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Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
1. What recent discussions he has had with his Afghan counterpart; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
My ministerial colleagues and I have regular contact with our Afghan opposite numbers to discuss a wide range of issues. We are working together to help bring stability to Afghanistan. I hope to be able to meet with Dr Rassoul again shortly.
Toby Perkins
The whole House will echo the Foreign Secretary’s sentiments about how important it is that we bring stability to Afghanistan. The Taliban are greatly strengthened by any ability to increase the drug trade over there. Can the Foreign Secretary tell us what measures he is taking to reduce poppy production in Afghanistan, and what success we are having in this important fight?
Mr Hague
Of course we work with the Afghan authorities and many international partners on combating the drugs trade, which is one source of finance for the insurgency in Afghanistan. In the Foreign Office programme spending that I have announced in a written statement today, the hon. Gentleman will see that I have allocated £16 million of British taxpayers’ money in the coming year for important counter-narcotics work in Afghanistan. It has met with some success in recent times, with a reduction in the total yield of the poppy crop, but we have to keep up the momentum.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
As Britain gradually withdraws its hard power over the next few years, does the Foreign Secretary see a role for this country in increasing and advancing its soft power, particularly in democracy-building support in the more secure areas, not least through our home-grown Westminster Foundation for Democracy?
Mr Hague
I hope that I will always see such a role. Indeed, in the same allocation of FCO programme funds, on which I made a written statement earlier today, my hon. Friend will see that there is a small increase for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, from £3 million to £3.5 million. The foundation does important work across the world, and all of us across the House would want it to succeed.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
Can the Foreign Secretary update the House on what discussions he has held on appointing a successor to US envoy Richard Holbrooke, an individual who I know was widely respected in all parts of the House, and on the political progress that he expects to be made in Afghanistan by the time of the Bonn conference later this year?
Mr Hague
The right hon. Gentleman will understand that it is not for us to appoint the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States Government will take care of that. We are in discussions with them about how we will work together with a new special representative. It is a crucial role, and Richard Holbrooke is very much missed in it, but I cannot update the right hon. Gentleman on the United States decisions about that appointment. He is right to highlight the importance of the political process in Afghanistan. It is vital that it should be Afghan-led, but the United Kingdom will support and facilitate it wherever we can, and also urge the support of other countries in the region, such as Pakistan, to contribute positively to that process.
Mr Alexander
Given the interrelationship of insurgency, poverty and narcotics, about which there have already been discussions and exchanges this afternoon, can the right hon. Gentleman explain the basis for his decision, as set out in the written ministerial statement to which he referred, to make
“a reduction of £2 million”
in
“counter-narcotics and rule of law programmes in Afghanistan”?
Mr Hague
Yes, we have to adjust the spending totals from time to time—the change will be from £18 million to £16 million—because some programmes are coming to their natural end, and because I want to ensure that we can keep the current level of resources for counter-terrorist co-operation, which stand at £38 million and are focused predominantly on Afghanistan. We always have difficult choices to make on spending, but there is a natural evolution in our counter-narcotics work which means that some programmes are coming to their end.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
2. What recent assessment he has made of progress in the middle east peace process; and if he will make a statement.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
3. What recent representations he has received on the UK’s involvement in the middle east peace process; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
Negotiations are the only way to achieve the national aspirations of both the Palestinians and the Israelis. We are deeply concerned about the breakdown in talks, and we are working closely with the United States and the European Union to see a return to direct negotiations. I hope that the Quartet meeting on 5 February will be clear that negotiations must resume quickly. The entire international community, including the United States, should support 1967 borders as being the basis for resumed negotiations. The result should be two states, with Jerusalem as the future capital of both, and a fair settlement for refugees.
Ben Gummer
I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer. I hope he shares the excitement of many people in this country at seeing people stand up to one-party rule in Tunisia and Egypt. Will he explain what steps the Government are taking to encourage the spread of democracy—not just in the middle east, but in north Africa?
Mr Hague
Focusing on the middle east, one thing that would help democracy across that area is a successful outcome to the middle east peace process—a two-state solution with a viable, contiguous and democratic Palestinian state alongside a secure and democratic Israel. The middle east peace process is fundamental, but our constant message more broadly across the middle east is how important it is to move in the direction of more open and flexible political systems—with each country finding its own way to achieve that—as well as towards sound economic development. The spending I have announced in a written statement today includes £5 million for an Arab human development programme, which is intended to assist civil society and democratic development in the Arab world, so this will become part of the important issue my hon. Friend raises.
Mrs Hodgson
Since signing the peace accord with Israel in 1979, Egypt has been a key figure in trying to broker peace and stability in the middle east. Recent events in Egypt obviously raise concerns about the future direction of its foreign policy. Will the Secretary of State tell us what role the UK Government will play in ensuring that, in the likely event of regime change, Egypt will continue to play a constructive role in the middle east?
Mr Hague
The hon. Lady raises a vital issue. Over a period of more than 30 years, as she says, Egypt has played a positive and moderating role in the middle east—a positive role towards achieving a wider peace in the middle east. We regard it as of paramount importance that Egypt continues to do that in the future. We are engaging with politicians of many different views in Egypt. I spoke to the Foreign Minister on Sunday night and I hope to speak to Vice President Suleiman shortly after this Question Time to encourage Egypt to have the broad-based Government and real and visible change that will allow an orderly transition, which will not only help to achieve the domestic aspirations of the Egyptian people, but allow the country to continue to play the role in foreign policy that it has played in recent decades.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
The Foreign Secretary will recall that it was the vision of Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat and King Hussein that led to the agreements on behalf of Israel, Egypt and Jordan respectively. It would be a tragedy if either of these agreements were to be casualties of the unrest in Egypt and the apparent unrest in Jordan. Will the Foreign Secretary undertake to bend every possible effort to ensure that these agreements, which are, after all, the only success in the middle east peace process, are maintained?
Mr Hague
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. This is one reason why we do not want Egypt to fall into the hands of extremism or, indeed, into prolonged disorder. That is why we have called—European Foreign Ministers joined together in doing so yesterday at our meeting in Brussels—for an orderly transition to a broadly based Government, with free and fair elections in prospect in Egypt, because we think it will help the country to continue to play that role. I also visited Syria last week to encourage that country to reconsider and approach again the subject of a permanent peace between Israel and Syria.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Two years after the Israeli assault on Gaza, which slaughtered 1,400 Palestinians, including 300 children, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the situation of destitution, dereliction and malnutrition in Gaza is still appalling because of the blockade? The UN representative, the admirable John Ging, is giving up his post and moving to New York. Will the Government take every possible action to require the Israelis to lift this dreadful blockade?
Mr Hague
We remain very concerned about the situation in Gaza and disappointed overall by Israel’s easing of restrictions there. There has been some welcome progress—the move from a white list to a black list and the increased volume of imports are welcome—but a fundamental change is needed to achieve pre-2007 levels of exports as soon as possible and an improvement in co-operation with the UN and non-governmental organisations. We say again that the blockade of Gaza is unsustainable and unacceptable.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
Is there not at least one piece of good news from the middle east, in the shape of the very encouraging economic growth that has taken place on the west bank? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an indication of what could be achieved through compromise on the outstanding issues and movement towards a genuine, mutually agreed two-state solution?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I visited Ramallah in November, I saw a dramatic contrast with what I had seen on a previous visit a few years earlier in terms of economic development. However, such development has not been as dramatic throughout the west bank, and much more could be achieved. What my hon. Friend has identified is part of the dream of peace in the middle east and a viable two-state solution.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I agree with the Foreign Secretary that events that are currently unfolding in the middle east and north Africa render the need for a search for a durable peace in the middle east more, not less, urgent. However, the Palestine papers have proved pretty conclusively that it is not the Palestinians who have not been prepared to compromise. What pressure can we put on Israel to ensure that it understands that the requirement for compromise applies to it as well, not just to everyone else?
Mr Hague
Clearly all sides would have to make compromises to arrive at a two-state solution, and we have conveyed that message strongly to Israel in recent weeks. We have clearly expressed our disappointment that the settlement moratorium was not continued, and have made plain that we regard settlements as illegal. When Foreign Minister Lieberman of Israel visited London on Monday last week, I argued strongly that Israel needed to make the necessary compromises to allow direct talks to resume and to pave the way for a two-state solution. We will continue to convey that message.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
4. What plans he has to increase the prominence of bilateral relations between the UK and the countries of Latin America; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)
The Government are strengthening partnerships with Latin America. I have seen for myself that it is a dynamic and important region during visits to Columbia, Chile, Mexico, Panama and Guatemala. My right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary will visit the region in the next few months.
Stephen Gilbert
What further specific steps is the Minister taking to improve the United Kingdom’s relationship with Mexico and Brazil, which have two of the world’s fastest-growing economies and are potential strategic allies in the 21st century?
Mr Browne
I strongly agree with the sentiment underlying my hon. Friend’s question. I think most people would accept that the last Government neglected Latin America, and that is what we are trying to rectify. Along with other Ministers, I shall be accompanying the Deputy Prime Minister on visits to both Brazil and Mexico the week after next, when my right hon. Friend will take part in high-level meetings and, I hope, increase our engagement with both those important G20 countries.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
We welcome the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to increasing our bilateral trade with Latin America, as set out in his Canning house speech last year. Surely, however, one of the best ways to advance British interests would be to establish a free trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur. What steps are the Government taking to bring the negotiations to a swift and successful conclusion?
Mr Browne
I strongly agree with the premise of the hon. Lady’s question. We want free trade to open markets all over the world, and Latin America is a part of the world where economies are growing both strongly and at a sustainable pace. We will try to bring about more free trade agreements, as well as trying to encourage greater trade and co-operation between British businesses and companies throughout Latin America.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
5. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Ivory Coast; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)
The UK Government remain deeply concerned about the ongoing political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. We support the strong statements that have been made by the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union. Both have made clear—and we agree—that Mr Laurent Gbagbo should immediately and peacefully hand over power to Mr Alassane Ouattara in accordance with the wishes of the Ivorian people.
Esther McVey
The latest registration figures show that 31,000 refugees have fled from the Ivory Coast to eastern Liberia in the last two months alone. Having just returned from a medical visit to Liberia with representatives of the charity Merlin and the Royal Society of Medicine, and having met the President of Liberia and Health Ministers, I know that the country is hardly best placed to deal with such an influx, recovering as it is from 14 years of a brutal civil war. Can the Minister tell us what we are doing to help the people of the Ivory Coast, and how we are pushing for peace in the area?
Mr Bellingham
I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a totemic issue for all Africa. It is essential that Laurent Gbagbo must not be allowed to defy the will of the people, and it is very important that his funding is cut off, so I am very pleased that the west African central bank—Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest—has now cut off the Ivorian national reserves and I am confident that this will apply real pressure.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
6. What future plans he has for the UK diplomatic network; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
Our global diplomatic network is essential to protect and promote our interests worldwide. That is why we must concentrate our resources where they are needed most, especially in the emerging powers, to increase our influence, promote our values and seize opportunities for prosperity. I will be taking and announcing decisions soon on what that will mean in practice.
Mr Nuttall
I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer. Last week, in the European Union Bill Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) recalled that when he was the Minister for Europe, in the previous Government, his German counterpart told him that
“he expected to close possibly half of all German embassies and consular services around the world over the next five years.”
The hon. Gentleman added:
“Other member states may well do the same.”—[Official Report, 25 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 196.]
Will my right hon. Friend please reassure me that we will not be closing any UK embassies and consular services?
Mr Hague
The statement about Germany closing half its embassies might be an exaggeration. Far be it from the hon. Member for Rhondda to exaggerate on any issue, but I think that will turn out to be an exaggeration. Certainly, the UK will not be doing that. We will not, overall, be reducing the size of our diplomatic network. I think it would be absolutely wrong to do so, as it is part of the essential infrastructure of our economic recovery as well as of our influence in the world. I will be announcing decisions about this in the next couple of months, but that will not involve an overall reduction in our network.
David Cairns (Inverclyde) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary has spoken of the need to strengthen the UK’s diplomatic, strategic engagement with Syria—a point he reiterated a few moments ago. Will he take this opportunity to stress to the Syrians how important it is for them to butt out of the internal affairs of Lebanon? Does he agree that any new Lebanese Government who see Syrian-backed Hezbollah gain even greater importance will only further destabilise the middle east?
Mr Hague
Yes, we will use our diplomatic network—to keep this relevant to the question—and I used our embassy in Damascus last week to do many of those things. We had some very frank discussions with Syrian leaders, as can be imagined, about a whole range of issues including Iran and human rights, in particular, and about the situation in Lebanon. The Government there should be formed by constitutional means. They should be a broad-based Government and should continue to support the work of the special tribunal for Lebanon so that the culture of impunity for assassinations in Lebanon comes to an end.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the alterations he has made to the mission and structure of the Foreign Office? Will he confirm that it is his intention to deploy diplomatic staff to those areas of the world where they are most needed to further Britain’s interests?
Mr Hague
Yes, I will certainly do that. I think that what my hon. Friend is driving at is that that will require some changes because the patterns of economic, political and diplomatic power in the world are changing, so we will need to adjust our diplomatic weight. That is what I am weighing up at the moment and we will make announcements to the House within the next couple of months.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
7. What recent steps his Department has taken to support measures to reduce the incidence of corruption in Afghanistan.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
We are encouraging the Government of Afghanistan to live up to the commitments they made on anti-corruption at the conferences in Kabul and London last year. In addition, I met yesterday with General McMaster, the head of the international security assistance force’s anti-corruption task force, to discuss how the coalition could assist Afghanistan in bringing those involved in corrupt practices to justice.
Paul Flynn
Has it been worth the sacrifice of 350 of our valiant British soldiers to protect the election-rigging President of Afghanistan who refuses to arrest his corrupt brother, the vice president who was caught smuggling $51 million to his bolthole in Dubai, or the Government cronies who have stolen 70% of the country’s GDP from the national bank? Is not the truth that it is not the system that is corrupt in Afghanistan, but that corruption is the system?
Alistair Burt
There are, of course, wider issues involving national security that contribute to the presence of our forces in Afghanistan, in company with those of 47 other nations. It is not appropriate to discuss individuals, but I should say that the British Government are entirely clear: no one is above the law, no one is above inquiry, and the people of Afghanistan deserve a system of justice that ensures justice for all and that those involved in corruption are brought to book.
Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)
8. What steps he plans to take to maintain provision of BBC World Service radio services when responsibility for its funding is transferred to the BBC Trust.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I will continue, as now, to set the objectives, priorities and targets for the BBC World Service with the BBC for 2014 and beyond. No foreign language service will be closed without my written authority.
Mr Hague
With the World Service, we are having to make sure that public money is spent as carefully as possible. As the hon. Gentleman knows, that has meant reductions across the Government. That is the legacy that this Government inherited from the vast debts piled up by the previous Administration, and none of it would be necessary were it not for that.
We are asking the World Service to bear the same proportionate reduction as the Foreign Office over the period 2008 to 2014. I think that is a fair thing to do, and I should let the hon. Gentleman know that the director-general of the BBC has stated his intention, when it is transferred into the BBC from 2014, to increase investment in the World Service again and hold it at a higher level until the end of the BBC charter period.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Would the Foreign Secretary please suggest whether it is possible to put a more formal structure in place, so that the BBC can guarantee the kind of proportion of money spent on the World Service over the next 10 years?
Mr Hague
There is a formal structure relating to decisions about openings and closures of language services; those will remain the same, and the objectives and priorities of the BBC World Service will continue to be set in the same way. To respond to my hon. Friend’s point, that structure does not guarantee the absolute level of expenditure or investment by the BBC, but I would point out again that Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, has said that his intention, subject to approval from the BBC Trust, is to increase the level of investment in the BBC World Service, and therefore I am sure that bringing the BBC and the World Service together is the right move for the future.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Sudan; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)
The southern Sudan referendum is a momentous step towards the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement. We welcome the positive reactions of the north and of observers of the referendum as we await the formal results. We will support north and south as they work on the remaining CPA issues, but obviously we will not be taking our eye off Darfur, as we work tirelessly to establish a lasting peace in that troubled province.
Cathy Jamieson
I thank the Minister for that answer, and I am sure he will be aware of the concerns shared across the international community on the continued presence of the Lords Resistance Army in south Sudan. A joint non-governmental organisation briefing in December 2010, entitled “Ghosts of Christmas Past”, documented some of the atrocities committed by that organisation on Christmas eve 2008. What assessment can the Minister can give us of the efforts of the international community to prevent the rise of that organisation in south Sudan and across the region?
Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the subject of the Lords Resistance Army. It is an organisation comprising about 400 fighters, under the leadership of an extremely evil commander, and although it is small, it can wreak havoc; it is able to displace many communities and terrorise many people. We are sparing no effort at all in helping those countries who are on the front line of tackling the LRA, and we are doing all we possibly can to bring its leader to justice in the International Criminal Court as well.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
There are strong bonds with Sudan across the Salisbury diocese, including between Holt school in my own village and a school in Juba in southern Sudan, where educational resources are very stretched. In light of the referendum, there are growing concerns for the Christian minority that will be left in the north. What representations have the Government made to the Sudanese authorities about the importance of protecting minorities throughout Sudan?
Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question, because we are working very closely with the Government of Sudan. We made it clear to President Bashir’s Government that his requirements for debt relief are conditional not just on making progress on the CPA and achieving an inclusive peace with justice in Darfur, but on having a policy that respects the rights of all parts of that country.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I very much welcome what the Minister said about south Sudan and, particularly, Darfur. Last week, Human Rights Watch said:
“There are clear signs that the situation in Darfur is getting worse”
and
“the international community is failing to monitor and respond properly to what is happening”.
Does he agree that now is the time to give real priority to resolving the long-running and tragic crisis in Darfur?
Mr Bellingham
I agree with the shadow Minister on that, because we must not take our eye off Darfur and there have been some worrying concerns recently—for example, three Bulgarian humanitarian pilots were captured, and we are demanding their immediate release—but I am pleased that significant progress has been made in the recent negotiations under the chief mediator, Djibril Bassolé, in Doha. In fact, two parts of the rebel forces—the Justice and Equality Movement and the Liberation and Justice Movement—have been engaged in the peace process. It is very important indeed that the Sudan Liberation Army now comes to the table and that every possible effort is made to build peace in that troubled province. Unless that peace is secured, there really cannot be a way forward and a future for Sudan.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
President al-Bashir has said that southern Sudanese living in the north will be classed as foreigners and will lose rights accordingly. What will the UK Government do to ensure that the citizenship issues are properly resolved, so that people can live in the north or the south and have their rights protected accordingly?
Mr Bellingham
I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concern about the southern Sudanese who have been living in the north, but I was heartened by what President Bashir said on his visit to Juba on 4 January. He made it clear that all the southerners who are living in the north are welcome to stay there, that they can move to the south if they want to and that their rights to property and their other rights will be maintained. That is the first time that President Bashir has said that absolutely categorically, and we will do all that we can to hold him to his word.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
10. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on trends in the incidence of piracy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)
We are extremely concerned about international piracy—in particular, the growing incidence of piracy off the horn of Africa and in the Indian ocean. I have recently set up a cross-Whitehall working group, with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who has responsibility for shipping, and with the Minister for the Armed Forces. We are determined to work with the maritime industry to help it to counter the increased violence towards hijacked crews through the use of safe rooms and other improved security measures. We are considering ways to combat the so-called mother ships, which carry the pirate skiffs deep into the ocean.
Grahame M. Morris
I thank the Minister for that reply, but will he update the House on his discussions with our European allies about taking co-ordinated action to tackle piracy off the Somali coast, particularly following recent reports that Somali legislators have blocked anti-piracy legislation and even described the pirates as heroes?
Mr Bellingham
I have not heard about those comments being made by the Transitional Federal Government. If they have made those comments, we absolutely deplore them. We are working closely with our EU counterparts. In fact, we are providing the command facility for Atalanta, the EU counter-piracy force. Currently, about 30 warships are off the horn of Africa, and we are working ever closer and going more deeply into the ocean to combat the problem. But I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there must be proper co-ordination between countries, and that is why we have a cross-Whitehall working group to consider what we can do. The pirates now hold 29 vessels and 694 hostages. The problem is definitely getting worse, as the pirates have been able to expand their reach into the ocean, and that is why we need firmer, tougher and more co-ordinated action.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
May I press the Minister more on EU co-operation? I understand that Denmark has taken quite a lead and has made some inroads into preventing piracy.
Mr Bellingham
I can assure my hon. Friend that there is ever greater EU co-operation, and that more EU countries are now coming into the combined operations. It is incredibly important that the EU should work together, but we want other countries to assist. We also need regional capacity to detain, try and imprison the pirates, which is why we are having discussions with the Governments of the Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya and Tanzania.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I am glad that the Minister recognises that piracy is a growing threat to life, especially off the horn of Africa, and a big business worth more than £100 million a year, funding crime and, increasingly, terrorism. Does he accept that we are now close to a tipping point on that vital trade route? Will he work with international partners to boost the anti-piracy forces that he has mentioned, and will he consider revising their rules of engagement?
Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his questions. I would not say that we were at a tipping point, but the problem has got worse. The pirates now have greater capability, as they can deploy much further out into the ocean through their use of mother ships. The Royal Navy is keeping the rules of engagement under review at all times, and, as I have said, we have a ministerial working party that is looking at every single option for the future.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
11. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in East Jerusalem.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
The hon. Lady will know that the status of East Jerusalem is fiercely contested, and that this raises political tensions. The United Kingdom takes the view that East Jerusalem is occupied territory under international law, which is why we have called on Israel to cease building settlements, and to stop the evictions and demolitions. Such actions only obstruct the peace process, under which Jerusalem’s final status will be settled.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the Minister for his response. Given that he accepts the illegality of settlements on occupied territory, does he plan to support the draft UN Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate end to settlement building?
Alistair Burt
The draft resolution has not yet come forward for a vote. We are conscious of the terms in which it has been drawn, and the House will be well aware of our views on settlements. We hope to see a return to direct negotiations in which all these matters can be properly considered in order to achieve the settlement that we all want.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
Recent leaks confirm that the Israelis and the Palestinians were making significant progress on agreeing on how to share Jerusalem as part of a negotiated agreement. What is the Minister saying to both sides to encourage them to resume negotiations?
Alistair Burt
The hon. Lady takes a close interest in these matters, and she will appreciate that the resolution to the question of Jerusalem’s status will come about only through a negotiated settlement. We are working very hard with both sides. I was in Israel and Palestine recently, talking to Ministers there, as was my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We have also been working with other partners behind the scenes to try to ensure that there are no obstructions to a return to negotiations, and that the settlement issue is not a barrier to those discussions. There are other issues relating to borders, refugees and Jerusalem that must be discussed, and the sooner the parties get together, the better.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
12. What discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the disruption of a Christmas day service in Rizokarpaso, Cyprus.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
We have not had discussions in an EU context on this deeply regrettable incident, but my officials in Nicosia have met Archbishop Chrysostomos and made representations to senior political figures in the north of the island to emphasise the importance that we accord to allowing people in all parts of Cyprus to practise their religion freely.
Mike Freer
I thank the Minister for those words on the unacceptable behaviour of Turkey’s troops in disrupting a Christmas day mass. Does he agree that Turkey should not be allowed to accede to the EU without guaranteeing religious freedoms?
Mr Lidington
Any candidate country that wants EU membership has to subscribe to, and apply, the democratic values that are central to the European Union, including the freedom to express religion and to worship freely.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
13. What plans he has for the future role of the UK in the Commonwealth.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I remain committed to strengthening the UK’s relationship with the Commonwealth and ensuring that we are at the centre of plans to reinvigorate this unique organisation for the benefit of all its current and future members. This ready-made network can further our foreign policy and economic interests.
Julian Smith
Following the Foreign Secretary’s highly successful trip to Australia and New Zealand, what opportunities has he identified for increasing trade between Britain and that part of the Commonwealth?
Mr Hague
There are huge opportunities to do that. I was the first Foreign Secretary for 17 years to go to Australia. There was a certain omission in that respect under the previous Government. I spoke there to the Australian British Chamber of Commerce, which revealed tremendous opportunities further to boost trade and the economic ties between our countries. The Commonwealth now accounts for a growing share of world trade, so that is an added dimension to the importance of that remarkable organisation.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
As the Foreign Secretary knows, the previous Government had started negotiations and discussions about the Act of Settlement with other Commonwealth countries that share our monarch as their Head of State. Does he agree that the provisions that mean that no Catholic or anyone who does not subscribe to the Church of England can become monarch are outdated, as are the rules on male primogeniture? Will he pursue those conversations with those countries?
Mr Hague
I recognise the force of the arguments about something that was originally set out more than 300 years ago. Among the issues of middle east peace, the Iranian nuclear programme and so on, I have not yet put that at the top of my list to negotiate with other Governments, but it is a legitimate issue for the long term, on which all the Commonwealth Governments with the Queen as Head of State would have to be consulted and agree.
Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Commonwealth countries are the emerging markets of the future? As he develops his hard-headed internationalism, will he recognise that the network that is the Commonwealth, together with our influence, represent a huge opportunity for the United Kingdom?
Mr Hague
Indeed. The Commonwealth now includes 54 nations on six continents, with 31% of the world’s population. It has, as I said, an increasing share of the world’s trade, and the proportion of the members of the Commonwealth’s trade with each other is growing, so it is not an organisation of the past. It will have increasing importance in the future.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
14. What steps he plans to take to promote a peaceful resolution to the dispute in Kashmir.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
Although it is the long-standing policy of successive Governments that, ultimately, the issue of Kashmir is one for the Governments of India and Pakistan to find an answer to while taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people, we recognise the deep concern that many MPs feel. We are keen to encourage the confidence-building measures that are emerging from the intermittent but continuing bilateral discussions between India and Pakistan, which we hope to see progress this year.
Chris Leslie
Surely the Foreign Office must be concerned at the ongoing problems with curfews and human rights abuses that are being reported in Kashmir. Will the Minister agree to meet a cross-party delegation of Members of Parliament specifically to address the need for demilitarisation and, we hope, a peaceful dialogue that involves the Kashmiri people themselves?
Alistair Burt
We do indeed acknowledge exactly what the hon. Gentleman has said. We apply United Kingdom funds to confidence-building measures, conflict prevention and human rights monitoring on both sides of the line of control, with a view to assisting in dealing with the difficult issues that have been particularly highlighted in the past year. The short answer to his question is yes, of course I will meet a delegation of all-party colleagues.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
15. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Tunisia.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I called the outgoing Foreign Minister of the Tunisian Government last week to urge the Tunisian Government to reach out to the Opposition. We welcome the reshuffle that was announced on 27 January. The Tunisian Government should now build on that by implementing reform commitments, and I hope they will also ask for assistance not only in elections, but in building democratic institutions.
Jeremy Corbyn
Does the Foreign Secretary recognise that the mass demonstrations in Tunisia may have gone off the screens, but they have not gone off the streets of the capital, and that demands are still being made there for human rights, freedom and democracy, an end to one-party rule and, above all, economic justice, because the neo-liberal economics has led to massive levels of youth unemployment, which has sparked off the wave of revolt across north Africa?
Mr Hague
Broadly, yes. We should welcome the steps taken by the Tunisian authorities to liberalise the media, release many political prisoners and establish commissions to investigate corruption and human rights abuses during the recent unrest. We discussed this at the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union yesterday and are ready in the EU to provide immediate assistance to prepare and organise the electoral process and support a genuine democratic transition.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
16. What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Pakistan on the deaths of British citizens in that country; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
I met the high commissioner of Pakistan yesterday to discuss with him a number of cases that have been raised by hon. Members during the course of this year about UK residents who, sadly, have been killed in Pakistan. The United Kingdom expects the very best attention to ensure that justice is done in all these cases, and I appreciated the high commissioner’s interest and willingness to assist.
Stella Creasy
The Minister will be aware of the representations that I have made on behalf of a constituent, Ms Ashiq, and the challenges that her family has faced since her father was murdered in Pakistan in June 2009 in securing information and responses from the authorities about their efforts to apprehend and prosecute his killers. I know that the Minister has raised these issues with the Pakistan authorities, which are keen to be helpful, but will he update the House on what steps he has taken to ensure that his officials play an active role in helping the families of British citizens who are killed abroad to receive the appropriate support and assistance from our consulates?
Alistair Burt
Sadly, during the course of the past year, 12 UK residents have been killed in Pakistan, mostly involving family or property disputes. I have taken the opportunity raised by those cases to ensure that our post understands full well the concerns that are raised by families and Members of Parliament here, and that we do all that we can with the authorities in trying to find out information and ensure justice. There is a limit to what we can do. Pakistan is a sovereign country with a sovereign criminal system, but our consular authorities do as much as they possibly can. I welcome the assistance and intervention of the high commissioner, which might lead to continued pressure being applied on the authorities to do even more, and I hope that the hon. Lady has a successful visit to Pakistan shortly with colleagues to see what more can be done there.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
Against a background of huge protests in Cairo today, we welcome Vice-President Suleiman’s statement that he intends to contact opposition parties to discuss political reform, but the new cabinet appointed by President Mubarak this week is disappointing in that it does not constitute the broad-based representative Government whom the people of Egypt seem to be seeking, and we continue to make this clear to the Egyptian authorities.
Fiona O'Donnell
What discussions is the Foreign Secretary undertaking to ensure the safety of British officials and non-governmental organisations on the ground in Egypt?
Mr Hague
A huge amount of work is being done by our consular staff, by our embassy, by the rapid deployment team that we have sent to Cairo, and we are taking every step possible to assure the safety of those people. We have been advising people in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez to leave if they can and if they have no pressing reason to remain. The vast majority of those seeking to do so have been able to do so on commercial flights, but I have also decided to send a charter aircraft to enable further British nationals to leave the country, if they wish to do so. That will set off for Egypt tomorrow and I will send further flights if necessary to ensure that people are able to leave if they wish to do so. But, of course, many remain, doing their work in Egypt, and we should salute the work they are doing.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
T2. My constituent, Michael Hearn, was arrested on 8 December 2010 for a technical infringement of a local law by his employer, an infringement that he did not himself commit, and he has been in jail in Tawfiq detention centre in Afghanistan ever since then. I wrote last month to the Foreign Secretary to seek his intervention in this matter. Can my hon. Friend assure the House that he is doing everything possible to secure Mr. Hearn’s release?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
Our consular officials have been in touch with Mr Hearn. They had a meeting with him as recently as 24 January, and he has access to legal advisers, and our consular officials have been in touch with them. We cannot intervene in the Afghanistan judicial process to seek an individual’s release, but we are doing all that we can to ensure his welfare and to make sure that he is in the centre that he wishes to be in rather than in prison. We will continue to support him during his detention and support the lawyers in their legal processes.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I note and welcome the fact that the Foreign Secretary is due to speak to Vice-President Suleiman after questions this afternoon. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to share with the House what specific steps he will be encouraging the vice-president to now take, beyond the discussions that he has already mentioned, to ensure the orderly transition to free and fair elections and the broad-based Government that EU Foreign Ministers agreed upon yesterday?
Mr Hague
That is the direction in which we would like the Egyptian authorities to move. As I have said, it is disappointing that the new Cabinet does not constitute the broad-based Administration that we, the rest of the EU and so many of Egypt’s friends around the world were looking for. We continue to urge the Egyptian authorities to take the necessary steps to form such a Government to ensure that real, visible and believable reform is presented to the people of Egypt, as well as effective guarantees of free and fair elections. We think that it is necessary for them to respond to the mood and demands of the Egyptian people and to do so quickly if there is to be an orderly transition, rather than a violent and disorderly situation.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
T7. Between now and 2016, the UK will hand over almost £50 billion of hard-pressed British taxpayers’ money to the European Union. Will the Foreign Secretary give hard-pressed constituents and British taxpayers an assurance that he will work with colleagues across all Government Departments to reduce that vast contribution, which could be better spent keeping the deficit low in this country and improving public services?
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
As my hon. Friend knows, we inherited from the previous Government a budget settlement that gave away a huge chunk of the UK rebate and bound us to increased contributions to the EU, but I assure her and her constituents that every Minister in this Government is committed to budgetary controls and to maximum economy, discipline and value for money in every aspect of European expenditure.
David Cairns (Inverclyde) (Lab)
T3. A couple of months ago, the Ugandan gay rights campaigner David Kato asked me to raise in this Chamber the issue of the persecution of gay men and women in that country. Last week, David was beaten to death in his home in Kampala. Will the Foreign Secretary join me not only in condemning the murder, but in calling on the Ugandan Parliament and Ugandan politicians to cease the hateful and vile rhetoric that they deploy against gay people, which led directly to this murder, so that David Kato will have not died in vain?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)
We have made our view very clear to the Ugandan Government. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the tragic death of David Kato, who was a prominent Christian and gay rights activist, was a tragedy and have issued a statement of condolence, and I am glad that President Obama has as well. I hope that no effort will be spared in bringing the perpetrators of this wicked crime to justice.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Following the premature release of al-Megrahi, do the Government have any plans to send more NHS cancer patients to Libya, given the better survival rate there? How does the Secretary of State feel this disgraceful leak will affect our relationship with the United States of America?
Mr Hague
I detect from my hon. Friend’s question that she did not agree with the release of Mr Megrahi. Nether did I, and nor did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, it was a decision taken by the Scottish Executive. On the question of relations with the United States, the Prime Minister undertook to have the Cabinet Secretary look at past papers on this case, and his report will be published shortly.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
T5. Will the Foreign Secretary update us on the situation in Somalia and any action the British Government have taken, given the reports of fresh killings and fighting between police and troops in Mogadishu?
Mr Bellingham
We are doing all we can to support the transitional federal Government and are pleased that the African Union mission in Somalia has come up to its mandated strength. We are working not only with the TFG, who must get their act together within the next seven months before their mandate runs out, but with the provincial Government of Somaliland and moderate clans in south and central Somalia.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Following the Secretary of State’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, does he not agree that the previous Government hid behind the fig leaf of devolution in order to release a mass terrorist on dubious commercial grounds? Will he take steps to ensure that such a thing never happens again?
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
T6. The Bribery Act 2010 was due to be implemented in April, but Ministers confirmed yesterday that it will now be delayed. Is the Foreign Secretary not concerned that that delay could diminish the international reputation of British industry, even though most British companies behave perfectly ethically? The legislation passed through Parliament with all-party support.
Mr Hague
The reputation of British industry on that issue is very high throughout the world, and the reputation of the British Government—actually, of successive Governments—is high on that issue, too. Both parties in the coalition supported the Bribery Act when in opposition, we support it now, and it will be brought in rigorously, effectively and fairly.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
The family of Dr Alastair Penney, who is shortly to be released from jail in Taiwan, are concerned about the arrangements for his transfer back to the UK—to ensure that any appropriate medical assistance can be given. Will my hon. Friend the Minister meet Dr Penney’s family to ensure that their concerns can be addressed?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)
I am aware of the case, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the diligence with which he has pursued it. I shall examine it again, and, if it requires further work or a meeting with him and officials from my Department, I shall make the necessary arrangements.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
T8. Following the earlier question from my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (David Cairns), it seems clear that the anti-homosexuality Bill that is before the Ugandan Parliament is creating terrifying conditions for lesbian, gay and transgendered people in Uganda. Will the Foreign Secretary consider the role that aid has to play in ensuring good human rights and in encouraging good governance?
Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the issue again. Our high commissioner in Kampala has taken every appropriate opportunity to engage the Ugandan Government on the issue, and to make his views known on the anti-homosexuality Bill that was tabled in October 2009. I met President Museveni back in the summer, when I discussed the matter with him and made it very clear that we expected his Government to respect human rights, Christian rights, gay rights, and all rights.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Given the fluid and volatile situation in Egypt, my constituent, Mrs Hugget, and others do not wish to travel to Sharm el Sheikh. What advice can the Minister give them? Their travel companies are obliging them to take their holiday, even though they do not wish to go and their travel insurance will not apply.
Mr Hague
We take great care over our travel advice, and we review it not only day by day, but hour by hour. Of course, our concentration is on getting out of the difficult areas the British nationals who are stranded there and wish to leave. We constantly review the advice on the Red sea resorts, but I have to advise my hon. Friend that her constituents should keep in close touch with the travel company. If we feel it necessary to change the advice, we will do so and work with the travel companies in doing so.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
T9. Given the Navy’s policy of catch and release, is it not little wonder that the number of incidents of piracy and the average ransom demand have doubled over the past 12 months? Will the Minister take on board and bring up the idea of special courts in the region, so that we not only take the weight off Kenya, but bring more of those pirates to justice?
Mr Bellingham
Since the coalition Government came to power, the Navy have not apprehended any pirates and simply sent them on their way. That happened a bit in the past, but it does not happen under this Government. We take the whole issue of piracy incredibly seriously, but it is absolutely vital that we build regional capacity to detain, try and imprison the pirates.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
My right hon. Friend might be aware that I was lucky enough to be able to witness the end of the referendum in south Sudan the other day, and to witness the jubilation of the people there. Nevertheless, there is huge corruption, very little infrastructure and very few skills to run a Government in that country. What role can the UK Government and the international community play in helping to form a new Government in south Sudan, if that is what the people have voted for?
Mr Hague
I think we have a major role to play, and so do many other nations throughout the world with extensive development budgets. It will be a huge task to create the institutions for a functioning new state in the south of Sudan, but we will be there to assist with that through a diplomatic presence, a development programme and the provision of expertise, so the south Sudanese will find in the United Kingdom and in many other nations people who are ready and willing to help.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary clearly understands the added urgency presented by events in Egypt and elsewhere in making progress on the middle east peace process. Is not now the time for the Quartet or the United States, or both, to present, in the admirable way that he did earlier at the Dispatch Box, their final framework for a settlement to the United Nations to help to break the impasse?
Mr Hague
A meeting of the Quartet is planned for this weekend. I hope that it will be possible for the Quartet or the United States to set out the parameters within which everyone should now be working on the middle east peace process. I cannot guarantee that that will happen, but the British Government would certainly like it to happen. We think there should be a real urgency to the middle east process, with a way back into the direct talks, and we are doing our utmost to assist in that. Over the past two weeks, I have held conversations about this with President Abbas, with the Israeli Foreign Minister and, of course, with Secretary Clinton. It is time, yes, to set out parameters, including basing a settlement on the 1967 borders.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Following the latest meeting of the Secretary-General with both Cypriot leaders, will the Secretary of State reaffirm, not least as a guarantor power, this country’s commitment to seeing a solution to the problem of Cyprus, whose division has scarred both the island and Europe for far too long?
Mr Lidington
Yes, we remain committed to seeking a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation of Cyprus with respect for the human rights of all communities, and we very much hope that the current process led by the United Nations will be successful in reaching that outcome.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Foreign Secretary said earlier that he was helping south Sudan. No doubt he is pleased at the emergence of a new independent nation in the international community. What representations is he making about the deferred referendum in Abyei?
Mr Hague
There has been a referendum in the south of Sudan in which it is thought that 99% of people voted for independence. The hon. Gentleman should not get too excited about the parallels in this case. The question of Abyei is one of the outstanding issues that requires negotiation between north and south as part of the comprehensive peace agreement. It is the major stumbling block in those negotiations, which need to be completed before 9 July. The south of Sudan is heading for independence, and we are doing everything we can to assist, including offering expertise in the demarcation of the border. I have had two conversations with former President Mbeki of South Africa, who is trying to bring the parties together, and we will continue to give every diplomatic assistance.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Zimbabwe used to be part of the bread basket of Africa, but for many years now it has been a basket case. Events unfolding in Zimbabwe over the next 12 months may well shape its future for many years to come. What steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to ensure free and fair elections in Zimbabwe and a return to true democratic government?
Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question. Zimbabwe is facing a dramatic year. We are working closely with the South Africans, who are putting together a road map towards credible elections. It is most likely that there will be a referendum on the new constitution some time this spring or summer. It is absolutely essential that it goes smoothly and that it is free and fair and completely credible, because it will be observed very closely as the forerunner for presidential and parliamentary elections possibly later this year or next year.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will shortly be appointing some very senior officials to some of the most important diplomatic posts of our nation. Will he assure the House that those who represent Her Majesty and the Government abroad, especially in Europe, speak and read, as the norm, a language other than English?
Mr Hague
Yes, British diplomats are renowned for their language skills. That is why I was very disappointed when the Government whom the right hon. Gentleman supported closed the Foreign Office language school two years ago. It is a difficult thing to put back together. I am now looking not so much at putting it back together but at increasing the learning of hard languages in the Foreign Office. I will be allocating additional funds—[Interruption.] This is the answer to the question. I will be allocating additional funds for the learning of hard languages in the Foreign Office. It is very important that people who go to embassies, including around Europe, are able to speak those languages.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
Probably the worst place in the world at the moment to be female or a child is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where dreadful violations of human rights have been occurring, particularly in the east. Can the Secretary of State please give me his assessment of the current situation, especially as UN forces intend to withdraw in June this year?
Mr Bellingham
I share my hon. Friend’s concern about what is happening in the east of the DRC, particularly in the Kivus. We are working closely with a number of non-governmental organisations, and with MONUSCO, the UN mission in the DRC. We will focus relentlessly and tirelessly on the points that he raised.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues. It is clear that Members simply cannot get enough of the Foreign Office team, to whom we are grateful.
Child Benefit
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Will hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and as quickly as possible?
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I have pleasure in presenting the petition of my constituent, Mr Paul Francis Dodd.
The petition states:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
The Humble Petition of Mr. Paul Francis Dodd,
Sheweth, that the Petitioner believes that the Government’s recent announcement regarding Child Benefit is unfair; that the Petitioner is a married man with a daughter aged 2 years; whose salary is £44,500 p.a., which is just inside the threshold for a higher rate tax payer; that the Petitioner’s wife gave up work to look after their daughter and has no income; and that from 2013 the Petitioner and his wife will not be entitled to receive Child Benefit.
Sheweth, that the petitioner believes that the Government’s proposals have two flaws; that a family with both parents earning a salary less than the higher-rate tax threshold, which could total around £88,000, will continue to receive the benefit; and that, if both parents earn a salary that is half that earned by the petitioner, £22,250, not only will they continue to receive the benefit, but they also receive two tax-free allowances for their salaries.
Sheweth, that the petitioner believes that revisions are necessary to the Child Benefit system; that the family income should be taken into account, not just the income of one of the individuals in a family; that the petitioner recognises that this is expensive, but he believes that it is the fairest way to judge a family’s income and hence its needs for benefit; that, if this is not possible, then a gradual phasing out of the benefit for earners over the higher rate tax threshold would be very easy to implement; that it would be easy to reduce Child Benefit by one percentage point for every £1,000 earned over the higher rate tax threshold; that this would still leave a majority of the benefit for those earners, such as the petitioner, who only just enter this limit; and that it would also remove Child Benefit for those who earn over £144,000.
Wherefore your petitioner prays that your honourable House urges the Government to review its policy on Child Benefit.
And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
[P000882]
Points of Order
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Early in Foreign Office questions, the Foreign Secretary referred to a written statement that was tabled today. I went to the Vote Office during questions and tried to get a copy of that statement. It was not there. I was told that the Library had received it at 10.10 this morning, but that copies were not available in the Vote Office. Please can we ensure that Departments make sure that the Vote Office gets statements, particularly those that are referred to directly in the questions that are taking place at the time?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. It has been characteristically courteously noted by the Foreign Secretary on the Front Bench. I am happy to look into the matter on this occasion.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last Thursday in Transport questions, I asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether the Government’s serious proposals concerning the coastguard were accompanied by a proper risk assessment. He replied:
“Of course the proposals have been risk-assessed.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 436.]
However, I was told in Stornoway yesterday and at a briefing in the House of Commons this afternoon by the chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency that no formal risk assessment has been done on the Government’s serious proposals for the reorganisation of the coastguard. Those proposals worry people in my constituency quite a lot, given the weather and the volume of traffic. Can we have the Secretary of State for Transport back in the House to clarify exactly what is happening and, with a bit of luck, to bring forward the risk assessment that he said had been done?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has placed his concerns on the record. There are established procedures for the correction of ministerial statements or answers if and when it is necessary.
NHS Acute Medical and Surgical Services (Working Time Directive)
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to conduct an assessment of the impact of the European Union Working Time Directive on NHS acute medical and surgical services; to require the Secretary of State to make provision to exempt NHS acute medical and surgical services from the European Union Working Time Directive in the light of that assessment if certain conditions are met; and for connected purposes.
Before I start, I must declare an interest. My father has been a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Bristol for more than 30 years and has just retired. If growing up in a medical family has taught me anything—I have seen the NHS under a succession of Conservative and Labour Governments—it is that politicians must listen to the professionals who know the most about the NHS, medicine and patients: the doctors. If politics is to serve the place outside these four walls, it has to get real. It has to listen to real people and get lessons from the real professionals working in our hospitals today.
I bring the Bill before the House for one reason: the people who know best about patient care—the doctors—have been raising the alarm to say that the 48-hour European working time directive is endangering patient safety. That is serious, and it is not what the directive was ever intended to do. The directive was designed to ensure that workers were not subjected to overlong working hours and were entitled to reasonable pay and conditions, time off and paid leave. In reality, that well-meaning directive is endangering patient safety in four key ways. I will expand on those four factors in the brief time that I have, because I believe that they speak for themselves. First, continuity of care is being eroded. Secondly, trainee doctors are being denied the training that they need. Thirdly, appropriate clinical expertise is not available to patients when they need it, and fourthly, I add with a certain grim irony that junior and senior doctors are more exhausted by the shift rotas that the directive imposes than they were before.
I shall elaborate. Continuity of care is sometimes an overlooked factor of medical health care, but it is absolutely key. It is what allows professionals to use their professional expertise on a patient. That link between the patient and the person caring for them is vital, but the shift rota system that has been imposed under the European working time directive has meant that there are far more handovers of patients to a new doctor. At those handover points, complications arise because crucial information can be missed out and not passed on. Handovers did occur under the old system, but they were far less frequent.
From the patient’s point of view, the shift system has meant that instead of having one or two doctors whom they know and begin to trust, and who have seen them from the beginning to the end of their treatment, patients are subjected to a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of doctors. From the doctor’s point of view, there is a kind of patient pass the parcel. That absolutely must stop. It is no good for the patient’s care, no good for their experience of their treatment and it is clinically risky. In fact, a third of all doctors have said that since the European working time directive was implemented, they have seen significant deterioration in patients over the handover period.
The training of our doctors for the future is also suffering. The Royal College of Surgeons has estimated that 400,000 hours of surgical time are lost every single month. It does not take a genius to work out that if the trainees are not getting the hours in, they cannot get the training that they need. Two thirds of trainees have said that they have seen significant deterioration in their training in the short time that the working time directive has been fully implemented. The irony is that the directive was supposed to alleviate the exhaustion of junior doctors, but because all their hours are clumped together in one go, it has actually led to more exhaustion. More exhausted doctors are getting less training, and it does not need me to expand on that for all Members to see that it is madness.
Particularly worrying from a patient’s point of view is that clinical expertise is not there when it is needed. If there are fewer people available, there are fewer specialist doctors when they are needed. For example, a doctor has told me that whereas before there would have been an orthopaedic senior house officer, a urology junior doctor and a general surgery SHO on duty at night in case any complications arose, under the working time directive, there might be only the general surgery SHO. If a complication arises with a patient’s treatment, they will not have the specialist doctor available to them that they would have had before the directive was imposed.
Attempts to solve the problem are very expensive, and I do not just mean the human cost, which is obviously the key issue. There is also the economic cost. The attempts to patch up the gaps left in the provision of health care professionals and doctors has led to an explosion in the number of NHS hospital locums being employed. The cost of that to the public purse has doubled in the past two years to a staggering £700 million, and the cost of surgical NHS locums has also doubled.
This cannot be allowed to continue. No one is advocating a situation in which junior doctors work too long to be able to perform their job, and the RCS has mentioned a 65-hour working limit. However, under the current arrangements, doctors are more exhausted, there is less training and patient safety is being compromised. That was never the intention behind the directive, and there are ways in which the Government can act. The police and armed forces already have an exemption from the directive. My Bill calls for the reality of the European working time directive to be assessed properly and for appropriate action to be taken to allow doctors to look after their patients in the way that they intended when they went into the profession.
We all have constituents who are patients and those who are junior doctors. No Member would seek to put their constituents’ safety at risk, and no Member would seek to stifle junior doctors’ desire and ability to perform the job that they went into the profession to do. That is why I seek to bring the Bill before the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Charlotte Leslie, Dr Phillip Lee, Jack Lopresti, Craig Whittaker, Dr Sarah Wollaston, John Hemming, Rebecca Harris, Nick de Bois, Damian Hinds, Stephen Phillips and Stephen Barclay present the Bill.
Charlotte Leslie accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 10 June, and to be printed (Bill 140).
European Union Bill
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:23 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 26 / Noes: 295 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
The first set of clauses under consideration in Committee this afternoon relate to the transitional protocol on Members of the European Parliament, which is covered in clauses 15, 16 and 17, and schedule 2. In sum, the provisions allow for a technical change that permits a temporary increase in the number of MEPs, including one additional Member from the UK.
It might be helpful to give some background to the protocol before turning to the detail on the clauses, so that colleagues on both sides of the Committee understand the context of our proposals. The European Union treaties, as amended by the treaty of Lisbon, provide for the allocation of 18 additional MEPs to 12 member states, including one additional MEP for the UK. The treaties also provide that the number of MEPs from Germany should be reduced by three. However, the treaty of the European Union, as amended by Lisbon, states that the European Parliament shall not exceed 750 members in number, plus the President, which makes a total of 751, and that no single member state will be allocated more than 96 seats. Before the Lisbon treaty, Germany had 99 MEPs. Its allocation has therefore been reduced to 96 seats to fit within the maximum number permitted by the treaties.
The TEU also states that the European Council shall adopt a decision establishing the composition of the European Parliament. Article 2 of protocol 36 to the treaties—on transitional provisions—reaffirms that and states that the decision
“shall be adopted in good time before the 2009 European Parliament elections”.
However, as the Committee will be aware, given the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty in its first referendum on the matter and the additional guarantees sought by Ireland in 2009 in the wake of that, there was a delay in the ratification of the Lisbon treaty by all member states—personally, I wish it had been more than a delay—and therefore a delay to the treaty entering into force.
As a result, and contrary to the relevant provision in the TEU, the 2009 European elections actually took place before any European Council decision was adopted. Those elections were therefore held in accordance with the provisions of the Nice treaty, under which the European Parliament comprises 736 MEPs.
The European Council had already agreed what to do in that situation. Back in December 2008, it agreed that, should the Lisbon treaty come into force after the 2009 European parliamentary elections, a transitional protocol would be agreed to permit those member states that gained MEPs as a result of the Lisbon treaty to elect their additional MEPs during the current European parliamentary term. This would mean that they would not have to wait until the next round of European parliamentary elections in 2014, when those changes would come into force automatically, in accordance with the treaty of Lisbon.
The arrival of 18 additional MEPs during the 2009-14 parliamentary term increases the number from 736 to 754—three more than the maximum permitted by the EU treaties, and transitional arrangements are therefore needed to enable the number of MEPs to exceed temporarily the limit of 751 laid down in article 14(2) of the treaty on European Union.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way on the statistics about the number of MEPs. Does he have any figures showing how much these additional MEPs are costing us while we wait for the correct number to be arrived at?
Mr Lidington
I am glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend that the cost of these additional MEPs will be provided for out of the European Parliament’s budget; no additional contribution is required from the United Kingdom or any other member state. That is perfectly right, and the European Parliament will already have made provision in its budget for these additional costs.
The European Council also agreed that the transitional protocol should provide that the three German MEPs who would no longer have a seat in the European Parliament would not have to stand down in the middle of their term of office, because it is not possible under the treaties to curtail an MEP’s mandate during a parliamentary term. In order to make the required transitional changes, the member states of the EU agreed to a transitional protocol at a limited intergovernmental conference on 23 June 2010, under the ordinary revision procedure. Although the ORP was used, the European Parliament had previously agreed not to convene a convention of representatives of the EU institutions, member state Governments and national Parliaments, because the European Parliament recognised the very limited scope of the proposed treaty change.
The IGC was convened in the margin of the Conference of Permanent Representatives—known as COREPER—with the agreement of Ministers of each member state. IGCs are occasionally convened in COREPER meetings for single-issue matters, such as the approval of appointments of judges to the Court of Justice, and one was used on this occasion because the treaty change in question concerned a single, time-bound issue already agreed by the Heads of Government and Heads of State at the European Council, rather than a more substantial renegotiation or re-opening of the EU’s treaties. I then announced to the House via a written ministerial statement on 6 July last year, at column 7WS, that the transitional protocol had been agreed.
As with any treaty change, the protocol now requires that all member states ratify it before it can enter into force. As I have already made clear in our earlier debates in Committee, it is for each member state, when it comes to any treaty amendment, to determine whether and how it carries out its own national procedures for approval and ratification. In the United Kingdom at present, any amendment to the EU treaties conducted under the ordinary revision procedure—as was the case here—can be ratified by the UK only if it is approved by Act of Parliament. This is set out in section 5 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008.
Parliamentary approval of the transitional protocol is therefore required by Act before the protocol can be ratified in the UK. Clause 15 of the Bill therefore provides for this parliamentary approval. Subject to Parliament’s approval, the legislation will of course require that any treaty change conducted under either the ORP or the simplified revision procedure would in future need parliamentary approval by Act. Since what we are debating is a technical change to the treaty that relates merely to the number of MEPs, and does not transfer any power or competence from the UK to the EU, it does not meet the requirements to hold a referendum. However, as the provisions in the 2008 Act require approval by Act of Parliament, we have decided to use them to seek the approval of Parliament. Section 5 of the 2008 Act would subsequently be repealed, as a consequence of clause 14, and replaced by the provisions in clauses 2 and 3 in any future decisions.
It is important to note that the additional MEPs are entitled to take their seats following the next European parliamentary elections in 2014 in any case, regardless of what the Committee determines this afternoon. The transitional protocol simply means that those people will be able to do that earlier than 2014, because the treaties would have provided for their election in 2009 had the Lisbon treaty been in force then, as was anticipated by the then Heads of Government and Heads of State. At the 2014 European parliamentary elections the additional MEPs, along with every other MEP, will be elected in the usual way, according to each member state’s practice. As none of the additional MEPs could take up their places until every member state had ratified the transitional protocol, the Government have continued with our predecessor’s approach, and we now seek Parliament’s approval to ratify this treaty change.
The protocol states that it will enter into force on 1 December 2010, provided that all the instruments of ratification have been deposited. Failing that, the protocol would enter into force on the first day of the month after the last member state ratifying the protocol had done so. Clearly we have passed that somewhat ambitious deadline already, and it is for each member state to decide whether, how and when to approve ratification. However, it is our intention to ratify as soon as possible, subject to Parliament’s approval. As I have made clear, we are discussing a short-term transitional measure, until the next European parliamentary elections, which are due to take place in June 2014. It does not transfer power or competence, and so does not require the people’s consent in a referendum, but it is a treaty change. As such, it requires the approval of this Parliament through primary legislation. I hope that members of the Committee will be able to approve this temporary measure.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Let me say at the outset what a pleasure it is again to be debating the Bill with the Minister and the select group of Members currently in the Chamber. We welcome the provisions that the Government have set out to give parliamentary approval to the allocation of the UK’s extra seat in the European Parliament. Having worked in the European Parliament for some time, I know the important role that it plays, but I would like to ask the Minister some questions of clarification.
Can the Minister clarify why the so-called Sainte-Laguë process was chosen to allocate the UK’s extra seat in the European Parliament to the west midlands region? I understand that the method was set out in the Electoral Commission report in October last year. What consultation took place between the Government and the Electoral Commission on choosing that method? Was a joint decision made, or was it the decision of the commission or the Government? Did the Government consider any other method to allocate the extra seat, and if so, which? Which methods are being used by other member states to allocate extra seats?
The explanatory note says that the west midlands had the lowest number of electors per MP according to the current electoral register, and on that basis the decision was made to allocate the extra seat. It is perhaps ironic that, although the west midlands will be given one extra MEP, owing to the Government’s plans it is set to lose several MPs. Which electoral register did the Government consider when making their decision: the one from December last year or the year before? Can the Minister tell the Committee what progress other member states are making on ratifying the protocol to increase the number of MEPs, and when he expects the UK to take up its extra seat in the European Parliament?
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Minister and my hon. Friend have set out clearly the technical reasons for adopting the clause, and I am sure that the Committee will not divide on it. Let me also tell the Minister that it is a great pleasure to have someone on the Front Bench from this Government advocating an increase in parliamentary representation. Whereas the other place so long resisted the culling of foxes, we are shortly to have a sharp culling of MPs, with a reduction in representation. It is therefore good that we are increasing representation in the European Parliament under the current proposal.
Mrs Main
I am listening with interest to the right hon. Gentleman on the issue of increasing the number of Members. Does he not share my concern that any increase in the number of elected Members will also see a proportionate increase in costs, pensions and office staff, which, sadly, this country cannot choose to afford?
Mr MacShane
The hon. Lady is quite right, but if she checks the debates on the great Reform Bill of 1832, she will find that exactly the same point was made—that any increase in representation in this country would place an unbearable cost on the Exchequer.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Upper Houses are not relevant to this stand part debate, so let us stick to the clause. I am sure that Mr MacShane will want to come back to that subject.
Mr MacShane
I am tempted to say—though, thank goodness, oral amendments are not allowed in Committee of the whole House—that the increase in MEPs at the heart of this part of the Bill could be allocated to representatives from national Parliaments at some future date. I am just stretching the limits of order—[Interruption.] I am about to sit down, Mr Hoyle. I am inviting the Minister to open a debate about how to make the European Parliament more representative and more reflective of the national will in the different countries that constitute the EU. That might require a small treaty change, but not, I am sure, a significant one, so we would not need to initiate the referendum provisions.
We often knock the European Parliament because of expenses or costs or decisions it has taken that we do not like, which is frankly rather childish. What we need is a more serious debate about making the European Parliament more effective, more efficient and more representative—leaving aside those who want to abolish it or to withdraw completely from it. I invite the Minister to engage with that debate, although he may well hope that once proceedings on the Bill are concluded there will be no more debate about the EU on his side of the House for the next few years.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman not give any weight to what the German constitutional court said in respect of democracy—that it lies not in the institutions of the European Union or its Parliament, but in those of the national state?
Mr MacShane
The Verfassungsgericht in Germany, of course, sees the German people—das Volk—as the sovereign, and distinguishes clearly between the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. It allocates powers on a subsidiary basis—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Again, we really are drifting from the subject, and we must return to it. The right hon. Gentleman said earlier that he was winding up his speech, but he is now broadening it again.
Mr MacShane
Not many Members wish to speak, Mr Hoyle, so I was trying to reply to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), but I now invite him to read some expert books on the subject instead.
Mr MacShane
For the last time—because mine was intended to be a very short speech—I give way, as always, to my hon. Friend.
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank my right hon. Friend, as always, for being so generous.
No doubt we should welcome the extra seat in the European Parliament as a small extension of democracy, but my right hon. Friend is right about accountability. Would it not be a good idea for some powers to be repatriated to national Parliaments, and would it not also be a good idea to return to single-Member, first-past-the-post seats in the European Parliament? Would that not increase accountability?
The Chairman
Order. That has absolutely nothing to with the clause. I think that the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) had better sum up his speech now.
Mr MacShane
Might my hon. Friend possibly accept that on this occasion I really must bow to the Chair and sit down?
Mr Lidington
A number of the questions posed by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) invited me to move from clause 15 to clauses 16 and 17. If you are willing to allow me to stray on to that territory, Mr Hoyle, I shall be able to reply to her questions now and perhaps speak more formally later when we deal with those clauses; otherwise I shall have to delay my responses to her.
The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) made his points very forcefully. I agree with him that there is a disconnection between decisions made by national legislatures in just about every member state and decisions made in the European Parliament—or in Europe more generally—on behalf of those countries, and I think it important for us to consider how to remedy that democratic deficit. However, I do not want to be drawn into a detailed discussion about the treaty changes which would need to be debated and negotiated to produce the outcome that the right hon. Gentleman seeks, and which would have to command unanimous agreement among all member states and, indeed, the European Parliament itself.
Let me say two things about the European Parliament. First, it does an important job. Whatever view I, or any other Member present, may take on whether or not it should have particular powers, my contacts with MEPs of all parties have given me the impression that, for the most part, they take their duties of scrutinising and seeking to amend European legislation very seriously. As a Government and as a Parliament, we need to have regard to and engage consistently with MEPs if we are to pursue successfully the national objectives of the United Kingdom through the European Union.
Secondly, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is an unhealthy democratic gap between the way in which the European Parliament operates and the— in my opinion—correct belief held by most national legislatures that they are more directly accountable to the voters in their respective countries than are MEPs. That is, perhaps, particularly true in the United Kingdom, where there is a significant difference in the method of election: while MEPs are elected through a regional party list system, we in the House of Commons are elected to single-Member constituencies. The right hon. Gentleman has sketched what has the makings of a fruitful debate in the months and years to come.
Let me now deal with the various detailed points made by, in particular, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East. While I am tempted to deal at length on differences between the Sainte-Laguë and d’Hondt methods, that would probably reduce the number of Members attending the debate even further. I am happy to offer a seminar. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) indicates that he does not wish to be drawn into a debate about the respective merits of Sainte-Laguë and d’Hondt.
Mr MacShane
Let us leave Sainte-Laguë and d’Hondt. Is the Minister in favour of the alternative vote? That is what the Committee and the nation want to know.
Mr Lidington
No.
The answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East is that the Electoral Commission decided to use the Sainte-Laguë method following various consultations that it had carried out. There is a debate about whether we should move to that method when it comes to deciding how to elect Members of the European Parliament, but that is a matter for a future occasion.
Emma Reynolds
Will the Minister clarify whether the d’Hondt system was considered by the Electoral Commission in allocating the extra seat?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Lady knows that the Electoral Commission is completely independent of the Government, so that question should properly be addressed to the chairman and the chief executive of the commission.
The history of this process is that on 22 September 2010 the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), wrote on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister to the chair of the commission formally requesting a recommendation under section 3 of the European Parliament (Representation) Act 2003 as to which of the 12 UK electoral regions, for the purposes of European parliamentary elections, should receive the UK’s additional MEP seat. UK MEPs are, of course, elected on a regional basis from 12 electoral regions—Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and nine regions in England. In making the recommendation for the distribution of any Member of the European Parliament, the Electoral Commission is obliged to ensure that each electoral region is allocated at least three MEPs and that the ratio of registered electors to MEPs is, as far as possible, the same in each electoral region. The Electoral Commission process is independent of Government and, importantly, the Government are bound to accept its recommendation.
In allocating the seat, the Electoral Commission applied the Sainte-Laguë method, as the hon. Lady has said, following previous consultation exercises it had undertaken on the method to be used. It has indicated that the system has the advantage of enabling it to adhere to its statutory requirement that the ratio of registered electors to MEPs is as nearly as possible the same in each electoral region. On 26 October 2010, the Electoral Commission recommended that the west midlands should be allocated the additional MEP provided for in the transitional protocol, and published a report to that effect, a copy of which was placed in the Library. My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform confirmed the commission’s decision to the House via a written ministerial statement on 26 October 2010—column 7WS in Hansard. Let me place on the record now, as my hon. Friend did at the time, the Government’s thanks to the commission for its work in producing that recommendation.
The hon. Lady is right that population trends and electoral numbers change over time. The answer to her direct question is that the December 2009 electoral register was used in making the calculation and the recommendation that the west midlands should receive the additional seat, but I want to make it clear to the Committee today, as the Government have stated publicly on previous occasions, that if it became likely while the Bill remained under consideration by either House that any changes to electoral registration data would result in a different UK electoral region gaining the seat, we would seek a revised recommendation from the Electoral Commission. We have acted on the basis of the December 2009 register, but if the evidence of new registers suggests that a region other than the west midlands should get the seat, we would revert to the commission for a further recommendation.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
We are, of course, in a rather unusual situation with European Parliament elections, in that Gibraltar is included, and Gibraltar shares Members of the European Parliament with the south-west of England. What methods for determining the electors in Gibraltar have been used in the calculations?
Mr Lidington
I think that is a matter for the Electoral Commission. It advises that it has used the Sainte-Laguë method throughout, and in comparing electorates for each region it would have taken the Gibraltar electorate into account when making its calculation for the south-west. I undertake to double-check what I have just told the hon. Gentleman; if I have inadvertently led him up the garden path, I will of course correct that on the record, but I have confidence that the Electoral Commission has done its job properly.
Mrs Main
I am listening with profound interest to my hon. Friend’s remarks. Does he share my concern that, to the public outside, seemingly topping up the gravy train rather than culling it—perhaps expanding the size of the electorate for existing MEPs rather than increasing the number of MEPs—might not, in today’s environment of cuts, be met with a degree of approval?
Mr Lidington
The changes to the distribution of MEPs between member states arose from new calculations about the populations of the different member states. Just as we have boundary reviews from time to time in the United Kingdom to reflect the growth of electorates in some places and the reduction in others, it is right that such a process should take place at the European level.
My hon. Friend makes a more fundamental point in her intervention, in implicitly arguing that there should be a significant overall reduction in the number of European legislators. I understand that argument, and I am certainly very much in the camp of those who argue that the European Parliament, like every other European Union institution, should be looking to reduce its expenditure rather than expect it automatically to increase. I would say just one word of caution to my hon. Friend, though. One consequence of reducing the number of MEPs overall would be either that the representation of the smallest member states would disappear completely or, if they were allowed a guaranteed minimum number of MEPs, that they would be disproportionately over-represented compared with the larger member states. The larger member states, such as ourselves, would suffer the greatest cuts in our representation if the smallest were protected, and potentially see a reduction in our influence over the European Parliament.
Kelvin Hopkins
It has just struck me that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) suggested a two-house European Parliament. I am not an enthusiast for that, but in those circumstances could you not have an arrangement similar to that for—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We have already ruled on that question.
Mr Lidington
I think the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) is demonstrating that he has political ambitions as yet unfulfilled.
I can now assure the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) that expert advice has reached me confirming that my trust in the Electoral Commission was well placed and that the electorate of Gibraltar were indeed considered in the context of the south-west region and assessed in accordance with the Sainte-Laguë system.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East asked me about the different options for selecting the additional MEPs. The protocol allows member states to choose between three options. First, member states could use the 2009 European parliamentary election results and elect the additional MEPs as if the additional seats had existed at the time of those 2009 elections. That is the method that we have chosen.
The second option would be to hold a by-election. In this case, that would mean holding a by-election in the west midlands region for a single MEP at an estimated cost of perhaps £10 million. The third option would be for member states to appoint temporarily one of their national parliamentarians to become the new MEP for the remainder of the current European parliamentary term. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East indicates that the hon. Member for Luton North or perhaps the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) might be candidates in such circumstances.
The previous Government decided in February 2010 that the UK’s additional MEP would be elected by reference to the results of the most recent European parliamentary elections, as though the additional seat had existed at that time. The present Government have continued our predecessor’s chosen approach, and the clauses are framed in that way. That is also the method used by the great majority of other member states that are gaining MEPs. In fact, some member states elected additional MEPs during the 2009 elections on the basis that they could take up their seats only once the transitional protocol had come into force.
Our chosen method avoids the delay and the cost associated with a by-election and would allow us to return the additional MEP as soon as possible after the approval of the relevant provision in the Bill. It also has the merit of being exactly the same method that we use in any case to fill a vacant British seat in the European Parliament after the death or resignation of an elected MEP. Again, these clauses and schedule 2 would apply only until the additional seat had been filled and until the next European parliamentary election, which is scheduled for 2014.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Election of additional MEP
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr David
May I briefly ask the Minister an additional question on the extra MEP, simply to gain some broader context? He mentions correctly that other member states have additional MEPs. Of course, as he points out, all member states must agree to adopt the necessary legislative procedures to bring about such MEPs, but what is the time scale? We are dealing with the situation now. I wonder whether other EU member states have had an opportunity to alter their legislation to bring out such MEPs. Are we waiting for them to do so? What is the time scale? That obviously has a bearing on when the MEP from the west midlands can take her seat.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I apologise for having overlooked that question when it came from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds). The most sensible thing for me to do would be to write to the hon. Gentleman with a full list and to deposit a copy of that letter in the Library for the information of all Members. However, the latest information available to me is that in respect of the other member states that are gaining MEPs—or, indeed, other member states generally, because the protocol must be ratified by all 27 of them, whether they gain or lose MEPs, or whether there is no difference in the number of MEPs from a country—something like two thirds to three quarters of member states have reached the stage of notifying their accession to the proposal, but others have not done so. Germany, for example, has debated the measure in the Bundestag, but my understanding is that Germany has not yet ratified it. We are awaiting news on where France is going. Some of the others, including Hungary, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Malta, have gone a considerable distance towards ratification already, but we are not right at the back of the pack, by any means. My expectation is that this measure will probably be ratified by all 27 member states later this year, but it could slip into 2012, because each member state can decide how high a priority it gives to this measure. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman an adequate holding answer for now, but I undertake to write to him with chapter and verse as soon as possible.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2
Election of additional MEP
Question proposed, That the schedule be the Second schedule to the Bill.
Mr Lidington
It might be helpful if I set out in a little more detail the provisions in schedule 2, because it also deals with the procedures to be followed in the admittedly unlikely event that we were unable to fill the vacancy for the additional MEP by looking at the party lists as they were constituted in 2009.
As I have explained, clause 17 provides for the method of electing and returning the UK’s additional MEP. Schedule 2 provides a series of detailed provisions to be used when undertaking the process to return that additional MEP. As a first step, the regional returning officer for the designated region—in this case, the west midlands—would be required to identify which registered party would have won the additional seat in accordance with the results of the European parliamentary elections of 4 June 2009, as though that seat had already been allocated to the west midlands at that time. Since there were no independent candidates in the west midlands at the 2009 elections, the schedule provides only for allocation to a registered party.
The regional returning officer would then be required to identify from the registered party’s list of candidates at the 2009 elections the candidate whose name appeared highest on the list. In doing so, the returning officer has to disregard those people who have already been returned as MEPs, or who have since died. For example, if the registered party had proposed six candidates in an electoral region and the first three candidates on that party’s list had been returned as MEPs, the returning officer would identify the fourth candidate on that party’s list as the next person to be returned as an MEP. That person is referred to as the first choice.
Schedule 2 provides that the returning officer then has a duty to contact the first choice to ask whether he or she will provide written confirmation of their willingness and their ability to be returned as the MEP. The returning officer would also ask the first choice to deliver a certificate signed by, or on behalf of, the nominating officer of the registered party, confirming that he or she may be elected.
Schedule 2 further sets out the process to take place if the returning officer is unable to contact the first choice candidate or if that person confirms that, for whatever reason, they are unwilling or unable to stand, or if they do not provide the certificate required by law. In order to maximise the independence of the process, and to make it clear that there is no Government gerrymandering involved, it shall be at the discretion of the regional returning officer to determine the length of the “reasonable period” involved.
If there has been no success with the first choice candidate, the returning officer should identify the next name on the registered party’s list of candidates. This candidate is referred to in the schedule as the subsequent choice, and the returning officer shall repeat the same process with that candidate. This process will continue until either the seat is filled or there are no more names on the registered party’s list of candidates.
Schedule 2 then sets out what would happen if the first choice candidate provided the required documentation after the regional returning officer had determined that it was appropriate to move on to the next individual. In that case, schedule 2 provides that the so-called prior choice would have forfeited their opportunity because they had previously been given adequate opportunity by the returning officer to provide the relevant documentation within a reasonable time. They would have to wait to see whether the process could be completed successfully with the current candidate being approached by the regional returning officer. If the returning officer had no success with that subsequent candidate, the earlier candidate could be allowed at that stage to provide documentation and stake a claim.
The schedule then sets out the process to take place when a candidate has returned the required documentation to the satisfaction of the regional returning officer. The returning officer has to declare publicly in writing that that person should be returned as an MEP, prepare a public statement containing relevant information concerning the process, and send copies of both documents to the Secretary of State.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is right that in drafting legislation, particularly on a matter as important as democratic representation, we make provision even for unlikely eventualities. If my hon. Friend will bear with me for a few seconds, I shall come to precisely the point that she identified.
When the returning officer has sent copies of the documents to the Secretary of State, the candidate will be confirmed and will be free to take up their seat as soon as the transitional protocol has entered into force. That depends on ratification having taken place in every member state.
Here I come to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). Schedule 2 also provides that, in the event that none of the candidates on the relevant 2009 list was available or willing to be returned as an MEP, as a last resort a by-election would be held to fill the seat.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend tell us whether these provisions are to apply only once, in one particular case at one particular time? Is it not the case that we know perfectly well who would be most likely to benefit from the provisions? Is it not also the case that we know that she is alive and wants to be a Member of the European Parliament? Would it not be quicker just to elect Anthea McIntyre as a Member of the European Parliament for the west midlands and move on to the next clause?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend, as always, reminds us of practicalities and of the real world. As I said to our hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, the legislation for democratic representation must make provision for all conceivable eventualities, even if they seem highly improbable to us.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
If the Bill were simply to say that Anthea McIntyre were elected, it might be in danger of becoming hybrid legislation.
Mr Lidington
I bow to my hon. Friend’s constitutional knowledge. I suspect that having the Bill declared hybrid is the last thing that any of us want.
If we reached circumstances in which none of the candidates from 2009 was available or willing to be returned, a by-election would be held. The returning officer would confirm to the Secretary of State that the seat could not be filled, and the Secretary of State would lay an order by statutory instrument to specify the date of a by-election. I stress that the by-election is very much a last-resort option, and that, given the short time between the 2009 elections and now, the Government are confident that the process outlined in schedule 2 is likely to identify a candidate to fill the additional seat.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 19
Financial provisions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Lidington
Clause 19 provides for the financial provisions associated with some of the provisions of the Bill, mainly those in part 2 required for the implementation of the transitional protocol on MEPs. Any costs incurred as a result of our implementation of the protocol will be met from the Consolidated Fund.
Mr Lidington
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make a little progress, I will explain where potential costs might conceivably arise. Any costs would consist of the minimal costs arising from the administrative expenditure of the returning officer of the west midlands electoral region. The costs involved there will depend on what those administrative costs are, but they are costs that would have to be budgeted for in the normal way. The returning officer does not have a blank cheque that he can draw on. If the seat could not be filled in accordance with schedule 2 and a by-election had to be held, there would be costs associated with that by-election, for which clause 19 makes provision. On our best current estimate, a by-election would cost about £10 million to run.
Mr Lidington
If a by-election were to be held, my understanding is that it would be held on the basis of the first-past-the-post system, if only one candidate could be elected. Again, if I am mistaken, I will correct the record.
Mr David
May I press the Minister a little further on that? I am sure that what he is saying is correct, but would it not be strange if all the other MEPs from Britain—in fact, I would guess all the other MEPs from every other European country—were elected under a form of proportional representation, yet this one individual was the only one elected under first past the post?
Mr Lidington
The fact that this is a transitional arrangement means that it is sui generis. As the hon. Gentleman will know, normally the European Parliament has a rule that a legislator cannot have a dual mandate and be a member of both a national legislature and the European Parliament. Here we have insisted that people had to leave active membership of the House of Lords in order to take a part in the European Parliament, and Members here have had to make a choice in the past when they have held a dual mandate in the House of Commons and the European Parliament about which they wished to pursue after a particular election. Special arrangements are being made because this matter is transitional.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Perhaps I may help the Minister: essentially, a by-election in such circumstances would be under the list system. The list would just be a list of one.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend has helped by indicating that we would be making a somewhat academic distinction in these circumstances. It might be important theologically, but not in terms of practical politics.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
To carry on with the theological argument, is it not the case that PR systems reduce to first past the post when there is one vacancy in effect, with the exception of a dead heat? That is the real point on the ballot paper where there is a cross put against the name, which is a traditional first past the post, or whether it is one, two, three or four, depending on the number of candidates. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify.
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman invites me to speculate on what the procedure would be were there to be a tie in the event of a very unlikely by-election covering the whole of the west midlands region. I will seek advice in order to be certain of my position and write to him or respond to him later in the debate.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous in giving way, as he always is. He has suggested that Members of this House or the House of Lords are barred from being Members of the European Parliament, but I do not think that that is the law. I would be grateful if he could advance the Act of Parliament in which that is stated. I thought that the Rev. Dr Ian Paisley was simultaneously a Member of this House and the European Parliament for a considerable time.
Mr Lidington
That was possible for a long time, but the rules were changed and the right hon. and noble Lord Bannside, as he now is, decided to leave the European Parliament at the appropriate election because he wished to remain a Member of the House of Commons.
The other costs covered by clause 19 arise by virtue of clause 13, which provides that the Electoral Commission shall
“take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness… and… may take steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness of the subject-matter”
in connection with any referendums held, pursuant to part 1 of the Bill. Clause 19 provides for any additional costs incurred as a result of that activity.
It is also worth underlining the fact that since 14 July 2009 the salaries of Members of the European Parliament are paid from the European Parliament’s budget. The United Kingdom will make no direct payments as a result of the implementation of the transitional protocol on MEPs, so clause 19 makes no provision for any such payments.
Mr David
I would like to refer to one point relating to financial provisions. The Minister has referred to clause 13, which we debated last week, although in insufficient detail in my view. What possible costs could be incurred by provisions of the Bill relating to possible referendums, because the Electoral Commission is given tremendous scope? For example, clause 13(b) states that the Electoral Commission “may”—I stress that word—
“take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness of the subject-matter of the referendum.”
We have also discussed the fact that there could be referendums on extremely complex and almost esoteric issues, and the Government of the day would have to make an enormous effort to ensure that there was a reasonable debate among the public on the issue under consideration, rather than some other issue. Will the Minister spell out what sort of cap there could be on the Electoral Commission’s expenditure? We have also touched on the possibility that public money would be given to the campaign in favour of a change that a Government want and to the campaign against it. What sort of cap will be included for two opposing campaigns that could be initiated as a result of this legislation?
Mr Lidington
Before responding to those points, I should clarify the method of election we would use for a by-election. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) was absolutely correct: although in theory the list system would be used, in practice it would be a list of one, so for all intents and purposes it would be a first-past-the-post election.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) asked about public money being available to umbrella campaign organisations arguing for either a yes or a no vote. We have always taken the view that any referendums conducted by authority of the Bill should be run along lines equivalent to those provided in other statutes, especially the AV referendum that we hope will be held this May, subject to Parliament’s approval.
Mr Lidington
No. The matter will be decided at the time. We will not operate on a hypothetical basis—that there might or might not be a referendum in any particular year. We would make provision for it as and when required.
Chris Bryant
I am not sure whether the Minister therefore means that the Foreign Office would make provision, whether the Ministry of Justice would do so under the referendums provision or whether it would come out of the contingency, but my anxiety is that one might end up with the same situation as we have in Wales for the next referendum on 3 March. Nobody has been identified as the official no side of the argument, so there will be no public money for either no or yes, because if there is not an official no campaign there cannot be an official yes campaign.
Mr Lidington
The regulations for the referendum will be those set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. I suggest not that any changes are planned, but that, in accordance with any amendments made to that legislation between now and the date of any future referendum on a European issue under the Bill, the rules for its conduct would change. Today, we propose, however, that, as long as the 2000 Act remains in force in its current form, the rules that apply to it should apply to any referendum held under the auspices of the Bill.
Emma Reynolds
On the Minister’s previous point, may I gently suggest that the difference between the alternative vote system and first past the post is that the candidate should receive more than 50% of the vote? So, there is a difference, even if only one candidate is listed. On clause 19, what does he estimate the cost to be of a referendum on any of the Bill’s measures that would trigger a referendum? Given the Government’s slightly confusing messages—they promise not to transfer power to the European Union, as set out in the coalition document, yet they demonstrate their eagerness through the Bill to commit to a referendum when a trigger is in place—will he estimate how many referendums we will have in this Parliament and, therefore, how much of a drain they will be on the Consolidated Fund?
Mr Lidington
I really do not know how many times I have to keep repeating this before the Opposition understand: there is a clear pledge in the coalition agreement that the current Government will not, during the lifetime of this Parliament until 2015, agree to a treaty amendment—under either the ordinary or simplified revision procedures—that would transfer competences or powers, as defined in this legislation, from the United Kingdom to the European Union. Therefore, the question does not arise: as the United Kingdom will have the right of veto over any such measure, we are making it clear that we are not going to agree to it. By bringing this legislation into effect, however, we are enacting provisions, to apply during this Parliament, for enhanced parliamentary controls over treaty changes. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that the proposal on the table for a narrow treaty change under the simplified revision procedure to establish a permanent crisis resolution mechanism for the eurozone countries would, under the 2008 legislation, require simply a resolution in both Houses for it to be ratified by the United Kingdom, but, once this Bill comes into force, primary legislation will be required for that ratification. So as a consequence of this Bill, irrespective of the fact that we do not anticipate agreeing to anything that would require a referendum, there will be enhanced parliamentary control over any promised or hypothetical further treaty change or invocation of one of the passerelle clauses expressly provided for in the Bill.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Of course, the situation is exactly as the Minister says while this coalition Government are in power. However, we are in a fixed-term Parliament and there is no guarantee that this coalition Government will still be the Government, so the additional clauses are there to protect us.
Mr Lidington
It is very important that we legislate on the basis that we want to give people the assurance that they have this protection against any future Government choosing to railroad through the transfer of new competences to the European Union institutions without the people being given the right to have their say. Any future Government of any political colour will be taking a pretty massive political risk if they try to rob people of the right to have the final say about the transfer of competences and powers from this country to Brussels. That will be a very powerful deterrent against any future Government being tempted down such a course.
Chris Bryant
The Minister said that this Government have no intention of having a referendum because they do not intend to trigger one under their own Bill, thereby proving that the whole Bill, like Z, is an unnecessary letter. Will he now get on to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) about how much a referendum is going to cost?
Mr Lidington
On current prices, a referendum, if held on its own, could cost between £80 million and £100 million. If it were combined with other elections on the same day, the figure might well be considerably less. However, these things would have to be calculated in detail at the time. It depends on factors such as whether another election is being held on the same day, so all the apparatus of paying for staff to set up polling stations and to count ballot papers is already being provided for, or it is being done as a one-off solely as a referendum on a European subject.
Mr Lidington
I was trying to respond to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but I will give way.
Mr David
These are very important issues. At a time of austerity, as the Government say, it is of great concern that there is such a lax approach to quite considerable sums. Does the figure that the Minister mentioned include merely funding for the conduct of a referendum, or does it also include the grants to organisations to enable them to put the respective arguments in a referendum?
Mr Lidington
I will come back to the hon. Gentleman having taken advice on that point. I would say gently to him, however, that giving the people their say, in the way they would expect, about the transfer of significant powers to act and make policy from this Parliament and this country to Brussels ought to be a high priority for Government expenditure. The reputation, not just of his party but of British politics in general, would have been a lot higher had the previous Government given a higher priority to spending money on the referendum that they had promised on the Lisbon treaty, rather than making a saving on that while spending billions of pounds on other objectives, many of which were of significantly less importance to the people whom we represent.
Emma Reynolds
I say gently to the Minister that if he goes back and reads our manifesto commitment, he will find that we promised a referendum on the constitutional treaty. If he asks his officials, with whom I was working at the time—
The Chairman
Order. We are getting carried away and are drifting. I am sure that the Minister wants to get back to the point.
Mr Lidington
I will leave it to the hon. Lady to try to explain that distinction on the doorstep.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) asked about expenditure authorised by clause 13. We have to understand the distinction between an authority to spend, which is what we are debating, and what the level of any expenditure should be. If we did not have the authorising power, as set out in clause 19, the Electoral Commission would simply not be able, without going ultra vires, to promote public awareness of a referendum or the subject matter of a referendum. The Electoral Commission, like any other Department or organisation funded by the taxpayer, has a budget that is set through negotiation with the relevant Departments and the Treasury, and it will have to make provision from within that budget. If it really feels that it needs more, it will have to come back to the Government to seek agreement for a supplementary authorisation for additional spending, in the way that such things are usually provided for. We are debating a power under the clause for the Electoral Commission lawfully to spend money on a particular set of objectives, and nothing more.
Chris Bryant
Rather unfortunately, the Minister unpicked my support for the clause in the speech that he just made. He is right that this is the only point at which Members will decide how much should be spent on referendums, should they come into play. As he said, the rules on elections and referendums are set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act. The Government may wish to change some of those elements in the future, but Members will never consider this element of funding again. The moment that the Government want to have a referendum, they will have one and we will not have an opportunity to decide the cost of it.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that a major reason for holding a referendum on the same day as the local elections in England, the Assembly elections in Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Scottish Parliament election is the saving of some £30 million. I am not quite sure how that matches with the figures that the Minister gave for the cost of a stand-alone referendum. I wonder whether the Foreign Office is operating on slightly different figures from those of the Cabinet Office, which are being advanced by the Deputy Prime Minister.
I say to the Minister that to propose a Bill that provides no assurance that the financial sense of holding a referendum will be considered, and that provides only for the ideological sense of having a referendum to be considered, is a failing. As an example, I will give a failing of the previous Labour Government. There will be a referendum on new powers for the Welsh Assembly on 3 March. I have knocked on a lot of doors in the Rhondda recently, and I have been hard-pressed to find a single person who knows that the referendum is taking place. I suspect that very few people will take part in it. I know what machinations led to the provision in the Government of Wales Act 2006 that has put us in that situation, but I am unsure whether it is a good use of public money constantly to go to voters in referendums. I would have thought that a Government who wanted to get the best value for money, especially in a time of austerity, would want to have a value-for-money test as part of the decision about whether there should be a referendum. My anxiety is that there will be referendums on piddling matters, because lawyers will force them to happen. That will cause significant cost to the Government and no actual benefit to voters, who will effectively vote by not voting.
Mr David
I take my hon. Friend’s point about the comparison with the referendum in Wales on 3 March, but at the same time it could be said that that referendum is on an important constitutional issue—whether the Welsh Assembly is to have primary legislative powers. My concern is that the current Bill could lead us to have a multiplicity of referendums on very small, technical issues. A lot of public money might be spent on that basis.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend has essentially made my point for me again. As you are looking quizzical, Mr Hoyle, there is no need for me to detain the House longer. [Interruption.] No, it is quizzical, honestly. Well, it certainly is now, even if it was not a few seconds ago. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain why there is no provision in the Bill for a value-for-money test before there is a referendum.
Mr Lidington
First, to make the record absolutely clear, I say to the hon. Members for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) that the former was right to correct me about the way in which votes would be counted in the somewhat unlikely event of a by-election. In effect, it would be an alternative vote election but with just one candidate from each party. The candidates would be numbered, so the question of a tie, to which the hon. Gentleman drew my attention, would not arise. I am grateful to both hon. Members for their interventions, which have made it certain that we have got the correct facts on the record. I am sure that in the hypothetical case of a by-election being called, they will find the Hansard record of these exchanges very helpful.
To respond to the point that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made about finance, the detailed financial provision for any referendum would be made in the Bill authorising that referendum. When we debated earlier clauses, I explained that there would need to be primary legislation for that purpose—I think it would almost certainly be part of the Act of Parliament to ratify a treaty change.
I believe that there is simply disagreement between the hon. Gentleman and me about that matter. I take the view that we should have a referendum when the question to be determined is significant enough in principle to require it. We have laid out in detail in the Bill the changes to European treaties, and the transfers of decisions from unanimity to qualified majority voting, that we think are of such constitutional or political importance that a referendum of the British people should be required before any Government could decide to accept them not just for their own term of office but permanently and, in the eyes of many in the EU, irrevocably.
The problem with introducing a measure such as a value-for-money test is that it opens up a wide area of discretion for the Government of the day, who could say, “Well, this decision might be of legal and constitutional importance, but frankly, the costs involved do not justify all the trouble of asking people to come out and vote and they aren’t really interested anyway.” That way of thinking is part of what got Europe into the democratic deficit in which it is now trapped. There is a gulf of mistrust between voters and the political elites who govern them in far too many European countries, each of which has proud democratic traditions. We see that in this country in how Parliament is regarded—it is not just down to the EU; it is down to all sorts of other things as well. Such a measure would be another element in that deficit.
Allowing people to have the final say over decisions that are important to the future of their country is one way to remedy that deficit. I think it better to define the circumstances in which that will happen in legislation, as we have done with the Bill, than to leave it to the discretion and judgment of Ministers, who might decide on the ground of public interest or of value for money. For that reason, I prefer our approach.
Chris Bryant
The fact that the Minister and I disagree on this matter or on the Bill is no great revelation. Even his private office might have worked that out. He gave the game away a bit when he said that the matter of principle is that one must give the people the right to decide when the transfer of power is sufficiently significant, but significance is not an absolute but a comparator. That is my problem.
The Bill provides for the addition of a new MEP. Will he assure the House that there is no need to provide for a situation in which that MEP, having been appointed, decides to leave or unfortunately dies? Will that seat simply be gathered up in the normal process of by-elections?
Mr Lidington
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. The normal processes for filling a vacancy in the European Parliament would apply in those circumstances too.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Extent
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Lidington
The clause provides that the Bill extends to the whole United Kingdom. The subject matter of the Bill is reserved to the Westminster Parliament and it contains no provisions that fall within the terms of the Sewel convention, or that would require any legislative consent motions in respect of the devolved legislatures. In any case, I can confirm to the Committee that the devolved Administrations were consulted on the Bill prior to its introduction, and are content with its provisions.
Part 2 of the Bill, which provides for the implementation of the transitional protocol on MEPs, also extends to Gibraltar, because the people of Gibraltar, as has already been mentioned, participate in UK elections to the European Parliament. Where clauses 20, 21 and 22 touch on part 2, they also extend to Gibraltar.
As I made clear early in Committee, and as you would certainly expect of me, Mr Hoyle, I have discussed the approach taken in the Bill with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar. He has made it clear that he approves of our approach, in terms of both the application of part 2 to Gibraltar, and the provisions in part 1 that ensure that the people of Gibraltar can participate in any referendum that is held when a treaty change affects them by virtue of our membership of the EU and the UK’s Act of Accession.
Mr David
I am pleased that the Minister has gone out of his way to emphasise that there has been consultation and agreement with Gibraltar—I am sure that you, Mr Hoyle, will be especially pleased about that. However, will the Minister clarify further what consultation there has been with the devolved Administrations? I am thinking of the Scottish Parliament and Executive in particular, because I noted in evidence submitted to the European Scrutiny Committee that concern was expressed that elements of the Bill might impinge upon devolved areas. Certainly, when the evidence was submitted, those concerned were not entirely satisfied that the Government had taken that fully into account. Will he give a cast-iron commitment—if I can use that phrase—that there has been consultation, and that all parties are happy?
Mr Lidington
Yes, we consulted the devolved Administrations in 2010, at the same time as final policy approval was sought from Departments. The text of the Bill was circulated to the devolved Administrations as soon as it had been drafted and was available for circulation in Whitehall. We have tried to keep them as much in the picture as possible and as soon as was practical. As the hon. Gentleman will understand, the Government took office in May last year, and arranging policy clearance and then the drafting of the Bill has been an intensive piece of work. However, I do not think that the devolved Administrations have been treated in any way unfairly. I have assured them that the Government remain completely committed to what the Prime Minister has termed the “respect agenda”, and that we are committed to honouring in full the various memorandums of understanding between the Government of the United Kingdom and the devolved Administrations. I am happy to make clear that commitment once again.
Chris Bryant
I am afraid that it was the words “the respect agenda” that turned my stomach and made me get to my feet suddenly. My experience of the Government thus far, in relation to other constitutional developments, has been that the respect agenda has been more honoured in its breach. To be fair, however, the Foreign Office has discussed the matter openly and fairly with the Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that the legislation might suit their needs. However, there might be some areas—particularly in relation to the different legal system in Scotland—where, although it might not feel like the UK Government have surrendered a power in negotiations in Brussels, it might feel more like they have in Scotland. At those moments, the people of Scotland might say, “We want a referendum, because we do not like what you are doing”, while the Government and Parliament might not think that there is any need to do so.
I want to make a second point about Gibraltar. We have all referred, Mr Hoyle, to your personal interest in Gibraltar, and I bow at that altar as well. The Minister used a particular phrase that seemed like it had been crafted very carefully through the decades by Foreign Office mandarins. Having used such phrases before myself, I wonder whether it might not help were the Minister to unpack it. I think he said that the people of Gibraltar would be allowed to vote in a referendum where they are affected by a measure. I do not know how one would determine whether Gibraltar has been affected. I am not sure whether the Minister is being too clever by half, or whether I am being too foolish by half, but I am sure that he will enlighten us.
Mr Lidington
Let me deal with Gibraltar first. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will recall from when he had responsibility for such matters, Gibraltar is part of the European Union, but it is not subject to all of the acquis. Therefore, the referendum will extend to Gibraltar where the treaty amendment, passerelle clause or article 48(6) decision concerned affects an area of European Union competence that covers it. If the proposed treaty change dealt with an area of competence from which Gibraltar was completely excluded, it would not take part in the referendum.
Chris Bryant
I can feel a peroration coming on, so I just want to check something to do with Gibraltar. Notwithstanding the remarks that the Minister has made, clause 11(1)(c) refers to who gets to vote
“if the referendum is also held in Gibraltar,”
but who decides whether the referendum is held there? Would that have to be laid out in the Bill that was implementing the individual referendum in question?
Mr Lidington
No, it would be a matter of treaty and law. I refer the hon. Gentleman to clauses 2(2)(a) and 3(2)(a). They provide for the circumstances relating to whether a referendum on whether a treaty should be ratified should be held throughout the UK—“or”, and this is the important provision,
“where the treaty affects Gibraltar, throughout the United Kingdom and Gibraltar”.
The referendum will extend to Gibraltar where the treaty matter that is subject to the referendum is a matter that includes Gibraltar. If it is a treaty matter from which Gibraltar is excepted, the referendum will not include the people of Gibraltar.
Chris Bryant
So why does clause 20 not say that the Act extends to the whole of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar?
Mr Lidington
Because the provisions for Gibraltar are laid out in clauses 2 and 3, as I have explained.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21
Commencement
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 15, page 12, line 12, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
‘(3) The day appointed under subsection (2) shall be within one month of the day on which this Act is passed.’.
Under clause 21, certain provisions will come into force quickly, while others will do so at a later date. Clause 15 will come in straight away, as will part 3, which includes clause 18, the sovereignty clause. The amendment would bring in the whole Bill all at once within one month of its passing through all relevant stages. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister has said elsewhere that it is the Government’s intention for the entire Bill to come into force within two months of Royal Assent. I am giving my right hon. Friend an opportunity to say a few more words about the clause, and I am sure that he will be able to deal with it as comprehensively as he has just dealt with the many points put to him by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). All those points were put to bed and I am sure that he will put this point to bed in the same way.
Mr Lidington
The Bill radically changes how the UK approaches the consideration of future key decisions on the European Union. It is therefore right that the provisions of this legislation should be applied as soon as possible after Royal Assent. It is also right that any treaty change currently being considered should be examined through the prism of this legislation. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have all made it clear that the Government’s firm intention is that the provisions will apply to the eurozone treaty change, which is expected to be agreed at EU level at the spring European Council.
Under the usual arrangements, the provisions of Acts of Parliament enter into force, unless otherwise stated, two months after Royal Assent. This Bill, however, has a slightly different set of provisions when it comes to commencement. Clause 21 makes provision for the Bill’s entry into force; subsection (1) provides for clause 15 and part 3 to come into force on the day of Royal Assent.
Clause 15 allows our country to be able to ratify the transitional protocol on MEPs as soon as possible, and two months earlier than we would otherwise have been able to. Article 2 of the MEP protocol stated that it should be in place, if possible, on 1 December 2010. At the moment, it looks unlikely that we will be the last member state to ratify that transitional protocol, but I would want us to be in a position where, if it turned out that we were bringing up the rear, there would be no delay and we would be able to bring our ratification into effect and allow the provisions of the protocol to take effect immediately after Royal Assent. We thus consider early commencement of that part of the Bill to be appropriate in order to reduce the delay and ensure that early commencement of the provision would not have any undue or adverse effects.
Clause 21(2) enables the Bill’s other provisions to be brought into force by one or more commencement orders made by the Secretary of State, and subsection 3 allows different days to be appointed for different purposes. The subsections were intended to give the Government the flexibility to bring the remaining provisions into force earlier—I emphasise the word “earlier”—than might otherwise have been the case, but we did not fix back in November, when we introduced the Bill, the date on which the provisions would enter into force. We allowed for flexibility so that individual parts could be brought into force at times that would maximise the Bill’s effectiveness.
Amendment 15 aims to ensure that all parts of the Bill are in force within one month of Royal Assent. I entirely understand the wish of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) to ensure that the Bill is in force as soon as possible, and I share his enthusiasm, but I hope I can persuade him that his amendment is not necessary. As we have already made clear, the Government have a firm commitment to use the Bill’s provisions for any future treaty change, not least the forthcoming eurozone treaty change. Because of the timing of that change, Parliament will have two bites at the cherry. Under the 2008 Act introduced by our predecessors, it will have a vote before the March European Council; it will then have to consider a Bill under the provisions in this Bill. We introduced Government amendment 56 precisely to ensure that this Bill could apply to the eurozone treaty change.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend is giving a very helpful explanation, but can he tell me which parts of the Bill will cover the proposed eurozone treaty change, whether or not the Bill is in force? As he has said, it does not matter whether it is in force or not, because the Government will abide by its terms regardless of whether it has been commenced.
Mr Lidington
All relevant parts of the Bill would apply to the treaty change. The Minister responsible would have to make a formal statement setting out whether the change transferred competences or powers—as defined in the legislation—to the European Union and therefore triggered a referendum, or whether it fell into one of the exempt categories.
As my hon. Friend knows, the Government believe that the treaty amendment that is now being considered applies only to the eurozone. It does not transfer any competences or powers from the United Kingdom to Brussels, and therefore, although primary legislation would be required for its ratification, a referendum would not be required. However, under this Bill we will require the Minister to set out his argument in the detail that we would expect to be demanded in relation to any other treaty change proposal.
There would then need to be primary legislation for the United Kingdom to ratify the treaty change. Although it does not affect the United Kingdom directly, it must be ratified by all 27 member states in order to take effect. It is therefore important for Parliament to have the right to examine the implications of the change in detail. We consider that primary legislation represents a better, more democratic approach than the simple debate on a resolution which is all that is provided for the ratification of such a change under the 2008 Act.
Clause 21 allows for flexibility to introduce provisions in the Bill at different times if required. I can assure my hon. Friend, on behalf of the Government, that we will lay an order to ensure the commencement of all the provisions that are not already in force by then one month after Royal Assent. We want to ensure that Parliament and the public are able to exercise the new rights that the Bill gives over EU decision-making as soon as possible. I hope that that gives my hon. Friend the assurances that he seeks, and that I can therefore persuade him to withdraw his amendment.
Mr Clappison
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. This has been a worthwhile debate and a worthwhile amendment, particularly in light of what he has just said. He has brought the commencement date forward one month further than had previously been indicated by the Government. Also, I agree with him that the arrangements in the Bill are much more satisfactory than the current arrangements, which were left to us by the previous Government, when it comes to any treaty changes that might come about as a result of changes to the eurozone. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr David
I should like to say a few words about the clause. The whole issue of when the Bill comes into effect causes us some concern, because it has been our contention from the start of our deliberations that the Bill is essentially window dressing. It is not an attempt to introduce genuine participation and accountability, but is instead, as a Minister has said, a rather crude attempt to tie future Governments.
Certainly, in terms of parliamentary scrutiny, I welcome what the Minister has said today and previously. Logically, many of things that the Government have announced in the Bill and in recent written statements are to be welcomed. We are firmly in favour of as much parliamentary accountability and involvement as practicable. Indeed, that was the whole tenor of the Opposition’s amendment at the start of our Committee deliberations. However, it worries me that we still have the important issue of the justice and home affairs opt-ins, particularly the European Court of Justice provisions, which will have to be considered during this Parliament. The Minister has been absolutely firm in his determination to ensure that although we will have additional scrutiny considerations regarding whatever a Government may decide to do, there will not be a referendum on this extremely important issue. These matters worry us greatly, because we contend that there is a certain amount of illogicality in the Bill. It is contradictory, it does not hold together and there is not a great deal of intellectual sense behind it. That is clearly illustrated by the whole issue of the ECJ opt-in provisions.
If the Government were true to their rhetoric, they would insist that the legislation would be introduced and that a referendum would be held during this Parliament if they decided to opt into those provisions, as some suggest they would like. That is why the whole issue of when different parts of the Bill commence and have legal effect is of tremendous importance. I want to register and reinforce the Opposition’s concern that the Government are approaching this matter in what we consider to be a totally ham-fisted way.
Mr Lidington
I shall be brief. I think the hon. Gentleman has a bit of a nerve. It was actually the Government whom he supported and served who agreed to the treaty that collapsed the third pillar, which communitised justice and home affairs, bringing those areas of policy under European Court of Justice jurisdiction when previously they had been intergovernmental. As we debated last week, we have as a Government announced that we shall be discussing with the scrutiny Committees and others the ways in which we can strengthen parliamentary scrutiny over justice and home affairs and give greater accountability of the Government to Parliament for those decisions.
We have said publicly, on the record, that the decision that must be made by 2014 on whether to opt out of or remain party to the pre-Lisbon corpus of justice and home affairs measures will be subject to a debate and to a vote in each House of Parliament. The previous Government made no provision for such an arrangement. They were content for the 2014 decision, which the hon. Gentleman now describes as of great magnitude, to be subject simply to the normal scrutiny provisions and for the Committee to determine whether to call it in for debate. I note that, despite all the hon. Gentleman’s strictures about there being no need for this Bill, he did not suggest that a hypothetical future Labour Government would seek to repeal the legislation. He knows the penalty that would accrue to any political party that tried to deny the people the democratic rights that they are being given under the Bill.
Mr David
In response to the Minister’s last remark, I would say simply that we have belief in the parliamentary process, and although the Bill may pass through this House, we are sure that Members of the other place will have enough wisdom and common sense not just to give it a mauling but to reject it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 7
Annual report on Part 1 of the Act
‘(1) The Prime Minister shall prepare and lay before the House each year a report on the operation of Part 1 of this Act.
(2) The report shall identify—
(a) any statements made in the previous 12 months under section 5, indicating specifically where Ministers have indicated an opinion under section 5(3) as to whether a treaty or Article 48(6) decision falls within section 4 of this Act, and any opinion given under section 5(4) of the Act on the significance of the relevant provision in relation to the United Kingdom;
(b) any powers and competences transferred under the terms of the TEU or TFEU from the United Kingdom to the European Union within the previous 12 months which—
(i) have, and
(ii) have not
required specific authorisation under any provisions of Part 1 of this Act;
(c) any powers and competences arising under any of the provisions of the TEU or TFEU referred to in Part 1 of this Act which have been repatriated to the United Kingdom from the European Union over the previous 12 months; and
(d) any such powers and competences which the Prime Minister seeks to repatriate to the United Kingdom from the European Union.
(3) The report shall also include—
(a) an assessment of the likelihood of further transfer of such powers and competences in the succeeding 12 months;
(b) a cost benefit analysis of the impact on the United Kingdom of any decisions made in the past 12 months under any of the provisions of the TEU or TFEU powers referred to in Part 1 of this Act.’.—(Priti Patel.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This is a straightforward probing amendment, designed to provide greater openness and transparency in connection with the Bill, and particularly the transfer of powers. It would give the public and Parliament an annual opportunity to review, in one comprehensive report, the powers transferred to the EU under part 1—for example, by providing a cost-benefit analysis of the impact on the UK of those transfers of powers—details of the powers that are likely to be transferred to the EU over the 12-month period and an indication of the powers that the UK seeks to repatriate from the EU.
Since coming to office, the Government have been at the forefront of pioneering the transparency agenda across all our politics. The new clause builds on those efforts, as the EU should not be exempt from robust parliamentary and—especially—public scrutiny. I believe it is essential that we keep a close eye on the powers that are being transferred to the EU, whether through referendum, Act of Parliament or ministerial decisions, for three reasons.
First, there is the matter of keeping a track record of the cost to this country of the EU’s having more powers, and letting people know who is governing Britain. Secondly, there is the matter of democracy and the public’s being able to hold the EU, the Government and Parliament to account for the decisions they take and the powers they ultimately exercise. Thirdly, there needs to be scrutiny of the powers handed over that are not deemed to be significant. After a single transfer, they may appear to be innocuous, but a series of such transfers over time may constitute naturally something more significant.
The Minister will be aware that the Government publish some of the details on the transfer of powers, such as the report on EU justice and home affairs matters that details the use of the opt-in protocol. More information of that nature across the Government should be published, and the new clause would facilitate an opportunity for the Prime Minister to present it to the House.
Graham Stringer
This is a particularly imaginative new clause. Does the hon. Lady imagine that there would be votes on such reports, or would they just be for information?
Priti Patel
I would not rule out anything, to be honest. As I started by saying, the new clause is designed to generate more openness and transparency in the transfer of powers and, ultimately, the amount of say that the EU has over us in this country. Right hon. and hon. Members, as well as the public, could therefore review the report, audit the EU and further hold decision makers to account, so I would welcome the opportunity not only to discuss but to vote and to have full-blown transparency.
The new clause is necessary because the monitoring of EU policies and the transfer of powers is not as effective as it should be. I pay tribute to the European Scrutiny Committee for its tremendous work. Unfortunately, the Chair of that Committee is not here this afternoon. It should be of concern to the legislature that such information is not always readily available and that important qualitative and quantitative data on the EU are not easily accessible.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I am slightly surprised. Given the evidence of the past three weeks, is my hon. Friend really suggesting that even the slightest scintilla of power moving from this country to the European level will not be noticed by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) or the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) or all her other hon. Friends? They seem to be on to these things like terriers most of the time.
Priti Patel
And quite rightly so. Of course, we have a House full of assiduous Members and the European Scrutiny Committee has been very effective, but I am talking about an annual report and more openness and transparency.
By asking a range of parliamentary questions of 10 Departments, I received information stating that at least 79 current EU directives were pending transposition into UK law at a total cost in excess of £20 billion, and that is just one example. Of course, assiduous Members will ask many other questions and do a lot more fact finding to identify and uncover other transfers, too.
There is no reason why such information should not be published regularly, and Ministers must endeavour in future to be more transparent and accountable. It is therefore important in going forward with the Bill that information on the costs, benefits and powers exercised by the EU is available and accessible, as that greater transparency and opportunity to hold Government policy to account over the EU would, in my view, be most welcomed by the British public.
The new clause would go somewhat further than just making more transparent the EU, the Government’s policies on the EU and transfers of power, because it effectively asks the Government in their annual report to publish details of plans to repatriate the powers and competences from the EU that they believe should be held by this country. As drafted, the Bill will establish a referendum lock and safeguards against further significant transfers of power, which I have consistently supported and welcome, but it does not cover the approach that should be taken to repatriate powers to this country that the EU currently holds that are not in our national interests and on which the public expect us to act.
We have heard about many opinion polls in these Committee proceedings, but I shall refer to another one. An opinion poll conducted four years ago, before the previous Government handed over even more power under the Lisbon treaty, found that 58% of the British people believed that the EU should have less power and that more decisions should—surprise, surprise—be taken nationally and locally, and that 68% of people thought, quite frankly, that the EU did not represent ordinary people in our country.
Across a diverse range of policies, the public and parliamentarians of all parties can point to powers that the EU should not have, and that the British people believe should be brought back to our country, for a range of democratic reasons as well as on cost grounds. They include policies on access to our territorial waters, which we debated last week when discussing fisheries, as well as on justice and home affairs.
Priti Patel
Absolutely not! I believe that the Conservative party has very much embraced the views of the party that I represented back then. I have been campaigning for a referendum for more than 15 years, and the Conservative Government are now proposing it.
I was talking about the powers that have been handed over to the European Union. The European arrest warrant has been the subject of a great deal of debate in the House, and social and employment policies have cost the UK more than £38 billion. We have heard mention of the working time directive, as well as of waste in regional policies, economic controls and financial services, not to mention the endless regulations that burden our businesses, the £1 billion that the EU is seeking to fine the UK and the £50 billion, which I mentioned during questions today, that the UK is set to hand over as a net contribution over the next few years to 2016.
Martin Horwood
Many of us think that the European arrest warrant is a useful and positive counter-terrorism measure. Would it not be better to take what would presumably be an annual debate on the hon. Lady’s proposed report and broaden it out into a debate on the work of the European Union or the Commission’s work programme as a whole? That would subject the whole programme of the European Union to scrutiny in this place, and allow those of us who have a more positive view of the EU to put our case as well.
Priti Patel
I suggest that timetabling the required number of hours and days for such a debate could be quite challenging, because it would have to cover a vast number of issues.
In my view, the British people deserve to know what their Government are planning to do, not only about the powers that the EU seeks to exercise but about those that it currently uses and—dare I say it—abuses, according to some in this House. Like all Conservative Members, I stood on a manifesto that clearly stated:
“The steady and unaccountable intrusion of the European Union into almost every aspect of our lives has gone too far.”
Following the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, we made a commitment not to let matters rest, and to negotiate the return to Britain of criminal justice powers and the opt-outs of the charter of fundamental rights and of social and employment legislation. The new clause would give the Government and the Prime Minister an annual opportunity to update the House on the actions being taken to deliver that, and to bring genuine openness and transparency to these proceedings.
Forty years ago, when we entered what was then known as the European Economic Community, few could have predicted with any accuracy how deeply integrated and ingrained the EU has now become. Had we known that at the time, I am sure that this Bill would have been even more robust than it is.
Emma Reynolds
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that it was a Conservative Government, with the Single European Act in the 1980s and the Maastricht treaty in the early ’90s, who gave away the largest transfer of powers from this Parliament to Brussels?
Priti Patel
That is genuinely a matter of record now. We have now seen how far the EU has gone, and that is the reason for my probing new clause. We need to look to the future and be more vigilant. This is not just about the past; it is about what is coming in the future.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is probably aware that the vast majority of the public do not care which Government gave away our powers. They are fed up with the fact that more and more powers have gone to Europe and they want those powers back. Does she agree that until this country faces up to the fact that for far too long the public have had no say in whether we want to stay in Europe or not, and that until we get a referendum on that, we will never clear the air and be able to go forward in Europe as progressive Europeans, or go out of Europe and go forward as progressive UK citizens?
Priti Patel
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I entirely agree. The air needs to be cleared, and the British public naturally feel upset and uneasy about that. The issue is a sensitive one, hence the need for greater openness and transparency.
I ask the Minister to consider the points that I have made—fundamentally, the issue of openness and transparency. We have handed away far too many powers. The Bill is about the future, and I would welcome the Minister’s views.
Mr Lidington
The new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) raises important issues, and it is right that we should devote some time and attention to her arguments today. I share a large number of the concerns that she expressed, and I welcome her wish to see much more transparency and clarity in the way in which the European Union operates. Having said that, I shall argue that the method proposed by my hon. Friend in her probing amendment is not necessarily the best one to secure those objectives. I shall deal with the main components of the new clause in turn and explain why, although I share many of her concerns, I do not think that the proposal as drafted is the best vehicle to deliver those goals.
Let us look first at how to police the boundaries of European competence. I share the anxiety expressed by my hon. Friend, and I believe that this is the mischief that subsection (2)(b) of new clause 7 is intended to address. That subsection requires that a list of any powers or competences transferred from the UK to the EU under the terms of the treaties in the previous 12 months, which have or have not received specific authorisation under any provisions of part 1 of the Bill, be included in the annual report.
The treaty position is clear. A competence should be transferred from the UK to the EU only if there is a treaty or treaty amendment unanimously agreed by all member states using the ordinary revision procedure, whereby we have a continuing power of veto. Power, as defined in the Bill, is changing the treaty to give an EU institution or body the power to impose a requirement or obligation on the UK, to impose sanctions on the UK, or to abolish what are defined in the Bill as significant vetoes.
Given that those changes to competence or power are covered by the referendum lock as set out in the Bill, there ought to be no possibility of the need for any entries at all in the report under subsection (2)(b) because competence cannot lawfully be transferred by any other means. What lies behind my hon. Friend’s argument, I think, is a concern that competence may be extended in ways other than formal treaty change.
It is important to try to distinguish the issues. There are cases where the EU has competence—we may argue about whether it ought to have such competence, but that competence has been granted by one or other of the previous treaties—but where the UK has particular views about how the European Union should legislate on the basis of that competence. We may believe that a particular measure is unjustified on grounds of subsidiarity, or that the costs of a particular measure are disproportionate to the benefits being claimed.
I offer the Committee an example. We do not dispute that the EU has competence to legislate on the terms and conditions for pregnant workers, but we have very strong views about the content of the particular proposal that is on the table, and we successfully built firm opposition in the Council to the European Parliament’s approach, which has effectively brought those negotiations to a standstill. At heart, that is not a matter of competence; it is a matter of policy. Those matters are debated carefully in the discussions about negotiating strategies that take place in the European Affairs Committee of the Cabinet, and they are also covered in the explanatory memorandums that we as a Government submit to Parliament.
There are other areas where there are concerns about whether a Commission proposal for new EU legislation or action oversteps the boundaries of existing EU competence. Again, the Government rigorously assess every proposal coming out of Brussels to ensure that it falls within the scope of competence and that the treaty base put forward by the Commission is justified. To give another example, we have been rigorous in asserting our position with regard to matters to do with the EU’s external competence.
Let us look at the External Action Service and consular work. We have firmly restated the treaty position that the EAS has no formal role in consular work, and should support it only by facilitating co-operation and the co-ordination of member states’ actions. The competence for consular functions remains with member states. We have made it clear to Baroness Ashton and to the Commission that we would oppose Commission proposals for the EAS to have a direct role in providing consular assistance or in any other way seek to expand the institutions’ role beyond the competences set out in the treaty.
As a further example, at the Cancun UN conference on climate change, we insisted on prior agreement on when the presidency and the Commission would be authorised to represent the position of the member states, and the forms of words that they would use when doing so. We did that in order to safeguard the position that competence remained with the member states and had not been given exclusively to the institutions of the European Union. In the last resort, if we considered that a proposal went beyond the competence of the EU, we would challenge it during the legislative process and, if necessary, at the European Court of Justice.
One of the reasons I hesitate to endorse an annual report is that I think what the Government should be doing is to make clear their views on competence as they affect particular measures whenever those measures are brought forward. If we adopted the proposed annual report, there would be a risk of Whitehall saying, “Let’s wait for the 12 months to elapse for the annual report.” My hon. Friend will probably have received some parliamentary answers; when I was a free spirit, I used to get parliamentary answers saying that the information would not be made available now, but if I wanted to hang on for six months, it would be made available in that Department’s annual report, or when a promised review was published. I would not like us to get into that situation with regard to these matters.
I have asked that every explanatory memorandum sent to Parliament should not simply state what legal base the Commission has given to it, but give some assessment of the suitability of that legal base.
We need to be much more forward-looking and smarter. Right across Whitehall, we must pay more attention to the Commission’s forward work programme, so that we can identify up front any potential issues of concern over competence creep at an early stage, preferably even before the publication of a proposed directive or other measure. That is the way forward for continuing work in government to scrutinise every proposal on competence grounds, and much more openness and activity in Parliament as well.
Emma Reynolds
In the interests of transparency and openness, which the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) spoke so eloquently about, why do the Government not consider reintroducing the pre-European Council debates that used to take place in the House?
Mr Lidington
Because those debates were explicitly transferred from the Government to the Backbench Business Committee when it was established, along with responsibility for a number of other debates which had previously been held in Government time. The report that recommended that transfer was adopted unanimously in the House, with the support of the Labour party as well as that of Conservative Members.
Mr Bone
The Minister is exactly right on that point. I have the privilege of sitting on the Backbench Business Committee, and we always look forward to representations on the European issue. The Committee can bring a motion to the House, rather than just a general debate, and force the Government to do something.
Mr Lidington
Indeed. My hon. Friend is not exactly averse to opportunities to debate the EU. For hon. Members on both sides of the House who feel that there needs to be a debate on the Commission’s work programme or any aspect of that, the way forward is to ask the Backbench Business Committee to use the time allotted to them for consideration of those matters.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Minister mentioned competence about a hundred times in his remarks, quite rightly, but subsection (3)(b) of the new clause mentions a cost-benefit analysis of the impact of any decisions made. Will the Minister address that point? Will Her Majesty’s Government at any point undertake a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of our membership of the EU?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend pre-empts me, because I am about to come on to the question of cost-benefit analysis. I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Witham that the EU has to provide much better value for money. The Government are clear that the EU needs to change and can do things a lot better than it does at present. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has argued in the House and elsewhere that the EU cannot be immune to the budgetary realities that every member state Government in the EU and every family in the EU has to face. That is why it was the Prime Minister and this country that led the process to ensure that the 2011 EU budget did not grow in line with the unacceptable demands of the Commission and the European Parliament, and why at the end of last year the Prime Minister secured the important principle that over the next financial perspective the EU budget should reflect the consolidation efforts being made by Governments right across the EU.
James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that this is not just about value for money within the EU as a body and the way it functions, but about the impact on value for money across all that Government do and across our society as a whole of the measures implemented by the EU? We talk about what appears to be mission creep from the EU, which we often see when competences are used in an elastic manner to drive forward new centralised European policies. Will the Minister please make a statement on ensuring that we look for value for money in how they are implemented as well?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government seek to ensure that there is much better value for money and a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis of measures at the EU level, and to apply those same principles to the transposition of European legislation into our own domestic arrangements. I suspect that hon. Members on both sides of the House will have been familiar in the past with European legislation that has all sorts of gold-plated extras that add to the cost and complexity that businesses or voluntary organisations face when the legislation reaches its final form here, usually by way of statutory instrument.
My hon. Friend the Member for Witham rightly says that we must ensure that the EU too addresses this challenge, and we are going about that in a number of ways. First, we are working with like-minded European partners to encourage smarter regulation by applying more rigorous use of evidence in the EU. We welcome the Commission’s smart regulation communication, published in October 2010, which set out a four-year strategy to reduce the regulatory burden of EU legislation on business. That communication reflected a number of this country’s priorities, including further strengthening of the impact assessment process and post-evaluation adjustment of laws.
We need to see much more progress on impact assessment. The Commission has a commitment to produce impact assessments for all its proposals, but, to be honest, the quality is variable and we continue to press for improvements. The Parliament and the Council do not have a routine commitment even to produce impact assessments as a matter of course, and we believe that those two institutions should be doing that as well. It is now a fact of life that most areas of European law-making involve the European Parliament as a more or less equal partner with the Council of Ministers. That means that on a number of important measures, for example on employment matters and other pieces of social regulation, the Council might agree a position and then the Parliament can choose to vote through measures that introduce greater costs that industry has to bear.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does not the Minister understand that we do not want better impact assessments, but less regulation? How will the Government deliver their very good one-in, one-out policy on regulation if they cannot stop the torrent of regulation that is still pouring out of Brussels now that it is occupying the whole of the financial services field, for example?
Mr Lidington
We have to do both. The two are not alternatives. Impact assessments are valuable, and they focus the minds of other European Governments, and of the groups representing industry in those member states, to become more active in pressing home their interests than is sometimes the case at the moment. The more transparency that we get in the European legislative process, the more likely it is that we will move towards the objective that both my right hon. Friend and I seek.
I would share with my right hon. Friend a wish to see the EU legislate less. There is too often a culture in the Commission that identifies a problem and then seeks a remedy in the form of new law. Non-legislative measures can often be more effective, and certainly less burdensome and complex, than legislative measures. That is something that my colleagues across Government are pursuing with colleagues from other countries who share our views on this matter, and we seek to encourage other countries to work with us to look for non-legislative ways of addressing problems and challenges, rather than looking for a new directive as the first resort every time.
Mr Lidington
That has certainly been a genuine problem, and it is a priority for the Reducing Regulation Committee, chaired by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, to address. The Government now have an established policy not to gold-plate. When we implement European legislation, we will be certain to do no more than is required of us by the words of the legislation. Ministers are now under an agreed political obligation to resist any attempt from within their Departments to add extra bells and whistles to what is required of us by a directive. We should do what our competitors and partners in Europe are doing and no more.
Mr Shepherd
I applaud the Minister’s aspirational words, but those of us who have been here as long as he has have heard them said so many times. It is an old song, and yet nothing is ever resolved on the issue. Why is he confident that action will now follow those same old words?
Mr Lidington
I am confident because of what I see and hear when dealing with Ministers from other European Governments who have woken up to the scale of the competitive challenge that Europe faces from other regions of the world. When one talks with Ministers from Germany, Scandinavia, much of central and eastern Europe and even France, which has historically had a different approach to business and trade than we have had, one realises that there is a real fear that we are facing not only a difficult economic downturn and an ongoing economic crisis, with high unemployment across our continent, but a profound, long-term challenge to the competitiveness, and therefore prosperity, of our societies. I find Ministers from other countries alive to that challenge and so have greater hope that we can make progress than does my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd).
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Will the Minister not find that that is precisely the sort of lip service that was paid to reform at the time of the Lisbon agenda more than a decade ago, when Ministers throughout Europe said that they would achieve reform and precisely nothing happened? Have we not been here before and heard that song sung too often?
Mr Lidington
The Lisbon agenda was certainly a grievous disappointment, and our chief concern about the Europe 2020 programme is that it will go the same way by being much too concerned with targets and inputs and not looking at competitiveness. However, if we look at the history of this country’s relationship with the EU, we can see how the UK has at key moments helped lead a movement that has changed Europe for the better.
I was teased earlier by Opposition Front Benchers about the impact of the Single European Act, but the creation of the European single market gave opportunities to business and individual workers in this country and in every other member state, and that has helped us to become more competitive and prosperous now than we would have been had Margaret Thatcher and Lord Cockfield not had the vigour and commitment to see it through.
Emma Reynolds
I agree with much of what the Minister has just said, including his comments on the Single European Act and the benefits of the single market, so there is an agreement between the two Front Benches on that. Does he agree with the argument that when European legislation is drafted properly and replaces 27 sets of legislation, for those businesses trading across borders it can actually be a deregulatory measure?
Mr Lidington
It is possible for that to happen, but it depends crucially on the content and complexity of the measure. Regulation is not desirable simply because it takes place at a European level and replaced national regulations. It is especially undesirable from the UK’s point of view if a familiar system of regulation that reflects the way we do business is replaced by something modelled on completely different practices from a different member state.
Mr Carswell
The Minister sings the virtues of the single market, so will he explain to the Committee why we have had a trade deficit with Europe every year since we joined the single market, whereas before we had a trade surplus? Will he also explain why non-EU states such as China seem to have no difficulty in gaining market access without having signed up to many of the regulations he supports?
Mr Lidington
I am sorry that my hon. Friend seems to regard Margaret Thatcher as having sold out to Europe when she agreed to the single market. I ask him to talk to UK businesses, as he will find that they regard the single European market as a great boon. It was the combination of the UK being in the single European market and at the same time offering the best deal, with regard to regulation and low taxes, that led the UK, under the Conservative Government that he and I supported, to attract the lion’s share of foreign direct inward investment into the entire EU.
Mr Lidington
I will give way, but I am conscious that we have another important new clause to debate and do not want to get drawn too far away from this new clauses’s content.
Mr Hollobone
We will have plenty of time to enjoy ourselves with that this evening. The Minister is stressing the benefits, as he sees them, of our membership of the EU, so I will return to the point I made some moment ago: why will Her Majesty’s Government not undertake a comprehensive audit of the costs and benefits of our EU membership?
Mr Lidington
There are some elements of EU membership that could be put into such a calculus, but we cannot measure, in the way my hon. Friend wishes, things such as the diplomatic leverage that we obtain by being able to work in partnership with other European countries. [Hon. Members: “No!”] Some will differ from me in that analysis, but the fact that we were active members of the European Union helped us to achieve a package of sanctions against the Iranian nuclear programme last year that was tougher and more effective than either the United States or the Government of Iran believed possible. We were there at the table, so we were able to exert a powerful influence, in partnership with others, in the defence and enhancement of our national interest in securing sanctions against that programme, and we were able to overcome opposition from a number of other member states that weighed in the balance some very big commercial interests in Iran. That sort of advantage does not lend itself easily to the calculation that my hon. Friend invites me to make.
There are all sorts of things wrong with the EU as well, and we can find other occasions to debate its flaws, but the Government’s position is that membership of the European Union is one of the key ways in which we seek to advance the United Kingdom’s influence in the world.
Mr Lidington
I do not regard as insignificant or risible giving the people of the United Kingdom a final say over treaty changes that transfer new powers and competences from this Parliament to Brussels. We would have much more public confidence in politics, and a much better chance of positively putting the case for British membership of the European Union, if the public did not feel so betrayed by the absence of any endorsement, by means of a referendum, of past treaty changes.
On new clause 7, which my hon. Friend the Member for Witham moved, my response to our hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) indicates why some of what it seeks is not suitable. Subsection (2)(a), for example, would require a report on
“any statements in the previous 12 months under section 5”—
both the statement about whether such a treaty or decision transfers power or competence, and the statement on whether any transfer under Clause 4(1)(i) or (j) is significant.
It would not be onerous to include that requirement in an annual report, but there are unlikely to be so many treaties or decisions in any one year, so there would not be any real value in that information being collected and set out in an annual report. Under the Bill, there will be a minimum requirement for a written ministerial statement and an Act of Parliament before any such measures can be agreed, and that seems to represent sufficient transparency.
On repatriation, I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Witham, who put her argument very powerfully and cogently. She knows that, under the coalition agreement, the Government are committed to examining the existing balance of competences and what they mean for Britain, and we continue to look at that issue.
The new clause raises some very important issues, and I welcome my hon. Friend’s aims of seeking much better value for money, more transparency and vigilance against competence creep within the European Union. Those matters are not for the Bill, however, which deals with treaty changes and ratchet clauses transferring powers or competences to the EU. We need to focus immediately on the individual issues to which she refers, measure by measure, as they arise in the Commission or as individual items of legislation, rather than taking up time preparing retrospective reports that I fear would be of largely historical interest.
What is relevant and important to the work of Ministers throughout Whitehall is for the Government to pursue with Parliament ways in which we can improve the scrutiny of EU issues and the opportunities for Parliament to hold Ministers to account for their stewardship of the United Kingdom’s interests in European discussions. I therefore urge my hon. Friend to withdraw her new clause.
Priti Patel
I thank the Minister for his response to my new clause. I shall say a few words, because a number of issues arose in his reply.
There is a range of issues that clearly must be aired and discussed—that was the purpose of my new clause—in relation to competence creep and the ever-increasing powers that have been sucked away to Europe over the years. The Minister has a valid point about the proposed report being more retrospective, and if nothing else his assurances about the role of this House and Parliament in the scrutiny not just of legislation but items as they arise, and about the forward-look in terms of the Commission’s work programme, are absolutely vital. As we heard in the earlier debate, a number of assiduous Members will continue to bring those issues to the Floor of the House, to pursue them and to persist with them.
I intend to withdraw my new clause, but my final point to the Minister is about cost-benefit analysis, which is fundamental. The Government could still do a lot more to assure the British public that their hard-earned money was being spent more effectively when it comes to EU matters. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 11
Provision for further referendum
‘In order to meet the referendum condition referred to in section 2, section 3 and section 6 of this Act, the Act providing for the approval of—
(a) a treaty under the terms of section 2; or
(b) a decision under the terms of section 3; or
(c) a decision or draft decision under section 6
shall also provide for a further binding referendum to be held on continuing United Kingdom membership of the European Union, if the majority of those voting in a referendum held under the terms of the relevant section are opposed to the ratification of the treaty, decision or draft decision, as the case may be.’.—(Mr Bone.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr Bone
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who made such a powerful speech. I hope that I am able to tempt her into joining us in the Division Lobby later tonight, given what she said about new clause 7. It would be wrong of me not to pay tribute to the Whips Office for allowing me this time tonight, and for arranging matters so that my amendment 48 was not debated last week, when there clearly was not enough time for it. Now, we have absolutely hours and hours to discuss new clause 11, and I congratulate the Whips on that.
The new clause, which stands in my name and those of other hon. Members, reads:
“In order to meet the referendum condition referred to in section 2, section 3 and section 6 of this Act, the Act providing for the approval of—
(a) a treaty under the terms of section 2; or
(b) a decision under the terms of section 3; or
(c) a decision or draft decision under section 6
shall also provide for a further binding referendum to be held on continuing United Kingdom membership of the European Union, if the majority of those voting in a referendum held under the terms of the relevant section are opposed to the ratification of the treaty, decision or draft decision, as the case may be.”
What does that actually mean? For the first time, this Parliament would have an option to debate whether we should have an in/out referendum on the European Union. In other words, there would have to be a binding in/out referendum on our membership of the European Union if the new clause were passed and two hurdles cleared: first, a referendum would have to be triggered under the European Union Bill, owing to a proposed transfer of competency; and secondly, the British people would have to vote against such a transfer of power.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I am very grateful for having stumbled into this debate. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept the danger that, although people might not be in favour of voting yes in the first referendum, they would be forced—with the proverbial gun to their head—to vote yes to such a transfer of powers because they did not want an in/out referendum?
Kate Hoey
My name is also on the new clause. I was cheered when I heard the hon. Gentleman say that we had a long time to discuss it, because unfortunately I have to be out of the Chamber for about an hour on an important matter, and I want to be here for the vote. I therefore hope that the debate will continue for a very long time. Does he believe that this proposal offers a way out of the current situation whereby the one thing that unites all the establishment parties is that they do not want the British people to have a say on whether to stay in or move out of the European Union?
Mr Bone
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. Her views on this have been most helpful and supportive. I am sure that other Members will try to catch your eye, Mr Evans, and I hope that the debate will still be going on when she returns. She makes the fair point that when both sets of Front Benchers agree on something, it is almost certainly wrong.
Martin Horwood
I think that the hon. Lady might have been excluding the Liberal Democrats from the establishment parties, which I would obviously be very pleased about.
The hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, I hope, that Liberal Democrat policy remains in favour of an in/out referendum, although not in the way that his new clause suggests, and we argued for it strongly during the passage of the Lisbon treaty Bill.
Mrs Main
I was extremely cheered, as I am sure was my hon. Friend, to hear the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) asking for an in/out referendum, and I very much hope to see him and his colleagues in the same Lobby as those who feel the same way. He was denied the opportunity the first time, so I hope that he might grasp this second opportunity.
Mr Bone
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support and her argument. In fact, I would take it a stage further. Because there is support for the new clause on both sides of the Committee, and because I am moving it in a coalition spirit, as Members will discover, I have every expectation that there will not be a vote tonight and that the Minister will accept it.
Let me explain why the Committee should support my new clause. First, it would not alter in any way the purpose of the European Union Bill. The Bill is designed, under certain circumstances, to give the British people, through a referendum, a say on our relationship with the European Union. My proposal would merely extend the referendum lock, under certain circumstances, to whether we should remain part of the European Union.
Why do I think that this would improve the Bill? If the British people have a chance to approve or disapprove of a transfer of power in the future, and they say yes, then there is clearly no need for an in/out referendum, as it would show that the British people are happy with their relationship with Europe. If they say no, clearly they are unhappy with a proposed change to the European Union. Surely it is right that the alternative question is then put as to whether the British people wish to remain in the European Union.
An added advantage is that the in/out referendum would be triggered by an event, not by politicians. In the past, referendums have been timed to favour the proponents of the referendum, not necessarily for the benefit of the British people.
Mr Hollobone
Would not my hon. Friend’s new clause strengthen the referendum lock, because Her Majesty’s Government, in proposing a transfer of powers to the European Union, would have to think even more carefully about doing that, if they did indeed value our membership of the European Union, because they would know that if it failed, they would then be subject to his referendum as well?
Mr Bone
As usual, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Again, I will return to that point later.
I was talking about the gerrymandering of referendums, and that brings me rather nicely to the AV referendum, which is being gerrymandered for a particular day to maximise a particular outcome. Because my trigger for the in/out referendum would be decided by an event, such gerrymandering could not take place in future.
The last time the British people had any say on our relationship with Europe was under the premiership of Harold Wilson, on 6 June 1975, when a national referendum was held asking:
“Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?”
This referendum took place nearly 36 years ago, which means that only people who are lucky enough to be over the age of 54 have had any say on the European issue. It is wholly unacceptable that a generation of Britons have not had a direct say on their relationship with Europe.
Mr Clappison
I will let the Committee into a secret: I am old enough to have voted in that referendum. It is not only younger people who would like a chance to have a second look at this, but older people who believed what they were told in the course of the campaign and the safeguards that were set out in the literature sent to every household, nearly all of which have proved to be unfounded.
Mr Bone
As usual, my hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. Again, I want to explore that a little later in my speech.
The relationship with Europe affects everybody, no matter what their walk of life, in the most profound of ways. Other countries have consulted their citizens through a referendum, but not the United Kingdom. The issue raised by the 1975 Wilson referendum was whether we should stay in the Common Market: it was about an economic relationship, not a superstate. In 1975, guess what our net contribution to the Common Market was: £1 billon, £500,000 million, £250 million, £25 million? No—the EEC paid us. They paid us £56 million, but of course that was at 1975 value; the current equivalent is £500,000 million. In fact, as far as I can see, this is the only time it paid us a net contribution. Strange that the European referendum was held in that year. It rather backs up what my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) said about the facts and figures.
Since then, of course, things have changed. It is no longer just a free trade area: it is a European union, with a huge price tag for Britain. Instead of receiving money from the EU, over the next five years our net contribution to it will be a staggering £41 billion. However, it is not just our economic relationship with Europe that has changed. There is a European state with its own president, Parliament, flag, currency and courts. It now has its own foreign service and its own embassies.
The European Union came into force on 1 November 1993. The British people have never had a referendum on the EU.
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend mentions the astonishing sum of £41 billion that will be paid over the next five years by the coalition Government. Is he aware that that is more than twice the £19 billion that was paid to the European Union under the previous Labour Government?
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This is a fascinating and amazing debate that would clearly take place if the in/out referendum came about, but if we could now focus on new clause 11, perhaps we could make a little progress.
Mr Bone
Of course, Mr Evans. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I will not respond to it, because I might mention it later if I can sneak it in.
If anyone doubts that an EU referendum is what the British public want, they should check my e-mail inbox or my post to see the hundreds of letters and e-mails of support that an in/out referendum is getting. These are coming not only from my constituency or from Conservatives but from Liberal and Labour voters. They just want to have their say on the important issue of our membership of the European Union.
A recent ComRes opinion poll on 27 October 2010 showed that 75% of the British people think that there should be a referendum on our membership of the European Union. A BBC and ComRes poll on 19 March 2009 found that 84% of the British people wanted a referendum. James Pryor, the chief executive of EU Referendum Campaign, said:
“David Cameron and his Coalition will ignore this Poll at their peril. How long will the political elite bury their heads in the sand and misread the public mood. As this Poll clearly shows, the people of Great Britain feel that the politicians have let them down. Only 12% feel that Britain’s contribution to the EU is sustainable and yet the Prime Minister tells us he ‘won the battle’ in Brussels. The Chancellor keeps telling us ‘to tighten our belts’ and yet we still send £48 million a day to the EU. The British public will get angrier until they are given a say on our relationship with the EU and the politicians will have to live with the consequences.”
Mrs Main
My hon. Friend is giving huge figures. Asking the question does not necessarily mean that there will be a negative answer. There could be an affirmation that this is a good idea. Surely it would be a good idea at this time to check whether we are down the right path. If we do not get a negative answer, it will be all to the good for the Government.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend argues an important point, which, again, I hope I can touch on in a little while.
I shall turn to the Daily Express and its crusade to get Britain out of the European Union. Yesterday, I and a number of hon. Members from across the House helped to deliver a petition of more than 370,000 names, which were collected by the Daily Express, demanding an in/out referendum.
Mr Bone
From a sedentary position, the hon. Gentleman says that that is its entire readership. It is amazing if everyone who reads the Daily Express has signed the petition. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention.
Those referendum pledges were sent in individually by readers of the Daily Express. They had to cut them out, fill them in, write an envelope, stick a stamp on it and post it in. For 370,000 of our citizens to go to that length shows the strength of feeling about a referendum. I congratulate the Daily Express on its efforts. By passing new clause 11 today, we will show that Parliament has been listening to the British people.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that some Liberal supporters on the Isle of Wight vote Liberal because when there was a referendum on Europe, in which they voted no, they recognised that it was the Conservatives who took us into Europe? I was not there at the time, but I have consulted them since. That is how they saw it—we were taken into Europe by the Conservatives. They found that a reasonable justification to vote Liberal. They were unhappy voting Labour, so they voted Liberal. They have voted Liberal ever since because we—the Conservatives—took the country into Europe. I was not among those Conservatives because I voted no, but many voted yes.
Mr Bone
As usual, my hon. Friend speaks on behalf of the people of the Isle of Wight and in response to their views. However, I do not want to get drawn away from new clause 11 by debating whether people deserted the Conservative party at the last election and stopped us having an overall majority because we went back on our pledge on Europe. I do not want to discuss that point.
Recently, I was browsing through a thoughtful, persuasive and enlightened book entitled, “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain—The Conservative Manifesto 2010”. I admit that it was interesting and had some bold ideas. More importantly, all Conservative candidates stood on that manifesto at the last general election, and all Conservative MPs should be committed to it. One bit jumped out at me. On page 67, under the heading, “Make government more accountable and representative”, it talks about
“providing more free votes, and protecting the principle that issues of conscience…remain subject to a free vote”.
There we have it—more free votes for Conservative MPs.
Emma Reynolds
Is the hon. Gentleman therefore arguing that Government Members should have had a free vote on whether there should be a referendum on the alternative vote?
Mr Bone
The hon. Lady will have heard the Leader of the House confirm in the past three business questions that we have free votes in Committee of the whole House. This is not retrospective. We have free votes in Committee of the whole House.
I shall quote from somebody else, because I can see that the hon. Lady—I will not say that she does not believe me—is concerned:
“The House of Commons’ historic functions were to vote money for governments to spend, and to scrutinise laws. It now barely bothers with the first, and does the second extremely badly. There was a time when legislation that had been formulated after months of civil service and ministerial deliberation was sent to the House of Commons which would pore over it, shape it, send it back, get it back, look at it again—and improve it some more. Bill by bill. Clause by clause. Line by line. Every piece of legislation would be put under intense scrutiny. Is it legally sound? Will it be effective? Is it worth the cost?”
I will link this quotation very carefully with new clause 11 in a moment, Mr Evans, but it would be wrong if I did not give the full quotation, because otherwise it would lose its impact and it could be suggested that I was misleading the Committee. It goes on:
“Compare that to today. Let me take you on the journey of a piece of legislation as it passes through the modern House of Commons. It’s likely to have been dreamt up on the sofa of Number Ten. A Bill gets drafted. It’s sent to the House for a couple of hours of routine debate among a few MPs. Then the bell rings, the whip gets cracked and suddenly, out of nowhere, all these other MPs turn up to vote.”
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. That is a good try and the hon. Gentleman is smiling nicely, but perhaps he will now return his comments to new clause 11. I would have thought that there was enough meat in the new clause to mean that he does not need to go outside it.
Mr Bone
I apologise, Mr Evans. I am also sorry that I did not finish the quotation from my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister.
I wanted to make it clear to the Committee that Conservative Members will have a free vote if the new clause comes to a vote. I think that there is some confusion about that, and that the Chief Whip does not quite understand the Prime Minister’s instruction. I just hope that some of my colleagues are not put off voting for new clause 11 tonight because of that.
The people of Britain put us in a coalition Government. We must therefore work together as a team—a unit—that works in the very best interests of this country. The public must have seen certain aspects of the Liberal Democrat and Conservative manifestos that they liked. I will deal with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) raised. I would like to think that the following part is what particularly caught the eye of Liberal voters. To quote another piece of literature that was interesting, although not quite as good as the first:
“The European Union has evolved significantly since the last public vote on membership over thirty years ago. Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum”.
That is straight out of a good piece of literature, the Liberal Democrat manifesto 2010, “Change that works for you—Building a fairer Britain”. It certainly works for me, and I hope it works for the country.
Martin Horwood
Would the hon. Gentleman like to complete the sentence from our manifesto that he quoted?
Martin Horwood
The end of the sentence, which the hon. Gentleman omitted, stated that we were committed to a referendum when a significant transfer of power takes place from the British to the European level. In essence, that was an alternative to the current Bill, which the Conservatives instigated. We can have one or the other, but not both.
Mr Bone
I really should have added that, because it helps my case, and I apologise for not having done so. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that is exactly what my new clause would achieve. If there were a significant transfer of power, an in/out referendum could occur. That is exactly what the Liberal Democrats want, so the new clause should gain their support more than a proposal to have a referendum that was not even in the Conservative or Liberal manifestos, such as on the alternative vote.
Martin Horwood
I am afraid that what the hon. Gentleman is proposing is not what was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. The question is, what should trigger a referendum? In our view, it should be a substantial transfer of power. His new clause suggests that it should be the loss of a previous referendum, presumably only weeks or months before.
Mrs Main
My hon. Friend and I sat for many an hour on the Opposition Benches discussing the matter, and I remember some gentle teasing from the Liberal Democrats about whether we would support holding an in/out vote. Now is their golden opportunity to have the next best thing to what was proposed in their manifesto. I would have thought that we would have their support in that.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman not find it strange that so many Members are afraid of consulting the people about such an important issue?
Mr Bone
Yes, and I will turn briefly to that point later, if I may.
I wish to turn to the Conservative position—having been helpful to the Liberals, I now want to be helpful to the Conservatives. At the European elections, the Conservative party pledged a referendum. In fact, it was so keen to get the message across that it produced car stickers to support it. They were about a foot long, in Tory blue and had a picture of a loud hailer. In huge, bold letters, they said, “Give us a referendum.” For the convenience of the Committee, I have removed mine from the back of my car, where it has remained since the last European elections, and I have it with me for the Committee to see. [Interruption.] Members apply to a higher authority; I wish that I could invoke it to get the Government to accept the new clause.
Surely, then, my new clause 11 is not a Tory new clause or a Liberal new clause. It is a coalition new clause, and it should unite all Members on the Government side of the House.
To respond to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), there is only one reason not to support the new clause, which is the fear of the outcome of a referendum. Is that a reason not to let the people of Britain have a choice? An in/out referendum would be a momentous occasion. It would finally put an end to the debate about whether the British people want to be in the EU. Whether the people voted to stay in the EU or to withdraw from it, at least they would have a choice. It would also allow Euro-enthusiasts and Eurosceptics to unite in allowing the British people to have the final say.
In my opinion, most of the public want a chance to vote on whether we are in or out of the European Union, and the new clause would give them such a chance. If it were law, it would prevent a future Government from supporting a transfer of powers to the EU. It would also give us, or whoever was in power, a very strong bargaining position with the EU in relation to a possible transfer of powers. Any future Government who tried to transfer powers to the EU without the safeguard of an in/out referendum would be in most serious difficulties.
When there are job cuts, tax increases and spending cuts, which I believe have all been essential to cut the deficit, how can it be right that in the last five years of the Labour Government our net contribution to the EU was £19.8 billion, while in the next five years, under the coalition Government, it will be £41 billion? With drastic cuts at home and vast spending in the EU, I think that enough is enough and that we should come out of the EU. However, what I think is totally irrelevant. It is what the British people think that matters. It is time for an in/out referendum on the European Union.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has performed a significant service for us today, because I believe this is the first time since the 1970s that we have had a discussion here about whether the British people should be allowed to decide how they are governed.
I believe that we should be an independent country, trading with Europe but governing ourselves. More than that, however, I believe that it is up to the British people to decide how they are governed. Do they prefer to be governed, and have their laws made, by this House, so that they can throw out the people involved if they do not like how those laws are made, or by a qualified majority including 26 other countries? Do they prefer to have those countries decide their laws for them, and to pay £10 billion a year for the privilege? That question is subject to conditions in the new clause, but for the first time since the 1970s, that issue of principle is before us for debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) put it very well earlier in the Committee stage, when he said that for a long time—since the late 1980s, I think he said—the British people had had a settled view about the European Union. They thought, “This far but no further.” Yet there is a logical inconsistency in that position, because the process began in the late ’80s by which we had the Single European Act, then the Maastricht treaty, then the treaty of Amsterdam, then the treaty of Nice, then the proposed European constitution that the Labour Government then re-described as the treaty of Lisbon. Each and every one of those treaties has given more and more power to the EU.
I believe it is true that by the late ’80s or early ’90s the settled view of the British people was that we had gone quite far enough and that they did not want to go any further, yet they keep on being dragged further and further. One reason why there is a growing detachment between the people and politicians, of which I would say the expenses issue was a mere symptom, is that year after year the British people hear their politicians—particularly those on the Conservative Benches—tell them that they are Eurosceptics. Those politicians say, “We don’t support all these transfers of power to Europe. We want to get power back, and we want more power here in Britain.” They tell people that we can be in Europe but not run by Europe, and they suggest that Europe is coming round to our way, that the British agenda is winning and that there is compromise. The truth, however, is that the House and the country want only to decide whether or not to be part of what is happening. New clause 11 gives us a chance to vote on that, subject to conditions.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The people of the UK are well renowned for their freedom of speech and liberty. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a referendum would allow them to express themselves more adequately and correctly? A referendum of all in the UK would provide a marker for the House.
Mark Reckless
Indeed. I support giving a referendum to all in the UK. That is how we should decide our future. I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. That principle is why I support new clause 11.
There is also a political issue at stake. We have heard some description of the Liberal Democrats’ position and the in/out referendum they demanded. Indeed, I believe that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), felt so strongly that we should have an opportunity to vote in an in/out referendum that he was suspended from the Chamber for a day. As far as I can tell, that is still the Liberal Democrat position.
The Conservative position is that the Lisbon treaty should have gone to a referendum. When the treaty was pushed through the House and we were not allowed that referendum, we had to consider our position.
Mr Clappison
As somebody who took part in the Lisbon treaty debates, I am slightly surprised to hear of the Liberal Democrats’ current position. They have an honourable position on Europe—they are in favour—but they would now like a referendum on a substantial transfer of power to Europe. They wanted an in/out referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but voted in favour of the treaty.
Mark Reckless
My hon. Friend is correct, but the key point is that we can still have the referendum that the Liberal Democrats wanted. The Conservatives cannot go back to the pre-Lisbon EU position because the founding treaties have changed. We have the Lisbon treaty, but we could still decide to hold an in/out referendum.
Mark Reckless
The in/out referendum is still an option, and I would hope the hon. Gentleman still supports it.
Martin Horwood
It is no surprise that the Liberal Democrats voted for the Lisbon treaty—we were in favour of it. Is the hon. Gentleman arguing against the logic of the Bill? Under new clause 11 there would be an in/out referendum when a transfer of power happens, but the Bill proposes specific referendums on those transfers of power. There is absolutely no logic to having an in/out referendum after a transfer of power is defeated in a referendum, because no transfer of power will have taken place.
Mark Reckless
I am saying that the principle of an in/out referendum is important. The Liberal Democrat position, as I understand it, is that the British people should decide whether we stay in the EU with Lisbon, or whether we leave. Let us have that referendum.
The most important point in respect of the Bill is that Ministers seem not to have noticed that the world has moved on. A Bill that would have been perfectly satisfactory in 1992 at the time of Maastricht is now, after 19 years of further transfers of powers to the EU, utterly inadequate for its task. My constituents are not especially concerned about referendums on technical transfers of power five or six years—at the earliest—down the road; they want to vote on our membership of the EU, and they want to do so now.
Ministers have made a serious mistake in thinking that the Bill will somehow buy off dissent, or that my constituents will believe it really changes the EU situation. My constituents believe that the transfer of powers to the EU has already gone much too far. The only thing that can deal with that situation is an in/out vote, so that we can re-establish our independence as a nation.
I am more surprised about the political error that Ministers are making in thinking that the Bill is sufficient. They do not consider what they leave themselves open to if the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) flips position, as I believe he might. We have debated the Liberal Democrats’ position, but Conservatives cannot assume that we will always be on the popular side of the argument relative to the pro-European Labour party. There are very few Labour Members in the Chamber, but what defines the Labour party in respect of Europe is not that it is pro-European but that it does not feel that strongly about Europe relative to other issues.
My friend over the water whom I mentioned says that there is a first rule of politics. He says that, essentially, all parties in government are pro-European, and only Opposition parties become genuinely Eurosceptic. What will happen if in two or three years, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North flips position and says, “The Labour party is pro-European and we want to put that case, but it is for the British people to decide.” Where will that leave the Conservatives? Will the Minister accept that the principle of the in/out referendum is now overpowering? Will he allow the British people their choice?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
New clause 11 is extremely interesting and worth looking at with care, because it comes out of a mix of genius and anger. The genius of it is that it has succeeded in initiating a debate on the question of an in/out referendum, which is clearly not the purpose of the Bill. I know that deft parliamentary draftsmanship was required to have such a proposal selected for debate, and I am full of admiration for that and for the genius that is generally the attribute of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is a great parliamentarian. Every time one listens to him, one is inspired by the thought that people care about the powers of this House and of the people who send us here.
The proposal is also, however, the product of anger—a righteous anger that the British people have seen their powers given away, but been denied the opportunity to decide whether that ought to have happened. Whether that was done by the Single European Act, or by the Maastricht, Lisbon, Nice or Amsterdam treaties, does not really matter. The British people were not properly consulted, and many of them are upset about that.
Unfortunately, that combination of genius and anger leads to a proposal that makes no sense, which is why—reluctantly—I oppose it. The difficulties are manifold, but the main problem is that it proposes that one thing leads to another automatically, without any consideration of the first thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) made the very obvious point that we cannot have it both ways. Under the new clause, we could decide by referendum not to transfer powers, and then follow that up with a vote to stay in altogether. If we vote to stay in altogether, surely we would be signing up to everything with gusto, but that is the last thing we would want to do if we had recently objected to a treaty that gave more powers to the EU. Therefore, if we vote to stay in, we could contradict a no vote that we had just achieved.
Mrs Main
I am following my hon. Friend’s logic, but it is possible to say, “I want to stay in the European Union, but I am not happy with that transference of powers.” I do not see that a no vote on a transference of powers and wanting to stay in the EU are mutually exclusive.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I think there is a slight confusion. If we have an in/out vote, and it is won by the pro-Europeans, it is a vote for the EU as it exists and with all the powers that it has. Those of us who support this referendum lock Bill do not want further powers going to the EU or to get accidentally into a situation in which we sign up to things we probably opted out of. That is the complication of having an in/out vote that is won by the “in” side but not on the issue discussed and subject to the referendum lock. That is the danger; that is the unintended consequence.
The unintended consequences go further than that. Should there ever be a Labour Government again—I am sorry to say that there probably will be, although possibly not in my lifetime—those of us who support the Bill would want them to accept it and ensure that the referendum lock held as an important constitutional change. We would also want any change to the powers of the Europe Union to be subject to a referendum of the British people. However, if the Government concerned were unpopular, as happens to Conservative Governments too—and even, possibly, to coalition Governments—and felt they had to sign up to some marginal European treaty requiring a referendum, but knew that it could result in an in/out vote, they would be more likely to repeal the Bill lock, stock and barrel and say, “Look, we cannot do that because we would then have a vote against us at the second stage.” The second unintended consequence, therefore, is that we would weaken the whole effect of the Bill by making it less likely to become the accepted constitutional practice, which is what I would very much like to see.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that this is in fact a debate about an ingenious device—I hope I am right in thinking he mentioned the word “genius”—and that it is about the principle of continuing membership? Does a question not then arise that has not yet been answered—namely, membership of what?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend always puts his finger on the nub of any European matter. I agree that the new clause is a device concerning a strong principle—that is the genius and anger I was talking about. The problem is that in its anger, it could achieve the wrong result. We do not want to set our firm principles on a weak base and a new clause that would actually undermine what those of us who are supporting the Bill wish to see achieved.
I agree with many hon. Members that there may well come a time when we would want an in/out referendum, but it needs to come when it has been the subject of important and urgent debate up and down the country; it needs to come when the British electorate are marching to say, “Now is the time to decide whether we should stay in this rotten institution, corrupt as it is, or whether we will put up with it in spite of its corruption, its inconvenience and all the problems associated with it, because there are some marginal trading advantages and we have got a few sanctions against Iran”—or whatever the other arguments are in favour of it. We need to have the referendum at the right time, as a matter of a discussion of and about itself, not as a result of the random collision of atoms and following a debate on something completely separate—for example, a minor extension of some European power or competence.
Neither should an in/out referendum suddenly follow a referendum in which 20 people or 20% of people—let us be generous—have voted. Suddenly, we would have thrown all the balls in the air without any proper consideration or deliberation, and without having set out the framework for the debate we want. Those of us who are broadly Eurosceptic should oppose the new clause, because it undermines exactly what we want to achieve, and should support the general thrust of the Bill, which is designed to protect this country from further sacrifices of our authority and the people’s power. We should rightly remember—it being a referendum lock—that it is not the power and mystique of these green Benches that are being given away, but the power and mystique of the British people themselves. They are the people we should trust. We should trust them with a referendum lock, and not rush headlong out of anger into a confusing and mistaken new clause that would undermine this lock that we are giving to the Great British people.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I do not intend to speak for long; I just want to make a few observations about the new clause.
I listened intently to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who will know from our communications that I have some concerns about how the new clause would work. I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said about the new clause’s unintended consequences, but I take a slightly different view from him as I think that it is worth supporting, if for no other reason than to send a message to Ministers about what many people in my constituency and of my generation feel about the European Union. I was not born when we last had a referendum on the EU—I am a few years younger than the proposer of the new clause. My generation has never had the opportunity to express its view at the ballot box on the EU as an institution.
Mr Hollobone
Actually, nobody has had the chance to express their view on the European Union, because it was not the European Union in 1975—it was the common market.
Andrew Percy
I stand corrected. Many of my constituents who took part in that referendum, including my own parents—at least one of them was sound enough to vote no—tell me that it was not what they voted for. My hon. Friend is entirely right to correct me.
My generation has had no opportunity through the ballot box to express a view on whether we should remain a member of the European Union, because broadly speaking both parties have always supported membership. My view is firm—I do not think that we should remain a member—but I am not arrogant enough to suggest that it is for me to dictate to the British public. I simply want the British public at some point to have a say on whether we should remain a member of what has become a very interesting institution—as one hon. Member called it.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
Over the past few days, I have had nearly 100 e-mails and letters about forests, but since 7 May I have not had a single letter or e-mail about withdrawal from the European Union. This debate shows the difference of opinion across the country, and the genius and magic of this place that it matches Members so closely to their constituents in their passions and needs.
Andrew Percy
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would be happy to take him to Goole, where he could talk to people in my community who are concerned about the large amount of immigration resulting from our membership.
Mrs Main
If we are going to judge from our postbags, we would not be having a referendum on the alternative vote system, which has been mentioned to me by only one person—a local Liberal Democrat, who said, “You’ll never again be able to say, ‘Nobody has ever mentioned AV to me’”. We cannot use the postbag of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) as some sort of barometer of opinion.
Andrew Percy
All we would end up debating from my postbag is the state of our roads following the recent cold weather—but that is not how politics works.
I have been led away from my line of argument, which is that it is time that the people had a say on the EU. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), many people in communities such as Goole, which has seen large amounts of immigration as a result of EU expansion, would say, “Lots of people come here to fill jobs people here won’t do. They come here to work incredibly hard, but we have had such a mass influx, and nobody asked us for our permission through the ballot box for the extension of immediate rights to come to this country and work without any requirements or immigration controls.” Nobody asked the British public, who are rightly angry about that, and that is why they wish to have a referendum.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman, with whom I share a boundary, for giving way. Is he aware that his Government, whom he so vigorously supports, are maintaining the current level of European immigration over five years, with an extra 700,000 projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility? Government Members seem unwilling to discuss that in the House.
Andrew Percy
The hon. Gentleman—my neighbour on my southern border—makes an interesting point. Thanks to what was given away by the previous Government, it is pretty much impossible to do a great deal on this issue, which is one reason why we now either accept a mass influx of uncontrolled immigration or we get out of the European Union. That is really the only choice that the public have.
There are some technical problems with the new clause. If we had an in/out referendum following the rejection of an initial referendum, that would lead to problems with the debate on the first referendum. It would probably become a debate about whether we should have an in/out referendum, which would be undesirable. I mean no disrespect to the genius of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough when I say that new clause 11 is not perfect. However, from my point of view, I could not vote against anything that introduced an in/out referendum, which is why I shall be supporting this imperfect but well-meant new clause.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I hope to be as brief as the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I came into the Chamber this evening to support new clause 11. That support was underlined by the thoughtful contribution of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless). I was then a little confused by the speech of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), because he is very clever and I wondered whether I had the right new clause. However, I then listened to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole, who spoke about the one factor that will weigh most in my mind, which is the fact that he has not had a chance to vote. We therefore need to have an in/out referendum, to give him the opportunity to do so.
I am teasing the hon. Gentleman. In fact, I believe that it is important that at some stage in the near future—I am not saying that it should be 5 May, when we decide on AV—the British people ought to have an opportunity to deal with this subject. I am confident that, given that opportunity, they will vote overwhelmingly in support of remaining in the European Union. I know that there are those on both sides of the Committee who believe that the British people would do the opposite and that, given the opportunity, they would vote to come out of the European Union. However, I have attended many debates in this House when Members on both sides have been passionate about remaining in the European Union. However, at the end of the day, it should be up to the British people to make such an important decision.
Mr Hollobone
When the right hon. Gentleman says “overwhelmingly”, what does he mean by that?
Keith Vaz
It is 11 years since I was the Minister for Europe. I can well remember the day that I was appointed. I think I got a call from either Alastair Campbell or Tony Blair—I cannot remember which of the two it was, and I have not checked the diaries to see whether either recorded this important footnote in history—to inform me of my appointment. I was completely shocked. I was a junior Justice Minister and was on my way to Blackburn when I got a call to say that I had to go down to Downing street because I was the new Minister for Europe. I remember my first conversation with the Prime Minister. I said, “I know absolutely nothing about the European Union,” and he said, “You are the perfect Minister for Europe,” so I was appointed.
What was interesting about those two years is that my instructions from No. 10 were to make the domestic argument to the British people about the importance of being in the European Union. We therefore had a Foreign Office roadshow, as part of the public diplomacy team. We had a coach that went round various parts of the country. We did not get to Somerset, but we did get to Wigan and other interesting places such as that, to remind the British people of the benefits of being in the EU. At the same time, the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Foreign Secretary, decided to have his own roadshow. He hired a lorry—you may remember this, Mr Evans; I think you were in the House at the time—and went round the country on the back of it, trying to convince people of the need to save the pound. He was convinced that the Labour Government were about to get rid of the pound and make us join the euro.
What was interesting about those visits was that the British people really did not understand enough about what was happening in the European Union. They did not understand what we were doing there, something that has become part of the sub-culture affecting summitry when Ministers have gone to defend this country’s interests, including my successor, the current Minister for Europe. An in/out referendum would give the British people the opportunity to know all the facts about the European Union, so that they did not have to rely on some of the tabloids and some, if not most of the broadsheets; rather, they would rely on Members of this House going into the towns, villages and cities of this country and talking about our membership.
I know that those on my Front Bench will probably be a bit upset with me about this, because they know my record on the European Union. However, I am with the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), for whom I, too, have great respect, for all the work that he does in this House, and those other hon. Members who support an in/out referendum. Indeed, that is what I thought the Liberal Democrats’ position was. When the question was raised at the tail end of the previous Government, I can well remember the then leader of the Liberal Democrats, now the Deputy Prime Minister, supporting that view in this very Chamber. I think I was sitting where the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) is now—we were in government then—and I remember those very words: “Let us put this to the British people, because in the end it is they who will have to make the decision.”
Martin Horwood
I rise with some fatigue, having I thought made this point three times already, but the Liberal Democrat position was to support an in/out referendum at the time of a substantial transfer of power from the British to the European level. The Bill provides for far more referendums. That is not necessarily what the Liberal Democrats would have wanted in the first place, but this is the Bill before us and our Conservative colleagues believe that it is very important. Those referendums will be referendums on the specifics of a transfer of power. There is no logic to the new clause—and certainly no consistency with the Liberal Democrat position—because it says that only when a referendum is lost, thereby establishing that there will be no transfer of power, should an in/out referendum be held. It is barmy.
Keith Vaz
I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman has had to explain that three times, because I am afraid that he lost me in the first sentence. I do not think that what he said is logical at all. I understand what the Government are trying to do. The Minister is here, and I know that the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood said that he had met him a few years ago at a dinner party. I first met the Minister for Europe when I was 18 years of age—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman was 18 as well? Goodness, that is rapid progress. Perhaps it was the same dinner party. Anyway, what the hon. Member for Cheltenham has set out is an illogical position. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having such a referendum.
Emma Reynolds
I would just like to point out that, as I think the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) was trying to set out and as the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) so eloquently and clearly set out, new clause 11 would trigger an in/out referendum only if it were preceded by a referendum on a transfer of power that was then lost. The new clause would not introduce an in/out referendum before a referendum on a transfer of power.
Keith Vaz
I am grateful for that, but I feel very insecure every time my hon. Friend mentions the hon. Member for North East Somerset, because he is an intellectual powerhouse on these and other issues. I shall therefore stick to whether such a referendum would take place before or after. My hon. Friend will have to excuse me, because she is obviously also an expert on—[Interruption.] Yes, she is an expert: she is pointing at the provisions. I take this new clause to mean that the British people ought to have the chance to vote on this crucial issue. I am not afraid to put this vote to the British people.
Dr Lewis
I am grateful for the slightly delayed acceptance of my intervention. I simply wanted to say that I thought the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, apart from being massively entertaining, was absolutely right about the Liberal Democrat position. One thing was missing from the gobbledegook that we heard by way of justification. There was only one reason why the Liberal Democrats were going for an in/out referendum: it was to try to disguise and camouflage the fact that they were reneging on their promise for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
Keith Vaz
That may well be so.
One problem is that, in the end, we have to accept the judgment of Ministers about the transfer of powers. We all have our own views, but Ministers will go to a summit, come back and announce to the House that they do not believe that a massive transfer of powers is at stake. They view it perhaps as a semi-massive transfer of powers, so a referendum will not be required. The problem is that this issue will go on and on and on. It is a fundamental issue that should be resolved. The country needs to know where it is going on Europe, and there is nothing wrong with putting that question to the British people.
We have had an excellent debate. I know that my Front-Bench team will not be pleased when I announce that I am going to join those who support new clause 11. When we get this referendum—I think we will need one of this kind at some time in the future—we will see the leader of the Conservative party, the leader of the Labour party and the leader of the Liberal Democrat party all on the same platform together, supporting Britain remaining in the European Union. I am pretty confident of that, which is why I have no problem with the new clause, which I look forward to supporting in the Division Lobby.
Mr Hollobone
I was honoured to be asked to add my name to the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I, too, would like to celebrate his genius not only in drafting the clause, but in taking advice from the Clerks and outdoing the Government Front-Bench team in having such a long debate on the provision this evening. He has worked tirelessly to get this issue debated on the Floor of the House, and I would like to congratulate him.
I am proud to say on behalf of my Kettering constituents that I am in favour of an in/out referendum and that if there were one, I would vote to leave the European Union. I have absolutely no doubt that if that issue were put to my constituents, a majority would vote to leave the EU. That would not necessarily always have been the case. Had there been a referendum 10 or 15 years ago, there might well have been a majority for staying in. I have no doubt that a majority of voters in the Kettering constituency would have voted to stay in the Common Market in the referendum of 1975. Now, however, people are so fed up with European issues and with the effect Europe is having on their country and their way of life that we have crossed over so that there would no longer be an overwhelming majority in favour of staying in. The majority would want to leave so that Britain can be a proud, self-confident nation once again, without having to pay a massive annual membership fee—soon rising to £10 billion a year—and without having to open our borders to all and sundry from across the European Union, allowing them to flood to these shores.
Immigration is a European issue. It did not used to be, but it is now. People in my constituency and across the country are fed up with the numbers of people coming into our country from abroad and fed up with uncontrolled immigration from the European Union. Frankly, my Kettering voters feel let down by the political establishment that our being in the European Union should have been allowed to take over so many aspects of our lives.
Andrew Percy
Does my hon. Friend share my embarrassment at the very idea that people from Australia, Canada and New Zealand—our Commonwealth brethren —are made to wait at our borders while we have absolutely no control over people coming here from 20-odd countries in Europe?
Mr Hollobone
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention because he has hit the nail on the head. In the few times I have had the misfortune to go abroad, whenever I come back into this country, I always try to do so without coming through the European Union section. I have been told several times that a British passport holder has no choice and has to go underneath the blue flag with the yellow stars. I just think it is a huge shame that our country has come to that.
The Minister gave the game away early on when he had difficulty responding to my perfectly reasonable request that Her Majesty’s Government undertake a comprehensive audit of the costs and benefits of our membership of this European club. I would have thought that everyone would be in favour of such an audit. After all, if the argument for being in the European Union is so strong, why not get the evidence together and put it to the British people? Those who feel strongly that the time has come to leave the Union would also like to see the facts and figures presented. I perfectly understand that it is going to be apples and pears, and that some things are not perfectly calculable, but Her Majesty’s Government should at least make some kind of effort to tell the British people why it is so important for us to remain in the EU. As far as my constituents and I can see, the membership subscription is now too high, we have no effective control over our borders with the EU, and business and other institutions in our country are being strangled more and more, month by month, by the red tape emanating from Brussels. It is time that it stopped.
Mr Hollobone
I cannot think of a single reason—a straight answer to a straight question—and my Kettering constituents would greatly welcome the repatriation of powers that we have given away all too freely. Another example is the disgraceful common fisheries policy. I notice that a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister is now on the Treasury Bench; he is doing his best in Brussels to try to end the scandal of fish discards, but it is like pushing water uphill. We are not going to get anywhere with Brussels because it will not see sense on these issues. If I were to ask my Kettering constituents whether we should repatriate our powers over Britain’s fishing waters, there would be an overwhelming vote to do just that. We have given all these things away.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour for giving way. On that very point of the repatriation of powers, is he not concerned that new clause 11 presents a fourth choice to the British public? It offers a straight in/out choice. It does not lay in front of the British public what many of us would like to see, which is perhaps the most significant element that the Conservative party lost in the coalition agreement—a vote on the repatriation of powers. Many of us do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but would like to see some of those powers repatriated to our country.
Mr Hollobone
That would be very nice, but I do not see the coalition Government repatriating any powers. For many people, it has now come to the issue of whether we are in or out. I do not believe that we can be “In Europe, but not run by Europe”. That slogan is, I am afraid, no longer valid.
I know that many Conservative Members believe that we can reform Europe to make it better, but some of us have reached the point where we simply do not believe that that is achievable. I do not want to spend the rest of my life arguing that we can improve Europe for the better. I believe that Britain’s best chance is to be an independent, sovereign, self-governing nation, with an enterprise economy looking out into the world, free from the restrictions that the European Union imposes upon us.
If Britain left the European Union, that would not mean the end of the European Union. It would still exist, but we would be freed from its shackles. We would be able to look out on the wider world, regain our economic self-confidence, and start to trade properly with superpowers such as China, India, and all the other countries with which we used to have such a wonderful relationship. Membership of the European Union is increasingly holding us back from both our past and our future as an entrepreneurial nation.
Our best hope of securing a decision in this Parliament lies in new clause 11. The new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough may well present us with the only opportunity that we will have in the five years of this coalition Government to decide whether we are to have an in/out referendum. I know that the new clause does not provide a perfect solution, but part of the genius of my hon. Friend is that he has got this far.
Mark Reckless
Does my hon. Friend agree that members of the Labour party are generally in favour of winning elections, and that if there is a strong enough demand from the British people for such a referendum, it is very possible that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) will flip his position on the issue?
Mr Hollobone
From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) says that Labour would rather lose with principle. Well, they lost without principle at the last general election, and they will do so again many times in the future.
Emma Reynolds
I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Conservative party did not win the last general election with a sufficient number to form a majority. As for his other point, I know that many Government Members are very interested in this subject, but they may have noticed that not many Opposition Members are present. The simple fact is—[Interruption.] If hon. Members will hear me out, I will give them the reason. Since I was elected in May, not one of my constituents has raised this issue with me. I believe that the next general election will be won on the basis of the economy, jobs and the NHS, and I believe that this Government are putting those things at risk. They are what will be at stake in the next election, not the European Union.
Mr Hollobone
The fact that we are having to pay more than £10 billion to the European Union every year is not helping the economy. The increasing burden of red tape from Brussels is not helping job creation. The hon. Lady speaks of those issues as if they were separate from Europe, but in fact the European Union is increasingly having a say in them.
Emma Reynolds
The vast majority of our exports go to other European Union countries.
Mr Hollobone
There is some dispute over our export figures. However, even if we accept that a small majority of our exports go to the European Union—
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman uses the words “even if we accept”, but that is a fact. As Foreign Office Ministers now tire of telling us, many more of our exports go to the European Union than currently go to China. Our jobs and our economy rely on the European Union for our exports, which is why the single market is such a good thing.
Mr Hollobone
Even if we accept the hon. Lady’s opinion—which is not a fact—that a small majority of our exports go to the European Union, the question for her is this: is our future with Belgium or with China? There is another fact that she needs to address. We now have a permanent and ever-growing trade deficit with the European Union, which our membership of that organisation is doing nothing to solve.
Emma Reynolds
I returned from a parliamentary visit to China in September. Although they were very polite about it, I know that the Chinese are actually interested in trading with the EU as a bloc, and would like to see agreements between China and the European Union. We should understand that fact.
Mr Hollobone
Of course the Chinese are interested in trading with the EU bloc, because it is a big economic entity. Were we outside the EU, however, China would also be interested in trading with us. As for the idea that if we left the EU we would lose 3 million jobs, that has never been proved by the Labour party, and it is misleading to tell the British people that so many jobs are tied to our membership of the European Union.
Andrew Percy
I cannot get away from my old job as a teacher. I want to help to disabuse the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) of a couple of assumptions. Does my hon. Friend agree that businesses are not buying British goods just because we are in the European Union? The French are not buying goods from this country out of the goodness of their hearts; they are doing it because they make hard-headed business decisions, and they will continue to buy things from this country whether we are in the European Union or outside it. It is extremely likely that if we were outside it, we would continue to have a free trade agreement with them.
Mr Hollobone
The point is that if we left the European Union, we would continue to trade with the European Union. The idea that, if we tore up our membership slip, suddenly no one would talk to us or trade with us any more is nonsense.
Emma Reynolds
I think that the hon. Gentleman has reduced my argument to absurdity. [Interruption.] But my argument is not absurd. My argument is that countries throughout the world, from Latin America to the far east, are queuing up to sign free trade agreements with the European Union. If we were not part of the European Union, we would not be part of those free trade agreements, and would not benefit from them or from the additional exports resulting from them.
Mr Hollobone
Those countries would still be able to trade with us. The big difference between 2011 and 1972 is the fact that trade barriers have fallen all over the world and continue to do so. As a free independent trading nation, Britain would still be trading with China, India, South America and the European Union, with lower trade barriers than we had 40 or 50 years ago.
Martin Horwood
If the hon. Gentleman is not persuaded by the argument about the jobs that would be lost if we left the European Union, what about the democratic deficit that would result from our trying to trade and have full market access to the EU, while having absolutely no say in the regulations and legislation that would deliver that access?
Mr Hollobone
The democratic deficit in this country lies in the fact that most people want to leave the European Union, but are not being given a say in that.
Mr Carswell
If Labour Members are so confident about their position, why did they not support the proposal for an in/out referendum so that they could put their views to the British people and let them settle the issue in that way?
Mr Hollobone
Exactly. It is not necessary to believe that we would be better off out of the European Union to support new clause 11. If Members here are so confident that Britain has a bright, rosy economic future in the European Union, they too should welcome the opportunity to take their case to the British people and settle this wretched argument once and for all.
Dr McCrea
Is not the truth that Members are not confident enough to take the argument to the British people, because they are not confident about the outcome? At a time when major cuts are being made in every Department in the United Kingdom, are not the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, like mine, concerned about the fact that we are paying endless billions to this European club?
Mr Hollobone
The hon. Gentleman is spot on, but I would go rather further. I do not believe that Her Majesty’s Government, and other Members, are not confident; I think they now know that they would lose. They may not be drenched in e-mails and letters, but many members of our electorate have simply given up. That is why turnouts at general elections are now far lower than they used to be. Powers have drained from the House of Commons and Her Majesty’s Government to Brussels, and people are increasingly asking, “Why bother to elect Members of Parliament at all, given that all the decisions are made over in the EU?”
I believe that if we had a referendum, all those issues would emerge. I believe that most people in the country would be happy if we re-entered some kind of European Free Trade Association. I believe that most of them want a common market—a trading arrangement with European countries. What they do not want is membership of this political club.
Mark Reckless
Would my hon. Friend support a relationship with the EU rather like that of Norway and Switzerland? They sell rather more to the EU than we do, and are also rather richer.
Mr Hollobone
Certainly, something along those lines would be most welcome. They also have substantially more control over their borders than we do. That is a big issue on the doorstep.
I come back to earlier remarks about the “Save the Pound” campaign in 2001. Opposition Members had the audacity to say that the British people did not understand it, but they did and if it had not been for the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary when he was the leader of the Conservative party, there would have been a grave danger of the first-term Labour Government ditching the pound. If they had, they would not be laughing now because the economic mess in this country in 2011 would be much like that in Spain, with 22% unemployment.
Keith Vaz
The Foreign Secretary’s lorry and my bus met in Wellingborough, so I am happy that this issue has been raised by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) today. It was not because of the Foreign Secretary’s campaign that the Labour Government did not abandon the pound: it was because they had no intention whatever of joining the euro.
Mr Hollobone
That was an interesting intervention. I am certainly of the view, as are many of my constituents, that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to my right hon. Friend for his efforts at that time and to all those in the Eurosceptic movement who made sure that Tony Blair did not go as far as he might have.
Mr Hollobone
I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. This shows the tragedy of what has been happening since 1997. There has been huge disinterest in matters European from Labour Members both when they were in government and now they are in opposition. That is why there was a massive loss of sovereignty to Brussels over the Blair and Brown years.
I am going to support the Bill. I supported it on Second Reading and I will happily vote for it on Third Reading, because it provides the referendum lock that the British people want. The purpose of new clause 11 is to strengthen that referendum lock so that no future Government would dare to propose a transfer of power that they thought they might have the slightest chance of losing. That entrenches the little bit of sovereignty that we have left. If Her Majesty’s Government stood back and thought about this, they would welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough’s proposal and agree to the new clause without the need for a Division.
Mrs Main
I shall speak for just a few minutes on this particularly interesting clause, which I support. I should like to make a big apology to the Whips; I am sure that the eye-rolling and head-banging has gone on already, because they see the usual suspects rising to speak on this matter, but I think that it is important. I know that rather a tortuous device was used to get it debated today and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for his ingenuity.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) that the measure would somehow negate the referendum lock. Let me put that on its head: if we were to have a referendum about a significant transfer of powers and the public said no, where would that leave us? We would be standing alone saying no. It would be quite logical to go on and say, “We have been hearing grumbles over the years about your unhappiness”—for 19 years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) has pointed out—“over bits and pieces of legislation that you believe have come from Europe and may have impacted negatively, let’s have an open debate about it and have a referendum on whether we should be in or out.”
I completely agree with the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who spoke very eloquently. As I said in an intervention earlier, an in/out vote would not be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, I would look forward to a robust debate airing the positive aspects. Perhaps we could look forward to people being persuaded, despite some misgivings about whether or not we should give prisoners the vote, which we will debate next week, or whether they agree with human rights legislation being imposed on us from Europe—I believe that we were somewhat opposed to that in our manifesto—
Emma Reynolds
Does the hon. Lady recognise that that legislation comes from the Council of Europe and not the European Union?
Emma Reynolds
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to clarify my position, although if she had listened the first time perhaps she would have been clearer on it. I said that my hon. Friends have very pressing concerns that reflect those of their constituents about the massive programme of Government cuts taking place in this country and the risk to our economy and economic growth, as we saw last week with the shrinkage of our economy. That is what we are worried about, and we would rather have more time in the House to debate the NHS and the trebling of tuition fees. That is what I was saying and I do not think she should misrepresent my position.
Mrs Main
From the hon. Lady’s rather tetchy remarks, I gather that most of her right hon. and hon. colleagues are off somewhere else debating more pressing matters, but this is being debated now and unlike her I think it is crucial that we debate it clearly. If we are game enough tonight to let people have a little sniff of the freedom of choosing, it could be the first time that many of them have a chance to hear the arguments for and against staying in the European Union.
Andrew Percy
On the comments of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) about Labour Members wanting to discuss more important issues, perhaps she would like to comment on why the Opposition have chosen the subject of forests, rather than the NHS, for tomorrow’s Opposition day debate.
Mrs Main
That was not quite on the subject of the debate, but I take my hon. Friend’s point.
Opposition Members could have had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and I believe that my party and other hon. Members here felt that the people should have had a say, but they did not. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) advocated quite strongly having a debate on the in or out issue; I do not feel that the treaty’s ratification negates that aspiration. I am sure that he would make a very robust defence for having an “in” vote, whereas other Members on the Government side who have concerns about it would make a robust argument for an “out” vote. That said, I am fed up with hearing constantly the mantra that now is not the time. It is never the time; it has not been the time for the past 19 years. When will be the time? The Bill offers us the opportunity to have a little hook on which to hang the possibility—that is all—that at some time in the future, if the people were unhappy about the relationship with Europe, they could say so.
I do not know how the people of St Albans or Cheltenham would vote or how the country would vote on this issue. I could be surprised and find that they wholly endorse our position within Europe, in which case any future Government could go forward with a robust mandate for referendum locks on transfers of power within treaties, because that would not necessarily mean that people want to give away more powers. People might say that they are happy with exactly the level of power that has been given away but that they do not want to give away any more. They might say yes to staying in but no to further transfers of power. That is why I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset: I think that one can be in that position. Indeed, that is the position we are in now, because we are not taking a vote on this—we are staying put but saying that no more powers should be transferred.
I would like the good people of this country to have a say, because they do air their concerns when one talks to them in supermarkets, pubs and cafés. They air their concerns when they hear about some of the nonsense legislation we have to put up with and when they hear that we cannot do anything about some issue because it is a result of EU legislation. I think they would like a say, but that does not mean that they cannot be persuaded. I say to hon. Members, “Give us the chance to put the argument to the people and let them decide. Don’t be frightened of giving them the chance to make a decision because you think they’ll make the wrong decision. It’s their country and we’re here to represent their views.” I do not believe in not asking them their views. If we can have a referendum on the alternative vote, which was never raised on the doorstep prior to its being raised in the House and which was not being advocated by a single party in the House, we should be able to have a referendum on something that was raised on the doorstep and on which some parties stood as a sole issue—Europe. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) that the Opposition Benches are empty because Opposition Members are not interested; I believe they are empty because they have been told to go off and play away at something different. It is the complacency demonstrated by those empty Benches that has led us to where we are.
In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough for his ingenuity in getting the new clause debated on the Floor of the House tonight. I am sorry that the Whips and other hon. Members feel they have been kept here tonight because the usual suspects are making a noise and a row about Europe. But if we did not, I believe our constituents would say to us, “Don’t ever say to me that you’re unhappy about Europe, because when there was a chance for you to give us a say—at some point in the future not yet decided—you shut down that avenue, because you could.” Tonight, I do not believe that avenue should be shut down. I believe it is the fear of knowing the answer that is shutting it down, not any logical reason.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I can assure hon. Members from all parties that the Opposition Benches are not empty. Indeed, some of us feel roused to contribute to the debate, having heard the exhortations of the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), for example. It is an extraordinary saga. Every time one looks outside and sees the dark clouds and the moon hovering, Europe must be being debated again.
This is the party that, under Edward Heath, took us into the Common Market; the party that, under Margaret Thatcher, took us into the Single European Act and everything that flowed from it, including unlimited immigration from across the European Union; the party that, under John Major, signed the Maastricht treaty—on every occasion it is the Conservative and Unionist party of Britain that has deepened and strengthened our European ties, and yet when they are in power Conservative Members love nothing better than to debate these things. How many days was it last week? How many hours has it been this week, as they queue up demanding a referendum? Voters have had the option to vote for the UK Independence Party. UKIP stands proudly, clearly, as a voting option in my constituency and others, as it did at the last general election, and when it stands, the voters have the opportunity in their tens of thousands to flood to the polling stations to the rallying cry of UKIP. But such is democracy, they fail to do so.
With this Euro-fanatical Conservative party in power, we see yet again the rebellion from the discontented masses. They understand fully what is going on among their Front Benchers, because the Conservative party appeals to two different values. One is that of the little Englander, amply represented by my neighbour the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), as one of the few Members who have attended this debate and joined the traditional long-standing contributors to Conservative thinking on these matters. The other is the vested interest of big business: when it comes to the crunch, the Conservative party in its very blood, and its Front Benchers at every opportunity, wish always to strengthen and deepen the ties with Europe. By giving space to its discontented Back Benchers, as it has done repeatedly in this Parliament, the Conservative party shows that it likes to announce to the British people that it has a great tradition of Englishness and Britishness—of separation from Europe—but when it comes to the decisions, every single time it is the Conservative party that throws us further and further, deeper and deeper into the European Union. This new Government, albeit a coalition with the Euro-fanatical Liberals, are doing the same.
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility outlined in great detail how, under this coalition Government, immigration from within the European Union to the United Kingdom in this Parliament will be not the same as under the previous, so-called federalist, Labour Government. It will be not less, but more—significantly more. Why is that? It is because the Conservatives’ paymasters—big business, as documented in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for all to see—demand that the Conservative party in power strengthens those ties with Europe while talking a different game and filling the parliamentary agenda with opportunities such as tonight’s. So, yet again, we will see vast amounts of new labour joining this country—
Mr Carswell
The hon. Gentleman is rather verbosely explaining why we cannot trust politicians with these matters. Is that not a further argument for an in/out referendum, in which the people have the final say?
John Mann
There is nothing verbose in these remarks; if the hon. Gentleman wants verbose he can have verbose, but that would be quite improper. These are succinct remarks on the inherent contradictions of the Conservative party, which can never, ever break from the pressures of big business, which demands that once in power, it strengthens those links. That is why 700,000 new EU migrants will enter this country in this Parliament. When the Conservative party talks about growth and trade, what it really means is cheaper labour, and worse conditions for workers in this country. That is the free market that the Conservative party represents: allowing competition at the lowest common denominator. No doubt, I will again be going on rallies at power stations, where British workers are finding their pay and conditions and ability to apply for their jobs undermined by the so-called European single market that the Conservative party took us into.
John Mann
I am approaching my conclusion, when I will do that, but first there is another factor that ought to be re-stressed. There has been a lot of talk about what the people think. I will tell the Committee what the people think: the people think it is an absolute disgrace that, when the health service is being cut to ribbons and maternity units across the country are being destroyed, time is being taken up constantly discussing the Conservative party’s obsession with the European Union rather than major issues.
New clause 11 should address whether what the Conservative party signed up to under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, in the spirit of Edward Heath, which allows unfettered labour migration into this country, is the way forward, or whether there should be restrictions that protect the jobs and livelihoods and standards of living of workers in this country. That is the debate that this Government are scared of, and that is why they like to pander to the pretence that there could be some debate about whether the country is in or out of Europe. This Government should be held to account for their failure to negotiate properly in Europe on that and on bankers’ pay. They are wholly miserable in their efforts in doing so. That is what Parliament—
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way in his brilliantly enthusiastic speech, but he is not being his usual even-handed self, because he accuses the Conservatives of allowing people to come from eastern Europe, but it really was the last Labour Government who let in most of them.
John Mann
Fair point. That is precisely why, on those demonstrations at Staythorpe with Unite and other unions, I was the only parliamentarian who spoke on behalf of the workers in my constituency and others. However, I know that I am not the only one; perhaps the hon. Gentleman would wish to join me on such picket lines in future, in protecting the interests of British trade unionism and British workers. That is the debate—on what is really needed in the future, in this Parliament and in Europe—that this unholy coalition alliance Government are refusing to allow to take place.
Those Back Benchers who wish to strengthen against the ever-onwards and upwards movement of big business in Europe should also create the opportunity for votes on these things, rather than simply going back to basics. Therefore, I call on them to join in the battle for a real debate on Europe, but not to the exclusion of the cuts in public services that this coalition, with these Liberal traitors, is bringing to this country, because that is the debate that the country wants.
Mr Shepherd
At the end of that roaring speech, I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is for or against the new clause. I shall just reflect because, for some of us, this is an important debate. Even the recent history of the Labour party seems to have passed the hon. Gentleman by: Kinnock’s opposition; Kinnock being in favour—all the pastures of the past 30-odd years—but where are we?
I take the debate quite seriously. I have supported referendums on the European Union and its treaties for many years now. What started as a Common Market and is now a European Union touches and reaches into every level of our Government and our life, from employment laws to what hours doctors may work. These things are now determined elsewhere. I suggest that undoubtedly the most major constitutional change of the past 100 years has been the development of the European Union as an almost sovereign body, with a legal system that sits above our own regard for our constitutional verities.
The central proposition of the Labour party, which we heard much about just now and which most hon. Members respect the history of, was the vote, organising and the creation of the unions, so that the party might one day hold seats in the House and come to determine the shape of national policy. That was the great goal, and it succeeded. Yet, within a generation, Labour, which was cautious about the development of the European Union, has changed. Peter Shore wrote that great, very cautious speech, “A thousand years of British history”. “We do not know how this will develop,” said Hugh Gaitskell, “We have to wait and see.” It was a cautionary speech. Of course it is true that it was characterised as demonic by the Conservative Administrations who were still negotiating to enter into the European Community, or Common Market as we called it. That is the background to why the Labour party wanted power, universal suffrage, the right to determine the conditions of the working people of this country and to distribute wealth.
Mr Shepherd
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not. I did not intend to speak for long on this.
I listened to the hon. Lady, and to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe’s exegesis on the marvels of the provisions, and his aspirations for how, with the new thrust and trust, we will somehow make a dynamic entity of the European Union for the benefit of the British people. That might be so; I do not know, but I have heard that story from Governments of both parties over more than 30 years. They are often good people who stand before us and bring forward these measures. They believe in them at the time. The unfortunate coincidence of the elapsing of time demonstrates how often they were wrong in their interpretations and understanding of the commitments that they entered into by prerogative power and supported by legislative process. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) consistently points out without hesitation or deviation, that is the fault of the Whips. I do not believe that we are simply biddable, but that is what it looks like to the outside world.
There is therefore a purpose behind this proposal. It is an expression of something that is alive not only on this side of the House. I do not want to disillusion the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, but this sentiment is shared across the Chamber. I see the same souls: they might say that they have converted, but, like the slaves in Babylonia, they got back to Israel. We have to return to this question: what is the purpose of this House? Who do we represent and why do we represent them?
There is merit in the fact that we have at least had the opportunity to discuss this proposal. It is not the perfect vehicle to achieve this aim, however. We are in the midst of a crisis. I have always supported the idea of holding a referendum, but that was slightly challenged when the former Minister for Europe, no less, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), proceeded round the country in a caravan. Members will remember that he was the only man in Britain who met two Eurosceptics. I think he gave us their names—Ken and Dave, or whatever. It was almost impossible, during the conflicts over the treaties, to go round the whole of the United Kingdom in his van. We asked for reports. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made great humour of the situation, but humour is not the same as intent. That is what this is about.
Behind all this, I sense a growing intent on the part of the British people to have a greater resolution than the flim-flam that we are dealing with in this Bill. I respect my hon. Friends for saying that it is at least something, but that is what we have heard about all the brakes. This party was united against the social chapter in the Maastricht treaty. In fact, the opposition to it nearly brought the then Government down. There was the threat of a Dissolution if we lost that argument. I remember the Chief Whip telling me that we would be decimated, and we faced that in that arcane and silly way that people do when they are under pressure: “Only one in 10; that’s not a bad result.” The truth, however, was that this party knelt, in government. That is the progress that has been made.
Trade statistics have been mentioned. I grew up in an age when the port of London was perhaps the greatest entrepreneurial port, with the greatest volume of trade. Times changed; labour relations changed. Entrepôts grew on the continent of Europe, and they are the means by which we now export. It was pointed out earlier that we had a trade surplus, but today we have a trade deficit with Europe. This might merely be a reflection of the changing patterns of the way in which we export. No one brings forward the figures.
These are the little stones that begin to build a wall, and the wall is growing. I believe profoundly that the people of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland ought to have a say on this. I shall approach the matter from the point of view of realpolitik, however. The very threat, and the very undertaking, of a referendum put fear and aghastness into the heart of Brussels and the other members of the European Community.
If we are to be able to manage our own economy, to recover our place and standing in the world and to become economically secure, we have to recover some of these powers. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Many of us on these Back Benches are now committed to seeing that that comes about. Let no one doubt it: there will also be people on the Labour Benches who will give a cheer for this proposal. There might well be people in Ulster who will also give it a cheer. I caution the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), and I also say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that it was his expression of hope and belief that really undermined my confidence in his judgment after all the years that he has been in the House, given that he has seen this ratcheted, one-way transference of authority.
We are now challenged over our home affairs and justice system. The common law of England, Wales and Ireland is under threat. We are transferring much of our criminal justice system to another system that does not understand the common law because its civil tradition is different. I do not knock other people’s systems of law. If it works for them, they must have it. But we know what has worked and given confidence to us across generations. I heard the flimsiest defence of how we were going to preserve that in the face of Strasbourg and Luxembourg. This is a big, big issue. It has haunted part of our debate. It is not seriously addressed. Opt-ins can take place and profoundly change who we are, even now.
I urge my hon. Friends to reflect. The rights that we are talking about are not our own rights. We are just citizens in this matter, as are those whom we represent. It is their rights that we should be mindful of. They are entitled to determine the course that we take in respect of these European matters.
Kate Hoey
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), who for many years has been a voice in Parliament for democracy and civil liberties. I share many of his views on the issue. It is a shame, in some ways, that we are debating such a hugely important matter as whether we should have an in/out referendum in the context of the Bill, because that is not what the Bill is about, as I know the Minister would agree.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on persisting and pushing new clause 11. I am one of the signatories to it, and I am glad that we finally got a debate. As someone said about two hours ago, the debate is giving us a great deal more time to discuss these issues than we would normally get.
I said earlier that I hoped hon. Members would keep talking until I got back from an engagement. I am grateful that they not only managed to keep talking, but are still talking. I was opening a new climbing wall at the Westway centre in London, and I was reminded there of a practical aspect of the European Union that people find so irritating. Some time ago the European Union working at heights directive was issued, which seemed sensible. Everyone assumed that it would apply to people working in industry, building sites and so on, but our officials—our zealots—always want to gold-plate. They thought that those who taught mountaineering should be subject to the working at heights directive.
It took nearly three years to bring that to an end and to ensure that the way we taught mountaineering and climbing in this country would not be ruined by a directive that insisted, for example, that certain ropes should not be used. Hon. Members who are mountaineers will well remember that. While the Committee was debating the new clause, I was reminded of a practical example of where the European Union starts off with a good idea, a few people agree with it, no one is ever asked about the detail, and when it finally comes to be implemented, the officials, the bureaucrats and those who love to be able to impose things on other people strengthen the directive so that it sometimes goes way beyond the common-sense reason behind it.
John Mann
It was in the previous Parliament, as chair of the all-party mountaineering group, that I negotiated the end of the working at heights directive, or rather its subjugation in relation to mountaineering. Does that not emphasise the point that the regulations were easy to deal with—the meeting took five minutes—but the problem was how officials in Whitehall had chosen to interpret a straightforward directive that, in relation to certain professions, was extremely important?
Kate Hoey
My hon. Friend is right. I recall vividly that he was instrumental in that.
The same happens with practically every directive. It is all very well saying that the problem is just the officials. They are not elected. Ministers and Members of Parliament are elected. Directives are always gold-plated by civil servants. My hon. Friend remembers how long it took to get the argument across and to get Ministers to understand it and realise that the way the directive was being applied was not sensible. In other areas where directives are implemented, people may not realise that until the last minute or until it is too late. The European Scrutiny Committee is a brilliant Committee with its current Chair and with the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) on it, but it can never perform the necessary scrutiny.
I support the new clause, although, as has been said, it is not ideal or what we would really like. It has been a long time since the people of the United Kingdom had the opportunity to say whether they support the direction of the EU and where it is now compared with where it was when I opposed entry into the Common Market. I accepted that the country had decided to support it, but, over the years, what people voted for then has changed, as we all know, and now we need that debate again, not only as to whether the country supports the direction in which the EU has come and where we are now, but where it should go in the future.
I may be wrong, but my guess is that the vast majority of the British people do not like the direction that the EU has taken and the fact that this Parliament and this country have lost control over many areas. As I have said, there is no point blaming one party over the other. Both major political parties have, in their different ways and not always in the way they intended, conspired to stop the real debate. We saw that with the Maastricht treaty and with the Lisbon treaty, on which the Labour party acted disgracefully, having given a commitment to a referendum. Then the Conservatives, who had given a commitment to a referendum managed to get out of it because the decision had been taken. But, as has been pointed out, just because the decision had been taken to sign it, there was no reason why the British people should not have been allowed a referendum immediately afterwards to decide whether they wanted to continue with the agreement that had been ratified.
Even the most avid supporter of the EU, of which there are many on the Labour Benches, would have to accept that when the EU and the Commission do not get what they want in a vote they simply find another way to have another vote, as happened in Ireland. That is why there is no confidence in the EU. I have a lot of respect for the Minister, who, certainly in the past, will have been seen as not necessarily a Eurosceptic but a Eurorealist, or some other term. He may feel that he is doing the right thing, but the reality is that no one in the country trusts any of the politicians in power, of whatever party, on this issue. Something seems to happen to people when they are elected to Government and go to Brussels. They experience some kind of transformation. For some reason, they suddenly become part of it all. In many cases they become more ideological about it than some of the other European countries.
A long time ago, when I was a Minister in the Home Office and went with the then Home Secretary to meetings in Brussels, we would have a clear line about what we were doing on a justice and home affairs position. We would argue passionately. France would argue the other way and other countries would argue differently. Then in the tea breaks or wine breaks, they would ask us why we felt so strongly on a particular matter. They would say that they did not particularly like it, but they would support it, although they did not really intend to implement it. There was a general feeling that it did not really matter to many of those other EU politicians; they were part of it because they wanted to be part of the club and the whole European project. But they knew jolly well that when they went back to their own countries they would do the bit that they wanted. We were the exact opposite. We would fight our corner, but we would then have to give in because the Prime Minister would decide he wanted something else in some other department in Brussels. Not only would we agree, but we would implement the policy zealously.
Mark Reckless
Does the hon. Lady agree that we have this evening seen an honourable exception to that? The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who was a Minister for Europe and might have adopted such a position having been there and seen that, said that it is for the British people to decide.
Kate Hoey
I am sorry that I missed the contribution made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East when I had to leave the Chamber. We were both in Europe for a short period when my time in the Home Office coincided with his time in the Foreign Office, so I know his views on the matter and I am pleased that he has them.
I genuinely do not understand what we are afraid of, and neither do the public, particularly those who are strongly in favour of a referendum. What is the problem? We can no longer put it down to cost, because we are having this ridiculous referendum on the voting system, which most people are bored silly with—they yawn when it is brought up, even at political party meetings. I accept that it was set out in the coalition agreement, but there is no huge enthusiasm for that referendum, and yet we are spending so much money on it.
A referendum on the European Union would revitalise the political debate within this country. We would enliven things and go back to days of having public meetings. I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) said about the economic problems the country faces, but I do not think that having a debate on the EU would be a diversion. It would be a way of showing that there are other ways of running this country’s whole economic policy. We would get that debate and get out there among the people, because I know that they feel strongly about it.
I will not speak much longer, other than to say that I have been quite proud—others will laugh—to be associated with the campaign on the in/out referendum run by the Daily Express. As some Members might already have mentioned, yesterday a number of us took 373,000 envelopes, which had been returned from across the country, containing the slips published in the Daily Express asking for an in/out referendum. Those were just the envelopes, so many more were sent via e-mail. I think that we should be proud of the fact that a newspaper has managed to arouse that debate, and I would not care whether it had been done by the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun or even the Daily Mirror.
The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) talked about a growing mood in the country. We can sit here in isolation and ignore that mood, or we can grab it and lift it as an opportunity to get some decency and honesty back into politics. We should get that debate and have a referendum at some stage on whether we are in or out of Europe. I know that the Whips do not want Members to vote for this small new clause, but I say to Government Members that I have opposed my Whips on many occasions and am still alive and still here. To vote for it would send out a little signal that the issue will not go away.
Mr Cash
For me, the debate is not about the wording of the new clause, but about a question of principle. It is also about whether we are a democratic nation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) pointed out, and as many of us have argued for so many years, the question of why we are here in this House, ultimately, is entirely dependent on our relationship to the electorate. This is about democracy, not government.
We began our proceedings on the question of sovereignty some time ago, when we debated clause 18. In that debate, I made it clear—I believe that we won the argument—that the real question was whether this country would be able to govern itself or would end up being increasingly governed by judicial supremacy, and the European Scrutiny Committee report clearly demonstrated that point. For those of us who watched, for example, the recent BBC 4 programme on the Supreme Court, there is no doubt at all about the attitudes of some of the Justices in the Supreme Court and of many senior academics who are deeply influential in the Foreign Office and elsewhere. I know that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), understands that extremely well; I have heard him say so.
Mr MacShane
The hon. Gentleman says that the previous and current Chancellors entered into an unlawful act. Is he saying that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer is a criminal?
Mr Cash
That is an absurd comment. I am speaking in terms of the vires of the treaty. It is a different question; it is nothing to do with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. It was a serious misjudgment. It was an agreement that cannot be justified by the legal base. The European Scrutiny Committee said in its report that the agreement on that particular mechanism was legally unsound. That is what I mean. It has exposed the British taxpayer to a very significant sum of money.
However, that is just one example. The real question, ultimately, is one of democracy and trust. It is a matter of principle, and that principle is demonstrated by what happened in respect of the Lisbon treaty. We stood here in this House, month after month, debating the Lisbon treaty. I tabled perhaps 120 or 130 amendments. We united the Conservative party: for the first time since 1972, we had complete unanimity. Of those with a different view, only one is still in the party now—the others have all fled to other parties—and he is the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. He is entitled to his view and I respect him for the consistency with which he pursues it, however much I may disagree. The Conservative party was united in opposing every aspect of the Lisbon treaty and united for a referendum, and we voted accordingly. For reasons that have been put forward, but which I simply do not accept, that promise of a referendum was torn up.
Other promises with regard to the European issue—promises made in our manifesto—have not been sustained. These are serious matters. It is no surprise that the people of this country lose faith and trust in their politicians if such decisions are taken. This applies just as much to the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats. Broken promises are broken manifesto promises. Manifesto promises are the basis on which people ask to be elected and get into this House to represent the interests of the people who vote for them in the polling booth. If we break our promises, it is hardly surprising if the people of this country begin to feel a sense, first, of unease, and then of contempt for the political system.
This is constitutional reality, but also practical reality: it affects people in their everyday lives. We heard from the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) about the working at heights directive. We heard from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) about the posted workers directive. We have heard about the working time directive, the nurses agencies directive, and so on. The EU affects every single corner, every single nook and cranny of our lives, and we appear to be powerless to do anything about it.
A few days ago I got the figures from the Library on the balance of trade between ourselves and the European Union. They are alarming. In relation to the 27 member states, between 1999 and 2009—it has got very much worse in the past 18 months—we had an imbalance of £5 billion. With the rest of the world, we have had an improvement of £11 billion. There is a message there: you cannot trade with a bankrupt organisation if you are a successful company. The European Union, with its low growth, its riots and protests, and its failure, demonstrates why a referendum is required, as the new clause says, on the question of
“continuing United Kingdom membership of the European Union”.
For me, this is not just a question of in or out, but of to be or not to be a democratic nation state. This is not a matter to be trifled with.
I have profound views about the manner in which the coalition Government are dealing with this issue. As the Minister for Europe said in the debate last week, the Government have a European Affairs Committee, two thirds of which is Conservative and one third of which is Liberal Democrat. I pointed out to him that that Committee clearly could not have a vote, because we would win every time and we would have the policies that we stood on in our manifesto. So who is wagging the tail? It is clearly the one third of the Committee that are Liberal Democrats, combined with the instincts of those on our side of the equation who want more Europeanisation, although they disclaim it. That is another problem for us.
In Prime Minister’s questions a few weeks ago I asked why it is that at every turn, whenever an issue of integration comes up, we always go in the wrong direction. Why has repatriation been rejected? It is the repatriation of powers, using the well-known formula—notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972—that would enable us to re-grow our economy and answer the question that is now before the Chancellor of the Exchequer: why is our economy not growing? We can tell him that it is not growing because 50% of our trade is with the European Union, which is itself in deep trouble and has low growth. At the same time, we cannot grow our economy because we are strangled to such an extent by the red tape of Brussels. Those two situations can be retrieved only through a new relationship between us and the European Union.
This is not just a constitutional argument, but an argument of practicality. It is an argument of to be or not to be a democratic nation state, a great sovereign state and a successful country that represents the interests of the people we serve—not ourselves. As I have said so often, it is not our Parliament, it is their Parliament. They are entitled to know that if things have not gone right—things certainly have not gone right with Europeanisation—we have an absolute obligation to ask them for their opinion. That is democracy, that is trust and that is what will restore integrity to this House and the British political system.
Mr MacShane
I have considerable sympathy with the speech of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). A year ago, his party was Cash and Carswell; now it is Clegg and Cable. His party has surrendered the authenticity of its position on Europe for the marriage of convenience with the Liberal Democrats. That is his problem, not mine.
I am not so sure that the European Union is to blame for the fact that we alone of the major European Union economies have zero growth, inflation of 3.6%, a shrinking currency and rising unemployment. This House and this Government could at a stroke tomorrow cut taxes, abolish national labour laws that they do not like and do whatever they think might turn this situation around. I gently suggest that perhaps it is the economic management that needs to be looked at.
I want to address the fundamental point that was made by the hon. Member for Stone and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who has left her place. Should this democracy be based on plebiscites and referendums, or on the authority of this House? In recent days, the issue that the people of Britain have been in touch with me about is the selling off of Sherwood forest, our woods and our free forest lands to private interests. Perhaps I would like to respond to them by saying, “Let there be a referendum on this issue.” Previously, the issue about which people were in touch with me was the tripling of student fees, on which one of the coalition parties broke, in the most fundamental and flagrant way, a solemn promise that it had made and signed in public. We have no mechanism to have a referendum on that matter. I could also mention the education maintenance allowance.
Mr Lidington
This has been a passionate debate. Although I am unable to accept new clause 11 on behalf of the Government, I admire the integrity, commitment and, as others have said, the parliamentary ingenuity, of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). As befits somebody who is assiduous in his attendance and fierce in his affection for, and loyalty to, the House of Commons as an institution, he has gone through the rule book and explored parliamentary procedure to ensure that an issue about which he cares so strongly has ample time for debate on the Floor of the Committee.
I want to do my hon. Friend justice by responding in detail on his proposal on its merits. The difficulty is not simply that new clause 11 seeks to do something that is not within the scope of the Bill as the Government have framed it, but that it raises a number of important political questions.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
You are correct, Mr Bone, that for a new clause to be selected, it must be in order. The Minister probably did not quite mean what he said.
Mr Lidington
I qualified my statement, Ms Primarolo, by saying, “as the Government have framed the Bill”. The intended purpose of the Bill is to provide both additional parliamentary scrutiny and the ultimate sanction of a public referendum on decisions that would transfer powers and competences from this country to the EU. The Government’s purpose was not to provide for the sort of additional referendum that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough seeks. It is indeed a tribute to his parliamentary skill that he has found a way, within order, to seek to address that issue.
The Second Deputy Chairman
Good say, Minister. The proposed new clause is in order. Whether the Government actually like it or think that it should be in the Bill is the purpose of this debate. I think we have clarified that now.
Mr Lidington
I am perfectly happy to abide by your ruling on that, Ms Primarolo.
Mr David
I do not wish to intrude upon private grief among Conservative Members, but I agree with you absolutely, Ms Primarolo, and you are absolutely correct that there is no question of the proposal being out of order.
The Minister gave a very interesting summation of the Bill, but he did not mention one crucial aspect of it. He did not say that referendums will not apply in this Parliament.
Mr Lidington
Assuming that the Bill gains parliamentary approval and Royal Assent in the normal way, it will apply during this Parliament from the time when it comes into effect. As I said earlier today, one illustration of that is that the treaty change proposed by Germany and being taken through EU institutions at the moment will have to be ratified by primary legislation rather than simply by a resolution of both Houses, as would be the case under the current legislation, which was introduced by the previous Government in 2008. What distinguishes this Parliament is that the Government have said, as part of their coalition agreement, that we do not intend to agree at European level to any proposal to amend the treaties or invoke passarelle clauses that would require a referendum under the terms of the legislation that we have been debating for a numbers of days now.
The referendums authorised under the Bill are intended to be final decisions. They will give people the opportunity to judge whether a particular proposal to give new powers to the European Union is in the national interest. One of the things that is troubling about the new clause is that it implicitly assumes that those who vote no to a particular proposition also want to challenge the UK’s membership of the EU, but I do not think that that can be taken for granted. As other hon. Members have said, there is a risk that some people could be influenced in how they vote on the substance of a proposal by a calculation of whether it would be likely to produce the end result of an in/out referendum. Such electors might take into account his or her views on the in/out proposal and not just the pros and cons of the measure on which they are being invited to cast a vote.
I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough overlooks the problem of a possible succession of referendums on Britain’s membership of the EU. It is possible to imagine that under a future Government—not this one—referendums on moving to qualified majority voting for common foreign and security policy and on joining the euro might be scheduled for two successive years. The new clause would leave open the possibility of an in/out referendum after one—or, indeed, both—of those referendums, because under his new clause a rejection of the first proposition would trigger an in/out referendum, which might result in the public deciding to stay in the EU. A second referendum on a treaty change might come forward 12 months later and also be rejected, and then, in the course of less than a year, we would find ourselves with two successive referendums on the UK’s membership of the EU. That is not a sensible way in which to conduct our relationship with the countries of the EU.
Nor does the new clause address what would happen if there were two questions on a ballot paper in one day, which we debated earlier. Why should a positive vote for one treaty change proposition and a negative vote for a second trigger a referendum? One cannot read into how people cast their votes on treaty change proposals what their view would be of the desirability of a referendum on membership. More fundamentally, however, the new clause does not capture the range of opinions held by the British people. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), whom I completely respect on these matters, said that she wanted people to be able to express a view on the direction that the EU was taking. However, that is not what people are being offered through the new clause, of course. They are being offered the opportunity not to express their view on the direction of the EU, but to say whether the UK should remain a member.
Mr Lidington
Withdrawing from the European Union is not the only choice for people who are dissatisfied with the current arrangements. There are plenty of people around who want Britain to remain a member of the European Union, but to have certain powers currently exercised in Brussels repatriated to this country. After all, that was the combination of views expressed at the last general election in the Conservative party manifesto, which sought the repatriation of certain powers, but said:
“A Conservative government will play an active and energetic role in the European Union”.
Mr Bone
I am grateful for the Minister’s kind words at the beginning of his comments, and I am genuinely disappointed that the Government have not accepted my new clause, which would have moved things forward for this country. There is little between us on this issue, so it is a shame that the Minister could not accept the new clause. I will seek to divide the Committee because of what we have heard today. This has been a good debate; indeed, I am surprised that it took off. I was expecting the Division, if we were going to have one, at about 6.30 pm, so at this appropriate juncture I again thank the Whips for arranging for this debate to take place and for allowing so much time. If it had not been for their help last Monday, that would not have happened.
We have heard from a number of hon. and right hon. Members. Let me deal first with the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who both made their points powerfully. I disagreed with them, and I entirely hope that they are not in the same Lobby as I am when the Division occurs. Right at the beginning of the debate—it is some time ago now—we heard a powerful and thoughtful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who set the tone for the proceedings. We also heard a good speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), whose remarks cheered me up enormously.
The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is always worth listening to, and again he did not fail the Committee this evening. He took a principled view—he is greatly in favour of the European Union—that we should have an in/out referendum. An equally able parliamentarian, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), took exactly the same view that we should have a referendum, but a completely different view on whether we should be in the European Union.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) took the opposite view to that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, but I think that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset expressed the most important concern in his thoughtful speech. I disagree with his conclusion that the new clause would be more likely to lead to a transfer of powers, but the issue, as developed in today’s debate, has not mainly been about that technicality, but about whether we support an in/out referendum. If hon. Members support such a referendum, I urge them to vote for new clause 11.
Once again, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) made a remarkable speech. The particular point I took from what she said was that an in/out referendum would revitalise politics. As she rightly said, there would be public meetings up and down the country and the people would be involved in the issue again.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) kept the flag flying yet again, as he has done over the years. His speech went to the heart of the issue, but I will reserve my last comment for my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who has fought and fought again on this issue over many years. He summed it up very nicely when he explained that this is not an “in/out” referendum, but a “To be or not to be?” referendum. Are we to be or not to be a democratic nation state?
I urge all Members to make up their minds on the basis of whether they are for or against an in/out referendum. If they are for it, I urge them to vote for new clause 11. I also urge the Whips to allow this to happen, as promised in our manifesto.
Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the course of the last hour, President Mubarak has announced that he will not seek re-election as the President of Egypt—the culmination, but probably not the end, of the remarkable events of the last few days. Have you received any request from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, or indeed from any other Foreign Office Minister, to make a statement about the consequences of that decision, which will undoubtedly have an impact on British policy towards Egypt, and almost certainly on Britain’s policy towards the middle east region?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving me notice of that point of order. I have not received notification this evening of any intention to make a statement but I know that all Members of the House, as others, have been following this very closely and I am sure that those on the Government Benches have heard his comments this evening.
Business without Debate
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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European union document
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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petition
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Will hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and as quickly as possible?
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I have pleasure in presenting the petition of my constituent, Mr Paul Francis Dodd.
The petition states:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
The Humble Petition of Mr. Paul Francis Dodd,
Sheweth, that the Petitioner believes that the Government’s recent announcement regarding Child Benefit is unfair; that the Petitioner is a married man with a daughter aged 2 years; whose salary is £44,500 p.a., which is just inside the threshold for a higher rate tax payer; that the Petitioner’s wife gave up work to look after their daughter and has no income; and that from 2013 the Petitioner and his wife will not be entitled to receive Child Benefit.
Sheweth, that the petitioner believes that the Government’s proposals have two flaws; that a family with both parents earning a salary less than the higher-rate tax threshold, which could total around £88,000, will continue to receive the benefit; and that, if both parents earn a salary that is half that earned by the petitioner, £22,250, not only will they continue to receive the benefit, but they also receive two tax-free allowances for their salaries.
Sheweth, that the petitioner believes that revisions are necessary to the Child Benefit system; that the family income should be taken into account, not just the income of one of the individuals in a family; that the petitioner recognises that this is expensive, but he believes that it is the fairest way to judge a family’s income and hence its needs for benefit; that, if this is not possible, then a gradual phasing out of the benefit for earners over the higher rate tax threshold would be very easy to implement; that it would be easy to reduce Child Benefit by one percentage point for every £1,000 earned over the higher rate tax threshold; that this would still leave a majority of the benefit for those earners, such as the petitioner, who only just enter this limit; and that it would also remove Child Benefit for those who earn over £144,000.
Wherefore your petitioner prays that your honourable House urges the Government to review its policy on Child Benefit.
And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
[P000882]
Post-16 Students
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
When the Secretary of State for Education gave evidence to the Select Committee before Christmas, he confessed that the funding of post-16 education is even more mystifying and complicated than that of the rest of the education service. As a sixth-form college principal until I became an MP at the last election, I am, however, a bit of an anorak about the funding of 16 to 19-year-olds’ education, so I am afraid that some of what I have to say is a bit technical. Former colleagues have contacted me concerned about the proposals coming out of the Young People’s Learning Agency that landed in colleges just before Christmas—an interesting Christmas card, some might say, but it suggested a not so happy new year for post-16 students.
I understand that the Department for Education has agreed provisional budget figures with the Treasury for the next four years but has not yet published them. It looks as though the total budget for education and apprenticeships will rise by 1% over the next four years, partly to provide funding for an extra 68,000 places, or 4% growth in the number of post-16 students. The YPLA is proposing a cut in entitlement funding from 114 guided learning hours to 30 guided learning hours. Guided learning hours are what YPLA funding buys. This represents a 75% cut in entitlement, which will translate into a 12% cut in overall funding for sixth-form colleges, and a significant cut for general further education colleges and school sixth forms. Sixth-form colleges are particularly affected because they concentrate almost solely on 16 to 19-year-old learners.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that places such as Nottingham, where a high proportion of learners study in colleges rather than in school sixth forms, will be particularly hard hit by these changes?
Nic Dakin
That could turn out to be the case, as the changes happen. One of the problems is that the YPLA has not yet made clear what all the impacts of the changes in funding will be. There is therefore a little bit of hope that this might not happen, and I am sure that the Minister will address that point in his response.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
In Brighton, we have three sixth-form colleges, each of which faces a cut of at least 12% over the next four years as a result of the cuts to entitlement funding. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, once inflation and VAT have been factored in, we could be looking at funding cuts of up to 20% by 2014-15, which really is a burden too hard to bear?
Nic Dakin
That is the worry. Such figures are floating around in the sector, and they are very disturbing, as the hon. Lady rightly says.
Entitlement funding currently provides the money for, among other things, tutorial and guidance systems in colleges, careers support, some targeted support for weaker learners, and health advice. It also pays for those non-examined activities such as sport, drama, music, volunteering and vocational experiences, which broaden the educational experience of young people.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I would like to raise the case of a student called Georgia, who is studying at Alton college in my constituency. As a result of the guided learning hours, she has had the opportunity to study creative writing and poetry, as well as something called “applying to competitive courses”. She has also received one-to-one coaching for her Oxbridge entrance. As a result, she now has an offer from Girton college, Cambridge. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that part of the whole picture involves trying to find the money to fund the young person’s premium, which is analogous to the pupil premium. I am sure that that is something that we would all applaud, but is it not also important always to find space in the curriculum, and in the funding, for these enrichment activities that can put state-educated children on an equal footing with privately educated children, and that those activities receive the priority that they deserve?
Nic Dakin
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, drawing on a clear case study from Alton college, an excellent college in his constituency. He makes the point that it is crucial to strike the right balance and ensure that colleges can continue their excellent work in developing the whole person and allowing young people from a state education background to access the best universities. Alton, and other colleges up and down the land, have done this very well over the years. He also draws attention to what is happening to the money for disadvantaged students, which it appears is being creamed off. It is not yet clear how it will be distributed, and that is at the heart of this issue.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
A friend of mine who used to teach at a college in my hon. Friend’s constituency told me of my hon. Friend’s fine reputation in his previous role. My hon. Friend was talking about the funding cuts for 16 to 18-year-olds. I have here a note from the principal of Hugh Baird college in Sefton, who tells me:
“The very significant cut in entitlement funding for 16-18 year olds will make it a real challenge for many colleges…to give learners the excellent pastoral support, the personal and social responsibility and employability skills which they deserve and need to positively contribute to the economic recovery and society in general.”
Would my hon. Friend care to comment on that information?
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend makes a clear and cogent point and draws on another case study from another very good college, this time in his constituency. In many ways he makes the same point as the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) about how entitlement funding helps to develop the whole person and is crucial to the thrust of our education service and to what colleges have done so well for so many years.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
May I reinforce the point made in the two previous interventions and speak about social mobility? When I discuss the issue with the principals of Darlington college and Queen Elizabeth sixth-form college in Darlington, they say that although they are getting better and better at producing the right grades to get their students into good jobs and good universities, their students are still unable to access the same opportunities as other young people because they do not have some of the softer skills and wider experiences in life that young people from different backgrounds have been able to access as a result of their family’s income. It is so important that our colleges are able to give young people those opportunities and experiences while they are at college.
Nic Dakin
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She mentions two more very good colleges, both in her constituency. The point that she makes about social mobility builds on the points made earlier by the hon. Member for East Hampshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). What entitlement funding has done so well is provide experiences that enrich and expand young people’s experiences so that they gain greater confidence and are able to aspire to go on to greater things. The education system post-16, building on the building blocks of the pre-16 experience, has done that so well over recent years. The proposed cuts to entitlement funding call into question colleges’ ability to maintain that momentum.
At the same time as entitlement funding has been cut by 12%, the maximum funding for each student has been reduced from 787 hours, or 1.75 standard learner numbers, in the jargon of post-16 funding, to 702 hours, or 1.56 standard learner numbers. That is a 10% reduction in that part of the funding formula. I warned hon. Members that the debate would get rather technical at certain points.
Some of the money saved by these measures will be returned to colleges and schools with higher numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with low entry qualifications, but details are not yet available of how the £150 million of disadvantaged funding will work. As the hon. Member for East Hampshire said, the lack of clarity and lack of understanding are causing concern in the sector. Those in the sector understand what is going, but they cannot see what might be coming back into the picture.
Transitional funding, which is being put in place to dampen the effect of the cut in entitlement funding, means that the maximum cut in funding per student next year will be 3%, but there is a lack of clarity about how this funding cut will be profiled in future. Many college principals are working on the assumption of a 3% cut each year for the next four years. Many are drawing up radical proposals to address the shortfall, which might be disastrous for the student experience and result in job losses in the sector.
Many colleges are telling me that if the cuts go ahead, they are likely to lead to a severe reduction in the amount of tutorial, guidance and enrichment available. That will probably be reduced to less than an hour’s tutorial session a week for students, and nothing else will be able to be resourced. Colleges will be in danger of becoming nothing more than exam factories, unable to spend time on developing the whole student, a job that they are recognised as doing extremely well at present. Interventions from Members on both sides of the House tonight have evidenced the effectiveness of the job that our colleagues in the post-16 education system are doing on behalf of those students who, after all, are our future and the country’s future.
It is likely that providers will now struggle to offer a broad range of extra-curricular activities that have for so long been a key characteristic of sixth-form education. Team sport, orchestras, drama productions, sign language, community volunteering, rocket science and magazine editing will all be put at risk.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that these cuts will be compounded by cuts to youth services, so opportunities for positive activities for young people without means will be cut off completely?
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend makes a good point. What is happening in education should be put in the context of what is happening in services available for young people outside the classroom. I fear that without the provision of culture and sport in post-16 education, students will access these pursuits only if they or their parents can pay for them. That is the danger, and my hon. Friend emphasises that by drawing attention to the pressures on youth services at this time as well.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that colleges such as those in my constituency, Winstanley and Wigan and Leigh, might find the excellent links they have developed with employers jeopardised by the lack of funding and the lack of ability to send students out on visits, work experience and day trips to try some employment? In an area of high unemployment such as Wigan, those are particularly vital.
Nic Dakin
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Colleges are resilient and imaginative places, and I am sure that they will work hard to ensure that those student experiences are maintained. However, she is right that some of the funding for those activities comes from entitlement funding and that, if it is being cut by 75%, there is a need to square the circle, so colleges will need to look at ways of doing that. That might mean that class sizes rise or that there are other impacts on the system. However, she is right to emphasise the importance of vocational experience, sometimes quite short bursts of vocational experience within a package of learning as well as fuller training directly in the workplace, which will continue to be fully and properly resourced.
The size of the cut is unfair in comparison with the cut in funding per learner in primary and secondary education. It is also quite amazing that sixth-form colleges, rightly applauded by the Secretary of State and widely recognised as one of the most efficient parts of the education system, should be hit so badly. Surely that is an unintended consequence of a change in policy.
Will the Minister look again at the potentially very disruptive impact of the change to entitlement funding on different types of post-16 providers and consider ways of mitigating any unintended consequences? Will he provide information very soon on how much disadvantage funding will be allocated to each post-16 provider? Will he meet me and a group of college principals so that he can better understand the impact of the changes on those at the sharp end of understanding what is going on?
Finally, and slightly tongue in cheek, although I would welcome a positive answer, if he wishes to witness at first hand the excellence that the current arrangements resource, he might join me for John Leggott’s spring concert on 5 April to experience one example of what we have at the moment and what these changes might put in jeopardy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing not only the debate but an audience, which is unusual at this time in the House’s proceedings. I apologise that the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who has responsibility for schools, is not responding to the debate, as would normally be the case. He is rather involved with the Education Bill at present, but I hope that I will be something of a second-best.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Member for Scunthorpe started his speech by openly and freely admitting that he was something of an anorak on the subject of 16 to 19-year-old education funding in this country, but I cannot admit to being even a cagoule in that respect. I will therefore take away his more technical questions and ensure that he receives a more detailed and considered answer from colleagues elsewhere in the Department—part of this is rocket science, as he said.
I also pay tribute to the many staff who are in the position he was in before bringing his great practical expertise to the House. There are many people involved in education in this area who do an excellent job up and down the country in difficult circumstances, as we all acknowledge, and play their part in the essential crusade to upskill young people leaving education for the increasingly competitive employment environment that they face.
I appreciate many of the concerns that Members on both sides of the House raised during what has been a good and rather more inclusive debate than is normal in Adjournment debates. The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) made a good point about the softer skills that are also important in educational experience, which we want to ensure are not lost. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe talked about the effect of enrichment skills on expanding the range of knowledge and confidence of young people. He also acknowledged that money will be returned to colleges to target disadvantaged students, a point to which I will return.
The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), slightly predictably, raised the subject of youth services, in which she is something of an expert—she is making sure that the House is in no doubt of the fact. She knows that the subject is within my brief and that we will be having discussions on it soon, so there are various things that I will be able to discuss with her then. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) rightly mentioned the effect on high unemployment areas.
I will refer first to the spending review, which is the basis of the hon. Gentleman’s concern in bringing the subject to the House’s attention. I entirely appreciate the concerns about the current inevitable uncertainty, and we will seek to address that and produce clarity as soon as possible.
Bill Esterson
The Minister mentioned concern, so perhaps I can remind him of the concern that the cut we are discussing will have a combined effect with a number of other cuts. The cuts to college and sixth-form funding, when added to cuts to university funding and education maintenance allowance and the trebling of tuition fees, means that there is huge concern, particularly among students from less well-off families, about the ability to go into higher education at all. Will he respond to that point in his remarks on the spending review?
Tim Loughton
I am sure that I will respond when I get beyond the first paragraph of my comments. We are here to talk about a specific aspect of education, and as with the Secretary of State’s approach in all other aspects of education, particularly at this time of scarce resources, we are determined to concentrate as much as possible on the disadvantaged and close the achievement gap, which has widened too far, and for too long. We have to have that particular focus—it is why we have come forward with the pupil premium and other particularly well targeted schemes—to ensure that those who are left behind or need extra support have a chance to be on a level playing field with other students. I shall comment on that in a moment.
In the spending review, we had three priorities: protecting schools funding; early years; and ensuring that by 2015 every young person can continue in high-quality education and training, so that they are better prepared for the world of work or for university. The latter has not necessarily received the attention that it deserves.
We are spending more than £7.6 billion in 2011-12, a 1.5% cash increase over 2010-11, so that—
Margot James
The Minister refers to a 1.5% increase in funding. Both colleges—the further education college and the sixth-form college—in my constituency place great store by enrichment activities, such as music and other absolutely vital elements of a rounded education. Is it not the case that colleges are to have greater freedom over how they spend their income in future years? Can he see any reason why they will not be able to use some of the increased spending to fund the much-needed enrichment programmes that everyone in the House is so keen to see continue?
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend is right to point that out, and again I shall come on to some comments in that vein.
Coupled with a focus on targeting the most disadvantaged and helping to close that gap is a Government priority to devolve greater powers, autonomy and freedoms to educational institutions at all levels—to ensure that principals, heads, teachers and governors are freed from so much of the prescription, bureaucracy and targets that went before, so that they can make the most appropriate decisions for their local student community. They, surely, are the people best placed to make those decisions. If it means concentrating more on enrichment activities, albeit with a tighter financial settlement, we must leave it to the judgment of those principals and others to make such decisions at the sharp end. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue.
So, we are spending an extra 1.5% cash over 2010-11, so that a record 1.62 billion young people can have a place—[Interruption.] Sorry, I think that should say “million”. We are not quite China yet. Teenage pregnancy is part of my brief, but we have not quite reached that point.
Anyway, we are spending an extra 1.5% cash over 2010-11, so that a record 1.62 million young people can have a place in education and training. That is 23,000 more places than in the current academic year. Within that total, we are increasing the proportion of funds directed at young people facing disadvantage and deprivation in order to help schools and colleges attract and retain those 16 and 17-year-olds who currently do not participate in education and training at all. We are also increasing the amount spent on foundation learning, so that those young people who were failed by the previous Government’s school policies, which pumped in billions but still left many at 16 without the skills they needed to progress, can access the courses that suit their needs.
To do that, however, we have to take account of the economic situation. There is no getting away from that. Every decision that the coalition Government take is made against the backdrop of the difficult economic position that we inherited. Although Opposition Members would like to put those uncomfortable facts to one side, those of us in government have to deal with them, recognising that decisions on schools and colleges throughout the country need to take account of the dire position of public finances.
The enormous interest charges we are paying on our national debt, now standing at £120 million per day, mean that we spend more on servicing that debt than on all our schools and colleges put together, and that just cannot go on. Unless we bring the deficit under control, future funding for this critical phase of education will be endangered and future generations will suffer the consequences. That means we have to ensure that every penny we spend on 16-to-19 education and training brings real benefits to the learner, helps those who need help most and ensures young people are educated to higher levels than now.
We took the decision to reduce the requirement for enrichment activities for two reasons. The Government’s first priority is to protect the core education programmes offered by schools and colleges—the whole range of courses, including A-levels, vocational qualifications and apprenticeships. It is this core that delivers the real benefits to all young people and enables them to progress successfully into higher education or employment. That is not to say that I regard the enrichment activities that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe has so eloquently praised as unimportant—far from it.
Nic Dakin
I hear what the Minister says. In some ways, it is sadly predictable in so far as it suggests that there has not really been a proper understanding of what is happening on the ground, where there is genuine concern about the impact of the cuts, which could be quite difficult. Pastoral support and guidance is part of the entitlement funding, and that is very much part of the core of the education system as it stands.
Tim Loughton
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but he must understand that we have had to make these difficult choices. In an ideal world and an ideal economy, we would be able to service and finance a full academic and enrichment programme and the complementary aspects that much of that brings, but we do not have the luxury of that choice at the moment. As I have said, I am not in any way trying to undermine the importance of some of the things that he has suggested. The chess clubs, the debating societies, the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme, and many of the things that went on in his own college are indeed important. But at a time when we want to maximise participation by all 16 and 17-year-olds, alongside a need to respond to extremely difficult economic circumstances, providing a funding entitlement to those activities to all full-time learners cannot be a priority.
Damian Hinds
In acknowledging, as I think everybody does, that in this very difficult financial situation economies have to be found, does my hon. Friend agree that the conversation could be broadened to address some other elements? We could look at some of the cost drivers and things that go on in sixth forms today that did not take place when any of us were there—for example, the number of exams that students do and the growth trend in the number of one-year-only AS-level courses. I am not saying that I have a recommendation to make, but merely suggesting that some of these things could be part of the discussion about where to find economies.
Tim Loughton
I am happy to pass on those comments. Obviously, more detail will come out in the proposals. As a priority, we must equip the students going through this part of the educational process with the skills, qualifications and educational know-how that they need to go out and compete in the big wide world. These will be decisions for heads and principals to make at the sharp end.
I accept that tutorial provision for all is important, and that is why we have protected that, as far as possible, but at a time when we need to ensure that our funding of 16-to-19 learners is as effective as can be, we have to focus funding on those who need additional support. That is why—the hon. Member for Scunthorpe mentioned this—we have recycled the savings into areas of a higher priority where we know that more needs to be done.
Our second priority is to increase support for the most disadvantaged and less able young people; I alluded to this earlier. Only about a quarter of young people on free school meals in year 11 get the equivalent of two A-levels by the age of 19—half the level of those who are not on free school meals. I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s excellent track record while he was principal of John Leggott sixth form college. Perhaps I could now politely turn down, while very much thanking him for it, his invitation to the spring concert at John Leggott college at Easter. If I can possibly go the following year, I will endeavour to do so, if it is still going by then. I am sure it will be all the better without me.
To be serious, I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s excellent track record while he was principal of that sixth-form college in raising the aspirations and attainment of disadvantaged learners. I am sure he will agree that that is a key priority for the available funding. If he is looking for takers for concert tickets, I am sure that the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)—one of the old rockers in the House—will endeavour to go along and bring great gaiety of the proceedings, as he always does to proceedings in this House.
We are replacing what we see as the inefficient EMA programme with a new discretionary learner support fund to focus resources on those in real financial hardship and to ensure that no learner is prevented from staying in education as a result of their financial situation. That is also why we are increasing the amount of 16-to-19 funding for those learners from 2011-12. Funds will be increased by more than a third to £770 million. We will not dictate to schools and colleges how they should use that funding. They know best how to attract and provide for disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-old learners. However, I would expect some of the funding to be spent on the activities previously funded under enrichment, but targeted specifically at the learners. That relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds).
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The Minister is right to comment on the record of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) at John Leggott sixth form college. On the issue of EMA funding, will protections be put in place to ensure that when colleges are near to each other and are in competition, the discretionary learner fund is not used as a way of recruiting students to a particular college, and that it is genuinely used for the students and young people who need it?
Tim Loughton
That is a very good point, and it will certainly be taken into consideration. I will pass those comments on to the Minister of State. We have to add such practical considerations to the mix as the proposals are rolled out.
For future years, we have said that we will consult on a review of the funding formula with a view to operating a young person’s premium to support attainment by the most disadvantaged students. The coalition Government’s determination to close the attainment gap between those from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds lies at the heart of the radical reforms we are introducing to ensure that young people reach adulthood with the knowledge and aptitudes needed to lead rewarding and successful lives.
Bill Esterson
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. In quoting the principal of Hugh Baird college, I mentioned employability skills. The Minister has touched on the preparation of young people for leaving education. With youth unemployment hitting a million, that is a key challenge for the Government and for colleges. I urge him to ensure that, whatever changes are made, the issue of employability skills, which was covered under the entitlement fund, is taken on board. I accept his point about targeting learners from the most deprived backgrounds, but very often people are missed by such approaches. A wider group of young people is affected, as was the case with the withdrawal of EMA.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Employability skills are an important complement to qualifications. In this increasingly competitive world, with the concerningly high levels of youth unemployment, we must ensure that every possible tool is available to young people to make themselves employable in the work force, for example in areas where we have requirements in the current highly competitive global trading environment.
Attainment at 16 is the strongest predictor of participation and achievement beyond that age. That is why we set out a clear programme of reform in the schools White Paper that is intended to raise standards so that by age 16, all young people have the basics they need to go on to further education and training. We know that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are least likely to participate post-16, as Members have said. That is why we are focusing additional support on them, to ensure that they make the progress needed to go on to further learning. The pupil premium will target extra funding to the most deprived pupils, to better ensure that they reach the critical transition at age 16 with the knowledge, aptitude and attitude to go on to even higher success.
The hon. Member for Scunthorpe asked me a couple of specific questions, one of which was on when the allocations will be made. Individual institutions will get the details of their allocations by the end of March. If we can make it sooner, we will, to address the issue of clarity, which he rightly mentioned. He asked whether we would look again at the disruptive impact there can be on different groups of post-16 students, and I shall pass on his comments. He also asked whether I would meet him and a delegation to discuss these matters. I am absolutely delighted, on behalf of the Minister of State, to offer him that very meeting with the person most appropriate to take on board his views and appreciate the comments that he will make. I will ensure that my hon. Friend’s office gets in touch with him very soon.
We are committed to full participation for 16 and 17-year-olds, but because of the financial constraints in which we find ourselves, we have had to make difficult decisions to deliver on the priorities. We might not have made some of those decisions had the financial position been better, and they have not been easy, but they have been made with the principles that I have set out in mind—focusing support on the most disadvantaged, addressing the attainment gap and giving greater autonomy, control and freedom back to people who run institutions at the sharp end.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I am in some ways an observer in the debate, and I have been listening with great care. It seems to me that there is a risk that in concentrating on the most deprived, we will take away from the next group up. Many of the additional features in the education system are important if we want to see more young people equipped to go to university, as I think the Government do. People from that next group up will be missing the skills and so on that those from private schools have, so is it really better to help the deprived at the cost of another group of people who also need help if we are to close the gap to university entrance?
Tim Loughton
I think the hon. Lady appreciates that one cannot get a quart out of a pint pot, and that is the dilemma in which we find ourselves. For too many years, the biggest scandal in educational achievement at all levels has been that the most disadvantaged, measured as those who have free school meals, have seen the achievement gap widen. They have not had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field and achieve aspirations that many people take for granted. That is not fair, it is not sustainable and it will not be tolerated under this Government.
That is why it is morally right, and the most practical way forward, to ensure that we target as much help as possible on particularly disadvantaged students at all levels. That will mean that everybody else has to share some pain, and ideally that would not have to happen. However, if it is a question of priorities, I want disadvantaged students to get the extra leg-up and extra support that, too often, they cannot provide for themselves. The Government, the Department and the House have a duty of care to ensure that that extra help is available.
The Government have shown that they have the mettle to make the difficult decisions. These are going to be turbulent times, but the Government also have the nous to shift funding from lower-priority areas to where it is genuinely needed. I thank the hon. Member for Scunthorpe for bringing the debate before us this evening and for making his comments in a measured and well-informed, albeit anoraky way. This is a matter of great concern to him and all hon. Members, whether they have further education sixth forms in their constituencies or constituents who use neighbouring ones. We will endeavour to monitor the impact of the changes, particularly on the most disadvantaged, and ensure that we get the best bang for our buck and make the very best impact on those who need it most.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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NHS: Negligence
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Andrew Turner
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the NHS has paid to patients in ex-gratia payments to avoid ligation proceedings in each of the last three years.
[Official Report, 18 January 2011, Vol. 521, c. 732-33W.]
Letter of correction from Mr Simon Burns:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) on 18 January 2011. Unfortunately two of the figures in the table were incorrect.
The answer given was as follows:
Mr Simon Burns
HM Treasury consider ex-gratia payments to be a form of special payment. HM Treasury’s definition includes personal injury claims that are settled out of court. Information about local ex-gratia payments made by the national health service to patients to avoid litigation is not held centrally. Local NHS bodies record ‘losses and special payments’ in their consolidated accounts and these will include all ex-gratia payments, not just those paid to patients or to avoid litigation.
The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) records data held centrally specifically on ex-gratia payments made for clinical, employer and public liability claims settled out of court. As the NHSLA settles the vast majority of its claims this way, they fall under HM Treasury’s definition of ex-gratia. Data provided by the NHSLA will cover payments to patients, although some will be made to families/dependants, employees and visitors.
Data on actual payments made each year can be provided only at disproportionate cost. The NHSLA has therefore supplied data in the following table which shows the total amount of damages paid on claims settled out of court where the claim was closed between 2007-10. It should be noted that some actual payments for these claims may have been made in earlier years to when the claim was closed.
Clinical liability | Employer and public liability | Total amount paid | |
|---|---|---|---|
2007-08 | 225,023,267 | 22,257,496 | 247,280,762 |
2008-09 | 196,195,332 | 23,323,690 | 219,519,022 |
2009-10 | 230,996,377 | 20,312,554 | 466,799,784 |
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Simon Burns
HM Treasury consider ex-gratia payments to be a form of special payment. HM Treasury’s definition includes personal injury claims that are settled out of court. Information about local ex-gratia payments made by the national health service to patients to avoid litigation is not held centrally. Local NHS bodies record ‘losses and special payments’ in their consolidated accounts and these will include all ex-gratia payments, not just those paid to patients or to avoid litigation.
The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) records data held centrally specifically on ex-gratia payments made for clinical, employer and public liability claims settled out of court. As the NHSLA settles the vast majority of its claims this way, they fall under HM Treasury’s definition of ex-gratia. Data provided by the NHSLA will cover payments to patients, although some will be made to families/dependants, employees and visitors.
Data on actual payments made each year can be provided only at disproportionate cost. The NHSLA has therefore supplied data in the following table which shows the total amount of damages paid on claims settled out of court where the claim was closed between 2007-10. It should be noted that some actual payments for these claims may have been made in earlier years to when the claim was closed.
Clinical liability | Employer and public liability | Total amount paid | |
|---|---|---|---|
2007-08 | 225,023,267 | 22,257,496 | 247,280,763 |
2008-09 | 196,195,332 | 23,323,690 | 219,519,022 |
2009-10 | 230,996,377 | 20,312,554 | 251,308,931 |
Petition
Branfil Primary School (Upminster)
Westminster Hall
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
School Governance
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to introduce a debate, which I believe is timely, on school governance. School administration faces radical reform. More schools are becoming academies, maintained schools face the prospect of changes in local authority control and free schools are on the agenda. In my opinion, the role of governors and governing bodies has never been more important. Apart from reforms resulting from changes made by successive Governments over the past 30 years, the system has not really changed for many more years than that.
The current system can best be described as committee-based. It involves volunteers coming together at various times during the school year. Gatherings of the full governing body, which is normally about 20 people, are often less well attended, and the committee structure is designed around the various disciplines that school leadership teams feel should be addressed.
I am happy to say that the model is not prescriptive. Each school has the freedom to set its own committee structure. For example, Ridgeway school at Wroughton in my constituency, where I served as governor for four years until the end of 2009, had what can best be described as a typical committee structure. We had a committee to deal with the curriculum, a committee to deal with student matters and a committee to deal with finance and premises—the traditional division of work. However, despite the excellent work done by school governors, despite the fact that more than 300,000 admirable volunteers serve as school governors, and despite what they do to support head teachers, staff and the wider community, I believe that more can be done to improve the effectiveness of their work.
I am not the only one to say that. Head teachers and governors whom I know and respect, along with national organisations, are making similar representations to the Government. I am delighted that, under the White Paper process, the Government are committed to reviewing the efficiency of governing bodies and to working with organisations and schools to improve things. I welcome that, and today’s debate gives the Minister the opportunity to put some more flesh on the bones of that valuable commitment.
I say that the debate is timely because, under the previous Government, and despite a promising start, two years were lost during which there was much debate and discussion about the role of governing bodies. The former schools Minister, now Lord Knight, started that valuable work in 2008, but it was not until the eve of the general election that a report was published. I welcomed that report; it contained much that was positive, and I am sure that the Government will bear it very much in mind when building upon it.
I pay tribute to the work of governors, and particularly to the chairs of governing bodies. They are entrusted with huge responsibility, and it is all done voluntarily. With good practice, they work closely with head teachers and senior leadership teams. They are regularly in and out of their schools, and they help set the school strategy. However, like it or not, I increasingly feel that governing bodies have split into two tiers. The inner tier of governors has the time and wherewithal to become involved in the strategic management of the school; the outer tier does much of the monitoring work: going to the school, meeting the teachers, getting to know the link subjects and following things up excellently, but I believe that we now have a spilt between those two roles.
Those two roles are the essential tasks of a governing body. They help set the strategy, aims and objectives, policies and outcomes of a school, and they monitor and evaluate progress in achieving those things. I am not talking about the crossover between operational work and strategy. I readily accept that governors do not and cannot have a role in the day-to-day management of the school. That would trespass on the province of the professionals employed to do that job—I am sure that the professionals would echo that. However, if the role of governors is to become more pivotal, more work has to be done to focus their energy, talent and time on the two tasks that I have set out.
Time is a valuable commodity. It is given freely by governors. I hate to think of them spending their time at long and unproductive meetings, feeling that nothing much has been achieved. I do not say that that is universally the case, but I would be telling an untruth if I said that there were not times during my service as a governor in various schools when I came away from rather long meetings feeling frustrated.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this excellent debate. Between us, we represent the two halves of Swindon, so I am sure that we must often have spoken to the same people. Indeed, one governor to whom I have spoken supports what my hon. Friend says. I sum it up by saying that they are money-rich but time-poor in middle England. That is one of the biggest challenges, given that we presume that some schools would be awash with potential school governors. I wonder whether my hon. Friend has heard that from other governors.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend is right to mention middle England. Like me, he represents a seat with a wide spectrum of social indices. We have schools in leafy suburbs, schools in challenging areas and schools with a large percentage of black and minority ethnics. Time is a precious commodity wherever one lives, but energy is even more precious. It is incumbent on policy makers to lead the debate when it comes to focusing the valuable talents and energies of our school governors.
I mentioned earlier the frustrations that I felt about long and unproductive meetings, but those frustrations are often shared by head teachers. They spend a lot of time having to prepare long documents that are then read out to the governors. With the best will in the world, head teachers do not always have the time to do the important early pre-meeting circulation that can improve accountability. It is rather like a half-baked cake; it has good content, but it has not set in a way that makes it digestible. I am sorry to say that that experience is repeated throughout the country.
I do not criticise the entire system, nor do I criticise volunteering. I am entirely in favour of the system, but we must maintain the important principle at its heart. With a little adjustment here and there, and a little imagination, we could get it right. We should fit the system around the talents of the governors rather than trying to fit the governors into a rather tired and stale system. That is the essential point that I wish to make today.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I am fascinated by the idea of the half-baked cake, and where we are going with particular parts of it. May I raise the matter of special educational needs? My hon. Friend knows that I have experience in that field, and I am curious to know his view on it, and the interaction between what the headmaster and the governors are doing, on an ongoing basis.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend has a long history as a lawyer in dealing with SEN tribunal cases. He will know that my last role in my last school was to be the SEN link governor. Therein lies the essence of the dilemma often faced by governors. I was working with a dedicated and talented SENCO—a special educational needs co-ordinator—with years of experience. She would come to me with issues that sometimes strayed into operational areas. As the SEN link governor in a mainstream school, I felt that I had a duty to raise her concerns and to ensure that the issues of SEN and of those students who had statements or who were on a school action plan or school action plus were put centre stage of key strategic decisions.
One of the issues facing us was that the SENCO was not part of the senior leadership team. There was a champion for special needs—an assistant deputy head teacher who was a talented and able person—but it would have improved things if the SENCO had been part of the senior leadership team. That ties in with some of the suggestions made by the National Governors Association, which takes the view that there is no need for a SEN link governor because that work falls under operational matters. I hesitated when I read those observations, because making such a move is all very well, but unless the SENCO is at the heart of the leadership team, a link governor is necessary to represent the interests of not just the special needs staff, but the children with special needs and their parents.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) for his comments. It is important that we get down to detail when we consider that sometimes troubling division between setting strategy and operational matters. The same can be said about looked-after children. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who sadly cannot be with us today, is campaigning assiduously to ensure that the needs of looked-after children in mainstream schools are properly represented. He is championing the cause for a link governor for those children. I make exactly the same observation as I have with SEN. The matter can be dealt with if there is proper representation for looked-after children in the senior leadership team, with the deputy head teacher ensuring that their voice is heard and that their interests are taken into account.
I have talked about autonomy and the gradual decline in the role of local authorities, which places quite a significant role on governors. Many schools in my local area are considering academy status. Some have formally applied for it and others are considering it. Some schools are thinking about federation, which is a huge opportunity to enhance the strategic approach taken by the governing bodies. Moreover, it is an opportunity to enhance that division of work between strategy and monitoring.
With devolution of power to schools goes devolution of power within schools. That means that learning departments—whether English, maths or modern foreign languages—will have link governors to liaise with governors whose strategic role is to monitor the progress that each department is making. Many schools, including my own governing body, have such a system in place, but whether it is working as well as it could is another matter. If we accept the role of volunteers, we have to acknowledge that volunteers’ time will depend on the nature of their other commitments. That is why it is vital that we understand the principle of matching the talent to the available roles.
Some governors have particular expertise in procedures to do with exclusions and complaints, particularly those made by parents. An increasingly important part of the role of governors is dealing with complaints. The Government are doing all they can to simplify and rationalise the exclusion system. I know that they quite rightly view exclusions as a last resort. It is the last option for a head teacher, who will use it as their ultimate sanction when dealing with a particular issue in the school, and that is the right approach. However, it means that more emphasis will be placed on pre-exclusion work, and the role of governors in that regard will become more and more important.
Guy Opperman
In respect of exclusions, does my hon. Friend welcome the fact that we will be doing less work on a long-term basis on exclusion procedures because they will be simplified as we move forward?
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was putting it in a slightly more roundabout way. Although there will be less work on formal exclusion procedures, there will be a growth in other types of intervention, most notably in parental complaints. I know that every governing body will have a policy on complaints, but they must be assiduous in ensuring that those policies are comprehensive and understandable to the parents themselves.
I have used that example of special work as a way of engaging people in the community who have a talent, a training or an understanding of such principles but who may not have the time to commit to regular committee meetings. Although I do not want to see visitors coming into the school with no knowledge of the environment, people with specialist knowledge have an important role to play. If they get the training to deal with specific procedures, they can help out schools with particular challenges. One example is the big issue of finance that faces school governing bodies and head teachers. There is no doubt that the most onerous part of the duties of academies, free schools and maintained schools will be the maintenance of their budgets. It is already a big challenge for many schools. Some schools are getting it right; others are finding it more difficult. I am not casting aspersions on individual schools; I am simply stating a reality. Having spoken to many teachers and head teachers over the years, it is my understanding that they are always receptive and open to the sort of input that people with specialist financial training can provide. Although the Government are doing all they can to simplify financial structures, make financial information easier to understand and remove some of the labyrinthine documents that I have had to view over recent years in the context of SEN funding, I can see a key role for people with financial expertise in not just the strategic running of a school but in assisting head teachers and finance officers with the management of budgets.
Justin Tomlinson
Talking to school governors in my North Swindon constituency, I have found that many are attracted to the role because they are keen to get involved in operational issues, which they obviously cannot do. As governors who are either interested in or have the necessary skills to deal with the finance side are in chronically short supply, they often get put on to those committees and that drives them away. One of the biggest challenges is attracting people with the right skills, not necessarily parents, to come in and take that very important role in schools.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend has hit on a central issue in the debate on school governance—the balance between the need to have skills and the need to be representative of the wider community. The two are not mutually exclusive. Imaginative governing bodies—there are plenty out there—are striking that balance at the moment. Professionally skilled people who live in the local community, perhaps trained accountants, lawyers or doctors, can become partnership governors—if it is a foundation school—community governors or a representative of their local authority. We then balance them out with the parent governors, who play an important part in governing bodies. Indeed, some play a huge role in running their schools, which is welcome, but more can be done to engage the wider parental community. Loads of parents are out there who, because of their work and family commitments, do not have that precious commodity of time. However, if they were on a database of supporters, or friends, of the school, they would, I am sure, give what time they had on specific projects, such as enhancing the appearance of the school. They can be given something to match their own talents to enhance the life of the school. What better way of cementing the role of the school in the community than creating this wider support base?
Of course, with that support base comes the obvious imperative, which I know sensible governing bodies are addressing, of working with parent teacher associations and organisations that exist alongside them to help raise funds for various school projects. There needs to be a lot more constructive thought about how we involve the wider community in our schools. With the end of the centralised role of local authorities, that imperative for schools to look outwards as well as inwards has never been more important.
It is said that every governing body is only as good as its clerk. Again, all of us in this room and others elsewhere will have known some experienced and hard-working governing body clerks. We must not forget those clerks in this process. If there is to be the type of change that I envisage, they will need support, training and help to tackle what might become an increasing burden of work for them. The chair of the governing body should never be in a position where he or she is left, if you like, to do it alone. Succession management is a vital part of a functioning and effective governing body, and again more work needs to be done, if not to formalise best practice then to encourage it among governing bodies that might have had a chair for some considerable period and therefore need that change to continue in a successful vein.
The key points that I want to reiterate before retaking my seat are: respecting the difference between establishing strategy and operational management, a difference that has always been at the heart of the principle of school governance; understanding the different roles involved in the establishment of strategy and the monitoring of results, and trying to create a system that reflects the talents required for those different roles; and involving the wider community in the work of governing bodies in a way that not only fits in with people’s demanding lifestyles but that can do so much to enhance the life of our schools, and, importantly, encouraging everyone to move away from the idea that one or two meetings a term will cut the ice when it comes to modern school governance. There are so many better and more imaginative ways to do the job, and I am sure that my colleagues in Westminster Hall today will give more examples of that as the debate proceeds, hopefully stimulating an important and useful part of the process of change.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I apologise in advance if I have to leave the debate early, Mr Dobbin. I have been appointed—joy of joys—to a Delegated Legislation Committee that begins at 10.30 am, so I mean no discourtesy if I have to leave the Chamber before that time.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing this debate. I know that he has a huge interest in school governance, and I agree with much of what he has said. I want to make a couple of observations based on my own time as a school governor. I have been a governor at the same school for the past 10 years, and before that I served on the governing bodies of two secondary schools. I serve as a local education authority governor in a school that I attended as a child and that is in the area where I was a councillor. Consequently, I felt that my role as a LEA governor was to be a link between the community and the school.
I associate myself with my hon. Friend’s comments about the work that governors and governing bodies do in general. Very often, governing bodies are full of dedicated individuals who have the best interests of the school and their wider community at heart. As we change the education system in this country, however, the time has come to question whether we are necessarily doing things correctly. I have a couple of observations about some of the flaws in how governing bodies work at the moment.
My hon. Friend has discussed schools accessing the wider community, members of which might have particular skills in finance, law and such like. However, that is not a scenario for all school catchment areas, particularly if the school is in a deprived area, where some of those skills might not be available—it is sometimes a challenge to attract people to be governors in such schools.
One way of tackling that problem, which my hon. Friend has touched on, is to set up a federation of schools, whether it involves a better performing school pooling and federating with a poorer performing school, or whether it involves a cluster of schools pooling and federating, such as a secondary school and its feeder primary schools. I say that because if there is a gentle criticism to be made of governing bodies—I make it very gently, because nobody here wants to attack or insult the work of people who are giving their time for free—it is that sometimes the governing body sees its role as being to support the head teacher in the decisions that they make. Often, governing bodies lack the robust challenge and scrutiny role that they are actually there to fulfil, and I have seen that myself as a governor. Frankly, that sometimes happens because governing bodies are full of educationists. I say that as a former teacher who still serves as a school governor, but I have sat on governing bodies where the people who have fulfilled the parental governors’ roles might well be parents of children at the school, but very often they also work in the LEA or are teachers themselves. The question whether we get the wide representation on governing bodies that we desire is sometimes open to debate.
When I was a councillor in Hull, one thing that my local authority looked at was using the children’s trust model as a way of changing the governance arrangements within the city. The idea was to bring together the primary schools and possibly one or two secondary schools through the children’s trust, to try to get some of the more strategic thinking that has to be done within schools fed through that process. I supported that model, and I hope that we can build on it. Indeed, it is a model that becomes more important as we move towards the academy structure and increasing numbers of free schools.
The situation has changed in schools. At one time, head teachers saw themselves as looking after their particular parish, as it were—it was almost as if their responsibilities stopped outside the school gates and, perhaps quite reasonably, they focused on what went on within their own schools. However, that has changed, and secondary schools are much better at engaging with their feeder primary schools, and primary schools are much better at working with one another. There are initiatives that have helped that process along the way. One of those is school sports partnerships, which have brought together schools that would previously not have communicated with each other. Perhaps it is time to consider whether the current structure works and whether we should put a greater emphasis on schools’ governing bodies to get their schools either to federate or to work more collaboratively with other schools in their area, so that we can introduce strategic thinking into the system and, perhaps, a more robust way of challenging of things.
I am making only a mild criticism of governing bodies, because, as I have already said, people who serve as governors tend to be incredibly hard-working, and I would not wish to besmirch them in any way. Nevertheless, we must accept that they do not necessarily always challenge things robustly. It can be hard to challenge things. If a motivated parent becomes a parent governor, their reason for doing so is often that they want to support the school, and it is a natural conclusion that supporting the school involves supporting the head teacher in the decisions that they take.
Another criticism concerns the links between the LEA and governing bodies. LEA governors often work in the LEA or as teachers themselves, and they sometimes serve as community governors or parent governors. However, governing bodies can sometimes become a little too LEA-centric. I have sat at many governing body meetings where we considered a paper from the LEA that included a recommendation. In such cases, people around the table often conclude that, because the recommendation has come from the LEA, they should, of course, approve it. Their reasoning is, “Why would the LEA suggest it if it was anything other than in the interests of the school?” That process is sometimes reinforced by clerking services being brought in from the LEA, which further builds the link between the governing body and the LEA. In one sense, that link is important, but there needs to be a clear separation of power.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon has touched very eloquently—much better than I could have done—on the roles that particular governors play. Those roles have changed in my time as a governor, and more governors seem to engage with the school. When I was a local councillor and a school governor at the same time, I always saw my role as providing a community link, but other governors were determined to get involved in the school and spend some time in it. For example, if they were the foundation link governor, they spent some time with the foundation stage teachers, or if they were the literacy governor they spent some time talking to the literacy co-ordinator. That situation has improved, but it is still open to debate whether it has improved scrutiny.
Guy Opperman
My hon. Friend is giving a good overview of the different assets provided by particular governors. Does he see an ongoing role for a pastoral support programme, and would that help us to go forward? It used to be in the programme, but it is not currently included.
Andrew Percy
That is absolutely vital. When we had a debate on disadvantaged children, I pointed out that in some ways pastoral care has been sidelined in recent years. Pastoral care is more important than ever, particularly where behaviour is concerned, and we all agree that we want to reduce the amount of exclusion.
I am straying a little from the topic, but I point out to the Minister that one of the biggest sadnesses of the changes in recent years is that classroom teachers, particularly in secondary schools, have often had their pastoral roles taken away and handed to other people in the school—albeit those people are often very capable—including learning mentors and teaching assistants. I have always believed that classroom teachers are not just educators but part-time social workers, occasionally parents and sometimes, depending on the class, just childminders. We have a multiplicity of roles as classroom teachers, and we have been losing our role in pastoral care. Hopefully, the Minister has heard my pleas on that issue.
I have identified some of the problems that I see at the moment, which I am good at, but I am not quite so good at identifying the solutions, which is why I do not hold ministerial office—that is a job for Ministers. The time has come, however, to question whether school governance arrangements work as they should, and if I had a solution, it would be, as I have said, to encourage federation.
Justin Tomlinson
My hon. Friend has made an exceptionally thoughtful contribution based on his experience in the teaching environment. Does he see federating schools as adding to governors’ time commitments, or will that approach reduce them because the work load is spread out?
Andrew Percy
That is a difficult question. In some respects, federating would lessen the burden, because some people who join governing bodies want to take on that strategic role regarding the direction of the school but do not necessarily want to be engaged in the nitty-gritty. I have sat on governing bodies where it has been about who can outdo the others and who has been in the school the most, but that does not mean that that person has necessarily been the most effective governor. There is a role for both kinds of governor, which might be achieved through federation. You can have governors who give their expertise to the strategic direction of education in a particular area, and you can have others who play the community role or a much more involved role in a particular school. That is something that we need to look at.
I will not speak for much longer, because I know that other hon. Members wish to contribute. I associate myself with many of the thoughtful comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon, who has a great deal of experience in this area. I am sorry that I will not be here to listen to the Minister, but I will, of course, read his speech in Hansard tomorrow.
Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)
Before I call the next speaker, I remind Members when making interventions not to use “you” to refer to other Members. Please use “hon. Friend” or “hon. Member”.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) has secured this debate, and that I am able to add to it.
I welcome the Government’s plans to allow and encourage more schools to become independent of local authorities, but it has to be acknowledged that the role of governing bodies will therefore become more pivotal in the school system. With the increased freedom, there need to be clear guidelines, a coherent line of accountability and, should it be necessary, clear sanctions that can be imposed. Such clarity will add to the smooth running of a school, and to decisive action should there be a dispute.
I have personal knowledge of this matter, and am here today not just to seek clarity from the Minister but to share experiences—experiences that we could all learn from and which could shape future school governance policy and accountability. I am proud to boast of exceptional schools and teachers right across the board in my constituency, and of a strong tradition of grammar schools, faith schools and specialist colleges. I was, therefore, greatly dismayed when a dispute began between the governors and head teacher at Calday Grange grammar, one of the best schools on the Wirral, with more than 360 years’ experience and history. Over a year later, the matter is still not resolved. The school is without a permanent head teacher, which a school needs; parents and pupils are unhappy—rightly so—as well as confused by the whole affair; loyalties are split; and Ofsted has downgraded the school’s performance from outstanding to good. There have been parent demonstrations, newspaper coverage and a Facebook campaign to try to resolve the festering situation. In fact, in the local Wirral newspaper only yesterday there was yet another article on the ongoing dispute, about a survey that exposed that two thirds of parents quizzed did not believe that the governors were managing the school well.
I have a series of questions for the Minister, which I hope will be of use. What plans do the Government have to ensure that disputes between a head teacher and a board of governors are resolved amicably, quickly and for the benefit of the whole school? In this particular school, the head teacher became ill, creating further complications and a greater impasse. How would the Minister seek to resolve such a situation? When governors and head teachers have disputes, is there not a need for the utmost transparency, including fully informing teachers and parents? As more schools are freed from the direct control of local authorities, do we not require a better balance of powers and responsibilities, and in a dispute should parents perhaps not have the ultimate say? Under what circumstances could a board of governors be dissolved and a new one created? What would be deemed to constitute a fundamental breach of governors’ duties and obligations to a school? When would a school be deemed to be failing, allowing for intervention by the Secretary of State or parents? The meaning of “failing” appears to be vague, especially when dealing with a large and outstanding school, such as Calday Grange grammar, which might take many months to reach that criterion. Perhaps a drop in standards of certain kinds might constitute a failing.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to invite the Minister to the Wirral, to meet the staff and parents of Calday Grange grammar.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for raising this subject for debate. The issue has been thought through well, and it is important in a week when we are trying to reassess education, bring a degree of change and bring things forward in a difficult field.
I know that many hon. Members are school governors; I confess that I have “failed” in that—I think that is the technical term. Some people would regard that as a deficiency in my background, but I regard it as an asset in some respects. I have spent the best part of 15 years attempting to advise school governors and head teachers, and have represented them on a special educational needs tribunal. When things got particularly feisty, I also represented the state and the individuals in a judicial review.
My last client, in spring of last year, was the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls). I was co-defending with him in an action on this exact point: how school governors’ role is being affected and how people are coming in and saying, “You’re doing this wrong. How are you going to take it forward?” The way forward is vital, and I hope I can give the benefit of some wisdom regarding why changes should be made, how they might be made and what the context is in Hexham.
Hexham has four secondary schools, at Haydon Bridge, Ponteland, Hexham and Prudhoe. The constituency is vast, spanning more than 1,100 square miles. Haydon Bridge has probably the largest catchment area in that part of England; it is the size of the area within the M25, and is a huge superstructure that has to be taken in. It is one of the few secondary schools with a large number of boarders, because many students have too far to come every day. All those schools are struggling in different ways with a lack of investment. They are well supported by their governors and well led, particularly by school governors and head teachers, but attempting to introduce change is a struggle.
I lack experience as a governor, but I hope that my time at the Bar has helped me, as I fought for and against local education authorities, appeared on behalf of people who were suing LEAs and addressed various individual concerns. I could talk for a considerable period about the extent to which I have been involved.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon—apart from his interesting analogy involving cake-baking, which I particularly enjoyed—asserted that the role and influence of school governors will take on new significance in the running of our schools. As we speak, heads and teachers are using academy or federation status to take their schools forward by reducing class sizes, improving the take-up of modern languages, targeting resources on the poorest and pioneering new disciplinary techniques. Surely it is now governors’ responsibility to help newly liberated heads use their responsibilities and freedoms to best effect.
I do not want to be overly party political, but I have spent more than 13 years watching changes to school freedoms and responsibilities come before the courts to be decided. The legacy is a national curriculum—designed by ideologues and policed to a certain extent by bureaucrats—that has demoralised and demotivated our teachers and downplayed the vital role of knowledge. I applaud entirely what the Secretary of State is doing. Radical change was needed. The reforms to schools will put us where we need to be, which is unambiguously on the side of teachers as guardians of the best that has been thought and written, and who introduce each new generation to our precious intellectual heritage.
The head teachers of Hexham are nervous about applying for academy status. They have elected to watch the process during the original year, and perhaps for one more year, but I am hopeful that things will progress in the next couple of years and that they will go down the federation route. They are already integrated to a large extent: an art teacher might teach in one school and then go to another school for two days. They have opportunities. They are excited about the possibility of long-term change, but without changes to buildings as well, they will struggle.
This is not the time to discuss Building Schools for the Future, but the Secretary of State discovered the state of schools in Northumberland recently when he visited the constituency of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). One school was all but falling down. Two schools in my constituency, Prudhoe and Queen Elizabeth high school, are struggling. Those are long-term problems that the Secretary of State—my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) put it beautifully—will have to deal with as we go ahead.
Turning back to school governance, governors’ main responsibilities are providing a strategic view, acting as a critical friend and ensuring accountability. I see those as interwoven in all their activities. I was pleased to hear, when I asked about the pastoral support programme, that someone with a lot more experience of being a governor than me sees it as something that used to exist in the system, but was phased out. We must do the best that we can. Most governors have a direct interest in a school’s success. Almost all are the type of person who is forced to get involved, and most either attended the school themselves or have children who attend it.
However, it is important during the reform process that we examine the model for school governance. We must consider how the governors’ role might change as responsibility and power are decentralised from Whitehall and given to head teachers. It is a seminal change to take the large amount of power now in Whitehall and give it back to individual teachers. Teachers are excited. The ones I speak to are excited about the opportunity to take greater control.
The role of governors in holding heads to account will also take on a whole new meaning and level of responsibility. The process of examining their role is made easier by the fact that most are eager to know how they can be better at what they do. If the role of governor is to become much more crucial to a school’s success, as I think it is, it is wise to consider who governors are and how schools attract them to the position. I endorse a huge amount of what my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said about taking governors on board and making ongoing use of them.
We cannot have top-quality schools without top-quality teachers, but that also requires top-quality school governors. We must continue to try to attract the best people to those roles. Must a governor always have attended the school in question, or have a child there? I do not consider that necessary, although it helps tremendously; sometimes, outside people are a good thing.
In these times, many people who might be interested in becoming more involved in the running of schools are put off by assumptions about why they want to. We must also be careful about whom we prevent from going into schools. There are ways to restrict governors’ ability to get involved or commit to the extent to which they would like. School governors will often be new, and we will need the most competent individuals.
I finish by mentioning a couple of points relating to my specialism. Special educational needs provision has been under review for a considerable time. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and other Members know what they are talking about when it comes to such issues; there are about five who know the issue well. We must retain SEN provision, but we can reform it. The amount of time devoted to SEN can be improved and be more focused. When the Minister winds up, I urge him to consider that SEN should be very much at the top of his agenda. If we fail the children who go into SEN, they will not be in as good a position as they could have been. The reality, therefore, is that the big society has a huge role to play in schools—or, should I say, that schools have the potential to play a huge role in the big society.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing an important debate. I recall how passionate and knowledgeable he was about special educational needs during our deliberations on the Academies Bill on the Floor of the House last summer. Indeed, he mentioned during that debate—as he has today—the role of the governing body in securing suitable provision. He has demonstrated that passion and knowledge again this morning and I thank him for it.
I also pay tribute to the high quality contributions from the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who drew upon his considerable knowledge of teaching and governance, and the hon. Members for Wirral West (Esther McVey) and for Hexham (Guy Opperman).
This has been a high quality debate and it gives us the opportunity to do several things. First, it enables us to thank governors throughout the country for their work in our education system. Secondly, I would like to build on some of the comments that have been made and ask the Minister with responsibility for schools about his vision for governors, governance and governing bodies as his Department radically alters education policy in our country.
As the hon. Member for South Swindon has said, there are more than 300,000 school governors at work today. Governors are one of the largest groups of volunteers and one of the best examples of civic engagement in this country. This quiet army of hundreds of thousands of people play an unheralded, and often unsung, but nevertheless critical, role in providing the best possible environment for children to grow and learn. At their best, governing bodies set the ethos and strategic direction of a school, appoint a great head teacher and a high calibre senior management team to drive through that strategy and provide support, and challenge and scrutinise the leadership team, holding it to account on behalf of parents and the local community. They have a big responsibility in our education system.
As we have heard, there is a clear relationship between governance and the performance of a school. Good governance improves the quality of leadership and management in schools, as well as that of teaching and pupils’ achievements. Conversely, where there is poor or unsatisfactory governance, and where the relationship between the governing body and the head teacher has broken down—as the hon. Member for Wirral West expressed so vividly—pupil potential goes unfulfilled. Given the importance, therefore, that school governance plays in educational success, I am surprised that this Government have said so little about it.
In an education White Paper of nearly 100 pages, I counted only four small paragraphs on school governors, and one highlighted how the governing body could decide on the time of the school day. The publication of the White Paper was accompanied by a document, “The Case for Change”, which provided a rationale for education reform, but did not mention the role of the governing body.
The recently published Education Bill has 79 clauses and 17 schedules, but I could find only two small clauses on the role of the governing body. Given the vital role that school governors play, I hope that the Minister will give a definitive reassurance that professional, passionate and high quality governors are an essential and valued part of our school system. I also hope that he will give the Chamber an explanation of why, in the first few months of the new Government, governors and school governance have been largely overlooked or ignored by his Department. I have several questions about specific parts of governance and the role that governors and governing bodies can play, and I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some answers.
On size, when the Government mention governing bodies, they invariably state that a smaller governing body is more effective. The White Paper notes:
“Smaller governing bodies with the right skills are able to be more decisive, supporting the head teacher and championing high standards.”
That may well be the case, but the Government do not provide any evidence to substantiate that assertion. Why would smaller governing bodies necessarily be better? Where is the evidence? How does the Minister reconcile that view with last year’s advice from the ministerial working group on school governance—I think that the hon. Member for South Swindon cited this—that 14 members can be the optimum size of a governing body? Surely the effectiveness of a governing body is more complex than sheer size, and takes into account matters such as turnover of governors, blend of skills, participation and work load. If the Government’s direction of travel is to reduce the size of governing bodies, what will be done to retain corporate memory and expertise? It would be much more difficult to do that if a governing body with five members, as opposed to one with 15, lost a member.
The hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned the importance of retaining and obtaining skills such as finance, personnel and so on. How will a school with a much smaller governing body be able to obtain all that much-needed expertise, which includes marketing and strategic planning? I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response.
The vehicle to reduce the size of governing bodies is the Education Bill, which was published last week and is due to have its Second Reading next week. I imagine that the Minister and I will have lots of discussions about many issues in the Bill, but I should like to draw his attention at this stage to one clause in particular. Clause 37 refers to the constitution of governing bodies in maintained schools in England, and it will amend section 19 of the Education Act 2002. This change ensures that governing bodies will consist predominantly of parent governors and the head teacher of the school.
I have a number of questions about that. First, how is this approach reconciled with the sentiments expressed by the White Paper? It notes:
“Many of the most successful schools have smaller governing bodies”—
we have already established that that is what the Government think—
“with individuals drawn from a wide range of people rooted in the community, such as parents, businesses, local government and the voluntary sector.”
That point was expressed eloquently by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole, who has left to attend a Delegated Legislation Committee. What precisely is the clause designed to do to help encourage a diverse range of potential governors to come forward? Given that the ministerial working group on school governance concluded that governing bodies already have the flexibility to determine the best size for their school and for them, what does the clause actually do? What does it propose that the 2002 Act prevents?
The White Paper also states that from early 2012 the Government will allow all schools to adopt a flexible model of school governance, while ensuring that governing bodies have a minimum of two parent governors. Will the Minister further outline how he anticipates that to be undertaken? How will governing bodies do it? What will be the role of the head teacher? Will he or she outline to the governing body what they believe will be required, or will such a role be retained by the governing body? How will the process work?
Recruitment and retention are important and have already been touched upon. I think that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole has already mentioned this, but some 11% of governor posts are vacant, and they are, disproportionately, in disadvantaged or inner-city areas. We have heard that schools with more vacancies on the governing body tend to perform more poorly due to the lack of challenge, scrutiny and support for the school’s leadership team. What proactive steps is the Minister taking to ensure that vacancies on governing bodies, particularly in areas of deprivation, are filled?
The hon. Members for Hexham and for Brigg and Goole mentioned the importance of retaining and attracting good governors to governing bodies. Given the demands of modern life, what are the Government doing to recruit good potential governors? As the Government’s focus on governance moves towards parent governors, does the Minister accept that the problems of recruitment and succession planning will increase because parent governors will inevitably leave after four or five years as their children move through the school? Parent governors might lose interest in being a proactive member of the governing body and leave that body. What does the Minister anticipate will happen about succession planning?
Common barriers to participation in school governance include lack of time, family or work commitments, lack of publicity and awareness of the opportunities for involvement, and a reluctance by some governing bodies to take on a governor who is not previously known to them. Will the Minister let hon. Members know what steps he is taking to remove those barriers as far as possible? Another important point mentioned in today’s debate is that of having a federation of schools. Are the Government actively looking at having a federation of governing bodies, whereby a single governing body can play a strategic role for a number of schools? If the Government agree with that approach, what additional initial support and assistance can they provide to allow that to happen?
That brings me to an important point that creates a bit of a paradox in the Government’s education policy—the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole was good at hinting at this during his comments. Education policy is moving towards a position whereby schools stand alone and are independent of the local authority. The move is arguably—although I would dispute this to some extent—away from Whitehall. I think that the Education Bill will centralise matters between schools and the Secretary of State in a way that we have never seen before. However, how can we reconcile a situation in which schools stand alone with the fact that the previous Labour Government, through the former Department for Children, Schools and Families, moved towards collaboration and partnership, with the local authority helping to provide a strategic overview? The local authorities were not running schools, but they were providing strategic direction in an area. What steps will the Government take to ensure that that collaboration and partnership at a school governance level can be maintained, if not enhanced?
I would also like to ask about training and induction. It is very arduous to become a school governor, particularly a good and effective one. What are the Government doing to ensure that individual governors and collective governing bodies identify any weaknesses and help plug those gaps, either with additional training, additional recruitment to the governing body or focused training? Does the Minister agree with the concept of mandatory training for governing bodies? The hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned the important role of the chair of a governing body. What additional support can be provided to enable the chair to perform his or her duty to the best of his or her abilities? He also mentioned the vital but often overlooked need to have a high calibre, knowledgeable and experienced clerk to the governing body. What steps will the Government take to ensure that that is also very much a key part of school governance?
When I was a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, I was concerned about the role of information, advice and guidance, and the importance of interaction between schools and the outside community, particularly with business. The governing body can, through the high calibre business men and women who are active on it, provide that good interaction. Particularly with regards to information, advice and guidance, governors can come into a school and provide real life stories based upon their personal experiences of inspiration and motivation. They can tell students how hard work can help people succeed and achieve their ambition. Given the changes to the information, advice and guidance provision, what further steps can the Minister take to ensure that that interaction between schools, the governing body and outside business works effectively?
Finally, I shall talk about the role of the head teacher in the governing body. May I press the Minister on whether he believes that automatic inclusion of the head on the governing body as a full member can constitute a conflict of interest? I think that everyone would agree that heads should attend governing body meetings and have a right to speak, be challenged and scrutinise. However, does that important role of supporting the head teacher while at the same time challenging mean that good governance should lead us to make the head a non-voting member who does not participate in decision making? In a similar vein, will the Minister confirm that, as indicated by his White Paper and the provisions of the Education Bill, the Government do not necessary agree with the concept of staff governors?
In the past few months, the Government have spoken a lot about their vision for education and how teachers, head teachers, parents and others can play their part in fulfilling student potential and ambition. The fact that they have not highlighted the essential role of the governor is a glaring omission and a further example of weakness in their education policy. However, given the high calibre of today’s debate, I hope that the Minister will rectify that now and highlight more fully than he has in the past how governors and school governance can play an essential role in the education system of our country.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing this important debate on school governance. I know that the subject is close to his heart because he served as a school governor for four years prior to his election to the House. I join the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) in pointing out the high quality of the debate and of the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Wirral West (Esther McVey).
There are some 300,000 school governors, which makes them one of the largest volunteer forces in the country. School governors work in their spare time to promote school improvement and to support head teachers and teachers in their work. They are an important part of the big society agenda and play a vital civic role. In the words of my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon and for Wirral West, they play a pivotal role in our schools system. Every one of the 300,000 school governors deserves our thanks for their work and time and, more importantly, for taking on such important responsibilities. We all know how difficult it is to find people locally to take on such responsibilities. It is easy to get volunteers, but there is often a poor show of hands when it comes to taking on responsibilities. We owe a huge debt of thanks to those who are prepared to take on such a role.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole is right to question whether we are doing things in the right way. Our White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Hartlepool, was published in November and sets out the coalition Government’s intention to increase freedom and autonomy for schools and to remove unnecessary duties and burdens. It also states that we should allow schools to choose for themselves how best to develop, whether by acquiring academy status, by becoming multi-school trusts and federations—again, those were referred to by the hon. Gentleman—or by continued development as a maintained school. All that is to be underpinned by clear accountability and strong and effective governance.
As we work through our programme of reform, those freedoms need to be extended to school governors, so that they are given the flexibilities, support and recognition they deserve. We know that the quality of school governance has a significant impact on how well schools perform. Good governance and leadership at school level are key drivers in achieving better educational outcomes. Academies provide examples of smaller, high-powered governing bodies that have demonstrated rapid improvements in standards. The arrangements for academy governance allow for greater flexibility in the number and category of governors than in maintained schools, while ensuring that essential groups, such as parents, are always represented. They are charities, so it would not be appropriate or right for us to prescribe the exact composition and size of their governing body. That flexibility is a popular concept and there are many differing governance arrangements in converting schools. They are now able to constitute their governing body to suit their school and local needs.
As my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon will recall, maintained school governing bodies, which include foundation schools, are constituted under the stakeholder model. That model prescribes representation from groups with an interest in the school: for example, parents, staff—including the head teacher—the community, the local authority and the foundation or trust, where schools have one. The model goes on to prescribe the representation from each group.
We want to make it easier for schools to adopt governance models that work for them and which clearly hold the school to account. That is why the Education Bill, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education last Wednesday, includes provision to free up the constitution of maintained school governing bodies. We are legislating to provide that governing bodies will mirror the academies model and be required to have at least two elected parent governors and the head teacher, unless the head teacher chooses not to take up his position as a governor. Then, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool mentioned, they should be able to attend the governing body as the head teacher, but not as a full member of the governing body.
The church or foundation will still be able to appoint the majority of the governing body in voluntary aided and foundation schools. Other governors, such as authority governors, community governors, staff governors, partnership governors and associate members will be appointed at the discretion of the governing body, and in numbers determined by them. Academy governing bodies have built-in safeguards to prevent particular categories of governor from dominating the governing body; for example, staff governors cannot exceed one third of the total membership, and charity law prevents those connected with local authorities from having more than 20% of the membership. We will consider the effect of such restrictions in maintained schools, but we want to move to a less prescriptive model overall.
Mr Iain Wright
I apologise to the Minister if he is coming on to this point, but will he respond to an issue raised about the constitution of the governing body? The hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made important points about how to identify failure in school governance and what will constitute failure. What will be the mechanisms by which a local authority or some other body—perhaps the Secretary of State—can determine change within the governing body?
Mr Gibb
If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I will come to the detailed questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West shortly.
We do not intend to prescribe any particular model, which is the overarching policy direction, as we believe that governing bodies are best placed to determine what will work best for them locally. It is important to point out that the changes will be permissive rather than mandatory, and that there is no intention to force any change on governing bodies. We will therefore encourage governing bodies to recruit more governors on a skills basis and carry out skills audits to inform that task. Those were also the conclusions of the working group on governance referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon and the hon. Member for Hartlepool. Its report recommended clear accountability and felt that size was not the key issue for a governing body; a more important issue for the report was the skills of the governing body. It recommended that governing bodies should be free to recruit by relaxing the stakeholder model, which is precisely what the Government are introducing in the Education Bill.
We know that volunteers from a business background bring a valuable range of skills from the workplace to governing bodies, and are more likely to take on important responsibilities such as chairing committees or, indeed, chairing the governing body. To that end, we will continue to support the School Governors’ One-Stop Shop to recruit and place governor volunteers from the business world in schools with vacancies. That has been very successful: by the end of December it had recruited nearly 11,000 governors and placed them on to governing bodies with vacancies. In addition, the Education and Employers Taskforce is working with CEOs of large businesses to develop partnerships between schools, colleges and employers. It encourages senior business leaders to visit schools, and encourages staff with the right skills and experience to become school governors. In fact, I recently joined Sir Terry Leahy in a school in Hertfordshire during the “visit our schools and colleges” week.
Research tells us that where governing bodies are effective, they take a strategic role, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon pointed out, in guiding and supporting the school’s work and challenging further improvement. They should not get drawn into the day-to-day management that is rightly the province of the head teacher and senior leadership team. In the White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, we set out a series of 10 key questions for governors to ask to assist them in setting their schools’ strategic direction and holding them to account, such as, “How are we going to raise standards? Have we got the right staff and the right development and reward arrangements? Do we have a sound financial strategy to get good value for money, and robust procurement and financial systems? Does the curriculum provide for and stretch all pupils?” My hon. Friend is right to say that the committee-based decision-making structure is appropriate for our governing bodies. Governing bodies already have the freedom to bring people with particular expertise on to committees as associate members, and they can commission work from people outside the governing bodies.
My hon. Friend referred to the issue of complaints, on which I want briefly to touch. Parents should be able to send their child to school confident that they are receiving the highest possible standard of education. Any problems should be dealt with by professionals in an appropriate and timely manner. There must be mechanisms in place for parents to express their concerns, secure in the knowledge that they will be dealt with quickly, effectively and fairly by all involved. Since September 2003, all schools have been required to have a complaints procedure, and that procedure has to be published. Generally, schools follow a three-part complaints procedure: investigation of a complaint by a staff member; investigation by the head teacher, or by the chair of the governors if it is about the head teacher; and a meeting of a panel of governors where the complaint has still not been resolved. Governing bodies must act in the interests of the children in their school and must rigorously ensure that those who serve on complaints panels conduct a fair and unprejudiced investigation. Challenge is part of the governor’s role, and a pattern of complaints can inform them of incipient problems in the school’s operation, in the same way that correspondence with an MP can alert us to an impending big political issue concerning how our country is run.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole brought out in his speech, in recent years schools have increasingly chosen to collaborate with other schools to achieve more for children and young people. Partnerships have taken a variety of forms, including local area clusters, as well as more formalised arrangements involving shared governance through federation, shared trusts and shared leadership, with heads taking responsibility for leading more than one school. The benefits of those partnerships are clear in extending the breadth and quality of provision; responding better to pupils’ wider needs; widening the impact of the strongest school leaders, teachers and governors; widening opportunities for collaborative professional development; and delivering greater value for money. There is not a single, best collaborative model; instead, schools can consider a variety of models and adapt them to suit local needs and circumstances.
Mr Wright
On that point and my earlier remarks about a move away from partnership and collaboration in the school family towards schools going it alone, how does the Minister reconcile his comments with the provisions in the Education Bill, most notably clauses 30 and 31, where the duty to co-operate with the local authority and the duty to have regard to the children and young people’s plan are abolished?
Mr Gibb
Legislation is not necessary to require people to co-operate. The best co-operation is engaged in because professionals feel it is the best approach for their school. We need to move away—the Government are moving away—from that tick-box, prescriptive and centralised approach to such issues. We believe that the best partnerships and collaborative arrangements are those that head teachers and governing bodies enter into voluntarily because they know they are in the best interests of their school. We do not want a school to feel bound to find a partner—in a behaviour partnership, for example—simply to fulfil a statutory requirement and to ensure that it has a box ticked when the Ofsted inspection comes.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is always talking about collaboration between professional peers in our school system as a key to school improvement, which is why we are tripling the number of national and local leaders in education. Peer-to-peer mentoring is the key. Professionals working together and spreading best practice is the better way to ensure improvement in our school system, rather than a series of prescriptive statutory requirements for schools and bodies to enter into partnerships with other bodies.
I turn to the general context surrounding the important points that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West raised about Calday Grange grammar school. She asked about resolving disputes between head teachers and the governors. All governing bodies have grievance procedures which they must follow to resolve complaints. She then asked how the situation can be resolved if the head teacher is ill, which is the case in this instance. The governing body is the employer, and it has to follow grievance procedures in cases of challenge over employment law. It needs to allow the head teacher to present his case, but he cannot do that, of course, if he is ill. That does not provide a solution but presents the legal framework around the current position.
My hon. Friend asked whether parents should be kept fully informed about what is happening during a dispute. Unfortunately, that is not always possible due to the need for confidentiality in some disputes. She asked whether parents should be allowed to decide the way forward. The answer to that is no, unfortunately. Parental views are represented on the governing body, but the governing body itself is responsible for the school. Of course, a responsible governing body should take parents’ views into account and expedite the resolution of matters, particularly when they are of enormous concern to the parents.
My hon. Friend asked when a governing body can be removed. There are three circumstances in which that can happen: when Ofsted has put the school in special measures; when Ofsted has found that the school requires significant improvement; or when the local authority has issued a warning notice and the governing body has failed to comply with it, or failed to comply satisfactorily. I know that she is concerned about the issue. Lord Hill of Oareford and I have corresponded with the governing body and the local authority about the matter, and we would be happy to discuss it with her further, if she would find that helpful.
In conclusion, I want to take the opportunity once again to pay tribute to our school governors, who are the unsung heroes and heroines of our education system. We should thank them for their work, and I am pleased to do that. I am sure that the increased freedom and autonomy for governing bodies, allied with our reduction of burdens and bureaucracy, will make a huge difference to their work as they seek to raise standards in schools, and will enable better deployment of their time and expertise.
Maternity Services
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I wanted to have today’s debate on maternity services for three reasons. One is the confidential inquiry into intrapartum-related death, conducted by the Perinatal Institute in Birmingham in October 2010. Incidentally, its director is one of my constituents, which, of course, adds to the quality of the report.
Secondly, I vividly remember an article in The Sun during the election campaign in 2010, in which the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) clearly promised 3,000 extra midwives. The third reason is last night’s debate on the Government’s health reforms. The three are unfortunately related.
I will begin with the report. An enormous amount of good work is being done in maternity services and provision, and the Birmingham women’s hospital in my constituency provides excellent care. The west midlands should not feel that it is being singled out. It was simply the first area that took a good, honest look at what is happening and, therefore, has produced figures from which the rest of the country can learn. The west midlands is an area of huge diversity, both in income and ethnic background. Roughly speaking, it has 70,000 deliveries a year, which account for 10% of live births in England and Wales. It also has about 10% of babies who die from intrapartum-related causes—that is, events surrounding labour and child birth.
In 2006, the chief medical officer highlighted the fact that one of his areas of particular concern was intrapartum-related death. In a national report in the 1990s, that was continually highlighted as requiring more attention, but the figures did not show any particular improvement. For that reason, the Perinatal Institute decided to look at that area. We know that in politics to be described as “brave” sometimes means “foolhardy”. However, in this case the institute was brave to look at the figures honestly. It looked at 25 cases that caused concern. The full report is available on the institute’s website. It found that of those 25 cases, in four there was substandard care and different management would have made no difference to the outcome.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
As another west midlands MP—the Heart of England trust covers my constituency—I wonder whether the hon. Lady has noticed any problems with care of parents after neonatal death. I have the charity Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society, SANDS, in my constituency—as I expect she has—and it is most concerned about the quality of care for parents following the death of a baby.
Ms Stuart
I have come across SANDS. The Heart of England trust did some work, which I will consider later, whereby it looked at midwives’ case load and found it to be far higher than required. Incidents are spread across an area and each of us probably sees only one or two cases occasionally. The real problem comes when we look across the city and the west midlands. We should pay tribute to SANDS and its work and to the bereavement nurses it has now put in hospitals. They are in east Birmingham and in my patch. However, that is not good enough.
Coming back to the 25 cases, in four cases of substandard care, different management would not have made a difference. In five cases, it might have made a difference to the outcome, but in 16 cases, different management would reasonably have been expected to make a difference to the outcome. In other words, 84% of the deaths were considered potentially avoidable. The overall conclusion that the report reached looking at the west midlands was that many deaths were avoidable and need to be avoided. That is why we need to discuss this report and decide what to do about that.
This is not a particular west midlands problem; it is just that the west midlands has been the first to take an honest look.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I raised the issue of the Perinatal Institute in Birmingham in a debate I led on maternity and midwifery on 2 May 2007. I spoke to Professor Jason Gadosi before and after that debate. What he said then, nearly four years ago, was precisely what he appears to be saying now: there has been a failure fully to monitor and interrogate what went on and to draw conclusions that might better inform the improved care, and avoid the perinatal mortality levels that still exist.
Ms Stuart
That leads me to my next point. We have clearly not come up with systems in the NHS that allow us to learn properly from mistakes when things go wrong. I fully accept that we have the NHS Litigation Authority, and that the NHS insures itself. We try to deal with negligence effectively and efficiently. However, there is still a mentality of institutions, when something goes wrong, closing in on themselves. I wonder whether we should look at the way the aviation industry deals with accidents. Fault is not allocated; the facts are looked at, and the real outcome is what to do as a result of the problem. Rather than understanding the errors that have gone further and further, we should consider what is to be done as a result.
Going through newspaper cuttings, I found one over Christmas about Good Hope hospital. There was a very unfortunate incident when a lady who had miscarried was left for four hours in sight of other patients. She complained to the hospital, which simply apologised and said it hoped to do better. Hoping to do better simply has not done us any good, if that experience is anything to go by.
It is not clear to me who has responsibility for this matter. In the current structure we have PCTs and strategic health authorities, where at least theoretically we could allocate responsibility. In the new NHS, who will do that? I will return to that point.
We need national maternity data sets that are much more standardised and allow us to make us comparisons across the country. That is not a question of money. Given that we are told that the NHS is one area that is ring-fenced, there is much we can do within existing provision.
I now come to the promise that the right hon. Member for Witney made during the election campaign. We all know what happens during elections; not keeping election promises is not particularly new. However, let us look at what he said in January 2010. Maternity and childbirth is an immensely emotive subject. It is not an illness; it is one of the most joyful events in life. In the majority of cases, a healthy baby is born and we try to keep the medics out of the process as much as possible. When politicians go into election campaigns and talk about maternity services—particularly when they do so in The Sun—it is a pretty toxic mix. The right hon. Member for Witney went to a maternity unit and said:
“Having a baby might be the most natural thing in the world.”
Fine, I agree with him. He continued:
“Every parent wants…to give birth in a relaxed local setting, where they get the personal attention they need. So, why isn’t that happening? It’s because after a decade of constant reorganisation, Labour are giving us bigger and bigger baby factories where mums can feel neglected and midwives are stretched to breaking point.”
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Daniel Kawczynski
The hon. Lady surely understands that after 13 years, the previous Administration had still not managed to achieve some of its long-term goals and aspirations. She almost indicates that the promises made by the Prime Minister should have been met seven or eight months into a new Administration. Given the state of the public finances, she must acknowledge that it will not be as easy to deliver on those promises as quickly as she—or I—would like.
Ms Stuart
I am sure the Minister will be grateful for that helpful intervention. However, have we not been told that the NHS is ring-fenced? That is how I understand it. Therefore, the financial argument really does not hold.
I would like to analyse what the Prime Minister said a little more. He went on:
“It doesn’t have to be like this…First, we’re going to create new maternity networks…Second, we are going to make our midwives’ lives a lot easier. They are crucial to making a mum’s experience of birth as good as it can possibly be, but today they are overworked and demoralised. So we will increase the number of midwives by 3,000. This is the maternity care parents want: more local and more personal. And under a Conservative Government, it is what they’ll get.”
Lorely Burt
As the Prime Minister said, the aspiration should be for more local and more personalised services. However, in my local hospital at Solihull, the full maternity service has unfortunately been downgraded as a fait accompli, and instead of 2,700 births a year, we are led to expect only 300. Does the hon. Lady agree that that hardly offers the choice, localism and personal service that we should seek to achieve anywhere in the country?
Ms Stuart
I will respond to that point before returning to my favourite subject of the Prime Minister’s promises. The hon. Lady is right: there is always a huge tension between local and more centralised delivery. My first Adjournment debate in this Chamber as a junior Minister was about the closure of the William Courtauld maternity unit in Braintree in Essex. It had about 300 deliveries, and there was always a tension about whether services should be offered there or in Colchester. We need both. However, when campaigning to keep local maternity units, we should note that the Royal College of Nursing looked at changes in maternity care. It stated that, apart from the rise in numbers, there are more older mothers with higher rates of complications, and there is a higher rate of multiple births and more obese women who are less fit for pregnancy. More women survive serious childhood illness and go on to have children, and they need extra care during pregnancy and childbirth. There are also increasing rates of intervention.
Therefore, apart from social and ethnic diversity, some births are becoming increasingly complicated. If the hon. Lady were to go to the Birmingham women’s hospital, where women who have had heart transplants give birth, she would see that a safe delivery might require not only the expertise of the women’s hospital, but that of the Queen Elizabeth hospital next door. There is always a natural tension between localism and the best care. The real answer is that we need both.
Andrew George
The hon. Lady makes a balanced case. However, the previous Government also promised thousands more midwives and failed to deliver on that. Is there is a general cross-party agreement that the choice of a home birth should be available, where that is a precautionary safe option and as far as it is possible to predict what is likely to happen during birth? Under such circumstances, two midwives are needed on site. In the “baby factories” that were mentioned earlier, the efficiencies that can be achieved are greater. If more home births are to be serviced and supported, even more midwives will be required.
Ms Stuart
They will indeed. I may risk alienating my own party a little here. Home birth is one of those nice, idyllic and romantic ideas, but, frankly, when I had my children I would rather have had a small cottage hospital with a safe delivery, where I left for home after 24 hours, knowing that if I needed care it was on hand. Home births are probably not as romantic as people think they are.
Let us return to whether the Prime Minister meant what he said. He spoke of an increase in the number of midwives of 3,000. When the Royal College of Nursing challenged the Government, an unnamed Conservative spokesman said:
“There must of course be enough midwives to meet the demands arising from the number of births. The commitment to 3,000 midwives made in Opposition was dependent on the birth rate increasing as it has done in the recent past. It was not in the coalition agreement because predictions now suggest the birth rate will be stable over the next few years.”
Let us analyse the words
“enough midwives to meet the demands”.
We all agree with that. However, if one looks at the planning tool, Birthrate Plus, which estimates how many midwives are needed, and calculates the number nationwide, when that promise was made, according to that tool, there was already a shortage of 4,765 midwives. Even the promise of 3,000 fell short and far more midwives were needed.
The spokesman said that the commitment made in opposition depended on the birth rate increasing. However, nothing was said about that in the article in The Sun. Furthermore, if we look at the only figures that were available at the time the promise was made, they did not suggest any such thing—indeed, they suggested the opposite. The promise is not in the coalition agreement, but the newest figures were not available until long after that agreement. Therefore, there is no proper excuse. It is not about money, and the birth rates that were predicted were not happening. The figures were not available, and I would like to hear why that promise was not in the coalition agreement. It does not stack up.
I can conclude only that when the Prime Minister made that statement, he did not mean it. It is callous to do such things. Maternity and childbirth are sensitive issues, and if something specific is promised during an election campaign, that promise should be kept. I shall return to maternity networks later.
I am not alone in this view—I am not making it up. In November last year, the country’s leading midwife, Cathy Warwick, accused the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary of risking the safety of mothers and babies by backtracking on their pledges to hire more NHS midwives. She said that she was
“extremely disappointed...Both coalition parties supported a commitment to more midwives, now they have apparently changed their minds, and yet the economic situation was well-known before the election.”
Not only was the economic situation well known, but NHS funding is ring-fenced. The money argument does not stack up. She went on to say that she had encountered a “deafening silence” from the Government when she asked whether they intended to honour the pledge. That is a broken promise.
Let us look at where we should go from here. If the record shows that figures on maternity have not improved for 20 years, we need to make some progress. There is a strong association between deprivation and stillbirth as well as infant mortality. The index of multiple deprivation for the west midlands between 1997 and 2007 gives an overall score of 29.9. In Sutton Four Oaks—Sutton Coldfield, the royal borough, still has not quite come to terms with being part of Birmingham—the score was 10.5. Washwood Heath, which I think has the highest unemployment in the country, has a score of 65.1. In my constituency, the area of Bartley Green has a score of 40.3, while in Harborne it is 24.7. However, after the slight boundary reviews that remove the Welsh House Farm estate from Harborne, I expect that figure to be higher. There is a real link between deprivation and stillbirths and infant mortality. Those areas need far greater numbers of midwives to deal with the case load.
That highlights the fact that reducing perinatal and infant mortality is part of public health. That cannot be addressed just at GP level, and it requires a far wider view. As we still do not have national standards for collecting data, we are not even able to say to pregnant women how well the service is doing. That is why the Prime Minister’s promises matter. If we want to create the big society, and if we are all in this together, we need to strengthen commissioning, which needs to go far wider than the current structure. The current commissioning is weak, and from what I heard last night, it will only weaken further. We do not even know how well we are doing, and we are now talking about GP-led commissioning—leaving it to the professionals.
In yesterday’s edition of The Times, the Prime Minister said, “The NHS will sicken unless we modernise”. For the moment, I will leave the use of English—“the NHS will sicken”—to others to comment on. The Prime Minister goes on to say that he wants to debunk five myths. He says:
“The fifth and final myth is the most important: the suggestion that patient care will suffer. The opposite is true. Our changes draw on some simple logic: that professionals, not managers or politicians, are best placed to understand the needs of patients. Couple that professional freedom for doctors and nurses with choice and transparency for the patient, and you get a mix that will expose poor performance and drive standards up.”
Will it really? What if the professionals are not doing a proper job? If we do not have the nationwide data that allow us to tell them whether they are doing a good job, it is not only the professionals who are not aware of whether they are doing a good job by comparison. The patient will not know that, either, and they will take the care that they get. How many of us have had feedback relating to hospitals in which the hospital’s performance was based on whether people thought that the food was any good? Although that is important, it tells us little about clinical standards. I am sure that the parents of those babies who died where better care would have made a difference would not have been aware of that, because what are the comparisons?
Andrew George
I do not want us to repeat yesterday’s debate on the Health and Social Care Bill. I took part in that debate, and my position on that Bill is reasonably well known. However, on the substance of the case that the hon. Lady is advancing, I fear that if we are going to be trading promises made by the previous Government on maternity care that were not delivered and similar promises made by a party leader that may or may not be delivered, we will not get what I hoped that we would get from this debate, which is a recognition that midwifery is under-resourced and that we should all be working together to acknowledge that we are putting a lot at risk. That includes the fact that we have high levels of litigation. If the bill of £1.4 billion that was apparently expended last year in meeting the costs of litigation in obstetrics were brought down, one could invest in the very services where such high levels of litigation arise.
Ms Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is why I have said that one of the things that we need to move to is much more serious consideration of no-fault investigations where something has gone wrong.
I return to the point that areas of higher deprivation that have high infant mortality rates require much higher numbers of midwives than areas of lower deprivation. There is no getting away from that. I am rather sad that the Perinatal Institute’s report on community midwives is not ready for publication yet, but I will not be surprised if it finds that the case load of the majority of community midwives is too high and that they regularly work more hours than they are contracted to do. There are no national standards on the accepted case load for a midwife, but professional opinion is that the figure is about 110. The Heart of Birmingham Teaching primary care trust has found that case loads are about 150.
The question is what the right figure is in areas of deprivation. Strictly speaking, Bellevue is in the Edgbaston constituency, but it borders Ladywood. A two-year study there looked at case loads of 60 to 70. The sample was too small, but there is a link between deprivation and infant mortality, and deprived areas therefore require higher levels of midwife input than other areas, which cannot be picked up by GP commissioning. In the case of the west midlands, it certainly requires a Birmingham-wide view, if not a west midlands-wide approach to commissioning, because it is a public health function as much as anything else.
Andrew George
The hon. Lady is being extremely patient in allowing me to intervene. I want to support the point that she is making. The anecdotal information that I have been picking up from midwives is that a high number are, at the pinnacle of their career, retiring as a result of stress, because of the pressure placed on them. There are unreasonable expectations of them in the case load that they are expected to undertake. Those are some of the best people, who are able to contribute the most to their local community and to the health service, yet we are losing them from the service as a result of poor staff management and the fact that they are expected to work under tremendous stress.
Ms Stuart
Indeed. If we look at the findings of the work force assessment conducted by the Royal College of Midwives, we see that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The issue is not only that we are short of midwives, but that many midwives leave early or are coming up to retirement, which is really worrying. There is no doubt that we need to strengthen the work force.
I want to bring all the strands together. We are told that the new health service will give the patient the say, and we are trusting the professionals to know better than the politicians and the managers. My argument is that, in some areas, the professionals themselves clearly do not know how well they are doing, and it is about time that they did—when they find out, they need to put in place mechanisms to put things right. Unless we have standardised maternity data that allow us to make comparisons across the country, the professionals, even if they are willing to do so, will not be able to respond.
The third point is that patient choice sounds really good, but in some areas of deprivation—we have them in Birmingham—the question of choice is something from fantasy land. People just want decent services. To say to them that they are driving up choice is an absolutely ridiculous aspiration. Even if all the other things were to happen, midwives on the ground are so utterly overworked that they would have very little time to drive forward the improvements that would be made.
I can see that the Prime Minister’s vision of the new NHS will work perfectly well in Sutton Coldfield and in parts of Solihull, but not all of it. However, it will not work well in our big cities, where we need far stronger, coherent commissioning. I have four questions that I want the Minister to answer. First, the report from the west midlands is exceedingly important. What steps will she take to ensure not only that there is data gathering but that the lessons will continue to be learned not only in the west midlands, but throughout the rest of the country? I am referring to standardised data gathering and standardised analysis, so that we can get a true picture of how well the service is doing and so that we reach a position in which, when we ask how well we are doing, the professionals can answer that.
On my second question, I am fully aware that it takes x years to train nurses, midwives, doctors and consultants, and we have to start down the path of training them at some stage. Will the Minister therefore tell us whether the promise of 3,000 midwives was contingent on birth rates? If it was, can we say that it is no longer on the table? If it is on the table, what steps are being taken to start training and recruiting those midwives, on top of retaining the current ones?
My third question is about the Prime Minister’s second promise in the article in The Sun, which related to maternity networks. What are they? Where are they? Will the Minister spell that out precisely? She looks rather surprised, but when I expressed my surprise about these new maternity networks and wondered exactly what they were, the professionals came to me and said, “It would be really helpful if the Minister could spell out during the debate precisely what these networks are and where they are.” If I am being accused of ignorance, I plead that I am not alone in my ignorance.
My final question is the one that ultimately troubles me most. We are breaking up the units in the health service and moving down to GP commissioning—I have to say that I have far less faith in the universal wisdom of GPs, as opposed to other medical professionals—so how will everything hang together? There are pretty good GP groups in south Birmingham, and they will probably make the new arrangements work, as will some of the groups in other parts. However, in the areas with the highest deprivation and need, where people will be least able to exercise choice or make their demands known, I simply cannot see GP commissioning delivering for people on the ground.
Whose responsibility will it be to ensure equity in maternity care across regions? At one stage, there were thoughts that maternity commissioning should still be a national service, like the specialist commissioning services, but I gather that that is no longer the case. A fair number of MPs from Birmingham and the west midlands are present, so will the Minister explain which body will ensure in those areas that the findings in the Perinatal Institute’s report and the consequent actions are brought together and rolled out so that we receive better care?
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on securing the debate. Maternity services are an extremely emotive issue. When my daughter, Alexis, was born at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, it was the most emotional day of my life. As a non-smoker, I smoked two packets of cigarettes that day.
I pay tribute to the hospital’s staff, whom I found extraordinarily professional, hard-working and dedicated. However, there has been a lack of funding for maternity services in Shropshire hospitals over the past 13 years. The hon. Lady talked about broken promises, and I want to highlight my concerns about the huge inequality in funding for maternity services around the United Kingdom. I sometimes go to Birmingham and I see the hospitals there, and there are huge differences between the quality of the buildings, equipment and resources in Birmingham and the quality of those in Shrewsbury and rural shire counties.
The Royal Shrewsbury hospital covers not only Shrewsbury and the whole of Shropshire, but the whole of mid-Wales, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) will have the chance to explain the benefits of the maternity services for his constituents. The population of Shropshire and mid-Wales is not that much smaller than the population of Birmingham. Yes, the populations of those areas, even when combined, are smaller than that of Birmingham, but not by much. However, we have only two hospitals to cover our whole area. I am not sure how many hospitals there are in Birmingham. The hon. Lady said that there was a hospital for women’s services in Birmingham. My goodness, I wish we could have a hospital dedicated to women’s services covering my county and the whole of mid-Wales. I will find out how many hospitals there are in Birmingham, but I want to stress that my county lacks facilities.
As a result of the debate, I am also going to research the outcomes in Shropshire and mid-Wales versus those in Birmingham and to look at the resources that both receive. From all the league tables I have seen, many of the outcomes in maternity services are better in Shropshire than they are in Birmingham. Why is Shropshire so far ahead of Birmingham in the league table when it gets a fraction of the resources? The hon. Lady seemed to imply that greater resources needed to be provided, but I would say that we need to learn from Shropshire how it manages to provide such excellent maternity services when it receives such limited funding compared with Birmingham. When I have done that research, I will send it to the Minister.
During the 13 years of the previous Labour Administration—I briefed the Minister on this last night—there was a chronic lack of funding. I am not embarrassed to say that I think the previous Government deliberately targeted inner-city Labour areas with investment and deliberately stripped it from rural counties, which are predominantly Tory. That was done in a political way to put investment into Labour heartlands, and although the hon. Lady won her seat because she is an assiduous and hard-working MP, many other Labour MPs were re-elected because of that direct channelling of resources into Labour inner-city areas at the expense of rural shire counties.
As a result of that chronic lack of funding for Shropshire, a consultation is under way on proposals for a mass reconfiguration of maternity services. That will see in-patient children’s services and consultant maternity services move from Shrewsbury to Telford. My constituents expressed extreme concern about that at a public meeting on Sunday, as they have over the past few weeks. In the six years that I have been an MP, I have never received as many e-mails, telephone calls and letters from concerned parents, clinicians and GPs as I have over these reconfiguration proposals—there is a lot of concern.
I should stress that I expect any proposals put forward by local hospitals and primary care trusts robustly to meet the stringent tests set out by the Secretary of State for Health in relation to support from GP commissioners, public and patient engagement, clinical evidence and patient choice. If those stringent criteria are not met, I very much hope and expect my local council’s overview and scrutiny committee to refer the proposals to the Secretary of State, in anticipation of their being reviewed by an independent reconfiguration panel.
Today, I will write personally to all the GPs in Shropshire to find out their views about the reconfiguration proposals for maternity services, rather than being told by the PCT or the chief executive that GPs are in favour of them. If they are against the plans, I will share that information with the Minister, and I hope she will support me in challenging them.
Yesterday, I had a meeting with the deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, Louise Silverton, who has promised to help me get the Royal College of Midwives involved. I will also write to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to find out its views. I have spoken to the Minister, who has kindly agreed to meet me and a delegation of concerned constituents so that we can raise these issues with her.
I do not want to speak for too long, because I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire will get a chance to speak. I would not wish a reconfiguration of maternity services on my worst enemy. It is turning my hair grey and I am extremely upset about it. I am cognisant of the views of my constituents and I want to stress that they are very concerned at the prospect of Shrewsbury losing maternity services. People expect maternity services to be ever closer to them, not further away. Our services cover the largest landlocked county in the United Kingdom, with a vast rural expanse, as well as the whole population of mid-Wales, and we hope and expect that maternity services will stay in Shrewsbury and not be moved to the extreme east of the county, to Telford.
Andrew George
I do not want to intrude on concerns about reconfiguration in Shropshire. However, on the basis of yesterday’s debate, the Government’s intentions and the principle of “No decision about me, without me”—as well as the intention, at least, under the proposed Government health reforms, that many decisions will in future be made by communities working through their health and well-being boards with the GP commissioning consortia, and with the political support of the Government—presumably the community and GPs in Shropshire have a greater say in the present culture than they might have in the past. I should have thought that my hon. Friend might be reassured by that and would not necessarily need to get Ministers involved in the dispute.
Daniel Kawczynski
Yes, I concur with a lot of what my hon. Friend has said. However, I listen to members of the public, because I am directly accountable to them as their Member of Parliament, and often my voting and other decisions are affected by them. There is a bond of accountability between each one of us and our constituents. Unfortunately, chief executives and managers of trusts and PCTs do not necessarily have that bond of accountability. They are here one minute and gone the next. That is the problem. Many of my constituents are trying to engage in the consultation process and put questions directly to the PCT and chief executive, but they are not getting answers. I should like the Minister to be aware of that. If the Government are putting forward public and patient engagement as a stringent criterion of whether a reconfiguration of service should go ahead, it is important that the Secretary of State should have confidence that that aspect of the process has been fully and robustly carried out. My understanding is that the only method of referral is by the council’s local overview and scrutiny committee, but if the council is not minded to do it, what can local people who still have concerns do?
I have been approached about extraordinarily emotive cases, involving women who have major issues to do with maternity and paediatric services. They are very emotional about the prospect of those services being moved away from their community. I want them to be heard.
Ms Gisela Stuart
An important thing we have learned in the past 15 to 20 years is that when it comes to extremely complex and difficult clinical cases, a hospital must perform a particular function a minimum number of times if it is to be at its clinical best. Some of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will end up in Birmingham. He questions why Birmingham has received investment, but it is because we provide national centres of excellence. Some of the mothers from his area will come to the women’s hospital because their case is so complex that only the women’s hospital can deal with it. There can be only two or three centres in the country able to provide that clinical excellence. There is always that tension between the local and the centralised.
The hon. Gentleman is unhappy about the reconfiguration, but does he have an objective assessment of how good, clinically, his area’s maternity services are? He may feel good about them, but does he have a professional assessment of whether they could be better?
Daniel Kawczynski
That is a very good question. The chief executive of the trust and the PCT and many others believe that there must be a reconfiguration and specialisation at both hospitals. The argument is that without it, we shall lose services, which will go out of the county. We shall not get our NHS trust foundation status and services will be moved out even further away. That is the gun being pointed at my head—not to rock the boat too much on this issue, because there is the possibility of services moving away. I understand that. I feel that the maternity services at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital are good. When my daughter was born there I found the services tremendous. Speaking emotionally, obviously I want them to stay in Shrewsbury. I understand that we must have the reconfiguration debate and that the professionals and clinicians must make the decision, and that is why I shall write to local GPs and consultants to gauge their views. I shall keep the Minister informed.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston on raising an important issue, and look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Dobbin. Clearly there are one or two procedures of the House that I am not yet wholly familiar with, and one of them is rising to speak in Westminster Hall. I will not forget that again, because I would have been quite miffed not to have the opportunity to speak in the debate. I am very grateful and shall always remember with fond memories my experience of speaking while you are in the Chair.
Glyn Davies
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on the timely raising of a hugely important issue. She asked important questions. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s response as, I am sure, are other hon. Members.
I can reassure the hon. Lady on one point, because my wife and I had four children—well, my wife had them—and they were all born at home. That was because of the added reassurance it gave my wife. Clearly, had there been any difficulties there would have been a transfer to hospital. The births were not at our home, but our in-laws’ home, which was very near the hospital—we wanted some reassurance.
The context in which I want to speak is cross-border services. It is relevant for several services, including maternity. My constituency is in Wales and health is a devolved issue. The commissioning of maternity services is clearly a matter for the Assembly Government, but because there is no district general hospital in my constituency or, indeed, anywhere in Powys, consultancy-led maternity service provision is in Shropshire. I therefore have a particular interest in the changes taking place over the border there.
The debate is timely because of the consultation document, “Keeping it in the County”, which my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) mentioned. The local trusts are having to respond to pressure—not just financial pressure, although that is clearly an issue. There are two district general hospitals in Shropshire and the population is not really sufficient, given all the other considerations, to support them both. In addition there are the implications of the working time directive, and the specialisation that now exists among consultants. There is the added difficulty of accessing consultants from overseas, and there is greater expense in delivering specialist services at two hospitals. We have almost reached the stage of it being difficult to reassure everyone that services at these hospitals are clinically safe.
I support the principle of reconfiguration, the three most important aspects of which are consultant maternity and obstetric services, paediatric services, and trauma A and E. Those cover three highly contentious and emotional matters, and people have strong opinions on them. Today, I shall refer to consultancy-led maternity services.
My concern is that the proposals were prepared without sufficient consideration for mid-Wales. They were prepared in the context of Shropshire, and that is a huge problem. I was a member of the National Assembly for eight years. I accept that Wales is devolved, and I am most supportive of a strong and effective Assembly, but we do not want a barrier growing between Wales and England, rather like a Berlin wall along the line of Offa’s dyke. When it comes to specialist services, we remain dependent on England, particularly for consultancy-led maternity services.
The proposals suggest that consultant obstetric services will be moved from the Royal Shrewsbury hospital to the Princess Royal hospital in Telford. As my hon. Friend, the assiduous and hard-working Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, pointed out, that is causing huge concern—and not only in Shropshire but in mid-Wales. There will be three public meetings over the next three weeks. I expect hundreds to come along, and the main issue will be the provision of maternity services.
The Royal Shrewsbury hospital is just over the border from mid-Wales. All the traditional pathways from there have been to the Royal Shrewsbury. We are used to it, and it is relatively close. Nevertheless, mothers from many parts of my constituency have to travel for an hour to get to the Shrewsbury hospital, but if consultant obstetric services are moved from Shrewsbury to Telford, we are talking about another half an hour. That is causing massive concern.
I support the principle of reconfiguring the two hospitals in Shropshire. The general principle is that instead of having two district general hospitals struggling to survive in the current environment, we have one hospital that is in effect on two sites. That probably is sensible, and I would support it. However, I want the proposals to take account of the whole catchment area of the Shropshire hospitals. Devolution should not rule out mid-Wales from those discussions, as it depends on hospital services in Shropshire. That principle is particularly important to my constituency.
I shall express my view at the public meetings. I want the proposals to be changed. In a sense, it is selfish to argue the case for our constituencies, but we inevitably do so. I do not want services to be moved to Telford. If we were satisfied that that was the only answer, we would reluctantly accept it. As it is, all my constituents will rise up and say that they are not satisfied. They believe that the decision is based on convenience and political balance in order to attract support, and that this is not being done in the best interests of all who live in the catchment area of those hospitals.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I want to make three points about the provision of maternity services. The first is about the provision of extra midwives, the second is on the question of Sure Start and the third is about health visitors.
It seems to me that maternity and antenatal services are provided not only at birth; they are also post-natal services, and new mothers rely upon them strongly. I had two babies under a Conservative Government and one under a Labour Government. At none of those births did I believe that there was sufficient investment in maternity services. That situation continues.
During the last three years of the previous Labour Government there was a massive increase in investment in maternity services, and a new strategy was put in place. Unfortunately—perhaps fortunately—that coincided with a great increase in the birth rate. There was increased investment in maternity services; for example, the number of midwives rose in 2007 by 624, in 2008 by 571 and in 2009 by 787. However, that coincided with one of the largest rises in the birth rate. Being able to keep up with the increase was a problem.
We passed the baton on to this Government. They must build on our achievements and not let us down. We need to continue working on maternity services. Through an article in The Sun, the public heard loud and clear that the Prime Minister was promising 3,000 extra midwives. The fact of the matter is that 3,000 extra midwives would in any event not make up for the shortfall in their number. Even if the Government were to provide 3,000 extra midwives, we would still need at least another 1,700. The problem is that, having made that pledge and promise, the Government seem to be going back on it.
A spokesman gave this pledge on behalf of the Government:
“There must of course be enough midwives to meet the demands arising from the number of births.”
The Royal College of Midwives agrees; it calculated the national England-wide shortage of midwives in 2009 to be 4,756. If, as the nameless Conservative spokesman says, we should have enough midwives to meet demand, we need more than 3,000. The spokesman then said:
“The commitment to 3,000 midwives made in Opposition was dependent on the birth rate increasing as it has done in the recent past.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) asked—she put it so beautifully—what was his starting point? What did he mean? The whole piece was written in the present tense. Midwives are stretched to breaking point. They are overworked and demoralised, but the increase in the number of midwives was contingent on a continuing rise in the number of births.
The spokesman’s next excuse was this:
“It was not in the coalition agreement because predictions now suggest the birth rate will be stable over the next few years.”
The veracity of that statement does not stand up to proper analysis. There has not been a prediction since the Prime Minister made his pledge, so we do not know what the difference would be. If improvements are made, we need to continue to build on them. I suggest that the Government are letting everyone down.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I have some figures on the future of the midwifery work force. The Department of Health document “Midwifery 2020: Delivering expectations” states:
“The midwifery workforce across the UK is ageing with 40%-45% of the midwifery workforce reaching the current retirement age in the next ten years.”
In other words, even if we stand still, we will undermine midwifery as a result of the fall in the work force.
Emily Thornberry
I respectfully agree with my hon. Friend. In a moment, I shall be speaking about another part of the work force, health visitors. They suffer exactly the same problem. The majority of the work force is over 55. It is important to retain such valuable and experienced people—they are mostly women—but we cannot increase their number if we continue to lose existing staff at the current rate.
According to the Library, the number of births in the UK was projected to fall in 2009-10, in 2010-11 and in 2011-12. If the Prime Minister’s pledge was based on the latest birth projections, perhaps he expects to cut the number of midwives. That is clearly nonsense. We need to consider what is needed and ensure that it is fulfilled.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston made a devastating analysis of the difficulties that will be caused by the changes the Government propose. How can we make forward projections and how are we to manage the national health service if we give NHS commissioning to doctors? They will simply consider the needs of the local area and not our national needs.
In passing, may I briefly touch on the important issue of Sure Start? During the election, the Prime Minister claimed that Labour was scaremongering when we said that there would be difficulties in relation to Sure Start. He said:
“Yes, we back Sure Start. It’s a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this.”
The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), then the shadow Minister for the family, said:
“It’s unforgiveable that Labour has used the tactics of creating fear and anxiety amongst families and Sure Start staff”.
[Mr Roger Gale in the Chair]
The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), has said:
“Sure Start is at the heart of our vision for early intervention”
If that is true, why did the charities 4Children and the Daycare Trust find out that 250 centres, which serve 60,000 families, are certain either to close or be earmarked for closure? There are 3,578 children’s centres in England, 3,100 of which have been told that their budgets will be cut this year. About 2,000 services will be cutting their services as a result. The findings are based on responses from almost 1,000 Sure Start managers to a questionnaire sent out by 4Children and the Daycare Trust.
It is hugely important for a new mother to be able to find a friend, get guidance and go to a children’s centre. Nevertheless, centres offering such services are being cut. The other friend that mothers need is the health visitor. Again, when the Prime Minister was in opposition, he made a big thing about increasing the number of health visitors:
“The substantial increase in the number of health visitors will mean that families get more support—from properly trained professionals. Health visitors will be able to spend time with families, have the opportunity to spot parenting issues, and build the trusted relationships needed to help with them. For instance, if they feel a mother is not bonding with her baby, and recognise the cause as post-natal depression, they might gently recommend that she visit her GP, or steer her towards a local counsellor.”
He was absolutely right; no one can disagree with that. However, when I met London health visitors from the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association earlier this year, they told me that there was a huge problem in recruiting new health visitors. They were losing a lot of older, experienced staff through early retirement. Nearly a third of health visitors in London are over 55 and they have dangerous work loads. In some cases, there are more than 1,000 children per five health visitors. That is four times higher than Lord Laming—the writer of the Baby P and the Victoria Climbié reports—recommended. His recommendation is for health visitors to have a quarter of their current work load.
In an area such as London, which is very demanding, current work loads are dangerous. We need more health visitors. The Government recognise that a health visitor should have no more than 250 children under five and no more than 100 in highly vulnerable areas, as was recommended by Lord Laming and the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association. Will the Government consider that recommendation when they look again at how many health visitors are needed?
When I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), whether the Government would take responsibility for recruiting and training the extra 4,200 health visitors promised, the answer I received was odd. She said that she will learn from the decisions on the case loads and they will be “locally determined”. In the same answer, she says that the Department is shortly to publish plans to
“conduct a demographic and geographical analysis to establish location and population need and match with trainees and training places; and ensure positive correlation between work force growth and population need.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 460W.]
On the one hand, the Government say they will look nationally and decide what the need is, and on the other they say that it will be left to localities to decide. We really cannot have it both ways. What we have is a lack of health visitors.
Daniel Kawczynski
The hon. Lady talks about the need for more health visitors and staff and maternity services. If there were a Labour Government, the NHS would not be ring-fenced and there would be cuts in the NHS budget. Only our party has promised to ring-fence the NHS budget. How can she promise additional services when there would have been cuts in the NHS budget under Labour?
Emily Thornberry
Although the Government have said that, in principle, there is a ring fence to the NHS budget, a closer analysis will show that that is not true. The real position is that there is double-counting of over £2 billion—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)
indicated dissent.
Emily Thornberry
The hon. Lady is welcome to intervene if she wants to get into an analysis. The Government’s promise of a ring fence and a year-on-year increase in the NHS budget is one that does not stand up to scrutiny. There is double-counting going on. Currently, given the increased demand, we must have 4% efficiency savings each year in the NHS. In fact, we will see cuts. It is simply not right for the Government to continue to say that the NHS budget is ring-fenced, that the NHS is safe with them and that services will not be cut. The reality is that the NHS is going through a very difficult time, and, on top of that, this Government are putting it through an absolutely needless reorganisation, which means that we will not get a national steer on things such as maternity services.
Simply giving commissioning to GPs will not help. It has been a matter of policy for years that we keep pregnant women away from doctors if we can, because they are not ill. We pass their care into the hands of the midwives, and hopefully everything will be fine. If a doctor is needed, bring the doctor in. Essentially, women go to a GP to find out that they are pregnant. They then go to a midwife and the midwife looks after them. That has always been the case. GPs do not have an understanding of midwifery or services for pregnant women. The difficulty is that such services will be sidelined and that is not fair on women. That argument was made to the Government when the point was being made that midwifery and post-natal services should be commissioned nationally. I do not know why the Government have changed their mind about that, and it is one of the questions I want to ask the Minister.
The NHS is going through great economic trauma. It is used to having a year-on-year increase in budget. Now, its budget will be cut year on year at the same time as the service is being reorganised. Will we have proper tactical decisions on midwives, community nurses and all those things on which mothers rely, or will we simply allow such services to be given to GPs—at a time when a cold wind is blowing through the national health service?
I think I have got through most of my questions to the Minister. I have just a few more. How will she drive improvements in maternity services? Before the election, the Prime Minister talked about maternity networks. What levers does he have that will make them a reality? Why did the Government ignore the representations of professional bodies such as the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in relation to commissioning? Furthermore, why has the Prime Minister handed over commissioning to GPs and maternity services? Will the Minister give us an assessment of the involvement of midwives in GP pathfinder consortia?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)
May I say what a pleasure it is to be under your chairmanship, Mr Gale? I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on securing this debate. She was right to emphasise the good work that goes on in our maternity services and to praise the staff for the care that they give to women and their families. Pregnancy is an exciting, but sometimes bewildering, time for us all. I have had four children in four different hospitals in four different parts of the country. As is the case for many women, the care that I received had a significant impact not only on me but on the care that I was able to give my children at the time.
The hon. Lady raised three issues. She referred to the excellent work of Professor Gardosi, an article from The Sun—much reference has been made to The Sun—and the debate yesterday on the health Bill. The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who is no longer in her place, also mentioned the excellent work of the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society. Let me also take the opportunity to praise that organisation for its work in this difficult area. It would be an honour for me to be at the opening of the Forget-Me-Not suite at the Royal Surrey county hospital in my constituency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) made an important intervention. As he said, the birth rate rose by 19% between 2001 and 2009, and the midwifery work force rose by only 9% in that period. Listening to Opposition Members this morning, one wonders where the Government have been for the past 13 years. In that period, significant amounts of money were going into the NHS. So, as my hon. Friend asked, what exactly did the previous Government do in that time?
I want to mention some of the other points that my hon. Friend made. His dedicated service to his constituents is legendary and this morning he spoke with his usual passion. He has already raised his concerns about reconfigurations of services and I know that he will listen to what GPs, midwives and, most importantly, women and their families have to say about those reconfigurations. I know that he will use every tool at his disposal to ensure that his constituents’ views are heard loud and clear.
My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) also reiterated his concerns about reconfigurations. I must say, Mr Gale, that he should relax about parliamentary procedures, which confuse even the most experienced Members at times. As a new Member, you often feel that it is just you who is confused. But fear not—people who have been in the House for 20 years or more can also get confused by procedure.
I was very heartened to hear of my hon. Friend’s positive tale of his wife’s four home births. Clearly, they were successful and happy experiences, which were doubtless helped enormously by the excellent support of a midwife on the spot. He rightly raised the difficult issue of cross-border care and it is critical that we get that care right. Arbitrary lines do not wash with the public, and I am sure that people will listen to his contributions on this subject when the reconfigurations are considered. The first duty of maternity services is to provide safe, high quality care for mothers and babies. Women should rightly expect to receive consistently excellent maternity services, no matter what time of day they have their baby or where they are treated.
I did not have any home births, but I am very aware—this is slightly contrary to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston—of what an important choice having a home birth is for many women. Personally, I am a little more nervous. I quite enjoyed my stay in hospital after each of my babies arrived; I put that down to the fact that I always feel the need to do housework if I am at home, so a hospital stay gave me a few days off. However, having a home birth is an important choice and I know that many women gain enormously from the opportunity to have a baby in their own home, and our aims reflect that. We have made provision of maternity services that are focused on improving outcomes for women and for their babies, along with improving women’s experience of care, an absolute priority for the NHS. The Government set out our long-term vision for the future of health care in our White Paper and there was an extensive debate in the House on many of those issues yesterday.
By focusing on health outcomes and delivering maternity services through provider networks, we want to deliver high quality maternity services. Networks will bring together all the maternity services that a mother might need, linking local hospitals, GPs, charities, secondary and tertiary services, and, indeed, community groups, so that they can share information, expertise and services. Commissioners and providers will drive that process forward. Maternity networks will extend choice for women by encouraging providers to work together, offering expectant mothers and their families a broader choice of maternity services and allowing women to move seamlessly between the services that they want or need.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I am trying to understand these networks. How many will there be? I am concerned about the fragmentation of maternity services. Will there be one network in the west midlands, or will Birmingham have one network? Will there be 25 networks? How big are the networks?
Anne Milton
The important thing for central Government, and it is what we are doing, is to move away from being centrally very prescriptive. If I were to guess, I would say that networks will be on a regional level, but their size will depend on various things. Delivering maternity services in Birmingham is very different from delivering maternity services in Cornwall. We need a network that can offer all the services that women and their families need while not being too big and thus unresponsive to local need.
Ms Stuart
This issue is quite important. When we created primary care trusts, there was a kind of vision that they would each serve a population of around 250,000. That was a framework, but there were still some very small PCTs. Are we looking at a maternity network that would serve a million people, as in Birmingham, or a network that would serve 3.6 million people, as in the west midlands as a whole?
Anne Milton
The hon. Lady is already falling into difficulties. She wants central Government to prescribe what works on the ground. If one looks at the proposals for GP pathfinder consortia, one sees that the proposed consortia vary in size enormously. That is because local people on the ground know what size of consortium will work for them. We will see more details emerging as the health Bill goes through Parliament and as the consortia get going. What matters is to be locally responsive. The hon. Lady mentioned accountability; having the right accountabilities in the system is important. What also matters is using the commissioners in particular to drive up quality.
Our focus on public health is also critical to maternal outcomes. Healthier women have healthier babies and for the first time we will ring-fence public health money. The hon. Lady was right to mention inequalities. Increased rates of stillbirth are associated with deprivation. I must say that, despite the previous Government having what was doubtless the best will in the world, during the 13 years that they were in power, health inequalities widened. I do not think that that was because they were utterly incompetent; it was partly because it is extremely difficult to do something about inequalities. However, I believe that our focus on public health and our ring-fencing of public health money will have a significant impact.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, although choice is very important, in a constituency such as mine, which is in the east end of London, public health issues, such as nutrition, access to advice and quite low-tech care during pregnancy are just as important to good maternal health outcomes? Underweight babies are one of the big problems in my constituency. They often have poor educational outcomes later, and cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds, because they have to be put in incubators and so on. That problem is to do with the sort of advice that those young mothers receive and it is a public health issue.
Anne Milton
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention; I think that we broadly agree on this issue. That is why we are focusing on public health. Preparation for pregnancy and having a healthy baby starts long before a woman gets pregnant. The education and support that women receive, the social networks that they are part of and improving the public’s health all matter. Nothing could be more important than improving the outcomes for women and, indeed, their babies.
Choice is important and it is also important that women can make informed choices; choices must be well informed to improve the outcomes for women and their babies. Furthermore, it is important that women have access to maternity services at an early stage in their pregnancy. In fact, ensuring such access is probably one of the most fundamental characteristics of high quality maternity care, which is why we have included the 12-week early access indicator as one of the measures for quality in the NHS operating framework for 2011-12.
Of course, it is also important that there are appropriate numbers of trained maternity professionals to provide the maternity service. The number of clinicians needed by mothers depends on several factors, ranging from the mother’s medical circumstances, to the complexity of the pregnancy, to wider societal factors, which can have a considerable impact.
Looking at the bigger picture, the birth rate must be considered when we are planning maternity services. Although the number of births in England has been rising since 2001, as I mentioned earlier, the birth rate peaked in 2008 and fell, by just less than 1%, in 2009 to about 671,000 live births. We are determined that staffing rates should be calculated purely on how many staff are needed to provide safe, quality care. We are considering ways to improve midwife retention and recruitment, and the planned number of midwives in training in 2010-11 is at a record level of about 2,500. Therefore we expect a sustained increase in the number of new midwives who will be available for maternity services during the next few years.
Complete and absolute focus on staffing numbers is totally ridiculous. If the birth rate shot up, 3,000 extra midwives would not be enough. Ensuring that the maternity work force has an effective skills mix is also an important consideration. I was recently in an extremely busy maternity unit, and the midwife there made it clear that what they needed was not more midwives but more support staff. Doubtless in other units there will be support workers in place, but not enough midwives. We want to focus on using the whole maternity team, including obstetricians, anaesthetists and support workers. It is not just the number of qualified midwives that is important, but their experience, and one issue that we need to address is attrition. A newly qualified midwife does not have the experience, nor perhaps the skills, to lead the team in a way that a midwife who has been in practice for 10 years or so can.
Emily Thornberry
Although I agree with what the Minister says, surely the difficulty she has is that the Prime Minister promised us 3,000 more midwives. Although I accept that we need experienced staff to ensure that midwives are trained up properly—the same applies to a number of different skills—the Prime Minister promised us the 3,000, so is it right that the Government are rowing back on that promise?
Anne Milton
There is no rowing back. We have always made it clear that the number of midwives will be in proportion to the birth rate. In fairness to the previous Government, they made concerted attempts, although much too late, to increase the number of midwives in training, and, as I have said, we have 2,500-odd in training now. We will continue to ensure that we have the right staff mix and the right number of midwives to ensure that women have safe births.
Ms Gisela Stuart
On that very point, I would be very happy for the Minister to write to me, stating that the Prime Minister himself said that that promise of 3,000 was contingent on the birth rate.
Anne Milton
I will happily discuss that further with the hon. Lady if she would like me to.
Significant progress has been made, and what matters is that the number of midwives that we have in place—the skills mix—provides good, safe outcomes for women and their babies. The NHS commissioning board will provide commissioning guidance and we are, of course, keen for it to support GP commissioning consortia in their commissioning of services. The Government will specify outcome indicators that demonstrate high quality and improving care, but it would not be appropriate for us to dictate models of care or how resources, including staff, are used. Instead, we will look for local leadership, from health and well-being boards for example, which will develop the joint strategic needs assessments and health and well-being strategies to inform commissioning, ensuring that trends in the birth rate and the growth in the number of more complex cases are taken into account by the local service. The complexity of a case is becoming more important than ever in determining the care and the number of staff needed to deliver babies safely, and its consideration will allow individual maternity services to adapt to the different pressures faced in different communities.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston rightly made important points about the deaths of the 25 babies in the west midlands between April 2008 and March 2009, and said that the report sadly states that 84% of those deaths were potentially avoidable. That is totally unacceptable, and I must admit that it comes as a shock to me, as it probably did to the hon. Lady, that we are still not good at using serious untoward incidents, and indeed the deaths of children and babies, to learn and to improve our practice. I met Professor Jason Gardosi, director of the west midlands Perinatal Institute and author of the report, to discuss the issue in more detail, and we have a lot of work to do to ensure that we learn from such tragic incidents. When I talk to women who have lost babies, they say that, more than anything, they want this not to happen again and lessons to be learnt from their experience.
The report outlines steps that could improve the safety of services, and we are looking at a number of ways in which they can be addressed. The NHS in the west midlands now has clear plans for improving standards of care and reducing preventable deaths, and it is important that those plans are implemented, including the urgent introduction of a system whereby maternity units and commissioners can learn from and respond effectively to adverse incidents, and a standardised regional perinatal death reporting system across all its maternity units. Interestingly, as a result of that, the west midlands in many ways now leads the way in this field.
Nationally, the National Patient Safety Agency has launched an intrapartum toolkit, which is valuable in helping maternity units improve safety. Sharing best practice is terribly important and we do not do it enough in the NHS. I hope that the new outcomes framework will act as a catalyst for driving up quality across all NHS services by measuring what is important: clinical outcomes. Such outcomes make a real difference to people’s experiences of services and to their health and well-being, and can sometimes save the lives of mothers and babies.
It would be unfair to say that there have been no improvements in the past few years; there have been improvements in antenatal care. The Care Quality Commission survey of women’s experiences of maternity services published in December 2010 found that 92% of women rated their maternity care as good or better. We should be proud of that, but it is the 8% sitting on the edge and those babies who die that are completely unacceptable, and we need to do much more.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston talked eloquently about the association between deprivation and poor outcomes, and rightly said that commissioning is weak. She described Professor Gardosi’s report as damning, but the previous Government presided over the years covered by the study. What exactly did her Government do? Where were they? Why were inequalities in health not reduced? What happened to the health visitor numbers? Why is commissioning so weak? It is the weakness of commissioners that has failed to drive up standards, and the hon. Lady spells out exactly the case for changing commissioning.
Anne Milton
I appreciate that, but for the past 13 years the hon. Lady’s party has been in government. In many ways, she could not have made a better case for changing commissioning. It is not very sexy to talk about it, but the weakness of commissioning is what has been at fault in many ways. It is what has failed to drive up the quality of services and achieve the outcomes that we want. The Health and Social Care Bill gives us the chance to refocus the NHS on what is important to its users and the staff providing the services, and to achieve the results that are important to them.
I assure hon. Members that I will continue to work on maternity services, and I remind the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) that it is simplistic in the extreme to say that this is just a numbers game. As far as health visitors are concerned, her Government presided over this dramatic loss in the health-visiting work force. We have promised to increase the number of health visitors to 4,200, and that vital work force will work with midwives and other professionals across the board to ensure a universal visiting service and targeted help for the most vulnerable.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston put across the exact case for why the changes to commissioning are so important, why our pledge to increase the number of health visitors is vital, why we need to create the maternity networks and why ring-fencing public health money is so important. Crucially, they are important because we are determined to improve the health outcomes of mothers and their babies.
Pensioner Poverty
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
In our country, we have growing life expectancy, but pensioner poverty will become an increasing problem for us all. There are no reality shows on hospital geriatric wards. A dribbling one-year-old is cute, but a dribbling 91-year-old is not. One has their life in front of them, and for the other it is in the past. However, socially, each life is equally important.
We now have a population of 61 million. Nearly one third of us are pensioners. Of those, 1.8 million live in poverty. Statistically, when I walk down the street in my constituency, every 10th pensioner whom I see lives in poverty. Poverty is difficult to define, and I will not try to do so—it is a quagmire. To me, poverty involves not having enough food, clothing, warmth, shelter, care or contact with other people. Loneliness is a killer. How many of us have known of someone who just fell off the perch when their husband or wife died?
When I was canvassing for my seat—I am one of the youngest Members in the new intake eight months ago—I knocked on a door in my constituency and an old lady came to the door. It was a very respectable house. She said, “Would you like a cup of tea?” I said, “That would be lovely.” I went through to the kitchen and sat down, and she made a cup of tea for me. I said, “Are you alone?” She said, “Yes, I’ve been alone for 10 years.” I said, “I’m sorry. Your husband died?” She said, “Yes. It’s very lonely.” I said, “Well, thank goodness you’ve got a dog.” I have a dog; they are great fun and good companions. She said, “I haven’t got a dog.” I said, “Well, you’ve got dog food on the sideboard.” She said, “Do you know, it makes a passable stew.” That was in a respectable house. Our society has hidden poverty as well.
Often, pensioners face a stark choice between heating and eating. I am shocked that between 20,000 and 25,000 pensioners a year in this country are said to die from hypothermia. In my constituency, I am told, an average of 30 old people die of cold each winter, which is shocking. For each one who dies, eight are admitted to hospital, 32 must seek out-patient treatment and 30 see care workers.
Obviously, people on low incomes are most at risk. All of us here expect to heat our homes to a temperature of 21° C, which is the norm. One can go as far down as 18° C, but below that we start losing old people. I saw one figure saying that at 17° C, 8,000 more people die. I cannot believe it, but that is the figure that I was given by Age Concern. The mean average temperature last winter was 3.4° C. Hypothermia in old people starts at 5° C, so home heating is essential.
The state pension is about £97 a week for a single person or £162 for a married couple. No one can live on that, and we all know it. It is vital to keep the winter fuel allowance, bus passes, eye tests, free prescriptions and free television licences for pensioners. They are good measures, and it is absolutely right that any Government should keep them.
I think of people who, perhaps like the old lady I met, tried all their life to save for their old age. But interest rates are low now, so nest eggs yield no interest, and pensioners must bite into their capital. It is infrequently mentioned in the media that the elderly suffer most from low interest rates. Some 28% of all pensioners have less than £1,500 in savings, 4% do not even have a bank account and 26% of female pensioners have no savings whatever—for men, that figure is 28%. What happens when those people have a crisis—when their boiler breaks or something crucial to their lifestyle goes wrong? They panic, and they then become good bait for loan sharks. I suspect some of them just give up and say, “That’s it.”
The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that 39% of pensioners fail to claim their benefits. That amounts to between £3.1 billion and £5.4 billion a year unclaimed. In statistical terms, that accounts for 700,000 of the 1.8 million pensioners in poverty. Of course, many, like my mother and the parents of other people in this Chamber, are proud and dignified. They do not want to be a burden on anyone, and they spent their entire lives saving so as not to be. God bless them for it, but those benefits are a right, not charity. We are only giving back to pensioners what they contributed to our society, but the problem is trying to convince them of it.
My constituency, which is part of Bromley, is served by Age Concern Bromley. The lady who runs it, Maureen Falloon, has helped pensioners to claim £900,000 in the past year, which is vital. We should be encouraging such outreach services, where charities get involved with vulnerable people and help them out.
The old need to be cared for. There are 2.8 million carers in our country who get no money whatever for caring. Some 5% of those are over 85 years of age. Of course people want to stay in their homes. My mother did; all our parents do. It is natural. They do not want to go somewhere strange. We must try to help them stay in their homes, which, by the way, is cheaper than putting them in a home.
Old age can be lonely. Some 12% of pensioners say that they feel trapped inside their homes, and 6% say that they leave their homes only once a week. Other societies have what used to be called—I do not know whether they still are—extended families. Extended families ensure that the old are looked after and have a place in society. We seem to have lost that, which is a shame, because it is a part of the big society, too.
Unlimited funds would help, but the Minister and I know very well that we do not have them. There are 1.4 million people in our country over 85 years of age. In 10 years’ time, according to The Spectator—it is in the press, so it must be true—there will be 2.5 million, which is a time bomb.
I will conclude with three thoughts. We need to get the 700,000 people who do not claim their benefits to do so, because if they do, they will be lifted out of the poverty trap. The Minister will know about the claim form for attendance allowance and its instructions. One of my staff spent two days—a whole weekend—and two bottles of wine filling out the form, which is actually half the size it was. We have to make it simpler, not only for those who are trying to claim individually, but for those who help them. The Minister is running an automatic credits payment scheme. It is a trial that has been ongoing since last year and will conclude at the end of this year. It is fantastic that, fundamentally, the Ministry, the Government and the system will identify people at risk and give them back their money, for which they have worked all their lives, look after them and make sure that they do not freeze to death or have to eat dog food.
My second thought relates to fixed income bonds, which used to be called granny bonds. When someone has saved all their life and they are trying their best not to be a burden on anyone—not just the state, but their family—they might at least have some guarantee of income. If we were to give a guaranteed rate of return for savings, at least those people who need it would know how much money they could plan on getting without trying to take out their savings.
Thirdly, it should be relatively easy to target potential pensioners as they approach retirement. Surely Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs knows what people’s tax band is likely to be in retirement. Surely all our wonderful computer systems can spew out exactly what has happened and why we should target them. When that happens, they will need advice. The lady in the house with the dog food needed someone to help her. Perhaps she should downsize. I know that it is difficult for her, but somehow someone has to get in there and help her. A charity such as Age Concern Bromley could, through someone such as Maureen Falloon, talk to pensioners in that sort of situation, convince them of their entitlements and help them fill in forms such as that for attendance allowance.
Remember that some people in our society cannot read—they are illiterate. I speak as an ex-Army officer who had to deal with such people as they joined the Army. Surely it would be a moral and proper use of taxpayers’ money to spend some of our resources on helping people via a grant of some kind to a local charity that could offer assistance. The way a society looks after its vulnerable is a very good measure of its civilization.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) on raising a serious and important issue, and on explaining its depth and breadth. On pensioner poverty, we talk too often about incomes and measuring the statistics, and therefore lose sight of its human side. No matter how immersed we get in the statistics or how much progress we may think has been made, we should all still be shocked by the example that my hon. Friend has given. The experience of the pensioner whom he visited is totally unacceptable. Notwithstanding anything I might say in the time available to me, one person in such a situation is, clearly, one too many.
My hon. Friend raised a broad spectrum of issues and I will respond to a number of his key themes. On fuel poverty, I want to talk about the support we aim to give and some of our new initiatives. I will also address the issue of non-take-up of benefit, which as he rightly says is one of the most significant causes of pensioner poverty. He raised the issue of investment returns, granny bonds, interest and so on during oral questions a few weeks ago. I am pleased that he has followed up on that and I will give him a bit more information on it. Finally, I will talk about some of the broader issues he raised—income, material deprivation, loneliness and so on—and the steps the Government can take to identify those problems and act on them. I will try to run through all those things.
On fuel poverty, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is a pretty basic need to be able to keep warm enough and healthy, particularly in such a bitterly cold winter. One of the very first decisions we had to take as a Government was, as he rightly says, to continue the winter fuel payment when there was some speculation that it might go or be cut in some other way. We also made a decision on the cold weather payments, which are specific, £25-a-week payments for when the temperature is below zero for a week. They were temporarily raised to £25, and the budget plans we inherited would have reduced them this winter to £8.50 a week. We took the view that when temperatures are below freezing spending money on relatively low-income pensioners, disabled people and families with young children was a priority. My hon. Friend rightly says that money is tight, but that was a priority for us. Instead of cutting it to £8.50, we held the rate at £25, and those who are eligible in his constituency will have received three payments of £25—a total of £75—towards the extra costs of heating in this bitterly cold winter. I think that he and I can be proud of that decision.
Obviously, that is a short-term situation and, ideally, we have to ask why we in Britain have what is known in the jargon as “excess winter deaths.” Why is a cold winter killing people in Britain when, essentially, it does not in Scandinavia, which is a much colder region? It does not get the spikes that we do in the winter, but one of the fundamental reasons is the poor standard of our existing and new housing stock. Even the houses that we are now building are often not good enough. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is leading on those issues and it is requiring the energy companies, as part of their carbon reduction commitments—the carbon emissions reduction target scheme—to target the most vulnerable households. The idea is that the energy companies will pay for things such as home insulation, loft insulation, cavity walls, draft-proofing and so on because, yes, we need to make sure that pensioners can afford their heating bills, but it would be far better if we could make sure, through a properly insulated home, that those heating bills were not so large in the first place. If we can make sure that more elderly people have cosy homes, they will be able to afford to heat them and everybody will gain. We are requiring the energy companies to do more on that front.
We also experimented—this is an interesting point in relation to take-up—with the energy rebate scheme earlier this year. The electricity companies made payments to pensioners based on data-matching between the data held by the Department for Work and Pensions and the energy companies’ customer data. We brought the two together, identified people on the guarantee credit element of the pension credit and simply credited them with £80 on their electricity bills. The previous Government initiated the scheme and we did it as an experiment earlier this year. We targeted those aged over 70, so the elderly and the vulnerable got £80 credit on their electricity accounts. It was a one-year pilot and most of the delivery costs were paid by energy suppliers, and I sense that it was pretty successful. I had a few letters about people who were not sure why they did not qualify when their name was on the bill, and we had a few teething problems. However, overwhelmingly, that scheme put cash in the pockets of people living in vulnerable households. That has worked well, so we are now proposing something called a warm home discount scheme that will build on that success. We propose that energy suppliers should again pay a rebate to vulnerable pensioners, who have been identified through data-matching. That scheme was a useful precedent and we want to build on it.
However, crucially, that brings me on the second point: take-up. Of course, eligibility for the scheme I mentioned is dependent on the person concerned getting pension credit. As my hon. Friend rightly says, too many people who are eligible do not get the money. I absolutely endorse his comment that the payment is not charity; it is a right. People have paid their taxes and their national insurance and they are entitled to the money. I would not want any pensioner to feel that claiming money that the law says they are entitled to is anything other than a right. I am grateful to him for how he expressed that. As he rightly says, one of the things we are looking at—I view this as a two-stage process—is getting people to claim what is there now and simplifying the claims process. The second step, which I will come on to, is to reduce the reliance on means-testing and use more of the benefits and pensions that we know people will get. We should regard means-testing as a safety net, a residual part of the system, rather than a mainstream part of the process, as it is now.
As my hon. Friend rightly says, we are running a pilot scheme. We are trying to use the data we already hold to indentify the people who are eligible but not claiming. I sense that that will be more difficult than we might think. Eligibility for pension credit depends not just on one’s own income but on one’s spouse’s. It also depends on the whole household’s housing costs, and on all its savings in different accounts with different institutions. One of the problems we have in Government is bringing all that together. On my hon. Friend’s point about identifying people approaching pension age who might be about to become poor, the pilot will tell us how far we can draw together the disparate information that different bits of Government hold. People might have three different pensions from three different providers, and, two years before pension age, might not have even crystallised the pot into a pension. We therefore do not yet know how big the pension will be.
Bob Stewart
Perhaps those who work for charities could be used as additional social workers to help those people and give information back to Government. We would all win by doing that.
Steve Webb
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for stressing the valuable contribution of charities, such as Age Concern Bromley. Many other charities that do their work in people’s front rooms have a crucial part to play. The Pension, Disability and Carers Service is a local service that works with local authorities and does home visits. It goes into people’s front rooms and does similar sorts of work. Such work is very valuable, but I want to be as systematic as I can, so that we can catch the folk who fall through the net.
Steve Webb
Absolutely. That work is a very valuable complement to the process. I want to ensure that the Government are as systematic as we can be, so that we can get as much money automatically to people as we can. As I said, we have been running a pilot scheme and have identified a sample of 2,000 people who, on the face of it, appear to be entitled to pension credit and are not claiming it. We have made payments to those people of what we think they should get. We have contacted them and said, “The money that’s arriving in your bank account is what we think you could get as pension credit. Would you like to make a claim?” As my hon. Friend says, that has been going on and we are closing the study in the middle of March. We are hoping to learn from that how far we can use the information we have to ensure that people get what they are entitled to. We will certainly be reporting back to the House on that.
What we have to do—and what the Government are doing—is to ensure that the money people definitely do claim is better. Let me give an example. The state pension, which has virtually 100% take-up, is worth having. My hon. Friend will know that, after 30 years of the link with earnings being broken, we restored the earnings link this year. Over the lifetime of their retirement, a typical pensioner retiring this year can expect to get an extra £15,000 in state pension compared with the old price link. That money is guaranteed and we know they will claim it. My goal for the longer term is to try to rebalance the system, so that we do not have, as he rightly says, a wholly inadequate basic pension—someone cannot live on £97 a week—and a mass means-testing system that results in many people failing to claim. There will always be a need for a safety net and a catch-all, but I would rather ensure that the pension is at a decent level. Restoring the earnings link is the first step towards that, but I hope we can go further.
My hon. Friend rightly raised the issue of investment income and set out a very important context. In fact, many pensioners, particularly poorer pensioners, have next to no investment income. He quoted some figures. Regarding the poorest fifth of single pensioners, who are living on £136 a week, just £4 of that is coming from investment income. So even if I could magically double interest rates, I would be giving them an extra £4 a week. That clearly matters for those who have structured their finances to depend on interest income. I will say a word about that in a moment. However, for us as a Government, getting pensions, pension credit and so on right will have a substantial effect.
My hon. Friend is right: falling interest rates are an issue. He mentioned the granny bond or, as I gather it used to be called, the pensioner guaranteed income bond. That bond was withdrawn by National Savings and Investments in 2008, when it was paying an interest rate of 3.9%. That was a few years ago. Obviously, when there is a base rate of 0.5%, one might think that savings rates had plummeted so far there would be nothing like that out there. I have done a bit of research and, for example, today on the market 3% interest rates are available for a one-year bond, and for three-year bonds 4% interest rates are available.
However, people do not necessarily know about that. When I responded to my hon. Friend in the House a little while ago and mentioned the issue of shopping around, we discussed the fact that, if someone has access to the internet, dealing with such issues is straightforward. Moneymadeclear and so on are good websites. However, the Consumer Financial Education Body also offers a helpline that people can ring up. If someone is not sure whether they are getting the best interest rate and they want to know what is available, they can ring the helpline number. I shall read that number into the record: 0300 500 5000. People can simply phone that number and say, “I’ve got this amount of savings. What sort of options do I have?” As I mentioned, with savings rates of 4% or more and increased limits on individual savings accounts available, decent rates are out there. However, too many people are trapped in receiving very poor interest rates. Let me give an example. I noticed this morning that a high street building society is offering what it calls an e-savings plus account that pays 0.1% interest, and a high street bank is offering what it calls a premier saving account, also offering 0.1%.
Bob Stewart
That is exactly where people who work for charities that go into people’s homes can help. If they have such things in their quiver, they can say, “Let’s have a look at your savings and see if we can get you a better return.” That does not cost them anything.
Steve Webb
Indeed. I certainly would not downplay the role of face-to-face conversations. I fully accept that many older and more vulnerable people will not have internet access. We need alternatives, such as charities or visitors going into people’s homes and talking about savings rates and giving phone numbers of the sort I have mentioned. That is all part of getting the message across that people who have suffered a big fall in their savings rate need not necessarily face such a situation. There are options out there for them.
In the final few minutes of my speech, I shall talk about the broader issues that my hon. Friend raised. He mentioned carers and social care. As he will know, the Department of Health has an independent care commission headed by Andrew Dilnot, which is due to report in the summer. Although that commission’s formal consultation process finished on Saturday, I am sure it would very much welcome my hon. Friend’s input if he has further comments to make about the role of older carers, whom he mentioned. The Government are seeking to ensure that those who are doing full-time care of, for example, 50 hours a week or more can get far more respite. Perhaps 1 million people are in that category. He also raised the issue of claim forms. I entirely agree: there is always a lot more to be done. I should stress that people can ring a free phone number—0800 882200—and can claim over the telephone. As he rightly says, that might help people who cannot read or deal with the forms. It is great if those people have someone do the form for them or with them. We also try to enable people to complete the form over the phone if that is more helpful to them.
Finally, my hon. Friend properly raised the much wider issues of pensioner poverty. It is not just about income; it is about loneliness and what happens if the cooker breaks and so on. When we publish the figures on households with a below average income—the poverty figures—I am keen for our Department not simply to publish table after table about income, but for it to look much more broadly at deprivation. I have a list of the things we are studying and publishing figures on: for example, whether someone can replace a cooker, take a holiday away from home or go out socially at least once a month. As he rightly says, loneliness, isolation and financial insecurity are important facets.
Steve Webb
I am about to conclude as there are only a few seconds left.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising a vital issue and I look forward to having an ongoing conversation with him. Like him, I congratulate the voluntary sector and our front-line staff on their work. They are bringing these messages to vulnerable people, whom we are determined to help.
Policing (Telford)
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
It is good to see you officiating in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Gale.
I begin by paying tribute to the officers, community support officers and civilian staff who work so hard in my constituency. I have always felt that being a serving police officer or CSO is one of the toughest jobs in our community. When they go to work, they know that they might place themselves in harm’s way, on a daily basis, to uphold the law and protect local people. May I say to those people that we are grateful for their work and the commitment that they show?
We have an establishment figure of 290 police officers and 49 CSOs in the Telford and Wrekin area. Those officers are backed up by civilian staff. In many police stations today, the person we meet, who will help us and point us in the right direction as we go up to the front desk, is often a civilian member of staff. The support they give front-line officers and CSOs is very important. Approximately 20% of the officers who work in Telford are in CID and specialist teams, 20% work in local policing teams and 60% of officers and CSOs work in the response unit. We saw a significant rise in police numbers in the previous decade, and the introduction from scratch of CSOs, who provide a valuable visible presence in the community and have proved to be a successful addition to the strength of divisions across West Mercia. I remember that when CSOs were brought in, people were somewhat sceptical, but they have worked very well in Telford. We often see CSOs paired up with police officers so that they can work jointly and provide cover for each other. They are often seen in our local centres, such as Dawley, Madeley and Oakengates, and provide a valuable, uniformed presence in those areas. People value them and the numbers have risen significantly in recent years. A range of partners, not just mainstream Home Office funding from the police authority, is involved in funding CSOs. Other partners are contributing to provide CSOs in our area. For example, we have seen partnerships with parish councils, which helped provide sponsorship for vehicles and individual CSOs.
The local policing teams serving my constituency operate out of Donnington, Malinsgate and Madeley police stations, and their ethos revolves around four key themes: access, influence, intervention and answers. It is their job to be the direct link and connection with communities in our area. This initiative was one of the best undertaken in policing during the lifetime of the Labour Government. It ensures that people can identify their local police officers and CSOs and engage with them directly.
In Telford, we also have the Partners and Communities Together process, which enables local people to engage with the police and other agencies to identify and tackle issues in their community. I have attended some PACT meetings. They are large meetings: they are often packed—different spelling—and very positive. Local police officers come and talk about policing priorities, and the community can say to police officers and CSOs, “Actually, in the next few weeks we need you to focus on this area or this particular type of crime in our community, because it is particularly troubling us.” Those meetings are very positive and provide a link back to the public. The public get frustrated sometimes when they see that police officers are active, but do not receive any feedback on results or actions that have been taken. This is, therefore, a two-way process—a dialogue between the community and agencies that are attempting to tackle crime in our community. I regularly meet officers in Telford, both at Malinsgate and out on the patch. In a recent meeting with Superintendent Gary Higgins, he said that, in relation to Telford, in 30 years in the police force, he had
“never worked anywhere with such a positive can-do attitude”.
I am pleased to say that crime has been falling in the Telford and Wrekin area in recent years. The overall number of crimes fell from 13,655 in 2006 to 11,444 in 2010. There have been falls in all types of crime, notably violent crime and antisocial behaviour. That is good progress, but every single figure in those statistics relates to a victim, and we need to do more to drive down crime and crime levels in our town.
Local policing teams are contributing to success and alongside this we have some excellent partnerships involving organisations such as Telford and Wrekin council, Wrekin housing trust, local parish councils and wider community groups. One particularly interesting initiative is focused on antisocial behaviour, where West Mercia is the Association of Chief Police Officers lead. We have a co-ordinated antisocial behaviour team that encompasses staff from the police and local authority, in partnership with agencies such as the Wrekin housing trust. That ensures that people who are repeatedly targeted by antisocial behaviour get a tailored response, and we also have an antisocial behaviour vehicle that can be sent to incidents. That activity is then integrated with the work of the local policing teams and fed back through the PACT process, confidentially of course. It allows resources to be targeted effectively.
Antisocial behaviour is a blight on communities. It is a significant problem in urban areas such as Telford. It disproportionately affects different people in communities. When one person feels that they have been affected by antisocial behaviour, their perception of antisocial behaviour may be different from someone else’s. For example, if a gang of young people is kicking a ball against the wall outside an elderly person’s house or bungalow, that may be perceived as a big antisocial behaviour problem for the individual resident. You or I, Mr Gale, might find that perfectly tolerable to an extent, but an older person might feel significantly intimidated. The antisocial behaviour team can consider who is being repeatedly affected by antisocial behaviour and how it impacts on their life.
Alongside this type of work, the police in Telford and Wrekin have also been engaged in work that attacks organised crime networks. Telford is no different from any other town—organised criminals are active in our area. I receive briefings from senior officers on this activity and, although their work is often unseen by the public, I can inform the House that the effort and commitment shown by officers to those investigations is outstanding.
Crime has been falling and a range of local initiatives are producing results. I am, however, concerned about two key issues. First, police funding will be cut by 20% in the next four years and the Government are taking a big risk with public safety. The cuts could undermine the fight against crime and antisocial behaviour that we have been successfully waging in towns such as Telford. Helped by record numbers of police officers, crime fell by 43% under the Labour Government and the chance of being a victim of crime was at a 30-year low. However, the Government’s reckless cuts to policing and crime prevention will put all that at risk.
The cuts are front-loaded. They will be larger for the first two years of this Parliament, making it even harder to make long-term efficiency savings and putting more pressure on police forces to cut officer numbers. In West Mercia, which covers Telford, that will mean a cut of £20.6 million between 2010-11 and 2012-13. That will inevitably lead to pressure on front-line police and CSO numbers in areas such as Telford. Home Office statistics, which were revealed last week, show that in West Mercia there are nearly 150 fewer officers than there were a year ago. The force has announced significant job losses already, and I fear that there are more to come in the next four years. The fall in numbers was for the period before the Government’s 20% cut to police funding was announced, and I fear that it is only the thin end of the wedge.
In West Mercia there is a recruitment freeze, which means that, as people leave the service, they are not replaced. Very often, longer-serving officers leave, for obvious reasons, and they have often progressed up the ranks. Under normal circumstances, they would be replaced by officers from the front line, and new recruits would come in. That clearly cannot happen, so posts in specialist teams are left unfilled and force capacity is weakened, or the front-line force capacity is weakened if posts are filled through promotion. There is a Catch-22 problem with the recruitment freeze: we can see pressure on the front line but also on specialist teams.
Another concern to officers, particularly across West Mercia—I have spoken to officers in Telford about this—is regulation A19, which requires that officers retire after 30 years’ service. West Mercia is not implementing A19 at present, but, like several other forces, it will be looking at it. The real problem is that the force would lose officers with great experience if it were implemented.
It is not just me who is concerned about these issues—the police themselves are. Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation, said on Sky News on 20 October 2010:
“So we know forces have a recruitment freeze on officers, we churn about 5,000 officers a year so we’re probably talking losing, by the end of this time, 20,000 officers and that’s going to have a big impact. Let’s have no doubt about that, that’s going to have a big impact and that doesn’t include staff officers that we lose as well. So this is a tough day for policing.”
He was talking about the broad arrangements around the settlement.
Rob Garnham, chair of the Association of Police Authorities, said on 13 December 2010:
“There is a risk that the positive momentum of the last few years on crime reduction and public confidence will be interrupted, at a time when communities are likely to be looking more towards the police for help when other public services are scaling back. The police service may find itself squeezed from several directions at once”.
That is interesting stuff, is it not? During the election campaign, the Deputy Prime Minister said that we would have 3,000 extra police officers on the streets. That was clearly a campaign commitment. The Prime Minister said that he would send back to their Department any Minister who proposed front-line cuts to services so that they could think again. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say this morning. During the general election, my Conservative opponent said that the West Mercia police in Telford were “underfunded”. I do not know what he would think if he saw the figures today.
The second issue I want to discuss is directly elected police and crime commissioners. At the same time as we are looking at police cuts, the Government are committed to subjecting the police to an unwanted organisational upheaval, in which police authorities would be replaced by directly elected police and crime commissioners. It is estimated that that will cost more than £100 million.
In the nearly 10 years that I have been the MP for Telford, I have never met anyone in my constituency, neither a member of the public nor a party activist from any party, who suggested that that would be a good course of action. The fact is that we have a well-respected police authority model, which involves people from all parts of West Mercia—we do not want an American-style elected police commissioner.
There is a real danger that the position will be politicised, at huge cost to taxpayers. The Minister should take the money put aside for the project and give it to police forces such as West Mercia to spend on front-line services. The cash could come directly to Telford to be spent on front-line policing and on supporting police officers and CSOs. I urge her to go back to the Department and think again about the police commissioner idea. She should allocate the resources that have been ring-fenced for it to police authorities, and put them on the front line in towns such as Telford.
In closing, I once again pay tribute to the public servants in and out of uniform who serve our community as part of the police force in Telford. We ask them to do much on our behalf, and it is our duty to support them in doing their duty.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)
It is a pleasure to stand before you this afternoon, Mr Gale. I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) on obtaining this debate, and I join him in paying tribute to the excellent and innovative work done by the police and other agencies in Telford. As he said, together with Telford and Wrekin council, they have set up a joint unit to improve action on the antisocial behaviour that can blight people’s lives. West Mercia is the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on antisocial behaviour, and one of the eight forces chosen to take part in a new trial to improve the police response to complaints about such behaviour. A pilot is taking place in Telford, and a risk-assessment tool that identifies high-risk and vulnerable callers has been developed and is already being used. Such work makes a crucial difference to the safety of communities and the quality of people’s lives.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about key issues. If I may, I would like to start with police and crime commissioners. He and I differ on the impact of the Government’s proposals to introduce them. He said that the proposal would lead to politicisation of the police, whereas I believe that it provides an opportunity to open them up to democratic accountability. Police authorities are responsible for holding the police to account, but the introduction of elected commissioners will put power directly in the hands of the public.
The hon. Gentleman was concerned about the cost of the exercise, but the commissioners will cost no more than police authorities did. Moreover, I am not sure whether he is aware that in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill Committee, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) proposed an amendment and then voted for having directly elected chairs of crime and community panels, which would involve an equivalent cost. For the election, £50 million has been especially allocated—it will not come out of the allocation for the police grant. The cost would be the same whether it were for an elected police and crime commissioner or an elected chair of an authority. Overall, the exercise would involve the same cost.
Commissioners will take over most of the functions of police authorities, and they will provide democratic accountability and be a visible and active force for community engagement. Meanwhile, they themselves will be held to account by police and crime panels for the execution of their duties. The panels will be made up of locally elected councillors and some independent and lay members. They will be able to veto a commissioner’s proposed precept by a three quarters majority and veto any candidate whom a commissioner proposes for chief constable by the same majority.
The public will also be given opportunities to scrutinise the performance of their police and crime commissioners directly through enhanced local crime information, including, from today, street-level crime maps. I am sure the hon. Member for Telford would agree that that will open up police information and crime statistics to the public, who will know what is happening in their street and area, and be able to hold not just police commissioners but their local police to account. He discussed the importance of local people being able to hold their local police, local ward panels and so on to account for what is happening on their streets.
The running costs and day-to-day expenditure of police and crime commissioners will be less than 1% of the total costs of policing. As I said, we expect them to cost no more than the current system of police authorities. However, what will be different is the value that the public get for that money. Police and crime commissioners will need to demonstrate value for money to local people or they will not be re-elected. The additional cost is the £50 million over four years for elections, but, as I said, that is the same as would result from the suggestion of the hon. Member for Gedling for directly elected chairs of panels.
The hon. Member for Telford spoke about value for money, police numbers and the importance of local policing. The core challenge for the police is not just to reduce costs but to do so while maintaining and, indeed, improving public services. The police are very “can do”, and I am constantly impressed by the determination of police officers and staff to do just that. After the provisional funding settlement was announced in December, the chair of West Mercia’s police authority said:
“Even after the planned cuts we will still be spending more than £200 million per annum on policing services. That is still a substantial sum and, given the strong position that has been built up over the last 10 years, we aim to do all we can to maintain an excellent police service into the foreseeable future.”
The Government’s priority is to ensure that the police service retains and enhances its ability to protect and serve the public. That is done by improving efficiency, driving out waste and increasing productivity.
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was at Home Office oral questions last week, when my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) noted that there is a healthy appetite for more policemen on the beat—visible policing—with which I am sure we all agree. The chief constable of Gloucestershire has reorganised his force and increased the number of officers on the beat from 563 to 661—increasing his front-line ability to carry out visible policing—by looking at his back and middle offices. We know that there is much that chief constables and police authorities can do to improve services: improving deployment, getting officers out on the streets and smarter policing.
Only 11% of policing is visible at any one time. That has to be our focus: smarter policing, where we deploy police, and what they are doing when they are out on the streets. The broad strategy to improve value for money in the police service is about improving front-line services. I am sure we agree on the function that the police service performs in our communities, which is absolutely vital. The Government’s priority is to ensure a better police service, retaining and enhancing its ability to protect and serve.
Despite a rapid expansion of the work force, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary found that only 11% of officers are visible and available to the public. The Government are cutting bureaucracy so that the police are crime fighters, not form writers. The Telford and Wrekin section of West Mercia police’s website explains:
“Over the next year and beyond, our aim is to work smarter, operate using streamlined processes and focus all of our efforts on serving and protecting the public of Telford and Wrekin in the best and most effective way.”
The primary responsibility for improving value for money is local, but the Government will ensure real leadership where national organisation is required, which will enhance policing at the local level and enable it to function better. Transparency of data and comparative data are key to enabling and driving change. Data on costs and services accessible to the public reinforce behaviours that drive value for money.
On pay and conditions of service, the Government have asked Tom Winsor to review the remuneration and conditions of service of police officers and staff, and to make recommendations that are fair to, and reasonable for, both the taxpayer and police and staff officers. Procurement and IT will have a concerted and nationally led approach. There will be a step change in collaboration between forces, providing the right support for forces and helping the police service to organise, so that it gains maximum benefit from working with the private sector. We estimate a potential £2.2 billion saving, which outstrips the £2.1 billion real reduction in grant.
The Government are taking a direct interest in ensuring that savings are realised. The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice now chairs a high-level working group, with representation from chief constables and police authorities, to identify the right change programmes and agree that they should be taken forward. We all recognise that it is no longer business as usual. The time for talking about IT convergence, collective procurement, collaboration, sharing and outsourcing services is over. We cannot afford any longer not to do those things.
David Wright
I think we would all agree that the savings the Minister is talking about, through collaboration and working with other forces, are important. In fact, West Mercia is looking to work more with Warwickshire police. Will the Minister give a commitment today that the establishment police and community support officer figures for Telford will not decrease over the next five years—front-line police and CSOs?
Lynne Featherstone
That is a matter for the local chief constable—to organise the West Mercia police force as he can best deploy them, to the best of their ability. It is within local command to decree what the deployment must be. The Government’s loud and clear message is that deployment should be to the front line for visible policing, by making back office and middle office savings. The front line should be protected and the Prime Minister would be very cross with those police forces that did not strive to make the effort and succeed—as Gloucestershire has done—in putting police on the front line.
There is no simple link between officer numbers and crime levels, as shown by the examples of other cities and countries, such as New York and Northern Ireland, and as shown in England and Wales during certain periods. We have all talked about the numbers. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Deputy Prime Minister, when talking about the Liberal Democrat manifesto, putting 3,000 extra bobbies on the beat. In the event, many of the successes—where police numbers have fallen and crime has fallen—have been due to technological advances such as better burglar alarms and car safety. There is not a direct and absolute correlation between those two things.
I want to touch briefly on the issues the hon. Gentleman raised concerning antisocial behaviour. The Government would agree with him that antisocial behaviour blights lives and the public expect us to fight it. It is crime, however it is labelled. We know the damage that such behaviour can do to communities. It can be more disruptive than other types of crime, because it so often targets those least able to look after themselves. As the hon. Gentleman may know, we are planning to reform the toolkit for dealing with antisocial behaviour. Our aim is to reduce the bureaucracy, delay and costs that hamper the police and their local partners. We will be consulting shortly on new measures and proposals.
A trial for handling antisocial behaviour complaints was launched in eight police force areas, including West Mercia, on 4 January. That change in the way that forces respond to calls, involving IT improvements, uses new systems to log complaints. The trial aims to put into action the recommendations of HMIC’s report on the police response to antisocial behaviour. The police and Telford council have already introduced an innovative joint ASB team. They are using and helping to develop the risk-assessment tool that identifies high-risk and vulnerable antisocial behaviour callers. The trials are being supported by the Home Office, ACPO, HMIC, social landlords, and crime and nuisance groups, which illustrates the point the hon. Gentleman made about the importance of partnership working.
In conclusion, I pay tribute to the police and all the agencies and individuals who work with them in Telford and across the country. They perform an immensely valuable service in often difficult circumstances, and the Government are committed to doing everything we can to support them. We recognise the challenges caused by the unprecedented budget deficit, but we have every confidence that front-line services can be protected. We will provide real national leadership, with the National Crime Agency, in giving the police the powers they need and in helping to cut unnecessary costs and bureaucracy where a central role is needed. Our reforms will make them freer to develop local responses to local problems, without being hampered by unnecessary targets and regulations imposed from Whitehall.
I again congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I am sure we have the same aims in policing the safety of our communities and giving everyone the confidence to go about their daily business without fear.
Mr Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. We will now move to the debate on funding for schools in Worcestershire. Before that debate commences, I notice that, quite properly, there are a number of Members from Worcestershire present. It seems appropriate to remind Members that while any Member may at any time seek to intervene on a speech, if anyone wishes to make a speech during a half-hour Adjournment debate, that has to be with the consent of the Member in charge and the Minister, and the Chair must be notified first.
Schools Funding (Worcestershire)
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I begin by saying what a privilege it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gale. I seek leave from you to allow my colleagues to speak.
Mr Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. I am slightly distracted and I apologise to the hon. Lady. Any hon. Member who seeks to speak must have the permission of the hon. Member in charge of the debate and the consent of the Minister. I trust that the speeches have been cleared with the Minister as well.
Karen Lumley
Yes, they have.
At the outset, I declare an interest as chair of governors at Vaynor first school in my constituency. I want to speak for a few minutes and then invite my two Worcestershire colleagues, Mr Robin Walker and Mr Mark Garnier, to speak. Like me, they have a keen interest in this debate.
Mr Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady again. We shall get started in a minute, and fortunately we still have a full half-hour. I remind her that she must refer to hon. Members by their constituencies and not by their names.
Karen Lumley
Fairer funding in Worcestershire has been a long-running crusade of mine, ever since I came to the county in 2000, when we moved from Wrexham in north Wales to Redditch. At the time, both my children were happily and successfully educated in the state sector in Wales, so it came as quite a shock when we realised that their education in Worcestershire did not seem to carry the same monetary value as it did in Wales. By that, I mean there was obviously something of a funding gap between what was provided to every child in Wales and what was provided to children in Worcestershire, which was far lower. Perhaps the Minister will shed some light on that issue.
I became a governor at Vaynor first school in Redditch, where the situation was worse than I thought. The school provided a good education to our children, but without many of the necessary resources. Added to that was the competition that we faced with neighbouring authorities to attract extra staff. That was due to our lack of funds and available means compared with other schools.
Worcestershire has constantly been near the bottom of the league tables, and in 2008-09 the average funding per pupil per year in Worcestershire was £3,729 compared with £4,066 nationally. This year, it is £4,028 compared with £4,388 nationally. While £300 does not seem to make a great deal difference in this day and age, it is a significant amount when applied to each individual pupil across Worcestershire.
Locally, things are worse. As the Minister may know, Redditch is on the outskirts of Birmingham, and currently schools in Birmingham are allocated at least £700 more per pupil than Redditch. Although I understand that there are intervening factors, £700 is a huge amount of money per pupil when one considers what sports equipment, after-school clubs, arts, science or reading materials could be provided for each child.
For a school such as Vaynor first school, which has 403 pupils, the funding disparity means that about £285,000 more would go to a similar school in Birmingham. Furthermore, with our current budget of just more than £1 million, we can see just how unfair the funding gap is. Cumulatively, that money could allow the school to provide one-to-one teaching for struggling students or provide extra resources.
Of course, Redditch will benefit from the Government’s pupil premium initiative, which I welcome with open arms. I am pleased to see that the most disadvantaged pupils will receive an extra helping hand. That is especially important in Redditch where there are some deprived areas. I wholeheartedly agree with the Secretary of State for Education when he said:
“Schools should be engines of social mobility.”
We have a duty to ensure that the school system in the UK nurtures and provides for our young people to give them the best possible chances from an early age. Today, I have written to all head teachers in Redditch, asking them to contact parents to ensure that those children who are entitled to free school meals are aware of the help available.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is so important to the future of children in Worcestershire. Does she agree that free school meals are not a good measure of deprivation in Worcestershire, particularly where rural schools no longer offer a dining room and therefore cannot offer free school meals?
Karen Lumley
I totally agree. We have to start somewhere, and perhaps as this Parliament progresses we will think of a fairer way of dividing the available money.
Redditch has the added problem of having been “red-flagged” by the Audit Commission on health and education issues. That is another factor for Redditch to deal with, in addition to those that I have already mentioned. The Government need to take a variety of factors into account when allocating funding, and I urge the Minister to recognise that. Some areas have slipped through the net, where funding is concerned. Although I understand that money is not the be-all and end-all, it goes a long way in sorting out some key issues.
I also realise that the solutions cannot all be provided by central Government, and neither should they be. My constituency staff in Redditch and I help out by mentoring young people from a local secondary school, which is the same school that both my children attended. We help those pupils to discuss any problems that they may have, encourage them to achieve their aspirations and offer them reassurance.
In conclusion, I am passionate about education, and I want to ensure that young people who attend school in Redditch—and indeed across the UK—get the best education that can be provided. We all know that children get only one chance, and we should help them to achieve the best they can. Although the Government are making significant improvements to our school system, we still have some way to go, mainly by ensuring that funding for schools is allocated in a fair and just way for the benefit of every child rather than according to the political jostling of central Government.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) on securing this vital debate, and on the passionate way in which she has argued her case. The minutiae of funding formulae do not make for glamorous debates, and in discussing such technical matters it is only too easy to lose the wood for the trees. It is vital to remember that the heart of this issue is a concept that is so simple but yet so central to the coalition Government—fairness.
Like my hon. Friend, I was elected with a clear mandate to campaign for fairer funding, and I am passionate about securing that aim. I have been lucky to learn from people who have far greater knowledge of such matters and who for many years have made it their main aim to achieve fairer funding—the F40 group. If, in the next few minutes, I delve into the dark byways of the funding system, I make no apology, but I ask hon. Members to bear in mind that I do so in a quest for fairness.
When I received our county council’s briefing on the impact of this year’s changes to school funding, I immediately reached for a cold towel to put over my head. The complexities of having one grant mainstreamed and another top-sliced—here a top-up, there a minimum funding guarantee—would be enough to put off all but the most dedicated funding nerd. There is nothing transparent about our current system. At last, with the help of that cold towel and some expert tuition, I was able to make some sense of the numbers.
The Government said that they have provided flat funding. That may be the case across the country, although even that is a challenge with inflation as it is. Unfortunately, in Worcestershire the mainstreaming of grants appears to have seen some reductions. Before the introduction of the pupil premium, we will see a fall of approximately £1.2 million in cash terms from last year to this. A table of per pupil funding by authority has been compiled by F40, based on the guaranteed unit of funding and cash numbers. Disappointingly, it still shows that Worcestershire is among the 10 worst-funded authorities in the country on both counts.
However, all is not lost. As my hon. Friend has noted, that small fall is more than made up for by the pupil premium. The estimated £3 million increase from that means that Worcestershire is a net winner from the Government’s changes. There is no doubt that the pupil premium marks a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. Underlying the guaranteed unit of funding figures, there is no perfect formula produced by the finest minds in the Department for Education, and no work of genius compiled to meet the needs of every school in every part of the country. Instead, we have a mess—a hotch-potch of historical errors and corrections—and an unfairness, which is based on an injustice, which is based on a mistake.
The underlying formula has not changed. Instead, the so-called dedicated schools grant has ossified—it is tweaked from time to time, but every year the underlying mistakes are repeated and magnified. Each year, as the Labour party spent the golden legacy that it inherited, money was fired off on a flawed formula that is widely understood to favour big cities over rural counties. That formula targets deprivation on the broadest levels, but misses it in the many pockets where it truly exists. It fails to reflect activity in schools, which hurts places such as Worcestershire the most, due to their very diversity.
Worse still, the constant use of spend-plus has magnified those effects. I do not need to repeat my hon. Friend’s arguments, but I can set out the picture in Worcester, where a number of wards are in the top 5% for deprivation in the country. They are wards served by schools such as Gorse Hill primary, where I used to help with reading, and secondary schools, including the outstanding Christopher Whitehead language college, which caters for the Dines Green estate. Between them, Bishop Perowne college and Tudor Grange academy look after Tolladine and Warndon.
Those are all fine schools, and in the past their good performance has been used as a reason why they did not need fairer funding. Now, in a time of austerity, the same case cannot be made. Those schools will benefit from the pupil premium, but that does not undo the legacy of decades in which the formula worked against them.
As the Government White Paper accepts, and as the Leader of the House confirmed last week,
“the system of school funding is unfair and needs reform.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 457.]
Who am I to argue with the Leader of the House?
I welcome the steps that Ministers have already taken. I was pleased when my noble Friend Lord Hill met me with the leadership of F40 to discuss the broad case for reform. I am delighted with the impact of the pupil premium and look forward to the benefits that it will bring to schools that have waited too long for their due. I urge the Government to deliver on their commitment as soon as humanly possible to develop a clear, transparent and fair national funding formula based on pupils’ needs.
In the audience for the debate today are pupils from Bishop Perowne college, a very fine school in my constituency. In their interests, in the interests of Worcestershire and in the interests of fairness, I commend this cause to my hon. Friend the Minister.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) on securing the debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who has worked incredibly hard on behalf of all of us in Worcestershire, on getting into the nitty-gritty and the nuts and bolts of the funding formula. It is very useful to have someone taking the lead on our behalf, although I stress that that in no way diminishes our enthusiasm to sort out this problem.
The issue of fairer funding for Worcestershire schools is ongoing, and much of what I am about to say will, to an extent, be repeating the arguments, but it helps to put the issue into context. I visited one of my local secondary schools just last Friday and met the members of the student council. Those pupils are still reeling at the prospect of university fees, but it was helpful and, I believe, productive to sit down with them, to discuss the arguments and to try to sort out some of the misunderstandings that have been promulgated in the debate.
People at the school were also very worried about the education maintenance allowance. During the meeting, the head teacher told me that some 45% of pupils at Stourport high school receive the EMA. Some may argue that that proves that it is poorly targeted, but I choose to look at it differently and to use it to illustrate the fact that Worcestershire has hidden pockets of financial need. That evidence of financial need illustrates the point that Worcestershire is not the wealthy rural idyll that some believe it to be. It is not the affluent area that the appallingly low per pupil educational grant suggests; it is, in fact, an area that needs more investment in its education system.
My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that my constituency is in educational limbo as we wait to see whether there will be a capital grant to help the 11 schools whose rebuilding has been cancelled as a result of the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. He will know that I am keen to secure the £125 million needed to complete those schools. As we have had a previous debate on the issue, I will not rehearse the arguments here a second time, aside from giving the Minister the most respectful but firmest of nudges, if I may, to ensure that Wyre Forest is looked at favourably when the money is handed out.
In the meantime, it is vital that the Minster takes on board the fact that another school in Kidderminster, Baxter college, draws its pupils, in part, from a ward that is rated in the bottom 10 in terms of indices of social deprivation across England, yet it receives about £3 million a year less than an equivalent school in Tower Hamlets. Of course, I realise that there are specific issues regarding the cost of being in central London, but the social issues do not justify such a massive discrepancy.
It is vital for us in Wyre Forest that we have investment in our schools locally, and the topic of this debate is the per pupil funding. If we continue being so unfair to Worcestershire’s pupils, we will continue to lock some places into permanent under-achievement. I have got to know many of the teachers and heads in Wyre Forest, and I am staggered by the incredible job that they do in, in some cases, extremely difficult circumstances. However, we cannot rely solely on their continued good will and tireless work. It is vital that we support our teachers by giving them the resources that they need and deserve. Knowing that the Minister will be keen to help on this issue, I repeat how important it is that we see our capital funding in place, for reasons that we discussed in this Chamber in a previous debate.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) on securing today’s debate. I welcome the opportunity to discuss school funding issues in Worcestershire with her and my other hon. Friends. I recognise her concern about the level of school funding in Worcestershire. Despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) said, I think that this is a glamorous subject to debate, and I am delighted to be doing so.
Worcestershire is one of the lowest funded authorities in the country. In funding allocations per pupil, Worcestershire is ranked 142nd out of 151 authorities, receiving, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch said, £4,028 per pupil compared with an average of £4,398. To put that in context, in neighbouring Birmingham, the figure is £4,790, which is £762 more per pupil, and in Tower Hamlets it is £6,792—a staggering £2,764 more per pupil per year.
I know that my hon. Friend’s concern is shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, who tabled an early-day motion last June calling for a fairer funding system for schools and raised the issue in the House at business questions last week. I also know that the F40 group, which represents many of the lower funded local authorities in England and of which Worcestershire is a member, has met my noble Friend Lord Hill and raised those issues with him. I know that all these concerns are also shared by my hon. Friends the Members for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin).
The reason for the situation is the unfair and illogical funding system that we inherited from the previous Administration and that we are committed to reviewing. Indeed, we are doing so, as my hon. Friends will be pleased to know, with some of the finest minds in the Department for Education, who are sitting behind me—not directly behind me, but behind my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), although he also has a fine mind and will, I am sure, contribute to the debate.
To be fair to the previous Government, they had been reviewing the system as well. The method of distributing school funding is based on a formula created in 2003. That was subsumed into the dedicated schools grant using the spend plus method, which took the funding spent by local authorities in the financial year 2005-06 and moved it forward by uplifting it by a set percentage each year for every authority and adding funding for ministerial priorities. That means that the inequalities in the system that existed in 2005-06 have been amplified by the percentage increases in subsequent years. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, the grant has ossified and it repeats and amplifies the unfairness. The effect is that schools facing similar challenges can receive vastly different funding. Two schools with the same needs should receive the same funding; it should not depend on an historical allocation made for a different set or a different generation of children.
Therefore, in our White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, we said that we would consult on developing and introducing a clear, transparent and fairer national funding formula based on the needs of pupils. We recognise that not all schools are the same and that their funding should reflect the needs and characteristics of their pupils. Worcestershire, for instance, receives funding for sparsity of nearly £2.5 million a year. However, the system no longer reflects needs adequately, depending more on what schools received in the past than on the characteristics and needs of pupils in their schools now. We want all schools to be funded transparently, so that schools and parents can see why there are differences.
We are already working with partners—such as the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, teacher and governor associations, and the Independent Academies Association—to develop options for the future funding of schools, with the aim of consulting in late spring. No doubt my hon. Friends will contribute to that consultation process. It is likely to cover the merits of a national funding formula, transitional arrangements and the factors that should be included in such a formula.
I know that my hon. Friends will be disappointed that we have not been able to go further in our first year. We inherited a perilous economic state from the previous Administration, and the Government have made it clear that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery are the most urgent issues facing Britain. Our budget deficit in the last financial year was £156 billion—the highest among the G20 countries. The interest on the accumulated Government debt to date is £42.7 billion a year, which is significantly more than the total schools budget. Unless we take serious measures to tackle the deficit, we will face a higher cost of borrowing as capital markets demand greater compensation for the heightened risk. Ultimately, without the action that the Government are taking, we would now face an economic crisis.
As with other public services and Government spending, we have had to make difficult decisions about funding for schools. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest will understand that, given that we do debate the difficult issues that he raised in his remarks. We have had to make very difficult decisions in relation to the spending review period. In reaching those decisions, we needed to balance taking urgent action to manage the public finances with protecting the most vulnerable and recognising that education faces particular pressures.
I am pleased that we are protecting funding in the system at flat cash per pupil, before adding the new pupil premium. Flat cash per pupil means that as pupil numbers go up, the overall budget increases in line with those numbers. The pupil premium is in addition to that and will be worth £2.5 billion by 2014-15.
In that context, I hope that my hon. Friends will see this as a good settlement for schools, in the circumstances. As ever, the budget for each individual school will vary; it will depend on each school’s particular circumstances and the decisions made by local authorities and school forums about how best to allocate funds.
Harriett Baldwin
Will the Minister address my point about free school meals in rural constituencies, where many schools no longer offer a dining room?
Mr Gibb
Yes, I am happy to respond to my hon. Friend’s question. I recognise the concerns about using free school meals as a measure, but they are the only available method that can correlate deprivation at pupil level, rather than at postcode or area level, so they are the most accurate reflection of deprivation. There is quite a lot of academic evidence that free school meals accurately reflect the levels of deprivation in an area. However, we will continue to look at the issue, and we might in future include a measure of, for instance, whether pupils ever qualified for free school meals during a period of, say, six or three years. In that way, those who qualify for free school meals for just one year, then no longer qualify, will be eligible for the pupil premium.
The other thing that is happening as a consequence of policy on free school meals is that local authorities are pressing schools and parents to apply for free school meals, which they might not have done in the past. That will have a double benefit, in that more pupils will qualify for the pupil premium, as well as being able to have a meal at school.
The flat-cash settlement means, of course, that it will take time to move to the fairer funding system that I have been talking about. However, funding reform will be introduced in such a way as to minimise disruption and ensure that schools’ resources are not subject to sudden and dramatic change.
Our priority for 2011-12 is the introduction of the pupil premium. I have said before, and make no apology for repeating, that closing the attainment gap between those from the wealthiest and the poorest backgrounds is central to our education policy, and that was reflected in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch.
Mr Robin Walker
Does the Minister agree that a key issue in closing the attainment gap is early intervention to give people the best chances and the best start in their education? Another issue that needs to be prioritised, therefore, is the early intervention grant. Disappointingly, however, it is likely to go down in Worcestershire over the next couple of years. Will the Minister look into that to see how we can concentrate resources in the right places to prioritise early intervention as the Government address these issues?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is why we have allocated £2.2 billion to the early intervention grant. It is vital to intervene early to catch problems before they become more systemic in a child’s life. My hon. Friend is right, and I will look into the issues he raises to ensure that there is not some undue unfairness in the allocation of the grant in Worcestershire. I will write to him shortly.
Although the exact amount of the pupil premium will depend on the number of children known to be eligible for free school meals, as recorded in the January 2011 census, which is not yet finalised, the numbers recorded in 2010 give an indication of the numbers for Worcestershire. On that basis, schools in my hon. Friends’ local education authority area will receive about £3.8 million of additional funding from April 2011 to help them tackle deprivation.
The pupil premium will be worth £625 million in 2011-12 and build to £2.5 billion in 2014-15. That is significant spending to help the most disadvantaged children in society. To ensure that the premium is introduced as smoothly as possible, we have made the indicator for next year known eligibility for free school meals, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire mentioned. In future, we aim to include those who have previously been eligible for free school meals so that not only the value of the premium but the number of children eligible for it will rise year on year. Overall funding for the pupil premium will rise from £625 million this year to £2.5 billion in three years’ time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch will appreciate that I am unable to pre-empt the findings of the funding review, and I know that she will be disappointed about that. However, I hope that she and my hon. Friends will take in good faith a commitment from me carefully to study the issues that they have raised in the context of the school funding review and in our consultation later this year.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Council Housing Finance
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
Today signals a landmark in the freeing up of councils to successfully manage their own housing stock for the benefit of their tenants. A change that has long been talked about, but the coalition Government are actually delivering.
Today we are publishing the information councils need to plan for this significant reform. Reforms which will see councils keep their own rents and spend them on their own housing. This includes a detailed description as to how their opening financial position will be determined and the process for implementing these reforms in April 2012. It also gives each local authority a much clearer idea as to exactly how they will be affected by the reforms. This will enable them to use the next 14 months to plan ahead and put themselves in the best possible position to maximise the benefits of the new freedoms. Copies have been placed in the Library of the House.
In line with the Government’s emphasis on transparency, local authorities and tenants will be able to see how and why the valuation has altered since the proposals published in March 2010.
Our proposals for self-financing for council housing will:
give councils the resources they need to manage their own housing stock for the long-term—correcting decades of under-funding;
give councils the incentives and flexibility they have sought to drive up quality and efficiency; and
give tenants the information they need to hold their landlord to account—replacing the current opaque, centralised system with one which establishes a clear relationship between the rent councils charge and the services they provide.
These reforms are fair. They are rooted in a consistent and tested calculation of the value of each council’s social housing business, producing a sustainable self-financing settlement for each local authority. I expect all councils to welcome the reforms and to start planning now how to make the most of their new freedom.
Research Projects
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
Today the Government are publishing the first group of reports presenting the findings from research projects commissioned by the previous Administration.
There is a significant backlog of unpublished reports that were produced by the previous Government and over the next few months we will be publishing these reports in groups themed on a particular topic.
The reports and findings are of general policy interest, but do not relate to forthcoming policy announcements. We are publishing these documents in the interests of transparency and as part of our freedom of information commitment to publish the results of all commissioned research. For transparency, all completed work is being published regardless of format or robustness.
The 16 reports published today represent the findings from 11 research projects at a total cost of £691,000. These findings cover the topics of housing; local government and building, planning and the environment.
The Government are concerned to ensure their research delivers the best possible value for money for the taxpayer and that sums expended are reasonable in relation to the public policy benefits obtained. DCLG has put in place scrutiny and challenge processes for future research.
All new projects will be scrutinised to ensure the methodology is sound and that all options for funding are explored at an early stage. This includes using existing work from other organisations, joint funding projects with other Departments or organisations and taking work forward in-house.
Housing
(i) Behavioural change and the housing sector: A scoping study report—This report by Ferrari et al considers the benefits and implications of applying behavioural economics to analyse the motivations and decisions made by different actors in the housing supply and demand chain.
(ii) Choice-based lettings, potentially disadvantaged groups and accessible housing registers: A guide to positive practice—The guide provides advice on how to set up and operate choice-based letting schemes to ensure that social housing applicants are not disadvantaged by the proactive nature of choice-based lettings.
(iii) Choice-based lettings, potentially disadvantaged groups and accessible housing registers: summary guide to positive practice—This report is a shorter, stand-alone summary of the “choice-based lettings, potentially disadvantaged groups and accessible housing registers: a guide to positive practice”. This summary contains all the key messages of the longer report.
(iv) Costs and effectiveness of accessible housing registers in a choice-based lettings context—This report examines the cost and effectiveness of accessible housing registers in a choice-based letting context.
Local Government
(v) Strategic commissioning for place shaping: Volume 1—A report written by practitioners for practitioners and Volume 2—Case studies—The long-term evaluation of local area agreements and local strategic partnerships includes two action learning sets, short projects where practitioners meet and share learning about how to improve the day-to-day working of particular aspects of local area agreements. The sets cover strategic commissioning for place shaping.
(vi) Long-term evaluation of local area agreements and local strategic partnerships: Performance management of local strategic partnerships and local area agreements —An action learning set report written by practitioners for practitioners. The long-term evaluation of local area agreements and local strategic partnerships includes two action learning sets, short projects where practitioners meet and share learning about how to improve the day-to-day working of particular aspects of local area agreements. The sets cover performance management of local strategic partnerships and local area agreements.
(vii) Report on the 2009 survey of local strategic partnership partners: Main report and Annexes—This research was commissioned as part of the long-term evaluation of local area agreements and local strategic partnerships. It captures the views of local partners—from the public, private and voluntary sectors—on a range of subjects, including how effective they think their partnership is, and the local area agreements and other powers help partnerships achieve their objectives.
(viii) Long-term evaluation of local area agreements and local strategic partnerships: Collaboration, innovation and value for money—Final report of the call-down project. This report, part of the long-term evaluation of local area agreements and local strategic partnerships, explored the ways in partnerships had made use of innovation to meet shared priorities, and examined the contribution of value-for-money considerations in the process of innovation design and implementation.
(ix) Understanding performance in a flexible, decentralised approach to delivery—This report provides help and worked examples in moving between geographies as a way to understand performance, to meet cross-cutting policy requiring local information at bespoke geographic areas independent of formal administrative or statistical units.
(x) Using and developing place typologies for policy purposes—This report supports area-based policy-making, particularly in regeneration and local economic development, and the monitoring and comparison of local government performance. It provides advice on how to make policy sensitive to the enormous variability in neighbourhoods, districts, cities or towns by using methods for categorising places.
(xi) A study to determine whether it is possible to produce Gross Value Added data for upper tier local authorities—This report details the ONS regional accounts’ methodology used to produce gross value added estimates at nomenclature of units for territorial statistics (NUTs) level 3 estimates, and evaluates whether the methodology can be extended to upper-tier authorities for which gross value added estimates do not currently exist.
Building, Planning and the Environment
(xii) Evaluating the effectiveness and outcomes of DCLG funded interventions into the delivery of core strategies—This report evaluates the effectiveness of DCLG funded support packages used to promote the delivery of “core strategy” development plans for those local authorities that were encouraging higher levels of housing growth under the previous Government.
(xiii) Code for sustainable homes water calculator—This report reviews the water efficiency calculator for new dwellings, which supported the code for sustainable homes.
(xiv) Building regulations system and the planning system—A better regulation approach for sustainability. This report analyses the interface between planning and building regulations in the context of environmental sustainability, to investigate the overlaps, synergies and gaps between the two systems.
(xv) The scope of an MOT test for buildings—This report covers a scoping study into the possible development of an MOT test for buildings and whether it was feasible to have periodic tests carried on buildings.
(xvi) The use of civil sanctions to enforce building regulations—This report looks at the possibility of adopting some or all of the civil sanctions made available under the regulatory Sanctions and Enforcement Act 2008 for the purpose of achieving higher levels of compliance with the building regulations.
These reports and findings are of general policy interest, but do not relate to forthcoming policy announcements and are not a reflection of the current Government’s policies and priorities. DCLG is publishing these reports in the interests of transparency.
Copies of these reports are available on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. Copies have been placed in the Library of the House.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Programme Spending 2011-12
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
In my statement to the House of 29 June 2010, I informed the House of the outcome of my review of how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will spend its programme funding in this financial year. I am now in a position to announce decisions about programme spending for the next financial year 2011-12.
The Foreign Office’s priorities are to safeguard Britain’s national security, build British prosperity and support British nationals around the world.
The review we have conducted will ensure that FCO programme spending is aligned with our priorities and contributes to the development of Britain’s diplomatic influence and the promotion of our values. We must ensure the money is spent effectively and supports the Government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI as official development assistance (ODA) by 2013.
As a result of the review the FCO will change the way it manages its programme spending. We will give British ambassadors greater responsibility for deciding how best to spend their local budgets to support UK foreign policy objectives and strengthen bilateral relationships. We will reduce administrative spending and seek other cost savings. We will introduce new procedures to assess the impact of FCO programme spending worldwide.
For the 2011-12 financial year, we have decided to allocate:
£57 million for programmes dedicated to national security;
£24 million for programmes to support UK prosperity, including through the promotion of a stable and open global economic environment which will help countries develop; and
£58.5 million for the support of democratic values, human rights and British diplomatic influence overseas.
This is a total of £139.5 million. I anticipate that in future years it will be necessary to make some reductions in these allocations in order to be able to continue to support our diplomatic network overseas, while achieving the savings we committed to making during the comprehensive spending review.
Within the overall allocations set out above we have made a number of significant decisions on funding for individual programmes next year.
On security, we will sustain spending on counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation at £38 million and £3 million respectively. We will provide £16 million for spending on counter-narcotics and rule of law programmes in Afghanistan. This represents a reduction of £2 million, which will be made possible without affecting the outcomes of our projects there, as several of them will reach the end of their capital investment stage. We will incorporate future spending on drugs and crime projects into the bilateral programmes managed by posts overseas, while provide a total of £2 million as a ring-fenced element within those budgets to be dedicated to projects on drugs and crime.
We will significantly increase spending on programmes to help countries develop and to support UK prosperity, bringing these to a total of £20 million. We will spend more on projects which promote openness, international trade and investment, transparent and stable regulatory environments and strengthen the multilateral trading system and international investment opportunities, while resisting protectionism, including creating a commercial diplomacy fund of £4 million dedicated to identifying and securing commercial opportunities for our businesses, and supporting inward investment to the UK. We will maintain current levels of spending on our successful programme which promotes the global transition to a low-carbon economy, energy efficiency and security, and is intended to increase the prospects of reaching a global climate change agreement.
In terms of the promotion of our diplomatic influence and values, we will increase funding for bilateral programmes to £19 million, including a ring-fenced allocation for the western Balkans and other non-EU countries in Europe. We will establish a new fund of £5 million to address, in partnership with regional governments, the long-term underlying governance and social, economic and political participation issues affecting the Arab world. We will increase spending in the support of the overseas territories to £7 million. We will sustain our spending on human rights and democracy at £5 million. We will slightly increase spending in support of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to £3.5 million. We will dedicate £17 million to spending on scholarships while at the same time ensuring a greater proportion of that spending is in Commonwealth countries.
We will reduce spending on strategic communications by one third to £2 million, targeting spending on activities and initiatives which actively support FCO priorities, and spend a greater proportion of this funding in posts overseas.
I will provide the House with details of programme spending for future years in due course together with further information about how we will ensure that these funds provide the best possible value for the public money.
Grand Committee
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Arrangement of Business
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Countess of Mar)
My Lords, it has been agreed that, should any of the Questions for Short Debate not run for their allocated hour this afternoon, the Committee will adjourn during pleasure until the end of the allotted hour. Therefore, each of the Questions for Short Debate will start at half-past the hour. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes and, if necessary, time will be added for the Question for Short Debate.
Children: Sexual Exploitation
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Leicester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the safety of children, especially of children in the care of local authorities, from being groomed for sexual exploitation.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, following the recent cases of child sexual exploitation that we have seen in the media, I am glad to have this opportunity to raise this important topic today. I very much look forward to hearing contributions from all those who are here. What I have to say arises partly from my own pastoral experience as a parish priest and a bishop and partly from my more recent experience as the chair of the trustees of the Children’s Society.
As noble Lords will be aware, child sexual exploitation, as defined by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2009, is sexual exploitation of children or young people under the age of 18 that involves putting the child or young person in exploitative situations, contexts or relationships in which they receive something, whether it is food, accommodation, money or drugs, in return for performing and/or having others perform on them some form of sexual activity.
Sexual exploitation can occur through the use of technology without the child’s immediate recognition of the exploitation, such as being asked to post sexual images on the internet or on mobile phones without immediate payment or gain. Recent reports by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and Barnardo’s have indicated the use of the internet in child exploitation as a growing issue. The Barnardo’s report, Puppet on a String, which I commend to your Lordships, has highlighted that a number of primary school children have admitted to meeting someone whom they previously met only online.
In all these cases, the person doing the exploiting exercises some form of power over the child or young person by means of their age, gender, intellect or other factors. Violence, coercion and intimidation are common and can involve the child or young person being plied with gifts, alcohol and drugs, which often form part of the grooming process. This all helps to explain why it is often very difficult for some children or young people to accept the true nature of their relationship and to take the risk of exposing the perpetrator.
Any child or young person may be at risk of sexual exploitation, regardless of their gender, race or social background. However, we unfortunately know that factors such as living in care or being runaways or having mental health problems all increase a young person’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation. In particular, we know that the link with running away or going missing is an extremely strong indicator of risk. I shall return to that point later.
As we know, child exploitation has devastating consequences for the individual being exploited. It has an extremely damaging effect on a child’s or young person’s self-esteem, mental health and, indeed, lifelong ability to form secure relationships, yet, in spite of this, there are no national statistics to map the prevalence of child sexual exploitation. This lack of data works against the children of our country, as it keeps a vital child protection issue somewhat obscured.
I want to draw attention to five issues in particular. First, children of course have a right to be protected from sexual exploitation. This is enshrined in law at national, European and international levels. In this country, local safeguarding children boards are responsible for co-ordinating local responses to child sexual exploitation, yet initial research from the University of Bedfordshire has demonstrated that many local safeguarding children boards still do not consider child sexual exploitation as a priority and have failed to identify resources or plans to address this, with less than a quarter of the boards even having a protocol for child sexual exploitation. This leads to a group of very vulnerable young people being left without adequate and timely services and the support that they so desperately need. I urge the Minister to look into this issue seriously and to let us know what measures he can put in place to rectify this situation.
Secondly, I want to mention the inadequate training for professionals across the front line. Many professionals who work with young people remain unfamiliar with the risks or indicators of sexual exploitation and show little understanding of the issue. Indeed, they often do not know how to support a young person in an exploitative situation who is going through the courts with a case against their abusers. This situation is often exacerbated by the fact that many young people are not willing to identify themselves as being exploited or even to recognise that they are at risk of harm. In keeping with this lack of understanding, the behaviour of children and young people affected is often identified as disruptive rather than indicative of need and they are often met with punitive rather than welfare responses. Research from the Children’s Society has shown that victims aged 16 and 17 are particularly unlikely to receive a safeguarding response. These are the young people who are often seen as a low priority, despite the law stating explicitly that they should be responded to and safeguarded as children until they are aged 18. The lack of data and awareness of the issue of child sexual exploitation has led to a significant lack of resources for specialist support services for children and their families.
Thirdly, I take this opportunity to raise the issue of the inadequacies of current law enforcement and police responses to child sexual exploitation cases. These remain primarily reactive rather than proactive. The prosecution relies heavily on the young person to make a complaint and to give evidence in the court against their exploiter. The process of grooming to which children are subjected and the use of threats and coercion make it extremely difficult for them to go through the criminal justice process. The sexual exploitation of children is, of course, a form of child abuse and should be seen as a child protection issue. It is extremely important that investigations are carried out by officers who are trained in child protection procedures with families showing risk indicators for child sexual exploitation. It is vital that the police work closely with partner agencies to develop a co-ordinated response to ensuring that the welfare and safety of the child is paramount. What is most ironic is that children aged 10 years or over still remain criminally liable for the commission of a prostitution offence such as loitering or soliciting. This is clearly at odds with the intention to make it clear that sexually exploiting children is a form of child abuse. Often it is the fear of being prosecuted under this legislation that prevents children from coming forward to seek help to get out of exploitative situations. I urge the Minister to ensure that it is explicitly clear that any child who has been sexually exploited is supported through the justice system, which is meant to protect them, and that their exploiters are dealt with accordingly.
Fourthly, I want to make a point about the importance of co-ordination and joint working between local authorities and police forces to tackle child sexual exploitation across boundaries. Effective cross-department and multidisciplinary working can make a huge impact on safeguarding children, especially those in care, who are often failed due to a breakdown in communication between different agencies or who get lost in the gaps between them. The Government and local authorities have a duty, of course, to protect all children, especially those who rely on them as corporate parents.
Finally, I urge the Government to respond to the needs of these vulnerable children. I call on the Minister to take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of children, especially those in the care of local authorities, from being groomed for sexual exploitation. In particular, I hope that the Minister will pay close attention to the link between running away and sexual exploitation. I fear that, despite great efforts in recent years to develop statutory guidance and an action plan on runaways, this issue has fallen down the list of political priorities at the DfE. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that this is not the case and that action is being taken to prevent children from being exposed to such horrific abuse, which is happening in far too many of our towns and cities today.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this debate on this important topic and at the same time congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, on making her debut as opposition spokesman today.
Like other noble Lords, I have received the briefings from the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s on what they rightly describe as a horrendous crime. The reference in the Barnardo’s report to the special challenges posed by out-of-area residential care strikes a particular chord with me, yet I find myself impelled to sound a note of caution, lest in our efforts to reduce child exploitation we have the unintended consequence of discouraging individuals from working with children and so impoverish the physical and intellectual lives of the very children whom we are seeking to protect.
I am chairing a task force looking into the regulatory and other burdens that impede the growth of small charities and other groups. We have had a good deal of evidence that well meaning efforts are discouraging people from volunteering to work with children. In my three minutes, I cannot develop my argument at length, so I shall read four paragraphs of a letter that I received from a lady in Manchester. She said:
“About 8 years ago, I decided to get involved in a local Manchester Drama group … whose members range from seven years to 80 years old. A number of us assumed responsibility for teaching the children and preparing them for the annual pantomime and other productions. Naturally we were CRB checked—a process I had no issue with and wholeheartedly support ... However—having been CRB approved, we were invited to a session of the local Child Protection Officer. I came away from that meeting with a number of very serious questions as to whether I should in fact get involved with this sort of group. The talk left me feeling I would potentially be placing myself in situations of real risk ... The Child Protection Officer focused the session on ensuring no adult put themselves into a vulnerable position i.e. if a child requests to go to the toilet—in no circumstance should an adult accompany them. If a child (with particular reference to girls) falls and cuts her knee, whilst wearing tights—under no circumstances should any adult remove the girl’s tights and help stem the bleed ... No adult, whatever sex, should ever be alone with either one or more children … I came away from the session questioning the sense in many of the messages conveyed. As a caring, responsible adult (who as an adoptive mum … has the highest level of CRB clearance) I did not feel at all comfortable with the prospect of not being able to help an injured child”.
I would like to tell the Committee that this was an isolated example, but we have had many letters along these lines. Of course, child protection is an important issue, but thousands of our fellow citizens find it enjoyable and rewarding to work with children. We have to avoid a situation in which, if someone says that they enjoy working with children, they are immediately treated with grave suspicion.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I am very pleased that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has brought this topic of sexual exploitation to our notice. His interest in child welfare is well known. I want to focus on trafficking, an issue that many noble Lords have raised recently in your Lordships’ House. It is a horrific practice and one that we should do all in our power to tackle. Local authorities and safeguarding are important and essential.
We have some figures on trafficking and sexual exploitation of children, but they are likely to be severe underestimates. Nevertheless, some things are clear. Childline reports that 8 per cent of all calls are about sexual abuse—an increase of 42 per cent in two years. The reason for the increase may be that children are becoming more confident in speaking out about such abuse. I hope that they are and that they feel supported to do so. The Barnardo’s report, Puppet on a String, has been referred to already. I want to underline the fact that children who are particularly vulnerable are those in care, those excluded from mainstream education and those using drugs or alcohol. Such children need a great deal of co-ordinated support, as the right reverend Prelate said.
I shall now focus on trafficking. It is estimated that at any time more than 140,000 persons are victims of trafficking; 84 per cent of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation and most are women and girls. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime shows that trafficking in persons is one of the most lucrative illicit businesses in Europe, generating €2.5 billion a year. Some of these children go into care but are recycled into exploitation. Some are not discovered. That is another example of where local authority protection services should intervene.
ECPAT, the umbrella organisation fighting trafficking, recommends that central government should provide funding to local authorities to ensure that child victims of trafficking are provided with safe accommodation, such as foster care, and that social workers should be trained to identify and support children who may have been trafficked. It is vital to address gaps in provision, such as the lack of co-ordination and the lack of someone who can understand the wishes and feelings of children.
What can we in the UK do? First, I hope that the UK Government will take note of the Barnardo’s report, Puppet on a String, and the ECPAT recommendations. It is difficult to see how cuts to local services can engender more funding to do this and to focus on child trafficking and sexual abuse, but I hope that the Minister will reassure us. I hope that the Government will eventually sign the European directive on human trafficking. I know that progress has been made but, if the Government signed up to this directive, that would be an important symbol of our commitment as a country to fighting this modern-day slavery. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, child sexual exploitation has devastating consequences, despite the fact that children’s right to be protected from sexual abuse is enshrined in national, European and international law. We have heard that only 20 per cent of local authorities have access to specialist services, even though it has clearly been shown that cases are more easily identified when specialist services are available. This was emphasised recently in an article in the Guardian by Carlene Firmin, who pointed out that, if local authorities do not take proactive steps to identify cases, they think that there is no problem to address and, if they do not think that there is a problem, they do not identify the resources and put them in place to address it.
This debate follows the recent notorious Derby case where many young girls were abused, two of whom were in public care. In order to find out what lessons had been learnt, I looked at the serious case review. These reviews have been patchy in quality in the past, but since Ofsted has been looking at them they have improved and are well worth looking at. I understand that the Munro review, published this morning, suggests that Ofsted inspection should now cease, so I hope that the raised quality and value of these reviews continues. I am concerned about how safeguarding will be enshrined in the new slimmed-down Ofsted inspections of schools. Can the Minister tell us something about that?
I turn to the Derby case. The serious case review reveals that concerns about the welfare of the two young women in care, who were among those abused, emerged at a very early stage—one from birth and the other from primary school age. From 2008, they were engaged in disturbed and risky behaviour, including criminal activity, absconding and drug and alcohol misuse. Practitioners in health and education and in children’s social care all failed to recognise the significance of these behaviours in terms of abuse and they failed to intervene effectively.
Often when I am faced with speaking about issues such as this, I turn to the coal face. The coal face in this case is my friend Carol Runciman, who is the lead member on children’s services in York. I asked her what she thought about these issues. She said:
“It doesn’t take a lot more money—what it takes is training and understanding of how things happen and how both young people and carers and parents can be alerted to the dangers … getting warnings out via social networking sites and sites, like school networks, that the young people use. Having a clearly identified point of contact is important—a designated teacher or teaching assistant in school who is trained to know what to do … having information in drop in centres for young people—youth clubs, young people’s drop in centres, even health centres—that all helps”.
We should listen to the coal face.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for raising this topic today. Coming from the north, as I do, I know that there is great concern about children being sexually exploited. A short time ago, a group of predators, all of whom seemed to be of Asian origin, were sent to prison. They came from West Yorkshire, Derby and Blackburn. They had groomed young people with drugs and alcohol and then threatened them so that they obeyed these evil men. The young people were driven to prostitution.
If the Minister can find out, it would be interesting to know how many of these children had come from care. Will there be a cross-departmental inquiry on grooming vulnerable children for the purpose of sexual exploitation? I assume that there was cross-departmental working when the predators were found guilty and sent to prison. That is what is needed, as well as cross-boundary co-operation and cross-country co-ordination.
West Yorkshire used to abound with industry. People were brought in with their skills to work in the mills. Now this work has mainly gone to China, which has left many people unemployed years later. Some of them have preyed on children to make money out of sex. I also hear that Asian men may not be satisfied with forced marriages and so look elsewhere for sex.
Many children from care seem to have low esteem and become vulnerable, as do young teenage girls, who rebel and leave home for various reasons. They all become easy prey. Will the Minister give an assurance that the cutting of so many police will not affect child protection? How much child awareness is taught in schools to make all children aware of sexual exploitation, so that when they are at risk they can spot the dangers? I know that this awareness is taught in schools in Australia.
All professionals working with children and within the criminal justice system should be trained to understand issues relating to child sexual exploitation. Some of the children are very young. They are at risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Surely it is time to stop being complacent and to act now to protect these very vulnerable children.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
My Lords, there are nine working days in your Lordships’ House in the first 15 days in February. On two-thirds of those nine days, the first Oral Question is in the name of one of the right reverend Prelates on the Bishops’ Bench. I do not know whether it is a convention of your Lordships’ House that the Bench of Bishops always takes the top of the Order Paper if a right reverend Prelate has a Question to ask or whether that is an index of the enthusiasm of right reverend Prelates straining like greyhounds in the slips to be the first away. On top of that, on Thursday the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester has the first two-and-a-half-hour debate, which is on the role of marriage and marriage support.
This episcopal procession is led today by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, with his Question for Short Debate, which is itself a harbinger of the similar top Oral Question to be posed on 10 February by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds. We are all in the debt of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for having triggered all this activity and for the skill with which he has launched it. Having used more than a third of my allotted span with this willing obeisance to the Bishops’ Bench, I shall use the final strait to make one observation and to ask one question.
My observation is that, when these matters were brought dramatically to public attention and general concern by a series of articles in the Times, the thought was aired that the police had been inhibited from raising the profile of these matters for fear that they would be liable to charges of racism. I can understand that inhibition. I had to ponder a similar dilemma more than 50 years ago, although in a different context and to a different degree. I chose then to make indiscretion the better part of valour. However, I hope that the climate will have been so changed by recent developments that this inhibition will be lifted. I share the views of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, as a consequence of eight years as president of St Andrew’s Youth Club, half a mile from this Palace, whose reputation is that oxymoron, “the oldest youth club in the world”.
There are lots of questions that one could ask, but, in a debate of short speeches, my noble friend the Minister is liable to be reduced to a St Sebastianic barrage of questions and one must not be self-indulgent. Mine relates to trafficked girls, an issue that has already been mentioned. I am aware of the Christian organisation thus concerned that goes under the name of Chaste—for the benefit of the Hansard writer, I spell that title with “te” rather than “ed”—but how far is the fact that prostitution among such girls is a criminal offence at the specified age an obstacle to the resolution of such traffic?
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, the previous Government appointed Sir William Utting, the former director of the Social Services Inspectorate, to do two reports into the safeguarding of children in local authority care. One of his chief conclusions was that an environment of overall excellence is the best safeguard for children. The Barnardo’s report, Puppet on a String, which has already been referred to, states:
“We also know that some groups of young people are more vulnerable to targeting by the perpetrators of sexual exploitation. These include children living in care, particularly residential care”.
I should like to concentrate on children’s homes.
I hope that the Minister may take the following questions to Tim Loughton MP. Will he consider undertaking a review of children’s homes? Will he consider approaches from John Diamond, chief executive of the Mulberry Bush school, who is leading a group of tier 3 specialist providers in residential care to talk to the Government about how we can ensure that high-quality specialist residential care continues? Does he recognise the need to ensure that the current climate does not have the perverse effect of driving out high-quality provision as commissioners look for the cheapest residential care that they can find in the circumstances?
In my experience visiting children’s homes, I have heard staff talk about girls in their care being approached and given gifts by men. They have expressed concern about their limited ability to intervene. I have heard of girls being called out at night by an elder girl in the home and of staff rewarding in the morning those girls who did not respond to that pressure. It is a very difficult environment in which to work. While 90 per cent of children’s homes in Denmark, and 50 per cent in Germany, have degree-level qualified staff, only 20 per cent of homes in this country do, yet the children in those residential settings often have far higher levels of need than they would in Germany or Denmark. This area needs careful attention and I hope that the Minister will review it.
To see the difference that excellence in provision can make, your Lordships need only visit Hackney social services, which last year achieved 25 per cent access to university provision among their care leavers—the highest proportion in the country. This was a local authority that used to have an appalling reputation for its provision. It has done this by insisting on recruiting the very best social workers using the Reclaim Social Work model. Consultant social workers lead small teams supported by systemic therapists who have eight years of training. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, although I very much welcome this debate, I come to it from a slightly unusual standpoint as a barrister who has spent the past 20 years or so acting in claims against local authorities, social services departments and children’s homes for failures to protect children from sexual abuse. I, of course, share the concern of all noble Lords for the victims of sexual abuse. Anyone who has heard adult survivors of sexual abuse give evidence in court can feel nothing but horror for the way in which their childhood has been ruined by the breach of trust. Often, they come from very unpromising circumstances and their lack of faith in adult figures is confounded by their experiences. Anything that the Government can do and can continue to do to protect such children from abuse and exploitation is, of course, welcome.
I wish to sound a note of caution, however, although this must be seen in the context of my experience as someone who has spent many hours sitting round tables with social workers who are alleged to have been negligent in failing to protect children from sexual abuse. Social workers have a very hard job. There is no lack of guidance; indeed, a preponderance of guidance is now available. However, the inquiries that take place and the hearings that occur in the studied calm of the Royal Courts of Justice are a world away from the real fog of social work, with the difficulties of obtaining information and the changes of files and personnel.
It is a considerable worry to social workers that they are exposed to litigation and the risk of litigation. Previously, the courts had decided that social workers were not so to be exposed; it was considered that this was a multi-agency task and that it was unfair to single out social workers for responsibility. However, the Human Rights Act has altered that and we are now in a position where social workers face these allegations.
Of course, the Government will be anxious to make sure that social workers are properly trained and do all that they can to take on board the recent thinking about improving the way in which they do their job. I know that the Government will be taking note of Professor Munro’s report in particular. However, I ask the Minister to bear in mind the fact that social workers are dedicated individuals who do an unglamorous and not very well paid job in often difficult circumstances. They are pilloried by the press when things go wrong and, although I am sure that all of them have children’s best interests at heart, we should be careful that, in our understandable urge to protect children, we do not confound matters by putting them off doing that job well.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I join others in thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for securing this debate on a subject that is of growing concern. The prevalence of child sexual exploitation is growing and the age of exploitation is getting younger. With rapid technological advances, the grooming of children has become more sophisticated, as abusers are using the internet and mobile phones to find and groom children. A recent report by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre found a 16 per cent increase in the number of cases in a year, with a quarter of these from online grooming. Children are unwittingly putting themselves at extreme risk through internet usage.
Despite these shocking statistics, in most local authorities child sexual exploitation apparently is not, as we have heard, recognised as a mainstream child protection issue. Certainly more attention and resources must be focused on child protection on the internet. Studies suggest that almost 60 per cent of children aged nine to 19 have viewed online pornography and the rate of unwitting exposure is increasing. It is clear, therefore, that filtering software to control access to pornographic material needs to be improved. The onus seems to be far too heavily left to rest on parents, teachers and carers. Surely internet service and website providers should share a greater responsibility for keeping our children safe and be made much more accountable in this regard.
We need to make it a lot more difficult for our children to come across inappropriate adult content and images of child abuse on the internet. Are the Government engaging with internet service and website providers to ensure that steps are taken in this direction? I am especially concerned with the increasing ease with which internet content can be viewed through television. I believe that the BBC, whose age ratings are known and respected by parents, are already helpfully involved with some guidance to broadcasters, but will the Government’s next communications Act address this problem statutorily? Given that internet videos are not currently subject to the same rules as television, this convergence could threaten to expose even more children to inappropriate content. If legislation is not the Government’s intention, what measures are in place, or at least being explored, to protect children from the result of these technological changes? In short, what are the Government doing to address this?
I hope that, when he replies, the noble Lord will be able to reassure your Lordships that child sexual exploitation is indeed a priority for the Government and that he will tell us something about the actions that they are proposing to take to deal with this situation.
Lord Sheikh
My Lords, the sexual exploitation of children is one of the worst challenges facing our society. A report last year for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre revealed a 16 per cent increase in reported cases of sexual exploitation. Perpetrators of this heinous crime are using more sophisticated channels to lure their victims, often plying them with gifts, drugs and alcohol, specifically targeting vulnerable children. These children are groomed then abused, leaving them with deep emotional and psychological trauma.
Two of the young girls who were abused by a gang in Derby were in the care of Derby City Council. A serious case review into these victims’ cases revealed that if they had been taken into care earlier they would have been less vulnerable to the exploits of their abusers. A 2009 report published by Barnardo’s entitled Whose Child Now? revealed that 80 per cent of councils did not have a service dedicated to supporting victims of sexual exploitation. A greater focus on the training of professionals who deal with children is needed to improve the chances of early identification in cases of sexual abuse.
I turn now to a sensitive issue. The facts speak for themselves: 50 of the 56 perpetrators who have recently been convicted of these abhorrent crimes are from the Muslim community. However, any attempt to draw a parallel between these crimes and one ethnic or religious group would be not only wrong but particularly unwelcome. Child sexual exploitation is not exclusively carried out by one community. The recent focus on race in the media could have an adverse effect on the wider ability of the agencies to detect cases of abuse among all communities and in the country generally.
Barnardo’s, the children’s charity, has launched a report called Puppet on a String, which examines the nature and scale of sexual exploitation. The report states that the incidence of trafficking of children around Britain for sexual exploitation is rising, with children as young as 10 being groomed by predatory gangs. The report also reveals that the average age of victims has fallen from 15 to 13 in the past five years. Will the Government heed the advice of key figures in appointing a Minister with specific responsibility for dealing with this issue? Child exploitation is a deeply unwelcome phenomenon in our society. Our duty lies with providing victims with all the support that they require to rebuild their lives. We must also ensure their safety and prevent them from becoming innocent victims.
Lord Laming
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on initiating this debate on this important subject. Most parents want the best for their children but, when parental responsibility is transferred from parents to the state, the state carries a huge responsibility to help those vulnerable children. I hope that the Minister will do all that he can to remind local authorities of the responsibilities that they carry, because many of these children have experienced chaotic lives, have been deprived of a normal childhood and have low self-esteem and poor educational attainment. The responsibilities carried by the state are huge and local authorities need to be constantly reminded of that.
Secondly, we need to recognise that predators on these young children have developed more sophisticated ways. Unfortunately and understandably, many of these young children crave affection and confuse the giving of affection with that of sexual favours. Therefore, it is particularly important that we not only are vigilant but help young people to recognise the dangers and equip them better to withstand those dangers.
Does the Minister recognise that many local authorities have a tendency to place young children far from their locality? I fear that that often leads to an attitude of “out of sight, out of mind”, which exposes these young children to even more danger. Because local authorities are sometimes more committed to a policy of ethnic compatibility, rather than of securing a normal family life for young children, many of these young children are allowed to languish in care for many years. I hope that the Minister will do all that he can to reduce the length of time taken in court proceedings and ensure that drift is eliminated from childcare practice. These children should be helped to have a more secure future, because childhood passes all too quickly.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I, too, congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on securing this debate on this very important topic. It is a privilege to speak after the knowledgeable contributions of so many colleagues.
While recent cases have brought this issue to the fore, there has in fact been a growing awareness of this problem for some considerable time. In a previous life, I spent some years as a research fellow investigating what was then called organised sexual abuse of children—paedophile gangs, trafficking and so on. I was a senior lecturer at Manchester University and spent many gruelling hours reading the transcripts of children’s evidence and interviews. Like other Members here, I know what a vile predatory crime this is, targeting the most vulnerable children.
This is also a challenging issue for professionals—possibly one of the most challenging—as well as one of the most dangerous for children. The crime is becoming increasingly sophisticated, as modern communications technology makes it easier for paedophiles and perpetrators to keep their tracking and contacting of children hidden from parents and carers.
There has been progress over recent years but, as the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s have reported, the implementation of government guidance, best practice and so on is patchy as regards local safeguarding children boards and local authorities. The extent to which progress has been made is variable. It is clear that, for an effective local response, we need a child-centred approach that is sensitive to listening to children, the capacity for early intervention and identification, close integration and interagency working—as was reinforced again today by the Munro interim report—the capacity of professionals to share information easily and early, and the dissemination of knowledge and best practice.
As well as adding to the calls to the Minister asking what progress he is going to make, I should also like to express some concerns about decisions that the Government have already made, which I think will create new and unnecessary barriers to that progress. The first relates to the cuts to local authority budgets. I have to raise this issue, because the worst levels of cuts are being experienced by the local authorities with the highest children-in-need scores; they are in exactly those places where most vulnerable children are going to be.
Secondly, why has the Minister distanced himself from Every Child Matters, the acclaimed multi-agency framework that is making it much easier for agencies to work together? Under the Education Bill, schools will now be absolved from the duty to co-operate with other agencies locally. Thirdly, the abandonment of ContactPoint will make it much harder for professionals even to know who else is working with them, let alone how to contact them. Finally, absorbing CEOP into a national crime agency with border control, immigration and all those things will harm the dissemination of the best practice that CEOP has been achieving.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on securing this timely debate. It has been a good debate and a good advertisement for speed dating. I shall try to crack on. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, to her new role. I look forward to working with her. I know that she is experienced in this area and was herself a Minister for Children and Families in my department.
This debate is timely because, as we have discussed, today sees the publication of the interim report from the Munro review and because of the attention that there has rightly been on this issue following the series of reports in the Times and the publication of the recent thoughtful and helpful report by Barnardo’s, which I have read with care.
In his speech, the right reverend Prelate spoke with authority and experience about a subject that all noble Lords who have contributed today clearly care about deeply. It is hard to think of a greater responsibility or duty that we have as a society than to keep our children safe. We have a particular responsibility to care for those children who are the most vulnerable—those without families who are looked after and live in children’s homes or in foster care, a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, underlined. On her specific point, it is the case that we can opt into the EU directive if we want to, once we have seen how it works.
As a number of noble Lords have said, it is impossible not to read the horrific stories that we have all seen recently and not be appalled. The Barnardo’s report published in January underlined the youth of many victims of child sexual exploitation, suggesting that children as young as 10 are being targeted.
The fact that most of us find such behaviour inconceivable is, in some ways, part of the problem. Having been involved in the past in a minor way in some historic child abuse cases, I know that there is often a reaction that an allegation simply cannot be true, either because it is so shocking or because an alleged offender has been a colleague for many years. Yet some of those allegations were and are true and I believe that that is the frame of mind in which we have to tackle this issue. However, I accept the points made by my noble friends Lord Hodgson and Lord Faulks about proportionality and the need not to undermine inadvertently the important relationship that we want to encourage between adults and children, particularly in the context of encouraging volunteering. That lies behind our proposals for reviewing the vetting and barring scheme.
As was said in the debate, knowing the scale of the problem is one of the challenges that we face. I therefore welcome the fact that the Barnardo’s report and the Times articles have drawn attention to the problem and brought things out into the open. Research commissioned in 2002 found that children were known to suffer sexual exploitation in 111 of the then 146 child protection committee areas. Work carried out by Barnardo’s in 2005 found 507 cases across London boroughs. A more recent survey by Barnardo’s showed that in 2008-09 it worked with 1,059 children and young people and that this had risen the following year to 1,098.
However, apart from a sense that we all have that this is only part of the story, we almost by definition do not have hard and fast data. I hope therefore that noble Lords will support the announcement in January that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is carrying out a thematic assessment, which, among other things, will look at establishing whether there are any patterns of offending or victimisation, consider the effectiveness of existing processes and make recommendations to reduce risk. CEOP is looking to make its findings on this research public within a timescale of three to six months.
I know that there has been a lot of media debate around issues to do with ethnicity, a point that a number of noble Lords have raised. My view on that is very simple: while we should not make generalisations—we know that child sexual exploitation affects boys as well as girls and occurs across the country, involving people from a range of ethnic backgrounds—we should not turn a blind eye to wrongdoing for fear of rocking the boat. Indeed, rocking the boat is often precisely what we will need to do in this area, a point made by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville.
I turn to the current framework. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is intended to protect young people from sexual exploitation. It extended the scope of the law to include a range of new offences, including meeting a child following sexual grooming and paying for the sexual services of a child. In addition, the police and Crown Prosecution Service are able to convict using other sexual offences, such as rape or sexual activity with a child under 13 or a child under 16, or they may use other legislation to disrupt this activity.
The statutory guidance on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, Working Together to Safeguard Children, was first published in its current form following the 1989 Children Act. Since then it has been regularly updated and in 2009 separate statutory guidance on the sexual exploitation of children was published. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, was involved in producing that guidance. The main objective of the guidance is to encourage local safeguarding children boards, practitioners and others working with young people and local agencies to prevent the sexual exploitation of children wherever possible, protect those children who are most vulnerable to exploitation and take appropriate action against anyone who is intent on abusing young people in this way.
Because looked-after children—children in care—are most vulnerable and more likely to be at risk of harm, local authorities have a specific statutory duty to safeguard and promote their welfare. In practice, that means that local authorities must allocate the child a social worker, who will assess their needs and draw up a care plan that sets out how the authority intends to respond to the full range of the child’s needs, including their education and health needs. I take the points that have been made about the importance of training in that regard. If there is any suspicion that the child may have been trafficked, whether or not for the purposes of sexual exploitation, the social worker must assess the child’s vulnerability to the continuing control of his or her traffickers. The local authority must then place the child with a carer who has the necessary skills and experience to support and protect them.
I understand the point that was made about the danger of criminalising the victim. Points were made about the way in which the police operate and I will relay those to my honourable friend Mr Loughton. I shall read an extract from the statutory guidance:
“The Government remains clear that children and young people who are sexually exploited should not be regarded as having bad or criminal behaviour; they are the victims of sexual abuse. The responsibility for the sexual exploitation of children or young people lies with the abuser … The focus of police investigations and of prosecutions should be on those who coerce, exploit and abuse children and young people”.
However, I will follow up the point that was raised.
I ran through that at quite a pace, but I wanted to make the point that the legislative framework is broadly in place. The issue that we have is that its application is patchy. As has been said, early findings from research carried out by the University of Bedfordshire show that there are low levels of compliance with the 2009 guidance, suggesting that only a minority of local authorities are prioritising child sexual exploitation as a child protection issue.
I turn to the steps that the Government are taking. The Barnardo’s report talks about the need for a lead Minister. That role is being carried out by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Tim Loughton, who has the cross-government lead role on this issue as part of his child-safeguarding responsibilities. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, that he understands fully the need for a collaborative and cross-departmental approach to these issues. He is clear about that and he is involving Ministers from a range of departments, including the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health, as well as local authority children’s services, local safeguarding children boards and organisations such as CEOP, Barnardo’s and others, and other voluntary organisations. He is already working with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, James Brokenshire, to develop a joint approach, and I know that they have both recently met Sheila Taylor, who runs Safe and Sound Derby. Mr Loughton has also recently met the chief executive of Barnardo’s. It will be my honourable friend’s job, working with others, to consider what further action may need to be taken to safeguard children and young people from sexual exploitation.
I will be certain to ensure that my noble friend reads today’s debate and I am happy to relay to him any further specific concerns that noble Lords may have. I will ensure that there is an answer to the questions raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I will also follow up separately the important points made about the spread of technology by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and respond to her. I am not an expert in these matters, but common sense says that the ready availability of pornography has a desensitising effect, while the way in which technology can be used by people to work together to share images and to co-ordinate activity suggests that there is a growing problem there.
The Government share with the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords a recognition of the problem of child sexual exploitation and of the particular vulnerabilities of looked-after children. It is almost impossible to comprehend the suffering that some of these children and young people have endured and are enduring at the hands of their exploiters. Like all noble Lords, we are determined to do all that we can to stop this terrible abuse.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority/Human Tissue Authority
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Thornton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will maintain public confidence and patient safety following the abolition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, it seems appropriate that we are having a short debate on the proposed abolition of the HFEA and the HTA, as one might say that it is a sort of warm-up for the debates that we will be having when the Public Bodies Bill restarts its Committee stage, which I hope will be soon.
This morning, the British Heart Foundation announced that it is spending £50 million on stem cell research in the hope that one day it will be as easy to recover from a heart attack as it is to repair a broken bone. A year ago, the groundbreaking partnership was announced between the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the UK Stem Cell Foundation to pump-prime and speed up stem cell research. This perhaps reflects science’s fast-moving progress in relation to stem cell research and the wonders that it might bring to medicine over the next few years. Right now, the HFEA is conducting a consultation on the ethics of sperm and egg donation. This issue is often in the media, which is unsurprising given what donation involves—that is, making children who may not be genetically related to their parent or parents.
As medical science advances, there seem to be more, not fewer, ethical issues to address in this area. To underline this point, not long ago—in fact, in March last year—the noble Earl the Minister and I were dealing with the regulations arising out of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 relating to the disclosure of information for research purposes and parental orders regarding the adoption of children born of surrogate mothers, among other matters. These are both highly sensitive and important issues concerning ethical and safeguarding matters and both rest in the hands of an HFEA accountable to the Minister and to Parliament.
In preparing for this debate, I used as my starting point what both organisations do and I tried to work out how these functions might be undertaken in the new regime that the noble Earl kindly outlined to some of us not long ago. The HTA licenses and inspects organisations that store and use human tissue for purposes such as research, patient treatment, post-mortem examinations, teaching and public exhibitions. It also approves organ and bone marrow donations from living people. Its work covers anatomy, stem cells, cord blood, public display—that is, the public display of human body parts in various forms—post-mortems, coroners and transplants. It is clear to me that the HTA covers a wide but related range of competencies, as well as the ones that were behind the organisation being established with such care some years ago.
The ethical issues that arise all the time as a result of the advances in science throw up new and sometimes very complex issues. Public indignation at the cavalier use of body parts for research without the knowledge or consent of patients and their families was huge and many in your Lordships’ House will recall the thought and time that were given to creating a regulatory framework that would command public confidence. The Bill was given more than 100 hours of direct parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses, not counting pre-legislative scrutiny or investigation by Select Committees. I fail to see what has changed that can allow any slackening off of the responsibility that the HTA bears for the uses of human tissue.
The HFEA is the UK’s independent regulator of treatment using eggs and sperm and of treatment and research involving human embryos. It sets standards for and issues licences to centres; provides authoritative information for the public, particularly for people seeking treatment, donor-conceived people and donors; and, very importantly, determines the policy framework for fertility issues, which are sometimes ethically and clinically complex. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 includes provisions for research on different types of embryos and changes the definition of legal parenthood for cases involving assisted reproduction. More than 200 hours were spent scrutinising this and previous legislation in both Houses, not counting the need for Select Committees and pre-legislative scrutiny. I make this point to emphasise that Parliament took its time to get these things right. It seems to me that, if Parliament is going to change the HFEA and the HTA, it needs to take time to do that also.
The Government argue that the HFEA’s licensing function could be moved and that its very sensitive records should become a responsibility elsewhere. I remind noble Lords that, on every occasion that Parliament has discussed human fertility since the 1980s, it has agreed that human embryos have a unique status and that their use for treatment and research requires special oversight.
Some say that IVF treatment has become so common that its regulation should be normalised in some way. I point out that, although public opinion has indeed moved, there are still powerful forces wishing to stop or limit the use of assisted conception and there are still the unscrupulous who would wish to profit from, for example, the longing of parents to have a baby. In addition, there is a very real danger that important research will be frustrated by people who have strong and hostile views should the responsibility for ethical review be removed from the responsible but supportive environment fostered by the HFEA.
The HFEA plays an important role in actively improving standards by, for example, being responsible for several consultations on issues of best practice, such as the ones to which I have referred. Reducing multiple pregnancies by limiting the number of embryos transferred has been and remains an important part of its work. My question is whether the Care Quality Commission will take on the important role of ensuring that clinics’ results are not achieved regardless of the perinatal mortality associated with multiple pregnancy.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act is the focus for interactions between doctors, nurses and scientists. I suppose that these interactions could take place elsewhere. However, all the disciplines have vested interests and I point out, with the greatest respect, that organisations such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Nursing, the Association of Clinical Embryologists and the British Fertility Society do not have the same impartial image enjoyed by the HFEA. The public have learnt to trust the HFEA and, indeed, the HTA. These bodies act as a bulwark between the sensational headlines in the less responsible press and those who are working in the field. Who would take on that role if either of these bodies was abolished? Would Andrew Lansley, or indeed the noble Earl, be prepared to act as that bulwark?
UK legislation on these matters is the envy and the blueprint for the world. In Australia, for example, the states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia have legislated to establish statutory oversight bodies. In 2000, the Singapore Cabinet appointed a bioethics advisory committee to examine the ethical, legal and social issues arising from biomedical research and development. Again, that is not a government department but a stand-alone, arm’s-length body.
I am not opposed to change and improvement and I am not opposed to these proposals for the sake of it. I support change to make organisations more effective—for example, by sharing back-office functions or other facilities, by changing regulatory functions or by testing to see whether functions could be performed more effectively elsewhere. It might be that the proposals that the Government have suggested so far for the HTA and the HFEA will provide efficient regulation of some of their functions through the CQC and possibly through the still-to-be-created academy of medical science. However, none of the proposals answers the question that is the subject of this debate: where would the ethical and safeguarding issues that are at the heart of the work of both these bodies sit?
I am aware that the Government have said that there is no intention to revisit the ethical and safeguarding provisions in the HFE Act or the principles of consent underpinning the HTA, but they have so far failed to address how the ethical and safeguarding functions might satisfactorily be carried out were these organisations not to exist. I cannot see the CQC or an academy of science being an appropriate body. That leaves us the Secretary of State and the Government, which is where we came in all those years ago with Alder Hey and the challenges posed by the new embryo and fertility advances of the 1980s. I suggest that public confidence in this area is best established through the independence of the bodies that regulate—the HTA and the HFEA—and that the Government need to rethink their proposals.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this debate at this time; it is perhaps an important interval, which we might not have expected to have but for other activities in the House. As your Lordships will know, I had the privilege of introducing the HFEA legislation all those years ago, so I feel a certain parental responsibility towards the authority that prevents me from wanting to see it perish. However, as children grow up, the needs surrounding them can change and it may well be asked whether all that the HFEA was set up to do needs to be done in quite that way now. For example, when it was set up, IVF was comparatively rare and it would be fair to say that people were somewhat afraid of it. We had the benefit of the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, suggesting what should happen.
Since that time, IVF has become a much more regularly occurring clinical process. Undoubtedly, there have been questions—for example, about the number of embryos to implant—but these processes take place in other areas as well; there are important risks in many clinical processes and we have authorities that are responsible for monitoring them. There may well be a case, therefore, for considering whether the control of the practice of IVF should continue with the HFEA. Research, too, happens in many areas. It involves important ethical issues, even in other branches of medicine and scientific research. I think that the HFEA was set up primarily from the point of view of that research and its control. Although there may be room for modification, that should continue.
I have had no direct concern with the Human Tissue Authority—I am glad to see its chair taking part in our debate—but I had the privilege of sitting on the Select Committee that looked at the draft Bill. Many questions relating to the Human Tissue Act were raised there. The answer of the then Government was: “If these are mistakes, it is too early to correct them”. I have always thought that the sooner you correct a mistake that you have made, the better. I have no particular concern about the Human Tissue Authority. Our Joint Committee raised the possibility of a degree of co-operation between the two authorities that had not until then existed, although the situation may well have improved since we completed our deliberations. However, it is absolutely clear that the committee found no basis on which these two authorities could properly be put together as a single authority. We were absolutely unanimous and strongly of that view.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Baroness for achieving this short debate—and it is short; one has only a few minutes. For that reason, my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough will address the HFEA, my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby will have an overall look at the issue and I will focus my attention on the Human Tissue Authority. I declare an interest, because my wife is a consultant histopathologist in the NHS in Northern Ireland. She does not do any forensic or coroner’s work, but I declare the interest in any case.
The assumption in the noble Baroness’s Question is that these bodies—I will refer now only to the Human Tissue Authority—have increased public confidence and patient safety. I am not at all sure that that is in fact the case with the HTA. When I was much younger in medicine, I remember that one government requirement was that 10 per cent of deaths that did not require a coroner’s case PM would be post-mortemed. Why? Because the final judgment about whether or not clinical judgment was correct comes in the court of the full and rigorous autopsy of the pathologist. There is no other way of being certain. Even then, one may not get a final answer.
What has happened over the last few years is that we have achieved not the 10 per cent figure but the almost complete disappearance of such post-mortems. Many histopathologists, especially those who are newly qualified, will no longer carry out post-mortems. The Royal College of Pathologists is looking at whether it should allow pathologists to qualify without having proper experience in post-mortems, because so few of them are being done. One cannot talk about increased public confidence in post-mortems if the outcome has been that almost nobody wants permission for them to be done. That expresses a lack of confidence in post-mortems, not increasing confidence.
I will be more specific. In February of last year, the president of the Royal College of Pathologists wrote to the then Secretary of State, the right honourable Andy Burnham MP, with an eight-page letter—for obvious reasons, I cannot quote it in any detail—expressing the Royal College of Pathologists’ deep lack of confidence in the work of the HTA. He began the letter by saying that the fall-out of the HTA’s actions risked destabilising the provision of post-mortem examination services in England and Wales. He wrote about the concerns not only of the royal college but of the coroners’ service. He talked about the lack of efficiency, citing the work of the CPA, which undertakes external quality assessments for full laboratory services—in other words, histopathology, haematology, microbiology and clinical chemistry. The fee that the CPA requires for inspecting the entire laboratory service is half that which the HTA requires for inspecting just the mortuary. Even in terms of efficiency, therefore, there are serious questions. When the HTA was established, it had a lot of experienced people who had conducted post-mortems, but that is no longer the case.
If the new Government understand that this is the relationship that has developed between the professional bodies—to the point where pathologists are no longer eager to carry out post-mortems—they would not be responsible if they did not take this issue seriously. Should the Government not ask whether the HTA is the best vehicle to carry out what are undoubted requirements for proper procedures to scrutinise this professional work?
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the noble Baroness has laid before us a Question that rightly draws attention to two issues: public safety and public confidence. They are the issues that the Minister rightly addressed last week when he kindly and courteously invited us to be given a briefing about the Government’s intentions.
For me the jury is out on these issues. I would certainly want to see, at the very minimum, a reform of the HFEA. The Minister will recall, as other noble Lords will, the debates that we had during the passage of the Bill, when a number of us argued for the creation of a national bioethics commission to oversee some of these ethical issues. I suppose that I subscribe to the cautionary verse of Hilaire Belloc, who said,
“always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse”.
I would like to see the colour of the Government’s money. I want to see precisely what they have in mind before coming to a conclusion.
It is worth going back, as the noble and learned Lord did in his remarks, to the creation of the HFEA. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, has said, it was necessary to create it—these were the words of the Warnock report—
“if the public is to have confidence”.
She said that it needed to be an “independent body”, that the membership was,
“not to be unduly influenced by sectional interests”,
and that its membership was to include,
“a diverse range of views”.
She also laid great emphasis on what she described as the,
“special status of the human embryo”.
I have a Question on the Order Paper at the moment asking the Minister to update the figures given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, during the passage of the legislation two years ago, but the figure that was given then was that some 2 million embryos had been destroyed or experimented on since the passage of the 1990 legislation, so these are not trivial questions. The question of the status of the human embryo has always struck me as central to this argument.
I note that the chair of the HFEA, Professor Lisa Jardine, said in the Guardian on 5 January that,
“the safeguarding of the ‘special status of the embryo’ will be lost”,
if the HFEA is abolished. In an article in the journal Nature last August, it was suggested that,
“losing the HFEA as a discrete body could undermine public confidence”.
The article on Professor Jardine adds that the HFEA,
“carefully shelters human embryos from routine experimentation”.
Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether he has asked how many embryos have been thus spared; surprisingly, the HFEA, via Parliamentary Questions, says that it cannot tell.
Whether it is the unnecessary destruction of human embryos, the dangers caused to women by hyperovulation syndrome—before the Committee met today I passed the Minister a new paper from a German medical magazine about this question, because it goes right to the heart of patient safety—the ethics and mercantile nature of exploiting poorer women through the sale of eggs, an issue that the HFEA is currently considering, or the extraordinary way in which the HFEA has, for instance, pursued Dr Mohamed Taranissi, requiring it to meet legal costs of nearly £190,000, it is obvious, as the current HFEA chief executive stated in a memo, that,
“something clearly has gone wrong—badly wrong over a sustained length of time”.
At the very minimum, I think that reform is needed.
I would therefore be grateful to hear how Her Majesty’s Government propose that there should be what the Minister himself has described as a “lighter touch”. Is that something that people such as me should be fearful of, or should we welcome it? Does it mean that in any sense there will be less regulation? Will the status of the human embryo be diminished further? How will the exercise of the HFEA’s powers through this lighter touch be done? Also, how will the Government ensure that the requirements of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which stand in place, will be adhered to if the HFEA ceases to exist in its present form? Who will be responsible for the transfer of sensitive data that the HFEA holds? How will independence, freedom from undue influence or sectional interests and a diverse range of views be upheld?
Lord Winston
My Lords, I most grateful to my noble friend Lady Thornton for introducing this debate. It is rather delightful for me to be able, on this rare occasion, to support the Government’s position and to support the Minister—at least, I suspect that I will be supporting him. It is a particular delight to see the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, attending this debate; it was he who, in 1985, broke the Speaker’s Chair in the debate when the Private Member’s Bill came in as part of Enoch Powell’s attempt at legislation. I, of course, can declare an interest as an ex-poacher in this area—I no longer run an IVF unit—and I note that I am followed by a noble Baroness who was a gamekeeper.
I must say that I was open-mouthed at the quality and the succinctness of the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, when he introduced the HFE Act. It seemed like a model of what should happen. It is fair to say that at the time it was an essential piece of legislation, which has now passed its day. It is no longer necessary; the research that it regulates is not really suitable for regulation by the HFEA. I believe that other areas of medical research, such as paediatrics, obstetrics, geriatrics and assisted dying, in many ways raise much more important ethical issues on a day-to-day basis. With stem cell research, the HFEA is inadequate for the purpose. A completely different body is needed, since stem cell research is ubiquitous and affects every tissue in the body, including the brain and the liver, and will clearly be an important replacement therapy in future. If it is to be regulated, it needs a different kind of touch.
As for clinical regulation, frankly the HFEA cannot prevent accidents or errors. It has not done that and it cannot do that; no regulatory authority can do that completely, any more than any other way of inspecting laboratories can. It does not prevent exploitation of women, who pay massive fees—in my view unreasonably—and has not helped in the costing of IVF treatment. It is unable to prevent fertility tourism, which goes around British legislation on a regular basis, and has not prevented clinics from collaborating with overseas units in allowing their patients to go to places such as Spain and Russia to seek treatment that they cannot offer themselves—with what kind of relationship, I am not sure.
There is a repeated assertion that the HFEA has always assuaged public concerns about IVF. I think that that was true 20 years ago but it is not true any longer. The public are pretty mature about this area, as was shown clearly by the hybrid embryo Bill. Things have moved on and the public are rather more sophisticated.
Lastly, one of my concerns about the HFEA is that it is extremely costly for men and women who are already paying for these services. I have just checked on the cost at Hammersmith Hospital, a clinic that I used to direct. Effectively, the HFEA requires two extra salaries to be paid and individual patients will pay on average around £300 for the use of IVF licences for their treatment. That seems an unfair burden in an area of medicine that is already extremely burdensome for the patients.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Baroness on securing and introducing this debate. One thing that she pointed to, which concerns many of us, is the extent to which there are huge commercial pressures in this field, which have led in other countries to an almost complete abandonment of what one might describe as the ethical limits that are widely understood in the medical profession. With an issue such as whether a grandmother’s frozen eggs should be used for the purposes of fertilisation, one has to say that the difficulty in reaching a proper conclusion rises daily.
I wish to raise the issue of inspection and the issue raised by my most admired poacher on the question of medical research. First, there clearly has to be some inspection of the clinics that fall under the HFEA. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us his view of how that inspection will function. It may be more limited than it used to be, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, but it must be maintained at the level of day-to-day practice. It is very important that that should be so in order that patients can have some sense of the safety of the enterprise.
On the much bigger issue of medical ethics, raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, we are looking at a tremendous multiplication of the issues around ethics and the massive advance of life sciences. I accept that that cannot be dealt with by the HFEA, with its rather limited terms of reference. We must try to bring together a much more significant body to look at the whole issue of the relationship between ethics and life sciences. In that context, may I sweeten that pill by suggesting to the Minister that one way in which one could develop the great idea of a great society would be to look at a marriage between a body that had status in government terms with the other great bodies that look into these matters—the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Royal Society and others? In that way, one might get a genuinely wide spectrum of opinion, including great scientists and ethicists, on the issues that now confront us with life sciences. I believe that, unless we do that, we will quickly run into real problems where dogmatic forces take up resistance to any advances or other dogmatic forces look at the commercial elements as the way to guide our consideration of biological and biochemical ethics in future years.
Baroness Deech
My Lords, I declare an interest as the former chair of the HFEA. For most of my tenure I was paid the princely sum of £8,000 per annum, but it was a burden—nearly a full-time burden—that I undertook with pride and viewed as a privilege, grateful that infertility had not affected me. I wished to help others safely and with respect for their dignity, avoiding exploitation, and I remained in awe of the achievement of the scientists.
This debate, for which I am grateful, is about public confidence. It is not about confident, or self-confident, doctors; nor is it about how wonderful and trustworthy our doctors and embryologists are. If that were the issue, we would not need regulation in many walks of professional life and the controversy surrounding the Public Bodies Bill would fade away. It is easy in these surroundings or among researchers and specialists to forget how sensitive the issues of IVF and embryos are, and how very concerned the public are. The most vivid event during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill three years ago was the hundreds of members of the public protesting outside this Palace about the possible extension of embryo research to animal hybrids. If your name, like mine, is associated with embryo research, you are the recipient of hundreds of letters about it, and not always peaceful or unthreatening ones. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, said in her esteemed report of 1984, the public want to know that some principles are involved. It is also not to be forgotten that most of the treatment in this country is private, and therefore a great deal of money is involved and the need for protection is all the greater. European law, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is a weakness in that protection but unavoidable.
Any analogy with the progress of science in the US, which is largely unregulated, is false. The US has been home to some of the scandals that have echoed around the world, whether it was a clinician using his own sperm, octuplets or the sale of eggs and sperm by needy college students for large sums of money. That is not a road that we wish to risk going down, but we are not risking it under the Government’s proposal. Those who want to see the HFEA abolished seem to think that there will then be no regulation and that they will be free to do what they want, and quickly. But no—the law will be the same; consent will be needed exactly as before, and so will licences. Taking the processes into other organisations can be guaranteed to be no faster, no less bureaucratic and no cheaper; just worse. IVF is not routine because, although it is practised very often, any one treatment can throw up not only ethical issues that are known to us, such as saviour siblings, but also new ones, as the science progresses every day. One cannot separate the collection of embryos and eggs from patients from their storage, their storage from donation for research, donation for research from new research and stem cell work, and none of that from the great database, patient guidance and reliable statistics and health screening of donors. The risks will be too great and the gains from the government proposal nil, and our international reputation will suffer.
We are talking about an annual expenditure of £7 million, of which only £1.5 million to £2 million comes from the Government, and even this, I am told, could be reduced. Certainly patients will still have to pay for regulation if the tasks of the HFEA are dismembered, so it will be no cheaper for them either. Placing the regulation with the CQC is misguided. This is a new organisation. There have already been hints that it is overburdened and its operations have not always been met with praise. There is no improvement in public confidence there; nor will the public be persuaded that embryos will be treated with respect and that there will be bounds on embryo research if it is handed over to unknowns and not the accountable and expert figures of the HFEA. Review, yes; reversal, no.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
My Lords, in congratulating my noble friend on the timeliness of this debate, I must declare my interest as chair of the Human Tissue Authority.
As my noble friend said, the authority was set up as a result of the organ retention scandals at Alder Hey and Bristol. The retention of children's organs—including in some cases their hearts—without the consent or knowledge of their parents, rightly created outrage. It resulted in a crisis of public confidence. At the time, David and Hazel Thewlis, representatives of those affected, said:
“The Human Tissue Act has provided a new foundation for the people of this country ... consent was the cornerstone of the Act, and this must colour all of the work of the Human Tissue Authority”.
The authority has put informed consent at the centre of everything it does, and by doing so it has ensured the safe and ethical use of human tissue. I can confidently say that it has turned around the crisis in public confidence. However, it would be misguided to be complacent. The improvement is by no means universal or fully embedded. The reasons why we were set up have not gone away.
I am not hidebound or precious about which bodies should do the work, nor are my authority members. What we are concerned about is ensuring that the advances we have made are not lost, particularly the hard-won confidence of the public in the proper use of organs and tissue. We believe that the current proposals to transfer our functions to three or possibly four different organisations risk undermining the progress that has been made.
Paula O’Leary, of the Alder Hey parents’ support group PITY II, said recently:
“We fought hard for 10 years … who is to say this is not going to start up all over again?”.
Roger Goss from Patient Concern said:
“Dividing would be diluting. That would be going back down the hill in terms of protecting patients' rights to exercise informed consent”.
The best way of making sure that does not happen is to maintain a clear focus on the safe and ethical use of human tissues and organs across all our sectors. To do that, we need to keep our functions together. That way, we maintain a consistently rigorous approach to consent, and guarantee an individual’s right to decide, in life and in death, what happens to their bodies and the bodies of their loved ones.
The HTA is a small organisation with a broad remit. Our activities are interdependent. There are pathologist researchers, and researchers treating patients with tissue. Researchers study organs to improve the success of transplants. They are all regulated by the HTA and the ethical issues are common to all the sectors that we regulate. The gift of organs and tissues is a special one, giving rise to special ethical considerations. During the passage of the Human Tissue Act, consent was described as the golden thread through all our activities. That is why there is a single set of core standards across all the sectors that we regulate under the Act.
We are a lean organisation. The money that we get from the Department of Health is £1 million a year, about one-sixth of our total cost. We have to earn the rest. What we do makes a difference. Last year, we approved 1,100 organ donations from living people. Since we began regulating, these numbers have increased year by year. We work to give more people the gift of life offered by organ transplants. When tissue is used in medical treatments—such as the use of bone marrow stem cells in cancer treatments, or skin for burns victims—people can be confident that they are safe and good quality and have been donated with consent. If stem cells are collected from umbilical cord blood for potential future use, we safeguard the safety of mother and child and the quality of the cells. Our regulation of mortuaries means that individuals and their families can have confidence that their loved ones are treated with dignity and respect. In research, too, people can know that tissue will be kept only with their consent or the consent of their family, so they can be confident that their wishes will be respected.
I have no quarrel with the Government’s intention to simplify the regulatory landscape. My plea is simply that we do not jeopardise the gains that the HTA has made by spreading its functions across a number of disparate organisations and losing the coherent overall approach that has been so successful in promoting public and professional confidence in the safe and ethical use of tissues and organs.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on this debate. Indeed, it is—as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said to me when I came into the Room—like Groundhog Day: we are back again debating exactly the same things. I thought that we had put these issues to bed. I do not, in fact, oppose my noble friend’s proposals on principle. It is right that we constantly look at the organisations and that we constantly review their procedures to make sure that they meet the times. Nor do I claim infallibility for either the HFEA or the HTA. They are not infallible and are in constant need of reform and refreshment. However, it is the lack of clarity over what is proposed, the lack of any consultation on the proposals, and in particular the lack of any public involvement in these proposals that makes me concerned about the future functions of both the HTA and the HFEA.
On 13 October last year, in response to a Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the Minister said that,
“20 years ago it may have made sense to look at a single body for carrying out the functions undertaken by the HFEA”.
He went on to say:
“Times have moved on”.—[Official Report, 13/10/10; col. 512.]
However, it was not 20 years ago that Parliament discussed this issue; in fact, it was three years. It is three years since the Joint Committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill, which I was privileged to chair—four members of that committee are in the Moses Room today—carried out detailed scrutiny of proposals to amalgamate the HFEA, the Human Tissue Authority and the MHRA into a single authority, RATE. The unanimous view of the committee and of Parliament during debate on the successor Bill was to retain separate regulators. No one proposed amendments to change that during the passage of the Bill. There was unanimity in both Houses that the use and practice of both tissue and embryos should remain separate and that they should in fact have separate regulators. What is more, that was the overwhelming view of the medical and scientific community, including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the BMA, the Royal Society, the Association of Medical Research Charities, the Academy of Medical Science, the Royal College of Nursing, the Wellcome Trust, the MRC and the Royal College of Pathologists. What has changed since 2008 to mean that all that is no longer appropriate?
The Joint Committee also carefully considered the regulation of research using not only human embryos but also admixed embryos, including cytoplasmic hybrid embryos. The fact that a single regulatory authority could make decisions in the round—recognising that groundbreaking research was but a short step away from clinical practice—appeared to us at the time to be a distinct advantage. I believe that it remains a distinct advantage today. Indeed, it is because a single authority, independent of the Government, was able to exercise its regulatory duties over all activities involving the human embryo that confidence in this extremely sensitive, ethical and emotive area of human science has progressed with support from the public. Also, because there was an experienced independent regulator, science was able to triumph over the reactionary views of the then health Chief Medical Officer, who regarded admixed embryos as “Yuk”.
Crucially, where is the evidence that such change as is being proposed will benefit science and clinical practice and improve public confidence? Of course, there is a strong argument—the noble Lord, Lord Winston, made it in our committee—that fertility treatments using embryos are now commonplace and should be regulated like any other medical procedures. If the Minister believes that, let us have a public debate about it. Likewise, if the recent report of the Academy of Medical Sciences into the broader issue of the regulation and governance of medical research is going to be the blueprint for the new proposals, let us have a public consultation and a public debate on it. Let us not rush into removing organisations that have huge public confidence and the confidence of clinicians, as it would be rather like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Baroness Wheeler
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Thornton for initiating this debate, as well as other noble Lords who have spoken with much experience and in-depth knowledge on this matter. It is particularly timely as the Government consider their response to the major concerns about the inclusion of the HFEA and HTA among the bodies to be abolished under the Public Bodies Bill, whose Committee stage discussions we are set to resume.
As has been stated, we on these Benches can speak with some authority on this matter, having, as the House will be aware, closely examined the case for merging the HFEA and HTA into a single body just over two years ago while we were in Government. We came to the firm conclusion that two distinct independent regulatory bodies needed to be retained to oversee the areas of human tissue and assisted reproduction.
As the BMA has stated, the UK has been well served by the HFEA and the HTA, and both have been used as models for other jurisdictions in dealing with extremely technical and legally complex areas of practice. The RCN has said in respect of the HFEA that the current high level of expertise and experience within the body is extremely valuable and that it would not be in the public interest to transfer regulatory functions to other organisations, as this knowledge might be lost to the detriment of patient safety. The HFEA’s chair, Professor Lisa Jardine, has described areas covered by the HFEA as the most controversial area of medicine apart from assisted dying, the most morally difficult and carefully legislated-for area and the most tightly regulated.
The HTA, born out of the terrible events at Alder Hey and Bristol hospitals, and the crisis in public confidence over unauthorised retention of babies’ organs and tissues, has in our view established hard-won trust and respect among the public and professionals. My noble friend Lady Warwick is right to express concern that this will be lost if the current clear focus of the HTA is diminished in the transfer of its functions and role.
This does not mean that we do not recognise the scope for review and change within either body, or how the regulatory framework may be developed in the future. Both bodies themselves acknowledge this. We also recognise that many in the key professional groups involved are supportive of such changes as bringing all medical research regulation, including embryo research, within the remit of a single medical research regulatory authority, as recommended by the Academy of Medical Sciences. However, time and space would be needed for independent examination and review of this and the broader issues of how functions should be delivered in future and the risks, benefits and costs, rather than just the current focus on how functions are to be transferred.
We are concerned that the Government’s process is to transfer functions to bodies that are as yet undeveloped and untested in this area of expertise. The Care Quality Commission is very much an organisation in transition and development, as it plans to take on a range of new duties and work envisaged in the Health and Social Care Bill. The role and possible functions of the new medical research body, and of the health and social care information centre, need much more work and development. All this is in the context of the Department of Health having its work cut out, taking on a huge volume of work, responsibilities and functions that will come its way from the abolition or reorganisation of many of the other bodies due to be axed in the Public Bodies Bill.
This is also at a time when the Government themselves are committed to large-scale staff reductions in the Department of Health. There are also key issues of accountability and independence at stake. Professional bodies and clinicians directly regulated by the HFEA, for example, of course have a key view of the changes needed, but they are not the only stakeholders, as speakers in this afternoon’s debate have underlined.
Dismantling the HFEA and HTA, diluting their accountability and handing over their powers to Ministers and civil servants on such sensitive issues needs public involvement and stakeholder conversation, as speakers have pointed out. How would the new organisations be independently scrutinised and accountable? How much money would be saved from transferring the functions of the HFEA and HTA to the CSQ and new bodies? Will the Minister explain in more detail the timetable that he is currently working to for consultation and development of the new framework?
We on these Benches again urge the Government to reconsider their position and remove the HFEA and HTA from the bodies to be deleted under Schedule 5.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
I start by expressing my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for tabling this debate, and to all speakers for raising their concerns on this very important set of issues. Let me say immediately that the need to maintain public confidence in every part of the NHS is absolutely vital, particularly in areas as delicate as embryology and human tissue.
I can offer your Lordships absolute reassurance today that our plans do not represent any threat to patient safety, nor to the safeguards held within the legislative framework of provisions within the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and the Human Tissue Act.
The Department of Health carried out its review of arm’s-length bodies and published its recommendation in July 2010. We recognise the important role that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority have played in the regulation of their respective areas over the years. We thank them sincerely for it. Our recommendations in respect of these bodies took account of the complexities and sensitivities attached to the particular areas in which they operate.
We are not rushing. We have allowed for the full length of the planned Parliament to take these changes to their conclusion. That is far longer than any other change proposed within the department’s review, a decision that reflects both the importance of the two bodies and a recognition that we need to consult fully on, and settle, the detail of all the changes. However, we are clear that a more joined-up system needs to be formed.
With the establishment of the Care Quality Commission, and the Academy of Medical Sciences’ recommendation for a new health research agency, new alternative structures have become available to ensure a more cohesive system for both healthcare and health research regulation that will benefit patients, health professionals and researchers. It is therefore our intention that the healthcare-related licensing functions of the HFEA and HTA will transfer to the CQC.
The CQC already regulates a wide range of NHS and independent healthcare providers. It registers them and ensures that they are meeting essential standards of safety and quality. It takes action if services drop below these essential standards and acts quickly if people’s rights or safety are at risk. It undertakes investigations where there are concerns about quality, seeks the views of people who use services and informs people about the quality of those services. Noble Lords will recognise that this is similar to the roles undertaken by the HFEA and HTA, on a smaller scale, in respect of the regulation of infertility treatment and activities involving the use of human tissue.
We estimate that about 80 per cent of the centres currently licensed by the HFEA are either regulated by the CQC or in premises that it regulates. The CQC also covers 60 per cent of the centres licensed by the HTA. It therefore seems wasteful, and indeed unsustainable, to continue to have these regulatory systems running in parallel. It makes sense to streamline, and ultimately to trust the CQC with the responsibility. There is no reason why the CQC should not be able to fulfil that responsibility as effectively as do the HFEA and HTA now.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about the multiple birth policy. That is an issue that concerns the safety of patients and their children, and it would fit very well into the CQC’s remit.
Noble Lords will be aware of the Academy of Medical Sciences’ report on the regulation and governance of medical research. The report has made recommendations for simplifying the complex framework of regulation. In particular, it suggests the introduction of a new health research agency. The report has been embraced by a wide range of groups and experts. It recognises that there are significant benefits in bringing all medical research regulation, including embryo research, within the remit of a single medical research regulatory authority. The Government welcome the report and are considering their response.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to Lisa Jardine’s comments about the threat to the status of the embryo. I emphasise that the intention is to co-ordinate health research regulation better so that the system is streamlined without changing or compromising the safeguards. Current quality and ethical safeguards for research involving the use of a human embryo, for example, must be necessary for the research to be approved, and will remain very firmly in place. It is worth reflecting that, although the statutory requirement that the use of embryos is necessary and that the research is necessary or desirable will remain in place, a research regulatory authority with a broad outlook across medical research would be well positioned to make that assessment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked who would be the keeper of ethical safeguards. I would say simply that the ethical safeguards are laid out in legislation, as agreed by Parliament.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, suggested that those in favour of the Government’s proposals think that they will not be regulated at all. I have not gained that impression. The letters from professional bodies—the British Fertility Society, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and leading clinicians—show clearly that they understand that regulation and legislative provisions will remain firmly in place.
There are three key points that I want to make at this juncture. First—I say this especially to my noble friend Lord Willis—my department is planning to undertake a public consultation exercise this summer about where HFEA and HTA functions are best transferred. We regard this as a key part of the process. We will consult on any subsequent use of powers agreed in the Public Bodies Bill to effect those transfers. Effectively, therefore, there will be two consultations.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, understandably said that he would like to see the colour of the Government’s money before reaching a view on these issues. As yet, no final decisions have been reached on exactly which functions will go to the CQC, the potential health research agency, the Health and Social Care Information Centre or elsewhere. The exact detail of how the powers in the Public Bodies Bill might be used will be considered further and in detailed discussion with the HFEA, HTA, CQC and key stakeholders and in public consultation.
Secondly, our plans are about streamlining the functions of the regulatory bodies concerned. I regard that as the precursor to the lighter touch referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. The lighter touch itself will revolve around the design of systems, which will ensure that the burden of bureaucracy is lessened overall for the NHS and other organisations. The CQC and the HFEA will play a leading role in the development of an efficient approach.
I stress again that, despite what some commentators have said, there is no intention to revisit the ethical provisions and safeguards in the HFE Act, the principles set out in the Warnock report, or the principles of consent underpinning the Human Tissue Act. The proposed powers in the Public Bodies Bill could not be used to do any of those things. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked what had changed regarding the principles that were debated at length in both Houses of Parliament. The answer is: nothing. The HFE Act provisions that recognise the special status of the human embryo will remain in place, entirely as they are now, as will the provisions in the Human Tissue Act that ensure that donors’ and families’ rights and safety are protected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that she did not have a closed mind to some sort of reorganisation of functions, and I am hope I am right in detecting the same message from the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Warwick, and my noble friend Lord Willis. That is welcome. All would say, as I have explained on previous occasions, is that if we cannot secure a place for the HFEA and HTA with the Public Bodies Bill then we will have to look to a future health Bill to support the transfer of functions, however we decide that that transfer should be conducted. However, to move into primary legislation would mean that the safeguards enshrined within the HFEA and HTA Acts would then be open to parliamentary scrutiny and vulnerable to amendment. I know that very few noble Lords would relish that scenario.
Thirdly, we envisage that our proposals should offer benefits to patients, healthcare professionals and researchers. We want the streamlining of regulation and reduction in the number of regulators to mean a less burdensome and bureaucratic system, both for the NHS and for the independent sector. We will work with the HFEA and HTA to try to ensure that those with the necessary expertise will follow their functions to the new arrangements so that it is not lost.
We have received significant numbers of representations from professional bodies and clinicians who are directly regulated by the HFEA, expressing support for the Government’s proposal to include the HFEA in the Public Bodies Bill. Many also expressed concern about the HFEA’s current approach to regulation. I have placed these in the Library.
My noble friend Lady Williams asked about legitimate public concerns about patient safety. I point out that the EU tissues and cell directive sets out robust provisions for safety and quality, covering assisted reproduction and the human application of tissue and cells. The role of competent authority to regulate against the requirements of the directive and standards for quality and safety will remain in place to ensure that patient safety remains a key consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked where the Government saw the information functions going. We will have to consult on that issue carefully with all the bodies concerned. We will give due regard to the sensitivity and confidentiality of the nature of the information currently held by the HFEA and HTA, and we envisage that it will be a key area on which we will consult.
My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay and my noble friend Lord Willis referred to the proposal two or three years ago to form RATE. This is a completely different proposal; RATE simply involved replacing the HFEA and HTA with a single organisation that would undertake all the functions of the two bodies in their entirety. The proposal was rejected because the benefits of doing so for embryo research, for example, were not apparent. The current proposal to indentify where individual functions might best be placed is a different approach and has more potential obvious benefits, such as more streamlining and cohesion.
My noble friend Lady Williams asked why the Government did not set up a national bioethics committee. The consideration of specific ethical issues by bodies such as Nuffield and parliamentary scrutiny committees remains the preferred approach.
Education: Children with Diabetes
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
First, I declare that I have type 2 diabetes, having been diagnosed with the condition nearly two years ago. I am a member of the charity Diabetes UK and actively support its work.
I thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, for being here to respond to this debate. I am sure he has a busy diary and his attendance is very much appreciated. I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone is also taking part. She is the chief executive of Diabetes UK, and I think it is fair to say that we are all looking forward to her informed contribution to this debate. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden.
Too many children with type 1 diabetes get a raw deal at school. Many of our children are excluded from school trips or social events; they are excluded from PE lessons; they are prevented from eating the snacks they need when they need them; they are denied access to their medicines when they need them because they are “safely locked away”; and they experience bullying. Many young children are also left to inject insulin themselves, leading to increased fear and anxiety for their parents. It is therefore not just the children with diabetes who get a raw deal; their parents do too.
As well as the worry that parents feel for their children, many are forced to give up work because schools refuse support if a child is unaccompanied by a parent. Diabetes UK continually hears from parents who are unable to work because they have to go into school to administer medicine. Diabetes UK also continually hears from parents who have to fight for basic support from a school and they do not always get it. Some children have even been forced to move schools. They have heart-breaking stories, and there is an emotional and financial strain on families.
At this point, I congratulate Diabetes UK, which has established an advocacy service offering vital help for families struggling with these issues. Diabetes UK deals with around 100 enquiries a month. I also commend the charity for its long-running efforts to improve the lives of all children with diabetes at school.
Noble Lords may ask: why does this issue matter when only a small number of children live with type l diabetes? However, it is not a small number. More than half of our schools have children with diabetes. In recent times, childhood obesity and poor food choices leading to type 2 diabetes have been the focus of attention. While these issues should not be ignored, only 1,400 children in the UK have that form of diabetes. However, 20,000 children under the age of 15 have type 1 diabetes. Its incidence is increasing, particularly in the under-fives, where the number affected has increased fivefold over the past two decades. Two thousand children are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes every year.
Children with diabetes have as much right as any other children to a decent quality of education and school experience, yet their school experience varies greatly from no school support and very patchy support to good, child-centred provision. Many of our schools are failing to help children with diabetes to participate fully in learning and school life. Worse still, a lack of education among pupils, parents and teachers leads to bullying and children struggling to fit in. That increases their anxiety about being “different”—a feeling which could affect their confidence level in school and throughout life.
David, a boy from a school in Northamptonshire who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was three, got upset when a girl told him that she was not allowed to play with him in case she caught his diabetes. Another boy used to call him “Diabetes Boy”. He remembers how he was not invited to play at his friends' houses, as their parents were scared that they could not deal properly with his diabetes if they needed to.
Children with type 1 diabetes are at risk of heart disease, blindness, amputations and kidney failure, so proper control of their condition is imperative. It is vital to keep their blood sugar regulated, avoiding fluctuations. Regular blood-sugar tests and injections, sometimes up to four or five times a day, are necessary to avoid life-threatening complications. These tests and injections have to take place during school. It is not a choice; it is a necessity. Insulin, via injection or pump, sometimes several times a day, is vital for life. At a school in Warwickshire, Jane, a young girl, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 11. She was told not to inject herself in public as it was “disgusting”, but these injections have to take place during the school day.
Too many schools are uncomfortable about dealing with children with diabetes. Another school was not treating a six year-old’s “hypos” when they occurred, nor telling the child’s parents. It also refused to do the blood glucose monitoring test because staff felt too squeamish.
Many schools lack knowledge and have a fear of liability. In one school, although it had a nurse to assist children with diabetes, children were excluded when the nurse was on leave or absent, and pupils were made to wait outside the school gates until the nurse arrived each morning. There are some reports of schools expecting parents to ignore clinical advice and change a child’s testing and injection regime to suit the schools’ scheduling. Surely this should be the other way round.
Five year-olds banned from school sports days; schools refusing to hold supplies of insulin or blood-testing kits; worse still, schools refusing to have children with diabetes in their classes; a nurse refusing treatment to a toddler—the list of shocking accounts goes on. Some schools believe that administering medicine is not their responsibility. A Diabetes UK survey showed that, although more than half of schools were aware that they had pupils with diabetes, 70 per cent required either that such children injected themselves or that their parents came in to do it. Only 16 per cent allowed staff to test and give medicines to pupils.
That is why more than 80 per cent of five to 11 year-old children with diabetes are failing to achieve good control of their condition. This is the worst level in Europe. It means increased health problems for our children and worsening health as they enter adulthood. It is a preventable strain on the resources of the NHS and a preventable level of suffering.
We should have policies and procedures that protect our children, not put their health at risk. Too many children struggle to keep their diabetes under control. Schools need to be part of the solution, not the cause of the problem. They have a vital part to play in supporting the daily management of diabetes in children.
There are some great schools which support children with diabetes very well. The right attitude and leadership at a school can make a huge difference. Their good practice needs to become standard practice in all schools. All children with diabetes should be known to the school, with individual care plans prepared with the child, parent, doctor and teacher. Good practice involves a positive school attitude, a child-centred approach and a high level of training for the staff. The aim in every school, or at least every school with a child with diabetes, should be to train all teachers and support staff. Government need to be proactive and strengthen existing legislation so that children with diabetes or any health condition are recognised as a vulnerable group and their well-being is properly supported.
The plight faced by children with diabetes at school exemplifies fundamental failings in public policy, bringing health and education together at a national and local level. Effective partnerships need to be built, and schools need to be required to provide staff training so that teachers have the confidence to support children with diabetes properly and ensure that the guidance is followed. Inspection is the key to ensuring the proper implementation of policies and procedures. We need to establish standards in schools for the support of children with specific health conditions and place a duty on Ofsted to monitor whether that is provided.
Do the Government know the number of children in our schools with long-term conditions and the numbers for each condition? It is only with accurate information that the Government can know the amount and type of support needed to plan accordingly. As Ed Balls, Labour’s former Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said, we want this to be the best place for children to grow up. That is why Every Child Matters. Every child needs the chance to fulfil their full potential.
In conclusion, I ask the Minister to agree to meet the delegation from Diabetes UK and myself to explore what can be done to improve the situation. I do not believe that this involves huge costs; rather, it involves a willingness and a desire to see the situation improved. As Daniel at age five said: “I like school, but school doesn’t like me”.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, the recent report from Diabetes UK published last November claims that inequalities in support for children with diabetes in England's primary schools could be putting the health of up to 84 per cent of five to 11 year-olds with the condition at risk. It found that only 16 per cent of schools that have such children on the roll have a medication policy and administer vital insulin. This issue is not confined to diabetes; it is broader than that. There are other serious but manageable conditions which children have for which this is an issue.
I was surprised to read that this is not really a minority issue, since 52 per cent of primary schools have at least one child with this condition and, of course, other schools have epileptic children and those with serious nut allergies and so on. All require special attention to the needs of the child. I was horrified to read in the report that, when the school cannot administer insulin during school hours, often the parents have to come in to do so, jeopardising their opportunities to hold down a paid job.
When considering matters such as this I always turn to my bible, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which this country has been a signatory for 20 years. There are five articles in the convention which are relevant to this issue and, taken together, enshrine the rights of diabetic children as well as all others. Article 4 on the protection of rights says:
“Governments have a responsibility to take all available measures to make sure children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled”.
Article 6 on survival and development says:
“Children have the right to live. Governments should ensure that children survive and develop healthily”.
Article 23, on children with disabilities, says:
“Children who have any kind of disability have the right to special care and support, as well as all the rights in the Convention, so that they can live full and independent lives”.
We do not normally consider diabetes as a disability but, for these purposes, these rights are relevant. Then there is Article 24 on health and health services, which says:
“Children have the right to good quality health care”,
the best possible in that country. Finally, Article 28, on the right to education, says:
“All children have the right to a primary education, which should be free”.
It also says that any form of school discipline should take into account the child’s human dignity. Excluding the child from school just because a nurse is not on the premises flouts their rate to an education. Certainly asking a child to inject their insulin in the school toilets flouts their right to dignity.
In this country, as with all other state signatories, every child has the same rights as every other. I therefore support Diabetes UK in some of its demands on the Government. It wants diabetic children to be viewed as vulnerable children. It wants the forthcoming child health strategy to spell out how the Government will ensure implementation of relevant policy in schools. This becomes particularly difficult when we have so many state-maintained independent academies, some of which will be primary schools. Being autonomous makes them a little more difficult for the state to control. That is the whole point of academies; they are not controlled by the state. How will we ensure that they take adequate care of these vulnerable children? Perhaps the Minister will tell us.
Diabetes UK is calling for Ofsted to routinely inspect whether schools have clear medication policies, but how can they do that when their remit is to be slimmed down to four planks? Which part of the Ofsted inspection will cover the health of children with long-term life-threatening diseases? The charity also asks for partnership working between schools, local authorities and PCTs. However, PCTs are being abolished, and academies will not have such close relationships with local authorities as those of community schools. How will diabetic children fare under these new regimes? I will be interested in hearing from the Minister on this.
It is a national disgrace that we have the highest number of children with diabetes in Europe and the lowest number attaining good control of blood sugar. As we have heard, only some 20 per cent do. Questions have to be asked about why we have such a large number of children with diabetes, and I assume that for some of those children the answer lies in obesity and lack of exercise. What are the Government doing to address childhood obesity and ensure that all children have the opportunity for enjoyable sport and other forms of exercise, such as dance and cheerleading, which do not always have a competitive element? If we do not address these issues, we will store up health problems and cost for the future, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, said in his excellent opening speech. Children with diabetes should not be excluded from lessons such as PE—they actually need exercise to help them to control their blood sugar—to extracurricular activities and school trips. Their human dignity requires that they have proper opportunities for injecting insulin, where necessary, in hygienic conditions.
I am pleased that the Education Bill published last week retains the duty on schools to promote the well-being of their pupils. In some cases, such as those of children with disabilities and conditions such as diabetes, that requires special measures because these are special children. Is that duty enough, or does the Minister think that other measures are required to ensure that schools take that duty seriously?
Lord Lexden
My Lords, Tories above all love traditions. A new Member of this House, deeply conscious of the privilege of entering it, immediately encounters one of its most agreeable traditions. I refer of course to the immense warmth of the welcome given to the new arrival by noble Lords on all sides and by the ever-helpful officials who provide a kindly answer to every question. I am deeply grateful.
Sir Lewis Namier, the great historian of the pre-1832 unreformed Parliament, once declared with playful and light-hearted exaggeration that,
“In the eighteenth century peers made their tutors under-secretaries; in the twentieth under-secretaries make their tutors peers”.
I wish that Namier was still around to make a merry quip about the fact that in the 21st century a Prime Minister has elevated someone who acted as his political tutor, if only in a minor respect. I stress the word “minor” because my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, with his instinctive grasp of politics, needed little guidance as he passed through the Conservative Research Department, which I helped to run in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Conservative Research Department, now as then, is refreshingly free from ideological fervour, as every true Tory institution should be. That has enabled it to supply recruits for the Labour, as well as the Tory, Benches in this House. It nurtured the late Lord Longford, and 30 years ago the Conservative Research Department was adorned by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. Two former members who did not defect, my kind and noble friends Lord Cope of Berkeley and Lord Black of Brentwood, have guided my prentice steps in this House as my sponsors.
I have lived my life thus far as Alistair Cooke. Long shadows have fallen on me, cast first by the world-famous writer and broadcaster and now by a fine England batsman. Re-emerging as Lord Lexden, I am liberated from what could have been a lifetime's sense of inferiority.
Lexden, on the outskirts of Colchester in Essex, was where I was born and brought up. My father, a much loved GP for some 40 years, took a deep interest in the welfare of all children, but particularly of those with diabetes.
Lexden was the scene of a notable engagement between the Roman invaders and the ancient Britons. Every day on my way to school, I passed the earthen defences that the Romans had overwhelmed before making Colchester one of the principal centres of their power. This was the genesis of the historical interests that have always mattered to me more than anything else.
One other place is never far from my thoughts: Northern Ireland. I taught for some years at Queen’s University in Belfast before becoming political adviser to Airey Neave in 1977. At that time, Britain often gave the impression of wanting to wash its hands of Ulster altogether. Today there is a lesser, but still grave, danger: indifference. The Province has a devolved Government. Why not leave it entirely to its own devices? I believe strongly that progress in Ulster will be greatly assisted if its affairs feature in a wider British context rather than being relegated entirely to a purely local one. I hope to play a part in achieving this.
The subject of today’s debate illustrates the point. The recent formation of an all-party diabetes group in the Northern Ireland Assembly creates a new focus on the issue there, while the highly regarded national organisation, Diabetes UK, embraces Northern Ireland within its work. One complements the other.
There are today some 20,000 children of school age in the United Kingdom with diabetes, of whom around 1,000 live in Northern Ireland. During my time as general secretary of the Independent Schools Council, in the course of which I visited many excellent Ulster schools, such as the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and St Malachy's College in Belfast, I had numerous opportunities to admire the resilience and determination with which such children strive to reach high standards and so lay the basis for success in their subsequent careers. I have always been greatly struck by the indomitable spirit shown by children with diabetes as they make their way through the various rounds of the Northern Ireland Schools Debating Competition, of which I have the honour to be president.
Children with diabetes and their families have in Diabetes UK a formidable champion of their interests. Naturally, its overall aim is to encourage all schools to follow the practice of the best, where, every day, children with diabetes enjoy a full school life because they receive the support they need. But in some schools there are undoubtedly problems to be overcome, as the detailed surveys and inquiries conducted by Diabetes UK show—the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, referred graphically to them. Staff are sometimes reluctant to help with insulin injections, a point to which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred. That undoubtedly adds to the great burden on families. In a Diabetes UK survey in 2009, 35 per cent of the young people who responded said their parents either had to give up work or reduce their hours of work to support them with their diabetes in school. This is a matter of particular concern to the Northern Ireland representatives of Diabetes UK.
The problems could often be swiftly alleviated if schools followed the advice that Diabetes UK has provided in its excellent publications. Perhaps the most important is the admirably succinct Children with Diabetes at School: What All Staff Need to Know. It lives up to its title. To ensure that staff indeed know, governors and heads need to establish and enforce arrangements that are appropriate for their individual schools. In this, they face a particularly urgent challenge that emerges in so many areas of school life today: to reverse the intense pressure that teachers have felt for far too long to keep their distance from their pupils in case a close association is misunderstood. That simple, yet profound, factor has impeded progress in our school system. The Government have recently made clear their support for change to overturn this harmful trend. That would do an immense service to children with diabetes who, along with others suffering from serious health problems, need a close association with dedicated and sympathetic teachers.
I hope that this important debate in the House will assist the start of that urgently needed process. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who initiated this debate, for giving me this opportunity to address the House for the first time.
Baroness Young of Old Scone
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on his dextrous maiden speech, which I suppose is an appropriate term for someone who bears the name of a batsman. He is of course steeped in the history and politics of the Conservative variety. Before he came to your Lordships’ House, he was instrumental in writing a history of 175 years of the Carlton Club and 80 years of the Conservative Research Department. I am sure that his historical perspective on politics will come in useful in these days of new experiments in government. As the noble Lord said, the Conservative Research Department was the cradle in which many illustrious Conservative Members of your Lordships’ House and the other place cut their teeth. I thank the noble Lord on behalf of your Lordships and on your behalf, if I may, wish him a fulfilling time in this House.
I also thank the noble Lord for cutting his maiden teeth on an important issue regarding diabetes. I of course declare an interest, which has already been revealed by other noble Lords, in that I am the chief executive of Diabetes UK. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for initiating this important debate and for his kind words about Diabetes UK, and I thank other noble Lords who have spoken and who will contribute on this heart-rending issue; 20,000 children under 15 have type 1 diabetes, another 1,400 have type 2 diabetes and an increasing number have both types. Noble Lords have given us many statistics and told heart-rending stories, and although many children every day enjoy a full school life, others struggle with control of their condition, without having to deal with the other disadvantages that other noble Lords have mentioned.
Every child with diabetes should be entitled to the full opportunities of education and not be dependent on parents, many of whom, in these straitened times, simply cannot afford to give up work. I want briefly to add my voice to calls for what is needed to allow that to happen. There should, in particular, be an end to inadequate and variable levels of funding for support in schools. If statementing is inappropriate for these children, what mechanism is? There needs to be more access to diabetic teaching assistants and to proper education for teachers, and fellow pupils, to gain an understanding of diabetes and other support that pupils need from time to time.
Can the Minister assure us that the Government will put clear and specific duties on schools and local authorities to ensure continuity of care, in order that children with diabetes can benefit from a proper education? We need an end to the postcode lottery. I hope that there is no increased use of the phrase which struck terror into my heart when I was in conversation about the postcode lottery in healthcare—that this was “no longer a postcode lottery but postcode democracy”. I hope that the excuse of decisions being made on a local basis is not used to support very uneven standards of care and support for these children in schools. I ask the Minister to ensure that all schools be required to have a medical policy to define how they support the health needs of children with long-term conditions; there are more than 1 million children with long-term conditions in schools. There needs to be clarity of responsibility for funding support for children with diabetes in school and an end to the ping-pong between health and education authorities, which are both anxious to pass responsibility for support for these children backwards and forwards. There needs to be clarity on who is responsible and who can be held responsible.
Ideally, we would like to see a full-time qualified nurse for each secondary school and for each cluster of primary schools to help support children with diabetes. Also, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, we need an individual healthcare plan for each child that is prepared jointly between the child, the parents, the doctors and the teachers, and regularly updated. I hope the Minister can tell us how appropriate healthcare can be assured in educational settings, because it is not just about supporting these very vulnerable and often heavily challenged children in their school lives. It is also about reducing the long-term financial costs of the condition to the NHS, reducing the adverse economic costs and emotional impacts on families, and ensuring that these children have a less tough time than they currently do, as well as achieving physical and economic well-being later in life.
Lord Harrison
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, on being our cheerleader today in this debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on his excellent maiden speech. Is he sure he is not a batsman with that maiden over? There are moves to bring together the parliamentarians of the four nations of the United Kingdom; in fact, I think we propose to travel to Belfast to meet our colleagues there and perhaps learn more about what happens in Northern Ireland.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who is clearly now well into the job of being executive director of Diabetes UK, and I declare an interest as vice-chair of the all-party group.
I contracted type 1 diabetes at the age of 21, and a few months later my nephew, then aged seven, contracted type 1 diabetes. His mother is my sister. When that happens in a family it affects the child and the parent or guardian, but also the wider family and the community. For the child in those days, when you had to do an insulin injection with all the equipment that existed then, it was a terrible business. These days we have wonderful insulin pens which you can get in many colours, and which at least look interesting when the child is with other school children.
The parent of a diabetic child is particularly affected, because they have to work even harder. Parents are always zealous to ensure that the education of their children is secured, but it means that they have to work out a balance within the family. There may be other children, a partner and so forth, and the wider family is also affected. I felt guilty that my nephew, a seven year-old, had contracted diabetes, when I had contracted it at the age of 21 just a few months earlier. I somehow felt that it was a responsibility of mine. Of course, it affects the wider community, which is why the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out the effect on schools receiving children who are diabetic.
I want to talk about something positive. Some two or three years ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, might like to know, Diabetes UK put on an absolutely wonderful event in the House of Commons which brought together about 100 children with 100 carers to meet us as parliamentarians. I was exhilarated that day, and I felt absolutely humbled, not only to meet these youngsters of seven, eight or nine but also to meet the parents. One of the things that I observed was that, for a change, the children were meeting other children who were in the same boat, and the mothers—and they were principally mothers—were meeting other mothers and carers. That is my great worry. That occasion was thrilling, but so often within the school context the child, the carer or parent is isolated. We must redouble our efforts to remember that and to give further and greater help.
I refer to another event which the noble Lord, Lord Hill, might like to find out a little more about. Two or three years ago, a school from the West Country came up to address parliamentarians in the House of Commons. What was unique about the visitors was that they brought all the children from a particular class who had grown up with children who developed diabetes during their school years. These children had a better understanding of diabetes because the school had made an effort to teach them about it. Their rallying round was thrilling and clearly provided a wonderful support service for those with diabetes. I do not know whether that school still exists and whether we can find out more about it but their experience should be replicated. For the children who were not diabetic it was not a burden; it contributed to their better understanding of treating people who are afflicted by this disease.
Although I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hill, has already been asked this question, I want to ask him about the clarity of responsibility in placing specific duties on schools and local authorities through upcoming legislation to ensure that there is support and continuity of care at schools for diabetic children, as that is crucial. There needs to be a thread running through the legislation to provide that protection. We need to end the current patchwork quilt of varied support up and down the country, and we also need sufficient and accessible funding to help all those who are involved in looking after diabetic children. Again, schools, local authorities and health authorities need to work together. We need to ensure that all schoolchildren with diabetes can take part in all aspects of schooling. Never again must kids be excluded because of the misunderstandings that exist. Would the Minister care to say something about the possibility of having a full-time nurse in all secondary schools, or at least a full-time nurse in a cluster of primary schools? She—it normally is a “she”—can be crucial in spreading the news to teachers about looking out for the child who is diabetic and who perhaps is suffering a hypoglycaemic reaction, or “hypo”. That needs to be better understood.
We need better healthcare planning within schools. We need to ensure that each school has a medical policy for children with long-term medical conditions, who I believe number something like 1 million in the community. Each diabetic child should have an individual and regularly updated healthcare plan with the involvement of the child, the parent and the doctor. Diabetes UK is rightly worried about the education and children’s Bill, which is coming up, in that it removes duties on schools to co-operate with local planning arrangements, which are so vital. The growth of academies, where there is no direct link to local authorities, fractures that important complementary approach. It is unclear from the Health and Social Care Bill how schools fit in with the new framework. Perhaps the Minister could say more about that.
In the final minute or so available to me, I should like to refer to something that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, may be able to take up in her role, supported by the Government. I may be wrong but I am not aware that any of the school dramas on our TV screens show diabetic children. More importantly, if they do, I am not sure whether they show them as a positive image, rather like my example of the schoolchildren supporting the members of their class who had diabetes. I wonder whether the noble Baroness could explore that through her agency. It was done recently with regard to someone with Parkinson’s disease. I recall a film which had a positive image, where the heroine had acquired Parkinson’s at a very young age. There are interesting and inspiring stories to tell about this and we should take every opportunity to do so.
Baroness Crawley
My Lords, it is a delight to follow my noble friend Lord Harrison, who is such a great ambassador for people living with diabetes. May I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Kennedy for bringing this complex and important issue before the House with such clarity and commitment? I also welcome the informative and humorous maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. We look forward to hearing many more of them in the House.
In preparing for this afternoon’s debate, I looked at the 2008 report of the UK Children with Diabetes Advocacy Group. I found several case studies of children who have type 1 diabetes but who, beyond that, should be leading happy, fulfilling and productive lives at school. It is to our shame that that is not the experience for a large and significant group of children with diabetes across the country.
In the case studies, Matty’s mum said:
“Matty decided that he wanted school dinners this week. At the end of last term I went in and saw the cook and the dinner lady and explained that he would need to go to the front of the queue. This morning he told me that he didn’t want school dinner because the dinner lady had told him off for walking to the front of the queue and made him wait until last.”
Charlie’s mum said:
“When Charlie started reception we had a major fight on our hands with the headmaster who expected Charlie to do all his own blood testing, choose an appropriate snack and go and get it from the store cupboard – all at the age of 4 and only having been diagnosed 4 months previously!”
In case we form the impression that the fault always lies with the school or with the local authorities, the next case study will put us right. I quote the case of Anthony:
“Unfortunately, when we had a meeting with the school and our DSN, (who we thought was there to support us) made matters worse. The DSN seemed to do her utmost to discourage the school from taking on procedures such as testing, her attitude being that schools should not have to take on such levels of care. We were quite surprised and hurt at her attitude. It made us feel very much on our own in the pursuit of a good standard of care for a young child starting school”.
The obstacles were not just raised for families through PCTs in these case studies. In another study, the health and safety officer told a teenage boy with diabetes at a secondary school that he could not carry his insulin and self-monitoring equipment with him at school. This meant that if he felt unwell he would have to go a considerable distance to the school’s reception area to carry out tests, which would have put him at risk.
Obviously, as my noble friend has said, there are children with diabetes who enjoy a full school life because of the support their school gives them. But the sad little stories from desperate parents that I have quoted tell us that by no means all children have that opportunity in 21st-century Britain. Why does the Minister think that such inconsistency of policy and practice across local authorities exists, despite guidance being offered by the last Government, and what are his Government’s plans for dealing with this inconsistency? I am certainly not making a political point here, because things could not have become so much worse for this group of children during the eight months of the coalition Government. We all have questions to answer as far as these children are concerned. However, I am concerned by the scale of future local authority spending cuts, as well as by the demise of PCTs and the reorganisation of the NHS. Both these coalition Government policy commitments will throw an already complex picture for children with diabetes into sharper relief.
How does the Minister respond to Diabetes UK’s concerns, shared by this side of the House, and mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that the changes proposed in the education and children’s Bill, which will remove the duty of schools to co-operate with local planning arrangements, together with the growth of academies with no direct link to a local authority, risk further fragmentation of services for this group of children? It would be helpful to learn from the Minister how schools are expected to fit into the new framework envisaged in the Health and Social Care Bill.
I know that the Minister, who I have a great deal of respect for, will agree with me that it is intolerable for parents and children who have this condition to be treated so differently in so many different schools, different LAs and different PCTs, under different head teachers, by different nurses and different staff. These children and young people do not deserve such a cruel lottery of treatment in their schooling. We know that all schools have a common-law duty of care. They also have a duty to promote pupils’ well-being. What does the Minister feel is the current legal framework for ensuring school support? I know that under the previous Government’s Every Child Matters policy, of which I am immensely proud, all schools were required to have a disability equality scheme. Does the Minister believe that further guidance is required?
What is the Government’s response to Diabetes UK’s recommendations? They are ably set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Young: that there should be multi-agency working across schools; that there should be proper training for staff in schools, to feel confident when dealing with children with diabetes; that there should be an individual healthcare plan for every pupil; and that there should be one full-time qualified school nurse for each secondary school and cluster of primary schools, as noble Lords have said.
I would be happy for the Minister to write to me on some of these points. As I have said, our own record in this area is not so burnished that I demand answers from him. I know that all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate will want to see an end to the confusion, alienation and misery that too many children with diabetes and their carers are currently experiencing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, on securing a debate on this important issue. We have already heard a significant number of points that the Government will need to reflect on. I pay tribute to the work that he has done, both here in Parliament and as a member of Diabetes UK, to raise awareness of the problems that diabetes sufferers endure. I was glad to have the chance in the small hours of the morning last week to discuss some of the issues that he has raised; it was one of the few benefits that I could see of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, but we must be grateful for small mercies.
I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Lexden on his excellent and entertaining maiden speech. I could not work out where I sit on his Lewis Namier scale—probably somewhere near the bottom. It was my noble friend who offered me a job at the Conservative Research Department after I had been turned down by a number of no doubt wiser people in the CRD. So it was he, perhaps inadvertently, who set me on my way, and whom indirectly I should thank—or blame, I sometimes think—for my being here today. I think that I speak for all noble Lords in saying that we look forward to his contributions to debates in the future.
I shall briefly recap on some of the figures that we have already heard and, in doing that, I welcome very much the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, and the tone and way in which she approached this issue. This is not a political issue, and the approach and the legislative framework taken by the Government follows the one taken by the previous Government.
We have heard some of the figures showing the scale of the problem. There was an audit in 2009 which showed that there are an estimated 23,000 children with diabetes, the vast majority with type 1. The peak age for diagnosis is between 10 and 14 years, but type 1 can affect children in their preschool years. No one would want a child with a long-term medical condition such as diabetes to miss out on school life or be treated less favourably because of it. We have heard a number of powerful examples and personal testimony that make that point.
It is also true—and this lay behind some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison—that there are many examples where schools provide very good support to pupils, especially in primary schools, where they are working closely with parents and the local NHS. There is one example in Nottinghamshire, which other noble Lords may also know, where the county and city councils and the local NHS trusts run training for school staff. They allow heads to apply for reimbursement towards funding staff, and run a network of diabetes specialist nurses to cover primaries and secondaries. So there is good practice, and one issue that we need to reflect on is how we can make that good practice more universal. I accept the point made by a number of noble Lords that provision is currently patchy. We know that there are cases in which parents do not feel—and not only do they not feel it but it is obviously true—that they get the support that they need. We heard today of children with diabetes having to miss classes or be excluded from school trips or being left to inject themselves unsupervised, with parents feeling that they are forced to reduce hours or give up work or move schools because they do not trust staff to carry out blood tests or carry out insulin injections.
I acknowledge the picture that has been painted by Diabetes UK in its report, State of Diabetes Care in the UK 2009. While there is excellent practice out there, in other areas it is patchy. I also understand the strength of feeling behind its Children’s Charter report. It is a view that has been expressed by noble Lords today and by my noble friend Lady Walmsley, in looking at it from an international perspective. There should be equal access to treatment, high-quality medical care and support in schools for children and young people.
I shall briefly summarise the legal framework and then move on to talk about some of the other issues raised and address directly the request put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, about meeting and how we might take things forward.
Schools are responsible for drawing up their own policies in the light of their statutory responsibilities—for example, health and safety legislation or the Equality Act 2010—and local needs. The department recommends that schools and their employers should have policies in place on the management of pupils’ medicines and on supporting pupils with medical needs. There is no legal duty on school staff to provide medical support, to administer medication or to supervise a pupil taking it. Like the last Government, we do not have plans to change that. However, as has been pointed out, there is a common-law duty on all staff to act in loco parentis when children are at school.
To encourage schools to provide support for children with medical needs, the DCSF, as it then was, jointly with the Department of Health, published guidance on managing medicines in schools and early years settings back in March 2005. The DFE, together with the Department of Health, is currently reviewing that guidance. Perhaps that provides us with an opportunity to reflect on some of the points that have been raised. I invite Diabetes UK, perhaps through the noble Lord or through the noble Baroness, Lady Young—I am spoilt for choice—to speak to my officials about that. We also hope that we can use the review as an opportunity to draw attention to good practice. Again, I hope that Diabetes UK can help us to champion that good practice.
It is sensible for schools to have clear general policies in place to support pupils with medical needs. For pupils with serious medical needs, it is sensible for schools to draw up individual healthcare plans setting out in black and white the level of support that is needed, and clarifying for staff, parents and pupils the help that will be provided. Our guidance makes it clear that any volunteers, usually school support staff, who carry out such duties on a daily basis should be properly supported in doing so.
Staff who volunteer to assist with any form of medical procedure should be given reassurance that they will not be sued for any action they take in providing the vital support that pupils with medical needs may require. We know, once they understand the reasons for the injections and blood tests, and have been adequately trained in practical skills and provided with reassurance that they are acting within the scope of their employment they are generally keen to help individual children.
As has already been discussed, the Government are reforming the way in which the NHS deals with public health—in particular, how it works with local children’s services. The White Paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People, published last November, has a clear principle at its heart: that prevention is better than cure. It sets out a clear plan to reduce health inequalities and causes of premature death and illness.
That means making sure that there is a major role for the NHS, particularly for school nurses and community healthcare teams as well as paediatric diabetes specialist nurses. School nurses will continue to have a vital role in providing training and support to schools, in developing health reviews at school entry and in managing pupils’ well-being and medical and long-term conditions.
I reassure noble Lords that we are listening to the concerns that have been raised and are working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that no child misses out because of their long-term medical condition. We are also working closely with the department to enable schools to draw on additional expertise from local health professionals and children’s services to meet the needs of their pupils. We seek in particular to develop a new vision for school nurses that reflects their broad public health role in the school community. I would again invite Diabetes UK to talk to the Department of Health about this work.
Perhaps I may respond to some of the specific issues that were raised. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, if I have failed to respond to all her points. I was asked about academies. It is the case that academies have to meet independent schools standards regulations. They require them to have regard to the Department for Education guidance, Health and Safety: Responsibilities and Powers, which sets out the key elements of a health and safety policy, one of which is supporting pupils with medical needs. Having visited a lot of academies, I do not think that there is any intrinsic reason to believe that they will carry this out less well than any other school. Heads of academies who I have met care about their children just as much as the heads of any other school. Academies are free to buy back services from a local authority.
I was asked by my noble friend Lady Walmsley about competitive sport. PE remains compulsory from the age of five to 16. The Government are keen to encourage competitive sport. I agree with her that it can play an important part in dealing with the issues. I am very happy to discuss with her further the slimmed-down Ofsted regime. Of the four categories that we have outlined, one is to do with behaviour and safety.
In response to questions about funding and as noble Lords might expect, there is little specific that I can say, but I was struck by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who said that this not a matter primarily of money and that it is much more to do with finding ways of working sensibly together.
Like, I think, all noble Lords, the Government are committed to ensuring that all children and young people with long-term medical conditions get the help and support that they need while at school. We will work closely with the Department of Health to ensure that. I would be delighted to meet the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to discuss this further or perhaps to point him towards my honourable friend Sarah Teather, who has departmental responsibility for these matters. I am grateful to him, as are all other noble Lords, for giving us the opportunity to debate these important issues.
Railways: Heritage Sector
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what contribution the railway heritage sector makes to education, tourism and the regional economy.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to draw attention to the importance of heritage railways in Britain and I thank all noble Lords who have put their names down to speak in this short debate. I declare an unpaid interest as president-elect of the Heritage Railway Association, a volunteer body that brings together the heritage railways in the United Kingdom and Eire. I have also recently been appointed by the Prime Minister to the board of trustees of the National Museum of Science and Industry and shall be serving on the advisory board of the National Railway Museum.
The heritage railway movement covers over 111 working heritage railways and tramways, as well as 60 steam museum sites. Indeed, laid end to end, our heritage railways would stretch for some 500 miles, reaching from King’s Cross to Dalwhinnie in the Highlands of Scotland. There are over 399 stations on these lines—more than on the Underground network—and there is a fleet of around 800 preserved steam locomotives.
Apart from the preserved lines, steam is still alive and well and earning money on the national network, too, with many steam excursion trains being run each year, as well as regular services on the West Highland line, the Cambrian coast line and between York and Scarborough. I pay particular tribute to the work of the specialist team at Network Rail as well as the train operators who co-operate to make this possible. As a number of noble Lords may be aware, in the past few years a brand new A3 steam locomotive called “Tornado” has been built by volunteers to the original LNER design. That is in revenue service as well.
I should also mention the value of the work of the Railway Heritage Committee in designating historic railway artefacts and directing their disposal, when no longer required on the main line, to heritage railways or museums. This approach has been actively supported by Network Rail, the train operating companies and the rolling stock leasing companies. As a result of their working harmoniously together, people can see and appreciate many of these historic pieces of equipment in daily use.
The status and role of the Railway Heritage Committee is about to change as a result of the Government’s decision to include it in the Public Bodies Bill. I shall not anticipate the debate that we are due to have in Committee on that Bill, other than to say that we are very close indeed to agreeing a way forward that would provide for the statutory powers and duties of the committee to be transferred to the Science Museum.
Your Lordships may ask why all this matters. The main answer is that heritage railways give a huge boost to the local economies of the areas that they serve and that we lead Europe and America in the development and presentation of our heritage railways. They are a source of inward tourism as well. To underline the point, the Heritage Railway Association took the lead in establishing a federation of heritage railways across Europe, called FEDECRAIL. Our expertise is keenly sought by other members, particularly in eastern Europe. Those members also look with envy at the statutory powers exercised by the Railway Heritage Committee and wish that they had something similar in their countries.
The value to tourism is enormous. The National Railway Museum attracts almost a million visitors annually, more than any other museum in England outside London. Heritage railways attract more support than almost any other part of the heritage sector, with the exception of the National Trust. While historic ships, aircraft and classic cars have their adherents, no other transport mode attracts anything like this level of interest, with direct benefit to the tourist economy.
This has been confirmed in independent studies undertaken for a number of lines, notably the West Somerset, Severn Valley and Welsh Highland railways. I think that we may hear something about the Welsh Highland Railway from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. The West Somerset study was undertaken by Manchester Metropolitan University and indicated a value of £1.90 to the local economy from every £1 of fare income to the railway. This means that the value of the railway is at least £4 million to the local economy. I say “at least” because this excludes the considerable spend by volunteers on accommodation, food, fuel, restaurants and so on. These are significant sums of money. Each year, 6.7 million people are carried on heritage railways, whose earnings in 2009 amounted to £81 million. Not only does this point to a value of over £150 million a year to the economy, but it is a figure that is growing year by year as lines are extended.
The other major economic benefit of heritage railways is in employment. Altogether almost 2,000 people work in the sector, some part-time, and often in areas of high unemployment—heritage railways frequently provide high-quality engineering jobs in areas where little alternative skilled work is available.
Then there are the health benefits of providing easy access for walking, as well as the environmental benefits of car-free access to the countryside. While most railways offer a steam-train ride as their main attraction, an increasing number also fulfil a useful transport role. The Swanage Railway, for example, provides a park-and-ride service to reduce congestion on the A351 through the picturesque village of Corfe Castle. The Welsh Highland Railway provides sustainable transport to sensitive areas in the Snowdonia National Park, particularly the village of Beddgelert. Also, what better way is there to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth than by the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway?
We may add to this the benefits to education that are offered by many railways, with their information packs for schools linked to the curriculum, as well as visits to depots and signal boxes. The range of subjects covered by the railway is wide-ranging: history, of course, as well as geography, economics, social history and politics. Indeed, there is almost no area of life in Britain that is not touched by the railway. It was Benjamin Disraeli—or the Earl of Beaconsfield, as perhaps we should call him in your Lordships’ House—who, writing in his novel Sybil in 1845, correctly predicted that,
“the railways will do as much for mankind as the monasteries did”.
None of the achievements of today’s heritage railway movement would be possible without the support of volunteers, of whom more than 17,632 are recorded in the returns made annually to the Office of Rail Regulation, quite apart from those who help in other ways such as fundraising. The range of activities that they undertake is astonishing, from safety-critical work such as driving trains or signalling, to developing specialist skills for locomotive restoration, to straightforward labouring to keep the railways in good shape and safe for passengers.
What better example—and I address this point to the Government particularly—of the big society at work could there be than a heritage railway, with volunteers working alongside paid staff, bringing a boost to the local economy and a range of societal benefits without recourse to the taxpayer? The level of volunteer input means that heritage railways run without subsidy and raise their own capital. A number have also been successful in securing Heritage Lottery Fund grants.
Some people find it hard to understand why there is such a high level of interest in railways and railway heritage among British people—an interest increasingly shared by many overseas visitors. Go to any bookstall and you will see a huge range of magazines and periodicals devoted to this subject. I have seen a total of 16 magazines about railways or model railways in my travels and I understand that these have a combined circulation of around 360,000. When we add in the electronic magazines and the fact that magazines are handed on to friends, we have a regular railway readership of about a million.
My theory is that this interest—I hesitate to call it an obsession—reflects genuine pride in the fact that railways were a British invention and the source of a dominant export industry for over a century. They contributed enormously to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. They transformed people’s lives, making it possible for them to live in the countryside and travel into towns and cities to work. They were responsible for creating most of Britain’s seaside resorts and enabled working people to go on holiday.
Even today, the influence of Britain’s railways worldwide cannot be overstated. Railways have been regulated and given special powers by government throughout history and their significance in people’s lives, whether or not they are regular users, means that they have a very high profile and raise strong views.
Many railway staff are proud of the industry’s heritage, which plays some part in their motivation. It is perhaps for all these reasons that from 1947 onwards the Government have considered it necessary to legislate to protect Britain’s railway heritage, which has been actively supported by the industry, from the days of the British Transport Commission to today’s rail companies. I hope that when replying to this debate the noble Earl the Minister will acknowledge this uniquely British success story and confirm that the Government will continue to encourage its progress and development.
Lord Bradshaw
My Lords, although I spent most of my working life on the railway, I did not collect engine numbers and I have no anorak to show for it. However, I believe that the economic arguments that the noble Lord has put forward are very sound.
I have been on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway to Whitby this year and on the Bluebell Line. Anyone visiting railways such as these will immediately pick up the tremendous enthusiasm of people who visit the sites. It is difficult to imagine a more attractive site to visit than the development of a model railway. We hope that some of these railways—the noble Lord mentioned the railway to Swanage—will shortly be connected to the main line, as is the Bluebell Railway. Then there will be the question of interworking with the main line, which many of us are sure will happen.
In the discussions that we are to have on the Railway Heritage Trust, it is important to ensure, first, that the artefacts that have been preserved so conscientiously in the past are transferred—if they have to be transferred—to a body that will take the matter very seriously. Secondly, we would like to be assured that the cost of the transfer is cheaper than what we have now. I am pleased to hear the noble Lord say that he is hopeful of an arrangement with the National Railway Museum. That will be a relief to me, because I expected to be told that the matter would be dealt with in Marsham Street, which would stop the collection of heritage artefacts for some years to come.
We fully support what has been said, all of which has been true. I think that the heritage railways deserve our fullest support.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to participate in this debate. First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulkner on the dedication that he shows to the heritage sector, which is absolutely vital. I am pleased to hear that he is going to be involved in all the various committees and is actively negotiating some continuity for the heritage sector in order to preserve our industrial heritage, rather as the National Trust and English Heritage do for our old buildings and landscape. They may have to end up owning half the forests in this country if one believes the press comments at the weekend. However, I return to the subject of the railways.
The heritage railways are still part of the national railway structure. They have the potential to—and sometimes do—fulfil a very useful role in moving people around, whether for shopping or getting to school. They do so effectively and reliably, and I think we will miss something if that does not continue. When I worked in Folkestone years ago, I noticed that the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway—which, as a narrow-gauge railway, is quite long—used to run a school service, taking kids to school every morning and bringing them back in the evening, and many other railways do that. In that respect, it is interesting to compare the heritage railways with Network Rail’s branch lines. The All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group had a meeting last night with Sir Roy McNulty, who is carrying out a cost-reduction study for the Department for Transport. I told him that I hoped he was not going to start cutting Network Rail’s branch lines due to the cost. Network Rail started off a year or two ago by saying that the freight-only lines cost £100 million a year. However, it could not provide any evidence for that and we ended up with a figure of £10 million, so something was slightly wrong with the estimation.
The Network Rail branch lines and heritage lines have one thing in common. There’s a very cheap way of running light trains on them which could provide the service that I was just talking about. That is something like the Parry people mover. It is like a tram but it runs on the main line. It has been operating between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town extremely reliably—with a reliability rate of, I think, 99 per cent—since it has been going. During the recent cold weather, it operated much more reliably than the mainline trains. However, I foresee opposition to its use coming from the main railway people, the passenger operators and Network Rail. I often detect a similar reluctance on the part of some of the heritage lines to accept something like this to provide a service when they do not want to run steam trains or anything else; in other words, rather than run a daily service, they would prefer to keep the line doing nothing other than running a steam train on a Saturday.
I know that costs are involved but I hope that, as we move forward in the various debates on our railway heritage, we will try to see whether some of the issues facing not only the heritage lines but the Network Rail branch lines can be tackled, along with the problem of getting a connection between the two without spending an enormous amount of money on consultants’ fees. We should see whether we can use this wonderful piece of infrastructure that is all around the country for the benefit of those who live locally. I see it as part of the localism agenda.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, was able to bring this subject before us. There are five of Wales’ little trains in my home area, including the Welsh Highland Railway, the Ffestiniog Railway and the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which provide major inputs into the local economy.
A study in 2009 undertaken in Bangor University—I have the honour of chairing the advisory board of the Bangor Business School—showed that some £9 million a year is already coming into the local economy, and the amount is likely to increase to about £12 million. About 250,000 visitors a year use the lines, which are also used by a lot of local people. This half term it will be possible to travel by steam from Caernarfon to Porthmadog and back. It is a tremendous journey, through Beddgelert and the Aberglaslyn Pass, where you experience a vista that you cannot see when you travel by road or drive. This is an important part of our economy.
My maternal great-grandfather came to the area as a railwayman, and I am therefore part of the heritage, I suppose. The impact of the railways on my area has generally been enormous since the 19th century. One thinks of the difference they made to places such as Llandudno, Aberystwyth and Pwllheli. Without the railways, those towns would not have grown. Would Holyhead be there, had it not been for the main line across Anglesey? The railways brought dramatic views—the Menai Bridge, the Froncysyllte viaduct and so on. Even where railways have stopped operating, we are lucky enough to have some cycle tracks, which elsewhere often live side by side with the small trains.
I should declare an interest. I am president of the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, where we have a major collection of railway-related items, including the Henry Robertson collection, which is a major collection of railway plans and sections in north-east Wales from between 1842 and 1888. The collection is worth seeing, and includes plans used in the parliamentary process, with original manuscript drawings of the track layouts, bridges and buildings. There are some 12,000 items in that collection. The National Library has held day schools on these subjects for the Welsh Railways Research Circle. We have more than 2,000 photographs dealing with railways in the National Library and a number of paintings. In fact, one of the paintings is of the Friog Cutting accident in 1883 and is a unique item. There is a very warm welcome to be had there. There is a tremendous collection, which of itself is part of the railway heritage. I hope it will be seen as such.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester for securing this debate. I shall not detain the Committee for long, but this is an important debate at an important time, when we debate other matters in this House. I pay tribute to the Railway Heritage Committee and the work that my noble friend is doing to secure its future during the passage of the Public Bodies Bill. I wish him all success in that.
As a tourist in the UK, I have had many pleasurable journeys on railways with my wife Alicia, after introducing her to the heritage railway sector some years ago before we were married. I had the pleasure of travelling on the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Railway some years ago, and only last summer I travelled on the steam railway in Antrim, Northern Ireland.
What is striking about all these journeys is the enjoyment to be had and the variety of people who are travelling—including teenagers, young couples, children with their parents and grandparents, and people from all over the world. I concur with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, in this respect. As my noble friend Lord Faulkner said, these railways boost the local economy by supporting the hotel and restaurant sectors and other parts of the local tourism industry.
I agree very much with the comments of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, who is well known for his expertise in the transport sector as a whole. His knowledge of and support for the heritage sector are evident. I concur with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Some of my earliest memories as a child are of getting on the boat train from Euston to Holyhead on our regular family holidays to Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie
My Lords, heritage is the evidence of the past. The moment I decided that I was going to be seriously interested in 12-inches-to-the-foot-scale railways was probably when I was aged 14 and a Gresley J38 crossed the Grange Road level crossing in the west of Alloa. That became impossible—first, because we failed to preserve any of the Gresley J38s, and, secondly, because the railway disappeared from Alloa for 38 years. However, the railway has returned. It is now served by ScotRail and is proving to be a success of a considerable order. I shall not go on too much about that, because clearly that is not what this debate is about.
Like stamp-collecting, an interest in the railways teaches people a lot about geography and probably economics, and causes them to travel. A huge number of books and DVDs are published. You can build up the historical identity of your locality. For example, the Alloa Waggonway, which existed from 1761 to 1929, was the first place at which iron was used for the rails. Curiously enough, there was a failure with wooden rails. They experimented with putting metal on top of the wood, but that did not work. Alloa probably has the earliest of all the railways.
Interest in the railways is multigenerational, which is in itself extremely useful. I have already mentioned our failure to preserve a Gresley J38, which is probably not as important as the failure to preserve one of the Peppercorn A1s, or allowing the “Duke of Gloucester” to deteriorate to the point where its rescue was remarkable. It has been very interesting to someone also interested in the built heritage how the A1 steam trust went about raising the money, not relying on large grants—although there were certainly generous donations—but by going out to build a class 8 locomotive based on the price of a pint. That meant people giving £5 a month. I am one of the late joiners at number 2,440, but I know that people giving between £5 and £10 a month to the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust means that it has a monthly income of £10,000, which is quite remarkable. I must admit, looking at what is happening to the locomotive “Tornado” at present, it is just as well that people are giving money in those quantities. It is certainly morale-building when something like “Tornado” comes to a preservation railway. Interest in it undoubtedly creates increased attendance.
There is a question in my mind as to whether the steam preservation movement should create the locomotive of the future—the steam turbine electric. We will see whether the movement can support that.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
My Lords, my thanks are also due to the noble Lord Faulkner, for introducing this debate. He is a dedicated heritage railway man and very knowledgeable. I propose to go on a slight diversion and take you briefly on a journey to Paraguay—a little visited, fascinating, landlocked country in the middle of South America.
In 1861, the Paraguay central railway, which was built, run and owned by the British, started construction. It was completed in 1911 with 376 kilometres of track between Asunción and Encarnación, where it crossed the great Paraná River and joined up with Argentine railways. The British continued to run it until 1959, when it was nationalised by President Stroessner and gradually fell into disuse until the restoration of democracy. It was then privatised in 1999, when Dr Lauro Ramirez took charge and created a plan for the restoration of the railway as a major tourist attraction. Fortunately, he was a heritage enthusiast. So far, the restored railway runs for only two or three kilometres. It has two, wood-fired steam locomotives, originally built in Scotland and shipped out there. It also has several restored carriages. There is a workshop in Sapucay, 30 kilometres by road from Asunción, which is probably the last wood-fired steam locomotive workshop in the world. Nearby is the English village where the workforce lived and which has huge historical and architectural value. This is a remarkable story. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, would be very wise to visit the railway when he next travels in that part of the world, as I know he has visited the heritage railway in Tierra del Fuego in the very south of the continent. He might also like to take in Antofagasta, at the start of the Antofagasta-Bolivia railway of which I was 30 years ago chairman and which runs up to Bolivia. It is a commercial railway, but it also has a museum with a lot of old locomotives. I am glad to say that I played some part during my brief chairmanship in making sure that that was established and properly run.
This debate is an opportunity. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on his splendid endeavours.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I, too, express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for providing us with this very useful debate today. I declare an interest as one of the numerous vice-patrons of the Bluebell Railway, which is endeavouring to raise funds in its 50th jubilee year. I believe that I have one or two colleagues in the House who are also vice-patrons.
Like the noble Lord, I think that heritage railways, particularly the Bluebell Railway on which I shall speak, epitomise all that one looks for in the big society as it is currently described. Last year, for example, the Bluebell was granted the prestigious Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. While it has a calibre of full-time employees, its mainstay is volunteers. Nearly 600 of them keep the organisation running and have done so for more than 50 years. Last year, the Bluebell line carried 187,000 passengers, including my noble friend. It is a good employer, a great tourist attraction and a great educator, not just for Sussex, where I reside, but also for the UK; people come from overseas to visit our steam trains. It had a turnover last year of more than £3 million. In addition to that, as others have described, there is a wider benefit to the local communities as people come in to see the railway.
As well as providing full-time employment for staff, it currently offers more than 40 full-time apprenticeships in its carriage, wagon and locomotive works, which are not only maintaining the old skills that are required but, with the use of technology, moving into new areas and developing new engineering skills.
The trust has very ambitious plans for growth. Of particular importance, it is now working on a northern line extension project that will link into East Grinstead and the national rail network. That gives the opportunity to talk about some of the issues which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned.
There is a final obstacle to be overcome: the removal of thousands of tonnes of household waste that were tipped into the Imberhorne cutting on the outskirts of East Grinstead. The work is costing well over £2 million. There is urgency to the task, as our exemption from land tax charges unfortunately expires on 31 March 2012. If the waste is not moved by then, we will face very high costs arising from the landfill tax. After April 2012, the costs will triple, with an extra £64 for each tonne taken out. Indeed, if it is not cleared before 2014, the cost will go up to £80 per tonne, which is an extra cost on top of the expenditure that I have just described. These costs are being driven by government changes to the landfill tax.
The Bluebell Railway is a charity and many of our volunteers are having a problem with the cost of providing fuel for their cars, which affects the numbers who turn up. We are also having problems with the local authorities, which are suffering expenditure cuts, and that is also a concern for us. We are therefore looking for donors.
As the train is ahead of schedule, I shall take an extra minute to make an appeal for donors, in the hope that people will be prepared to put themselves forward. In terms of the big society, we are looking to individuals and groups, but I also make an appeal to bigger organisations. The Bluebell Railway line will end at East Grinstead, adjacent to a big Sainsbury’s store. Sainsbury’s will gain considerable benefit from having this heritage railway running alongside its store. As we have not been able to persuade a large company to make a very helpful donation towards what we are endeavouring to do, perhaps I may appeal to the noble Earl. In spite of all the problems that he has, perhaps he could have a helpful word in the right quarters with some of the bigger organisations around East Grinstead, which so far have not pulled as much weight as we would have wished, and that might help in getting the rest of that household waste out of the cutting. I look forward with great interest to a response on that.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester on securing this debate, which has attracted many fascinating contributions. My noble friend is an active and committed supporter—indeed, leader—of the heritage railway movement. I know of his dismay when he found out the potentially devastating implications for the work—past, present and future—of the Railway Heritage Committee, having discovered that it had been included in the dreaded schedules to the Public Bodies Bill. My noble friend has since campaigned tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure not the continuation of the committee in its present form and relationships but the continuation of the vital statutory role and functions that the committee currently undertakes to protect our railway heritage.
It is clear from my noble friend’s comments today that substantial progress has been made, one hopes, towards achieving that goal. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, are—how shall we put it?—not exactly hindering my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester in seeking to achieve his worthy and honourable objective. If I have judged the situation correctly, then I congratulate the two noble Lords concerned for the good that they, too, have done, and are doing, on this issue.
My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester has given the facts and figures on the considerable contribution being made by heritage railways to the economy—frequently, as he said, in areas where jobs are at a premium and the local economy needs every boost it can get. However, the attraction of our heritage railways goes deeper than that. Heritage railways have to meet the tough operating and safety standards of the Office of Rail Regulation before they can carry any passengers. They are real railways and working railways, not static museum pieces with no life and character of their own. They are the living embodiment of railway life and the railway experience in the era when steam was supreme. That is why they attract the interest, involvement and commitment of so many volunteers and enthusiasts in restoring, maintaining and operating steam locomotives and formerly closed passenger lines, and it is why they attract, to the economic advantage of the local communities concerned, the patronage of so many passengers—mainly tourists—who want to sample or remember the age of steam and the early days of diesel traction. It is a passion and an interest widely shared. Indeed, my 60th birthday present from my family was a couple of hours on a heritage railway in Derbyshire driving a steam locomotive up and down the line—under strict supervision, I hasten to add, and not with any passengers. It was a fascinating experience and something that I had always wanted to do.
As a nation, we are proud of our history and of our past, and we are prepared to invest our time, our energies and our money in ensuring that that history is preserved and valued. Our railways are an important part of that history, and the great strength of the growing and expanding railway heritage sector is that it truly achieves that objective of preserving and valuing our memorable and nation-changing railway history. Even more importantly, though, the sector does that in a way that, as the now heritage railways did when they first opened so many years ago, strengthens and develops the economies of the communities that it serves, by attracting large numbers of visitors and tourists and creating jobs, as well as now providing the younger generation with a living insight into life in a previous era.
I am confident that, like us, the Minister also recognises the importance of the contribution of the railway heritage sector, and I look forward to this being reflected in his reply to this debate.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for introducing this enjoyable and fascinating Question for Short Debate. He did so with his usual eloquence. I, too, am a preservationist, but I get involved with classic military and commercial vehicles. Nevertheless, I well understand the motivation, and I frequently visit preserved railways.
This is a good time to be debating this matter. Sixty years ago, a group of amateur railway enthusiasts was given control of the Talyllyn Railway in mid-Wales, a statutory railway company, and on 14 May 1951 they achieved a world first—the operation of the first public passenger train of the preservation era. At the time, many doubted whether the venture would succeed, but it did, and since then the heritage railway sector has prospered, not only in Great Britain but right around the world, as the noble Viscount has told us. It is important to understand that the heritage railway sector's prosperity is entirely a product of private, individual enterprise and initiative, independent of any involvement of the Government, which is limited to essential safety regulation.
Indeed, for Tom Rolt, the distinguished author and one of the founders of the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, the venture was a small but significant move against what he saw as the prevailing trends of the time of creeping state control of people's lives and the increasing uniformity of our industrial processes. In a real sense, the railway preservation movement was an early flowering of what we now call the big society, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and touched on by another noble Lord as well.
That is all the more remarkable when we consider the scale of the task facing railway preservationists. To give just one example, the pioneering Talyllyn was still using its original track and rolling stock, which were 85 years old when the preservationists took over, presenting them with the pressing need for expensive renewals. The heavy engineering task is no less awesome today.
To emphasise individual achievement is not to say that the Government are uninterested in railway heritage. Through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport we sponsor the National Railway Museum, the largest in the world. In 2011-12, the department is funding the National Museum of Science and Industry, of which the NRM is a major part, to the tune of £37 million. Of course, all noble Lords are delighted to hear of the new appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. The Department for Transport currently sponsors the Railway Heritage Committee, of which more later.
I turn to the subject of the debate. Let us first consider the sector’s contribution to education. Heritage railways provide living museums, enabling the younger generation to learn an important aspect of social, economic and engineering history at first hand. To give just one example, the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Railway in Kent provides educational visits for schools and has recently appointed an education officer who is currently working to provide material relevant to the curriculum. It has developed an association with a local scout group to provide interesting and useful railway-based activities in which group members from different age groups can participate. The railway also works with Swale Skills Centre to provide training for suitable candidates.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, talked about the Bluebell Railway and its work with paid staff, volunteers and apprentices. That pattern is repeated around the country on many railways.
I turn to the sector’s contribution to tourism and the regional economy. These are two sides of the same coin, and many noble Lords have made contributions on this topic. Heritage railways create direct paid employment, often in areas where jobs are in short supply; promote tourism and attract visitors to their areas; and generate spending on services in the area, and indirect employment.
This is not mere conjecture. For example, academic research in 2008 on the local contribution of the Ffestiniog Railway showed a total economic impact on Gwynedd of between £8 million and £9 million per annum, with between 334 and 375 full-time posts supported in the region. Thus, the total benefit to Gwynedd was estimated at £15 million a year. In England, the East Lancashire Railway Trust has estimated that the railway yields total regional gross value added of £1.6 million and supports around 70 direct, indirect or induced jobs in the local community.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about making full use of the heritage railways infrastructure. Heritage railways provide other benefits too. The West Somerset Railway has recently been running freight trains, delivering stone from the Mendips for coastal defence work and keeping heavy lorries off the Somerset roads. The heavy engineering workshops that these railways often have to establish provide a valuable engineering capability for the wider community.
I should also mention the Government’s role in safety regulation. The heritage railway sector voiced concerns that changes to the safety regime might prove to be disproportionately burdensome to its operations, prior to the introduction of those changes in 2006. Through discussion with the department, the sector was able to agree the final implementation timetable for those changes, which included an additional six months’ preparation period prior to their application to non-mainline railways, during which the safety regulator provided operators with additional support and guidance.
Accessibility has been another regulatory issue affecting heritage railways. We know that the sector takes accessibility seriously, but the department recognised that it would not be desirable to destroy the very nostalgic atmosphere that passengers, including those with disabilities, wished to experience, by making old carriages fully accessible. Therefore, Parliament agreed last year to exempt, by order, all pre-1999 vehicles on heritage and tourist networks from accessibility requirements in perpetuity.
I promised earlier to return to the Railway Heritage Committee. Last October, the Government announced our decision in principle to abolish the committee, and the committee has been listed in Schedule 1 to the Public Bodies Bill to facilitate that change. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has proposed a transfer of the committee’s power of designation to another body—for example, the board of trustees of the Science Museum, which is the legal entity behind the National Museum of Science and Industry, which includes the National Railway Museum. It is important to remember that the role of the Railway Heritage Committee is to designate items, not to hold them; I am sure that all noble Lords will agree.
The Government recognise the valuable work that the noble Lord has done on this proposal. While not wishing to pre-empt the debate on this matter that will take place during Committee stage of the Public Bodies Bill, I assure him that positive discussions are continuing between the relevant government departments.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred to the prospect of the Bluebell and Swanage Railways connecting to the main lines. The Government look forward to the benefits of such interconnectivity, and I congratulate all these railways on their efforts to join up to the railway system.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about the Parry people mover. I do not know much about this project, but we must look at all practical options for reducing the cost of the railway while maintaining services.
In his opening comments, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said that there was a fleet of 800 preserved locomotives, but of course there are many more waiting to be restored. There is no shortage of work. The noble Lord also mentioned the “Tornado” project. I am sure that all noble Lords look forward to the boiler problems being resolved.
The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, talked about Paraguay. I acknowledge the importance of the history of the major contribution that UK engineering firms made to overseas railways. The noble Viscount mentioned a famous steam locomotive that was built in Scotland. I recently read a fascinating book about the building of railways around the world.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, mentioned the Bluebell Railway, which I have visited more than once. Having been educated at Stowe School, I look forward to the “Schools” class locomotive of that name being returned to running order after giving sterling service. That locomotive was originally secured by my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, also talked about the East Grinstead extension of the Bluebell Railway. We congratulate that railway on its efforts to remove waste from its line extension. I am sure that the noble Lord will continue to press local businesses to contribute to the line extension, but sadly it is not my role as a government Minister to intervene.
In conclusion, I am grateful for this opportunity, in its 60th anniversary year, to congratulate the railway heritage sector on its successes, often in the face of monumental engineering and financial challenges, preserving an important aspect of the nation’s heritage, enriching the lives of millions and providing tangible and very welcome support to our regional economies.
House of Lords
Introduction: Baroness Tyler of Enfield
Introduction: Lord Stirrup
Introduction: Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Black Rod
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I have to inform the House that Her Majesty has appointed Lieutenant General David Leakey, CMG, CBE, to be Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, in succession to Sir Frederick Viggers, KCB, CMG, MBE, and that he is at the Door, ready to receive your Lordships’ commands.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is the custom of the House to pay tribute to the outgoing Black Rod on the day that his successor assumes the office. Sir Freddie Viggers held the office of Black Rod for less than two years, and yet he is as firmly lodged in the House’s affection and esteem as any of his equally accomplished predecessors. That feat alone almost says it all, but with the leave of the House, I will elaborate just a little.
Sir Freddie assumed the office of Black Rod in April 2009 following a distinguished career in the Army. He had served in Bosnia as part of the NATO implementation force in the 1990s and as senior British military representative in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the conflict there in 2003. In the final years of his career, he was appointed Adjutant General.
Upon assuming the office of Black Rod he could have rested on his laurels, but that was not his way. Colleagues describe Sir Freddie as full of energy. Better still, he liked to “get things moving”, said the Yeoman Usher, in whose lexicon this surely counts as the most fervent of tributes.
Although he held a grand and historic office, Sir Freddie had time for everyone—Members and staff, senior and junior. To paraphrase, he could walk with the Clerk of the Parliaments and not lose the common touch.
Sir Freddie's appointment coincided with the establishment of the new Department of Facilities, headed by the Director of Facilities, Carl Woodall. He and Mr Woodall worked closely and effectively to make a success of the new structures. The fact that they can now be taken for granted by his successor will be one of Sir Freddie's lasting legacies to this House.
I know I speak for the whole House when I say that Sir Freddie's sudden and serious illness last year was a great shock to us all.
Lord Strathclyde
His recovery has been impressive, not least thanks to the resolve which we have come to admire in him, and to the dedicated support of his wife Jane, to whom we also extend our regards.
Sir Freddie's decision to retire last autumn was no doubt a difficult one to reach. It merits our respect, much as it may be tinged with sadness that such a promising period of service to the House has been cut short. We wish him the very best for his continued recovery.
Your Lordships will be aware that in the months since Sir Freddie was taken ill, the Yeoman Usher, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lloyd-Jukes, has stepped in to serve tirelessly and effectively as acting Black Rod. Ably supported by the team in Black Rod's Office—Joanne Fuller, Nicola Rivis and Paul Murphy—he took on the challenge of the ceremonies of the opening of Parliament and the State Opening at very short notice, and ensured their success. He also played a major role in ensuring that the visit to Parliament by His Holiness the Pope in September last year, held magnificently in Westminster Hall, was so memorable. He did all this while continuing to perform his own duties as Yeoman Usher and taking part in countless introduction ceremonies for new Peers. We are greatly indebted to him and are in a position to ensure that the new Black Rod—lest he were in any doubt—will have a formidable team at his disposal.
It only remains for me to welcome Lieutenant General David Leakey to the House, and to reiterate our thanks to the outgoing Black Rod, Sir Freddie Viggers, for the outstanding service that he has given to this House, to its Members and to Parliament as a whole.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, days like this are always a mixture of sadness and pleasure—sadness at taking leave of an excellent servant of your Lordships’ House, and pleasure at welcoming a successor who will, I am confident, give service to this House of the same order.
Before I speak of either the retiring Black Rod or the new Black Rod, I too should like to join the tribute to the acting Black Rod, the Yeoman Usher, who has carried out the duties of Black Rod extremely well in the interim period, which concludes today, and stepped into the breach when circumstances required it. This House has greatly benefited from the way that he picked up the torch and not only got on with the job but did so in a way that was clear, courteous and comprehensive. Of course, he will probably also go down in history as having the world record in introductions. He deserves our warm thanks for all that he has done, and our thanks, too, for carrying it out now, with his interrupted work as an excellent Yeoman Usher.
Today we formally lose Sir Freddie Viggers as Black Rod. We are all thankful that the medical problems that took him away from your Lordships’ House have been addressed. He is, very sensibly, retiring. Following the remarks by the Leader of the House, I want to touch primarily on two points: first, on Sir Freddie’s ceremonial duties; and, secondly, his help to this House during the difficult times that we have come through.
Ceremony is what the public mostly see about the work of Black Rod. Each year—although not this year—with the slow progression to the other House and the striking of the door to the House of Commons, the State Opening of Parliament is a key part of the work of Black Rod. Although Sir Freddie was responsible for just one State Opening of Parliament in his tenure in the role, his enactment of his role and the lead that he gave in the planning and preparation for the 2009 event was entirely in line with the faultless way that such events are carried out in your Lordships' House. That was, of course, my last State Opening as Leader, so for us both it was a very special occasion.
State Openings are a point in our calendars when the hidden wiring of the way in which these things are done in our country is both more apparent but at the same time entirely unseen. However, they are not the only ceremonial work for Black Rod. In his time in his role, Sir Freddie also organised with precision and great success the visit of Her Majesty the Queen to the Royal Gallery for the unveiling of the bust by Oscar Nemon.
In that kind of work, Black Rod is visibly in the centre of our ceremonial duties, but Sir Freddie has also been invaluable behind the scenes. This House has had to carry out some difficult duties over the past couple of years, including the suspension of Members of this House. The role of Black Rod is unsung in these matters, and no doubt it needs to remain that way. However, the way in which these things are done if they have to be done—the practicalities and the specifics—is enormously important. The sensitive and considerate way in which they have been done in this House has hugely benefited from the wisdom and the care that Sir Freddie brought to bear upon them. Indeed, across his role, Sir Freddie has brought to the job that impressive and admirable mixture of decisiveness and consideration, courteousness and care, wisdom and judgment, great effort and good humour, not to mention that wonderful twinkling of the eye. The fact that he has done all these things at the same time, and with unfailing cheerfulness, is both astounding and entirely like him.
He is a very hard act to follow; but I know that the leadership of the House, across all sides of the House, is wholly confident that in Lieutenant General David Leakey we have someone who will rise to that challenge and for whom the House, when it gets to know him, will have an equally warm regard. We welcome him to his new post as Black Rod. We are sad to let his predecessor go, but the House has, and will, benefit from the services of both.
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I should like to associate these Benches with the tributes paid to Sir Freddie Viggers. I endorse everything that has been said by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon. Despite the many differences that have surfaced during the past few weeks, there is unanimity in your Lordships’ House about our feelings for Sir Freddie. It is tragic that such a promising start to his role as Black Rod should be cut short by his illness. We wish him a speedy recovery so that he can enjoy his retirement for years to come.
Sir Freddie and I had one thing in common: both of us were often vertically challenged. However, hand on heart, I can say that, unlike many noble Lords, we could chat face to face. Although he performed ceremonial duties, he reflected a warm and friendly personality and a great sense of humour.
We take many issues for granted, including the sense of security felt by Members of your Lordships' House. Sir Freddie not only built sound relationships with the Serjeant at Arms and the Metropolitan Police but he also negotiated the security contract. We thank him for that. Sir Freddie also helped to resolve matters relating to parliamentary passes for MEPs and more liberal filming guidelines. We thank him for his service and he will long remain a friend to many of us for years to come.
Baroness D'Souza
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has already said, we have both sad and not so sad business before us today. The sad business is saying goodbye to Sir Freddie Viggers who, in a relatively short span of time, endeared himself to us all. His cheery, smiling presence along the corridors, always good tempered and ready for a chat, quickly made him very popular with all of us. That brought added burdens, as we all felt that we could talk to him—we did so, sometimes at great length—and he never forgot the smallest query. All too often, he would pop his head round my office corner to tell me that he had arranged a pass in double-quick time or magicked seats for unexpected visitors or even bent the rules ever so slightly to allow refreshments in the Moses Room.
We have had an anxious year and I know it is with some relief, mixed with great regret, that Freddie has now decided to retire and to continue with his remarkable recovery. Our tributes would, as has been shown, be incomplete without mentioning the constant support, encouragement and warmth that his family has shown and I too would like to add my own special tribute to Jane.
We now have an entirely happy story: the Yeoman Usher, who was catapulted into the Black Rodship, has done such a wonderful job. Utterly conscientious, always there, and undertaking hefty responsibilities, such as the last State Opening, apparently in his stride and with the greatest success. I understand that he spent several years as a logistics expert. In my small experience, logistics really means getting the right people, with the right stuff, to the right place at the right time. I certainly think he excelled in doing that in this House.
I know that Ted’s office has had to deal with a huge and sudden onslaught of work and I pay tribute to the dedication of his staff; namely, Joanne Fuller and Nicola Rivis, not forgetting Paul Murphy who spent a significant amount of time in the office of the acting Black Rod. To these three, and most of all to Ted, I offer my profound thanks on behalf of the Cross Benches and so hope that Ted can now relax and enjoy some untrammeled leisure.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford
My Lords, from the Bench of Bishops, I wish to add our expression of gratitude to Sir Freddie Viggers and to express that gratitude in terms of his ministry to us. I use the word “ministry” rather consciously.
At a time of many introductions to your Lordships' House, I want to express my own gratitude for the way in which Sir Freddie prepared those of us who were coming into the House for the first time. The time and effort he took over that was quite remarkable: patient, quality time with those about to go through their introduction. In my case, that was only three days before State Opening and the illness which struck him down. You would have thought that he had nothing on his mind about security or parliamentary procedures as he gave time to a neophyte bishop. We are all in his very considerable debt.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I pay tribute from the Back Benches to Lieutenant General Sir Freddie Viggers. I endorse all the qualities that have been referred to, but the memory that will stay with me always is the way that he spoke to, listened to and worked with everyone in your Lordships' House as an equal. I know that all the staff, be they cleaners or noble and gallant Lords, experienced that quality. I did not believe, after he was so tragically taken ill, that that would continue, but Ted Lloyd-Jukes continued that high standard. In welcoming his successor, I say that it will be a hard act to follow but I am certain that that can be achieved. To Sir Freddie and Ted, all the best for the future.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
My Lords, before we move to next business, perhaps I may add a personal word of welcome to David Leakey, of gratitude to the Yeoman Usher and his team, who rose to the occasion in exemplary fashion when the House needed them, and of tribute to Sir Freddie Viggers. I worked very closely with him on issues of security. What made that such a pleasure, even in the most difficult times, was that, from the moment he entered the House, he showed not only a deep affection for the House but an understanding of the need to balance his responsibilities for the safety of everybody on the Parliamentary Estate with Parliament’s own commitment to keeping the institution open and accessible to the public whom we serve. It was because he understood those two dynamics that he was so exceptionally good at his job. Of course, like others, I wish him and Jane well and very much hope that we may have the opportunity to welcome him into the House again to say some personal and more informal thanks to him.
Roads: Charging
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bradshaw
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce road pricing for lorries in the United Kingdom.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, we plan to introduce heavy goods vehicle road user charging to ensure a fairer arrangement for UK hauliers. We are still finalising details of the proposed scheme, which will include off-setting measures to help UK hauliers. The scheme must operate within relevant EU legislation and apply to both UK and foreign hauliers. Primary legislation will be required.
Lord Bradshaw
I thank the noble Earl for that reply, but why are Her Majesty's Government introducing a paper-based system for charging for road use, which will be both expensive to operate and open to abuse, when all the other countries in Europe have adopted or are adopting electronic systems, which have the scope to be adapted to deal with congestion and environmental damage?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his question. First, we have not fixed which scheme we are going to adopt, but it is unlikely that we will rely purely on a paper vignette. EU states have indeed moved from paper to electronic vignettes. Various possibilities are still being considered by the Government, but it is most likely that HGVs will be monitored for compliance by the use of automatic number plate reading linked to a database.
Lord Rosser
What progress are the Government making to implement the Conservative election commitment to make foreign hauliers pay appropriate dues when in this country on our roads? Have the Government found a way of doing that by road pricing without also further penalising UK hauliers, already being hit by the increase in fuel prices and the Government's VAT increase?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the whole object of this policy is to create a level playing field for UK operators, so we intend to charge a vignette to all operators to operate in the UK, but at the same time to create off-setting measures for UK hauliers, possibly by reducing the rate of vehicle excise duty, or by other measures.
Lord Berkeley
Is the noble Earl aware that the cost of the number plate recognition scheme used in London is about 30 per cent of the revenue? Why is he not going for a distance-based system, which has been introduced in much of the rest of Europe, where the costs of collection and fraud are said to be very much less?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, we have learnt from the experience of the London congestion charging scheme, but the technology is not completely appropriate for what we are planning. When VOSA patrols the strategic route network, it will use automatic number plate reading technology to scan all commercial vehicles to ensure that they have a valid vignette.
The Countess of Mar
Can the noble Earl explain what he means by a vignette?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, in the past a vignette was a piece of paper that was attached to the windscreen, but we are now considering a virtual vignette, which is what I mean by an electronic vignette. It is not necessarily a piece of paper on the windscreen, but it is a means for UK and foreign hauliers to pay to use UK roads.
Lord Naseby
Is my noble friend able to clarify whether this review will cover the situation of foreign lorry drivers who do not have adequate insurance? Indeed, some of them are not even qualified to drive lorries.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the principal authority for ensuring compliance with UK regulations is the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency. It may have a role in ensuring compliance with lorry road user charging, and it certainly has a role in ensuring that foreign goods vehicles comply with all our regulations.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Does the Minister agree that the most advanced and used system in Europe is the German one, which is not based on paper, or even on registration recognition, but on satellites; that that is the way forward; and that that is what the previous Government were exploring and it has been abandoned by the present Government? Will they not go back to look at the longer term and to try to get the best system for our country, not a halfway house measure?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the satellite scheme was abandoned by the previous Government, not by this Government. They abandoned it because they spent £65 million on it and achieved nothing. It is also important to remember that our problems are different from the problems experienced by continental countries, which have a far higher proportion of foreign heavy goods vehicles operating on their territory.
The Earl of Glasgow
My Lords, in the absence of proper road pricing, can the Minister tell me what steps the Government are going to take to try to alleviate congestion, particularly on motorways and trunk roads?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the objective of the lorry road user charging system is purely to create a level playing field for UK hauliers who are experiencing unfair competition from foreign hauliers using cheap fuel purchased on the continent. This equates to an advantage of about 12p per mile on a maximum-weight artic.
Banking: Royal Bank of Scotland
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Hoyle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to limit bonuses to be paid to senior Royal Bank of Scotland staff.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, UK Financial Investments manages the Government’s shareholding in the Royal Bank of Scotland on an arm’s-length and commercial basis. The Government are clear that remuneration policies at banks need to reward long-term sustainable performance, not incentivise short-term excessive risk taking. We have made it clear to RBS that it should have a smaller bonus pool than last year.
Lord Hoyle
I thank the Minister for that reply. Is there not something lacking when we cannot take firmer or more positive action in a bank in which we have 83 per cent of the shareholding? Does it not give the green light to the banks to carry on in the same way, while innocent people are losing their jobs because of the folly of the bankers, who are seen to be very close friends of this Government? The Government have talked tough and acted weak. Is there not a smell of hypocrisy about?
Lord Sassoon
I am grateful to the noble Lord, because it enables me to point out that we are hamstrung in dealing with the bonus situation at RBS. The previous Government signed an agreement with RBS that did not cover the payment of bonuses this year, which means that our hands are tied. I wish they were not. It was the wholly inadequate agreement that the previous Government signed that leaves us where we are.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that 50 per cent tax will be paid on every pound that is paid in bonuses; and that 12 per cent national insurance will be paid by the employer, plus 2 per cent by the employee? Therefore, 63 per cent of the bonuses—I think that is the right number—will come back to the Exchequer at a time when it needs revenue. If the money is not paid in bonuses, presumably it can be offset against losses and the Exchequer will receive nothing.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, indeed those numbers for the marginal rates of tax are correct. And that is not the only tax we extract from the banks—far from it. This Government have put in place a bank levy which will, when it comes into full force, raise an additional £2.5 billion out of the banking sector; a larger amount of money than was taken from the banks in the previous Government’s bonus tax.
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay
My Lords, can I encourage the Minister to use the full resources of the Treasury to try to find a way of untying his hands? I cannot believe that there is not a way around this. Is the Minister aware that Sir Philip Hampton, the chairman of RBS, a year ago told us that over 100 Royal Bank of Scotland bankers collected £1 million? What does the Minister expect the figure to be this year? Is he aware that I and the overwhelming majority of taxpayers, who are having to pay £828,000 of every £1 million paid out to RBS bankers, believe that we are entitled to see the names on the cheques?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the Royal Bank of Scotland is due to announce its results on 24 February. It normally makes its remuneration disclosures on or around that date, so we will have to wait. I have no knowledge of the number of bankers who might or might not be getting particular levels of bonus. Our relationship with the Royal Bank of Scotland is managed on a commercial, arm’s-length basis through UK Financial Investments.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, as has been well-publicised, the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been entering into negotiations with the banks on bonuses and other activities. Will the noble Lord give me a categorical assurance that the results of those negotiations will in no way prejudge, constrain or compromise the findings of the committee into banking structures headed by Sir John Vickers?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, with regards to the proposed possible settlement with the banks in Project Merlin, discussions are ongoing with the intention of seeing that the banks pay smaller bonuses than they would otherwise; that they are more transparent about their pay; that they make a greater contribution to local communities and the regional economies; that they treat customers fairly; and that they lend, materially and verifiably, more than they were planning to the businesses of Britain—especially small and medium-sized enterprise—so that they can grow and create this year. If we do not get such a settlement, my right honourable friend the Chancellor has made it clear that nothing is off the table. As to the Independent Commission on Banking, it is an independent banking commission and it will do its own thing as it sees fit.
Lord Christopher
Will the Minister clarify one of his answers in relation to the amount that will come to the Treasury this year? Will he please explain how—and when—those bonuses that are paid in shares and in a new vehicle entitled “cocos” are taxed?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the tax rules around deferred compensation are complex and depend on the sort of instrument being paid. Some tax on certain instruments is levied up front and some is levied later, so it depends very much on the circumstances of the individual instrument and the taxpayer. But, of course, some tax might indeed be levied later on.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that some of these millionaire and billionaire bankers, and indeed other millionaires and billionaires, use tax havens to salt away their money so that they do not actually have to pay tax to the United Kingdom Treasury? What are the Government doing to clamp down on these tax havens?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we are doing a lot more than the previous Government ever did. We have set aside an additional £900 million of expenditure for HMRC over the next spending round—the noble Lord may shake his head but that is a fact—and that will result in millions-worth of additional revenue each year being collected compared with what the previous Government did.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
The Minister has described the nature of the relationship between the Government and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Is he content with the composition of remuneration committees attached to public limited companies? Given the widening gap between the better paid and the lower paid, is there not a case for a change in the diversity of the people who sit on remuneration committees? Are the Government prepared to explore this and perhaps look at whether we could see more representative groups on remuneration committees, particularly with those in the lower socioeconomic groups being represented?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the Financial Reporting Council continues actively to consider a range of ideas for improving corporate governance, and of course in recent months there has been the UK Stewardship Code and a revision of the UK Corporate Governance Code. I think that the Financial Reporting Council listens to all good ideas for improving corporate governance and is actively on the case.
Religions for Peace
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Hylton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they propose to mark the 40th anniversary of Religions for Peace and its work on war, poverty and the environment.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the Government are pleased to note the 40th anniversary of Religions for Peace, although they do not plan to mark it formally. The Government welcome the important work Religions for Peace undertakes through its global network of religious leaders to promote peace, end poverty, and protect the environment through religious co-operation and dialogue. The United Kingdom works with a wide range of non-governmental and civil society organisations through our international diplomatic and development work. We value their expertise and the contribution they make to our policies.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his positive reply. Would the Government consider giving publicity to this 40th anniversary, perhaps by means of a commemorative stamp? Does he agree that religions have come in for a great deal of criticism over their involvement in violence, so would it not therefore be appropriate to give them maximum encouragement when they work constructively for peace?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, these efforts should of course receive maximum encouragement from all sources, but whether one should necessarily mix up the international relations between Governments with the very valuable work of non-governmental organisations, voluntary organisations, religious organisations and professional groups is a wider question. My own view would be that this organisation, which the noble Lord knows a great deal about, has done and continues to do immensely valuable work, and in a way gains prestige and effect by standing clear of the pattern of intergovernmental relationships which often has to deal with very hard and sometimes violent and difficult issues.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that an appropriate involvement of faith communities in discussions relating to human conflict, poverty and the environment could, under some circumstances, be highly advantageous?
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, we know that religious disputes often lead to serious conflict. Would the Government consider encouraging the establishment of a global forum of faiths that could meet perhaps on a semi-permanent basis to resolve religious and cultural disputes before they get totally out of hand?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Again, these are movements and inspirations that best come from beneath, as it were—from the bottom up rather than being imposed by government organisation. In a sense, my noble friend is referring to organisations very similar to Religions for Peace, with which this Question is concerned; that is, the desire for the faiths to come together and bring their message of peace to every corner of the world and to every religion and practice throughout the planet. That is exactly what Religions for Peace has done so successfully for many years past.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, what resources are available within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to champion the issue of religious liberties? In these turbulent times, is the Minister able to give some thought to the plight of the imprisoned Baha’is in Iran; the minorities in the ancient churches, the Chaldeans and Syrianis in Iraq, who have been facing a campaign of asphyxiation; and the Coptic community in Egypt, especially at present following the terrible attacks launched in Alexandria only a couple of weeks ago?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is quite right to begin the catalogue—sadly, it goes on even further than he mentioned—of the persecution of religious minorities. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Her Majesty’s Government are determined, wherever we see such persecution, to make the strongest representations through our posts. The noble Lord mentioned three instances of hideous persecution and I have a list in front of me of four or five more areas of the world where there is direct persecution of religious minorities of a highly intolerant kind. In every instance, personnel in our posts and in the Foreign Office here in London continuously and vigorously pursue our concerns, suggestions and proposals that this intolerance should cease forthwith.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, the Minister said that there is a reason to separate religious organisations from government—on the whole, I suspect that many of us might agree—but, on the Question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I point out that Religions for Peace has been working on a code for the holy sites, which will have a particular resonance for those who are interested in Jerusalem. This is a matter where Governments must take a serious role because of the implications for all the parties involved. Have the Government looked at the work done by Religions for Peace on the code for the holy sites and, if so, do they agree with its outcome?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I cannot give a detailed answer to that. I accept the noble Baroness’s proposition that religion and politics become intertwined, sometimes disastrously and sometimes to the benefit of those who seek peace, stability and worthwhile aims. I shall look into the matter of the holy sites. It is not a situation with which I am familiar but, obviously, anything to do with Jerusalem and the holy sites has a highly political content and raises all sorts of sensitive issues.
Police: Officer Numbers
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the fall in the numbers of police officers and police community support officers.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)
My Lords, it is for the chief constables and their police authorities to make decisions on the numbers of police officers and police community support officers within their available resources. We remain confident that police forces can make the necessary savings through reductions in middle and back office functions, while retaining and enhancing their ability to protect and serve the public, with a particular focus on maintaining the front line.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the Minister for her reply. With approximately 2,000 fewer police officers and a similar reduction in PCSOs since May this year, and given the estimates from the Police Federation that this figure could rise to 20,000 in the next few years, is it not the case that the ordinary family is less safe under the Conservatives?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, there is no simple link between police numbers and their impact; what matters is how the police are deployed. It is there that we look to see reforms in police forces so that they deploy their resources more effectively than is the case at the moment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is important that police officers and PCSOs are used for what they are trained for and not in roles that can be filled by civilian staff, who may well bring their own special skills?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, I entirely agree with what my noble friend has just said, as do the police. Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Greater Manchester, told the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee that it is not a question of police numbers but one of deployment and that we need to replace those who are being used in back offices and get them out on the front line.
Lord Condon
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Government are creating a very turbulent atmosphere for policing by the combination of cuts, which are understandable against the background of the economic situation, the forthcoming review of pay and conditions, which is due to be announced soon, and the reorganisation of policing through elected commissioners and reorganisation generally, and that these changes, cumulatively, will require inspired political management and leadership from within the service if the public are not to suffer?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the Government have great confidence in the leadership of the police and their ability to manage change. The police have grasped well the agenda that is before them. Of course the question of police remuneration is being looked at independently and we await the outcome of that.
Lord Rosser
In a Question for Written Answer two months ago my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath asked for a definition of “front-line police services”. As of yesterday, he still had not had a response. Why not? Can the Minister now give the House the Government’s definition of the front-line police services that they said they would protect from the cuts? Does the definition include the many specialist units, including the rape and domestic violence units, all actively involved along with officers on the streets in the fight against crime, which fell by 43 per cent under the previous Government? Can the Minister give the House an assurance that none of the approximately 2,000 full-time police officers already lost since the election was involved in those front-line police services? Finally, in the light of the Minister’s previous answer, is she aware of the recent surveys that clearly show the link between numbers of police officers and levels of crime?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the number of police officers has been reduced and the level of crime continues to fall. There is no simple link between the numbers of police officers and the levels of crime. The services that the police themselves wish to deliver to the public clearly include the prevention and investigation of crime and would obviously include the specialist forces dealing with certain different kinds of crime.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, will the Minister give an undertaking that she will listen if the public, looking at the data on the incidence of crime that are being made available to them today, decide they would rather have officers from their local police service responding quickly to an incident of crime than a new-fangled commissioner of police? Are the Government listening to the public? I have yet to meet a member of the public who sees little connection between the number of officers in the police service and tackling crime.
Baroness Neville-Jones
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for mentioning the Government’s initiative on crime mapping, which was announced today and which in our view will enable people in their own localities to be much better informed than hitherto of the real state of crime in their localities and to have a direct relationship therefore with the police. It will be helpful to them that the police commissioners will have direct accountability to the localities and not upwards to the Home Secretary.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Is it not quite fatuous to keep on repeating that there is no relationship between numbers of police officers and good policing? Obviously effective policing depends on efficient deployment of the police and it should be the responsibility of any Government at all times to make sure that deployment is optimised. However, once you have the optimised deployment, surely more police automatically means better policing?
Baroness Neville-Jones
I am sure that the noble Lord will be able to enlighten us as to what the optimised level is. I did not say there was no link; I said there was no simple link. It is very clear that there is no simple link. Numbers of police officers began to decline before this Government came into office and the level of crime continues to decline. The level of crime began to decline in 1995, well before our predecessors came into office, and when police numbers were stable. There is no simple link between these two things.
Lord Rooker
How many briefing meetings has the noble Baroness had in the Home Office about a Question that has been awaiting answer since 1 December? It would be quite normal for a delayed Question like that to be the subject of considerable ministerial questioning, so why has it not been answered? How many briefing meetings has she had?
Baroness Neville-Jones
I am afraid I am at a loss to know to what Question the noble Lord is referring, but I will look into it.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I wrote down very carefully the answer that the Minister gave to a previous question. She said that there is no link between the number of officers and the level of crime. Does it therefore follow that if we had no police officers that would not affect the level of crime?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, I made it quite clear that I said “no simple link”.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, in answer to a previous question of mine, the Minister said that the responsibility for cuts in policing was solely with the chief constables, which I agree is correct. There are, however, a number of functions and skill sets that the police have that are nationwide. Will she agree to ensure that the Government look at these skill sets and capabilities to ensure that chief constables do not inadvertently remove those capabilities?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that we will certainly be looking at the maintenance of national level capabilities and that is of course why we have taken such care in the case of counterterrorism, where the funding has been kept stable. One of the tasks of the National Crime Agency is to ensure that national capabilities are maintained.
Lord Imbert
I understand it will cost a £1 million or so if the new elected political commissioners are put into position to oversee and to hire and fire chief constables. Would it not be better to spend that money on employing more police officers or PCSOs?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the Government believe in the notion of elected commissioners and direct accountability to localities. It is for that reason that we are introducing this reform. We believe that it will result in more effective policing and more direct accountability to the people the police serve.
Parliament Square (Management) Bill [HL]
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Rooker
Lord Rooker
This is the first amendment I have moved on this Bill this year, for those who keep count of our proceedings. I kept clear of amendments relating to Part 2 of the Bill. I will not be long in speaking to this amendment. Neither the Electoral Commission nor anyone else, for that matter, has ever carried out an exercise across the United Kingdom to explain officially the mechanics of voting systems, whatever they may be. In this case, they are the alternative vote as proposed in the Bill and first past the post.
The Electoral Commission might decide to explain about the alternative vote and might need to indicate that there are at least three alternative vote systems, none of which is proportional. It might decide that it has to counteract the media referring to the alternative vote inaccurately—as, indeed, we in this House have agreed that the Deputy Prime Minister did when referring to it as a system guaranteeing that MPs would be elected by 50 per cent of the electorate, which of course is not what will happen under AV in the Bill. That simply cannot happen in every case.
It is true that I tabled this amendment a long time ago and that a lot of water has gone under the bridge. My noble friend Lord Lipsey has two amendments of substance in this group. My simple view is that it should not be left to the complete discretion of the Electoral Commission as to whether or what information it puts into the public domain. There should be some kind of constraint in the Bill, hence the modesty of my amendment and, indeed, the amendments of substance which my noble friend has tabled. He will go into those in much greater detail than I intend to do. I intend to be brief.
As I have said, I wanted to raise the issue about the discretion of the Electoral Commission over this enterprise which, I repeat, no official body has ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. It is fraught with some difficulty and, in some ways, excitement, as the project has never been undertaken. However, it is one where we in Parliament should say that the Bill should have a little more detail, rather than simply leaving it to whatever steps the commission might think are appropriate or inappropriate. I beg to move.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
I have to inform the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 109 by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 110ZZA and 110ZZB, which are grouped with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for the purposes of this debate. Quite recently, although it actually feels like months ago, these matters came up at a reasonably early stage of the Committee, when the Minister jumped to his feet and said that they fell much more naturally to being discussed under Schedule 1 to the Bill. I do not know whether the Minister—he is not with us this afternoon—hoped then that by the time we got around to Schedule 1, we would have forgotten all about them and let them go. As the Committee knows, on this Bill we are, quite rightly, grinding extremely fine so here they are again.
The amendments concern the steps that the Electoral Commission must take to get the electorate informed. Perhaps I might recap on a debate that we were having last night. The background to this is the very wide lack of understanding of the alternatives to be put before the British people in the referendum, whenever that may come. I illustrate this from a poll with a large sample taken by YouGov in September. It asked people whether they had heard of AV and, if so, whether they knew what it meant. To summarise, one-third said that they had heard of AV and had some idea of what it meant. They did not define what “some idea” meant and, if they were examined further, we might find that that was a rather optimistic interpretation of their true state of knowledge. One-third had heard of AV but had no idea of what it meant. One-third had not heard of AV; they also had no idea of what it meant, which is perhaps not surprising since they had never heard of it. That is a long way from where we would want to be when we get around to the referendum.
I am not using this to make a speech for AV or against it. My position is perfectly well known. I simply make the point that the better informed those participating in this referendum are, when it comes about, the more the result will have legitimacy and stability, because we will be able to have confidence that the people really have reached the verdict they wish to reach, on reflection, and that chance factors have not simply swayed it. This is not the job of the Electoral Commission only; it is the job of the campaign organisations on both sides, of our national media—I thought I might get a laugh for that—of politicians and of those who are not political in the party sense but who are interested in politics.
These are great issues for our future as a democracy and all those have a role to play, but the Electoral Commission has a role. It has been created to play a role and it is right that Parliament should give it some specific guidance on the minimum activity which we expect it to undertake in playing that role. If the referendum were to go ahead on 5 May—and I know there are those in this Committee and the government Front Benches who support that—there will be only some 10 weeks between the passage of the legislation and the day when the people deliver their verdict.
My two amendments are straightforward. First, they ask that the Electoral Commission prepares a leaflet that summarises the meaning of the question before people and what its implications would be. It summarises, in an impartial way—because the Electoral Commission owes its whole role to its impartiality—the arguments for and against AV and for and against first past the post, so that any elector wishing to study the matter can see a short summary of the arguments. That is then distributed to every household in the country so that everybody gets their chance to read it. A fairly straightforward proposition, you would think.
The second amendment is slightly tongue in cheek and says that the leaflet should be examined by the Plain English Campaign. Actually, from my own experience as a journalist on the Economist, I think that an Economist journalist would be an alternative because these are both groups of people who are very used to making sure that the language in which complicated ideas are expressed in order to communicate is clear. It is a serious purpose behind a tongue-in-cheek amendment because the number of people who have a natural grasp of voting systems is quite small, as I have shown. The number of people who understand the issues involved on voting reform is also quite small. To produce language which is generally comprehensible is quite complicated.
I know the Electoral Commission tries hard to get its language right. Indeed, it is contemplating producing a consultative document on a public information booklet—not exactly a leaflet but a booklet on the referendum. I have not studied it in detail but it is the kind of thing which could be done with an examination not just for the content but for the clarity of the language in which it is expressed.
It is perfectly true that there is this draft booklet; it is true that the Electoral Commission is of course planning information activities, and it would be wrong to suggest otherwise. But we, as parliamentarians, have a right to expect certain things of the Electoral Commission and to lay down in the Bill that it must perform certain functions. This is all going to be done in a terrific rush, and the commission may get into some sort of difficulty, as its resources are not very great for the task ahead of it, so something has to be dumped. If it is in the Bill, the thing that is dumped cannot be the exercise it mounts to make sure that the public are properly informed. In other words, it is right that the intention of the commission be underlined by Parliament and by provisions of the kind that I propose in this amendment, which is a companion amendment to the wider amendment so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker.
Lord Martin of Springburn
Has the noble Lord put a price on such a leaflet being delivered to every household? How would the Electoral Commission receive the funds for such a leaflet? I imagine that it would be a very expensive proposition because of not only the publishing but delivery to every elector. It would mean that the commission would have to employ part-time leaflet deliverers, which would be a costly exercise in itself.
Lord Lipsey
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention, which enables me to repeat my earlier point. It seems that the Electoral Commission is planning something of this sort anyway, so the cost is not additional to what appears to be planned, unless it is to be dropped down the line.
Lord Lipsey
Could I finish answering the noble Lord’s points before I take a further point from him? We have a costing for this referendum. It is not nil but some of us think that it is well worth it. Democracy comes with a price and it is a price that is very well worth paying. On an issue of this magnitude, the relatively small figures that would be involved in an exercise of this kind are part of that worthwhile price.
Lord Martin of Springburn
It is one thing for an organisation to publish a leaflet. The Forestry Commission or the National Trust could publish a leaflet that organisations could pick up on a voluntary basis. However, it is another thing to publish a leaflet and give an assurance that it will be delivered to every elector—or every elector’s home—throughout the United Kingdom. That is a costly exercise by any stretch of the imagination. The amendment also asks to put into legislation that there shall be a leaflet, whereas the Electoral Commission might say that local radio, or national television for that matter, is the better way to communicate.
Lord Lipsey
I am grateful for those points, too. On the latter point, these are not alternatives; they are designed to supplement each other, but a leaflet that can be studied at leisure and revisited has a different impact from that of a television programme, although I agree that they are complementary. As far as cost is concerned, we need to keep a sense of proportion. After all, every household gets a poll card. Nobody thinks, “Oh God, it is so expensive sending these poll cards. People don’t need them to vote. Elections are so unimportant that we could avoid the cost of a poll card in future”. Indeed, I believe that electoral law provides for the political parties to send one leaflet to every household in the country. The noble Lord, who knows much more about the House of Commons than I have ever known, will correct me if I am wrong but I believe that also takes place. We should not think that sending a leaflet to every household would mean great disproportionate expenditure. It is not a major logistical exercise of its kind and will not cause the budget deficit to soar where otherwise it would shrink.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, continuing my attempt to be reasonably even-handed in these debates, I have a variety of views.
On the previous exchange, which I had not expected, I am entirely on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, because I am aware that there are endless examples of requirements or practices that ensure that information is delivered to all households in the country. I guess that the latest such example is the widespread circulation of leaflets on how to avoid flu during the winter, but there have certainly been electoral examples as well.
On the amendments, my feelings are mixed. I half sympathise with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker; I am worried about the first amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—for reasons that I will come back to—but I support his second amendment very strongly because, whatever materials are produced, it would be helpful if they were looked over by someone who writes the kind of English that everybody can understand. One of our latest arrivals, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, will recognise from our association some 30 years ago that I used to be driven to distraction by social security material being produced in a form that no normal person could understand. I seem to remember that we got the Plain English Campaign involved to try to help us improve things, and I think that they have improved. Some effort needs to be put into making sure that whatever goes out uses terms that can be understood.
Lord Newton of Braintree
I am not saying that that would happen.
I think that we need to rely on the good faith of the Electoral Commission, which clearly seeks to do everything in an unbiased and impartial way, but making that a statutory requirement would raise a lot of questions that we might not want to answer.
Lord Soley
I have considerable agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on the very difficult issues raised by this profoundly important set of amendments. If my memory serves me correctly, the last time that I discussed the matter with the Electoral Commission, it was talking about preparing a leaflet or pamphlet on this very issue. I think that the same issue came up on Second Reading, too. The difficulty is ensuring that the leaflet is right and unbiased. I phoned the Electoral Commission this morning to find out the latest position and, perhaps slightly worryingly, both the numbers that I normally use and get through on without any trouble were unobtainable. I am sure that there is a very good explanation and that I will be able to get through soon, but that means that I cannot tell the House where the Electoral Commission is up to on this important issue.
The amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Rooker, spell out the right principle that we need material that says, in plain English, what an alternative voting slip will look like and so on. However, as soon as we get into explaining how the system works, we are in much more difficulty. It is very hard to write a leaflet on how a voting system works—particularly how it works in comparison to an existing system—without getting into a minefield of problems about possible outcomes or computations of the effect of one’s vote. There is a lot in Amendment 109A, in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, that if we are to go down this road, having the Speaker’s committee involved in the Electoral Commission would be a good idea to provide some political insight. Otherwise, I can envisage that the leaflet that might come out could produce literally thousands of phone calls from political parties and their agents up and down the land saying, “This is biased”. That is only a short step away from the courts. The same point might be made about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—we would get into an absolute minefield.
I hope that the Government will give this serious thought. The Government may already have talked to the Electoral Commission—perhaps they had another phone number that worked this morning that I did not have. I know that the commission is exercised by the issue and is keen both to get the information out to the public about the importance of the referendum and to convey information to people about the different voting system. However, if we are to go down the road of requiring rather more detail on the effect, we have to look much more carefully at Amendment 109A in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, which would at least provide for some political control. Without that, the Electoral Commission will, frankly, be hung out to dry and probably crucified as well.
I hope that the Government will give this important issue careful thought, given that, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, we have done so little on this and the changes will all come very suddenly. We must make a major effort to convey to the public the importance of this vote. On that point, my noble friend Lord Lipsey is absolutely right. The problem is what should be put into or left out of the leaflet.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I completely support the spirit of this group of amendments. If all goes well—I nearly said “according to plan” but that would be giving a hostage to fortune—and the Bill gets through in time for the referendum to be held in May, there will be no time to lose. I think that every Member of the House concurs with the spirit that, if we are to have a referendum, we should ensure that it works as well as it possibly can and that as many as possible of our fellow countrymen and women take part in it.
I agree wholly with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which would remove the discretion by simply obliging the Electoral Commission to provide information about each of the two voting systems. If the Government accept Amendment 108 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the first provision in Amendment 110ZZA, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would be superfluous.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newton—he cast a fly in my direction, at which I leap—micro legislation is indeed food for lawyers and I am all agin it. However, I consider that the more dangerous provision in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, in terms of “lawyerisation”, is its second provision, which would require that the leaflet,
“summarise the main arguments for and against first-pass-the-post and the alternative vote”.
There is much more room for lawyers to haggle over that before Her Majesty’s courts than there is over the “impartial and unbiased” provision. However, I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, should sleep on his amendment, given that its only essential provision—that is, the distribution to all households—should be taken care of by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. If the Electoral Commission is required to provide information about each of the two systems, surely that means delivery of information to every house. If there is any doubt about that, a change can be brought forward at the next stage.
I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Soley, because I did exactly as he did and had the same rather ghostly result. I tried three Electoral Commission numbers, which were all disconnected. However, I was informed a week ago by the commission that it is not disconnected and that it will definitely produce a leaflet that will be delivered to every household, so perhaps we can sleep soundly on that.
The plain English idea must be a good suggestion. Describing these two systems in the best and most limpid form that John Bull can understand on a bad night is essential. That amendment would be a step in the right direction.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, before getting to the substantive remarks that I wanted to make, as we have heard two interesting speeches I wonder whether it might be in order for the Leader of the House, on behalf of the House itself, formally to draw to the attention of the Electoral Commission the fact that noble Lords on both sides of the House appear to have had considerable difficulty getting in touch with the Electoral Commission by telephone. That is obviously a rather disturbing situation, particularly when everybody agrees that the Electoral Commission must play the key role in keeping the public informed as we move forward towards this referendum—if, indeed, we do. Although it would be nice to think that the staff of the Electoral Commission spent their free time reading Hansard of either House, that may be a rather hopeful assumption to make.
Lord Soley
The Electoral Commission staff do read Hansard. Indeed, I suspect that they watch some of the debate live, so perhaps I will soon get a text—I hope so.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I hope that, by whatever means, the Electoral Commission will address the issue raised by these two incidents, which hardly look as if they are purely coincidence. If noble Lords cannot get an answer from the Electoral Commission, what are the chances of an ordinary member of the public doing so? I suspect that that is a matter of concern not just to me but to the whole House.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, it may be helpful if I deal with this issue because I understand that the Electoral Commission has just moved offices. That is why the old phone number does not work. The new phone numbers should be available in the normal way and we can make them available. If anybody wants them, they can call my office and we can get them to them. I am assured that the Electoral Commission takes great care and notice of what happens here.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I think there is a greater likelihood of the Electoral Commission reading Hansard than members of the general public. Maybe I am wrong about that.
However, I can also say that the Electoral Commission’s website is really excellent and a great deal of the information that we have been discussing this afternoon is on it. I will give a fuller response later on but I think the noble Lord, Lord Low, is trying to get in.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I hope that I did not give the impression that I had concluded my remarks. Of course I shall give way in a moment to the noble Lord, Lord Low, with great pleasure but I suspect he wishes to speak to his amendment and perhaps the right time to do that will be when I have concluded my remarks, which will not be very lengthy.
Just before I leave the issue of the Electoral Commission, I have to respond to the Leader of the House. Those of us with a background in the private sector know that when you move offices and no longer answer your telephone you go out of business very quickly, and I do not think that that is a very satisfactory excuse coming from a public sector body either.
I very much support both my noble friends Lord Rooker and Lord Lipsey in the amendments they put forward and the initiatives they have taken, although I have a number of reservations about the wording of one amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, which I shall come to in a moment. I think they must have had the same reaction as I did when I read the Bill. There is a rather marked antithesis, and a slightly disturbing one, between paragraph 9(1) of Schedule 1:
“The Electoral Commission must take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness about the referendum and how to vote in it”,
and paragraph 9(2), which then states:
“The Electoral Commission may take whatever steps they think appropriate to provide, for persons entitled to vote in the referendum, information about each of the two voting systems referred to in the referendum question”.
Particularly coming straight after “must”, “may” reads very weakly—it seems almost a sort of casual afterthought—and I do not think that is good enough. If we are to have a referendum in this country on quite a complex new constitutional issue, it is absolutely essential that members of the public have the opportunity to understand what it is all about. I therefore think it very reasonable that we should say “must” in paragraph 9(2) which, of course, is the effect of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rooker.
I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey that it is right to produce a pamphlet on the subject. As one of his own amendments states, the information effort should include the publication of a pamphlet and does not exclude other things. I hope that the Electoral Commission will have a budget which can indeed be used, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, has suggested, for television coverage of the issue as well, or even possibly local radio, as he suggested. That is highly desirable.
I have to say, however, that my breath was slightly taken away by the phrase in the third sentence of my noble friend Lord Lipsey’s Amendment 110ZZA:
“The leaflet shall be impartial and unbiased”.
I found myself reading that two or three times and thinking carefully whether a leaflet could be “impartial and unbiased”—indeed, whether any opinion of this kind could be “impartial and unbiased”. Of course, as a practical issue, we regularly expect certain people and certain functions to be impartial and unbiased—judges and juries would be an obvious example. However, they are being impartial and unbiased in relation to the establishment of a fact: whether so-and-so killed the victim or whether so-and-so stole the goods is a matter of fact. Here, we are asking for the production of an impartial and unbiased opinion—
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Is it not a fact also that, when a jury comes to its determination, it has had the points for and the points against put not by some impartial body but by counsel for the prosecution before counsel for the defence? Therefore, maybe the two sides of this argument should set out the case themselves.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I do not know whether I should be grateful for my noble friend’s intervention or not. I totally agree with him on the one hand, but on the other he has just taken away the point I was about to make myself. I was hoping I was going to be the first in the debate to raise those particular solutions. However, he is perfectly right and I think, before the House accepts the words that would actually go in the Bill, it needs to think very carefully about putting a responsibility on any human being or set of human beings to produce an opinion on something which is impartial and unbiased.
Lord Grocott
I wonder if my noble friend would make a judgment if I offered him what I consider to be an impartial, unbiased and factual statement about the alternative vote system, namely that the system offered in this referendum is used by just three countries in the world and one of them is trying to get rid of it. That seems to me to be a statement of fact: is that something that he would recommend for a leaflet?
Lord Davies of Stamford
Indeed, as a statement of fact—I return to my philosophical discussion—that would be unexceptionable and unchallengeable. Of course, the way that a fact is stated immediately opens the author of the document to the charge that he or she has been selective and could equally well have set out the facts in an equally amusing or effective way that brought fire to bear on the other side of the question. My noble friend summarises brilliantly exactly the problems that will be encountered by anybody, however honest a man or woman he or she is, who sets out to produce something that will be characterised by the law of the land—by statute—as impartial and unbiased. That is probably asking something that no human being can do. None of us could produce an opinion that was genuinely unbiased and impartial. It is philosophically impossible and practically impossible in any political argument.
Therefore, while I totally agree with what my noble friend Lord Lipsey says, Parliament needs to place an obligation on the Electoral Commission to ensure that the public are properly informed about the choice that they must make, and about the characteristics of the two electoral systems. It is absolutely crucial that the Electoral Commission itself does not in any way risk its own credibility and integrity by putting its name to such a document. The suggestion that the Electoral Commission should distribute documents by the two campaigns would be a much better one as a result.
Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I did not mean to interrupt him. I thought that he had got to the end of his remarks. Indeed, I am extremely grateful that he continued because I thought that, before he moved to the outer reaches of philosophy, he made a very strong point when he referred to the sharp antithesis between “must” and “may” in the clause. I thought that that point lent considerable additional weight to Amendment 108, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I got a bit more worried as the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, continued because I was getting a message from my BrailleNote here that the battery was about to run out. I think there is just enough left for me to say that I rise briefly in support of this group of amendments. Amendment 109 is in my name and is substantially to the same effect as Amendment 108, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Both require the Electoral Commission to provide information about each of the voting systems referred to in the referendum question. In conjunction with Amendment 110, which we discussed last night, these amendments place on the Electoral Commission a duty to take steps to ensure that disabled voters are able to access information and support to facilitate their understanding and participation in voting and elections.
I also welcome Amendment 110ZZA, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. All I would say is that steps need to be taken to ensure that the leaflet referred to in the amendment is made accessible to people who have difficulty in reading print. For example, the leaflet would need to advertise on it—in at least 14-point type, I would hope—the availability of other formats such as large print, Braille and audio, and a number to call to request these formats. Furthermore, alternative formats would have to be available at the same time as the print version, otherwise people who cannot read print would be put at a disadvantage compared to those who are able to read the printed leaflet.
On Amendment 110ZZB, the requirement to seek the advice of the Plain English Campaign on information materials, although it might strike a blow at the legal profession, seems a sensible suggestion considering the complexity of explaining the rival voting systems and it could certainly help in making the material accessible to people with learning disabilities, who may have need of an EasyRead version. Therefore I support all the amendments in this group.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Low, who has been a great champion of those with disabilities in the House. He shows some of the reasons for this House in the way in which he is able to contribute. I should like to say briefly how much I agree with what my noble friend Lord Davies has said. We have had many allusions in the debate, often in the small reaches of the morning, but I do not think that Hegel and—was it Nietzsche?
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I do not think that Hegel and Heidegger have been alluded to so far. However, following that philosophic allusion, I wonder whether one might follow the Marxist dialectic and have a thesis, an antithesis and a synthesis. If there were two umbrella organisations, we would have to give thought as to who would compose these arguments on both sides of the divide; and this assumes that there are people who are acceptable and that there are relevant umbrella organisations. This will probably be the case, even though there may be differences within those umbrella organisations. If there are such organisations, it may be that they would have to submit, in draft, their proposals to the Electoral Commission, which could ensure that they are broadly acceptable.
Let me come first to the synthesis and then I shall give way to my noble friend. The Electoral Commission itself, having looked at the thesis and the antithesis, in the normal direct way, can then come forward with its synthesis of those areas which it thinks are of importance for the voter and which have not been touched on by the protagonists.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. My concept was that the individual elector would provide his or her own synthesis from the materials provided by the two campaigns. I totally agree with my noble friend, from a practical standpoint, that my suggestion will not work unless there are two clear campaigns run by some accepted umbrella organisation. It would, of course, be for the Electoral Commission to satisfy itself that those two campaigns were generally national umbrella organisations, accepted by all the groups within each particular side of the campaign. That worked in 1975, as my noble friend, who was also alive at the time, will recall, but it would not work if there were just a whole lot of different groups and multifarious and multifaceted voices of various kinds on both sides. That would be a very untidy and very difficult campaign. I hope that the rather more clear-cut choice, which the public were offered in 1975 on another important constitutional issue, could be replicated. It would be for the Electoral Commission to decide that point.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My noble friend’s thesis assumes that there are people who are prepared to be in an umbrella organisation for the alternative vote. The problem is that no one actually favours the alternative vote.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
In God-like isolation, he may well. I suspect that even Mr Clegg, if it is before three o'clock in the afternoon, may well reach the view that he prefers other systems. There is a variety of systems and it is clear that the alternative vote is a totally orphan system. Certainly, the Conservative Party does not favour it. On the whole, it prefers the first past the post system. At the time of the last election, the Labour Party did, but clearly the public—
Lord Tyler
I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that the leader of his party supports AV.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
That just shows the interesting way in which there are many rather odd bedfellows. If people were given an absolute choice, I do not think that they would put that first on their list. Certainly Mr Clegg would prefer another system; Mr Cameron would prefer another system; and, although I have not spoken to the leader of my party on this, or indeed on any other matter, I suspect that he also would prefer another system. So we come to the point that no one would presumably claim support for the alternative vote. I can imagine, on the other hand, a whole series of problems because if there were to be an umbrella organisation against the alternative vote, it would be a ragbag of views. There would be a great variety of views in that. To have a legitimate group on either side of the argument will prove extraordinarily difficult. Let us assume that eventually one can fund a group, an umbrella organisation, on both sides. Clearly, some of the arguments are likely to be omitted, hence the reason for the Electoral Commission to vet those drafts which have been put out by the other organisations. In seeking to be impartial, in seeking to reconcile and in seeking to bridge that gap and to be a Marxist synthesis following Hegel and Heidegger, clearly the Electoral Commission itself may have to play that role and seek to put forward a more objective middle way to the two groups if they can be found to work together.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I suspect that the reason why the Electoral Commission has taken the phone off the hook is that it is suffering from a surfeit of parliamentary advice. I do not doubt that it always welcomes the advice of my noble friend Lord Soley, but none the less, every now and again, it needs a respite. That is why I tend to favour Amendment 109 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston. He said that the words of his amendment are largely to the same effect as those of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker, but there is an important distinction. The noble Lord’s amendment would not take out the words that the Electoral Commission,
“may take whatever steps they think appropriate to”.
My noble friend Lord Rooker's amendment leads to the more prescriptive approach embodied in the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lipsey. I tend to side with the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on this: it may be wise to give a pretty large discretion to the Electoral Commission as to how it handles the matter.
In a way, the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Lipsey demonstrates the difficulty for the Electoral Commission in performing what would seem a pretty simple function of providing information to those who will be about to vote in the referendum. For example, we have already discussed the requirement in my noble friend Lord Lipsey's amendment that it should,
“summarise the main arguments for and against first-past-the-post and the alternative vote”.
My noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford explained in some depth the reasons why that is not easy.
Unlike my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Anderson, I think it would be desirable to have a phase of information and education to enable electors, as far as possible, to understand from impartial sources the nature of the choice that they will be invited to make. Later, we get into the propaganda war and the clash of the campaigns. At that point, if people have been provided with neutral information, they may well be better able to assess for themselves the merits of the arguments put forward by the two sides in the campaign.
It is desirable that something such as my noble friend Lord Lipsey proposes should be achieved, but I do not doubt that it is exceedingly difficult to summarise those arguments objectively and in an “impartial and unbiased” fashion, as the amendment requires. If it is to be done, it will take time. That is one reason why it is so fortunate that the Committee previously accepted the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Rooker to provide flexibility for the date of the referendum until October. As other noble Lords have said, if we are going to do this, we need to do it properly. It is too good an opportunity to waste. It is too important an issue to be rushed and muddled. If people are, in an extraordinarily rare opportunity, to have the chance to decide whether the existing electoral system should be retained or another put in its place, they need time to reflect carefully on the basis of a secure understanding of the issues. I think that it will be very difficult for that process of information, education and the gaining of understanding to be achieved in the very short interval that now remains before 5 May.
Also, if the arguments are to be set forth by the Electoral Commission in an impartial and unbiased way, as has been suggested earlier, there is the risk that people who are dissatisfied with the way in which the arguments on one side or another are set out will complain and might seek remedy by way of judicial review. The whole process could become very vexed. My noble friend's amendment demonstrates the extreme difficulty of the Electoral Commission doing that job but, none the less, it is a job that it would be good if it were done.
Another difficulty about achieving an impartial and unbiased explanation of the choices to be made is that academic evidence shows that the more people understand about the alternative vote system of election, the less they like it. If you have full information explaining how this system works, the consequence is that people become disposed to reject such a system. It might be claimed that in no circumstances could the explanation be regarded as unbiased. It is riddled with difficulties the more we think about it. There certainly should be unbiased information and clarity in the way the information is provided. These are highly desirable objectives. I do not know whether before tabling his second amendment, Amendment 110ZZB, my noble friend discovered whether the Plain English Campaign is willing to be co-opted, but I am sure it is because it has been a very good servant of us all, including benefits claimants.
Lord Dixon
Why not just send them a copy of the election that took place in the House of Lords in 2003? You could not get a more educated electorate than the one we have here. There were 603 Peers eligible to vote and 423 voted. There were 82 candidates. The successful candidate was chosen after the 42nd transfer of votes or recount, and I am told that one Peer voted from one to 82. I have no doubt that number 1 was a great friend of his, but I do not think 82 was a particular friend. I think that would be the best way to educate the public.
Another thing about new systems is that when the European Parliament was set up my noble friend Lady Quin was the first MEP for our area. If you went into Jarrow shopping centre and asked who the MEP was, people would say “Joyce Quin”. If you went today, nobody would know who the MEP is.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Everything that my noble friend Lord Dixon has just said should definitely go into the leaflet, as should the remarks of my noble friend Lord Grocott. If the leaflet is a little bit longer, so be it. My noble friend Lord Lipsey wants the leaflet to summarise the meaning of the referendum question. I see difficulty in that because one would hope that the question that would be put to people in the referendum would be so succinct and easy to comprehend that it would be incapable of being summarised in the way that my noble friend has suggested. There is a good deal to think about.
My final worry is that a leaflet coming through the letterboxes of the land would on a great many doormats be regarded as junk mail and the chances are that it would not even get read. How the Electoral Commission is to acquit itself of its responsibilities and inform the people of this country about the nature of choice they have to make bristles with difficulty, and I am not at all convinced that we should be very prescriptive or contend that we know best how this should be done. I therefore tend to favour the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston.
Lord Pannick
This matter should be decided by pragmatism rather than philosophy. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, that the contrast between paragraph 9(1) and paragraph 9(2) makes perfect sense. The Electoral Commission has a duty to inform people about the existence of the referendum and about how to vote in it, and so it should. It is given a discretion about whether it attempts to summarise the arguments on both sides. The reason it is given a discretion is because whether and to what extent it should inform people on those controversial matters depends on how much other information people are going to receive on both sides. As has already been said by many noble Lords, it depends on whether it can do that job impartially, which is exceptionally difficult, and it depends on the time constraints.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord’s flow, but would he like to reconsider? He has just said that the Electoral Commission has the discretion to summarise the arguments on each side. I do not believe that that is what paragraph 9(2) says. The Electoral Commission has the discretion to summarise,
“information about each of the … voting systems”,
which is not the same as the arguments.
Lord Pannick
That is information about the detail of the competing voting systems which are under discussion in the referendum. It is one thing to say to the Electoral Commission, “You must tell people about the existence of the referendum, their right to vote, and when it is going to take place”. That is perfectly sensible and it must do that.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I heard the noble Lord submit that the discretion of the Electoral Commission on whether to give information by way of an information pamphlet will depend—or should depend—on how much information is available from other sources. How will it know, in a timely manner, how much information will be available from other sources? Clearly the other sources could include the umbrella organisations; they could include newspapers which, no doubt, will take sides during the campaign. If the Electoral Commission is to publish a leaflet, it must surely know in very good time how much information is to be provided from other sources.
Lord Pannick
I respectfully take the noble Lord’s point. I therefore assume that in the proper exercise of the discretion rightly given to it by paragraph 9 (2), the Electoral Commission will be preparing material which it may decide is appropriate to send to members of the public. But that is a matter for the commission.
Lord Davies of Stamford
As the point has already been made, there is no reference to summarising anything in this paragraph. It says:
“The Electoral Commission may take whatever steps they think appropriate to provide information”.
I hope the noble Lord agrees with me that that could equally well cover my proposal of arranging for the distribution of material produced by, for example, the organisations running the two campaigns. It is very important that we make it clear that there is that possibility there. That is encompassed within the existing text. The suggestion of summarising something, or producing pamphlets, is an additional issue that we are raising today in the course of debating these amendments.
Lord Pannick
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and that is why I am perfectly content with the existing wording which gives a free discretion to the Electoral Commission to take such steps as it thinks appropriate in all the circumstances as they transpire. We are making heavy weather of this.
Lord Graham of Edmonton
The Leader of the House, who is replying on this debate, has a very important task before him. Whatever he is going to do with the various amendments, it is plain that, in the light of the time constraints under which he and the Committee are having to work, he has a herculean task in guiding the Committee and in guiding the Bill into an acceptable form. Even in this House, where perhaps we are better informed than any other forum, there is uncertainty about the interpretation of the Bill.
The Leader of the House will remember, as I do, the 1975 referendum, when I was the Member of Parliament for Edmonton. I did what I had to do. I wrote articles for the local press, and had various meetings, but finally my dilemma on how my constituency wanted me to vote was resolved. My constituents in Edmonton quite clearly said to me, by two to one, that they were in favour of staying in the Common Market. After all the work that had been done in the campaigns and by the political parties, I received three letters—two of them were in favour and one of them was against.
Those who are seeking to alter the system have a great responsibility. I do not doubt for a moment their sincerity in believing that there is a better system, but it is clear from what has been said that changing from first past the post means that there is a herculean task ahead for all of us to persuade people that there is a better system. In three months’ time we will have the referendum, if the Bill in fact passes, so there is a great responsibility on everyone in this House.
Sometimes I think that we take too much for granted and that matters that move us in this place are a common expression of the views of the people in the constituencies and in the country. I do not think that that is necessarily so. I hope very much that the Leader of the House, in replying to the debate, recognises that he now has an opportunity not only to guide the Bill, but to assuage the passions that will be unleashed upon him when a decision is taken. We will face many problems on Report and at later stages of this Bill, so I would welcome a lead from the Minister to indicate that this is a matter upon which he and his colleagues will reflect in a timely way in order to guide the House.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, in his contribution the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, took the view that the Electoral Commission should exercise discretion. There was a meeting here two months ago in Committee Room 4, and Members from across the House attended that meeting with representatives from the Electoral Commission. During the course of the meeting it became very clear that they will do everything possible to avoid being involved in the actual debate that takes place. With that in mind, some of us are very worried about whether at some stage the public are going to be given factual information as to what the referendum is all about. That is a genuine worry. I am in favour of the referendum and I am in favour of electoral reform, but I am concerned because the debate will become very heated and, to put it bluntly, lots of lies will be told. Millions of leaflets will be sent out that, on both sides, will not reveal the truth. Someone, somewhere, has to set out the basis on which the referendum is taking place, the truth about the question, and its implications.
There is an additional problem, and that is that not every household in the country will receive yes and no leaflets. There will be large tracts of the United Kingdom where no leaflets at all will be dropped because the organisers of the campaigns will simply not have the resources to do that. In those circumstances—I understand that the Electoral Commission has already agreed that a leaflet will be going out—a leaflet has to be sent. My question is this: what will be in that leaflet?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I thank my noble friend for giving way. Does he not accept that it will not be just one leaflet because there need to be leaflets to explain this in Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Mandarin Chinese and a whole range of languages, and particularly that there will need to be one in Welsh? He will remember that the noble Lord, Elystan-Morgan, said that the translation of the question came out as something like, “Do you believe in God or would you prefer a daffodil?”. Somebody has got to explain it.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I understand that my noble friend will be part of the no campaign and I am sure that he will be impressing on his friends the need to send out leaflets in all those languages. But I would not wish to impose that responsibility on the Electoral Commission. However, I am sure that my noble friend and I can debate these matters on Report.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I made a joke at the end of my remarks, but there is a serious point to be made about the leaflet being available in other languages. I was talking the other day to the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury about the large number of people in the constituency he represents who do not speak a word of English but who will have a vote in this referendum. How are they going to understand what they should be doing?
Lord Campbell-Savours
If my noble friend feels that strongly about the matter, he can table an amendment, put the proposition to the House and we can vote on it, if that is the way he wishes to go.
I go further than most Members who have intervened in the debate in terms of the information that I believe should be included in the leaflet. First, it should be set out by the Electoral Commission where it is used. My noble friend Lord Grocott intervened to pose the important question of where AV is used, and the public need to know. Secondly, the public need to be informed that it is not a proportional representation system. There will be a great deal of misrepresentation during the course of the campaign about whether or not this is PR. It is not proportional representation and the Electoral Commission should make that clear. Thirdly, there will be a great deal of misrepresentation over the proportion of the electorate that a candidate is required to have to secure election—in other words, the argument about 50 per cent. Leaflets which refer to the 50 per cent are already being distributed and politicians are going on television stating that there is a 50 per cent requirement. Indeed, Jane Kennedy, a former Member of the other House, has recently written to a number of people in the no campaign drawing attention to inaccurate information which has been put out by the yes campaign. This is only the start; how much more difficult will it get?
There is a need to draw a distinction between the different AV systems because, with the media targeting the debate during the course of the campaign—as they inevitably will—they will draw on the distinctions between the three systems of AV, to which I have referred in previous debates. The Electoral Commission should make it clear exactly which one is being adopted but refer to the other two—one of which is the system used for the election of mayors in the United Kingdom.
The Electoral Commission should also point in its leaflet to the relevance of the need to use all preferences during the course of the ballot that takes place under AV—again I refer to the distinction between the Australian Queensland system and the conventional system used in Australia in federal elections—and that can be done in fairly simple language.
It also needs to be pointed out—this is far more argumentative—that AV does not necessarily lead to coalitions. Factually, it does not necessarily lead to coalitions, and yet the no campaign is arguing that coalitions are the inevitable consequence of the introduction of the alternative vote. That is not the case. It does lead to coalitions in certain circumstances but not in others. There are many issues which my noble friend Lord Davies would argue indicate an element of bias but which I believe should be factually placed before the electorate to enable them to take a proper decision.
Finally, I return to the timing of the referendum, an issue we debated last night. One of my fears is what will happen to the leaflets during the course of the referendum. If the referendum was held on a separate date, referendum leaflets would go through letter boxes all over the country. As it is, because the referendum is to take place on the same day as elections in various parts of the United Kingdom, referendum leaflets will be mixed with election leaflets and many will go in the bin. I am very sorry, but that is the case. Again I say to the Liberal Democrats that they have chosen the wrong date and, even at this late stage, they should revisit the decisions they have taken on these matters and which they have forced upon the coalition.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, I would happily support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which would leave out,
“may take whatever steps they think appropriate to”
and insert “must”, but I am worried about the preparation of the leaflets. As I mentioned in my previous intervention, Amendment 110ZZA would provide that,
“The leaflet shall be distributed, so far as is practicable, to all households in the United Kingdom”.
When I asked, no one had put a price on such a project, although it would be a very costly project indeed. Although I have always taken advice from the noble Lord, Lord Newton—in another place, he was Leader of the House, and a very good Leader at that—I must advise him that those health leaflets did not come through in Scotland, possibly because of the devolved arrangements. I do not know whether such leaflets would have gone out under the auspices of the local health board or of a government department, but I worry about legislating that a specific body—namely, the Electoral Commission—publish leaflets and distribute them to every household in the land. That is a tall order for the Electoral Commission. With great respect, some Members of this House do not know just how big or small the Electoral Commission is. There is a limit to its resources.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My recollection—I reflect a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—is that in the days now a bit far off when I was a Member of Parliament, there was a legal requirement on the Post Office to deliver an election leaflet to every household during a general election. We all had supporters who spent hours writing out these things and delivering them to the Post Office. Even now, the Post Office has a universal delivery obligation. All the Government have to do is pay for the production of enough leaflets, give them to the Post Office and say, “Get on with it”.
Lord Martin of Springburn
Perhaps that is what should happen, but my point is that imposing a legislative responsibility on the Electoral Commission would put a burden on the Electoral Commission. That would be a tall order, although it would be a good contract in these days when there is competition. In the old days, a Member of Parliament got free postage from the Royal Mail. However, the Royal Mail now has competitors that will say, “No, we want to do that job”. Therefore, the Electoral Commission will have to ensure that it is even-handed.
My experience with the Electoral Commission was that, as Speaker, I had the duty of chairing the overseeing body known as the Speaker’s committee. One of our biggest worries—this is why I am concerned about bringing this into legislation—was that the commission wanted to bite off far more than it could chew. For example, although in the days that we have spent debating this Bill noble Lords have spoken with great passion about the fairness of the Boundary Commission’s appeals process, we previously had to stop Ministers handing over responsibility for the Boundary Commission to the Electoral Commission, as desired by its then chairman, Mr Younger. I had to say to Ministers, including the Secretary of State for Scotland, “Look, they cannot cope with that work”. The commission wanted to provide seminars to train electoral officers that would have involved using a training pack that was copyrighted by an outside organisation, so the cost to taxpayers would have been quite substantial. In other words, the Electoral Commission’s enthusiasm had to be curbed.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
I had not intended to speak on this group of amendments, but, having listened to the nature of this debate, I found myself wandering down memory lane again because the debate has brought back strong memories of the run-up to the devolution referendum in Scotland in 1979. There will not be any Hegel in my remarks, but there might be some of the Krankies.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that this should not be a partisan issue. Looking at the paragraph as currently drafted in the Bill, I think that there is a need for greater reflection on how the mechanics of the referendum campaign will be organised. There has been a lot of reference to the setting up of umbrella organisations. These umbrella organisations often do not take into account people who are experienced in the day-to-day work of informing people of choices in an election. I well remember that the 1979 referendum—like this one—involved an extremely rushed campaign. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, in his great wisdom and experience, made the important point that we are talking about a referendum that will be in three months time this week.
One of the huge problems that will be faced in the referendum is getting organisations together that will be in a position to advance the arguments both for and against the first-past-the–post and the additional vote system. It is very easy to get the great and the good to sit round a table and proselytise, but it is much more difficult to get people to go out and arrange for others to come out and go to the polling place. All the political parties, even the Liberal Democrats, will be divided. Some will take the position of Mr Clegg, who is in favour of the AV referendum; others will take the position that AV is a “miserable little compromise”. Therefore, there will not be the mechanisms on the ground to ensure that people are engaged in the referendum process.
The issue of producing a leaflet is very important. I am sorry to disagree with the former Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Martin, but because of the complexity of this issue many people would like something on a bit of paper that they can reflect upon and read again to get it clear in their mind exactly what they are making a choice about. Yes, that will be expensive, but taking a wrong decision that had to be revisited later would be even more expensive.
There is also a case for the Government to convene a discussion among the major political parties on the logistics of the referendum. I well remember the former Scottish Office—it must have been under the Secretary of State, Bruce Millan—bringing together the general secretaries of all the political parties at the start of the campaign in 1979 to try to find some kind of modus operandi that would allow a campaign to work. In fact, my great ally in that campaign was the organiser of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, because people who run elections know the nature of the difficulties that can be faced.
In summary, what is in the Bill at the moment is not sufficient. There is a need for greater thought about how the mechanics will operate. There is also a need to get impartial material into the hands of the electors, because my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is right to say that lies will be promulgated on both sides throughout this campaign. If we want to be certain of having an outcome to the referendum that everybody will accept, we have to do the groundwork.
I have seen the draft that the Electoral Commission has put together so far that explains the difference between first past the post and the alternative vote. I am not very good at reading instructions—I usually get rid of my washing machine whenever I have to change the programme—but, having vacillated on this issue and having believed in the need for a change to the electoral system, I have to tell my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours that, having read the draft, I would now come down quite firmly in favour of first past the post. It is clear to me that the lack of certainty on how people can secure the outcome of their choice becomes glaringly obvious from the draft leaflet that the Electoral Commission has put together.
I have one final point. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said that AV does not automatically create coalitions. No, it does not, but, although AV can create the climate for coalitions, it definitely creates odd bedfellows. That is because the nature of AV and the nature of practical politics is that people have to choose who their partners will be. At national level, that is usually very easy, but at constituency level you can end up with some very strange bedfellows. When that happens on the ballot paper, we could end up with some people in our Parliament whom we would not necessarily wish to see.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, I of course know that this Committee stage has to finish tomorrow and I am therefore reluctant to make a contribution. However, I am aware of the fact that this is the only opportunity we have had so far to discuss this hugely important issue of the kind of information that the voters will receive and how they will be able to obtain impartial information, if such a thing exists. This is against the background—I assume we all know and can agree on this—that there is absolutely no resonance whatsoever, anywhere in the United Kingdom, about the issues that will be raised in this referendum. The public are either not interested, which I think is almost certainly the case—
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My noble friend is a very experienced parliamentarian, one who knows the grass roots and has campaigned on many occasions. Can he indicate to the Committee whether he believes that there will be door-to-door canvassing on this campaign? How many people will be sufficiently enthused by this issue to go out from door to door? How many public meetings are likely to be held on both sides? Does he see any prospect of people being so interested in this question that they will indeed do that sort of leg work, which is a feature of our elections?
Lord Grocott
No, I do not see any real prospect of that happening on any big scale at all and that should be a real concern to all of us. As someone who will be as active as I possibly can be in the no campaign, I am aware of the big disadvantage that the no campaign has, which is that everyone in the country at least knows something about first past the post but next to no one can answer serious questions about the mechanism of this particular form of the alternative vote system. That is why any impartial leaflet trying to tell the public about a system for which there is no evidence they know a great deal about must include the information as to where this is used. If it was not used anywhere in the world, presumably that is a valid factual piece of information to give to the electorate.
I am aware of the time, but I want to spell a point out and get a grievance off my shoulder. One must not bear a grudge, but I am still smarting under the advice that the Electoral Commission gave indirectly to the House, as it went to all Members of the House, when it was commenting on the various amendments as they were going through. The House may not remember Amendment 40B in my name but I do. It was a very simple amendment to allow the results of the referendum to be published constituency by constituency. It was a very simple proposal and I am sorry to say the House rejected it. I am not going to go into the merits of it but I simply want to make this point: in advance of the vote, the Electoral Commission, whose job it is under this legislation to provide information, made a mistake—believe me, the Electoral Commission can make mistakes —in respect of the advice it gave on my amendment.
As I said, my amendment was about publishing the constituency results. The commission said:
“We do not support this amendment … making such a significant change to the rules for the referendum this close to 5 May”.
In other words, it was assuming that the referendum had to be held on 5 May, which is a contentious piece of information to begin with. That is a date chosen by the Government, and the Electoral Commission is not necessarily obliged to give information which helps the Government to achieve this contentious advice as to when the date should be held. More seriously, and perhaps more factually, this piece of information came to the House after the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rooker, giving flexibility as to the date, had been approved by the House. So the referendum, according to the Bill as it then stood, did not have to take place on 5 May; in fact, it could take place any time between 5 May and some time in October, and that is the Bill as it stands.
I do not dispute for a minute the good intentions of the Electoral Commission but it was at the least a contentious piece of advice to Members taking part in that debate. If on a fairly straightforward, simple proposal like that it could be contentious then I would suggest that, for anything that tried to explain how various electoral systems worked and the merits thereof, it would be almost impossible to get a non-contentious document out to the voters.
Lord Wills
Now that my noble friend has got this particular grievance off his chest, may I say he is right to raise the central importance of the information given to the public on this crucial vote that they are going to be faced with in a very short space of time? What role does he expect public service broadcasting organisations, notably the BBC, to play in providing the public with this information, bound as they are by considerations of fairness and impartiality and trusted as they are, particularly the BBC, by the great mass of the British public to be fair and impartial? What role does he think they will play? I would also be grateful if he could inform the House what role he thinks they should play.
Lord Grocott
I find it easier to answer the second question than the first because, although we all complain about the media from time to time, believability tests are regularly conducted about different forms of media outlets—in other words, what the public trust in terms of the information they receive from the various media outlets. Always near the bottom in believability tests, I fear, are party political broadcasts. Somewhere near the top are always programmes such as “Crimewatch”; people believe what they hear when someone in uniform tells them. That is the scale. The broadcast media always come out better than the print media. My short answer to my noble friend is that broadcasters have an enormous responsibility to provide the information because the public trust the information that they get from broadcasters more than that which they get from newspapers.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
I have just one question. Will my noble friend give thought to the fact that in the Welsh referendum campaign, for example, results were announced constituency by constituency? I remember it well because Carmarthen’s results came in last and that was the constituency I had campaigned in. If misleading information was put out in one area of the country, would that then lead to a request that the whole thing be done again; or would it relate only to individual constituencies where such misleading information had been put out?
Lord Grocott
That is a very good question from my noble friend, to which I do not know the answer. No doubt, given the great resources of the part of the Civil Service that deals with this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will be able to give an answer that satisfies my noble friend.
Lord Bach
My Lords, we have quite properly had a very full debate on this important group of amendments. The Committee should be grateful to all those who have spoken. Our view from the Front Bench is generally supportive of the amendments in the group. I do not know whether Messrs Hegel, Heidegger and Marx would be flattered by the reference to them in the context of this Bill in the British House of Lords, but I am certain that they would be astonished to have been referred to at all.
These are important amendments. The noble Lord the Leader of the House will undoubtedly be familiar with the draft leaflet that the Electoral Commission has put out. Does he have any up-to-date information on whether the Electoral Commission feels that this is a satisfactory document? How much does it intend to change it? Maybe this is the nature of the beast, but how does the page—it is just one page—on the first past-the-post system compare to the pages on the alternative vote system? There are four pages on how this branch of the alternative vote system works. Is that deemed to be satisfactory by the Electoral Commission? I think that it only sets up the difficulties that many noble Lords from around the Committee have mentioned in their contributions. What I am really asking the noble Lord the Leader of the House to tell us is, what is the proposal as far as the Electoral Commission is concerned in terms of a final leaflet?
The Electoral Commission published on 30 September last year, Report of Our Views on the Proposed Referendum Question, to which I believe the Government responded in due course. It is worth pointing out a couple of the findings. On page 1, it states:
“Our research found the main difficulty people had in understanding the question was that they did not recognise or understand the voting systems it talks about – ‘First Past the Post’ and ‘Alternative Vote’. Accessibility and plain language specialists also commented that these were not terms that most people would be familiar with”.
Then on page 2, under “Summary of our findings”, it states:
“There were also some particular words and phrases used in the question that some people did not understand or struggled with: not everybody understood the term ‘First Past the Post’, or knew that it is the name of the system used now to elect MPs to the UK Parliament – even people who had voted before in this type of election … The term ‘Alternative Vote’ caused particular problems and was not understood, or was misunderstood, by nearly everybody taking part in our research”.
That may not come as a huge surprise to Members of the Committee, but it is a warning note. Indeed, the Committee’s discussions about the various types of alternative vote—which are the most satisfactory and which are not—pale in comparison to the fact that there is, at the moment, extremely limited understanding of what this type of alternative vote procedure actually means. Whatever view we take about the referendum taking place, there will not be very long to remedy that. So that is a warning and it is why I think that the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, are so important.
The Electoral Commission is, of course, an independent body created by Act of Parliament and has very strict rules, rightly, about the political activities of its staff. Nevertheless, there is no disguising the political significance and sensitivity of the decision on the electoral system which will be taken in this referendum and the role that the commission will play in it. As the Bill has demonstrated all too well, political interests are, of course, heavily engaged by this referendum. There is therefore a danger, as has been said on many sides, that in the context of this highly politicised environment, the information which the commission is due to circulate and which will impact significantly on the outcome of this referendum could become the subject of severe dispute. I want to remind the Committee, for a minute or two, of what can be described as an Irish cautionary tale.
I remind the House of what happened in Ireland during the referendum not that long ago on the Lisbon treaty in 2008. In advance of that referendum, a referendum commission was appointed under Irish law to promote awareness and understanding of the Lisbon treaty so as to inform the public about the issues at stake in the referendum. Indeed, apparently it is the practice in Ireland—some noble Lords will know this—that a commission is established for every referendum to ensure that the subject matter to be voted on is explained to the electorate.
The commission is also required to encourage the electorate to vote, which is another task that our own Electoral Commission has been asked to discharge in the forthcoming referendum. Like the subject matter involved in our proposed referendum, the Lisbon treaty was felt to raise issues of such complexity and technicality that it was quickly recognised that the information provided to the public by the independent commission could have a highly significant impact on the electorate’s decision. The subject matter that was distributed by the commission was therefore subject to intense scrutiny by the media and became the object of public argument between the two campaigns. This eventually spilt over into a wider spat about the commission’s independence, with claims and counterclaims being made about the connections between commission staff and individuals in the different campaigns, as well as allegations about a conflict of interest involving companies hired by the commission to help with legal work and communications advice which also worked for the Government. Many Members of the Committee will be reminded of that argument by what I have just said.
Of course, I am not suggesting that we would see the same problems repeated here, but we are saying that because of what is undoubtedly at the moment a low level of public knowledge about electoral systems, that inevitably means that the information provided by the Electoral Commission could have a major bearing on the outcome of the referendum, which in turn makes it highly likely that this information will be the focus of considerable attention, to put it mildly. Perhaps I have just set out the problem in other words, but the ways in which my noble friend Lord Lipsey and others who have spoken to amendments in this group have approached this problem need careful consideration by the Government in the little time that remains. We look forward to hearing what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has to say.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is good to have an opportunity to join in this debate. I am very grateful to the movers of the amendments. We have certainly started off with a most interesting debate on this group of amendments. The debate became slightly whimsical, but that is not the first time that that has happened in this Committee. I was glad to hear from my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, for whom the House knows I have a great deal of affection. He was the last great Chief Whip in opposition who achieved so much with so little when the Labour Party was a relatively small part of this House. It is now the largest group in the House of Lords. The noble Lord said that there should be time for reflection—I assure him that we have done nothing but reflect for the past three months or so—and that we should consider some of these issues on Report, and we will, of course, do so.
It will come as no surprise to anybody who has been listening to these debates that the Government very much hope that the referendum will take place on 5 May and have planned for that. I have said that many times and the Government announced their intentions in July. I know that some noble Lords opposite would rather that it were not held on that date and that the Labour Party manifesto stated that it wanted a referendum on AV in October, as it considered that that was a better date, but that is not the view that the coalition Government have taken. In order to get the Bill back to another place so that the Electoral Commission can complete its work in time for a referendum on 5 May, the Bill will have to go back to another place on Monday 14 February. I do not suppose that that is a surprise to noble Lords opposite either as they have known about that date for a very long time.
I was very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who said that we were making heavy weather of the debate—he was right about that—and tried to knock a few heads together. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Newton for what he said about some of the common-sense aspects that came out of these amendments. It has been a full debate and I shall try to give it a full answer.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can the Minister confirm whether the booklets will available in languages other than English?
Lord Strathclyde
I do not know, but I know that in Wales it will be available in Welsh and English.
Lord Maxton
Can this be produced as an app for the iPhone and the iPad? That is where many youngsters get their information. A single app on their phone which allows them to read it would be very useful.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that is an immensely good suggestion and of course that will be a decision for the Electoral Commission.
It is not clear from the current legislative framework under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—specifically Section 13—whether the commission has the power to publish information about the voting systems for public awareness purposes in this particular referendum. Therefore the Government considered it best to make the position absolutely clear and accordingly, we tabled an amendment to insert paragraph 9(2) into Schedule 1 in Committee in the other place, which was passed and is now reflected in the Bill.
We do not see that it is necessary, or desirable, to mandate that the commission must issue information, as amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Low, aim to do. Rather, it is the commission’s prerogative. The commission has indicated that it would like this power and that it clearly intends to exercise it but we do not think that the Bill should go further than that and oblige it to do so. Moreover, it is simply unnecessary to legally obligate the commission in this respect. The commission has already publicly indicated its intention to produce this information, and has published the draft text that will form the basis of public information leaflets on its website. I am glad that some noble Lords have seen it. It is important that those who take a real interest in these matters should look at it and send their comments to the Electoral Commission regarding this information before the leaflets are published.
The same point, concerning the appropriateness of imposing a legal mandate on the commission in this area, also applies to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. These would obligate the commission to provide a leaflet summarising the meaning of the question, together with the main arguments for and against first past the post and alternative vote. The amendments also specify that the leaflet must be impartial and unbiased, and distributed to every household in the UK, so far as possible.
The commission is clear that the leaflets will contain factual information; that this information will be impartial and unbiased—it would go against the commission's regulations to promote one particular outcome or be anything other than unbiased—and that it will go to every household in the UK. For this reason we do not think it appropriate that the information includes arguments for and against each voting system. The information will be factual, whereas the pros and cons are subjective. These arguments will naturally be for the campaigns. It is hard to see how the commission could be expected reasonably to summarise all of the arguments for and against in a way that is commonly accepted to be impartial and unbiased. This is an inherently partial subject, and the more the commission is drawn in to trying to describe the pros and cons, the more open it would become to allegations of partiality. It is important that the commission is neutral. Therefore, the arguments for and against should be left to the campaigns.
Lord Davies of Stamford
The Leader of the House is making exactly the point that I made, namely that it would be quite wrong and inappropriate for the commission to try to summarise the arguments for and against. Will he deal with the proposal that I made, with some support from my colleagues, that if there are two coherent campaigns, one on each side, the two organisations concerned should be invited to produce a leaflet that would be sent free to every household with the information pack from the Electoral Commission, as happened in 1975?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right, and therefore he and I are in agreement on this. As far as concerns the two campaigns, their material will not be part of the same leaflet pack. The campaigns, too, will get a free post, so that every voter will be left in no doubt about the information. Of course, we expect the media to play a full part in the campaign in the run-up to the referendum.
Lord Campbell-Savours
What about factual inaccuracies, for example the discussion about 50 per cent? Ministers at the Dispatch Box—including the noble Lord himself—have had to correct the record on the 50 per cent question. Does he think that the Electoral Commission might be in a position, in a neutral way, to set the record straight that it is not a requirement for a candidate to secure more than 50 per cent of the votes to be elected under AV?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that is why I hope that the noble Lord will look at the website. If he does, he will find that the Electoral Commission has already made that point in its draft. He will be immensely reassured, as will the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.
I will respond to a couple of other issues raised by the amendments in this group. We very much agree with the intention of the noble Lord to ensure that leaflets are written in plain English. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, my noble friend Lord Newton and others can be assured that the Electoral Commission is seeking the advice of language experts and working with the Plain English Campaign to produce its material. Nothing in the Bill prevents this, and the commission is doing it anyway, so I hope that the noble Lord will agree that that part of the amendment is unnecessary.
I am sorry to have dealt with these matters quite fully, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, they are important issues. I hope that I have put the Committee's mind at rest that these matters have been thought about.
Lord Wills
Before the noble Lord concludes his remarks, perhaps I might ask him to address the issue that I asked my noble friend Lord Grocott to address, namely the role that public service broadcasting organisations in particular should play in the debate. It is perfectly possible that they will think that this is an arcane and abstruse issue that deserves 10 minutes on “Newsnight”, and that will be that. Does he think that that would be an acceptable discharge of their public service obligations, or would he expect them to play a fuller role in fully, fairly and impartially examining all the issues on both sides of the debate?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am convinced that the broadcasters will see it as part of their remit to involve themselves in these debates. It is up to them to decide how they do so and is not at the direction of the Government, however desirable those of us in government might think that that would be.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I am surprised that the debate has lasted so long. On the other hand, it has been quite interesting. There has been talk of contentious items. The first thing that I contend is that the largest group in this House is the coalition, not the Opposition. We could have a debate about that: it is the kind of thing that we might put on the leaflets. As someone said, it is symptomatic and sad that the only debates on the Bill in which these issues have been raised have been in this unelected House of Lords. They were not debated in the other place and certainly will not be, so we need not apologise for debating them here.
There is another surprising thing in this debate. We have agreed to finish Committee stage tomorrow, and when there is such an arrangement, it is normal for those who have restrained themselves from participating in the debate to pile into the debate. That is what used to happen in the other place. However, we have had only one contribution from the Liberal Democrats. They know that they can speak on this without affecting the outcome simply because we are going to finish tomorrow anyway, yet they still refuse to join in the debate. However, that is their problem, not mine.
It has been an interesting debate, and I wish to raise a couple of further points. The legislation talks about information to “persons”, not households. As far as I know, there are 44 million electors in 27 million households. The legislation says “persons”. People are going to vote, not households. If we want to talk about the bias, it might be considered bias in the proposed leaflet—I have the draft in my hand—for the status quo to apply in terms of which system will be dealt with first. The issue will be: which system will be described first in the leaflet? There could be a question of bias. I have no view about which way round they should be, but if I was really fanatical, I could nit-pick and consult lawyers about which one is going to be described first—leaving aside the fact that there are four pages to one system and one page to the other, which is another issue.
Furthermore, no one has mentioned the costs involved. I saw press reports at the weekend of the yes campaign being backed by about £6 million and the no campaign somewhat under £1 million. Obviously there is money to be spent on this. It is not impossible to do this. I have so far refrained from mentioning, as I did before, the fact that in New Zealand there was never any complaint, to the best of my knowledge, about the literature put out by its Electoral Commission for its two referendums when they changed the voting system. So it is perfectly possible to explain.
I am pleased about something that is contained in the Electoral Commission draft, which I have only just seen. It will not wash in terms of explanation, but it will stop the Deputy Prime Minister telling fibs any more. The draft says:
“Because voters don’t have to rank all of the candidates, an election can be won under the ‘alternative vote’ system with less than half the total votes cast”.
Let us have an end to that. I know that the Leader said that; he is not going to point out the errors of the Deputy Prime Minister, who started peddling this view. I could peddle the issue about how it ends tactical voting. It does not—it moves tactical voting to the second vote.
We have had an interesting debate. My noble friend talked about leaflets. It will be booklets, not leaflets. I do not see why the Royal Mail cannot do it. It can deliver to every household quite quickly. The difficulty is in the timing. Nothing can be printed until after Royal Assent. One assumes that something will be ready to go, if the Plain English Campaign has looked at it. However, it is going to go through letter boxes in the UK at exactly the same time as other election literature. Will it get the justice that it deserves? Clearly, we are embarking on a big project. As I have said, I have no view about the referendum on 5 May. I only offered a lifeboat if a lifeboat was needed. I do not campaign one way or the other. I simply think that, as I said last night, time is running short to get the message across in a way that will result in a meaningful vote.
Some practical problems may come up in terms of the mechanism that will be involved. One assumes that contracts have been looked at. You cannot just go to Royal Mail and say, “By the way, you know there are local elections in which there is no free post, but there are poll cards; and, by the way, we are having a referendum. Can you knock an extra one out for every household in the country?” Royal Mail will say, “No one has asked us about that. We have not got the capacity for that. We need more warning”. Has anybody done that? I presume we can ask that when we debate further amendments. However, in view of the need to make progress, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“subject to the approval of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission”
Lord Bach
Following the previous debate, I can move this amendment from the opposition Front Bench comparatively shortly. We believe that it is absolutely appropriate that the Electoral Commission has the lead role in providing the public with educational materials in regard to the alternative vote referendum. That was the position adopted by the previous Labour Government in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, which originally contained clauses to provide for an AV referendum, supported by noble Lords from the Liberal Democrat Party but absolutely torpedoed and killed off by the Conservative Front Bench in the wash-up before the election.
We remain of the view that the Electoral Commission is best placed to provide the public with the neutral, factual background information that they will need to make an informed decision in the referendum. There is also no question that there is, as we have debated, a serious need for such background information. As we discussed a few minutes ago, noble Lords may well have read the report of the Electoral Commission on the intelligibility of the referendum question as then posed, which was published last September, following the original proposition put forward in the Bill. Following extensive public consultation, the commission found that the vast majority of UK citizens had only a slim grasp, if any grasp at all, of the choice which is being put to them in the AV referendum which, as my noble friend Lord Grocott quite rightly said in the previous debate—I hate to embarrass him—changes our constitution and may change it for a long time to come. Who knows? On the previous amendment, I quoted various short passages from that report and I shall not repeat them.
There is clearly a need for public education about the concepts and issues at stake in the referendum on electoral reform. Given the current low level of knowledge, it seems clear that the education people receive will shape the way in which they think and have a very great influence on how they then act. I shall not repeat my Irish cautionary tale about the trouble that a referendum commission, or in this case the Electoral Commission, can find itself in, but many such difficulties were outlined in the contributions made on the previous group of amendments. There is no doubt that it is a very difficult line for the Electoral Commission to follow without finding itself in very serious hot water from one side or the other or perhaps both.
The purpose of the amendment is to provide the Electoral Commission with some sort of cover which would insulate it against unwarranted accusations of showing favouritism, for example, to one argument over another. It would provide for a Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, a body which already exists, as noble Lords will know, and it would have a role in signing off materials which the commission intends, under its broad provisions, to disseminate about the AV referendum. That Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission would include, of course, senior Members of Parliament from all the main parties and would be chaired by the Speaker, who has no party affiliation.
That seems to us a sensible proposal which would strengthen the legitimacy of the referendum process and help to ensure that the Electoral Commission does not become embroiled unnecessarily or inadvertently in a political controversy which would tarnish the poll and tarnish the result of the referendum which, as I say, may or may not change the constitution of our country for good. It is a modest proposal but I hope one that may find some support in the Committee, particularly from the Minister. I beg to move.
Lord Soley
I referred to this matter in my earlier comments and I am encouraged to make a further comment partly by the speech made by my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford but also by that made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. The problem here is paragraph 9(2) of Schedule 1. Paragraph 9(1) is very clear. It does not put the Electoral Commission in the firing line at all. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who I assume will answer this debate, heard anything of the previous debate he will have heard anxiety expressed in all speeches about the dangers of putting the Electoral Commission in a position where it takes the blame for not getting a balanced view of the two systems. As I have said on a number of occasions, it is very difficult to write a pamphlet describing the two systems without, in some way, being biased. My noble friend Lord Rooker has already touched on this.
There seem to be two ways of dealing with this problem. One is the way put forward by my noble friend on the Front Bench, which is to allow a political committee, the Speaker’s Committee, to be the lightning conductor. That committee would oversee the work that was done and would sign it off and if there were any flak from it, it would not go straight to the Electoral Commission. That is one way of dealing with it.
Perhaps I may suggest another way which came to me when I heard my noble friend Lord Davies speak—I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, gave a fairly positive response to it—and that is the idea of the two campaigning groups being able to send out a leaflet, at public charge, so that it would be done rather like an election address. Looking back to paragraph 9, sub-paragraph (2) is problematic because that is where the Electoral Commission is required to make judgments about the wording used to describe the system. If we took out sub-paragraph (2)—I do not expect the Minister to respond to this straightaway but he might want to think about it—and simply left in sub-paragraph (1), then the Government could, in this Bill—I suspect that it would not need to go into the Bill—allow for the two campaigning groups to produce the leaflet as described by my noble friend Lord Davies with some sympathetic support from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. That could be sent round, either with the Electoral Commission’s pamphlet or separately—I should have thought it would go with it—and in that way you take the responsibility of describing the two systems other than in a very basic sense which is required in paragraph 9(1), and put the requirement in paragraph 9(2) onto the two campaigning organisations.
I hope I am making myself clear. It is slightly complicated, but I am arguing that the two campaigns will know what they want to say for and against the two systems. If they produce their own leaflets and they are circulated with the pamphlet put out by the Electoral Commission, which they will do under paragraph 9(1), then it leaves the Electoral Commission in the rather tighter position of simply saying that there is a referendum, informing people about it, informing them how to vote, but not getting into the nitty-gritty of the pros and cons or the description of how the two systems might work. That would be left to the two campaigning organisations. That way you would take the Electoral Commission out of the firing line. The alternative way is to do as my noble friend has suggested from the Front Bench and leave the Speaker’s Committee to oversee the leaflet. It seems to me that either of those systems would act as a lightning conductor for the Electoral Commission and not put it in the firing line for what will almost certainly be seen as in some way a biased leaflet. I hope I have made myself clear. Perhaps the Minister would like to think about that.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for moving the amendment. This important amendment follows on from the previous debate and I welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Soley. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said in introducing his amendment, it is appreciated that the Electoral Commission should take the lead role in providing useful factual information. We believe it plays an important role in providing information to the public and there is a governance framework for the Electoral Commission, under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, which we believe has operated effectively for 10 years. It is also important to recall in the context of this amendment that latterly the Electoral Commission has had the benefit of advice and involvement of representatives from the political parties: the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for the Labour Party, the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, for the Conservative Party and Mr David Howarth, the former Member of Parliament for Cambridge who represents the Liberal Democrats.
The Speaker’s Committee is an important part of that framework. It produces an annual report to Parliament on the commission's performance, but the nature of the role of the Speaker's Committee is different from that proposed in the amendment. The Speaker's Committee is currently not given any say in how the commission should exercise its powers. It is there to report on the performance of the commission rather than to have a say in the exercise of its powers.
The purpose of paragraph 9(2) of Schedule 1 is to provide legal clarity so that the Electoral Commission can issue information about both the first-past-the-post and the alternative vote systems which it identifies as being necessary to help public understanding of the referendum question. I hope that that goes some way to answering the point of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, which was whether we could delete paragraph 9(2) and leave it to the respective campaigns. Although the respective campaigns will have facility under the free post to put out their argument—no doubt a positive argument for why they wish to retain first past the post or to move to the alternative vote and an argument against the other system—that is clearly not a role that would be appropriate for the Electoral Commission.
Paragraph 9(2) provides a clear legal basis for the Electoral Commission, having identified a need for factual information, to provide it. In his response to the previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that it could be accused of bias because first past the post was described before the alternative vote. In fairness, if one looks at the electoral question, the question for the referendum, which is part of the Bill, first past the post is mentioned there before the alternative vote, so it is probably not unreasonable that the Electoral Commission should reflect in its information the question which Parliament is debating and which appears in the Bill, published on advice from the Electoral Commission.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
If a leaflet is to be produced by campaigning organisations, the noble and learned Lord will understand that, normally, when making an argument, you put the argument you want to make second. It is assumed that in a “on the one hand, on the other hand” argument, you put the argument that you favour second. Cannot that be got around in a leaflet by having one side of one page for and the other against?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The answer to that, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, pointed out, is that it takes a bit longer and more pages to describe the alternative vote than it does to describe the first-past-the-post system. Although that is an innovative and ingenious way to try to overcome the problem, I think that a practical issue is associated with it.
As my noble friend the Leader of the House said, the Electoral Commission has already published the proposed content of its information leaflets on its website. It is keen to have comments on the draft. If noble Lords wish to make representations about that information, they can of course send their comments to the Electoral Commission before the leaflets are published.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can the Minister help me on one issue? He knows as well as I do that before elections, party election broadcasts replace party political broadcasts. Will there be referendum broadcasts for the yes and no campaigns? Will that be part of the arrangements for the referendum?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Off the top of my head—I think I know the answer but I cannot be certain—I think that the answer is yes. I know that parties cannot use their election broadcasts for the referendum campaign. I think that that was decided in a case prior to the Scottish referendum in 1979. I think that there will be broadcasts, but perhaps I can confirm that in the course of my remarks.
I am mindful that all public bodies need to be held properly accountable for what they do, but we need to strike a sensible balance. It seems to me that there are dangers in introducing a role for a parliamentary committee in approving the operational work of the commission, as is envisaged under the amendment, rather than monitoring and commenting on its performance, as is the case established under the PPERA. It must also be remembered that the Speaker's Committee, however august, comprises politicians. Irrespective of how carefully we might think that the committee would use its power—I have no reason to think that it would do other than that—perception can be important in these matters. There might be concern if the Electoral Commission—which, I think, everyone agrees, has a reputation for its impartiality—had in this crucial area to have its work vetted or approved by a body comprising politicians.
Furthermore, building in an extra procedural hurdle before the commission could issue the clarifying information to help voters could be difficult if confusion about the systems was allowed to take root and hares were allowed to run which could not be corrected promptly because of the need to refer. We must also bear in mind that the commission already issues a lot of useful guidance to voters, parties, candidates and electoral administrators about the working of our system. That has worked well. I am not aware of any significant concerns about it.
I confirm that my instinctive answer was right: there will be referendum broadcasts for the designated campaigns.
It is the commission's responsibility to decide how, and whether, to provide that information. As I said, I think it is widely accepted across the Committee that the commission is well established as a neutral, independent body. I am confident that it does not need the extra provision which the amendment would impose. There is a further opportunity for noble Lords to comment on the draft. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bach
I thank the noble and learned Lord for his full answer and my noble friend Lord Soley for his contribution in support of my amendment. I am slightly disappointed by the noble and learned Lord’s response. As I said in opening, this is a modest proposal—and a practical one, I think. Without doubt, the Electoral Commission will come under a lot of pressure, to put it mildly, in the lead-up to and during the campaign for the referendum. No doubt, much of that criticism will be ill judged and unfair, but the Electoral Commission will have to face it.
This modest amendment is an attempt to give some cover, some protection to the Electoral Commission. The Speaker's Committee already exists. For the life of me, I cannot understand what are the dangers of extending its role to this issue. I understand that the Government do not want to adopt the amendment. I should like them to go away to think about it again because, as a practical measure to try to stop the difficulties that will undoubtedly arise in future, it seems to us to be sensible.
Of course I will withdraw the amendment today. We want to consider in more detail what the noble and learned Lord said, but I tell the Committee that we may well return to this issue at Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I move this amendment in a probing frame of mind. It refers to paragraph 10 of Schedule 1, which provides the nuts and bolts of the referendum arrangements. I sometimes think that they can be skimped in our deliberations. Paragraph 10 is headed, “Encouraging participation”. As I said earlier, I am sure that everybody wants that. Therefore, it is a very important part of the mechanics of the referendum.
My concern is that in paragraph 10, five individuals and tiers of officer are referred to: the Electoral Commission, the chief counting officer, regional counting officers, counting officers and registration officers. The last four—the chief counting officer and everybody down to registration officers—are under a duty and must,
“take whatever steps the officer thinks appropriate to encourage participation in the referendum”.
My concern, especially in view of the tight time scale in which the referendum is likely to be conducted, is that there will be a lack of co-ordination between all these different officers about what they do. You could get a right mess with each of them carrying out their duty to encourage participation, some in this way, some in that, some here, some there, often overlapping and often leaving gaps of encouragement. I therefore thought it fit to propose this amendment which will cast upon the chief counting officer a duty to, in effect, facilitate co-operation between all those bodies, not forgetting that in the same paragraph 10, all four sets of officers,
“must have regard to any guidance issued by the Electoral Commission”.
So it has its oar in as well.
It is as simple as that. We surely need somebody who has a primary role to facilitate co-operation between all these various people and organisations. Lastly, I point out that under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the chief counting officer is chair of the Electoral Commission. That is all I need to say. I beg to move.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I am not entirely sure why my Amendment 110ZB is grouped with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but it gives me a particular pleasure to follow him in the debate. We have heard only too little from his Benches in the course of this debate, and therefore I wish him well in his speech. I should perhaps add that he should mind how he goes on the way home. A vow of omerta has bound the Lib Dems together over this Bill, and he has, I am sure inadvertently, broken it by intervening for a whole two minutes this evening. So mind how you go.
My Amendment 110ZB is not terribly well related to Amendment 110ZA, but is about a quite different matter. It harks back to the stain that still hangs over our democracy from the May general election. Memories in politics are, alas, short, but not in this House, of course. Therefore, I hardly need remind noble Lords of what happened. In a number of constituencies—16 in all—people turned up at the polling station before the 10 o’clock deadline wishing to cast a vote in those constituencies. They were not allowed to vote. According to the Electoral Commission’s 20 May interim report on the matter, 1,200 voters were excluded from voting as a result of that cock-up.
For each of the 1,200 voters, the ban was absolute. It may not be a large percentage of the national total, but for a few days, our papers, no doubt exaggerating a little bit, were comparing us to a third world democracy. We could not even organise a vote, and when you see the way voters queue up in South Africa for hours and hours under a hot sun to exercise their right, and you find that in our own country people who have turned up on time are denied it, it leads to a shiver of shame going down one’s spine. The Electoral Commission’s interim report blamed poor planning, unsuitable buildings, contingency arrangements that were not triggered in time or proved ineffective and, incidentally, restrictive legislation that stopped those queuing getting ballot papers, even though they were in the polling station on time.
Planning for the referendum is in one sense at least perhaps more difficult than planning for a general election. Yes, we should all love to see a turnout for the referendum at least as great as that in the general election, but I do not think that many psephological experts think that is terribly likely. It really is terribly difficult to predict what turnout will be. You can imagine that the campaign starts with a poll showing a great gap between the various sides, and therefore fewer and fewer people plan to vote because they do not think their vote will make a difference. As it gets closer to polling day, it may be that polls start to narrow, and a whole load of people decide that they will after all go to the polls. By then, electoral officers will have made their dispositions and decided how many staff to have, how many polling stations and so on. In this case, the Leader of the House’s technique for deciding what the turnout will be—the same technique that he used for the number of seats—by choosing a nice round number out of the air is not that much worse than any other technique. There is a danger that the accommodation will not be sufficient for the number of people who turn out to vote on the day.
The Library tells me that we are still awaiting the final report from the Electoral Commission on last May’s debacle, but bits of it have leaked out. The Government’s response has left a nasty sniff in the air. The Times reported, even before the report came out on 11 November, that Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, had turned down the proposal in the commission’s interim report for a change in the legislation so that those who turn up before 10 o’clock can vote, even if they have not cast their vote by 10 o’clock. He said that the answer to poor organisation was not to reach for the statute book. Of course it is not, but it seems sensible to have two barrels to your shotgun: to try to deal with the poor organisation and to change the legislation that inadvertently caused this problem. I am therefore a little sorry and a little surprised that this legislation—absent the amendment I am now proposing—does not seem to do anything about that shortcoming.
Whenever I propose an amendment of this kind, somebody stands up and asks whether I have consulted the Electoral Commission about it, and I always retort no, because we are in Committee and it is not the duty of a Member of this House to consult the Electoral Commission on every proposal he puts forward at this stage in a Bill. I am, and should be, slightly surprised that the Government have not consulted it. I am disappointed that I have not seen, although it may exist, any kind of response to such a consultation. This was a serious problem. It is not a joke. If it is repeated, it will cast permanent doubt on our electoral arrangements, and it is therefore absolutely essential that we make sure that there will be no repetition of this on 5 May.
I should have said earlier that there is one other reason why there could be a repetition. If the referendum goes ahead on 5 May, and it remains to be seen whether that will be possible, it will be quite a complicated election. At the polling station, they will be dishing out one set of papers for the election of Governments in Scotland and Wales and another set of papers for the referendum, and people will be coming up saying “Please sir, what do I do with that?”; “I don’t know that”; “I didn’t know I was going to get that”; and all that sort of thing. It would be quite easy to imagine circumstances in which the staff at the polling stations became overwhelmed by the sheer volume of queries.
I shall not try to have a vote on this tonight. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Rennard
The noble Lord might be reassured that I am not going to ask him the question that he feared about whether he had consulted the Electoral Commission on this issue. Rather, does he not think, in view of the potential problems he was just outlining, that his amendment could add to those problems? His amendment would apply to the issue of ballot papers for the referendum only. The effect of his amendment will be that different laws would apply for the issue of ballot papers for the referendum from those that would apply for the issue of ballot papers for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and local elections. That would further add to the confusion. For those of us who agree that there is a problem with this matter and that it might be better dealt with by legislation, the legislation should be comprehensive for all elections and referendums and not just the referendum on 5 May.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, there is a great deal in what the noble Lord says. The trouble is that we have got before us the parliamentary voting Bill and I cannot change the whole of electoral law in a clause within it. If the noble Lord can prevail on Ministers to change the electoral law more generally as soon as possible, then that would be great. I would rather that on 5 May people were able to vote in the referendum, even if a cock-up occurred that stopped them voting in the local elections, than that they went all the way to the polling station and could not cast a ballot on anything. That would be much worse. While the anomaly that the noble Lord points to does exist, I think it preferable to the disaster that could occur if my amendment, or something like it, is not adopted.
As I say, I am not going to force a vote, partly because the Government may know more about the final report of the Electoral Commission than I do. I hope, however, that the Minister will be very responsive to the points made in this House and will see some merit in what I am saying. I hope I can look forward to him coming forward with proposals to deal with the matter on Report. If he does not—and I am not predicting this—the danger is that on 5 May we will get less a verdict on the electoral system and more some very cross voters indeed. That would be something that nobody in this House would wish to see.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, first, I support the principle behind the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, has moved. The arrangements as set out in the schedule are somewhat ambiguous. His amendment is one way, at least, of clarifying that. There may be other, better ways, for all I know, but certainly these arrangements need to be clarified. I strongly support the view behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—that the situation in the last election, where people who came and were there before 10 pm could not, because of the law, be given ballot papers, was absolutely disgraceful. Whatever the reason, on the night the lady from the Electoral Commission who spoke did not appear to me to have grasped exactly what the situation was. She said that it had given clear instructions that the ballot papers were not to be handed out after 10 pm. It suggests to me—and I do not know what the right answer to it is—that some flexibility is required to deal with special circumstances. The people who are running the different polling stations may not necessarily be the top brass of the arrangements, but some kind of discretion must be given, because that kind of thing can happen. I do not expect for a minute that anybody realised exactly what was happening until it was really too late, and then they had this terrific sledgehammer of “You cannot issue a ballot paper after 10 pm”; witness what the Electoral Commission had said. In a sense it made the matter worse. I do not say that the people in the polling booth could have given them out after 10 pm, although I think if I was in a polling booth and in charge as a clerk I would have had a shot at that.
It is important that this matter should be sorted out one way or another. If the Government do not think that the Electoral Commission solution is the best, then let us have one. We need a solution. I agree, of course, that it needs to be a solution that applies to all elections—not just the referendum—although, unfortunately, I do not think that that could be done in this Bill. We are trying to do enough already. We cannot sort the whole thing out, but it is certainly important to sort it out. A very short Bill that would not take the time that this one has taken could go through both Houses and sort this out in good time for 5 May.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, I follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, when he says that he agrees with the intention of both these amendments. It may well be that the wording can be improved—and it probably can—but there will be general approval for the intention. I also begin by welcoming the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and indeed that of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. Someone mentioned the vow of omerta. When we had a Liberal Democrat intervention in an area of policy which in many ways they have taken as their own, I was reminded rather more of the brave Horatius at the bridge:
“And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer”.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, mentioned the question of facilitation. This is clearly a possible problem because there will be a number of right hands and a number of left hands. It is important that this be a key role—even if the actual wording is not wholly appropriate.
I was puzzled by another matter in this same section. In paragraph 10(1), we are told that:
“The Chief Counting Officer must take whatever steps the officer thinks appropriate”.
At the end, in paragraph 10(5), we are told that:
“The Minister may reimburse any expenditure incurred by an officer for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) or (2)”
On the face of it, this gives an unlimited expenditure for the worthy objects of this paragraph and goes against all the normal government policies of being frightened and hesitant about open-ended commitments. It is wholly unlimited. One’s mind boggles at what, in following up this worthy objective, a very zealous officer may wish to do. So I simply commend to the Government—
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
The key word that the noble Lord quoted is “may”. It gives a discretion to the Government as to what they reimburse, so the matter is not as open as he thinks.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
That is one way of seeking to limit the zeal of any particular officer. It may well be that there should be written into the clause some test of reasonableness or otherwise, but we have to have some limit.
The final comment I would like to make on the amendment is on the point made by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, which was supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I had the privilege of being an observer, or monitor, at both the South African election in 1994 and the first free election in Namibia in 1989. What amazed me at the time was that many people who had not had the opportunity before—those who were non-white—had such enthusiasm to get to the ballot box. I recall seeing young men carrying their aged mothers on their shoulders to get to that ballot box. I recall the long queues of people waiting to vote. All of those, in fact, who were in the tent at the relevant time, were allowed to vote. For any democrat it was a wonderfully emotional and uplifting moment.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has just said, it was very different when we saw the people who had been excluded from voting at the time of the last election. As a democrat, I was extremely happy to see the display of real anger on the part of those who were excluded. We wait with interest to see how the Electoral Commission will respond, but surely it is not beyond the wit of man, or woman either, to give out cards to those waiting in the queue at 10 pm to enable those who have made the effort to vote on time to do so. Indeed, everything must be done to encourage people to vote. Someone who is turned away at the last moment because there is a queue may, in the future, join the ranks of those who do not vote. Let us look very carefully at this in order to encourage democracy.
Lord Maxton
My Lords, as someone who takes an interest in the field of IT and new technologies, I have to say that the idea that we still vote by putting a cross on a piece of paper, having had to travel somewhere to actually put that paper into a box, appals me. I would not dream of booking a holiday or anything else in any way other than online through my computer and paying with a bank card. There is some security risk, maybe, but not very much, yet we still have this absurd system for voting. But, of course, almost the first thing this Government did was to abolish the one way we could have had electronic voting by getting rid of the rather small system of ID cards that we were introducing. If we had ID cards, we would not have any of this bother.
This real point is this. My noble friend is right at one level to say that in Scotland we are going to have two ballot papers presented to us—but we are not because we are going to have three of them. There will be one using the first past the post system to elect the Member for the constituency, and a second paper giving a list of parties to elect. That, by the way, raises the point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Rooker about where you stand on the ballot paper. In my view, it is almost certain that Alex Salmond is the First Minister of Scotland because he made sure, when using the list system, that he was listed as “Alex Salmond for First Minister” rather than “SNP”. He was at the top of the list and probably got just about enough votes to make sure he won the election.
We are now to have the AV paper to contend with as well, and some people will find it difficult. The referendum is very important, but a problem that may arise is that some people in Scotland will decide that the Scottish elections are considerably more important than the referendum for AV. After all, the Scottish Parliament deals with the education system, housing and all the social issues that affect people’s lives. They may say, “I can’t be bothered with the referendum paper. I will deal with the Scottish Parliament ones”. If the turnout for the AV referendum is smaller than it is for the Scottish Parliament, that will begin to cast doubts on the referendum itself.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Does my noble friend recognise that the position is even more complicated, as I explained in a debate we had before Christmas? There are also two franchises, so although the vast majority of people will get three ballot papers, some will be entitled to only one and others to two. The returning officer has to keep two registers, so it is going to be very complicated, and the likelihood of queues to vote is even greater.
Lord Maxton
My noble friend makes a good point because the chance of a reduced turnout is even further increased by that. Moreover, if we have to have this sort of electoral system and way of voting, maybe there is a case for switching the polling day from a Thursday to a Sunday because at least that would give people the whole day to cast their vote, whereas those who are at work on a Thursday have to do it after they get home.
I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. He is quite right to say that there should be somebody to do this. But whoever is in charge of the election, what he will have to decide—certainly in Scotland—is the order for counting the different sets of votes. I assume that the same people will count both the referendum and the Scottish parliamentary votes. There is already criticism in Scotland that, because the referendum for AV is being held on the same day, the announcement of the results of the Scottish parliamentary election may be put off for several days because they will want to announce both results at the same time. Whoever is in charge of the election will have to make the decision about what to count first. The various ballot papers will have to be sorted out, as my noble friend said, or will it be decided that the Scottish parliamentary election votes will be counted and those results announced first?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I hesitate to ask the noble Lord to give way again, but I think I can help him on that. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 gives the chief counting officer the power to direct regional counting officers and so on, and gives regional counting officers the power to direct counting officers within their region about the discharge of their functions. That will probably include directions about the sort of issues the noble Lord has raised. But of course that does not go across to paragraph 10, which is all about encouraging participation.
Lord Maxton
I gather that some returning officers in Scotland have already begun to complain that they do not know which votes they will have to count first, and that this is causing some confusion in their ranks. Maybe it is for the Government or the Electoral Commission to take a decision on this. However, I think that there will be some anger in Scotland if the results for who is to form the next Government in Scotland and who is to be the next First Minister in Scotland are delayed by the result of the decision on the AV referendum, if that is done first and the other results are delayed. For some of us, the idea of Alex Salmond being First Minister for even one more hour let alone one, two or three more days is more than we want, but the fact is that I would accept that decision if it is made. The power in the Bill may allow the officer to make that decision, but it would be a very important decision for him to make.
Lord Bach
My Lords, in our view these are two excellent amendments, although it is rather surprising that they have been put together in the same group. What links them is their excellence, and I hope that the Minister will be encouraging to both noble Lords who tabled them. I do not fear for the health of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, on his way home. We all know him as a brave and independent-minded Peer who has already shown, in the course of the eight or nine months of the coalition’s existence—it seems a long time already—that he can act independently. Looking at him from where I stand now, he seems to be the same man he was before he voted a few months ago against the coalition on an important amendment on a different issue, so good luck to him in his amendment. Of course, if he had been concerned, he need not be any longer because he has the protection and support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and there cannot be any better protection and support than that around the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, pointed out the ambiguity and ambivalence of paragraph 10 and the need for it to be simplified. For those on the Front Bench on this side, that is clear, and I think it is the only point I need to make about his amendment. We hope that his noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness will take note.
My noble friend Lord Lipsey’s amendment also seems to hit the mark for us. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, was right to say that what happened at the end of the last general election night—thankfully in a comparatively small number of venues, although even one was one too many—was absolutely disgraceful. Indeed, if it had happened in any other country, whether it was a sophisticated democracy or a new democracy, I venture to think that it would have been reported in the British media as being proof that that country had not really grown up democratically and lacked certain vital factors in elections. We must make sure that it does not happen again, and indeed I think that that is what my noble friend is suggesting in his amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was quite right to say that this would only affect the referendum, but it needs to affect all elections. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is perhaps best placed of anybody in the House to use his influence to make sure that government views can be changed so that this can become general practice rather than just for the referendum.
I have nothing else to say from the Front Bench except that we hope very much that the Minister will be sympathetic to these two amendments, both of which will add to the virtue of the Bill.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, in addressing the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Phillips, I can assure him that he need not be concerned about proposing it.
Amendment 110ZA would impose a duty on the chief counting officer to facilitate co-operation between the officer, the Electoral Commission, the regional counting officers, counting officers and registration officers. In common with other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, the Government agree with the intention of the amendment, which is to ensure that there is a strong relationship and good communication among those involved in running the referendum. However, we do not believe the amendment is necessary because there is nothing in the Bill which would inhibit this kind of activity from taking place.
Paragraph 10(1) of Schedule 1 states:
“The Chief Counting Officer must take whatever steps the officer thinks appropriate to encourage participation in the referendum”.
That, of course, includes precisely the kind of co-operation suggested in the amendment. Moreover, I can assure my noble friend and the Committee that this kind of co-operation is already happening in practice. The chief counting officer has established a working group, which includes regional counting officers, to co-ordinate activity ahead of the planned polls; and the commission’s plans for public awareness have been shared with this group, as well as with counting officers and electoral registration officers. We are assured that material will be developed by the Electoral Commission for use by electoral administrators to support their public awareness work and to ensure appropriate co-ordination with its own activities.
On a slightly more technical point, the amendment does not sit well with the current wording and spirit of paragraph 10 of Schedule 1, where the onus is on the chief counting officer being responsible for deciding what steps she thinks are appropriate to encourage participation. It should be noted that when undertaking this responsibility the chief counting officer can also use her power of direction under paragraph 5(5) of the schedule to require regional counting officers and counting officers to take a particular course of action to encourage participation. In contrast, the amendment would mandate the chief counting officer to undertake specific steps, which is not the intention of this provision.
In addition, one effect of requiring co-operation among certain named bodies is that such a requirement could raise a question about whether it was also permissible for the chief counting officer to consult other bodies that are not mentioned there. That problem does not arise in the original drafting.
I understand the sentiments and the intention underlying my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Will the Minister respond to the question of my noble friend Lord Anderson about the conflict between the requirement on the chief counting officer to encourage participation as he thinks fit and the fact that the Minister may not necessarily reimburse the local authority? If a registration officer believed that it was appropriate to encourage participation by, let us say, running a rapid registration campaign prior to the referendum and got on with it, and then it was decided that because the money was not available he could not proceed, would not that have legal implications for the officer’s failure to act?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I think the noble Lord is asking whether, if a person is frustrated in his activities—I take a technical approach to this—the post hoc situation would be reimbursement. I take the point and do not wish to diminish it, but perhaps I could have some time to reflect on what he is saying. It is agreed on all sides of the Committee that there should be encouragement, which we do not wish to have cut off.
Lord Campbell-Savours
A local authority registration officer might write a report to the democratic services committee or a department in the local authority saying, “I wish to proceed on this basis because I believe it is an appropriate way for me to encourage participation”, and the local authority might say, “We are sorry but the money is not available and the Government are not going to reimburse us in the event the expenditure takes place”. Surely that must have legal implications for the position of the officer concerned.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I do not think that is how it would work. Reasonable expenditure will be reimbursed by the Government. If the expenditure was unreasonable and extravagant and went beyond anything that could be considered reasonable, there should not be an obligation on the Government to reimburse. I can reassure the noble Lord that reasonable expenditure for the purposes set out in paragraph 10(1) and 10(2) would be reimbursed. The noble Lord has put forward a serious hypothetical situation, but anyone would accept that running a registration campaign was a reasonable thing to do. If someone went about it in an extravagant way—which I cannot begin to think of at the moment—that would be deemed unreasonable by most sensible people and it would not be reasonable that taxpayers’ money should reimburse it. However, with a straightforward, reasonable campaign, the Government would reimburse.
On the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, the Scottish parliamentary elections will be counted first, ahead of the referendum. The selection of the First Minister does not normally follow the election anyway. I recall that in 2003 we did not get down to negotiations about establishing a coalition until the Monday after the election. Nevertheless, the point remains that the Scottish election count will take precedence over the referendum count.
There is a link between this amendment and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, which relates to the role of the chief counting officer and the powers available to her. Sentiments have been expressed in the debate, as on other occasions, that democratic people were profoundly perturbed by the scenes they saw on the night of the last general election when people were not allowed to exercise their democratic rights. Paragraph 10(1) of the schedule states:
“The Chief Counting Officer must take whatever steps the officer considers appropriate to encourage participation in the referendum”.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would provide that:
“These steps shall include measures to ensure that all those wishing to vote and arriving at the polling station within the appointed hours are able to do so”.
Clearly, the amendment is intended to address the scenes and situations we experienced in May last year.
I can assure the Committee that we take very seriously the problems that arose at certain polling stations. The Government have been considering the Electoral Commission’s report on the issue and, in particular, the recommendation that the law be changed to allow people who have not been issued with a ballot paper but are in the queues at 10 pm to vote. We are not convinced or satisfied that the amendment would enable the chief counting officer to direct that ballot papers are issued after 10 pm—if, indeed, that is the intention of the amendment. As the noble Lord indicated in his speech when he spoke to the amendment, the Electoral Commission report noted that that was not possible because it would not comply with the law. Clearly, the chief counting officer cannot issue a direction that contravenes the existing law. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, indicated, that is possibly not something that could be done in the context of this legislation for a referendum alone.
I will try to deal with the other point in a bit more detail. It is important to note that in most cases where the problems occurred in May last year, the Electoral Commission has found that the common factor was inadequate planning processes and contingency arrangements—or, more to the point, that such arrangements were not in place.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, quoted my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister. He quoted him accurately, but perhaps I should just quote a little more of what he said. At Question Time in the other place on 10 November, the Deputy Prime Minister said:
“I happen to think that, in this instance, simply passing a law will not deal with the problem, which was a lack of resources and poor organisation by the returning officer, who acknowledged as much”
—he was specifically talking about Sheffield, where his own constituency is—
“… That is what we need to address; we should not always simply reach for the statute book”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/10; col. 285.]
Officials have met the Electoral Commission, and indeed electoral administrators, to discuss the issue of managing queues at polling stations. It is clear that there are divergent views on the effectiveness of any legislative change, and a significant number of administrators are not in favour of it. Again, that is a reflection of the fact that the problems in that particular case in May last year were because of planning failures and the lack of effective contingency planning.
Given the divergence of views that exist on the specific recommendation of the Electoral Commission and given that there is the general consensus that the problems largely arose from poor planning, we believe there is a need for significant additional discussion before any change to legislation should be proposed, if indeed that is eventually deemed appropriate. There needs to be buy-in from all those who would be involved in administering elections.
Under the Bill, we consider that the chief counting officer already has the necessary powers to provide appropriate guidance, training and support to the regional counting officers, as well as to counting officers themselves, to help address the issues that arose in May 2010. I am aware that some of the contingency arrangements have already changed the ratio of polling clerks to the number of voters at each polling place. We think there is certainly a need for more discussion as to all the potential consequences of any legislative amendment before a change to the principles underlying the existing electoral rules is considered. In these circumstances there is some benefit to having the certainty of the present rules, admittedly with the back-up role that the chief counting officer has the authority to play in giving the necessary guidance, training and support.
Lord Lipsey
Perhaps two things are getting confused here. My amendment would not deal with the strict legislative problem that the Electoral Commission originally identified. That is still under discussion and I agree this is not the appropriate time to put that right. However, my amendment would convey to returning officers the extreme importance that Parliament attaches to tackling these problems. Yes, it would be a declaratory piece of legislation, but that is not without force in this world. The noble and learned Lord might like to reflect on the point that, if he rejects this proposal, it will seem as if the Government are not really taking on board the depth and importance of the problems that arose and the reactions of electors to them. I do not think that is good for the Government and I do not think it is good for government, as a matter of fact.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I cannot accept the second part of what the noble Lord has said, because the Government accept that what happened in May last year was serious. There is no doubt about that. Anyone reading this debate would realise that the view on all sides of the Committee is that the situation was serious. I hope to reassure the noble Lord—who accepts that his amendment would not change the legislative basis for that—that there is a distinction to be made, given that it was accepted that in the cases last year the common factor was one of poor planning. In this case, there will be a chief counting officer, who will have a responsibility and already be aware—not least because of the dual role with the Electoral Commission—about the importance of this issue. I am sure the chief counting officer will be well aware of the sentiments expressed and the important and serious points made in this debate. If the noble Lord’s aim was to get a message across, his amendment has provided a very helpful forum and opportunity to get that message across. She has the powers, we believe, to provide the appropriate guidance, the appropriate training and the appropriate support so that these issues will be addressed and the kind of situation that we saw in May 2010 will not arise again.
Against that background, I ask the noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I really did not want to make heavy weather of this amendment, but I have to say that my noble friend the Minister’s response gave a series of legal interpretations with which I have to disagree. It is unfortunate that I have to disagree, but I do, even though I know that he is advised in these matters and one normally accepts such advice to be beyond question.
The first argument advanced by the Minister was that paragraph 10(1) says:
“The Chief Counting Officer must take whatever steps the officer thinks appropriate to encourage participation”.
He said that such a provision allows the chief counting officer to direct the other officers—regional counting officers and so on—as to what to do and how to do it. I think that is simply wrong. There is no implication of a power of direction in that sub-paragraph. His second argument—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I think that I noted that, when undertaking the responsibility, the chief counting officer can use her power of direction under paragraph 5(5) of Schedule 1 to require action. I think that I emphasised the importance of co-operation—which is both permissible and happening in practice—but I referred to paragraph 5(5) in relation to powers of direction.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I was coming on to paragraph 5(5), but I am afraid that my first point stands. If the Minister looks back at Hansard, he will see that I am right.
Paragraph 5(5) of Schedule 1 explicitly gives the chief counting officer powers to direct counting officers in the discharge of their functions. I thought long and hard about this and consulted—if he will not mind my saying so—with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who knows a thing or two about interpretation. We agreed that the reference there to the power to direct is with regard to the conduct of a referendum. If the Minister looks back on paragraph 5, he will see that it is about the conduct of the poll, the printing of ballot papers, the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers, verification and counting of votes cast—that is, solely and exclusively a power of direction on technical and practical matters.
Lastly, the Minister said that he thought that the situation would be endangered by my amendment because he said that, if there was a right of “knocking heads together” among these five categories of officer, it might involve consultation with outside bodies. However, there is no mandate whatever for that in my amendment. If the Minister says that I have got it wrong—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I apologise if I did not express the matter clearly. What I said was that one effect of requiring co-operation among certain named bodies is that it might raise a question about whether it is also permissible to consult other bodies that are not mentioned there. In other words, if you are mandated to consult A, B, C and D, it may raise a question if you wish actually to consult F.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
There is no reference in my amendment to consultation. This is a power of facilitation and of co-operation among the five sets of officers mentioned. There is no question of consultation, implied or otherwise. This is solely and exclusively among these five sets of people.
I am not a happy mover, I might say, and I would be grateful before I withdraw the amendment if the Minister would agree that this needs further consultation between us. If indeed his arguments prove to be fallacious—he started by sympathising with the sentiment of my amendment—at least there will be the consideration that a further amendment could be brought back at the next stage.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am more than happy to do that. Just looking at it briefly, I think that there is a difference of opinion—not as to intention, but as to our interpretation—and I am more than happy to try to resolve that with my noble friend.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) The Chief Counting Officer is entitled to recover expenses incurred by that officer for or in connection with the referendum if—
(a) the expenses are of a kind that would otherwise have been incurred by counting officers or Regional Counting Officers, and(b) the Chief Counting Officer considered that it would be more economical for the expenses to be incurred by that officer instead.”
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, this group contains Amendments 110B, 110C, 110C, 110D and 110E. The amendment would give the chief counting officer, who is chair of the Electoral Commission, the power to incur expenses for the effective conduct of the referendum and in certain limited circumstances, make payments in respect of those expenses out of moneys to be provided from the Consolidated Fund. I can assure the Committee that the chief counting officer will be able to spend conduct moneys only where doing so provides a clear financial benefit. The Royal Mail, for example, has indicated that it may be able to provide a cheaper service for the sweeps of mail centres—a service that ensures that any votes still in the mail centres towards the end of polling day are identified, extracted and provided to returning and counting officers before the close of poll that evening—if it can contract for this on a national basis with one individual rather than having to negotiate and contract with more than 350 officers who will be conducting the poll at local level.
The amendment would help to make the administration of the referendum easier for the chief counting officer and for counting officers, and provides an opportunity for savings to be made on the conduct of the poll. I beg to move.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
This seems very sensible, but I am slightly bewildered. How on earth does the chief counting officer not have that power anyway?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, when this issue arose, the view was taken that it was uncertain that that power existed and hence there was the need to put it beyond peradventure that it did. The issue was flagged up by the example of the Royal Mail that I gave, and there was concern that that power did not exist. As the noble and learned Lord says, it is a sensible power and one which I hope will commend itself to the Committee.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
“( ) with the addition at the end of paragraph (b) of—“(c) the petitioner’s interest alone shall be sufficient to enable a petition to be lodged””
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am pleased to move this amendment. It was suggested to me last year by the Law Society of Scotland and I tabled it last November—it seems like quite a long time ago. The amendment clarifies the basis on which a judicial review of the certification by the chief or regional counting officers of the ballot papers counted or votes cast in the referendum may be taken. As the Minister will know better than anyone present, now that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has left the Chamber, judicial review is different in Scotland from other parts of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, a petitioner must have both title and interest to sue. In England, only interest is required. We submitted as inequitable in the context of a referendum on United Kingdom voting that the challenges to the count are based on separate legal rights north and south of the border. In order to have title to sue, a person,
“must be a party…to some legal relationship which gives him some right which the person against whom he raises the action either infringes or denies”.
This is from the case of Nicol (D & J) v Trustees of the Harbour of Dundee 1915.
In his Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review, Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, has recommended in paragraph 25 that the current Scots law on standing is too restrictive and that the separate tests of title and interest should be replaced by a single test: whether the petitioner has demonstrated a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the proceedings. This would make the position the same in Scotland as it is in England for anyone who wanted to challenge the result of the referendum, as recommended by Lord Gill. The amendment seeks to give effect to that recommendation.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
This is an important point which my noble friend Lord Foulkes has put so accurately. The position should not be different in England and Scotland. In England, interest is sufficient, which means a general interest—almost in a layman’s sense—in the subject matter, whereas in Scotland, interest and title are needed, title meaning, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, some legal relationship which gives them a right to sue. The amendment would make Scotland and England the same in relation to whether you are entitled to challenge an electoral process which is identical on both sides of the border. That seems sensible. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for bringing this amendment forward. He and I well know that the matter has been raised by the Law Society of Scotland. Indeed, I tabled a similar amendment in the previous Parliament.
The amendment would amend the provisions so that a challenge brought through judicial review in Scotland can be launched if its purposes are on the same basis as proceedings elsewhere. In Scotland, there are two separate tests for bringing judicial review, in that a petitioner has to demonstrate both title and interest, whereas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland there is a single test of interest alone.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, also mentioned the recommendation made by Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, in his Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review. However, I am concerned that because of the way in which this amendment is drafted, it will not have the desired effect. By stating that,
“the petitioner’s interest alone shall be sufficient to enable a petition to be lodged”,
it has almost gone too far and would effectively disapply the need to establish all other matters when considering a case for judicial review—including, indeed, whether there is sufficient legal grounds for a challenge.
The other, perhaps more practical, point is that it is difficult to see what the practical effect would be, as we think it is likely that the Scottish courts would entertain a judicial review from any elector entitled to vote at the referendum or at parliamentary elections and any permitted participant. By their very nature, they have an interest—they were taking part in the election.
We should be mindful of the fact that this issue goes wider than the referendum alone. It raises important issues about the nature of judicial review in Scotland, not least those flowing from Lord Gill’s report, and the circumstances in which they should be permitted to raise petitions for judicial review. That is an important issue. It is one that undoubtedly is receiving detailed consideration, not least by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. It would not be helpful if this Bill somehow tried to pre-empt it on an ad hoc basis, particularly, as I have indicated, we believe that an elector in Scotland would be able to raise a petition.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
On the key point, is the Minister saying that because of the recommendation of Lord Gill, he believes that a petitioner in Scotland could raise it on interest alone, without any title, so it would in effect be the same as in England? I am not quite clear.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, if the noble Lord will bear with me, the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, recommends in his report that the separate test of title and interest be replaced by a single test, that test being where the petitioner has demonstrated a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the proceedings. That is not specific to this referendum. We have a quite important change in the law of judicial review in Scotland anyway and it goes along with numerous other recommendations on civil procedure in the Scottish courts. These matters are, I am aware, under consideration, but it would not be appropriate in this Bill to do it on a one-off basis, particularly in circumstances where we believe that being a participant in the referendum, one would qualify to challenge, if indeed that situation should ever arise.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
That is very helpful. I read the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, as saying that the current requirement in Scotland for judicial review is title and interest. He is expressing the view from the Dispatch Box that if you were an elector in the relevant election that you wished to challenge—the referendum—that would give you title and interest for the purpose of Scottish judicial review. That being so, the difficulties and dangers of trying to do an ad hoc change here do not arise and we should be reassured that any elector would be able to bring a judicial review challenge in Scotland, just as they would in England.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
As I am sure the noble and learned Lord knows, these will ultimately be matters for the court but that is certainly our understanding, or my belief.
Lord Neill of Bladen
Before the noble and learned Lord finishes on that point, I feel some concern that he is not prepared to put on to the statute book the view which he has just expressed: that title and interest would necessarily be found by a court to exist here. The worry would be that there could, theoretically, be people advising in Scotland who will be unaware of the discussion now taking place and of the deliberate abstention from following up Lord Gill’s advice on a one-off basis on this very point, where there is potentially a conflict between the practice in Scotland and that in England. Would it not be possible to think of some way of putting on to the statute book information so that anyone advising would see that title and interest were thought to be, by the Minister or by the Government, both present in this case?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
That is an important point, one which I wish to reflect on. I think it is satisfactory as it stands, but I understand what the noble Lord is saying: that there may be circumstances where, in the absence of any reference, someone may not appreciate that fact. Without making any commitment, I will look at that and see whether there is a way. As I have indicated, as the amendment stands there is a problem, too. In fact on interest alone, regardless of anything else, it would qualify and I am sure that is not what the noble Lord intended.
I think I am right in saying that the debate on whether the schedule be agreed is also a part of this, but perhaps I can reply later to that debate as part of this group.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I want to go back to my earlier intervention. As I understood the noble and learned Lord’s reply, under paragraph 10(5), the Minister may reimburse reasonable expenses incurred by a registration officer for a local authority. Now, if the Government are in a position to reimburse such reasonable expenditure prior to the referendum, should that information not be communicated to local authorities? It might well be that some local authorities want to run a blitz campaign prior to the referendum, to increase registration. The Government appear, in the answer that the noble and learned Lord gave me, to be to some extent offering them the resources as long as the expenditure is reasonable. Perhaps the Minister might write to me on this point, because I am sure that local authorities will have picked up on his responses to my earlier interventions.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am certainly more than happy to write to the noble Lord on that point. I do not think that I need to elaborate on what I said to him before. I want to indicate briefly that Schedule 1 makes provision about the key aspects of the conduct of the referendum and the regulation of the referendum campaign. The approach of the Government in doing this has really been to replicate the provisions that are made for parliamentary elections, where they are appropriate. However, there are some areas where we need to make specific provision to tailor-make the provisions for this referendum. On the campaign spending and funding framework already in place for referendums, what there is under the PPERA will generally apply. I commend this schedule to the Committee inasmuch as it tries to replicate, wherever appropriate, the rules which are now well tried and tested.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to the Minister and, particularly, to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer for their exchange, which helped to clarify the situation. I was surprised because this amendment was in fact drafted by our mutual friend Michael Clancy, who has done a lot of these before and understands parliamentary drafting very well. However, I was particularly grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Neill, on the Cross Benches, and for the Minister’s response: that he will look at this again to see whether there is a way to achieve it so that Scots and English people will have the same rights guaranteed on both sides of the border, without any court having to make a decision and without creating a precedent which might cause any difficulties for other aspects of judicial review. On the basis that the Minister has been very helpful in giving me that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I should perhaps have asked this before but, on page 25, Schedule 1 requires the Electoral Commission to,
“prepare accounts in respect of their expenditure in relation to the referendum”,
only if,
“directed to do so by the Treasury”.
Is the Treasury going to give such a direction? It seems extraordinary that we would not know what the expenditure of the Electoral Commission was on the referendum unless a direction had been given by the Treasury. It might be that this is, as it were, language which is always in, and that it will of course give that direction, but I thought that it was a very odd way of doing it. It would mean that we could not find out how much had been spent on the referendum, but you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be a lot of questions asked about how much the referendum cost at some stage.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I probably share the noble and learned Lord’s view. It is almost counterintuitive to think that the Treasury might in some way not wish that—well, it may be, I do not know. Freedom of information requests might well flow fast and furiously if that did not happen. Perhaps if I talk long enough, I may get a definitive answer on whether this is indeed something that generally appears in such legislation or whether there is some reason unbeknown to us.
The answer is that it is part of the Electoral Commission’s accounting framework that it normally accounts to the Speaker’s office. I suspect that the paragraph makes provision that the accounts in relation to the referendum could be extracted. If that is incorrect, I will ensure that a proper clarification is intimated to the noble and learned Lord and duly circulated.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
As the noble Lord the Leader of the House said, I am getting a sapling of an idea of what the reason is and I think I understand. This is not a major point, but perhaps the noble and learned Lord could write. He should not bother to write if the sapling of the idea is, as I think was said, that we have to do it slightly differently because of this and that there will be accounts. If there will not be accounts available, perhaps he should write; otherwise, we can forget it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am grateful to be able to move Amendment 112A, which is grouped with Amendments 112B and 112C. Amendments 112A and 112B are to some extent probing amendments, while Amendment 112C goes a bit further than that. The first two refer to the publication of the notice of the referendum and the notice of poll. They would change the publication of the notice of the referendum from not later than the 25th day before the day of the referendum to not later than the 30th day and the notice of poll from not later than the 15th day to not later than the 20th day. The idea of this is that in a number of elections recently the elbow room between the publication of the notice and the notice of call and the actual referendum itself has not given enough time for the issue of postal ballots or the return of postal ballots and all the other procedures in between that need to take place.
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend’s Amendment 112C. There are two types of people in particular that this amendment would help. There is still what is called a three-shift pattern in factories and elsewhere of 6 am to 2 pm, 2 pm to 10 pm, which is known as a back shift, and 10 pm to 6 am on a night shift. I worked that pattern myself for many years. The 6-to-2 shift sounds great—you get into work at 6 am, finish at 2 pm and have the rest of the day to yourself. Unfortunately, most people who have worked that shift will tell you that they spend most of the afternoon lying asleep on the couch, trying to catch up with the disruption to the normal sleep pattern and normal shift pattern. You can wake up feeling disorientated at times. It may sound a bit silly but I can assure people that the disruption to your normal pattern, in working that three-shift pattern, can have that effect on you.
There is also the back shift between 2 pm and 10 pm. It sounds great—you can get up in the morning and have time to do plenty of things before you start work at two o’clock. But you can have quite an extended travel time to get to work for 2 pm and, with other things to do in the morning, you may find that by the time you finish work at 10 pm the polling station is closed. As for the people who do the night shift, again it sounds great, as you have plenty of time during the day, but ask anyone who works the night shift and they will tell you that their day is disrupted. If there is a constantly changing shift pattern, working a different shift each week following the 6-to-2, 2-to-10 and 10-to-6 three-shift pattern, I can assure your Lordships that there is a disruption to the patterns of sleep and behaviour.
The second category is a new and developing pattern to which my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock has referred. This is the growing number of people who manage two jobs, particularly women. It always seems to be women who get landed with the part-time jobs, though they are not quite cheap labour thanks to the Labour Government’s national minimum wage law that was opposed by the Liberals and Tories at the time. Nevertheless, these people are trying to keep two jobs going and are rushing between them. An extra hour’s voting time at the end of the day will give people an extended opportunity to vote.
I believe that that category of part-time workers is growing. Again, I do not like it but they are mostly women workers because they have got to snatch a job of two or three hours to cope with child care and all the rest of it. They have to dive back, run a house, and probably get their man fed and out to work. There are some areas in the world where women still do not have a proper place in life. Keeping family together falls harder on women than on men, and I regret to say that a sexist society still operates like that. I would certainly support anything that can help women and part-time workers in that category. I would indicate my strong support particularly for Amendment 112C.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My noble friend Lord Rooker has Amendment 113 in this group, but he has had to leave. It is effectively the same as the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Foulkes in that it proposes that the polls should shut at 11 pm. The point has already been made but it seems a good thing that the time should be extended for people to vote. There may be reasons why that is a bad thing. I will wait to hear what the Minister says.
The next group of amendments, which would have been moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker, but which I will move because he cannot be here, seek to deal with the overcrowded polling stations issue, which we have already discussed and in which there was an impressive intervention by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. There was quite broad support for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. The amendment that proposes that the polls should shut at 11 pm, as opposed to 10 pm, might, subject to the information that the Minister has, be of assistance in relation to that. If the number of people who would vote between 10 pm and 11 pm was quite low—even though there might be a late surge—it would reduce the likelihood of what happened in the previous general election happening again. It might, for that additional reason, be worth contemplating.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for raising these issues with his amendments, which would provide electors with earlier notice of the referendum and give voters extra hours to cast their ballots. As noble Lords are aware, it is the Government’s intention that the referendum should be held on 5 May. Therefore, any alterations to the timetable and the hours of polling proposed for the referendum would inevitably create inconsistencies between the rules governing the referendum on the one hand and those governing the elections scheduled to take place on 5 May, with which the referendum will be combined, on the other. Fundamentally, this would be confusing and unhelpful for voters. Noble Lords may already have noted that that view is supported by the Electoral Commission. The amendment would also be inconsistent with the combination of rules in Schedules 5 to 8 to the Bill.
I turn to the first part of the amendment, which deals with the referendum timetable and the issuing of the notice of poll. With the exception of the Scottish parliamentary election, the 25-day timetable will be used for all other polls that are scheduled to take place on 5 May 2011. During the Bill’s passage through Parliament, we specifically amended the deadline for issuing the notice of poll from 16 to 15 days before the date of the poll. The noble Lord’s amendment would take that up to 20 days before the date of the poll. The purpose of the amendment was to ensure that a consistent deadline for the publication of the notice of poll applied for most of the polls that will be combined across the United Kingdom.
Only in Scotland will the deadlines for publication of the notice of the two combined polls be different from each other, due to a slightly different timetable that applies to Scottish parliamentary elections. However, moving the deadline to 20 days before the poll would lead to inconsistency right across the United Kingdom and potential confusion for voters and electoral administrators. The Electoral Commission will take steps, however, to ensure that electors are aware of the referendum before the statutory timetable commences, and electors will not have to wait until notice of poll is issued, or until they receive their official poll card, to change their voting arrangements should they wish to do so.
I turn now to the amendment on polling hours. It is an important amendment and important arguments have been adduced in its favour. It would extend the polling hours for the referendum, which could be difficult for polling staff and polling agents. It may even be difficult for people who rely on public transport to get to a polling station for 6 am for the opening of the poll. At the end of the day, extending the close of poll by one hour could have implications for the staff at the time of verification, not least in those cases where two polls will be combined on one day. However, perhaps more importantly, it could be confusing to voters to have polls taking place on the same day but closing at different times. Under this proposal, voters would turn up before 7 am or after 10 pm to vote in the referendum, but would perhaps be told that they were unable to vote in the Scottish parliamentary election, the Welsh National Assembly election or some of the local government elections in England. I suspect that would increase, rather than reduce, the possibility of voters missing their opportunity to vote, which could cause some dissension.
The important point, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned, is that the opportunities for postal voting and voting by proxy are now such that if the current polling hours are unsuitable for electors, they still have the opportunity to vote. I readily accept that in many cases work patterns and family patterns may make it difficult, but it is now possible to vote either by proxy or by post. As we all know from taking a keen interest in elections, the number of postal votes has increased considerably; obviously a good number of people take that opportunity. It may be that the message about opportunities for postal and proxy voting can be reinforced in the context of information relating to the polls.
It is also important that the issue regarding the timetable for the polls goes wider than the referendum alone. It should perhaps be reviewed in the longer term for future national elections and referendums. With these words and assurances, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I find that a very helpful reply. The Minister has explained and answered the points raised very well. We could have altered the hours for all the elections as well as the referendum if we had had more time but we are rushed in this and must do everything by 5 May. That is part of the problem. However, given that we cannot change the time for elections, it would be right—
Lord McAvoy
I accept what my noble friend says about the Minister’s reply, but is there some way, through the amendment, the schedule or elsewhere, to initiate a pilot project somewhere, or at some point in another election? That would test those hours. I am particularly interested in Amendment 112C. Could we look at the possibility of some kind of pilot in an election in a selected area to see if it made any difference?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That is a very interesting suggestion. Although we are rushed in this, I hope that, for future elections, the Electoral Commission could look at longer hours and, perhaps, different days. I think the Minister said towards the end of his reply that he wanted this. Pilots have been done. As my noble friend Lord Collins would remind me, we had an all-postal-vote pilot in the north of England, which had a very interesting result. I should perhaps have declared my interest as a postal voter. I accept what the Minister has said but I hope we will look at ways in which we can make it easier for people to vote, such as voting at weekends and longer voting hours. If it can be done with one or two pilots, as my noble friend Lord McAvoy said, that would be very useful. In view of the Minister’s very helpful reply, I will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I will move and speak to the amendments in this group on behalf of my noble friend Lord Rooker. There are three of them, two of which seek to deal with the chaos at the end of the general election. On page 32, paragraph 13(1) of Schedule 2 to the Bill, “Rules for the Conduct of the Referendum”, provides that:
“The counting officer must provide a sufficient number of polling stations and, subject to the following provisions of this rule, must allot the electors to the polling stations in whatever manner the officer thinks most convenient”.
My noble friend Lord Rooker proposes that that be amended so that,
“no polling station shall be allocated more than 1050 electors”.
If you put a limit on the number of electors sent to a polling station, you reduce the chance of there being the chaos that there was at the previous general election.
The next amendment in this group is Amendment 120. At page 35 of the Bill, paragraph 17(1) says:
“The counting officer must provide each presiding officer with however many ballot boxes and ballot papers the counting officer thinks are necessary”.
My noble friend Lord Rooker proposes amending that to ensure that the counting officer in every ballot station has as many ballot papers as there are electors allocated to that polling station. That is sensible because it means that they cannot run out of ballot papers. Again, it is a way of reducing chaos.
The final amendment in this group is Amendment 121. On page 35—I know all noble Lords are following this in their own copies of the Bill because it is so completely fascinating—sub-paragraph (7) says:
“In every compartment of every polling station there must be exhibited the notice—
‘Mark one box only. Put no other mark on the ballot paper, or your vote may not be counted’”.
If noble Lords turn to page 61, they will see that, instead of “Mark one box only”, the wording in the second paragraph of the notice given there is:
“Vote in one box only”.
If noble Lords go to page 67, line 25, they will see the phrase:
“Vote in ONE box only. Do not put any other mark on the ballot paper”.
If noble Lords go to page 74, they will see in paragraph 2:
“Vote in one box only. Put no other mark on the ballot paper”.
My noble friend Lord Rooker says that “Mark one box only” and,
“Vote in one box only”,
say the same thing; that it is confusing to have different phrases on different notices; and that we should use the same phrase,
“Vote in one box only”,
right across the notices given to electors. That seems extremely sensible, so his amendment, which affects page 35, rule 17(7), is to take out the words “Mark one box only” and put in the words
“Vote in one box only”,
because that is the phrase used everywhere else. It is difficult to imagine—though I am quite sure that the noble and learned Lord will have some clever answer for this—why different phrases were used.
The first two amendments avoid the chaos. The third amendment—I am not sure why it is in this group, but it is easy to deal with in this group—is to ensure consistency in the instructions given to electors. I beg to move.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, one rarely sees an amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker that does not have a huge amount of common sense within it. We all remember what happened at the general election, where people were queueing at polling stations because the flow of people simply could not be accommodated, and we can all agree that at this referendum election there is certainly going to be more confusion than there is at a normal parliamentary election, where everyone understands what is required of them. It is the simplest possible thing to have to do—put a cross by their favoured candidate—and we all accept the result; at least, the vast majority of us accept the result.
What the noble Lord proposes here would be desirable in any event, if we were just going through the same system as we did at the last general election, but given that we are going to have polling stations where there is more than one decision being made and where electors will confront, for the first time, the option of the alternative vote and have to understand what is involved, there is bound to be confusion. I predict with complete certainty that, should we go down the road to AV, there will be far more spoiled ballot papers than there normally are—that has been the case with every move away from first past the post. Staying with the referendum, there will be people who will seek the advice of polling clerks. I do not know what the law is if they seek that advice. Are the polling clerks expected to explain what the choice is, or are they supposed to keep quiet about absolutely everything if a potential elector is confused?
I hope that the Committee will accept my proposition that this is going to be more complicated than a general election. I hope that the Committee will accept the evidence of their own television sets that, at the last general election there were polling stations that simply could not cope with the number of electors coming at a particular time. It must therefore follow, surely, that we need to make special provisions for this very unusual election where there is bound to be more confusion. I cannot be confident that there will be large numbers of people voting, but we need to allow for that and we clearly were not allowing for that effectively at the last general election. Amendment 115 is presented with characteristic simplicity and common sense in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker and I strongly support it.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I want, very briefly, to remind civil servants, when they are drawing up the wording as currently set out in the Bill, of what happened with the ballot paper in the first mayoral elections in London. We had made recommendations as to what should be on the ballot paper; the civil servants basically took over the agenda and wrote the question; I objected very strongly, but of course as usual, I was overruled on the detail; and the result was that a lot of ballot papers in the first mayoral elections in London were wasted because of the framing of the question.
Wording is crucial and I think it has to be politicians who decide on that wording, because it is only we who understand how electorates respond to certain language. Therefore, I hope that a debate takes place within the department about whether the current wording in these areas of instruction is right and whether the wording that my noble friend wishes to introduce for the benefit of people voting in the referendum might be better. The Minister should take this as a very serious amendment: it might not be the final wording, but let there be a further debate, because if it does not take place, the danger is that the events of the first mayoral elections in London may well be repeated.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for tabling these amendments; he indicated to me that he had to leave and that they would be spoken to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. They raise important issues which it is very helpful for the Committee to have the opportunity to address. Amendment 115 obliges by law that counting officers should not allocate more than 1,050 electors to any polling station within their voting areas. This is a very worthy and laudable attempt to address the problems, referred to by the noble and learned Lord in moving this amendment, which arose at some polling stations in the May 2010 election, when a number of electors were unable to cast their votes due to queues forming at certain polling stations. Although these incidents were isolated, they are certainly not taken lightly—I emphasise that again.
It is the responsibility of electoral administrators to provide for the smooth running of the voting process in elections, and that includes contingency plans to cater for events such as when there is a higher than expected turnout at one or more polling stations for which they are responsible for allocating voters and for staffing. The chief counting officer for the referendum is, of course, the chair of the Electoral Commission and she has the power to direct all other counting officers across the United Kingdom who administer the referendum. The Electoral Commission has indicated that the chief counting officer intends to issue directions to counting officers as to the maximum number of electors to be allocated to any polling station and the associated minimum number of staff to be present at each polling station. As I indicated in response to an amendment moved earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, the Electoral Commission has already started to issue guidance to counting officers on the number of polling staff who will be required.
I am therefore concerned that the amendment would remove any discretion, both of the chief counting officer and of all other counting officers, to decide how many electors should be allocated to each polling station and the number of staff who should be present at each polling station. To give an example, it does not seem sensible to require that a village of, say, 1,200 electors should have two polling stations when there is no suggestion that previous arrangements for that village have proved inadequate. Indeed, it might even mean that fewer staff were available at each polling station to assist voters. It is that kind of flexibility which we would not like to remove from the chief counting officer.
We know that queues arose in the elections of May last year primarily because of planning failures and the lack of effective contingency planning. However, we believe that at the polls being held in May this year, better guidance, better staff training and support and better planning procedures in the run-up to the polls would be more appropriate and more effective in addressing the issues that have been raised, as opposed to placing statutory limits on the number of voters who can be allocated. I hope that the chief counting officer’s stated intention to issue directions to counting officers on this issue will reassure noble Lords and that the House will recognise that the amendment would reduce flexibility, and that that in turn could increase risks and not necessarily prove good value for money.
On the second amendment, which would oblige all counting officers to print 100 per cent of ballot papers, I must say that until last year I always thought that that was the case anyway. The purpose is that they should print the same number of ballot papers as there are voters on the electoral register in their area of responsibility. Currently, they must print only the number of ballot papers that they feel is necessary.
Lord Grocott
I am not asking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to respond further; I just want to put the record straight. I am not sure that I made it clear that my concern was not about holding local elections and a referendum on the same day but about the fact that the referendum itself was something entirely new. The question voters are going to be asked is whether they support the first past the post system or the alternative vote system. However, a lot of people will be confronted with that question for the first time in their lives and it would not be surprising if they found filling in their ballot paper rather more confusing than normal.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his detailed response. However, unfortunately, it did not quite hit the mark on any of the three amendments. I completely take his point that it would be ridiculous to have two stations in certain places because you might have a village with 1,051 electors. However, I wonder whether that would not be best dealt with by saying that the norm should be 1,050 electors, save where there are exceptional circumstances, because generally you are trying to get to a figure of 1,050.
Secondly, I was confused by the noble and learned Lord’s answer in relation to what the chair of the Electoral Commission intends to do. I understood him to say that she intends to direct that 100 per cent of ballot papers be printed, but that she wants flexibility. But what does she want flexibility for if she intends to instruct that 100 per cent of ballot papers be printed? Why not put in the Bill what I understood the first part of the noble and learned Lord’s answer to indicate what she intended to do? That would give certainty.
Thirdly, in relation to the difference between the notice and the form, the noble and learned Lord took a good shot at this but I do not think that he said that there was any particular reason why they were different. As my noble friend Lord Grocott says, this will be a completely novel experience for voters to vote on whether there should be first past the post or an alternative vote system. There needs to be clarity. Yes, he is right that the chief counting officer has the power to change the forms but the wording of the Bill is mandatory. For example, paragraph 17(7) states:
“In every compartment of every polling station there must be exhibited the notice—
‘Mark one box only’”.
If I were the chair of the Electoral Commission, although I had a power to make changes, in the context of mandatory language I would feel safest, legally, in not making a change. We agree that it is much better if the wording is the same right across all the material. One of the purposes of scrutinising this Bill is to make it better, so let us make it better and make it consistent in relation to all the places where its provisions will be applied. That would make for a better organised poll and would get rid of any difficulty or risk in that regard for the chair of the Electoral Commission.
I absolutely respect the effort that the noble and learned Lord has made but my noble friend Lord Rooker may bring all three of these amendments back, with a slightly different amendment in one case and broadly the same amendment in the other two. In the case of the third amendment, it would help greatly if he were willing to go through the Bill and ensure that the wording is consistent, as his officials can do that much more quickly and much more consistently than we can. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, this is a minor and technical amendment to correct a cross-reference under rule 13(6)(a) of the referendum rules. The effect of this minor amendment is that the number of ballot papers counted or votes cast may not be questioned by reason of any non-compliance with the provisions under rule 13(3) for England and rule 13(4) for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland relating to the provision of polling stations. Noble Lords will note that, as it stands, the reference is not to rule 13(3) and rule 13(4) but rather to paragraph 13(5)(a) and (b). The purpose of this amendment is to get the cross-reference correct. I beg to move.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Just for clarity, the reason why sub-paragraph (5) is not now included as an exception in sub-paragraph (6)(a) is because it is included in sub-paragraph (4). Is that right? Looking at it to start with you want it to apply to sub-paragraph (5) as well, but sub-paragraph (5) appears to go in the drafting because the deletion in the amendment goes up to the second “or” in the second line. You would not want a vote not to be counted if the polling station happened to be in the wrong district. I assume that sub-paragraph (5) is deleted because it is included in sub-paragraph (4), or am I wrong about that? I cannot see any reason why a technical failure of the position of the polling station in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland should vitiate the vote. I assume it is because the polling stations in sub-paragraph (5) are included in sub-paragraph (4). Officials are nodding. It might be better if the noble and learned Lord says yes.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble and learned Lord has accurately identified the issue and that is, as it were, the error that this amendment seeks to correct.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Rooker. This small amendment refers to the sealing of ballot boxes before the commencement of the poll, as provided for in the rules for conduct of the referendum given in Schedule 2 to the Bill. The schedule currently advises that the presiding officer must show “anyone present” in the polling station immediately before the commencement of the poll that the ballot box is empty. My noble friend's argument—we do not make too much of this or say that it is a major issue—is that this should be changed to require the presiding officer to show “the first elector” who comes to vote in that polling station that the ballot box is empty.
We believe that the amendment would add a degree of precision to the requirement on the presiding officer and add to confidence in the legitimacy and validity of the poll and its result. Being more specific about who is to see and verify that the ballot box is empty is a small but important symbol that the poll is to be carried out properly. It is too vague to say “anyone present”. That could be the cleaner or the person who is with the presiding officer to help with the running of the poll. Why not require that the first elector who comes through the door should see that the ballot box is empty before casting their vote, which would be the first one in the box? As I said, this is not a major amendment, but I think that it deserves an answer. I beg to move.
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment, on which I will enlarge just a bit. We have good traditions and symbolism in British democracy. I have been an election agent and a candidate. I thought that it was the law that either the agent or candidate could see inside each ballot box before it was locked. That happened regularly. Perhaps it was only in council elections—I am not sure, but I used to see it quite often. I agree very strongly with entrenching the symbolism so that it is not just anyone who sees that part of the procedure. Perhaps we could embellish our democracy a bit by making a bit of a tradition and a bit of a show, to get people there and show that the box is indeed empty. While folk may scorn that type of thing, nevertheless it would show clearly the symbolism that our democracy is vibrant and seen to be so.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, this amendment takes us back to the debates two years ago on the Political Parties and Elections Bill, for which we took Committee stage in the Moses Room. There were long debates on the whole issue of fraud in elections. From the discussions that everyone had been having with the Electoral Commission and with Ministers during the course of the debate, it was clear that the Electoral Commission was bending over backwards to find ways of sorting out the problem of individual registration. I tabled a number of amendments dealing with individual registration but none in this particular area because it had not dawned on me at the time that, in the very different world in which we now live, there might be those who, in certain conditions, might be prepared to abuse the system.
No major change is being asked in this amendment. This minor change would check that the first elector was the first elector, so that people would know whether there were ballot papers already in the ballot box, to put it bluntly. Even though fraud at this point in the process might not be prevalent, the proposed change would help reassure the wider public that everything possible is being done to ensure that the electoral system in this country has integrity.
Lord Myners
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 122. I think that it is a small but important step; in fact, I would like to see us go further. It is absolutely critical that we take every action within reasonable grasp to protect and enhance the integrity of the voting system, which has been brought into disrepute in recent years.
I think particularly of the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, about ballots that she believed had been in contravention of correct process. I acknowledge that at times it is difficult to tell whether the noble Baroness is speaking on behalf of the Government, the coalition, the Conservative Party or a faction within the Conservative Party. For example, I think of her comments immediately after the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election about the right wing of the Conservative Party. I also think of her comments the previous night on BBC2’s “Newsnight” programme in connection with the Royal Bank of Scotland—I regret I was unable to be in the House this afternoon when this matter was handled in Questions—when the noble Baroness said that the Government were renegotiating contracts with executives of RBS. Since then, the Treasury has been very keen to suggest that it is not doing anything of the sort. However, the comments made by the noble Baroness on electoral issues were ones that we should take careful note of when considering this amendment.
I would actually prefer a change in the design of the ballot box. I would like to see ballot boxes that are transparent, so that it is possible for people to see their vote going into the box. The amendment deals with the authenticity and the integrity of the ballot process only at the time when the first decision is made on a vote, but I think that my proposal would bring huge confidence.
Lord McAvoy
My first reaction is that a transparent ballot box could add to democracy and could be useful. On the other hand, when thinking of the mechanics of polling day, one has to consider that sometimes people do not fold the ballot paper properly and if that happened in a transparent box it would show who the person had voted for, or did not vote for, which would render the vote invalid because someone was able to identify it.
Lord Myners
My noble friend is as sharp as ever on these issues. I had already given thought to that matter. I suggest to my noble friend that a ballot box could be transparent at the top, so that you could see your vote going in, but not transparent at the bottom where the vote rested. That would perhaps address the issue. I encourage the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he engages with his colleagues in the Cabinet Office on further constitutional reviews, to give this some consideration.
However, it seems to me that my noble friend Lord Rooker has made an entirely reasonable proposal that in no way seeks to obstruct the intention of government policy. It would be commendable to the House and to the country as it would endorse the integrity of the balloting process and the confidence that we can have in the outcome of elections conducted through such a mechanism.
Lord Maxton
I support the amendment as well. I support my noble friend Lord Myners in his idea of a transparent box, whether or not the bottom is transparent. I would rather we did not have ballot boxes at all and voted electronically, but that is a personal campaign which I have been running for a long time. I include in that this place as well. I notice that we will be able to bring electronic devices into the Chamber—but perhaps not yet—and then we can start to vote through them as well.
I have one question for my noble friend who moved the amendment. Who exactly is the first elector? In certain circumstances, those who work at the polling station can be electors in that seat. They could be given the right to vote prior to the polls actually opening. That is a bending of the rules but I think it happens. It is an easy way to ensure that someone who is working all day has the opportunity to vote first. How would my noble friend respond to such circumstances? I think there is some case for saying that the rules must be absolute and that the polling station must not open until 7 or 8 am, whichever election it is, and that no one can vote before then. I have a suspicion that in the past people have been allowed to vote just before the polling station opens.
Baroness Golding
Is it not possible that those in charge of a polling station vote by post? They cannot be in charge of themselves if they vote there in person.
Lord Maxton
Yes. Being an elderly gentleman, I have to accept that my experience of campaigning on a personal level precedes most of the changes in the rules as regards postal voting. My noble friend may very well have a point. I accept it is a minor point but I hope it will be considered.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I support the amendment. This election has the potential for some interest among a new group of voters, which is a particular interest of mine, as I have said before. I know this probably was not the rationale behind this situation, and that it was about the accuracy of and confidence in the vote, but there could be a certain jostling for position to be the first elector, which could be quite exciting on an issue like this.
I have, I promise, a very short anecdote to tell. At one time, the Labour Party was doing extremely badly in the polls and in November 1983 a friend of mine took his young son with him to the polling station. I will not name my friend as I am not sure this is legal, but his young son actually made the cross on the ballot paper and put it in the big black box. Thinking of the ballot as a lottery, the lovely little boy, who is now very grown-up, said, “Which one wins, Dad? Is it the first one out?”. In 1983, many Labour Party members would have said, “If only”.
What is interesting about that story, which has kept with me, is the excitement of a young person going to vote and the idea that the first elector would have a role in the endorsement of the process. I am sure that any of us who are involved politically would make sure that it was one of ours who was there, a young person or someone who had just got the voting right because they had become a British citizen. We would make something of that to give the citizen a particular tick to that process. I hope that that may be given serious consideration.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
In the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I will be nitpicking. Surely, if this changes the regulations for the referendum, it will create problems if the old system will be continued for the local government and Scottish Parliament elections. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised that point several times in previous debates. It is a valid point and something that my noble friend Lord Bach should address. I am not against that in principle but if we have a different system for checking the ballot box for the referendum from that in the Scottish, Welsh and local government elections, that might create problems.
Lord Maxton
My noble friend raises an interesting point. If in the Scottish election on 5 May, the first person in decides that they do not want to vote in the referendum at all and they only want to vote in the Scottish election, my noble friend’s point would be very apposite.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
It would be even stronger. It is not just a question of whether they do not want to; they may not be eligible because, as I pointed out on a number of occasions, some may be eligible to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections; others will be able to vote in the referendum only; most of us—including, at last, Peers—will be able to vote in all three. That creates some confusion as to who the first elector will be.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Is not the answer to the Rennard question, on which my noble friend commented, to find out when we can expect further legislation in these areas? We know that a Bill is coming in on the funding of political parties. If the Long Title of that Bill was sufficiently wide, we might introduce a whole series of amendments governing elections and political parties. That might well be the peg, and we should be prevailing on the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, to push his luck with Ministers to secure an early introduction of legislation.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is right in principle, but because we have this artificial deadline of having to agree everything before the referendum on 5 May, I do not think that there would be the time to do that. Now I know why the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, enjoys being such a nitpicker. It is quite fun challenging the amendments put forward by Labour Peers.
However, I think that the intention behind what my noble friend suggests is absolutely right. In a number of elections overseas, ballot boxes have been stuffed in advance by supporters of one candidate or another and elections have been challenged. That could happen in a referendum. The principle is very important, notwithstanding the technical problem that I have raised in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.
Lord Strathclyde
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is right: it would be far better to deal with and debate these issues in another forum or on another Bill. We resist the amendment, which, apart from anything else, we believe to be defective. The amendment requires the presiding officer immediately before the commencement of a poll to show the first elector, rather than anyone present in the polling station, that the ballot box is empty.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, pointed out, no elector would be allowed into the polling station prior to the poll commencing at 7 am, which means that the presiding officer would be unable to show the first elector that the ballot box was empty before the start of the poll. In addition to the timing difficulties associated with the amendment, it can be argued that it is not necessary, as referendum agents will be able to appoint polling agents who may observe the presiding officer showing the empty ballot boxes before they are sealed prior to the start of the poll. Therefore, the question does not arise.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I am not sure that it does not arise. The current wording of the Bill is:
“Immediately before the commencement of the poll, the presiding officer must show anyone present in the polling station that the ballot box is empty”.
I should perhaps have made this point in moving the amendment, but what happens—and I do not suppose that this is normal—if the presiding officer is the only person? The poll commences at a certain time. It must begin at the time set by statute or by statutory instrument. If he happens to be the only one who has turned up, the presiding officer would presumably have to show anyone present and the only person present is himself. I am sure that is not what is intended. The current language is not satisfactory.
I think my noble friend Lord Maxton is wrong on this occasion. In almost every case that I know of, those who work on elections do a great job as polling clerks and have postal votes. As my noble friend Lady Golding told the committee, they are obliged to have postal votes because they do not know where they are going to go or which polling station they are going to be at until quite a late stage. It seems a very sensible rule.
Because of the extraordinary support I had for this amendment, I am very tempted indeed to seek the opinion of the Committee, but in spite of pleas from behind me, what has held me back is that I think the clinching point was made by my noble friend Lord Foulkes. If we were to do it for the referendum only, it would leave a difference between practices in other elections and practices in the referendum. As my noble friend said, the answer is that there should be government legislation to amend electoral rules, but I cannot see that legislation coming through in a great hurry, so with enormous reluctance I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Strathclyde
“(a) in relation to a voting area in England or a voting area in Wales that is not within sub-paragraph (b), the registration officer of the local authority in whose area that voting area is situated;(b) in relation to a voting area in Wales that comprises any part of the area of more than one local authority, the registration officer appointed under section 44(3)(b) of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 in respect of the Assembly constituency that corresponds to that voting area.( ) In paragraph (3)—
“local authority” has the same meaning as in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1;
“Assembly constituency” means a constituency for the National Assembly for Wales.”
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, Amendment 122ZA is a minor and technical amendment to the definition of “relevant registration officer” under rule 53 of the referendum rules. This amendment will ensure that in Wales, as is already the case in other parts of the United Kingdom, the relevant registration officer will be the same individual for both the combined polls. I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde
Lord Campbell-Savours
Before I speak on Schedule 2, I shall comment on the arrangements for the dinner hour to place on record that I object. I understand that there may have been agreement, but I am speaking as an individual Member. If we are a civilised House and we are to debate matters in a civilised way, we are entitled to proper mealtimes, and I think an hour should be made available for dinner. I say to the Patronage Secretary to the Government, the Government Chief Whip, that in future it would be very helpful if she could adopt a more civilised approach to our dining arrangements in the evening.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I hear, of course, what the noble Lord says. This was an agreement with usual channels with his own Opposition Whips’ Office this morning. No representation was made to the contrary. It was an agreement made and, therefore, we stuck to our side of that agreement.
The House does wish to hear views on the Schedule 2 stand part debate. I am sure that the whole House wishes to make progress on this matter.
Lord Campbell-Savours
All I am saying is that, as an individual Member of the House, I object. Whether it was agreed by the usual channels or not is of no particular interest to me. All I am saying is that I think it is fair and more civilised that we can dine for a full hour.
I would like now to move to Schedule 2. A particular part of the schedule that is of interest to me is the question of the provision of polling stations, which is a matter of considerable controversy in constituencies throughout the country. Rule 13(1) in Schedule 2 states:
“The counting officer must provide a sufficient number of polling stations and, subject to the following provisions of this rule, must allot the electors to the polling stations in whatever manner the officer thinks most convenient”.
Rule 13(2) states:
“One or more polling stations may be provided in the same room”
Rule 13(3) states:
“In England, the polling station allotted to electors from any parliamentary polling district wholly or partly within a particular voting area must, in the absence of special circumstances, be in the parliamentary polling place for that district unless the parliamentary polling place is outside the voting area”.
Rule 9 refers to the use of schools and public rooms:
“The counting officer may use, free of charge, for the purpose of taking the poll—
(a) a room in a school within paragraph (3)”.
Paragraph (3) of rule 9 then goes on to make provision for schools in England and Wales, and in Scotland.
Now, the location of polling stations in individual constituencies—not only in elections, but particularly in this referendum—has a major effect on turnout. We cannot rely on a postal vote system, which some of us have great reservations about anyhow although it was part of the package introduced by the previous Government. Of course, the Government themselves obviously had reservations about what they were doing on postal voting, but it was felt that those changes would bring greater integrity into the electoral system. The question is, if turnout is affected by polling station location, to what extent can the public indicate where they believe polling stations should be situated?
We know that parish authorities very often make representations to local authorities to secure the location. Also, other organisations within individual communities —schools, church groups, women’s institutes and all kinds of voluntary organisations—sometimes make representations. I have found over the years that very often there is indifference within local authorities to the protests of people who object to the location of polling stations, particularly to where they are inconvenient. I remember that, in my then constituency in the county of Cumbria, on occasions I would go to the local authority and say, “Look, provision here isn’t satisfactory”. Very often the local authority was very sensitive, and changes would be made.
I now live in Maidenhead and when I voted on the last occasion I had to drive a tremendous distance, even within the town, to go and vote. When I got there, I found the polling station split into various sections, all of which received electors coming in from various parts of Maidenhead. I believe that is wrong. The question is: what chance does an individual elector have to influence decisions on the location of polling stations?
My view is that there should be some mechanism that is much more substantial than current arrangements for allowing individual electors and organisations to influence the location of these stations, particularly as their location affects turnout, which is now one of the major issues in Britain’s elections. We are seeing progressive reductions in turnout in both general and council elections, so we must find ways of addressing that problem. One way is to increase the number of polling stations. I hope that, in replying to this debate, the noble Lord might comment on this problem which I think arises in many communities.
Lord Soley
My Lords, I shall be brief, but I want to raise an issue that has troubled me in the past.
The noble Lord will see that the form for a postal vote—form 2—is prescribed on pages 60 and 61 of the Bill. I should say that he might need some advice from his civil servants because I have never had a clear answer to this question. The form requires the person who wants to use a postal vote to fill in the boxes set out in the form. After the individual has filled in their date of birth in one place, a box is provided for the voter’s signature. Next to that box, it says:
“(voter’s signature) IMPORTANT—Keep signature within border”.
That has always troubled me because many people who vote by post are actually old and infirm, and I have never been quite sure what happens if their signature goes outside the box.
In a sense this is not a minor point because I wonder whether that means that the vote may not be counted, which is what happens if you make other mistakes or put wrong entries on the form, or whether it simply means that the signature may not be able to be read by electronic means. I have always assumed that the reason for keeping the signature within the box is so that it can be read electronically. That might not be right, so if it is not, I am not sure why it is so important for the signature to be kept within the border.
I emphasise the point because I am thinking of the comments made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Low. I know that you can get a dispensation for this and you do not have to vote this way, but for elderly and infirm people, or for those whose vision is not as good as it was, there is a real problem about staying within the box—indeed, I have been known to stray outside the box once or twice in my career, but not too often.
Again, I know that the Minister may have to take advice on this, but what happens if a voter filling in a form for a postal vote does not keep the signature within the parameters of the box? Is the problem simply that the signature cannot be read electronically but the vote will still be counted because someone will read it manually, or does it mean that the vote will not be counted? Obviously this question does not just apply to this form, but to others as well.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I agree strongly with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. While it may not be appropriate to deal with the issue in this Bill, the provision of an adequate number of polling stations ought to be of great concern to the Government. I am lucky because the polling station is in the street where I live, but that is not the case for a lot of people, who have to travel many miles to get to their polling station. The Government ought to look at that problem. At some point in the future—obviously not now—there is a case for a proper revision of electoral law in this country so that it can be brought together for the production of some sort of consolidated Bill.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
My Lords, I speak in the debate on whether Schedule 2 should stand part of the Bill not from a passionate objection to anything in the schedule but as a means of impressing on the Leader of the House the importance of these paragraphs. This is the bit where we should be able to transcend party politics. This has been a closely fought part of our legislative process, but at the end of the day the reality is that, for the referendum to have real value and merit in the development of our constitution, people need to feel confident that it has been conducted in such a manner, and the rules of the legislation have been applied in such a way, that they can relax not only from a partisan point of view but from a citizen’s point of view. I urge the Leader of the House, who is a reasonable man, to look at these issues as someone who just wants a proper result for the referendum.
There is a strong case for all the parties represented in this House to get together to discuss these nuts-and-bolts issues. I remember with some pain Scotland’s 1979 referendum, which is an experience that I would not wish to repeat. Earlier I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord McCluskey—who, sadly, is not in his place at the moment—who was talking about some of the pressures that he experienced as a Minister in the Government at that time when looking at how the referendum should be run. There are no two ways about it: there will be huge divisions in every party. That means that the parties must be confident in the structures that exist.
Lord Myners
My Lords, I have sympathy with some of the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about where electoral stations should be located. There is clearly sense in using school-houses for this purpose, not least because, in the past, each village and town would have its own school. I speak with the experience of coming from a rural constituency in Cornwall, where the schools are getting bigger; local village schools are being closed and our children have to travel longer distances to school. This probably makes sense because we are able to give them a better education and ensure that the schools are better resourced with technology.
However, it means that people in rural communities who tend to use schools as voting centres will now have to travel a greater distance to the school. This has always been a problem in rural constituencies. My mother never voted until quite late in the day. At about nine o’clock in the evening people would knock on the door and say that she had not voted, and the Conservatives and Liberals would offer cars to take her to the voting station. She always went with the Conservatives because they tended to have rather big cars and she quite liked that. She always voted Labour but she felt that it was a part of the joy of the constitutional process to go in the kind of large car in which, no doubt, the Leader of the House is accustomed to travelling, both in his ministerial office and in his private life.
A school is not the obvious place to hold an election and there is an opportunity here which resonates with the big society. Like many people, I have been wrestling to understand the big society. It is like trying to put together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and I have now got 15 pieces on the board to help me work out what it is. I am not unattracted by creating a part of the complex of our social life which is not dominated by governmental or quasi-governmental institutions and where a sense of community is fostered. One of the things I suggest to the Leader of the House is that we should give real consideration to looking at nodal and communication points, where people cluster in communities, and see if we can put polling stations in those centres. People clearly now gravitate towards urban shopping centres and out-of-town shopping centres; perhaps we should at least experiment with putting polling stations closer to where people go in their day-by-day life. The local post office is the obvious place, for instance, to have a polling station in a village that has for many years not had a school-house. This observation tends to point me in the direction of supporting the sentiment expressed on this point by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.
I wonder if I could also just delay the House for a brief moment to pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Soley: why the application for a postal vote requires the date of birth at all. Can the Leader of the House explain this? We now operate in a society where it is increasingly regarded as inappropriate to ask people their dates of birth. Indeed, when you interview somebody you are no longer allowed to ask their date of birth; you have to deduce it from their education and their appearance. It seems quite extraordinary that this is a requirement of the postal voting form. There must be a suspicion that, perhaps if one misrepresents one’s age—one perhaps becomes accustomed to taking a couple of years off in polite conversation—you might complete the form incorrectly and in so doing prejudice your vote and conceivably the outcome of the whole election. I ask the Leader of the House if he can tell us why it is necessary that people should still be embarrassed by having to disclose their date of birth.
Lord Tyler
I will respond briefly to the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, because she has a good point about the way in which the whole of these arrangements should be looked at on a non-partisan basis. However, I am frankly mystified as to why this debate is taking place at 9 pm in your Lordships’ House. That does not seem to be the appropriate place. The discussion that she is seeking would be much more appropriately done within a different context. I cannot understand from any of the contributions—
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
What context is more appropriate than your Lordships’ House? This is supposed to be the place where we scrutinise and give our—bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Myners, has just said—greying hairs and our experience to how legislation should be conducted.
Lord Tyler
This is precisely what the noble Baroness was obviously trying to obviate just now. There has not been a single amendment making any changes to Schedule 2, precisely because Schedule 2 as it stands is a distillation of the experience that we have all had. She may be quite right that we need to look at some of these issues. However, not a single amendment has been suggested by noble Lords opposite on this. That suggests that this is the present situation, taking account of the new circumstances of this event. I frankly find it quite extraordinary, in the light of the undertaking given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, yesterday that we were going to make rapid and sensible progress, that the last 19—before I spoke, 18—minutes seems to have been an attempt just to elongate the evening’s proceedings. That is very unfortunate.
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, I normally like to say that it gives me great pleasure to follow a noble Lord, but I am afraid I cannot in these circumstances. It always seems to happen in these deliberations of ours. There is not much toing and froing but there is certainly plenty of toing on our side to try and subject this Bill to scrutiny; and time after time the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, injects a note of acrimony into the proceedings. It really is quite unfortunate that should happen, because we are having a reasonable approach here, fully in line with the commitments.
I am particularly interested in paragraphs 13 and 14 of Schedule 2 on the provision of polling stations. Paragraph 14 says:
“The counting officer must appoint and pay—
(a) a presiding officer to attend at each polling station”.
I find these people very good, on top of their job and they know what they are doing, but occasionally something happens which is not clear. I am seeking clarification from the noble Lord the Leader of the House, if he is able to give that clarification; if not, perhaps he could point me in the direction where I can get it.
I am trying to find out the power of presiding officers and the extent of their power. Is it confined entirely within the polling station, or does it extend outside? The example I am going to give is relevant to polling stations and I will explain briefly the point on which I seek clarification. In a local election in 2007 in my former constituency, there was a bit of local rivalry—acrimony, even. An independent candidate was standing. Voting was by the PR system, which guaranteed chaos anyway, and there was further chaos because in an area about 50 feet from the polling station entrance the independent candidate had arrayed about six people in a sort of semi-circle. They were stopping people at that distance from the polling station and inquiring as to how they were going to vote and putting pressure on them.
Folk who are going to the polling station do not like being stopped and questioned. It is bad enough trying to shove a leaflet into their hands—we have all tried that, I think—when you have spent six weeks pushing the candidate’s name through the letterboxes everyday. People were being approached and they did not like it. Intimidation is the wrong word to describe what was happening, but nevertheless there was pressure. I spoke to the police on the door. Come election time, people have such respect for our democratic process here in Britain that they are very reluctant to get involved in anything that they have not had experience of before, or they do not have written guidance on. I then spoke to the presiding officer. It might not have been as bad as saying that people had been hindered going to vote, but it was not far from it. Presiding officers are good people—they have the best of intentions—but they are quite unsure. This went on for several hours and if he had remonstrated there could have been an unpleasant scene.
I am looking for guidance from the noble Lord the Leader of the House, if he can give it, as to what geographical area a presiding officer has control over outside the polling station. Is it entirely a matter for the police? How should it be handled? I find that contention at polling stations is getting more intense. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is between the political parties, especially in certain hard fought areas. Who exactly, or what procedure, is written in the Bill that would cover the ceasing of such behaviour, and if so what would be the proper channels to put a stop to it?
Lord Maxton
My Lords, it was not my intention to speak. Members opposite will know I have not spoken that often during these long debates. However, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, rather than trying to calm things down, actually provokes people into speaking and that is the case in this instance. I just say to my noble friend Lord Myners that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, may travel in a big limousine, but I travelled on a No. 3 bus with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, this morning. He does not travel in a big limo.
At the start of this debate, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made a point about the position and number of polling stations, not just in rural areas—which my noble friend Lord Myners raised—but also in urban areas. I remember particularly at one point during my career as a Member of Parliament in Glasgow Cathcart, the local government boundaries were redrawn. One of them went down the middle of Mount Florida, so one side of the road was one local government seat, and on the other side was the other. On one side of the road in that new local government seat, there were two multi-storey blocks of flats. On the other side was the polling station for the road, in the school where those people had gone to vote for all the time that they had been in those flats. Now they were being told to go and vote half a mile or a mile away.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I am a bit surprised by the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I have a list here that I got from the Printed Paper Office. Even by my calculations, we have actually got through a majority of the groups for today. I understand that we will finish this Committee stage tomorrow and I cannot see any problem with that whatever. Secondly, on the question of schools, although I heard the comments from my noble friend Lord Myners, we should be looking to get out of using schools as polling stations completely, if we possibly can. That would avoid children losing a day in school.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, there is one problem with this schedule, which I want to refer to briefly. I am sure that it will make us wonder, in the light of us looking at it in some detail, whether there perhaps should have been one or two amendments, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, I think wrongly, that there had been no discussions on this schedule at all.
The real problem with this schedule is that we can sense in it that the parliamentary draftsmen—whom I do not blame, as it is a very difficult job—think that it is about the procedure relating to any election. The whole point is that this is not any election. It is fundamentally different, so far as the voter going into the polling booth is concerned, from all the elections that he or she is familiar with, where they know that there will be names there and have, obviously, put their cross by the favoured candidate. However, this is about asking a question and it will not do, for a number of reasons, simply to lift huge chunks that are clearly from existing legislation—I do not blame the draftsmen, as I have said—about the conduct of elections, thinking, “Well, we can just lift this and stick it in and this will be okay for a referendum to change the constitution”.
I shall give one example. I do not know the answer to it but it is quite significant. A relatively small part of this schedule has the totally innocuous information about the,
“appointment of presiding officers and clerks”.
We all know the job of a clerk in a polling station, but I submit to the Committee that in a referendum on changing the voting system, that clerk is likely to be presented with difficulties that clerks in polling stations simply do not face. The elector will go in, thinking that he or she is voting principally for a local government candidate. Certainly, in the areas that I am familiar with, it is on who should be their local councillor. They will then be presented with a second ballot paper which will ask the question:
“At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead?”.
I put it to the Committee that many people will be going into a polling station for the first time. I am not patronising people or saying the electorate do not understand these systems, I am simply making the straightforward point that the change in the electoral system to the alternative vote system is not high on people’s radar, as we all know from our own experience. I would be very surprised indeed if no more than one elector then left the cubicle where they were about to vote and asked the clerk who distributed the ballot papers what they were being asked to vote on. That is perfectly plausible and indeed an almost inevitable consequence of what is happening.
I asked the question—I do not know the answer—whether it is within the law for the clerk to give advice to the would-be voter about what the alternative vote system is. I assume it probably cannot be because presumably I could be a clerk if I applied to be one and I know what I would tell them about the alternative vote system. So presumably it would be completely out of order for clerks to give advice in that way. If that is the case and a confused elector goes to the clerk on desk and says, “I am puzzled about this second ballot paper, I understand the first one”, at the very least I would suggest that in the appointment of clerks and counting officers on page 33 a script should be offered to them out of courtesy. They would need to know what to say to someone who came to them with that question.
I doubt whether the Leader of the House when he sums up will have given any thought to this as it is only a small part of the Bill but it illustrates the point that you simply cannot lift the rules that apply to every other kind of election and apply them to this most fundamentally important election of changing the way we vote and thereby changing our constitution. So please can we be told whether there is any law relating to what clerks can do when faced with this question? If there is not, should there be or, at the very least, should there be guidance as to what should happen in the polling station when this kind of eventuality arises?
Lord Campbell-Savours
As my noble friend was speaking, something dawned on me which has not been referred to in any of our previous debates, and I cannot see it marked under Schedule 2 in the list of referendum rules under Part 1.
What happens in the circumstances where in the referendum campaign the “no” vote and the “yes” vote decide to put huge hoardings up outside polling booths, saying vote “yes” or vote “no” or whatever? It might well be that some rather keen, over-eager young turks who think that they can push their case might erect rather aggressive advertising material outside polling stations in the referendum to push their case. One would have thought that under Schedule 2 there would be some restriction on the kind of material that could be used in the vicinity of a polling booth.
On advice from the clerks, I wonder if the Minister might care to comment on what the position is and, in the event that it is not covered, perhaps he could say so and perhaps on Report we could return to that matter. There are circumstances in which precisely that could happen. There are some very strange people out there who do very strange things and they may well turn up during the referendum campaign.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am completely mystified because last week the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, admonished us for the number of amendments that we tabled. This week he chides us because we have not tabled any amendments. It seems rather strange.
I want to raise one or two points on Schedule 2. I had better raise this point rather than have a long discussion on an amendment. I strongly agree with what my noble friend Lady Liddell said. I think it would be useful, and I hope the Minister will consider this, to get together a group of MPs and Peers from all parties to look at some of these schedules in more detail to identify whether there are any problems that might arise and make some suggestions to the Government. That seems a very good idea.
There is one theme running through the whole series of schedules as far as I am concerned: full account has not been taken of the problems arising from the combination of polls. We can deal with this under later schedules. However, there are specific points that I want to raise in relation to Schedule 2. I agree with what my noble friends have said about minimising the use of schools and trying to find community centres and other public buildings—or, indeed, private buildings if we can find them—that can be used so that we do not disrupt the education of children.
I find paragraph 9(3) of the schedule strange. It refers to “schools within this paragraph” but goes on to exclude private schools. Why are private schools not going to be used? Why does it apply only to local authority schools? Some noble Lords opposite might say, “Local authority schools are paid for with public money”, but private schools also, because of their charitable status, get substantial support from public funds. They all have charitable status. I see the looks on the faces of some lovely ladies opposite. I do not know whether I am allowed to say that. Perhaps it is sexist and I will be thrown out of Sky Sports for saying it. However, if you think that this is envy on my part, or some kind of horrible class snobbery, have a wee look at my curriculum vitae and you will find something of interest about which you can come back to me.
My second point concerns paragraph 14(1). I certainly agree with what is suggested by,
“the officer may not employ a person who has been employed by or on behalf of a permitted participant in or about the referendum”.
People who have been active—there will be a lot of them—in the “Yes to AV” and “No to AV” campaigns should not be appointed as counting officers and should not be at polling stations. Could the Minister tell us how the counting officer will know whether people have been involved in such campaigns? Will there be a form for them to fill in? Will there be an oath to take? Will they have to sign a document saying that they have not been involved? It would be useful to know that.
The last point that I want to raise—there are many more that I could raise but I do not want to take up too much time—concerns agents. We heard earlier about agents from the two campaigns. In Scotland, the local election areas, Wales and Northern Ireland, there will also be election agents for the parties. There will party agents and agents for the “Yes to AV” and “No to AV” campaigns. Presumably the party agents dealing with the election will have no authority to ask questions, or to look at the ballot papers or anything to do with the referendum, and vice versa. Could that be confirmed? People will come in with red, blue, yellow and perhaps tartan—or whatever the SNP decides to use this time—rosettes, as well as ones saying “Yes to AV” and “No to AV”. Presumably polling agents will have responsibility, powers and authority to deal with that and to ask questions, as I have done countless times as a polling agent. I am not as old as my noble friend Lord Maxton, but I have been a polling agent on several occasions. You have some rights to go in and check things, such as the number of voters and so on. How is this dealt with?
Lord Maxton
My noble friend raises a very interesting point. However, in a sense the problem is even greater than he perhaps realises. I cannot see that most of the people who will be campaigning for the yes vote or the no vote will not be political activists anyway.
There are not large numbers of us around, so it may very well be that, at the school, some people will be asked to take on a dual role, both as an agent for a party and an agent for one of the campaigns. The problem with that, of course, is that at one school the Conservative agent may be against AV and at another school the Conservative agent may be acting as agent for the yes vote. It is all going to get very complicated.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend has made the point. What I was trying to say and I have been trying to say it in a number of contributions earlier, is that these polls will be far more complicated than we are led to believe by the Government and will cause lots of problems. I have no wish to exacerbate the problems; that is why I strongly support the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke that an all-party group should be set up to look at these schedules and identify any problems that might arise. That, surely, is us on this side being a wee bit helpful.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, Schedule 2 is important. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right that it reflects experience from other elections. Looking at the 15th Marshalled List, Amendments 112A to 122A are specific amendments to Schedule 2, so I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was right when he said that there were no amendments to Schedule 2. I am interested in a number of specific issues that relate to the interaction between the referendum and other polls. First, in paragraph 13 (3), it is said that in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,
“the polling station allotted to electors from any parliamentary polling district wholly or partly within a particular voting area must … be in the parliamentary polling place for that district unless the parliamentary polling place is outside the voting area”.
Why is the parliamentary polling area being chosen for a referendum and for the other votes when Parliament is not the district for the count, nor the place for which people are voting? I am surprised that that has been chosen.
Secondly, paragraph 22—this is for the referendum—places upon the presiding officer the,
“duty to keep order at the officer’s polling station”.
That makes the presiding officer the person responsible. Is it envisaged that the same presiding officer will be appointed for the local elections and the parliamentary elections? I assume that it is. If not, who is in charge of the polling station? Issues might arise in relation to the conduct of a polling station of the sort, for example, that arose at the end of the general election as to when to close the doors, or what to do about the queues. There needs to be some degree of certainty as to who is in charge. I assume that that will be achieved by the same person being appointed as the polling officer.
Thirdly, the schedule envisages a polling agent being appointed and a referendum agent being appointed. The purpose, as I understand it, of a referendum agent and a polling agent being appointed is that those two “agents” are responsible for seeking to prevent personation in the polling station. Is it envisaged that this would be two people, or is it envisaged that it would be one person for the same polling station? Do the same rules apply both in relation to electoral law on referendum voting and the polling voting? Can there be a conflict? Again, we would be looking for the same person to be appointed to deal with both.
The thing that I cannot find in the rules, though I am sure that it is here somewhere, is what prohibitions there are on material relating to the referendum within the polling station. For example, will it be permissible to have within the polling station the “neutral documentation” provided by the Electoral Commission describing the two sorts of system, or will that be prohibited? This relates to the question legitimately raised by my noble friend Lord Grocott regarding the extent to which help on the issues will be provided to individual voters. It is obvious that partisan material should not be provided but what, if any, material will be allowed in the polling station which is genuinely intended to assist voters? If the answer is nil, I would accept that and understand it, but equally I would not regard it as objectionable if neutral material prepared by a neutral body were allowed. It would be useful for the Committee to be given answers to those questions.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am glad that the noble and learned Lord agreed with my noble friend Lord Tyler and said that he was right, as he is in so many things. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, asked whether I was impressed with the depth of her passion on this subject. I confirm that I am. I understand exactly what she was saying. I say to those who echoed her remark about cross-party talks that I am sure that if the Labour Party were to write in and ask for those cross-party talks, that would be accepted, if they have not already taken place. The noble Baroness is right that this matter should be conducted in a non-partisan manner.
The debate naturally strayed far and wide across the gamut of electoral law and I will follow up some of the more detailed points in writing. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, said that she was frantic, unhappy or depressed—I cannot remember which word she used—about the 1979 referendum. My memory of it is that it went rather well. It had a good result and was excellent in many respects. Therefore, I do not share the noble Baroness’s unhappiness, which perhaps shows the width of the gulf between us on these great issues.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Was the noble Lord happy that, although there was a majority in favour of a Parliament for Scotland, it did not meet the threshold required? Is that why he was happy about it?
Lord Strathclyde
That is an interesting point. I should be more specific. What was so good about it was that it brought in the vote of confidence and the end of that Labour Government. The noble Lord will remember that well.
The noble Lord, Lord Myners—
Lord Crickhowell
Surely it is not right to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, who has broken the conventions of the House by not staying for the wind-up.
Lord Strathclyde
I thank my noble friend Lord Crickhowell for bringing that to the Committee’s attention. He obviously felt strongly enough about it to raise it. The noble Lord has no doubt slipped away in his stretch limousine waiting outside your Lordships' House. I can confirm to the Committee, if there was any doubt, that the Leader of the House of Lords no longer has a limousine, at a substantial saving to the Exchequer—a saving which the noble Lord, Lord Myners, when he was a Minister at the Treasury, said would be quite impossible.
The noble Lord, Lord Soley, asked whether the vote of an elector who signed outside the box in a postal voting statement or other statement would be considered. Counting officers should have a process in place to determine such cases. Their system should be able to pick up signatures which are valid but stray slightly outside the box. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked whether the public can make representations on polling station locations. They can do so.
Lord Soley
The Minister slid over that rather quickly. This is an important point and it is what scrutiny is for. He seems to be saying that in certain circumstances a signature outside the box would invalidate the vote. If that is the case, frankly it ought to be stated on the form that if a person strays outside the box, the vote is invalidated. I know that this applies in other situations but it is an important point. If people, particularly the infirm, stray outside the box and it is within the remit of the returning officer to make a judgment on that, if he decides against the person, that person’s vote is invalidated.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I said that I would write on some of the more technical points but, as far as I understand it, some discretion must be left to the local officer to decide whether the signature is valid. I am very happy to follow that up in a letter.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, I have been a returning officer on two occasions. The returning officer has the authority to decide whether the paper is in order. The precise rules are rather particular and they are certainly not all on the ballot paper. If they were, the ballot paper would not have much else on it. As a returning officer, I have seen a quite remarkable number of peculiar ballot papers, with all kinds of communications on them. This is a matter for the returning officer and I am sure that the rules are exactly the same as regards the referendum. The returning officer, who is independent, would decide these matters, but all the rules are not expressed. When you become a returning officer, you must learn all these rules, and it is a bit of an ordeal to get them all into your head.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend. The fundamental point is that there is nothing really different about these rules and regulations. They are modelled on existing provisions which govern the conduct of elections. That is why I refer the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, to the Representation of the People Act 1983. If he looks up Sections 18B to 18D, I think that he will find the answer to his question. Likewise, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who asked about poll clerks advising people on the subject matter of the referendum. We would not expect clerks to advise on that but there will be guidance in the polling station on how to complete the voting paper and, as we have already debated several times, the Electoral Commission and the campaigns will be educating the public.
There is another point. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has got it into his head that there is something very strange and very new being done here. If you live in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or London, you have already voted in referendums and PR elections. I think we had more local referendums in the 13 years of Labour Government than this nation ever had. I think people are quite used to the idea of going into a polling booth and being asked a question other than who they wish to vote for: on whether they want local mayors, for instance, or whether they want regional government—that was a great question the Labour Party asked. I also think that he has underestimated the degree of interest that will be generated, and is being generated, by the campaigns in the run-up to the referendum.
Lord Maxton
I accept the point the Minister is making. I may be wrong here but I do not remember a referendum held on the same day as other elections. This is what is going to confuse many electors, rather than the fact that they are being asked to vote yea or nay in a referendum.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the last Labour Government famously had a referendum in London on the London mayor on the same day as the London local elections.
I am impressed—
Lord Grocott
The Leader of the House quotes previous referenda, but I think he is making a fundamental mistake in terms of public awareness of what is happening. In the European referendum in 1975, there was not the slightest doubt in anyone’s mind about what was at stake. It was a choice about whether we stayed in or not. Neither was there any serious doubt about what was at stake in the referenda on Scottish and Welsh devolution. I am simply reflecting, I am sure, what is the truth—that large numbers of people will not know any detail about how the alternative vote system works. In this draft piece from the Electoral Commission there are four pages of notes with bar charts on how the alternative vote system works. If he really thinks by 4 May, or whenever it is, we will be able to go down any street in Britain and people will instantly be able to say how the alternative vote system works, he really does inhabit a different world from the rest of us.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am sorry to say that there may be a generational issue here. My children, who are at school, are taught different electoral systems. This has been done for the past 25 years. I do not think that it is very complicated. I was rather impressed by the Electoral Commission’s work. The noble Lord asserts that nobody will be interested. I say that they will be. At least they are being given a choice, which is important. To be fair, the Labour Party believed a year ago that this was important enough to put in its manifesto. It was the only party to do so.
The underlying legislation for this is of course Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, with which many noble Lords will be familiar. I hope that noble Lords opposite will find that this is a useful subject that they may wish to debate on one of their Thursdays, or in a Question for Short Debate, because there are important issues that they will want to discuss. Under this schedule, appropriate modifications have been made to reflect the features and language specific to referendums. For example, references to “returning officers” have been substituted by “counting officers”, and references to “election agents” have been replaced with “referendum agents”.
Two aspects of the rules merit special mention. They govern the count and recount procedures, and a power enabling the chief counting officer to modify some forms contained in the Bill. Counting officers will be responsible for the conduct of counts in their respective areas, which will be conducted on a regional basis. Like local returning officers in the European parliamentary elections, referendum agents will be permitted to attend the count, much like election agents. Rule 42(2) specifies that a referendum agent and certain designated counting agents may require a counting officer to recount votes for that area. As with UK and European parliamentary elections, a counting officer will have the discretion to refuse any such request if he deems it to be unreasonable. Rule 43 gives power to both regional counting officers and the chief counting officer to issue a direction for a recount of the votes only in one specified circumstance: where the officer requesting the recount has reason to doubt the accuracy of the count under rule 43(4).
The whole schedule takes account of the views of the Electoral Commission and the electoral administrators, with whom we have worked particularly closely in developing this part of the legislation, given that it sets out the rules on how the poll will be run on the ground. I go back to the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell. It may well be a good idea for party officials to get together to discuss this, and I hope that the offer will be taken up.
Lord Strathclyde
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, I have a brief question for the Leader of the House. I am sorry that he did not respond to the point that I made in an earlier debate. I know that perhaps he did not have the information to hand, but I thought that he might be able to offer me some guidance. My question is about paragraph 4(1), which states:
“Where a person applies to the registration officer to vote by post in the referendum, the registration officer must grant the application if … the officer is satisfied that the applicant is or will be registered in a relevant register”.
I am not sure what that means. How would the registration officer forecast or be aware that the person concerned is registered in a relevant register?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, perhaps I could follow that up in a letter to the noble Lord.
Lord Strathclyde
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, we are now moving so fast. The Committee will be relieved to know that this is a minor and technical amendment to the modification that Schedule 4 to the Bill will make to Regulation 61 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 as it applies for the purposes of a referendum. It is necessary to ensure that the counting officer is provided with any revisions which are made to any of the absent voter lists used for the referendum, and it provides further clarity to the absent voting provisions in the Bill. I beg to move.