House of Commons

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

Tuesday 1 February 2011

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Business Before Questions

Bank of Ireland (UK) plc Bill

Bill read a Second time and referred to the Examiners.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[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 Speaker]

We will focus on the middle east for now.

[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 Roy]

The BBC tells us that this Government cut will result in the loss of 30 million listeners and 650 jobs. Would the Foreign Secretary describe that as a price worth paying—yes or no?

[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?

[Mr Hague]

As I have said, the Cabinet Secretary’s report on that will be published in the not-too-distant future, so it would be wise to wait for that, rather than trying to anticipate it.

[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.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

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)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

15:35

[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)

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

15:37

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[5th Allocated Day]

[Relevant document: The Fifteenth Report from the European Scrutiny Committee, The EU Bill: Restrictions on Treaties and Decisions relating to the EU, HC 682.]

Further considered in Committee

[Mr Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]

Clause 15

Protocol on MEPs: approval, and addition to list of treaties

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

15:46

[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.

16:00

Let us return to the clause, which is relevant to the European Parliament. During the period in which the Minister stays in office—I hope he stays there for a long time, or for as long as this Government exist—I invite him to see whether he can find allies in Europe for re-examining the way in which the European Parliament is constituted and elected. The European Parliament and its 750 Members are presently elected in one fell swoop and often in response to national political feelings for the Government of the day. To Strasbourg, then, are sent the opponents of whoever might be the national Government of the day. The European Parliament vote is often a protest vote—not in all countries, but in many, including very much our own.

Could we look at electing the European Parliament in the same way as the American Senate—in thirds every two or three years, rather than in one fell swoop through an election every five years? Could we allocate some European Parliament seats following the election of national Parliaments so that the people in the European Parliament more adequately reflected the will of the people as expressed in individual nation states? We have 750 Members of the European Parliament in comparison with about 7,000 to 8,000 national parliamentarians, who feel excluded largely from the European decision-making process.

As I patrol the different European capitals, I find that issue to be one of increasing concern—and it does not matter whether one is a pro-European or a Eurosceptic. Whether they are parliamentarians in the Bundestag or the Assemblée Nationale, in the Cortes in Spain or the Riksdag in Sweden, they do not feel as nationally elected MPs that they have much say over the decisions that relate to European Union membership—decisions either taken by national Governments on our behalf or taken collectively by the European Union. Might there be a case for an upper House in the European Parliament, nominated by—

[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.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

rose—

[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.

16:15

[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.

[Mrs Main]

The scenarios that my right hon. Friend has outlined are obviously hypothetical, but in a hypothetical scenario of, say, six candidates when three or four have been elected and the other two are, say, dead, what happens then?

16:30

[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.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

How much will that new MEP cost?

[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 David]

If there were a by-election, would it be held under the first-past-the-post or the alternative vote system?

[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.

16:44

It will be for the legislation to authorise a referendum, and for the Electoral Commission to specify exactly what rules should apply to any referendum or group of referendums held as a consequence of the legislation, precisely because we cannot predict today what referendum might be held in six years’ time or 10 years’ time, whether one or two questions will be asked on the same day or what the issue will be. It is right that such detailed provision be made in legislation nearer the time and take account of any changes to the general law on elections and referendums that might be made between now and then.

[Mrs Main]

Will a set amount be put aside in the Budget every year as a contingency fund for the possible multiple referendums to which my right hon. Friend refers?

[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 David]

rose—

[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.

17:00

[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.

17:15

On the devolved Administrations, I would say a couple of things to the hon. Gentleman. First, we are talking about reserve powers, and the United Kingdom is the member state that has signed the accession treaty. When it comes to our day-to-day or month-to-month dealings with the European Union in pursuit of United Kingdom interests, it is also necessary that the Government should take fully into account the interests and sensitivities of the three devolved Administrations. That is why, when a Minister sends an explanatory memorandum to the European Scrutiny Committee, one of the headings under which such measures are normally analysed is their impact on the devolved Administrations. It is also why the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have asked every Department to take into account the interests of the devolved Administrations when considering their negotiating position on a particular piece of European Union business, and to ensure that proper consultation takes place.

The need to take the interests of the devolved Administrations into account is also why we have taken a policy decision that, where appropriate and agreed by the Secretary of State responsible for a particular policy area, it should be possible from time to time for a Minister from one of the devolved Administrations to take the United Kingdom chair at a Council of Ministers meeting, and to speak for the United Kingdom and advocate its position, as has happened on a small number of occasions since this Government took office.

When it comes to the Bill, the European Scrutiny Committee drew attention in its report to comments made by the European and External Relations Committee of the Scottish Parliament. We considered the Bill’s devolution implications, consulting both the Government’s experts on Scottish law and the devolved Administration’s experts in the normal way. The provisions of the Bill are not intended to replace or alter the current provisions in either the memorandum of understanding or the concordat on co-ordination of European Union policy issues between the United Kingdom and the Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Those documents set out clearly the principles on which the United Kingdom Government engage now, and should continue to engage, with the devolved Administrations in formulating UK policy touching on matters falling within the responsibility of the devolved Administrations. That would include, for example, proposals for treaty change that touched on areas of devolved competence, but within the context that it is the United Kingdom Government who retain overall responsibility for any such negotiations. In the memorandum we are committed as a Government to involving the devolved Administrations as fully as possible in discussions about the formulation of the UK’s policy position.

[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.

17:30

[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.

17:45

[Mr David]

I am following the hon. Lady’s argument with a great deal of interest. I know that she used to be a member of the Referendum party. Have any of her views changed since she joined the Conservative party?

[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?

18:00

[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.

[Mrs Main]

An impact assessment may work on EU law, but what about the gold-plating that goes on when the law is already passed; we seem to add to it in reams in this country?

[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.

18:15

Similarly, although it has more to do with politics and diplomacy than economics, it was the UK that was the foremost champion of the enlargement of the EU into central and eastern Europe. That has helped to entrench the rule of law, human rights and democracy in parts of the continent where those traditions had been crushed for most of the 20th century.

I am not complacent at all. Ministers are educated very quickly about the scale of the challenges when they start attending European Council meetings and see the torrent of documents that flow into Whitehall. The Government, from the Prime Minister down, are utterly determined to try to get the EU heading in the right direction, because that is essential to securing the well-being, prosperity and competitiveness of our country. That is why the Prime Minister wants to bring in a one-in, one-out rule for new European regulations and implement that principle at the national level and why he says we need a new and tougher target for reducing the total regulatory burden over the life of the Commission. That is why he wants Europe to consider giving small businesses, which are the engines of job creation, an exemption from major new regulations.

[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 Hollobone]

Will the Minister give way?

[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 David]

The right hon. Gentleman makes some very important points, but would it not be far better if he spent time talking, as he has, about the benefits of the European Union, rather than about this stupid, nonsensical Bill?

[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?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but that matter comes somewhat later in my address. In fact, I think that it would work to the reverse of what he said.

18:29

[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.

[Mr Bone]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention and, yet again, that supportive point. I will turn to that argument in some detail later.

[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.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

That is twice its readership.

[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.

18:45

If there is a free vote, it will allow Parliament to do the job that the British public elected us to do. Each and every one of us who is fortunate and honoured enough to sit in this Chamber was elected not just on party policies, but because our constituents wanted us to act on our independent judgment in representing them. They want us to hold the Government to account, whichever party—or parties—is in power. They want us to scrutinise and improve legislation. They certainly elected us to put country first. The only way in which we can do that is to have more free votes, particularly on issues of constitutional importance, such as new clause 11.

[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?

[Mr Bone]

I am afraid I have already tried your patience, Mr Evans, so I will not quote any more.

[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.

[Mr Bone]

I am afraid that we are in a coalition, and we do not get everything we want, but we get the best of it. I am taking the best of the Liberal suggestion, and it is only fair that I go on to examine the Conservative view.

[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.

[Mr Bone]

I agree entirely, and of course when the Liberals brought forward a vote on an in/out referendum in the previous Parliament, I and a number of my hon. Friends voted for the motion.

[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.

19:00

Many Government Members describe themselves as Eurosceptics. I first met the Minister in October 1992 at a dinner at Southampton university, at the invitation, I believe, of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns). The Minister was sitting between me and a friend over the water, as I shall describe Mr Hannan, who believes so strongly in the European issue that he also believes we should be able decide to abolish the Parliament that pays his salary. That evening, the talk was of the Danish no vote and of a motion before the House of Commons that called for a fresh start in Europe. I am pleased to say that the day after that conversation, the Minister, whom I congratulate on eventually becoming Minister for Europe, signed that motion. Eighteen or so years later, our constituents now ask, “Where is that fresh start in Europe?” They want to decide how our country is governed, and it is surely their right to do so.

[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.

[Martin Horwood]

rose—

[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.

19:09

[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.

[Dr McCrea]

On the point about the letters and postbag, how many letters has the hon. Gentleman received in support of the European Union?

[Andrew Percy]

The answer is fairly simple: a big, fat zero.

[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.”

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Martin Horwood]

rose—

[Keith Vaz]

I give way to the hon. Member for Cheltenham.

[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.

19:30

[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 Cash]

Can my hon. Friend think of a single reason why we should not have a clear and positive policy to repatriate those laws that are now within the European Union, which are deliberately and wilfully destroying the British economy?

[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]

My hon. Friend may well be right.

[Stephen Pound]

We would rather lose with principle.

[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.

19:45

[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.

[Mrs Main]

Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am to hear the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) say that the Opposition Benches are virtually empty because there is no interest in this matter, even though it crosses so many issues in our everyday lives?

[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?

[Mrs Main]

The EU is about to be a signatory of it. The hon. Lady said that Labour has no interest in this matter and that that is why the Opposition Benches are empty, so I am surprised that she still feels the need to take part in the debate.

[Emma Reynolds]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

[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.

20:00

[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.

[Mrs Main]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks with interest, but I have yet to hear his views on new clause 11 and whether he will be even remotely considering voting in favour or against. Would he elaborate on that?

[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.

20:15

Now, this new generation—the Kinnock age—has so integrated into the European Union that it has Front Benchers who believe almost with the passion of a religion that it cannot be challenged or contradicted. Let us consider the very words that are used—this clerisy of the Community, where these high priests of Brussels try to determine, and largely do determine, the laws under which we live. So I see this as a matter of principle.

I have watched the development of this new constitution over the past 30 years, from when we did not do referendums to when we now do them at the drop of a hat. At one time, they were meant to be consultative. We have already had a referendum thrust on us on the voting arrangements that we have had traditionally, because of course it is part of a coalition agreement, as the hon. Member for Bassetlaw mentioned just a moment ago. So there is no absolute bar to holding a referendum on a great constitutional issue. That is the proposition that I am putting to the Committee.

I make an observation from my own experience over the years that I have served here. The sovereignty of Parliament that we talk of is, in fact, shorthand for the sovereignty of the people. That is what the Labour party once believed in, and that is what animated and generated the clash of ideas about how a society should self-govern. When Peter Shore, who wrote that original great speech for Gaitskell, stood on the Opposition Benches to debate a referendum measure—a Bill, as it happened—before Maastricht in the dying days of the Mr Major’s first Administration, he made the argument about that most prized thing: the self-government of the people of these islands, to determine their policies and their laws in the best interest of the people of this country. That runs beyond and before the Labour party was ever created, and it was the great driving dynamic of our constitutional development. It was unthinkable that we should pass to others the determination of employment, our banking regulations and every level of government that we can think of. That is why there is an urgency in this. It has done something very profound to our view of ourselves and this country’s view of its constitution and its own people. It has degraded it.

I mentioned during the early stages of the Bill the question that people ask all around the place, irrespective of party—they are intelligent people, although not of course as formidable as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). They know not who governs them, who was responsible for this particular law and who was insistent on this change in long-tried and settled practice. How did we ever end up with an election system called a d’Hondt system, no less? Perhaps the hon. Member for Bassetlaw will explain to us the reasoning behind the former Home Secretary’s insistence that that was a very necessary new development that made incomprehensible to us those who now represent us as MEPs.

We had one item in the Bill that truly we could have had a referendum on: one new Member of the European Parliament. The place goes to the west midlands, unless, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe said, further and better particulars come to note and it may go to another region. That is what we are fiddling about with.

The Bill is paper-thin, and I think most of us know that. It is here to salve a conscience. We gave a clear undertaking on these matters. It was the most joyous part of my election address to talk about the recovery of the powers over certain essential laws. We were then advised by the Prime Minister, when he was still the Leader of the Opposition, that this treaty had been passed. There was no remembrance that Mr Wilson had a referendum after the passing of a treaty on a renegotiation.

When we play across the Commons like this, we are actually talking about something that is precious to this civil and political society, to these islands. It is about our governance and our Government. If people no longer have confidence that we are able, when there is a settled will, to execute the great measures necessary for the recovery and reconstruction of this country, what is the purpose of this place? That is the challenge that every Member of Parliament faces. It is also the challenge for the Labour party, which is almost married to the European Union after the conversion of Kinnock. Except for that dour soul from Dunfermline, it accepts everything.

[Emma Reynolds]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[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.

20:30

[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.

20:45

There are serious questions about whether the judiciary seek to undermine—not deliberately, but by their language—the sovereignty of this House. So a referendum is about whether sovereignty—the ultimate authority for the government of this country—belongs to the Government, the Prime Minister, No. 10 Downing street and the like, who are elected and accountable to this House, which in turn is accountable to the electorate. Of all those different components of our constitutional arrangements, untidy as they may be, the most important is the sovereignty of the people.

Indeed, under our constitutional arrangements, we cannot even have a referendum unless it is endorsed by Act of Parliament, but that is the moment when the people of this country speak to their representatives, who by mutual accord reply, “This issue is too big for us. We have dithered for too long. We have not resolved these questions. We have allowed your self-government and your Parliament to be subsumed into and absorbed by the decisions that other countries take, by majority vote, so that the laws passed by this House are no longer passed exclusively by Members of Parliament, but by the process of the Whips, the process of government and by the acquiescence and the Europeanisation of this country, which nobody can deny.”

Anybody who has listened to these debates over the past few days will be in no doubt that, whatever this Bill purports to do—the window-dressing that it represents, the aspiration to hold referendums after this Parliament—there is a continuing process of Europeanisation on criminal law, criminal procedure, civil matters, the whole immigration process and the issues of citizenship. They are increasingly being taken away from this House and transferred to the European Union. It is a policy of transfer.

The talk is of the transfer of competences and powers. What about the political transfer that takes place on a daily basis? Only this afternoon, I was in a European Committee on the stabilisation mechanism. A total of £8 billion of British taxpayers’ money has now been committed to the prospect of bailing out Portugal and Spain, for no other reason than that, during the interregnum between two Governments a few months ago, the outgoing Chancellor entered into an unlawful agreement and the incoming Chancellor effectively endorsed it. For the British people, £8 billion is now at risk in times of austerity.

The question is, who made those decisions? I wager that the people responsible include those in the Treasury. The legal advice that I asked the Minister to provide and the other advice from the Treasury has been denied to me. The answer will be published tomorrow. It was given to me only 20 minutes or so before these proceedings began, and it effectively states, “You can’t have the answer to these questions, because if we give them to you it will be inconvenient for the running of government.”

[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.

21:00

I put it to the hon. Member for Stone and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall that if they want a Britain governed by referendums, I can accept the intellectual argument for having one on the EU, but we must then have one on other issues that matter to the people of this country. If Members want referendums on the selling-off of forest lands, the cutting of benefits, the closing of Sure Start and the tripling of student fees, I am tempted to say crudely, “Be my guest.”

In our democracy, which has been shaped, formed and hammered out over centuries, it is the 650 Members elected here—soon to be 600, because for the first time in British history we are reducing representation and claiming it as an advance for democracy, but I will leave that to one side—who have made the decisions, good and bad, that have been rendered to the people. The people have then decided at the next election whether they support the decisions that have been made. If we want a plebiscite and referendum democracy, we must have it for everything. Some people sincerely believe in that, and I respect their position, but let them stand up tomorrow and say, “I will vote to give the people the right to decide on the selling-off of forests, or the tripling of student fees.” That is the fundamental problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) was right to point out the problem of the gold-plating of EU directives. Directives have arrived in this country and we have voted on them, and many of them have been in the name of business, to promote the single market and to allow British traders of every sort to function fully and freely in the world’s biggest economic market. However, when directives are transposed into British law, they seem to double in size as every little worm and maggot in Whitehall gets into them and seeks to add his or her little bit of gold-plating. The House could resist that, but we have no mechanism for examining such problems when they begin to come down the legislative track. We receive the directives only at the end of the process, by which time it is often too late. I fully accept that complaint, which requires a different way of working and a process of engagement and argument.

I fully respect those who say that the answer is to quit the European Union. That is an honourable position. Their duty, it seems to me, is not to persuade the Daily Express and its pornographer owner that their cause is just—[Interruption.] There is a cry of “Shame” from a sedentary position, but on the whole, my belief is, “By how you make your money shall thee be counted.” In the case of the owner of the Daily Express, he has made a great deal of his money out of the most hideous exploitation of women and young girls. It is for those who want to walk with that gentleman to decide whether that is the company that they want to keep.

The new clause is reasonable, but Members who vote for it tonight will have to accept certain consequences. It would fundamentally change our parliamentary democracy. From this tiny little wooden shed with its nice green leather benches, we would be giving other powers outside our Parliament the right to call for votes, energise democracy and create support for campaigns as they wished. Some might say that that is direct democracy, but I am not sure that giving someone the ability to sign a cheque for £1 million, £2 million or £5 million, is any kind of democracy—direct or indirect—but that is for the Committee to decide.

That is a problem for the governing parties. They must decide whether to support new clause 11. I obviously hope that they will not support it, because I believe that the strength of our country and our democracy is that such decisions are made here in the House of Commons—things are not decided by offshore proprietors, pornographers or others with very large cheque books.

[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.

[Mr Bone]

On a point of order, Ms Primarolo. Could you correct me if I am wrong? If new clause 11 was not within the scope of the Bill, we would not have been allowed to debate it today.

[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.

[Kate Hoey]

The Minister must know that it is precisely because of the direction of the European Union that people want the opportunity to say that they do not like that direction by withdrawing from the European Union.

[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”.

21:15

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made a strong point when he said that one of the disadvantages of the new clause was that it could weaken the chances of making stick under future Governments of a different political colour the new arrangements for a referendum on any transfer of competence and power to Brussels. It is very much part of this Government’s intention that the arrangements embodied in the Bill should become a settled and generally accepted part of our constitutional order. No Parliament or Government can guarantee that any piece of legislation that they bring forward will be immune from amendment or repeal by a future Parliament. However, just as the previous, Labour Government’s devolution legislation, which was vigorously opposed by my party at the time, has now become accepted across the House and is something that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister endorses and has frequently declared he is intent on making work better, so, I would argue, it will be possible over the course of time to persuade the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) and his party that the measures in the Bill are in the national interest and that they will make for a system of government and relations between Westminster and the European Union in which the British people have greater confidence.

Finally, I do not believe that the new clause will provide the additional safeguard during European Union negotiations that a number of my hon. Friends suggested it would. What will strengthen the position of United Kingdom Ministers in negotiations is the knowledge around the table among Ministers from every other member state that if any treaty change is to be agreed and ratified, it will have to enjoy the approval not only of the British Government of the day, but of the British people, expressing themselves through a referendum as provided for in the Bill. I do not think that new clause 11 adds to the safeguards that we have provided. While respecting the integrity of the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, I would ask him not to press his new clause to a Division.

[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.

21:23

Division 186

Ayes: 26

---

Conservative: 18
Democratic Unionist Party: 4
Labour: 4

Noes: 295

---

Conservative: 249
Liberal Democrat: 43
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Bill, as amended, reported.

Bill to be considered tomorrow.

21:38

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

delegated legislation

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Value Added Tax

That the Value Added Tax (Exceptions Relating to Supplies not Made to Relevant Business Person) Order 2010 (S.I., 2010, No. 3017), dated 20 December 2010, a copy of which was laid before this House on 21 December, be approved.—(Mr Dunne.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

That the Value Added Tax (Payments on Account) (Amendment) Order 2011 (S.I., 2011, No. 21), dated 10 January 2011, a copy of which was laid before this House on 11 January, be approved.— (Mr Dunne.)

Question put and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

That the Value Added Tax (Buildings and Land) Order 2011 (S.I., 2011, No. 86), dated 17 January 2011, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18 January, be approved.—(Mr Dunne.)

Question put and agreed to.

European union document

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 119(11)),

Animal Cloning for Food Production

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 15277/10, a report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on animal cloning for food production; and supports the Government’s view that a ban or temporary suspension on cloning, the use of clones and the marketing of food from clones is disproportionate in terms of food safety and animal welfare.—(Mr Dunne.)

business of the house

Ordered,

That, at the sitting on Monday 7 February, paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments) shall apply to the Motion in the names of Angus Robertson and Mr Elfyn Llwyd as if the day were an Opposition Day; proceedings on the Motion may continue, though opposed, for three hours and shall then lapse if not previously disposed of; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.—(Mr Heath.)

Welsh grand committee

Ordered,

That—

(1) the matter of the UK Government’s energy policy as it relates to Wales be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration;

(2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Thursday 10 March at 9.00 am and 2.30 pm to consider—

(a) questions tabled in accordance with Standing Order No. 103 (Welsh Grand Committee (questions for oral answer)), except that questions shall be addressed to, and answered by, Ministers in the Department for Energy and Climate Change;

(b) the matter referred to it under paragraph (1) above; and

(3) the Chair shall interrupt proceedings at the afternoon sitting not later than two hours after their commencement at that sitting.—(Mr Heath.)

petition

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Will hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and as quickly as possible?

21:41

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Dunne.)

21:42

[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.

21:59

[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.

22:00

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Dunne.)

[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 (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will—mid-sentence.

[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.

22:25

House adjourned.

Ministerial Correction

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Tuesday 1 February 2011

NHS: Negligence

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Ministerial Corrections

[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.

[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.

Petition

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Petitions

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Branfil Primary School (Upminster)

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Petitions

The Humble Petition of parents of pupils at Branfil Primary School (Upminster),

Sheweth, that the Petitioners believe that there is an urgent need to rebuild Branfil Primary School; notes that parts of the school have needed to close on many occasions, following the recent flooding of the Foundation Stage building, and other failings of services over the years; that children and teachers are missing out on important schooling, or that schooling is being compromised, by the fact that these facilities are not fit for purpose and need to be rebuilt this year; and that the petitioners believe that this is an embarrassment and that it is not acceptable for these buildings to be used for another winter.

Sheweth, that prefabs were originally constructed as temporary measures, but they are still standing 60 years on; that these structures may be suitable for garage or shed purposes, but they are not suitable for educational needs; that all classrooms are extremely cold throughout the winter, as there is no insulation; that the toilets are very cold and exposed to the elements all year round, because the doors are kept open because they are too heavy and dangerous for the children to use; that heating failures and burst pipes have closed the school, and seem to be a usual winter occurrence; that corridors are becoming wet and dangerous in wet periods, which is a risk to pregnant teachers; that there is asbestos present in the roofing material and perhaps in other areas, which is a health hazard; that the cost of heating and repairing the building must be very high over the long term; and notes that these are only a few of the health and safety and cost issues which should be taken seriously.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges the Government to take all possible steps to ensure that Branfil Primary School is rebuilt.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.—[Presented by Angela Watkinson.]

[P000883]

Westminster Hall

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

Tuesday 1 February 2011

[Jim Dobbin in the Chair]

School Governance

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Bill Wiggin.)

09:30

[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.

09:52

[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”.

09:59

[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.

10:08

[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.

10:20

[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.

10:35

[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.

10:52

Sitting suspended.

Maternity Services

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

11:00

[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?

[Ms Stuart]

I assume that the hon. Gentleman comes in on the bigger and better baby factories.

[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?

11:29

[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.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

May I speak?

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

I was waiting for you to rise.

11:46

[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.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Make sure you put that in your memoirs.

[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.

11:54

[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?

12:08

[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.

[Ms Stuart]

The report was the result of the chief medical officer’s concerns from the early ’90s onwards. What concerned the CMO was that, although we reduced inequality, this particular area was not addressed, going back to well before the Labour Government.

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

12:20

[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.

12:45

[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.

[Bob Stewart]

It is part of it.

[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.

[Bob Stewart]

rose—

[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)

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

12:59

[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.

13:13

[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)

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

13:30

[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.

13:35

[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.

13:40

[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.

13:43

[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.

13:55

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Written Statements

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Council Housing Finance

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Written Statements

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Written Statements

[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

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Written Statements

[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.