshire and the Humber has advised that the decision to implement the looking to the future programme and change in maternity services in Huddersfield was clinically driven, with strong emphasis on patient safety and quality of care. It was also made after considerable scrutiny and consideration, including a formal period of public consultation and advice to the then Secretary of State for Health from the independent reconfiguration panel, whose recommendations were endorsed in full.However, I know that my hon. Friend will continue to gather local evidence and experience and feed it back, which I welcome.
Let us look at the problem described by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith). I disagree with much of what he said. We have a bold public health strategy for the first time, and it has been widely welcomed. He should not believe everything he reads in the newspaper—it could lead him into all sorts of misapprehensions. The Government alone cannot improve public health; we need to use all the tools in the box.
The hon. Gentleman should note that health inequalities grew, rather than decreased, under the previous Government. There are massive opportunities to improve public physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and well-being in England. As he rightly pointed out, we have some of the highest obesity rates of any country in the world. People living in the poorest areas die on average seven years earlier than people living in richer areas, and they have higher rates of mental illness, disability, harm from alcohol, drugs and smoking, and childhood emotional and behavioural problems. Changing people’s lifestyles and removing health inequalities could make double the improvement to life expectancy that we could make through health care, so we must address public health.
The Government published our strategy in our White Paper “Healthy lives, healthy people”. We will establish Public Health England, a national public health service, return public health leadership to local government, and strengthen professional leadership nationally by giving a more defined role to the chief medical officer, and locally through strong and inspirational leadership roles for directors of public health.
Historically, all the big public health improvements came via local authorities, and I am convinced that returning public health responsibilities to local authorities will achieve what we need, which is social and economic change as well as health change.
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister is of course welcome to take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but she still has a few contributions to respond to, and we need to make some progress.
Nick Smith
I welcome the proposal to ask local authorities to take responsibility for public health—in the round, that is a good thing—but will they get the resources to do that job?
Anne Milton
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am afraid that I got rather carried away with this new-style debate, but I am mindful of the time.
For the first time, public health spending is ring-fenced. Public health interventions have been cut because of spending by PCTs, so it is really important to ring-fence such funding. The Government will focus on outcomes that are meaningful to people and communities. We published proposals for a public health outcomes framework yesterday for consultation, to which I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like to respond. I hope I have reassured him that the Government are taking the action necessary to improve the public’s health. I would be happy to discuss that with him in more detail another time, and perhaps to correct some of the myths that he believes. Nothing is ruled out. We will do everything we need to do to improve the public’s health, but we must use all the tools in the box. We cannot improve public health by Government intervention alone.
My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) raised the issue of integrated drug treatment systems for prisons that aim to increase the volume and quality of treatment available to prisoners. I welcome her involvement in her local prison. Such systems also aim to improve integration between clinical counselling, assessment, referral and through-care services, and to reinforce continuity of care when prisoners are released into the community.
The Government must reshape drug treatment to focus on recovery and to improve the continuity of treatment in the community following release. Abstinence is where we need to go. As outlined in the Ministry of Justice Green Paper on sentencing reform and rehabilitation, and in accordance with the much more outcome-focused approach announced in the new drug strategy, a payment-by-results approach to commissioning drug treatment for prisoners on release will be trialled in two areas. Recovery wings will be trialled in four prisons, with an emphasis on offenders receiving short custodial sentences, who therefore require a co-ordinated approach from prison and community. The combining of prison drug budgets with the combined drug interventions programme and a community-pooled treatment budget will allow for great flexibility, which is what we need in configuring services. To my mind, we have failed adequately to address drug abuse and prisoner addiction, and in turn failed our communities. We have not spent much-needed resources well.
I probably answered many of the points made by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) in my answer to the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent on public health more generally. My husband’s family are all from Hartlepool. The hon. Lady was right to raise the issue of health inequalities. “Healthy lives, healthy people” underlines the priority that we are giving to tackling inequalities and supporting the principles of the Marmot review. We are focusing on the health and social needs of disadvantaged groups and areas, including on how money is allocated to local communities for public health interventions.
Despite the fact that the previous Government doubled health funding, as the hon. Lady rightly said, health inequalities got worse. I do not think that that was because of a lack of commitment on Labour’s part. It is extremely difficult to tackle health inequalities head-on, which is why our White Paper is so widely welcomed. The action outlined in that paper will reduce those truly shocking health inequalities.
It is important to recognise that this is not just about the money that is spent, but about how it is spent. I welcome the hon. Lady’s non-partisan comments about the previous Government’s record. For the first time, we are consulting on public health and ring-fencing money, and I believe that we can make a real difference.
The last Back-Bench contribution was from my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on autism. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the parents and carers—young and old—who care for children and adults with autism. For some, that is a considerable burden that we should not underestimate. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is currently developing three autism clinical guidelines. The recognition, referral and diagnosis of autism guidelines are scheduled to be published in September next year; the diagnosis and management of autism in adults guidelines are scheduled to be published in July 2012—that might feel a long way off, but it is coming—and the management of autism in children and young people was referred to NICE by Ministers in November this year.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his interest in autism, which has been discussed on many occasions in the House since I became a Member. There is no doubt that the expertise and input of people like him—people who have personal experience—is crucial in ensuring that we get the right policies that can have an effect on the ground, including in his constituency. His expertise and that of other hon. Members is critical.
Mr Speaker, I apologise for going beyond my allotted 10 minutes, but I wish you and all the staff of the House a very happy Christmas. I thank them for all their support this year and wish them well for the next.
Education
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
May I take this opportunity to wish you a very merry Christmas, Mr Speaker?
I understand that the pre-Christmas recess Adjournment debate was often a cheerful occasion. Unfortunately, the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance does not lend itself to festive cheer. In fact, it has much more of the Dickensian Christmas about it. Perhaps the House can imagine the Minister trudging back to his Department through the snow and sitting in his office, where he is visited by the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future.
In Christmas past, the jolly folk of the Department for Children, Schools and Families invested in young people. There were rosy cheeks and smiling faces as extra teachers and teaching assistants were employed to work in brand new school buildings up and down the country. What would the ghost of Christmas present reveal? If he took the Minister on a journey to Nottingham, he would see more than 4,000 learners in receipt of EMA worrying about their futures. Half of them might be aware that the Government’s cuts mean that if they want to go on to university, they can expect to end up with debts of £30,000 or £40,000 when they graduate. They might also have seen last month’s increase in the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work, which took the youth unemployment total to 943,000—almost 20% —and one of the highest figures since records began in 1992. The other half might be wondering how they will manage the second year of their course once the EMA is withdrawn, and how they will cope without this essential help with the cost of travelling to college and with materials, books and lunches.
The Minister might also see Malcolm Cowgill, principal of Castle college in Nottingham, writing to his local MP to say:
“I believe that the Department for Education has made the wrong decision, that disadvantaged young people in Nottingham will suffer as a result of this decision, and that Ministers’ ambitions to raise the participation age to 18 will fail. I am concerned students will continue to enrol but the extra burden of earning additional money will mean more students withdraw mid-course and do not achieve their aims.”
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The hon. Lady makes a powerful argument, but would it not be better to concentrate the support on the 12% who say that they would not continue in education if they did not get the EMA, rather than spread it out among all young people?
Lilian Greenwood
The vast majority of those who receive EMA receive it at the highest level and are from the most disadvantaged families. They need that extra money. Whether they would stay in education or not, it is an important part of supporting them while they continue with their studies.
The Minister might also see my young constituent Kyle Simpson, a talented swimmer who is training for 22 hours a week, before and after college and competing at weekends, emailing his MP to say:
“My mum needs all the money she can get for my training fees. Education Maintenance Allowance really helped me and gave me an incentive to be at college and do my best. Now I don’t know what to do”.
The Minister might see New college in Nottingham, which has found that the EMA has increased participation, reduced the drop-out rate by 9% and seen success rates 8 % higher among those who receive it. The college concluded that without help to fund their travel, many learners would not be able to stay in further education or choose the course that was best for them. He might also hear the college’s principal Geoff Hall, who says:
“Education maintenance allowance has not only helped participation, it has also improved success. Surely this is too big a step, surely it should be phased so that we can take time to measure the impact?”
And what of Christmas future? If the Business Secretary does not bring down the Government, it could look very bleak indeed, including reduced social mobility, especially among those from ethnic minorities or one-parent families; fewer young people going on to further education or successfully completing their courses; and even higher youth unemployment, meaning another lost generation without the skills and education needed to secure the jobs of the future. Of course, it is not too late. Just as Scrooge realised the error of his ways, the Minister could still change his mind. After all, the Prime Minister has done so on school sports funding. The Minister can still decide not to decimate support for the most disadvantaged. I hope he will take the opportunity to spread a little Christmas cheer and agree to think again about this unfair, unproductive and unnecessary cut.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
May I wish you a merry Christmas, Mr Deputy Speaker?
I rise on an issue that continues to concern me greatly. I repeat my declaration of interest that I chair the justice for families campaign. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House wish to see the best possible outcomes for children who enter the care system. In trying to improve this, Tony Blair encouraged adoption, but made a big mistake along the way in miscalculating the percentage of children adopted from care.
Before I go any further, I should be precise about what I mean by “care”. When I say “in care”, I do not include those children voluntarily in care under section 20 of the Children Act 1989. In 2005, for example, 8,600 children left care and 3,400 of those left through adoption. That is 39.5%. If I could get the Department to analyse the figures by age, it would be clear that the majority of young children are leaving care through adoption. In Scotland, however, only 17% of the children who left care in 2009 aged under five left care through adoption. I accept that this includes a broader category, but if we take the numbers and uprate them for population size, we see that England has a rate of adoption from care in excess of 50% more. That is more than 1,000 children a year in England who are adopted rather than returning to their parents.
It appears that the substantial shift, which was a result of the previous Government’s pressure on authorities to increase the number of adoptions, was that children left care through adoption rather than returning to their parents. I see this in terms of individual cases where the judgments at times defy reason. It can also be seen very clearly when comparing practice in Scotland with that in England.
The Department has refused to provide many figures about the English system although some are now trickling out. When the adoption targets came in, there was a net flow into care. That would imply that the adoption pressure did not result in additional children leaving care, but instead caused the destination to change. Because the adoption target was miscalculated, there has been a general belief that adoptions from care were only a low percentage. An article written by Alan Rushton in 2007 about adoption from care states:
“Nevertheless, it would be wrong to think that any wholesale moving of children from birth families into adoptive families is taking place. Adoption from care concerns just a small proportion (6%) of all looked after children in England.”
That is clearly a misunderstanding of the situation. The Department was reporting 6% for a figure that, properly calculated, was more like 40%.
The concentration on adoption also means a lack of child protection. Peter Connolly died in August 2007, but nothing much changed until the criminal prosecution in 2008. Some 7,400 children were taken into care to the end of March 2008, 8,200 in 2009 and 9,500 in 2010. However, often the wrong children were taken into care and more babies were suspected to have died from child abuse in calendar year 2009 than in calendar year 2008. In 2008, the figure for England alone was 47 babies and 97 other children. In 2009, that increased—notwithstanding the increase in numbers of children taken into care—to 75 babies and 111 other children. There are two sides to this problem and both are unacceptable. Although the adoption targets and financial incentives were scrapped from 1 April 2008, the practice is still skewed by the pressures that gave rise to the initial changes.
The children themselves are asking why their families have been split up. There was a meeting recently in the House, attended by the Minister of State with responsibility for children and families, at which a girl asked why her sister had been adopted and she had been banned from seeing her. Additionally, as children such as Winona Vamey and Tammy Coulter get older, they are acting to reverse the adoptions.
The aggressive way in which the courts have gone after families has created many refugees from the UK—mainly from England although there is one from Scotland. Susen McCabe, Kiel and Lucille O’Regan, Fran Lyon, Kerry and Mark McDougall, Sam Thomas, Emily Burgess, Sam and Vanessa Hallimond and Angela Wileman are only a few examples for whom emigration was necessary to fight the system. Sam Thomas made the mistake of coming back to England—Somerset—and her daughter has now been put up for adoption.
At the same time, the rights of mothers such as Rachel Pullen and Husan Pari to even contest their own cases are removed on the basis of expert reports saying they are too stupid but which are later found to be in error. However, the Court of Appeal passes these cases through on the nod. False allegations of satanism and Munchausen’s syndrome continue to be accepted by the courts without a legal right to a second opinion. Dr Fintan Sheerin, Professor Mary McCarron, Professor Cecily Begley and Dr Jo Murphy-Lawless from Trinity College, Dublin wrote to me recently asking why these cases still happen in countries that pride themselves on respect for human rights. My answer was that the courts do not always properly follow the law in hearings that are held in secret where people get imprisoned in secret for complaining about injustice.
All this is in fact inhumane. Given time, the European Court of Human Rights may point this out. However, I hope that the Government will respond to this more quickly. More work on analysing the SSDA903 return is needed. It is not acceptable to use the code “other” for something as important as this.
Journalists such as Christopher Booker, Camilla Cavendish, Sue Reid, Denise Robertson, Daniel Foggo and many more have raised concerns about how the system is a machine for miscarriages of justice, but it keeps steamrolling over families and children. Many of the families affected will be lighting Chinese lanterns as a protest on Christmas eve at 10 pm. They will include Phil Thompson, whose great-grandchildren were put up for adoption for no good reason by Walsall council.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and it might give him chance to catch his breath as he seems to be in a great rush. I do not wish to detract from the serious cases that he mentions, but does he recognise that in many cases in which children are adopted from care it is because of the serious problems in their families and the neglect and abuse that they have, sadly, suffered?
John Hemming
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. There is a need for a care system, but it has to get things right. One of the reasons children are often taken into care is that the mother has been a victim of domestic abuse. Women’s Aid argues that we should protect the mother and child and keep them together, rather than say, “Oh, you as a mother have been a victim of domestic abuse. We are taking your child.”
This morning or late yesterday, I received an e-mail about Kirsty Seddon’s case in Oldham. She was brought up in care and essentially that has been used as an excuse to remove her child. Luckily, the European Court of Human Rights is taking the matter seriously, and has now written to the UK Government asking them to comment on the admissibility of her case. There is a fair chance that, whereas this has gone through the UK courts on the nod, it will end up being picked up by the ECHR.
Even if the Government fail to do something, Parliament should be able to act to identify what is going on. Things happen that defy reason, which is why people have to emigrate to get away from the system. I will not rest until Parliament or the Government act to stop these miscarriages of justice. Sadly, the family justice review does not seem to recognise the true situation. The Munro inquiry seems to have a better focus, but both inquiries are hobbled by not having enough members who are not part of the system. We have the usual “quis custodiet” question when the people who are substantially part of causing the problem are being asked to correct a problem that they themselves do not recognise exists. That needs to change.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and wish to raise the pressing issue of the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, which will be reduced under the replacement scheme—the enhanced learner support fund—to a paltry 13% of its current funding.
I have been overwhelmed by the correspondence and representations I have received from young people, their families and teaching staff decrying the Government’s decision. We keep hearing from the Government that nine out of 10 students would still continue with their further education without EMA. It is incredibly frustrating to hear these figures continually being trotted out because the study that this premise is based on is flawed: it asked only young people who study in school sixth forms, rather than those in further education colleges, which the majority of EMA recipients attend. Furthermore, the students polled came predominantly from white backgrounds, which does not reflect the true national make-up of the learners who receive vital EMA support.
I met a number of different student groups in Liverpool on Friday, and I asked them whether they would have started their courses without the EMA. Unsurprisingly, they said that although they would have tried, they would not have been able to afford it. Every young person I spoke to said that they put their EMA towards their travel costs, which were anything between £2 and £4.50 a day, with some students travelling up to two hours a day to attend college. They spent the remainder of their £30 a week on lunch, stationery and materials for their courses.
On a visit to the university of Liverpool, I spoke with some final-year modern language students. I met a young person called Danielle, who said that she would never have gone to college without her EMA—and if she had not gone to college, she would never have gone to university. Now, however, Danielle is about to graduate with an excellent degree and has a bright future ahead of her. The evidence from Liverpool community college about the benefit of EMA, in stark contrast to the flawed study the Government keep referring to, is that the retention rate is 5% higher for those receiving EMA than for those who do not receive it. There is a lot of similar evidence from colleges up and down the country, and at the end of today’s sitting I will present a petition collected from Liverpool community college and signed by 2,500 young people and teaching staff from across Merseyside. I share their concerns that the Government’s plans to remove EMA will have dire consequences on post-16 education in the Merseyside city region.
I have four questions for the Minister. First, why have the Government broken their pre-election pledge to keep EMA? Secondly, will the enhanced learner support fund cover students’ travel costs—a vital element of how the EMA is used? Thirdly, may we have a definitive answer on what will happen to students who have started their first year at college on the understanding that they will receive EMA throughout their course? Will they continue to receive it in their second year? Finally, according to the Government’s own figures, 76,000 young people stay on in further education because of EMA, saving the Government more than £4 billion on young people not in education, employment or training. How do the Government reconcile those figures with their continued reference to “dead-weight”—a term that many people have found incredibly offensive?
EMA offers so many young people from low-income households the opportunity to study without financial strain, and in many cases that can make the difference between a student achieving at college and not. The loss of EMA will damage our country’s economic future and is yet another betrayal of young people, in addition to many of the measures introduced over the past couple of months, whether on tuition fees, the loss of the future jobs fund and so on—the list goes on. I urge the Government to reverse their decision to abolish EMA.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The abolition of the education maintenance allowance is one of the issues that have caused greatest concern in my constituency. One of my constituents from Thornton wrote to me to say that he has signed the petition in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). He wrote:
“I am writing to you in my capacity as an employee of a large FE establishment in North Liverpool”—
and as one of my constituents. He continued:
“I have recently become increasingly alarmed at the ConDem’s plans to scrap Educational Maintenance Allowance for FE students. Given recent developments in the HE sector and last week’s student protests in London, it would seem that scrapping of the EMA is simply another plan to further undermine the education sector as a whole and, in many cases, to deprive learners of their right to an education. Although the abandonment of the EMA may have a lesser impact in more affluent areas, its effects will be felt much more in areas such as your constituency where an above-average number of learners are indeed in receipt of EMA. The ConDem’s plans to ‘bolt on’ a much lesser amount to the Discretionary Learner Support Fund will of course minimise the number of learners in receipt of financial assistance, and learners may be faced with finding other means of supporting themselves, and I have no doubt that some of these means may be less than legal.”
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
My hon. Friends are making a good case for the education maintenance allowance, but does my hon. Friend share my concern about young carers? College principals might not even know that some of their students are young carers, who need the incentive that EMA can give them to keep attending and to struggle on with their caring work load as well as their education.
Bill Esterson
Young carers are one of a number of vulnerable groups for whom EMA is especially important, and its loss would hit them and those who depend on them particularly hard. I hope that the Minister will consider that point among others.
My constituent told me that some of the means by which students will support themselves might be less than legal. He said that that was
“an opinion that I have heard in person on more than one occasion from students themselves”.
I have also heard similar comments about the potential of drug dealing as a source of income for students who lose EMA. I thought his was a balanced and responsible view of the impact of EMA from a member of staff with much experience.
The principal of Hugh Baird college in south Sefton, Jette Burford, also wrote to me saying that 84% of young people at the college currently receive EMA; that there is a clear indication that it has become a key part of the family income for those families; and that its discontinuation is very likely to impact on the participation rate locally. Ms Burford mentioned both the impact of losing the EMA on participation and attainment, and the fact that many students depend on it for help with their transport. When she wrote to me she did not know that Sefton students were likely to lose their free travel passes because Merseytravel has had its budget cut by two thirds.
EMA is essential for many students from low and middle-income families when it comes to travel, books, equipment and food, and its loss will make it very difficult for students to continue to study. EMA is a means-tested allowance of between £10 and £30 per week. Some 635,000 learners received at least one EMA payment in 2009-10, and about 80% of those received the full £30. That means that the people receiving the £30 come from low-income families on less than £20,800 per year. The loss of EMA for students from such low-income households will create a big hole in family incomes, which college principals have commented on.
EMA was introduced by the previous Labour Government to help with the cost of books, travel and equipment, and payments are made on the condition that students attend classes regularly. The evidence from colleges is that the incentive to turn up on time has worked well, and the evidence in Merseyside is that those on EMA outperform by 7% those who are not in receipt of it. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies gives a similar result.
The Department for Education is stopping new EMA at the end of this month, before it has alternative arrangements in place. The Department plans to stop paying the EMA in July 2011 to existing 16 to 18-year-old students who will be halfway through their courses. That means that EMA will be completely gone by July 2011—an unseemly rush. EMA has been widely credited with helping to create a big increase in the number of young people going on to college in the last seven years. The IFS revealed that EMA increased the proportion of 16-year-olds in full-time education by 4% and the proportion of 17-year-olds in full-time education by 7%.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that Newham sixth-form college in my constituency has the largest percentage of students receiving EMA. When I spoke to those at the college last week, they informed me that, in order to stay on at school, many students just handed the £30 a week to their families.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about the impact on family incomes, not just on the incomes of individual students.
The Association of Colleges continues to make it clear to Ministers and MPs that it thinks that the decision to abolish EMA will have a detrimental effect on recruitment, retention and achievement among 16 to 18-year-olds. A number of trade unions are also worried that axing EMA will mean that colleges are hit by further funding cuts—cuts that will put even more college jobs at risk. The coalition argues that 90% of the cost of EMA is “dead-weight”, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree said, that is an offensive statement to many students. It implies that students would have gone on to study without EMA. That claim does not stand up to scrutiny. Research by 157 large colleges and other, smaller colleges shows that students who receive the EMA have better attendance records and are more likely to complete courses than wealthier students who are not eligible for support. That research was published in The Times Educational Supplement on 3 December. Despite coming from the poorest families and, in some cases, having low qualifications, EMA students miss fewer classes and are more likely to stay in education than wealthier students. The IFS has confirmed that the costs of EMA are completely offset by the benefits, even taking into account the so-called “dead-weight” effect.
EMA has been a big success for students and the economy. It has improved the life chances of many, from low or middle-income families. EMA has improved this country’s skills base, because of the improved results among students receiving it, and has increased access to university for many, many students. The case for abolition is flawed, as it will see a cut in attendance that will not be addressed by the enhanced learner fund. As one college principal said to me, there is no way of knowing which students would stop attending and which would carry on if EMA was withdrawn. A review of EMA would be one thing; its abolition quite another. The coalition needs to withdraw its plans and it should continue with the widespread support for our young people that EMA promotes.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on getting so much into such a short speech. I know that he has a long-standing commitment to family justice, and it was clear from his speech that he shares the coalition’s commitment to ensuring that children in this country are able to enjoy safe, happy and carefree childhoods—an ambition that is shared across the House, as is our desire to give every child the chance to achieve to the very best of his or her abilities. In responding to my hon. Friend’s excellent speech, I want first to make the point that this Government recognise the importance of keeping families together. The law is clear: children should live with their parents wherever possible and, where necessary, families should be given extra support to help keep them together.
John Hemming
The difficulty is that it does not appear that the law is being followed. Will the Department establish an ombudsman scheme to review individual cases and see why the law is not being followed?
Mr Gibb
I know that my hon. Friend is meeting our hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education on 12 January, and I am sure that he can raise that with him at that meeting.
In most cases—indeed, the vast majority of cases—the extra support enables children to remain with their families. However, we are equally clear that there has to be balance in the system, so that where a child is suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm, the local authority has a statutory duty to take action to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. However, it is important to remember that local authorities cannot remove children from their parents’ care—unless it is with the parents’ consent, of course—without first referring the matter to a court. Similarly, local authorities cannot—again, without the parents’ consent—place a child for adoption with prospective adopters without a placement order made by a court. Needless to say, adoption can be a highly emotional time for the child, the parents and those adopting, but we know that outcomes—certainly in educational attainment and health—are as good for children who are adopted as they are for children growing up with their birth parents.
John Hemming
Given that about a quarter of adoptions are disrupted, and the children are returned to care, does my hon. Friend take on board the point that any statistical test of the effect of adoption should include the effect on those for whom it fails?
Mr Gibb
The figures are based on comparing the overall statistics for children in care with those for children who are adopted.
Although we recognise that adoption will be suitable for only a relatively small number of children, it is none the less important that we get things right and help more children who need adoption to find secure and happy homes with adoptive parents. We believe that one of the best ways of achieving that is through more collaborative working with voluntary adoption agencies, so that adoption services are enhanced and families are found for the most difficult-to-place children. We also want to see improvements in adoption practice, particularly in the matching of black and minority ethnic children with prospective adopters. Race should not be a barrier to a successful placement. What matters is a loving and stable family environment. That is why my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has written to all directors of children’s services and lead members to ask them to do everything possible to increase the number of children appropriately placed for adoption, and to improve the speed with which decisions are made.
John Hemming
The Minister said that adoption is suitable only for a small number of children. The difficulty is that a majority of under-fives in care are adopted.
Mr Gibb
I am not sure whether those statistics are right, but, again my hon. Friend can take that up with the Under-Secretary at his meeting. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has set up a ministerial advisory group on adoption, to provide expert advice on a range of practical proposals to remove barriers to adoption and reduce delay, but I understand the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has raised.
Bill Esterson
The Minister made an important point about the involvement of voluntary sector agencies in adoption—indeed, I have been pleased with all his comments on the subject. However, does he accept that it is important to ensure both that proper financial resources are in place for the adoption process and that no short cuts are taken? That is where things can go horribly wrong.
Mr Gibb
Of course financial resources are always important, but the hon. Gentleman must appreciate the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves. That was noticeably lacking both from his speech and those of his hon. Friends.
I understand the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. We need to ask hard questions about child-protection arrangements and court processes. That is why we have the review by Professor Munro, which is looking at safeguarding, front-line practice and transparency. I listened to my hon. Friend’s speech carefully. We are concerned that the number of children in care adopted in the past year has decreased by 4%, to 3,200. The real question that we should be asking is not whether too many children or, indeed, too few are in care, but simply whether the right children are in care. I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is extremely concerned that, by not understanding that point, we risk undermining the work of the many excellent professionals on whom we rely to keep vulnerable children safe—or, worst of all, that we risk damaging the chances of many children who would greatly benefit from a second chance of a stable family upbringing.
I would like to turn to the points raised by the hon. Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). The speech by the hon. Member for Nottingham South took the theme of “A Christmas Carol”, and perhaps if the previous Government had learned a little from the accounting techniques of Ebenezer Scrooge, this country might not now have the worst budget deficit of all the G20 countries. I listened carefully to the hon. Members, but not one suggested how we should try to find £0.5 billion of savings from the public sector, let alone the £81 billion for the structural deficit that we have to close.
We face an unprecedented budget deficit, under which we are spending £156 billion a year more than we receive in tax revenue, and a global economic environment in which the sovereign debt of nations running unsustainable deficits is leading to major financial crises for those countries. Those crises are preventing and delaying economic recovery, and we do not want this country to be in that position. Every element of public spending is therefore subject to scrutiny, and programmes that cost £0.5 billion a year cannot be exempt from that scrutiny.
We need to ensure that the young people who need support to continue their education receive it. In the current climate, however, those who need it cannot be regarded as 45% of the whole cohort, and the money needs to be better targeted. That is why we are introducing a different system of student support that will allow schools and colleges to provide help to those young people who genuinely need it in order to stay in education.
The education maintenance allowance has been in existence for about six years, having been rolled out nationally in 2004 following a pilot. In its early years, it was successful in raising participation rates among 16-year-olds from 87% in 2004 to 96% this year. As a consequence, attitudes among 16-year-olds to staying on in education have changed. When the National Foundation for Educational Research questioned recipients of EMA, it found that 90% would have stayed on in education regardless of whether they received the allowance, although the £30 a week received by the majority of EMA recipients is a helpful sum for a young person.
Lilian Greenwood
Does the Minister accept that, even if 88% of young people would have stayed on in education anyway, the EMA encourages better attendance and allows learners to enjoy more study time, because they do not need to take on part-time work? It has therefore been important in improving the success rates for that disadvantaged group.
Barbara Keeley
I made a point earlier about young carers. I fail to see how a discretionary fund can help when young carers are so hidden. College principals and head teachers often do not know when their students are also carers, so how will they know how to target the funding? They will not.
Mr Gibb
The hon. Lady raises a wider issue about young carers. The coalition Government are concerned about young carers generally, not just in sixth forms and in colleges but in schools, and we are identifying those young people to ensure that they have the support and help that they need. When they attend college and seek help, however, the funds should be targeted at those who are in genuine need, including young carers.
In reaching the decision to reform the system, we were concerned that the 10% of recipients who according to the evidence would be put off from staying in education but for the money from the EMA might then drop out of education. We felt that a payment designed as an incentive to participate was no longer the right way to ensure that those facing real financial barriers to participation got the support they needed. So we decided to use a proportion of the £560 million to increase the value of the discretionary learner support fund. Final decisions about the quantum of that fund have still to be taken, but we have spoken of up to three times the current value of the fund, which now stands at £25.4 million.
A fund of that size would, for example, enable 100,000 young people to receive £760 each year, and 100,000 students is about 15% of the number of young people currently receiving EMA, which is more than the 10% about whom we are particularly concerned might not stay on in education. The £760 is more than the average annual EMA of £730 paid in 2009-10, and only slightly less than the £813 paid to 16-year-olds receiving the full £30 per week. We have not yet decided, because we are still consulting on it, how the money will be paid, to whom and for what purposes.
Luciana Berger
Liverpool community college currently pays out £1.7 million in education maintenance allowance to 90% of its students, who are in receipt of the full £30 a week because their household incomes are less than £20,800. In addition, the college disbursed £192,000. If the Minister is saying that he will multiply the current figure by three, that is still only a fraction of what goes to those most deprived households at the moment. How on earth is that going to help those students who desperately need help to get to college, to eat and to pay for the materials that they need to do their courses?
Mr Gibb
By definition, if students at that college constitute the 15% most deprived young people, in terms of their access to income, they will receive more than the amount the hon. Lady says is currently being received by the discretionary learner support fund.
To help schools and colleges to administer the fund, and to ensure that those young people who really need support to enable them to continue their education or training post-16 get access to the new fund, we are working with schools and colleges, and with other key organisations such as the Association of Colleges, Centrepoint, the Sutton Trust, the Association of School and College Leaders, the National Union of Students and the Local Government Association to develop a model approach that schools and colleges can choose to adopt or adapt, to inform them how to distribute the funds, and to whom.
Bill Esterson
The Institute for Fiscal Studies is clear that, even taking into account the deadweight effect of the 12% who might carry on attending without EMA, the costs of the scheme are outweighed by the benefits. I quoted a college principal in my speech, and colleges are clear that they will be unable to work out who would stop attending if EMA were withdrawn. I would therefore be interested to hear from the Minister how the new system is going to work. He says that he is talking to the colleges, but how will he ensure that the new fund reaches the right students?
Mr Gibb
On that last point, the colleges are already experienced in administering the learner support fund. We are simply increasing the value of that fund, and the same college principals and head teachers will be administering it. We are talking about a significantly higher sum, however, and we will allow more discretion in the disbursement of the money, which is why we are talking to the Association of Colleges and others about how to administer it more fairly. Also, 5% of the fund will be available to cover the cost of administration.
The hon. Member for Sefton Central talked about the IFS research, as did other hon. Members. The IFS study says that the cost of the EMA scheme would have been recouped in the long run by helping to raise wage levels as a result of higher staying-on rates. I understand that argument, and I do not disagree with it. However, the IFS, in evaluations carried out with the Centre for Research in Social Policy, has previously said that EMA would increase participation by 4 percentage points, and up to 9 percentage points for young people from the poorest backgrounds. So the IFS’s own findings are consistent with the Department’s findings, and with the NFER’s conclusion that 90% of young people receiving EMA would have continued in education regardless of the payments. For those who really do need help to participate in post-16 education—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The House is well aware that we have tried to keep Ministers to 10 minutes, but we have now drifted over the 15-minute mark. I am sure that the Minister will have taken that on board, as he now comes to the end of his speech .
Mr Gibb
I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and to the House. I have probably taken too many interventions. I just want to cover one more point before I finish, and that is the point raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree about transport.
Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that no young person in their area is prevented from attending education post-16 because of a lack of transport, or support for it. If that duty is not being met, young people and families need to raise it with the local authority. Young people were never expected to use a significant proportion of their EMA to cover transport costs. Under the current arrangements for discretionary support funding, it cannot be used routinely for transport to and from college because local authorities have that statutory duty. However, we will consider introducing flexibility to that restriction as we develop the arrangements for enhanced discretionary learner support funding.
In today’s economic climate, we have a particular duty to ensure that we continue to invest where investment is needed and to obtain the best possible value for taxpayers’ money. In those circumstances, it is difficult to justify spending over £560 million a year on an allowance when 90% of its recipients would have stayed in education without it. That is why we have thought again about the most effective way of helping the most vulnerable young people to stay in education.
I wish all Members, and officials from the Department, a very good Christmas and a successful new year.
Treasury
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to highlight the need for a more co-ordinated approach to the teaching of financial capability to ensure that no young person leaves school without the benefit of that critical life skill.
Financial capability can be briefly described as the ability to manage one’s own finances and to become an informed consumer of financial services. Some excellent work is being done in schools, and I shall refer to it shortly, but more needs to be done. The delivery of financial education in schools is patchy, as there is no requirement to provide it. My son Samuel will leave his excellent school in a few months’ time without having received a single lesson in financial education, although the term PHSE stands for “personal, health, social and economic education”.
Before I go into more detail, let me emphasise that I am a proponent of prevention rather than cure, and that I recognise the vital effort that goes into counselling people out of debt. However, I believe we have a problem that a co-ordinated approach to financial literacy will do much to alleviate. All Members are aware of the high levels of personal debt and the untold stress that much of it causes. Each day a staggering 372 people are declared bankrupt, and citizens advice bureaux are currently dealing with some 9,400 new debt problems every working day. A recent survey by another highly effective debt advice organisation, Christians Against Poverty, showed that 74% of its clients had visited a GP while suffering from stress and other medical problems caused by debt.
I have had 20 years’ experience of running a law firm, and during that time the biggest single cause of marital discord among those entering my firm’s doors seeking divorce advice has been money differences. Sadly, many couples enter relationships without being capable of addressing financial challenges together. It is partly because I have witnessed those problems for many years, and the huge personal cost that they entail, that I raise this issue today.
The cost to the national budget of dealing with the ramifications of poor financial literacy must be vast, not only because of relationship breakdowns but because of the implications for the health of individuals and families. A recent study by Aviva and a leading psychologist at City university found that those with sensible financial plans were happier overall and had a stronger sense of financial well-being, and that that was the case regardless of salary.
I believe that the big society, represented by both voluntary and commercial organisations and by government locally and nationally, can work together effectively to give young people and their parents the tools to draw up positive and informed financial plans that will help to secure their future happiness. The need for that is pressing.
Let me offer an example of best practice. Two years ago in my constituency Will Spendilow, a former chief IT architect for Barclays bank, started to visit Congleton high school and Eaton Bank school in my constituency on a voluntary basis. He helps GCSE and A-level students to understand the importance of financial planning, using the DebtCred curriculum, one of many that are available. It empowers children to set life goals and choices, helps teenagers to articulate their short-term and long-term financial goals, and helps students to budget by explaining what proportion of a wage is spent on essentials. Young people learn about the implications and the costs of borrowing; they also learn how to read a bank statement, put together a budget, and distinguish between financial products.
Mr Spendilow’s work has been received enthusiastically by schools and recognised by the high sheriff of Cheshire, Diana Barbour, who has congratulated him on his “sterling achievements”. At the end of one of his classes a teacher said to the young people, “That is the best and most valuable PHSE lesson that you have ever had.” However, when I asked Mr Spendilow what provision there would be if he did not teach financial capability, he said that he did not know of any.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on raising a subject that I consider to be tremendously important. I particularly endorse what she has said about Christians Against Poverty and the citizens advice bureaux, which operate in my constituency. Does she share my huge disappointment that there is no Treasury Minister present to respond—[Interruption.] I was not aware that the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) was a Treasury Minister. Is he the Treasury Minister who will respond to the debate?
Fiona Bruce
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I believe that financial literacy is an essential element of every young person’s education. Including it in the curriculum would decrease the cost to so many people—and to the nation—of personal debt, family breakdown and ill health. Even more important, it would enable all young people to embark on adulthood with a vital tool, and to realise their full potential in life. I hope that the Minister agrees that this is a vital issue that we need to address sooner rather than later.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Government to send a Whip rather than a Minister to respond to the debate?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Members may be disappointed that no Treasury Minister is present, but let me say in fairness that the Whip is a Minister. He is part of the Government, and he has the right to speak from the Front Bench. That is the position. There may be disappointment, but I am sure that we shall hear full and thorough answers. We all look forward to the response from the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill).
Fiona Bruce
Let me end by saying that I know my concerns are shared by a number of Members, and that I look forward to hearing the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) shortly.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
I wish to raise the issue of the funding settlement for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, for two reasons. First, it is important to my constituents, many of whom work in the Cumbernauld branch of HMRC, one of the largest tax offices in the country. Secondly, it is important to the nation for our tax to be collected efficiently and effectively.
I have several questions for the Minister about the settlement that HMRC received in the comprehensive spending review. It mandates overall resource savings of 15% and efficiency savings of 25%. I should be grateful if the Minister clarified the precise meaning of those two figures. To what budget does the 25% refer? What proportion of the 15% overall resource saving will be met from efficiencies, and what proportion will be met through a reduction in the scope of HMRC’s activities? How does the Minister define an efficiency saving? And—this is the most important question for my constituents in Cumbernauld—what is the Minister’s most recent estimate of the number of redundancies that he expects at HMRC across the country during the spending review period, and what proportion of them will be compulsory?
Will the Minister confirm that neither the £900 million for combating tax avoidance nor the £100 million for reducing error, both of which were announced in the comprehensive spending review, will be additional money for HMRC? Will he also explain whether the figures refer to annual allocations, or to money redirected to these purposes over the entire spending review period? How does the Minister expect HMRC to achieve such a redirection of resources, in the context of significant cuts to its overall resource budget?
I would like to place HMRC’s funding settlement in a broader context and draw attention to some specific problems faced by my constituents working in the Cumbernauld office.
Mr Umunna
Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the hugely increased bureaucracy that HMRC will have to deal with because of the change to child benefit, which will require HMRC in some sense to monitor the incomes and outgoings of millions of families across the country?
Gregg McClymont
My hon. Friend raises an important point, which speaks to the overall context in which HMRC will be operating.
We know that there is no direct correlation between reduced funding and increased output. The productivity of individual public servants can increase, but overall output can still decline. There comes a point when any organisation can no longer do more with less. If resources are reduced too far and too hastily, it will end up doing less with less, even if productivity increases. Does the Minister accept that it will be extremely difficult to deliver the additional revenue and improved customer service that we need from HMRC in the context of large reductions in overall expenditure?
Many of the savings that the Government talk about will be made through redundancies and restructuring. Staff motivation and industrial relations at HMRC are already poor. These problems have been recognised by HMRC, which was the subject of heavy criticism in the capability review published by the Cabinet Office in 2009. The review found that only 25% of HMRC staff, compared with 61% of senior civil servants, were proud to work for the Department. In the 2009 staff survey, only 11% of all staff and 17% of senior civil servants felt that change is well managed in HMRC.
We know that working in HMRC is often a difficult job. Dealing with people who are recalcitrant in paying their tax is, I suggest—without direct experience of it—often not much fun, yet staff morale is extremely important. I worry that a combination of low staff morale and further funding cuts is likely to lead to further problems for HMRC. Staff in Cumbernauld, for example, are deeply concerned about the restructuring that is taking place among staff in the benefits and credits section, a reform that is taking place two years ahead of the planned move to universal credit.
These staff have been threatened with compulsory relocation to other tax offices in East Kilbride and Livingston, a source of particular concern for staff with child care and caring responsibilities. I hear that there are fewer jobs available in these new offices than there are posts in Cumbernauld. Staff who are not redeployed might be labelled as surplus, with an uncertain future. Staff in payroll and human resources for the whole of HMRC are also based in Cumbernauld. They are extremely concerned about potential redundancies following the introduction of next generation human resources.
Does the Minister expect that these changes will result in redundancies in Cumbernauld, or will the Cumbernauld office perhaps expand its functions and its staffing? More broadly, can he give us an assurance that HMRC will improve the manner in which it manages change in its organisation?
Finally, I would like to ask a broader question about HMRC’s strategic vision. Does the Minister accept that there is a tension between announcing Britain’s business- friendly credentials to the world and cracking down on tax evasion, particularly by companies and wealthy individuals? In particular, what view does he take of the remarks that David Hartnett, Permanent Secretary, made in the Financial Times last August, when he suggested that
“HMRC is packed full of very intelligent people but we are sometimes too black and white about the law”?
Does the Minister believe that it is possible for tax officials to be “too black and white” about the antisocial behaviour of tax evaders? I can assure him that my constituents, and no doubt those of every hon. Member, do not take that view.
A well resourced and properly motivated HMRC is crucial to the important work of Government. I ask the Minister to provide more detail on the implications of HMRC’s funding settlement, and to consider the assumptions underpinning it.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
First, I wish all a wonderful Christmas.
As my contribution has been transferred from the education category to the Treasury category, I will take full advantage of the Treasury’s love of statistics and utilise them well in my speech. As my requests are generally related to the Department for Education, with a sparkling of festive spirit it will be nice and easy to secure agreement on all my requests.
I strongly believe that we have a duty to ensure that young people are equipped to make informed financial decisions. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who made an excellent speech on the subject. I have been working with the Personal Financial Education Group, the Consumer Financial Education Body, and Martin Lewis of www.moneysavingexpert.com to set up an all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people.
The purpose of the APPG will be to provide a medium through which MPs, peers and organisations with an interest in financial education can discuss the current provision on financial education in schools; ensure that young people are equipped to make informed financial decisions; help make resources and qualifications available to young people in education; support schools in the delivery of financial capability; and encourage the introduction of a requirement on schools to provide financial education.
Recent studies have shown that 94% of people think that financial education for young people is important in the current environment. Society is changing, making financial education ever more important. This year for the first time we saw that debit card use overtook the use of money. Long gone are the days when people were paid weekly in cash and were able to budget to the point where they ran out of money. We now have more direct debits, more standing orders and more contracts. Having been a councillor for 10 years before becoming an MP, I saw among the residents whom I represented that many of those unfortunate enough to lose their job would quickly be overwhelmed by the outgoings from their bank account, even when they thought that they were not spending any money.
We receive increasingly complicated marketing messages. One point that was highlighted to me was the worrying number of people who think the higher the APR, the better. Young people will never be able to get 100%-plus mortgages or to repair past financial mistakes through rising house prices and start again. In these challenging economic times, 69% of parents are concerned that their children will get into debt in the future. Less than a quarter of parents feel very confident about educating their children in how to manage money.
This was brought home to me last Friday when I and my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), with whom I share an office, held a training day with Citizens Advice, R3 and Nationwide building society to train us as MPs and our staff in how to deal with people who are in financial difficulty. Sixty per cent. of Citizens Advice’s work relates to debt and benefits, with the average client owing £16,970, which would take an average of 93 years to pay off at a rate that they can afford. I am sure all MPs share my concerns about the impact of debt. Interestingly, 91% of those who admitted to financial mistakes believe that financial education could have helped them avoid making those mistakes. I am sure a few MPs were included in that survey.
I believe schools have an essential role to play, and that is widely supported. Some 91% of teachers and parents agree that it is important that children learn to budget from a young age.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the cracking work he is doing in establishing the APPG. Does he agree that what we need to do better in schools is not only encourage young people to take qualifications, but mainstream financial education into the curriculum? One idea from a head teacher at Goole was that we should include it on the curriculum as part of functional maths.
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. He has already put his name on the APPG list, and he will have a very important role to play in it. I hope many other MPs will put their names down too. Through working with teachers and teacher organisations, we will find the best way to engage with young children. Young people will support that too, as 97% of 11 to 17-year-olds think it is important to learn about money in school. School provision for personal financial education is still patchy, however, and 72% of parents think not enough has been done in the past to educate children about financial matters.
While there are many examples of excellent work, often led by the PFEG or banks and building societies, far too many schools have no, or extremely limited, provision. Through the APPG, we want to drive up standards and participation. Ideally, all children should have access to standard, consistent and engaging provision, but in the meantime we must do all we can to maximise participation.
My Christmas wish is for Members to join the APPG. I am sure all Members have their pens poised, so I will inform them that the group’s official launch will be on 31 January between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm in the Jubilee Room, with Martin Lewis from MoneySavingExpert. I am aware that piles of Christmas cards will currently be covering hon. Members’ desks, but among them is an invitation—it will already have landed—so I ask them to keep an eye out for it.
As part of the group’s work, we will be looking to promote a balanced response. There are many different challenges ahead. Everybody is broadly supportive, but we must progress in a way that everybody can get behind and support. We have therefore been working with over 30 organisations, including banks and building societies, financial institutions, charitable organisations, schools and teaching organisations and, as I have said, Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert with, crucially, his 6.4 million subscribers, who will be encouraged to support this scheme.
At Christmas families face the greatest temptation to make the wrong financial decisions, so now would be a great time for us to make a difference. We should imagine what a difference it would make to our casework if people were able to make better and more-informed decisions.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Before I call the next speaker, may I wish the House—Members, staff and visitors—all the best for Christmas, and may we all have a good new year?
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I echo those wishes of good will and merriment to the House.
Before I start talking about choice and competition in the banking sector, I would like to put on record my thanks to the Building Societies Association and the pressure group Compass for giving me assistance in preparing for this debate, and to the fantastic staff of the Treasury Committee, who have provided excellent briefings to me and other Members throughout our ongoing inquiry into choice and competition in the sector.
The financial crisis had a major impact on the shape of the banking sector. There has been widespread consolidation, and concerns have been raised that competition in the sector is not working—with, for example, investigations by the Office of Fair Trading into overdraft charges—and that there is now an ever greater lack of choice and diversity in financial services. That is borne out by the latest OFT figures on market concentration. In the personal current account market, the five largest providers in the country have a 73% market share. In the mortgage market, they make up over 75% of gross lending. They have cornered over 90% of the credit card market as well. By way of comparison, in Spain, the US and Germany, the five largest providers have less than 50% of the personal current account market. In all but a couple of cases, the largest providers are banks. There has been just one new start-up retail bank, Metro Bank, since 2008. These figures demonstrate that there is a lack of choice and diversity in the sector, which, of course, also reduces competition.
I believe we can increase choice and competition by growing and expanding the mutual sector. I hope the Government agree with me on that, particularly as a commitment was given in the coalition agreement to
“bring forward detailed proposals to foster diversity in financial services…and create a more competitive banking industry”,
in part by promoting mutuals.
But why mutuals, and what can they offer that standard banks cannot? First, mutuals are democratic. Banks are accountable to shareholders who demand a rising share price and a big dividend, whereas mutuals, collectively owned by their customers, have a collective of people who vote on the direction they wish the institution to take.
Gregg McClymont
I have been listening closely to my hon. Friend’s comments. Given the Government’s commitment to what they call the big society, does my hon. Friend agree that mutuals seem to be a perfect example of collective self-organisation of the type the Government talk about?
Mr Umunna
I agree with my hon. Friend and I shall expand on that matter a little later. An example of the participation of members of mutuals is displayed when one attends a building society annual general meeting. The participation rates in such AGMs have increased sharply over the years, and some have member panels, which play an enhanced role in the management of the organisation. I am in favour of markets, but properly regulated ones. That means that we need to redemocratise the market so that it serves people, rather than having things the other way round, which is an avenue we have gone down too much over the past couple of decades. Giving life to mutuals is a good way of redemocratising the financial services sector.
Secondly, mutuals add biodiversity to the financial services sector; a thriving mutuals sector adds to the diversity of the financial system. The more diversified the financial system in terms of size, ownership and structure of businesses, the better able it is to withstand the strains produced by normal business cycles and we can also avoid the herd instinct commonly displayed in the market over recent times.
Thirdly, mutuals have a lesser appetite for indulging in risky financial activities and so, on the whole, they weathered the storm well during the global financial crisis. For example, building society mortgage arrears are less than two thirds of those of the market as a whole. Building societies are also, thankfully, legally barred from taking positions in derivatives, foreign currency and commodity markets, which is where other financial organisations have found themselves in deep trouble. Where mutuals have run into difficulty, as the Dunfermline building society did in March 2009, it has been because they have moved away from the traditional mutual business model. So a growth in mutuals will not only reduce exposure to risky financial activities, but bring systemic advantages. It will foster a culture that moves away from the risky, reckless behaviours that we have seen precipitate the crisis, and so we can reduce the chances of that reoccurring.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech on an important issue. Does his argument go on to say that the large banks should be broken up into smaller ones, as in the example from the United States?
Mr Umunna
I do not wish to pre-empt the inquiry being carried out by the Treasury Committee. I have some sympathy for those views, but I would like to continue to hear the evidence that my Committee is taking on this matter and read some of the submissions to the Independent Commission on Banking before coming to a firm view.
The fourth argument that I make in favour of mutuals is that they have strong local links and roots in local communities. Mutuals are often regionally based and therefore often have a better understanding of those they seek to serve because they understand and are rooted in those communities. Finally, mutuals will undoubtedly help to promote competition. As I have mentioned, building societies do not have to pay dividends to shareholders, so they can use their funds either to pay higher savings rates or provide lower mortgage rates. It is no surprise that they regularly top the “best buy” tables.
Justin Tomlinson
As the Nationwide building society’s head office is in Swindon, I fully support the points that the hon. Gentleman is making. To further strengthen them, may I say that the lack of competition will lead to higher costs and charges for customers?
Mr Umunna
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I do not wish to speak for too long, so I will just conclude by talking a bit about Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. As we all know, Northern Rock was nationalised on 18 February 2008, having been demutualised in 1997. After it demutualised, it had moved away from the traditional mutual business model and famously came unstuck in the summer of 2007. Likewise, Bradford & Bingley was taken into public ownership on 29 September 2008, having demutualised in December 2000. It, too, had run into trouble at the height of the crisis. For all the reasons that I have mentioned, we should remutualise Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley as soon as we can.
In answer to a written question on 3 November, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who I am disappointed to see is not present, given that he was here for Treasury questions earlier, said:
“The Government have made it clear that they are not a permanent investor in UK banks and that their intention, over time, is to dispose of all the investments in an orderly way.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 825W.]
So I ask the Minister who is here, what is the Government’s current view on the issues that I have raised? Are the Government open to remutualisation as a way of meeting their promise in the coalition agreement to promote mutuals? If not, why not? How else do they propose to promote mutuals as promised? Has the Treasury carried out a feasibility study of the remutualisation of Northern Rock and of Bradford & Bingley? If it has not, I call on the Government to do so and publish the findings of that study, so that we might have a proper national debate on the issue.
If the Minister is unable to reply to my detailed questions today, will he undertake to ensure that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury provides me with details of the same? I cannot emphasise to the House how important I think those issues are, because if we are serious about ensuring that our constituents do not have to pay the price for the global financial crisis that in turn contributed to and caused the recession, we as a collective absolutely need to get a grip on such matters.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
May I extend my good wishes to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to all Members and staff?
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), because I, too, wish to raise a matter relating to high street banks. I shall discuss the proposals to withdraw the ability to write cheques, and in referring to that issue my remarks will in part be the reflections of a new Member—perhaps appropriate for this time of year—and draw on my early experience in a new role.
In August, I received a letter from a constituent, Miss Patricia Keats, who wrote to tell me that she was 87 years old, and since the closure of her local post office had found it difficult to get hold of cash. With her pension paid directly into her bank account, she found it convenient to ask a friend to take out cash for her and then to use her cheque book to pay that person. In addition, Miss Keats told me how useful her cheque book is for paying people who help her at home, such as her chiropodist; and how useful it is, when she watches a disaster unfold on TV, such as in Haiti or in Pakistan, for sending a donation. So, she wrote that she has real concerns about the banks’ proposals.
I am afraid that when I received Miss Keats’s letter I did not respond as thoroughly as I might have. I replied, simply pointing out that the proposal is fairly distant; that it will not come in until 2018; and that alternatives are being considered. I regret my response: I did not consider the issue sufficiently thoroughly, take account of her personal circumstances and wishes or do as much as I should have done to represent her interests. I am pleased to have the opportunity to put that matter right by going into the issue in more detail today.
This is a matter for the Payments Council, the organisation that directs the strategy for UK payments. The industry set it up in 2007 to ensure that payment systems and services meet the needs of payment service providers, users and the wider economy. Last year, the council’s board decided to set a target date of 2018 for closing central cheque clearing.
Some 4 million cheques are still written every day, so there is still a large number although it fell by 12% between 2000 and 2008, leading retailers such as Tesco and Marks and Spencer to refuse to accept them in their stores. Many people will know from their everyday experience that cheque usage is falling as people make payments by other methods, such as direct debits and internet banking.
Mark Pawsey
My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but somebody in the older age group has drawn the issue to my attention, and I shall go on to mention how it affects not just those people but others.
It is true, none the less, that those most resisting change are older residents, such as Miss Keats, who often do not have internet access or are uncomfortable with the open-ended commitment of a direct debit, which involves a supplier, frequently a large, faceless corporation, being able to put its hand into their bank account.
I am myself of a generation that grew up with a cheque book, and I do not wish to see them go, despite having seen cheques used inappropriately; I am thinking about the idiot in the student union bar who, rather than taking out some cash, insists on paying for half a pint of bitter with a cheque, to the irritation of other customers and bar staff alike. It is clear that people generally do not want cheques to go. For settling an account with a provider of goods or services, sending a cheque is a simple and easy method of payment—not least because the cheque book stub is a convenient reminder of which bills have been paid.
Charities in particular do not want cheques to go; they fear that that would mean a decline in their incomes because many of their donors are nervous about other methods. Small businesses do not want them to go either, because it is easy to reconcile accounts when payments are made by cheque, often with invoice numbers written on the back.
Justin Tomlinson
I fully support that point about small businesses. As one who has spent many years reconciling accounts, I think that too often internet bank accounts do not show the full details, while it is always crystal clear who a cheque has come from.
Mark Pawsey
Absolutely. I spent 25 years running a small business and I know that the information on the back of cheques is of great value.
I am pleased that the Government recognise the seriousness of the issue. I appreciate the recent ministerial letter that recognised people’s concerns. It acknowledged that no decision on closure will be taken before 2016 and that that would depend on suitable replacement methods having been established. I am also pleased that the Government welcome the Payments Council’s commitment to reassure cheque users that their interests will not be ignored. But it is not enough simply to say that 2018 is a long way off, and it is not helpful to tell people that a facility will be withdrawn in the future without telling them what the alternatives might be. Individuals, businesses and charities want certainty about what might be happening.
I hope that this afternoon I have put right a wrong in my response to Miss Keats and that I have done justice to the points that she raised by asking the Minister to go a little further than he has until now and respond to the final plea that Miss Keats made in her letter that he
“do what he can do to support the very many people who want and need to keep cheques.”
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
It gives me great pleasure to respond to the Members who have contributed to this debate. I stand as the Treasury Minister who sits next to the Chancellor at all the meetings at No. 11, even if I am generally not allowed to speak in the House.
My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) raised the issue of improving financial literacy and education for the young. Over the past decade, people’s financial habits have changed considerably. High personal debt coupled with low savings are something that we need to address, especially when they are looked at in the context of the financial crisis and the ageing population. There is no point in giving consumers detailed information about annual percentage rates and other financial data in connection with products if they do not understand what an APR is. When one sees the rates of interest charged by credit and store cards or doorstep lenders, that brings home the need for better financial education.
As a Government, we want people to take greater personal responsibility for their finances. As my hon. Friends said, giving people access to financial advice and education is an important part of that. That is why we have tasked the Consumer Financial Education Body, or CFEB, to deliver a free financial advice service by spring next year. That will improve financial literacy and help consumers to take charge of their own finances. It may even save a few marriages along the way.
A vital component of the service will be the annual financial health check, to provide people with a holistic overview of their finances. In tandem, the CFEB supports financial education through the “Learning Money Matters” programme, which offers free advice and resources to schools that want to teach personal finance education. I remind the House that finance education is currently part of the personal, social, health and economic education syllabus for key stages 1 to 4. However, I was concerned to hear that the son of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton did not receive that tuition as part of the syllabus. As a parent, perhaps she could get in touch with her parent governor or head teacher to ensure that it is covered in future. I was pleased to hear how the banks are interacting with local schools to provide that type of tuition.
I, too, have received an invitation to the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people. I certainly look forward to attending on 31 January, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Dr Creasy), who are the co-chairmen of the group. As a fan of Martin Lewis, who appears regularly on GMTV, I know he reaches 6.4 million people through his website and his appearances—dare I suggest that that is fewer people than are watching this debate?
The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) raised the issue of the HMRC settlement. As an employer, I know Cumbernauld well because the name appears on the prepaid envelopes when I send off my tax to that particular office. The office employs 1,500 staff and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that it has a key role in debt management and collection, and that there are no plans substantially to reduce numbers in that office.
As with all Departments, HMRC will deliver on its efficiency savings programme by concentrating on the core elements of the service it provides. In the case of HMRC, that means ensuring that resources are more efficiently focused on collecting revenue and providing a better service to the British taxpayer. As part of its settlement, HMRC will therefore improve the pay-as-you-earn system, so that there is greater use of real-time information, and extend its online resources to reduce the demands placed on contact centres.
HMRC will reinvest the £900 million in savings to tackle avoidance, evasion and criminal activity. Those savings will be recycled into activities working against tax avoidance, evasion and criminal attack to collect additional revenue of £7 billion per annum by 2014-15. That will deliver a more robust criminal deterrent against tax evasion and will increase the number of criminal prosecutions fivefold. There will also be a crackdown on offshore evasion, with the creation of a new dedicated team of investigators to catch those hiding offshore money. We wish to clear the backlog of PAYE cases by 2012 and stabilise the service in order to recover and improve customer service. Central to that will be undertaking the next stage of consultation on improving PAYE through the use of real-time information to bring improvements to employers and taxpayers. Of course, in the past, that has resulted in underpayments and overpayments, some of which had to be written off and some of which had to be collected at great expense.
Mr Goodwill
I think I will just continue. I have a very detailed brief that I am sure my right hon. Friends the Chief Secretary or the Chancellor will put into a detailed response. Given the time, I cannot go into the issues in detail, but there are a number of tables that I am sure will reassure the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. Suffice it to say, the work force and change plans are still being developed. Until those plans are completed, HMRC cannot say what the position will be on redundancies or exits.
Gregg McClymont
I thank the Minister for his response. From what he said, can I take it that the Department will write to me with the detailed figures? Is that the position?
Mr Goodwill
Yes, I am sure that that is the case. The first choice is to redeploy, but where that is not possible because of location or skills, exits will be used as a last resort. HMRC will recruit people if it cannot otherwise fill roles with people who have the right skills.
On the point about child benefit changes within a reducing settlement, the changes will be managed from within the settlement. Withdrawing child benefit from households with a higher rate taxpayer can be done within existing PAYE and self-assessment systems. HMRC will therefore not need to contact all 7.8 million households in receipt of child benefit. From a customer’s perspective, that delivery option does not place a burden on all child benefit claimants; it limits the impact to those households containing higher-rate taxpayers.
On the issue of whether the law is too black and white, I stress that tax evasion cannot be tolerated wherever it occurs. I was pleased that the Finance (No.3) Act 2010 closed a number of the loopholes that meant that people were not paying the tax that they should. To be fair, those loopholes were identified by the previous Government.
Much of the debate was focused on the banking system and I am sure that we all have had horror stories brought to our attention by our constituents. One of my constituents was in the Proudfoot supermarket making a purchase of about £5 and the checkout girl accidentally clocked up £50. That was corrected less than five minutes later, but it incurred an unauthorised overdraft fee and the bank refused to back down when contacted by me as the Member of Parliament. Fortunately, when I got the Yorkshire Post on to the issue it finally relented; such is the power of the press.
In response to the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the Government are clear that there should be more competition in the banking sector. The Independent Commission on Banking has been asked to consider reforms to the UK banking sector, including how to encourage greater competition. Following the commission’s report next year, the Government will bring forward specific proposals to foster diversity and increase competition, and I am sure that that will include a role for the mutual sector. I have nothing to add to the answer given by the Financial Secretary earlier, but I am sure that he will write to the hon. Gentleman following this debate.
On cheques, my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) raised the potential—
Mr Umunna
I raised a number of detailed questions with the Minister, responses to which have not been forthcoming. I heard with interest the views of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) about the response that the Minister is giving, bearing in mind that he has been called to do this at such short notice. However, I would be grateful if he explained why the Financial Secretary himself is not here, as he was here only a few hours ago. Will he undertake to ensure that I get detailed responses to the issues that I have raised?
Mr Goodwill
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. First, this has not happened at short notice—it has always been the plan for me to answer this debate. He had an opportunity earlier at Treasury questions to raise specific issues when the majority of the team were there. I am aware that I have only less than a minute left, which is why I want to move on to the next point. I am sure that he will get a detailed response, particularly about the way in which the banks, which are now largely in the public sector, are sold on or whatever. The Government will no doubt be looking at the best value for the taxpayer as well as the best service to business and individuals. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will write to him, and we will be making further announcements in the House at an appropriate time.
On the withdrawal of cheque facilities, it is true that the number of cheques issued has declined dramatically. More than 11 million cheques were written in 1990, and that figure declined to 3.5 million in 2009. A provisional date of 31 October 2018 has been set for the withdrawal of cheque facilities, with a final decision to be made by 2016. I, too, have received a letter from a constituent, which arrived this morning. It is from Mrs Hunter of Whitby, who tells me that she is over 90 years old and does not possess a computer or a laptop, or even a mobile phone or any credit or debit card, and so will find it very difficult to send money through the post to her family at Christmas or to make payments to charities. Her local post office, which was within walking distance, was closed when the previous Government were in office, so a journey to the Yorkshire building society or the Co-op would require a taxi journey or a bus ride. She is very concerned that elderly people without recourse to cheques will not find it easy to make payments. Similarly, many small businesses find the cheque system very convenient.
The Government believe that suitable alternatives must be in place for all users of cheques before the system can be phased out, and they welcome the new commitments made by the banking industry on 7 December. In those commitments, the industry recognises the importance of having in place proper alternatives to cheques for those who rely on them most, such as the elderly, the housebound, charities and small businesses. The industry has said that a potential alternative to cheque facilities may include a paper system. Of course, if cheques were to be phased out, it would also be the end of the famous phrase, “The cheque is in the post.”
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have a very peaceful and comfortable Christmas, and let us look forward to a productive new year for the coalition Government.
Communities and Local Government
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise the way in which one area in my constituency, Devonshire Park, is being treated. It feels that it is under attack from the planning system. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who has responsibility for such matters, is present. I will end by making a constructive suggestion on how Devonshire Park could be a pilot under the Government’s Localism Bill.
Devonshire Park is a small part of Birkenhead, which began to be built during Disraeli’s great reforming Government. It was that Government who, in the late 1870s, forged a new tradition for the Tory party. That was the beginning of one-nation Toryism. While Disraeli was doing that great work here in Westminster, the burghers of Birkenhead were building up their town. This small part of Birkenhead is rather finely built: the houses are set back from the road, are mainly detached or semi-detached and are large, decent family houses with gardens. The walls, which are such a feature of Birkenhead, are particularly interesting in this area, because much of the stone came from the nearby Storeton quarry.
It would still be a most peaceful community, but times change. A quarter of its 477 houses have been made into flats. That is double the proportion in the nation as a whole. That is not what worries my constituents the most, nor does it worry them that the houses make very good residential care homes for frail elderly people from Birkenhead and beyond. What worries my constituents is the number of homes that have been converted for institutional care use, such as rehab centres and support units for single mothers. My constituents feel that having 16 such institutions in such a small area begins to change the character of the local neighbourhood. They are not nimbys and are not saying that they do not want any such institutions in their back garden; they are just saying that they have rather a large number. They oppose developers who try to buy up property to convert yet more family homes into centres for use by institutions.
The chairman of the residents association, Robbie Bell, says that Devonshire Park is a
“community that other areas would aspire to.”
He, like me, wants the community to grow in spirit, so that it protects what it has and builds on it. The area is under attack, not from the normal forces of yobbish and criminal behaviour, but from developers. The area is targeted by developers who wish to buy up the homes and to create more institutional care homes, adding to the 16 that already operate in the area. I have already made the distinction between institutions such as drug rehab centres and support centres for single mums, and the residential care homes that do not trouble the local community.
I hope that the Government’s Localism Bill will come to the community’s rescue. From reading the Bill, I am not sure whether the Government have yet settled on their views in all areas. I therefore want to be positive and suggest that Devonshire Park would like to be No. 1 on the Government’s list to try out the neighbourhood development plans and neighbourhood development orders that are mentioned in the Bill. Across the country, there are examples of conservation areas, where the physical environment is protected. The Devonshire Park residents association wants the Government to consider whether we can use the neighbourhood development plans and orders in the Bill to move from protecting the physical environment to protecting the character of an area.
We all know that as we can kill people in different ways, so can we kill areas in different ways. There can be planning blight or local authority neglect, or we might have earthquake or fire. Alternatively, an area can come under attack from developers who, like the thief in the night, are constantly looking out for the opportunity to change the very nature of an incredibly strong community, which makes it feel under attack. My view is that the Localism Bill might ride to the rescue of such communities. I hope that the Minister might give my constituents hope that they can be the first through his door, suggesting how they would like the idea of a local development plan to become reality and protect them and people in similar areas of the country.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), recently made a written statement about the award of jubilee city status in 2012. That continues a practice of creating new cities that was seen at the times of the Queen’s silver and golden jubilees and the millennium celebrations.
The granting of city status to existing large towns or urban districts reflects changes in Britain’s demography. After all, the original definition of a city was a large town with a cathedral. Many cathedrals were built in the middle ages, and thus the status of many cities in no small part reflects their historic importance. It is therefore much to be commended that the diamond jubilee provides an opportunity to create new cities and to recognise the changing identity of where people live.
However, city status is partly a celebratory designation and does not change the status of a place for the purposes of the Local Government Act 1972 or any subsequent amendments to it. I hope that the diamond jubilee will also provide an opportunity to recognise the historic identity of many of England’s larger towns that do not aspire to be described as cities but would welcome back the right to be described as boroughs.
The English and Welsh boroughs played an important part in our nation’s history. Borough status was granted by the Crown by royal charter because a town had achieved significant status or for particular achievements, and boroughs were entitled to return Members of Parliament. Most could return two Members, although under their charters a handful could return only one. Banbury became an episcopal borough way back in the time of the Plantagenets, and it was granted a royal charter for borough status by Queen Mary Tudor in 1554. Under that charter it was entitled to return a single Member to Parliament, and I am thus the 46th Member of Parliament for Banbury. A subsequent charter was granted by James I in 1608.
If colleagues take a walk through Central Lobby to St Stephen’s entrance and look up at the window, they will see there in stained glass the coats of arms of the boroughs at the time when the House was rebuilt after the fire. There, immediately opposite the statue of Somers, are the coats of arms of Banbury, because at that time it was recognised that the English boroughs were part of the fabric of our nation.
The reorganisation of local government in the early 1970s broadly divided England into two tiers, counties and districts. It was decided that only districts could have the opportunity of describing themselves as boroughs. Effectively, the only boroughs remaining are those communities that, at the time of the 1972 Act, were large enough as boroughs to become stand-alone district authorities. Smaller boroughs such as Banbury were wiped off the map and given no more than charter trustee status. In other words, the district councillors who represented the former borough of Banbury were designated as trustees of the borough’s charter. It was only comparatively recently that former boroughs such as Banbury were able to acquire town council status, which is the equivalent of being a parish council.
I can report to Ministers that, since Banbury acquired town council status, there has been a considerable regeneration of civic and community activity. Banbury is an English market town that is proud of its history and traditions and the history of our nation, as shown by the fact that it is, so far as I know, the only town in Oxfordshire that, every year since 1940, has held a battle of Britain service and parade to give thanks for England’s deliverance at the battle of Britain.
Banbury does not aspire to be a city, but it is the largest town in Oxfordshire after the city of Oxford, and it would like to be recognised for what it always has been—an English borough. Banbury does not aspire in any way to compete with Cherwell district. Indeed, as local residents, we are proud to be part of Cherwell and of Cherwell’s achievements. It is a distinctive area of England.
More than 40 years have passed since the 1972 Act, and there is no risk of anyone becoming confused between a Banbury borough council and Cherwell district council, just as no one is confused between Banbury town council and Cherwell district council. Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government state that, under the 1972 Act, only district councils can become boroughs. I understand that point, but I want to tell my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that I have a solution.
As the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office made clear, the creation of new jubilee cities will be done not under an Act of Parliament, but by exercise of the royal prerogative. On exactly the same principle, I suggest that the Queen could exercise the royal prerogative to create jubilee boroughs. Any town in England with former borough status could apply to become a jubilee borough. That would not require an amendment to the 1972 Act. There would be no confusion between jubilee borough celebratory designation and boroughs that are district councils. It would enable recognition of an important part of English civil life and cost not a single penny—
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and your family a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. I extend that to the Under-Secretary and all hon. Members.
I want to speak about the housing market renewal programme or, more accurately, the Government’s scrapping of it. On 17 May, the Chancellor announced that the Government would implement £6.2 billion of in-year cuts. Further details were announced seven days later, outlining £1.65 billion in local government funding cuts. The harsh reality for the housing market renewal programme became clear a month later in a written ministerial statement, which revealed that it was targeted for cuts. The comprehensive spending review later revealed that there would be no bespoke funding for housing market renewal beyond March 2011. That is in stark contrast with the previous funding settlement of £1.2 billion between 2002 and 2008, and a further £1 billion from 2008 to 2011.
The programme was introduced in 2002, and I am particularly proud of it, not least because it was the flagship regeneration scheme of my predecessor, Lord Prescott. The intention was to renew failing housing markets, improve neighbourhoods and encourage people to live and work in those areas. Gateway’s success in my area speaks for itself. More than 1,500 homes were refurbished, thereby improving lives and transforming disadvantaged neighbourhoods; 615 new energy-efficient homes were created; more than 800 families were moved to decent homes; more than 300 local jobs, as well as dozens of apprenticeships, were created, and more than 600 of the worst properties in the east and west of the city have been demolished.
The effects of the Tory-led Government policy for residents in my constituency and in that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) have been disastrous. People have been left to live in houses surrounded by derelict properties, with damp seeping under the carpet, and decaying walls and floors. They have been left surrounded by abandoned properties, which are subject to vandalism. The elderly have found themselves stranded in boarded-up estates. Children are playing in dangerous and filthy conditions, while their parents have had their hopes and dreams stolen. Joanne Turton, a constituent, described her situation as living in limbo and as absolute cruelty. She asked me what she and her family have done to deserve that treatment.
My constituents do not care about party politics or political point scoring, or about where the fault lies—they are desperate for answers—but I do not share their restraint. As far as I am concerned, the blame lies firmly with the Tory and Lib Dem Government, which is why it is their responsibility to clean up the mess.
At the onset of this situation, I wrote to the Department for Communities and Local Government to express my concerns, and to invite the Housing and Local Government Minister to visit my constituents to see the damage for himself. Not surprisingly, the response to my invitation was that his diary is full and that he could not come to see the mess. I received a sort of response, but that underlined the absolute mess of the policy. There is a complete lack of a plan B, and there are no contingency, exit or transitional plans.
The suggestion was that the £1.4 billion regional growth fund would cover the loss of funding resulting from the abolition of regional development agencies, and cuts in funding to transport, housing and other Departments. However, £1.4 billion is simply not enough, and it clearly does not help my constituents, who deserve better than insubstantial answers and pretend solutions. Those who were selling properties have experienced a substantial decrease in the value of their homes, and those who were renting have been left with substandard housing. It is an utter disgrace to leave people in those conditions—to steal their dreams, hopes and dignity. One constituent described it thus: “It’s like we’d packed our suitcases to emigrate to our dream destination. We are on the flight and all’s well. We’re at 36,000 feet when the Government changes hands, and the new Prime Minister orders the captain to turn off the engines as we are about to prepare for landing, leaving absolute carnage.”
I contacted my local authority yesterday, when it confirmed that it needs £9 million to sort this mess out. Will the Minister tell me and my constituents what he will do to ensure that they enjoy a worry-free Christmas and a happy new year?
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the Localism Bill, which is a fantastic early Christmas present for Northamptonshire. My constituents now hold out the hope once again that they can control the over-development and lack of infrastructure in their community, which was a feature of the past decade or more. Northamptonshire was part of a regional spatial strategy. It was decided that it should be the fastest-growing county in the country, but we have been poorly served by a lack of infrastructure in schools, hospitals, roads and access roads to deal with the amount of housing that has been forced upon us.
West Northamptonshire development corporation took control not only of the planning strategy for housing, but of planning itself—away from Northampton borough and Towcester—and local residents have had to sit on their hands while feeling a distinct lack of local democracy in the planning that has been forced on them. I therefore congratulate my hon. Friend on deciding to get rid of the RSS and to scrap the WNDC as soon as possible. In the year ending 2010, the WNDC spent almost £20 million of taxpayers’ money, but local people have very little to show for it.
As well as that top-down control, we also had the west Northamptonshire joint planning committee forced on us by a statutory instrument in 2008. Although technically owned by the local councils, the committee has been required to come up with a plan to build up to 20,000 new houses in my constituency, many of them on greenfield sites, including beautiful villages that were listed in the Domesday book, such as Collingtree, Denton, Brafield-on-the-Green and Hackleton. I am grateful to Front-Bench colleagues who visited my constituency before and after the election to try to set at ease the minds of people who felt that their communities would be ruined. I hope that the committee will not progress any such plans. Indeed, it received 6,000 complaints from local residents about its proposed strategy.
The problem is how we get from where we are today to where we want to be after the Localism Bill is on the statute book. Our problem is that some of the councils want to get rid of the west Northamptonshire joint planning committee now and others are afraid of creating a planning vacuum if we walk away from the committee but have nothing to put in its place. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified how we can move from the present situation, with the west Northamptonshire joint planning committee still in place, to where we want to be—with a local development framework and with local communities deciding how much housing they should have and where it should be. The gap could be as much as eight to 12 months, and councillors are very concerned about what might happen with developer options on sites in the event that we no longer have a top-down plan in the absence of the bottom-up framework. That is a key question for my hon. Friend the Minister.
In Northamptonshire, we are beset by wind farm applications. We are not a very windy county, but my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and I have some 15 wind farm applications between us, many in beautiful areas where communities are desperately unhappy about them. Is there any scope in the Localism Bill to include greater opportunity for local communities to have their say and influence both the location and number of wind turbines? We need to introduce renewable energy in Britain, and it will form a key part of our energy security in the years to come, but we need far greater accountability so that local communities can have their say and be a part of the planning process from the bottom up, rather than being told what to do by top-down government.
To conclude, I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and all those hon. Members in their places a very happy Christmas and new year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
It has been a wide-ranging debate, which perhaps reflects the remit of the Department. I shall try to address the issues raised by hon. Members in order.
The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made a characteristically graceful speech that argued a serious point. I have a lot of sympathy with the issue that he raised, and I was of course especially taken by the historical context and his reference to Disraeli. It may be of some comfort to him to learn that a portrait of Disraeli sits behind my desk—
Robert Neill
He is indeed keeping an eye on me. I have long suspected that the right hon. Gentleman and I would both be comfortable within the tradition that Disraeli founded, but I shall not ask him to change his position too much in the Chamber just before Christmas.
The right hon. Gentleman made a serious point about repeat planning applications and gave some serious examples of what has happened in his constituency. I have had similar examples in my constituency and I suspect that many right hon. and hon. Members could say the same. Many of us have heard horror stories of communities—and, indeed, local authorities themselves—sometimes feeling worn down by repeated applications from the same developer on the same site. The right hon. Gentleman has seen that with particular types of development in his constituency, and I have certainly had to do battle on behalf of my constituents over repeat applications to develop back gardens, for example. That is a real threat in many suburban areas. It is important, therefore, that we take steps to prevent the system from being abused.
People of course have a right to make planning applications, but there are measures, to which I will come now, with which we can seek to control them. At the moment, a local planning authority can decline to determine a planning application, if it has refused permission for two “substantially similar” applications on the same site, or if one such application has been refused by the Secretary of State on appeal within the past two years. It is worth reminding local authorities, and members of planning committees and their officers, that they are entitled to use that safeguard, and not to be browbeaten, perhaps, in some circumstances. The relevant provisions are in sections 70A and 70B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended.
The decision on whether an application is the same or substantially the same, and therefore on whether a determination can be refused, is for the local planning authority. Obviously, it has to take care, because it is justiciable, but provided that it acts within the context of public law in decision making, that safeguard is open to them. It is a discretionary power, however, and does not preclude an amended application from being made—once a developer has listened and addressed objections, as I hope would be the case—that does not fall foul of the provisions,.
I can confirm to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that the Government intend to apply similar principles to neighbourhood plans drawn up under the Localism Bill. The Bill would allow local authorities to decline to consider a repeat proposal for a neighbourhood development order—the mechanism for, in effect, giving consent under the Bill. I hope that his point has been taken on board in that regard.
Robert Neill
The Localism Bill would create the concept of a neighbourhood plan, which could be incorporated in Birkenhead borough council’s statutory development document—its planning framework, as it is generally called. It would permit residents of Devonshire Park to apply to the local council to be recognised, as I am sure they would be in these circumstances, as a neighbourhood forum for the purposes of producing a neighbourhood plan. That would enable them to set out their vision for the area, which, subject to a referendum and getting support from their fellow residents, the local planning authority would incorporate into its plans, unless there were strategic reasons to the contrary.
That a significant safeguard would enable residents to put in place protection against particular types of development, if they thought they were not sustainable. It would, of course, have to be consistent with national policy that we will be setting out in the national planning policy framework, and with our support for sustainable development. However, it is exactly the sort of vehicle that the right hon. Gentleman and his constituents are seeking. I would be happy to talk to him as the Bill progresses to ensure that he and his constituents are in a position to take advantage of the provisions.
I also hope, of course, owing to the requirement in the Bill for pre-application discussions on any scheme of any significance, that developers themselves will recognise and take heed of the concerns and aspirations of local communities, and adjust their developments accordingly. We are trying to move to a much more collaborative and front-loaded approach to planning, rather than repeat applications and the threat of a decision by appeal at the end. I am happy to keep the right hon. Gentleman informed on progress on those matters.
Let me now go back further than the Disraeli period—to the Plantagenets, as I understand it—and address the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). I am sure that he was not there at the time, but he has a degree of erudition that clearly indicates that he has gone that far back in researching borough status for Banbury. Those of us who watch “Lark Rise to Candleford” will be well aware of the status of Banbury within Oxfordshire, and not just as the home of Banbury cakes, but as a major town. I understand the sense of where my hon. Friend is coming from, because we as a Government recognise civic pride as a valuable part of the big society. That said, these things are not quite as easy as one might wish. My hon. Friend is a distinguished lawyer, and he is quite right about the constraints on achieving the ambition that he set out.
At the current time it is not possible for any authority, other than a district council, to become a borough. There may be no confusion among the residents of his area about Cherwell district council and a borough of Banbury, but I would not like to guarantee that that would apply everywhere else. [Interruption.] I see the right hon. Member for Birkenhead smiling. One can just imagine the confusion about what was the historic borough of Birkenhead and the borough of Wirral, of which it is now a part. I can see the same thing happening in my constituency, with confusion about the former borough of Bromley and the current borough of Bromley, one of which is much larger than the other, which happens to lie within it. Things are not quite so simple, so we will have to be a careful. We will of course consider the position, but the route suggested is not to create a new type of borough, which could confuse people even more. Rather, if Banbury wishes, it can apply for city status under the jubilee provisions.
Tony Baldry
We do not want to be a city; we want to be a jubilee borough. It is not the same as wanting designation under the Local Government Act 1972; it is something completely different. If, as with cities, Ministers are not willing to pursue that under the royal prerogative, we will have to petition the Privy Council and see where we get. The proposal will not cost anything. I just hope that Ministers will show a little more imagination.
Robert Neill
I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend, but he will understand that it is difficult to pluck out one case. Banbury can call itself a town council—it has a mayor, and civic regalia and plate, and it can use its coat of arms. I hope that he will reflect on the matter, if that is not a proportionate solution.
Let me turn to the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and the pathfinders. It is fair to say that Hull city council will receive more than £23 million this year to take forward projects in east and west Hull. Of course there have had to be reductions, but I am sorry—the hon. Gentleman made the only speech that sounded a vaguely partisan note—but responsibility for that ultimately lies with those who created the difficulty and the deficit that we now have to deal with. There are other options open in housing market renewal areas, and local authorities can continue to apply to the regional growth fund. There is also the new homes bonus and the new affordable rent programme, including new empty home funding, so there are other options available. Indeed, I note that Hull is working on a local enterprise partnership, which I believe will also open up real opportunities. We want that taken forward, but that cannot be done under the previous, unsustainable financial position. I understand the difficulties, but Hull is being imaginative, and the local enterprise partnerships will offer it real opportunities.
In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), I say that the Localism Bill is coming forward very soon. Localism will enable neighbourhood plans to have regard to issues such as wind farm development. Our reforms will apply equally to wind farms that are considered under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which of course have to be consistent with national policy, as I have said. We are also taking steps on changing planning structures, and if my hon. Friend keeps in touch with me on those matters, I hope that we will be able to discuss how to translate the existing, top-down structures into something more democratic. The Localism Bill’s proposal to abolish the regional spatial strategies will give much greater scope to local authorities such as hers to develop in the right place, and in a way that is appropriate to the context of local communities.
Having dealt with that, may I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and all hon. Members a very happy Christmas. If anyone is short of a present—the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will be glad to know this—the Department for Communities and Local Government still has some 5,000 branded Office of the Deputy Prime Minister promotional biros available.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Thank you very much, Minister. I am sure that we all want to wish you and all other Members a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Perhaps we shall want to reflect on the question of the biros, however.
General matters
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I know that it is the festive season, but it is customary in the Chamber for Members to stand up to indicate that they wish to speak. I hope that any reluctance to do so is not due to any early celebrations. I call Valerie Vaz.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to start this debate, particularly on this day, which is seeing another first for Parliament.
In 1948, a tired world, exhausted after two world wars, did the right thing when it came together to proclaim the universal declaration of human rights. The concept was simple: it was to reaffirm the faith
“in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women”,
and to state:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
In 1998, the United Kingdom passed the Human Rights Act, which merely enshrined the European convention on human rights in British law. We were one of the first nations to sign the convention in 1950. The Foreign Secretary stated at the weekend that he wants to increase Britain’s influence in the world, but we cannot take our place on the world stage while making a commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act.
Members will also be aware of the doctrine of the margin of appreciation that applies to interpreting the convention. It provides for a range of discretion, under which the convention can be interpreted differently in different member states, to take into account cultural, historical and philosophical differences between Europe and the nation in question, so there is no need to be fearful of the Act.
I am sure that the whole House will agree that the dignity and worth of a person is important, and that equality is a goal worth pursuing, yet there are millions of men and women who struggle silently for equality at great personal cost. In Iran, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is still awaiting her fate. The signatories to the open letter in The Times to the president and supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and a letter from 119 Members of this House to the Iranian Government have called on them to free her. The charges against her have changed. Her lawyer has had to flee. Her son has been arrested, as have German nationals. The German Bundestag has now passed a resolution to engage with the Iranian Government to lift the death penalty. Ashtiani’s human rights, like her testimony, count for less than a man’s. The man who was her co-accused is free and does not face the daily torture that she does of not knowing whether she is to live or die. We call on the Iranian Government to start the new year by resolving to free her.
Men and women both suffer human rights violations, but the position is more difficult for women, because 70% of the worlds illiterate people are female, and 75% of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons are female. Women also face barriers, which give them less access to legal institutions, for example. In Burma, the recent release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was internationally welcomed and celebrated, but with the failing economic situation there are high volumes of human trafficking, especially of women and girls. These are the 21st century slaves, and we should be outraged in the same way as William Wilberforce was in this House. The enslavement of girls and women into prostitution is demeaning, offensive and undertaken by coercion.
Women are routinely subjected to genital mutilation in countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, and the effect is now being seen here. This is not a religious issue; it reflects deep-rooted inequalities between the sexes and extreme discrimination against women. Worst of all, it is carried out on the voiceless: babies and young girls. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 must be enforced, but other techniques should also be used to educate people and to explain to those countries that this is not an acceptable practice.
In 1990, the Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen wrote of the 100 million missing women. He noted that women lived longer than men in most circumstances. Even poorer countries in Latin America and Africa have more females than males. In places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they disappear. China has 107 males for every 100 females; in India, the figure is 108, and in Pakistan, 111. Kerala, which has championed the education of women, has the same excess of females as the United States, however.
In 2001, the World Bank argued that promoting gender equality was crucial to combating global poverty. The Self Employed Women’s Association was founded in India in 1972, and, by supporting women who are starting businesses, has achieved staggering success in raising living standards. Other initiatives, such as the “Because I am a Girl” campaign—Members may be aware that it organised a display in the Committee Corridor—are attempting to break the cycle of gender discrimination and poverty through education and targeted support. Such projects and initiatives help women to achieve their rightful place in societies that put them at risk following conflicts that render them victims. The transformation of those women's lives also transforms destabilised societies.
The principles of the universal declaration of human rights can be implemented through the empowerment of women through education and the use of micro-finance to give them equality. I believe that the struggle for gender equality is the moral challenge of this century, and that the future of the world depends on it.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in what I am sure will be a wide-ranging and interesting debate.
I have a business background, and I am pleased to note that the Government have put support for business at the heart of their plan to rebalance our economy. They seem truly to value innovation and enterprise. The success of businesses of all sizes will be vital to our recovery. I have been fortunate enough to visit and meet representatives of many businesses in my constituency—that is one of the most interesting and informative parts of the role that I play—but all the company representatives whom I have met have highlighted particular challenges that they face in the current economic climate.
Places such as Basildon and Thurrock have the potential to lead our recovery. I believe that they will benefit from the change of Government and the new emphasis being placed on business, and will be able to play their role as the economic powerhouses that we need them to be. I am especially delighted that the Government have recognised the vital importance of our small and medium-sized enterprises. I think that Members throughout the House agree that they will have a major role to play in our recovery, but they face particular challenges. Let me give three examples.
The first challenge is access to finance, an issue that has been raised a number of times in the House and has been much discussed. We have lost many good businesses because of lack of support from the banks, either because the banks have become too risk-averse or because they have simply not liked the sector in which those companies operate. It is worth our reminding, certainly, the publicly owned banks that they need to do much more to support our businesses: I believe that they have a moral obligation to continue to support the companies that they have supported in the past. There is also a role for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I know of cases in which it has been too quick to pull the plug on companies, or too inflexible to recognise the cashflow problems that small companies may face. I hope that Ministers will think about whether more can be done to support them.
The second challenge is the burden of bureaucracy, red tape and regulation that falls on small businesses. I realise that it was designed to deal with the practices of unscrupulous employers, but I think we should recognise that the vast majority of SMEs value their employees greatly and treat them very well. Regulation must find a balance between dealing with unscrupulous employers and not overburdening responsible ones.
Many SMEs now have to employ external consultants to deal with ever-changing rules and regulations. They have to pay experts to help them to understand employment law and health and safety regulations. All that adds to the cost and burden of running their companies. While I recognise that employment law and health and safety regulations are vital to protect employees, there are sometimes unforeseen consequences. For example, if there were no statutory retirement age, it would be possible for an employee of many years’ standing to be dismissed on grounds of competency rather than being able to retire with dignity. Employers may not want to take this path but feel that they must in order to address their own commercial needs.
We need to make it easier for SMEs to employ people. The reality, or the perception of the reality, is that it is too difficult or too onerous to take on staff, so SMEs hold back longer than they might. I hope we will be able to find a way of easing that burden so that companies will take people on earlier and help reduce our rising or our high unemployment figures. We also need to do more to help people in the transition from unemployment to employment. In my time at work, there were occasions when we had to lend money to new starters because the cost of work was more than those people could afford as they moved from benefits to employment.
Finally, I want to encourage the Government to have a greater understanding of small and medium-sized enterprises. The Government are doing their best, but I want them to recognise that small businesses in particular are not a homogenous mass. A small business is more like a collection of micro-businesses. A company of 10 people could comprise a salesman, a production manager, a fitter, a driver and a designer, all of whom have separate skills and separate roles. They operate within separate spheres and cannot easily pick up the slack when one of the team members is on a prolonged absence. I hope the Government will recognise that when framing future legislation.
In summary, I truly believe that the Government have the best interests of business at heart and have got off to a great start, but will they please remember that not all businesses are the same and that size really does matter? We need a different approach, depending on the scale of the business. I know that, with care, we can deliver an environment to support our businesses and firms of all sizes, and that SMEs will happily play their role in rebuilding and rebalancing our damaged economy. With our help, they will grow to enjoy the bright and prosperous new year that I know we all wish them.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
I take this opportunity to talk about an important issue that affects the economic welfare of my constituency and the north-east of England.
The Government recently postponed a decision on the intercity express programme. A final decision is to be made in the new year. The intercity express programme will replace the rolling stock on the east coast main line and the great western line. The previous Government appointed Hitachi as the preferred bidder, and Hitachi selected Newton Aycliffe in my constituency as its preferred site at which to build a new fleet of trains if the contract goes ahead. That means the creation of British jobs, a much-needed boost to the private sector in the north-east of England and the arrival of a major manufacturer in the region.
The Government are also considering an alternative train system that would entail coupling diesel engines to electric trains, an option that would more than likely mean that the trains would be imported from abroad, offering none of the benefits to the UK economy and adding further delays as the whole project would have to go out to tender again.
If there was ever a reason why the existing rolling stock needs to be replaced, it is evident today. The east coast main line is suspended between King’s Cross and Peterborough, with trains breaking down here, there and everywhere. The trains rely on overhead electric cables, and when they are down the trains stop. The Hitachi trains are bimodal, which means that they can switch from diesel to electric and vice versa when the need arises. Southeastern operates such Hitachi high speed trains, which have an excellent record in the current bad weather. That is a ringing endorsement of the technology and work force.
Given the combination of the weather and poor rolling stock, the journey home to the north-east for me and many others will not be a very pleasant experience over the next 48 hours. But what is more important is the economic impact of Hitachi’s desire to move to the north-east of England. The move to Newton Aycliffe would create 800 direct jobs and more than 7,000 jobs in the supply chain, many of them in the region.
Hitachi’s investment would be the biggest investment in the north-east of England since Nissan back in the 1980s. It would also tick many other boxes for the Government. It would grow the private sector. There would be a £48 return on every £1 of public investment. There is no requirement for public sector investment until after the next election, well after the scope of the present CSR. More important is the additional income to the Exchequer from the creation of so many manufacturing jobs, the average wage being between about £25,000 and £27,000. The northern TUC has published a study by the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn, Germany, which revealed that such jobs at such rates of pay would generate about £13,000 per employee. In the case of the 800 jobs at Hitachi, that is £10.4 million a year in saved benefits and lost sums raised through direct and indirect taxes. If we consider the supply chain too, it has been estimated the figure would rise to over £100 million a year, a sum not to be sniffed at when we all want the deficit to be cut in a careful and structured way.
In Sedgefield, unemployment stands at 1,935. According to Government figures published last week, every unemployed person costs the Exchequer £7,800 in benefits and lost taxes. Therefore, unemployment in Sedgefield is costing the country about £15 million a year. That estimate is based on someone leaving jobseeker’s allowance and earning £12,200 a year. I have two issues with that. The average wage is higher than £12,200, so the cost to the Exchequer per person unemployed will be higher. Secondly, it shows what a great paucity of ambition the Government have for those who are out of work that they believe a person will leave JSA and earn just £12,200 a year. We need real jobs with real wages and a real future. Hitachi would offer the area that, and that is why this is so important to my constituency. Hitachi coming to Newton Aycliffe would help the town fulfil its ambition. If the intercity express programme does not go ahead or the programme is ordered in from abroad, thereby exploiting British jobs, the people of the north-east will feel as if the door is being slammed on the region and on their future.
Finally, I want to thank the thousands of constituents who signed the petition supporting the Hitachi bid and the Northern TUC for its help, along with the North East chamber of commerce, Unite the Union, the Federation of Small Businesses, The Northern Echo and well over 100 companies in the region who have leant their support to the Hitachi campaign. The intercity express programme must go ahead if we are to see private sector growth in the north-east of England. The economic case has been made—more jobs, greater tax income, and the biggest investment in the region for 30-odd years. Hitachi has shown great faith in the north-east. It is time for the Government to do the same by giving the go-ahead to the intercity express programme originally proposed by the last Government and by allowing Hitachi and the north-east to get on with the job.
On that note, I wish everybody a merry Christmas.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
May I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year?
As a chartered surveyor and an East Anglian representing a Suffolk constituency, the provision of infrastructure takes up a lot of my time. That has been the case not just over the past seven months, but over the past 27 years. Two things that I find myself saying with great regularity are, “We don’t do infrastructure well in the UK” and, in an East Anglian context, “We talk about infrastructure a lot because we don’t have any.” The nearest motorway to my constituency of Waveney is in Holland, and Lowestoft has been waiting 75 years for a third crossing over the water that divides the town.
Infrastructure and job creation go hand in hand. A good transport system is a prerequisite for sustained economic growth and, conversely, poor infrastructure and congestion hold back growth and the creation of jobs. Historically over the centuries, Britain has had a great record of inventing and building world-class infrastructure that underpinned economic growth, whether the creation of the canal network, the engineering work of Brunel, or the building of the railways and the London underground. More recently, our track record has been poor. There has been no long-term strategic framework, projects have the gestation period of an elephant, and to many it appears that Britain has ground to a halt, as we sit in traffic jams and wait for trains that never arrive—and, at present, planes that do not fly.
In the past, local highway authorities pursued an ongoing programme of continually improving the local road network such as through regularly building bypasses and relief roads around market towns. They stopped pursuing such an approach 20 years ago. The result, in East Anglia at least, is that there is a large backlog of work to be carried out on such schemes as the Beccles southern relief road in my constituency, the Brandon bypass in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), and the Long Stratton bypass in south Norfolk.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Brandon bypass was mentioned in my predecessor’s maiden speech in 1992 as an urgent priority for the link between Suffolk and Norfolk. Although some progress has been made since, no ground has been dug. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an awful long time to wait?
Peter Aldous
My hon. Friend very much proves my point. There is a need for local highways authorities to be given greater autonomy to carry out local projects. The geography of East Anglia is such that, in many respects, the provision of good infrastructure is not easy. Ours is a sparsely populated area, with relatively small regional centres, such as Norwich, Ipswich and Colchester, interspersed with coastal and market towns, and myriad villages. Today, the case for providing good infrastructure in East Anglia is compelling. There is a need for good roads, as East Anglia has a greater reliance on private vehicles than any other UK region. The area is relatively inaccessible compared with similar regions around the world with which we are competing for inward investment. Despite those drawbacks and the relative inadequacy of infrastructure in East Anglia, its economy performs extremely well. In terms of gross domestic product, it is the third top performing region after London and the south-east, and is a positive contributor to the Exchequer. With proper investment, East Anglia could contribute a great deal more.
The time is right for Britain to resume its role as a world leader in the provision of infrastructure. I have read the Treasury’s national infrastructure plan, which was published in October, so I know that the Government’s policies appear to be pointing in the right direction, but they now need to see them through. The UK is one of the most expensive countries in which to build infrastructure, with engineering works here costing 60% more than they do in Germany. In East Anglia, we have the opportunity to provide a 21st century infrastructure model, and I will conclude by outlining its main features.
First, we need to tackle the pinch points on the roads and railways. I welcome the support that the Government have already given to the dualling of the final 9 miles of single carriageway on the A11 and the improvements to the Felixstowe to Nuneaton freight railway line. Both those projects will bring undoubted benefits to the region and will lead to the creation of new jobs. Other projects, some of which are in my constituency, will have similar benefits. The Beccles loop on the east Suffolk railway line, which the Government are supporting, will improve accessibility, as will the other two schemes that I have mentioned—the Beccles southern relief road and the third crossing in Lowestoft. The southern relief road will open up commercial land for development and will remove lorries from the town centre, thereby enhancing the town’s attraction as a shopping centre. The third crossing will have similar benefits for Lowestoft; it will open up commercial sites and help the regeneration of the town centre by reducing congestion. It will act as a catalyst for increased regeneration activity and for further investment in Lowestoft, providing an opportunity to create a perception of a positive and business-friendly location. It will enable Lowestoft to realise its full potential as an international centre for renewable energy.
There is also a need to invest in the infrastructure necessary for the energy sector to thrive. That means upgrading the electricity network, with a new offshore grid, greater interconnection with Europe and a smart grid and smart metering. The provision of superfast broadband across Suffolk and the rest of East Anglia is of crucial importance to the creation of jobs, particularly in hard-to-reach rural areas. The Government’s broadband strategy, which was published last month, goes a long way in setting out how that can be achieved. Suffolk needs to be in the next round of broadband pilots and I, like my fellow Suffolk MPs, will be campaigning hard for its inclusion.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the current state of broadband in Norfolk and Suffolk is not acceptable and is holding businesses back? In particular, some villages are complete “not spots”, where broadband cannot be accessed.
Peter Aldous
I agree entirely with that observation. The other Suffolk MPs and I are building on the strategy that has been put forward by Suffolk businesses, and we will take full advantage of the presence in the county of BT, which owns much of the infrastructure and has its research centre at Martlesham. Suffolk offers a unique opportunity for BT to show what can be done in delivering comprehensive high-speed coverage across the whole county, including in those hard-to-reach areas. To move the situation forward in Suffolk, BT needs to provide information on exactly when it intends to intervene and which exchanges in Suffolk it will upgrade. That will allow other, smaller providers to work on a bottom-up basis to consider which of the remaining areas they will be able to reach.
My Christmas message to the Government is to thank them for providing the framework for a 21st century infrastructure, and to urge them to make the necessary investment in East Anglia, so that we can play our part in securing the recovery, rebalancing the economy and creating new private sector jobs.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Have you had any indication that the Business Secretary intends to come to the Chamber this afternoon to make a statement on his policy on News Corporation’s bid to take full control of BSkyB? As you may be aware, it is reported today that the Secretary of State has said that he has
“declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win.”
Given that he is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity in considering that takeover, surely he must immediately step aside from any further involvement with that decision. Can you advise us whether you have been notified that either the Business Secretary or, indeed, the Prime Minister intend to come before the House today to confirm that that is what will now happen?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point of order, which I think I can deal with quite succinctly. I have not received any notification that the Government are to make any comments, whether from the Business Secretary or anybody else this afternoon, on the matter that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, but I am sure that Government Front Benchers will have heard him.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
The current chaos on our roads is expensive for individuals, businesses and the country as a whole, and, although we cannot control the weather, we can control the way in which we respond to it. I have mentioned winter tyres in previous debates and been told that they are not appropriate for this country. I shall try to convince the House that they are.
Winter tyres are designed to be more effective than regular tyres in temperatures under 7° C on any type of road, and the Met Office advises us that for most of the winter even this country is below 7° C. They are manufactured with a larger percentage of natural rubber and silica in the compound, which does not harden as much as synthetic rubber in cold conditions. They have a tread pattern designed to cope with slush and cold rain, as well as with snow and ice, and they are safer than any standard tyre in cold, dry conditions below 7° C, because the tread compound heats up at lower rolling temperatures to create grip in low temperatures.
I am not arguing for studded ice tyres or snow chains. I make that point explicitly, because even the Transport Secretary seems to have misunderstood me. Both cause damage to road surfaces, and I understand that snow chains are illegal unless they are used on a road surface with compacted snow. Winter tyres work, however. I do not claim for one moment to be an expert on tyres or even on cars, because I am proud of myself when I have worked out which side the petrol cap is on. However, when I look at the reviews of such tyres, I find real evidence that they are safer and much better.
One such tyre is the Goodyear UltraGrip 7 +, and it is interesting if we compare tyre performance on braking distances. I declare an interest, because that tyre is produced by Goodyear Dunlop Tyres, which is based in Birmingham. [Laughter.] It may not have escaped Members that I am a Birmingham MP.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Irrespective of whether Goodyear is based in the hon. Lady’s constituency, I very much support what she says, because much of northern Europe, which experiences such snow, has winter tyres. It is always said that the Government or the councils must provide for the roads, but, when we have inclement weather, and if we are going to have a lot more snow, winter tyres might be one solution.
Ms Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman. The factory is not in my constituency but in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who is sitting right next to me; Birmingham and Goodyear Dunlop are well represented in the Chamber this afternoon.
It is important to realise what a significant difference a winter tyre makes. When that Goodyear tyre was tested at a speed of 25 mph, it was found that its braking distance was six car lengths, or 25 metres, better than that of a summer tyre. That is not insignificant. Similarly, when comparisons were made in wet conditions conducive to aquaplaning, that tyre’s performance was about a fifth better—grip was about 18% higher—than a normal tyre’s.
People often say, “I’ve got ABS, so I don’t need winter tyres,” but that is completely to misunderstand the function of ABS, which allows someone to continue to be in control of steering when braking. It was never meant to deal with adverse road conditions.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
A business man from near Hexham has all his employees on winter tyres. He put the issue very simply to me; he said, “You wouldn’t go out wearing flip-flops in winter. You would put on suitable footwear. Why do we not do the same with a car?”
Ms Stuart
I am grateful for that intervention because it takes me back to when I first arrived in this country 35 years ago. One of the things that always struck me is that the Brits are extraordinarily happy to talk about the weather, but very reluctant to take any notice of it in their behaviour. I have seen Brits wearing flip-flops in the middle of winter, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that ought to stop.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Can the hon. Lady give us a rough idea of how much a set of four winter tyres would cost?
Ms Stuart
That is an important question. The issue is not only how much the tyres would cost, but how much people could save on their summer tyres. Furthermore, insurance companies say that the probability of an accident in adverse weather conditions goes up by 257%. There is the issue of avoiding accidents and the kind of snarl-ups on our motorways and roads caused by drivers—usually in continental rear-wheel-drive cars, the Mercs and BMWs, which were designed to have winter tyres—not being able to deal with not terribly steep inclines. The straightforward equation is that winter tyres probably do not cost as much as people think, and could save us a lot of money. The costs would depend on which tyre was chosen and whether one got a whole set of new tyres.
The industry says that in winter or when temperatures are below 7° C—that is, most of the winter—only 2% of people in this country drive cars with appropriate, winter tyres. In other words, 98% of people drive on unsafe tyres, so there is an argument for providing incentives for them to get the winter ones. At the moment, insurance companies are raising rather spurious points about whether winter tyres are modifications to the original tyres. I challenge the industry: just as there are rebates on house contents insurance if there are the right locks in a house, insurance companies should give rebates to those using winter tyres.
Furthermore, emergency services vehicles, whether ambulances or police cars, should as a matter of course have winter tyres because that would make them safer and save the country money; the practice should not be restricted only to some companies.
Guy Opperman
If I am not mistaken, it has become the law in Germany to use such tyres. If tyres are swapped over at the right time, there is fundamentally no extra cost.
Ms Stuart
That is very true. Having grown up in Germany, I can vouch for the fact that the weather there is more regularly as fierce as it has been here. I would not advocate compulsion; the last thing that people want these days is to be forced to do anything more. It is a question of persuasion.
The Dutch managed to increase the use of winter tyres from 0.5% to more than 10% over 10 years through simple awareness campaigns. People here just do not think about the issue. I am glad to say that the Secretary of State for Transport seems to have changed his view between 2 December, when he thought that winter tyres were inappropriate, and now, when he says that those who can afford them should use them.
Matthew Hancock
The hon. Lady says that it is a matter of persuasion. After listening to her speech, I have also changed my mind. I am extremely persuaded and know what I shall ask for for Christmas.
Ms Stuart
I am absolutely delighted to hear that—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington said, we approve of that provided it is a Dunlop tyre made in Erdington.
The key thing is for people to behave in a manner that is appropriate to the weather conditions and to think ahead and order a set of tyres—whichever ones they choose—now, so that they have them in the winter. People should not make a fuss about it. Such an approach will save people money, save lives and save the economy. It is the right thing to do and we all ought to do it.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
Before the House adjourns for the Christmas recess, I wish to raise a number of issues. Although I was delighted to see the back of the previous Labour Government and their totally discredited leadership, in recent years I have not been entirely content with the quality of ministerial responses to inquiries. We all understand that civil servants draft the letters, but if I get any more unsatisfactory replies, I will just scrawl across them the words “Not good enough” and send them back where they came from.
Joanna Cranfield was born with one arm. At the moment, I can use only one arm so I know that it presents challenges. My arm will get better; my constituent’s arm will not. She is 17 and is a very talented swimmer, who I hope will represent us in the 2012 Paralympics. Since the age of two, she has had a blue badge disability living allowance and carer’s money for her mother. Yet all that stopped at the age of 16. That is utterly ridiculous and I expect Ministers to address the matter.
My constituent Mr West took out his policy with Equitable Life before 1992. As is the case with other with-profit annuitants who took out policies before the September 1992 cut off date, he will lose a great deal of money. Unlike those who took out policies after 1 September 1992, Mr West will lose £100,000. I had certainly not appreciated that someone such as my constituent would be excluded from payments. How on earth can that be right? Again, I expect the Government to address the matter.
On Camp Ashraf, I am delighted to say that the early-day motion I have tabled has attracted 140 signatures. I am very concerned about the circumstances of the 3,500 people and 1,000 women in Camp Ashraf. Those residing in the camp have undergone psychological torture and serious medical restrictions. The UK Court of Appeal found that the People’s Mujahedin of Iran was not involved in terrorism and yet it still appears on the US terror list. That is absolutely disgraceful and I very much hope that Ministers will support the PMOI and allow Maryam Rajavi to visit this country.
My constituent Stephen James Bristow is serving a 26-year prison sentence in Thailand for possession of 24 grams of amphetamine. His parents, who are 74 and 78, came to see me recently. He shares a cell with 50 people in absolutely unbelievable circumstances. His flatmate was apparently responsible for the drugs and has committed suicide. I am asking a Minister to intervene, so that we can at the very least get that gentleman back to this country to serve the rest of his time.
Another constituent, Jackie Currie, was the chairman of the National Association of Official Prison Visitors, which is a very successful organisation that helps to represent the interests of official prison visitors. Recently, that organisation has undergone a change in its leadership and has petitioned to become a charity. The Ministry of Justice grant agreement—the main source of funding—states that the grant was awarded for activities around official prison visitors, including helping the National Offender Management Service to maintain a central database of said visitors. The charitable status puts at risk that whole concept and basically means that the organisation will not function properly. Again, I hope that Ministers will intervene.
Another constituent, Cherry Sholem, finds that her son, who has learning difficulties and suffers from dyspraxia, is not doing well in mainstream school. The simple fact is that Southend council cannot afford to provide the sort of education that Mrs Sholem believes her son should receive. I think that I have now had somewhere in the region of 1,000 e-mails from Mrs Sholem, so I would be grateful, again, if a Government Minister could assist.
I have been dealing with the case of Mr Ian Shirley and his partner, Ms Ida Hammond, who sadly died as a result of ill-health caused by the late stages of dementia. They were partners for 29 years and lived together for almost 10 years. Following complaints by Ms Hammond’s children, she was taken without explanation from Mr Shirley’s care and placed in a care home. She sadly died later. Again, I am asking for a Minister to intervene on that issue.
The ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Campbell, retires in a month’s time. On behalf of all the members of the all-party group on the Holy See, I wish to pay tribute to him for all his excellent work.
Finally, I want to wish everyone a very happy Christmas, good health, peace, prosperity and a wonderful new year.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on initiating the debate on winter tyres. I should like briefly to say something about the impacts and benefits. The impact on the economy of what has been happening over the past seven days has been enormous. Last weekend, the retail sector in Birmingham, which was suffering gridlock, lost a third of its anticipated business. Distribution and logistics companies in the midlands such as DPD and TNT, which serve retail and manufacturing industries and Royal Mail, have had immense problems in discharging their responsibilities at their busiest time of the year. Royal Mail itself has had to take on an additional 7,000 employees. I pay tribute to the remarkable postmen and postwomen out there in all weathers serving this country well.
The impact has also been felt in terms of accidents. Last weekend, the ambulance service in Birmingham had 3,000 calls in one day—Saturday—many of them about very serious accidents that occurred as a consequence of the appalling weather that hit the city.
Increasingly, the problem is that citizens are struggling to get where they want to in Britain—even to admirable counties such as Suffolk and Norfolk. The benefit of winter tyres is therefore absolutely clear. Sadly, we no longer have the tyre industry in Britain that we once had. At its height, Fort Dunlop in my constituency had 15,000 employees. There is still the aircraft tyres factory that employs 400 people; it is a highly successful company. Britain no longer has mass production of car tyres. However, we still have the Michelin factory in Stoke and the Goodyear factory in Wolverhampton. I know both factories very well and visited them personally when I was deputy general secretary of Unite. Both have the capacity and technology to manufacture winter tyres. If we were to promote winter tyres, as we must, given the chaos of the past seven days and the certainty that we will have further bitter winters of the kind we are encountering at the moment, the benefits would be enormous for our economy generally and for the motor manufacturing cluster in the midlands, employing 150,000 people, in particular.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston is absolutely right to raise this issue, because winter tyres will save money if insurance companies incentivise; she is right when she says that that would be the thing to do. The evidence from continental experience is that that would save them money in reduced insurance claims. It would save lives and it could create jobs. Let us hope, therefore, as we wish this House a very merry Christmas, that this is the last winter in Britain that we see this lack of winter tyres. The future must lie in people being smart, buying British, buying winter tyres, saving themselves money, and being able to get to admirable places such as Suffolk and Norfolk.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak after such erudite speeches from both sides of the House. I will speak on a matter that is specific to Suffolk and Newmarket and that affects the racing industry across the country.
Charles II was the first to make Newmarket the headquarters of the horse racing industry, and it is now its global headquarters. I will speak briefly about Newmarket’s position as the headquarters of that great sport. In Newmarket, there are 2,500 racehorses in training, 70 miles of gallops, 62 studs, the world leader in equine sales in Tattersalls, 79 training yards and 5,000 people who are directly or indirectly associated with the industry. Many of those people and organisations support me because I am an unambiguous supporter of the racing industry. The industry contributes to the economy across the country, making £3 billion and employing 100,000 people.
The future of the sport is tied intimately to gambling and the people who place bets on races—that includes many Members in this Chamber. We know that people love to bet. [Interruption.] Members are shaking their heads, but I think that it is an honourable and enjoyable thing to do, rather than something to query. Money from betting makes up 50% of prize money in racing, and that prize money attracts owners to race their horses and attracts some of the biggest international names to invest money in Britain. Heads of State, international business men and sportsmen, and punters who can afford to own a whole or part of a horse, love to race. Part of the thrill of racing is the potential for a prize.
The sport is not without its problems. The amount of money from the horserace betting levy that is transferred into prizes has fallen from £115 million to £75 million over recent years. Prize money in Britain is, on average, the 37th in the world. The levy, which was first put in place in 1961, is highly bureaucratic. Each year, it depends on the decision of the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport on how much money should be transferred from the gambling industry to racing, to reflect the product that racing provides for people to bet on, and therefore for the gambling industry to profit from. The transfer of value is a policy response to the value provided by racing, which everybody can bet on. That bureaucratic solution, which ends up with a decision by the Secretary of State, is extremely old-fashioned.
Peter Aldous
I speak as a racing enthusiast who often makes his way across Suffolk to visit the race course in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Does he agree that there is something very wrong in the way in which racing has been financed for the past 50 years, in that other sports, such as football and cricket, sell their television rights to television companies, whereas racing has to pay Channel 4 to show it?
Matthew Hancock
I am glad that my hon. Friend raised that important point. Sorting out the pictures from racing and where the money from those pictures goes to is an important part of having a sustainable future for racing. There is an issue with the sale not only of the pictures, but of the product upon which so many bets are laid. We must consider the future of the transfer of value from the product.
In the short term, the Secretary of State has a consideration to make over the coming months. I urge the Government to find in racing’s favour on the grounds that for a sustainable and successful racing industry, on which the gambling industry depends, there must be a reasonable transfer of value from gambling to racing. I also urge them to examine long-term solutions—for instance by removing the threshold under which betting shops pay no levy, by ensuring that offshore betting on UK races is levied upon, and by examining betting exchanges in which an ordinary punter lays the bet rather than an organisation. Such bets escape the levy, but the laying of a bet in any circumstances, whether by a corporate organisation or a punter, is still part of the turnover of betting.
In Ireland, a 1% levy on all wins has just been introduced, to recognise the transfer of value involved. That applies across all sports, so that racing is not separated out in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) alluded to. The French have a system of a 1% transfer of value, plus saleable rights to bet on the industry. I urge the Government to consider all such options.
Everybody involved in the debate, whether on the racing side, the gambling side or in between, would agree that there is a desperate need for the levy to be modernised. In an environment in which money is tight and a bureaucratic system has existed for many decades, there is great pressure to get it right. That pressure is increasing, because racing is increasingly a world sport rather than merely a domestic one. The amount of money that is bet offshore is recognition of that. It is critical that we seize this moment to secure for Britain global leadership, in the future as we have had in the past, in this golden sport on which my constituency thrives.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
May I start by wishing everyone here in the House of Commons a very happy Christmas? The staff do an amazing job, and I am deeply grateful to them for their last seven months of work.
I must declare an interest as a former jockey who, for his sins, still rides as an amateur. I probably would not have got through my school days were I not also a former bookmaker. I financed a large part of my school days by running an illegal book when I was aged about 12 and 13, and I avoided the law very impressively. It is a wonder I ever survived.
I have also been lucky enough to have ridden upsides a wealth of great jockeys, and I know Tony McCoy, for example. I congratulate him on winning the BBC sports personality of the year award. He once got off a horse of mine at Fontwell Park, which is a weird and wonderful figure-of-eight track unique in this country, and he said, “Do you know, you should have ridden this horse. You would have probably done better, the two of you.” People cannot comprehend what a compliment that was from the man who has won 15 champion jockey’s titles and has been undefeated as champion jockey since 1995. He was clearly wrong in his estimation of my abilities as a jockey—he was always very charitable when off the horse, but uncompromising when on it.
Matthew Hancock
I, too, warmly congratulate Tony McCoy on his victory in the sports personality of the year award, and of course on his grand national win this year. Does my hon. Friend agree that that sports personality of the year victory shows just how highly the nation values racing, and therefore the urgency and importance of the Government’s decision?
Guy Opperman
I endorse that comment entirely, and I see that my hon. Friend is wearing his royal purple, from the outfit that he is going to wear to Newmarket or wherever the next race will be.
We are dealing with one of the most impressive, successful and world-renowned sports, and we must do everything we can to support it. I speak as someone whose father rode in the grand national, and who represents the wonderful constituency of Hexham. It has many assets, not least the amazing race course that sits high above the town. From there, one can see Hadrian’s wall and three or four counties, and it is worth going there. I rode there in June 2009 and I confess that I am trying to persuade someone else to give me a ride again. But it is proving a little difficult as most people do not regard an ageing politician as their ideal jockey.
It is a sorry tale that the betting levy has been in such dispute for so long—in the House and in the racing forum. We are one of the few world leaders, on many levels and, if we fail to support racing, it will be the worst kind of short-sightedness. Both sides of the dispute accept that they have to run their organisation better and that the product must be improved. Many people are improving it—there is now much more diversity to the racing product. For example, 10 or 15 years ago, the idea that one would go racing and, at the end, watch Madness or Girls Aloud would not have been believed. Yet 20,000 people come to see them, and get everything going. That is a great credit to racing, but not enough is being done.
The overwhelming impression is that far too many have the bookmakers’ interests at heart. Since I became a Member, I have been struck by the might of the bookmaking industry. The truth is that bookmaking could not survive in its current form without horse racing. I therefore urge Ministers to do everything possible to support the work of trainers and the Jockey Club to sustain racing.
We are considering a small amount of money. One must not forget that in 2008, the levy was £115 million and in 2010, it was just over £75 million. That is the difference between total success and abject failure. None of the businesses, trainers, owners, jockeys—none of the infrastructure—would survive without adequate support from the levy.
It is a crucial decision. We are world leaders in so few things. One could argue that we were best at being unable to cope with snow until the great arrival of German winter tyres to bring us through. However, we are world leaders in one brand—horse racing. Clearly, investment needs to be made in the future of that great product. We need only look at the breeding that supports the infrastructure, and the hundreds of thousands of people who work day in, day out. I have been a stable lad and done my three horses.
Peter Aldous
I wholeheartedly endorse the policy that both my hon. Friends espouse. Do they agree that racing interests would be best served by speaking with one voice? There are currently too many sectional interests.
Guy Opperman
There is a diverse set of interests, largely because many individuals work on an individual basis, whereas bookmakers are multinational, FTSE 100, powerful companies. Betfair is one of the major companies launched in the past few years and Ladbrokes and William Hill are big companies. It would be better if we could speak with one voice. Racing is trying to do that.
I urge hon. Members to think of the sense of community and the wondrous people in Lambourn, Newmarket, Malton and Pulborough. They are special places, which we will lose if we do not get behind Ministers, and Ministers do not make an effort.
Horse racing is a wondrous and special sport. On 26 December, the whole world will be focused on Kauto Star’s attempt to win his fifth King George. I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to encourage us all to get behind the fight for racing, which cannot be allowed to wither and die. That will happen unless we change things.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Merry Christmas, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I rise to make a plea to the Department for Transport to rescue my constituents from their plight. I am referring not to the temporary difficulties caused by unexpectedly seasonal weather, but to the long-suffering of my constituents on overcrowded First Great Western services in some parts of my constituency, and to their suffering from the woefully absent services in other parts.
However, before I speak about that, I should like to raise the urgent matter of the forthcoming closure for refurbishment of the Chippenham driving test centre. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who has responsibility for road safety, has previously heard my calls for Wiltshire residents not to have to travel so far for a driving test. Many have experienced that difficulty since the closure of the Trowbridge driving test centre under the previous Government. However, should plans to close temporarily the Chippenham centre proceed in February, learner drivers in Wiltshire will have to travel as far as Bristol, Swindon or Salisbury. The good news is that the former driving test centre premises in Trowbridge are still available, and I urge the Minister to request that the Driving Standards Agency considers moving the Chippenham centre operation to Trowbridge during the period of those works.
I am always happy to offer solutions to the Government when I seek action from them, including in respect of the overcrowded trains to which I referred. Just over a month ago, the Transport Secretary set out his proposals for future rail investment, including one to cascade 650 additional carriages to the network outside London by March 2014. I should like to make the case for assigning even just one of those carriages to the trans-Wilts line, which links the five largest population centres in Wiltshire.
The line was a popular and well used service until the start of the current First Great Western franchise in 2006, when the requirement to provide a meaningful trans-Wilts service was dropped by the previous Government. Overcrowding is currently a serious problem on trains in and out of Bath. The problem is made worse because passengers cannot travel directly between Trowbridge and Chippenham—they are forced to re-route through Bath.
The Cardiff to Portsmouth line particularly suffers from overcrowding, as I told the Secretary of State following his statement. I am in no doubt that that line warrants some of those additional carriages. However, I suspect that without the benefit of some local knowledge, his officials could overlook the contribution that a single extra carriage assigned to the trans-Wilts line will make in alleviating the problem, since it will provide the direct route that is currently missing at all but the extremes of the day.
For example, at Melksham, there are currently only two train services each way a day, scheduled at deeply unhelpful times for commuters. A worker from Melksham who wishes to use those services to travel to work in Swindon would be obliged to work a 12-hour day before counting their travel time. To say the least, that is impractical. A single extra 153-class carriage would make possible four extra return services per day between Swindon and Salisbury. In due course, with a second 153 car, a regular and reliable hourly service throughout the day would be possible. At the same time, that would relieve pressure on overcrowded trains through Bath.
In the debate following the Secretary of State’s announcement on 25 November, he assured me that decisions to allocate those carriages will be determined not by the commercial position of franchisees, but by the wider economic benefits that extra capacity can bring. The trans-Wilts line can pass that test. For a start, there are no infrastructure constraints to expanding that service—no new track to lay, and no platforms or buildings to construct. There is passenger demand for such a service. Figures show a 10% growth in passenger numbers in west Wiltshire each year since 2005. The trans-Wilts service operated by Wessex Trains between 2001 and 2006 experienced strong year-on-year growth in passenger numbers, and more than 500,000 people live in the crescent between Swindon and Salisbury, which the line serves.
Indeed, the Wessex chamber of commerce and other local businesses have added their strong support for a service at economically meaningful times to connect the county’s population centres. The service would indeed support the footprint of the local enterprise partnership that is planned for Swindon, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. Wiltshire council has plans temporarily to move offices to close to Melksham station next year, which would provide an additional boost to demand while the service establishes itself.
That is a strong economic case, and I must pay tribute to the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, which continues to co-ordinate the campaign for better rail services in our area. Improving the trans-Wilts line is not a costly or high-risk proposition. It is simply a bid to regain a service that was popular and well used, and which should never have been removed from the franchise in the first place.
I do not make a habit of writing lengthy or over-optimistic Christmas lists. Some hon. Members will receive a shiny, high-speed train set for their constituents, but for me and the long-suffering commuters of Wiltshire one or two second-hand carriages would grant us our Christmas wish.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Christmas is a time that parents look forward to celebrating with their children when they can. However, for many parents that is not possible—and I am thinking not only of our troops in Afghanistan, but of the 3 million children in this country who live apart from a parent and, in particular, of those who are caught in the family justice system. I think particularly of non-resident parents who are trying to get access to or have contact time, as it is called, with their children. This issue also affects grandparents, aunts and uncles to a very great degree.
Sadly, it is abundantly clear that the present family justice system is much too slow. Its processes are greatly abused by parents with no penalty or sanctions applied. It is far too expensive in many cases. One of my constituents, a father, came to see me to say that he had spent more than £8,000 obtaining a court-sanctioned contact order to see his children. He did not abuse that order, but it was not honoured and he could not get it upheld by the courts or the police. Unsurprisingly, he was then short of money to pay maintenance as he wanted to do.
The most vivid example of the failure to honour a court order came from a warrant officer who came to see me. He took his civilian overcoat off and underneath he was in uniform. On his chest was his badge of office—a crown, as those who have served in the armed forces will know—and he put the court order on the table in front of me with the crown of the court on it, stipulating that he should have time with his children every other weekend. That court order was not honoured, and it was not upheld by the police or the courts. He felt deeply let down.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend see merit in a default position, whereby both parents have a duty to maintain contact with the children without having to go to court first?
Andrew Selous
We can learn a lot from countries such as Australia, which has a much more shared parenting approach, uses much more mediation and is generally more successful.
Another of my constituents is a young father who has a valid contact order in place. He previously had full custody of his little girl. He is not in any way dangerous—indeed, he is a devoted dad. He last saw his daughter in July. She cries out when she sees him and her grandmother in the local shopping centre, longing to be with him. He has tried since July to get a court date to see her before Christmas, but that has not been possible. He left my surgery in tears after I had updated him on what the family court service had said about his case.
Another constituent also had a valid contact order and on 21 June, the Monday after fathers’ day, he received a text to say that the mother of his child had disappeared, leaving no address. Even after a court seek-and-find procedure, no address was provided. A first court date was set in a court a long way away from where my constituent lives, but it was adjourned. When the case did get into court on 4 October, the proceedings were shambolic, the judge was not well briefed and the appropriate file was not there. The case was adjourned again until 30 November and, on 28 November, the mother succeeded in getting that hearing adjourned, as—allegedly—a medical report on the child was not ready. When my extremely persistent constituent finally got the case into court earlier this month, he found that the medical report was dated 18 November and had been available for the earlier court hearing, but of course there was no sanction on the mother. The courts allow difficult parents to deprive their children of a relationship with their father.
I am proud to be an MP for a Government who are radical and reforming in many ways, and I put it to the House that we need radical reform of the family justice system. We need a system that is much less winner takes all, less confrontational and less expensive; and we need a system that provides proper enforcement of court-sanctioned contact orders.
Matthew Hancock
Has my hon. Friend seen the Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office reports into CAFCASS, showing that the extremely moving examples that he has highlighted today are not isolated cases but part of a wider problem in the family court system?
Andrew Selous
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. He is right. The problem affects every single one of us in the Chamber and is an issue on which we need urgent progress. The input of mothers and fathers, where safe—that is the vast majority of cases—is hugely beneficial to children.
The language we use in these cases is extremely unhelpful. I really dislike the terms “non-resident parent”, which suggests some sort of absentee parent forced to leave their own home, and “parent with care”—why should one parent have to do all the caring? Is that not unfair to mothers, to whom it often applies? The term “contact” is a cold and unfeeling term for what is the strongest of all human bonds. Would “daddy time” or “mummy time” not be more appropriate?
On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), Australia takes a much better approach. Its approach, which was introduced hand-in-hand with reforms to the child maintenance system, is to regard a separated couple as two single parents, with the emphasis, wherever possible, on as much shared parenting as possible, not on one “parent with care” and a distant “non-resident parent”. That matters greatly, because there are very positive results for children when separated parents are involved in their children’s lives. Earlier this year, one of the most recent academic studies on this subject, by Fabricius et al, showed that when separated parents are involved to a greater degree with their children, it produces better school results, fewer suspensions and lower drop-out rates. There are clearly positive results to be had, so we need a real change of emphasis in this area. We need people in the public sector, such as general practitioners and teachers, to take the rights of non-resident parents seriously where the latter want to be involved in their children’s lives.
I would commend Australia again. In Perth in western Australia, it was found that one of the reasons parents with care were giving for not allowing contact time with children was their concern that the fathers would not be able to look after the children properly. As a result, courses in child health were set up for fathers to facilitate greater shared care—a very practical suggestion. I put it to the Minister, therefore, that on this issue we have made too little progress for far too long, causing far too much heartache to too many of our constituents. As I wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all Members and staff of the House a very happy Christmas, I ask everyone to reflect briefly on those good parents who long to be with their children this Christmas but who will be denied that opportunity.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
I am sure that I speak for everyone in the House in saying that this has been a most interesting and informative debate. I, for one, have learned a lot about subjects that I hardly knew existed as subjects, although I feel somewhat inadequate that my constituency does not have a race track or, indeed, a tyre factory—I hope that those things can be remedied as soon as possible.
I want to speak about unemployment levels, which is a subject that affects most hon. Members’ constituencies, and what I believe charitable organisations can do to help to alleviate it. I have done a lot of work on unemployment in Watford. At 3.1%, we do not have a particularly high unemployment level in gross terms, but we do have a lot of young people—the figure has nearly doubled in the past two and a half years. We also have quite a few people on incapacity benefit, many of whom wish to be taken off it and to move into work. I feel that the system has very much failed them. During the summer I commissioned a research project with some students to look into unemployment, speaking to young people in particular. We were quite amazed at how many of the 560 young people on jobseeker’s allowance were at home, demoralised and demotivated, making it difficult for them to go out and get work.
My central argument today is that we should encourage the charitable sector to help to alleviate the problem, because I believe that it can do far better than some of the commercial providers that are currently involved in the different job schemes. Last week I met a remarkable lady who is the mother of one of my constituents who is registered disabled. Lindsey Gibson has some problems with speech, but she is determined to get herself a job. She told me a tale of how firms such as Kennedy Scott are paid a lot of money by Government, with the best of intentions, to get people off jobseeker’s allowance or incapacity benefit. However, often people turn up and are told to leave after five minutes because there is no one there to teach them or because the computers are not working—they are given every excuse under the sun. It is quite disgraceful that such companies are not monitored, and my constituent is only one of a number of people who have mentioned this to me.
Let us look at the two new schemes that have been brought forward and how they use charitable organisations. Under the Work Together scheme, Jobcentre Plus encourages unemployed people to consider taking up voluntary work while looking for paid employment. Miss Gibson, whom I saw last week, was discouraged from doing that in the past, because people said that while she was doing voluntary work she was not able to look for work and would therefore not qualify for benefits. The Government are changing that, which is absolutely right. Doing voluntary work could mean working in a charity shop, which gives people confidence and allows them to network with other people. The hours are often flexible enough to allow people to go to job interviews and do what they really want to do. We have to encourage that. We cannot have rules that say that people cannot do more than 16 hours a week.
Work Choice, which is the other programme, is doing good work in Hertfordshire, and in Watford in particular, via the Shaw Trust, a charitable organisation that helps disabled people into work. Progress is being made. I would encourage the Government and charitable organisations to get involved in that work, because they can do it a lot better than private enterprise. If we had a race course or a tyre factory where people could work, things might be different, but we do not. We have to make do with Camelot—it is not involved in gambling, because people are playing a game—which employs 700 people. Camelot is a serious organisation; the reason I mention it is that it works in the community on helping people to get jobs. Some private companies are so fattened by the fees that they have received for training courses that I am reminded of that old advert—I think it was for Bran Flakes—in which people on a boat sang, “They’re tasty, tasty, very, very tasty. They’re very tasty.” This has to stop, so the more that we can deal with charitable organisations, the better.
I wish everyone a happy Christmas and a happy new year. I hope that hon. Members sympathise, as I do, with the Deputy Leader of the House, because how he will deal with all these different subjects between now and Christmas and the new year I do not know.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
I realise that many colleagues’ minds will not be on the business of the House, but on their Christmas lunch. If they are still in search of provisions, may I suggest that they head to Norfolk, where they can find their entire lunch? If they should be stuck in Norfolk, because of the inclement weather—
Elizabeth Truss
Indeed. If hon. Members are stuck in Norfolk, may I suggest that they will be catered for? Not only will they be able to purchase their turkey, potatoes, Brussels sprouts and a mountain of vegetables; we also have the world’s biggest sugar factory, so dessert is catered for. A by-product of the sugar factory is the heat that it generates, and tomatoes are produced in the greenhouses there. There is cheese—the Binham Blue and the Wells Alpine—for the cheeseboard, and, for those after-dinner drinks, we also have the only English whisky distillery.
Norfolk is indeed a county of bounty, with 80% of the land used for food and farming. It often strikes me that if Martians were to come to Earth and watch prime-time TV programmes such as “Come Dine with Me” and “River Cottage”, they would think that we were all obsessed with food. They would imagine that we spent all day thinking about where our food came from and how it was produced. They would also believe Norfolk to be a dominant part of the British economy, with its strong food and farming industry. There have been excellent developments at local level. An example is the development of the Norfolk food hub, which I am assured will have goats grazing on the grass roof of its exciting new building, but there has not been a growth of food exports in relation to food imports. In fact, over the past 10 years, we have imported nearly twice as much food, relative to exports, as we used to do.
Elizabeth Truss
It is shocking, particularly given that farming and food production is now Britain’s biggest manufacturing industry. The farming and food industry is often seen as a cost centre, rather than an income generator. In fact, at heart, it is a commercial enterprise. We can see that if we go to the Swaffham poultry auction, or the Swaffham market. I believe that agriculture and food need the same access as other industries to talented people and to capital, because that would help to generate more income from the food and farming industry.
One of the huge issues for food and farming is the high demand for skills and new input into the industry. Running an average farm now requires only an eighth of the number of people needed 40 years ago, owing to mechanisation and improved technology, but those people need to be highly skilled. They need to be technically trained, and they need to understand business. There are opportunities in agriculture for highly skilled engineers, technicians and graduates from other disciplines. For example, David Lawrence, who runs the very successful agricultural academy, Easton college, spent 18 months searching for an agricultural engineer. This is a problem for farmers and for the food industry across my constituency, and it is very important to get graduates and skilled engineers into the industry. It is a great industry, and we need to encourage talented, qualified people to come to Norfolk to work in it.
Unlike America, England does not have vast prairies that yield economies of scale. We do, however, have great access to European markets, high quality products and immense marketing capability, and we need to use them more. Let us look at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s progress in expanding exports. I fully support its efforts to make greater use of our commercial capabilities and our embassies and high commissions abroad. Food and farming should be one of the leading industries that the FCO promotes. Heygate’s flour mill in Downham Market has had great success in promoting flour products in the middle east, for example, and there is no reason why such successes cannot be replicated across other industries.
We can deliver for Britain. Agriculture has a great future as an export industry because of the sheer quality of our produce, but it also has an immense emotional connection to Britain. Internationally, people value British food. I was at an airport recently, and I saw Marmite on sale, ready for people to take out of the country. That is the kind of export leader that we need to think about.
I was shocked to read that we now import 67% of our apples. In the 1960s and 1970s, great orchards were uprooted so that we could have the Pink Lady apple in this country. Anyone who remembers our native breeds knows that an English apple tastes better, and I would particularly recommend Norfolk apples. It would be of huge benefit to the Treasury to see more native apples exported, as well as being eaten here, and it would be great to see the fens repopulated by the fabulous orchards that used to dominate the region. May I also say that good practice starts at home?
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Let me take this opportunity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to wish you and all Members of the House, as well as its staff and their families, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
In April 2008, the previous Government introduced the local housing allowance as a new way of calculating housing benefit for tenants in the private sector. The allowance is paid directly to the tenant, who should pass it on to the landlord as rent. The housing allowance and direct payments to tenants allow prospective tenants to “shop around” with their allowances, but following the introduction of local housing allowances more than 41% of private landlords—an increase of 4%—are not letting to tenants who receive such allowances, mainly because of the lack of a guarantee that rents will be received. The greatest difficulty facing many landlords with local housing allowance tenants is their inability to obtain rents. Currently, when tenants are in arrears, landlords must wait for a minimum of eight weeks before they can request direct payments.
I recently attended a meeting of the Calderdale landlords association in Calder Valley. The picture that was painted was of a sector in meltdown. No fewer than 350 properties belonging to the members of the association who were present at the meeting are in danger of being withdrawn from those receiving local housing allowances, entirely owing to the lack of guarantees.
In far too many cases throughout England, tenants move in, pay the first month’s rent, and then do not pay for two months. Leaving arrears, they then move across the border to neighbouring local authority areas and repeat the process. Then, of course, they move on again. Many pay only three months’ rent in 12 months. The cost to landlords is getting out of hand, and the practice is keeping rental charges far too high. Honest, decent people who pay their rent on time are subsidising many people who do not. A landlord who contacted me recently said that in a portfolio of 15 houses, seven tenants were more than two months in arrears, and five of them had moved on owing well over £1,000 each in rent. The cost to landlords of pursuing back rents is also expensive, and landlords incurring that additional expense often have no chance of receiving any money at all. As a result, many landlords do not pursue back rents, as by doing so they would only add to their losses.
At a time when supply should be increasing to meet increasing demand and take advantage of higher rents, stock levels in the sector fell by 2.7% between the first and second quarters of the year. As a consequence, not only is supply much tighter, but rents increased at a rate of 2.3% over the same period because supply is so much lower than demand.
Other issues in the sector are causing a decline in stock levels. The taxation system provides little incentive for investment in accommodation; we should allow the private rented sector to be treated in the same way as businesses. The system is also failing to identify vulnerable people who, even under the current arrangement, should be eligible for direct payment of their local housing allowance to their landlords. Many tenants are failing to manage their finances properly, falling into rent arrears and having their tenancies terminated. The safeguarding processes that exist are failing. Many landlords are reporting that rents have not been paid this month, as some tenants are choosing to spend their housing allowance on Christmas rather than paying their rents.
The solution to the crisis that is starting to develop is quite simple. The Residential Landlords Association, Shelter and Crisis all agree on two specific points. First, their tenants—who consist overwhelmingly of claimants of local housing allowance—say that they would prefer the allowance to be paid directly to their landlords. That would help people to manage their finances, and would reduce the temptation to use the allowance to pay other debts rather than paying rent. It would also provide tenants with security so they could be sure that the rent had been paid and there was no chance of losing their home.
Jack Dromey
The hon. Gentleman’s heart-rending appeal on behalf of landlords is very interesting. Will he join me in extending similar concern to the 67,000 families in the midlands facing an increase of an average of £9 a week as the consequence of £1.8 billion being taken out of housing benefit by his Government—families who can ill afford to pay £9 a week extra?
Craig Whittaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am sure he will agree that it was the previous Government who brought in the housing allowance, which is hindering the progress of the private rented sector and stopping investment in it, as I mentioned.
The rule by which the local housing allowance can be paid directly to landlords only when claimants become eight weeks in arrears should be replaced when a sum of one month’s rent falls into arrears for 14 days. That would prevent tenants in difficulties from getting further into debt. Allowances should also be paid calendar-monthly in advance, in line with normal rental payment practices.
For a system that was set up to give people their own choices, its failure is producing a system where rents are on the rise because of the shortage of housing in the sector and because of those who do not pay their rent and buck the system. That is without question increasing rents in the sector. That is not fair, it is not sustainable and it needs to change.
Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
I congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on bringing some festive cheer to this Adjournment debate with your red socks with green flashes. I am not sure whether those are holly leaves. [Interruption.] I can see things which other Members in the Chamber may not be able to see.
Unfortunately, the topic that I wish to raise today is a little more serious. In his statement of 14 December, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), announced plans for a more modern justice system that has
“more efficient courts, better facilities, and the faster conclusion of cases for the benefit of victims, witnesses, defendants, judges and the public at large.”—[Official Report, 14 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 816.]
I support the broad intention of those proposals, and I believe the Surrey courts service has supported this approach for some time. Since 1990, the year in which Woking court opened as the county’s new, purpose-built building, seven courthouses have been closed in total and just four magistrates courts now operate—in Guildford, Redhill, Staines and Woking.
Woking is still the best equipped court in Surrey with excellent disabled facilities, including wheelchair access and hearing loops in each court, and terrific youth and child witness provision. Woking is also the most efficient court in terms of the number of cases seen per hour relative to utilisation rates. The case throughput rate has risen from 5.43 per hour in 2008 to no less than 7.65 in 2010.
The Minister wrote to me on the day of his statement to tell me that Woking court was to close and that its workload would be transferred to Guildford and Staines. In his letter he said:
“By closing courts with low workloads, or facilities which do not meet the modern standards society expects, we have been able to release £22 million to improve and modernise the courts to which work will transfer.”
Presumably he is including potential Woking court receipts within this figure, despite it having neither a low workload nor poor facilities. However, he is closing Surrey’s most modern and best equipped court and he will find it almost impossible to raise the remaining three courts in Surrey to an equivalent standard. For example, the other courts have severe limitations with regard to which courtrooms prisoners can be produced in, whereas Woking can have prisoners produced in all three courtrooms.
The Government’s consultation response pointed out that the public areas of Staines and Guildford courts are accessible to disabled people. That is a wonderful thing for disabled visitors, but not so much use to a disabled person who wishes to access the actual courtrooms independently and safely.
While we are on the subject of the Government’s response, I am told that six financial advisers have been left off Her Majesty’s Courts Service list of staff affected by the closure. I hope the Minister will be able to correct this. There are also significant maintenance backlogs at Guildford and Staines, and I would be grateful if the Minister provided more details on them, as I believe the figures have recently changed.
If Woking court is so wonderful, why is it being closed? The reason seems to be that the Ministry of Justice has been unable to identify one of the older, less efficient courts—which would have been more in keeping with the terms of the consultation and the overall strategy—because the other magistrates courts in Surrey are co-located with county courts. Yet after seven closures in 20 years, I do not believe the county can afford to lose another court.
In 2008, Surrey had a population of just over 1.1 million people, which amounts to just over 278,000 people per court. Only one area had a higher figure—south Yorkshire—which has more than 316,000 people per courthouse, and it is not suffering a closure. If Woking court closes, Surrey’s figure will be comfortably the highest in the country, at over 371,000 per courthouse.
Elizabeth Truss
My constituency has also faced a court closure, at Thetford. Does my hon. Friend agree it is important not just that justice is done, but that justice is seen to be done locally? We need to make sure that our justice system does not become over-centralised, and that people locally need to be involved.
Jonathan Lord
I could not agree more, and I think the Government’s proposals tread a fine line in respect of the issues my hon. Friend mentions.
Not only would Surrey have 371,000 people per courthouse, but Surrey’s population is increasing, by almost 20% over the next 23 years according to Surrey county council. I will also send figures to the Minister showing that Surrey already has one of the highest numbers of crimes per courthouse of any police authority outside London.
Neil Parish
My constituency also faces the problem of a courthouse closing, in Honiton. Does my hon. Friend agree that a lot of defendants might not get to court if they have to travel a great distance? If they do not get to court, the police will have to arrest them later, so there could be much more bureaucracy and problems as a result of shutting a local courthouse.
Jonathan Lord
My hon. Friend makes a valuable and pertinent point. Woking also has a significant Muslim population, and it has built up good links with Woking courthouse, so the problem my hon. Friend mentions could be exacerbated in this instance.
If Woking court closes, the target utilisation rate for Staines and Guildford, where the work is due to transfer, will be 93%. That is very high, especially considering the need for significant remedial work and modernisation at those courthouses. Where will the cases go if the courts have to close to be repaired or updated? Where is the margin for error for the population growth I mentioned, or for the unexpected?
Finally, what possible grounds are there for stating that the court’s relationship with Woking’s Muslim community and with our Shah Jahan mosque
“will be maintained should the closure be ordered”?
The relationship between the mosque and the local court has been built slowly and sensitively over many years, involving specific officials from the court, who will no longer serve the current local justice area, and chairmen of a bench, which will cease to exist. The mosque will lose its link to the court because that link will be fractured, and its relationship with new and unfamiliar personnel, in an area outside its community, can neither be anticipated nor relied upon.
I urge the Minister to review all these points—I will elaborate on them when I write to him shortly—and to reflect on his decision. Several Members have intervened on me, and I sympathise with many colleagues who have also suffered closures, but I say to them that we have a court that is purpose built, has high utilisation rates, has a terrific bench, dedicated staff, fantastic disabled access and all the facilities I have mentioned, and it would be a tragedy for the county of Surrey to lose it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
In the spirit of Christmas and acting as Father Christmas, I now intend to extend the time limit from six to seven minutes.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Describing a women’s refuge as a “success” is a regrettable use of the word, because in a supposedly civilised society there should be no need for a place of refuge for women and, frequently, also their children, to escape the violence, intimidation or non-physical psychological behaviour of a bullying husband, partner or father. But what has been achieved in my constituency at the Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge, and I am sure at many similar refuges around the country, can be described only as a success. I am sure that lives have been saved; certainly, battered lives have been spared further abuse and cruelty.
In the past year, the refuge has provided a safe haven for 120 women and 194 children. Across Essex, refuges have accommodated 664 women and 701 children—that is an increase of 15% over the previous year. The refuge in my constituency relies on a combination of professionals and volunteers. It represents exactly the concept that I believe the Prime Minister had in mind when he talked about “the big society”. The Colchester refuge could not operate without volunteers. In addition to the trustees, who are responsible for the organisation’s governance and financial health, there are a further 23 volunteers.
Sadly, although the operating costs of the refuge are less than half what it would cost the public purse if the children were put in care—and, thus, removed from their mother, whose whereabouts could also result in a cost to public funds—there is a real threat to its future provision and financial viability because of serious cuts to funding from the Supporting People budget. In Essex, the cut is feared to be in the region of 25% to 30%. We must examine the financial savings—these are in addition to the huge emotional good work, for which no monetary value can be given, of keeping mothers and their children united—from what refuges provide. There would otherwise be a legal statutory requirement on the relevant local authority to fund this money from the public purse.
There is arguably no worse time—or perhaps, given the awfulness of the subject, no better time—than the last parliamentary day before Christmas for me to raise one of the taboo subjects which diminish the claim that we are a civilised country: domestic violence and other abuse suffered by many women. This Saturday, about 30 children, 20 of whom are under child protection orders, will have their Christmas dinner in the Colchester refuge. If places had not been available, they would probably have had to be separated from their mothers and taken into foster care.
The directorate of children’s social care at Essex county council estimates that the cost of fostering a child for a week is £500—that excludes administration, monitoring and other associated costs. The highly respected Fostering Network puts the cost considerably higher. By contrast, the cost to Supporting People of keeping a woman with three children in Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge is £216 a week. Adding to that the housing benefit received, the cost of keeping a family together in a refuge remains less than half the basic cost of £1,000 to keep just two children in foster care.
I am certain that the pioneers who, in December 33 years ago, opened the first women’s refuge in Colchester would not have wanted things to be so desperate that such a facility was needed. Regrettably, such is the scale of the problem that in the second decade of the third millennium this accommodation in Colchester has grown from one property, a former neighbourhood shop, to two large houses. One is a big Victorian dwelling converted to provide individual spaces for women and their children, as necessary; the second is a purpose-built modern building that should be viewed as the benchmark for such provision. I recall attending the official opening of the older dwelling.
There is also a third building, which is a daytime centre providing non-residential advice and support for women living in disturbing relationships. Although the buildings are located in my constituency, the Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge covers two local authority areas—those of Colchester borough council and Tendring district council. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) covers parts of both those local authorities.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend for raising this matter on the Adjournment of the House. Does he agree that the concern is that Essex county council’s decision to withdraw funds will result in increased costs for the council? I assure him that the Public Administration Committee, which I chair, is examining this problem in general and is considering how the voluntary sector is affected by reductions in public spending of this nature.
Bob Russell
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who has visited the refuge and is working with colleagues at Essex country council to try to resolve the financial problems to which I refer. We might disagree on some things, but I am confident that we have shared objectives on this occasion. I also understand that the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell), whose constituency is exclusively in Tendring district, will visit the refuge in the new year.
With a background as a journalist who reported on court cases, and with long service in local government where I came across much of life, I thought that I was streetwise, but in my time as a Member I have been shocked by how some male members of the species can be such “bar stewards”. I am sure that it has been the constituency experience of colleagues throughout the House.
It was because of my growing concerns about domestic violence that I was able, when I served on the Home Affairs Committee, to encourage colleagues to hold an inquiry into the subject. We heard harrowing stories as we gathered evidence. In the course of the inquiry, I accompanied the Chairman of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), on a visit to the Colchester women’s refuge to meet members of staff and some of the residents. The Committee’s report on domestic violence, forced marriage and “honour” based violence was published on 13 June 2008.
Domestic violence is a subject that people do not normally want to talk about, but here in Parliament it is important that we do. An analysis of 10 separate domestic violence studies came up with consistent findings: one in four women experiences domestic violence at some point of their lives, with between 6% and 10% suffering in any given year. The British crime survey, looking at England and Wales for 2003, found an estimated 12.9 million incidents of domestic violence against women and 2.5 million against men. Although only a minority of incidents of domestic violence are reported to the police, on average the police still receive one call about domestic violence every minute—1,300 calls a day, more than 570,000 each year.
In that context, the need for women’s refuges is such that it would be wrong for there to be cuts that imperilled their future. We have to accept, as a sad reflection on society, that a small minority of men behave in an appalling way. The Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge provides a safe haven. A combination of professional staff and volunteers do a fantastic job, but I am concerned that the unintended consequences of Government policies—implemented by Essex county council, cutting the Supporting People funding for refuges—could seriously affect what is done. I urge the Government to ensure that women’s refuges are allowed to continue the excellent work that they undertake.
Moving from one serious subject to another, I note that this Christmas approximately 3,000 of my constituents will not enjoy the festivities with their family. I refer to the soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade, based at the Colchester garrison, who are deployed to Afghanistan and predominantly Helmand province. Most are at Camp Bastion, but others have been deployed throughout the province, including those soldiers at the forward operational bases, the FOBs. To them and their families back in the UK, I am sure the whole House will wish to send Christmas greetings and its hopes for a peaceful return in the new year.
Finally, to my constituents, royalists and republicans alike, let us look forward not only to Christmas but to the royal wedding. If the republicans do not want to celebrate, I hope that they will still enjoy the day off.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your Christmas generosity in allowing us an extra minute to speak. I wish you, all Members and those who look after us so well in the House a very happy Christmas.
Members have spoken about court closures, racing stables and winter tyres. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) talked about the wonderful food in Norfolk, and I could not let this opportunity pass without saying not only that is Norfolk food good, but that Devon food is excellent. With one’s Christmas pudding, one must have some Devonshire cream and make sure that one has some grass-fed Devonshire lamb and beef to go alongside it—perhaps a bit of turkey too.
I rise to speak about heating oil, another matter very important to rural constituencies. My constituency is 40 miles long; it starts on Exmoor and ends up in the sea at Seaton. There is a huge rural area within those boundaries, and many of the villages and hamlets there have no mains gas supply. Their only alternative to electricity for heating is oil. That is why the postcode lottery on what people pay for heating oil must stop.
During business questions last week, I made the point that during November and early December, crude oil prices went up by 17% and that the price of heating oil went up by 70%. There is no justification for that. Within rural areas, there are many old properties—some are farm houses, some are small cottages—and they are difficult to insulate with modern insulation and expensive to heat. People need more fuel to heat them, and if we lump on to that the huge increase in price, a lot of the heating allowances for poorer people just do not go very far at all.
About 2 million properties rely on heating oil; they are mostly in rural areas and 828,000 of them are in England. Recently, as I said, there has been a spike in oil prices that could add as much as £540 a year to the average family’s heating bill. The price of heating oil tends to rise gradually in the winter months, when demand is at its highest. A home owner might use anything between 2,500 to 4,000 litres of oil. Price rises during winter are unavoidable, but the price rises that we have seen cannot be justified simply by supply and demand.
Craig Whittaker
Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituents who have contacted me in the past couple of days to express the real suspicion that the supply of oil is being held back to inflate prices artificially, with the companies knowing full well that the average UK home that uses oil can store only up to 60 days’ worth? In effect, those homes have to buy oil when winter is at its worst.
Neil Parish
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Furthermore, some oil companies unscrupulously deliver oil at a very high price and hold back on deliveries under contracts that are sold at a lower price. The issue really needs to be sorted out.
That brings me neatly to my next point. Crude oil accounts for 48% of the cost of heating oil. The largest next component, accounting for 45%, includes the cost of distribution and marketing. The refining process accounts for only 7%.
The average price of a litre of heating oil in Northern Ireland, which has had some of the worst of the recent weather, is 48p per litre, or 52p in Belfast—and given that weather, the cost of delivery and getting the tankers to the houses would be among the greatest. The average price in the south of England at the moment is 80p per litre, while in the middle of England it is 68p, in Wales it is 67p and in Scotland it is 64p per litre. What justification is there for someone in the south of England having to pay nearly twice as much as people in Northern Ireland? During the same period, the price of petrol at the pumps has gone up by only 10p per litre.
I say clearly to the Business Secretary that it is time that we did something about the situation. At the moment, he is considering establishing the position of an ombudsman to consider food prices and whether supermarkets’ buying power is too great. I urge him to get on with that as quickly as he can. I do not know whether he wants to go down this route, but I suggest that having an adjudicator or ombudsman for heating oil might provide some sort of solution to the problem that I have outlined. I am not thinking of a huge bureaucracy but of somebody people could contact to ask why their heating oil is so expensive in their parts of the country. Those companies would have to justify what they are actually charging. At the moment, there is misery being made out of cold weather and some people have no source of heating other than oil fires, Agas and boilers.
As I said, many houses are difficult to heat and insulate, and people are having to pay an extra price before Christmas. The Government cannot just stand by on this matter. All hon. Members probably believe in some form of market forces, but in this case those forces are being used to drive up the cost of fuel unjustifiably. As I have said, weather conditions alone cannot justify what is happening because Northern Ireland has had some of the worst weather in this period, yet it has some of the cheapest fuel. We must ensure that constituents who use oil to heat their houses, wherever they live, pay a fair price for that fuel and are not held to ransom by either the oil companies or those who deliver the oil to houses.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
I put on the record my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for how it has handled today’s Adjournment debate in providing so many hon. Members with an opportunity to speak.
My remarks will focus on equality and diversity. We have had a diverse debate this afternoon, but I am confident that the Deputy Leader of the House will be more than equal to the challenge of pulling the issues together in his closing remarks. I fundamentally agree with much of what colleagues have said, but I must challenge my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and say that every good Christmas pudding around the country will, of course, have Cornish clotted cream served with it.
Equality means something different to different people. Whether we are talking about equality of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation, there is no such thing as being almost equal. There can be no grey areas. If hon. Members will forgive the pun, equality is a black and white issue; someone is either equal or they are not. There is no doubt that the Government need to do more work across all the subjects I mentioned. However, I would like to focus some thoughts on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.
As many hon. Members will know—indeed, it is something I put on the record during my maiden speech—I am proud to be an openly gay Member of Parliament. I firmly believe that hon. Members from all parties have a responsibility to champion equality both in the countries of the United Kingdom and abroad. Although the United Kingdom has been at the forefront of LGBT equality, the record of other countries around the world is not quite so rosy. In Gambia, sexual relations between men still carries a sentence of 14-years’ imprisonment. The sentence is 21 years in Kenya and 25 years in Ghana. In Tanzania, Barbados, Sierra Leone and Bangladesh, the sentence can be life in prison, and in Nigeria and Pakistan—among other countries—sexual relations between gay men can lead to state-sanctioned execution.
The United Kingdom needs to do more to stand up for equality around the world. Last week, I tabled an early-day motion expressing concern at a United Nations decision to remove a reference to sexual orientation from a resolution condemning arbitrary executions. Will the Deputy Leader of the House work with his colleagues to strengthen the Government’s commitment to using our influence to push other countries towards true equality, particularly in relation to revisiting that UN resolution?
More work also still needs to be done on the issue in Britain. Research from the Library shows that suicide rates within the LGBT community are shocking. It is estimated that around 9% of the population have at some point considered taking their own lives. In the LGBT community, that figure is more than 50%. Indeed, while only 2.5%—a figure that is, none the less, tragic—of the population attempt suicide, 29% of people in the LGBT community try to take their own lives.
It is clear from those statistics that more work needs to be done to reach out to people across this country and explain to them that it is okay to be who they are. That is why I was pleased that one of the first actions of the Minister for Equalities was to launch the new equalities strategy for Government. Part of this strategy is the first ever cross-government programme to support LGBT people, and that is very welcome. Indeed, the Government have recognised that there are specific issues that transgender people face, and I welcome the moves to develop the first Government action plan on transgender equality next year.
In many ways, these steps build on the visible and vocal support that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have given to the LGBT community, not least in the run-up to Pride London this year, when they hosted an event in Downing street. I was very pleased yesterday to attend the launch of a new parliamentary support network for LGBT people here in the Palace of Westminster—ParliOut. That is an important first step for this House and everybody who works here in ensuring that we are able to provide support to Members, researchers and everybody else who comes and goes from this place. Of all places, people should feel able to be themselves here.
However, there is still further to go. As many Members know, I am a keen supporter and proponent of equal marriage for same-sex couples. As Mr Speaker said yesterday evening at the launch of ParliOut, it was a groundbreaking moment when Parliament itself was granted a licence to hold civil partnerships and when the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and his partner were the first to benefit from that. However, it would have been much more groundbreaking for this House to enable full equal marriage for same-sex couples across the country—not necessarily a religious tie, unless that is what individuals and their faith groups choose, but crucially the same status and legal position as that of heterosexual married couples. I am delighted that Stonewall now supports this aim, and I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will be able to mention the steps that the Government are taking to investigate it as an option and perhaps to introduce legislation before the end of this Parliament.
This week, Mr Deputy Speaker, saw your brave decision to reveal your own sexuality. I believe that that sends a hugely welcome and clear signal that this place has changed and that attitudes across the country are changing too. I would like to extend to you my best wishes and, I am sure, the best wishes of the whole House on that decision.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I am sure that in the season of good will the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge the extraordinary, groundbreaking contribution of the Labour Government on this issue. He mentioned the problems of those in the transgender group. Can he focus a little on the particular problems of women who do not want to get divorced even after the change of their gender, and the problems that they have over pensions? We should have addressed that and still have to do so. Does he have any thoughts on that?
Stephen Gilbert
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. It would be remiss of me not to remark on the huge progress that was made under the previous Government. She identifies an area where there is still work to be done and where we need to go further and faster. The call that I am making to the Deputy Leader of the House and to the Government is that we finish this job and deliver true equality to all citizens in the United Kingdom as quickly as we can.
There is no doubt that attitudes have changed in the country, and in many ways this place is now playing catch-up to those attitudes. For everybody who is out there still struggling to come to terms with their identity, we need to be absolutely clear that there are no second-class citizens in the United Kingdom and that as a country we are stronger because we are not all the same. I hope that over the coming years this Parliament will work to send out a clear signal that all of us are equal and all of us are entitled to live our lives free from fear and with the same opportunities and protections as each other.
As the last Back Bencher to speak today, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that that leaves me only to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and probably to turn off the light switch as I leave.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
But not before I have had a chance to try to respond to the debate.
The pre-recess Adjournment debate is one of the great parliamentary institutions, and I am very pleased that the Backbench Business Committee has decided to keep it going, albeit with a twist—a new format. I thank my ministerial colleagues for their contributions, especially those who are Ministers on the Treasury Bench but do not usually have the opportunity to speak from the Dispatch Box—the Assistant Whips. Members will have the opportunity to give feedback to the Backbench Business Committee and the Government on how the format has worked and on changes that they would like to see. I also thank the departmental clerks, who provide us with the information that we need to respond to hon. Members, and particularly those in the office of the Leader of the House and myself. We cannot answer everything, so some hon. Members will receive letters from Departments to deal with the details that they have raised.
I will start with the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). Oddly, the first and last speeches of this debate mirrored each other, because they spoke of human rights, gender equality and the equality prospectus. They underlined that equality is an important facet of domestic and foreign policy. The hon. Lady mentioned the Ashtiani case, and she knows that the Government have made vigorous representations to the Iranian Government on that matter. She also gave sobering statistics on gender balance in some developing countries, to which everyone should pay attention, as they suggest that there is more than just discrimination against female children in those areas. We must keep banging on at such issues. This country has a good history of developing human rights and the awareness of them, but we can never be complacent, either in our country or abroad.
That was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert). It is apposite that he should raise the issue today, because I gather that it is the fifth anniversary of civil partnerships in England and Wales. This is a timely reminder of the importance of the equality agenda. Like him, I pay tribute to Mr Speaker, to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to all who were involved in the setting up of ParliOut. I hope that last night’s launch was the first of many successes that the group will enjoy. We need to put this issue at the heart of the coalition Government’s agenda. If we do not stand for equality, we do not stand for the basic human principles of decency. It is important that we do all that we can to make those principles a reality in this country. I cannot give my hon. Friend an answer on civil partnerships, other than to say that the matter is being discussed actively by Home Office Ministers, as I think he knows. We hope to come to a conclusion soon.
I will deal with a couple of points that hon. Members raised about business. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), like me, has a small business background. It is of value for this House to have people who have worked in business, because they have contact with a world that often seems distant from politics. He made points about access to finance, red tape and scale problems—some things that work in large businesses are more difficult to achieve when there are a limited number of people in the work force. Those were extremely valuable points.
The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) concentrated on infrastructure demands, and the need for railway and road connections to his part of the world. In fact, East Anglia has done rather well out of this debate. He mentioned the Beccles bypass and the Brandon bypass in a neighbouring constituency. I am pleased that he also mentioned the need for high-speed internet, because that will be crucial in many rural areas. We always think about infrastructure in its physical manifestations, but the internet will increasingly be the most important thing that businesses need to compete successfully.
The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) made a very good case for the development of the Hitachi works in Newton Aycliffe. He knows that I cannot give him an answer on the decision that the Government will take, but he also knows that the matter is being actively considered and that there will be an announcement early in the new year. As someone who needs great western rolling stock, I will take a great interest in whether it is built in his constituency or elsewhere. He rightly made a strong case for his constituents and mentioned Hitachi’s good record in cold weather, which ought to be at the top of people’s priorities at the moment. I am grateful to him and will ensure that the Secretary of State for Transport hears what he has to say.
The hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) talked about how we create jobs, how we get people back into employment and the role of the voluntary sector, and he made extremely important points. He was rather sad that he did not have a race course in his constituency, although he said that he had Camelot there. I have to say that I have the original Camelot in my constituency, but we will let that pass.
We then heard a string of seasonally related speeches, starting with the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) making a strong case for winter tyres. I think that we now agree about exactly what we mean by winter tyres, which perhaps was not quite the case in the earlier exchanges between the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston and the Secretary of State, who I think was talking about studded tyres and snow chains rather than the tyres that she suggests.
The hon. Lady clearly made a sensible point, and we know that the Secretary of State has started an assessment of whether we are likely to see these very bad weather conditions regularly, and what changes to legislation or practice are needed to adapt to them. He will clearly have to take her point into account. Of course there are other matters on which we can engage people in good practice, such as tyre tread depth and pressure, but she made a very good point, from her own experience and in the wider interests of her constituency, about what many people will see as a sensible option.
To continue the seasonal theme, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) made what I can only describe as a “bootiful” speech. She mentioned turkeys, which we associate with Norfolk, but I had not previously associated goats on the roof with Norfolk. She also mentioned the very good eating qualities of Norfolk apples, but I have to say that where the best ones come from depends on whether one thinks apples should be eaten or drunk.
The hon. Lady’s key point was that we do not say enough about the very good-quality produce that we produce in this country. We have superb brand names in our ancient counties. For instance, Norfolk has real associations with certain foods, as does Somerset. I am even prepared, despite the cream wars earlier, to accept that Devon and Cornwall have associations with good foods. I sometimes think that we do not make enough of those associations in marketing what we produce.
Still on the seasonal theme, I associate Boxing day with going to Wincanton races, and we heard two important contributions about the racing industry. I have heard of Newmarket, but Wincanton is obviously a very important race course, and some of the best trainers come from my constituency. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) mentioned Kauto Star, who was trained in my constituency. I had my picture taken with him a year or so ago, and he bit me, but he is a very good horse. I know that the hon. Gentleman unfortunately could not stay for the end of the debate, but he said that he was a jockey himself and that there was little demand for ageing politicians as jockeys. I seem to remember that my late friend Sir Clement Freud acted as a jockey very late in his political life, so all hope is not extinguished.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the future of racing, the effect of the levy and the diminishing value of the levy board contribution. We have got to get it right because racing is an important industry—it is not just the race courses, the trainers or the betting industry, but all those things put together, and all the downstream industries that connect with racing. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) has met the levy board and the racing and betting industries to discuss how we can get the levy reformed or possibly replaced. I hope that the Government will shortly make the right decisions for the industry.
Let us move away from seasonal issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) initially raised the driver training centre at Trowbridge and said that he had campaigned on it. He may remember that, in the days when I could campaign about things in the House, I, too, campaigned for the retention of that centre, which served my constituency in Frome. I know that he knows that Ministers are considering the matter seriously, and I will pass on his comments. I can do no more than that from the Dispatch Box.
I will also pass on my hon. Friend’s determination for the railway service in Wiltshire to be improved, particularly that in Melksham, which is so appallingly served by the current franchise. The key will be the local authorities and the attitude of Wiltshire unitary authority in deciding whether they want to take that forward. I know that the Department will be keen to work with Wiltshire if it feels that that is the right way to ensure that the necessary rolling stock is available to operate a new service for the area.
The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) raised a difficult subject, which we ought to discuss more often. He did not like the word “contact”, so perhaps “parent time” is better, whereby parents who are separated can share quality time with their children. I think that he has rightly drawn attention to the deficiencies in some parts of the family law system. He knows that the Government are conducting a family justice review to consider the family justice system as a whole, and to ascertain particularly how we can support better arrangements. As he says, that time is sometimes the subject of contact orders, which are sparingly enforced. That is one of the difficulties. I suspect that the answer may well lie in more mediation and—if he does not mind my using a cant term—a holistic approach to the relationships between children and their parents, ensuring that matters are examined in the round in the legal system.
The hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) discussed paying housing benefit directly to landlords. I am sure that he knows that we are widening local authority discretion to pay housing benefit directly to the landlords, if it will help customers secure a new tenancy or remain in their current home at a reduced rate. We are working closely with local authorities to ensure that the provisions are used in specific circumstances, when landlords reduce rents to an affordable level for customers. I am afraid that the Government do not intend to revert to the position whereby landlords demand direct payments as a condition of the tenancy because that was open to abuse, and we do not want to return to such a situation. Clearly, that will be examined with increasing closeness in the next little while to ensure that we have an effective system.
The hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) talked about the closure of the magistrates court in Woking. If I say that I have enormous fellow feeling for the hon. Gentleman, I hope that that will not be misinterpreted, but having seen the closure of Frome magistrates court and Trowbridge county court, which served my town of Frome and the surrounding area, I know exactly how he feels. He asked me for information about the rationale. I can tell him only what I have been supplied from the Ministry of Justice. Woking magistrates court is to close because utilisation of the courts in Surrey was only 72% and, taking a whole-area approach, Woking was the most sensible option for closure because, although it has good facilities and relatively high utilisation, if that work is absorbed by the remaining courts in Surrey—specifically, if work from Woking were transferred to Staines and Guildford magistrates court—the utilisation rate for magistrates courts in Surrey will increase from 72% to 89%. The Ministry of Justice also makes the point that all other magistrates courts in Surrey are co-located with a county court, which allows significant economies of scale, and centralisation of resources and types of work. He will want to ask the MOJ about those figures and argue his case further, which is of course his right, but that information might be helpful to him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) raised the effect of domestic violence and the hugely important work of women’s refuges such as the Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge. In the House and elsewhere, people sometimes duck away from that, but it is important that we do not do so. I believe that he said that that refuge houses 120 women and 194 children, which is a significant contribution to welfare in his area. He was very much supported by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin).
My hon. Friend spelt out very clearly the social and economic value of such facilities. He spoke of the real contribution that that women’s refuge and others make—his views are shared by MPs in neighbouring constituencies. I hope that by putting those views on the record, he gives pause for thought to Essex county council, and that it considers carefully where its priorities lie in setting its budget for this and future years.
I should not be remotely surprised that my hon. Friend raised the issue of the armed forces, but I should like to add my voice to his in sending our very best wishes and grateful thanks to the members of the armed forces who are serving in Afghanistan. I wish them a peaceful—so far as is possible—and safe Christmas. We all look forward to their safe return in the new year. I hope the whole House agrees with that.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), aside from his advert for Devonshire produce, raised an issue that affects all in rural areas—the cost of fuel oil. I declare an interest, because my house is heated by fuel oil. Luckily, I have a fairly full tank at the moment, so I am feeling smug, but many are not because the price increases are substantial. I listened very carefully to what the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) said on that. Fuel oil and liquefied petroleum gas both fall outside the current regulatory arrangements, but he is clearly considering whether more needs to be done. The message is simple. If consumers feel that they are being unfairly treated, they should raise their concerns with the Office of Fair Trading. We asked the OFT to monitor the situation, and I hope that people use that opportunity so that it gets a clear picture of what is happening.
Last but not least, we heard the contribution of the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess). A pre-Adjournment debate would not be complete without that—it is inimitable. In the space of just six minutes, he managed to mention the disability issues and sporting excellence of Joanna Cranfield; Mr West, who has problems with Equitable Life; his efforts on behalf of Steven Bristow, who has been in prison in Thailand for 27 years; Jackie Currie and the change in the status of prison visitors; Cherry Sholem and her child who has dyspraxia; and Ian Shirley, whose partner, Ida Hammond, has sadly passed away after suffering from dementia. He added Camp Ashraf to that and gave his best wishes to the ambassador to the Holy See on his retirement. His was a sterling performance, but I cannot answer all his points. I will ensure that those who need to hear them do so.
Lastly, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you and the staff of the House—particularly the Doorkeepers, and particularly Maxwell, who is retiring as a Doorkeeper after 17 years—very best wishes for Christmas and the new year. Yet again, it has been a delight to answer the pre-Christmas Adjournment debate, and I hope that I have answered at least some of the points that hon. Members have raised.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before we move on to the next business and while some people are still here, on behalf of Mr Speaker, myself and the other Deputy Speakers, I wish all the staff of Parliament who keep it all going a merry Christmas and a very happy and healthy new year—from the cleaners to the cooks, from the Clerks to the contractors, and from MPs and their staff to Hansard and the journalists. More importantly, our thoughts and thanks go to the armed forces at this special time.
Business of the House
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 15),
That, at this day’s sitting, consideration of any Lords Messages that may be received may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—(Robert Goodwill.)
Question agreed to.
Education Maintenance Allowance
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I present this petition after receiving a similar petition with more than 2,500 signatories.
The petition states:
The Petition of Liverpool Community College students and staff,
Declares that the petitioners oppose the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA); that the petitioners believe that the EMA helps thousands of young people to reach their full potential; that the petitioners believe that the loss of EMA will damage the country’s economic future and impact on social justice by making it harder for disadvantaged young people to access education; and that the petitioners believe that the abolition of the EMA will lead to cuts in local provision as colleges respond to reductions in learner numbers.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government not to abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance and to continue supporting adult learners through the Adult Learning Grant.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P000873]
Mottram-Tintwistle Bypass
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
I am grateful to Mr Speaker for giving me the chance to raise with the Minister responsible for roads—especially when the prevailing weather conditions are occupying his thoughts at this difficult time—the vital need for a bypass around the village of Tintwistle and the surrounding area in my constituency. As the final parliamentary act of 2010, I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for attending this evening at a time when, like many of our colleagues, he would rather be heading off home to his family and his constituents.
The relative serenity in the Chamber tonight is something that many of my constituents living adjacent to the A57 and A628 in Glossop and Tintwistle crave. Every day, about 36,000 commuting cars and heavy lorries drive through the two places, creating severe traffic jams and pollution on those two trunk roads. They are also ruining some stunning local landscapes and shaking parts of the village of Tintwistle to their very foundations. This is also having a knock-on effect as the congestion forces many other vehicles on to small back roads through tiny villages such as Charlesworth, pushing congestion and traffic dangers into a wider area.
When I made my maiden speech, on 8 June this year, I stressed the urgent need for this scheme. I recognised then that money is tight and will be for some time, but subsequently I have had the Prime Minister’s assurance that some £30 billion is still available for transport investment, which means that there will be schemes that can go ahead. I hope to get the Minister to see that this scheme should be one that gets the green light.
The need for a bypass is not new. When researching for this debate, I found a parliamentary question answered in 1962. The then Minister’s response informed the House that a scheme for the improvement of this road was included in the five-year trunk roads programme, so for almost 50 years my constituents have been given such promises. For almost 50 years, they have put up with the congestion and the rumbling of around 4,000 heavy goods vehicles a day pounding through their villages and past their schools. For almost 50 years, they have been told yes, but not now—later.
The need for this bypass is older than I am. My aim tonight is to convince the Minister not that Tintwistle and Glossop need a bypass—as I will explain, that case has been made already. Instead, I hope to convince him that they have a compelling case for being one of the sites to be developed during this round of spending. If I cannot get him to agree to that tonight, I will look to him to confirm at the very least that he will agree to come and see the need for himself. He could, of course, take the quick and easy option and simply give the scheme the go ahead today—after all, it is Christmas, and miracles have happened at Christmas before.
If the Minister is in need of further persuasion, however, and agrees to come to my constituency, he will see why the Highways Agency is so convinced that a bypass is the only way forward. The status quo is untenable and detrimental not only to local communities but to the local and regional economy. The plans for a bypass in the area date back to the 1990s, following publication of the 1989 “Roads for Prosperity” White Paper. A route was chosen in October 1993, but then plans were put on hold in 1996, when the national road building programme was revised.
Ministers from several administrations have visited High Peak, and seen the beauty of the area and how it, and the lives of the people who live there, were being badly affected by the constant stream of traffic. They each recognised the importance of such a scheme, although gaining support from the top has not guaranteed action. I understand that one Minister made the journey, promised that something would be done, but was sacked on his journey back to London. According to Lord Pendry, the former Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, the former Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson), visited the area and tried to cross Manchester road to attend a meeting at the then Tintwistle parish council offices, whereupon she narrowly escaped being knocked down by a truck.
Unsurprisingly, that proved to be a persuasive argument, and in 1998 the Labour Government published “A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England”, which included the bypass. Then, however, more difficult arguments started to emerge as the preferred route for a bypass became an issue. The new road entered the Peak District national park, whose representatives naturally raised concerns. However, many objections were also raised by people who were not familiar with the area and assumed that all of the new bypass would be in the park. The Highways Agency’s submission to the regional planning bodies in November 2002 concluded that there was no realistic alternative to a bypass if we are to solve the problems that exist.
A public inquiry was convened in June 2007, but was adjourned indefinitely in 2008, after the Highways Agency admitted that it had submitted incorrect data. Later that year, the scheme was officially abandoned because the cost of undertaking the project had escalated and funds had been redirected to other areas. Some £20 million had been spent on investigations at this point—an utter waste of public money spent raising and then dashing the hopes of local people that the misery they endured daily had an end in sight. Indeed, I believe that the Minister tabled questions on this subject in the previous Parliament. So, with £20 million already spent and almost 50 years of acceptance that the route is a problem and that something needs to be done, the sad story that is the Mottram-Tintwistle bypass, like the traffic through the villages, rumbles on.
The problems that a bypass is needed to address can be clearly identified, and I will take a few moments to outline them. Many will recognise part of the A57 by another name—the snake pass. Particularly with the snow at the moment, it is often mentioned on the radio. It is the name given to the higher reaches of the road that are notoriously dangerous because they snake across the Pennines. This route, which takes motorists from the M67, through the centre of Glossop and on to Sheffield, is one of the busiest A roads in the country. Linking Greater Manchester with Sheffield and south Yorkshire, the road passes through Glossop, where there are numerous junctions and pelican crossings, which cause long delays for traffic, especially where on-street parking makes the road narrow, causing great disruption to the flow of the massive level of traffic trying to get through the town.
The congestion created in Glossop is not only causing misery for motorists and residents alike, but is now having a detrimental effect on the economy of this famous old town. My constituent, Gareth Lewis, of Online Selling Ltd, tells me that the congestion
“has stopped our business clients coming to visit us”,
which causes his company to hold client meetings as far away as Manchester airport in an attempt to avoid the jams. Mr Lewis goes on to ask what the point is of taking office space in Glossop when his clients refuse to visit due to the congestion. In my work with Glossopdale businesses before and since I was elected, this has become an all-too-familiar story.
The second major road that would be relieved by a bypass is the A628, which is also known by another name—Woodhead road. It is of particular concern to my constituents from the small village of Tintwistle, which, together with neighbouring Mottram, in a neighbouring constituency, gives the bypass its name. Tintwistle is a small Derbyshire village, which, if it were a typical small Derbyshire village, would be quiet and peaceful, but it is not. The village shakes and shudders, as wagon after wagon and car after car trundle through relentlessly. Another of my constituents—a resident of Tintwistle called Anthony Hall—wrote to me only last month to tell me that he had
“counted over 50 HGVs rumble past my home in the last half hour.”
Many houses in Tintwistle are only a yard from the side of the road—or, from their frontages. What Mr Hall described is not something that I would wish to tolerate. I am sure that it is not something that the Minister would wish to tolerate, and it is not something that I wish my constituents to tolerate for much longer either.
Although I do not wish to give the Minister an exhaustive account of each and every bend of the A628—unless forcing him to beg for mercy would help my case—while I have his ear, let me point out that the eastern end of the A628, through the village of Dodworth, has already enjoyed significant investment and road improvements. My constituents deserve the same concern, the same action and the same relief from their ongoing nightmare. Time and again, they have been told that the case for the bypass has been made. Time and again, they have been told that their misery will come to an end, that funds have been set aside and that work will start. Time and again, programmes have been redrawn, money has been diverted and bureaucracy has got in the way, and still the villages tremble at the freight vehicles thundering through, choking our businesses to the point that they cannot function.
The bypass would relieve not one but two major roads connecting the west of the country to the east. It would provide relief not for one, but for numerous small villages, both along the route and beyond, and would make existing roads immeasurably safer. I know that there are environmental questions that will doubtless be asked, but as I watch stationary cars and wagons belching out exhaust fumes in Glossop, Tintwistle and beyond, I am convinced that this can only be worse than having free-flowing traffic. My constituents have suffered too long and too much. That is why, as a fitting end to my first year in this House, I have asked to bring the issue before Parliament this evening. It would be a merry Christmas indeed for my local residents if we were able to make some progress tonight.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) on securing this debate, and on providing an opportunity for the House to debate funding for highways and, specifically, the bypass that he so keenly wants for Tintwistle. This is an issue on which he has already made representations to me, and on which he clearly sets a high priority. His constituents can take comfort from the fact that he is actively championing their cause here in the House.
Let me preface my remarks by referring to the recent statements by both the Secretary of State for Transport and the Chancellor, and the related documents, which have been placed in the Library, on investment in strategic highways, and local major transport schemes. As the Chancellor stated in the October spending review announcement, the Government are determined to invest in Britain’s long-term economic growth, through areas such as transport, science and green energy, as these will help to ensure that the economy is broadly based and less susceptible to failures in one sector. It is for that reason that transport spending has been prioritised as one of the main areas of capital investment over the next four years. On 26 October, the Transport Secretary was able to announce his plans for investment in strategic and local roads. On the strategic road network, he was able to commit to completing the eight major road schemes currently under construction by 2015, at a total cost of £900 million, as well as a further £1.4 billion to fund new strategic schemes between now and 2015.
In addition to that, we are able to provide more than £1.5 billion for local authority major schemes over the same period. Around £600 million of that is for schemes that are already under construction or that have conditional approval, including two schemes that will provide some benefit to the area in question, namely the £120.9 million Metrolink extensions from Chorlton to East Didsbury, and from Droylsden to Ashton, and the £40.5 million Greater Manchester retaining walls maintenance scheme. On top of that, we are committed nationally to a further £900 million of investment for new local authority major schemes. Taken together, that level of investment is greater than the average Department for Transport spend on local authority major schemes over the last 10 years.
In taking our decisions, we have looked carefully at the value for money offered by schemes, their strategic value—whether for local, regional or national journeys—and the degree of development and certainty of deliverability, as well as important non-monetised impacts including, of course, environmental impact. As a result of this prioritisation exercise, we are satisfied that we have chosen the most appropriate strategic schemes to start between now and 2015, subject to the reviews announced by the Transport Secretary. Although we are committed to significant investment in local major schemes as well as schemes on the strategic road network, it is inevitable that we have had to prioritise and make some hard decisions to select those schemes that offer the best value for investment.
I shall turn now to the specific issue that my hon. Friend has raised tonight. He has made a number of points about the long-standing ambitions to develop road solutions in Tintwistle and the surrounding area. As I have mentioned, he and other local MPs have already contacted me to ask why a scheme to deal with this problem was not prioritised as part of the spending review. The reason, as the Transport Secretary explained on 26 October, is that a fundamental requirement used to decide whether a scheme would be considered for funding, when spending review decisions were being made earlier this year, was that the Department needed to have received a business case before 10 June 2010, the date on which the Transport Secretary announced the suspension of all scheme work pending the outcome of the spending review. Given that no agreed solution has yet been proposed for Tintwistle and the surrounding area, we simply do not have a scheme sufficiently worked out that could be considered for funding.
It is also clear that, despite our considerable investment, the number of the schemes prioritised under the previous system of regional funding allocations is no longer affordable, and we are having to do our best to rationalise the programme. That is why the spending review reconfirmed that the 29 schemes with full approval, many of which are already under construction, would go ahead. In addition, three schemes have conditional approval, and we have placed a further 10 schemes in the supported pool and 22 schemes in the development pool. There are a further 34 schemes in the pre-qualification pool.
I should make it plain to my hon. Friend that the problem that we inherited—apart from the appalling financial situation, with which he is doubtless familiar—was a complete over-promise by the previous Administration of what could sensibly be delivered. They left us with an enormous pipeline of schemes all over the country, which, even if the economy had been working to its best effect, could not have been delivered within the available resources. They led many Members and individuals up the garden path, because they simply could not deliver on their promises.
The Secretary of State therefore had to bring the portcullis down, if I can put it in those terms, on 10 June, and to consider, in the light of the moneys available, which schemes had got past a certain point. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend’s scheme had not got past that point on 10 June, for reasons with which he is familiar. So what happened was not a commentary on the value of his proposal; it was simply a recognition of how far the scheme had progressed through the pipeline by that point. That is why we are in this position now. I strongly regret that people across the country were led up the garden path by the previous Government and led to expect something that simply could not be delivered.
We have protected the transport budget significantly in the spending review, and the Department for Transport has done very well on capital projects because the Government recognise the value of investment in them. Even with that good settlement, however, the enormous pipeline of schemes that we inherited simply could not be delivered. I am very sorry for my hon. Friend’s constituents, who have had to wait 50 years for a solution to this problem, and I fear that I shall have to disappoint him again tonight. I understand the issues that he has raised, however, and he is quite right to do so.
I fully appreciate that there is a long and complicated history to the particular problems in Tintwistle and the surrounding area, stretching back many years, with strong views for and against any proposals. More recently, a full bypass of Mottram, Hollingsworth and Tintwistle was identified by the Highways Agency as a means of addressing the disturbance from high volumes of traffic on those sections of the A57 and A628. A local authority scheme known as the Glossop spur was also promoted by Tameside metropolitan borough council and Derbyshire county council to provide a link to Glossop from the proposed bypass. It was dependent on the Highways Agency scheme being constructed.
A public inquiry commenced in June 2007, but in September 2007 errors were found in the Highways Agency traffic model on which the evidence for the scheme was based. That was clearly very unfortunate. Pending production of revised traffic forecasts incorporating new national traffic growth forecasts, the inquiry was adjourned in December 2007.
In July of the following year, revised cost estimates were produced which showed the central scheme cost estimate rising to some £270 million, with a potential maximum cost of some £315 million. That made the scheme unaffordable under the proposed timetable. It was deferred by four years until 2016-17 in the north-west regional funding advice programme, with the Glossop spur development consequently also deferred until 2017-18.
The delays led the Highways Agency to recommend to the then Secretary of State in March 2009 that it should withdraw from the public inquiry, and that recommendation was accepted. The scheme was subsequently removed from the Highways Agency’s programme to allow regional partners to undertake further consideration of the most appropriate scope of future work to solve the transport problems in the area. I am afraid that there are currently no plans to reinstate the Highways Agency scheme in the programme, but the agency continues to monitor conditions on the A57 and A628, and will invest in its future maintenance in line with its established approach for safe roads.
I understand my hon. Friend’s frustration at the ongoing difficulties experienced on that section of the network, but it is now for the parties to consider the options in the current funding environment. Let me put that in context. The total contribution requested from the Department for Transport for new major local authority schemes that we are considering in the current spending review period—after the coming down of the June 2010 portcullis—is £1.7 billion, nearly double the available finance of £900 million for such schemes. We are trying to reduce the ratio through improved funding offers from promoters and through sifting of schemes, but it means that at present we cannot consider schemes other than those already announced for the current spending review period, or accept any new bids for schemes that were not prioritised in the last Government’s regional funding allocations process.
I want to view the future constructively. We intend to work in partnership with local communities to develop a new framework for the funding of major local transport schemes over time. We want it to involve a reduced role for central Government and give a proper voice to locally elected representatives and business interests, with local enterprise partnerships—individually or in consortiums—playing a role in strategic investment choices in functional economic areas. In that context, we intend to enable local communities to identify and invest in what they consider to be their priorities in the next spending review period. So one possible avenue is central Government funding after 2015, if the present arrangement continues; another is the creation of LEPs which will be able to influence local priorities.
However, other avenues might be explored. They could include tax increment funding, details of which will be announced in due course, and the local sustainable transport fund, for which I am responsible and details of which I announced recently. Although the LSTF is not designed to support the cost of a full major scheme, it would potentially fund a package of complementary measures to support economic growth and reduce carbon. For parts of the route, Greater Manchester might choose to look to its own resources through the transport fund that it has created for a possible solution, particularly if it can free up resources as a result of successful bids to the regional growth fund or the LSTF for other projects. There could be a knock-on effect.
I understand that earlier this year Tameside metropolitan borough council, together with the Government office for the north-west, led a study group which included the Highways Agency and Greater Manchester to steer the development of an alternative integrated package of options, mainly in the Longdendale area, known as the Longdendale integrated transport strategy. I imagine that my hon. Friend is familiar with it. I understand that Tameside has since consulted on a list of options including new and improved railway stations—I must confess that, having looked at the map, I am not sure where they would be, but perhaps my hon. Friend knows—a short bypass of Mottram together with a revised Glossop spur, and innovative new treatments for the existing trunk road including new junctions, bus lanes and reduced speeds.
Andrew Bingham
My hon. Friend is right about the smaller scheme, but Tameside council designed it without consulting High Peak, and many of its proposals were not in its gift because they required the consent of the Highways Agency and Derbyshire county council. In my view—I was and still am a councillor, and of course am now the local Member of Parliament—it did nothing for High Peak, nothing for Tintwistle, and nothing for Hadfield. I appreciate what my hon. Friend has said about the general scheme of things and I understand the position, but the proposal that was advanced earlier in the year did not strike me as beneficial to my constituency in any way.
Norman Baker
I hear what my hon. Friend says and I am sorry that that is the analysis locally of the proposals put forward in the transport strategy. I was trying to find some crumbs of comfort for him in a difficult situation.
I understand that no final recommendations have been identified or proposed for that strategy, but Tameside council tells me that it intends to publish early in the new year the results of the consultation exercise which it thinks has been carried out. I understand that before the spending review, Greater Manchester authorities had also identified £100 million to fund the agreed outcome of the strategy, but that relied on a significant contribution from the regional funding allocation budget, which no longer exists. It is up to the Greater Manchester authorities whether they wish to proceed with their own funding for that.
For the future, any new scheme to deal with the traffic problems in Tintwistle and the surrounding area will have to meet the challenge laid down by the Secretary of State in his October statement to compete for finite resources against other projects in future spending rounds. Serious consideration needs to be given to how schemes can be delivered more efficiently and economically—in other words, to get the cost down and the cost-benefit ratio up—particularly where greater access is possible to alternative sources of funding, including the private sector.
I fully understand my hon. Friend’s desire to see a positive decision on the funding for a solution to the transport problems in Tintwistle and the surrounding area. However, I hope he will acknowledge that the Government have had to make some difficult decisions on the best use of the funding available for an unrealistically large number of competing projects. It will now be important to look at how schemes can be made more cost-effective, and to identify new funding sources and systems for funding. Although I will continue to consider any future proposals for dealing with the transport problems in the area, I am afraid that I can offer no particular assurances at this stage regarding the future availability of funding for such proposals.
My hon. Friend asked whether I would come and visit his constituency. I do not wish to raise false hopes, for the reasons that I have given tonight, but if he wants me to come and visit, I am happy to do so and look at the problems first hand. I cannot give him a Christmas present of a bypass, but I can give him a Christmas present of a visit, although the precedent that he mentioned when a previous Minister went up there and got sacked on the way back does not encourage such a visit.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Consolidated Fund Act 2010
Identity Documents Act 2010
Loans to Ireland Act 2010.